The Celibate Mouse

by Hockley, Diana

  ‘To hell with you, Brit! You might be my identical twin, but you don’t own me!’ she shouted defiantly, as she turned, too fast, onto the main road and sped toward town.

  CHAPTER 13

  Edna’s Archives

  Susan

  Tuesday: morning.

  After the usual courtesies, Daniella Winslow plunges into the reason for her phone call.

  ‘Susan, I know it’s probably an imposition to ask you, but would you please come with me to Aunt Edna’s house this morning? The police have finished examining her things and no one else in the family wants to go to the place. Ferna refuses to go with me. She can be a bit difficult.’

  I observed her Ladyship’s iron grip on the local populace when I went grocery shopping late yesterday. The old bat had the supermarket staff grovelling.

  ‘Well, I don’t know whether I can be of any help, Daniella. Isn’t there anyone else you can ask?’

  ‘I can’t find anyone else to go. Please Susan, you are so level-headed and I feel terrible.’

  I’ve never met a family yet who couldn’t wait to grab the goodies, so I am wondering why this lot isn’t breaking their necks to get into her things. Then something occurs to me. ‘Are you and they, afraid the murderer is hiding in Edna’s home waiting to get you?’

  ‘Of course not! But I–well, yes, a little. What if the person who did it is still around?’

  ‘You can be sure whoever murdered her will be a long way away, Daniella. He–or she–certainly won’t be hanging around Edna’s house.’ I really don’t know if I can do this.

  ‘But will you come?’

  Years of training are telling me to go, to face down my demons and conquer the heartache which seems to fill my every waking moment. My psychiatrist advised me to take a break right away from crime, but she isn’t on the fringes of a murder investigation. Edna’s whispered hint of a long-ago murder flickers back into my mind, as does the memory of the shadow in the doorway just before she had her heart turn. Could I, as David suggested, do anything to help? Use my ‘in’ with the family to see what I can find out?

  Daniella is speaking again. ‘...and I’ve got to go through her clothes and things. I just need for you to sit in a chair and talk to me. Keep me company.’ No, I can’t. There is something about her tone which alerts me to the fact that this proud woman is lonely. Against my better judgement, I feel sorry for her. ‘All right, I’ll come, but only for a couple of hours and you’ll have to pick me up, because Marli took the car into town,’ I hear my treacherous mouth spouting.

  She is delighted. It’s no trouble, she assures me, and she’ll be here in half an hour.

  ‘But Marli is in town and will come back to an empty house.’

  ‘Carissa’s home. Tell Marli to go to our place,’ says Daniella.

  I phone Marli to tell her where I am going, but only get voice mail. ‘Go to the Winslow’s place as soon as you’ve finished in town,’ I order.

  I scoot into the shower and then change into a pair of chocolate cotton slacks, a cream shirt and boots. The face which stares back at me from the mirror looks like that of a doll abandoned in a cupboard. Dark shadows, bags under my eyes and scraggy red hair are the least of it. I plait my hair into a French braid and then slap some make-up on. My sunglasses, carefully chosen for their ability to keep the world at bay, do the rest.

  Last night was hell. Marli ended up in my bed and kicked me for what remained of the night. The trauma of the last two months hasn’t passed her by and a fight on the telephone with her sister hasn’t helped matters. I eavesdropped on her side of the argument, but moved away quickly when she snapped her phone shut and headed for the kitchen, where I was cooking dinner.

  ‘Brit says she’ll never talk to me again, if I even, like, speak to David. But she can’t stop me!’ she announced defiantly.

  ‘That’s just talk. She’ll come around eventually.’

  I tried to be positive, but my eldest girl could be very stubborn – well, bitchy. But if I concede that description, I would then have to admit what a bad mother I’ve been. Long hours away from home are the job description of police officers and being a single woman with babies, then small children, had cut me no slack at the time. My struggle after David left had been horrendous, until my Aunt Beryl came to my rescue and moved into my spare room with her two cats. The trio had taken over the household.

  ‘It’s time you had a rest, Susan, and none of those useless women are being any help to you,’ she’d announced, referring to my mother and David’s toxic female relatives.

