Eden (20 page)

Margot lifted them, put them back again.

She straightened up and stared at me. I stared back, waiting. This search, this using up of time, was her idea. I felt it was important to stick with her, go where she went, find nothing, or false alarms. Her concentration might lapse further. She might let something slip.

We cruised past deserted buildings. When Margot was too tired to drive any more, we returned to her club.

. . .

Once again, I entered a space that had been carefully preserved, rooms that felt more like a shrine than ever before.

I asked Margot what she thought had happened to Denise.

‘You think if I knew that, I'd have spent the last two hours driving round with you?'

‘It depends on how close I am to a lucky guess. You knew what Carmichael was upset about the day he turned up here. Denise did too.'

Margot stared at me with narrowed eyes. ‘Denise is afraid of Stan and Simon. Afraid of them coming after her.'

‘Why would those two come after Denise, and not you?'

‘I'm useful to them still.'

‘Where's your wig? Do you still keep it here?'

‘Why do you want to know?'

‘What about the box?'

‘What about it?'

‘Why was it taken out of the room before the police came?'

‘It wasn't.'

‘Where is it now?'

‘The wigs are mine.'

Margot moved over to a chair, but didn't sit on it. She stood with her hands resting on its back.

‘Why had Carmichael made an appointment with Senator Bryant for that day? What did it have to do with you?'

When Margot didn't reply, I said, ‘Jenny Bishop worked it out. What's the connection between Lawrence and Carmichael? Did Lawrence do him a favour at some low point in his career? Did he lend him money, help him the way he offered to help you out by buying your club?'

‘Lawrence never lifted a finger for Ed,' Margot said harshly. ‘I want you to leave now.'

. . .

One set of headlights passed me on Flemington Road. I was startled by the brief, distant recognition of lights on a road otherwise as dark as a highway through the bush. My hands began to shake. The presence of the dead weighed heavily.

A cluster of red neon along Northbourne Avenue advertised Canberra's cheap hotels. They brought to mind the roses in Lawrence's window, and the buds that he'd selected for me. I wondered at the absence of red lights in Mitchell, the pragmatic, low-key approach to sex for sale, and how this approach, its legal, sensible surface, had been cracked wide open.

Disoriented, I peered through the windscreen, looking for signs of daybreak, reminding myself that it was at least six hours away. I recalled running for home down the Federal Highway, a wash of light across flat paddocks, the familiar signals of dawn arriving way too soon.

Trees picked up the street lights' definition, threw it back. I was relieved to be alone, but sick of empty streets. I thought of my house shut up against the night, as still and hot as the inside of a rotting fruit. I thought of the times I'd crossed the city, back and forth. That bundle of clothes by the brick wall had seemed so right in its placing, in the expectation it created, and in the suddenness of disappointment and relief. It seemed as though its sole purpose in lying there had been so we could find it.

Twenty-two

I dozed until it started to get light, then rang Brook. No news of Denise, but I wasn't expecting any. Lawrence still hadn't turned up either, but the New South Wales police had a warrant to search his apartment and his nursery, and, at long last, for
CleanNet
's financial records as well.

The day passed excruciatingly slowly. I listened to the news reports and watched Brook being interviewed on television. I re-read all my notes, hoping something would jump out at me that might point in Denise's direction. But the words dissolved in front of my eyes and, after a couple of hours, I stopped being able to take them in at all.

Brook was too busy to talk to me for more than a couple of minutes when I rang in the late afternoon, but he did tell me that a search of Lawrence's nursery and flat had turned up nothing that threw any light on Denise's disappearance, or Jenny Bishop's death.

When he knocked on the door, it was obvious that he'd eaten nothing all day. I added a bit more tomato paste to the simple sauce I was preparing, and an extra handful of spaghetti to the pot.

