Façades

by Cynthia Lindenmayer

  “Yes. I had a real fear that she would withdraw more into herself, and I was at a loss as to what best to do to try to avoid that,” responded Simone.

  “I’m aware of that,” said Lee, “but I’m sure your just being there with her has been a great help to her. She’ll no doubt need more support from us both from next week, with Brodie and Sasha heading off to PNG to do some more filming and investigative work for his documentary.”

  “Oh, yes!” responded Simone. “With all that’s been going on, I’d almost forgotten that. You know, I think there’s something beginning to develop between those two. I’ve noticed a slightly different aura around them, when they’re together, lately.”

  “Well, if he’s responsible for the positive changes in her attitude and behaviour, then that’s all to the good,” said Lee, with a broad grin.

  Just at that point, Simone noticed that the boat was beginning to rock rather more than it had been, and one of the plates from their completed meal actually slid right across the table. It was prevented from falling to the deck only by the raised ledge built around the table for just that purpose.

  “Oh, it’s getting a bit rough,” she said, a note of slight alarm in her voice. “I did notice a few dark clouds gathering on the horizon before lunch. You know I’m not a very good sailor. If you don’t mind, I think I’d like to pack up and head home before it gets too much worse.”

  “OK,” agreed Lee. “I did notice the clouds, but they haven’t forecast any storms for this afternoon. Still, I know how nervous you get. Let’s head back in.”

  As they both stood up from the table, a sudden lurch of the boat caused Simone to lose her balance, and she fell against Lee, who grabbed her and held her tightly. Looking into her eyes, he gave her a long, tender kiss, to which she responded. But, after only a few moments, she pulled back and, recovering her balance, said, awkwardly, “We’d better get moving.”

  “OK. But it’s been a long time …..” he replied, giving a gentle squeeze of her hand.

  “I know, Lee,” she almost whispered, “but I’m not quite ready yet.”

  Busying herself, then, in clearing the table, Simone silently analyzed her reaction to Lee’s kiss. She knew that she had felt some guilt at her initially positive response, but on reflection realized that her guilt arose from a feeling that she was being unfaithful to Teale. That realization came as something of a shock to her, when she also realized that she had never felt any guilt at being unfaithful to Lee, with Teale.

  At the same time, as he made his preparations to begin the journey back to port, Lee was also analyzing his feelings about that kiss. He felt quite positive about it, especially considering Simone’s initial responsiveness. Although she had then retreated, he felt her initial positive response gave some hope for the future of their relationship.

  Late that Sunday morning, George Twidale was in his customary position, on his front balcony, surveying the neighbourhood. Earlier, he had seen Lee and Simone drive off together, a rather rare sight, in his experience. He knew that Sasha and Delia were away for the weekend, with Brodie, because, in Brodie’s absence, it had fallen to him to pick up Gai from the hospital at the end of her shift the previous night.

  Now, his attention was drawn back to his neighbours’ house by the approach to it, along the street past his house, of a young woman, dressed in what he found to be an appealing, light blue denim mini-skirt and jacket. He noted, with interest, that she entered the Boothby driveway and marched up towards the front door. Although she disappeared from his view before she reached it, he assumed that she would be there ringing the doorbell, and would soon depart on receiving no response. However, his interest was piqued when she did not almost immediately re-appear, so he left his vantage point, briefly, in order to collect his binoculars from the spare bedroom from which he was accustomed to scrutinize Simone’s activities on her balcony, directly opposite. Out of habit, he looked across at that balcony and observed that the sliding doors giving access to it from what he knew to be Simone’s bedroom, were open, and the curtains drawn back. With a slightly puzzled look, he took his binoculars, and headed back towards his front balcony.

  His return journey was slightly delayed by his wife, Marj, who consulted him about his preferences for lunch, and when he would like to have it.

  By the time he had taken up his position on the front balcony again, he was surprised to see that a strange vehicle had now parked in his neighbours’ driveway, and that the young woman he had seen there earlier was now hurrying back down the street. Through his binoculars he studied the vehicle in the driveway, and tried to discern its registration number, but it was so spattered with mud that he could not make it out.

  Mort and Steve responded quickly to Pat’s “all clear” call from the front of the Boothby residence. In less than two minutes they had driven their vehicle, with its stolen number plates, into the driveway, where they parked it as close as possible to the front door. Their intention was to drive it into the under-house garage, as soon as they had gained access to the house. Once so positioned, they would be able to load up the vehicle with their booty at their leisure without being at risk of scrutiny by any nosey neighbours.

  Quickly they left the vehicle and approached the front door. Steve brought all his skill and experience to bear, and in no time had the large, heavy door swinging open to admit him and Mort to the house. Mort immediately went to the security console, located to the left, just inside the front door. Confidently he keyed in the code they had heard Simone give to Brodie (3, 5, 7, 9) and then pressed the button marked ‘OFF’. To his consternation, instead of going instantly into the off-mode, the console began to send out the series of electronic beeps, which gave warning of an imminent alarm, and he knew he had only a few seconds to key in the correct code before the alarm would sound. Frantically, he tried different combinations of the four numbers he had first used, but to no avail. The console continued to count down, and after what seemed like only a few seconds, but was in fact 30, the screeching alarm began to sound, both inside and outside the house, and the blue strobe light on the external console began to flash repeatedly.

