Darkness more visible

by Finola Moorhead

  'I don't know, a few hours. I don't think I've done anything much. All I can hope is your memory of your son is better for knowing, that's all.'

  'Yes, perhaps,' she murmured as she closed the roller door. She wasn't satisfied.

  In the house, I stood at the floor-to-ceiling glass looking out. The moon must be up, but muddied by cloud. Street-lights were smudgy blots in the dusk.

  'I'll be able to sleep,' she said harshly. Or hoarsely. I turned around to watch her finish the sentence. 'If you do something about this laboratory.'

  Shocking me, she slapped the envelope on the palm of her hand with a smack. 'You have all the material. You know where it is. Are you going to accept this state of affairs? Police corruption? Accidental death? Neil's plan to sabotage their navigation systems, or plant an incendiary device, or whatever it is, was aborted. Through no fault of his own. I can assure you, Margot Gorman, he would have worked it out to the last detail. The formula will be in his computer files. He recorded everything.'

  There was life in these sterile mansions after all. A few days ago I would not have thought it possible, but now, yes, I could do something if I wanted to.

  'I would like to know more about this activity off the coast,' I acceded simply, putting a sinister overtone on the word 'activity'.

  'Good,' said Penny Waughan, the efficient teacher. She went over to the sideboard and flicked on a lamp which lit a tree of pottery cups. Her cheque book was in her handbag on a chair nearby.

  'I'm happy now,' she said as she wrote her signature. 'I have a new cleaner.'

  Evidently she was aware of a tidiness and dustlessness that I wasn't or she would not have thought of it.

  'Oh? Really?' I was surprised. 'Alison doesn't do it any more?'

  'No. She put me onto a wonderful Aboriginal woman who sits down and chats with me. Iris. I find her more friend than cleaner. She brings me presents.' She smiled for the first time since I'd known her.

  A natural gossip, Penny told me that Alison had had a breakdown. She actually laughed when she said, 'She never did much cleaning, anyway. Paid Iris, apparently. Here you are, Margot. And thanks.'

  Five hundred dollars. I folded the cheque into the back pocket of my black jeans and stepped forward, opening arms for a warm hug. Grief overwhelmed me; we both wept. I would have more to do with Penny Waughan.

  For the minute, I was eager to get home as I was flooding and smelling of blood. My period had come three days early. Virginia's dual-cab ute was in my yard. Tow-bar and roof-racks I noticed. A fan of caked red earth behind each mud-guard, chassis high off the ground, windscreen glistening clean, pearling the raindrops. No bumper-bar stickers. VeeDub was exciting to have around the house because one didn't know what she would come out with next. I told her the gist of my meeting with Penny Waughan. Her lively mind took it all in, and up a notch or two.

  'Action stations!' she barked, like the second mate on a ship.

  I made a couple of phone calls. When I was having a shower, she walked into the bathroom, incidentally gathering the dirty clothes on the floor and putting them in the laundry basket, saying, apropos of whatever was going on in her head, 'You know the Christian tenet "by your friends shall you know him"?'

  'What?' I yelled.

  She repeated it, and continued, 'Well, for us.'

  'Gurls, you mean?' I decided that there was no embarrassment in letting her watch me wash my naked form, and, scrubbing my knickers, listened.

  'Yeah, I've often thought about that,' she opined, leaning on the steamy mirror.

  'But this is hardly the time for theological theory. We got work to do,' I shouted.

  'For us it is, "by her family shall you know her".' With that she left me to my ablutions. There was some kind of collective consciousness happening here because that was a reflection, a sort of meditative echo of the exchange we'd had over brunch. I let it play in my head like a theme in a concerto taken up by the orchestra. As I was drying myself I called out for her to go to my boxes of wine and choose some. Half-dressed, I made another phone call.

  'Hi, Lois, can I speak to Thrust?' I knew my voice was abrupt but she recognised urgency when she heard it and called him.

  The fisherman took his time but his explanation was clear and I scribbled notes with a rough map of the estuary on my pad.

  'By the way,' I said, 'are you using your dinghy tonight?'

  'Of course not.' He was amused at my ignorance. 'Never fish when the moon is coming up full.' I thought it was the weather.

