Craven (9781921997365)

by Casey, Melanie

  ‘I’m guessing this is probably the family home,’ Ed said.

  ‘It sure doesn’t look like they downsized for retirement.’

  ‘Nope.’

  They buzzed the intercom and a refined female voice answered.

  ‘Detectives? Of course, please, come in.’

  The release on the gate clicked. Ed looked at Dave and raised his eyebrows. It wasn’t the sort of response they normally got when they went cold-calling. People usually wanted to know why there were detectives standing on their doorstep before they let them in.

  They made their way down the stone path lined with rows of perfectly manicured hedges. They found the front door open and the woman behind the voice waiting for them. A tan and white Jack Russell terrier at her feet was making low rumbling sounds. The woman was tall and slim, probably in her mid-seventies, although it was hard to tell. Her grey hair was cut into a neat bob and she had the palest blue eyes Ed had ever seen. She was dressed in white linen pants and a pastel pink blouse. She was a striking woman and Ed could imagine that she would have been stunning in her younger years.

  ‘I’m Rebecca MacDonald. Please, come this way. Angus, that’s enough now!’

  The dog fell silent. Ed and Dave followed them down the wide hallway and into a formal lounge room tastefully decorated in pale lemon with white and blue accents. It spoke of the kind of taste that required a hefty bank balance. Twelve-foot ceilings and Baltic pine floorboards made the room feel light and airy.

  ‘Please, sit down.’

  Mrs MacDonald waved a perfectly manicured hand at a spotless lemon couch. Ed felt like he needed a shower just to sit on it. He lowered himself carefully onto the immaculate upholstery. Dave flopped down next to him. Their hostess chose the chair opposite, sitting up straight with perfect posture, her legs crossed modestly at the ankles. Angus jumped up and sat next to her, his eyes fixed on the two men. He’d stopped growling but every now and then his lip curled back to show a neat row of gleaming white teeth.

  A younger woman stepped into the room. ‘Can I get you anything, ma’am?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Jenny. We’ll have tea please.’ She waited until Jenny had left the room before turning her attention to the men. ‘I assume this is about Roslyn?’

  ‘Yes it is. Is your husband at home? We had hoped to speak to both of you,’ Ed said.

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t be able to speak to Daniel. He’s had dementia for the last two years. He’s in a nursing home now. It got to the point where I couldn’t look after him anymore even with the help of a nurse.’

  The lines on her face deepened further. Ed felt a pang of empathy for her. She’d effectively lost both her daughter and her husband.

  ‘His dementia is severe then? Does he have any moments of clarity?’ Dave asked.

  ‘Not often these days, I’m afraid. He wanders a lot and most of the time he thinks he’s a young man in his twenties.’ A hint of a smile flitted across her face. ‘He’s very confused and he can be quite aggressive if you try to make him remember. The doctors say that extreme stress and dementia can be related. I’m sure his was accelerated by the stress of losing Roslyn. She was everything to him.’

  Ed noticed the slight edge in her voice. A hint of jealousy? Did her husband have a closer relationship with his daughter than his wife? He studied her, noticing the slight tremor in her hand as she tucked a stray strand of hair behind an ear.

  ‘You don’t seem surprised to see us,’ Ed said.

  ‘No, I’m not. I’ve been expecting you.’

  ‘Really? Why’s that?’ Dave asked.

  ‘You obviously haven’t read her case notes.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry, not in detail. We’re investigating another death and her name came up. We’re only in the early stages of our enquiries.’

  ‘I see.’

  Jenny came back into the room with a tray of tea things and the next few minutes were taken up by pouring and passing. When she finally retreated they resumed their conversation.

  ‘It was the second anniversary of her death last month.’ Rebecca looked out the window. Lines of pain etched deep furrows into her face.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Ed said.

  ‘So am I, Detective.’ She looked back at them.

  ‘A man called Paul Jenkins was found dead yesterday. At this point we’re not sure whether there was anyone else involved in his death,’ Dave said.

  ‘Those words have a terribly familiar ring to them. I’m afraid the name doesn’t mean anything to me, though.’

  ‘So you can’t tell us if your daughter knew him?’ Ed said.