Brook had tracked down Stan Walewicz at his girlfriend's flat in Braddon. But Walewicz had claimed not to know Denise at all, and insisted that he hadn't seen or heard from Jenny Bishop since she'd appeared in his movie. He also claimed never to have had a personal meeting with Eden Carmichael, but when Brook put it to him that he'd been seen with Carmichael and Simon Lawrence at
Klim's
bar in December, he acknowledged that he'd been there. He said he'd just happened to drop in. When Brook had brought up the point about Jenny being in the bar as well, Walewicz hadn't denied it. He'd said Jenny was drunk. Brook had pressed him for details of what had happened, but Walewicz simply kept repeating that he'd left the bar and didn't know where Eden Carmichael or Simon Lawrence had gone. In answer to why he'd met Margot Lancaster in the same bar a few nights later, Walewicz had said she'd wanted him to put in a good word with Lawrence in relation to buying her club. Asked whether this had been successful, Walewicz had replied, ‘Simon does what's best for Simon. He wouldn't do something because I asked him to. Not in a blue fit.'

Then Brook had brought up the matter of Jenny Bishop's calls to his studio: eleven between December 16 and 28.

‘I got him to admit that Bishop was after money, but that's all. He was down the coast with his girlfriend the night she died, and he's adamant about not knowing Denise. The only good news is that the magistrate's approved a warrant for his financial records, and his studio. I'm going over there now to supervise a search.'

I persuaded Brook to eat something first, but his phone rang when we were halfway through our meal. The manager of the holiday camp where Denise's daughter had stayed had contacted the police to say a woman on her own had checked in the night before.

‘She doesn't look anything like Denise, apparently,' Brook said, shrugging on his jacket. ‘She's blonde, with a foreign accent, but the manager saw the news and thought he should report it anyway.'

‘The blonde wig,' I said.

‘Someone from Jindabyne will check it out.'

‘How long will it take them to get there?' I asked.

‘An hour. Maybe a bit less.'

‘What about you?'

‘I'll head to Fyshwick as planned.'

‘What can I do?'

‘Nothing.'

I was careful not to meet his eye.

. . .

I stood on my front porch, picturing Jenny on the esplanade, waiting for Simon Lawrence to show up. I smelt again the oil and seaweed floating across La Grande Parade to meet high-rise hotels, flats and terrace houses, the brothel painted white, secure within its row. I wondered if they'd promenaded up and down, or sat on a wooden seat and watched oil tankers cross Botany Bay, the 757s overhead, beautiful hyperbolas if you shut out the noise. Unless Lawrence confessed to the meeting, or another witness turned up, I did not think that I would ever know the details. I hoped Rose had somewhere safe to stay.

Making the decision almost without thinking about it, I drove to Eden Carmichael's block of flats and parked around the corner.

The garage roller door was closed. It wasn't locked, but the garage was empty, no sign of Carmichael's car. I wished I'd thought to ask Brook what had happened to it after the forensic people had finished their tests. For now, its absence was enough to confirm my suspicion. I circled the flats to make sure it hadn't been parked somewhere else, then returned to my car, and home again to look up Margot Lancaster's address. The phone book listed only one Lancaster M, whose address was a block of units in the new suburb of Gungahlin. I called the number. When there was no answer, I felt pleased, as though chance was on my side.

Again, I parked away from the building and walked around it. A line of acacias gave good cover, growing right up against the wall of number 9, on the side where I'd located the bathroom. All the blinds were drawn. I found the garage, each space marked with a number. Margot's black Nissan was there.

I went back to the bathroom. The window catch was level with my nose, the sill about shoulder height. Working away to loosen the catch, I was surprised that Margot hadn't thought to have her windows fitted with deadlocks.

I succeeded in forcing it, scrambled up one of the wattle trees, balanced on the sill, then jumped down to the floor. My hands were sweating, and a headache that had been building up since early morning hammered at my temples.

I entered the pressure-cooker feel of closed, still rooms, sighing with relief once I'd made sure the flat was empty, realising how intently I'd been listening for footsteps, watching for that extra length of shadow. With half my mind, I was aware that Margot could walk in any minute. But within me was a growing certainty that she'd taken Carmichael's car and gone after Denise.

Her living room was neat and everything appeared to be in order, though the shadow of a ceramic giraffe gave me a fright. I stood still. After a moment, a door slammed, and I heard two unfamiliar voices arguing.

