by Tia Reed
“A stone carving?” Ella asked.
“Wood,” Tina volunteered, ignoring the Travellians’ cautionary look.
So it turned out the mason was violent, though she was lost as to why he might want to destroy a gift from friends. “Perhaps the workmanship was not up to his standards?”
“It was expensive,” Tina said.
“A limited edition,” Mr Travellian sighed, as though resigned to having the mason’s vices outed.
“Mr Travellian.” They needed to get back to the line of questioning most likely to produce results. “Don’t you want to do everything in your power to find Joanne?”
Mr Travellian swayed. “Jean, if there’s any chance . . .”
“No. Mr Genord has been nothing but kind, and Romain . . .” She made a helpless gesture at the stone head. Her husband put his arm around her.
“Would you consider levelling it off and letting me take the unfinished section to the police?”
“If it can done without causing any damage to the statue itself . . . Now, Jean.” At his wife’s squeak of protest, he placed a hand on each of her shoulders.
Ella swept the splinter of wood into her tote, wriggled through the stunned group into the hall, and bolted out the front door. The gardener looked up as she ran across the road.
“You need help? They try and brainwash you?”
“Look, the Travellians are grieving in their own way. Give them another couple of months, and it will all be back to normal. I was wondering if I could borrow your saw.”
He looked at her with more suspicion than when she arrived. “There isn’t a body in there that needs cutting up? This doesn’t cut skin. Only brick and the like.”
“No body, but there is a clue as to who might be murdering those poor innocent girls. Your grandchildren aren’t girls, are they?”
“Oooh.” He waggled his head with a grimace that told her she had pressed the right buttons. “It cost me ten bucks. Am I going to get it back? Without blood on it. Don’t need no police coming round and accusing me of murder when I already put up with the likes of them.”
She fished into her purse and pressed a twenty into his hand.
HAVING DELIVERED THE piece of bust to the police, Ella put the Chinese takeaway on the kitchen table. She found Tilly curled up on the sofa, and rubbed a finger under her chin. Apart from her cat’s blissful purrs, the house was silent. She changed into the jeans and polo neck she had bought that morning, inexplicably disappointed that Adam wasn’t home. She had hoped for a second take on last night when they had cuddled in front of the television during the unseasonable showers and talked about the case. She dialled his mobile, but it went to voice mail. She left a quick message then found he had left her one. It sounded like his efforts to track down genetic engineers nationwide had left him in no doubt that, as much as certain scientists would revel in creating a new species, the facilities, technology, and funding to produce a mutant hybrid just did not exist. Two hours after the message said he would be home, Ella picked up the landline and pressed redial.
Adam’s mother had not seen him since lunch, but Adam had practically torn the guest room apart searching for the bracelet, and no, it was not in the house. His supervisor at the university, when Ella had located the number among the disorganised pile of papers on the kitchen table, said he had enjoyed a detailed discussion with Adam about genetic engineering around mid-afternoon, but Adam had given no indication of where he might be headed next. When he suggested some of Adam’s favourite bat watching haunts with unbridled enthusiasm and no concern, Ella thanked him, scribbled a note, grabbed the car keys, and sped down to the Port, amazed that she had been presentable enough to head straight out the front door.
The car park in front of the church was deserted. She swallowed as a black cloud drifted past the moon, throwing the grotesque perched above the dragon head gargoyle into silvery light. The statue sporting a lion head, not a beak. She blinked. Twice. The mason had better decide where he wanted those statues because “Gargoyles Alive!” was just the sort of headline the Informer would relish printing. She reversed, watching it rather than the road on the off chance it decided to metamorphose into the creature that had attacked her. Berating herself for an out-and-out coward did nothing to help her gain courage, but opening the door and checking the copse and church was out of the question. Her excuse, she told herself, was that Adam’s car was not here. Just to be on the safe side, she drove round and into the shopping centre car park. The supermarkets were long past closed, but she didn’t need to check the licence plate to know the battered station wagon at the western end was Adam’s.
It was empty. She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved about that. She dialled the police, reported a missing person, and waited for them to arrive.
“Aren’t bats active at night?” the middle-aged cop asked when she gave Adam’s occupation. “How long have you known each other?”
Her protests that he wouldn’t leave her ten increasingly desperate messages unanswered had to have shattered her credibility, but they were kind enough to check the copse while she waited. The church, they said, was locked. His job, they reiterated, was a nocturnal one and there was no evidence of foul play. In other words, she was better off at the house in case he showed up because it was women going missing.
Except the house was as dark and empty as when she had left it save for the warning flash on the answer-phone. She hit the play button and listened to Mrs Lowell’s concerned voice. A few seconds later she held the handset to her chest as she considered what to tell Adam’s mother.
Chapter Twelve
27th October. Early Evening.
A BELL TINKLED as Ella pushed open the glass door to the Gumnut Woodcarving Academy. Since the battered front desk was unattended, she turned to admire the unpainted rocking horse in the front window. Various corbels lay in sweet-smelling sawdust beside it, but it was the foot high carving of a knight in armour that imbued the place with an old world charm. And made her hope woodcarving school number five would yield results because, with three more listed in the Yellow Pages, it was unlikely she was going to get to them all today.
