Murder Undercover

by Claire McNab

  Trying was the word for Vera. She was one of the most irritating people I’d ever met, but as she was involved in the day-to-day organization of the various conventions and conferences Aylmer Resort hosted, I was cultivating her friendship, particularly since an important conference was coming up in a few days. Being friends with Vera was an uphill job—several times I’d been sorely tempted to hit her myself.

  Convention facilitator was her title, and she mentioned it at every opportunity. It was surprising to me that Vera had such a responsible job, as it was hard to imagine her organizing anything that was in the slightest complicated. She’d been at the resort for over a year, however, handling the details of at least twenty-five events. This information Vera had imparted while we’d been having a tiresome heart-to-heart a couple of days earlier, a conversation that mainly consisted of me making sympathetic noises and Vera complaining how she wasn’t really appreciated.

  It was one of Vera’s fetching idiosyncrasies that she pronounced really as rilly, a fact that led to much merriment at her expense, as people said things like, “Do you rilly, rilly believe that, Vera? Rilly truly?” Then went off guffawing, leaving her looking after them with a puzzled frown.

  I sighed to myself. I wasn’t up to cultivating friendship with Vera at nearly four o’clock in the morning, even if she was staring at me expectantly with her prominent blue eyes. I said, “I’m going to bed.”

  “Why can’t people be nice?” Vera asked me. “I mean, it rilly isn’t that hard to be pleasant, is it?”

  “It rilly isn’t,” I agreed. Now I was doing it.

  * * *

  Exhausted, I opened my door and turned on the light. All the bedrooms had locks, but I never used a key when I was leaving. After all, I had nothing to hide, did I?

  I shut the door behind me and followed my usual routine of looking around. Paranoid or not, I kept my expression casual, just in case my trainer had been right and there was a video camera watching me. When I’d first been assigned to this room I’d made a thorough search, and I was almost positive the only thing that might be concealed was some tiny listening device, though I thought even that was highly unlikely. Why should anyone suspect me of anything? And what would they hear, anyway? I hoped I didn’t snore. Now that would be embarrassing.

  Usually I went through a quick visual check then went on with what I was doing. This time I caught my breath. Someone had been there. There was a subtle difference in the arrangement of several key things. I’d been careful to place the novel I’d been reading so it was aligned with the edge of the desk. The book had been moved. Of course, it was possible that one of my workmates was captivated by Denise Hunter’s choice of light entertainment, Raw Embers of the Heart, and had popped in to look at it. That thought evaporated when I noticed that the bedspread was no longer tucked exactly as I’d left it, nor was the beige plastic chair precisely as I’d positioned it.

  A quick check of drawers confirmed that my room had been searched. Whoever it was had been careful, but there was no way he or she could replace every single item as I had left them. Whoever it was now knew that I took aspirin and wore contact lenses, that I used herbal shampoo and shaved my legs. In the top dresser drawer I kept some cheapish jewelry, a pencil flashlight, and a box of tissues. There were a couple of faked-up letters from friends, a note from my “mother,” two postcards, one from Britain, the other Canada, ostensibly from friends I’d made overseas. There were also a few photos, most featuring me with family or at some social gathering with friends. No address book, no diary.

  The middle drawer held my underclothes, and I cringed to think that someone had pawed through them. In a bottom drawer I had a passport with all the essential entry and exit stamps to show that Denise Hunter had traveled widely overseas. There was also a driver’s license in her name, and two credit cards. Although there was an option for staff to put valuables in a safe, I wanted anyone who might search my things to have no difficulty finding material that confirmed my identity.

  I had a little grin to myself, thinking of how I’d wondered whether the character I was playing would be bringing a selection of sex toys and explicit literature to the island. In the end I hadn’t even included a multispeed vibrator to jazz up the overall image. Now I’d been searched, it seemed rather a pity I hadn’t spiced up Denise’s persona with startling equipment.

