Worse than Death (Anna Southwood Mysteries) (12 page)

“I don’t suppose they care,” I said absently.

“Auntie Myrtle would,” Graham said in a disapproving voice. He was clearly enjoying himself, filing away the old man’s winks and nods and accent for further reference.

“Is there somewhere around here that they’re building a museum?” I asked Alec. “Or some old place they’re converting?”

“That’ll be the old powerhouse,” he said immediately. “Turning it into one of them art centres, with beatniks and what-all.” He laughed. “Reckon the young ones’ll have to find another spot for their carryings on.”

“Great,” I said. “Can you tell us how to get there?” Now Graham stared at me.

He gave us clear directions and we thanked him, leaving him leaning on his rake and enjoying the feeble sunshine.

“Exit First Gravedigger,” Graham murmured as we got into the car. “Now, what’s this sudden urge to visit museums?”

I told him what I’d overheard as we crossed the highway and headed through the outskirts of Liverpool.

“Shit, Anna,” he said when I’d finished. “If they’re using it as a stash we’d better be careful. There might be armed goons patrolling the place.”

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, concentrating on the names of streets as I drove. “Old Alec seemed to imply it’s a sort of lovers’ meeting place. If they’ve hidden anything there it’ll be well out of the way. I just want to have a look.”

We drove down an unmade road to a tiny suburban railway station. On the other side of the tracks was the old powerhouse, a huge concrete building on about an acre of rough grass, behind a safety fence. We parked and waited as a train drew in. No one got on or off. We walked across the unguarded crossing as the train hooted on its way. The fence was sagging and dilapidated, with obviously enlarged holes that had been used before. There were two boys of about ten already wandering about the grounds, shying stones at trees. We waved to them and they came over.

“Can you get inside?” Graham asked.

“Sure. ’S easy.”

They showed us a boarded-up doorway. The board was loose and came away readily. A notice tacked to the wall above it said ‘No Trespassing. This site is dangerous to the public.’ Another, newer, notice beside it gave details of the proposed renovations and the planned uses for the building. It was going to be a craft centre, with space for painters’ and sculptors’ studios, an office for an advisory service for the unemployed, a play-centre, and a historical museum.

Inside were cavernous concrete passages and then an enormous, high-roofed space, filled with rubble and the cryptic parts of old machinery. Huge pipes wound around and crisscrossed far above our heads, making a sort of false ceiling. There were stairs and walkways and disused landings all through them but the stairs were blocked off at ground level by heavy steel grilles.

We peered up at the dim space above us. Dust hovered in the air like a curtain.

“Well, that’s where
I’d
put it if I had anything to hide,” Graham said.

“Yes.” The gates to the stairs were barred, but it would be easy enough to substitute your own padlock for one of theirs.

We went outside. The clouds were over the sun again and the whole place felt sinister, as many abandoned places do. The boys had disappeared but we could hear their voices coming from the gully below us.

“Let’s have a look around,” I said.

A golf course formed one boundary to the powerhouse land, and a narrow river — the Georges, I assumed — another. We walked along the bank for a while, watching wild ducks floating on the pewter-coloured water under the willows, until we came to a small iron bridge spanning the river. It was the bridge from Evan’s photograph, I was certain of it, the one where Birkett and Jack Robinson had met. Some more things falling into place, I thought.

We said very little on the way back. Graham sat with his eyes closed, listening to the Mozart tape I had put on, and I wrestled with the ethics of dobbing in our client. But I didn’t want Rex as a client any more, I realised, and not just because I now had personal proof that he was a heroin dealer. It had been growing on me for some time, somehow arising from the new chaotic sense of an embryo pattern forming. I still didn’t know where it was going, but I trusted so strong an instinct.

Having made the decision to sack Rex, I felt a great sense of relief. It was something Carol Johnson had said, I thought suddenly. I still couldn’t put my finger on what had tickled my memory, but I was convinced that it had somehow involved Rex.

Chapter 13

Graham went back to his Sunday afternoon with Ruth and I made myself a sandwich at home, putting off the phone calls I knew I’d have to make. A couple of glasses of wine convinced me I had the necessary courage, and I dialled Rex’s number. To my huge relief I got his answering machine.

“It’s Anna Southwood, on Sunday,” I said in as calm a voice as I could manage. “I’m afraid that because of unavoidable conflicts of interest Southwood and Connelly can no longer regard you as their client, Mr Channing. I will refund the advance in full in respect of any inconvenience this may cause you.” I was shaking when I put the phone down.