  Open-mouthed, I’d stood with our cat and watched the little parade of aunt, pram and her cats make their way across the cul-de-sac in front of the house and wend their way through the trees. I remember being so stunned, it must have taken me at least an hour to fall asleep after diving into bed, after which I slept for ten hours, straight.

  However, it wasn’t long before everybody settled down, thanks to my darling aunt who purchased a house and moved us in, God rest her soul, and two months later I was back at work, keeping the roof over our heads and resuming my heady career of tea-making, looking after lost children and kowtowing to a paternalistic hierarchy.

  I soon began searching for ways to inveigle my way into investigations. Fortunately, David transferred to another station after we separated and came to take the girls out once a fortnight. On those occasions I made sure I was working or out somewhere, so he only spoke to Aunt Beryl who adored him and tried to talk me into attempting a reconciliation. My stubborn heart made sure it didn’t work... for God’s sake, Susan, stop harking back to the past.

  I check that all the windows are shut and back locked, then ring Marli one more time. She answers and snaps at me that of course she will go to Carissa’s, how old do I think she is and to get off her case. Right. That’s put you in your place, Susan.

  The dogs in the back yard start a ‘visitors’ ruckus.

  ‘Susan? I’m here!’ Daniella’s voice, coming from the top of the steps, is an elegant shriek above the cacophony.

  ‘Coming!’ I snatch up my purse and race out to the front verandah, but as I lock the front door, my eyes are drawn to the mountainside where I’d seen someone watching us with a telescope. Oh God, what next?

  Daniella chatters happily as she drives, leaving me free to watch the rolling hills sweep by, the crops spreading over the valley, a symphony of brown, yellow and green patchwork quilt. The symmetry is broken here and there with a canopy of snowy white flowers.

  Unsolicited information about Daniella’s friends isn’t my cup of tea, but years of practice at listening to several conversations at once ensures I can’t help absorbing what she is saying even though I “tune her out.” I am relieved when we arrive at the front gate to Edna’s property. I am out in a trice, we are through and I latch it, watching out for Edna’s herd of goats who, I’m assured, are lurking nearby awaiting the chance to make a quick getaway.

  The small, gracious Queenslander stands on a river flat lined with willows. A row of gum trees cluster around the front garden and stand sentinel behind the building. Her garden glows with native shrubs and a gang of lorikeets scream in the grevillea blossoms. Momentarily, they stop to watch our approach with beady eyes, then sensing we are harmless, fall to fighting amongst themselves.

  Daniella stops the car at the bottom of the steps to the verandah, on which stand a couple of easy chairs and a table. As we reach the front door, a majestic ginger cat dozing in one of the chairs, jumps down and runs over to twirl joyfully around our legs,

  ‘That’s Fat Albert,’ Daniella announces, as she wrestles the key into the lock, gently pushing the cat aside with her foot. ‘The neighbours have been feeding him, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. No one in the family will want to bother and I can’t take an animal in.’

  As the door swings open, we are hit with a blast of warm air, thick with the lavender and musky aroma peculiar to elderly ladies. The inside of the house is dark
and secretive, resembling an underground cave. Albert slips indoors and runs ahead of us.

  ‘I suppose he’ll have to be ‘put to sleep,’ she confides, sotto voce, as though the cat might overhear, ‘unless we can find a home for him.’

  My heart sinks. There’s been too much death, and now that of a helpless animal? My voice seems to have developed a life of its own. ‘If you can’t find a good home for him, then I suppose I could–’

  She swings around. ‘Oh, would you? That would be perfect. I’m sure Edna has–had –a cat carrier somewhere and I know there’s a bed for him. We’ll bundle him in it before we leave.’

  Smiling with satisfaction and I realise, relief, she marches in and out of the rooms, pushing the windows up to let cool, fresh air in. I realise I have been cleverly manipulated. Daniella has discovered my Achilles Heel: cats. We reach the kitchen where she flings the back door wide, before filling the electric kettle, switching it on and taking cups out of the cupboard. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  Edna appears to have been a collector of pre-WWII Australian china. All available surfaces are covered with ornaments, knickknacks and vases of dying roses. On the refrigerator door, held in place by a plastic yabby magnet, is a shopping list. The contents, written in the loopy hand of the pre-1950s schooled, are poignant: milk, bread, peanut butter (crunchy), eggs and cat food. Idly, I wonder why she was in town the day Marli and I rescued her from the public toilet and who brought her car home. Or had she taken a taxi? If she was shopping, what had happened to her purchases?

