by K T Bowes
Chapter 25
I tried so hard to understand the information Jack bombarded me with. His earnest face drove me to increase the brain space available for such ridiculous notions as gambling. I’d never met a rich gambler and my parents instilled into me the futility of such pastimes. My father’s definitive sentence on betting was; “The only winner is the bookie.”
Fixing a valiant smile on my lips to show I cared and using my best listening face, I sat through an hour of arm waving, hasty diagrams and prevented Jack explaining overs and unders using a whiteboard pen on my lounge window. “I need a drink,” I sighed, switching to a more social form of addiction to vent my frustration.
“In a minute,” he promised and carried on.
“You said that ten minutes ago!” I griped. “How is this helping me? Your colleague is probably watching me drive around in a cornflower blue SUV and assuming I’ve taken a bribe! Or someone close to me has. Or worse, that Pete hid money and I’ve just unearthed it. What am I going to do, Jack? You’re not helping.”
He ignored my whining and explained the Asian Handicap system. “It’s like this.” He waved his cast and lurched for the whiteboard pen, snatching it up and attacking the centre pane of glass which faced onto my slender balcony. A forgotten tomato plant waved floppy tendrils at me and begged for water in my peripheral vision. Who was it kidding? It produced one tomato and a bird stole that. I turned my attention back to the mess Jack enthused over my windows.
“With Asian Handicap, a gambler betting during a live game decides how many goals could be scored from the moment he places his bet. The odds on this type of gambling are lower so it’s harder to make much money, but it’s a popular way to bet at the moment. The favourite is handicapped by the bookmaker. For example, the opposition were the underdog in last season’s cup final. So All Saints would have been handicapped by -0.5 or another figure deemed appropriate. Their handicap is added to the underdog’s score at the end, so in that case, All Saints would need to beat them by at least one goal to win because they’d start down -0.5 before they even ran on the pitch. The odds can even be split across both teams if the gambler feels confident.”
“How do you know this stuff?” I groaned, face planting into the sofa cushions. “I just need to know if I’m gonna be arrested so I can hand myself in instead of traumatising my class.”
“Drama queen!” Jack snorted. He turned back to the window, writing left handed in a loopy scrawl which hiccoughed at the window frame and continued into the next pane. “With overs and unders, you bet on goals scored in the ninety minutes of play, including injury time but excluding extra time. For instance...” Jack drew a wonky table behind the left curtain and I craned my neck to see if he’d marked the fabric with his flailing pen. “You pick a score, say 2:1 to All Saints. Then you look at the total goal line and decide if you want to bet over or under. Over 2.5 with a score of 2:1 would give you a win. Under 2:1 would be a loss. The split line bet divides your stake between the two teams. For instance...”
“No!” I stood up, desperation etched on my face. “I can’t take anymore.”
“But I haven’t finished,” Jack sulked. “I still need to explain 1 x 2 fixed odds.”
I ran to my room and slammed the door, hurling myself face down on the bed. My cop-cousin didn’t understand my dilemma and if he did, he didn’t care. He seemed more interested in expounding on his superior knowledge and driving me deeper into my black hole. I needed to speak to Uncle Terry. I should’ve thanked him when I picked up my car and hadn’t; avoiding contact with him. I pulled my cell phone from my jeans pocket and stared at it, imagining the conversation.
‘Thanks for the lovely car you picked out, Uncle. I love it. And I paid off my loan with the cash you wired into my bank.’
‘Sod off.’
‘Oh, while you’re on the phone, please can you tell me where you got the money from? I’m a bit concerned it might be from match fixing.’ I groaned and pulled a pillow over my face, breathing in the scent of floral fabric softener.
“Ula?” Jack’s voice sounded soft and muffled through the pillow and the bed dipped as he sat next to me. “Where did you get the money?”
“I can’t tell you.” My hair stuck out like antennae as I pulled the pillow off my face. “It came from someone in the family.”
“Not a Saint?” Jack groaned and flopped backwards on the bed, the marker pen raised in his left hand. “You’ve got real problems, babe.”
“Stop it! I know what it means, Jack. The cops will think I took a payoff.”
