Worse than Death (Anna Southwood Mysteries) (11 page)

“No. Beth’s daddy. His car was there. It’s a Mercedes. He’s got a Ferrari, too. His name is on it. On both of them.”

“Where? In the caravan factory?” It couldn’t have been that night, I thought. Rex was in Perth.

“He might be visiting Beth.” Joe said. “Sometimes he parked there to pick her up.”

“It must have been the night before,” I said. “When he took them out to dinner.” I could see that there was a short-cut from the factory driveway through the oval, beside the fenced-off allotment. Perhaps if Rex was coming from that direction it was an easier place to park.

“What time was it?” Graham asked.

“Don’t know. Late. I went to bed.” He was starting to look anxiously towards his house again. I wondered if Mrs Kominsky could see us from her kitchen window.

“It’s okay, Joe,” I said. “That’s all. You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.”

We said goodbye and walked back to the car. By the time we reached it Joe had the kite up and was running backwards, spooling out the line as the red and black dragon rose higher and higher into the blue sky. We could hear his shouts of joyful encouragement from where we stood. He was right, it was a good wind for kites.

*

On the way back I told Graham about all the interviews Glenn had sent me.

“I was up until two reading them,” I said. “But really I don’t see any point in following up the people we don’t know. The police cross-checked everyone’s stories, there were no obvious suspects except Joe — we couldn’t do any better. And it’s so long ago now.”

“Yeah,” Graham said doubtfully. “But Anna, it could be someone we’ve never heard of, just some random sex maniac who only strikes here every few years.”

I’d been wondering when that possibility would occur to him. “We can’t afford to think that,” I said, tapping my fingers on the steering-wheel. “That means we’ll never find out what’s going on.” I hated the thought that our first real case might simply peter out into unresolved ambiguities.

“No,” I went on, hoping I sounded more confident that I felt, “the only way it makes sense is to consider the people we already know about.” I fumbled for a cigarette from the dashboard and lit it.

“First and foremost, Leonie Channing,” I said, inhaling nicotine. “That’s how we got into this, and I still think she’s the spider in the middle of the web. She’s so strange, Graham. Do you think she’s mad, or is it just Valium, as Carol Johnson said?”

“Dunno. She was better the other times I spoke to her — more alert. She looked half asleep today.”

“I don’t think she’d hurt Beth,” I said, surprising myself with my sudden conviction. “And she couldn’t have killed Kylie. She was home with Beth that night and neighbours saw her in and out to the shops in the afternoon. Anyway, why would she?” I was consciously echoing Carol Johnson.

Graham didn’t say anything and I sneaked a quick look at him. He was frowning.

“Well? Do
you
think she’s a murderer?”

“No,” he said slowly. “I don’t. But if she’s not then she must know something about it. For God’s sake — she’s apparently prepared to go to jail. Why?”

It was my turn to be silent. Could it be, as Carol Johnson had suggested, that Leonie was simply so dazed on tranquillisers that she didn’t realise what was happening? Otherwise, what would make it worth her going to prison? Someone she was protecting? But who? I started to get that slightly sick, excited feeling of an inspiration trying to wriggle to the surface, but Graham spoke, interrupting my thoughts.

“We have to remember all the Birkett stuff, too,” he said. “If it’s connected, then we’ve got to work out how. Like why he wants to set Leonie up for the murder, if there is a murder. And why she’s letting him get away with it. Perhaps he has some hold over her.”

“I don’t know,” I said, thinking hard and nearly running into the back of a bus. “It could just be that he thinks he’s doing Rex a favour.” We crossed Victoria Road and drove down Darling Street towards the office, crawling behind the bus all the way.

“I wonder if Lorna’s found out anything new,” I said as I parked in my garage. But I was increasingly feeling that Birkett was peripheral, that Beth’s disappearance was both simpler and more mysterious than we thought. Something deep and private with roots going back into the past into something far below the surface that we hadn’t yet dredged up. I had no clear reason for this growing conviction, only that it felt like one of those times when your subconscious has figured out a lot more than your front brain has yet caught up on.

