Catch

by Kenyon, Toni

  Marguerite gestured. "Look around you. You don't think Matthew could afford all this on the meager amount he earns in that ridiculous second-rate law firm, do you?"

  Tamsen hadn't even thought about it.

  "Costings on the week he spent with you in Melbourne alone would have killed at least three months’ salary. The Grand Hyatt doesn't come cheap, my girl. And I don't believe my son would skimp on anything. Only the best will do for Matthew."

  Marguerite was right. They'd wanted for nothing while they were away. Top of the line everything. It hadn't occurred to her at what cost.

  "But...he's got investments." She thought about the night Gina had accused her of stalking him. He owned property.

  "Gifts from the family," Marguerite sneered, walking toward the front door, "and I can take those away as quickly as I gave them to him. All I have to do is say the word and my trust will call in every loan and advance and Matthew will be penniless."

  Tamsen couldn't believe what she heard. It seemed absurd. But a small part of her brain registered. Everything probably in family trusts. Matthew would own nothing. He, like she, was at the mercy of manipulating family members.

  "So you see," Marguerite continued, "he's going to do what I want him to do in the end. Otherwise all of this - " she cast her arms wide " - will disappear in a puff of smoke."

  She opened the front door wide. "So I strongly suggest you and your lice-infested feline pack up and be on your way, because you are not welcome here."

  Tamsen, lost for words, stood there feeling...what? Twice in a week her world had crumbled, her reality well and truly fucked over. The universe seemed to be constantly shitting on her and she had no idea why.

  "Shut the door, please." Her voice was barely a whisper. "Azzie will get outside."

  "That monster should be outside anyway." Marguerite waved the tea-towel over Azriel again, and he hissed and bolted for the open door.

  Tamsen screamed, "No!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Their first date, two months ago, in this very courtyard, Matt mused. It seemed such a long time ago.

  Danni cut into his thoughts. "You haven’t heard a single word I've been saying, have you?" A look of despair crossed her perfect features.

  Women would sell their souls to have even features like hers, he was sure of it. "I'm sorry, Danni. I just don't seem to be able to stay with it at the moment."

  "You want to talk about it?" She sipped her coffee.

  It was refreshing, he thought, to have someone order something as easy as a flat white. No soy this, or decaf that, just simple coffee. His Danni, plain and predictable.

  "I assume this won't go any further?" He looked up from the empty caramel-colored sugar wrapper he'd been twisting around his pinkie finger. "I really don't need to add to water-cooler gossip."

  She crossed her heart and smiled. "Promise. You can tell me your secrets - I'm an expert with professional privilege."

  Matt dragged his gaze from the line of lace hugging her breasts; he hadn't noticed the fine scallop pattern until she'd drawn his eye there by crossing herself. Somehow it felt disrespectful to Tamsen, his eyes having almost a mind of their own.

  He said, "It's nice to know something I taught you has come in useful."

  She smiled again and he felt immediately at ease. "So what's up, boss?"

  He shrugged. "Don't know, really. Except I haven't wanted to work for ages and that's not me."

  "You've been through a lot in the last week. Not many people I know find a former employee hanging in their girlfriend's apartment and expect to walk away from the whole ordeal without some emotional scars."

  "That's what I don't understand, Danni. Why should it bother me? I mean, I can understand Tamsen falling apart, but me? It doesn't make any sense. The woman was nothing to me."

  "Maybe you feel guilty?" She cocked her head, looking up into his eyes - searching, he thought, to see if she'd hit a nerve.

  She had, but he wasn't going to let her know that. "What do I have to feel guilty about?"

  "I don't know. You tell me."

  He felt as if he were in a poker match. Any slight twitch or movement would alert her to his thoughts. "You know how bad it got with Gina at work?"

  "Don't remind me, I was the village idiot constantly running around after her, tidying up the messes she made, remember?" Danni rolled her eyes.

  "Well, things were as bad for Tamsen at home. I don't want to go into the sordid details, but it even got to the stage where I felt terrified to be alone in the same room with the mad cow."

