Death Delights (18 page)

‘Don’t fill up too much,’ I said. ‘Dinner won’t be long.’

He wandered into the living area and collapsed onto the lounge, upside-down, with his head hanging down, looking at me with his legs hooked over the back of the settee. ‘This is a daggy place to live,’ he said. ‘Why can’t we live somewhere decent?’

‘Like where?’ I asked.

He swung himself up the right way. ‘I don’t know. Just somewhere with a bit of life. None of my friends live out this way.’

‘I know it’s hard for you, Greg. I didn’t know you’d want to come and live with me. I just grabbed this place because it was quiet and I could afford it.’

I was about to tell him about his sister’s phone call, but hesitated, wanting to find the right time.

Later, we had an almost silent meal together, both preoccupied, both unused to talking to each other about the things that ran deep in us. Finally, he asked me about the investigation and I told him what I could about Bevan Treweeke’s suicide, glad to be talking again, even though we were avoiding the huge subject of his sister.

‘Do you think his death is connected with the three mutilation murders?’ Greg asked me.

I shrugged. ‘I really can’t say one way or the other,’ I said. ‘He’s another sex offender, and he’s dead, but that’s as far as you could take it.’ The conversation bridged the gap between us somewhat. I felt I should tell him about his sister’s call. I couldn’t put it off any longer. ‘Jacinta rang a while ago,’ I said, ‘not long before you got home.’

Greg put his knife and fork down, staring at me, open-mouthed.

‘But I didn’t get to talk to her,’ I continued. ‘She said she’d ring again.’

My son just sat there. ‘What did she say?’ he managed eventually.

‘That was it, really. That’s all she said on the message.’

Greg stood up and walked away into his room, his half-eaten meal lying on the table.

‘Don’t you want this?’ I asked, picking it up and taking it in to him. He was lying on the bed, staring at the ceiling, eyes brilliant with tears. I put his meal down on his desk, not knowing what to say or do.

‘Can I get you anything else?’ I asked, feeling stupid.

My son looked me in the face as he spoke. ‘I’ve got used to her not being around. I’ve forgotten her.’

‘It’s been a year and a half,’ I said. ‘That’s a long time for someone your age.’

‘I don’t even feel I’ve got a sister any more. I don’t know what it’ll be like if she comes back.’

I sat on the bed with him, feeling the distance between us. I hadn’t been in this situation with him, sitting on the edge of his bed, since he was a little boy, and obsessed with a story about a little red engine. He turned over, away from me.

‘What is it, Greg?’ I asked. He didn’t move for a moment, then he rolled back to look at me.

‘I don’t feel anything,’ he said finally. ‘Like, she’s my sister and she’s rung and I don’t feel anything about that.’ He turned away again. ‘There must be something wrong with me,’ he said in a muffled voice. I patted him awkwardly and stood up, leaving the room.

I went to my table and sat down. Though I hadn’t been able to articulate it, I knew exactly what my son meant and I was feeling some of it myself. In the last eighteen months, we’d all done what we needed to do to protect our hearts and our egos from the pain and the guilt of Jacinta’s loss. Now, the reality of her reappearance, in spite of the excitement it raised, and the potential for very real relief and joy, also brought with it all the other business: my sense of failure as a father, as a husband. Then there was all the business of what she’d been doing with herself over the last year and a half, what had happened to her, how she’d lived, what sort of people she might be involved with. If she came back to us, she’d bring all this with her, swirling around like black shrouds. I returned to Greg’s room and sat in a chair. Eventually, he rolled over and looked at me.

‘I know what you’re feeling,’ I said, ‘because I’m all confused, too.’ It was the humblest admission I’d ever made to my son, to anyone. It was the end of the all-knowing, father-knows-best charade.

‘Geez, Dad,’ said my son. ‘What are we all going to do?’ He looked away, blinking, and I could see he was on the verge of tears. ‘Our family’s a real mess,’ he said, in words that were little more than a whisper. There was nothing I could say to that so I touched his arm, left the room, steeled myself and phoned his mother.

Genevieve was almost hysterical, demanding to know why I hadn’t traced the call and what was I going to do, just sit there till Jacinta decided to ring again. I told her, yes, pretty much.

I suddenly remembered a scene between my parents from my childhood, with my mother screaming at my father, and my father standing there, sounding just like I had then before I’d put down the phone.

