A Pocketful of Eyes (17 page)

Life wasn’t a detective novel. You couldn’t just be objective and stand back and believe everything would work itself out. Life was messy and had a way of tangling you up in its messiness and making everything all knotted and confusing. Not every crime had a villain. Not every question had an answer. Not every mystery had a neat solution.

Toby was watching her as though he was waiting for her to say something. Bee realised she was still sitting on the glass case. She slid off it and straightened her T-shirt, feeling awkward and embarrassed. She didn’t say anything.

Toby shook his head and turned to walk away. ‘Forget it,’ he said. ‘I’m done being your sidekick.’

TOBY DIDN’T COME TO WORK
on Wednesday. Or Thursday.

On Friday morning, Bee picked up the salt-crusted koala skin that Toby had been working on, dusted it off and set about making its wireframe skeleton.

She mechanically wound cottonwool around wire and referred to the anatomical diagrams in
Anatomy of Australian Mammals
, trying not to think. There was no safe avenue of thought. She didn’t want to think about Toby, or Gus, or Featherstone, or Fletch and Maddy, or Angela and the Celestial Badger. Every single one of them made her insides squirm with anxiety or disappointment.

Instead, Bee occupied herself by listing the titles and key features of Nancy Drew books in chronological order, starting in 1930 with
The Secret of the Old Clock
. She became briefly stuck in 1940, but then remembered
The Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk
and continued. The koala didn’t help, but it also didn’t interrupt her flow of thought as she packed its paws full of wire and cottonwool. At 1954 (
The Scarlet Slipper Mystery
), Bee paused to stretch and adjust the height of her chair.

She worked and worked in a kind of trance, where murderers and good kissers and ex-best friends and Badgers didn’t exist. Just her, a dead koala, a bag of cottonwool and several hundred Nancy Drew titles. She stopped briefly at 2:27 pm (1974,
The Mystery of the Glowing Eye
) to grab a sandwich from the café, then sank back into the trance.

The general hum of the museum quietened at 6:15 pm (1989,
The Girl Who Couldn’t Remember
), as the visitors and most of the staff left.

At 8:33 pm (1995,
The Riddle in the Rare Book
), Bee’s stomach rumbled, but she was nearly finished the koala, so she ignored it.

When the white phone on the wall rang at 9:43 pm (2002,
Mystery by Moonlight
), Bee started so violently she almost stabbed herself in the face with a pair of pliers. Heart hammering and eyes wide from being jolted out of her trance, she answered the phone with a shaky hand.

It was Akiko Kobayashi.

‘It’s Bee, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Do you think you could meet me in the Conservation lab? There’s something I need to discuss with you. About Gus.’

Bee’s mind snapped into focus. Did Kobayashi have some new information? She must have found out from Faro Costa or someone else that Bee was investigating Gus’s death.

Bee drank a glass of water to drive away the dizzy, hungry feeling, before hurrying out the door of the taxidermy lab.

The Conservation studio was as blindingly lit and spotless as always, and totally empty, except for the low hum and occasional blinking light of various kinds of technical equipment that Gus would have turned his nose up at.

Bee perched on a stool to wait for Kobayashi. There was a plastic container full of glass reptile eyes sitting on a bench. Bee stared at them, and they glinted back at her, the vertical slits of the pupils alien and malevolent. Bee tried to think of nice eyes. Deer. Deer had nice eyes. And alpacas. She thought about how William Cranston’s eyes were the palest of pale blues, so he always looked startled. What colour had Gus’s eyes been? She couldn’t remember. She remembered his shaggy eyebrows and the dark pouches under his eyes, but not the colour.

She thought she heard something from the corner of the room where a white curtain was hung in front of a complicated camera, ready to photograph objects. Bee held her breath, but didn’t hear anything else. It must have just been the building creaking. Or maybe a mouse.

She dug in her pocket and pulled out the article about Cranston and Gus that she had been carrying around all week. She looked at the two men. There was William Cranston on the right, holding the shotgun. He smiled out at Bee, his pale eyes startling even in black and white. Gus’s downcast eyes, in contrast, looked almost black. Bee wondered what he was looking at. Something towards the lower right-hand corner of the photo. She re-read the caption.

