Folly's Child

by Janet Tanner

  ‘So you are not following up her claim?’ Tom persisted.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’ The police chief ran a hand through his thinning hair. ‘Look, I’ll be straight with you, and save both your time and mine. There is more to this business than meets the eye – a few details the press haven’t managed to get their mucky paws on yet. The story Mrs Trafford came to us with wasn’t a straight forward accusation as to the identity of her common-law husband. That was only part of it. The rest was a charge we do have a duty to investigate, whether we believe there’s any substance to it or not. But before I tell you about it I must have your assurance that you will treat what I am going to say as confidential – I won’t expect to read the gory details in my morning newspaper.’

  ‘That goes without saying,’ Tom said stiffly. ‘I don’t like the gutter press any more than you do.’

  Gascoyne nodded. ‘Very well. According to her story, Mrs Vincenti’s reason for coming to us was because she believed herself to be in danger. She alleged an attempt had been made on her life and that her common-law husband had taken out a contract on her.’

  Tom whistled. ‘A contract for murder? Why the hell should he do that?’

  The chief sat back rolling a pencil between his fingers. ‘As I mentioned earlier, Mrs Vincenti is a very wealthy woman. I would imagine it is her money that set them up in their mansion on Darling Point and has kept them in style all these years. Oh, they were well established as a couple, and known to be big spenders. Michael Trafford dabbled in real estate and the world of finance and probably made more in a year than I make in ten but the real shekels came from her. Now it seems Trafford has set his sights on a younger woman and wants to set up home with her. Tough on poor old Maria, but to tell the truth, having seen her I can’t say I blame him. But of course she is the one with the purse strings. Leaving her would cut him off from the main source of his income. Besides which her will is in his favour. So, according to Maria, he decided the best way to get his freedom and the wealth he had come to enjoy would be to have something happen to her.’

  Tom nodded thoughtfully. ‘Dramatic stuff. What aroused her suspicions?’

  ‘A few weeks ago she narrowly escaped being run down by a car. At the time she was shaken, but thought nothing of it, though she alleges Trafford ‘‘reacted strangely’’ – her words. Then she began to suspect she was being followed and she saw what she took to be an intruder lurking in the garden late at night when Trafford was out with a business associate and it was the maid’s day off. The doorbell was rung but she refused to answer it and rang for police assistance. One of my men went out to the house but found nothing suspicious, though there was no doubt Mrs Trafford was terrified out of her wits. According to her story Trafford returned home some time after midnight bringing his business acquaintance with him – so that he would have a witness to the discovery of the body, according to Maria. She alleges that he appeared shocked at finding her alive. After the colleague left there was one hell of a row. Trafford threw some belongings into a suitcase and walked out. She hasn’t seen him since.’

  ‘And what does Trafford have to say about all this?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Sweet FA. We haven’t been able to interview him yet. Maria doesn’t know where he went that night and his office don’t know either or if they do they aren’t saying.’

  ‘But you are looking for him?’

  ‘Enquiries are in progress. But I wouldn’t hold your breath. He could be anywhere. Australia is a big place, Mr O’Neill.’

  ‘So I’ve noticed,’ Tom said drily. ‘As a matter of interest, what is your gut feeling? Do you think she’s telling the truth?’

  Gascoyne shrugged. ‘ Stranger things have happened. But I’m a cynic. An illegal immigrant with a profile as high as Martin’s living under our noses for twenty years? It takes a bit of swallowing. And off the record the woman is a hysteric with a drink problem. As I said earlier, we have a duty to investigate allegations of attempted murder. But it’s my guess we’ll find nothing more sinister than a domestic situation. The guy has walked out on her, simple as that. But she can’t – or won’t – accept it.’

  ‘How did the newspapers get hold of the story?’ Tom asked.

  ‘She told them. She was put out, I think, that her report to us didn’t get us running around like headless chickens.’

  ‘But she didn’t tell them about the attempts on her life.’

  ‘No. Apparently not.’

