Gone Guest, page 24
That almost got her eyebrows moving. “Stole? That’s a bit harsh. If they happened to slobber all over my grandparents’ anniversary goblets, it’s hardly my fault.”
“You chose those goblets deliberately,” said Lynette. They had done some Googling on the way over and read that DNA lasts longer on metal surfaces than glass. “You pretended to toast Ronnie, then pocketed the goblets to get them tested. You conned that from them, which is unethical at best.”
She shrugged. “But not strictly illegal, last I looked.”
Alicia wasn’t convinced that was true; wished she could check with Jackson. “But there are worse crimes than that, aren’t there?” Alicia said now. “Like trying to shoot Sebastian so he doesn’t prove he’s Ronnie’s boy and take Westeraview from you.”
“Shoot?” Her eyes had narrowed. “Careful, young lady, you’re heading into slanderous territory.”
“He’s not by the way,” said Missy, bravely. “Ronnie’s boy. She says—”
“She says.” Bethany slammed her cup loudly on a nearby mantlepiece, making Missy jump. “You believe that, do you? Forgive me if I choose to find out for myself.”
“But why bother?” asked Lynette. “Ronnie’s already promised you Westeraview, and she says she’d honour that promise whether Sebastian was hers or not.”
“Again with the she says. How do we know she’ll really follow through and give us the measly crumbs we’ve been offered from Bert’s plate, hmm?” Bethany glanced around the room, tsking. “None if it was even hers, and she acts like we should be grateful!”
Missy frowned at this comment and followed her eyes around the room.
“You’re very trusting of Veronica,” Bethany continued. “Just like stupid Bert.”
That comment surprised them, and she lifted her chin, defiantly. “No, unlike everyone else, I don’t worship at the altar of Bertram the Great. Bert was a silly old fool. He’d built his wealth long before Veronica came along, but he still left her everything even though she cheated on him like a common show girl. She didn’t deserve a thing. She’s a liar and a manipulator, and like Bert, you have been well and truly played.”
“We trust Ronnie,” said Missy, her voice a little wobbly.
“More fool you,” she replied, eyes boring into the younger woman. “Why are you even here, boring me with all this? Haven’t you got an all-you-can-eat buffet to get to?”
Missy shrank back, shocked, while Lynette sat forward. Furious.
“Cut the crap, Bethany,” she said. “We know you were inside the house when Greta and Sebastian were shot. That means you had opportunity. And the fact that you were stealing—yes, stealing—Sebastian’s DNA tells us you also had motive.”
“I don’t see why,” she shot back, her voice icily calm. “Why would I go to the trouble of stealing his DNA and then shoot him anyway? Before I’d even got the results? What would be the point of all that?”
Lynette blinked rapidly, then glanced back at Missy and Alicia. They both looked stumped. It was a very good question, one they should have asked themselves.
Bethany smirked. “This little theory of yours needs some work, O amateur detectives. Speaking of which…” She turned and strode to the front door, swinging it open. “I need to go to bed. Some of us have to work for a living.”
“You work?” said Missy.
Bethany snorted. “Of course I work. Nobody’s handing me free Maseratis and Lamborghinis.”
Then, as they made their way out and across the now-lit porch, Bethany leaned against the doorframe and added, “I wasn’t the only one with opportunity that night, you know.”
They turned back, catching her smirk. “Checked out that old witch Peg yet? I spotted her in the house bang in the middle of the fireworks. Coming down from upstairs, in fact. Had a very guilty look on her face. I bet she never mentioned that…”
Chapter 27 ~ Rise and Shine
Alicia felt relieved when the light finally shone through her bedroom window on Tuesday morning, and it had nothing to do with the autumn sunshine. She’d had a restless night sleep, Bethany’s words whipping in and out of her head like a boomerang.
“You’re very trusting of Ronnie… Just like stupid Bert.”
“She’s a liar and a manipulator… You have been well and truly played.”
“I wasn’t the only one with opportunity that night… I spotted Peg… coming down from upstairs… looking guilty…”
It was all so terribly tangled, and she didn’t know whom to trust.