My fax machine started humming, so I cleared away our meal and stacked the dishes in the sink. Then I went to the overcrowded corner table where the fax machine was and tore off a letter from Sarah.

Hullo Jack
, Sarah had written.
I’m sending Bob Edwards my official report but I knew you’d like to hear the basic points. In my opinion, the three ‘Rosie’ letters are indistinguishable from each other
, —Sarah was using the formula she used in court, rather than stating that they were written by the same person—
and they are each written with a fountain pen that catches the paper on the upstrokes, using an imported French sepia black ink. The most interesting element is the paper. I’ve never seen this stuff before and when I asked Warren Austin about it, he says he hasn’t seen it for ages. It’s an expensive linen-based paper, manufactured by Liberty Mills. According to them, production of this line ceased about ten years ago when it became too costly to produce in small quantities. Hugh Fullerton had a look at them, and he reckons the use of this expensive ink and the fine paper suggests someone fastidious, eccentric, maybe even crankish. I’ve passed the originals over to Fingerprints and made a copy of the text for Hugh to study. No doubt he’ll venture a few learned opinions concerning the character of the letter-writer in due course. How’s life on leave? Bye, Sarah
.

I put the fax down. Eccentric, fastidious and crankish, our lingo expert had said. And, he could have added, ‘homicidal’.

•

Next morning I was in Bob’s office looking through Sarah’s official report. It gave detailed descriptions of the chemical make-up of the ink and the paper used and was signed with her official seal. It was highly technical so I turned to her summary and read pretty well what she’d faxed me last night.

‘It’s not uncommon to have boxes of stationery hanging round for years,’ said Bob, putting down the report. ‘When I chucked out Sheila’s stuff I found boxes with teddy bears on it. Stuff she’d had since before we were married.’

‘So all we need to do is find out who’s got the box that paper came from,’ I joked.

Bob picked up a note from his desk. ‘I checked on the priest. Father Dumaresque died over five years ago.’ Just as Father Cusack had told me, I thought.

‘But he’s still walking,’ I said. I stood up, wandering around the room, picking things up, putting them down, my mind playing with different ideas. ‘Impersonating a priest is a good one,’ I said. ‘It’s not the sort of thing that anyone’s going to check up on. Anyone could do it. I suppose they’d have to know a bit about what priests do.’

‘And keep out of the way of real ones, who might smell a rat.’

‘That wouldn’t be hard,’ I said, ‘especially on a brief prison visit.’ I sat down on one of Bob’s spare chairs, but I was restless and stood up again. ‘What do you make of it so far?’ I asked my old colleague, who looked quite comfortable, sitting back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, legs stretched out and crossed in front.

‘It’s someone who likes good things,’ he said, ‘like Hugh suggests. Good paper, French ink. Someone’s putting a lot into these letters.’

‘Hell, yes,’ I said. ‘Not your average vigilante. After all, he’s got to convince these men. Got to get them to meet him.’

‘We’re both saying “him” quite automatically, aren’t we?’ said Bob.

I considered his remark. ‘If it’s a woman,’ I said, ‘it’s someone who’s very strong, and handy with a knife.’

‘Not many women like that around,’ said Bob.

‘My brother Charlie is currently living with a woman who trained as a commando in Cyprus.’ Bob raised an eyebrow.

‘We got a result on the hair I found caught on Frank Carmody’s shirt,’ I went on.

‘And?’

‘It’s most likely from a wig,’ I said. ‘Florence found bleached, dyed hair, probably Asian in origin, the sort that’s used in the manufacture of good quality wigs.’

‘He dresses for the part, then,’ said Bob, referring to our theoretical killer. Like an image from Hitchcock’s
Psycho,
the grotesque figure of a man wearing a wig and women’s clothes loomed out of the shadows of my imagination.

My mobile rang and I snatched it up. ‘Yes?’ I said. There was a long pause and I was starting to wonder if it might be a heavy breather. Then she was there again, very faint.

‘Dad? Is that you?’

‘Jesus, Jass, where are you?’

I felt Bob’s alertness. The air in his office was charged and both of us stiffened.

‘Dad? Please come. I’ve done something really stupid.’

‘Where are you? What’s happened? Just tell me where you are!’

‘I don’t know the address. I’m at Renee’s. I’ve been straight for seven whole days, I’m booked into a Rehab and then just a while ago .
 
