‘Well,’ said Charlie. ‘That certainly hit the spot.’
‘Poor kid,’ Iona murmured. ‘Maybe I should go and see how she is.’
Charlie put a hand on her arm. ‘Jass is with her and knows her. What you said is the best help you could ever give.’
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have raised the issue at the table,’ I said. ‘What do people talk about at dinner parties?’
‘At my dinner parties, we mostly talk about bands and cars,’ said Greg. ‘Oh, and girls.’
Charlie helped himself to some more chicken. ‘Then there are some people who seem to want to feel even more victimised—too many people, not only women, enjoy being martyrs. Makes them feel special and different. “Look at me, how much I can suffer.” ’
He finished his glass of wine with relish. ‘But masochism is not really my thing, Jack. You’d have to talk to one of the experts.’
Jacinta returned and we all looked at her, expectantly.
‘She wants me to drive her to the station,’ she said. ‘I can’t talk her out of it. Honestly, Dad. Why did you have to start on that?’
‘Now just a minute,’ I said. ‘You want me to censor conversation in this family? It wasn’t even about Shaz!’
‘Try and tell her that,’ said Jacinta.
‘I wouldn’t,’ said Charlie. ‘She wouldn’t believe it. People in pain are extremely self-obsessed. They feel everything is pointed at them.’
‘What Iona said could be very helpful to Shaz,’ I said. ‘Someone who’s been in a similar position and now thinks well of herself is a powerful teacher.’
Jacinta sat back down, looking up at me from under her brows—her ‘little bull’ look that I hadn’t seen for years. My mobile rang and I cursed, wishing I’d switched it off.
‘Leave it,’ said Iona as I twisted to unhook it. ‘You’re not at work now.’
‘Maybe I should have a word with Shaz?’ Charlie said.
Jacinta shook her head. ‘No. She said she doesn’t want to talk, she just wants to go home. I’m going to finish dinner and take her into town so she can get a train or a bus back to Sydney.’
‘Are you going to answer that bloody phone or not, Dad?’ Greg asked. ‘Kill it, can’t you?’
‘Leave it, please,’ pleaded Iona.
‘It might be important,’ I said, standing up with the mobile in my hand.
‘So is this, Jack,’ she said, indicating the family feast, the diners settling down after Shaz’s sudden exit.
‘Come on, Dad. Give the bad guys a break for a while, eh?’ said Greg, patting the seat beside him. I stood there a moment, immobilised by indecision, watching Jacinta eat too quickly. Then, to my great relief, the mobile suddenly stopped ringing and when I checked, there was no message.
‘See?’ said Iona. ‘They rang off. Couldn’t have been very important.’
I sat down and added some carved chicken breast to my plate.
‘Jacinta, don’t bolt your food like that,’ I said. ‘And I think it’s crazy of Shaz to expect you to run her into town now. And crazy of you to let her do it. Tell her you’ll do it in the morning.’
Jacinta threw her fork down. ‘Jesus, Dad! Will you get off my case? She’s my friend, not yours. And I’ll make my own decisions about my friend without you telling me how I should do it!’
I heard her muttering something about no wonder people used drugs and ignored it. Family dinners, I thought. What a bloody minefield. The mobile started ringing again and I put the fork down, defeated. ‘I have to answer it. Someone ringing my mobile after hours like this means someone really needs me . . .’ I trailed off as I unhooked it again.
‘Yes?’ I said.
‘That matter we spoke about earlier,’ said Dallas Baxter. ‘I’ve organised your introduction. You’ve got a meeting tonight.’
I knew straightaway what he was talking about and now, with all eyes on me at the dinner table, I was not keen. ‘Let’s make it another time. I’m busy tonight,’ I stalled.
‘Too damn busy,’ Jacinta muttered.
‘No, you’re not,’ came Dallas’s sharp reply. ‘You don’t know how hard it’s been for me to set this up after being out of the scene so long. I’ve had someone nominate you. Your first engagement is tonight. That was part of the deal.’
