Holly took a step forward, then another. She looked down at the coffin, through the film that frosted the inside of the glass lid. And then she felt Martin’s hand on her arm and she turned away and let him lead her out of the storeroom to where Una sat waiting in her chair, her face immobile as a carved mask.
‘It’s not Andrew, Una,’ Holly heard herself say.
Martin murmured something about calling the police, and left her. Mrs Moss and Abigail were hovering beside her, but she couldn’t find the words to speak to them. Without surprise she noticed Lily melting away, no doubt bent on making herself scarce now that a police visit was inevitable and questions about the source of Sebastian’s stash might be asked. She barely noticed Dulcie and Sheena pushing past her into the storeroom.
‘W—what do you mean it isn’t him?’ Eric stammered, looking dumbfounded. ‘Who is it then?’
The image of what she had seen through the coffin lid rose before Holly’s eyes. Again she saw that wizened brown face lightly dusted with mould, the brittle cloud of white-blonde hair, the small, clawed hands, no more than fragile bones gloved in leathery skin, raised slightly from the sunken breast where gold, diamonds and rubies glinted, horribly undimmed, amid the remains of a red evening gown edged with nylon tulle.
‘Lois!’ screamed Dulcie from the storeroom. ‘Oh, my God! It’s Lois!’
She blundered out into the corridor, threw herself into her son’s unwilling arms and burst into hysterical sobs.
And as Sheena stumbled out after her, with her hand pressed to her mouth, as Cliff Allnut stood rooted to the spot, his lips stretched into a comical O, Eric moved from behind the wheelchair and went to stare in his turn at Rollo Mag-gott’s second wife, so lovingly and so intensely embalmed that she was still recognisable after thirty-five years.
But Una Maggott continued to sit immobile, her face almost as rigid as the face in the coffin, except that the corner of her mouth was twitching uncontrollably, and tears were slowly rolling down her cheeks.
Holly bent over her, put a tentative hand on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and meant it with all her heart.
Una made no response. Was she thinking about her father, romancing on his deathbed about his lost love, embroidering fantastically on the lie he had probably come to believe as his mind decayed? Or was she thinking about Andrew McNish, the charming, cunning stranger with the boyish smile who had not been her half-brother, never could have been her half-brother, because Lois Maggott had not run away, pregnant or otherwise, but had died in this house long ago?
Holly didn’t ask. What did it matter anyway? All Una’s extraordinary energy, her fervent belief, her refusal to give in, had led only to the dead end of betrayal. Yet another betrayal. The long, sad, story of her life.
‘He left champagne for her.’
Holly looked up. Eric was beside her. His face was inexpressibly sad.
‘Ol’ Maggott,’ Eric said. ‘He left Lois all the things she liked. Champagne and jewellery and chocolates and money and stuff. For the afterlife. Like they used to do for the pharaohs. And he put the god of the underworld to watch over her. An-ubis. You know?’
There was a paralysed silence.
‘Are you saying you knew—?’ Dulcie began.
Eric shook his head. ‘He never told me. Never said a word. All those years . . .’ He sighed, shrugged. ‘Still, maybe by the time I started working for him he’d forgot she was there. He was pretty far gone.’
‘It’s criminal!’ puffed Allnut. ‘Rollo Maggott lied to my father! He lied to the police! Keeping a dead body in the house . . .’
‘He must have killed her,’ said Sebastian with relish.
Dulcie wailed.
‘No,’ said Eric soberly. ‘He was a nutter, but he wouldn’t have killed anyone. Lois must’ve just—died. Heart attack, or accident, or—’ ‘But he hid the body!’ Sebastian persisted. ‘Why would he hide the body unless—?’
‘He wanted to keep her,’ said Eric. ‘See where he put her? Right next to his bed, so he could sleep beside her, with just a wall between them.’
‘The old devil!’ Sheena muttered. ‘The crazy old devil! And to think I—’ She gagged, pressed her hand to her mouth again and bolted for the bathroom.
Holly felt Una’s shoulder move. She looked down and was astonished to see that the rigid face had cracked into a grim smile.
‘It seems that even Sheena draws the line at sex in the graveyard,’ Una said.