  “Shit! The bastards must have changed the code,” he shouted, angrily. “Quick, Steve, we’ll have at least a few minutes before anyone takes any notice of the alarm, these things are always going off, and it should be much longer before any cops or security people turn up to check it out. So, get moving, and grab as much light stuff as you can before we blow this joint.”

  In accordance with their pre-arranged plan, Steve ran up the stairs to plunder the upper floor, while Mort ran through the lower floor grabbing anything small and valuable he could see, and throwing it onto a table cloth he found on the dining room table.

  Steve ran immediately into what was obviously the main bedroom on the upper floor, and began by rifling through the drawers of the bedside table adjacent to what was in fact Lee’s bed. He found there what appeared to be several hundred dollars in cash, which he quickly pocketed but, in doing so, accidently dropped a few bills. When he stooped to pick them up, he did not notice, in his haste, that his mobile phone had slipped out of his shirt pocket and landed, almost noiselessly, in the open drawer, which he then shut, before hurrying towards the other side of the room, intending to rifle through the drawers beside Simone’s bed.

  As he crossed the room, he noticed that the sliding doors to his left front were open, and when he glanced through those doors, across the external balcony, he saw a man on the balcony of the neighbouring house, looking towards this house through binoculars and with a mobile phone to his ear. He immediately deduced that the next door neighbour, having heard the alarm, was in the process of ringing the police to report the break-in, which he could see was in progress.

  Gripped by mounting panic, Steve looked frantically around and, abandoning all intention of searching for any additional booty, bolted from the room, and rushed headlong down the stairs, calling out, “Mort! Mort!” as he did so.

/>   “What’s up?” called Mort, in response.

  “Quick! The guy next door’s onto us, and is ringin’ the cops. He’s got binoculars! Grab what you’ve got, and let’s get the fuck out of here, before the wallopers arrive,” yelled Steve, heading for the front door.

  Mort did not delay to ask Steve how he knew the neighbour had called the police but, quickly grabbing the four corners of the table cloth upon which he had been throwing the items he had chosen, and throwing the bag thus created over his shoulder, he, too, headed for the door, hot on Steve’s heels.

  Within a few seconds the two thieves, and their slender pickings, were in their vehicle, roaring out of the driveway and then speeding down the street. The vehicle screeched to a halt at the corner, to allow an obviously startled Pat to jump in, and then took off again, with a roar and a screech of tyres, before the door had even been properly closed behind her. It then careered off down the road, and quickly disappeared from sight.

  In their boat, Lee and Simone were nearing the boat harbour when both their mobile phones began to ring, simultaneously. Simone was first to answer hers. To her surprise, it was George Twidale.

  “Simone, it’s George,” he said, breathlessly. “I’ve been trying to reach you or Lee for a while. You must have been out of range.”

  “What is it, George?” asked Simone, anxiety registering in her voice.

  “Your house has just been burgled,” he replied, “by two men in a very dirty old Holden Monaro, with a young woman accomplice. Your alarm went off, and I think they saw me looking, so they didn’t stay long and couldn’t have got off with too much. I rang the police straight away, and they’re on their way. You’d better hurry home.”

  “We’re just coming into the boat harbour, so should be home in about half an hour,” said Simone. “Thanks so much for your vigilance, George. Would you mind putting the police in the picture when they arrive, and telling them we’ll be home soon?”

  “Yes, of course,” replied George. “I’ll take care of everything.”

  As she closed her phone and turned towards Lee, he was still talking on his phone, but quickly ended his conversation.

  “That was our security monitoring service,” he said, with a worried frown. “They’ve had an alarm from our place, and when they couldn’t reach either of us on the phone, they dispatched a crew to check it out.”

  “I know, Lee. That was George, on my phone. We’ve been burgled, but he witnessed it, and has rung the police, who are on the way. So let’s just make sure we get home a quickly as we can.”

  Within half an hour, Lee and Simone arrived home, to find a police patrol car, with two officers, and a security company vehicle and crew, in their driveway. George Twidale was at centre stage, excitedly conveying his observations and opinions to the police officers. After identifying themselves, Lee and Simone rushed into the house to make a quick assessment of the damage and losses, before speaking at length to the police.

  CHAPTER 19

  The Sunday afternoon was chaotic, with police in and out of the house, dusting for fingerprints, taking particulars, and questioning Lee and Simone as to whether they could think of any persons who might particularly wish to target them. The possibility was canvassed of there being some connection between this crime and the recent assault upon Gai, given the likelihood that Sasha was the intended victim of that assault.

  George also gave a detailed statement of his observations, which the police acknowledged would be of major importance in identifying and convicting the criminals. Unfortunately, he could give only a sketchy description of the two male perpetrators, particularly their facial features, as he did not see them enter the house, and they had made an extremely hasty exit from it. He was able to give a better description of the female accomplice but, regrettably, his attention seemed to be more focussed on her legs and figure than her face. He clearly enjoyed all the attention and drama, and it occurred to Simone that he was strutting about more like a police inspector than a mere witness.