  Abandoning the coffee-making, Daniella goes out to the back verandah where a large pile of cartons is stacked. ‘Adam arranged for boxes to be left here so I could make a start on packing up.’

  She drags several out of the pile, obviously expecting me to do the same. Whatever happened to ‘sit in a chair and keep me company’? Reluctantly, I take three out of the pile and follow her into the depths of the house.

  ‘How did Mrs Robinson get into town the day she collapsed at the park?’

  Daniella stops and looks at me sideways, like a spooked horse. ‘Ah ... let me think. She drove in and Adam or Euon, I’m not sure who, brought her car home on Monday. It’s in the garage out the back. Why?’

  ‘Just curious,’ I reply, casually. Daniella shrugs and leads the way back to the lounge room. The back of the large settee is covered with tapestries which apparently Edna embroidered herself. The whole job of packing everything away looks like a week’s work for ten people. I could be so easily sucked into the investigation. The cop side of me itches to prowl through the house; perhaps it won’t hurt just to see what sort of impressions I can pick up.

  Daniella leads the way into a small study. Books have been pulled out of the shelves, drawers left open, the contents disturbed. David’s troops have been thorough. I meander over to the desk and idly glance at her papers. Accounts, letters, ink splatters over several documents. Looks like someone dropped a fountain pen. Do people still use them nowadays?

  Daniella bounces over and begins to sweep everything into a plastic bag. ‘These have to go to the solicitors,’ she announces, ‘for probate.’

  ‘Are you the executor of her estate?’ Daniella shouldn’t be touching the contents of Edna’s desk if she is not. What were the contents of Edna’s Will?

  She looks at me as though I was mad, and she could be right. ‘Yes, I am actually. Myself and Arthur Robinson, but he’s too old and tired to be involved in this. I’m not letting that old cow, Ferna, near the place.’ She fossicks in a pocket and comes up with a couple of sheets of paper stapled together. ‘I have a list of what everyone is supposed to get, apart from what’s in the Will. Everything else is to be sold.’ She puts them down on the desk and places a glass paperweight on top. I edge closer, hoping to get a glimpse, but she steps in front of me to pounce on a pile of letters, which she throws into the bag. ‘I’ll go through them when I get home. There’s no time for that now.’

  The opportunity to snoop at the list is gone. I glance around, uncertain as to what Daniella expects of me.

  ‘You can start gathering up those photos if you would be so kind, Susan?’

  An imposing bookshelf has been given over to dozens of framed photographs. I pick up the nearest, a sepia of a group of men standing beside their draught horses with a load of logs on a wagon They’re all wearing suits with vests, sombre faces almost obscured by their hats and, so common in days gone by, the photo has been taken with the subjects squinting into the sun.

  I am about to place it in the box, when I remember Edna’s last words to me. ‘It was a long time ago, but someone needs to know. He was murdered on the farm ... if anyone ever finds out I told ... but they don’t know about you ... and now the sheepdog trials. That shouldn’t have happened!’

  Edna and Jack Harlow; cousins. Had Harlow been privy to the secret which Edna had tried to tell me? Too much pain, too much death. My stomach swirls, beads of perspiration form on my brow and trickle down my cheeks. The light in the room darkens, to the accompaniment of rushing in my ears. I grope around and almost fall into a chair near the desk. I must have made some sort of sound, because Daniella is alerted.

  ‘Susan, what’s wrong? Are you ill?’ She drops the box she’s carrying, hurries over and crouches down beside the chair. ‘Can I get you a glass of water? You said you haven’t been well. I’m so sorry. It was thoughtless of me to ask you to come here. Perhaps I’d better run you home now.’