  I sat on the edge of the bed to think about the situation. Maybe I’d triggered attention because of my questions about Lloyd Snead, though I didn’t think I’d shown more than the normal curiosity about the accident. In fact, if I were being monitored, not to show at least some interest in the fact a guest had drowned just off the main beach of the resort would have been suspicious.

  More worrying was the possibility that there was something wrong with my cover story, some inconsistency that had set off an alarm. There was a reason for the Aylmers to run stringent checks on staff, and it had nothing to do with normal business practices. ASIO had isolated a list of Aylmer activities that were potentially a threat to Australia’s security, including the provision of new identities for international terrorists, who were provided with everything necessary to prove that they were legal Australian immigrants who had become citizens of their new country. In our multicultural society, they would have no trouble being accepted as genuine, and with Australian passports, they were free to travel the world undetected.

  Since the Aylmers appeared to be expert in providing false identities, it had taken months of preparation to set up Denise Hunter’s cover. It had to be much more detailed than usual so that even a close examination wouldn’t expose me as a plant. It also meant that I had to be a clean plant: I couldn’t carry any weapons or communications gear, I couldn’t make contact through the usual channels of mail, telephone or satellite-link computer. I was on my own, and the only messages I could give or receive had to be person-to-person, using a level of caution that would be ludicrous in other circumstances.

  It was only when I was cleaning my teeth in the echoing concrete of the ablutions block that another explanation for the search came to me. Roanna Aylmer. She’d shown some interest in me, fleeting perhaps, but still interest. Perhaps that was enough make me an object of surveillance. I raised my eyebrows at my reflection in the mirror over the basin. If a couple of brief conversations was all it took to trigger this response, it seemed a pity not to do something exciting with Roanna that would justify all the attention I was getting.

  On my way back to bed I had another thought. What if Roanna had searched my room, or had someone search it for her? I had to smile at my conceit: There was no reason to believe that Roanna Aylmer was smitten with me. It was far more likely that she was bored, and I had provided a moment or two’s entertainment.

  If anyone was smitten, it was me. Well, smitten was rather too strong—perhaps attracted was a better word. Whatever, it was my job to gain as much information about the Aylmers as possible, so I’d have to find a way to encourage Roanna to get close to me. It was absolutely my duty.

  Chapter Five

  I woke with a slight headache and a dry mouth. The cheap clock radio I’d brought to the island with me announced the time to be eleven-ten. Lying on the narrow metal-frame bed—deliberately chosen, perhaps, to discourage staff-to-staff couplings—I explored the ceiling for a suspicious lens. There was nothing but a spiderweb in one corner and a light brown water stain the shape of Tasmania.

  A trickle of sweat slid down the side of my face. It was like lying in a beige shoebox filled with breathless heat. I refused to use the air-conditioning unit in the window because it operated with a near-deafening roar, relying instead on the rackety ceiling fan for some relief. Unfortunately, when the blades were slowly turning only the faintest draft of air brushed my skin. It wasn’t an option to turn the fan to a higher setting, because each notch upward made it creak even more arthritically, and at full speed it vibrated with such alarming oscillations that it seemed ready to tear itself out of its mountings and
scythe murderously through the room.

  I gathered my things, put on a shorty dressing gown for decency, and padded out to the ablutions block to have a long shower and wash the smell of smoke out of my hair. Tonight was the Aylmer function where I would tend the bar and keep my ears and eyes on full alert. The rest of the day was mine, and I intended to spent it alone. After the sustained noise of the cocktail lounge last night, I craved the absence of human voices.

  In denim shorts, a T-shirt that proclaimed WHATEVER THEY SAY, I FOLLOW THE VOICES IN MY HEAD, and hiking boots, I set out to conquer the most grueling of the several rain-forest trails marked on the map given to guests. So far I’d hiked several of the easier routes, but this one was marked as strenuous, going up to the highest point of the island and down the other side.

