by Vicki Tyley
Endeavoring to gain a better vantage point, Greg edged closer to the window and leaned over the sill. The way Pauline constantly touched Lawson and their close proximity to each other reinforced Greg’s impression that theirs was more than a strictly business relationship. But what was their connection? Were they related somehow? Perhaps they were just good friends. Or had their relationship developed into something deeper? Pauline and her toy boy Lawson? The veritable odd couple indeed. Greg almost laughed out loud at the absurdity of the image in his head. Gigolo then? Chuckling to himself, he continued to watch as the drama unfolded.
Oblivious to the scowling looks and sidelong glances they were receiving, Pauline and Lawson’s actions became more animated. If Greg had been able to hear what was being said, he was sure the volume and intensity of their voices would be getting more heated. Lawson’s arms flailed up and down and from side to side. He appeared to have trouble standing in one spot, hopping from foot to foot as if barefoot on hot sand. Pauline kept trying to grab his arms, her failure to pacify him clearly distressing her.
Then one of Lawson’s thrashing hands connected with the side of Pauline’s face. It hadn’t looked intentional, but even at a distance, the shock in Pauline’s widened eyes and gaping mouth was apparent. People slowed as they passed the couple as if deliberating whether to become involved. No one actually stopped.
The arrival of another tram scattered the mall pedestrians. By the time the tram had offloaded passengers, picked up more and moved on, Pauline and Lawson had disappeared from sight. Greg scanned the mall, fixing on blonde heads in his search for Pauline and Lawson. Were his eyes playing tricks on him? Lack of sleep did strange things to people. He shook his head, no longer able to trust his own judgment. Even so, he continued to scrutinize the crowd unwilling to believe he’d imagined it.
His BlackBerry beeped. He had less than ten minutes to make it halfway across the city. Berating himself for losing track of the time, he abandoned his cold coffee, becoming flustered when the woman in front of him at the cash register started counting coins from her wallet.
Finally, he was out of the coffee shop and bounding down the escalator to the mall. Negotiating Melbourne’s streets on foot, the traffic lights were in his favor, but the pedestrians were another story. He grew increasingly impatient with the dawdling shoppers and tourists congesting the footpaths. They kept getting in his way and at one stage, he almost collided with two teenage girls who’d suddenly stopped in the middle of the footpath for a impromptu chat.
Despite the hindrances, Greg arrived outside the multistory office block only a couple of minutes past the appointed time. The building’s automatic glass doors parted as he passed under the sensor, giving him entry into the functional but featureless lift lobby. He pressed the lift button and straightened his shirt collar, confirming the floor number from the building directory while he waited.
Exiting on the fifth floor, he found himself in a bleak windowless corridor. A metal strip high on the wall indicated suites 501 to 521 were along the left hand passageway. As he traipsed down the carpeted corridor, he noticed the metal plates on nearly every door he passed had the word “consultant” engraved somewhere on it: engineering consultant, IT consultant, catering consultant and even a color consultant – whatever that was.
With his luck, it came as no surprise to find Rickman Investigations occupied the furthermost office. Though surprisingly the word “consultant” didn’t appear anywhere on the door. Before entering, he peered through the glass panel into the small reception area. The front desk was unattended. Nor did he see any other signs of life.
The latch click as Greg opened the door seemed unnaturally loud in the stillness. Clearing his throat, he called out.
“Be right there!” The answering bellow came from somewhere in the back office’s depths.
Greg heard the clanging of what sounded like metal filing drawers being slammed shut. A moment later, a giant of a man with a beer belly to match filled the narrow opening off to the side of the reception desk. Life experiences, etched deeply in the crevices of his face, gave it that lived in look. Greg wasn’t a small man by any stretch, but the man advancing on him positively dwarfed him. He certainly wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley.
“Greg Jenkins, I presume,” the giant boomed as he continued to advance. Fe-fi-fo-fum… The man grabbed Greg’s hand in a bone-crushing handshake, a broad grin softening his features. “Neville Crooke at your service.”
