Heiress On Fire

by Kellie McCourt

  Everything that the fire had not consumed was savagely thrown and broken in the explosion: everything was shards, splinters and dust.

  ‘I landed on my back. Again. Most undignified.’ I shook my head. Possibly I had passed undignified quite some time before. I recalled being terrified.

  ‘I am ashamed to say it but all I could think about then was getting out,’ I said, tears filling my eyes again.

  What I was too ashamed to say was that at that point, as well as my terror at the flames, the walls crumbling and my beautiful home generally collapsing in on itself, I was also thinking of my shoes. Weitzman. Atwood. McQueen. Louboutin. Choo. Blahnik. Prada. And my handbags! Fendi. Gucci. Chanel. Dior. Vuitton. Hermès. Chloé. I was mortified.

  I began heaving with sobs. I was going to non-denominational hell.

  ‘And then?’ prompted Burns.

  I kept these thoughts to myself, pulled myself together and shared an edited version.

  ‘I could hear screaming. I could hear sirens,’ I said. ‘There were more explosions.

  ‘I saw a white light and I went towards it,’ I said simply.

  Mother inhaled sharply. Grandmother coughed up her tea (which smelt of Scotch). Barker crossed himself.

  ‘It was the down button on the elevator. The explosion propelled me all the way into the entry. I must have landed in front of the elevator. It arrived and I got on it.

  ‘I suppose I crawled off the elevator and into the reception area, and then, according to what I saw on, on …’

  ‘YouTube?’ said Burns, with what I swear was delight.

  ‘Dude!’ exclaimed Esmerelda to Burns. ‘Dude. Please. The number one viral video of all time on YouTube. Friggin’ Heiress melted the internet!’ And she held her hand up for a high-five, which was returned by neither Burns nor myself, but eagerly taken up by Nigel Barker.

  ‘Yes.’ I shot Burns a mock look of gratitude. ‘Thank you. According to that the fireman came to rescue me when I crawled out of the elevator. I don’t actually remember anything past getting into the elevator, and even that,’ I said, ‘is hazy.’

  It was true, I remembered nothing else.

  ‘Dude,’ said Esmerelda. ‘You don’t remember the fireman? The rescue?’

  I shook my head.

  At that point the conversation stopped and all eyes turned to Mother.

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Your mother felt it necessary to thank that fireman in person. According to the inside cover of this morning’s paper, we’re in for a spring wedding,’ said Grandmother in an accusing tone.

  I studied Mother. Her marriages before and after Dad had all been celebrity-marries-celebrity disasters. At some point she had just given up. She had been publicly single for many years. Although publicly single did not necessarily mean being alone for Mother, it did mean being uninvolved and unattached. Did the fireman signal involvement?

  ‘Good for you, Mother,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not getting married,’ she said.

  ‘Good for you anyway,’ I said.

  ‘Friggin’ A,’ said Esmerelda.

  After a brief silence the eyes of all the women in the room slowly slid to Searing. It was hard to talk about attractive emergency servicemen and sexual desires without looking at the ludicrously attractive and very sexually desirable emergency serviceman in the room. Burns rolled her eyes. No doubt she had seen it all before. Grandmother pretended to ignore Searing, but even her eyes slipped for a split second.

  I had no eye rolls. I had only lustful thoughts. I needed not to be so close to Searing. I was rapidly becoming an inappropriate widow. Just because Pandora’s box had been opened did not mean that I had to sit next to it.

  ‘That’s it,’ I said, standing up and putting some distance between us.

  ‘I killed him. I killed them. I followed the ridiculous interior design advice of Diane von Neuvo. I wore heels too tall. I tried to serve employees raw fish. I snooped on a possibly cocaine-taking, possibly lesbian, possibly prostitute and fell over. It wasn’t intentional. It was absolutely an accident. But ultimately I’m responsible for the fire and the affiliated oil and perfume explosion in the powder room. Me. Me. Me.’

  I cleared my throat and made room for more humble pie. But I was out. I had nothing left.

  Burns studied me, then Mother, then me again. It seemed as if she had heard almost everything she needed to hear. She carefully poured herself a cup of coffee, sat on the edge of the most uncomfortable couch in the room and said, ‘I hate to break it to you, Mrs Bombberg, but that’s not what happened.’

  Crickets.