“Anyway,” I said, “It’s Friday. Let’s do lunch and talk about something else.” We went inside to check the answer phone. There was a message from Rita, returning my call and suggesting tennis, but I didn’t think there was any point in checking Leonie’s mental history now. Somehow during the morning I’d been recruited to her side, I realised. We wrangled amiably about whether to walk to the Satasia or get the car out again. Graham won, and we drove.

Chapter 12

After a long lunch Graham got the bus back to Leichardt and I did some scattered shopping, mostly wine this time, and went home. I tidied up the office and made a coffee, sitting outside in the garden with Toby to drink it.

I was starting to get that feeling I’d had sometimes when the answer to a particularly devious cryptic crossword clue began to hover somewhere just outside my mind — as if things were at last starting to form a pattern, still out of reach, but a pattern nonetheless. I had been known to spend an hour going through the dictionary for all possible consonant clusters in order to reach an answer, and I was beginning to have the same obsessive reaction to the Channing case. But there wasn’t a dictionary or any other reference book that I knew of that would give me these answers. I gave myself a shake and went back inside.

I hovered doubtfully by the telephone — I thought I should really ring Rex, make some sort of gesture towards keeping him informed. But I didn’t have anything to report — just a growing list of partly formed questions, and I wasn’t ready to ask them yet. Then I thought of something I could do that might impress him.

I rang Evan’s number and he answered immediately.

“Just caught me,” he said cheerfully in his lilting voice. “Just on me way to the pub.”

“Evan, are you free to do another surveillance job for me?” I crossed my fingers, knowing it was unlikely at such short notice.

“Well…” his voice was doubtful. “Yes, I suppose so.” He sighed. “Though I was hoping for some fishing this weekend. Who is it, then? Rex Channing again?”

“No, his wife.” I gave him Leonie’s address and he said he’d start that night. Again, I didn’t quite know what I hoped to learn from watching her — perhaps some clue to the mystery of her behaviour. Anything. We arranged that he’d report in on Monday some time and I rang off. I liked Evan — he always sounded as if he took what I was doing seriously.

Rex. I sighed and dialled the Vaucluse number, hoping I’d get an answering machine. But of course he picked up the phone himself. I told him that we had a few vague leads, that we had talked to Joe and Leonie, and that I was having her watched.

“What for?” His rasping voice was angry, and, I thought, startled.

“Well she
has
sort of confessed to Beth’s murder,” I said with some sarcasm. “She’s pretty much the prime suspect.”

“Leonie hasn’t murdered anyone,” he said contemptuously. “She wouldn’t have the guts.”

I stared at the phone. If Rex didn’t think Leonie had done it then why was he employing us?

“But,” I said, “your pal Birkett got her statement…”

“He doesn’t know his arse from a hole in the ground,” Rex said.

“Well, why are we working for you? I thought…”

“Don’t think. I’m not paying you to think. Just find out what she’s done with her. Get her drunk or something.” He paused. “Perhaps watching the house isn’t such a bad idea. Search the place when she’s not there. Jesus Christ, do I have to tell you your job?”

He rang off and I put my phone down, thinking furiously despite him. Could it all be that simple? That Leonie was playing some custody game against Rex, keeping their daughter somewhere out of his way? No, I thought. It didn’t fit. Anyway, Evan would tell me if Leonie made any unexplained journeys.

I got out my notebook and read over what she had said to us that morning. Not much, but the words “Yes, she’s dead and gone,” were definite enough. I worried at it for a while, getting nowhere, then gave up for the day and went upstairs. I had a long bath, made an omelette and settled to yet another lonely night with a book, a bottle and the cat.

On Saturday I pulled myself together and actually got my heap of clothes to the cleaners. I also got around to calling a locksmith to change the lock, which I’d promised Evan I’d do after the kidnapping — paying double for weekend service — and made a note to remember to give Trent one of the new keys. I filled in the rest of the day gardening and doing the washing, tempted to ring Lorna, but telling myself she’d get in touch if she had any news. I thought of seeing if Rita still wanted a game of tennis, but I wasn’t really in the mood.

