Delicate Indecencies

by Sandy Mccutcheon

  Then there were the phantoms. He had become spectacularly adept at chasing phantoms. There was the jogger he had noticed several times running down the street where the woman lived. He made a habit of pausing at the same tree each morning and performing ridiculous-looking stretching exercises. The tree was opposite the woman’s house. Laverov had spent an entire day tracking down everything there was to know about the man. He turned out to be a mortgage broker who enjoyed golf, was married and having an affair with the receptionist in his office. Dead end. He had reached a similar conclusion about the driver of a red Mitsubishi pick-up — she had been house hunting. Then there was the dark blue BMW. Nice car — a 318i E46, a serious motor. The driver turned out to be an ex-insurance investigator whose wife had recently left him. Probably house hunting as well; according to his neighbours in Gower he had recently cleared out most of the contents of his current home. Phantoms. Dead ends.

  Laverov went back to contemplating the water boiling beneath the bridge. Downstream the duck attempted to swim against the current and then gave up. Sometimes that was the best option.

  Teschmaker turned his attention to his study. He opened the first box and was immediately confronted with a film packet containing nothing but negatives. He took a strip and held it up to the light. It took him a few seconds to work out that the images were holiday snaps he had taken of Gwenda in Cape Town on their only joint holiday overseas during the entire marriage. Her reverse image, almost all reds and oranges, was holding a flower. It was probably a hibiscus — he had a vague memory of her being presented with one on checking into their hotel and her insisting that he take a picture. The photograph, even compensating for its reverse, strangely blue image, seemed stupid, inconsequential. Had he ever had a print made? He supposed so. Why save the neg now? No reason. And somebody had left fingermarks on it. Not neat. Not tidy. He tossed the packet in the wastepaper bin.

  Next he came upon a shoe box. He knew what it contained but he opened it anyway and plunged his hands into the dozens of small pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. This was no ordinary jigsaw. He selected a piece at random and examined it. The glue that had been used to attach the canvas to the hardboard sheet so many years before had stood the test of time — a thoroughly professional job, and one befitting the painting by Matthias Zywitza. It was, he thought, probably the most expensive jigsaw puzzle ever made. The original painting had been valued at US$80,000, but that was a couple of decades ago and Zywitza’s work now fetched astronomical sums. The circumstances of Zywitza’s death at the hands of his gay lover had been an added bonus. What would it have been worth now — two or three million dollars? Teschmaker laughed and located an envelope, slipped the jigsaw piece inside and sealed it. Normally he posted the individual pieces from outside the country but decided that, on the balance of probability, an envelope bearing a local postmark was hardly going to give the game away. The postmark was only local from his perspective. To the recipient it would be yet another untraceable foreign posting.

  Teschmaker checked inside the box — there were still at least two hundred pieces left even though he had been mailing them with relative frequency for almost twenty years. In that time at least half the pieces had gone, usually individually but sometimes, when he was feeling particularly malicious, he would send a full packet. He had no idea if the recipient was still alive, but he knew he would continue the postings until all the pieces were gone. The slower the revenge the sweeter it is, he thought as he picked up the pen from his now well-organised desk. He addressed the envelope with quick neat letters and placed it in his jacket pocket, ready for posting. He ran his eye over the desk. Pen, paper, ruler — all lined up correctly.

  Eventually his mind came back to the thought that had been circling his consciousness like a wolf around a wounded lamb, waiting for the right moment to strike. Jane. Her phone call had upset him more than he cared to admit to himself. A rejection — yes, that he could have coped with. Indeed it was what he had expected. But the vehemence of her attack had startled him. He went over and over everything he could dredge up from the past but nothing fitted. Whatever it was, she had it wrong and that irked. He didn’t mind that she didn’t want to see him. But the anger? You fucked up my life once before. You think I’m going to forget that?

  He slammed the door shut on the line of thought and headed for the bathroom. The place was a mess and he spent the next half-hour placing his few toiletries in their correct places. Believe me, if I could forget you I would. He washed his hairbrush and comb, rinsed his toothbrush and scrubbed the stains and traces of dirt from its handle. Then he squeezed the half-empty toothpaste tube from the bottom up and rolled the empty foil tightly so as to leave the remaining part of the tube plump and even. He washed the outside of the tube for good measure, paying special attention to the cap. Just fuck off out of my life. The soap was a problem. It had become wet and gelatinous underneath and no matter how he washed it and patted it dry it continued to leave marks on the sink. In the end he threw it out and opened a new one. Once everything was clean he spaced things out so there was enough room between the comb and the brush, the toothpaste and the toothbrush, that he could pick each of them up without disturbing the item next to it. Order. Tidiness . . . and no thoughts of Jane. But she insisted. You have some nerve, thinking you could weasel your way back into my life. Each time he relaxed his guard she was there worrying at his heels, demanding attention. She was, he decided eventually, an untidy part of his life that needed to be cleaned up. She was wrong to be angry at him and once he had cleared up her misconceptions about him then he could stop worrying about her. Fucked up her life? Oh, yes — how?