My mouth was suddenly dry. I hadn’t expected this to happen so soon—and with such bad timing.
‘Knock this back and you’re on your own,’ Dallas said in the face of my continuing silence. ‘This has been very awkward for me. I’ve had to call in every favour for you.’
‘Where do I go?’ I said finally, capitulating.
‘That hasn’t been organised yet. I’ll call you back when I know the other party and the place.’
‘Dallas, getting me the colours and the numbers is the most important thing. I don’t have to actually go and—’ I suddenly realised the silence around me. Everyone was listening so I hastily changed what I was about to say. ‘I don’t feel so well. I don’t want to have to go out again,’ I said, truthfully. But he’d rung off before I could finish what I was saying.
Greg, who’d stopped chewing while I was speaking, nodded vigorous approval. Iona reached over and put her hand on mine as I put the mobile away.
‘You’re not having a bet, are you?’ Greg asked. ‘What’s with the colours and numbers?’
I couldn’t look Iona in the eyes, knowing that any time tonight, the damn thing would ring again and then I’d have to make some excuse and leave the cottage to go out to meet some unknown woman waiting in an anonymous hotel or motel, ready to have sex with a stranger. With me. This idea was disturbingly arousing. I reminded myself that I was living with the woman I loved and was gathering intelligence, not embarking on a sexual liaison. My cold and headache would stand me in good stead as an excuse to avoid sex.
‘Are you okay?’ Iona asked, frowning.
I cleared my throat again. ‘I think I’m coming down with a cold,’ I mumbled.
‘Dad! You’ve already got a cold!’ Jacinta pointed out, restored to better humour.
‘It’s got worse then,’ I said lamely.
My daughter regarded me with a particularly hard look. ‘You’re up to something. What’s going on, Dad?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘You are having a bet! Look, everyone! Dad’s actually blushing!’
‘Jack, it’s true! You are blushing!’ said Iona, delightedly.
‘Don’t you gang up on me too!’ I pleaded.
‘Okay. Anyone know where the nearest Gamblers Anonymous meeting is round here?’ Greg joked.
‘You should come too, son,’ I said. ‘The way you’ve been studying it’s a bloody gamble whether you’ll pass this year or not.’
In Greg’s roar of mock outrage at my remark, I almost didn’t hear the mobile ring again. I grabbed it and this time a text message flashed onto the tiny screen. I jumped up, excusing myself. Olims at Braddon = 9 with colour Blue. Suite 12. 21.30 hrs. BE THERE.
Quickly, I switched the mobile off and glanced at my watch—not much more than half an hour to get there. Somehow, Dallas had lined up Blue. Excitement mixing with guilt made it hard as hell to play it cool. I knew now that Blue was a woman.
‘I’m terribly sorry,’ I said, turning to everyone at the table. ‘I have to go out. Something really urgent has come up.’
No one said anything. I looked around at four pairs of eyes, all of them disbelieving. Then, in the silence, Iona, who had stopped eating and crossed her knife and fork neatly, stood up, threw her table napkin down, pushed her chair back into the table and left the room.
Everyone else was silent as I followed her down the hall into our room. Feeling like an absolute bastard I closed the door behind us.
‘Iona, sweetheart. Plea
se,’ I said.
She turned to face me. All traces of the melting woman who’d been in my arms in the kitchen had vanished.
‘This can’t go on, Jack,’ she said, tears shining in her eyes. ‘You have to make a decision about us. Otherwise there’s no point in me being here.’
‘Iona, I have to go out. I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t absolutely essential. You must know that.’
‘I don’t know any such thing.’
‘It’s very important to me that I follow every lead I get—if it will get me closer to bringing Claire Dimitriou’s killer to justice. Tonight’s meeting will hopefully bring me face to face with someone whose identity could be crucial to this investigation.’
‘And tomorrow night, will you be out meeting someone else who’s crucial to another investigation? And someone else the night after that? And the night after that? When is this going to stop?’
‘Once these cases are over—’
‘There’ll be new ones! More and more cases,’ she interrupted angrily. ‘I’ve been here long enough now to see your pattern.’
