Good News, Bad News

by Maggie Groff

  I felt listless and before I realised what I was doing I’d dragged out the vacuum cleaner and was zipping round the apartment in fast-forward like Benny Hill. I attacked the bathroom and kitchen, watered plants and swept the verandah. I was consumed with shame that I hadn’t had the gumption to tell Toby about my affair with Rafe when it had first started.

  Cleaning was my penance and nothing was spared.

  Chapter 27

  After lunch I packed my bags for Sydney and called Rafe.

  To date, Rafe and I had never made any demands on each other, or commitments for that matter, and strange as it may seem, we had never discussed what was going to happen to us when Toby returned.

  Was Rafe, I wondered, prepared for the fact that I might be calling him to end our relationship? Had he thought that I might chalk up our affair to a brief encounter? Or had he envisaged a sort of continuing love triangle, where he would disappear while Toby was in town and then step back into my life when Toby was away? The very thought of it made me feel like a timeshare apartment in Noosa.

  As always, the sound of him gave me a physical thrill.

  ‘Have you decided which one of us will have the pleasure of doing rude things to your wonderful body?’ he said, his voice mellow and warm like dark treacle.

  I had no wish to share the details of my parting from Toby, so I said playfully, ‘That depends. I’ll have to see your list of rude things before making my decision.’

  Rafe laughed. ‘A gem as precious as you should never be divided, milady.’

  ‘Nor will I be,’ I said. ‘I am completely yours.’

  ‘When will I see you?’

  ‘Tomorrow. I’m flying down to Sydney.’

  ‘Shall I book a really, really expensive hotel?’

  ‘I think you should. A gem as precious as I must never sleep on anything less than a thousand thread count.’

  ‘You won’t be sleeping,’ he said lasciviously.

  Daisy was sitting in the afternoon sun on her verandah when I pulled up at Yab Noryb. Twiggy, her elderly greyhound, was lying on the cane sofa next to her, her head resting on Daisy’s lap. There was a blanket over the dog and her eyes were closed. Daisy looked sad and was gently stroking her.

  Concerned, I asked, ‘Is she okay?’

  Daisy shook her head and her eyes welled with tears.

  ‘Not long now, Twigs,’ she murmured. Then she looked up at me and said, ‘I’ve told her it’s okay to go now. We’re both ready.’

  ‘Is Dave here?’

  ‘He couldn’t bear it. He’s gone to the office.’

  ‘I’ll make tea and come and sit with you.’

  ‘When you go in, have a look on the computer screen. It’s a picture of Andrew with a young woman.’

  I rested my hand on Daisy’s shoulder for a short while and then went inside. Dave and Daisy are members of Friends of the Hound, and Twiggy was one of two retired racing greyhounds they had adopted, the other dog, Bertie, having died last year of old age. It would be difficult to think of a better way for a working dog to end its days than in Daisy’s care.

  I put the kettle on and then went to the computer and jiggled the mouse until the photograph loomed out of the darkness. It showed Andrew with his arm around the shoulders of a young woman. Jack had been wrong. Her face didn’t look like a hatful of spiders. On the contrary, she was pretty and tall with shoulder-length dark hair and an athletic look about her. She was wearing low-cut jeans, a white T-shirt and a tailored black leather jacket. Around her neck she wore a beautiful purple and dark green scarf.

  It looked like Daisy had snapped them coming out of a restaurant, and I had the discomfiting sense that I had seen the woman somewhere before, but I couldn’t think where. I downloaded the photograph onto my USB, then I made tea, put a box of tissues on the tray and carried it outside.

  ‘Good photo,’ I said, setting down the tray.

  ‘I didn’t send it to you in case Harper sees your emails,’ Daisy explained.

  I told her that was wise and poured our tea.

  Daisy balanced her cup on the arm of the cane sofa and carried on petting Twiggy.

  ‘I arrived at the old nurses quarters about half-six,’ she said softly. ‘Andrew left in his car at seven and I followed him to a backpackers hostel in Surfers Paradise. He parked outside. Two minutes later the young woman came out and got in the car. Andrew leaned across and kissed her on the cheek, then drove off. I followed them to an Indian restaurant at Broadbeach. They were sitting in a window seat, opposite each other, and I walked past a few times. An hour later they came out and I took the photo. I pretended I was taking pictures of the display in the next window.’

