by G. S. Bailey
He drifted off to sleep with the idea he should play it cool.
Chapter 20
Clair looked across the breakfast table at Brent. “And that’s it?” she challenged him, scoffing and giggling. “Some bloody cop you are!”
Brent handed over the single sheet of paper. It was crumpled and had been in his pocket for a few days. There were two lines of type:
1984 Ford LTD – PRY177 – registration 12.04.1986 – Charles Mulvane
1984 Ford LTD – PRY177 – registration 12.04.1985 – Hogue Mulvane
Brent frowned defensively. “Well, what else was I supposed to find out about? The car belonged to Charles, and he left everything to the widow. It belongs to her and she’s got it.”
“Why did—” Clair checked the paper, “—Hogue Mulvane sell the car to Charles?”
“I think Hogue was the brother who went missing,” Amanda offered.
“My brother sold me a car once,” Brent pointed out.
“Yes, but neither of you were then murdered, were you?” Clair said to him. “This is juicy!”
Brent was rubbing his mouth. “Yeah, I guess.”
“Mandy, tell him he has to help me,” Clair pled. “He’ll do it if you say so.”
“I will help you!” the guy said, blushing. “I am helping!”
Amanda sat on his lap. Clair smiled at them both. “Well, we need to know why the car was sold in the first place and why the widow has it hidden away.”
Clair ended up alone at her shop that morning. David had helped her get organized with paint and equipment to do the job, but there was a break in the weather, and he had to get some of his own work done.
Clair started with the shop, she had chosen an old shirt and jeans that could be ruined without concern. She had her hair in a scarf and rubber gloves on.
She was thrilled to be there alone all day just dreaming along, imagining what would be going where and how she was going to establish a business of her own. Amanda called in for a few hours later in the day, and they chatted about what the town needed from a florist, about how people had to go out of town to find someone to do a wedding, or even a funeral. There were wedding planners and funeral services that Clair needed to become known by. She would need to start building a marketing platform there. There were already people poking their heads in the door as they walked by—saying how a florist was such a good idea.
Clair noticed a change in David over the next few days. He was still as affectionate. He was always near her, cuddling and kissing her, but he had become kind of tame. Her period had finished, and he hadn’t tried to drag her off anywhere. Tarzan was nowhere to be seen, although he may simply not have been aware her period had ended.
She pulled into the driveway one afternoon and found him sitting on the front step talking to a woman. Clair recognised his ex-girlfriend, and as she approached, her heart quickened. She met the other woman’s eyes as David introduced her. She smiled and attempted to walk up the steps and disappear into the house, but David caught her hand and encouraged her to sit with him.
Clair sat, and David put his arm around her and continued talking as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on. Clair settled there, holding his hand in her lap while the other woman’s gaze darted here and there, and she was soon on her way.
“Is Mandy home?” Clair whispered to David.
“No. She’s out somewhere with Brent.”
Clair whispered again. “Do you want to have turns?”
“Shit, yeah!” he said, tickling her and making her jump and squeal, and he chased her inside and tackled her onto his bed.
“What did she want?” Clair asked as she was being kissed and undressed.
“She was just walking past and stopped to say hello.”
“Is that all?”
He had taken a nipple into his mouth. He looked up from there. “You jealous?”
“Yes,” Clair admitted.
He smiled then returned to her breasts. He had her bra pushed up, baring them. He moved from one to the other, teasing her nipples and biting softly before sucking them into his big, warm mouth.
Clair closed her eyes and got into that easily. She lifted for him to strip her paint jeans and underwear. It seemed he was going first, which was fine. He ended up kneeling then standing to undress himself. She watched him, naked below the waist with her knees swayed together and biting on a finger, deliberately, teasingly. He chuckled then crawled on top of her. He was nude, and he lifted her shirt and bra roughly over her head, rendering her completely naked also.
He kissed her deeply, passionately, stirring her. He kissed her mouth then her neck, then he moved to her breasts again. He licked her skin as he tasted her belly, and he swung around as he parted her thighs and kissed her wetly and deeply, searching inside of her with his tongue and lifting and holding her while he did that.
His body was then offset to hers with his penis by her face. It was drooping there, partially engorged but not fully. She claimed it as her clitoris was being tongued and firmly massaged. She took the head in and sucked on it as it expanded and firmed.
Clair gripped the man’s head buried between her thighs absolutely mauling her. She clung to her boyfriend as her orgasm pulsed through her belly and his erupted in her mouth. She then showered and ate, and was taken back to bed and made love to through the night, passionately at first, then sensually in a warm and tender embrace.
She was taken to bed each of the three remaining nights she spent at David’s house before her furniture arrived and she was set up in her own, familiar surrounds again. David stayed over that first night as well, but they talked and decided there was no rush.
“No, you need to settle in and make your new home the way you want it, honey,” he offered sincerely. It was the first time he had used any sort of pet-name, other than the occasional ‘baby’ when he was being cheeky. Clair didn’t mind ‘honey’.