“Saturday night and nowhere to go,” I said to Toby as I scrabbled in the cupboards for something to eat. I managed biscuits and tinned smoked oysters and drank most of two bottles of wine, watching dreary weekend television and feeling sorry for myself. I caught myself wondering what Paul Whitehouse was doing, and who with. I went to bed unhappy and drunk, and slept restlessly, waking with a dry throat and a bad headache. But I also woke with a strong feeling that somewhere in the back of my aching mind things were about to crystallise. Perhaps just the blood alcohol, I told myself sourly.

“Hangover euphoria,” I muttered, spooning tuna in aspic into Toby’s bowl. Then I went to sit in the front garden to wait for Graham, trying to get myself out of my surly mood. I’d got new film the day before, and I’d even managed to remember my camera. I stared at the huge buds forming on the gardenia and let my mind go blank with thoughts of summer flowers.

It was a slightly overcast morning, just right for tramping around graves Graham said, when we pulled up in the street next to the Liverpool cemetery.

“You seem very pleased with yourself,” I grumbled. “I suppose you’ve had a nice social weekend.”

“Yep. Looks like Ruth and I are getting back together, too.” He couldn’t keep the smugness out of his voice.

“Graham — that’s great. I thought she was in Paris?” Graham and Ruth had lived together for a few years, but she’d gone off with a French director just after we’d set up the agency. “What happened to Jean-Jacques?”

“She dumped him. Can’t cut it, these Frenchmen. It turns out she’s doing the sets on
Streetcar
— I met her at a pre-rehearsal party last night. She’s only been back a few weeks.”

“Great,” I said with pretended bitterness. “I’m glad
someone’s
happy.”

We wandered through the graves for a while, reading out names and messages, until we came to the blocks of crypt-houses.

“They’re wonderful,” I said, laughing. I unhooked my camera and began taking pictures. From some angles they looked like streets in a Disney fairyland, miniature cottages for dwarfs and pixies. Some of them had several cameo photographs mounted behind glass on the doors, with their owners’ names and messages for eternity engraved beneath them. You almost felt that if you knocked, someone would come to the door.

There were other people strolling about, families straight from church, elderly Italian widows in unrelieved black, many carrying little posies of spring arrangements, or larger bunches of artificial flowers, which they set in the permanent vases outside the crypts.

“That’s the Digrigorio tomb,” Graham said, pointing. No one seemed to be visiting him that day, but there was a healthy bonsai cypress in a pot on the front step. I peered closely at his photograph. It showed a moustachioed old gent, with thick white hair and a deeply creased, hawk-nosed face. Underneath was engraved, in gold, his dates of birth and death — Siena, 1903 — Windsor, 1984 — and a line in Italian that we dubiously translated as ‘Gone to God and His Angels’, though Graham said it might mean ‘God’s got all the angles’.

“Don’t be irreverent,” I said. “Where’s Rex’s mum?”

“In the old part of the cemetery — over there.” He turned to show me and then said, “Shit. That’s Rex now, isn’t it?”

He had his back to us, walking purposefully to the far corner of the cemetery, but it was unmistakably Rex. I looked around. Behind the crypts there was a maze-like arrangement of red brick walls, with niches for urns and cylindrical holes for the containers of ashes.

“Let’s hide, quick,” I said. “Or he’ll think we’re following him.”

We went behind the walls and I squinted around them. I could see Rex placing flowers on a grave, then standing still, head bowed, presumably praying. He had another bunch of flowers in his hand.

“Get back,” Graham said. “He’s coming this way.”

“Listen, he doesn’t know you — you can go out and mingle.”

“Okay. That looks like one of the caretakers over there. I might engage him in desultory conversation.” He straightened an imaginary tie over his purple T-shirt and winked at me.

I gave him a push and then flattened myself against the rough wall. Through one of the empty holes I could see the row that held Mr Digrigorio’s last resting place, and I focused on that. Sure enough, Rex stopped outside the vault and stood staring at the old man’s photo, with a peculiar look on his face — a sort of wry regret. Then he bent and put the other flowers on the step — African orchids again, I noticed. He stood for a moment more, made a gesture like a tentative sign of the cross and began to walk in my direction. I pressed myself out of sight again, praying that he didn’t have any friends who’d been cremated. Then I heard Birkett’s voice and nearly exclaimed out loud.

