Drowned Vanilla (Cafe La Femme Book 2) (21 page)

‘Of all the ridiculous, selfish, stupid stunts to pull,’ Greg Avery roared.

Jason looked angry and defensive, as if he was about to cut and run for it. When he saw us, he became even more panicky. ‘What do you expect me to do?’ he shouted finally, standing up to his dad. ‘They’re going to
arrest me
.’

‘
You
are going to return to Flynn as if nothing has happened, you little shit, and stay calm,’ said Greg Avery, his large physical presence dominating his skinnier son. ‘The police have no evidence against you, it’s all circumstantial. You didn’t kill that little slut, so stop behaving like you did.’ Greg turned finally, seeing the new arrivals. ‘What the hell are you — ’ He was momentarily sapped of bluster. ‘Pippa, what have you said to these people?’

‘These people want to help Jason,’ Pippa said calmly. ‘I do too. Don’t you think maybe listening to him would be a good start?’

Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Jason folded his arms. ‘I don’t have anything to say.’ He glared at his father. ‘Really think I’m innocent, do you? Then why were you asking the lawyer about plea-bargaining? I’m not stupid. You think I did it. That I killed Annabeth.’

‘I don’t think anything of the sort,’ said Avery, in an entirely unconvincing show of paternal trust. ‘I think you are acting like a guilty man, and that if we are not very careful, the police will take you at your word.’

Shay finally shook Stewart off him, but had the sense to stay back from the Averys. ‘Your dad has a point, Jase. You’re being a tool.’

Caught off guard, Jason laughed. ‘Thanks, French.’

‘Anytime, mate.’

Greg Avery looked at Stewart, and then at me and Xanthippe. Trying to figure out how we all fit into the very complicated picture. Ceege leaned against the shack, in a way that he probably thought was casual and ‘so not involved,’ though he’s a solid enough mass of person that there was an implied threat there.

I didn’t have a problem with that.

‘So,’ said Avery in a calm voice. ‘What is it going to take for you all to stay quiet about my son’s loss of nerves?’

Jason rolled his eyes at his dad. ‘I’m going to call the RACT and wait by the cars.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ Shay said quickly, and the two boys made a fast exit. I’m surprised there wasn’t a screeching sound as they rounded the corner together.

Seriously, was no one asking the question of why Jason (or someone) had deliberately set up a trap to strand us all here? I had a nervous tic when it came to traps.

‘We’re no’ gonnae tell anyone, Mr Avery,’ said Stewart, the first of us to speak. ‘It might make an interesting story for a day, but no one here wants tae mess things up for Jason, legally speaking.’

‘Story,’ Avery repeated in alarm. ‘Are you from the fucking papers? Is that what this is about?’

‘We’re trying to help, actually,’ I said, folding my arms.

‘Some more than others,’ said Xanthippe with a pointed look at Stewart who might as well have Doomed Spider Thief tattooed on his forehead.

‘You don’t have to worry about bribes or rewards or anything like that,’ I added firmly.

‘Speak for yourself,’ chimed in Ceege. I leaned over and hit him on the arm.

‘Let’s go, Greg,’ Pippa Avery said in a firm voice. ‘Jason’s willing to come home. I think we should check that the RACT is on their way, so we can get him home as soon as possible.’

Greg Avery stared at all of us, opening his mouth as if to start shouting again, and then turned and marched off after the boys.

Pippa hesitated. ‘When you say you won’t say anything … can I assume you mean about the other thing too?’

‘We’ll try to restrain ourselves,’ said Xanthippe. If I were Pippa I’d worry about the levels of sarcasm in her tone, but the other woman seemed to take it at face value.

Pippa followed her husband out of the courtyard.

Stewart raised his eyebrows at us both. ‘There’s an other thing? Is it scandalous?’

‘It’s been a busy morning,’ said Xanthippe. ‘I don’t even remember what her scandalous secret is.’ She smiled so harshly you’d swear her teeth were fanged. ‘And now you die.’

Stewart held up his hands. ‘In my defence, I didnae get a scratch on her.’

Ceege scoffed. ‘That’s why she hasn’t killed you
already
.’

I stood next to Xanthippe, supporting her glare at Stewart with my own. ‘I think I’d rather talk about the gratuitous hoarding of information, actually. And the kidnapping of witnesses?’

‘Hey, I’m the innocent party here,’ Stewart insisted. ‘The lad Shay slipped off and was tryin’ tae make away with the Spider all by himself. I couldnae let him go alone.’

‘My hero,’ Xanthippe said sarcastically, but she hadn’t strangled him yet. Obviously going soft.