  "In what way?" Danni leaned closer and his eyes again drawn to the lace at her breasts.

  He coughed, averting his gaze and concentrating on the uglier recent scenes he'd had with Gina. "When she got drunk she was really aggressive."

  Danni looked confused, and he felt he needed to elaborate. "Like, sexually aggressive."

  "Oh, I get it." She laughed. "Like trying-to-get-into-your-pants aggressive?"

  He felt himself flush. "Yes."

  "That's no shock."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Matt, for a smart man you can be so naive sometimes." Danni giggled, tipping her head forward, her hair falling over one eye. She looked up at him from under her hairline, almost embarrassed. "You've got no concept of how attractive you are. Gina wasn't alone thinking like that."

  "The woman hated me. I could see it in her eyes."

  "She hated that you were with Tamsen." Danni waited a beat for the information to sink in. "She wanted to be with Tamsen."

  He shook his head in dismay. "Wow, how could I have missed that?"

  "If it's any consolation, I don't think you were looking."

  "So Gina was jealous? That's what all the attention seeking was about? All the phone calls when we were in Melbourne, all the tantrums at the apartment?"

  "I'm not suggesting just jealousy - the girl had a pretty heinous drinking problem. You could still smell it on her from the night before, some mornings. And she often arrived at work looking as if she'd just come from a party, or at least slept in her clothes."

  "Pretty shoddy state of affairs, really, wasn't it?"

  "It was."

  "I could be forgiven for giving her that written warning."

  "Matt, is this what this is really about?"

  "Maybe." He felt uncomfortable, thinking back to the day Gina quit. He’d felt relief at the time. It saved him having to go through the whole rigmarole of more meetings and warnings before he could fire her.

  "You didn't set her up, Matt. You've always been genuine about helping your staff. You've got nothing to feel guilty about."

  "I just can't help thinking I contributed to the whole sordid mess somehow."

  "You were involved, of course - you were sleeping with her friend and you were her boss. Only you can judge where the ethical lines were drawn. But as far as the firm's concerned you acted in everyone's best interests. No one could possibly have known how sick she was. She even managed to hide it from Tamsen, for crying out loud."

  "I suppose you're right." He shrugged. "It's a waste of time and energy doing the 'what ifs' but sometimes I just can't help it."

  "Matt. Honestly. I don't think you'd be human if you didn't."

  "You're probably right. Thanks, Danni. You've been a rock through all of this."

  "That's what I'm for boss. PR, Personal Rock."

  "I'll give you rocks. You best get back to the pit face and see if you can stave off the impending disasters on my desk. I'll be in tomorrow morning - I can't face it today. There're a couple of pressing problems at home to be sorted."

  He thought of his mother and Tamsen, and a pending sense of doom wrapped itself around him, almost like a comforting quilt.

  "Azzie. Here, Azzie." Tamsen's attempts to track Azriel through the newly landscaped garden resembled a reconnaissance mission gone decidedly wrong. She was becoming more distraught by the moment. No, she thought, sidestepping yet another hebe, not just distra
ught - very bloody angry. So angry she could string Matt's mother up, and Matt too for that matter.

  Hebe "Champagne" according to the yellow horticultural label still attached to the small bush. More references to alcohol.

  Fuming, she seated herself on a ponga log. The earth smelt damp, the kanuka trees alive with a small flock of wax-eyes fluttering from branch to branch, their tiny wings and erratic flight disturbing the insects they were feasting on. Tamsen felt sure Azzie would be in the area, especially with this many small birds to hunt.

  What to do? Azriel would reappear eventually - hunger if nothing else driving him back to the house - and she could pack them both up and go home.

  Home. She hadn't even thought about going back there. The tedious matter of finding another room mate loomed ahead. What to tell prospective tenants? "Actually, the last girl hung herself right in this very room. Not superstitious or concerned about ghosts, are you?" She'd have to ensure a thorough energy cleanse had been completed.

