by Janet Tanner
Harriet made up her mind. She was still unsure as to what he was up to, but with no new leads of her own she could not afford to pass up the chance of learning something new. As for the rest … Harriet thought she could handle the situation satisfactorily.
‘Very well. I’ll be there. Eight, did you say?’
Hunters Hill – ‘The French Village’ – is one of Sydney’s most exclusive suburbs. Here on a peninsula of the harbour villas and cottages were built by the finest French stonemasons and Italian artisans from the sandstone beneath its own hills. Bougainvillaea and climbing roses cover the trellis work and balconies, age-old jacaranda and fig trees shade the pathways and pavements.
Harriet’s taxi swung west from the city and over the harbour bridge. The setting sun had turned the shimmering blue waters to a pool of flame; seeing it Harriet wished she had her camera with her for the sight was the stuff a photographer dreams of. Then, even as she watched, the sun fell below the horizon and soft velvet blackness dropped like a veil over the harbour with the lights of the Opera House forming the centrepiece of a new and different spectacle – Sydney by night.
Alexandra’s Restaurant, historic and beautifully restored, once the main general store for the area, is on the outskirts of Hunters Hill. Harriet paid off her taxi and went in.
Tom O’Neill, casually dressed in open-neck shirt and slacks, was enjoying a pre-dinner drink at the bar which was separated from the dining area by an exquisite stained glass partition.
As she went in – inexplicably nervous – he rose.
‘Well hullo. I’m glad you came. I wasn’t sure that you would. What will you have to drink?’
‘Campari and soda,’ Harriet said. ‘With ice but no lemon.’
With the drink in her hand she felt some of her confidence returning.
‘Well, Mr O’Neill, I was intrigued by your invitation,’ she said. ‘I only hope it’s not intended for your benefit only.’
‘Of course not. As I said on the telephone, I think we can both be of help to each other. But what do you say we drop the formalities? I’d much prefer it if you’d call me Tom.’
She nodded briefly. She thought she would have preferred to let the formalities stand, but could not find a way to say so without sounding foolish.
The waiter was hovering with menus; they were a little late for their reservation, Harriet guessed.
‘Shall we order?’ Tom suggested, setting his glass down on the hand-carved bar of solid oak which had been brought over from England, it was said.
Harriet was not in the least hungry but she perused the menu and selected the lightest items – oysters and chicken – whilst Tom opted for giant prawns in matafi pastry and pork fillets with a Dijonaise sauce. When the waiter had taken their order they remained in the bar long enough to finish their drinks before being shown through into the dining room with its baby grand piano, polished brass, and so many leafy green plants it gave the appearance of a luxurious conservatory.
When they were seated at a lace-covered table Harriet said:
‘I must confess I was very surprised to get your call. How did you know where to find me?’
‘Guesswork. Let’s put it this way – I didn’t think you’d be at the People’s Palace.’
‘I see.’ Harriet, always touchy about her wealthy background, coloured slightly. Was she so obvious? She liked to think of herself as an ordinary working girl, facing the world in denim jeans with a camera slung around her neck, but when the chips were down she had automatically gone for the best. Suddenly she was acutely conscious of her dress, a deceptively simple Comme des Garcons which had cost half a month’s salary. Without money behind her she would never have dared buy it – all very well to play at being like everyone else, truth to tell she wasn’t. Harriet wished heartily she had not worn it this evening. It wasn’t ostentatious, none of her clothes were, but she felt sure Tom O’Neill was quite capable of looking at it with that cool blue gaze and putting a very accurately assessed price tag on it.
‘So, what is it you’ve learned that is going to be of interest to me?’ she asked crisply to hide her discomfort.
Tom speared a prawn before answering.
‘I know where Greg Martin might be found.’
His tone was casual, throwaway almost, but taken completely, by surprise Harriet’s skin began to prickle as if every tiny nerve ending had suddenly become sensitised.
‘You know where he is?’
‘I have a very good idea.’
