Eden (16 page)

Fourteen

Gail rang as I was washing up my breakfast dishes.

‘I called round to Ken Dollimore's office,' she told me. ‘He wouldn't let me in the door.'

‘Maybe he's sick of reporters.'

‘Bullshit. Publicity's his meat and drink. I went to see his neighbours, asked if anyone saw him on the fourth of January.'

‘I don't—' I began, but Gail went on impatiently. She hated being interrupted. ‘His neighbours on one side were away. I've checked back with them since. But the other side
was
home—a couple with two kids. They had a wading pool set up and their kids spent the afternoon in—'

‘I don't think—'

‘What's with you, Sandra? I'm doing you a favour here. Plus, someone told silver hair I've been up and down the street and now he won't talk to me.'

‘But—'

‘Here's the interesting bit. These neighbours were surprised at me asking if they'd seen Dollimore that afternoon, because they were expecting him to be in Melbourne. He'd told them he'd be away till the ninth.'

‘I've got his statement. Brook brought it round last night.'

‘Why didn't you say so?'

‘If you'd let me get a word in.'

‘I'm coming over,' Gail said.

‘I'm not supposed to show it to anyone.'

‘Tough,' she said. ‘You owe me.'

. . .

Ken Dollimore's statement began with the early evening of January 3. I read it through again, looking over Gail's shoulder.

Dollimore had been staying with his daughter in Melbourne, and Carmichael had rung at about ten o'clock that night. He described the phone call as alarming. Carmichael had been drunk and emotional, and had said that he'd promised to help a friend, but realised he wasn't going to be able to keep his promise. Dollimore had asked what the promise was, but Carmichael had digressed, and begun carrying on about this girl he'd had sex with at
Margot's
, not the one he usually saw. When Dollimore had tried to get the details, he'd said the girl was dead, then suddenly changed tack and complained that she'd got him to tell tales. Dollimore had tried to find out what these were, without success.

. . .

I told him to go to bed and sleep it off. Whatever it was, he shouldn't try to do anything that night. But my advice only made him worse. He kept repeating that he'd made a promise, but wouldn't tell me who to, or what the promise was. He was crying with self-pity and remorse. I said I'd phone him in the morning. I rang his flat about eight, hoping he'd done what I said. There was no answer. Of course, he could have been there, sleeping through the phone. That's what I hoped, but I rang his office anyway, though I knew it was too early. All I got was a machine. When I rang his flat back, and still couldn't rouse him, I felt worried. I changed my flight and returned to Canberra. My flight got in just before one. I dropped my luggage, then drove round to Ed's. He wasn't home, or wasn't answering the door. I tried calling out, then I checked the garage and found his car was gone. I drove over to the Assembly. The office was locked. I rang the number and got a machine again. The building was practically empty, but the security guard told me Ed had been in that morning, and so had Laura Scott. I walked around the block, checking out the coffee lounges, then decided to ring the club. That Madam answered. She said she hadn't seen or heard from Ed since before Christmas. I drove by, just in case, but Ed's car wasn't there. I tried some bars. I felt sure he'd be drinking somewhere, but I kept on ringing his flat in case he'd gone back there. I began to feel tired and hungry, so I went home, had a bite to eat, a shower, then drove back to Ed's. That's when I saw the police cars and found out he was dead.

‘Where do you think he was between lunchtime and four in the afternoon?' Gail asked.

‘Drinking somewhere, like Dollimore said.'

I showed Gail the post-mortem, then indicated the statement.

‘Keep reading. The most interesting bit is at the end.'

I wish to add certain facts which I believe have a bearing on the present case. There was an earlier death implicating the Madam at the club my deceased friend was so unfortunately involved with. I believe the police should know about it. Ed told me the story one night when he'd been drinking, but he regretted it afterwards, saying he'd broken a confidence, and I could never get him to talk about it again. Now my friend has also died in suspicious ­circumstances.

I kept on reading over Gail's shoulder, though most of the statement had lodged itself in my memory.

Ed made me promise not to speak to anyone, and I've honoured that promise to the present day. He said that Madam was ashamed and wished never to be reminded of the episode. She was young and inexperienced. It happened in Sydney, at the house of ill repute where he first met her. Even though the coroner exonerated her, concluding, beyond reasonable doubt, that the man had died of heart failure, she claimed she'd been treated as though she was guilty of murder.