  A delicate request, I asked could I borrow it for the night. I used too many words, reminding myself that tradesmen hate lending their tools, but these people are generous to a fault. Ten minutes later I was in the passenger seat of Virginia's car driving through the rain, giving directions. Both my pushbikes were installed under a tarpaulin on the tray, along with wetsuits, raincoats, towels and sweaters. We stopped outside Lois's cottage, bipped, then VeeDub backed the ute towards the garage. The boat-trailer was ever-ready to be lowered onto a tow-ball. Thrust strolled out and rustled up a can of petrol in case we needed it, shaking his head.

  'Bad evening,' he commented.

  'Yeah, mate,' I concurred. 'Big tides predicted.'

  'It's the water coming down the streams you want to watch. They got an inch up the mountains. We're in for a flood. Mark my words.' This taciturn man could talk about the weather till the cows came home, always with a lugubrious spin. Perhaps it was all he thought about, and the infinite mystery of marine life in his immediate vicinity. However I did not have time.

  'Thanks,' I said. 'We probably won't use it.'

  As we pulled up at the punt-port, the last of the cars was rolling onto the ferry. We just made it.

  My romantic dinner with Chandra transmogrified into a council of war at a large round table with a lazy susan in the middle. Six different Chinese dishes, predominantly seafood, a cauldron of steaming white rice, chopsticks, little bowls and tinier identical ones for weak tea made the board look as busy as our business. I called for wine glasses.

  Present were: Chandra in her wheelchair; Rory, who had ordered Mongolian lamb which proved more popular than expected; Alison, looking puffy; Meghan, who gave me a cheque which reminded me I had left the other one in my black jeans; Virginia, who in raiding my cellar had come up with a reliable Riesling and a cheeky Merlot; and myself who had downed a Naprogesic for menstrual cramp but was otherwise pumped. We had the restaurant to ourselves except for transient customers who doorsat until presented with stacks of containers in plastic bags to take away. Incurious they were, probably thought 'girls' night out', not amazed by a pack of Amazons plotting. Nevertheless, I noticed I was not the only one among us to check. Remarking on that, I said, 'I still have the feeling that Tiger Cat is hanging around.'

  'Prowling,' joked Alison.

  Agreeing that food was the immediate consideration, we ate as we tossed around ideas as to what to do. The laboratory was situated at the edge of the airstrip. The cruiser was moored in the mangroves somewhere near there. Probably, we reckoned, tied up to the wharf of an oyster shucking shed. As the banks of the delta are muddy there would be a pier of some sort.

  'If I were them,' conjectured Rory, 'and my electronic gadgetry was aboardship, I'd weigh anchor and come ashore in a row-boat.'

  The way she said it had us in stitches. 'So,' she continued seriously, 'I'm keeping my operations separate: technology at sea, chemistry in the lab. It's a hangar, is it?'

  'Not really,' answered Meghan. 'There are a few warehouses along there. For hire. The company rented one for me to put my car when I'm on a job. I still have the key, actually. If you had a small plane you weren't using you wanted to keep under cover, I suppose you could call them hangars. But, basically, the ones down that end are for storage. The Flying School and a couple of charter companies have the bigger ones, you know? The road to the left? You take the right to the car park?'

  She was interrupted by Alison exclaiming, 'Lo and behold!'
/>   'Speak of the devil.'

  'When witches get together they can magick up anything,' Rory put in as we all listened to Catherine Tobin at the counter ordering Honey Prawns, Crispy Lemon Chicken and a large Special Fried Rice to go.

  'Not eating alone, either,' calculated Chandra.

  But it was Virginia who led our charade. 'Hey, Tiger Cat,' she greeted. 'Sister triathlete, how are you going?'

  'Pull up a chair,' I invited. I formally introduced Dr Featherstone and Chandra Williams, saying, 'You've met Rory and Alison?'

  Tiger Cat did not want to join us. She said, 'Hi,' reluctantly and stayed where she was. But she had no dignified choices; either cop a dozen eyes staring at her blush, or pace up and down outside in the rain. Even as thick a skin as the Cat's could not resist our attention. Rory lifted her out of her misery, almost physically. She went over, grabbed her arm, brought her to our table, kicking a chair into her path, and genially offered her a beer.