  ‘It was a bomb,’ she said, as cool as a cucumber. ‘The remains of an explosive device were found among the ruins. We think there was a bomb inside one of the cabinets in the powder room.’

  ‘A bomb?’ I said with shock in my voice. ‘A bomb killed Richard? Not the fire?’

  ‘That’s what I’m telling you,’ said Burns. ‘Almost no smoke in the lungs, what was left of them, according to the post-mortem report.’

  I jumped off the couch and ran to her. I pulled her up to me and hugged her tight. ‘Thank you!’ I gushed. ‘Thank you!’

  I could not believe it! I was innocent! I had been wallowing needlessly in my own guilt! The relief was immediate and immense. I felt like I could breathe again. Why had I put this meeting off for so long? Suddenly I loved the police.

  Burns went stiff in my arms and pulled away from my embrace. She held onto my forearms tightly, making white dents in my skin. She looked up at me with steely eyes and said, ‘Did you plant an explosive device in your bathroom that killed not only your husband, but also ended the life of an innocent woman? Did you, Mrs Bombberg?’

  ‘Don’t answer that question,’ shouted Barking and Earl as they leapt to their feet.

  ‘Pardon?’ I stammered, hoping I had heard her wrong. ‘What?’

  She repeated the question: ‘Did you plant a bomb to kill your husband?’

  ‘No,’ I said, shaking my rapidly re-clouding head and stepping away from her. ‘No, I loved him.’ I looked around at everyone. ‘Don’t you see? It was Crystal! That’s what was in the box! A bomb! Richard must have been trying to get it off her! That is why he wouldn’t leave. That must be why he shut the bathroom door instead of escaping the fire with me!’

  Goodness only knows how Richard knew it was a bomb, but he knew. I imagined him finally wresting the thing, heavy with explosives, out of Crystal’s grasp, and in a token attempt to lessen the blow, throwing the bomb inside one of the bathroom cabinets.

  Both lawyers turned on Searing. ‘You said you believed she was innocent!’

  ‘I do,’ said Searing. ‘I don’t think Mrs Bombberg could have created such a professional device herself.’

  Burns cleared her throat and drilled Searing with a hard stare.

  ‘And,’ he continued, ignoring the stare, ‘I doubt she has the type of contacts it takes to have one made.’

  That was absolutely true. That looked good, right? I mean who would I know who could make a bomb? The only person I knew with military service was Prince Harry.

  Burns slid her eyes from Searing to Esmerelda.

  Oh, well, yes, perhaps Esmerelda knew people who knew people. But I would have needed a time machine to make that work.

  ‘However,’ said Burns getting back on track, ‘you could easily have enlisted a chemist or an engineer online. Is that what you did, Ms Bombberg? Is it?’

  I leant further away from her in horror. ‘No! No! I didn’t!’

  ‘Did you find any evidence on her computer? Her browser history?’ defended Barking.

  Burns squirmed. ‘No, but that doesn’t exclude it. Most of the hardware was burnt to a crisp. She could have gone to an internet café.’

  Searing studied Burns, then me, then her. ‘In those shoes?’

  We all looked at my open-toed Choos. They were black calfskin (I was a widow after all), had a four-inch stiletto heel, impo
ssibly thin crisscrossing straps across the top of the foot clasped with a black enamel rose, and were embellished with tiny black crystals.

  Were opened-toed shoes not allowed in internet cafés? What odd rules these tech people have.

  I looked at Burns’s shoes. They were an abomination to footwear: black and chunky, with no form; they were made of an artificial fabric I am sure I had never seen before. If I was going to set fire to a pair of shoes, it would be those shoes.

  Burns yielded. ‘Okay, so maybe not an internet café.’

  ‘What would be her motive?’ asked Earl. ‘Not his money!’

  ‘No, not his money,’ Searing said. ‘I’m waiting on a call from our forensic accountant to confirm it, but from what I’ve seen, it looks like Sydney Plastics was barely breaking even.’

  Sydney Plastics was what? I tried to hide my shock, and frankly disbelief. I thought Sydney Plastics grossed over $100 million last financial year? I had seen the annual report myself. Sort of. I just skipped to the page that listed the profits. Possibly this was not the most appropriate time to point this out. I had just had the financial motive noose lifted from around my neck, I didn’t want to slip it back on.