Jack turned on his side. The dark locks tumbled into his eyes and I watched his brain tick over on auto while he pondered the issue. “Why don’t we visit Mark Lambie’s wife?” His face lit with a smile of genius. “She’s family so there’s nothing wrong with that but we might find something out. You can do the vacuuming or something.”
“Gee, thanks so much!” I didn’t bother withholding my sarcasm. “You can mow the grass.”
Jack held up his plaster cast in victory and I rolled my eyes at the ceiling.
Half an hour later we pulled up outside Mark Lambie’s house in my cornflower blue SUV. I made sure I parked well away from the verge which he’d decorated with vomit, in case it still lurked in the grass. “Why are we here?” I asked, nerves emptying my brain before we even got out of the car.
Jack gaped. “To work out what happened to Lambie!” he snapped. “I’ll do all the talking. You vacuum or make the beds and I’ll see what I can find out.”
“Can’t you just ask someone at the station?” My fingers tapped an annoying beat on the steering wheel. “Your colleagues have already asked all the questions available.”
His face softened. “You think she’ll growl you for leaving him?”
“Wouldn’t you?” I ran my hands through my hair and my mind wandered to the All Saint’s game currently playing out in Albany. Curiosity bloomed and I tried to guess the half-time score. Jack’s fingers closed around mine and he pulled them out of my hair with tenderness. “Ula, it’s fine. There’s lots of things I’d do differently if I could go back in time.” His words held too much poignancy and I leapt from the car with fake enthusiasm.
“Come on then.” I forced out a breezy encouragement. “Are we doing this or what?”
Chapter 26
“Come in!” a wavering voice called as I knocked on the door for the third time. “It’s open.”
Jack turned the handle and pressed the wooden door inward, stepping over the threshold into the hallway. Shelves ran the full length of the space, reaching from floor to ceiling and covered in china animals; a housekeeping nightmare. I yanked on Jack’s sleeve as we deposited our shoes next to the doormat. “Don’t wanna dust that lot!” I hissed, jerking my head towards the delicate ornaments. “I’m too clumsy.”
His eyes channelled pure amusement and I dug him in the ribs, knowing he wouldn’t retaliate here. He’d get me later. “It’s just us, Aunty,” he called, raising his voice. “Jack and Ursula Saint.”
I knew he savoured our joined names on his tongue and the look he gave me smouldered in his eyes. My heart skipped a beat and I repeated the coupling in my head. It sounded nice once. Years on, it left me feeling hollow and my thoughts turned to Teina. Apart from his late-night visit mid-week he’d been absent, yet he occupied my thoughts with constancy and my body with guilty yearning.
“Come on.” Jack took my reluctant fingers in his and pulled me along the hall, bypassing a lounge and kitchen to left and right. The final doorway at the end of the narrow space opened into a sunny bedroom and a hospital bed occupied most of the floor.
A hand went up to my mouth at the sight of the woman collapsed on the bed and Jack squeezed my fingers as propriety abandoned me. “I’m sorry!” I wailed as my chest gave a powerful hitch. To everyone’s surprise, including my own, hot tears erupted from my eyes and leaked down my cheeks as my crime revealed itself. I’d left a friend on his own doorstep without helping
him inside and rung the bell as though this poor lady had a chance of answering it. My unwitting selfishness slapped me in the face and even sharing the blame with an absent Teina did nothing to lessen the force of emotion. “I’m a horrible person!” I sobbed and pushed my face into Jack’s chest.
He tutted and held me, kissing the top of my head. I heard a murmured conversation between him and the woman in the bed but the words evaded me, a distant rumble under the sound of my own tears. By the time I finished wiping my eyes and nose on my cousin’s chest, his tee shirt sported a darker band at face height. Guiding me to a chair next to the bed and pushing me into it, Jack pulled the soaked fabric away from his skin with a look of disgust. “Sorry,” I sniffed and cranked up for another round of guilt fuelled self-pity.
“Don’t start again,” he asked with a plea. “It’s fine. I’ll make a drink and find you a tissue.” Jack nodded to Mrs Lambie and exited the room, leaving me to my fate.