  With a pleasant feeling of flouting the rules, I left off my name badge. We had all been told repeatedly that guests must recognize us as being “an Aylmer person” at all times, even when we weren’t on duty. I didn’t intend to meet anyone else, guest or not, so there was no reason for me to wear my name. In my backpack I had binoculars, water, fruit and a health bar that promised to provide all the energy needed for an active life. Of course I knew that it was highly unlikely anyone wished me harm, but I noted that the only thing I carried that could conceivably be a weapon was a combination knife, with blades, screwdriver, and a handy little tool that I vaguely thought was intended to get stones out of horses’ hooves.

  Soon I escaped the brassy sunlight for the cover of the rain-forest canopy. After the eye-squinting glare of the tropical sun, the light here was eerie, a kind of strangled green that had been filtered through many layers of vegetation. The heavy air was full of the pervasive smell of wet earth and rotting plant matter. Huge ferns sprang from the spongy ground, thick vines looped theatrically over branches as though they’d been deliberately strung there, and I could hear the faint trickling sound of running water. Immediately I thought of leeches, and hastened up the path away from the damper areas.

  The incline became steeper, my thighs began to ache, and sweat stung my eyes. I stopped several times, not to rest, I assured myself, but to admire the rain forest. I’d read up on the ecosystem and was pleased with myself when I identified wild orchids, Bangalow palms with their odd, finger-like air roots, the vicious thorns of monkey puzzle vines, and, most disconcerting of all, I thought, giant strangling figs whose lethal embrace was slowly throttling their host trees.

  An hour into the climb—it had ceased to be a walk—I was panting, my T-shirt was sticking to me, and my backpack was growing heavier with every step. If I wanted to be alone, I’d chosen the perfect excursion. I couldn’t imagine anyone else hardy enough, or stupid enough, to slog up this path in such steamy heat.

  The final meters of the minimountain were bare rock. Blinking, I came out into brilliant sunshine. The view burst upon me like a shout. I was at the highest point of the island, and an exhilarating glow of achievement filled me. In front of my feet the ground fell away precipitously, plummeting hundreds of meters to the pale green of the golf course and the toy buildings of the hotel, the convention center and the administration offices. All this was edged with a margin of white sandy beaches, and then the turquoise shadings of the shallow sea. To the north, a string of tiny uninhabited baby islands, looking impossibly beautiful, seemed to float like a green necklace in the sparkling water.

  “Hello,” said a voice behind me.

  I literally jumped. “Hell!”

  “Sorry. Did I startle you? Denise, isn’t it? From the bar?” Biddy Gallagher grinned at me, hands on hips, knowing full well that my heart had done an alarmed somersault in my chest.

  Angry because I’d been taken by surprise, and keenly aware that if Biddy had meant me harm, I could have been pitching over the cliff without having any idea what was happening, I snapped, “And where were you lurking?”

  “Lurking? I came up the other way, and reached the top a moment after you.” She seemed not to feel the heat: Her long face was dry, her khaki shirt crisp, her shorts still immaculate. Her grin widened as I moved away from the edge of the cliff. “Afraid of heights?”

  “You might take a fancy to blip me over.” With an effort, I’d achieved a light tone.

  Biddy cackled. “What? My novel way of complaining about slow service in the Tropical Heat Cocktail Lounge?”

  Still irritated, I shrugged off my backpack and opened it. “Fruit? A drink?”

  We sat in the shade on a rocky outcrop at the edge of the vegetation. Biddy took a banana and peeled it neatly, so that the shaft rose out of yellow petals of skin. “I don’t suppose you’ve got anything hard to drink?”

  “Water only.”

  Biddy snapped off the top of her banana with large white teeth. She chewed ruminatively, then waved the stump at me and said, “A bit like eating a penis, don’t you think?”

  There was no way this woman was going to disconcert me. “I wouldn’t know,” I said primly. “My mother warned me not to do that sort of thing.”

  Biddy’s chuckle made me smile too. “A fast mouth,” she said, “I like that.”

  Selecting an appropriate blade on my combination knife, I sliced the top off a passionfruit and sucked out the sweet seeds inside. “Have you been to the resort before?” I asked, more for something to say than for any desire to hear the answer.

