Malice (3 page)

‘It's the job description, the job he was doing,' I cried. ‘Spying on me!'

But the best thing of all was the small print running along the bottom of the notepaper:
Mulligan Business Services, Shop 21, Liberty Mall.

‘I'm pretty sure U/C means “undercover”,' Boges said. ‘Tomorrow we'll practise a little surveillance of our own, on Mulligan Business Services. Maybe we'll get lucky and find a few answers.'

‘But why is this P. Smith paying money to spy on me and get hold of the Perdita file? Who is he? Is he the Drowner?' No-one could answer my questions.

‘Are you going to stay here tonight, Winter?' Cal asked, his face still creased with concern.

‘Yep, now we know my spy has gone, I'd rather be home … but thank you,' I said, squeezing his hand.

Home
Mansfield Way, Dolphin Point

8:02 am

I was going to meet the boys at Liberty Mall. Cal and Boges had a free period on Monday mornings, and Ryan's class was at the local library working on group assignments—he didn't think he'd be missed. Being homeschooled had its advantages. As long as I got my assignments done for my tutor, I could organise my time pretty freely.

I grabbed a coffee and an apple, my mind going crazy trying to work out what the warning about the Drowner and the theft of the Perdita folder could mean. I got nowhere. I needed more information—much more.

I paused in the hallway near the big stained-glass front door where a small half-circle table held a photo of me and my parents, taken about
a week before their deaths. They look so happy—and so do I, smiling up at my dad. On the way out of the house, I touched the picture softly, whispering, ‘Hi there, Mum and Dad. Look after me?' They smiled back at me.

I grabbed my jacket and a beret, automatically checked for my locket around my neck. I was ready for anything.

Mulligan Business Services
Liberty Mall

8:43 am

The four of us hurried towards the escalator that took us up to the first level of the mall. The information map displayed Shop 21, Mulligan Business Services. ‘Look!' I said to the others as we stepped off the escalator, ‘that coffee shop is Shop 18. We're close!'

Mulligan Business Services turned out to be a small shopfront, sandwiched between a solicitor's office and a florist.

‘What do we do now?' asked Ryan.

‘We wait and we watch,' Cal said.

‘What about some hot chocolate while we do that?' asked Boges. ‘You know how boring surveillance can be.'

The small cafe was noisy with people having breakfast and coffee. We sat at a table with a view of the door of Mulligan's through the leaves of the shiny indoor plants that shielded cafe customers from passers-by. A couple at the next table made loud remarks about people who should be at school, so Boges started giving a totally incomprehensible lecture on quantum mechanics and we all nodded along wisely, as if we knew what he was talking about.

9:52 am

As we kept watch through the leaves, we finally saw a stout man, wearing rimless glasses, an open-necked shirt and sports jacket, walk up to the front door of Mulligan's. He unlocked the door, pushed it open and walked in, leaving the keys dangling in the lock.

‘For someone who breaks into other people's houses, his own security is rubbish,' muttered Ryan from across the table.

‘Hey, look!' said Cal. ‘He's come back out and closed the door, with the keys still in it. Don't look now … he's coming in here!' As the man stood at the counter, waiting behind a few other people to give his order, I kicked Cal under the table.

‘Now's our chance! Quick! We've got a few minutes while he waits for his coffee. Ryan, you stay here and watch. Don't let him go back into
his office until we're out of there. Delay him if you have to. Cal, Boges, let's go!'

Leaving Ryan at the table, we hurried out of the cafe and dashed over to the closed door with the keys hanging in it. No-one was taking any notice of us, everyone too busy hurrying to work. The key turned easily and we darted inside.

It was a small one-room office, with a desk, a couple of chairs and some filing cabinets.

‘We've gotta find that file, guys,' I said, turning my attention to the filing cabinets. I tugged on the drawers but they were locked.

The desk had a heap of folders on it, none of them mine, and what looked like a two-way radio system. Cal was searching the shelves above the desk and Boges was working his way through the drawers on the right-hand side of the desk while I turned my attention to the drawers on the left.

Cal's phone buzzed. ‘It's Ryan,' he hissed. ‘The guy's digging in his pockets to pay up. We've gotta get out of here!'

I doubled my speed. The first thing I found was a handwritten cheque for $1,500 with an illegible signature. Although unreadable, something about the writing seemed familiar and I wondered where I'd seen it before.