I made my way to Margot's bedroom. The bed was made, and there were no clothes lying on it, or on the chair beside it. The built-in wardrobe held several of the suits I'd seen her wearing, as well as winter coats and skirts. There was a shelf above the clothes rack. I stepped back and saw what looked like jumpers on one side, a pillow and two folded blankets on the other. I fetched a chair. Nothing was under the blankets, but right at the back of the shelf, hidden by them and the pillow, was a medium-sized cylindrical box. I pulled it out and set it on the bed. It was empty, except for a receipt. The name
Julia's
curled around the box in ornate lettering. Below it, in much smaller writing, was the address of the shop in Parramatta Road. The receipt was for a black wig, dated November last year.

. . .

I was on the Southern Highway out of Canberra before I thought of ringing Brook. He didn't waste time asking questions once he knew where I was going.

‘Turn around now, Sandra.'

‘I need to see for myself.'

‘The car from Jindabyne will be there any minute. You won't be able to do anything. You'll just be in the way.'

‘I talked Denise into meeting me.'

‘Don't argue.'

‘I found another wig box. Margot's wearing a long black wig, and she's driving Eden Carmichael's car. But I doubt if she'll still be on the road. She's figured out where Denise is, or else she knew all along.'

I settled my hands on the steering wheel and tried to will my muscles to relax. I was afraid of fast cars coming up behind me. The clock on the dashboard said 7.17. I had another three hours driving, and no map of the area. I hoped there'd be good signs. At least my petrol tank was almost full.

Twenty-three

They were log cabins of the sort that had never been built by Australian settlers, certainly not in the Snowy Mountains. The paths between the cabins were well lit, and the Jindabyne police had powerful torches. Under them, the cabins looked like they'd been copied from a nostalgic Hollywood movie set in the Appallachians. Made of treated pine that had been grown and harvested in the foothills, each had an identical chimney at one end, and one door in the middle of a wall, with small square windows either side.

The cabin that had been taken by a blonde woman on her own, speaking with a European accent, was on the side furthest from the main road, closest to the river. She had signed the registration form ‘Mrs A Prideaux', and paid cash in advance for three nights. The manager hadn't seen her at all since her arrival. In the same building as the office was a kiosk which sold basic groceries and toiletries, but she hadn't been in there, according to his wife. Neither of them had seen her arrive. She'd simply appeared, carrying a small backpack, at the office door. Since she'd walked to the cabin after paying, they'd assumed that she hadn't come by car. It had been busy, and they hadn't given Mrs Prideaux another thought, until they'd seen a news item which included a photo of Denise. The woman had looked nothing like Denise, but she'd arrived alone and apparently on foot, and this had been enough to make them phone the police.

Constables Gleeson and McNamara had already searched the cabin by the time I arrived, and the section of trees and river closest to it. There was no sign of forced entry. A backpack on one of the cabin's bunk beds held a purse containing Denise's driving licence, and her mobile phone. As soon as he found it, Constable Gleeson had rung Queanbeyan and asked for reinforcements. He'd been surprised by my appearance, but instead of ordering me to leave, he told me they'd identified Denise's belongings and questioned me concerning what I knew about her and Margot Lancaster.

Widely spaced eucalypts and acacias marked a path to the river, where the trees and undergrowth were thicker. This was the area that had already been searched. By the time Constable Gleeson had finished questioning me, a car-load of police had arrived from Queanbeyan, and a more thorough search was being organised. I learnt that Carmichael's car had been found a few hundred metres from the camp gates, off the road, behind some trees.

Twenty minutes later, the search was underway. The manager and his wife joined in. I attached myself to a group led by one of the Queanbeyan police. We chose a strip of river frontage and moved through it about a metre apart. I tried to imagine what Denise had done when Margot turned up. How much of a start had she had? Had she seen Margot coming? Why had she run off—if indeed she had run—leaving her bag and phone behind?

My group scoured its bit of bush, and moved on to another. My head was throbbing. At least I'd had the presence of mind to bring a water bottle. My feet were beginning to drag when there was a shout up ahead.