  ‘That’s strange, don’t you think?’

  ‘Not really. There’s no explaining how a woman as unstable as Maria will behave. She got cold feet no doubt. Anyway, her story has attracted enough attention just as it stands. Half the newspaper hacks in Australia are camped out at Darling Point. We’ve had to station an officer out there to stop them bothering her – after bringing the whole shebang down on her own head she had the gall to complain they were trespassing on her property.’

  ‘So she got what she wanted,’ Tom said thoughtfully. ‘Police protection.’

  ‘A pretty ham-fisted way of going about it.’

  ‘But successful. Not even the most brazen hit-man would try anything with half the world’s press and a copper on the doorstep.’ He stood up. ‘Thank you for your time, sir. And thank you for being so frank with me.’

  ‘Will you be pursuing your investigation?’ Gascoyne asked.

  Tom nodded. ‘I have a few more lines of enquiry to follow up, yes, if it’s not treading on your toes. I have to be quite sure that the whole thing is a figment of Maria’s imagination before I close the file. You see unlike you I have some very good reasons for hoping to prove Greg Martin and Micheal Trafford are one and the same – given all the component parts, a million good reasons, you might say.’

  Gascoyne held out his hand. ‘Well, good luck to you. I only hope that if you unearth anything you think we should know about you will be as straight with me as I have tried to be with you.’

  ‘Naturally.’ Tom shook the outstretched hand. ‘I’ll be in touch. And thanks once again for all your help.’

  He left the office and Gascoyne stared after him, deep in thought. Was it possible he was wrong about Maria Vincenti? Could it be there was a substance to her allegations? Well if there was O’Neill would get to the bottom of it, he was confident. And if not …

  Gascoyne stared at the mound of reports on his desk and sighed. For a moment he wished he was young and keen again like Tom O’Neill instead of jaded and bogged down by the morass of paperwork which seemed to have very little to do with real police work. But it was a fleeting desire only. In his time he’d done it all. Now he wanted nothing more than to be free to close his office door on the lot of it for the last time, take out his boat and get on with some serious fishing.

  The taxi descended the hill to Double Bay, swung around and began to climb again towards the luxury homes that stood like jewels in a crown on exclusive Darling Point. The sun beat down mercilessly, shafts of bright burnished gold in the clear Australian air. The sky was aggressively blue, almost close enough to touch; far below the sea was precisely the same shade of blue but freckled with silver.

  In the front passenger seat of the taxi Harriet sat hugging her bag on her knees. Sydney – city of silver and blue. The almost hurtful brightness of it had been her first impression as the 747 came in to land – the bay, the Harbour Bridge, the many faceted roof of the Opera House, all catching the brilliant sunshine and reflecting it in a mesmeric kaleidoscope of light. In spite of her preoccupation she had been impressed – who could fail to be? But already after a night at the Sydney Hilton the spectacle had faded, relegated to the back burners of her conscious mind. If she had come as a tourist she might have dwelled on it, savoured it. If she had come to work her photographer’s eye would have been busy looking for new angles to capture it on film. But she had come as neither. Sydney was merely the place where she might at last, after twenty years, learn of the fate of her mother.

  Harriet shifted slightly
in her seat. Her stomach had tied itself into knots of tension and her silk shirt, moist from perspiration, clung both to her neck and to the vinyl seat. The houses they were passing were large and impressive, architect-designed, red brick or slabs of shining white like an elaborately iced wedding cake, each with its own verandah, and in front of them the gardens were vivid with marigolds and roses. This was to be expected, of course. The Greg Martin who had juggled millions of dollars – albeit sometimes illegally – would never have settled for anything but the best and Maria Vincenti or Trafford or whatever she called herself was an heiress in her own right. Money would be no object to her. Perhaps it was the reason why they had been able to live undisturbed here for almost a quarter of a century. Riches bought respect, whatever the cynics might say.

