Prodigal

by T M Heron

I sigh. “Let’s not waste time pretending either of us have honor.”

  I hear ice clinking. “I’ve got no time,” I say impatiently. “Which means neither do you. You should have the text by now.”

  Flynn takes a long noisy gulp then says triumphantly, “Actually, I can’t help you, Ray. I don’t work at the bank.”

  “I didn’t think for a minute your father would be foolish enough to employ you in the family business. But he’s the CEO. Get him to send you the information.”

  “I can’t drag him into this.”

  “Flynn, that wasn’t a suggestion. Tell him if I don’t get the information immediately, I’m going to the press about our dive trip.”

  “He still won’t.”

  “I need it first thing tomorrow.” I hang up and go back into the main room. It is warm and the couch looks inviting with Ingrid curled up at one end.

  “There’s nothing else we can do tonight,” I say. “Would you like a wine?”

  “As long as we’ve got food to go with it. I haven’t eaten all day.” Her smile disarms me.

  The fridge is well stocked with organic olives and cheese and artichoke hearts for such an occasion. I open a box of oaten crackers and set about making the world’s best antipasto.

  We sit on the couch, not touching, but close. She would have no idea I have spent a good number of hours on the internet trying to divine the formula, should one exist, for pleasing women sexually. I’ve even ordered a book, which I will destroy after reading, called The Outstanding Lover: The Art of Pleasing Women.

  “I think if we find out who paid her, and what the story is with the house she purchased, we’ll be a long way towards solving this.” I take a sip of wine, feel my shoulders relax, and am reminded how much tension I’ve been under today.

  Ingrid stretches in an appealing, feline manner and helps herself to a couple of olives. I down a generous amount of wine and decide I will never tire of watching her. But there is something stirring in me which is in contrast with my plan not to touch her until I’ve fully digested The Outstanding Lover. The stirring is not in our best long-term interests. But as I finish my glass, I’m not sure I have the self-control to survive much more of this. And the thought occurs that I would undoubtedly perform better on our second time together if Ingrid were unconscious and unable to form an opinion for the first.

  When I get up to refill our drinks, I slip a Clonazepam into hers.

  “Tell me about your sister,” says Ingrid. She has a mouthful of wine and gives no indication she can taste the drug.

  “My sister?” I’m startled. But it’s personal, of course, and personal is good. “She had her accident when she was six. She fell off our pool house roof. God knows how she got up there.”

  Ingrid puts one hand over her mouth and another on my knee and gives me a look of unadulterated sympathy. The drug won’t have taken effect yet, so I surmise the feelings are genuine. It’s the strongest emotional response she’s given me yet, and I’m liking it.

  “I found her,” I hear myself saying. “I’ll never forget seeing her just lying there. It haunts me to this day.”

  “That must have been a very dark day for your family.”

  Ingrid takes her hand off my knee and picks up her wine glass. The knee is still warm and cries out to be touched again.

  She takes a generous swallow of wine. “I understand about dark days,” she says. “Our family had one of those. I remember it well.”

  Emotion is swirling behind her eyes. “It was five years ago,” she says. Then she blinks and looks at her wine glass. “I think I should have something else to eat.”

  I make her a cracker with blood-orange chutney and Danish blue cheese. It’s not going to help but I’m nothing if not solicitous when the occasion calls.

  “What was I saying?” she asks.

  “About your family. Five years ago.”

  “Oh yes.” She has another sip of wine then shakes her head. “I think I’ve somehow had too much.”

  I smile indulgently. “You’re in good hands.”

  Actually, for this part of things she’s in very good, very experienced hands. This will sadly not be the case for her first voluntary experience of sexual activity with me.

  Ingrid rests her head back against the couch. “I think I’ve somehow had too much to drink,” she says, as if freshly announcing it.

  “Just relax, you’re okay. You’re with me,” I say.

  Then, to my horror, I realize I mean it. I will protect this woman against anything.

