‘Do you know who it is?’ Oliver asked eagerly.
‘Was, Mr Atkinson. The man is dead so he cannot still be having an affair. Was, not is.’
Violet thought that was hilarious.
Freda added, ‘I hope you’re a better writer than public speaker.’
‘The benefit of writing is the ability to edit, Freda, something you cannot do orally.’
‘Your brain is your editor Oliver,’ she replied, warming to her task.
‘Touché,’ he conceded.
She seemed vaguely disappointed that he’d given in so easily.
Feeling he’d regained the lost ground, Oliver asked, ‘Do you know who he was having an affair with?’
‘Of course not. I barely saw the man apart from when he got coffee.’ She frowned. ‘Although there was a girl. I saw her come out of the shop several times.’
‘Perhaps she was a customer?’ he offered.
Her expression was full of scorn. ‘She never carried anything in or out. Except, sometimes when she came out she seemed to be counting some money. It was a bit hard to tell from over here, but I think that’s what it was.’
‘You’re very observant,’ Oliver repeated.
This time she accepted the compliment with a slight incline of her head.
‘Could you describe the girl?’
Freda closed her eyes and sat completely still for so long Oliver had an uneasy urge to check for a pulse.
‘Five foot three, early twenties, slim build, C cup, shoulder-length brown hair although the blonde roots suggest it was dyed. She bought all her clothes at Farmers, but her shoes were expensive – top-end leather boots. She usually got in a taxi when she left.’
Oliver stared in amazement and when Freda’s eyes flicked open she noted his expression with satisfaction.
‘I spent thirty years working in Farmers. When you’re trying to sell a woman clothes you learn to be observant on things like size and style.’
(She’s got Amanda’s attitude. Are you sure they aren’t related?)
Oliver studied the face of the woman opposite but couldn’t see any familiar resemblance to Amanda. ‘When did you last see the woman?’ he asked Freda.
Her eyes twinkled. ‘The day before I saw you and your friend there.’
No more questions came to mind so Oliver thanked Freda for her help and met Amanda at the door of the café.
‘Who’s your friend?’ Amanda asked.
‘Someone who’d give you a run for your money,’ he replied, and relayed everything Freda had said.
Amanda nodded. ‘That mostly gels with what Stephen told me. Peter was a regular, always chatted while his coffee was being made. The last couple of weeks Peter had seemed more upbeat, dropping a few hints about a change in his life. But I don’t think it was about sex.’
‘You don’t think he was having an affair?’
They walked back to the car and Amanda unlocked it. ‘I don’t know. He could have been, but the sense I got was that Peter’s new mood had more to do with money.’
‘Well it started way before you brought him the painting, so it can’t have anything to do with that,’ Oliver said as they climbed into the car.
Amanda didn’t immediately start the engine. She sat staring out the window chewing on the end of her hair. It began to rain again. Oliver glanced at his watch, conscious of time being eaten up and spat out in wasted minutes.
(Is it just me or does she seem to be doing more thinking and less doing the more the day goes by?)
Yeah, that worries me too.
‘Amanda, what are we going to do next?’
She dropped her hair and shook her shoulders, as if restarting her brain. ‘We need to verify if he was having an affair.’ She started the car and pulled away.
‘Sure, let’s just call AffairsRUs,’ Oliver replied sarcastically.
Amanda flashed him a grin, all hesitation wiped from memory. ‘You know there’s a website called that, right?’
Oliver hadn’t, but he wasn’t surprised. There were websites for everything.
(When I was alive, if a man wanted to have an affair he just went to a bar.)
‘Did you ever have an affair?’
(Inside voice, Oliver – remember?)
Amanda laughed as he belatedly realised he’d said it out loud.
‘I’ve never needed to,’ came the vague response.
(Neither have I.)
Amanda said thoughtfully, ‘We can’t ask the wife – she was too busy having her own affair – but that doesn’t mean someone in the family wasn’t aware.’
Oliver considered the only other option they knew. ‘Samantha.’
‘Yes, and since you two are such great friends, you can ask her.’
‘Firstly we only had one conversation, and secondly how do you want me to ask if she knew whether her uncle was having an affair?’
‘Pretty much exactly how you just said it.’
Oliver slumped down in his seat, trying and failing to think of further arguments against that.
‘Are we going back to the house?’
Amanda snagged her phone from her pocket, pressed some buttons while keeping an eye on the road, and handed it to Oliver.
A ringing sound came through the car speakers, then a bored voice answered, ‘Yeah?’
Once again thrown in the deep end by Amanda, Oliver’s mind struggled into gear. ‘Hi, Samantha, it’s Oliver Atkinson. We met yesterday at your Aunt’s house.’
He paused for a response that didn’t come.
‘Do you remember?’
‘Of course I remember.’ She managed a reply that was equal parts annoyed and bored.
‘Okay, good. I just wanted to ask you something if that’s okay. You told me that your mother and Charlotte were sleeping together. Do you know if Peter was seeing anyone on the side?’
There was a snort. ‘Seeing anyone? How old are you? You mean was he shagging anyone other than Aunt Charlotte?’
‘Um, yeah, pretty much.’