Scientist and Museum Benefactor William Cranston with his assistant, Gregory Uriel Swindon
.

A thought twitched at the back of her mind as she heard the clipping of high heels from the corridor outside.

‘Beatrice May Ross,’ said Akiko Kobayashi from the doorway. ‘Girl Detective.’

Bee felt suddenly unsteady on her stool. Something wasn’t right.

‘I think it’s time we had a little chat,’ said Kobayashi.

Kobayashi was smiling, but not in a warm and fuzzy kind of way. Her heels clicked on the floor as she walked towards Bee.

‘You need to stop whatever game you think you’re playing.’

Bee frowned. ‘Why?’

‘I told you the other day. The museum is having money trouble. We’re trying to attract new philanthropic support. The new exhibition
must
go smoothly, and the last thing I need right now is unwanted media attention about some crazy murder story you’ve invented.’

‘It’s not invented,’ said Bee. ‘Gus wasn’t his real name. He was Gregory Uriel Swindon, and he used to work for William Cranston. And he was murdered.’

Kobayashi sighed. ‘Gus killed himself. It’s unfortunate, but he was a lonely old man, and these things happen. That’s it. End of story. Nobody was murdered. You have no suspects. You have no case. You have no evidence. Stop playing detective and do your job.’

Bee felt uneasy. Was she in trouble again? Toby wouldn’t come and rescue her this time. Not that Bee wanted him to. She took a deep breath. She wasn’t going to let herself be intimidated.

‘How much do you know about Adrian Featherstone?’ she asked. ‘Did you know he used to work for a company called BioFresh? Did you know he stole research from William Cranston, and sold it to a pharmaceuticals company for millions of dollars? Did you know that on the day before Gus died, Featherstone swapped his hoodie with Gus’s? So that he could get to Gus?’

Kobayashi didn’t bat an eyelid. ‘Adrian Featherstone is a valued member of our staff. He has done nothing but devote himself to the welfare of this institution.’

She knew. Kobayashi knew about Gus’s real identity, and she knew about Featherstone, Bee was sure of it. What was going on?

‘What were the eyes for?’ asked Bee, suddenly.

‘The what?’

‘The reptile eyes,’ Bee repeated. ‘The ones in the pocket of the hoodie that Gus was wearing when he died. Featherstone’s hoodie.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Kobayashi. ‘But I suppose if you’re very curious you could ask Adrian yourself.’

She turned towards the curtained-off photography area. Bee went cold, and as every hope in her body sank into dread, she heard the squeak of rubber-soled shoes on linoleum. Adrian Featherstone walked out from behind the curtain, carrying a clipboard, as if he’d just been doing a little late-night work.

‘Hello, Beatrice,’ he said.

Bee swallowed, but raised her chin. ‘What were the eyes for?’ she asked again.

Adrian Featherstone chuckled. ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Are we still doing this? You still think I’m a murderer?’ He glanced in the direction of Kobayashi, who looked uncomfortable.

‘Just tell me,’ Bee snapped. ‘Without all the theatrics.’

Featherstone looked a bit disappointed. ‘Some of the specimens we got in from that museum in Canberra had glass eyes that were treated with a lead-based paint,’ he said. ‘I removed them and selected some replacements from the taxidermy lab.’

‘Were the eyes in the pocket the old ones? Or the new ones?’

‘Why does it matter?’

‘The old ones or the new ones?’

‘The old ones. I needed them to compare the sizes.’

Bee narrowed her eyes. ‘So you had lead-coated eyes in the pocket of the hoodie that you then planted on Gus?’ She looked at Kobayashi. ‘Would that have been enough to kill him?’ she asked. ‘The lead?’

Featherstone laughed again. ‘Nice try. But even if Gus had
eaten
the eyes they wouldn’t have killed him. Not for a few years, anyway.’

Bee stared at both of them and realised something. ‘You’re working together.’

Kobayashi looked down at the floor. ‘Of course we work together,’ she said, swallowing. ‘I’m his boss.’

‘He’s offered you money, hasn’t he?’ asked Bee. ‘When he steals Cranston’s research again and sells it to the highest bidder, you think the money will be enough to get the museum out of its debt.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘But what does he get in return?’ wondered Bee aloud. ‘Are you giving him information on Cranston? Where he lives? You must have details, because Cranston’s donated money to the museum before. You’re helping him get to Cranston. Right?’

