When Yesterday Comes Calling, page 5
Once we were inside she stepped back and took a good hard look at me. I knew I must have looked pretty bad, soaking wet, covered in mud and bits of bushes but it wasn't until I got into the light that I realised how bad. I was filthy yes, but I was also white faced and streaked with blood. Mostly scratches from twigs with a couple of reddening splotches where I'd fallen against some rocks, that would be ripe coloured bruises eventually.
When she peeled off her anorak I saw that she was looking quite glamorous. For her, that is. A silky shirt with her better jeans and gold earrings. I felt quite pleased until I wondered if she'd made the effort for the other guest. The one with the big car. She handed me a towel then left me standing there.
There was no greeting, no peck on the cheek, no welcome home. After talking earlier in the week I'd sort of felt she might have been loosening up a bit. That maybe she'd missed me. A bit. But that was Anna. Always cool and defensive.
I heard voices murmuring. The visitor was male. That had my antennae up. Anna was back in minutes with the bathrobe and track suit I kept here and pointed at the bathroom.
`Warm up. You look freezing.'
I pointed at the sitting room, but she sashayed away in front of me as bouncy as I'd ever seen her. The visitor must be quite something I thought sourly as I ran the shower.
As the warm water reached into my frozen core, my stomach twisted. A very serious attempt had been made on my life just down the road from Anna's home. In Kashmir I didn't think the attempts on my life had anything to do with R.S. Holdings. Bale had never told me why he'd tried to get me killed. The attacks were tied to the very nasty Vlado Mladenovic but I couldn't see any connection. R.S. was a far-reaching company but Vlado was organised crime. Somehow I couldn't see him avenging his cousins in faraway Australia.
After tonight though, I would certainly revisit that. Not that I really believed it. Men like Vlado Mladenovic didn't give a shit what happened to the people around him. Any more than Anna's grandfather Milos Mladenovic, his uncle had. No, it was something else. And here was a stranger at my lady's door. Was he an assassin too? Was that why I had to go over the side? To keep me from meeting this visitor?
Ten minutes later, I was warm, dry and clean. I'd checked out most of the scratches and while still limping found that I was surprisingly free of damage despite my wannabe assassin's best intentions. How I would explain the loss of my car to my insurance company would be a challenge, but I'd really come out of it remarkably well. Now all I had to do was stop them trying again.
As I headed for the living room Anna appeared. She took my arm.
`I was wondering where you were.' She stepped back and looked me up and down. `Yep, you'll do.' She giggled. It was so unlike her that my eyebrows almost reached into my hair. Then at the doorway into her living room she suddenly turned and kissed me. Full on the lips. I was so startled I stood rigid. But that wasn't the only reason.
Sprawled across her sofa was a man. A very handsome man. Around forty, dark hair with sexy grey wings at the temples, tailored clothes, and very expensive handmade shoes. The shoes matched the top of the range Mercedes parked outside. Something flickered in his eyes then was instantly gone. It was the same as David Bale, but far less obvious. He was surprised to see me. Was that because he was expecting to be spending a cosy night alone with Anna or had he recognised me and thought I would be at the bottom of a mountain? One small clue might or might not tell the whole story and this guy was good.
I decided to play along. I made a point of trying hard to look cool and sophisticated. Unrealistically, considering my crumpled chain store track suit that had seen better days. Many better days. This bloke had never worn a chain store anything in his life. Who the hell was he, had Anna told him about me and why was she acting like a teen with a crush?
`Oh, Harry, this is Michael.' She was almost tittering.
I walked over to him with my hand outstretched. `Harry Nichols.'
He stood and took my hand. It was dry and firm. There was nothing untoward in his manner now. Indeed, I felt he was working hard to cover the shock my appearance had given him. The one that said I was supposed to be dead.
`Michael Bentford.'
His voice was the result of very expensive English schooling. I got a familiar jolt. I'd met Michael Bentford before. Not the man in front of me but many just like him. Powerful, wealthy, charming, well presented. There was something sleek about him. He looked to me like he was wearing his urbanity like a skin over something else. Something far closer to barbarity. The more I looked at him the more I was sure that Michael Bentford was a fake. I thought I'd have a crack at guessing how he might have known Anna.