That first morning after fully moving into her new flat, Clair was left alone. She did a big shopping and set out fresh flowers. She sat there looking at her work, feeling proud and pleased with herself. She wasn’t ready to start serious plans for her shop as yet, and there was still her college course and the assignment she was due to email off.
She pulled the neglected Mulvane folder from the suitcase where it had been stashed under her clothes the past week. She had pushed it completely out of mind and had trouble getting back into it. She re-read the summary from the local police, which offered no conclusion, just that all evidence had been processed and statements taken, and that the matter was completely open. She browsed her notes from interviews with Morgan Oldfield and John Phillips. She had neglected to make any notes after speaking with the widow, but she remembered most of that. She opened the page from Brent that she had stuck in the folder. She wondered whether he would have anything more about the car yet. He had been away on some training course and was due back that night.
Clair took the folder and jumped in her little red car. She decided she needed to get a feel for what she was doing. She drove to the main road and parked at the corner where the widow’s driveway branched off. She walked up with her folder in hand and ducked through the brush to confront her grandparents’ old house.
She was there alone this time. It felt like a confrontation. The spooky, old building stood there daring her to enter. She approached, looking up at it, and climbed the stairs to turn the handle on the front door and push it inward.
Clair took a breath and entered the house. She could still only conjure vague memories of ever being there before. She walked up the stairs and to the window that offered her a reminder of those days twenty years ago and the child the widow remembered. She sat on the window ledge and opened the folder she had in her hand.
Morgan Oldfield had given three accounts of the death of Charles Mulvane. The town was split over whether the widow killed him, or whether John Phillips killed him. Morgan had been at sea when news broke of the murder. He had heard about it over
the radio with the fishermen passing on details of the police being unable to find John Phillips. He was apparently out of town at the time of the murder, conveniently, Morgan had suggested to Clair. Many believed he truly was visiting an old Navy buddy in Melbourne, a man who had corroborated his alibi. But it was also a man who had served alongside John for years and would probably have done anything for him. Those who did believe that story were firmly of the opinion that the widow did the deed herself—that she was an evil, cold hearted woman capable of such an act, and that she had been siphoning off tax-free money from the business Charles Mulvane had built from the ground up, and that she would one day vanish with her daughter and her long-time lover.
Another school of thought had an intruder set on vengeance and the collection of antique jewellery that Mulvane kept in his safe, someone perhaps linked at a deeper level to the extended Mulvane family. The jewellery was purported to be valued in the millions, and would have served as a fine motive all on its own, and there were apparently questionable business dealings in the family history that would perhaps encourage an assailant to do away with Mulvane while they pocketed the treasure. The police file had this as a plausible explanation for the murder and robbery. The idea had never gained much traction amongst the townsfolk, though.
Clair looked up from her folder and saw herself on a rope swing beneath the tree beside the old garage. It was an image she had not conjured up before. She remembered the creak of the tree branch and the leaves in the clouds as she swung with her head back. She remembered the fence that used to be there, just beyond the garage. There was no spiked iron fence back then. It was only a wire net that sagged from a single strand of rusty wire, and they used to climb between the single strand and the sagging net—she and the dark haired girl from the mansion, or castle as they called it.
Clair remembered Princess Song but couldn’t see her face. She remembered her as a feeling of fear and dread, as a part of something dark and forbidden.
Oh, my, what is that? She implored of herself—of her hazy, disjointed mind. There was something right there, but she couldn’t grasp it. She just shivered at the feel of it creeping through her.
The image of swinging beneath the tree had gone. It had faded and scurried off like the fragments of a dream. She shivered off the lingering feel of dread and walked into the other bedroom to peer out that window at the overgrown yard and rusted clothes-line. There was nothing of use to her there, but as she opened her folder again, the rusted clip of fuel accounts from the old lighthouse fell on the floor.
She picked them up and looked at the name, N. D. Cornish, recalling that it was the widow’s father who had lived in the old lighthouse. She thought of the white beacon on top of the headland and remembered the rock faces on the way into the cove last week.
There was something there. It was a part of the dark awful mass that surrounded the girl she used to play with. What the hell? Clair churned in anguish as she tried to dig at whatever it was burrowed deep in her childhood. Who are you people? she challenged, looking at the fuel accounts again and deciding she needed to go back to the lighthouse.
She walked quickly once out of the house, with a cold shiver dancing down her spine. She got in her car and drove through town and up onto the headland. She took the folder and ducked through the bent gates. She didn’t feel ill at ease with the lighthouse. It was an interesting and familiar building with no sense of fear or dread surrounding her as she entered.
She walked through the rooms, as she had done the last time. All was as it was then. It was lifeless and cold, a story bleached by sand and salt. She entered the light tower and found herself noticing the red brickwork under the stairs again. It was the only thing at all significant about the place. She closed her eyes and was sure she remembered a metal door, like a trapdoor, and the idea of crawling into a confined space.