I had another glass of wine and two more cigarettes before I rang Glenn Sheedy. He was at home, the desk sergeant told me. I looked up his numbers again.

“Glenn, are there any straight cops in the Drug Squad?” I asked, without any preliminary greetings. I felt that if I didn’t get this over immediately I’d never be able to do it.

His chuckle came over the line. “Shit, that’s a hard one. Why?”

I told him why, stumbling over my account of Rex’s conversation with Birkett and my description of the powerhouse, getting it all mixed up with the bridge and Jack Robinson and Evan’s photographs.

“Slow down,” Glenn said, his voice serious now. “It’s okay, mate. I know someone who’ll be glad of the info. Leave it to me, girl. You’re an anonymous tip as far as anyone else’s concerned.”

“There might not be anything there, Glenn,” I said. “It’s just that it seems likely.”

“No problem. If it’s there they’ll be pleased and if it’s not — well, you win some, you lose some. Gives the boys a chance to dress up and wave their guns about, anyway.”

“Thanks Glenn.” I was weak with relief. “I owe you… Isn’t that what they say?”

He laughed again, then coughed. “I might owe
you
if this checks out. Forget it ever happened, now. Go out and buy yourself a new hat or something.”

“It’s Sunday,” I said, tears of released anxiety in my eyes.

“Leave it to me,” he repeated. “See you in the papers. Just joking.”

I poured another quick glass of wine, then pottered around for a while before deciding to go to a movie. There was a late afternoon showing of
Twins
in town, and I went to that, partly to give myself something to do apart from brooding and partly to be out of the house if Rex rang.

The film was amusing enough and sentimental enough to let me laugh a bit and cry a bit and I came out feeling a lot better. I grabbed a hamburger on the way back to Balmain and then fell straight into bed, not checking the phone tape, and had a long dreamless sleep.

In the morning, waiting for Graham to come in, I started to play back the messages. The first was Rex: “You’ve got some explaining to do,
Mrs
Southwood.” I had a moment of terror, then realised there was no way he could be talking about the drug bust, if indeed there had been one. I turned the machine off, wrote him a cheque and went down the street to post it. I wanted to feel absolutely quit of Rex Channing. On impulse while I was out I went into the hairdresser’s in the arcade.

“Do something,” I said to Kerry. “Anything.”

When I got back home, with slightly tidier hair, and that extra bounce that going to the hairdresser’s always gives you, it was lunch time. I made myself a sandwich and then played the rest of the messages. One was from the Colonel and I cursed. We still hadn’t done anything about his phone calls. The other was Lorna: “Hi, Anna. Early Monday morning. Things are moving. Catch you later.”

I rang the
Rag
and Lorna came on sounding excited.

“The shit’s hit the fan,” she said. “It’s not in the papers yet, but apparently there was a big haul last night — heroin, coke, crack, dope — you name it. And they’re after Rex for it. Watch the afternoon editions.” She couldn’t keep the glee out of her voice.

“What…” I gulped. “What… Oh shit, start from the beginning, Lorna.”

She told me what her informant in the Drug Squad had told her: “Acting on anonymous information received,” the police had raided a disused powerhouse outside Liverpool the night before. They’d not only cleaned up millions of dollars-worth of drugs, they’d actually arrested five men who’d appeared on the scene in a truck which, when searched, was bristling with firearms.

“None of them said anything,” she said. “But one of them is definitely tied in with Tarno and Holmes. My guy’s hinting that it might have been Birkett behind the tip-off. There’ve been rumours of some major falling out between him and Rex — I’ve been following it up myself.”

“I know,” I said weakly. Shit, I thought, Glenn must be setting Birkett up. If the cops didn’t get him then Rex surely would, once the rumours reached him.

“Do you now?” Lorna sounded slightly miffed.

“Listen, Lorna, can they really pin it on Rex?”

“Dunno. If it’s actually Birkett who’s squealing then he might be able to put him in it. But I’d imagine Rex is pretty well covered, myself. Still,” she went on, “might be time to think of leaving his employ…”

“I have,” I said thankfully. “Well and truly.”

“Good. Gotta go, Anna, I’m trying to cobble together a background on it for tomorrow’s
Herald
. Some of that shit they got last night has been around before. There’ll be other cops besides Birkett running scared today.”

I put the phone down wishing Graham would arrive so that I could tell him everything and get a bit of reassurance. Then I remembered he was starting rehearsals that morning.