`Been in Australia long, have you?' I could feel Anna's eyes boring into my back and I knew how I sounded. Like I was a jealous teenager. `Known Anna long?'
`Harry.'
`I mean, I know you lived in England, Anna, and I just thought...' I was digging an ever-deeper hole. Give him every chance.
Sure enough he rescued me. `No, I’ve only been here a couple of weeks but my parents knew Anna's parents and suggested I look her up. So here I am.'
He was so polished that he made me look like a graceless clod. `Sorry,' I said, `I didn't mean to sound like the ugly Australian.'
He laughed. `I thought only Americans were ugly.'
`Oh no, we do a good line in that too.'
`Well, perhaps everyone does sometimes.'
But not you, I thought. Not accidentally.
As long as he thought I was an idiot, I might be relatively safe. If, as I believed, he knew something about tonight's events, he would be less likely to fear a graceless clod than an investigative journalist with a big-time reputation for being a giant killer. Hopefully he'd leave here with a reduced opinion of me. I wondered what Anna had told him about my adventure. If anything. This was where her reticence might really pay off.
He looked past me, smiling. Waiting? Then he jumped up and strode towards the kitchen where Anna had dug something out of the freezer including some garlic bread and was making up a large bowl of salad.
`I hope there's enough to go around,' I said, uncouth again. I grabbed some plates and mentally ditched the cosy fireside evening I had planned. Just Anna, me and the fire.
Instead I had to try to fathom why the hell such a man wanted me out of the way so he could visit my girlfriend with no questions asked? Who wanted me not just out of the way, but dead. What did he want from Anna Felby and what was his connection to Vlado Mladenovic, for I had no doubt whatsoever there was one?
My best chance was to keep playing as close to the gormless twit as I dared. It was a fine line though because gormless twits don't get to write big time stories about big time crooks like Roger Timpson. Or to feature in international documentaries that they wrote. There was also the complication of Anna. She knew I wasn't a naive idiot.
My choice was to appear to get a bit drunk and tell stories about Kashmir including the assassination attempts which I'd play down. And to make it clear that my network knew about it all including David Bale's involvement and his association with Milan Pavlovic. I would also try to slip in the name Mladenovic including that it was Anna's grandfather's name.
My bet was he knew all about that and it would show. I was also interested to see if he made any phone calls. Maybe to a couple of blokes in a truck sitting in the cold on the Marysville - Lake Mountain Road while it snowed. But I didn't think he would. This guy was way further up the food chain than that.
I still had no idea why Vlado Mladenovic would be interested in Anna. To embrace her back into the family? Yeah, right.
9
I made a joke out of the Bale story but Anna didn't laugh much. And Bentford laughed a little too much. When I mentioned Milan Pavlovic there was no reaction except to agree with me that such a man was a blot on society. I scored better when I mentioned Vlado Mladenovic as an associate of his. There was the faintest of flicker of tension at his name then, when I asked Anna if she knew of any rich Mladenovic cousins, the slight relaxation at the joke.
The evening went well as Bentford told stories of his travels, his home in London, all the theatre shows he'd seen. I was dying to ask if he'd been to Serbia lately but didn't. As I said, a very polished and urbane man. With a lot to hide. He even called on some memories Anna had of her time in England as the daughter of the High Commissioner. Memories of her family were always hard for her, and when I saw her getting tense, I changed the subject with a joke. Bentford got the message and moved on with a sideways look at me.
It was after eleven when he stood up to go. I'd been willing him out of the place for at least two hours. My entire body ached more and more as the minutes ticked past. The somersaulting, crashing and rolling car had stretched and strained every muscle and tendon from my face to the soles of my feet and they were all protesting at once long before then.
I staggered to my feet to shake his hand and wish him out of the place when Anna stepped up and told him that she couldn't let him drive back down the mountain roads on such a terrible night.