  Twiggy made a whimper and Daisy leaned down and kissed her forehead. ‘It’s okay, Twigs, it’s okay.’

  We were quiet for a time, Daisy stroking Twiggy and I absorbing the information. It was warm in the sunshine—a beautiful and peaceful place.

  Eventually Daisy resumed her account. ‘Andrew then returned her to the hostel, gave her another kiss on the cheek and drove off. It was a friendly kiss, not passionate.’

  ‘Mmmm,’ I mused. ‘It doesn’t sound like affair behaviour.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed. ‘It didn’t look like it either.’

  ‘I suppose it could have been someone from work, one of the nurses who was having problems,’ I suggested.

  ‘If it was someone from work, I don’t think she would be staying in a backpackers hostel, do you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘I don’t think,’ Daisy said finally, ‘that Andrew is having an affair. There was no romance in what I saw.’

  I thanked Daisy for her help and we decided that, although she’d been a brilliant sleuth and secured proof that Andrew was definitely up to something, continuing to follow him wouldn’t necessarily tell us what that was. Finding out the young woman’s identity, and what she was doing at a backpackers hostel, would now require professional investigation. In other words, me.

  We resumed our silence and sat in the fading sun for a long time, listening to the birds and Twiggy’s occasional sighs. After a while I realised the sighs had stopped. I looked at Daisy.

  ‘I think she’s gone,’ she whispered, the words breaking in her throat.

  I knelt down beside Daisy and held her hand and she cried and squeezed my hand.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said. It was a moment of profound sadness and I was thankful I was with her.

  I called Dave and when he arrived home we buried Twiggy next to old Bertie in the shade of a mature eucalypt tree, overlooking the valley. Daisy wept while Dave said a few moving words, and then with gin and tonics we toasted Twiggy on her way to doggy heaven.

  There was a message on my machine when I got home. It was Sarah Walters, my tennis partner, asking me to call her at the police station.

  ‘Sarah,’ I said when I was put through to her. ‘You up for tennis?’

  ‘Too early. The doc says another two weeks.’

  ‘Never mind,’ I commiserated. ‘Why did you call?’

  ‘It’s about the teddy bear you found. The kid’s father is a pilot and wants to thank you personally and give you two return tickets to anywhere in Australia. He asked me to give you his number and to ask you to call.’

  Startled, I took the number, thanked Sarah and hung up. This was an extremely generous reward for my quite insignificant act. Then again, I knew how distressing it was for a child to lose a toy, which was why I’d taken the bear to the police station in the first place.

  Two minutes later I was remonstrating with Captain Alistair Diamond, telling him I really didn’t deserve a reward. I heard myself blabbering some nonsense that his thanks were enough. Fortunately he took no notice of me. I had, apparently, abated World War III over the lost teddy bear. Grinning, I took down the details of how to organise the flights if and when I booked them.

  It was ironic that I’d just forked out big dollars for last-minute return flights to Sydney. Still, I co
uld use the tickets to fly up to the Barrier Reef, and it was becoming clear I would have to go there soon. Two free tickets meant I could take someone with me. My first thought was to ask Harper, but she was so ill with morning sickness I shelved that idea. As it wouldn’t be a holiday for me, I didn’t consider Rafe. Daisy would be the best person to take with me, I reasoned, and it would be a nice way to thank her for helping me with the surveillance lark. It would cheer her up, too, after losing Twiggy.

  Harper was making vegetarian lasagne when I called her.

  ‘I’m having trouble with smells,’ she said. ‘I nearly threw up passing the fish counter at the supermarket.’

  I sympathised. With my pregnancy it had been bacon.

  ‘I have information from . . . from the investigator,’ I told her. I very nearly said Daisy’s name.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And Andrew has been seen with a young woman, but it doesn’t look like an affair.’

  My sister listened quietly while I relayed Daisy’s observations.