‘We have to leave now!' said Cal. ‘There's no other way out of this place. And he probably knows your face, Winter.'

I pulled open the last drawer. There it was, my Perdita folder! I snatched it up, bashing the drawers closed. Boges had done the same as Cal straightened the files on the shelves and the three of us hurtled towards the door. We cracked it open and peeked out. There Mulligan was, only a few metres away, outside the cafe, talking to Ryan. Any moment he might turn around and see us coming out of his office.

‘Come on!' I hissed, pushing the boys out the door. I pulled it closed until I heard the lock click. Seconds later, the three of us strolled innocently past the detective who was still talking with Ryan, and around the corner.

I caught snatches of conversation: ‘… best to finish school … private investigator's licence … quite a lot of law … '

A few minutes later, Ryan caught up with us. ‘That was close,' he grinned. ‘I had to practically block his way and pretend that I was desperately interested in becoming a private investigator. His name is Arnold Mulligan. Did you get the file?'

‘You bet,' I said. ‘Let's get out of here!'

I couldn't wait to get home and have a look
at the Perdita file, but the others had to go to school. They made me promise I'd wait until they were free later in the day.

To keep myself from peeking, I went to the library to research an assignment that Miss Sparks had been hassling me to hand in.

Home
Mansfield Way, Dolphin Point

4:14 pm

I heard Cal's motorbike outside and I put the folder down on the dining table where everyone could see it. A few minutes later, Boges and Ryan turned up too. With everyone crowded around, I slowly opened the folder and looked at the first page, my heart beating with excitement and apprehension. There
had
to be something interesting in this file for someone to have paid to get their hands on it.

‘Looks very legal, whatever it is,' said Cal, looking over my shoulder. ‘Looks like title deeds or something.'

At first, it didn't make any sense and I felt disappointed. It was just some boring old legal document. What had I been expecting? But as I read further, it started to become clear.

I looked at the others. ‘Perdita isn't a
person
,' I said, ‘it's a
property—
a house!'

‘Must be some kind of mansion—worth squillions—for someone to go to so much trouble to steal the deeds!' Ryan said. ‘Maybe they were hoping that you would never know about it, with the masses of paperwork you had to go through. I'll bet it's a palace with amazing bathrooms and swimming pools and tennis courts and a helicopter pad on the roof.'

‘And a Lear jet parked in the huge driveway!' Boges added, catching Ryan's enthusiasm. ‘You can take us for a ride, dude,' he said, turning to Cal.

‘I'm going to google it,' I yelled, running upstairs. It didn't take me long. ‘Hey! I've found the house. Come and have a look!'

The others leaned closer to the picture on the screen of my computer. I zoomed in on the property but I could only see a tiny bit of the roof because it seemed to be surrounded by lots of trees. Perdita stood by itself at the end of a long headland, quite close to the edge of an escarpment. When I zoomed back out, I could see waves at the bottom of the cliff and the beach running along the coast.

‘That must be Deception Bay,' I said. ‘Wonder why it's called that?'

‘Looks like a really fantastic spot,' Boges said. ‘Pity we can't see the house clearly.'

‘It's heaps overgrown, but it could be awesome!' said Ryan.

I turned to the boys and gave them a wide smile. ‘So who feels like a road trip?'

Cal's House
Flood Street, Richmond

5:53 pm

The week crawled by and I hardly saw the others. I tried to take my mind off everything by working on my assignment and looking forward to dinner with Cal's family before he left for flight school.

Finally Friday night came, and I arrived just as Boges and Ryan turned up. Ryan had brought flowers for Mrs Ormond and we enjoyed her meal of spaghetti bolognese, followed by a chocolate mud cake I'd made for the occasion.

‘Will you be a real pilot when you get back, Cal?' Gabbi asked.

‘I wish,' Cal said, mussing up her hair, ‘I'll just be that bit more experienced and ready for more training later.' Mrs Ormond smiled at us all. It looked like she was finally able to let Cal
out of her sight without worrying that something terrible was going to happen.

I sighed, hoping that we wouldn't be worrying her with anything else.

‘He'll be back soon, Winter,' Mrs Ormond said, misreading my apprehension. I smiled and nodded. It was better she didn't know about the Drowner, whoever he was.

10.22 pm

I was putting the leftover cake in the fridge when I overheard Cal talking to Boges just outside the kitchen.