‘What pattern?’
‘You’re still behaving as if you’re an investigating detective on call! You’re not! You’re an analyst—a scientist with a nine-to-five job, plus overtime. A nine-to-five worker with a commitment to a woman he claims to love!’
‘It’s not just a claim, Iona.’
‘I’ll bet Florence and the others go home at five o’clock!’
‘Iona, these murdered women can’t tell us what happened. They need me. I feel I owe them.’
‘What about this woman?’ she said, pointing to herself. ‘Don’t you “owe” me something too? We have a pledge, an understanding!’
‘Of course I—’
‘What are you running from? Why do you avoid being with me? Didn’t you say in Sydney that you’d been searching for a lifetime for a woman like me?’
‘I did, and it’s true!’
‘Then why do you continue to make choices that keep you so busy? So that you have no time for me? For us?’ The distress in her voice cut me.
‘Iona, please. Once these two cases have been wrapped—’
‘I don’t know what to say, Jack. I don’t know how else to put it so that you can hear it—hear what I’m saying. We continue to come to this place in our conversations. Over and over I hear myself saying the same things. You too.’
Even while she was talking, I was looking around, making sure I had everything necessary, money, keys, wallet.
‘You’re not even listening now, are you? You’ve already gone.’
‘Iona, I—’
‘I don’t want to hear it, Jack. Just go.’ She turned away from me and went to the window, staring out into the night, breathing hard as she contained her anger.
‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’
She didn’t move. Nor did she speak as I left the room. I called a ‘goodbye’ to the group and hurried outside to the car.
Sixteen
Concentrating on the drive to Braddon was difficult. I felt torn in two and the knowledge that I’d left Iona hurt and disappointed was hard for me to live with. Yet it was essential that I honour my duty to the murdered scientist Claire Dimitriou. The sense that I owed her my time and my talents seemed overwhelming and, for a moment, I caught myself wondering why this was so. The things Iona had said to me, I’d heard from another woman, my ex-wife. I’d heard the same complaints from Annette Sommers about Peter Yu. As far as I knew, no one else on the staff, except perhaps the grim little palynologist, seemed to take on the sort of extra workload that I did. Why did I behave like this? Especially now, when I had so much to lose? Iona’s questions blazed in my mind and, somewhere, I knew they were legitimate and demanded answers. The thought of Iona changing her mind about me and going back to Sydney filled me with anguish and yet here I was, walking out on a festive dinner she’d been looking forward to so much, one that I’d promised her. What was going on here? In here, I thought. In me?
There were plenty of car spaces in the gracious grounds of Olims but I parked my wagon across the road from it, just in case. I glanced at my watch. It was just past nine-thirty.
Blood pounded in my ears and again I had to remind myself that I was attending to business, gathering essential intelligence and not meeting a woman for an illicit assignation. For a second, I wondered what the hell I was doing, visiting a stranger in a hotel instead of being with Iona, but after sussing out that Suite 12 was on the second floor, I nodded to the receptionist as if I owned the place and hurried upstairs.
I had to walk the length of the hall before I came to the room. I knocked and waited, heart pumping hard. Nothing. Maybe, after all this, I’d been stood up. This was a double blind date after all. But, faintly, I could hear music coming from behind the door and with it a subtle fragrance, the sort that Jacinta sometimes liked around her—floral essences in an oil-burner. I knocked again and this time I heard a woman’s voice. ‘It’s not locked. Come in.’
Maybe she was in bed already. This thought gave me a shock because I’d assumed there’d be a getting-to-know-you chat first. And in that chat, I’d hoped to gain further knowledge of the workings of the group. If she was in bed, there were two ways I could go. Either risk humiliating her and getting her badly offside by saying I had a bad cold—true enough—and suggesting she get dressed so we could talk. Or climb in with her and hope we could talk before. That way, I could claim a headache. Yeah, right, Jack, I heard myself say. Who was I kidding? But that would mean crossing a boundary. It was the sort of dangerous engagement that could throw a future prosecution right out the window.