I feel it incumbent upon me, now my friend is dead, to alert the police to this earlier crime. It occurred in Darlinghurst, in a building that has since been demolished. The date was March 13, 1973. I applied for a copy of the coroner's report, but unfortunately my application was denied. The victim's name was John Penshurst. Madam disappeared after the inquiry was over, or Ed believed she disappeared. He spent years looking for her.

‘Nineteen seventy-three,' Gail said thoughtfully. ‘The Sydney papers would have covered it, maybe ours as well.' She looked at her watch. ‘I'd better go. I'm already late for work.'

. . .

I rang Margot. ‘What did Ken Dollimore want when he phoned you on January four?'

There was a silence, then Margot said flatly, ‘He was looking for Ed.'

‘What did you tell him?'

‘I didn't know where Ed was. I hadn't heard from him since before Christmas.'

‘What time did he ring?'

‘About two-thirty.'

‘But he rang back after that, didn't he?'

‘No, he—'

‘He rang to talk to you about John Penshurst.'

‘How do you know about that?'

‘What did Dollimore say?'

‘The coroner found that I was
not
to blame,' said Margot fiercely. ‘It was almost thirty years ago. I shouldn't have to put up with having false accusations dragged up and thrown in my face.'

. . .

Next I phoned Ken Dollimore at the Assembly.

‘You don't believe the police are as tough on Margot Lancaster as they ought to be,' I said.

I could feel Dollimore's alert attention on the other end.

‘You took it upon yourself to remind Margot about John Penshurst. You remember John Penshurst? He died of a heart attack too, according to the coroner.'

There was a tense silence, then Dollimore said, ‘That woman killed him, just like she killed Ed.'

‘How?'

‘She trapped him, then she killed him. Ed was a fool when it came to women.'

‘How did Margot trap him?'

‘She drove him to the brink. Plenty of men our age have heart problems. They adjust, learn to live with them. Diet, exercise, a change of lifestyle.'

‘Is that all?'

‘I don't know how you found out about Penshurst, but you obviously did. I don't know all the details. I wrote to the coroner requesting a copy of the report, but I was refused. Ed told me about it one time when again, I have to admit, he'd had too much to drink. He made me promise to keep it to myself, and I kept my word until he died. That woman got away with murder once, and she's about to do so again. It's her secret, or she thinks it ought to be. She doesn't want any of it made public, and she'll go a long way to prevent that happening. It was the reason Ed lost contact with her. He blamed himself for not being there when she needed him. She changed her name. He spent months looking for her. In England. All over the place. And what did he get for his pains? To end up the same way. Dead of heart failure in a house of sin.'

‘Do you think Margot might have confessed to Carmichael details that weren't publicly known?'

‘Confession's not her style. She knew how to make Ed feel guilty, make sure he stayed on her side. Whatever he did, he did because she forced him to.'

‘How?'

‘What about that photograph in
The Canberra Times
? Maybe she took others. It would be just like her. If Ed came across information that wasn't publicly known, it wouldn't have made him suspicious, or put him on his guard. He felt sorry for her. He blamed himself for the life she
chose
to live. I can't tell you what she did to other men, what she had them doing. I can guess though, and it makes me sick.'

‘Did Carmichael keep documents relating to Penshurst's death? Newspaper clippings? Letters perhaps?'

‘If he did, he never showed them to me. He was hopeless.' Dollimore's voice cracked. ‘He was a silly old goat. A
fool
of a man.'

‘Was he being blackmailed?'

‘That's what I'm trying to find out.'

I noted down our conversation while it was fresh in my mind, then checked my mail. Lucy's reply to my last message was short and to the point. The committee would give me one more week.

. . .

I phoned Brook, who wasn't all that impressed by the Penshurst story.

‘Not much in it, I don't think.'

‘What? Ken Dollimore made it up?'

‘Oh no, the guy definitely died. Pretty clear it wasn't anybody's fault, that's all.'

I asked Brook whether he thought Carmichael might have been being blackmailed.

‘Blackmail victims kill their tormentors,' he told me. ‘Not the other way around.'

‘Carmichael freaked out. He became a danger.'

Brook made noncommittal noises.

. . .

I asked the NSW Coronial Office to send me an application form for the coronial report on John Penshurst's death, then tracked down Laura Scott at home. When I asked her how she was, she gave me an update on the hate mail.

‘Do you think Ed Carmichael was being blackmailed?' I asked.

‘What?'

