After Ariel: It started as a game (29 page)

Sighing, I prepared for a shower, thinking of all the things I had to do today, before concentrating on the one highlight in my life – Anthony Hamilton. A thrill shot through me as I remembered his visit the night before. My mouth curved into a smile. Then I remembered that I was supposed to go out with Bill that night. Leaving a message on his mobile saying that I couldn’t make it left me feeling slightly guilty, but what the heck? Men broke dates all the time.

I’ve always enjoyed really hot showers – Jess used to complain it took hours for the towels to dry after I’d had a shower – so I turned the tap on further, relishing the heat on my muscles, allowing it to spray gently on the stitches.

Already I felt physically better, but as I got out, dried myself and dressed, reality set in. No Goldie to share my excitement with. In the past three years, I’d giggled along with her and Ally over various blokes, speculating whether they were likely to call and, when I was much younger, hanging around the house with Ally and Jess longing for the phone to ring, always careful to keep our mobiles with us – just in case.  The times when we’d had too many drinks and we’d wept together about how lonely we were, how much we wanted to find someone to love and who would love us unconditionally and how that would never happen again.

It was incomprehensible that only this time last week, Goldie was yet to meet me at the air train and looking forward to the future. Maybe someone important had arrived in my life and Goldie was going to miss everything. If Anthony and I – ended up together –
cool it Pam, for God’s sake. You barely know him.
Okay, so I was allowed to be excited. Just a little bit, right? The number of times I’ve met “someone” and been bitterly disappointed couldn’t dim my spirits. I was fed up with kissing frogs and hoping this one would be the prince.

Generally, I’m pretty happy with my life, quite content, practicing my music, reading or going out with girlfriends, but like most women, I want to love and be loved and of course, have children. Time is slipping by. Almost twenty-nine, though not over the hill by any means, soon becomes thirty, then thirty one. You always think there’s plenty of times to do all the things you want, but now that I’m in my late twenties, I realise what older people mean when they say time goes so fast. Now, having met Anthony Hamilton...
careful,
Pam. Better to expect nothing and if something comes of it, then that’s a bonus. Guilt reared. How could I even
think
of being so happy when my cousin was dead? And in the worst possible way.

I wanted so badly to see my mum. John phoned me early to say that she was doing well and longing to have me visit her in hospital. ‘She can’t talk for too long, Pam, but she’s desperate to see you.’

Morning rituals were rushed through, the dressing on my head changed – oh, to be free of it – panadol scoffed down and then the crucial part of my day...what to wear.

Travelling a lot means I don’t have many clothes. Jeans, t-shirts, slacks, sweaters, a coat or two, ballet flats and joggers are all I require of my everyday wardrobe and not many people get to see me in the same things. That did not include my performance gear, which comprised three gowns – the inevitable black, the navy blue and a turquoise cocktail frock, all long enough to hide the ballet flats!

Remembering the new gorgeous golden dress and shoes I’d worn Saturday night reminded me that it would have to be dry-cleaned before the next concert. Well, since my next one was Saturday, perhaps it might be okay to wear it once more.

I struggled into my best pair of jeans, a crisp white shirt and denim jacket, tied a jaunty scarf around my throat and, leaving a mussed fringe to hide the dressing on my temple, hooked my hair back with jewelled combs. A pair of suede boots and a dash of makeup and I was ready to face the world. It was only 8.30am, so I figured to do the statement and dry cleaner first and then head for the hospital. I galloped back down the stairs. I had to put in some
more
practice that day no matter what.

Something sprang to mind. I had nothing suitable to wear to Goldie’s funeral.
Pam, if you wore black to my funeral I’d come back and haunt you!
Goldie’s half-serious words, spoken after she’d been wounded sprang into my mind. Wondering if the shop where young Tia worked would have something suitable, I made a mental note to call in later.

Just as I was about to leave, the phone rang.

‘Pam?’

Lance MacPherson had never phoned me before. Curious, I stayed silent waiting for him to state his business.