“You can’t still think Ronnie killed her nephew?” asked Lynette as they made the drive back to Balmain for a pre-arranged breakfast meeting.
“Not really,” Alicia replied. “Although I am now imagining Peg at that top window, wielding the rifle, and that makes even less sense.”
“Except…,” said Lynette, staring across from the passenger seat. “Perry reckons Peg’s not quite the good friend she pretends to be. Is jealous of Ronnie and all her good fortune. Maybe she wanted to hurt her.”
“By slaughtering one nephew and framing the other? Talk about Mean Girl!”
Lynette groaned. “It’s too early… I need coffee…”
Fortunately, there was plenty of it at Ronnie’s house and it had been superbly brewed by Rosa. The housekeeper’s breakfast spread was also superb, and Perry could not stop raving.
“Careful, Lynny,” he said as he helped himself to some crepes from the sprawling kitchen bench, then smothered them with maple syrup and blueberries. “Looks like you’re being upstaged. Might have to hold all our book clubs here in the future.”
Lynette slapped him one of the crepes while Ronnie tsked beside them.
“Stop teasing, Perry. And put that food down, Lynette, you’re not five for goodness’ sake. Besides, one reason I enjoy book club is because it gets me out of the house, so there’s no chance of that.” Then she added, “Although someone clearly thinks this is our home turf. A letter came for the book club today, addressed to you, Perry. I popped it on the coffee table inside.”
“Really?” he said. “How bizarre. Who’s it from?”
“No idea, and I certainly didn’t open it. Unlike you lot, I respect boundaries.” She smiled to soften her wrath. “Come on, people, fill up and let’s spread out in the drawing room. We’ll be more comfortable there. I know most of you have got lovely jobs to get back to.”
A nod at Queenie then who had shown up this morning but seemed the most anxious to get away.
“Speaking of jobs,” said Missy. “What does Bethany do?”
Ronnie blinked. “Do? Very little I believe.” Then, “Oh, I think she occasionally helps a friend in her boutique, an overpriced dress shop in Double Bay, why?”
“Oh, she mentioned it,” said Missy as she reached for another crepe, then thought better of it, scooping more blueberries onto her plate.
“What about you, Ronnie?” asked Lynette. “Did you miss nursing after Bert made you give it up?”
Ronnie frowned. “I did miss nursing, that is true, but Bert didn’t make me give it up. Who told you that rubbish? I chose to walk away. I’d already set up a few charitable foundations, and it was becoming a full-time job. As much as I loved nursing, I quickly realised I could do so much more for the community as a philanthropist.”
“Well, nursing’s loss was the charity world’s gain,” said Alicia.
Once they were settled on lounges back in the living room, Missy gave the group a quick rundown on their late-night visit with Bethany.
“She didn’t deny she’d stolen your brother’s and Hugh’s DNA,” she told Seamus, who was looking more rested this morning. “Was very unapologetic.”
“Sounds just like Bethany,” he replied. “But she does make a valid point. Why go to all the trouble of collecting DNA only to shoot at the very person you’ve just collected it from?”
“Impatience?” offered Claire. “Maybe she panicked.”
Missy was shaking her head. “Then why not call off that Craig Samson fellow? They’re not cheap, those DNA tests, and she wouldn’t need to pay for one if she thought she’d just killed Sebastian.” She clicked her chipped nails against her cup. “And I don’t reckon Bethany is the panicky type. I reckon she’s more your classic control freak. Just like my boss at the library, Geraldine. You should have seen her when I got into work yesterday, she…” Missy glanced at Queenie and quickly abandoned that chain of thought. “Anyway, I just don’t think she’d panic.”
“You’re spot on,” said Seamus. “That sounds more like her boozy brother to me.” His eyes widened. “Could he have done it?”
“Bronson? Hardly,” said Ronnie. “He could barely walk straight that night, let alone hold a rifle. So did you learn anything from Bethany?”
Alicia scrunched her face a little. “She did mention something about your friend Peg that we didn’t know. Apparently she was also inside during the fireworks.”