‘Where?’
‘Oh!’ He shook his head. ‘Not so fast. It’s your turn now.’
‘What do you mean – my turn?’
‘You’re going to tell me how you have been getting on.’
She shrugged. ‘There’s nothing really to tell.’
‘Come on, Harriet. I thought we were going to work together. What did Maria tell you?’
She looked up sharply. ‘What makes you think she told me anything?’
‘She assured me she did. It’s a fair trade, isn’t it? You tell me what Maria Vincenti said – I’ll tell you where I think Greg Martin might be found.’
Harriet hesitated. This was exactly what she had hoped to avoid. She didn’t want to talk about what Maria had said. For practically the first time in her life she knew how her father felt when he buried his head in the sand. Talking about something gave it substance. Better to just press on to the next hurdle – finding Greg Martin. Then perhaps she would be more prepared to face whatever unpalatable truths had been hidden all these years …
‘She’s a very strange lady,’ she hedged.
‘Granted. But also a very frightened one. That means she knows a good deal about things it might be safer not to know. Did she tell you how it was done?’ Harriet was silent. He put down his knife and fork. ‘Look, we are going to have to start trusting one another some time.’
Harriet looked up, meeting his eyes. Tonight they looked less cold; in fact there was something about the very hardness, of his face that was almost comforting. ‘We have to start trusting one another …’ Perhaps he was right. She was getting nowhere on her own and wouldn’t unless she traded some information. But how much?
‘All right,’ she said. ‘Maria says Greg rigged the whole thing with her assistance. She claims she picked him up at Pizzo and helped him to get out of the country.’
‘And your mother?’ he asked steadily.
Her eyes fell away but not before he had seen the flash of pain. She crumbled a bread roll between her fingers, watching the crumbs fall in a steady stream onto her plate. He waited. When she spoke her voice was steady but the effort needed to control it was obvious.
‘Maria believes Greg murdered my mother.’
‘Murdered?’
‘I know it sounds melodramatic’ She gave a small apologetic laugh. ‘But you have to admit it fits the facts.’
‘I think it’s a little early to be sure of that. This investigation has only just begun.’
Harriet dropped the remains of her bread roll onto her plate and looked up at him.
‘Don’t think I want to believe it,’ she said passionately. ‘ It’s my mother we are talking about, remember. All my life I believed she was dead. Then the news broke that Greg Martin was alive and for a little while I hoped … yes, I did. Stupid, wasn’t it? To actually hope that my mother had walked out on me by choice, not been there any of the times I needed her, just so that she could be alive. I just wanted her to be alive! But I don’t think she is. Maria suspects Greg murdered her and I believe her. But not because I want to. Accepting it is just like losing her all over again.’
Suddenly he thought how very vulnerable she looked. Her hands were clenched into fists on the lace-covered table, her eyes were deep and liquid. In that moment he could almost believe she was telling the truth and he felt a brief pang of guilt knowing he was using her. Then he brushed the moment of weakness aside. She was Paula Varna’s daughter and there was a small fortune riding on the case. He
, Tom O’Neill, had a job to do. He couldn’t afford to go soft now.
‘So,’ she said, gathering herself together, ‘ I’ve told you what Maria told me. Now it’s your turn. Where is Greg Martin?’
‘Very well. Fair’s fair. I think he may be in Darwin.’
‘Darwin! That’s right up in the north, isn’t it? What makes you think he is in Darwin?’
‘My investigations suggest that he might be. I’m flying up there first thing tomorrow to try and locate him.’
The waiter appeared at Harriet’s elbow. They waited in silence whilst he cleared their plates and brought the main course. Tom began on his pork but Harriet sat, fingertips pressed to her chin.
‘Aren’t you going to eat?’ he asked.
She folded her fingers into a basket, looking at him directly.
‘Could I … do you think I could possibly come with you?’
‘Come with me?’
‘To Darwin. I’m every bit as anxious to see Greg Martin as you are.’
