by Tina Clough
Lorraine reached over and cut another wedge of cheese. “I think you should just deny it. Isn’t that the simplest thing? If you’re evasive they’ll scent blood and hound you. If you tell self-protective lies, you’ll get tangled up or they’ll find out somehow. I think the best protection would be to deny any knowledge, along the lines of: ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’ Who could prove otherwise? There’s the video, the audiotape and copies of the CD, but we know where they are and that they’re all safe.”
“Well, I think that the evidence should be in a safe or a bank security box.” John sounded very certain. “Everything should be in one safe place. Apart from the CD you sent to the Irwins of course – and who knows, you might even get that back one day.”
“At the moment my CD is in Thomas’s house,” said Mia and reached for the wine bottle. “Let me have a bit of that before Lorraine drinks it all! I took it over to show Carl and Thomas when I went there for dinner, and they are keeping it for the time being, because it turns out that Thomas has a proper built-in safe.”
“OK, that’s good then. Eventually you’ll have to collect the rest from me at work and put it in that safe or in a bank box. But even if the plan is for you to simply deny all knowledge, I still think we should discuss it. It could be you’ll need legal advice or some mention of the law to get people off your back, if they start putting pressure on you.”
Mia locked the front door behind them just before ten. It had been an interesting evening – once again she wished Thomas had been there. It would have added another viewpoint and something else she found hard to define – not protection, more a rock-like quality of integrity and dependability, which she imagined he brought to every occasion. She smiled ruefully: Do I already love him? She turned the hall light off and went through to the study.
There was an email from Sarah, James and Brett - Sarah made no reference to Mia’s secret and it was obvious from Brett’s paragraph at the end that he knew nothing. Mia realised that there was no reason for Sarah to comment on Irwin’s death, because she and James had never been told what the second prediction was. Good thing too! At least they would not be tempted to let it slip to Brett, while it was in the news and everyone was talking about it.
CHAPTER 13
Mia was late home from work and the phone was ringing as she unlocked the door. She sprinted through to the kitchen and grabbed the receiver. An unknown woman’s voice asked for Mia Dawson and Mia instantly felt slightly uneasy.
“I am Mia Dawson. How can I help you?”
“I write a twice weekly newspaper column called “And what have we here?” – you’ve probably seen it - and I wonder if I could interview you about that amazing prediction you made about Steve Irwin’s death and also - let me see, where is it? Ah yes, a church fire in Russia?”
Mia’s blood ran cold and she was instantly on the alert, mentally preparing herself to put on a convincing performance. She made an effort to sound natural and hoped she managed an incredulous and slightly amused tone. “My what? Prediction? I think you’ve got the wrong person.”
“Oh no, I don’t think so.”
“Whoever gave you that information is trying to hoax you. I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I was told that your sister was in St Petersburg and saw the fire and that you’d told her in advance that it would happen. As I say, we have a lot of detail and I’ve checked the event on the Internet.”
“Well, whatever you’ve been told I can assure you that you have been misled – someone’s trying to hoax you. I have no magic powers and you can’t possibly believe such a silly story.”
“No wait, wait – don’t put the phone down. He said you’d be bound to deny it and try to avoid being interviewed, but apparently there’s absolute proof that you made these predictions and it’s all been documented with witnesses and everything. Do you deny that?”
“I’m not going to continue this silly conversation. This is just all a nonsense.”
Mia put the phone down and took a deep breath to steady her nerves; she was trembling. She felt as if she had been through a long ordeal and needed to recover before doing so much as taking one single step. After a minute she returned to the hall and shut the front door, which she had left open in the rush for the phone. She took her jacket off and threw it on a chair and looked at herself in the mirror above the hall table. Her face looked so calm! It was hard to believe the turmoil inside her head. What’s the best thing to do? I’ll ring Lorraine first. But by the time she got back to the phone she had changed her mind. She wanted to talk to Thomas first. She glanced at her watch – hopefully he would be home by now. She took the phone to the study where she had his and Carl’s numbers on post-it notes on the wall and stood in front of the desk dialling; not calm enough to sit down, fingers not quite steady.
“Thomas speaking.” His voice at the other end was so normal and so composed that she felt stronger and more capable the moment she heard it. “Thomas, it’s Mia. I am sorry to bother you, but I think I need some help.”
“Of course. Tell me what I can do.” His brief reply was so like him and sounded so competent and calm. She felt her shoulders drop in relief.
“A journalist is on to me. She rang just now and I’m about to call that policeman friend I told you about and Lorraine. They were here yesterday; John was worried this would happen. Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself – John thought one of the original group, you know the ones who witnessed my document, might try to use me for his own ends. John and Lorraine will probably come over and I’d really like you to be here. Would you mind?”
“Of course I don’t mind. I’ll come over right away. Is there anything you need?” Mia nearly said that the only thing she needed was him, but common sense prevailed. “Well a bottle or two of wine would be useful, thanks. I seem to spend a lot of time discussing my fate over bottles of wine these days and I’m not sure what I’ve got left.”
“OK, I’ll be there shortly. Have you eaten? No? Well, how about I bring something we can share if need be? See you soon.”
