He flashed Cam a smile as sweet as glass toffee and just as brittle.
“This isn’t about any kind of summons, sir,” Cam said, “if that’s what you mean. Please put your wallet away.” He paused for a moment, trying to make his voice gentle. “I’m afraid I have some bad news. Can we go into the house?” He nodded in the direction of the Home Open. “You might need to sit down.”
Toby Bell ran his fingers through his bleached curls. “I think I’ve made a bit of a faux pas haven’t I?”
“Given the circumstances, I’ll forget it.”
“OK, OK.” Bell’s hand went to the gold chain at his throat. “Bad news?” His voice faltered. He leaned back against the car. “Is it my, er, niece, Tiffany?”
“Please come with me, sir.”
Cam led the way into the house and sat Bell in the dingy living room. This was the hard part; he never got used to this side of the job. Despite his years of experience, he knew he was clumsy and inadequate when dealing with the emotional pain of others.
Cam took a step back. The man would need space. “I regret to inform you that the remains of your brother, Herbert, were found in bushland on Monday. The cause of death has not yet been ascertained.”
“Herbert? You’re talking about Herb?”
He drew his breath in and stared at Cam for a moment. From his briefcase he removed a silver hip flask. After a large gulp he let out his breath, closed his eyes and leaned back against the headrest of the sofa.
Everyone reacted differently to grief; Cam decided to give the man time to collect his thoughts.
The room in which they sat was claustrophobic and dark and smelled of old people. A faded portrait of a very young queen stared down at them next to a Highland landscape print. Souvenir mugs from English seaside resorts lined the wooden mantelpiece. Cam could just imagine the flying ducks on the wall in the kitchen and the Kookaburra stove in the corner. Though not to his taste, he liked the generic familiarity of this home; at least there were no surprises here.
Bell started at the sound of a car door slamming and voices coming closer. He sprang to his feet. “Quick, quick, you have to hide. You can’t be seen here. You’ll put them off.”
“But I still need to ask you some questions,” Cam said. He’d expected the man to at least cancel the Home Open.
“Oh, Jesus, they’re coming in.” Bell’s eyes darted around the room.“OK then. You just stand behind the door here.” He tried to manhandle Cam behind the open door of the lounge room, and said in an urgent whisper, “I’ll leave off showing them this room ’til last. When you hear us coming back into the passageway, you slip into the bedroom opposite, got me?”
Clearly a master of avoidance: court officials, ex-wives, debt-collectors, police. Cam knew the type. He removed Bell’s hands from his shoulders. “That won’t be necessary, sir.”
“Knock knock, anyone home?” said a woman in a singsong lilt.
Bell turned to Cam in a panic.
Cam said, “Just let them in. I’ll slip out by the back lane and return when they’re gone. I’ll start bringing the signs in. It’s not a good idea to continue with this Home Open thing. You might find you have a delayed reaction to the shock.”
Bell opened his mouth in protest but closed it when he caught the look on Cam’s face. He shrugged his shoulders. “Whatever.” He shot the cuffs of his black silk shirt, pasted the smile back on his face and moved towards the front door.
Toby Bell took another slug from his hip flask then offered it to Cam who shook his head.
“Of course my brother had a drinking problem you know,” Bell said.
Cam wished he hadn’t chosen to sit next to him on the three-seater. He shifted closer to its overstuffed arm. “When did you last see your brother?” he asked.
Bell stuck his feet out in front of him and leaned back. “Mum’s funeral.”
“And when was that?”
“Oh, five years ago at least. We had a bit of a falling out. I was Mum’s favourite you see. What little she had she left all to me.”
It was hard to imagine this man being anyone’s favourite. Cam wrote himself a note to ask the Toorrup money guys to check into Bell’s financial affairs.
“To be honest, Sergeant…”
Cam straightened in his seat. That phrase always activated his radar.
“He was a black sheep, an embarrassment. I didn’t even know he was still in the state. Thought he would have gone to Queensland by now,” Bell said.
“He was living in Glenroyd. He had part-time job at the school there.”
“Well, good for him,” said Bell.
“We are regarding his death as suspicious.”
