by Maggie Groff
A female customer indicated that she required access to the tea shelves, so I shifted my trolley.
Miss Longfellow ignored the woman and blithely carried on. ‘Nemony was . . . er . . . unskilled in the ways of men. One night, O’Leary had his dirty way with her in the lavender shed.’ She pursed her lips in what I took to signify total disgust.
The customer glanced at me and I swallowed a laugh. So help me, I couldn’t wait to tell my sister Harper this one.
‘I dismissed him the following day,’ she thundered on, her voice loaded with revulsion, ‘but Nemony ran after him. The silly girl was besotted. Three months later Amelia and I received a postcard from Sydney informing us they had married. Nemony had signed the postcard Mrs Mick O’Leary!’
It seemed to me that sacking someone for having sex with your adult sister was extreme, and it probably wasn’t worth pointing out that, at thirty, Nemony was hardly a silly girl, so I didn’t.
There was more. ‘Soon after the marriage,’ she continued, ‘O’Leary purchased a yacht with the money Nemony had inherited from the estate of our uncle Willard Longfellow. Each of us, Amelia, Nemony and myself, had received $100,000 the previous year. It was a lot of money in those days, and would have bought an apartment in Sydney.’ She shook her head at the wastefulness of it all and, trying not to yawn, I shook my head too.
So far I’d heard nothing to trigger my sleuth synapses. My interest lay in issues involving the abuse of power and injustices against the weak. Speaking up, if you like, for those who couldn’t be heard. Having said that, I’m not averse to a mystery with strong commercial value and low risk of litigation. However, I didn’t think two unmarried people having it off in a north-coast lavender shed fitted the bill, or held any shock-horror appeal for modern readers.
‘Is there more?’ I asked, trying not to sound sarcastic, and failing.
She glowered at me, like a schoolmistress staring down an impudent pupil.
‘One evening,’ she went on, ‘O’Leary was sailing alone outside Sydney Heads. There was a storm off the New South Wales coast and he radioed a mayday. Neither he nor the yacht was ever seen again. His body was never found. A few days later a sail bag, life vest and parts of the yacht washed ashore at Watsons Bay in Sydney Harbour. According to Nemony, neither O’Leary nor the yacht was insured. There was an inquest and he was declared lost at sea. Dead.’ Miss Longfellow took a deep breath and then said despondently, ‘Nemony returned to us a broken woman and she has never recovered.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said, hoping my comment sounded like a belated condolence, but knowing my regret stemmed solely from the fact that there was nothing of interest in her tale of woe. For the life of me I couldn’t imagine why Daisy had thought I should hear it. Had I missed something?
‘I’m only interested in current newsworthy issues,’ I explained.
‘This would be current and newsworthy.’
‘I don’t do love stories,’ I said.
‘Oh, I think you’ll do this one.’
Shaking my head again, I mimicked her earlier theatrics and placed my hands on my hips. The woman’s arrogance was astonishing.
‘And that would be why?’ I demanded crossly.
‘I saw him yesterday,’ she said.
Zap.
My head snapped up and my nose pointed high in the air.
Finally, the bloodhound had picked up the scent.
Chapter 2
Excited that I’d finally met one of the Anemone Sisters, and only partially annoyed that it may have put the kibosh on my holiday, I struggled with my shopping back to my apartment above Fandango’s restaurant in Jonson Street. I definitely didn’t need the two bottles of pink grapefruit juice that had been two for the price of one.
As always, Byron Bay was a carnival of high spirits. Music and laughter drifted from bars and cafés, and the footpaths were packed with tourists who’d come to see humpback whales cruising past the headland on their northern migration. Few were aware—and I’m talking tourists here, not whales—of the town’s murderous whaling history, and it’s an unwritten rule that locals don’t mention it unless asked. These days, of course, we proudly take shots with cameras instead of harpoons.
‘Honestly, I held her off for as long as I could,’ I told Chairman Meow as I unpacked groceries onto the kitchen table.
He rubbed his neck against my leg and meowed loudly. ‘On the bright side,’ I said cheerfully, ‘we might have a new case.’
Chairman Meow was as pleased as I was and he turned lively circles at my feet like a whirling dervish. I smiled down at him. He’s velvety grey and handsome like the cat in the Dine commercials, and when I’d first brought him home from the pound I’d thought he was a Chinese model, hence the name. Since then I’d discovered he was a Russian Blue, and no, I wouldn’t have called him Rasputin had I known. Maybe Gorbachops.
‘Now pay attention,’ I said, lifting him into my arms. ‘Tomorrow morning, a scary stick insect called Hermione Longfellow will be coming for a meeting. I want you to think up probing questions. Real corkers.’ I put him back down on the floor and he bounded off to his wicker chair on the back verandah. On the case.
I finished unpacking the groceries and switched my thoughts back to Miss Longfellow. Much to my annoyance, and after I’d finally expressed interest, she’d informed me that she hadn’t seen Mick O’Leary in the flesh, but in a newspaper photograph while she was wrapping custard apples at Daisy’s farm—last Friday’s Sydney Morning Herald, to be precise.