  ‘She may have done. Roslyn was a popular girl. She had lots of friends.’

  ‘Can you tell us a bit more about her: what some of her interests were, places she liked to go, that sort of thing?’ Dave asked.

  ‘I’m sure most of that would be on her case file if you took the time to read it,’ she said, giving Dave a frosty look.

  ‘Of course, we’ll do that. I don’t suppose you kept any of her things, a diary maybe? Did she have a mobile phone?’ Ed said.

  ‘Yes, she did. It was on her when she drowned. Your technicians couldn’t get anything off the sim card. The salt water destroyed it. She did have a diary though, and she kept a few names and addresses in the back of it.’

  ‘Would you mind if we had a look?’ Ed asked.

  ‘No, I suppose not.’ She stood up. ‘If you wait here I’ll go and get it. Angus, stay!’

  She headed out into the hallway. Ed took the opportunity to lower his teacup carefully onto the coffee table. He didn’t do well with dainty things. Trying to hold the wisp of white and blue porcelain in his hands had made him feel all thumbs. Angus watched his every move with beady eyes, the rippling of his lip indicated his unwavering malice.

  ‘These guys must be loaded. Do you think she left the dog to guard us?’ Dave said.

  Ed nodded, reluctant to risk being caught talking about his hostess if she walked back into the room.

  ‘Personally, I prefer modern places. These old houses feel like museums to me.’

  Ed looked around at the beautiful furniture, the cluster of tasteful ornaments on the oak mantelpiece, the original watercolours on the walls and the softly gleaming timber of the floors that peeked out from underneath well-worn Chinese-silk rugs. Like feeding strawberries to pigs: one of his mother’s favourite expressions popped into his head.

  Rebecca MacDonald glided into the room holding a small pink book in her hand.

  ‘This is it. I’m happy for you to take it with you if you need to, but please make sure you return it. The few things of Roslyn’s that I’ve kept are precious to me. When I read this diary I can hear her voice.’ She passed the book to Ed and sat down.

  ‘Thank you. We’ll take good care of it. You said the names and addresses are at the back?’

  ‘Yes, the last few pages.’

  He opened the diary and flicked to the back. The pages smelt faintly of some sweet perfume, the type that young women seemed to like. Ed found the right pages and scanned them. None of the other names on their list appeared there. He looked at Dave and shook his head. Still, if they thought it was warranted they could crosscheck the names with Paul’s associates. He could have been a friend of a friend. Hell, he could have been dealing to her whole circle of friends. He tucked the diary inside his jacket pocket.

  ‘Did your daughter ever use recreational drugs?’ Dave asked.

  Dave must have been thinking along the same lines as he was; pity he hadn’t thought about asking a bit more delicately.

  ‘Certainly not! Roslyn used to have a few drinks with her friends, like every other person her age, but she never did drugs. She was anti-drugs. If there were any drugs in her system then it was her killer who made her take them.’

  The sudden flare of her temper told Ed a lot more than her words. There was something going on there. Ed made a mental note to check Roslyn’s toxicology report when he got back to the office.
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  ‘Your daughter’s death was found to be an accidental drowning?’ He meant it to be a statement but it came out as a question.

  ‘Accidental? What a joke. There was nothing accidental about it.’ Rebecca’s hand shook as she lowered her teacup to the coffee table. She took a deep breath. ‘My daughter was murdered. They just couldn’t prove it.’

  ‘So she couldn’t swim?’ Dave said.

  ‘Swim? Of course she could swim. We live four blocks from the beach.’

  ‘Is that why you think her drowning wasn’t an accident?’ Ed asked.

  ‘No, Detective, I know her drowning wasn’t an accident. As a child she was a Little Nipper with the local surf life-saving club. She was an excellent swimmer.’

  CHAPTER

  8

  My eyes watered as another blast of freezing wind whipped through the campus car park. I looked around. It was Thursday morning but the low buildings that flanked it were mostly still dark and deserted. Occasionally a student or teacher would scuttle along the path, walking the hurried stiff walk of someone keen to escape the cold. Traffic was mounting on the road behind the uni and through the low shrubbery that ran along the green wrought-iron fence I could glimpse the cars snaking their way past.