‘Don’t be shy. It’s okay,’ she repeated through the closed door. ‘Come in. ’
I should have walked away right then. But I didn’t. Instead, I opened the door and went in. Then I stood still. Staring.
If only she had been in bed.
What I saw shot straight to my brain, activating nerve paths long hidden under civilised niceties, flash-flooding circuitry with energy. I stood transfixed, unable to move, to speak. Immobilised by the sight of her magnificent, naked arse raised high in the air, exposing her Brazilian; the rosy slit and, above it, the cute brown button of her anus. It was all I could do to stand my ground. My body was powered by an almost unbearable urge to leap on top of the crouching woman on the bed and screw the arse off her.
Then came her low laugh as she twisted her head round to see me, peering past her raised haunches. Our eyes locked and I recognised her. As I did, the sexual energy stiffening my cock, increasing my heart rate, started to drop away. Reason screamed: this is impossible. Get out. Now.
I backed away and felt for the door behind me, watching her as she slowly lowered her body, rolling over to face me, fair hair draping her naked shoulders, pink nipples jiggling on her breasts, the smile on her lips fading.
‘Not staying to play, Dr Jack?’ she whispered, her voice mocking.
I grabbed the door and wrenched it open, stepping outside, blinded with shock and lust, almost tripping on the stairs. I walked back to my car as fast as I could while trying to maintain some dignity. I scrambled in, heart racing, slammed the door, sat in the dark, getting my breath and my balance. Realigning myself.
Not till then did I realise I was shaking all over.
In a few moments, I was steady enough to drive. I somehow managed to get back to the cottage on autopilot. I didn’t see the road; my mind was filled with the primal vision I’d just witnessed.
When I pulled up outside the cottage, I sat there a moment. I couldn’t go inside like this so I got out of the car and walked around a bit, recalling now the fight with Iona, looking up at the icy stars, shivering.
It was after ten thirty when I quietly opened the front door and crept past the closed door of our bedroom, going through to
the lounge room where warm firelight flickered and Charlie sat, listening to some orchestral piece on the radio and working on his laptop.
I went straight through to the bathroom, calling out something vague to Charlie’s enquiries, and had a shower. Eventually, the shaking in my legs subsided and I got out.
Charlie looked up from closing the lid of his laptop.
‘You came in fast, bro. On the run?’
I muttered something. ‘Is Iona in bed?’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Where are the kids?’
Charlie looked at his watch. ‘Jacinta should be back any time now.’
‘She’s got to get away from that guy,’ I said, relieved to be talking about Shaz and not myself. ‘He sounds like a real mongrel. Maybe the dinner conversation will give her a different perspective. Even though Jacinta was pissed off with me. Shaz must get out of that scene.’
‘She’s not ready to leave him yet,’ said Charlie. ‘Like the poet said, human beings can only bear so much reality.’
I removed the cuddling lemurs from the chair and sat opposite him, waiting for my brain and body to resume their normal settings.
‘I gave Shaz my card when she was leaving,’ said Charlie. ‘Told her I’d be happy to see her on discount rates if she wanted to sort something out. It helps to talk about it with an objective stranger.’
‘The girl’s in big trouble,’ I said.
‘So are you, bro.’
I was suddenly exhausted with it all, the shock of Olims, the way things were between Iona and me.
‘Yes, I am,’ I admitted.
‘I’m having a drink. Want some fruit juice?’ Charlie asked.
I shook my head and Charlie poured himself a brandy. Lurching into the kitchen, still feeling shocked and shaken, I tried to remember how to make coffee.
‘You better tell me what’s going on,’ Charlie called.
‘Hell, Charlie, I wish I knew,’ I said as I came back into the living room with my hot drink.
‘You look a little better than when you first arrived,’ he said, leaning back in the old armchair. Outside, a forlorn calf wailed in the distance, emphasising my silence in the face of my brother’s intense scrutiny.
Dirty Weekend Page 19