Digging Up Dirt

by Pamela Hart

  They had my sympathies.

  My phone rang.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I couldn’t come because the police hauled me in for questioning,’ Tol said. I had to admire the technique. Straight to the point before I had the chance to hang up on him. ‘I’m sorry. I’m still at the police centre. How did it go?’

  ‘They won’t lift the order unless you appear in person and tell them to.’

  He paused. I could hear shouting and swearing in the background. Just another night at the police centre. ‘When?’ he said cautiously.

  ‘A month.’

  ‘I’ll be there if I’m in the country,’ he said. ‘Otherwise I’ll get Alain to do it.’

  What could I say? You’re a bastard and I hate you? It wasn’t his fault.

  ‘What did the cops want?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it here,’ he said. ‘Can you pick me up and I’ll fill you in? My car’s back at your place.’

  ‘Okay.’ I hung up. Why not? Nobody else said goodbye.

  When I got there, Tol was standing outside the police centre, leaning on a lamppost. He looked tired. He got in the car without a word and I pulled away.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ I asked.

  He shook his head.

  ‘Let’s go to Bill and Toni’s.’

  ‘Good idea.’

  I threaded through the Darlinghurst streets, keeping an eye out for a park. Bill and Toni’s is a Sydney institution; one of the first Italian restaurants in the country and definitely Sydney’s first coffee bar. It had great coffee, terrific gelato, reasonable pasta and primi and decent biscotti. I felt like I could do with all of them right then.

  We didn’t talk until the pasta came—arrabiata for me, puttanesca for him.

  As he sprinkled the parmesan over his plate, Tol said, ‘There was a baby.’ His eyes were fixed on his plate. ‘It wasn’t mine. They seemed to think—Martin, at least—that that gave me a motive.’

  ‘Did they say whose it was?’

  He shook his head and looked up briefly. ‘I don’t think they know. But the questions … the questions they asked told me how she died.’

  I waited.

  He dug his fork into the pasta, then put it down again and leant back. ‘Whoever it was,’ he said, ‘pushed her and she hit her head. Probably not intentional. It would be hard to calculate the angles on the spur of the moment.’

  ‘So they pushed her and she fell.’

  ‘They think she was unconscious. And then …’ He picked a slice of bread to pieces, his head bent, then looked up, his eyes dark and unhappy. ‘Then they squatted over her and banged her head against the bearer a few times, until she was dead.’

  It was a horrible image. Disgusting. I shuddered. Someone I knew—the odds were it was someone I knew who’d done this. In my house. Someone I’d worked with, maybe, or someone from the church. Someone I’d interviewed.

  The dark, violent act didn’t fit with Carter. I could see him pushing her and running away when he knew she was dead. But I couldn’t see him balancing on the beams and deliberately bashing her head in.

  ‘They would have had to take her head in their hands,’ I said slowly.

  ‘Yes. That feels … intimate.’

  ‘A real hatred, is what it feels like to me. Deep, abiding hatred.’

  ‘That’s intimate,’ Tol said. He sounded exhausted.

  ‘Eat something,’ I said. ‘Or have a drink.’ The restaurant was BYO, but we’d ordered chinotto. Tol drank some and the colour in his face got better.

  ‘The worst thing is …’ Tol said. He paused.

  I made a wordless sound of encouragement.

  ‘The worst thing is that I can’t help but think that she might still be alive if she’d been kinder.’

  It was a terrible epitaph, but he was right. And yet …

  ‘Men kill kind women all the time,’ I said miserably. ‘Being nice is no protection. One woman a week in this country alone.’

  ‘By partners or ex-partners.’ Tol rubbed his eyes. ‘That’s why the police are concentrating on me.’

  There didn’t seem much else to say. We ate. Tol insisted on paying. I drove him back to the house and pulled up next to his car. He sat for a moment before getting out.

  ‘Poor Poppy,’ he said. ‘All this has just been dumped on you. It’s not fair, is it?’

  He was kind. Understanding. But if I didn’t want to cry all over him, I couldn’t tell him how low I felt.