  ‘But money isn’t the only motive for murder,’ said Searing, almost apologetically.

  ‘Yeah,’ Burns said tightly, focusing on me. ‘Jealousy. Revenge. Control. Rage. They’re all good.’

  Esmerelda came to my defence. Sort of.

  ‘Have you seen her?’ she said shaking her head in disbelief, poking a sticky finger towards me, crumbs falling from the edges of her mouth.

  Burns tried to speak but Esmerelda cut her off.

  ‘Dude you have a pissed hooker doing blow in her loo while fighting with the dead guy, when it happened, and you still think Little Miss Chanel here, who doesn’t make her own toast, and I’m not friggin’ kidding, someone actually makes her toast for her, did it? By like getting onto, and like trolling, the dark web?’ She shook her head in disbelief and disgust. ‘Totally not happening.’

  I was both flattered and insulted. I could so make toast! And I knew how to use Google. True, I had never heard of dark Google. But I could Google it, right?

  Intentional or not, Esmerelda’s slightly insulting but well-meaning outburst shifted Burns’s attention away from me and onto her. She was either very clever or very stupid. At this stage I had no idea which one.

  Burns lifted an eyebrow at Esmerelda. ‘I know you … I’m sure of it.’

  Esmerelda stuffed a lemon curd tartlet into her mouth and retreated backwards into the pink love seat. ‘Nup, you totally don’t.’

  Mother leant forward using her body to shield Esmerelda. ‘Esmerelda is Indigo’s new personal assistant.’

  Grandmother choked and her body lurched forward. ‘The hell she is!’

  ‘I think we’re getting off track here,’ said Mother attempting to get ahead of Grandmother’s rage.

  ‘I agree,’ said Burns, and without a hint of doubt or reservation turned to me and said, ‘I think you’re guilty. I think you did it.’

  It was all too much. My head began to spin as I shook it from side to side. No, no, no, I thought to myself. I must have had that look on my face, because Esmerelda jumped up like lightning had struck her in the derrière and was quickly by my side.

  She grabbed a Flora Danica dish filled with a dozen multi-coloured handmade macarons off the table, threw the macarons on the floor and offered up the empty bowl to me as a makeshift vomiting receptacle. She’d seen it all before. And sadly, she was right. I threw up in my grandmother’s Danish porcelain and then passed out.

  Great. More humiliation.

  CHAPTER 8

  SIGNING BONUS

  I woke up on an oversized king-size bed in one of Grandmother’s guest bedrooms with a very concerned-looking Searing staring down at me. Esmerelda and Mother sat at the foot of the bed on a bedroom chair and table setting. Grandmother and Loraine Bitsmark were whispering by the door.

  I could see that both lawyers were gone, as was Eddy. The lawyers’ exit was no small relief. Burns stood at the back of the room, talking secretively on her mobile phone. She did not look happy.

  ‘Are you okay?’ Searing said in a voice that sounded genuinely concerned, and I might add, sexy as hell. ‘I’ve never seen anyone throw up and then pass out like that before.’

  Well, at least one of us was sexy.

  It must have been the hotness. Or the stress. I let my normally very strict tongue slip.

  ‘It’s a family tradition, begun, so I believe, by my great-great-great-grandfather JK Hasluck, to throw up and then pass out,’ I prattled. ‘It is really quite helpful if you have an alcoholic disposition. It allows one to avoid choking on one’s own vomit while unconscious.’

  Searing looked mortified to hear the words come out of my mouth. And if I’d had any wits about me whatsoever I would never have said them, but, as I said, it was very hot in the room and I was under a lot of stress. Bad combination.

  I heard Esmerelda at the end of the bed say to Mother, ‘I guess she’s not related to Bon Scott then.’

  If Searing heard, he ignored it. ‘But you’re not an alcoholic?’ he half-stated, half-asked.

  ‘No. Sadly I lack the social skills and dedication required to be an alcoholic,’ I said.

  He looked briefly confused. I didn’t have the energy to explain it to him. He shook it off.

  ‘The forensic accountant called,’ he said, ‘and I was right. Sydney Plastics was only just keeping afloat.’

  ‘How is that possible?’

  I tried to sit up a little in bed, but I was still woozy.