  In the morning Teschmaker rose early and, after making himself a sandwich and a thermos of coffee, climbed in his car and headed towards what — despite the lack of definitive proof — he was mentally tagging as ‘Jane’s house’. The traffic on the Mitchell Freeway was light so early in the morning and he made good time to the Belmont exit. Across the Charlotte River Bridge the joggers and power walkers were out in force, many of them accompanied by dogs that looked as expensive as their owners’ designer clothes. He drove slowly along Lombard Avenue and left into Haycroft. Cruising past the high-walled property he did a U-turn, parked under the shade of a large leafy oak, poured himself a coffee and settled down to what he hoped would be a short wait. It was a good location. He had an unimpeded view of the gates in the wall and at the same time was not in direct line of sight of any of the neighbours. The last thing he wanted was some neighbourhood watch vigilante phoning the police and reporting him as a suspicious loiterer.

  A few returning fitness freaks sweated past but they seemed absorbed in their exercise or involved with whatever it was they were listening to on their headphones — none of them gave him a second glance. One man paused by a tree and pushed against it with one arm and then the other. Pointless. He then did a series of toe-touching exercises that presented Teschmaker with an unpleasantly intimate view of his rear. Cellulose in lycra.

  By eight thirty Teschmaker began to wonder if Jane might be away, or if the house was not her normal residence after all. Maybe she wasn’t separated from Sinclair but simply divided her time between the two houses. However, at five minutes to nine the gates swung open and he heaved a sigh of relief. Jane, dressed to go out, secured first one and then the other gate before reversing out of the driveway in a light blue Saab 900i. Teschmaker guessed it was probably a 1988 or ’89 model. He had expected something a little more modern, a little more swish. Jane stopped and closed the gates before driving off in the direction of the freeway. It was frustrating. Twice now he had seen her and both times had failed to get a good look at her. Teschmaker prided himself on his ability to ‘read’ people — the subtle markers, the body language. All he had managed so far was a momentary sighting of the woman and he craved more.

  He began to reverse out then, sensing rather than seeing a car, slammed on the brakes just in time to avoid backing into an approaching vehicle. His a
ttention on Jane had been absolute and he had failed to see a black Ford coming along the road behind him. He cursed but accepted the angry glare from the driver. It was actually an advantage having the black Ford between him and Jane as it gave him a useful buffer and lessened the possibility that she would notice him on her tail. There was something about the black Ford . . . and then he remembered, it was the same car that had been in Haycroft Street the first time he was there. He had assumed then that the man was a prospective buyer of the house that was for sale across the street from Jane’s; now his naturally suspicious nature, honed over the years as an insurance investigator, went on to full alert. He castigated himself for the lapse in attention and for not having checked the rest of the street as he normally would have done. In the insurance field he had always worked on the premise that anyone who thought they could defraud the industry would do so, and many times in his work he found that others, usually the local police, had a watching brief on the same individuals he was after. Crooks were crooks and often were involved in more than insurance fraud. But there was something — a vague feeling — that this man was not with law enforcement. The alarm bells weren’t ringing but Teschmaker decided not to dismiss the coincidence of the black Ford being in the street a second time.

  Trusting his instincts, Teschmaker slipped back a couple of car lengths. If he was right, the Ford would follow Jane and all he had to do was to shadow it and he would still be on her tail. He slowed down and pulled to the side long enough to allow an anxious commuter, obviously running late for a nine o’clock start, to overtake him. It was a calculated risk but the worst that could happen was he might lose sight of Jane and now that he knew that she lived in Haycroft Street he could always pick her up again. The bigger question was: why would anybody be following Jane? The absurdity of the question in light of his own actions made him laugh out loud. Another old boyfriend? Someone else who had ‘fucked up her life’? Maybe Sinclair suspected she was having an affair and was having her followed. There were, he realised, many reasons why Jane might be under surveillance. It could also be — a wild notion, he acknowledged — that the man was her bodyguard; he had learned over the years that the rich had some pretty crazy ways of spending their money.

  Two cars in front of him Jane’s Saab increased speed and turned up the on-ramp for the Mitchell Freeway, heading for the city. Both the black Ford and the commuter followed. Nothing surprising in that. The odds were that ninety per cent of cars on the roads at this time of day would be heading into town.

  Jane sat on the speed limit and within fifteen minutes moved into the exit lane for the city centre. The commuter in front of Teschmaker continued straight on. There was now no doubt that the black Ford was following the Saab. Teschmaker had to admit the driver was acting like a real professional, keeping well back and even switching lanes from time to time. As they reached the CBD and the heavier traffic along Raddle Avenue, the man allowed a small car to act as a buffer then changed lanes, keeping Jane in sight from a different vantage point. Each time they approached traffic lights he closed up, allowing no possibility of her leaving him stranded. The man’s abilities not only made Teschmaker wonder who he was working for but caused him additional difficulties. At times three and sometimes four car lengths behind Jane, he ran the real risk of losing both of them, or being pulled over for running a red light. Fortunately he made it through the city without incident.