  I pull myself together quickly. Something is telling me to stay here in this house. ‘No, I just felt a bit faint. No breakfast,’ I lie. ‘Perhaps the kettle might be boiled by now?’

  She is immediately contrite. ‘I forgot all about it! Let’s go out to the kitchen and have coffee, then if you still don’t feel well, I’ll take you home.’ She glances around and her eyes focus on the photo which I’ve just examined. ‘Mad weren’t they? Fancy dressing in suits and woollen vests to go logging in this heat, and the women weren’t any better with their long dresses and stays!’

  She picks up the photo and holds it to the light. ‘That’s great-grandfather Robinson and his sons hauling the timber to build the original house on the family property. Of course, the main parts, the kitchen and bathroom have been modernised. Ferna insisted on that and I don’t blame her, but it’s still around fifty percent original.’

  ‘What year was that?’

  She turns it over and examines the back. ‘This was before the First World War–1898 actually– but the photos for that time are all mixed in together. The more recent ones are there.’ She points to the far wall, where modern photos are side by side with the ghosts of yesteryear.

  ‘Do you know who all these people were?’ I ask, craning my neck to see if there’s any means of telling what vintage they are.

  ‘No, but Edna was meticulous about writing all the names and dates and a paragraph or two about what was going on when the photo was taken.’

  Was she indeed? The detective in me rises to the surface. ‘Are any of them still alive?’

  Daniella shrugs. ‘Oh yes, some. Arthur, his brother John, sisters Connie, Grace and of course my mother, Kathleen. Only Edna has ... gone.’ Her voice breaks. Daniella isn’t as unmoved as she appears, but my experience is that families tend to crack hardy until the funeral and then break down. There is something about the open grave, the slow moving bier or the curtains creaking shut behind it in a crematorium, which can break down the most stoic, especially a guard of honour. Don’t go there...

  We sit in the kitchen and Daniella organises coffee. The hot liquid makes me feel better, but apart from slightly reddened eyes, my hostess shows no sign of distress. ‘How old was Edna?’

  ‘Seventy-six,’ replies Daniella, blowing on her coffee to cool it.

  ‘And did she keep photos of everyone in the family?’

  ‘Oh yes, I think every single person who has ever been connected to this family is somewhere in Edna’s archives, even the bas
tard vicar, great-uncle Roland, who bashed his wife senseless on her wedding night. The Bishop ordered him to get married because he batted for the other side, and that was a potential scandal for the church. He had a predilection for pickups in city parks. So they picked an elderly virgin out of the parish ladies guild, then forced him to court and marry her. Of course it was all hushed up, but a few people knew about it. The poor woman had no idea what a homosexual was–mid-1950s–and committed suicide six months after they got her away from him. It was all hushed up, of course, but these days she’d have had him up for assault and “outed” him on Facebook.’

  ‘Good grief! And nothing was ever done about – this, Roland?’

  ‘Oh no, he apparently lived to be an old man. “The devil looks after his own.” The Robinsons have had their share of crazies, believe me.’ She sips her coffee, eyes shadowed. Is this what Edna was referring to?

  Suddenly, a way into the family archives springs to mind. A big fat lie blurts out of my motor-mouth. ‘I did part of a librarianship course before I joined the–er–public service. It involved some cataloguing of photography, so I could sort all the photos for you. You really won’t have time with everything you have to do and it would be most unfortunate if any get lost. Edna has gone to so much trouble to keep them. Adam and Carissa and the other children in the family might want to do the family genealogy one day.’

  I’ve only done the training at the academy and read a comprehensive course which a friend was doing, but I have catalogued murder exhibits. When Daniella asked what I did for a living, I said I worked for the Justice Department which seemed to satisfy her at the time, but would she go for this whopper? I feel the idea appeals to her, but good manners prevent her leaping at the suggestion.

  ‘Susan! That’s an enormous job. No, it’s too much to ask anyone to do.’

  I take ruthless advantage of her social graces. ‘I’m here for at least a couple more months and it would be good to have a project to keep me occupied. Really Daniella, I would be delighted to do it. You can come and help when you have time– and we’ll crack a bottle of James’s best wine!’ I add slyly.