“You think someone might have knocked him off, then?” With a sound like an emptying water-cooler, Bell took another slug from the hip flask.“That doesn’t surprise me,” he said. “It was probably that old bitch he lived with, unless he did her in first, which wouldn’t have surprised me either. They were about as bad as each other.”
“Do you know the name of this woman?” Cam asked.
Bell looked to the ceiling and tapped on the flask with his manicured fingernails. “Um, it was a while ago. Began with G.” He sounded the letter like a kindergarten teacher. His eyes rolled around the room for a moment then he snapped his fingers, “Gay, that’s it. I remember thinking how inappropriate it was. Unless it was the other kind of gay. Now
that
I could imagine.”
“Surname?”
“No idea.” He made a humming noise and touched his hair. His fingers bounced off his head as if the tight curls were springs. “Unless they married; but probably not. He was a professional social securities con; they got more money by staying single. They were a couple but as far as the government was concerned, they just shared a house.”
“Interesting,” Cam said, writing in his notebook.
“Oh, it gets better.”
Cam raised his eyebrows. Bell gave him a calculating look in return.“It seems to me that I’m providing you with quite a lot of useful info here,” he said. “It’s been bloody inconvenient for me to close up the house. God knows how many potential buyers could have been through by now. I might have sold the place twice over. I don’t suppose…”
“No. You don’t suppose, sir. Withholding information during a murder investigation is an offence.”
“OK, OK, don’t fart sparks over it. I’ll co-operate. What else do you need to know?”
Cam took a deep breath. “How old was your brother?”
“Well.” Bell paused and did some mental calculations. “Fifty-six or sixty-six, it depends.”
“On what?”
Bell slapped his hands on his knees and laughed. “On which birth certificate you’re looking at! He told me this scheme of his years ago, and to be honest,” – there it was again – “I thought of dobbing him in over it often enough. He’d a fake certificate you see, saying he was ten years younger than he actually was.”
Cam could see where this was going. “Had he been claiming an invalid pension?”
“Yeah, he’d been on one for years. Sore back or some such crap.”
“So he could go on receiving the invalid pension instead of the aged pension, which pays out a lot less.”
“Spot on.”
“You’ve mentioned this Gay woman. Do you know the names of any other friends or associates of your brother?”
“Never have and never want to.”
“Any other family members?”
“No, just him and me.”
“For the record sir, where were you last Saturday night?”
Bell did not seem surprised or offended by the question. “That depends,” he smiled, giving Cam the feeling that he was in fact quite keen to divulge his whereabouts.
Jesus, here we go again.“Depends on what?” Cam asked.
“On who you ask.”
“Your niece?”
Bell drew an hourglass shape in the air with his hands and winked. “You’re a quick one, Sarge, I’ll give you that. OK, I’ll cough up. Tiffany and I went out to dinner, then I went back to her place. I didn’t get home till late Sunday afternoon. My wife thinks I was in Albany. Now I hope I can count on your discretion here.” He tapped the side of his nose. “You really don’t need to write it down in your little book.” He shifted a buttock and reached for his wallet, freezing when he saw the look on Cam’s face. His voice smarted with hurt.“My card, Sergeant, I want to give you my card.” He extracted a crumpled card and held it out. Cam took it as if it was smeared with something foul.
“I don’t suppose you’re in the market for a house, are you?” Toby Bell said.
10
The sun stabbed at Cecelia’s eyes as she stepped away from the school’s cool front entrance. She stopped for a moment, thinking that what she saw had to be an illusion caused by the glare. She put down her heavy book basket and rummaged in her bag for her sunglasses. But this was no trick of light. Her car door was clearly open and someone was leaning into it from the driver’s side.
Some bastard was trying to steal her car!
She looked around. The school was deserted. Hers was the only car in the car park. There was no one she could call for help.
Without a second thought she ran down the path and vaulted the small wrought iron fence that bordered the ornamental front garden. She wouldn’t warn him with a shout, she wanted to catch the creep red-handed.
But the thief must have heard her footsteps. He pulled his head from the car, looked at her and swore. It was then Cecelia realised he was a girl.
There was a pushbike leaning against the side of the car. The girl sprang on to it and took off. But in her panic to get away she skidded and the bike slid from under her.
Cecelia watched with a strange mixture of delight and horror as the girl shot several feet across the gravel before coming to a whimpering halt.