  ‘Oh, well,’ I said. ‘I guess another month will give me time to save up some more for my kitchen. I might be able to afford marble benchtops after all.’

  He gave a small laugh and got out of the car. ‘Good try,’ he said. ‘Wait a minute.’ He fetched something from the back seat of his car and came around to my window. It was a thick manila folder. ‘That’s Julieanne’s notes, with mine added. In case you need to brief Alain. You can give them back to Annie afterwards.’ He touched my cheek. ‘Take care, little one.’ He bent and kissed the corner of my mouth. But that could have been a coincidence. He was aiming for my cheek, I think.

  I managed to say, ‘Goodnight,’ before he got in his battered old car, and he waved acknowledgement as he drove away.

  I parked my car where his had been and walked home through the windy dark, telling myself that I didn’t—no, really, I didn’t—want to fall in love with someone who was going away.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Saturday

  In the morning, too early, I got a call from Annie.

  ‘Julieanne Weaver,’ she said, ‘has gone and bloody made me executor of her will.’

  I paused, taking that in. Julieanne had had no one she could trust with her estate except her boss.

  ‘When you think about it,’ I said, ‘that’s a bit sad.’

  ‘I talked to the solicitor yesterday afternoon,’ Annie said, a bit more quietly. ‘She’s left the museum most of what she had. Some to charity. Some to her old school. Her apartment has to be sorted out. I have to go through all her stuff.’ Her voice was full of distaste. ‘And you’re helping me.’

  I’ve been friends with Annie long enough to know when to give in without an argument.

  ‘What’s the address?’

  Julieanne had lived in Elizabeth Bay, in a small, 1930s Art Deco block a few streets back from the water. It looked a bit shabby, but shabby chic—typical for the area, which was sandwiched between the red-light district of Kings Cross and some of the priciest real estate in Australia at Rushcutters Bay. Drug addicts and millionaires frequented the area; some residents were both.

  Once Annie had buzzed me in through the inevitable security door and I was past the bit that could be seen from the street, the shabby disappeared and opulence took over: metallic wallpaper, leather seats, living plants, the quiet hush of expensive air conditioning. Even a lift, although the building was only two storeys high. Julieanne must have put everything she had into buying this place.

  I took the stairs. As I approached the door, Tol opened it, and saw the surprise on my face.

  ‘Annie conscripted me to go through her papers,’ he said, ‘and pull out anything that should go back to the museum.’

  I walked into the entrance hall feeling a combination of voyeurism and unease. On the drive over I had speculated about what Julieanne had been like in her own space; I expected to get a glimpse of the real person. But following Tol through to the lounge room, I saw a space that was as bland and impersonal as one of those serviced apartments that caters to the travelling executive. The Art Deco touches the flat must have come with, like cornices and lintels, had been stripped away and replaced with modern minimalism, complete with new plate-glass windows that emphasised the water glimpses. Everything in good taste, everything high quality, nothing personal.

  No, I was wrong—there was one thing: a photograph on the wall of that bloody stump-jump plough. I couldn’t help but laugh.

  Tol saw me looking.

  ‘She got th
e plough after all,’ I explained. ‘That’s the one we had the fight about.’

  ‘I asked her about that photo when I first came here.’ Tol straightened the frame with gentle fingers. ‘She said she loved it because it never let anything stop it. When it came to an obstacle, it just jumped over it and went on.’

  I guess that was inspirational, looked at a certain way. Unless the obstacle was another person. But it seemed both funny and sad that this was the only personal item on display.

  ‘A stump-jump plough as personal mentor.’

  Annie came through from the bedroom and swatted me on the back of the head like a mother cat reprimanding her kitten. ‘Nothing to laugh about,’ she said.

  Organised as ever, she had brought in a pile of boxes and packing tape.

  ‘We’re boxing everything up for Vinnies. You and I in the bedroom, Tol in the study.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am!’