This wasn’t the eyewitness testimony I would have preferred, but Miss Longfellow had been certain it was O’Leary in the photograph as, apparently, he possessed an unusual physical anomaly. Intrigued, I had asked what that was, but she had dismissed my question, telling me she would show me on the photograph. Naturally I was hoping he was a man with three arms.
The photograph, she’d explained, showed sailors who had rescued people from two boats that had collided on the Great Barrier Reef. The accident had occurred last Thursday and Mick O’Leary, according to Miss Longfellow, was one of the sailors. She would, she’d assured me, bring the article and photograph to our meeting tomorrow.
I didn’t think I could wait that long to see it, but I’d try. If I checked the Herald website I knew I would peek at work emails and start responding. And it wasn’t worth searching for information on the storm that had supposedly taken O’Leary’s life without an approximate date. It was a long time ago and there would be thousands of Mick O’Learys out there.
In the meantime the smart money was on quizzing Daisy on Miss Longfellow’s bona fides. I didn’t want to waste time investigating a story if Hermione was simply a bitter old woman seeking to embroil me in her own obsessive revenge. Daisy would know and I trusted her judgement.
The light on my message machine was flashing. It was my sister, Harper, informing me that she would pop in around 7 pm. She’s Head of Sport at Tattings, a posh coeducational private school in Queensland, and often drops in if her students have after-school basketball matches down here in northern New South Wales.
Pleased at the chance to see how she was, I sent her a text advising that I would organise dinner. Over the past year Harper had become disillusioned with teaching, which she complained had become more about student management than education. Her level of job satisfaction had been deteriorating at the same rate as her anxiety levels had been escalating, and I was worried about her.
On a whim I decided to drop in on Daisy rather than call her. I changed into my farm-girl garb—black Levis, grey T-shirt, RM Williams boots and a battered old Akubra—grabbed my sunglasses, car keys and a bottle of pink grapefruit juice and headed out the door.
With a lively sense of purpose I strode through town towards the railway station car park where I’ve been parking my old Toyota Avalon ever since the trains stopped running. So far the car’s only been pinched once and I was lucky as it was found in one piece.
I breathed the usual sigh of reli
ef when my green jalopy came into view, pulled the flyers out from under the wipers, climbed in and pointed her towards Daisy’s farm.
Chapter 3
It was midafternoon when I arrived at Yab Noryb, Dave and Daisy Fanshaw’s property in the lush green hills behind Byron Bay.
According to the Fanshaws, Yab Noryb is an ancient Celtic term meaning ‘beautiful view of the ocean’, but I’d got wise to their ruse years ago. On the way out of their driveway I’d glanced in my rear-vision mirror and realised that the name was simply Byron Bay spelt backwards. It certainly pays to observe the road rules.
The farmhouse is a restored Queenslander-style home with blue and white plumbago growing in wild abandon on the lattice screens along the verandah. Below the house are banana plants, an orchard of lemon, orange, mandarin, nectarine and olive trees, and a plantation of macadamia and pecan nuts. Behind the house, shielding it from the fierce western sun, stand two massive eucalyptus trees.
‘Is that a bogof?’ Daisy asked me, indicating the bottle of pink grapefruit juice.
‘What’s a bogof?’ I mentally transposed the letters in case it was another Fanshaw invention.
‘Buy one get one free,’ she explained.
I laughed. ‘No, it’s a two for the price of one.’
‘That’s a twofer,’ she informed me. ‘Same thing, really.’
‘Are we doing domestic goddess talk?’ I made an attempt to look suitably horrified.
‘Uh-huh. Give it a few years and you’ll get the hang of it.’
We were sitting at the long pine table in Daisy’s farmhouse kitchen. I was shucking broad beans, pleased that I didn’t have to eat them, and Daisy was rolling pastry for a steak pie. Twiggy, the Fanshaws’ frail, elderly greyhound, was asleep under the table, her back legs twitching as she dreamed of chasing sedated rabbits. Thoughtfully, I refrained from pointing out the physical similarities between Miss Longfellow and old Twigs.
‘Did Hermione tell you that O’Leary had his filthy way with Nemony in the lavender shed?’ Daisy asked.
‘She did.’
‘And were you appropriately disgusted?’
‘I’ll say. Sex and aromatherapy at the same time. Appalling.’
Daisy grinned at me, dipped her fingers into the flour jar and dusted her rolling pin. We worked in silence for a time, perfectly comfortable with our own thoughts.
I’ve known the Fanshaws for years, ever since I rescued their only son, Ben, from a party-drug coma on the beach. It was an inauspicious start to what has become a rich and rewarding friendship and I love the family to bits. Daisy runs the farm and Dave has a law office in town. He’s also a frustrated novelist who styles his appearance on Hemingway, even combing his hair over his forehead and trimming his grey beard à la Ernest.