I know what that saying means now, thought Mia. ‘To have a weight lifted off your shoulders’. It’s a perfect description of what that phone call did for me just now.
Lorraine replied to a background babble of laughter and many voices. She was appalled at how soon their risk plan was needed.
“My god, that’s incredible - and it was just last night we discussed it. I’m in South Auckland at my mum’s place. She is having a baby shower for someone I went to school with. John’s in a meeting till about eight or eight thirty. I’ll text him and tell him to meet me at your place. I can’t get away much sooner than he can anyway.”
“Thanks Lorraine, that’s great. I’m not in a panic. Thomas is coming over, so we’ll just wait for you.”
She tidied up a bit and got out a packet of grissini which was the only wine-accompaniment left in the pantry. These days she seemed to forever be buying olives and cheese and crackers and not just one packet at a time, but by twos and threes. She changed into jeans and one of her new tight T-shirts and brushed her hair - very aware of how she looked, wanting to look pretty. She studied her ‘new’ face for a moment. Certainly the new style of make-up made a difference, but the greatest change came from being happy and feeling confident and self-assured.
Too much on edge to settle down she paced from the sitting room windows to the kitchen and the bedroom in a meaningless circuit until the buzzer went. She pressed the release and went to open the front door straight away, standing with her hand on the door handle listening to the lift coming up.
Thomas came out of the lift carrying two supermarket bags. She looked at him and all she could say was “Oh thank you!” She felt as if safety was at last within reach. Thomas put both bags on the floor in the open doorway and pulled her towards him. Her head fitted neatly under his chin and she could feel the warmth of his body through his jersey. They stood like that for a moment, his arm
s holding her tight against him and then he said in a perfectly normal voice, “It’s all right. Nothing will go wrong.”
He let her go, but neither of them stepped back and for a moment they stood, their bodies touching but their hands at their sides, then Mia took a step back and looked up at his face. “Thank you – again! I feel better now. Somehow it was quite threatening to find how much information she had about me - and she was so pushy.”
“Well, let’s get rid of this and sit down and then you can tell me all about it”. Thomas followed her to the kitchen and they started unpacking the bags.
“Sushi! Lovely, it’s one of my favourite foods. Do you want some now? John and Lorraine probably won’t be here until nine or so.”
“Well, if they haven’t had anything we can save some of this, there’s more in the other bag.”
Mia desperately wanted to tell him all that had happened. “Let’s have a drink first.”
They sat down with glasses of wine and Mia started telling him about the meeting the previous day and how it was all due to John’s suspicions. “I didn’t know who it was he suspected, but it had to be either Paul, that’s Lorraine’s brother, or Miles.”
“Why couldn’t it have been Lorraine, even if she’s your friend? You haven’t known her for very long, have you?”
“Because John and Lorraine are having some kind of relationship and if he thought she was the problem he’d be able to deal with it without involving the whole group.”
“OK, that makes sense.”
Mia took a sip of wine. “John said we needed to synchronise our thinking and make sure we all realised that everyone was honour bound not to do anything I didn’t want, so there would be no media exposure or any exploitation. Lorraine and Paul were both very strong and direct in agreeing. Miles put up an argument, saying I must consider that this was the chance in a life-time, I could earn enough money never to have to go to work again and more, much more. It seemed that he’d spent a lot of time thinking about how to gain most media traction and he offered to manage the whole fame campaign.”
Thomas had a cynical smile on his face, which in combination with the scar made him look decidedly dangerous. “I bet he did! He wouldn’t have suggested it without some idea of personal gain, the rat!”
Mia had to laugh. “You don’t know how right you are and you haven’t even met him! When I first met him he made me think of those white rats people keep as pets - he’s pale and has nearly invisible eyelashes. But I must say I was taken aback when I heard him describe a marketing strategy culminating in a book and film rights! And he got more and more irritated and frustrated as the meeting went on.”
“How did the others react? Were they surprised?”
“Paul was – he got cross. Lorraine clearly knew about John’s suspicions, but hadn’t wanted to believe him. You see she’s the one who got Miles involved. She’s done holiday and part time jobs for the law firm he’s in, so she felt responsible. But John wasn’t surprised. He had worked through the whole scenario and he was the one who warned the others right at the outset that I could be at risk if my story becomes public knowledge.”
She was going to explain why, but Thomas’s face told her that he understood the implications.
“When you first showed me the CD at my house and told me the tale it was one of the first things that occurred to me. There’s no way we can allow this to become widely known. We’ll discuss ways and means when the others get here, and in the meantime maybe we should have some dinner?”
Mia was full of contrition. “I’m sorry - not only do I drag you out at short notice, but you probably had a busy day or got no lunch.”
“No, no, not at all! It was a typical day and I got taken out for lunch by clients.”
“I didn’t know clients took their accountants out for lunch – you are a normal accountant, aren’t you?”
