Bitter Nothings

by Vicki Tyley

  “Does that—”

  The desk phone rang.

  Sophie made no move to answer it. “That’s what I pay my service for.”

  A few seconds later, her mobile phone rang. She reached across the desk, frowning when she looked at the caller ID.

  “You’re busy,” Dervla said, getting to her feet. “We can catch up later.”

  “Sophie Lombardi,” she said into the phone, her voice saccharine-sweet. She covered the mouthpiece. “Sorry, hon. It’s been non-stop all day.”

  Acknowledging her with a waggle of the fingers, Dervla left her friend to her business.

  In a way, she was pleased. No more talk of Nathan Ward. While she waited for the lift to arrive, she tore his business card into confetti and sprinkled it over the top of a browning banana skin in the rubbish bin.

  Somewhere a phone rang and kept ringing. It took her a moment to realize it was hers. She fumbled in her handbag, finding her mobile just as it stopped ringing. The lift doors parted. She stepped inside and checked her missed calls. Two – both from Gabe and within minutes of each other. No messages.

  It rang again just as she stepped out onto the footpath. She quickly moved into the shade and out of the way of the other pedestrians.

  “Where are you?” Gabe asked when she answered it.

  “In the city.”

  “What are you doing there?”

  “I do have a life. What’s with the twenty questions? Where are you?”

  “Outside your place.”

  “What are you doing there?” she asked, turning the question back on him.

  “Stop with the games, Dervla?”

  “What games?”

  He huffed. “Fine. You know where to find me when you’re ready to hear what I found out about your mystery man.” Click.

  Damn. Dervla pressed the call-back button, only to be greeted by her brother’s voicemail. She left a rushed message asking him to please wait and took off for the tram stop on Victoria Parade.

  By the time the tram deposited her at the end of her street and she walked the last half-block to home, she felt like she’d gone a couple of rounds in a sauna. Sweat dripped from every pore. Any moment now she would spontaneously combust. And after all that, there was no sign of Gabe or his black BMW. Now why didn’t that surprise her?

  She called him again, this time getting through. “Didn’t you get my message?” She unlocked her front door.

  “Didn’t you get mine?”

  “No.” She either needed a new phone or her hearing tested. The air-conditioner hummed into life, the drop in temperature almost instant. “What did it say?”

  “Only that I had an appointment I had to get to and that I’d give you a call later.”

  “It’s later now. Spill. What about the man at the funeral? Who is he?”

  “Harry Kilbourne. Business systems analyst from Brisbane. Forty. Divorced.”

  One-handed, she opened the fridge, pulled out a bottle of water and poured a glass. “And who’s he when he’s at home?”

  “Lucinda’s ex-husband.”

  Dervla choked, spluttering water everywhere. “Are you sure?”

  “The police confirmed it.”

  “Did you know she’d been married before?”

  “Hell, I don’t even know if Dad knew.”

  CHAPTER 14

  Dervla lowered her visor against the late afternoon sun. Men and women, some with luggage, traipsed through the hotel’s front doors in a steady procession. Would she even recognize Harry Kilbourne? She’d only got a brief look at him. And that was supposing he hadn’t already checked out.

  Leaving her car, she wended her way through the car park to the polished granite and tinted glass fronted building and up the steps. Glass doors opened onto a high-ceilinged lobby, the clatter of her heels as she crossed the terrazzo-tiled floor the only sound in the churchlike space.

  A smooth-faced man wearing Austin Powers-style glasses raised his head at her approach.

  “I’m here to see one of your guests, Harry Kilbourne. Could you let him know, please.”

  “And your name, ma’am?” he said, tapping a couple of computer keys.

  “Dervla Johns.”

  “Thank you. One moment.”

  At the sound of the doors opening, she turned. A barrel-chested man, his suit jacket slung over his arm, entered the lobby and turned left into – according to the sign on the wall – the hotel’s lounge bar.