  She is now gently unconscious, head rolled sideways onto one shoulder. I readjust her so she is lying on the couch. I put a cushion under her head and tuck the throw right up to her chin. Then, because I can’t help myself, I pull her hair out from under her head and arrange it so it cascades down her face. She lies there looking like a cross between Sleeping Beauty and Snow White.

  For a while I sit on the arm of the couch and hold her hand. It is surprisingly strong but smooth. I can imagine us walking down a beach together holding hands. I’m not sure exactly when I started thinking like a woman, but I have to admit it leaves me feeling warm inside.

  I stroke her hair. It feels like silk, which is no surprise, and glows deep red in the lamp light. Then I surprise myself by leaving. There is no way short of a general anesthetic I’d be able to sleep in the same room and I need a good head for tomorrow.

  49

  I ignore the overwhelming urge to go straight to the basement when I get to work the next morning to see if Ingrid is still asleep on the couch.

  She calls at seven. “I’m so sorry about last night.” She sounds bashful, which is a new experience for me. “I hope I didn’t make a fool of myself.”

  “You were fine,” I say. “We’ve both been working hard. It’s no big deal.”

  It may mean I’m less than impressive the first time we’re together but I’m not going to add this.

  “I’ve found the house,” she says. “It isn’t under her name. It’s under a guy called Colin Gilbert.”

  “What’s the address?”

  It’s 7.10 a.m. If I’m fast enough I can get around to see Mr. Gilbert before he leaves for work.

  “Seventy-seven Falk Road in Northland. Shall I come?”

  “I’d probably be more effective on my own.”

  ◆◆◆

  Colin Gilbert sits bound to a chair in his living room. I’ve taken no chances, and he looks like a modern-day masterpiece in origami.

  He looks familiar and I know he recognizes me too.

  “I’m going to take a tour of your lovely new house,” I say. “Make one sound and I’ll come back and shoot you.” I tap my jacket pocket as if I have a gun.

  I take my time exploring the townhouse. It’s brand-new and has been painted all too predictably in light neutral colors, typical of brand-new townhouses. All the furniture is brand-new as well. The master bedroom looks out across the forestry belt around the front of Northland and over the city. Very nice. It has a king-size bed and matching side cabinets. Everything still new but cheap.

  I wander down to the internal car park. There are two huge storage cupboards right across the back. One opens to reveal a front-loading washing machine and wall-mounted drying machine.

  The second cupboard has a few tools in it. A pile of folded Council rubbish bags. Some deconstructed moving cartons. It’s clean with plenty of space.

  I pick up the only tool of interest, a hacksaw, and wander back upstairs. I place the hacksaw on the bench where Colin can’t see it. A nice surprise for later.

  “You lied to me, Mariel. About your relationship with Jo.” I say. I don’t try to hide my disappointment. In truth I’m feeling a little foolish that my invasion of his day spa was so ineffective. “And your name. Although I won’t take that personally, as you’re lying to everyone about that.”

  “You lied to me too,” says Mariel. “You said you were an investigator.”

  He’s dropped the European accen
t and paled under the tan.

  “So what was really going on with Jot?”

  “We were friends,” says Mariel.

  “So close she felt the need for your services on a weekly basis?”

  Mariel nods and goes to affirm this sentiment with an answer. But I hold up my hand to silence him. “You own this house, Mariel. It’s a very expensive house for a half-assed masseuse.”

  He goes to speak but I cut across him again. “How did you pay for the house?”

  “I don’t own much of it. I have a large mortgage.”

  “This house cost eight hundred and fifty thousand dollars, and it’s freehold. I don’t take well to being lied to. So I’m asking you again, what was going down with you and Jo?”

  Mariel sits there with an expression of concentration on his face. He’s probably attempting to figure out how much I know. Given I know the cost of the house and that it’s freehold, chances are I may know who actually purchased it. A look of resignation confirms this conclusion. Mariel gives a big sigh and changes tack. “Jo and I were in love,” he says.

