Love, Honour & O'Brien

by Jennifer Rowe

  Bracing herself to face the onslaught, Aimee had merely waved distractedly as Holly made for the stairs. Now, reaching the upper walkway, gazing blankly at the twelve pale blue doors set at regular intervals along its length, each door flanked by a small, high, frosted window below which stood a sand-filled flowerpot for the convenience of smokers, Holly tried to calm herself. So what if Aimee Rice had once been Andrew’s receptionist? That wasn’t so strange. The Blue Mountains had a relatively small population, after all, and there were only so many jobs, and so many people to fill them.

  But it was still a weird coincidence. And—Holly realised that this was her real problem—Aimee Rice had been so very different from the elegant hard case she’d imagined keeping office house for Andrew. More to the point, Aimee Rice wasn’t now lying on a sunbed by a pool in Queensland, drinking margaritas bought on the proceeds of Una Mag-gott’s rings and silver teaspoons. Aimee Rice was here, on the desk of the Misty Views Motel, still waiting for her ship to come in.

  Holly leaned over the rail of the walkway, noted that Leanne’s car was still in its place, then rocked with vertigo as she saw a bulky black bonnet nose into the carpark. But again, it wasn’t the hearse. It was only another of the black four-wheel drives that seemed to infest the mountain roads, along with battered white utes and identical Mazdas. Holly could almost hear the parrot cackling.

  Pull yourself together, she told herself harshly, turning away from the railing. Do what you came here to do.

  She dug in her shoulder bag for her diary and pen so she would look as if she were taking notes if Aimee finished with the tour party quickly and came up to see how she was getting on.

  Slowly, diary open in her hand, she paced along the line of doors. Signs reading Please Make Up My Room hung on the knobs of the first four, so they were out. The cartoon sounds of Saturday morning TV drifted from behind the fifth door, so that was probably out too. People had strange tastes, Holly knew, but she had never heard of a cartoon fetish.

  A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the knob of the sixth door. That looked promising. But as Holly lingered beside the flowerpot, the sand of which was liberally scattered with the skimpy butts of roll-your-own cigarettes, she could hear someone snoring thunderously inside the room. Surely it was a bit too soon for that, unless Leanne’s lover had narcolepsy.

  The seventh door opened just as she came to it, and a middle-aged woman in a bright pink trouser suit bustled out carrying a box wrapped in silver paper and crowned with a white bow. The woman smiled brightly at Holly, showing teeth lavishly smeared with cerise lipstick.

  ‘Lovely day,’ the woman said.

  Without waiting for a reply she hurried to the eighth door and knocked. ‘Francine!’ she bawled. ‘Are you ready?’

  There was a muffled call and a thump from the other side of the door. The woman clicked her tongue, bolted on, and knocked at the next two rooms too. ‘Janet?’ she called. ‘Sue? Come on, we’ll be late.’

  Holly went to the railing and pretended to be gazing at the view. Once you looked beyond the parking area, it was very pleasant—a storybook vista of little houses tucked amid trees, leading on to the darker outlines of Katoomba, the Edwardian magnificence of the Carrington Hotel. And it did have a faint tinge of misty blue.

  She didn’t move as for the next few minutes doors opened and closed, high female voices rose, and doors opened again for the recovery of forgotten items amid laughter and expostulation. She watched out of the corner of her eye as the four women finally departed, chattering like excited birds, their high heels click-clacking on the concrete of the walkway.

  Ten rooms had now been accounted for. Feeling that she had done O’Brien proud, imbued with the guilty satisfaction of the successful stalker, Holly turned to examine the remaining two doors and jumped as she saw that the one second from the end was now wide open.

  A thick-set, hairy-chested man wearing only a pair of trousers with the belt dangling sauntered through the open door, shaking a cigarette out of a packet. ‘Back in five minutes, love,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Okay?’

  A female voice trilled something indistinguishable over the sound of running water. And suddenly, looking past the man’s shoulder into the mean little room with its tumbled double bed, Holly wished she had never set foot in the Misty Views Motel.

  The man caught sight of Holly and winked in greeting, his eyes flicking up and down her body exactly as Aimee’s had done, though for a different reason.