“Sit here.” Dora patted the side of her bed and scooted over to allow room. As I edged onto the mattress she grabbed my hand, her fingers containing surprising strength as she squeezed. “Don’t fret so,” she said, her eyes kind. “I don’t blame you.” A soft covering of downy hair dusted her head, growing through white as snow even though I remembered her with dark brown locks only six months ago at Pete’s funeral.
“But I should’ve helped him in,” I whispered. “He’d covered himself in sick and it got harder and harder to avoid. I rang the bell and assumed...” My voice faded along with my excuses.
“It’s ok,” Dora said, her voice soft and soothing. “He’s a silly old duffer to get so drunk.”
“But he wasn’t!” Confusion clouded my expression as I cast my mind back. “We went outside so he could have a cigarette. He knew I felt alone and wasn’t coping so he invited me to go with him. We chatted for a while and he got worse and worse.” My eyes widened. “He bumped his head on the club house as he fell but it didn’t look that bad.”
Jack entered the room with two mugs of strong tea in one hand and I wrinkled my nose at the dark, stewed colour. He jabbed it towards me, slopping some on his jeans. “I made you one, Aunty,” he said, his voice earnest. “Can you manage the mug?”
Dora shook her head and waggled her free hand towards a beaker on a trolley next to the bed. A long straw protruded upwards from it and Jack nodded and retreated to fill it with tea. “Did you tell the cops what you just told me?” she asked, her eyes keen.
I shrugged. “I don’t know, Aunty. It’s a bit of a blur.” I chewed my lip. “I thought they came to ask about Uncle Terry slapping me, so it caught me by surprise.”
“Yeah, I heard about what Terry did. I hope the cops arrested him.” Her face clouded. “You need to tell them my Mark hit his head,” she said, her voice soft. “Maybe that’s why he started throwing up.” Hope blossomed in her eyes and I sighed.
“It’s incidental, Aunty. He’d already started reeling before that. He slugged a glass of whiskey before we left the table and it’s occurred to me since that perhaps somebody put something else in it.”
“Drugs?” Jack leaned against the doorframe with the beaker in his hand. His brow furrowed and he nodded with a slow movement. “Yeah. It would explain his sudden decline and perhaps the vomiting. I wonder if the cops took samples from the puke outside.”
I closed my eyes and tried not to think about it. Jack held the beaker out for Dora and put the straw in her mouth. “Rohypnol can show up in blood and urine but we’d need Mark for that. I’m not sure about puke that’s sat on the verge for over a week.”
“The date-rape drug?” My eyes widened in horror and I choked on my tea. “Why would someone want to do that to Uncle Mark?”
Dora coughed and tea spluttered from her lips. Jack dragged the straw away and mopped at her mouth with the tissues he brought me. “Geez, sorry Aunty.” He darted a dark look in my direction. “It won’t be that. He’s wandered off somewhere and got lost. He’ll be home soon.”
To our surprise, Dora Lambie scoffed. “Huh! Who am I kidding? He’s gone off with his mistress. I should’ve expected it, but thought he’d have the decency to wait until I’d climbed into my casket.”
My jaw hung open and I swallowed. “What?” The mug of tea tipped sideways in my fingers and Jack confiscated it, balancing it in his sore hand.
A tear slipped down Dora’s cheek and I snatched up the toilet roll and unwound a length, bending over her to dab at the hollow face and feeling her bones through it. “Don’t cry, Aunty. We didn’t come to make things worse.”
“You haven’t.” She gathered herself, taking a deep inhale and shuddering. “I’ve known about his bit-on-the-side since before Christmas. I haven’t got long left; guess Mark couldn’t wait.” She sniffed and her betrayal resonated deep inside me, twanging a loose thread in my undealt with pain.
“Bastard!” I spat and Jack stared at me in surprise. I patted Dora’s thin hand. “What can we do to help?”
She sighed, her chest caving on the inwards breath. “I’d like to see him one more time, I think. He’s had different women over the years but I’d like to be able to release him. If she makes him happy, who am I to deny him some comfort?”
“Aunt Dora!” I stood up, leaving a dent in the bed. Jack lurched for my rigid body, not understanding my horror. “You can’t let him get away with this. You’re sick and he should be here with you, not seeing other women!”
“Ula, leave it!” Jack hissed and fixed his arm around my shoulder. He winced as I tried to pull away and caught the cast.