  ‘Richard works—I mean worked—eighteen hours a day. He slept at the office. He travelled constantly. I never saw him.’

  Perhaps I should have left that last comment out. I must have blanched.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’re still off the record. For now. Your legal team boxed us in pretty good before they’d let us in the room.’

  This did give me some relief.

  ‘It appears someone was syphoning off big chunks of cash and placing them in offshore accounts. One of the accounts is in your name.’

  That had Grandmother’s attention. The woman had ears like a corporate fox. She immediately took several documents from Loraine and made her way across the room. If anyone knew how offshore accounts worked …

  ‘I don’t have any offshore accounts,’ I said.

  Grandmother leant across the bed with a pen and a thick stack of documents. ‘Indigo, could you sign these for me please?’ She poked the documents at me.

  ‘Now?’ I asked. The woman was a machine.

  ‘Yes, just quickly, it’s nothing,’ she said.

  I obliged and signed without a second thought.

  ‘And for the record, dear,’ she said, ‘you have several Hasluck-Royce Inc offshore accounts in your name. Perfectly legal. Nothing to worry about.’

  Searing and I looked at Grandmother in surprise.

  ‘Really?’ I asked her departing back.

  ‘Of course.’

  He looked down at me in astonishment. ‘Do you often sign documents without reading them?’

  ‘What?’ I said, confused. ‘Yes, I mean no, I mean, why would I read them?’

  Searing rubbed his temples and then his eyes.

  ‘You didn’t know about any of these offshore accounts? I mean the Sydney Plastics offshore accounts?’ he said in a tone that indicated that he knew I didn’t know about the accounts.

  I shook my head. ‘No,’ I eyed Grandmother, ‘I did not know about any of them.’

  In fairness, I kind of assumed I had offshore accounts somewhere out there, I just did not know where. I thought they would be Grandmother’s doing, or from a trust of some kind. Not from Richard. He just wasn’t that adventurous. Or creative.

  Obviously, I was an idiot. No, worse, I was an idiot in front of a modern-day Adonis.

  ‘Did Richard give you documents to si
gn?’ he asked.

  ‘All the time. He was really fantastic like that,’ I said, welling up again. ‘He was always looking after me.’

  ‘Was he?’ Searing said, nodding briefly. He then seemed to change his mind and shook his head.

  ‘Okay, then. Umm, what were these documents about, do you know?’

  ‘Business,’ I said, guessing broadly.

  ‘What kind of business?’

  I shrugged. Who reads these things?

  ‘I’m not quite sure.’

  ‘Dude,’ said Esmerelda.

  ‘Don’t look at her like that!’ said Mother defensively to Searing and Esmerelda. ‘You don’t understand. You don’t know what it’s like. She was raised with things shoved under her nose to sign.’

  A sharp look went to Grandmother and Loraine.

  ‘It’s quite normal. You become accustomed to it. Frankly I don’t read everything Eddy has me sign either.’

  I knew that was a big fat lie. She may not have understood the contents of the documents, but she read them. I appreciated the support though.

  Bewildered, Searing excused himself to take a phone call, joining Burns, who was still on the phone. The pair soon left the room.

  Their departure left a volatile vacuum between Mother and Grandmother, Esmerelda and Loraine. A standoff was brewing in the silence.

  We were all saved by Grandmother’s maverick housekeeper, Mary Moore. She was soft and round, with an oval face, lovely cheekbones, and wore red lipstick. She had her hair in a loose top-bun, her feet were housed in a pair of red leather ballet flats (the same colour as her lipstick) and she was surgically attached to an apron that always seemed to feature flour smears. Even if she was making jam. She had been wearing her hair, make-up, shoes and clothes the same way since I was in primary school. The only change was in her girth. If I cooked as well as her my girth would be substantial too.

  Mary bustled in unrequested, poking Loraine in the ribs as she went, bearing one of my favourite snacks: wagyu beef slow-cooked in red wine jus, stuffed into buttery puff pastry, served with rustic potatoes baked in rosemary and Himalayan sea salt with homemade relish and sour cream sides.

  Grandmother, unimpressed with Mary Moore’s take on pies and chips, and late for a board meeting in Switzerland, left, taking Loraine with her, shaking her head in disapproval. Mary did not seem to notice. One of the most intimidating women in the world and the only person unperturbed by her was the housekeeper.