Cecelia wasted no time. “Serves you right,” she said, as she clamped her hand around the girl’s wrist and pulled her to her feet.
“Get off me.” The girl tried feebly to yank herself free. “Child abuse, child abuse!” she screamed to the deserted car park.
Cecelia gripped her wrist harder, ignoring the blood dripping from the girl’s elbow on to the ground.
“There’s no one to hear you; scream all you like. I’ll let go when you’ve told me what you were doing in my car.”
“That’s none of your fucking business you cock-sucking – ouch!”
Cecelia took a deep breath to calm herself.“I suppose I’d better just call the police and get this over with.” She moved to extract her phone from her pocket.
But the word police was like water to flame. “No police, please.” The girl’s aggressive tone vanished, replaced by one of rising panic. Her free hand began to twist at the hem of her top.
Cecelia regarded her coolly. The girl seemed intelligent enough to realise that aggression and bad language would get her nowhere. “Please let go of my arm, it hurts,” she said.
Strange, the accent was more polished than Cecelia had expected. The girl’s long tanned legs disappeared into a pair of skimpy designer shorts; her top was white and lacy with spaghetti straps. She turned her head away from Cecelia’s scrutinising stare.
“I’ll let go of your arm when you tell me what you were doing,” Cecelia said. “You wanted the car for joy riding, I suppose?”
The girl looked over her thin shoulder to the flower power 1978 VW. Its surface topography of hills and valleys could have kept a mapmaker busy for a month. Baling twine kept the front bumper attached to the body, and the upholstery on the back seat was ripped down to the springs. Even the dreamcatcher dangling from the rear view mirror looked more like a piece of dead bird than any kind of esoteric charm. It was interesting, Cecelia reflected, to view one’s own precious possessions through a stranger’s eyes.
A ghost of a smile raised the side of the girl’s painted lips, as if she too could see the absurdity of the accusation. As some of the tension eased, Cecelia loosened her grip, keeping her hand close, ready to clamp down again should there be a sudden bolt for freedom.
“I was just looking for… stuff,” the girl said, now with more embarrassment than bravado.
“It’s hardly a rich person’s car. Oh, I see. You saw an old bomb covered in psychedelic flowers, and you put two and two together. Well, young lady, you’ve failed your maths but I hope you have learned a good lesson in life. Appearances are often deceiving. Am I making myself clear?”
The girl looked down at her feet.
“I’ve never seen you before. Do you live around here?”
The girl nodded, watching the blood from her grazed knee trickle down her leg and ooze between her toes.
“I’ll give you a lift home. You’d better get those cuts attended to.” Cecelia moved to the damaged bike, wondering how she was going to fit it into her car. When she pulled the battered bike upright there was a distinct tinkling of glass. Her disappointment escaped with a sigh when she saw what had caused it: the photo of an eagle she’d had framed for her mother’s birthday, smashed on the ground. She took a breath, stooped to pick it up and prised at the broken glass to assess the damage.
“I’m sorry about the picture,” the girl said.
Puzzled by the sudden sincerity, Cecelia noted the care the girl used to take the broken picture from her hand. She chewed at her bottom lip as she looked at it. “It really just needs framing again,” she said.
There was something almost wistful about the way she looked at the photograph, Cecelia thought, as if the image of the wedge-tailed eagle had transposed her to another place, another time.
“What’s your name?” Cecelia asked softly.
The girl traced the outline of the eagle with her finger and shook her head, as if trying to shake away the fog of a dream. She raised her eyes to Cecelia. They were electric, like the blue of spring wildflowers. “Ruby.”
“Why did you want to take the picture, Ruby?” Cecelia was careful to keep an accusatory tone from her voice.
After a moment the girl said, “I don’t know really, I just liked it. The way the light shines on its feathers, the arrogant look in its eye – it’s beautiful. It’s free. Did you take it?”
“Yes.”
“How?” she whispered, as if trying not to startle the bird to flight.
“It’s not as clever as it looks, I’m afraid,” Cecelia said. “The bird was in a cage at the wildlife sanctuary. I scanned the original photo into my computer and erased the bars of the cage.” She gave a small laugh. “See? Things are not always as they seem.”