  “I’m sorry, he’s not answering,” the receptionist said. “Would you care to leave a message for Mr Kilbourne?”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, but I think I’ll just wait for him.”

  Following in the footsteps of the barrel-chested man, she found herself in a bar that was more carpeted corridor than room. Couches, chairs and tables were arranged in clusters down the half-windowed wall, leaving a clear walkway down the other side. Soft jazz played in the background, mingling with voices and the tinkle of glass drifting from the far end.

  Dervla took a seat at the first table where she could keep an eye on the hotel’s comings and goings. A waiter materialized and took her order for a tonic water. A shot of gin in it wouldn’t have gone amiss, but she needed to keep her wits about her. Not to mention she was driving.

  On her third refill, she started to look longingly toward the toilets. Her luck, the moment she stepped into the ladies’ would be the moment Harry Kilbourne turned up. She crossed her legs.

  A tall, brown-haired man about the right age strolled through the hotel entrance and removed his sunglasses. Dervla’s back straightened. Could that be him? Accosting the wrong man wasn’t something she relished. Only one way to find out.

  She rushed after him, calling out his name just as he stepped into the lift. As the doors closed, she glimpsed his bewildered face. Wrong man?

  But then the lift doors reopened and the man stepped out, eyebrow cocked. “Do I know you?” He looked down his straight nose at her.

  Up close, his amber eyes showed flecks of copper. “Are you Harry Kilbourne?”

  “That depends.”

  She thrust out her hand. “Dervla Johns.”

  Frowning, he took her proffered hand, his grip less than convincing. “Johns?”

  “Warren’s daughter.”

  With a slow nod, he released her hand. “What can I do for you, Ms Johns?”

  “Dervla, please.” She pointed in the direction of the bar. “Can we talk?”

  He hesitated.

  “Please.”

  “Lead the way.”

  She showed him to the table, waited until he’d ordered himself a beer, then excused herself to dash to the ladies’.

  When she returned, Harry had his drink and was staring out the window. She sat opposite him, her mind suddenly blank.

  “Hot day,” she said, for want of something to say.

  “You didn’t track me down to talk about the weather.”

  “Ah, no.” Oh God, where to start? She’d yet to come to terms with the fact that the handsome, square-jawed man studying her was Lucinda’s ex-husband, let alone that her stepmother even had an ex-husband. “How long were you and Lucinda married?”

  “Five short years.”

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what happened?”

  His brow furrowed. “You don’t know? Warren Johns happened.”

  Dervla gaped at him. “My father?”

  “That’s what I said.” Bitterness edged his voice. “Apparently, he could offer her more than I could.”

  “Oh.” Her father: the destroyer of marriages, his and other people’s. That explained a lot. She stared at the bottom of her glass, wishing it contained brandy. Or whisky. Any strong alcohol. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.” Now, she was apologizing for her father. What next?

  Harry gave a weary sigh. “Don’t be. You’re not to blame for the breakup of my marriage. What can I get you to drink?” He gestured at her empty glass and signaled the waiter over.

  “Armagna
c, please. Better make it a double.” She could always get a taxi home.

  He downed his beer. “Make that two,” he said to the waiter.

  “You had no children?” she asked, after the waiter left.

  His gaze dropped to the tabletop. “No.”

  An awkward silence fell. Dervla rummaged in her handbag, pretending to look for something. Her brain perhaps?

  The arrival of the waiter back with their Armagnacs provided a new focus. She cupped the large brandy balloon in her hands, her palms warming the liquor and releasing its ripe fruit aromas. Harry followed suit.

  The corners of his mouth lifted in a slow smile. “For someone who wanted to talk, you’re doing well so far.”

  Heat flooded her face. She felt like a tongue-tied teenager on a first date. But she wasn’t a teenager and this wasn’t a date – first or otherwise.

  She found her voice. “I’m still in shock. Up until today, I didn’t even know you existed, let alone that you used to be married to my father’s wife. Why did you run from the funeral chapel like that?”