‘I hate to leave, but I know you'll see it through, whatever it is.'

‘Dude, you can rely on me a thousand per cent.'

As they walked back in and saw me, Cal came over and gave me a hug.

‘I can look after myself, you know,' I reminded him.

‘I know … but a little Boges backup goes a long way,' he smiled.

We walked outside, where Ryan was waiting to take me home.

We paused in the driveway. ‘Repro called me—finally,' Cal said. ‘I've given him everyone's numbers so you might be hearing from him. OK?'

‘I hope we see him down there.'

‘You made a promise that you'll call if things get dangerous. Don't forget. And let me know the second anything surfaces about this Drowner guy.'

‘I will,' I said. ‘I'd better go, but don't worry about me—you just concentrate on your flying lessons and I'll see you soon.'

‘Thanks, Winter. I'll be back in no time.' He gave me one last hug and I could see that his eyes were troubled.

Cal watched me get into Ryan's car and waved us off down the street.

Home
Mansfield Way, Dolphin Point

10:49 am

I packed the Perdita file right at the bottom of my scram bag. I'd gotten the idea from Sligo, who always had a hidden bag full of money, clothes and a passport, ready to scram overseas if the law—or his enemies—got too close. Now my overnight bag was always ready with spare toiletries, a towel and soap, some clothes, matches and a powerful torch. I threw in some mosquito repellent and last of all, I hid a bundle of cash in a hole in the lining.

The three of us fitted into Boges's truck with me in the middle. Our gear for the weekend was piled up in the back. Ryan had thrown in his climbing gear too, just in case those nearby cliffs offered some good climbing opportunities.

I was feeling much better about everything now that we were on the road. I had two good friends with me and a new property to inspect, so I didn't mind too much that Cal wasn't with us. But I struggled to keep from wondering why someone wanted this place so much they were desperate to get their hands on the deeds … and the mystery of the Drowner.

Abercrombie Village

12.32 am

In an hour and a half we had arrived in the neighbourhood. Boges slowed down so we could look at the occasional luxury house that sat perched along the high right-hand side of the road. Mostly there was just bushland, dotted here and there with a shack, or a modest holiday house. On our left, the huge expanse of the ocean stretched away as far as we could see.

We stopped and had some fresh prawns and chips for lunch at a little shop on the short main street of Abercrombie—the closest village to Deception Bay. I noticed a small grocery shop next door, so we ducked in to buy supplies. I added detergents and cleaning stuff to the growing pile of food, thinking they might come in handy at some point—who knew what kind of state the house might be in.

While the woman behind the counter put everything into bags, I looked around the tiny, densely packed shop. It was more like a general store, with fishing tackle, work boots, hats and toiletries for sale. On a wall was a barometer and a very fancy thermometer, and I could see where the owner had been keeping statistics on rainfall and the weather on an official-looking chart. I guessed that many small shops in somewhat remote locations operated as weather stations for the Department of Meteorology, sending in local reports every day.

The woman, who looked tired and strained, seemed to be keeping a close watch on me all the time and, noting my interest, she nodded in the direction of the weather charts.

‘We need to watch the weather around here, and not just to report it … the storms can be diabolical.' She began adding up the bill. ‘So what brings you three young people to our little town?'

‘I'm looking at houses,' I said, not wanting to give too much away.

‘You look a bit young to be buying a house,' said the woman, frowning. ‘Nothing round here for sale—well, nothing you'd want to buy, at least.'

I sensed that the woman was fishing for information. ‘We'd better be going,' I said, smiling at her and picking up the rest of our order.

The woman gave me a very direct look. ‘Be careful,' she said, then seemed to get flustered, turning away and pretending to dust down the already spotless counter with a cloth. ‘I mean,' the woman was saying, ‘be careful how you drive. There's a lot of unsealed road further on.'

‘Uh, thanks for the tip … bye now.'

‘By the way, my name's Rose.'

‘Pretty name,' I said as we gathered up our bags and hurried back to the truck.

‘What was all
that
about?' asked Boges.

‘I don't know,' I said. ‘It was like she was trying to find out why we were here. But she looked worried as well.'

‘Why didn't you tell her your name?' Ryan asked.

I shrugged. ‘Not sure. Just a bit wary, I guess.'