.
 
.’ Her voice faded away.

‘I know where Renee lives. I’ll be there in ten minutes. What’s the flat number? Stay on the line. Jass? Jass?’

But there was no response. ‘Sounds like she’s overdosed.’ Panic was rising up to my throat. ‘I know where she is but I don’t know the address to give the ambos.’

‘I’ll get them to follow us,’ said Bob, calling them as I raced out of his office. ‘Get me a car!’ I heard him yell, in between talking to the emergency operator. ‘Who’s got the keys?’

‘Richo had them last,’ someone said. ‘Here they are. Catch.’

Bob caught them deftly in midair. ‘Yes,’ he was saying to the ambulance operator, ‘we’re on our way now.’

We ran to the lifts, taking the stairs when we saw they were both stopped floors below. I was hardly aware of the people who gawked after us as we raced down the stairs, round and round until we finally pushed open the heavy fire door to the basement carpark. ‘Seventy-one,’ said Bob as we ran towards it. ‘Should be here.’

It wasn’t. I looked around despairingly. ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Where is it?’

We wasted more time running up and down looking for the car among all the others. My daughter had done something stupid. Her voice had faded away. In spite of everything, part of me was feeling angry with her. Here we go again, this part was saying, just as I’d imagined, I was being drawn into her horrible mess. While at the same time, another voice was saying, for Godsake, she’s only a kid who’s been out on the streets. Give her a break, have a heart.

Bob was opening the driver’s door of seventy-one and leaning over to fling open the passenger door for me.

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘tell me where to go.’

We got to Renee’s apartment block with the ambulance hard on our heels and Bob pulled rank and got past the security system. One of the ground floor residents told us that Renee Miller’s apartment was on the thirteenth floor so we ran to the lifts. Bob and I and the two ambos raced along the parquet corridors, slipping and sliding on the corners until we came to apartment seven.

‘Jass?’ I hammered on the door. Bob took a running jump and kicked the door once, twice, to no avail. The next-door neighbour opened her door.

‘What’s going on? she demanded. It didn’t take long for her to realise things were serious and, best of all, she had a spare key.

I fumbled it in the lock then ran inside, looking around. I stopped, taking in for just a second all the stuffed animals that sat on every surface and piece of furniture, or hung from shelves and cupboard doors. In the second bedroom I found my daughter. I knew her straight away even though she was much longer and thinner, and her hair was bleached white spikes. Her face, collapsed by unconsciousness, was sharper and bonier than I’d remembered, and there were blotchy patches on the skin around her mouth. Even the little cleft in her chin had a bluish shadow in it. She was lying on the floor near the bed, the phone still in her hand, wearing only pale blue underwear, an empty bottle of brandy beside her, clutching a white fur bear. I wanted to pick her up and hug her, but the ambos pushed me out of the way. I could feel tears building around the back of my throat and I couldn’t help noticing the tracks on her arms.

‘Bloody junkie,’ said the older ambulance officer, with the impatient manner they had towards addicts.

‘She rang me, she’s been clean,’ I explained.

‘Yeah,’ said the older man, checking her vital signs, pushing her sleeve up past the track marks, hitting her with Narcan to counteract the heroin. His gloved hands picked something up off the floor. ‘And what do you think this is?’ It was a spent disposable syringe. He let it fall. ‘There’s a new shipment on the streets. This is the fifth one today. They’re dropping like flies.’

‘I’m her father,’ I said and they both looked at me, their professional impassiveness not quite concealing their embarrassment, pity and disgust. ‘It might happen to you,’ I said, feeling angry. ‘You might find one of your kids like this.’

I felt Bob’s hand on my arm and he patted me in the way men pat each other as he gently drew me aside.

‘Take it easy, Jacko,’ he said, ‘let the experts do their job.’ It was the same tone and voice I’d heard him use with dozens of other shocked and hurt people over the years.

Neither of them said anything as they stretchered her. I knew their training program well enough to know they were both obeying the chapter that instructs them not to buy into the problems caused by aggressive or shocked relatives and friends. The older one reached in under the bed and brought out an empty pill bottle. ‘Rohypnol,’ he said, noting it, then passing it over to me. ‘She’s lucky to be alive. That’s alcohol, heroin and a hypnotic. So much for clean.’