  ‘Smoke?’ he suggested, offering Holly his packet.

  Holly shook her head and forced a smile.

  ‘You used to be able to smoke inside in this place,’ the man said, lighting up. ‘Now it’s just like everywhere else— you’ve got to stand outside like a leper. It’s bloody cold up here in the winter, too.’ He leered at Holly, squinting through a drifting white haze. ‘You here for the whole weekend?’

  ‘I’m not staying here,’ Holly said quickly, then realised, as the man looked quizzical, that she had better give some sort of excuse for skulking on the walkway. She proffered her diary and pen. ‘I’m just visiting. Working. I’m doing research. For a documentary. About motels, and their customers— and so on.’

  ‘Is that so?’ The man looked interested. ‘Well, I might be able to help you there. I’ve stayed in more motels than you could shake a stick at.’

  ‘Really?’ Holly asked, trying to sound enthusiastic.

  ‘Sure,’ said the man, expanding. ‘I’m a rep—well, area manager, really—for Gorgon Office Supplies. Heard of them?’

  ‘I think so.’

  Holly wondered if this whole thing could be a bizarre dream. Maybe she’d fallen asleep in the parking area. Or maybe there had actually been a collision on the highway and she was lying in a coma in Katoomba Hospital. Wake up, she told herself. But nothing changed.

  ‘Feldman’s my name,’ the man said, transferring his cigarette to his left hand and sticking out his right hand. ‘Frank Feldman.’

  ‘Cage,’ said Holly, taking the hand and shaking it for the least possible time. ‘Um . . . Polly Cage.’ The moment the words were out of her mouth she cursed herself.

  ‘Polly want a cracker?’ Frank Feldman sniggered. ‘Sorry, you must get that all the time.’

  ‘Not really.’ Holly glanced at her watch. ‘Well, I’d better be—’

  ‘Don’t go yet,’ Feldman exclaimed, grabbing her arm and pulling her towards his room. ‘It’d do me a lot of good if I could get Gorgon’s into a documentary. Come and have a look at my sample case. The viewers would be really interested. I designed it myself. It opens out flat, fifteen separate compartments—takes our whole range plus a laptop.’

  ‘No!’ Holly tried to shake herself free. ‘No, really, I have to—’

  ‘Won’t take a minute,’ said Feldman, practically wrestling her through the doorway. ‘Come on, Pol, be a sport. Don’t worry, you’re safe with me. And anyhow, we’ve got a chaperone.’ He gestured off-handedly at the bathroom.

  The bathroom door was wide open. Holly didn’t want to look, but she couldn’t help herself. And there was Leanne Purse, in pink rubber gloves, a blue cotton overall and sensible shoes, cleaning the toilet.

  18

  By calling on the spirit of O’Brien, Holly managed to act like a professional. That is, she didn’t gape at Leanne for too long, she didn’t burst into hysterical laughter, she didn’t start babbling about situation comedies, and she didn’t stumble blindly into the trolley of motel room supplies and cleaning equipment parked against the wall, though that was a near thing.

  But as Frank Feldman heaved a flat black vinyl case onto the bed and started manipulating its many zippers and velcro strips, she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the bathroom. She could hear Leanne Purse humming as she worked.

  The toilet flushed.

  ‘She must have been cleaning the end room, before,’ Holly said aloud.

  ‘What?’

  Holly looked around quickly. Feldman was star
ing at her.

  ‘I didn’t see the cleaner come in here,’ Holly explained, in some confusion. ‘She must have moved into this room when those other women were leaving. While I was looking at the view.’

  For a moment Feldman looked blank. Then his face cleared. ‘Oh, the cleaning routine, is it?’ he said, going back to tearing velcro. ‘Yeah, well, they’re all different, aren’t they? Don’t worry, we’ll be right in here. She’s only doing the bathroom. I told her to leave the rest. The match starts in ten minutes.’

  Holly managed to make the appropriate noises while he displayed the intricacies of his one-of-a-kind sample case and its disturbingly familiar contents. Then, politely declining his invitation to stay, have a few beers and watch the footy, she stuffed the many brochures he had forced on her into her shoulder bag, and made her escape. As she left, she saw Leanne Purse finishing off the bathroom by folding the end of the toilet paper into a little point.

