Holly slowed the car to a crawl as Stillwaters Road showed signs of petering out and the edge of a vine-hung swamp that looked like the habitat of the Creature of the Black Lagoon loomed ahead.
‘A bit further,’ said Abigail. ‘Past the No Through Road sign, then left. Well, about six months ago Saul moved another woman into the house—practically a girl, really, compared to April. He told April that men were naturally polygamous, and that free spirits in tune with the infinite were beyond bourgeois conventions.’
‘The bastard!’ Holly muttered, gripping the wheel.
‘Bastard,’ Abigail agreed.
They exchanged a look of perfect understanding.
‘April claims not to mind,’ said Abigail. ‘She says it’s just a matter of working towards adjustment and acceptance. Calls this other woman her sister in love. Smiles all the time. But of course she’s a nervous wreck. She’s lost all this weight, and her hair’s falling out. I’ve begged her to see a marriage guidance counsellor, or a therapist, but she won’t. She won’t even talk to her GP.’
‘She should talk to her bank manager,’ said Holly, from the depths of bitter experience.
‘Actually, remembering what you told me last night, Holly, I did just mention that,’ Abigail said. ‘April seemed to think it was very cynical of me. But there were a lot of Pentacles in the cards, so I felt justified. Right—here we are.’
Holly stopped in front of what looked like a giant’s abandoned doll’s house. Clematis, honeysuckle and Virginia creeper had almost overwhelmed the little cottage. Trees and shrubs grew thickly on both sides of the path that stretched between the rickety picket fence and a flight of steps leading up to the miniature verandah and leadlight front door. Cat’s paradise, Holly thought.
The door of the house opened and a tiny old woman tottered out. She stood at the top of the steps and peered down at the car, clasping her hands anxiously. With only the mildest surprise, Holly recognised Mrs Halliday, the old lady who yesterday had nearly missed the butcher’s.
‘Well, here we go,’ said Abigail. She paused, her brow wrinkled. ‘Holly, would you come in with me?’
‘Sure,’ said Holly, thinking longingly of lunch and mentally crossing the shower and change of clothes off her ‘things to do’ list.
Abigail smiled and touched her shoulder. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’ve just got a feeling it might help. We’ll get some lunch when we get back. And this won’t take long. Either I’ll get a flash, or I won’t.’
So they went together to the gate in the rickety fence, and together they walked up the path towards the house.
‘He’s not outside, anyway,’ said Abigail, looking vaguely from side to side. ‘That will make things quicker.’
Disloyally, Holly wondered if that was a flash or just wishful thinking. Uneasily, she wondered how much Abigail charged for a home visit. She scanned the bushes, looking for a tabby-coloured shape, but could see only shadows and skinks.
Reenie Halliday greeted them with twitters of distress and gratitude, bobbing and murmuring as Holly was introduced. Trembling with anxiety, she pressed a brown hairbrush into Abigail’s hands.
‘It’s the best I can do,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t find his mouse on wheels. But he does love his brush, and we use it every day.’
‘That’s fine, Reenie.’ Pressing the brush between her palms, Abigail stepped through the front door of the house with Mrs Halliday hard on her heels and Holly trailing behind, feeling like a fifth wheel.
Two paces down the short central hallway, Abigail stopped dead.
‘He’s here,’ she said.
Mrs Halliday gave a little scream and looked around wildly, as if expecting her cat to appear out of thin air.
Holly reminded herself that Abigail definitely had some psychic ability, and tried to make herself believe that she was not being party to a rip-off that might end up on A Current Affair.
Abigail hesitated then moved slowly on, peering in turn through the doorways of the two small bedrooms on either side of the hall, then moving at last into the over-furnished but exquisitely neat sitting room. She paused, shook her head decisively and turned to go back the way she’d come.
Seeing her standing with Mrs Halliday in the middle of the hallway, turning from side to side like a wavering compass needle, Holly decided that it was up to her to take more practical measures. She wandered around the sitting room, checking every possible place where a cat could hide, even looking under the sofa cushions, and making sure there were no gaps above or beside the gas heater that had been fitted into the old fireplace. Then she went on into the old-fashioned kitchen at the back of the house. Methodically she opened every cupboard door, checked under the old-fashioned dresser, and peered, ridiculously, into the plastic flip-top kitchen tidy.