`Especially after what happened to Harry, who knows these roads well.'
Bentford looked straight at me when he said, `Oh, what happened?'
My hope that Anna wouldn't say anything evaporated. Bentford knew I should have gone off the road. That I was here, apparently unharmed, unnerved him. Now he knew I was keeping it under wraps and that was unusual if I'd simply had an accident. So some of my cover was gone. I wasn't as ignorant as I made out. If I said I'd just lost control he'd know I was lying. Fuck.
I ducked my head and acted embarrassed. `Oh, just something strange. I got sideswiped by a truck on a bend. It was dark and raining really hard and I don't think they even knew they'd hit me. It was just a glancing blow but in the slippery conditions I lost control. That's all. No big deal.' I looked up. He was watching me like a hawk. `Car's a write-off though,' I said. `Don't know if I'll even be able to find it tomorrow.'
`Sounds like you were very lucky.'
`Yeah, I reckon. Anyway, no harm done. Except for my poor old car.' I laughed.
He smiled. It was the smile of a raptor. I hoped I'd carried it off.
`Well, you can't take any risks, Michael. You can sleep here tonight. In the spare room.'
She didn't look at me. I hoped she wouldn't suggest the sofa. I'd been gearing up for a night of lust with the woman I loved for weeks. That she didn't love me was a problem, but we had a good sex life as far as it went. I prayed her flirtation with Michael Bentford wouldn't make her too prim and proper.
It didn't. She sent me to her room while she set Bentford up in the spare room with my pyjamas.
`You won't need them,' she told me so seriously that I wasn't sure I heard her properly. Maybe he was having a good effect on her because she wasn't usually so flippant. I didn't, and while his presence had stifled the fireside chat I really wanted to have, what happened in the bedroom left nothing to be desired. The only condition was that we had to be quiet. Couldn't have Michael hearing us play, she said.
After a restless night where I woke up every time I tried to turn over, by morning I had stiffened up to the point that I was almost paralysed. Anna was gone by then and I could hear her pottering about in the kitchen. I heard the drawling voice of Michael Bentford as well. I needed to find out a whole lot more about this guy. Quickly.
My computer was at the bottom of a mountainside, but I had my phone. I quickly sent an SMS to my research assistant, Beverley Toombs. She wasn't really my assistant, she was a friend who'd retired from the rat race years earlier and now lived in Queensland. She'd been my editor in the regional newspaper where I first started in the business. She turned me from an angry, callow youth into a journalist.
I still kept in contact particularly when I needed information that I didn't want people to know I wanted. No one in my current circles knew about her so there could be no leaks. I didn't want anyone knowing I was asking about Michael Bentford. The man now eating breakfast with my Anna, in her house, who knew I was supposed to be dead from an ambush on a mountain road in the dark.
I needed to know what links he had to Anna, her parents, and the Mladenovics, past and present. The attempts on my life were definitely related to the Serbian crime boss, Vlado Mladenovic, and Anna's grandfather Milos Mladenovic had been Vlados' uncle.
I decided not to even try to join the happy pair outside. For a start my body didn't want to leave the bed and secondly, I didn't want to risk alerting Bentford that I was suspicious of him. I hoped my performance last night had been good enough to deflect him, but I was under no illusions that my enemies believed I was stupid. And Michael Bentford was my enemy.
I rolled over slowly, groaning as my neck went into a spasm. The shaking had done more damage to that than anything else. The airbags that had squashed me but saved my life hadn't protected that. I closed my eyes and concentrated on breathing. Then a warm breeze blew into my ear.
`Wake up, sleepy.' It was Anna, with a mug of steaming coffee. `Want some breakfast?' She smiled. `Scrambled eggs on toast.'
I rolled over and sat up, grimacing at the cacophony of aches.
`A bit worse than you made out, then?' she said. `How far down did you go?'
She reached out and almost patted my shoulder. Maybe one day she would. I remembered the night six months ago when her mother died in front of us after trying to kill her. How she cuddled into me looking for comfort. I wouldn't wish that much pain on her ever again, but I hoped that one day she'd be able to reach out without always having to test the water.