Clair approached the stairs and squatted down to reach beneath them. She touched the underside of the wooden step with its rusted metal support frame, thinking of bumping her head and getting hair caught in the metal work. She touched the bricks and thought of the metal door with a perimeter of bolts and a shiny handle. The handle was shiny enough to see your reflection and it was cold and smooth.
Again, though, that flash of memory didn’t carry the feeling of dread. That was a part of the fun princess game she used to play. She remembered that game when she climbed up the stairs and looked out at the cove and the mansion on the other headland. It was a fun, happy game, but there was something encompassing it, something Clair just could not get a grip on.
She needed to get a grip, though. She needed to get her assignment done, and she tossed the folder back in her car and drove home.
Her excursion had been effective. She spent an hour and typed up a draft of her assignment that read pretty well. She wondered, though, if perhaps Brent had anything more about the Mulvane brother and the car. She was determined to get her assignment into an email and sent off that night, but just to be sure, she called Amanda to check.
“Yeah, he’s back,” Amanda said. “Hang on a minute.”
She could be heard talking with her boyfriend in the background.
“Yes, he has. He’s got a whole lot of stuff about that for you. Do you want us to come over?”
“No, I’ll drop around,” Clair said. “Is now okay? I want to get this stupid assignment done.”
“Yeah—sure! We’re going to order pizza. Do you want some?”
“No, I want to cook and eat in my house tonight,” Clair said. “I’ll see you in a minute.”
She hurried around and wondered if she should knock. She kind of did and opened the door at the same time. “Hi!” she called out. There were voices in the kitchen. “Hi, Brent, Mandy.”
“Hi, snoop,” Brent replied. “I’ve got some interesting stuff for you this time.”
Clair sat down.
“Okay, first off, the brother, Hogue Mulvane, disappeared about three months after the Murder of Charles Mulvane here at the mansion. And he was a suspect!”
“A suspect?” Clair repeated with interest.
“Damn right he was. He was busted flat broke. He got his name off the car just before declaring bankruptcy, along with cashing in some other assets, a boat and another car as well. And he owned a transport company that had gone into receivership.”
Brent passed Clair an envelope. “It’s all in there,” he said. “And get this—his house burned down at the time he was last seen in Melbourne, which was a huge mansion insured to the family and worth megabucks! But not in his private name. It was set up through company deals that the banks couldn’t touch.”
“So, he disappears with a bankroll, never to be seen again?” Clair suggested. “Is that what the police think?”
“Well, that’s how it looks. And there’s the possibility he bumped off his brother for the family heirlooms and in the hope he was in the will, which he wasn’t as it turned out.”
Amanda was listening on. “Awesome, huh?”
“Juicy!” Clair agreed. “Good stuff for my assignment, except I have to rewrite half of it now… Thank you so much, Brent. I really appreciate this.”
Clair passed the pizza delivery guy at the door. She hurried home and tossed the envelope at her computer then made her dinner. She kind of missed David already, but they actually did have all the time in the world.
Clair ate her dinner and took a second glass of wine to the other side of the table where her computer was set up. She turned it on and opened her assignment file. She would have to chop it up and rewrite quite a lot of it to include this new information.
She opened the large yellow envelope and took out the stapled pages. A photograph slipped out and fell to the table. It was a photograph of a man’s face—a face that reached into her chest and ripped her heart out.
Chapter 21
Clair stared at the face of the monster who had stalked her all of her life. The face had never been in the light before. It had always bee
n in shadow. It had lurked and come for her when she slept. It was the horror palpitating in her heart when she woke through the night. It was the malevolent presence in all darkness, in the terrifying shiver that crept up her spine. It was the face of the evil that towered over her, that trapped her and held her when she needed to run.
Clair clutched the photo and ran to her car. She knew what she had to do. There was a knot clenching her chest, and tears dripped from her face. She pulled up at the intercom box at the iron gates of the mansion. She tried to speak, but her chest convulsed and a sob was all that came out.
She gathered some fortitude and pressed the button again. “Mrs Mulvane, I have to speak with you!” she got out with some authority. “Please, I must speak with you right now!”
There was silence then a crackling sound emitting from the intercom. “Who is it?” a soft voice asked.
Clair sniffled. “It’s Clair Wells, Mrs Mulvane. Please, I need to speak with you!”
The gate clunked and swung slowly back. Clair drove through and stopped in front of the steps. The door opened, and the widow emerged with her arms folded and a look that was comparable to the way Clair felt.
Clair walked to her, confronting her on the steps. She stuck the photograph in front of the woman’s face. “Who is this?” she said, swallowing at the shudder of her chest.
There was something in the widow’s eyes. It was terror wrenched in regret. “Oh, dear,” she cried in anguish. “Oh, no… Sweetheart, no!”
Clair couldn’t contain her dread. Her chest was so tight, and the ache in the base of her throat gave way to sobbing. “Who is he?” she cried. “Who is that?”
The widow was shaking her head. “Sweetheart, we didn’t know. We found you but we didn’t know.”
“What didn’t you know? Who found me?”
Clair was regaining some composure. The widow had a hand over her mouth. The hand was shaking. There was such sadness in her eyes.