Dulcie gave a little scream of horror. Her son sniggered.
‘Una, really !’ Allnut protested.
‘You slept in that bed yourself, the other night, Allnut,’ Una reminded him. ‘Makes you think, doesn’t it?’
Allnut goggled at her, went several shades paler, and turned, shuddering, away.
This time Una actually laughed. ‘Take me downstairs, would you, Eric?’ she said. ‘I could do with a brandy.’
25
‘Imagine that being old Rollo Maggott’s house!’ said Mrs Moss the following morning as she, Holly and Abigail sat drinking coffee and eating Danish pastries at one of the rickety tables outside the Mealey Marshes cake shop. ‘I had no idea till Trevor Purse told me—he’d been there before, to exterminate rats. I’d heard the garden was full of pyramids and statues and so on, but it wasn’t.’
‘Una had them all pulled down,’ said Holly. ‘It was the first thing she did.’
‘You’d think she’d have dealt with the rats first.’ Mrs Moss wrinkled her nose. ‘Trevor said the place was crawling with them. He found that very absorbing, of course—he seems to like a challenge—but I don’t think he enjoyed working for Miss Maggott very much. She was on his back all the time, apparently, pestering him for progress reports and so on. It upset him. He’s not accustomed to being supervised by clients, he says.’
‘Una’s like that,’ Holly murmured. ‘She gets crazes on things and goes over the top.’ She chewed pastry mechanically, registering that it melted in her mouth but taking no joy in it.
She knew she should be grateful just to be alive. She also knew that it was natural for someone who had been kidnapped and menaced with a knife and who had, moreover, discovered two dead bodies in two days, to feel a little emotionally drained. But she felt more than emotionally drained. She felt tense, unsatisfied and baffled.
The parrot had glared at her balefully when she’d come home the night before. It hadn’t said a word as she filled up its seed and water containers and covered its cage with O’Brien’s blue shirt. She had probably just been extremely overtired, but she hadn’t been able to shake off the feeling that it was sulking not because she was late, but because she had let it down.
All night, it seemed, she had dreamed of shrivelled mummy faces, snakes, jackal-headed gods, emerald rings, silver teaspoons, knives and falling chandeliers. She had woken feeling unrested and jittery, with the weak impulse to pull her quilt over her head and stay where she was.
The lure of coffee, the oppression of the jungle mural and the knowledge that Abigail and Mrs Moss would certainly come to get her if she didn’t show her face at the time appointed the night before, had eventually prised her from the bed. Now she was telling herself she might have done better to stay there. The coffee was wonderful, the pastries were good, and Mealey Marshes looked quaint and bright in the crisp autumn morning, but none of these things had improved her mood.
‘Well, the poor woman isn’t normal, is she?’ Mrs Moss said comfortably, putting down her cup. ‘Still, she must have been very embarrassed last night. Imagine finding the wrong body after all the fuss she’d made about her brother being murdered and so on.’
‘Andrew never was her brother,’ said Holly.
‘He’s not dead, either,’ said Abigail, pressing her finger to the last flakes of pastry on her plate and putting them into her mouth. ‘Not in that house, anyway. There was only one unquiet spirit there, and we found her.’
‘I keep thinking about O’Brien,’ Holly blurted
out, and blinked defiantly as her companions both stared at her in some alarm.
‘I don’t see why Mr O’Brien would be an unquiet spirit, Holly,’ Abigail said gently. ‘His body wasn’t hidden.’
‘Far from it,’ said Mrs Moss. ‘You aren’t saying you think the quack was wrong and Mr O’Brien was chilled off after all, are you, dear?’
‘No!’ Holly muttered, already regretting her outburst but feeling she had no alternative but to explain herself. ‘Nothing like that. It’s just . . . there are too many unanswered questions. Too many loose ends. Andrew’s mobile. The missing tea mug. Una’s lost rings. Una’s fall. The hidden teaspoons. The bag of clothes. The dead rat. The warning note . . .’
And where is Andrew? she thought, but didn’t say.
‘O’Brien wouldn’t have liked the loose ends,’ she said instead. ‘He would have done something about them. I can’t stop thinking about it.’