1:51 pm

We continued on our drive up the steep winding hills until we met Clifftop Drive itself, turning along the road with breathtaking views out across the water. After a while, the houses thinned out until we hit unsealed dirt track, just as the shopkeeper, Rose, had said. The scenery changed to untouched bushland.

‘Perdita must be a long way from anywhere,' said Boges.

Almost as he spoke, a car shot out of an obscured driveway on our right, heading straight for us! It was about to plough straight into the driver's door—and Boges!

As I yelled out and grabbed the dashboard, Boges slammed his foot down and Ryan swore as the truck surged ahead. I felt a thud at the back as the other car clipped our tailgate and ran into a tree on the opposite side of the road.

‘What an idiot!' Boges yelled. ‘Came out of nowhere!' He jumped out to inspect the damage. I recovered from my shock quickly and scrambled out after Ryan, concerned about the driver in the stalled car across the road. I didn't have to worry for long. The driver's door was flung open and a girl in jeans and a khaki shirt, who looked only a bit older than me, flounced across the road and stood with her hands on her hips.

‘What do you think you're doing?' she yelled at Boges, her cheeks red with anger and her thick tawny hair whipping about her in the wind.

‘I could ask the same of you!' shouted Boges, pointing to the driveway she'd just exploded from. ‘You're supposed to give way when you enter a road from a driveway, not just barge out as if you're the only person in the world!'

‘But no-one comes out here apart from me!' she argued.

The girl, who would have been quite pretty except for the anger that screwed up her face, swung round, heading back to her battered old blue station wagon. It was jammed up against a large tree but she still jumped into it and tried to start the engine. We heard the motor turning uselessly, over and over.

‘She's going to flood it if she doesn't stop,' said Ryan.

‘Serves her right!' said Boges. ‘I'm going to go and give her a piece of my mind!'

Now that the shock had worn off, I was feeling pretty angry too. Ryan and I charged over behind Boges as he approached the stalled car.

The girl was hunched over the steering wheel and I suddenly wondered if she was crying. Boges's angry demeanour fell away as he looked with concern into the driver's window.

‘Are you OK?' Boges asked.

‘I don't know how I'm going to manage,' the girl said, lifting her head from the steering wheel. ‘I can't afford to get it fixed. I can't afford to get it towed. Now I can't even get away from here!'

It was then that I noticed how threadbare and patched her jeans were and her khaki shirt was badly frayed at the collar. Her face was wet with tears and her blue eyes were filled with
anxiety. ‘This car is about the only thing I've got now—the only thing I had.'

She straightened her shoulders and blew her nose on a tissue. ‘And now it's wrecked! I don't know what I'm going to do.'

I moved closer to the driver's window. ‘I'm Winter,' I said, thinking of Ryan's climbing ropes on the back of the truck. ‘We could give you a tow. At least back up your driveway.'

I looked at the sagging gates of the driveway she'd just raced out of. They seemed to be permanently propped open, supported by two stone pillars with the words ‘Abercrombie House' carved on them. ‘You might be able to fix it.'

‘OK,' she said, without enthusiasm.

Half an hour later, we'd managed to tow the girl's car up the winding track to her house. Abercrombie House might once have been a fine old stone mansion, with elegant shutters on the French windows, but it now looked as if it had been partly demolished and most of the shutters lay on the ground. Stones from the upper storey lay in scattered piles. I could see the sky through some of the roofing. Once we'd detached the ropes and packed them away, we turned around to find that the girl had vanished.

‘What happened to her? She was right here,' said Ryan. ‘Man, she dents your truck, Boges, we give her a tow and then she just disappears?'

‘She could've at least said thank you,' grumbled Boges. ‘Hmph.'

2:43 pm

‘It can't be much further,' I said, trying to keep my eyes on the map I'd printed out as Boges negotiated deep potholes. ‘According to this, we're going to run out of road pretty soon because Perdita and Abercrombie House are the only properties on this end of the headland. After that, there's just the ocean.'

Almost as soon as I'd spoken, Boges slowed down and pulled up next to a tumbledown fence covered in bushes. Beyond the half-collapsed fence, starkly bare European trees mingled with the canopies of huge old fig trees to create a wall of green jungle.

‘There hasn't been another house since we left crash girl's place,' I said, looking up from the map. ‘This must be it.'

‘Not too sure about Perdita being a luxury palace, then,' said Ryan. ‘How do we get in?'