  “I’d hoped to slip in, say my goodbyes, and slip out again without being noticed. I wasn’t sure I’d be welcome, being the dead woman’s ex-husband and all. Of course, I hadn’t counted on the police being there.”

  “They questioned you?”

  “Only about who I was, what I was doing there, how long I’d been back in Melbourne, and suchlike.” He swilled his Armagnac around his glass. “So who spilled the beans?”

  “Sorry?”

  “How did you know where to find me? Unless I’m mistaken, you’re not a police officer.”

  “No, a graphic designer.” She paused. “My brother told me.”

  His eyebrows drew together.

  “Are you staying in Melbourne for long?” she quickly asked.

  “Not sure. I want to see the bas—” He cleared his throat. “I’ll play it by ear.”

  “Don’t worry.” She swigged her drink, the alcohol searing her throat. “You’re only thinking what everyone else is.”

  “He’s still your father though, right?”

  She nodded, her focus on the glass in her hands. “For better or for worse.”

  For a few moments, neither spoke.

  When Harry laid his hand, palm up, on the table in front of her, she glanced up.

  “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I do know Cindy – Lucinda – loved your father when she married him. She must’ve to have wanted his kids.”

  Dervla took another swig. “Maybe, but it’s not worth anything now, is it?”

  “But did they have a good marriage, Dervla? Were they both happy?”

  A strange question, but she answered anyway. “From the outside looking in, yes. But no one really knows what goes on inside a marriage except the two people involved.”

  “Too true.” He stroked his naked ring finger, his gaze faraway.

  “Tell me more about you and Lucinda… Cindy. How did you meet?”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Good question. “Nothing. I just get the impression she meant a lot to you.”

  “She did. Past tense,” he said, the words clipped.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

  He fixed her in his gaze. “Have you ever been married?”

  “No, just one near miss.”

  His eyebrow twitched. “So what did you want to talk to me about?”

  “To be honest, I’m not sure.” She shuffled in her seat. “I think perhaps I was hoping for some insight into Lucinda’s past. Anything that might help shed some light on what’s happened.”

  “I don’t see how. I’ve had nothing to do with Cindy – or your father – since the day I signed the divorce papers.”

  “You came to the funeral.”

  “No law against it. Another?” He leaned back in his chair, catching a passing waiter’s attention.

  Dervla didn’t know how to read the guy. He ran hot and cold. One moment, he was giving a good impression of a man who’d rather be anywhere else but with his ex-wife’s stepdaughter; the next he was asking if she wanted another drink.

  “Well?” he prompted. “Is that a yes or a no?”

  “Why not?” Why not, indeed. For all she knew, Harry Kilbourne was a raving lunatic, capable of God knows what.

  On the flip side, they were in a public place. Outside dusk cloaked the trees and car park. Inside the bar was filling, the voices and laughter growing louder with each passing minute. Talking would soon be a moot point.

  After the waiter left, Harry turned to her. “In a bar.”

  “Sorry?”

  “That’s where I met Cindy. It was a Friday night. I was out with some workmates and she was sitting at a table alone, obviously waiting for someone. Her boyfriend as it turned out. Not that he ever did show. Does that answer your question?”

  She nodded.

  “What else do you want to know?”

  That slow smile again. This time it reached his eyes. She blushed and dropped her gaze.

  He slid a business card across the table. “Well, in case you have any more questions, here’s my number.”

  She waited until their drinks arrived to palm the card and slip it into her handbag.

  Whether it was due to the alcohol or something else altogether, she felt light-headed. A not entirely unpleasant sensation. Her gaze wandered around the room and stopped, her brain instantly awake.

  The bald-headed man propping up the bar met her look and raised his beer glass in a silent toast. She leapt to her feet. The same reporter showing up again was one coincidence too many. Time to find out what his game was.