I repeated the word, though I was sure Laura had heard me perfectly.

‘What for?'

‘I was wondering if you had any ideas about that.'

‘Ed didn't have a lot of money. I believe his only asset was his flat.'

‘Did you and Ken Dollimore discuss the possibility?'

‘Not in so many words. I told you Ken doesn't have a very high opinion of me. We never talked again like that night in the carpark. He saw himself as saving Ed, and I—well, I think he saw me as pretty useless and—'

‘Yes?'

‘Ed wasn't the type to be intimidated.'

‘Could the blackmail have involved a threat to someone else?'

‘I suppose so. But who?'

I asked Laura to get in touch with me if she thought of anyone.

I stared out the window, her last question echoing off my back fence, curling round my empty clothes line. I heard a sound and looked round, for one forgetful moment expecting Pete or Katya. No one was there.

The mystery of the wig box niggled at me, the way small mysteries surrounded by large ones do. There were too many threads that I didn't have the resources, or the authority to follow. If the coroner's verdict went as predicted, concluding that Carmichael had died of a heart attack, my questions would become irrelevant. To discover what had happened to a cardboard box ought surely to be within my grasp.

That night, I went through my notes, made summaries, and began a report for Lucy. I was short on proof, but hoped to have more by the end of the week.

Fifteen

I dreamt of Jenny Bishop being chased away from a cafe by Ken Dollimore, woke up knowing Rose had more to tell me, packed an overnight bag, arranged with my neighbour to feed Fred again, and made a detour to the highway via Mitchell.

Margot Lancaster was sitting in her car outside the club. I pulled up and wound down my window.

Margot stared at me. There was sweat along her upper lip and hairline. Grey was showing through the black, pronounced in the carpark's bald surroundings. She'd lost her appearance of being expertly put together, and looked as though she needed to lie down for a long time in a cool, dark place.

‘What happened to the wig box?' I asked.

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘I think you do.'

Margot switched on the ignition, turned quickly and efficiently, and drove away, early light bouncing off the duco of her well-maintained black Nissan.

. . .

I made my way to the cafe in Glebe Point Road, hoping the same waitress would be there.

She was, but disappeared through swing doors behind the counter the moment she spotted me. I ran after her. By the time I got to the back door, she was halfway down an alley. It was as well for me that she was wearing high black platforms. I caught up and grabbed her by the arm. I was panting, but what I had to say was simple.

‘Who was Rose running away from?'

‘Ow, you're hurting me. Let go!'

‘What's his name? Where can I find him?'

‘How should I know?'

‘Did he know Jenny Bishop too?'

‘Let me go! Get
away
from me!'

The waitress yanked her arm free and ran back in the direction of the cafe.

I bought a felafel roll and a bottle of water at a Lebanese takeaway and sat down at a white plastic table on the footpath. My hands were shaking and I felt far too hot. I shouldn't have taken my frustration out on the waitress. That had been dumb. I hadn't realised how tense and anxious I'd been, but that was no excuse. Any hope I'd had of getting useful information out of her was gone.

. . .

I left my car parked where it was, and approached the Wigram Road house by a series of back streets.

From the nearest corner, where I stood indecisively, I watched a car accelerating up the hill with Ian in the driver's seat. Beside him was a dark-haired young woman whom I took to be Francesca.

It was broad daylight, but that couldn't be helped. I'd just have to hope their neighbours were at work, or away on holiday.

I could have broken the lock on the back gate, but climbed the fence instead. The kitchen door and windows were securely fastened. I didn't want to force an entry. I tried the shed. That was padlocked too. But the bathroom window that I'd noticed on my first visit was slightly open, and the fly screen had not been mended or replaced.

I struggled up the pipe, thinking that if an athletic dunce like me could manage it, then anybody could.

I landed in the basin with a great deal less elegance than I would have liked, and wiped away my footprints with a wad of tissues. With no idea how much time I had, I gave Jenny's room a quick once-over. Nothing appeared to have changed. I went in search of Ian's computer, which was in the room he'd described as a study. I switched it on, and began checking emails.

There were hundreds of them, and none appeared to have anything to do with Jenny.

Thinking I heard someone at the front door, I ran to the top of the stairs and stood listening for a moment, but the door stayed firmly closed.