‘How are you feeling? I heard you copped a whack on the head at Roma Street Parklands on Sunday?’

How had he known that?
So far the media hadn’t discovered the attack, probably because there were two far more exciting things to report. I bet Ally or Brie told him.

‘I’m fine, Lance. I have a few stitches, but nothing that won’t be healed in a few days.’ I fingered the new dressing carefully, feeling the drying stitches through the fabric. ‘I’ll be able to do Ipswich,’ I added, referring to my next concert.

‘Good girl! Superb concert on Saturday. You were terrific but I told you that, didn’t I?’ Oh yes, he’d kissed my hand and grandstanded along in fine form, just like his elegant father, Sir James.

‘Listen, a group of us are going to a late lunch at Silver’s in West End. Would you like to join us? I know it’s a bit soon after...you know...but it might cheer you up.’

An invitation?
What does he want? Gossip?
‘It just so happens that I need to do some shopping so yes, I’d like to come. Who’s going to be there?

‘Bill Seymour, Charlie Wilkins, Joy Martin...probably the Impaler if I can rake him out of whoever’s bed he’s currently in.’ He went on to name several more musicians whom I knew well and a few I didn’t.

‘Okay, thank you. What time?

‘Around 1.30 or thereabouts. I’ll book a table. It’s a sort of a welcome to the new percussionist, Craig someone or other.’ Typical conductor, didn’t know the name of a new musician. He couldn’t have that much going on in his handsome head.
In fact, I doubt there’s much beyond music and women in there at the best of times.

That would also give me time to go to the West End police station and make a formal statement about my attack and the man watching me from the street. After that I’d go to the hospital and then call at Goldie’s solicitor’s office. I’d thought to see Mum in the afternoon, but John had asked me to come in the morning. ‘She’ll be stuffed by the afternoon. All the carry-on in the morning with the doctors and medicines. She’ll probably sleep after lunch.’

I finished up my breakfast, gathered up my bag and coat, and trotted out the door making sure before I did so that the windows, particularly the ones to my balcony, were locked. The thought that Anthony Hamilton might ring me, or that I might actually see him some time that day, sent a warm thrill through me.
Thank God it didn’t go any further...well, it might have been nice.

I pulled up outside the station, grabbed my bag and headed inside. It didn’t take long to get the statements organised and I was on my way again to the hospital to see mum. John met me when I got out of the lift and warned me that she was festooned with machinery, but quite bright under the circumstances.

It really hurt to see my mother with tubes sticking out of her throat and great swathes of metal clips in her neck confirming that her throat had, literally, been cut. Her eyes were quite bright, but owing to the patch of flesh taken from her arm and sewn into her mouth, her voice was muffled and weak. John kept dipping massive cotton buds into a glass of water and gently wetting her dry lips.

‘Mum! You look great,’ I assured her, as I sat in the chair which John pulled up for me.

‘Huh, that’s a laugh, Darling,’ she said slowly, the side of her mouth angling up in a wry smile. She looked worried when she noticed the dressing on my stitches, but happy to accept my reassurances that it was almost healed.

John and I did most of the talking about the events of the last few days but we tried not to go into too much detail. ‘Have you heard from Fiona?’

‘She left a message at the desk. They said she’d be up in the next day or two, but Ros asked me to ring and tell her not to worry. She’s got too much on her plate right now.’

We were silent for a moment, thinking of the terrible arrangements Fiona and Alex would have to make over the next week. I knew that Goldie’s body still hadn’t been released from the government mortuary. We steered the conversation to Fudge and the other animals at Emsberg, but before long, mum started to show the signs of exhaustion.

‘I’ll leave you to rest now, but I’ll be back tomorrow, Mum. Don’t worry, everything will work out in the end.’

John followed me out of the ward. ‘Any change from Alex yet?’ he asked, his tone revealing just how he felt about his brother-in-law’s attitude.

‘No, and I haven’t been near them for the last day or so. They came around to look at Goldie’s house to see what was missing, I believe, but I wasn’t there.’