  A shiver played down her spine; the afternoon sun still hung reasonably high in the sky, but the huge trees on the property cast forlorn shadows over the area she occupied. Matt would be home soon. What to do about him? She'd never felt so alone and betrayed in her life - Gina gone, Matt effectively taken away, and Azzie run off. Could anything else go wrong?

  Sighing, Tamsen picked herself up off the log and trudged back toward the house. The sunshine cutting through the tall trees highlighted the small turret window forming part of Matt's bedroom on the third floor. A shadow caught her eye passing across the window. It could only be Marguerite.

  Struck by another bolt of fury, Tamsen struggled to prevent herself tearing up there and cutting the smug bitch's throat. No more, she and Azzie were on their way as soon as she’d caught him. Spending another night under the same roof as such a conniving piece of work repulsed her.

  Tamsen stopped dead in her tracks. There in front of her - and how she hadn't noticed it on the way down she wasn't sure - was a yellow box. A Timms trap, she knew, from her days of petitioning councils to abolish gin traps. The most humane available - if killing anything could be considered humane.

  Shuddering, she remembered Matt mentioning trapping around the property for possums. A few were devouring the new seedling trees.

  At least the action was quick. A sharp pin through the underside of the animal's head. Death, pretty much instantaneous. Nothing like the frantic chewing she knew went on with poor creatures trapped by the leg in gin traps.

  And this one had been disturbed, she noticed - it was sitting on a slight angle.

  A startled cry of pain broke the quiet stillness of the afternoon. A few moments passed before Tamsen realized the sound had come from her. For the second time in just over a week she found herself viewing the body of a dear, departed friend.

  No mistaking the prostrate form of Azriel. She knew every white mark and speckle on his coat.

  Tamsen collapsed to the ground, anguish and tears coming in a deluge. For the last couple of days she'd somehow been sitting in the calm eye of an emotional cyclone. The winds of grief, visiting again, blew strong and she buried her face in the familiar fur, the familiar scent of Azriel. Trying to lock him in place in her heart.

  And she wept. Wept for herself. Wept for Gina. Wept for Matt. Wept for Azriel. For all their losses.

  For the injustice of it all.

  "What do you mean, she's not here?" Matt was losing patience with his mother. He'd come looking for Tamsen, but she and her bloody cat were nowhere to be seen while Marguerite was making even less sense than usual. "And what the hell were you doing in my bedroom going through Tamsen's things?"

  "I wasn't going through her things, Matthew." The revulsion on his mother's face could well have been hiding remorse at being caught snooping. It brought home how little he really knew of the woman.

  "Cut the bullshit, Mother. What's going on here?"

  "Not a thing, Matthew. I was returning some of Tamsen's clothing from the laundry. She's packing up and going home, and I didn't want her to leave it behind, that's all.

  "Read, you've made her life here a living hell when I've not been around."

  "I'm insulted, Matty. I have done no such thing."

  "Where is she then?"

  "Outside, looking for that mangy animal she brought with her."

  "How the hell did the cat get out?"

  "I chased the parasite-ridden creature out. It was sitting on the dining room table." Marguerite pulled a face. "Disgusting."

  Matt felt the blood drain from his face. "Jesus, Mother. If she loses that cat..."

  "The cat's the least of your worries, Matthew. That girl is the real problem, and the sooner she's out of your house the better."

  "The sooner you're out of my house the better." He hung his suit jacket on the rimu hanger in his walk in closet. "And you can start by removing yourself from my room. I'm going to get changed and then look for Tamsen."

  "You don't need to go very far. I'm here." Tamsen walked into the room, cradling Azriel like a baby to the breast.

  "Oh, fuck!" All Matt could see was blood seeping into her pale blue shirt. "Is he okay, babe?" He was certain the cat was not, but felt obliged to ask.

  "Does he look fucking okay to you, dickhead?"

  No escaping the venom in the attack. This was not good, he thought.

  "There's no use for foul language and abuse, young lady." Marguerite couldn't keep quiet.

  Matt was tempted to clobber her with one of the spare coat hangers in the wardrobe. "Would you stay out of this please, Mother?"