  “No. And I don’t expect to again.”

  “You don’t like it here?”

  Biddy raised a shoulder. “It’s okay. A bit too glossy for my taste. Too much luxury makes me uncomfortable.” She gave me a measuring glance. “And what about you? You don’t strike me as the sort to work behind a bar.”

  “I don’t?” I wasn’t pleased to hear this, as I’d been congratulating myself that I had been doing pretty well in my role.

  Biddy was clearly amused at my reaction. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said. “You do a great job, as long as Eddie Trebonus doesn’t give you an exotic order that sends you around the back of the bar. Checking the ingredients, I imagine.”

  “Maybe.”

  “I get the impression you’re slumming, if you know what I mean.”

  This was dangerous. If Biddy thought this, it was possible others did too. I said, sincerity to the fore, “This is the kind of life I like. Hate being tied down, you know? I’ve been all over the world, never settle any one place for very long.”

  “Uh-huh.” Her tone was neutral.

  “How about you?” I said, making a mental note to ask for a background check on her.

  “I’m retired.”

  “I’ll be rude,” I said, “and ask. Retired from what?”

  Biddy considered me for a moment, as though assessing what answer to give. Finally she said, “I was a cop.”

  * * *

  An hour later, I was no wiser about Biddy Gallagher. We’d come down the path together, chatting, but she had been trying to pump me, and I’d been trying to pump her. The result was stalemate. Maybe it was the cop in her, but I couldn’t help feeling that she was asking more questions than would be expected. There was no reason, I thought modestly, apart from my sparkling personality, for Biddy to pay much attention to me, but she showed the keenest interest in my activities. She also asked questions about other staff members, particularly the nurse, Ivy Bestlove.

  I was intrigued when she asked me if I’d been on the island when the skeet-shooting accident had occurred. The victim, Morrie Bellamy, had worked for Abscound Electronics, a firm with sensitive defense contracts. It had been kept from the media, but just before his death Bellamy had contacted the federal cops with accusations of security breaches at his company. Before he could provide concrete details, he’d attended the convention on Aylmer Island where the accident had occurred. A covert investigation of Abscound was underway, and one of my tasks was to find out if the Aylmers had any involvement in Bellamy’s death.

  “The accident happened before my time,” I said. “Why? Did you know the guy?”
/>
  “No,” she said, a little too quickly. When I continued to look at her inquiringly, she added, “The resort’s run so well, it’s hard to imagine how something like that could happen.”

  With the air of one pronouncing a self-evident truth, I said righteously, “Where there’s a loaded gun, there’s always a chance of an accident.”

  She gave me a narrow look. “Have you ever fired a gun?”

  I’d not anticipated Denise Hunter being asked this question. I was an excellent shot with a range of firearms, but this certainly wouldn’t be in Denise Hunter’s experience. “I hate guns,” I said, repressing an impulse to embroider my words with a realistic shudder.

  It was always wise, my trainer had pointed out, to underplay, if possible. “That particularly applies to you, Denise,” he’d said.

  Biddy was tenacious. “So you’ve never fired a shotgun?”

  The path had flattened out, and we were coming out from the rain-forest cover into the full glare of the sunlight near the island’s nine-hole golf course. I fished around for my sunglasses. “I told you, I don’t like guns.” Using my best cheeky grin, I asked, “Why the third degree? Do you think it was me who blew the guy’s head off?”

  Watching me closely, Biddy said, “Not at all. It was a woman named Aileen Fountain.”

  “Was it?” I continued my expression of polite interest. Biddy had certainly done her homework. Aileen Fountain was indeed the name. She’d booked accommodation for the weekend, flown in from Brisbane on a Friday night, and killed Morrie the next morning. At the time it appeared to be nothing more than a dreadful mishap, but after giving evidence at the inquest, which found Morrie Bellamy’s death accidental, Aileen Fountain had disappeared off the face of the earth. She had claimed to be a New Zealander, but later checking of her records showed that a person of that name had died before her first birthday.