by Janet Tanner
It was understandable, of course. Last night she had been hurt and angry, convinced he had used her to further his investigations, and he knew he had only himself to blame. Today fate had taken a hand. Perhaps if she had not had such devastating news he might have been able to convince her it wasn’t true but the opportunity to try had been denied him and he was amazed at how much it mattered to him.
Damn it to hell, she’s only a woman! he told himself, and the world is full of them. But the weight around his heart was a denial of the casual dismissal. There was only one Harriet – and he wanted her.
It’s as well she’s gone, he told himself, trying a new tack. You have a job to do and she might interfere with it. Romantic involvement always interfered with work – the fact that he had none had been one of the reasons why he was such a good investigator. No heavy dates that couldn’t be broken, no little woman waiting at home and complaining about lonely evenings and spoiled meals. Most important of all no emotional distractions to interrupt the processes of deduction. He had been free to concentrate on the job in hand, give it his full attention and go wherever was demanded of him, able to fall asleep at night turning the problem – and the clues – over in his mind and wake refreshed, sometimes with the answer right there staring at him from his subconscious. When sleeping with a woman who was more than just a casual liaison that wasn’t possible. Continuity was lost. And with Harriet it was even worse. She was heavily involved in the case – one which he was certain was not all plain sailing. There were hidden intrigues here, facts that had not yet come out, he knew it in his bones. It could be that they would incriminate people she loved and the learning of them would hurt her. If that were the case might he not be tempted to hold back for her sake? If he did he would be short-changing the people who were paying him, if he did not there would be bitterness and recriminations between him and Harriet – last night’s episode had been just a feather in the wind compared to how she would blame him if he brought her face to face with skeletons in her family cupboard, or, worse, was the instrument of their disgrace or ruin. No, far better that she had gone back to the States leaving him to pursue the investigation without personal considerations to cloud the issue.
Rain was falling in a thick grey mist as he drove along the East Point Road, obscuring the waters of Fannie Bay, so that the bougainvillaeas on the cliff tops might have marked the edge of the world. The heat was cloying – he could feel his shirt sticking to his back. No wonder Vanessa McGuigan had put the house on the market – to a girl used to the balmy climate of the south this place at this time of year must seem like an outpost of hell.
He parked outside the bungalow and looked down the drive. No aborigine handyman working in the garden today – the priming would have to wait until the rain stopped. But there was a white Mercedes sports car drawn up on the hard standing. His spirits rose. He thrust all thought of Harriet to the back of his mind and ran for the shelter of the porch.
Almost immediately the door was thrown open. The girl who stood there was as tall as he, slender and elegant in a cool pink sarong dress. A cascade of blonde hair had been caught with a matching scarf at the nape of her neck, cornflower-blue eyes widened slightly behind artificially darkened lashes, then narrowed again, giving the beautiful face a faintly provocative look.
‘Miss McGuigan, I presume,’ Tom said lazily.
‘Yes.’ She tilted her head to one side and the long bunch of hair fell over her shoulder. ‘You must have come to view the house. Did Abbot and Skerry send you? They should have phoned to let me know you were on your way. Well, you’d better come in.’
Tom followed her inside. Only when he was safely over the threshold did he disillusion her.
‘I’m not here about the house, Miss McGuigan. I’m looking for Rolf Michael.’
For a second she froze and he saw something like alarm flicker in the cornflower eyes.
‘My fiancé? I’m sorry, he’s not here, Mr …?’
‘O’Neill. Tom O’Neill.’ He produced one of his cards and handed it to her, watching her face closely. She studied it.
‘An insurance investigator! Why on earth should you want to talk to Mike?’
He made a mental note. She had called him Mike. Because it was a shortened form of his surname – or because she also knew him as Michael Trafford?
‘I think that’s something I should discuss with him,’ he said smoothly. ‘Could you tell me where I could find him?’
‘I’m sorry, no. He’s out of town. Mike is a very busy man.’
‘I’m sure he is,’ Tom said and thought wryly: He would be! Quite apart from his business dealings, juggling three identities must be pretty time-consuming. ‘However, you must have some idea where he can be reached.’
Her face seemed to go shut. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t. And even if I did, why the hell should I tell you, Mr O’Neill?’
She moved towards the door as if to see him out. Tom stood his ground.
‘In view of all the circumstances I thought you might prefer to talk to me rather than to the police,’ he said easily.
Her hand froze on the door-catch. He felt, rather than saw, her panic, and experienced a stab of satisfaction. He was on the right track, not a doubt of it. A moment later his suspicions were confirmed when she swung round, chin tilting defensively, eyes meeting his with something like defrance.
‘I don’t know if I can help you, Mr O’Neill, but perhaps you had better come in and talk about this.’
She led the way to the living room, took a cigarette from a packet that was lying on an occasional table, and lit it. He saw that her fingers were trembling slightly.
‘I’ll ask you again, Mr O’Neill, what this is all about,’ she said after a moment.
‘You don’t know?’ he asked, watching her closely.
‘Would I be asking if I did?’ Not by so much as a single flicker did her expression give the he to her apparent innocence. Either she was some actress or she really did not know, Tom thought.