Kobayashi said nothing.

‘Or did you catch him?’ asked Bee. ‘Did you find out what he was doing, and threaten to turn him over to the police? And he’s bought your silence?’

The corner of Kobayashi’s eyelid twitched.

‘This is all very entertaining,’ said Adrian Featherstone, looking bored.

Bee ignored him. ‘Did you do it?’ she asked Kobayashi. ‘Did you kill Gus?’

Kobayashi’s eyes flicked to Adrian Featherstone. ‘What you’re suggesting is completely untrue,’ she said. ‘But even if it were true, I am no murderer. And neither is Adrian. So you just need to get your pesky little nose out of what are
confidential business matters
concerning the museum. Not you.’

‘So where were you when Gus died?’

Kobayashi seemed to regain a little of her confidence. ‘Are you asking for my
alibi
?’ she said. ‘You really are taking this whole thing very seriously, aren’t you?’

‘You didn’t answer my question.’

‘Fine,’ said Kobayashi. ‘I was at home. In bed. Asleep.’

‘Any witnesses who can verify that?’

Kobayashi rolled her eyes. ‘My
husband
.’

Bee found she couldn’t quite imagine Kobayashi with a husband. She hoped he had the good sense to do everything she told him.

‘So what’s
your
alibi?’ asked Kobayashi.

Bee frowned. She didn’t need an alibi. She was the
detective.
Then she remembered an Agatha Christie novel where the narrator turned out to be the murderer. It was a fair enough question. ‘Toby can attest to my whereabouts,’ she said. ‘We were together the whole night.’

‘Were you?’ asked Kobayashi, with flinty eyes. ‘Are you sure about that? You were together the
whole time
?’

What was she talking about? Then Bee remembered. After they’d heard a noise and climbed off the tiger, Toby had vanished. Looking for the security guard, he’d said. And he’d claimed that he couldn’t find anyone. But Faro Costa had told them he’d been in the control room at the time. So where
had
Toby gone? And
how did Kobayashi know about it?

Bee caught her breath. She remembered Toby’s evasiveness about why he’d failed his exams. She thought about the strange phone calls and his mysterious meetings with his anatomy lecturer. How
had
he been able to find out so much about Cranston and Adrian Featherstone? Was it really all information you could look up on a database?

Bee swallowed as she remembered the weird vibe between Kobayashi and Toby, when they had gone to question her about Gus the first time. What if she’d been on the right track with her suspicion that Kobayashi and Featherstone were having an affair, except that instead of Featherstone, Kobayashi was sleeping with
Toby
? Bee felt a bit sick.

‘But what if you’re in it together?’ asked Kobayashi. ‘In fact, you and Toby are the only people who Security can verify as being in the building at the time of Gus’s death. I’m pretty sure that wouldn’t look good. If I happened to go to the police.’

Bee shivered. ‘I didn’t murder Gus, and you know it.’

‘I do know it,’ said Kobayashi, ‘because Gus killed himself. So you need to stop running around this workplace accusing my employees of murder.’

Bee said nothing.

‘So if I were you,’ Kobayashi said with a businesslike nod, ‘I would finish up my work in the lab, and then go back to doing whatever it is that teenagers do.’

‘Drugs,’ said Featherstone.

‘Or school,’ said Kobayashi. ‘Whichever you prefer.’

‘You’re blackmailing me,’ said Bee.

Kobayashi smiled. ‘Let me assure you, there is no blackmail in the museum. I’m just trying to maintain a harmonious working environment for my staff.’

‘Fine,’ said Bee. ‘Fine, I’ll go. Is that okay? Can I go? You don’t want to lock me in a freezer or stuff me into an airtight container or something first?’ She shot a dark look at Featherstone.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Kobayashi. ‘Now, it’s late. I’m sure your parents are worried about you.’

Bee slid off her stool and walked to the door of the Conservation studio. Kobayashi and Featherstone didn’t move as they watched her go. Bee felt like a small furry animal, trapped between two birds of prey.

‘Goodnight, Bee,’ said Kobayashi. ‘Have a lovely weekend. I suppose I’ll see you at the funeral.’