The night before had been as lusty as always. I always felt sex was a release for her and not about love at all. But for the first time I felt her soften, relaxing with me more than she ever had before. I hoped it wasn't because of Michael Bentford. I would be patient. Right now I needed the coffee. She sat on the side of the bed.
`Do you think you could stay with Michael until he's ready to go? I have to do my chores and it's a bit rude to just leave him by himself.'
Her mother's manners still prevailed. With others anyway. I saw it as acceptance that she didn't stand on ceremony with me and welcomed it.
`Sure. Am I making the scrambled eggs?'
She hunched her shoulders, looked sheepish and headed for the door.
`I take it that's a yes?' I murmured. `What about you? You can't go out in the freezing cold without eat—'
But she'd gone.
I sighed and threw on the track suit. I'd take my chances with the enigmatic Mr Bentford after all. I did my best not to limp as I headed for the kitchen. I didn't want Bentford to know how close I'd come to oblivion. Let him think I'd only crashed a short way down into the undergrowth. He eyed me off as I strolled into the room.
`Anna said you'd like scrambled eggs,' I said. `She's got to do her chores rain or shine.'
`So she said. I'm surprised someone as well off as she is doesn't have a man to do that kind of thing.'
`That would defeat the purpose. She has the farm because it's her haven, her go to place. Doing the chores, which are mostly to do with her animals, are what she loves to do. There's no way she'd want to hand any of that to someone else. Eggs?'
`Oh, yes, thank you.'
`And after all that's happened she may not be all that wealthy anyway. I presume you've heard of her family's business woes?'
He shrugged. `I did hear something, I believe.'
Again there was a tiny shift beyond the expected. He knew all right, far more than he was letting on. It was world-wide news so why would he play it down? One more strike at the integrity of Mr Bentford.
`Tell me,' he said, `have you known Anna long?'
I handed him his scrambled eggs. `Eggs,' I said.
`Oh, sorry.' He laughed. `None of my business. Now I'm the ugly Englishman.'
`Not at all,' I said, smiling. `No, not terribly long.'
I fixed my own eggs then sat at the bench and we sat, like two dogs checking each other out, making small talk as we ate. He was in Melbourne on business with a large banking company and had been given Anna's number by a girlfriend of hers, whose name he couldn't remember but it was written down in his computer. He would be here for around a month before moving on.
`I'm a sort of roving banker, if you've heard of such a thing?' He laughed. `It's a great life. I get to all the best cities in the world and get paid handsomely to do it. And you, as you said last night, are a journalist.'
`That's right. A few, rare overseas jaunts like Kashmir, but no high life for me I'm afraid.'
It was there again. That little twitch, too small to even be called a twitch. He knew far more about Kashmir than my drunken story last night. And if he was a banker, unless it was for the mob, I was a Martian. I crossed to the main window. The rain had stopped but the sky was leaden. There would be snow today. As I watched, the llamas galloped out into the paddock followed by Lara, Anna's maremma dog, their guardian. They looked extraordinary with their full winter fleece swinging as they ran.
They were followed by a horse I'd never seen before. After her beloved old racehorse Dixie was killed on the orders of R.S. Holdings boss, Roger Timpson, Anna had been heartbroken and had resisted attempts to get her to find a new horse. It would be disloyal to Dixie she said when I suggested she needed another horse to love and be loved by.
10
Love came very hard to Anna. She'd had none as a child so saw herself as incapable of loving or being loved. But with the farm she'd become aware that she was capable of loving animals at least, if not people. She was also able to accept that they, in their way, loved her. Now it looked like she'd found room for one more.
The horse was big and almost black under its dun-coloured canvas coat. It trotted behind the llamas as if it belonged to their little herd. I was suddenly aware of Bentford standing close behind me and felt menace pouring out of him. I shuddered inwardly. Was he aware that I was suspicious of him? That I wasn't just jealous. If he was as good at reading minute non-verbal cues as I was I was in trouble.