  Far below the sparkling blue bay was busy with yachts from the marina at Rushcutters and glancing down at it Harriet felt her stomach tighten another notch. Did one of them belong to Greg Martin – once a sailor always a sailor? Or did he feel after the explosion that he never wanted to set foot aboard one again? No – impossible. If he had been haunted by the experience he would never have chosen to settle here within sight of the marina however prestigious the homes. Further proof, if any were needed, that what had happened off the coast of Italy had been no accident.

  Harriet averted her eyes sharply then forced herself to look again. Before this was over she might well have to face something a good deal more painful than the sight of a few luxury yachts. If she was not prepared for that she might as well abandon her quest and go home here and now, bury her head in the sand as Sally and her father were doing. And she had no intention of doing that.

  Behind her sun-glasses Harriet’s eyes narrowed slightly. She was puzzled by their attitude, their anxiety that the carefully constructed veils of twenty years would be stripped away and the past, and whatever had happened in it, come to light. It was a response she would have expected from her father – he had always played the ostrich where unpleasant facts were concerned, and she could understand that he had no wish to re-open old wounds. The pain he still felt was evident – perhaps it stifled any curiosity he might otherwise have felt. But Sally … Harriet could not understand Sally’s attitude at all. Surely she must want to know what happened to Mom just as I do, Harriet thought – to know for sure if she is alive or dead. If she is alive, to see her again, if she is dead to make sure justice is done to the man responsible for her death. But Sally seemed even more reluctant to face the ghosts of the past than Hugo was, and right up until Harriet’s departure she had continued to beg her niece not to go, to leave well alone.

  ‘There’s no point raking it all up, Harriet,’ she had said. ‘She’s dead – for God’s sake let her rest in peace.’

  Her face beneath her carefully applied make-up had been deathly pale and the dark circles beneath her eyes were evidence of a sleepless night.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sally,’ Harriet had told her. ‘I can’t just go back to London and pretend none of this has happened. Anyway, that damned insurance investigator won’t let her rest in peace, as you put it, until he’s dug out every bit of the truth and I don’t want to hear it second hand even if you do. She was my mom – I want to be right there when – if – he finds her.’

  ‘What will you do?’ Sally had asked, knotting her hands together to keep them from trembling.

  ‘First I shall go to Sydney and talk to this Maria Vincenti. If it’s true that she has lived with Greg Martin for twenty years then she must know something.’

  ‘How do you know she’ll see you?’

  ‘She’ll see me,’ Harriet had said, her lips setting in a determined line.

  Once in Australia, however, she had been less sure. In her hotel room at the Sydney Hilton she had lifted the telephone to call the woman, then replaced it again. Perhaps Maria Vincenti would refuse to see her. Perhaps she was already regretting the hornet’s nest she had stirred up. In any case she might not wish to talk to the daughter of a woman who had once been involved with her lover. She was after all Italian – and Italian passions and jealousies run high. Perhaps it would be better to arrive unannounced, Harriet had decided – use the same shock tactics Tom O’Neill had used on her, even if it did not make for a very pleasant first meeting.

  ‘Photographer, are you?’ the taxi driver asked. Harriet came back as from a long way off to see him nodding at the camera that was peeping out of her bag. ‘Which paper are you with? The Sun? News of the World?’ Or is it one of the Yankee papers?’

  ‘I’m not here to take photographs,’ Harriet said.

  The taxi driver laughed. ‘Well, you could have fooled me. Though most of ’em don’t exactly try to hide it.’

  ‘Most of them?’

  ‘The paparazzi. Jeez, lady, you’re a cool one. Well, good luck to you, I say. And with the crowd that’s already there I reckon you’ll need it. Here we are now – you’ll see what I mean.’

  They rounded a bend and suddenly Harriet understood. Since they had left the bustle of Sydney’s centre the streets had been quiet but here quite a crowd had gathered on the road outside and opposite a large white stuccoed house. Some stood in groups, smoking, others sat on the kerb in the shade of the trees, cameras resting on their knees. The paparazzi – the world’s press – all here waiting for a glimpse of the woman who had blown the whistle on Greg Martin after twenty years.