‘Good. Stay away from them. I guess you’ll have to go to the funeral, but Ros won’t. I’ll ask Daniella Winslow to stay with her and come myself.’

‘That’ll be good. We can support each other. I’ll have to be at the wake, so please try and come to that too?’ I needed my big, comforting stepfather by my side. Even though he’s retired from the police force, being with him felt like having a personal bodyguard.

CHAPTER 30

Past Mistakes

Dingo

Tuesday, 8.30AM

He was going to have lunch with Pamela Miller! Well, with her and a group of the musical fraternity, but that didn’t count. Would she have the camera with her? She’d appeared to like – even fancy him – when they first met, but did she still? The police hadn’t come to interview him over the attack in the parklands, so she can’t have realised who had hit her. He hadn’t wanted to. He liked the woman. Under other circumstances...Having had an awful night’s sleep, in spite of rubbing his lower back and shoulder with liniment, he lay on the bed and tried to relax.

Nineeightsevensixfivefourthreetwoone...
exhaustion overcame him and he drifted back into a deep sleep. His last thought was that he really should go to his own unit in Kangaroo Point, but living in the hotel made him feel safe, as though he was keeping tabs on Pamela and the cops.

*

Frances’ funeral was held on a cold and misty morning. The wind got up before ten o’clock and by 10.30 – the witching hour – it howled off the hillside and swept up to the mountains nearly taking Dingo and the family solicitor with it. Dingo felt so relieved when her casket was lowered into the grave that he had to stifle a wide grin.
At last he was free!

His mother had died in her sleep of a heart attack, and her son thought, no doubt undiagnosed cirrhosis of the liver. Dingo had already applied for entrance into the Conservatorium of Music. After acing his audition, he couldn’t wait to sell the house.

It wasn’t long before he’d set himself up in a lavish unit in Brisbane, so it was with tremendous optimism that he started his studies. Practising for hours, sessions with tutors – every aspect of his experiences filled him with joy. No longer did he have to sneak out at night. He could and did, invite girls home. His good looks, height and physique, supplemented by his mother’s training in manners (lightning reflexes with a wooden spoon) ensured he was comfortable in every class of society.  Invitations to wild parties and willing women came at him from all sides and he reciprocated. Comfortable in the night – so long his saviour from madness – he relished the darkness. His reputation grew as a musician, lover and wild man.

But then, strangely, the loss of his mother began to bite. So long under her control he  hyperventilated at the worst possible moments – in music sessions, while accompanied by an orchestra and once almost whilst giving a recital.

Dingo had lost his nerve and before he knew it, his career was in jeopardy.  Realising that his life was spiralling out of control, he crept back into that dark place which he had inhabited nearly since the baby died. Unaware of it at first, he’d started counting again until a measure of control grew and his studies got back on track...

Dingo, do my back for me? He picked up the bar of goat’s milk soap and ran his hands over her back to her waist, around her front and up to her breast, kneading, stroking. She leaned back into his torso, reaching behind her to slide her hand around his penis. ‘Turn around, Ariel, so I can get at you...’

She turned and – Marigold! No, no! You’re dead! I killed you!

Had he been screaming? His heart felt as though it was going to pound out of his chest. No footsteps raced along the passageway outside his room. No shouts or banging on the door. He flopped back onto the bed, too exhausted to pull the sweaty sheet from beneath his sore back. A feeble kick dislodged the top bedclothes.

The darkness in the room prevented him from judging the time. Had he missed the lunch date? He rolled over carefully and reached for his watch on the bedside table.12.25pm. No, plenty of time to shower, dress and get down to Silvers. Even be a little late. That would show he was cool and hide the panic which tightened his chest and twisted his gut into knots.

He couldn’t wait to get near Pam and maybe, just maybe, discover where she kept the camera, the one thing that could link him to both
accidents
. He lay on his back and carefully counted the squares in the pattern in the ceiling. His career, the one thing he prized above his comfortable, successful life could all be over.

Everything had gone downhill after Ariel.

CHAPTER 31

The Good, the Bad and the Very Ugly

Pam