Sleight Malice (4 page)

“You don’t
really expect me to believe that that’s all you have, do you? There has to be
more.”

“Anything else
I told you would be mere speculation. Desley, I can understand your
frustration, but rest assured we want to find your friends as much as you do.
At 4 p.m. today, there’s going to be a press conference. Not only will we be
disclosing the details I just told you, but also photos of both Laura and Ryan
will be released and we’ll be appealing for anyone with any information to come
forward.”

Fergus opened
his mouth to say something, but Desley silenced him with a raised hand. “Tell
me; were there two cars in the garage? You must know that.”

DS Mitchell
gave her a half-smile. “See, that’s where you come in and why we need you to
answer our questions. If we can recreate the events leading up to the fire and
the disappearance of your friends, we stand a good chance of solving this case
quickly. Who better to help us with that, than someone close to the couple.”
She shuffled in her seat. “And in answer to your question: the only car in the
garage, or at least what was left of it, was a silver Honda Civic registered in
Laura’s name.”

“Oh my God, if
Laura didn’t drive herself away, who did? Have you checked the airport car
parks?” Desley asked, it suddenly striking her that instead of catching a taxi,
Ryan might have driven to the airport. “If Ryan’s flight hasn’t landed yet, his
four-wheel-drive is probably there.”

“We haven’t
checked the airport, but Ryan’s flight landed at 10:15 p.m. last night.”

“No, you must
be mistaken. Laura was really looking forward to seeing him again. She would’ve
said something if he was coming home early. She certainly wouldn’t have sat
around here drinking wine.” It didn’t make sense, but nor did anything else
that had happened in the last twelve hours.

“Unless of
course,” Fergus interjected, voicing Desley’s thoughts, “he wanted to surprise
his wife and managed to get a standby seat.”

“We checked
that. He didn’t fly standby,” DS Mitchell said, shaking her head. “The 20:45 flight
from Sydney was his original booking. No seats were booked for today in either
his or the company’s name.”

Unable to sit
still any longer, Desley pushed her chair away from the table and stood up. “So
what are you saying? That unbeknown to Laura, Ryan came home last night,
murdered this man, set fire to their house and then took off somewhere with
Laura?”

“That’s one
possibility, but that’s all it is. Speculation as I said.”

Desley sat down
again, her thoughts running riot. Why had Ryan booked the flight for Thursday
night but told Laura it was for the Friday morning? Who was the mystery man?
What was he doing in the house? Where was Laura? Had Ryan taken her against her
will? Desley refused to believe Laura could be in any way involved.

“Forgive me if I’m
speaking out of turn here,” Fergus said, “but one reason Ryan might have
planned to be home early, could have been he suspected Laura of having an
affair—“

“This is
getting beyond ridiculous!” Desley bounced to her feet again. “Laura doesn’t
have a lover on the side.”

“That you know
of.”

DS Mitchell
threw Fergus a daggered look. “And why we should be dealing in facts.”

Her mind in
overdrive, Desley excused herself and headed for the kitchen. She needed that
coffee. First though, she wanted to try Laura’s mobile number again. If only
she could talk to her, this whole mess could be sorted out. More importantly,
she would know her friend was alive.

From where she
was in the kitchen, she could hear Fergus and DS Mitchell talking, but not what
they were saying. Turning her back to the doorway, she picked up the phone and
pressed redial. Her silent “answer” chant had no effect and the call diverted
straight to Laura’s voicemail. She left no message, hung up and immediately
dialed the mobile number from Ryan’s business card, which was pinned under a
magnet on the side of the refrigerator. No answer. She cursed. Why weren’t
their mobiles switched on?

“Need a hand in
here?” Fergus said from behind her.

“Just looking
for…” she said, drawing out the last word as she hurriedly shoved the cordless
phone into the cutlery drawer, swapped it for a tablespoon and opened the
pantry cupboard. Standing on her tiptoes, she grabbed the silver-and-red tin of
illy
ground espresso coffee from the top shelf and, holding it aloft like
an award, turned to him, “…this.”

“Desley, I
didn’t mean to—”

She cut him
off. “Hope everyone likes it black,” she said, her attempt to infuse some
warmth into her voice falling flat. She avoided his gaze, busying herself with
scooping two spoonfuls of the wonderfully aromatic coffee into the
stainless-steel filter and tamping it down.

“Please let me
explain.” Fergus spoke to her back. “The key word here is suspected. For
whatever reason – real or imagined – it’s possible Ryan suspected Laura of
being unfaithful. Whether Laura is or isn’t having an affair is beside the
point.” He gave a little laugh. “Believe me, in my line of business I’ve seen a
lot of adulterers. However, I’ve also had clients who were convinced their
partner was cheating on them, but if they were, my team never found any
evidence of it.”

The doorbell
rang. “That will be your mate,” Desley said, without looking up. “He’s probably
locked himself out.”

Fergus took the
hint.

Grateful for
the reprieve, she took a deep breath. Of course he was right. And she shouldn’t
have leapt down his throat like that. He didn’t deserve it.
I should reserve
my wrath for the bastard who is actually responsible for all this
, she told
herself as she emptied the filter and reloaded it with fresh coffee for the next
two cups.

Why was she
being so uncooperative? The detectives were only doing their job. What did she
have to fear from the police? Could she subconsciously be scared about what the
truth might reveal? Had her ex-husband’s open disdain for Ryan been based on
more than mere macho competitiveness?
But then again
, she reminded
herself,
he hadn’t taken to Laura either.
Did it point to some failing
on her part? Was she not the judge of character she thought she was?

She finished
making the coffee, a male throaty laugh from the dining room surprising her as
she set the cups, teaspoons and a bowl of sugar on a tray. Then she heard
Fergus’s voice, more lilt to it than there had been earlier. Evidently, he and
DI Buchanan had called a truce.