  Harry’s reflexes were better than hers. He caught her as she tripped, her face plowing straight into his chest. She felt the warmth of his body, smelled his masculine muskiness. For a moment she couldn’t move. But then she came to her senses and wrested herself away from him.

  Her chest heaved as, catching her breath, she scanned the bar.

  The reporter had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 15

  Dervla swallowed and grimaced. Overnight some furry, foul-tasting creature had taken up residence in her mouth. Her head fit to burst, she crawled out of bed in search of painkillers. And coffee. And food. For the first time in days, she felt hungry.

  The phone rang in the hall just as she stepped into the kitchen. She clapped her hands over her ears and backtracked as fast as her hangover would allow. Faster. Anything to stop that infernal jangle.

  “Hello.”

  Silence.

  “Hello? Is anyone there?”

  She strained her ears. Was that breathing she heard?

  “Who is this? Dad, is that you? Talk to me. Please.”

  Click.

  Frowning, she replaced the receiver and waited, in the hope that if it was her father, he’d call back. The text message she’d received was the last time anyone had heard from him. Nor had there been any further sightings of him, confirmed or unconfirmed.

  A thought struck her. What if he’d phoned her mobile last night while she was getting sloshed – unintentionally – with Harry and she hadn’t heard her phone ring? For a second, she couldn’t recall where she’d put her handbag when she came home. She found it, along with one shoe, dumped on the carpet at the foot of her bed. The other shoe was under it.

  Too impatient to scrabble through the bottom of her handbag, she upended it on top of the quilt. Even then, it took her a moment to find her mobile among the jumble of wallet, keys, memory sticks, tissues, perfume, make-up purse, peppermints, notebook, pens, old tram tickets and loose coin. Two missed calls: Sophie and Emmet. Two messages.

  She set the phone aside and plucked Harry’s business card from the heap. The messages could wait a few more minutes. They obviously weren’t urgent. She studied the glossy black-on-pistachio-green card. Harry Kilbourne, Business Systems Analyst, Stedman Distribution Pty Ltd. Phone number, mobile number, email address, website. Everything bar his hom
e number.

  After more than three hours in his company, she still didn’t know much about her stepmother’s ex-husband. A man a good decade or more younger than Dervla’s father. A man—

  The doorbell jarred her from her thoughts. She winced at the strident peal, certain that gremlins had turned up the volume overnight.

  She tossed the card on the bed and grabbed her robe.

  In the hall, she hesitated long enough to tie her belt, then opened the door.

  “What do you want?”

  The bald-headed reporter, whose name escaped her for the moment, responded with a curt, “I have a proposition.”

  “What sort of proposition?” From his stony expression, not the sexual kind at least.

  “Can I come in?”

  “No.”

  He eyed her through the narrow opening. His name came to her. John Bailey. She clutched her robe lapels together.

  “What sort of proposition?” she asked again.

  “Information about your father in exchange for an exclusive.”

  “What sort of information?”

  From the black zippered folder in his hand, he withdrew a large white envelope and dangled it in front of her. “Evidence of an affair.”

  Something inside her crumbled. “That’s hardly scoop of the year.”

  “No?” He shrugged and returned the envelope to the folder. “Okay, have it your way.” He turned on his heel. “I’m sure the police will be more than interested.”

  She flung open the door. “Wait.”

  He didn’t.

  “John, please.”

  His back stiffened, his step faltering. He came to a standstill.

  “I’m sorry,” she called. “Tell me more.” Leaving the door ajar, she stepped outside, the porch tiles smooth and cool under her bare feet.

  The morning sun glinted off his bald pate as he turned. An ill-concealed smirk on his lips, he retraced his steps toward her. All of a sudden, his expression changed, his eyes alight with glee.

  She followed his gaze, shocked to discover her robe had parted, flashing her naked inner thighs. A quick tug and decency was restored. Well, as much as it could be given the circumstances. At least she was wearing knickers.