He grinned. “Normal might be debatable - there are those who’d disagree. I was a regular chartered accountant, but these days I specialise in international tax matters and the tax laws in different countries. I deal quite a lot with clients who have investments or business dealings with other countries. Many of them are wealthy, a few are influential and every now and then someone gives me a tip for a good investment. So I have an interesting job. I also have a good income, which is how I can afford to travel when I want to and buy beautiful things. I have little else to spend my money on, after all. I’m an orphan like you are and my brothers don’t need me to help them.”
They ate some of the sushi with their fingers and drank more wine and discovered they shared a dislike of Indian food and both loved Japanese and Italian cuisine. Mia was surprised to find that Thomas had never been to the Italian film festival and Thomas educated Mia about the various roles of accountants and about his own role as a consultant.
“You might change your mind about me being normal now, but the fact is I never do any of the stuff you think of as normal accounting at all. I’m in a partnership with two other specialists, both lawyers, and we hire ourselves out at the most outrageous hourly rate. We research, give advice and come up with strategies. I spend hours just sitting in my office reading and researching tax laws in other countries - some weeks I don’t talk to a single client. Just recently one of my clients offered me a job in Hong Kong, but I can barely cope with the humidity of the Auckland summers, so I said no. But I do go there quite often, because it’s a lovely place to visit.”
They were contemplating eating some more sushi, when the buzzer went again. Lorraine and John looked like a long-term couple, thought Mia, when she let them in. How on earth have they progressed to this stage so fast and acquired the mannerisms of two people, who’ve spent a long time together? John lifted Lorraine’s jacket off her arm and put it on the hall chair along with his briefcase and she handed him a deli bag without looking to see he was there to receive it, while she turned to tidy her hair in the mirror.
“There’s some gorgeous cholesterol crisis stuff in that bag, Mia. We haven’t had dinner, so I bought some energy-laden goodies on the run. We seem to be here more often than we’re home these days. We should keep spare pyjamas here and save ourselves the problem of taking taxis home.”
In the sitting room introductions were made. Thomas pointed out that there was spare sushi in the fridge. This is a nice kind of chaos, thought Mia as she watched everyone organise their own plates, food, dessert, wine, glasses and all they needed. They milled around for a few minutes, and then suddenly it was done – they were sitting round the table eating dinner, out of step with each other, chaos resolved. Mia grinned and John caught her eye. “Now what’s up, young lady? You look amused.”
“Oh, nothing really. Just wondering how it is that Lorraine and you have only been here a couple of times, and Thomas only once before, but everyone seems to know where everything is in the kitchen. I must be far too fond of letting my guests do all the work.” Lorraine spoke around a mouthful of sushi. “You must get out of the habit of calling everyone under thirty a young lady, John. You’re not that old!”
The perfect opportunity - Mia said innocently: “How old are you really John? Forty-one, forty-two?”
Lorraine was delighted. “Well that’s what I always tell him. He thinks he’s ancient and you think he’s only forty-one!”
John frowned a mock warning at Lorraine. “You’re out of order young lady! It’s rude to discuss how old I am in front of others.” He turned to Mia. “I am a bit older than I look – I’ve just had my 49th birthday. When you get that close to the half-century you start reflecting on life – Lorraine prefers to call it pontificating.”
As if by common consent they continued casual conversation until they had finished eating and were ready to sit down with a cup of coffee and then Thomas set the ball rolling.
“Mia’s filled me in on what happened yesterday, when you met. But I haven’t heard the details of the call she had tonight from that journalist - perhaps you could tell us now, Mia?”
Mia put her coffee cup down and thought for a moment. She wanted to tell them verbatim what had been said and she repeated the phone conversation slowly, pausing now and then to make sure she got it right.
“I think that’s it and with the exact words we used. I wouldn’t like to put a spin on it, because it’s important we can somehow suss out how much she knows, from what she said. I know who told her, I’m sure we all do. That comment about documentation and witnesses could only have come from one of the team and there’s only one person, who wants the story to get into the news.”
Lorraine had sat quietly studying her fingernails, while Mia spoke, but now she looked up. “I think you did very well to keep your cool and not give her anything that she could get her teeth into. And that note of disbelief and ridicule was good. She would be left wondering if the story really is true or if her informant’s set her up. I think you should continue to say that you’ve no idea what people are talking about, if it ever comes up again.”
Thomas was thinking along other lines. “Mia told me that all the documentation is to be kept together and I’m happy to let her keep it in my safe, but there’s the little matter of the CD that was sent to the Irwings. And I’d like to feel sure that Miles didn’t manage to take any photos with his mobile when the document was signed.”
It was obvious that nobody had thought of this - they all cast their minds back to the evening at the police station - Mia could visualise the scene amazingly clearly.
“Well, all the others were focusing on me and on the document, but I have a very clear picture of where everyone stood and how people moved in relation to each other and to the table. At the start I told them what I wanted them to witness and everyone was looking at me, but I was looking round at their faces and nobody had a mobile or a camera in their hands - well apart from Paul, of course. Then people moved round the table to read the document and to sign it and I continued to watch them from the sidelines, because I wanted to make sure everyone signed and dated their signatures. I feel really confident that Miles never had anything in his hands apart from when he put his hand in his pocket and produced the sealing wax I’d asked for.”