“Peg was?” Ronnie looked surprised, then gave a casual shrug. “She was probably just up in my room, using the loo or doing her make-up or something.”
“In the middle of the fireworks?” said Missy. “Who bothers with lippie when there’s pretty lights overhead?”
Ronnie frowned. “So now Peg’s a suspect? Nonsense!” Then she blinked, knowing how that sounded. “I know you’re trying to help, it’s just…” Ronnie’s eyes turned to Seamus, a tear suddenly dislodging. “I can’t help feeling this is all a distraction. Now that you’re out, I wonder if our time would be better spent searching for Sebastian. I mean, we should have found him by now. Where is he?”
He held out empty palms, his eyes also watery.
Ronnie sniffed and grabbed the serviette from her plate. Held it to her nose. “You know what keeps bothering me?” she said. “Why did Sebastian run towards the cliff? I can’t understand why he’d do something so silly, so dangerous. Why even head that way when we were all back at the house? We could have helped him, saved him. It makes no sense.”
“The bullets were coming from our direction,” said Claire softly.
“Okay, so run down to the guardhouse then. There was plenty of cover between the court and the front gate. He would have been safer in the forest. Why not seek help from Pete?”
Alicia agreed. “The guardhouse was the first place we wanted to run, wasn’t it, Perry?”
“Well, you wanted to phone Jackson if I remember rightly, but yes, that was the general plan until Pete appeared, our proud sentinel. Oh, here, Ronnie…”
Ronnie was attempting to blow her nose with her thick serviette, so he reached for the box of tissues on the coffee table, and that’s when he noticed the thin white envelope underneath it.
“Is this the letter you mentioned? The one for me?”
Ronnie nodded and took the tissues from Perry, as Seamus said, “And I ran down to the guardhouse too, remember? That was pure instinct.”
Actually, it was more like panic, thought Perry, scooping the envelope up. Seamus was running around like a headless chook that night. Perry tried not to roll his eyes as he glanced at the writing on the front, eyebrows suddenly wedging together.
Ronnie blew her nose delicately. “Poor Pete. Who would want to hurt a perfectly innocent security guard just going about his business?” Then she frowned and said, “Perry? Are you okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
They all turned to look at Perry, but his eyes were locked on the envelope.
“This letter isn’t addressed to Perry,” he said. “It’s addressed to Peppy.”
Ronnie waved her tissue in the air. “Looks more like Perry than Ronnie. I’ll open it if you like—”
“No, no!” He held it tightly to his chest, his eyes excitable as they danced around the group. “It definitely says Peppy, and there is only one person who has ever called me that.”
Then he held it back out and gave them all a strange, sad look which landed, finally, on Alicia. “I think this is from our sentinel.”
Then he carefully plucked the letter out.
Chapter 28 ~ The Sentinel’s Last Stand
“Dear Peppy (yeah, I know that’s not your actual name, but I think it kind of suits you),
I don’t know who else to turn to, and you strike me as a pretty level bloke. I think you can be trusted, and so I’m going to trust you as Sebastian trusted me.
The bloody fool.
The poor kid came to me for protection, and I let him down. It was never supposed to be like this. I was only ever supposed to be the garbage man, cleaning up someone else’s mess. An innocent woman was not supposed to get hurt. That was never part of the plan.
But then things went badly wrong, and poor Greta… I’ll never forgive myself for that. And I don’t expect her parents to either. What happened to her was unforgiveable.
But two wrongs don’t make a right, and I’ve always been hired to protect, not harm, which is why when Sebastian came to the guardhouse, covered in blood and screaming, I knew I had to act. Everything I did then was to help him. I hope you can all see that.
I hid the lad away and cared for him as best I could. Kept expecting the police to find him. To search properly. But they never did. And now it all feels too late.
It certainly is for me.
Before I go, I’m reaching out to you. I don’t know who’s really involved in all this. I don’t trust anybody in that family or anyone close to them. But for some reason I trust you and your book club. I hope my trust is not misguided. (In the 45 years I worked at Westeraview, I never once got offered a cup of Joe, let alone breaky. I can see why Ronnie loves you, and I wish I’d formed better alliances. But there you go.)