  As Rory was twisting the top, I attacked, leaning forward, conspiratorially, 'When I was with my DC friend the other day. In his office. You know he's working for the deputy coroner? Anyway, he took a call. I don't know what it was about, but he said, and I quote, "one of your friends". What did he mean?'

  Chandra was horrified. 'You're not a police informer, are you?' she asked Tiger Cat, who could not withstand the onslaught of her indignation.

  'Not me,' she squeaked a specious laugh. 'You want to know who that is?'

  Half a dozen heads nodded eagerly.

  Tiger Cat relaxed. 'You'll never guess.' She took a swig of beer from the stubby. 'The Larrikin.'

  We took in her smug satisfaction of grassing on a grass without comment. Her food arrived at the counter. The discreet Asian woman left it there and returned to the kitchen.

  Alison broke the look-lock with, 'Cool drugs you were handing out at the Spiders' barbecue. Got any more?' She would have convinced me she was stoned, but Tiger Cat's yellow eyes greasily slid from left to right, ending up on her dinner next to the cash register.

  Meghan who doesn't drink, smoke cigarettes or marijuana, or indulge in heavier drugs, hissed, 'Got any speed?' She whipped a twenty-dollar bill out of her wallet and pushed it towards the bottle, saying, 'You deal, right?'

  Rory groaned, 'Put it away, Megs.' But she picked up the currency note and played with the money. 'Tiger Cat gets them for nothing.'

  'Well, that is really curious,' Chandra said. 'Because I always thought, and it's only my opinion, that individuals in the drug scene were really mean. Like they kill people who don't pay. I often wonder what they do with their money, you know? Like apart from paying each other to kill each other?'

  Virginia frowned in agreement. 'Power, it's about power, Chandra. They don't care about money, per se.'

  'No,' argued Chandra. 'It's about money.'

  They kept this up while Rory grinned at Tiger Cat, daring her to get up and leave us. There was a meal for two on the counter, and whoever that other person was they would be expecting their Chinese hot. But the Cat was hypnotised. Alison took out her pouch, got up and said, 'I think I'll have a joint.' She went outside.

  'You are in a cleft stick,' I said to my academy colleague. 'You know me, honest as the day is long. You told Sean I was a snout.' She was about to object, because it wasn't true, but thought better of it. 'Well, I have a couple of choices here. Like you.' I pushed my chair back. 'Either, get you charged.' I walked to the front of the café, picked up the bag of take-away and looked out the window. Alison came in the door after that, telling me there was a man waiting in a car.

  'A man!' I exclaimed as we returned to the table. Alison nodded and I finished my sentence to Tiger Cat, 'Or you tell me the truth.'

  'The whole truth and nothing but the truth,' piped up Meghan.

  What a dill, presumed the eyes of the Cat.

  'There's power over,' debated Virginia.

  'And power of,' Chandra interrupted.

  Rory joined their play-acting. 'But it is all cowardly.'

  Placing the plastic bag between my elbows on the table, I rested my chin on the heels of my palms. 'I'll let you go back to him, with the food and with a neat story about a bunch of friends wanting a chat, giving you a beer, whatever, when you explain how you managed to acquire free pills so that you could glad-hand your way into the gay and lesbian community of the Paradise Coast, either to whip up investment in your girlfriend's banking enterprise or to pay for your own habit, and why.'

  'How and why,' she echoed, realising that suddenly all the artifice of my friends had dropped into attentive silence. 'What do you want to know?'

  'Your friends, the rich paedophiles?' I stabbed in the dark. 'Tell us about the Friday night two boys died.'

  The thing about self-serving liars is they are generous with information they think is not going to hurt them personally. 'In the afternoon,' she began, 'there was to be a party on the yacht. It turned into a fizzer because the lads didn't turn up. The millionaire guy had ordered some fresh meat, boys he hadn't met before and wouldn't meet again. It's getting hairy for those chaps these days. They've got to stay anonymous. He gets someone to move his yacht from port to port. He arrives by plane, usually with some mates. The deal is, boys introduce boys, and disappear. They're pretty well compensated, but the kids know nothing. He's a real arsehole with a hell of an operation. Treats everybody like scum. He was furious. Arriving and nothing doing. Made the trip for nothing.' She laughed. 'Gets back in his plane and flies away. Everyone's shitting themselves, heads will roll. Anyway, one of my contacts gives me a call. A bunch of pills have no place to go. Like they're not on the market yet. No one will touch stuff they don't know. Like it's got to be GBH, heroin or whatever. You've got to know what you're taking. He assured me they were okay, just had not been established. Didn't have a name. Never will take off, in my opinion. They're still working on it.'