“I hope you told the cops,” I said, my eyes pleading with her and all sympathy for Mark’s plight gone. “I hope you told them what a cheating, lying bastard he is.”
“Ula!” Jack’s horror brought me to my senses and I stopped struggling. “Ula, stop!”
“I told them,” Dora sighed. “They went to see her, but she doesn’t know where he is. She’s probably lying.”
“Where is she?” I demanded. “I’ll sort her out!”
Dora’s blue eyes turned towards me and her words left a chill in my spine. “Her name’s May-Ling, sweetie. She’s your father’s carer.”
My jaw hung loose, giving me an unattractive gape. Jack shook me hard and stared from Dora to me with dismay in his expression. “That Asian chick?” He screwed up his face. “I think you’re mistaken, Aunty. They’re probably just friends.”
Dora snorted and opened her mouth to speak. The sound of the front door closing silenced us all.
“Hey, Dora. I’m back!” A short woman with a wide smile bustled down the hallway and entered the room, bringing the sunshine with her. “Kia ora, my friend,” she breezed, pushing past us to plant a kiss on Dora’s cheek. Her Māori heritage leaked through every pore, jolly and filled with a love of life which infected even me, despite the emotion boiling in my stomach. I pressed my fingers over my lips to prevent me blurting it and smiled as Dora’s new guest shook hands all round and offered us more tea.
“Na, we have to be going, Aunty,” Jack said, his calm body language an antithesis to mine. He called the new lady, Aunty too, the most natural thing in the world for him with his mother’s heritage. I realised how lovely it sounded and wished I’d grown up in a spirit of acceptance, instead of with such a racist, bigoted father.
Dora accepted a kiss from both of us and raised brows with only a few stray hairs growing back. “Could you check on the progress of things, Jack?”
He faltered, not keen to press his nose into an investigation his colleagues would deliberately keep away from him because of the family connection. “I’ll try, Aunty,” he said. “But I don’t think they’ll tell me. It’s too close to home.”
Dora nodded once and squeezed his hand. “Thank you, boy.”
Outside on the pavement I could hardly keep still, waiting until Jack closed the door behind him and skipped down the front steps. “Bloody May-Ling!” I raised my voice and his eyes widened in surprise.
&n
bsp; “Who is she? Dora said she’s your dad’s carer. What does that mean?”
My eyes bulged and my gag reflex made my eyes water with impressive speed. “It means I walked in on her and Dad...doing it.” I fixed my eyes on the big, blue sky overhead and concentrated on the winding cirrus clouds drifting in a lazy line. Anything to avoid the memory of May-Ling sitting in my father’s lap naked from the waist down.
“Euwgh!” Jack squeezed his eyes tight shut and then opened them again. He shook his head and the distaste left his expression. “I’ve seen worse,” he said, his tone philosophical, the jaded sights of his profession already ingrained on his eyeballs. He put his good arm around me and steered me across the road to the car. “Now we’ve got another problem then.”
“Oh, goody!” I unlocked the car and leaned against it. “How?”
Jack pursed his lips. “What if May-Ling was knocking off both of them and they fell out over it?”
“You think Dad killed Uncle Mark?” I felt the colour drain from my face.
Jack shook his head. “Wasn’t he at the wedding with you?”
“Yes, but I left. Mark gave us both a ride, so Dad had to find someone to give him a lift to Mark’s place and arrive just after we dropped him off. Dad can get from the bed to his chair but he wouldn’t manage the path and stairs up to Mark’s porch. I don’t think he killed him.” I shook my hair and it tumbled down my back in dark ringlets. “And what would the driver do? Sit there while Dad bumped off his love rival? Or do it for him?”
“Depends who it was,” Jack mused and I shrugged.
“Maybe they share her,” he suggested and I made vomit noises and tried not to throw up for real.
“That’s prostitution. Are you gonna tell your colleagues?” I chewed my lip and imagined repeating my story to the two cops who visited me. I knew I’d flush bright red under their scrutiny. Or throw up.
“I think I have to,” Jack replied. He walked around the back of the car and climbed into the passenger seat. He watched as I clambered up next to him, his eyes boring into the side of my face.