I can’t say exactly where Sebastian is for fear of this getting into the wrong hands. But I trust you’ll find him, and I know who can help. Ask Biddy.
If there’s one thing she’s good at, it’s playing hide-and-seek.
Please tell my family I love them. And I’m sorry.
Pete Ragnar”
Perry sat back with a thud after reading the security guard’s letter out loud. It was handwritten on a piece of customised Westera stationery, the writing scrawled and smudged like he’d been in a hurry, and perhaps he had.
Perry looked up and straight across to Ronnie. She had a shaky hand to her mouth and was gasping, like she was struggling to find her breath. Seamus had a protective arm around her, but he too looked in shock, his eyes saucer-wide, his cheeks a deathly white.
No one could find words for many minutes, then Missy said, “Was that… is that… a suicide note?”
Perry shrugged, then nodded. “Sounds like one to me.”
Ronnie gasped again, and then Seamus leapt up like he’d been slapped, his cheeks now burning red.
“He’s alive! Seb’s alive,” he cried out, whipping this way and that. Then he stopped and stared down at Perry. “Isn’t he? Isn’t that what Pete said?”
All eyes were back on Perry, who held the letter out like it was infected. “I don’t know… I mean… not exactly.”
“Oh God,” said Ronnie, and Seamus dropped down beside her, looking bleak again.
“When did Pete write that?” asked Alicia, sitting forward now. “When did you receive it, Ronnie?”
Ronnie blinked at her, taking a moment to digest the question. “Um…” She shook her head. “This morning. It came with the morning mail.”
“Posted yesterday morning,” Perry said, pointing to a postmark on the envelope. “Monday, 9:16 a.m.”
“But Pete was dead by then,” said Lynette, frowning. “He died on Saturday night. How could he—?”
“Who cares?” said Seamus. “We need to find Sebastian! He said to find Seb. He must’ve hidden him somewhere. Oh my God, I can’t believe he did that. What was he thinking? Why would he hide him? And why didn’t he tell us where?”
“Because he’s protecting him,” Perry said. “He didn’t trust anybody, yeah?” Then he read from the letter again. “Says he doesn’t trust that family or anyone close to them.”
“That’s not true!” Ronnie suddenly cried. She had found her voice, and her eyes were glinting, alive with hope. “He did trust somebody. And so should we.”
She struggled to her feet, then raced across the room as fast as her shaky legs could carry her.
Biddy was nestled in an oversized armchair in a spare guest room at the back of the house, Ronnie’s cats asleep on either side of her. On a card table in front was a half-slurped tea and the crumbs of a slice of fruit cake, and behind her the sound of Olivia Newton-John, belting out “Banks of the Ohio”. Biddy was singing along at the top of her lungs and didn’t stop, even as her eyes glided across to the group that now swarmed her doorway.
“Biddy,” said Ronnie, racing across and startling the cats who growled at her grumpily, before settling down again.
The older woman’s face lit up. “Oh, hello, Ronnie,” she said. “I’m going to have lolly water soon. Nurse said. She’s coming at eleven, and she’s bringing my favourite Sprite. Not the orange one, the lemon one. Don’t like the orange one. What time is it now?”
“What time is it?” Ronnie repeated. Then she collapsed on the floor beside Biddy’s chair and said, “Oh Biddy, darling Biddy. I’ll tell you exactly what time it is now. It’s time you got to play that precious game of hide-and-seek.”
~
The game was an excruciating one for Ronnie and Seamus, mostly because it could not even start until they had returned to Westeraview—a good hour’s drive south of Balmain. While the letter left so much unanswered—was Sebastian still alive? Who was Pete covering for?—one thing was clear: Sebastian had to be hidden somewhere on the family estate.
It’s the only thing that made sense.
For starters, Pete had barely left the property since Sebastian went missing, apart from that brief period when Peg drove through and found the gate open (which they all agreed was probably when Pete popped down to the local village and dropped his letter to Perry in the post box).