Greg coughed, the irony of the investigator’s surname not going unnoticed. He extracted his hand and followed Neville back to the rear of the office.
He rubbed his shoulder, wondering whether the vigorous shaking had dislocated it. The man obviously didn’t know his own strength.
Greg hesitated at the door. In contrast to the reception area’s sparseness, this office was cluttered. A large desk in keeping with a man of Neville’s stature took centre stage. It and every other available surface was stacked with files of all sizes and descriptions, books, wads of paper and what looked to be every type of electronic gizmo ever invented. No space was spared. Even the computer monitor squeezed into a corner on the desk was plastered with yellow and pink Post-it notes.
“Come in, come in. Take a pew.” Neville waved him in and gestured toward one of the upholstered chairs just inside the door.
Greg took a seat, still thinking about a PI having a last name like Crooke. It would be a safe bet that no one ever ventured to make fun of this guy’s surname. Or, at least, not to his face, and especially back when he’d been a serving police officer. The fact that Rickman Investigations advertised themselves as being owned and operated by ex-police detectives had been the deciding factor in selecting them over any of the couple of hundred odd other agencies listed in the Yellow Pages. Greg figured that police training and experience, not to mention the connections, had to be a major advantage to any investigator.
By lumping one pile of papers on top of another, Neville managed to clear a space large enough to squeeze his notepad into. “Right!” Neville said, slapping a palm hard down on the paper.
Greg blinked. The police certainly wouldn’t have needed a loudhailer while Neville was around.
“Where are my manners?” Neville’s voice dropped several decibels, allowing Greg’s eardrums to recover from their shock. “Coffee? Tea? Water?”
Greg shook his head.
“Okay, Mr Jenkins, down to business then.”
Taking a deep breath, Greg started from the beginning and didn’t stop until he had spilled everything. From his mother’s worried phone call to his sister’s links with Dinner for Twelve to his own unfounded suspicions about Lawson. It was almost a relief to share the load. He even mentioned sighting the arguing couple in Bourke Street Mall. The more he thought about it, the more he convinced himself that it’d been Pauline and Lawson.
The whole time Greg had been unburdening his fears and troubles, Neville had remained remarkably sedate, taking notes, nodding every now and then, and throwing the occasional question in to clarify something Greg had said. When Greg finished, the investigator leaned back in his seat with his hands linked behind his head, his elbows splayed out. For a moment, he stared straight through Greg.
“I’m not sure how much we can be of help. We’re talking about an active and ongoing police investigation here. From what you tell me, another client of…” He dropped his hands, leaning forward to check his notes. “…Dinner for Twelve was found murdered about a week after you realized your sister was missing. I have no doubt that’s a link our boys in blue won’t be overlooking. And, as I’m sure you can understand, the police don’t appreciate the likes of you and I wading into the midst of their investigations. Seems to upset them somewhat.” He chuckled and then leaning back in his chair again, continued. “But as it happens, DS Dave Abrahams and I go way back. Good bloke. Anyway, it’s possible – only faintly possible, mind you – that he’ll be able to give us something off the record. A littl
e something that might just help. You never know.” Pausing, he stared past Greg, as if deep in thought. “We can only hope your sister’s disappearance isn’t connected with that murder.”
CHAPTER 17
“Damn you, Brenda,” Megan cursed as she hacked at the poor defenseless carrot on the board, only missing slicing her fingers by sheer fluke.
She stopped chopping. Why was she so bothered? She wasn’t Brenda’s keeper. Give her space, a little voice in her head chided. You know Brenda; she’ll contact you when she’s good and ready. Stop worrying about her.
Easier said than done.
It’d been after midnight Friday when Brenda pushed Megan out the door, telling her to quit with the fretting. All she needed was a good night’s sleep. That’s all.