  Holly almost ran along the walkway and down the stairs. Most of the people from the bus tour were still milling around in the reception area, talking at the tops of their voices, lining up for the drink machine, or trying to locate their luggage in the pile that had been dumped just inside the door. Behind the reception desk, Aimee was blinking steadily, explaining that all the suites were identical, that all the beds faced south-north, that unfortunately the motel did not provide soy milk, and that she was sorry, but she couldn’t give change for the drink machine.

  Snorting with laughter, Holly made for the ladies’ room. Both cubicles were occupied, and there were several white-haired women waiting. Holly splashed her face with water and dried it with a paper towel, trying in vain to suppress the giggles that kept bubbling up from her chest and bursting out of her mouth of their own accord. She knew that the helpless laughter was the after-effect of shock and relief. She was giggling because her suspicions, and Trevor Purse’s suspicions, had turned out to be absurd.

  Pretty, plump Leanne Purse hadn’t been cheating on her husband—quite the contrary. She had been secretly using her Saturdays to earn a bit of money—cash in hand, probably— to buy herself some new clothes, perhaps, or simply to support the monthly maintenance of her crowning glory. It was possible that careful Trevor was a bit mean with the housekeeping money. And it was possible—probable, Holly thought—that he had no idea his wife was not a natural blonde.

  Holly would have liked to stay in the ladies’ room for a bit longer, to recover her equilibrium, but she was receiving dubious looks from her elderly companions, so after only a few minutes she left, still wracked with occasional bouts of painful, silent laughter. She fought her way through the thronged reception area, and out into the open air. The walk down to the parking area, with the sun on her face and a light breeze tossing her hair, calmed her down enough to punch Trevor Purse’s number into O’Brien’s phone without fear of laughing in his ear.

  Purse answered on the first ring, his voice tight with tension.

  Holly told him the good news. There was a strangled squawk, then silence. Holly wondered if they’d been cut off.

  ‘Are you there, Mr Purse?’

  ‘A cleaning job? My wife? ’

  ‘That’s right. At the Misty Views Motel. On the highway at—’

  ‘I know where it is.’

  Purse’s voice was shaking. Holly could hear little puffs of air, as if he was breathing hard through his nose.

  ‘Thank you,’ he squeaked, and the phone went dead.

  Well, so much for that, Holly thought, forcing her phone back into her bulging shoulder bag. She felt rather deflated. Purse hadn’t sounded at all amazed that she had found out so much. He hadn’t seemed to appreciate how much trouble she had taken on his behalf. A perfunctory ‘thank you’ and that was it. Punters! They’re all the same. She could hear O’Brien saying it. She could almost see his world-weary smile.

  Holly straightened her shoulders. She knew she’d done well. That was what counted.

  She reached her car and stood for a moment looking up at the motel. Frank Feldman’s door was shut now, and the one next to it—Sue’s room—was open. Holly imagined Feldman reassembling his exploded sample case while the TV blared. She imagined Leanne Purse in her pink rubber gloves, humming as she disinfected her third toilet of the day. She felt a sudden rush of warmth for them both. They were triers, like herself. She sincerely wished them well. She wished Aimee Rice well, too. And Francine, Janet, Sue, and the woman with lipstick on her teeth. And the bus tour party, far from home.

  She drove from the parking area feeling efficient and in control. By deciding to investigate inside the motel she had gained not only valuable information, but time as well. Now, instead of staring at twenty-four doors for hours, she could go home to Mealey Marshes, get something to eat and pack a bag for her stay with Una Maggott. She could shower and change her clothes. She could check the parrot’s seed and water. She could recharge her—or rather, O’Brien’s— phone. She could thank Abigail for dinner the night before, and tell her about being away overnight.

  The highway traffic had thinned dramatically, as if most people had reached their destinations and settled down to lunch. Between the Misty Views International Motel and the turnoff to Mealey Marshes, Holly saw only one white ute, and two other white Mazdas. There were no black four-wheel drives at all. It was very pleasant not to be following anyone. In no time, it seemed, she was negotiating the underpass. Singing along with the radio, she flew to Mealey Marshes like a homing pigeon.