  His audacious statement evaporates every bit of patience I was faking, and I snap.

  I take the hacksaw from the kitchen bench. It has a protective cover over the jagged blade. I peel it off and brandish the hacksaw it in front of his face.

  “Don’t lie to me, Mariel. You asshole. Do you want to lose a hand?”

  I blanch the hacksaw sharply over his bicep and it draws blood. He screams.

  “Didn’t you hear what I said before? Scream again and I’ll shoot you.” I bash him over the head with the hacksaw handle.

  “Did you kill Jo?”

  “No, of course I didn’t. I was in love with her.”

  “Stop fucking lying to me!”

  I raise the hacksaw for dramatic effect then bring it down and slash the top of his thigh. My judgement isn’t perfect, and it goes deeper than I’d intended. Mariel swallows his scream this time and yelps, then sharply veers his head away lest I shoot him. Blood is squirting out of his leg and pooling on the new carpet.

  “I’m sick of your bullshit!” I’m screaming myself now. “I’ve just about gone down for this murder. And you know exactly what’s going on. I want the truth —and I want it fast. I want it so fast that I don’t even want to ask questions. You have five seconds. Or you can choose which hand you’re going to lose.”

  Suddenly Mariel can’t get the words out fast enough. “I met her through normal business,” he says. “She came in for a massage. She had a coupon; I was doing a promotion.”

  I stroke the hacksaw. He is bleeding like a stuck pig.

  He stops to take a breath, uneasily eyeing the hacksaw, then momentarily becomes distracted by the amount of blood that is coming out of his leg.

  “One day, she comes in for her massage and says she’s inherited a whole lot of money. And there’s more to come. She wanted an extra special massage that day.”

  I squirm inside.

  Mariel gives me a beseeching look. “If you saw my old house. It wasn’t even a house. It was two rooms. I, you people with money. You—”

  “You started sleeping with her,” I say. I don’t bother hiding my contempt. If I had to live a menial little life like Mariel, I’d kill myself.

  “She put the house in my name because she didn’t want her husband finding out. She was going to divorce him. We were going to live here.”

  Mariel wriggles in the chair. His thigh is bleeding heartily and although he can’t see what I did to his bicep that has to be hurting as well.

  “And you didn’t think he wouldn’t have known about an inheritance?” I snarl. “Where did the money for the house really come from, Mariel?”

  “It was an inheritance. Honest. She had a secret bank account. That’s why he didn’t know.”

  Mariel isn’t lying this time. He’s fond of both hands.

  I frown. So Jo deceived her lover about the source of the money. Because there’s no way it would have been an inheritance. If it really had been, the police would have been all over it. Mariel would have been sprung a lot earlier than this.

  “You really expect me to believe you didn’t kill her? The house was already in your name. You’ve got the strongest motive out of anyone I can think of.”

  “There was more money coming. More inheritance. It would’ve made no sense to kill her.”

  “She had more money coming through?”

  “Yes. Definitely. I wouldn’t have been with her if it was only going to be a house.”

  “You’re a really classy guy, Mariel.”

  I look at the hacksaw. Adjust it in my hand. Mariel squirms.

  “I’ll give you the house,” he says.

  “I don’t need a house.”

  Mariel looks at his leg. It’s still bleeding freely. He’s lucky he can’t see his arm, because that’s by far the worst cut I’ve inflicted on him. You can even make out the individual serrations. I realize I’m not squeamish today at all.

  “When was the rest of her inheritance due?”

  “She would have had it by now.”

  “Well, I guess someone in her family just got really lucky, didn’t they?”

  I don’t believe this for a second. But what is pertinent is that Jo was expecting more money.

  “Mariel, my suggestion to you is that, should the police catch up with you, you never mention this little incident,” I say kindly. As if I’m helping him out of a predicament. “I know I come across as a reasonable man, but I harbor violent capacities.”

  I pause, looking conflicted. “I say this, but even as I do, I’m not sure whether you fully grasp the extent of it. I’m wondering if you need proof. What other tools do you have in the basement?”