  ‘Shit,’ Harriet said softly.

  The taxi driver laughed again. ‘What did you expect, lady – an exclusive? I don’t know what the guy did – I was too busy bumming around and getting on with my own life twenty years ago to bother much with newspapers. But whatever it was it must sure as hell have been worth doing.’ He stopped the cab, leaving the engine running. ‘Reckon that’s as far as we go.’

  Harriet looked at the crowd in dismay. What a fair! There was even a policeman stationed at the gate. She had not a cat in hell’s chance of getting past him. He would assume that she was another enterprising newspaper hack, just as the taxi driver had.

  ‘Where is the nearest telephone?’ she asked.

  ‘Dunno. You want me to look for one?’

  ‘Yes … no.’ She didn’t want to make such a delicate phone call from a public booth with the danger of the money running out just as she was trying to explain herself. ‘Take me back to the Hilton.’

  He looked at her as if she were mad, then shrugged. ‘Suit yourself.’

  As he began to turn the car Harriet’s brain clicked into gear. Chicken! Any excuse not to face Maria Vincenti. Any excuse to put off the moment of learning the truth. Is that what she had come halfway round the world for – to give up at the first hurdle?

  ‘Stop!’ she said sharply.

  He pulled up, shaking his head. If he had had any doubts before, now they were confirmed – she was mad. But then so were all the paparazzi – and no wonder. What a way to make a living!

  Harriet rifled through her bag to find pen and paper. The paper came from the pad she used to list details of photographs she took – it was printed with the logo of the film processing company. No good. That really did mark her out as a photographer and unless Maria Vincenti had heard of her and knew what she did she would be bound to be suspicious. Harriet pushed the pad back into her bag and tore a page from her diary. Not perfect, but it would have to do. For a moment she thought about what she should say, then scribbled hastily. Another search through her bag revealed just what she was looking for – an old envelope bearing her name and the address of her London home. Surely that should identify her? She placed the note inside.

  ‘Please wait,’ she said to the taxi-driver. ‘I may need you if this doesn’t work.’

  He rolled his eyes. ‘Pay me now for what’s on the clock if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Oh right …’ She paid him, left the cab and walked back along the street. The paparazzi came to life like a bunch of magic toys at the stroke of midnight, craning, pushing, eliciting. Harriet ignored them. One enterprising hack
broke away from the bunch and made for the taxi – to see what the driver would be prepared to tell him about her, presumably. Well, too bad. They’d be able to trace her back to the Hilton if the taxi driver broke confidence – and a couple of hundred dollar bills would soon persuade him to do that – but he didn’t know her name. If there was any hint of trouble she would simply check out and move on.

  As she went through the gate onto the broad gravelled drive the policeman intercepted her.

  ‘Sorry, but you are trespassing. You’ll have to wait outside with the others – for all the good it will do you.’

  ‘I’m not a reporter.’ Harriet held out the envelope. ‘Will you please give this to Mrs Trafford?’

  He looked doubtful.

  ‘This is a personal matter. I am quite sure Mrs Trafford will see me,’ Harriet said in her most authoritative tone and to her relief after a moment’s hesitation he took the envelope.

  ‘All right – but you’ll have to wait outside the gate until you have permission to come any further.’

  ‘I refuse to be treated like a criminal,’ Harriet said.

  On the point of insisting the policeman changed his mind. There was something about the girl: he couldn’t put his finger on it but he supposed it could be summed up in one word – class. She had class. Unlike most of those bums who would use any trick in the book to get inside the house for their story.

  ‘Wait here – but don’t try anything,’ he warned.

  Harriet waited, looking at the house. Very grand, very colonial with its balustrades and elaborate verandah. But the shutters at the windows were half-closed; like sightless eyes they gave nothing away. Was Maria Vincenti looking at her from one of them now? Possibly. The thought was unnerving. Harriet dug her hands into the pockets of her slacks, deliberately casual, and willed herself to stand quite still, not pacing or wandering.