  I checked my watch for the twentieth time in ten minutes. It was still early, not even 8am. I’d arrived by taxi at 7.30am. I wanted to get my car sorted out before the bulk of the student population started to arrive and it attracted unwanted attention.

  The roadside assistance people couldn’t be too far away. They’d said around twenty minutes and it had been nearly twenty-five. I checked my mobile. It was truly amazing that I hadn’t had a call from Mum. I was sure she would have picked up that something was amiss. Maybe she was just resisting the urge to call me. That’d be a first. The only reason I had a mobile was to try to appease her paranoia.

  In the weeks leading up to my move, tense conversations where Mum looked for reasons why I shouldn’t leave and I argued back became a regular feature at the breakfast table. When I made it downstairs before 9am, I liked a bit of peace and quiet. Usually the only sounds that accompanied my morning coffee and toast were a vigorous crunching from the corner as Shadow wolfed his cat biscuits, the ticking of the grandmother clock, birds chirping outside and the occasional chink of cutlery on china.

  The thought of me travelling backwards and forwards between Jewel Bay and Adelaide on a regular basis had been enough to send Mum’s maternal instincts into overload. Her final attempt to stop me from leaving took the form of a barrage of ‘what ifs’ about me breaking down in the middle of nowhere. Gran had to step in and restore the peace.

  ‘Anita, I’ve already thought of the breakdown situation and I’ve bought Cass a roadside assistance membership. It’s my parting gift to her. Cass, you’re also planning on getting a mobile phone, aren’t you?’

  I looked at Gran. She was smiling at me and gave a slight nod of encouragement. I hadn’t even thought about a mobile at that point. Before the Fleurieu case I’d left the house so infrequently I’d never needed one, but I gladly grabbed hold of the rope she’d thrown me.

  ‘Of course I am. I’ll go into town tomorrow and organise one. All right, Mum?’

  Mum had no choice but to back down. She’d had a couple more tries at talking me out of the move but in the end she’d given in. Now I just got panicky phone calls from her.

  Standing there by myself in the early morning chill I would have welcomed a phone call from a friendly voice.

  I yawned hugely. After Ed had dropped me home the night before I’d spent ten minutes sitting in the dark crying like a big baby before I’d managed to pull myself together with the help of a bucket-load of tea and my emergency stash of chocolate. It was well past midnight when I’d finally felt relaxed enough to drag myself off to bed. Even then I’d struggled to force thoughts of Ed out of my head. Sleep didn’t win the battle until nearly 2am.

  I needed a coffee.

  A yellow and black lift truck pulled into the car park. With a sigh of relief I waved it over. When I’d told the operator my predicament, we’d agreed the easiest way to deal with the four flat tyres was to drop the car to the nearest tyre service centre. There were a couple close by. With a bit of luck I’d be back on campus within half an hour. That’d give me enough time to organise myself for my first tutorial before I met Claire for coffee.

  ‘Have you seen the lists for your tutes for today and tomorrow?’ Claire asked.

  We were tucked into a corner table in the uni coffee shop. The chairs were comfortable, the heating was cranked up and the smell of freshly brewed coffee and raisin toast was heavy on the air. The knots in my neck and back were finally starting to unwind. I wasn’t that keen to think about my tutes for the rest of the week.

  ‘I checked them yesterday, why?’

  I took a large slurp of my coffee. The tutorial lists were online. Even though it was the first week of term and tutorials had started, some students still hadn’t signed on. When I’d checked my registrations there were a couple that were full-ish, but the rest were only half-subscribed at best.

  ‘You’re going to get a shock. You’re suddenly Miss Popularity.’

  ‘That’s weird!’

  ‘Not really, word gets around fast in this place.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve been outed. Twitter and Facebook would’ve gone nuts after your tutorial yesterday. Half the student population would know about your gift now.’

  ‘Oh no! Surely not?’

  ‘I bet if I did a search on your name I’d get a squillion hits.’

  ‘I was hoping to leave my past behind me.’

  ‘There was never really much chance of that. I mean, you’ve been in all the papers, someone was bound to recognise you eventually. I particularly liked the picture of you on the front of the Sunday Mail. Your hair looked great.’