  Mariel starts crying. Like a child. So hard he can’t speak, even though he tries. Snot runs down his face. I rake the blade of the hacksaw across one of the cords binding his hand to the chair and leave him with the fun job of managing the rest.

  ◆◆◆

  “A house, a lover and a secret bank account?” Ingrid shakes her head in disbelief then winces. I believe she may have a slight drug hangover.

  “I cannot believe how much the cops have missed,” I say. “The more I know the more I understand why they want to pin it on me. We just need to know who paid her now.”

  “Only it may not have been them,” says Ingrid. “Why would they pay her, then kill her? Wouldn’t you pay her or kill her? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “She was expecting more money. I think she just got too greedy. It’s in keeping with her character.”

  “It’s in keeping with a lot of people’s characters. What do you want to do next?”

  “Next we wait until I hear from my contact at Whitford. Then we celebrate with dinner tomorrow night.”

  ◆◆◆

  My contact at Whitford appears in the form of Flynn Whitford Senior much, much later on. By this time I’m highly irate. It’s 7 p.m. He’s lucky someone was even there to let him into the building.

  Eliza is red in the face when she shows him into my office, which I’m sure is attributable in no small way to the fact he keeps touching the small of her back with his wizened hand. “The gentlemen need some privacy now, missy,” he says, and gives her a flirty wink, thus dismissing her.

  Eliza shoots me a look, but I narrow my eyes. Leave.

  Whitford Senior sits down with a huff. He’s not holding any documents, but he could well have the information on a memory stick in his pocket. If that’s the case he’s a lot more discreet than his son. Which isn’t saying much.

  “Flynn told me what you did,” says Whitford Senior.

  “Well,” I say, “do you have it? Or I’ll be telling a whole lot of people what he did.”

  Whitford Senior’s rheumy old eyes widen, and his chest puffs up like a prize fighting bantam. He points a finger at me. “Be assured of something, young man. This is not how we work. And if your father was still around, he’d tell you the same. There�
�s a thing called honor.”

  “There didn’t seem to be much honor involved in paying off Rafferty Birch’s family after the diving incident,” I say mildly.

  Whitford Senior reddens. He owns an entire private bank and isn’t accustomed to backchat. “How about you get that sweet thing out there to get us in a couple of drinks?”

  I speed-dial the sweet thing and ask her to bring in two tumblers. Then I retrieve a bottle of Highland Park from the cupboard. It’s a limited edition, one of the thousands of congratulatory gifts I received when I made partner. I pour us both a generous measure.

  Whitford Senior gives Eliza one last fleeting visual undressing before turning his attention to his drink. He has the reddened nose and florid complexion of a drinker, and I’m wondering if Flynn Junior isn’t the only alcoholic in the family.

  “Now, as to your request,” he says.

  “I’ll stop you there. It’s not a request. If I don’t have that information by first thing tomorrow every paper in the country will know about what happened.”

  Whitford Senior throws back his whiskey in one quick movement. Then he makes the mistake of assuming I’m interested in his opinion. “You’re an insolent, brazen young man,” he says, “Who doesn’t know his place. You’re nothing like I expected you to be.”

  “And you’re a stupid old goat who can’t let go of your former glory,” I reply, suddenly losing patience. “You shouldn’t be clogging up the workplace. You should be in a rest home.”

  The old man looks at me in disbelief. He rubs his forehead vigorously with the palm of his hand. “Do you really think I will be blackmailed?” he says finally. “Well, here’s something you don’t know about me. My son is a cretin and sometimes I wish to hell I’d never helped him out of that situation. So tomorrow I’m going to report you to the Banking Ombudsman and the police. And for Flynn the chips can fall where they will.”

  He sits back in his chair and some kind of reconciling seems to pass before his eyes leaving a look on his face that is reminiscent of relief.

  I pour him some more whiskey. “This is not going to be easy, for you or your family.”