‘As you saw from my card I am an insurance investigator,’ he said. ‘I am checking out a claim involving a great deal of money. I believe your fiancé can help me with my enquiries. When do you expect him back?’
For the first time he caught a hesitation in her manner. Then she recovered herself.
‘He’ll probably telephone me some time. I’ll tell him you want to see him.’
‘There’s no need of that,’ Tom said swiftly. The last thing he wanted was his quarry frightened off. ‘Just tell me where I can find him and I need not bother you any further.’
‘I don’t know, I tell you. Look – I really think you owe me some kind of explanation. What kind of insurance claim are you investigating?’
‘A death. Two deaths, as a matter of fact.’
The colour drained from her cheeks. ‘In Sydney?’ she asked before she could stop herself.
Tom’s antennae began flashing messages. Maria Vincenti, he thought. She believes something has happened to Maria Vincenti and Martin is responsible. So there was some truth in her allegations that Martin was trying to have her killed.
‘Not in Sydney, no,’ he said. ‘In an explosion on a yacht off the coast of Italy. It happened more than twenty years ago.’
The unguarded expressions that flashed across her face as he said it spoke volumes. First relief, then surprise – and consternation. Then, as quickly, the shutters were up again. She laughed, a high, brittle sound.
‘Twenty years ago! Good heavens, that’s history, isn’t it?’
‘Not to me,’ he said grimly. ‘Nor to the company that paid out on the life of Greg Martin.’
‘Greg Martin? I don’t know anyone of that name.’
‘I think you do. Just as you know Michael Trafford.’ She ground out her cigarette, rounding on him angrily. Her guard was down now and it was plain to him she was not the innocent bimbo she had at first appeared to be.
‘This is all because of that woman, isn’t it?’ she said harshly.
‘Her and her stupid lies and imaginings! She’d say anything to get her own back on him, the jealous cow. She couldn’t stand to think he’d left her for a younger woman. But is it any wonder? God – you should see her! Gone to seed, drunk most of the time, what does she know about keeping a man like Mike?’
‘So you admit your fiancé, Rolf Michael, and Michael Trafford are one and the same?’
‘What’s the point in denying it? You’ve obviously done your homework. Changing his name was the only way he could get away from her and her malicious mischief. But this Greg Martin business – the whole thing is a figment of her overworked imagination. God knows where she dug it up from. Some old newspaper lining her drawers, maybe.’
‘I don’t think Maria Vincenti is the sort of woman who lines drawers with newspaper,’ Tom said drily. ‘Well, you do seem to know quite a bit of the story, Miss McGuigan.’
She fit another cigarette.
‘How could I avoid it? It’s been big news. But I can assure you, Mr O’Neill, Mike is not some long lost part-Italian financial wizard. Surely you don’t think he could have lived a high-profile life here for the past twenty years if he was?’
‘Stranger things have happened.’
‘Oh well – if you don’t believe me …’
‘I’d be more likely to believe it if Mike, as you call him, were to tell me himself.’ As she glared at him, he resorted to blackmail again. ‘ Otherwise I’m afraid I shall have to take my suspicions to the Darwin police. I can call in at the station on my way back through town.’
‘Oh damn you!’ she flashed. Her face had assumed a vixenish look, her features becoming sharp and pinched. He thought that at this moment she did not look beautiful at all. ‘All right – he’ll be home the day after tomorrow.’
‘What time?’
‘Some time during the afternoon. He’s taking me out to dinner. He should be here by four or five.’
‘Right,’ he said, thinking that he did not trust Vanessa McGuigan one inch and would have to spend the next day and a half staking out the house, watching the comings and goings and following her if necessary to see where she went and who she met. She might be telling the truth and then again she might not. Either way he would have succeeded in flushing Greg Martin out.
‘And there’s no need to bring the police in on this?’ she pressed him.
‘None – if you are being straight with me.’ He smiled, bringing his considerable charm to bear.
‘You really are a very ruthless man, Mr O’Neill,’ she said. The telephone shrilled suddenly and the wariness returned to her eyes. ‘Excuse me, I must answer that.’
As she went out of the room he followed her to the door, listening. If it was Martin on the phone now and she warned him, he wanted to know about it. But the drift of the conversation was quickly obvious – it was Abbot and Skerry, the estate agents, calling to arrange an appointment for a prospective buyer to view the house.
Tom eased the door closed, taking the opportunity to have a look around the room. There was nothing to suggest that a man had been here today – everything was more or less exactly as it had been when he and Harriet had last been there. But on the occasional table beside her cigarettes was an airline folder. Swiftly he flipped it open, then his lips tightened. Two reservations on a Quantas flight to the States – dated tomorrow! So she had been giving him a line! In telling him Greg would be home the following day she had been buying time – or so she thought. If he had been stupid enough to believe her by the time he returned for his appointment with Martin the pair of them would be out of the country. Oh he was a slippery customer, all right – and seemingly never without a beautiful woman to help him cover his tracks!
He heard the sharp ‘ ting’ as the phone went down and swiftly closed the airline folder. By the time Vanessa re-entered the room he was standing where she had left him, examining an entry in his note book.