Ben, now twenty-eight, has recently moved home again and is writing a book about his experiences with a cult. The Fanshaws are embarrassingly generous towards me and I try to even things out by helping Dave and Ben with their literary pursuits, and Daisy with harvesting. I receive way more than I give, but that’s how it is sometimes.
I stopped shucking and looked at Daisy. ‘You know, people change a lot in thirty years. Miss Longfellow could be mistaken.’
‘Men don’t change too much,’ Daisy observed philosophically, ‘especially if they’re handsome.’
I gave this some thought. Even though important bits soften and sag, the aura of male handsomeness usually remains. It’s not at all fair.
‘It’s difficult, though,’ I went on, ‘to identify someone from a newspaper photograph.’
‘Hermione is odd, but she isn’t a flake,’ Daisy assured me. ‘She was certain it was O’Leary.’
‘She also told me he had a physical peculiarity, which is how she knew it was him. Did she tell you what it was?’
Daisy shook her head. ‘No, I didn’t look at the picture. I was concentrating on calming her down. And she took it with her, so I’ve not seen it.’
Picking up another pod, I shucked too hard and a bean shot across the kitchen floor. Twiggy yelped, struggled into a standing position and hobbled across the floorboards, halting over the bean. She sniffed it and nudged it around with her nose, and then limped slowly back to her spot under the table. It made me feel rather guilty.
‘If Hermione thought it was O’Leary,’ Daisy insisted as she handfed Twiggy a piece of steak, ‘then it was him. You weren’t here, Scout. You didn’t see her reaction. She was beside herself.’
‘Yeah, okay, maybe,’ I said, ‘but Hermione said that she only knew O’Leary for a short time. It was a long time ago and she could be mistaken. Maybe her eyesight isn’t what it used to be. Maybe it was Hermione who knew him really well, which is how she recognised him so easily, and the Nemony marriage story is a smokescreen.’
Daisy sighed loudly. An exasperated expression crossed her face and she rolled the pastry with unnecessary force. Uh-oh. It was time to back off. I pressed the mental pause button and waited.
The wait wasn’t long.
‘Scout!’ Daisy said sternly, pointing the rolling pin at me. ‘Hermione was sitting right where you are, wrapping custard apples in newspaper, when she shrieked and jumped out of that chair.’
I made an apologetic gesture with my hands. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Daisy, I’m not trying to annoy you. It’s just all a bit vague. She could have made up his relationship with Nemony.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, why would she make it up?’
‘Because she has an axe to grind with O’Leary. He may have done something terrible to her, or to the three of them. Think about it. If Hermione’s story is true, and O’Leary ruined her sister’s life, then . . .’
‘. . . then she’d be the last person to want the bastard resurrected and cause Nemony any more grief,’ Daisy interrupted crossly.
‘Exactly!’
Daisy looked puzzled, and then slowly an expression of awakened acknowledgment spread across her face. ‘Oh, now I see what you mean. God, I’d make a hopeless investigative journalist.’
‘Give it a few years and you’ll get the hang of it,’ I said and Daisy, quite rightly, flicked flour in my face.
‘Are you cross I told Hermione to talk to you?’ she asked anxiously.
‘Not at all. I’m just covering bases.’
‘And trying to find a reason not to mess up your holiday?’
I smiled warmly at her. ‘That too, perhaps.’
‘Tea?’ she offered.
I nodded. Tea, the official peacemaker.
Maggie Groff is the author of two non-fiction books, Mothers Behaving Badly and Hoax Cuisine. She has worked as a columnist for Sunday Life magazine in The Sun-Herald and extracts of her work have been published globally by Readers Digest. She lives with her husband in northern New South Wales and is currently working on her next Scout Davis investigation.
Maggie Groff
Good News, Bad News
Intrepid investigative journalist Scout Davis has given herself a holiday, but when Hermione Longfellow floats towards her in the supermarket, wanting to engage her services, she stops to listen.
Most people in Byron Bay are aware of the eccentric Anemone sisters. Always dressed in black, they rarely leave their home nestled in the hills – but Scout is sure that the drinking of chicken blood is just idle gossip. When Hermione asks Scout to track down sister Nemony’s AWOL husband, believed to have died at sea thirty years ago, but recently popped up again on the Great Barrier Reef, Scout jumps at the chance.
Meanwhile, Scout’s sister Harper despairs over her husband’s odd behaviour, and her journalist boyfriend is finally coming home from Afghanistan. Trouble is, Scout thinks she may be falling in love with irresistible local cop Rafe – who coincidentally is also Toby’s best friend . . .
Perfect for fans of Janet Evanovich and Alexander McCall Smith, this is storytelling at its laugh-out-loud best.
COMING MARCH 2013
First published as Mad Men, Bad Girls and the Guer
illa Knitters Institute in Macmillan in 2012 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
This Pan edition published in 2013 as Mad Men, Bad Girls by
Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000
Copyright © Maggie Groff 2012
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Groff, Maggie.
Mad men, bad girls / Maggie Groff.
A823.4
EPUB format: 9781743345412
The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group
Cover design by Seymour Designs
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