  ‘So, who is this person who is not having an affair with my husband?’ Harper’s words dripped with sarcasm. It was obvious she didn’t believe it was innocent.

  ‘I have no idea,’ I told her. ‘But I have a photograph of them together. Also, I think I’ve met her before, but I’m not sure when or where.’

  ‘Send it to my work email.’

  ‘Okay. Will you confront him with it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Harper then told me that she had been researching childcare options and assistance available to single parents, which I knew was her way of telling me that she was considering leaving Andrew.

  Not wishing to buy into that discussion until I knew the truth about the woman seen with Andrew, I told her I was off to Sydney for a few days and would try to see Max while I was there. I would, I promised, come and see her when I returned.

  Hopefully, in the meantime, she wouldn’t do anything irrational, although as soon as I’d put down my phone all I could think about were all those hormones racing round Harper’s body, making rational thought very difficult.

  Chapter 28

  Sydney was overcast and chilly when my plane touched down on Monday morning. The city looked dull without its usual sunshine dressing, and I was pleased I’d worn my red Chanel jacket and cream lace-edged scarf to spiff things up a bit.

  In no time at all I’d hired a car and was driving north across the Sydney Harbour Bridge on my way to see Overton Siliphant. When I’d called on Friday, the nurse had advised me that mornings were his most alert time, so I was making hay while the sun shone or, in this case, while it didn’t.

  It was 11 am when I pulled into Chamomile Court, a swish-looking retirement home at Avalon on Sydney’s northern beaches. An assistant in a blue uniform and squeaky shoes showed me to Mr Siliphant’s quarters, a delightful suite filled with well-polished antique furniture, family photographs and flowering plants.

  Mr Siliphant was snoozing in a brown leather chair in the corner of his living room. He appeared a cut above your standard elderly gentleman, dressed in a smart green tartan jacket, dark grey pants and brown brogues. His hair was neatly brushed and I could smell aftershave, possibly Old Spice. A newspaper was open at the racing page on the table in front of him, so I already knew one of his hobbies.

  The assistant gently shook his shoulder. ‘Overton, lovey, the lady who wanted to talk to you about Willard Longfellow is here.’ I cringed at her patronising familiarity. He looked more lord than lovey.

  As soon as she’d gone I produced a bottle of Scotch. ‘I hope you’re allowed this, Mr Siliphant.’

  ‘I am, thank you.’ He took the bottle and peered at me through rheumy grey eyes. ‘Though they’ve stopped the dancing girls.’ He spoke slowly and a trifle loudly, but his diction was clear and precise.

  Laughing, I sat down on the chair beside him. Elevating my voice slightly, I explained who I was and that I was researching information for a story on a man who had supposedly drowned thirty years ago, and who had been married to Willard Longfellow’s niece, Nemony Longfellow. I also told him that Nemony’s elder sister, Hermione, had recently raised the possibility that the man had not drowned and was still alive.

  He clasped his hands together in his lap. ‘How are those Longfellow girls? Always thought they were a rum lot. Like something out of . . . out of . . .’ He made a whirling gesture with his hand, searching for the word. ‘Out of Macbeth.’

  Amused, I said, ‘They’re fine. They live in Byron Bay, on the lavender farm they inherited from their parents.’

  ‘Did Nemony remarry after she lost her husband? Cracking-looking girl she was.’

  ‘No, she didn’t. And she’s still a cracking-looking girl.’

  He nodded approval and then looked at his watch. ‘We have half an hour. My granddaughter is picking me up for lunch.’

  I smiled. It was good to know his family cared for him.

  ‘I’m not sure how I can help,’ he said.

  ‘It’s about Nemony’s inheritance,’ I told him. ‘If her husband is alive, and it looks like he might be, he had to have staged his disappearance, and I can’t get past the possibility that he might somehow have known about Nemony’s inheritance before he married her.’

  Siliphant looked thoughtful. ‘Nemony could have told him,’ he said. ‘It’s unlikely anyone from our firm revealed the information. Confidentiality was a high priority.’

  ‘She says she didn’t, and I believe her. I don’t wish to offend your professionalism, but I would like to explore a few scenarios.’