“We’re on our own, kid,” I said to Toby, who went on sleeping in his patch of sunlight.

Really, I thought dispiritedly, I might as well give up. No client any more, no partner, no lover, no ideas. At least I’d assisted in a bust — perhaps I could get a consultancy with the Drug Squad. Perhaps they’d give me a medal. “Perhaps I’ll just get on the next plane to Bali,” I said to myself.

But in fact I sat down at my desk and went painstakingly through all the Channing files again, then typed up the interview with Leonie and my recollections of the visit to the cemetery. I went over Carol Johnson’s interview several times but the bothersome detail still eluded me. I picked up the phone and dialled her number, trying to think of something to ask her.

“Mrs Johnson — Carol — ” I said after the usual greetings. “Did your husband work at the mobile home factory that’s next to Liverpool football field?”

“Yes,” she said, sounding puzzled. “I told you that.”

“Was he still working there when Kylie went missing?” I could feel a rising excitement as I waited for her answer, as if I was on track, finally.

“Yes.” There was defensiveness in her voice. Of course, I thought. It must have crossed her mind that her husband was a possible suspect all along. How had she managed to live with
that
?

“Carol, what was his job there?”

“Maintenance,” she said, then added reluctantly, “and night watchman.”

The excitement was growing. I tried to keep my voice offhand.

“He wasn’t working there the night Kylie went missing?”

“No.” Her voice was definitely hostile now.

“Was he at home?” I knew she’d said so to the police, but I needed to be sure.

“Yes,” she said. “Except for an hour or two at the pub.”

She hadn’t told the police that, I remembered. The strong implication had been that he’d not been out of her sight all night.

I was playing it by ear, but so far I still felt I was going in the right direction.

“Could Kylie have got to his keys?” I was looking desperately for a clue, now.

“I… don’t know.” She was thoughtful, as if she, too, was starting to see a new possibility. “I suppose so. She knew where he kept them, of course. But they weren’t missing. He would have noticed. Anyway,” she went on, “it was one of the first places the police searched.”

But what for? I wondered, with a sudden feeling that I’d hit what I was blindly aiming for. They’d have searched for a body, not necessarily signs that she’d been there.

That was all. I’d been half hoping that the sound of her voice would remind me of what nagged at me, but it was still floating just out of reach. When I’d rung off, thanking her, I needed to pace for a while, trying to make sense of where this new line of ideas was leading.

“I’m going stir-crazy,” I said, ostensibly to Toby, as I stepped over him. “Mad in the head.” I thought perhaps it was time to take Glenn’s advice of the day before. I’d go out and buy myself a hat — or my equivalent of one.

I drove up to Darling Street and spent a pleasant hour or so in Morello’s and Topaz — two of my favourite shops. I came back a fair bit poorer, but with practically all the clothes I’d need for summer. All dressed up and nowhere to go, I thought, letting myself back into the house.

I made a coffee and sat and stared at my desk. I should make a list, I thought. The things I knew, the things I suspected, the things I needed to know. I’d got as far as reaching for a piece of paper when the phone rang. It was Evan.

“Nothing much to report,” he said wearily. “She stayed inside most of the weekend. Went out once to the shops, didn’t post a letter. Hung out the washing yesterday. Took it off the line this morning. No visitors. D’you want me to stay on it? You’re paying for two of us, you know, with round-the-clock surveillance.”

“I think we could reduce it to just the daytime,” I said. “If you can manage that by yourself without dying of boredom?”

“It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got talking books on the tape machine, and a book of crossword puzzles as well. Just that I think you’re wasting your money.”

Clyde’s money, I thought. Who cares? I thought of what Rex had said. I didn’t think Leonie could be hiding Beth, but it was another loose end.

“Evan, if she goes out, do you think you could have a closer look at the house?”

“Sure. What am I looking for?”

I told him what Rex had said and the possibility that Leonie knew where Beth was.

“Okay. Intercept the mail — that sort of thing?”

I hadn’t thought that far, but Evan was more experienced at this than I was.

“Can you do that?”

“Sure. Old trick. You pretend you’re going into the house and offer to carry the letters up. Otherwise I’ll wait till the postman’s been and look through the box.”

“What if Leonie sees you?”

“Unlikely, unless she’s watching out for it. Anyway, there’s a bloody great bush hanging over the letterbox, isn’t there? Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.” He sounded more cheerful at the thought of something to do.

I didn’t think it would lead anywhere but I felt more cheerful, too, as I went back to my attempts to make a list.