Ian used an old version of Outlook Express for his mail, and he hadn't bothered with a password. I was almost at the end before I found two that looked as though they could have been for Jenny. The first seemed to be offering its recipient some kind of explanation. ‘
We were just having a drink together
', it began. ‘
We didn't even know he drank there. We met up by accident. Nothing to get your knickers in a twist over
'. The message did not begin with a salutation, nor was the sender's name included. But I knew the sender's address. I'd seen it on Simon Lawrence's website. It was Stan Walewicz.

The second was very simple. ‘
I warned you to stay out of it
', was all it said.

Both emails were replies, dated December 19th and 21st. The originals had not been saved, or not on Ian's computer. I quickly printed them, using paper I'd brought with me.

Getting down the pipe was easier than climbing up it, though I scraped my hands and landed with a bump.

I was returning the way I'd come, along the back alley behind the houses, when I heard a click and a rumbling sound behind me. I swung round. A young man was wheeling a rubbish bin. It caught on a stone and he wriggled it, then looked up at me curiously.

. . .

I checked in to my favourite hotel, grabbed a bite to eat, then drove to Sans Souci.

Seven-five-sevens dived for land across Botany Bay. La Grande Parade was thick with traffic. The brothel's street was less busy than the main ones, but still parked out. I left my car behind a bottle shop on the main street, then walked back and stood opposite the house like last time, watching to see who went in and out. Curious about a back entrance, I found a laneway connected to the row of houses. Each had a high fence and a solid gate.

I returned to the street, where I was less conspicuous, and rang the brothel's number. A recorded voice told me they were open from four every afternoon till late, and that there were six lovely ladies waiting to satisfy my every wish.

A man dressed in a dark suit and lemon-coloured shirt came out the front door. He crossed the street, got into a Holden Commodore, and drove towards the sea. I noted down the registration number, just for something to do. A second man followed him a few minutes later. He was younger, wearing jeans, a T-shirt, running shoes. He turned right at the gate, away from me. I watched him till he turned a corner. Other pedestrians were minding their own business. I thought it better not to hang around there any longer.

The sun was starting to going down. I stood looking out over the sea for a few minutes, then back towards the Novotel, which, with all its lights on, resembled a huge berthed ship. The ground floor bar was full of people. Loudspeakers sent
Savage Garden
's latest hit out across the esplanade.

Drinkers were standing three deep at the bar. A young bartender with lip rings had his work cut out. The front of the bar was brightly lit, but the corners of the room were dim.

Rose was sitting at a small round table by herself, facing the room with her back to the wall.

I walked across and said hello.

Rose looked up at me and frowned.

‘Have you found out who was following you?' I asked.

She shook her head.

From the corner of my eye, I saw the barman lift his chin in my direction.

‘I can't talk here,' Rose said. ‘There's too many people who know me.'

‘Right. I'll leave you to it then.'

I crossed the road to the esplanade. Lights every twenty metres or so broke up the darkening walkway.

Rose had looked pale and scared. There'd been no impression of resilience or elasticity about her. I wondered if she'd been waiting for someone. I'd made another mistake by going up to her. I should have bought a drink, sat in a corner, and watched. I wasn't thinking straight.

I walked to the edge of the esplanade, breathing in salt air and the strong smell of seaweed.

A tall man in dark clothes ran out of some bushes at me, with a peculiar, bouncing gait.

I turned and sprinted back the way I'd come, luckily catching a break in the traffic on La Grande Parade. Once in my car, I accelerated as fast as I dared to, heading straight for my hotel.

I parked at the back of the building, and climbed the stairs to my room two at a time. Footsteps echoed on the concrete walk outside. I grabbed my overnight bag, pleased I hadn't bothered to unpack. The glass doors leading to my first-floor balcony were fastened with a simple catch. A black iron railing ran around the balcony at knee level. I balanced on top of the railing and aimed for the centre of a small patch of lawn, trying to remember not to lock my knees.

Leaves and damp grass rose to meet me. I felt my shoulder crunch as I rolled. Shadows took the shapes of young men in need of a shave. Fear entered through the gap between a car door and its frame.

Out in the traffic, heading south-west, I checked my rear-view mirror every few seconds. The man could have followed me and be sitting two or three cars behind. Once on the highway, if he stuck with me, he'd have a range of options. Would he be on his own?

I continued on through Liverpool to the highway. Nothing happened. Slowly, I began to relax. Near the Berrima turn-off, I stopped at a service station, not having a choice, since my tank was empty. There were three other customers in the cafeteria section, a couple and a single, grey-haired man. I chose a seat facing the entrance, ate a sandwich and gulped down two cups of strong tea. No one else came in.