  She smiled reluctantly, but I could see that she found this task deeply unpleasant. Annie is a private person and likes to keep a certain distance. It takes time to get close to her. Ferreting through Julieanne’s underwear went right against her grain. And while I was nosy, like all researchers, even I found the task eerie.

  Julieanne’s bedroom was as clean and impersonal as the lounge room. Annie was halfway through boxing up the clothes from Julieanne’s chest of drawers. The undies were all beige—flesh coloured, so they wouldn’t show under anything. I tried not to look at them—it seemed too intrusive.

  I opened the door to the walk-in wardrobe. On one side were Julieanne’s power suits, blouses, coats, arranged by colour. Shoes in boxes on the floor, stacked neatly. Shelves with jumpers, tops, T-shirts. A trouser hanger that slid out to reveal jeans at the back, and good pants at the front. I found it all a bit depressing. Julieanne tried so hard to keep everything under control.

  Then I looked at the other side and, here at last, I thought, was the real Julieanne. I wouldn’t call them sex toys; no dildoes or harnesses that I could see. But shelves of lingerie: black, red, sheer, lacy. High-heeled black shoes. Boots that were so tall they’d have come up to my crotch. And hanging up: a nurse’s uniform; a schoolgirl’s gym slip; some silk robes.

  But the longer I looked, the less I thought this was really Julieanne, either. Those boots didn’t look like the wholesome woman Paul had described. I picked one up and held it against me—it was longer than my entire leg. Sighing (because I’d always wanted to be taller, like my siblings), I started to roll it up, ready to pack.

  But halfway down, it stuck. There was something inside. My heart sped up; this was like a real mystery. An actual clue? I’d better be careful of fingerprints. There were the black gloves right there, but I just couldn’t do it. I went to the other side of her wardrobe and got a silk scarf instead, then I unrolled the boot and, with some distaste, slid my scarf-covered hand inside and pulled out the object.

  An appointments diary. But it was an odd one—just a little week-to-a-view thing, like I used to have as a student. And inside, none of Julieanne’s museum appointments. This was a record of her Australian Family Party encounters.

  It was tricky turning the pages with the scarf covering my hand, but I managed. The most recent entry was the preselection meeting, which she’d marked with a big question mark. Going back, there were the meetings at Carter’s house that Patience had told me about. Meetings at the party offices. A dinner at the Stephensons’. A lunch at the church. She’d marked a little x on each Sunday at ten am—the service at Radiant Joy. Although my imagination boggled at Julieanne worshipping anything (except maybe a stump-jump plough), it was clear she’d gone all-in on convincing the Carters and Winchester that she was committed to their values.

  There were other little marks, too, but not on Sundays. Maybe prayer services? She used a wavy line for these, and they were irregular. A couple close together, and then maybe two weeks before the next. But they were there, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they represented encounters with Carter. I checked and, sure enough, there was a little wavy line on the night she was killed.

  The earliest entry was an Australian Family fundraiser. Almost a year ago. It was the only place she’d written more than the bare minimum of description. In solid black letters, it read, ‘The Beginning!’ Underlined.

  So she’d had a long-term plan; join the party and get preselection, probably assuming it wouldn’t be until the next election. And then this by-election came up, and she saw her chance. I still thought Australian Family was an odd choice for her, but it was clearly one she’d made a while ago.

  I had to hand it to her. She was focussed and determined and had been very likely to win …

  How did that woman, that determined and intelligent and sucessful woman, fit with the sexy clothes and the ridiculously long boots? Or with the costumes? I couldn’t quite put them together in my head.

  I wrapped the diary up in the scarf and put it aside for Detective Chloe, then walked out and into the study, which was white, organised and owed a lot to Ikea. Julieanne had economised here so she could spend money on the rooms that showed. Tol was sitting down, going through the file drawer at the bottom of the desk.

  I hesitated. I really wanted to ask him, but there was no way I could pretend it was anything other than wanton curiosity. Still, maybe it had something to do with her death …

  ‘Um, Tol,’ I said. How could I phrase it? There was no good way to say it. ‘In Julieanne’s wardrobe there’s a lot of … stuff.’