  It was now clear that Jane was heading for her office, and as they turned into the new business area of Lincoln the Ford slowed down, letting Jane get well ahead. Eventually, a block away from her office, the man pulled into a loading zone and waited. Caught off guard, Teschmaker could see nowhere to stop and was forced to keep going. He drove past, acutely aware that if the man in the Ford was even half as good as he suspected, he would recognise Teschmaker’s car as the one that had nearly pulled out in front of him twenty minutes or so earlier. Well, it couldn’t be helped. As he drove by he saw Jane getting out of her car in her office car park. Knowing that he could make no further progress with her, Teschmaker switched his attention back to the Ford and decided to see what the other driver was playing at. He drove quickly around the block and as he turned the corner back into Angus Street was relieved to see that the black Ford was still in the loading zone. A small trendy-looking coffee bar seemed the ideal place to park, but the vehicle spaces were all full. Then he spotted a space in a parking bay outside an advertising agency, reversed into it and sat with his motor running under a sign that promised that unless he was a client his car would be clamped and towed away.

  Teschmaker was about to pour himself another coffee from his thermos when the man in the Ford, obviously coming to the same conclusion Teschmaker had about Jane, decided to pack it in for the morning. Displaying none of his previous driving style, he headed onto the Ring Road. Slotted in two cars behind him, Teschmaker assumed the man was going back in the direction of Jane’s home, but before the turn for the Mitchell Freeway the Ford veered off, taking the underpass in the opposite direction, following the signs to Lakeside. Teschmaker, confident that the man had no idea he was being followed, dropped back a couple of car lengths just to be on the safe side.

  The commonly accepted stereotype was that only two kinds of people lived in Lakeside: over-paid media stars and diplomats. The thought of the media raised a possible explanation of the man’s attention to Jane Sinclair — an exposé. Somebody had discovered something about Jane that, because of the notoriety of her husband, would make great copy. He could see it — the investigative reporter backgrounding the victim before a paparazzi-style photographer zoomed in for a few revealing shots. But again it raised more questions. What on earth could Jane be involved with that would cause the media to shadow her daily routine? And why now, given that to date she had been left alone by the media, probably due to Oliver’s connections?

  They rounded a couple of corners and came to the long slow descent that is Federal Boulevard. Here the mansions — rumour had it — went up by half a million dollars a block up to the crest of the hill where the American Embassy perched behind its splendid lime-washed walls. Before they reached the edge of the lake the Ford turned left and slowed down. Teschmaker realised he was too close and again was nearly forced to drive past. Fortunately a taxi pulling out of the ornate Thai Embassy slotted in front of him, providing a small buffer — enough for Teschmaker to see the Ford drive up to the security boom gate of a slightly less salubrious building. He glanced at the street sign. Scanlon Drive. There was a red oval plaque on the wall beside the gate but he was past before he could read what was written on it. At the end of the street, Teschmaker stopped, pulled out his street directory and looked up Scanlon. There marked on the map in small red letters were the words: Embassy of the Republic of Romania.

  Knowing there was nothing more he could do here he checked his watch. It was now getting on for ten o’clock. He was beginning to get hungry but the sandwich on the seat beside him was looking less and less appetising. Remembering the coffee bar opposite Jane’s office he turned the car around and retraced his route back towards the city, intent on having a snack and attempting to make sense of the situation. The black Ford’s destination was an intriguing and unexpected development. How many times a year did anyone think about Romania? Teschmaker glanced at the envelope containing the piece of the jigsaw which he had addressed the night before and thrown into the car, meaning to post it somewhere outside the city. The intended recipient, now living in New York, was a Romanian, Bela Manolescu. It was only a coincidence — but a strange one nevertheless.

  Food, I need food, he thought as he turned into Angus Street. But as he did, Teschmaker saw Jane’s Saab pull out of the office car park. ‘Damn!’ he swore and reached for the sandwich.

  In stark contrast to the way that Jane had driven before, Teschmaker now sensed she was aware of the risk of being followed and was doing everything she could to minimise that risk. Whereas before she had been content to sit on the s
peed limit, now she varied her speed and twice pulled into the side of the road as though going to park then sped away again. Fortunately Teschmaker had opted to stay well back, but even so it took all his skill and a fair dose of luck to stick with her. Having managed that, he was unsure if he had also managed to stay undetected. There was a heavy flow of traffic on the roads but despite her ducking and weaving he remained three to four cars behind her. Teschmaker was even more confused now. The notion that she was concerned about being followed was intriguing enough, but what could possibly explain her behaviour now? Had she deliberately learned to drive like this? Why? Or was she just a gifted amateur? There was, he thought, a lot more to Jane Sinclair than he had anticipated and he felt vindicated in having decided to follow her for a few more days.