My spirits lifted, and I settled into a pleasant feeling brought on by a full stomach topped with caffeine. I was more than halfway home. I began to enjoy the black and purple of the surrounding bush, when there were no cars coming the other way, no lights to block it out.

I crested a long hill, dipped slightly, climbed again. Headlights expanded from points of light, to beams, to arcs, before the driver dimmed them, and I dimmed mine as well. I counted the gaps in time between passing cars. One minute, three. I got up to seven.

Suddenly, from nowhere, there was a car right behind me.

We were on a divided, two-lane stretch with concrete barriers on either side. Lights on high beam filled my whole car, flashing off my mirrors, blinding me. I accelerated, so did the driver on my tail, trying to push me into the concrete barrier. I tasted blood, and knew my teeth had bitten through my lip. I was going to hit the concrete, but then I realised that, somehow, I hadn't. I was rushing alongside, closer than a lover's breath.

I tried to read his rego number in the rear-view mirror, and cursed myself for not being able to. My speedo was on 220. I could not go any faster. I forced myself to move my hands a fraction.

Three cars in quick succession loomed up on the opposite side, further blinding and disorienting me. I thought of police, and as quickly grasped that it couldn't be. The third seemed to swerve, as though beginning to cross the median strip that divided my lane from his, but it must have been a trick of the lights because all three cars passed, and disappeared.

My pursuer's lights had fallen back a little. I didn't slacken my pace, and a few moments later I had the lane to myself.

I slowly released the pressure of my foot on the accelerator, and thought about what to do. I wondered if I should detour off the highway into Goulburn, find a police station. But I had no idea if the officer on duty would be sympathetic, or even believe me.

I decided to keep going. On the last stretch of the Federal Highway, I fancied I saw a pre-dawn inkling ahead—though it would not be dawn for hours yet—that look of surprise across flat paddocks that here was yet another day.

. . .

Brook responded to my furious knocking, and I half fell through his door.

My mouth wouldn't work. I tasted blood again. I had too many teeth. I thought of my mobile sitting on the car seat, all the times I could have rung him from the highway. I'd been scared to—scared he wouldn't be at home, or that Sophie would pick up the phone.

Brook brought me tea so full of sugar it was almost tart. I gulped it down. He undressed me and put me to bed.

When I woke a few hours later, he was calm, professional. I responded to his manner, watching myself doing so. I looked down at my body, the lines where my swimsuit ended in the unforgiving light. Brook opened the curtains, those thick, invalid curtains Sophie had made for him after his bone-marrow transplant. He plumped up the pillows, brought more tea and toast. I thanked him, waiting for my pulse to slow, body to settle, knowing that it wouldn't. He had told me once, when I'd asked him why he wanted to keep on working, that it was a private test. He'd said this with a dry smile, making light of the challenge.

We met each other's eyes, and I understood that he was not going to reprimand me. If I wanted to, I could recall other reprimands and fit them in, slots in a venetian blind.

Brook sat down beside me. I squeezed his hand, and he returned the pressure. My fingers ached to trace the line from collar bone to shoulder. I thought a grasp at life could be exactly that, knuckle and hunch of muscle—the promise, the capacity, then the falling back.

I wasn't ready to return to my empty house, listen to it creaking as the new day's heat began. My lip, where I'd bitten it, was sore and swollen. Brook brought me some cream to put on it. I asked him if I could stay for a few more hours. He left me, and I fell asleep again, thinking of Jenny Bishop, and the shadow Ed Carmichael had inhabited, in his blue dress and lopsided halo.

. . .

Brook filled his bedroom doorway like some hero from a TV Western, turning away from the hot noon outside. Groggy, hauling myself out of a dream, I imagined a saloon bar's doors swinging shut behind him, that second's squint as the sheriff adjusted from one set of dangers to another.

I'd been dreaming of Peter's first summer, when he was three months old and one heatwave had followed another. In my dream, I'd been angling damp towels around his basinet, layer after layer, till he was in danger of being smothered by them.

I began to talk. Brook listened. I couldn't bear to think that he was humouring me, but I didn't want him to interrupt, or cut my story short. I described again the lanky, dark-haired man and his peculiar walk, the way I'd seen his reflection, then later watched him going into Simon Lawrence's shop. On the Sans Souci Esplanade, he'd run out of the bushes straight towards me.