  He frowned. ‘I see where you’re coming from, but I don’t think there’s any way I can help. I never met Nemony’s husband.’

  I passed him the recent newspaper photograph of the rescue group and the damaged motor cruiser.

  ‘Do you recognise anyone, Mr Siliphant?’

  He studied the photograph closely. ‘I recognise this man,’ he said, pointing a gnarly finger at O’Leary. ‘And this woman on the end was a receptionist who worked at our firm for a couple of years. She was Irish. Great legs. This man used to come in and see her often. I’m sure they were courting. It interrupted her work and I told her more than once that he wasn’t to call in.’

  ‘Do you remember her name? Or his?’ I held my breath.

  ‘Her name was Leila Leary. She left suddenly, just disappeared. His name was Mick. I remember because he was a mick—you know, Irish, same as Leila.’ He suddenly looked up at me. ‘Was he the man who married Nemony?’

  I nodded, almost bursting with excitement. This was beyond anything I’d hoped for.

  ‘I don’t suppose you recall when Leila left?’ I asked eagerly.

  ‘As a matter of fact I do,’ he said, grinning happily at me. ‘It was around my sixty-fifth birthday. I was tossing up whether to retire or not. It would have been some time in November 1983.’

  ‘Did she have access to files, particularly Willard Longfellow’s file?’ I spoke quickly, hardly able to contain myself.

  We looked at each other and he nodded slowly. ‘She most certainly did.’

  If Siliphant had been younger I’d have high-fived him. I now knew that Mick could have known about Nemony’s inheritance before he married her. I also knew that Leila had been using the surname Leary thirty years ago, and that Mick was now Mitch Leary, which begged the question: had Mick and Leila been married before Nemony entered the picture? Also, it had to be more than coincidental that Leila had disappeared from her place of work at the same time as Mick was supposed to have drowned.

  ‘There’s something else you might like to know,’ Mr Siliphant said. ‘A couple of weeks ago another journalist came to see me. A man called Dandy McCormack.’

  I was all ears. So he was the mystery male journalist trying to find Siliphant. Had McCormack been coy about names because he was already working on O’Leary’s disappearance before the accident on the reef? Or was there another angle to this story?

  ‘W
hat did he want to know?’ I asked anxiously.

  Siliphant acknowledged my concern with a wry smile. ‘He wanted to know about Leila Leary. He showed me a photograph of her and wanted her identity confirmed. Your man Mick was also in the photo, standing next to her.’

  ‘Did he want to know anything else?’

  ‘He asked if I’d given her a work reference. I told him that she had worked for us, but the firm hadn’t given references, just statements of service. He never asked me a thing about this Mick chap.’

  ‘Did you mention that you recognised Mick as well?’

  He chuckled. ‘No, don’t panic. I didn’t mention him at all.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Mr Siliphant’s eyes sparkled with mischief. ‘For one thing, he didn’t bring me a bottle of Scotch, and for another he wasn’t as pretty as you. He smelled of cigars and was wearing a dirty old corduroy jacket. I’ve always hated corduroy.’

  I stared at him open-mouthed. Dandy McCormack was the corduroy man!

  Mr Siliphant must have misconstrued the reason for my shocked expression because he winked at me.

  ‘Not bad for a lovey, eh?’ he quipped.

  I drove down to Avalon beach and parked facing the ocean. Large blobby raindrops were starting to fall, so I stayed in the car and made notes. Every few minutes I turned on the wipers to clear the windscreen.

  Why was McCormack interested in Leila Leary? And why hadn’t he asked about Mick? The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that he didn’t know about my missing O’Leary angle. So why had I seen him the day I was with Nemony at Brunswick Heads, and then again when she had come to my apartment in Byron Bay?

  Trying to make sense of it, I cast my mind back to my phone conversation with McCormack. Believing I was diverting his attention from my real intent, I had inadvertently picked out the one person in the photograph who was of interest to him. That was why he’d baulked at revealing Leila’s name. And obviously he’d thought I was on to his Leila story, whatever that was.

  My brain made a quantum leap.