“Rex! Hey, Rex.”

“What the fuck do
you
want? What are you doing, following me
here
?”

They were standing quite close to me, on the other side of the wall. I stifled a furious urge to sneeze and listened hard.

“I’ve been trying to ring you. Couldn’t get an answer.” Birkett’s voice was nervous, conciliating, quite unlike the self-confident bully he’d been with me. “Listen, things are getting urgent. We’ll have to move the stuff this week — the fucking builders are going in soon. Bloody museums,” he spat. “Who the fuck would want to go out there and look at
that
dump?”

“It’s all arranged,” Rex said curtly. “And you’re in deep shit.” He must have taken a step towards Birkett because he went on in a lower voice. I had to strain to hear.

“Our… contact… had a few interesting things to tell me about the quantities. You’ve been holding out on me, Terry boy, haven’t you?”

There was silence, then Birkett’s voice, blustering now.

“Shit, Rex. I was going to tell you. Just a little side deal. Not the smack — just some of the dope. I wasn’t going to cut you out, mate.”

“You’re full of it, Tezza.” There was nothing affectionate about Rex’s use of the diminutive. “I’ve been asking around a bit. Found out you’ve been trying to move it yourself. I heard what you were offering on the smack, too, so don’t bullshit me. You’re history, boyo.” I couldn’t see Birkett’s face, but I hoped it had gone green.

“Did you really think you could arrange anything in this town without me knowing?” Rex went on, his voice low and vicious. “
They
know who payrolls them, and they know
you
couldn’t arrange yourself a fuck in a brothel. You’re already up to your balls over Tarno and Holmes. That Temples bitch is going to get you, eventually.”

“What are you going to do, Rex? Jeez, mate, I was only…”

“Shut up. You’re out of it, Terry. You
and
your mate Jack. And for the sake of our old
friendship
,” he put nasty emphasis on the word, “I’ll give you a week to disappear. Got it? Time to use your Hong Kong bank account. And don’t come back. Ever.”

Rex must have turned away because I caught only the beginning of Birkett apparently going after him, his voice fading so that I couldn’t pick up the words.

“Listen, Rex. Mate, listen…”

“Jeez-us!” I breathed out and looked furtively around the corner. Rex and Birkett were out of sight, and Graham was deep in conversation with an old chap leaning on a rake beside a wheelbarrow full of dead flowers.

I gave it a few more minutes, in case either of them came back, then walked over to Graham.

“This is Alec,” Graham said. “Alec, this is Anna.”

“Hi,” I said and got a cheeky grin in reply. Alec was one of those men who seem to grow harder and stringier as they get old, with legs like sinewy saplings under his baggy shorts.

“Alec’s been telling me what the crypts are like inside,” Graham said. “It sounds a bit crowded to me. I don’t think Auntie Myrtle would like one, after all.” I stared at him.

“Not building any more here, anyway,” Alec said in a thick Northern English accent. “And they’re all booked up. Have to go over to Botany if you want one like these here.”

That answered one question. Whatever Rex and Birkett had been talking about wasn’t hidden here if there wasn’t any more building going on. But my interest in Mr Digrigorio had been reawakened.

“How would we get inside one to have a look?” I asked. “So we can tell Auntie Myrtle,” I added, with a sly look at Graham, who nodded gravely.

“Can’t,” Alec said. “The owners have got the keys.”

“But don’t you ever go inside to clean or anything?”

“Nope. ’S like private houses. They pay their deposits when they’re being built, see, then it’s all theirs. Only the undertaker goes in, to settle the coffins.”

I didn’t much like the image that conjured up, as if the dead were a bit restless.

“Y’can get inside the ones at Botany,” he said. “They’ve just started the building there. But they’ll all be the same — three shelves down each side, hold a coffin each. Some have got four, mind you, but that’s a tight squeeze.”