No cat. Not a whisker.
As she left the kitchen she could hear drawers being pulled open, and Reenie Halliday calling Lancelot in a pathetic, quavering voice.
It’s unfair to put her through this, Holly thought, biting her lip. Abigail’s wrong. The cat must be outside somewhere. For sure he’s been hit by a car, or bitten by a snake, and he’s crawled away into the swamp to die. This dismal thought brought tears to her eyes, so she quickly changed her theory, persuading herself that in fact Lancelot was curled up in a favourite corner of the overgrown garden, having peacefully died of old age.
She found Abigail and Mrs Halliday standing motionless in the smaller of the two bedrooms.
‘He’s in here, Holly,’ Abigail said in a low voice. ‘I can feel him. Definitely.’
‘But where?’ moaned Mrs Halliday.
Holly looked around. The bedroom was sparsely furnished with a built-in corner cupboard, its door wide open, a divan bed that stood barely a hand’s breadth off the floor, and an old oak dressing table, its empty drawers pulled out. The floor was covered wall to wall with faded linoleum. There was a dusty Venetian blind at the window. A piece of white-painted fibro had been nailed over the fireplace, sealing it off completely.
‘Try again, Reenie,’ urged Abigail.
‘Lancelot!’ quavered Mrs Halliday. ‘Where are you, darling boy? Lancelot . . . fishies!’
And as her voice died away they all heard a faint, piping cry.
‘It’s him!’ shrieked Mrs Halliday.
Every hair on Holly’s body stood on end. The sound had been so thin, so tiny, that there was no way of telling where it had come from. Had Lancelot been sucked into the very fabric of the house? Had he been abducted by ghosts, like the child in Poltergeist?
She looked frantically around the drab little room. She looked up at the ceiling, down at the floor. Her eyes fell on the one thing that had not been moved. The divan bed.
When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth . . . Sherlock Holmes, the greatest detective of all, had said that. O’Brien had probably said it too, or something very like it.
Holly went to the bed. It was pushed hard against the wall—no joy there—and was skimpily covered by a tie-dyed cotton spread. There were no cat-sized bulges, but she stripped off the spread anyway to expose a thin, buttoned, black-striped mattress.
That left the space beneath the bed. It was very shallow— surely much too shallow for a big cat to squeeze into in any kind of comfort. He’d literally have to crawl on his belly . . .
I keep seeing him all flattened out, like a tabby fur rug.
Holly’s skin prickled.
‘Abigail!’ she hissed, seizing one end of the bed. ‘Help me! We’ll have to tilt it back, not pull, or we’ll hurt him.’
‘He can’t be under there!’ Mrs Halliday wailed, as Abigail hurried to grab the other end of the bed. ‘Lancelot wouldn’t go under there—he’d never fit!’
‘He might if he wanted to enough,’ Holly said. ‘If his mouse on wheels ran under there, for example. And once he was in, not able to move or turn . . . Okay, Abigail, one, two, three!’
The front
of the divan bed jerked up from the floor. There was another faint cry. Mrs Halliday, by now lying flat on the lino, screamed with joy.
‘Higher!’ she yelled. ‘That’s it! Now, hold on! Hold on! ’
And, sweating and straining, Holly and Abigail managed to hold on just long enough to let a very fat, very dusty, very disgruntled tabby cat come crawling stiffly out into the light.
19
Reenie Halliday was so overcome by the recovery of Lancelot, and so exhausted by the effort of writhing around on the floor in the spare room, that Holly and Abigail were able to leave quite quickly, without having to stay for tea and a thorough discussion of events.
Once Lancelot was safe, they had dropped the fiendishly heavy divan bed, which Reenie said had a cast iron base. After that, Holly had used a broom handle to sweep the mouse on wheels from under the bed, and put it out in the hall. Then Abigail had advised Reenie to keep the spare room door shut from now on, and she and Holly had departed, their ears filled with Reenie’s tearful thanks.
Reenie had also thrust a twenty dollar note into Abigail’s hand.