‘What’s it worth?’
Oliver whispered to Amanda. ‘What’s the industry rate for smart-arse teenagers who know something but don’t want to tell you?’
‘Twenty dollars.’
‘Twenty dollars,’ he relayed.
‘Fifty.’
‘Twenty-five.’
‘Forty.’
‘Thirty, and only if the information is worth it.’
‘No I want it in advance – in my bank account.’
Dear God, is this what I have to look forward to in ten years?
(Probably.)
Oliver glanced at Amanda who had been listening to the negotiation. She nodded.
‘Deal. Give me your account number.’
Oliver scribbled it on the back of a parking ticket. ‘I’ll transfer the money and call you straight back.’
‘Mercenary, isn’t she?’ Amanda said.
‘You two have a lot in common.’ He used the banking app on his own phone to transfer the funds, then called Samantha back.
‘Okay you have the money. Now was your uncle having an affair?’
‘No.’ The sound of hysterical laughter erupted from the phone.
Oliver strangled the word formed in his mouth, but Violet managed to splutter a few out. Only Amanda remained outwardly calm.
‘Who was he working with then?’ Oliver pressed.
‘That’ll cost you twenty more.’
(No way!)
Oliver glanced at Amanda who waved her hand to indicate he should keep going. ‘Last time I got nothing for my money,’ he told Samantha.
‘That’s not true. You asked a question and I answered it.’
Oliver quelled the urge to throw the phone out the window. He took a deep breath and counted rain drops while collecting his thoughts.
‘Twenty dollars to answer this question. Was your uncle working with someone not on the books at the shop?’
‘Send the money,’ Samantha replied.
Oliver completed the transfer, then called her back.
‘No.’ She laughed. ‘Uncle Pete was all alone.’
(I want to punch her so bad right now.)
A horrible suspicion formed in Oliver’s mind. ‘You knew that your mother and Charlotte were sleeping together. How much were you blackmailing your mother?’
There was a snuffling laugh from the other end of the phone. ‘Fifty bucks a week.’
(Fifty dollars a week just for keeping her mouth shut. Maybe she’s not so bad after all.)
Amanda reached out and pressed the end button. ‘I’m saving your bank account.’
Relieved that his depleted account wasn’t going to be further raided, Oliver handed her back the phone.
(That was a waste of time, and money.)
Oliver shook his head. ‘She was lying.’
‘How could you tell?’ Amanda asked.
‘My kids might be younger and less experienced at lying to their parents, but I know a lie when I hear it. She was lying about him working with a partner. Besides we know there was a woman that regularly went in and out of the shop.’
‘Maybe she doesn’t know,’ Amanda said.
‘Maybe. Either way we’re no closer to finding who she is.’
Amanda didn’t answer immediately, instead searching for somewhere to pull over, finally snaffling a recently emptied park.
‘There are a whole lot of ways to get from point A to point B without using a straight line.’
(How short would your book be if you went from the corpse to the killer in a straight line?)
‘I like straight lines. They add clarity to life,’ Oliver stated.
(Sounds boring.)
‘Sounds boring.’
Oliver winced at the stereo response. ‘Fine, I get it. I’m boring,’ he snapped.
(A bit touchy, Oliver?)
‘Sensitive subject, Oliver?’
‘Let’s get back on topic. How are we going to find the partner?’
‘There are three plausible answers. One, she’s a pro, two, she was taking him for a ride, or three, they were partners.’
(What’s a pro?)
You used to be one.
(Oh.)
Oliver asked, ‘What’s your feel?’
Amanda considered the options. ‘The easiest for us is if she’s an escort. There aren’t so many of them in Wellington that we couldn’t track her down. But it’s unlikely since it seemed she visited the shop mostly during the day. And before you say anything, I know people have sex during the day, but Peter was very particular about his place of business. I just don’t see it. The other two options are a bit trickier. Especially without a name. To get more information we’d need his phone –’
‘Which the police probably have,’ Oliver interrupted.
‘Right, or we need to break into the shop, which is still a crime scene.’
‘We can’t ask the police to see his phone. They’re already suspicious of us, and we have no legal reason to do it.’
‘Right again,’ Amanda acknowledged with a grin. The sinking feeling in his stomach highlighted to Oliver that he’d just walked into her trap.
Twenty five
‘No! There is no way I’m breaking into the shop. It’s illegal, I don’t have the skills to do it, if we get caught we’d go to jail and I have a family, and…and...’ Oliver groped around for more objections.
‘Relax, Oliver, this is more my area of expertise,’ she reassured him.
‘I thought you weren’t a thief?’
‘I’m not a chef either, but I know how to make crème brûlée.’
It took him a few moments to understand the analogy, then he nodded slowly. ‘So when are you going to do it?’
‘Do what?’
‘Break into his shop?’
‘Oliver I never said I was going to break into the shop. I simply said I had the ability to do it, should I ever have the need or desire.’
‘But you…’ His head started to ache.
(I think she’s trying to cover herself in case you ever go to the police.)
But we’ve done all sorts of illegal things this weekend.
(Have we? Name one thing you and Amanda have done that broke a law?)