  "Would you stay out of this please, Mother?" Tamsen swung her head from side to side like some deranged five-year-old. "The woman won't stay out of anything, Matt - haven't you worked that out yet?"

  Tamsen pushed the bloody body in front of Marguerite's face. "Look what you've done!"

  As Tamsen moved closer Marguerite backed away, attempting to keep a civilized distance between them. It was like watching some sort of absurd line dance, Matt thought.

  Tamsen snarled, "If you hadn't chased him out of the house this wouldn't have happened."

  The insane and bloody line dance continued. They were moving into the bathroom, and short of climbing in the shower and closing the door Marguerite would soon be trapped.

  "Matty! Do something!"

  Tamsen turned on Matt, a deranged look in her eye - the one he'd expected when she found Gina, but which had been surprisingly absent. "That's it, Matthew - Mommy's calling. You dance to her tune because she holds the purse strings. Don't you, Matty?"

  What the hell was she on about now? The situation had gotten way out of control. What to do?

  He tried stalling for time. "Mother, get the fuck out of my room. Now!"

  Not another word passed his mother's lips as she slid, snake-like, around the tiled walls of the bathroom and made a hasty exit. That left him and Tamsen. The unhinged look hadn't left her and he wondered if maybe he'd sent the wrong person out.

  "Tams..." He spoke quietly in what he hoped was a reassuring tone. He'd not seen her this close to the edge before and was terrified of what she might do next. "Come and sit down with me." He held his hand out - tentatively, as you would trying to make the acquaintance of a vicious dog.

  She stood gazing at him, as if she didn't recognize where she was or who she was looking at. He'd seen the look before, when she sat gazing at Gina's body in the bedroom. She seemed to be someplace else.

  Her voice came to him in a monotone, as if from another planet. "I have to put Azzie in his box and we've got to go home. We can't stay here anymore."

  He sat down on the velvet sofa under the turret window and patted the space next to him. Encouraging her away from the bathroom doorway. "Come sit with me, Tams. Bring Azzie too. We need to talk."

  Almost in a dream, she walked and sat next to him. Ceaselessly her hand caressed the fur on the cat's back, an unconscious movement he'd witnessed hundreds of times. The simple gesture bro
ught home to him Tamsen's loss.

  Despite himself, he began to cry.

  Something beautiful had broken today. Been irreparably destroyed. Not just the maimed animal Tamsen rocked in her arms - he had a sense of something larger at work in the cosmos, something dark and evil infiltrating his life. With no idea how to fight it, or what to do, he let the tears flow.

  "I want to go home, Matt." Tamsen took great pains laying Azriel out in the cat cage. It was the least she could do. Visions of Gina's body leaving the apartment in that vile blue body bag came rushing back into her mind.

  "I really don't think it's a good idea for you to be by yourself, Tams."

  "Then you come and stay at my place. But I'm not staying another night here with your mother." Too exhausted to argue, she just wanted to get the hell out of this house.

  Matt followed her out to the kitchen. She busied herself collecting all the vitamins and minerals she'd stashed in his pantry.

  The look on his face told her there was more chance of Marguerite inviting her to stay in the family home in Sydney than there was of Matt staying the night at her place.

  "You're still not over Gina dying in the apartment, are you?"

  She watched him blush and then stammer. "Well..."

  "Christ, Matt. For a Catholic you've got a real hang- up about death."

  "That's not a great combination of words, you know." He sounded really uncomfortable. "Especially under the circumstances." He leaned against the kitchen bench and she had a sudden memory of the two of them, naked on that very spot. It seemed such a long time ago. "It's not so much my faith that's the problem - it's the way my mother indoctrinated it. I worked that much out when we were at the Cathedral." He shifted uncomfortably, "I know I have issued with mother, but if you'd just stay."

  Her gut told her he wouldn't be coming, but her head held out anyway. "You won't talk me out of it, Matt. I wouldn't spend another night under the same roof as your mother if you paid me. And you should know she thinks I'm after your money anyway. Not that it appears you actually have any!"