‘Looks like there's a gateway over there,' I said, pointing to some stonework just visible through the heavy vegetation.

Boges drove closer until we could see the tops of two pillars, capped by a huge stone that joined
them. ‘It looks like something from Stonehenge,' said Boges.

‘And possibly just as old too,' I joked.

We climbed out to get a better look. The two pillars were actually part of a wall that rose beyond the fence—a forbidding facade of grey, lichen-covered stones. On the heavy, overgrown lintel stone I made out some carved letters: P E R D I … but the rest was obscured by a heavy vine that had woven itself in and around the stones.

‘Perdita,' I whispered under my breath, ‘we've arrived.'

Perdita

3:04 pm

Slowly, the three of us walked towards the house. It was possible to imagine that once, a long time ago, a wide, impressive driveway had welcomed visitors to the property. Now weeds and the small suckers of eucalypt trees grew through the cracks in the paving stones. On the left, there were the remains of paddocks, now dotted with small trees and shrubs, while on the right were dense, almost black-green cypress and other trees crowded together in a thick grove.

The house was of a strange design—basically two storeys, but with very unusual third storeys added only at each end.

‘I get it—it's the shape of an old-fashioned galleon,' said Boges, ‘with those higher floors on each end. Although I've never seen a house shaped like this before.'

It was true. With a few tall masts sticking up in the middle section and some sails and banners, Perdita would have looked like a Spanish galleon.

‘It doesn't look to be as rundown as Abercrombie House, at least,' said Boges.

‘Well, the top levels look OK—,' I said, when I was interrupted by shouting behind us.

‘Hey! You kids! What do you think you're doing here?' Stomping up the ruined driveway was a weather-beaten man with a short grey beard and moustache, and stringy hair matted with salt. He was dressed in faded jeans, a worn-out shirt and had very tanned bare feet. The old man came up to us, hands on his hips, head cocked to one side, his shrewd eyes glittering.

‘I'm inspecting my property,' I said, ‘and these are my friends. What are you doing here?'

That seemed to take him aback, but only for a second. ‘You're not thinking of moving in?' he asked. ‘What would you want with a dump like this? A nice young lady like you?'

If there's one thing I can't stand, it's being
called a nice young lady, but before I could say anything, he went on. ‘The name's Jack Curlewis,' he said, ignoring the black look on my face, ‘but everybody hereabouts calls me Curly. I kind of keep an eye on this place. Not that I need to, no-one ever comes here. I do a bit of fishing, bit of fossicking, some odd jobs.' He frowned. ‘But you can't be thinking of keeping a ruin like this! If it really is yours, I know someone who'll give you a very good price for it. Mind you, it looked very grand last century when Captain Greenlowe built it. Nowadays,' he continued, with an unpleasant chuckle, ‘it's more like a ghost ship.'

‘I'm Winter Frey,' I said and I didn't put out my hand for him to shake. ‘What's the problem with the house? Has it been vandalised?'

‘Winter Frey, eh? Well, the house is neglected because nobody's lived here for ages. The garden's overgrown too, as you can see. But no, you don't need to worry about vandalism here. No-one would
dare
to go inside there,' he added in a whisper, pointing to the house. From an upper storey, a tattered curtain blew through a broken window pane.

‘Too scared of you, eh Curly?' asked Ryan, grinning.

Curly's eyes shifted from Ryan back to me.

‘Scared of a harmless old coot like me? What a joke! People don't come to this place because it's
haunted.
Bad things happened here a long time ago.'

‘What bad things?' I asked.

‘Dreadful things. So bad that now—' he lowered his voice to a whisper ‘—she
walks.
Captain Greenlowe's daughter, Perdita. That's where the house gets its name, you know. Something terrible happened and she died. Locals round here call her the White Lady.'

‘You're not seriously telling me that you believe in ghosts?' I asked. ‘I hope I don't look like the sort of person who's scared off by silly stories.'

‘Yeah, are you kidding us?' asked Boges.

Curly gave us a sly look. ‘You suit yourselves. Don't say I didn't warn you.' With that, he turned around and walked off, out the overgrown gates.

‘That's the third weirdo local we've met,' said Ryan. ‘Are they
all
loopy round here?'

‘Maybe it's something in the water,' Boges joked. ‘Come on, let's go meet the White Lady.'