My phone started ringing, which was a surprise — the mobile coverage was better out here than I had thought. I excused myself to take it. ‘If you’re going to kill him in an entertaining way, Zee, wait until I come back, yeah?’

‘Hey Tish,’ said Bishop, sounding tired. ‘Where are you?’

‘With Xanthippe and Ceege and Stewart,’ I said, which was true if lacking in essentials. ‘I’m heading back to Hobart soon, though.’ That was completely the truth. I was tired. Jason had two caring (if shouty) parents protecting him. He had lawyers. Hell, if Greg Avery really wanted to do something to improve the town, he could hire a team of therapists. Psychoanalysis for everyone!

They didn’t need me.

‘You know, we got a search warrant to go over the Avery house,’ Bishop said conversationally. ‘It was strangely empty of Averys.’

‘Um,’ I said as the word ‘busted’ scrolled across my vision. ‘I think they had car trouble. But they’ll be home soon. For a given definition of soon.’

‘Good to know. Might be a bit late, though. What was that noise?’

I glanced over to where my friends were negotiating terms with each other. ‘Xanthippe wrestled Stewart to the driveway and is trying to make him eat his own shoe.’

‘Sorry to miss that,’ said Bishop.

‘It’s quite a show.’ I frowned. ‘What do you mean, a bit late?’

I could hear more yelling from the other side of the house, and a vehicle. I hoped they had warned the RACT that there were siege devices in play, or cleared the damn things from the driveway. Wouldn’t do to strand the bloke with the tow truck. I hurried around, to see Jason and his dad going at it again, while Shay and Pippa avoided making eye contact with each other.

I was just in time to see the police car, with Constable Heather driving and Bishop in the passenger seat, come up the driveway and over the caltraps. They jolted to a stop, looking around in surprise. And then Bishop saw me.

To wave, or not to wave? I settled for an innocent, apologetic smile. I suspect it was less than convincing.

Bust-ed.

Greg Avery reacted to the police presence by smoothing his jacket lapels, transitioning from angry father to shiny civic leader in just a moment or two. ‘Officers,’ he said, all tension disappearing from his voice.

‘Mr Avery,’ said Bishop as Constable Heather walked around her car, distracted by the damage. ‘We met last night, I’m Detective Sergeant Bishop of the Special Crimes Unit.’

‘I remember,’ said Avery, trying to smile. ‘Can we help at all? My family is about to return home. I’m afraid we got caught by the same prank as you did — local kids messing around, I expect.’

‘Effective kids,’ Heather muttered, eyeing the collection of sabotaged cars. ‘Didn’t any of you think of clearing the bloody things off the driveway?’

A fair question. We had been distracted.

‘We’ve been looking for you, Mr Avery,’ said Bishop, calmly avoiding the issue of the cars. How was he doing this super calm thing? He never used to be this calm, even on the job. Maybe it was the promotion. ‘We have warrants to search all of your properties, including this one.’

He might not have been looking directly at Jason when he said that, but I sure as hell was. I saw panic cross the kid’s face, and he shifted slightly as if — I don’t know, to bolt back to the house, or down the driveway. Shay latched on to his sleeve, not letting him budge. I met Shay’s eyes and nodded approvingly. No matter what had happened, no matter what it was that had put that look on Jason’s face, if he ran now it was all over.

Though, admittedly the police wouldn’t be able to pursue him in their vehicle immediately. It would still be a terrible idea.

Xanthippe sidled around the side of the building, followed by Ceege and a limping Stewart, who still had not retrieved one of his shoes.

‘Of course,’ said Greg Avery. ‘We have nothing to hide, Sergeant.’

Oh, I think you do
. Avery was sweating in the searing sunlight, which was a perfectly good excuse. But still, there was something very non-innocent about him. I didn’t know if it was his lack of faith in Jason, or something else.

‘We’ve been following some leads based on your financial records,’ Bishop said pleasantly. ‘Were you aware that regular instalments of cash have been made from one of your household accounts into a bank account owned by Annabeth French, beginning January of this year?’

Greg Avery looked at his wife. Just a flicker of uncertainty, which she reflected right back at him. Jason looked genuinely astonished, for once.

‘Phillipa Avery,’ Bishop said formally. ‘We would like to question you about the death of Annabeth French.’

‘Me?’ said Pippa, eyes wide.

‘This is ridiculous,’ Greg blustered.

Shay had dropped Jason’s arm.

‘I don’t understand,’ said Pippa, looking from her husband to Bishop and Constable Heather. ‘What money?’