As for the holographic companies, she hadn’t even started poking around those. A quick Google search this morning had turned up a couple of the businesses around the city. From what she had seen on the web they would be more than capable of projecting a dragon, but the wooden fragment she had found at the church had seemed a more concrete lead. Wood left evidence. Light didn’t.
She was thinking of stealing out back when a trim, white-haired man in dusty clothes walked through.
“Can I help you?”
“Um . . . ,” she said, blinking at his bent nose. It reminded her of the beaked grotesque, though his gentle manner defied any notion of violence. “I’m thinking of gifting my partner a woodcarving course. I was wondering if you could show me around?”
“Come through to the workroom. We’ll be starting a session soon.”
She forced a smile at the young woman working a lathe behind a battered bench. When the strawberry blonde took a second glance, Ella turned away. Adam was still missing, the police had found nothing, she was meeting with insurance auditors at odd hours, Tilly had broken a vase in protest of being cooped up inside, and Phil kept ringing for some sort of copy. She didn’t think she could pull off this everything’s-okay act much longer because the only positive note in all this was that the police hadn’t recovered a petrified male body from the river. Thankfully, George prattled on as enthusiastically as the other proprietors had as he showed her bench, gouge, and mallet, and didn’t seem to notice her hair was falling out. She brushed the strand from her nose, tried not to freak out that on top of everything else it had a grey root, took a deep breath, and plunged in.
“Adam’s fascinated by medieval lore. I saw your knight out there, an incredible piece of work. He’d love to make something like that.” She paused. When he gave no noticeable reaction, she looked at him askance. “O
r a dragon maybe?”
George looked down his crooked nose as if she had just handed him the hook. “If it’s dragons you’re after, you should speak to one of our students. He’s become obsessed with them. A younger fellow, comes in of a night. The knight’s his work.” He led her to a ledge with an assortment of wooden items in various stages of the carving process and nodded at a small walnut dragon.
“May I?” She picked it up.
“I’m sure he’s got a few good tips to pass on. Most people want to try their hand at furniture parts, toys, and the like, but each to his own, I suppose.” George nodded at a pimply boy of about thirteen who came to pluck another dragon from the ledge.
“He’s got the young ones wanting to copy his work,” George said. The boy chuckled as he carried his project to a stool.
The dragon Ella was holding measured about the length of her forearm. Its serpentine undulations made it look more like the Loch Ness Monster than the traditional fairy tale creature. She said as much.
“Matt called it a water dragon.”
“I see.” She didn’t, but a chat with Debbie would sort her out if she could stand the earache. She squinted at the scales. They tapered at one end, the same as the wooden fragment she had picked up from the church. She was convinced it was a scale now, and it seemed a size with the scales on the dragon head that had burned down her home.
“I don’t suppose I could have Matt’s number? I’d really like to talk to him, find out how long Adam might need . . .”
“I’m afraid I can’t give you personal information.” He looked at his watch. “I’d tell you to wait half an hour or so but he’s missed the last couple of sessions.”
A hunk in his early twenties with olive skin and gorgeous velvet brown eyes sauntered in, nodded to George, greeted the strawberry blonde, and picked up a block of pine that didn’t look like anything much from one of the benches.
“Perhaps I could give you my number and you could ask him to give me a call?”
“Just a moment.” George moved around the young woman so he could see the hunk. “Tom, you don’t know if Matt is coming in tonight?” he called across the room.
“Hazy? Haven’t heard from him. Must be sick or something ’cause he’s off work.”
“Hazy?” Ella queried, looking up as she tried to recall why the name sounded familiar.
“Yeah.” Tom smiled as he ran a gouge along one corner of his block. “He’s always a bit vague.”
“Matt Hazy?”
“Give him a break,” the blonde said as the connection struck Ella.
“As in Matt Hayes?”
“He’s upset his girlfriend’s missing,” the blonde explained at the same time.
“You know him.” Tom put his hand on the bench. The chisel stuck straight out toward her. What was it with men and tools?
“He made the dragon?” They had all stopped working now. Her heart was thudding. “When was the last time anyone spoke to him?”
Tom’s mouth moved as he worked it out. “Three days ago.”
It was Ella’s turn to do the math. She was relieved it was such a simple sum because that meant she wasn’t the last known person to see Matt. Knowing that, she could face Danes.
“He was hyped ’cause some reporter interviewed him.”
“Yes. I was there.” She retrieved her mobile, scrolled through her contacts, and dialled the illicitly obtained number. It went to voicemail. “He’s not answering. Look. I’m worried. Any chance you’d come with to check up on him?”
“It’s cool. He’s got a paying project.”
“What’s this?” George asked, looking down his beaked nose. Tom answered with a cheeky smile.
“Does he have an emergency contact?” she asked.
“You’re looking at him,” Tom replied. He hadn’t resumed carving.
Ella glanced at the kid. He had slowed his work with a tool too sharp to be in the hands of a minor so he could listen. She walked up to Tom’s bench so she could use a low voice.