  Simone and Lee made a quick appraisal of what appeared to have been taken, and undertook to provide the police with a detailed inventory over the next few days. They were agreeably surprised to see that, at first glance, there did not appear to be a great deal missing, and no obvious damage, other than a few scratches on the dining room table, from which the cloth had been taken. Even the front door appeared to have had its lock expertly picked, rather than having been forced. Again, they were most appreciative that George’s often annoyingly-excessive vigilance had been instrumental in limiting their losses.

  In making the quick appraisal of what had been taken, Lee did notice the cash missing from his bedside drawer, but at that time he did not notice the strange mobile phone there, it being half buried in some loose papers relating to his humanitarian venture, which he had been in the habit of reading in bed at night.

  Neither Lee nor Simone slept well that night. Both felt extremely uneasy that their home had been invaded, and anxious that they may have been targeted by someone with a grudge against them or one of their children. Lee had the additional concern, which he did not voice to Simone, about George’s description of the female accomplice’s attire. It conjured up, in his mind, a vivid recollection of the outfit Nadine was wearing when she sprained her ankle. He was slightly comforted by the thought that she was unlikely, yet, to be able to walk quickly down the street in the way George had described.

  Early on Monday morning, Lee telephoned Janet and instructed her to re-schedule all his morning appointments, and all but the most urgent of his afternoon ones. He also summoned a locksmith to change all the locks, in case the burglars had somehow obtained a key to the front door.

  It was only when he went to remove his mobile phone from his bedside drawer (into which he had hastily thrown it the previous night) that he discovered the strange mobile phone lying there. He picked it up and, with a puzzled look, began to examine it. Nothing appeared familiar about it, so he decided to check out its photo-gallery, to see if it contained any clues to its owner. To his dismay, the first photograph that appeared was one that showed Nadine, smiling, between two rugged looking men, one of whom bore a striking resemblance to the man depicted in the identikit image the police had constructed from Gai’s and Sasha’s descriptions of their attacker. He gaped at this photograph for a few seconds, in disbelief, before the realization dawned upon him that the phone must have been accidentally dropped in his drawer by one of the thieves, when he stole his money from it yesterday. He also realized that he was now probably looking at the smiling faces of the two men responsible for the burglary. Even more disconcertingly, he further deduced that, coupled with George’s description of the female accomplice’s attire, this photograph provided almost irrefutable proof that Nadine was, in fact, that accomplice.

  He quickly turned off the phone, then, and sat on the edge of his bed, pondering how he should react to this startling discovery. His first impulse was to shout out to Simone, who was downstairs, and share this find with her, before dashing off to the police station to turn this valuable piece of evidence over to them. However, as he thought about the likely consequences of that course, he hesitated. The apprehension and questioning of Nadine by the police would inevitably lead to her disclosure of his adulterous relationship with her. That disclosure would not just be highly personally embarrassing to him, but would probably cost him his family, and also impact adversely upon his business. The medico/dental fraternity frowned heavily upon sordid practitioner/staff liaisons, and he would now not put it past Nadine to suggest sexual harassment.

  After further anxious thought, he decided that, before doing anything else, he would confront Nadine with this evidence, and give her an opportunity to explain herself. That would also give him more time to consider the course he should now follow.

  “I’ve got to attend to an urgent case at the surgery, Simone,” Lee yelled, as he hurried towards the garage. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. If you need me ring me on
my mobile,” he added, before jumping into his car and heading off towards Nadine’s residence.

  When he pulled up outside his assistant’s house, he was full of pent-up anger. He stomped up the front stairs and pressed hard on the doorbell, keeping his finger on it until he heard someone sliding back a latch inside the door. It was opened by Nadine, dressed in a pair of well-worn shorts and a singlet top, with scuffs on her feet. She looked as if she had just got out of bed.

  Looking at Lee with a startled expression, she asked, sarcastically, “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

  Without immediately answering her question, Lee pushed past her into the house, before saying, through gritted teeth, only, “I have something to talk to you about.”

  With an indignant snort, Nadine slammed the door shut behind him, and stood with hands on hips, as he turned to face her.

  He immediately produced the burglar’s mobile phone, opened its photo-gallery at the picture of Nadine with her two male companions, and pushed it aggressively in front of her face.

  “I’m giving you a chance to explain this before I go to the police,” he said, his voice taut with suppressed anger. “One of the two men in this photo, with you, harassed Sasha in the bus, and then attacked our neighbour’s daughter, apparently mistaking her for Sasha. Now he and his mate have violated us further by breaking into our home, yesterday. Unfortunately for them, and perhaps for you, he must have dropped this phone in the process, and I found it this morning.”

  Nadine stood, dumbfounded, staring at the photo in Lee’s hand.

  “It’s also come to my attention,” he continued, “that your daughter’s father is in gaol, a fact you chose to conceal from me. And, to top it all off, an eye-witness has identified a young woman, wearing a light blue denim suit just like the one you wore at the Misty Mountain Lodge, acting as the accomplice for these burglars! Was that woman you? And, if not, what’s your connection to these low-lifes?”