  ‘You looked me up?’

  I raised a self-conscious hand to my hair. I’d been too busy trying to drag myself out of the house to worry about my appearance. It was pulled back into an untidy knot. Claire, by comparison, was looking fabulous again. She was wearing leggings and a cream and black tunic that did great things for her figure. Her light brown hair was falling in perfect, straight lengths around her face. She looked fresh and glowing. I couldn’t help feeling a bit envious.

  Claire smiled. ‘I hope you’re not cross with me. I couldn’t help it. I googled you as soon as I got in the door last night. I’ve never met anyone famous before.’

  ‘I’m not famous, infamous maybe …’ I tried to smile. It wasn’t easy. I’d wanted so much to have a fresh start where I’d be treated like everyone else. It seemed that was out of the question now. I hadn’t even lasted twenty-four hours on campus before my illusions were shattered.

  I scanned the coffee shop, half-expecting to find eyes trained in my direction. It was still pretty quiet. The few other patrons appeared to be mostly teaching staff and not one of them was looking my way. I let out the breath I’d been holding. Hopefully the academic staff didn’t use the same websites the students did.

  Claire attacked her raisin toast with a slab of half-frozen butter. ‘So tell me, what happened after Ed dropped me off last night? Did you kiss and make up?’

  I gave her a twisted smile. I’d been expecting a grilling about Ed. ‘No, nothing like that.’

  ‘He’s pretty cute in a brutish, chest-beating kind of way.’

  ‘Yeah, he is.’

  ‘So … what happened?’ She pinned me with a direct look. I felt like a fish squirming on a hook. There was no getting out of it; I was going to have to spill. I stared down at my nearly empty cup. I wasn’t used to talking about this sort of thing.

  ‘He dropped me off and I ran inside. He asked me if I wanted him to come in.’

  ‘And you said?’

  ‘I said no.’

  ‘But you really wanted him to, right?’

  ‘Yes, no … I don’t know.
Part of me wanted him to come in but the other part didn’t. I hated the thought that I’d gone running to him and he was feeling sorry for me.’

  ‘Did he seem like he was feeling sorry for you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I felt pathetic.’

  ‘You definitely weren’t! If it’d been me I would have been a blubbering mess. You were amazing. I don’t know how you stayed so calm.’

  Her admiration made me feel slightly better. ‘I don’t know how I stayed calm either. I really did need to talk to him though.’

  ‘Talk, yeah right!’

  I blushed and a random image of Ed’s denim-clad bum popped into my mind. ‘No, really. I needed to tell him about a vision I had.’

  ‘Ooh, I’m all ears! I love this stuff! What happened?’

  ‘When I was house-hunting I had a vision about a woman whose husband bumped her off.’

  ‘Wow!’

  ‘It was horrible. He electrocuted her in the bath. The problem was, he never got caught. I wanted to tell Ed and see what he thought.’

  ‘What a bastard. And he got away with it? You’re right: you have to tell someone. He might do it again. So, are you going to ring Ed?’

  ‘No, I’m pretty sure he’ll ring me in a day or two to see how I am, even after I did a runner on him. He’s pretty good that way, despite being a lousy boyfriend. Which reminds me, I still have to go to Security to report the vandalism. Ed’s bound to follow up and make sure that I have. He’s nothing if not thorough.’

  ‘Hmm, sexy and organised. If you don’t want him then maybe you can give him my number.’

  My face must have reflected how much I hated that idea.

  ‘I’m kidding. Relax. I can tell you’re still hung up on him and rule one in the girlfriend handbook says you never date a friend’s ex. Geez, give me some credit!’

  I forced a smile. ‘Sorry, I can’t see any humour when it comes to anything to do with him.’

  ‘The only way to deal with the male species is to hang on to your sense of humour. Trust me, they’re all clowns in one giant circus. You just need to work out how to be the ringmaster. Not that I’m an expert; Miss Perpetually Single, that’s me. But back to the car thing, I agree with Ed. You have to report it. They can increase their patrols of the car parks at night. Plus the guards can walk you to your car if you’re here late.’