  Stillwaters Road was mellow in the afternoon light. The busker was back outside the chemist’s shop, playing an Irish jig. The screen door of the cake shop rattled and banged as pie-seeking customers moved in and out. A whiteboard was propped against the window of Mealey Meals in Minutes, advertising a Saturday special on Singapore noodles with chips.

  A station wagon moved out of a parking spot directly outside 16A just as Holly reached it. It seemed meant. She slid the Mazda into the space with a feeling of entitlement. She glanced at the butcher’s shop as she got out and was relieved to see that it was shut. There was no danger that her bald-headed friend of the day before would bound out to interrogate her about Trevor Purse’s affairs. One, Holly didn’t want to waste her precious time, and two, she might be annoyed with Purse, but O’Brien’s did promise discretion.

  Abigail, resplendent in an ankle length green crushed velvet dress and a filmy purple scarf that clashed wildly with her hair, was standing outside the secondhand bookshop. She was talking in an agitated way to a man who was straightening the battered paperbacks in a wire basket hopefully marked SPECIAL!! $1!! As the car door slammed they both looked up, and Abigail’s face broke into a relieved smile.

  ‘Holly, you’re back!’ she cried. ‘What luck! Could you possibly drive me somewhere? Right now? I was hoping that Lawrence could do it but Oliver’s taken the van to pick up some books. And it’s an emergency!’

  Holly felt a pang, hoped she hadn’t shown it, and hastened to say that of course she could. No problem. As soon as she’d topped up O’Brien’s—that is, the parrot’s—seed and water.

  ‘Already done!’ said Abigail, hurrying to the Mazda. ‘I didn’t mean to interfere, but I got this awful image of him dying of thirst a while ago, so I popped up to check you were both all right. You were out, and I didn’t know when you’d be back, so I filled both containers to the brim, just in case.’

  The bookshop man smiled at Holly. He had a very nice smile. His light brown hair was streaked with grey at the temples. Abigail’s prediction sprang unbidden into Holly’s mind and she found herself wondering if light brown hair counted as fair before sternly reminding herself that she was finished with men. For the time being, anyway.

  ‘So you’re the detective from upstairs,’ the man called. ‘Welcome to the madhouse.’

  Holly smiled back. She didn’t feel like complicating things by correcting him about her profession. Besides, she was feeling like a detective at the moment.

  Abiga
il was standing with her hand on the Mazda door handle, jiggling on the spot with impatience. Holly opened up for her and got back behind the wheel.

  ‘Straight ahead,’ Abigail said. ‘Down the hill to the marshes, then left into the dead end. Oh, thanks so much for this!’ She leaned back with a gusty sigh as Holly manoeuvred the car away from the kerb, narrowly missing the front headlight of the sports car waiting like a vulture for her parking spot.

  ‘What’s the emergency?’ Holly asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s Reenie, an old client of mine,’ said Abigail. ‘Her cat’s gone missing and she’s just about distracted.’

  ‘Cats do wander,’ said Holly.

  ‘Not Lancelot. He’s ancient, and fat as a football.’ Abigail sighed again. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m afraid he might have passed over. While Reenie was on the phone I kept seeing him all flattened out, like a tabby fur rug. And I’ve had the most terrible sense of foreboding ever since I woke up.’

  Holly glanced at her. She had closed her eyes and was frowning slightly. Her face looked drawn and tense and somehow duller, as if she really was under some sort of shadow. Or maybe it was just that purple wasn’t her colour.

  ‘I was sure it had something to do with that nervous man who made the appointment yesterday, but he didn’t turn up so it can’t be that,’ said Abigail. She opened her eyes. ‘Of course, it might be to do with this other client I saw this morning. She’s got such a problem. I can’t see it having a good outcome.’

  ‘What is it?’ Holly asked curiously. ‘Oh—sorry, I suppose you can’t talk about it.’

  ‘Oh, April wouldn’t mind. She tells everybody. She believes in openness, and sharing. She and her partner, Saul, are old hippies—peace, love, living off the land, scorn for material possessions, and all that. They’re quite well off, actually—made a lot of money on shares, April tells me, buying and selling at the right time. But she still has her spinning wheel and so on. And she still wears rope sandals and doesn’t shave her legs.’