Tom’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. He still was not completely certain he trusted her, but if she was feeding him a line as to what Maria had told her then she was one hell of an actress. It wasn’t impossible, of course. He’d met consummate actresses before – and some of them had never so much as set foot on a stage. Tom O’Neill always believed in travelling fight. But at least if he took her with him to Darwin he would be able to keep an eye on her.
And besides … he cast a glance at her across the table. Without a doubt she was a very attractive woman. Taking her along would not be an unpleasant exercise.
‘My plane leaves early in the morning,’ he said. ‘ I suggest you telephone the airline right away to see if there are any seats available.’
When he returned to his hotel room Tom put a call through to his London office and asked to speak to Karen Spooner, his assistant.
‘Tom? Hi! How y’doing, boss? What’s it like in Oz?’ Her voice was breathless, with a slight affected American accent, and Tom smiled to himself. Karen watched too many detective movies and worked hard at styling herself on her archetypal heroine, hence the twang and the habit of addressing him as ‘boss’. She also had spiky black hair, large sooty eyes and dressed in black leather jackets and skin-tight jeans with ‘designer rips’ in the knee and seat, but she was a good girl, bright and keen, and he knew he could trust her to do an efficient job.
‘Fine. Look – I’m off to Darwin tomorrow, and I’m taking Harriet Varna with me.’
‘Harriet Varna? The daughter?’ Karen sounded peeved; like so many others she carried a torch for Tom, and though he had never given her the slightest encouragement he also knew better than to upset her.
‘I don’t entirely trust her,’ he explained. ‘I want to be where I can keep an eye on her. And I think she might be useful to me. Now listen, what I want you to do is check up on the movements of the Varna family around the time of the explosion. It won’t be easy of course. In fact after all this time it may be nigh on impossible, but …’
‘Leave it to me, boss,’ Karen said. She liked nothing better than a challenge.
‘Good girl. I’ll let you have the number where I can be reached as soon as I’m installed and again when I move on. I want to know the minute you come up with anything, no matter when it is, so don’t worry checking time differences. Right?’
‘Right. Wilco.’
Tom replaced the receiver and went back to packing his bags.
‘Hey, Terri, I think I just might have swung it for you!’
Linda came bouncing into Theresa’s workroom, slightly out of breath from running up the stairs. Theresa looked up.
‘Swung what?’
‘A deal, a big beautiful deal.’
‘What sort of deal?’
‘Sit down and I’ll tell you. No – don’t sit down – keep working! If this comes off you won’t have time to draw breath!’
‘For heaven’s sake, Linda, will you tell me what this is all about?’
‘OK. I went out ‘‘on the knocker’’ as they say, looking for business for you and I happened to call on a boutique called Gypsy – very trendy, very exclusive and very expensive. I didn’t think I was getting very far. The owner was a snooty bitch and she was saying she only sold established names – ones she could put the right price tag on presumably, without anyone batting an eyelid. Then she was called away to deal with a customer and I got chatting to her husband – or rather he got chatting to me. He’d popped in to see her and had been sitting in a corner listening to everything I’d been saying. It seems he’s rolling in money – he bought the boutique for his wife to give her an interest, would you believe?’
‘I believe. Some people have all the luck.’
‘Well maybe now a little of it will rub off on you. I told him all about you and what you are trying to do and he was very, very interested. Not only will he make sure his wife takes some of your stuff for the boutique, but also he might be persuaded to come up with some backing. And we’re meeting him next week to discuss it.’
‘Meeting him where?’
‘At a plush restaurant in the West End. So you’ll get at least one square meal out of it if nothing else. Beats baked beans and jacket potato, doesn’t it?’
‘Yes – as long as …’ Theresa broke off, biting her lip.
‘As long as what?’
‘I’m not sure. It just sounds too good to be true.’
‘Believe in yourself, my dear! It’s confidence you lack these days. This could be your big break.’