‘Half of this is yours,’ Abigail told Holly, showing her the note as they drove back up the hill to the Mealey Marshes shops. ‘If it hadn’t been for you, we’d never have found him. I’m sorry it’s so little, but Reenie’s only on the pension, and she can’t afford any more.’
‘That’s all right,’ Holly said absently.
A week ago she would have said that she didn’t want the money—that Abigail should keep it, or donate Holly’s half to charity. Not anymore. These days, ten dollars was ten dollars, and well worth having. And she knew she had earned the money. She, student of Sherlock Holmes, apprentice to Mick O’Brien, had thought of lifting the divan bed. But Abigail . . .
‘Abigail, I’ve been thinking—’
‘Enid’s got chips!’ cried Abigail, pointing ahead to the footpath outside 16A, where Mrs Moss and Lawrence the bookseller stood chatting. ‘Quick, Holly, before Lawrence eats them all!’
Holly picked up speed and zipped into a parking spot just past the one she had occupied before. It was only one of many parking spots. She glanced at the car clock and was surprised to see that it was only two o’clock. She and Abigail had been gone for less than an hour. Yet suddenly all was quiet. The busker had left his post outside the chemist’s shop. Mealey Meals in Minutes had taken in its whiteboard. Except for a few customers still wandering in and out of the cake shop, the shopping centre was deserted.
‘Just about everything closes at two on Saturdays,’ Abigail said, noticing Holly’s bemused expression. ‘Once the lunch rush is over there’s no point staying open. We’re not exactly on the tourist circuit here.’
They both got out of the car and sauntered self-consciously towards Mrs Moss and Lawrence.
‘Well?’ Lawrence called.
‘Did you find him?’ Mrs Moss asked anxiously. ‘Is he all right?’
They both beamed as Holly and Abigail nodded.
‘Holly was amazing,’ said Abigail. ‘He was trapped under a bed and she—’
‘Abigail was amazing,’ said Holly at the same moment. ‘She just stood in this room and said, “He’s in here.” And he was!’
Neither Mrs Moss nor Lawrence looked even slightly surprised. They were obviously used to Abigail.
‘Have some chips,’ said Mrs Moss, holding out a bulging white paper bag blotched with patches of grease. ‘I got to Mealey Meals just before it closed, and they gave me all they had left.’
‘Yum,’ said Abigail, taking two chips at once.
‘That place peddles poison,’ said Lawrence, taking three. ‘We shouldn’t go there. My cholesterol count shoots up just looking in the front window.’
Holly ate a chip. Hot, salty, delicious! She took another.
‘Have you heard the big excitement?’ Mrs Moss said to Abigail. ‘I was just telling Lawrence. There’s been a heist at the Misty Views Motel! You know, the one on the highway just past—’
Holly choked.
‘No!’ exclaimed Abigail, helpfully banging Holly on the back with one hand and helping herself to more chips with the other.
‘Yes!’ said Mrs Moss. ‘Neddy at Meals got the gen just now, from his auntie, who heard it from—Holly are you all right, dear?’
‘Fine,’ Holly managed to croak. She swallowed and wiped her streaming eyes.
‘I knew something terrible was going to happen today,’ said Abigail. ‘The moment I woke up this morning—’
‘There were three of them, apparently,’ Lawrence cut in.
‘Yes, it was a gang,’ said Mrs Moss, wresting back the role of chief storyteller. ‘Two goons and a frail. The frail went in first, to suss the place out. Talked her way in saying she was a film producer, or something.’
‘Pretty weak story,’ said Lawrence critically.
‘Well, it worked, didn’t it?’ said Mrs Moss. ‘Of course, the new receptionist up there . . . well, she’s a very nice girl, they say, a Warimoo girl, and beautifully groomed, but not too bright. And the poor mug who was robbed obviously isn’t the sharpest pencil in the box, either. I mean, imagine inviting a strange woman into your motel room like that! What was he thinking?’
Abigail snorted. ‘What do you think he was thinking, Enid?’
Lawrence laughed. Holly stood paralysed, her mind a frozen blank.