Strong torchlight picked out two bowed heads, two wigs shining and well cared for, the blonde and the brunette.

Denise's attempt at a disguise had slipped sideways, lending her an air of disarray. She was awake, though dazed-looking, and obviously in pain. Margot was lying on her back.

The officer in charge moved quickly, checking Margot's pulse, ringing for an ambulance, working out a way to get both injured women back to the cabins. The branch that Denise had used to attack, or to defend herself, was carried back as well.

‘Is Rebecca all right?' Denise asked, before lapsing back into semi-consciousness.

After the ambulance arrived to take them to Cooma hospital, I was forgotten again. I curled up in my car and slept for a couple of hours, then drove back to Canberra.

. . .

Over the next few days, I pieced together what remained of the story. Denise's ankle had been badly sprained, but not broken. She was released from hospital into her ex-husband's care. Margot was kept longer. Brook forgave my dash to the holiday camp sufficiently to let me read their statements, and to show me a copy of a loan agreement drawn up by Richard McFadden's solicitor, which the police had obtained with
CleanNet
's financial records.

The agreement was dated October 5, 1996, and stated that Simon Lawrence, Stanley Walewicz and Margot Lancaster pledged to lend half a million dollars to
CleanNet
, in return for seventy-five per cent of the profits. McFadden named his house at Potts Point as surety. I read it through a couple of times. There was no date by which the initial loan had to be paid back, and no mention of McFadden having to pay interest.

When I pointed this out to Brook, he merely nodded, waiting for me to see what probably ought to have been obvious a long time ago. McFadden was the front man,
CleanNet
's public face. It was the other three who'd invented the company, and who'd made all the decisions. A private loan agreement did not have to be declared to ASIC. If it hadn't been for two deaths, Eden Carmichael's and Jenny Bishop's, there was no reason why the police would ever have learnt of its ­existence.

It seemed that Margot had been expected to work hardest for her share of the profits, while McFadden coasted along on the surface, smiling and looking concerned about the safety of the young and ­vulnerable in cyberspace. He'd been quick to condemn the others, and present himself as an innocent businessman with money to invest, who'd been drawn into a quicksand of deceit and cruelty. He'd quickly spilled everything he knew about Lawrence and Walewicz, while remaining adamant that he had never connived at, much less committed, murder.

Lawrence had finally turned up, with an alibi for the last forty-eight hours. He'd been with a woman in a Sydney hotel. His staff hadn't known where he was, only the escort agency the woman worked for.

He'd been outraged to discover that his apartment and nursery had been searched in his absence, and had denied any involvement with
CleanNet
. But when the loan agreement was read out to him, and it was made clear that McFadden had fully implicated both him and Stan Walewicz, and that Margot had confessed as well, Lawrence had decided to cut his losses.

Walewicz had admitted to taking the photograph of Carmichael that had appeared in
The Canberra Times
after negatives and a Pentax MZ-50 camera were found in his studio. He'd taken the shots through a window of Margot's club. He'd spoken of Carmichael with contempt, saying something like, ‘I don't think the old fool even realised the blinds were open.'

Other photos had been found in his studio, of Carmichael in bed with Denise Travers, which Walewicz, once he realised that his partners were holding nothing back, described as their insurance policy. The threat of publishing them had kept Carmichael in line, and Denise silent. Carmichael might have put up with the indignity, but humiliating Denise Travers in public, in the eyes of her daughter, was a different story.

The meeting at
Klim's
in December, the one Jenny Bishop had interrupted, had been arranged to discuss Carmichael's appointment with Bryant, and to make sure Carmichael understood what he was expected to do—offer the senator a generous campaign donation. They'd grossly mistaken their target. Senator Bryant, the Federal Independent who'd made a name for himself on issues of morality and ethics, would have been outraged at the offer of a bribe. But it had never got that far.

The second meeting with Carmichael had been to let him know that one problem had been taken care of. Jenny Bishop wasn't going to cause any further trouble. But Carmichael didn't react to the news as he was expected to. Instead, it pushed him over the edge.