Determined to
follow Fergus’s example, she carried the tray through to the other room. After
all, if she thought about it, it was in her interests to work with the police,
not against them.

Desley stared unseeing at the
partially constructed webpage on her computer screen. If she had thought work
could hold her attention, she’d thought wrong. Pressing the Alt-Tab keys, she
toggled windows. No new emails.

On the off
chance she had somehow missed an alert, she checked her mobile phone for
messages. Nothing. The police had promised to stay in touch, as had Fergus, but
the person she really wanted to hear from was Laura. The worst part was not
knowing. Reality had to be better than the
tortured
images her fears painted: Laura suffering third-degree burns, abandoned and left
to die an agonizing death in the middle of nowhere; Laura trapped in the
wreckage of Ryan’s crashed four-wheel-drive, hurt and bleeding; Laura…

Her gaze
dropped to the bottom-right of her screen.

3:49 PM

Eleven minutes
to the press conference. She had put off calling her parents all day, in the
vain hope she wouldn’t have to tell them that the flaxen-haired woman they
treated as one of their own was probably in grave danger, possibly dead, but
definitely missing. Let alone the not so small matters of the fire and the
unidentified male body. She had no choice; she couldn’t let them hear about it
on the news.

Psyching
herself up, she dialed her parent’s number and waited for the call to connect.

Answering
machine. She cursed, berating herself for forgetting that both her parents
would be hard at work in the milking shed at this time. Not that they were ever
easy to contact. Milking around 250 cows on the dairy farm they owned and ran
near Devonport in Tasmania’s north-west kept them busy and neither had the time
or the inclination for mobile phone technology. “One bloody phone is more than
enough for me,” her father used to say. Her mother’s recorded singsong voice
finished.

“Mum, Dad…”
Realizing how harsh she sounded, she made a conscious effort to soften her
voice. "It's Desley."
As if they wouldn't recognize their own
daughter's voice.
“Please phone me…” She searched for the right words.
‘Urgently’ would only panic them, but nor did she want them to turn on the
television before deciding to call her back. “…as soon as you get this
message.”

Hoping the cows
were listening to Mozart and not the radio, she hung up and tried Brandon’s
mobile. Always the Casanova, her younger brother had been smitten the instant
he met Laura, despite the fact she was eight years older than his youthful
20-years at the time. She had laughed off his older-woman quest, but played up
to his attentions all the same. Desley felt sure, though, that the slightest
indication from Laura that she was taking him seriously would send her commitment-phobic
brother wheelspinning off into the distance. His phone rang seven times before
diverting to voicemail.

He either had
his head under a car bonnet — making sense of something she had never been able
to — or was lying on his back under the vehicle studying its underbelly. But
then again, since it was Friday, it was possible he was already ensconced on a
barstool at the pub with his mates. She left a message and hung up.

After checking
her emails once more, she headed for the living room and turned on the
television. She muted the sound and scrolled through the channels, settling on
Channel 7 when she didn’t come across any news updates. Then, sprawled across
the couch with the remote control in one hand and the phone in the other, she
waited for her parents and brother to ring.

At least she
had a family. Had the police had any luck in tracking down a next of kin for
either Laura or Ryan yet, she wondered. As far as she knew, Laura had no living
relatives. Her father died in a tragic car accident on his way home from work a
week before her ninth birthday. A heart attack claimed her mother’s life
fourteen years later.

Occasionally,
Laura would make reference to a brother, clamming up the instant she realized
her slip. Then she would laugh, like she had just made a joke, but it wasn’t
enough to mask the torment and something else Desley couldn’t quite fathom in
her friend’s dusky-blue eyes. Was it grief? Had her brother died, too? Or was
it possible that somewhere in the world Laura had a brother, estranged or
missing perhaps, but still alive and well?

What about
Ryan? Whenever family was mentioned, he somehow always managed to avoid the
subject. Did he not have any relations either? Could that be part of what drew
him and Laura together? A mutual understanding? But then again, for all anyone
knew, he could have spent his childhood being shunted from foster home to
foster home. At the time, it hadn’t seemed that important. Only now did it dawn
on her how little she knew about the background of the man Laura had fallen in
love with almost four years ago.

Propping her
head on one of the couch’s black suede scatter cushions, Desley stretched out
on her back and took a long, slow breath. Her eyelids felt heavy, as if anchors
had been fastened to the lashes. She gave in, her resistance eroded by her
body’s increasing need for sleep.

The doorbell
rang. She groaned, her forearm shielding her eyes from the shards of daylight.
She could’ve sworn she had drifted off for only a second or two. Her body told
a different story. The doorbell rang again. Eventually the message from her
brain got through. Forcing her sluggish muscles to move, she rolled off the
couch and grumbling like a bear woken prematurely from hibernation, lumbered
toward the front door. Beware the person on the other side, especially if he or
she was a Jehovah’s Witness or a door-to-door salesperson she equally had no
time for, even on a good day.

“Trent!”

He gave her a
lopsided grin, pushed himself upright from the brick wall and, using one hand
to steady himself against the electricity meter-box, took a step toward her.
She didn’t need to smell his breath. Looking past him, she scanned the driveway
and street for the whereabouts of his car.

“Two visits in
one day. To what do I owe this great honor?” she said, irritated that on top of
everything else, she had to contend with her drunken ex-husband. Again. “More
to the point, how did you get here?”

“Taxi,” he
slurred, taking another shaky step.

He hadn’t
always been so sensible.
Thank God for small mercies
, she thought,
remembering her flattened mailbox, and thankfully the only casualty of his
drink-driving to date. That she knew of.