“I’m the reporter Matt spoke to. I’ve been investigating the Port River disappearances. My friend’s gone missing. The first girl to disappear, Cecily Williams, was his cousin. My house burned down the night after I talked to Matt. Bekka’s missing, and if Matt’s not answering . . .”
“Let’s go,” he said, picking up a jacket and flinging it over a shoulder.
George followed them into the front room. He looked worried as he scratched his crooked nose. It was disconcerting the way it reminded her of the grotesques, but then they were never out of her mind these days, and Genord had claimed Romain modelled his statues on real people.
“You haven’t been to the Church of the Resurrection, by any chance?” she asked him as Tom jingled open the door.
George raised an eyebrow. “No. Why do you ask?”
“Nothing really. Thanks for your help.”
ELLA PEEPED INSIDE the lounge room window. The curtains were open but the house still. Tom came back through the side gate after rapping on the bedroom window.
“Don’t think he’s home. No worries.” He fished a rock from under a bush, slid the base out, and produced a key. “Comes in useful after a night at the pub. Hazy’s not so good at rationing his grog,” he said as he let them in.
His finger went straight to the light switches in the lounge and kitchen. The food scraps on the unwashed dishes piled in the sink were crusted dry, and the clothes thrown over mismatched chairs stank of body odour.
Ella wandered back to the lounge while Tom checked the rest of the house. Nothing much had changed since she had been here last, except the coffee table was clear of empty cans. She stepped over the beanbag to the entertainment unit and rummaged among pirated DVDs until she found the paper Matt had confiscated.
It was a sketch of a dragon, its head crossed out in red felt pen. She couldn’t see why; it looked perfect for the body. She tilted the discs, reached behind, opened a few, but found nothing else. Just in case, she lifted the cushions from the sofa where she had first found the sketch. A white edge poked out of the bottom of one arm. She worked the paper out of a small tear, stuck her hand in, and found three more hidden in the stuffing. They were all of dragons, though the artist had not drawn the same one twice. The obsession bordered on childish, but in her book an artist that left his sketches headless was psychopath material. Still, she had a hard time crediting sloppy Matt Hayes with stashing a girl’s headless body. That left whoever had commissioned the job.
Tom appeared in the doorway. The left side of his face was drawn, as though he was not sure whether to worry. “He’s not here.”
“You went from saying he’s sick to saying he’s working on a paying project.”
He shifted. “He never missed work because of it but he never answers calls at this time anymore either. Says an artist needs uninterrupted time.”
“What was he working on?”
“Wouldn’t say. Some sort of nondisclosure contract attached to it. But it was big. He was going to get a lot of cash. Said we’d be set up for a wicked holiday.”
“If it was that big, why was he arguing with Bekka about the cost of a pair of heels?”
Tom made a sound between a hmm and a choke. “That wasn’t the half of what they argued about.”
“You were with them?”
He took a breath as though deciding whether to spill the beans, then shrugged. “Bekka was complaining he was never home. Said he should have been paid something in advance seeing how long it was taking. She was threatening to give whoever a piece of her mind. Hazy was rabid. Said if anyone found out, he wouldn’t be paid at all ’cause of the contract.”
The nondisclosure statement hadn’t stopped Matt telling his friends about his lucrative deal. What were the chances he had told Bekka who brokered it? The girl had stormed off toward the church, Matt had admitted that much, but Ella needed more than speculation.
“You’re his best mate.” He had told her on the ride over that they had
done their apprenticeship together and now worked for the same electrical firm. “People are missing. Two girls are dead. If you know who it is or where he might be, we need to check he’s okay.”
Tom shook his head. “Couldn’t tell you.”
“Is this his project?” She passed him the sketches.
His brows lifted in surprise. “Never saw.”
“But you did go to his workshop to try and find out.”
He winced. “Chantelle, Bekka, and I followed him from the pub one night. Hazy had a blanket over the window and wouldn’t let us in the door.”
THE POOR LIGHTING around the shed down near the docks made Ella nervous to the point she glanced over her shoulder. She wished she hadn’t. A dark creature was flying around the nearest streetlamp. Tom didn’t hear her soft squeal over the rattle of the door. “Hazy,” he called. She trailed him as he worked his way around the shed, banging on the galvanised iron. “Hazy.” It held no more signs of life than the house. He peeped through the slat window.
“Can’t see a thing.”
“How do you feel about breaking and entering?”
He looked at her, chest puffed out, and smacked his lips. “In me mate’s best interests.” He pushed on the middle glass slat until the window ground far enough ajar for his hand to squeeze through. “Nothing to these.” He fiddled with the thin piece of metal that bent over to secure the glass on each side then slid the plate out. It slipped from his hands as he tried to turn it, shattering on the floor inside.
“Hopefully nobody heard that,” he said.
He managed to bring the next panes through. She laid them on the concrete while he worked on the others. The sound of breaking glass was nothing compared to the rattle of the metal panels as he hauled himself onto the sill and jumped inside. Ella jiggled up after him.
“You all right?” he asked as he grabbed her arms to help pull her up. Feet firmly on the floor, she stuck her head out. A siren wailed in the distance. The area looked deserted, but their racket could have woken a vampire. It would be just her luck for someone to have reported them.