  'You picked them up, where? You knew this Spiders do was happening and you thought you'd spread them around?' I urged her to continue.

  'When this bloke says they're harmless, they're harmless. He's a hell of a chemist. I trust him on that score. He's a weasel, but a wizard in the lab.'

  'You wanted to get in with the gays so you give out free drugs, thinking that would be good PR?'

  'I was not targeting people who didn't use. Everyone had a good time with them, at the barbecue and the dance. As for getting investors in the bank, I was not so successful. Different clientele.' Tiger Cat gazed at me brazenly. 'You can't get me for dealing, Margot. They were free. And if anyone comes forward and pins me, I'll deny it and they won't have proof.'

  'Who's at the factory now?' Meghan shot the question sharply. 'Tonight?'

  'How many people are on the boat?' fired Virginia.

  'Quickly,' said Alison. 'He was looking impatient.'

  Catherine Tobin aka Tiger Cat gave us the information we required. The guy opened the door, searching the place. She held up her stubby with admirable bravado and indicated she was coming. I handed over the munchies I had hostage. And she left in a hurry.

  The waitress-cook reckoned the chief eating had been done so she cleared the table. We took advantage of the space. I redrew the map of the estuary, filling in the airport, the roads, the track down to the oyster lease and shucking shed, the probable position of the cruiser. Where the party was to be and Neil's exact intention were matters of conjecture. But we agreed the yacht was the safest and most obvious place. The pederasts fly in, victims already on board, food, crackers, drugs and grog, courtesy of the providence of the captain; they motor off for fun and pleasure, completely free of scrutiny either at sea or in the harbour or up any of the arms of the Campbell River delta. Easy, so easy. But what, in this scenario, was master Waughan going to do? Were the girl's clothes to get him on board to be chucked off when the boy-lovers arrived, having tampered with the electronics, navigation gear, electrics, computer? Or was his costume a matter of ignorance, thinking he would be more attractive as a tra
nsvestite? Did he think they would not expect a girl to have his expertise or warlike intent? The answers were somewhere. Meghan's laptop PC, with an internal modem and digital connection, was impressive but not nearly as much as she was herself utilising its keyboard and calculating power to test our hypotheses. Chandra suggested we needed access to the hard drive of Neil's computer. Meghan passed her mobile phone to Alison to ring Penny and get her to have a look. I reckoned Penny would be only too keen and probably proficient enough to comply. We agreed to assess the boy's plan on its merits, and if it was unworkable, do a bit of sabotage of our own invention.

  'Hi, sweetheart,' Alison cooed. We all did a double-take and frowned questions at each other. 'Are you, darling? That's good, isn't it? Okay. See you in a little while.' She took the handpiece away from her ear, read it face up and pressed a button. Then she explained, 'Tilly and Lenny are with Iris and they're all at Penny's. Tilly's watching cartoon connection on satellite TV. I've got to go over there.'

  'That's better, actually.' I brought out my notes. 'You're familiar with his Internet connections if we need them. You can keep contact with us telephonically. And Penny could help. She definitely wants revenge on these predators. You could work together. She knew her son, how he would think, how he would feel. She was convinced he would have a clear plan written down.' I reached down for the print-outs. 'Having not studied these in this light, with this objective, anyway,' I shrugged, 'I don't know.'

  Chandra picked the pages up, glanced at them and handed the folder over to Meghan, whose razor-brain sliced through the sheets with the odd nod and mm.

  'Know what questions to ask?'

  Meghan said, 'Ah ha.'

  Alison collected her things and stood up. 'Better go. I'll be more with it when I'm sitting down in front of the screen, when I'm a totally mental being. Right now, I'm stuffed.'

  Meghan closed the folder. 'Have you been through his desktop?'

  'Not all of it. There are a lot of games I wasn't interested in. I didn't take any notice of the school work either. What the hell is Iris doing, taking my kids over there? I'm paying her for baby-sitting.' Alison frowned. 'They should be asleep.'