  He turned, his face showing nothing more than mild interest. ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Um, sexy stuff.’

  ‘Really?’ The surprise seemed genuine. ‘What kind—’ He got up, then hesitated. ‘Should I?’

  ‘If you want …’

  He stood for a moment, then shook his head. ‘No. None of my business.’

  And that convinced me more than anything else could that he hadn’t been a part of any role-playing sex with Julieanne. If he had, he’d want to check for anything incriminating. So who was the gear for? Not Paul, not Tol. I couldn’t shake the suspicion that it was there for whoever needed it. That Julieanne changed to suit the man she was with, and she had the equipment to do so. Wholesome for Paul, normal for Tol—what had she been for the father of her baby? I looked around the study. Were there any clues here as to who he had been?

  For the first time, I felt a dreadful pity for her. It was as though she had been on show all the time, 24/7. I wondered who the unseen observer had been—who had convinced her, and when, that she had to meet other people’s standards at every moment—even the most intimate moments?

  Tol sat back down slowly and opened another file. He scanned the contents and whistled under his breath. ‘Annie!’ he called. He half-turned in his chair and gestured to me. ‘You’d better look at this.’

  Annie came in and we both read over Tol’s shoulder.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Annie said, heartfelt.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ I asked.

  ‘What do you reckon?’ she said, frowning. ‘Should I call ICAC?’ The government watchdog. That was career suicide for Annie.

  ‘This is a murder investigation,’ I said. ‘Call the police. Now.’

  Detective Chloe had, it was clear, been playing tennis when she got Annie’s call. She went for the matching top and socks option (orange) but I was glad to see she was in shorts instead of one of those flirty miniskirts with the frilly panties. She wasn’t happy about being called when she was off duty.

  ‘Well?’ she demanded as soon as she stepped inside the flat. ‘We’ve already been through everything here.’

  ‘Have a look at this,’ Annie said, and handed her Julieanne’s file.

  Detective Chloe opened it and began to read as she followed Annie into the lounge room. She flicked over the pages. ‘So? We’ve seen this. It’s just stuff about museum loans.’

  The jargon was hard to interpret, I guess, if you weren’t a museum person, but to Tol and
Annie and me the import had been clear.

  ‘Gerry Collonucci has been defrauding the museum by selling off artefacts to overseas collectors,’ Annie said baldly.

  ‘Julieanne found out,’ I added.

  Not to be left out, Tol said. ‘She’s documented it.’

  Worst of all, although none of us said it aloud, they were Aboriginal artefacts. Not didgeridoos and boomerangs made for the tourist market, but pieces of pre-colonial art and culture which had had religious significance to the people they were stolen from. And still do to their descendants. The very fact that the museum had these items was controversial. The only reason they hadn’t been returned to the traditional custodians was that no one was sure where they came from. They had been ‘acquired’ by a curator early in the museum’s history, when ‘Native artefact’ was considered enough of a description in the catalogue.

  I didn’t understand why Gerry had picked them. They were hauled out every few years when someone thought they had figured out a way to decide what part of the country they were from—scanning for radioactive isotopes, or trying to prove artistic traditions, or analysing the wood or stone. We’d had some hope when DNA analysis became cheap enough for the museum to afford, but no usable DNA had survived, even in the belts of human hair.

  Maybe that explained it. Gerry had figured that, with DNA a wash-out, no one would be checking on them for a while, because the agreement with the Advisory Committee for Indigenous Repatriation was that the items would be kept in sealed boxes until some other method of identification was developed. And this sort of artefact was increasingly rare and therefore very valuable.

  ‘How much are we talking about here?’ Detective Chloe asked Annie.

  ‘Thousands for each piece. Maybe tens of thousands.’

  A small smile curled Chloe’s mouth. This was the kind of motive a jury would understand. ‘He covered his tracks pretty well, according to this,’ she said.

  Annie nodded. She was pale, and she took a breath before she sat down on one of the immaculate cream sofas. ‘He created false records of loans to other institutions—Indigenous ones, so no one would even think of asking for them back.’