‘Yes, I suppose it could,’ Theresa said, and wondered why when she should be excited and enthusiastic she could feel nothing but a kind of creeping apprehension.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Darwin in the Wet.
Harriet had heard the expression without attaching much importance to it. Now the reality was inescapable and she wondered how anyone – even a fugitive – could live here from choice.
The moment the doors of the 727 had been opened the heat had rushed in to envelop her – damp, cloying heat not unlike a sauna. Rain was falling in a thick curtain from lowering grey skies and evaporating in clouds of steam the moment it touched the tarmac; any views of the town or the sea, the lush tropical vegetation or the sharp modern architect-designed buildings, were lost in it. Already her skin felt clammy and breathing was an effort. Harriet remembered hearing that shoes left in a cupboard could turn white with mildew after a couple of weeks in the Wet and now she believed it.
Steamy tropical Darwin – the back of beyond. From freezing in Paris, London and New York to sweltering in Sydney to practically poaching in Darwin, and all in the course of a few days! I must be mad, thought Harriet, irritable from lack of sleep and the long flight, wedged into the 727 beside Tom, who had taken the aisle seat to accommodate his long legs.
They had talked a little and dozed a little, picking at the food that came regularly with each leg of the journey – croissants, fresh and delicious, with orange juice and coffee between Sydney and Brisbane, more coffee and biscuits between Brisbane and Townsville, and a light lunch between Cairns and Darwin.
As the Boeing put down and took off again on each of the short hops Harriet tried to see something of the countryside but she could make little sense of it. Wide expanses of desecrated brown land that she imagined were lumber forests and saw mills, patches of lush green that might have been sugar cane, and the sea, deepest blue shading to green and brown like the land where it washed over the Great Barrier Reef. But from the air the perspectives were all wrong and the narrow aircraft windows and the grey jut of the wing restricted vision annoyingly and Harriet gave up the effort. Then they were descending into the misty greyness of Darwin, jostling through the small airport buildings and emerging into the steam bath outside. Everything was dripping though for the moment the rain had stopped, the buildings cascading rivulets onto the tarmac, the trees, their leaves hanging low with the weight of water, spraying down intermittent showers. Tom and Har
riet took a taxi, Tom sitting beside the driver, Australian style, Harriet squashed into the back with her bag containing her camera balanced on her knees.
At Telford Top End they registered in a tiny reception office where they were given yet more coffee while they waited to be shown to their rooms – ground floor and motel style, very basic but bright and clean. Harriet dumped her things and crossed to look out of the French windows. They opened onto a swimming pool and she wondered if a dip might relax her and take some of the ache out of her limbs. But the rain had begun again, sheeting down onto the green water of the pool, and Harriet remembered that in any case she had no swimsuit with her.
She turned back to the room. The bed looked extremely inviting. Perhaps she would lie down for five or ten minutes before unpacking. She drew the curtains to shut out the greyness, turned back the yellow coverlet and threw herself face down on the pillows. Bliss! Until that moment Harriet had not realised how tired she was. Perhaps I should have taken off my dress, she thought. I’ll scrunch it to glory and heaven knows if there is an iron in this place. But she simply could not be bothered to move.
Damn you, Greg Martin, I wonder if you know how close I am on your tail now? she thought.
And then without any warning, without any drifting or drowsing, she was asleep.
It was quite dark when she awoke. For a moment she lay frowning into the pillow wondering where she was and trying to fight her way through the clouds of cotton wool inside her head. As they cleared she sat up, jerking aside the curtains to let in some grey faded fight and looking at her watch. Seven thirty? No – it couldn’t be! She couldn’t have slept like that! But clearly she had, without moving an inch from the position she had fallen into. Her hair, damp with perspiration, was glued to the side of her face, which was furrowed by the creases of the pillow, and her dress, creased into a sunburst of irregular pleats, was also damp. What a mess! Angry with herself she set the jug kettle on the breakfast tray to boil and dunked a teabag in milk. Wake up – wake up! You’re not here to waste time sleeping!