That stopped him, and upon reflection he realised Violet was right – they might have lied a few times, but no laws had been broken.
‘My mistake,’ he said.
‘I’ve got a couple of errands to run, which will be easier without you in the car. I’ll drop you at a café somewhere and pick you up in an hour.’
‘We were just at a café,’ he pointed out.
She grinned. ‘Yes, but the location wasn’t the best.’
Oliver let it drop, and she was probably right. This wasn’t like his kids, where ignorance of their actions usually let to a nasty surprise like spaghetti in their sock drawer.
Amanda let him out by the railway station and told him to be back there in sixty minutes. As she disappeared into traffic, he hoped she wouldn’t get caught. Then he reflected that a lot had changed since all this began.
(I know you’d rather we both be gone, but for now you’re stuck with us.)
With a sigh, he wandered into the railway station and ordered a coffee from the little kiosk outside the metro supermarket, then snagged one of the small tables hugging the wall on either side of the main entrance. The Sunday crowd trickled past in both directions – families with small children excited to be there and generation Z’s lost in their phones, punctuated by the occasional mission-orientated student striding along with book bags slung importantly over one shoulder. Oliver remembered shepherding Reed and Rose through the high-domed building and out into the ‘city’, a place so big and mysterious to small children it deserved quote marks. He pulled out his phone and checked in with Jennifer via text.
While he waited for a reply the barista called out a name. No one else pressed forward to claim the drink and Oliver hesitantly approached the counter.
‘Flat white for Oliber,’ the man repeated.
‘Yes, I’m Oliber – I mean Oliver.’
The man passed him his drink, already forgetting the transaction.
(Hey Oliber.)
It’s six letters. How on earth can you screw up six letters? He retook his seat. Oh, to be famous and have people know your name.
(Is that why you want to be a writer? To be famous?)
Oliver thought about it. No, I want to be a writer because…. He flashbacked to the night he and Jennifer had discussed him leaving work and pursuing writing fulltime. It had seemed so scary and exhilarating then. A fantastic adventure where he finally got to strive towards his dream.
And for the first few weeks that’s exactly what it had been like. He looked forward to dropping the kids off in the morning, then coming home to a blank page and the thrill of filling it with something straight from his brain to his fingertips. Then slowly the doubts came, nibbling away at the edges of his confidence, growing bolder with each day. By the time Violet had shown up Oliver’s dream seemed further away than before.
I just always have. You must have wanted to be something when you grew up? I assume escorting wasn’t your first choice.
(No, that was just a pleasant way to pass some time.)
I can’t believe you’re so blasé about it. You were having sex with men for money.
(It was better than having sex with them for free! It was my body – why shouldn’t I be able to make money from something I enjoy? Isn’t that what you want to do with your writing?)
Oliver’s hand jerked in surprise and he burnt his lip on the scalding drink. That’s hardly the same thing.
(Isn’t it?)
For a start no one sees me naked.
(And no one saw me naked, unless they paid. I keep telling you, it was different back then. During the war any woman who wasn’t caring for a child was expected to work.)
I don’t think that’s what the war effort had in mind.
(And for only a frac
tion of what men got paid.)
But still…
(I was supposed to work the same amount of time as the men, put in the same effort, and get paid half what they did, just because they had a penis and I didn’t. So, yeah, I chucked in the factory job and took control of what I earned.)
Before Oliver could reply his phone beeped. He frowned as he read Jennifer’s reply.
(What’s wrong?)
He re-read it just to make sure.
Her boss rang. He wants a meeting with her tomorrow morning at 11.05am.
(So?)
Oliver blew steam off his drink and took a tentative sip while considering the implications.
He never calls her on a Sunday. And the timing is weird. No one calls a meeting at five minutes past the hour. Why not at eleven?
They both thought about that and it was Violet who voiced the suspicion.
(Is it a coincidence that it’s set for five minutes after the deadline Victor gave us?)
It’s a warning. It has to be. Victor’s telling me if I don’t deliver the painting at eleven then my wife’s job is on the line.
(You don’t know that for sure.)
What else can it be?
(Maybe something major is happening at her work. Maybe her boss is just warning her about it. Maybe it has nothing to do with Victor.)
If you hadn’t said maybe a ton of times I’d be more reassured.
He called Jennifer, but she didn’t have much to add, just that her boss had said they had something important to discuss. Oliver felt worse after he hung up.
(I’m sorry, this is all my fault.)
Oliver listened to the guilt in Violet’s voice and shook his head. No it’s not. You had no idea what would happen. This is all Amanda’s fault. Ever since she used your name to commit a crime she’s been sucking us into the hurricane that makes up her life. She’s the one who should be apologising.
(Well if she doesn’t get caught breaking into the shop we’ll demand an apology.)
Amanda hadn’t been arrested. She drove up exactly sixty minutes after dropping Oliver off, but by then his ire had subsided and he decided to wait until later before demanding an apology. Violet called him something that didn’t sound like a compliment.
Amanda pulled her phone out and clicked open the photo gallery. She selected one and passed the phone over. It was a small scrap of paper with the name Jean and a phone number.
Ghostly Hitchhiker Box Set Page 16