‘I think you have post-traumatic stress syndrome,’ said Mrs Moss, with the assurance of the late-night TV viewer.
‘We probably all do,’ said Abigail. ‘That’s why it was a good idea to have cakes this morning. In fact, I think we should all have another one. We need to raise our sugar levels.’
‘We always have pastries on Sundays, Abby,’ said Mrs Moss, getting to her feet. ‘And we always end up having two. My turn.’
She gave Holly a little pat on the shoulder and disappeared through the screen door, which rattled and banged behind her.
They operate like a tag team, Holly thought with dreary amusement. She’s giving Abigail a chance to talk some sense into me. Holly didn’t resent it. On the contrary, she was warmed by their concern, though she doubted Abigail could say anything that would help. She drank the last of her coffee and waited.
‘Holly, I do understand how you feel,’ Abigail began. ‘It’s terribly frustrating not to get to the bottom of things, or find out how stories end. It happens to me all the time when clients don’t come back. But it can’t be helped. As far as Una Maggott is concerned, the investigation is over, isn’t it? Once she found out that Andrew couldn’t have been her brother, she lost interest in him and everything to do with him. That was obvious last night.’
‘Yes.’ Holly looked down at the brown froth remaining in her coffee cup, tilting the cup from side to side to make the froth slide back and forth. ‘It’s like Eric said—she gets obsessed, then loses interest and just goes on to the next thing. Mrs Moss said she must be embarrassed by what happened last night, but I honestly don’t think she’s capable of embarrassment. Yesterday morning she was accusing everyone in the house of trying to kill her. By last night she’d forgotten all about that and was quite happy to be left alone with Eric, Dulcie and Sheena—oh, and Sebastian, of course. It was as if none of the stuff that had happened before mattered.’
‘Well, let’s face it, she’s . . . unusual,’ Abigail said, with professional tact. ‘Her father was the same way, I gather. According to Enid, he was quite notorious.’
‘He’ll be even more notorious now.’ Holly looked up, saw Abigail watching her, and smiled.
‘It’s okay, Abigail. I know there’s nothing I can do. It’s just frustrating, that’s all. I’ll get over it.’
‘Of course you will. You just need to keep busy. Find a new focus.’
A white ute with a brown dog in the back swung past the war memorial and did a U-turn, pulling up outside the cake shop. Martin jumped out and strode towards the shop door.
Holly’s heart gave a nervous little flutter. She told herself it was the coffee.
‘Oh, hello, Martin!’ called Abigail. ‘I was just thinking about you.’
Holly gave her a sharp look and she smiled blandly.
‘Hi,’ Martin said, stopping by their table. ‘Recovered from yesterday?’
He spoke as if they had been doing a spot of bushwalking instead of being terrorised by a gang of toughs and discovering an embalmed corpse in a cupboard.
‘Up to a point,’ Holly said. ‘Now I’m just waiting for the police to turn up and charge me with false pretences or something.’
Martin laughed. ‘Don’t hold your breath. They’ve got plenty to do with a dead body to play with and four bad guys to nail. Anyhow, Una’s not going to make a complaint. She’s moved on.’
‘What’s the new big thing?’
‘Would you believe eBay? After last night’s entertainment, she’s decided she can’t rest until she’s cleared the house of everything that wasn’t in it when her grandparents were alive, and she thinks eBay might be the best way to go. According to Eric, she and the kid stayed up most of the night talking about it.’
‘Right.’ Holly shook her head. Una really was incredible.
‘Neck okay?’ Martin asked.
‘Oh, yes,’ Holly said, her fingers flying instinctively to the sticking plaster on her throat. ‘It was just a nick. It’s fine.’
She swallowed, quelling an inward shudder at the thought of Bernie’s knife, and saw Martin’s eyes darken.
Mrs Moss pushed her way through the screen door bearing a tray onto which three more Danish pastries and three more coffees had been squeezed.
‘You do all right for yourselves, you Mealey people,’ said Martin, instantly back in casual mode.
‘Hello, Martin,’ Mrs Moss said absently, as she began transferring the fresh goodies to the table and stacking the used cups and plates onto the tray. ‘You know, I was thinking while I was waiting in there, it was really very lucky that Rollo Maggott left that poem in his wife’s coffin.’