‘Well, I don’t think we can usefully do any more today, Miss McGuigan,’ he said lightly. ‘I’ll be back the day after tomorrow, when I hope your fiancé will be able to help me clear up the case satisfactorily.’
She nodded. He thought he caught a gleam of triumph in the cornflower eyes. ‘I’m sure he will, Mr O’Neill.’
Back at the Telford Top End Tom placed a call to Robert Gascoyne in Sydney. It went against the grain, handing over hard won information like this, but he could not see that he had any alternative. If Martin and Vanessa intended to leave the country they had to be stopped and the policeman was the one to organise that – if he had something he could charge Martin with.
To his relief Gascoyne sounded more interested than he had done during their previous encounter.
‘Well done, O’Neill,’ he drawled. ‘You’ve just saved me a great deal of work. It seems the FBI have picked up the reports and we’ve been asked to set an investigation in motion. Martin is wanted in the States on various fraud charges – if he’s alive.’
‘Oh I think you’ll find he most certainly is,’ Tom said. ‘And just about to step back into the lion’s den.’
‘It’s tempting to let him go – and leave them to clear up their own mess,’ Gascoyne remarked. ‘ But I suppose I had better act on your information and have him picked up at the airport. Well, I suppose this means your job is over – you’ve got your man and saved your clients a great deal of money.’
‘Oh, I haven’t finished yet,’ Tom said. ‘In fact in some ways you could say I was only just beginning.’
‘How come?’
Tom set his jaw. In that moment he looked more ruthless than ever.
‘My job will not be complete until I discover just what happened to Paula Varna.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Sally arrived at the hospital just half an hour after taking Harriet’s frantic phone call. She came into the waiting room still holding her fur coat around her as if she were cold in spite of the almost overpowering heat inside the building.
‘Harriet – how is he?’
‘Holding his own as far as I can gather. But it’s touch and go.’ Harriet’s face felt stiff; it was an effort to talk but she was glad not to be alone any longer.
‘What happened?’ Sally asked.
‘Well… he had another attack. I was with him. It was …’ her voice tailed away and she steeled herself to continue, ‘it was horrible. He looked so ill, Sally – and that damn machine wailing away like a banshee …’
Sally covered her eyes with her hand. She looked pale and tired and Harriet guessed she had not had time to catch up on much lost sleep before the telephone call had summoned her back. But for all that her make-up was intact and her hair as carefully coiffured as ever. Whenever did Sally look less than well-groomed, Harriet wondered? She’d probably turn up at her own funeral looking immaculate.
The door opened and they both jumped. A white-uniformed nurse came in and they stood waiting like coiled springs, half-expecting some news. But she merely shook her head with an almost imperceptible movement and offered them coffee. Harriet sipped it gratefully, glad of the liquid to moisten her parched throat, but Sally set hers down untouched on a small white painted table alongside a pile of glossy magazines.
‘I can’t understand it… he seemed so much better when I left. Perhaps it was the excitement of seeing you again.’
‘Perhaps … But he was talking so strangely, rambling really. He’s very upset …’ Harriet broke off. There were so many questions rattling round inside her head and she felt instinctively that Sally might be able to answer some of them. But this was not the time or place. Later, perhaps, when they knew if he was going to pull through again.
Sally was pacing the room, window to door and back again, like a caged lioness. All her usual composure was gone. Harriet crossed to her, putting her arms around the aunt who had been more like a mother to her.
‘Come and sit down, Sally. You’ll be making yourself ill next and that isn’t going to help anyone.’
Sally pressed her
hands to her mouth. Her scarlet nails made vivid patches against her pale skin.
‘He’s got to be all right, Harriet! I couldn’t bear it if he wasn’t. Oh God – I love him so much!’
Harriet squeezed her gently. ‘I know you do.’
Sally shook her head, obsessively, like an animal in pain.
‘No, no, you don’t understand. All these years I’ve lived with it and now … it’s like a judgement. I was so wrong … so wicked … but I loved him so. I couldn’t bear to lose him then and I can’t bear to lose him now.’
‘You’re not going to lose him,’ Harriet soothed with more conviction than she was feeling. ‘Dad has a tremendous will to live and he’s getting the very best of medical attention.’
But half her mind was churning – what the hell did Sally mean? First her father making cryptic remarks – now Sally tormenting herself about … what? There is something here I don’t know about, Harriet thought, something that has been hidden from me all these years and sooner or later I am going to find out what it is. Dad might simply have been talking about what he did to Mum that last night, but that is not what Sally is referring to. She had nothing to do with that – she wasn’t even in the country. No, she is talking about something quite different, something that has haunted her through the years, something she did that was ‘ so wrong, so wicked’.
‘I was so afraid of him finding out the truth,’ Sally was moaning. ‘Just last week I was thinking I’d give anything – anything – so long as he never knew. And now this … If he’s taken of course he never will know. But that’s not important any more. Nothing is important except that he should get well.’
‘And he will. He will!’ Harriet said fiercely.
‘Will he? I don’t know. He’s never been mine in all these years. Not really. I stole him, Harriet. I stole him from her and now she’s taking him back …’ Her voice cracked.