But it was Sunday night and there’d been no word from her. Surely, a quick phone call to say, “Hey, just to let you know I’m okay,” wouldn’t have been beyond her capabilities. Sometimes Brenda just didn’t think.
Sighing, Megan scooped up the diced carrot and tossed it in a microwave dish with a handful of frozen peas, her concession to vegetables. The rest of her dinner, a skinless chicken breast, sizzled between the ribbed jaws of her newly acquired Breville Health Grill.
While she waited for her bland but healthy dinner to finish cooking, her mind wandered back to the previous night. Now, that Thai dinner most certainly wouldn’t have come under the banner of diet food. She gained two kilos just thinking about all that rich coconut cream.
Amazingly, she and Joe had finally got it together. No one could have been more surprised than Megan that the evening had gone off without a hitch. She’d been convinced that any hope of a relationship between them had been doomed from the start. But Joe had persevered, accepting excuse after excuse from Megan until eventually there had been nothing standing in their way. No more excuses.
Joe had been the perfect gentleman she remembered him to be, standing up from the table and pulling out her chair as she entered the restaurant. While they’d both been a little stiff at the start, the formalities were soon dispensed with. With the wine flowing, they chatted away as if they’d known each other for years.
At the end of the evening, after insisting on paying the bill, he had escorted her to the taxi, planting a dry kiss on her cheek as they said their goodbyes. It was a start.
Not for the first time, Megan wondered why Joe wasn’t already married with a brood of kids. He was attentive, well spoken, not to mention a good listener. Most women Megan knew would kill for a man like that, so what was it that’d attracted Joe to her in the first place? More importantly, why had he stuck around when she’d brushed him off time after time to support Brenda through her crises, Megan wondered, her mind once again back on her friend.
Brenda loved gossip. She’d been more excited about Megan’s date with Joe than Megan had. So why hadn’t she phoned the next morning, before it was even light, pumping Megan for details as was her habit?
She wiped her hands on a tea towel, picked up the phone from the kitchen bench and pressed the redial button.
Brenda’s disembodied voice answered. “Hi, you’ve called Brenda. You guessed it: I’m not here. Get ready, beep coming up…”
However, the microwave’s high-pitched ping beat the answering machine to it. She hung up without leaving a message.
At least Joe possessed the courtesy to phone. Could any man really be that perfect? Spooning the cooked vegetables onto a plate, another of her grandmother’s sayings flitted through her head: “If it seems too good to be true then it probably is.” Her grandmother had been a wise woman.
The question still hung over her, though. Where was Brenda?
CHAPTER 18
Greg stared out his office window, his mood as bleak as the day outside. Tuesday. Another day gone.
The phone rang. He let the answering machine pick it up.
“Greg, it’s Megan. Megan Brighton. We met…” Her voice faltered. “I was wondering if you’d heard from your sister—”
He snatched up the phone. “Wait.” After a series of clicks and squeals, he managed to switch off the answering machine. “Sorry about that. Still no sign of her.” He took a deep breath. “Dead or alive.” As much as he didn’t want to accept it, the prospect of finding Sam alive dwindled with each passing day.
He heard what sounded like a strangled sob at the end of the line. “Megan?”
She blurted out her story, running her words together in her haste to get them out. As shocked as he was to hear about the ginger-mustached guy’s assault on Megan’s friend Brenda, what really disturbed him was that Brenda was now missing.
Greg shifted in his seat. “You haven’t heard from her since Friday night?”
“No one has. She didn’t turn up at work for her regular Monday morning meeting. I’m probably being paranoid, but she’s been in such a funny mood lately. I don’t know what to make of it. Maybe she just needed some time out on her own.”
“But didn’t you say her car was parked in front of her house and her back door was unlocked?”
“Yeah, but Brenda’s always forgetting to lock the back door. Car… well, if she’s holed up in the city – she has a penchant for luxury hotels – then she might have grabbed a taxi.”
Maybe, but it came across more like Megan trying to convince herself there was nothing to worry about. Unlike her, he refused to believe in coincidences.