‘It was an awful poem,’ Holly couldn’t help saying. ‘Conceited and self-justifying and . . . and talking about Lois as if she’d only existed for his benefit. And it didn’t scan.’ She caught herself thinking that Martin would probably regard this as a very callous remark, and told herself he’d have to like it or lump it. She’d given up pretending to be something she wasn’t.
‘It wasn’t exactly Shakespeare,’ Martin agreed mildly. ‘But at least it explained how she died. If it hadn’t been there the police might have suspected murder, and that would have complicated things.’
‘It certainly wouldn’t have been very nice for the family,’ Mrs Moss said primly.
Martin grinned. ‘Dulcie didn’t seem to think it was particularly nice that the lady was flattened when the chandelier she was swinging on fell on her. Una wasn’t impressed either. But it’s a lot better than murder. In fact, I can think of worse ways to go. I’d rather die laughing any day.’
‘Me too,’ said Holly.
He smiled at her as comfortably as if they had known each other for years. ‘So it’s not all bad. And think of all that Maggott jewellery and cash finding its way back into the Maggott coffers! Not to mention a tasteful statue of Anubis and a bottle of French champagne.’
‘Would thirty-five-year-old champagne be drinkable?’
‘Depends how desperate you are, I guess.’
He wandered off into the cake shop after that, taking the tray of used cups with him, leaving Abigail and Mrs Moss to exchange knowing, indulgent glances and Holly to take a self-conscious sip of coffee and think how very compelling blue eyes were when they were warm, instead of like two chips of ice.
‘I wonder if the Purses have made it up this morning,’ she remarked eventually, in the hope of breaking up her companions’ wordless communication about her putative love life.
‘Oh, they probably made it up last night,’ said Abigail.
‘They’re obviously a very devoted couple. And the minute Leanne told Trevor she was pregnant he’d have been—’
Holly choked on her coffee.
‘—putty in her hands,’ Abigail finished serenely. ‘When we were tied to that post together she told me that’s why she’d been working—to make a bit of extra money for the baby. She’s opened a special purpose bank account and everything. She was waiting until she had a good amount in there before she told Trevor, because he’d been very insistent that they had to w
ait for a baby until they felt absolutely secure financially, but—’
‘He’ll be over the moon!’ Holly laughed.
Abigail nodded. ‘That’s what I told her. So we found out the ending to that story, at least, Holly. And, oh, that reminds me! There’s another one. It was on my answering machine last night. Poor April—you know, my client whose partner moved another woman into the house? Well, she’s finally walked out on him.’
‘So she came to her senses at last!’ said Mrs Moss, clapping her hands. ‘I don’t believe it! Or did Saul move another girl in? Trying for a foursome? I wouldn’t put it past him.’
Abigail shook her head. ‘April raided his computer while he was out. She found out he’d been quietly transferring their money and shares into his own name. It had been going on for years. He’d even bought himself a holiday house on the South Coast.’
‘The swine!’ gasped Mrs Moss.
‘It was lucky you told April to check the finances, Abigail,’ Holly said grimly.
‘Yes,’ Abigail agreed. ‘That was thanks to you. If I hadn’t spoken to you first, I’d never have thought of it. April has had a lot of Pentacles in her cards ever since she started coming to me, but she always said that money didn’t mean anything to her, and all she wanted was love, spiritual connection with nature, and the simple life.’
She frowned and thoughtfully licked a line of cappuccino froth from her top lip.
‘You know, April’s the gentlest person, but she was just about incoherent with rage on the phone,’ she said. ‘It’s strange, isn’t it? She wouldn’t leave Saul when she knew perfectly well that he’d robbed her of security, and trust, and peace of mind, and privacy in her own home, and quite a lot of hair. But when she found out he’d robbed her of a few dollars, that was it!’
‘Well, people can be very peculiar, Abby,’ soothed Mrs Moss. ‘No one knows that better than we do.’
‘All that talk about love,’ sighed Abigail. ‘Love, love, love! But all the time it was the money that counted.’
It always comes down to money in the end, Love.
Love, Honour & O'Brien Page 28