‘The payments indicate a pattern of blackmail,’ Heather said to Pippa, sounding genuinely regretful. ‘We’re going to need an explanation that fits with the relevant dates, or this can be counted as evidence that you had a reason to do harm to Ms French. The final payment was very large, and made only a few hours before she was killed.’

‘Blackmail,’ Pippa repeated, and either she really was surprised, or she was one hell of an actress. Sadly, I had no doubt about the latter. ‘What on earth could Annabeth have been able to blackmail me about…’ And then she went white, looking at Greg. ‘My husband knows about my past,’ she added fiercely. ‘I have nothing to hide from him.’

‘We’ll be wanting to question Mr Avery as well, of course,’ Bishop said politely.

‘Are you suggesting the … young lady was blackmailing me about Pippa’s lack of judgement in her chosen lifestyle before our wedding?’ Greg said dangerously.

‘Don’t talk about it in front of Jason,’ Pippa said quickly, and then bit her lip as she realised that gave lie to her pretending she had nothing to conceal from the world.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Jason probably knew of her past as a Gingerbread cookie, given the detective work he had been attempting on his desktop. None of my business.

‘I don’t want to be interviewed here,’ Pippa said sharply. ‘Can we go to the police station?’

Constable Heather looked at the torn remains of her tyres and made a small noise.

‘Of course,’ Bishop said calmly. ‘We’ll call for a couple of cars.’ He nodded to Heather who walked away muttering, but pulled out her phone and looked around for the best place to get a signal. ‘When you’ve done that, start searching the shack,’ he called after her, and she nodded.

Bishop turned his attention back to Mr and Mrs Avery, the perfect gentleman. ‘We can drive you both to the local station at Huonville, and conduct formal interviews there. I’m sure Jason and his friend can get a lift home, unless you’d rather he joined us?’ Bishop glanced over at me for a moment, and I tried to look like the trustworthy type you would totally let your nineteen-year-old son drive home with while you were questioned about being blackmailed by a woman who had pretended to be his dead ex-girlfriend.

It was a tricky expression to pull off.

‘Interviewing my wife is completely unnecessary,’ said Greg Avery, stepping forward. ‘I authorised those payments to Annabeth French.’

‘What the hell?’ Jason demanded. ‘She was blackmailing
you
?’ He looked at his father with genuine fear.

‘Don’t be more of a dickhead than you can help, Jason,’ his father said impatiently. He set his chin, meeting Bishop’s gaze. ‘It had nothing to do with blackmail. I paid the girl to leave the state. I believe she spent most of the cash on acting school. She received regular instalments to cover her tuition, rent and expenses. No threats or extortion were involved. It was a gift.’

The words hung in the air for just a moment, and then Jason lunged for his father. Shay reacted a moment too late, and I ran over to join him, dragging back on Jason’s other arm.

‘Let me go,’ the boy roared. ‘You?’ he demanded of his father. ‘You were the other bloke? Like marrying someone barely older than me wasn’t bad enough, you had to fuck my girlfriend too?’

‘He didn’t say that,’ I hissed in Jason’s ear, dragging him back. Indeed, Greg Avery looked taken aback at his son’s assumption. Pippa was veiling whatever thoughts she had on the subject.

‘Yes he bloody did,’ Jason snarled.

‘No, he said he
paid
her to go to acting school. He didn’t say he was the boyfriend.’ I looked at Shay, who looked just as bemused as the rest of us. Then back at Greg Avery. ‘There never was a rich older boyfriend, was there? She just said that in case anyone asked where the money came from. You gave her the money.’

‘Not — blackmail,’ Greg Avery said again, disgust evident in his tone. ‘If the little bitch had tried something like that, I would have turned her straight over to the police.’

‘Indeed,’ said Bishop. ‘So the payments were for…’

Greg folded his arms, and looked mutinous. ‘For her to leave, of course. To get her the hell away from my son.’

‘What?’ Jason said, and the anger had been replaced by something numb that prevented him from trying to act like someone in a mobster movie. I didn’t let go of his T-shirt, though, and neither did Shay. ‘But she was always going to leave. That was her plan.’

‘Not far enough,’ Avery said in a clipped voice. ‘That girl was never going to stick to university, anyone could see that. She would have dragged you with her wherever she went. Off to the mainland, chasing her flighty little dreams. I need you here. I have plans for this town, and my son is part of that. So I gave her the opportunity, and she jumped at the chance.’ There was a note of pride in his voice now. ‘I told you she wasn’t serious about you. She didn’t even think the offer over — she took the money in an instant.’