He hadn’t yet let on to Megan that he’d hired a private investigator to help in his search and do some discreet background checks. He needed more time to digest what she’d just told him before that happened. How did her friend’s disappearance fit in with Sam’s disappearance, if at all? Was some maniac on the loose out there, abducting woman and…? He shook his head, dislodging the notion from his mind. Whatever, he couldn’t get away from the fact that Dinner for Twelve was central to everything that’d happened.
“You’re probably right,” he said in a voice that sounded hollow even to him. “Time out from the maddening crowd, as they say.” He recalled telling himself the exact same thing about Sam a fortnight ago.
Silence.
“Not that I’m saying you’re mad or a crowd.”
“I’m not so sure. Sorry, I have to go. Bye, Greg. I hope you find your sister soon.” She hung up before he could reply.
Greg slouched forward, his elbows propped on the desk, his fingertips pressed to his temples.
Another missing woman?
Surely not.
No way.
Not possible.
Greg had been hoping to hear from Megan. Hoping for any tidbit of information she may’ve discovered that could help him with his search for Sam. Brenda’s disappearance only made it worse. Another nail.
His stomach lurched, the jitters setting in as his body rebelled against the double-shot espressos he’d been subsisting on. Before he knew it, the cumulative effect of stress and lack of sleep, coupled with the caffeine overdose, strained his system to breaking point. With both hands clamped to his mouth, he staggered from his seat.
After more than an hour hugging the toilet bowl, Greg resurfaced. He couldn’t recall a time when he’d felt so ill. A quick glance in the mirror confirmed it. He had indeed joined the ranks of the walking dead. How else could he explain the bloodless face and glassy eyes?
Using the wall to steady himself, he made his way to the compact kitchen next to his office. Even the humdinger of a hangover he’d experienced after his wife walked out on him didn’t come close to the way he was feeling right then.
He focused his energies on reaching the sink on the kitchen’s far side, his legs like those of a toddler trying to walk for the first time. With the exertion came another bout of nausea. Clinging to the laminated bench, his face breaking out in a cold sweat, it was all he could do to stay upright.
The nausea bout eventually passed. He concentrated on finding a glass. Water, he reasoned, would help dilute the caffeine.
He downed one glass of w
ater standing at the sink. The second, he took with him to the table in the corner of the room. He sank into the left of the two revamped armchairs either side of the table and let out a groan of relief.
Not daring to close his eyes, not even for a second, Greg sipped the water. It’d take a lot more than a few mouthfuls of liquid to rally his body. He needed sleep. And something more than bile and water in his stomach. Swallowing another mouthful of water, he resolved to lock up the office and go straight home to shower, eat and sleep. In that order if he could manage it.
But first, he needed to ring Neville Crooke at Rickman’s Investigations and pass on what Megan had told him about the ginger-mustached man’s molesting of Brenda De Luca and her subsequent disappearance. Robert was the man’s first name, but for the life of him, Greg couldn’t recall his surname. Had Megan even mentioned it? It wasn’t important. Greg felt certain that by now Neville would have a detailed list of Dinner for Twelve’s clients and be well on the way to completing full background checks. Discreetly, of course. An unswerving faith in the investigator’s abilities was the only thing keeping him going.
Out in the office, his phone rang. Unable to summon the strength to move from the chair, he let the answering machine take the call.
The beep sounded, followed by a deep booming male voice that needed no introduction. In a flash, Greg was on his feet, his exhaustion and nausea forgotten. Although by the time he reached his desk, his legs were threatening to boycott his body. He slumped into his office chair in the same instant his hand closed around the phone’s receiver.
Neville Crooke must’ve wondered what he’d interrupted when Greg’s breathless voice cut off the recording. Neville made no comment and waited for Greg to catch his breath.
“There’s been a development.” Neville cleared his throat. “Keep what I’m about to tell you to yourself for now.” He paused. “Although, I guess it’ll be public knowledge soon enough, anyway.”