Mrs Moss sighed. ‘She was quite a young woman too, by all accounts. The mug is in shock—can’t remember much, poor chap—but he thinks she said her name was Polly Parrot. Well, obviously that’s false. Isn’t it dreadful? They think she must have been a hop-head. Some women from a bus tour that had just arrived saw her in the ladies’ room, behaving oddly. Making faces and laughing for no reason and so on.’
‘A bus tour,’ Lawrence said, taking more chips. ‘That means a lot of people in reception. Luggage. Confusion. So the woman could get out easily, and the two guys could get in, without anyone noticing. Clever planning.’
‘How would they know a tour would be arriving?’ Abigail objected.
‘It was an inside job,’ Mrs Moss breathed, her eyes wide. ‘The perps had a mole in the motel!’
‘The receptionist, probably. She sounds a bit too good to be true.’ Lawrence picked up the basket of paperbacks. ‘Well, I’d better get on. Oliver will be back soon, wanting help unloading. Glad poor old Lancelot lives to sleep another day. See you all later.’
He heaved the basket into the bookshop, pushed the door shut with his shoulder, and flipped the Open sign to Closed. Please Call Again.
‘Not the receptionist,’ said Mrs Moss thoughtfully. ‘A cleaner. They say a cleaner who was doing the upstairs rooms took a powder just after the alarm was raised.’
‘What?’ Holly mumbled.
‘She means the cleaner ran away,’ said Abigail, shaking her head at Mrs Moss. ‘It’s all those old movies she watches in the middle of the night. Enid, the cleaner probably only left because she didn’t want to get involved with the police. Maybe her visa has expired.’
‘Holly, have another chip, dear,’ said Mrs Moss. ‘You’re looking a bit peaky.’
Abigail turned quickly to look at Holly. Her brow wrinkled in concern.
‘Yes, Holly, you’re awfully pale,’ she said. ‘You must have overdone it, going out so early, and then lifting that heavy bed on top of it. Come in and I’ll make you some chamomile tea. I could do with some myself. I just can’t get rid of this awful feeling . . .’
At that moment there was a squeal of tyres at the top of the street. Holly, Abigail and Mrs Moss looked around. A white Mazda swung past the war memorial and hurtled towards them, pursued by a black four-wheel drive and, a few moments later, a small green van covered in bright yellow writing. Holly’s stomach turned over.
‘Drag racing,’ Mrs Moss said with intense disapproval. The Mazda skidded to a halt directly in front of them. A man leapt from the passenger seat, leaving the door wide open. He was big, with a shaved head, and wearin
g sunglasses and a creased black suit.
‘The butcher’s closed!’ Mrs Moss called to him, making shooing gestures with her chip bag.
‘Oh, no!’ sighed Abigail. ‘It’s my ten o’clock appointment! Only four hours late! Really, some people—’
And that was Holly’s last coherent memory of what Mrs Moss later insisted on calling ‘the snatch’.
The rest was recorded in her mind only as a series of flashes and sensations.
The four-wheel drive braking sharply behind the Mazda. The green van skidding into it with a crunch and a tinkle of glass, then slewing sideways. The big man in his crumpled black suit, his heavy, stubbled jaw set, jumping over the kerb and rushing for her. Her glimpse of a terrified pink face pressed to the back passenger window of the revving Mazda, and her astounded realisation that it was the face of Leanne Purse. The shock and disbelief as the man grabbed her and swung her off her feet. His iron strength, and the synthetic smell of his black sleeve pressed to her mouth and nose. Piercing screams—her own, she presumed, as well as Abigail’s and Mrs Moss’s—as she was dragged off her feet.
A moment later she was in the back seat of the Mazda, Leanne Purse’s Mazda, with Leanne shrieking and struggling beneath her. Then she was scrambling into a sitting position, gasping for breath and thinking in bewilderment: ‘I’ve been kidnapped!’ And the Mazda was racing back up Still-waters Road, narrowly missing a white ute doing a U-turn outside the cake shop.
The man who had grabbed her was in the front passenger seat. He was rummaging through her shoulder bag, pulling out stationery samples and brochures by the handful.
‘Nothing,’ he growled, hurling the bag onto the floor in disgust. ‘Just more of that Gorgon shit, and two-fifty in an envelope.’
‘Shit!’ said the driver.
Love, Honour & O'Brien Page 21