Murder Most Fancy, page 10
‘I had a migraine,’ Gilly explained.
Gilly had so many migraines in primary school, the principal recommended she visit a neurologist. In high school, her migraines were miraculously replaced by stomach aches. It seemed migraines were making a comeback.
‘Dude,’ Esmerelda murmured. ‘Sisterly love.’
‘What do you mean Max Weller is “as good as gone”?’ Astor said to Gregory, doubling back to the earlier comment.
Yes! I had a name: Max Weller.
‘Well, you wouldn’t do anything about him, Mr PC,’ Gregory said, starting back in on his lemon meringue pie.
‘Max Weller is a guest at this hotel. I’m not about to let you into his room to snoop through his things. I know you’re unfamiliar with the finer aspects of hotel management, Gregory, but that’s generally frowned upon. And illegal.’
‘Oh God, Astor, everything’s bloody illegal with you!’ Gregory said, forking the last piece of his pie.
‘What did you do, Gregory?’ Astor said seriously.
All eyes at the table turned to Gregory.
‘Nothing! Nothing. I just had a little talk to him,’ Gregory said, looking around defensively, hands in the air. ‘Told him to leave Mother alone and bugger back off to Adelaide. Man to man.’
‘This better not have happened at the hotel,’ Astor warned.
‘So what if it did?’ Gregory shot back. ‘Rules, rules, rules.’
‘Wouldn’t, like, both the dudes in that conversation hafta be a man to make that work?’ Esmerelda whispered.
‘And he left,’ Gregory said. ‘Haven’t heard from him since.’ He slid Bettina’s uneaten pie over.
‘He agreed to leave Mother?’ Astor asked, astonished.
‘Well, no,’ Gregory blustered. ‘But he walked away. Didn’t come back at me, not like a real man.’
Esmerelda shook her head at me and mouthed the words dude and tool.
‘But he hasn’t checked out of the hotel. Has he?’ Astor queried.
‘I don’t know, Astor,’ Gregory said, shrugging in irritation. ‘I’ve been at the Diamond Goat Health Spa cleansing for the last week.’
‘Yes,’ Astor said, watching the first bite of Bettina’s lemon meringue pie disappear into Gregory’s mouth. ‘I can tell.’ Astor studied Gilly and Bettina. ‘Do you two know anything about this?’
Bettina was incensed. ‘I’ve been away sourcing fabrics. I’ve been home less than a fortnight. I didn’t even know Granny was dating. Somebody—’ she glared at Gilly, ‘—should’ve told me. When did it even start?’
‘A few months ago,’ Gilly said matter-of-factly. ‘They met at the opera in Byron Bay. He wormed his way in, pretending to like opera. I mean, really, who likes opera?’
Gregory snorted.
‘Uh, hello?’ Bettina said. ‘Granny likes opera.’
Gilly rolled her eyes at her sister. ‘Well, duh, Bettina. Not just opera. All of it. They’ve been to every sculpting studio and orchestral performance from here to Brisbane. Every play ever written the two of them have snuck into once the curtain was up, thinking no one knew. As if he’s into all that.’
‘Did it occur to you, Giuliana, sweetheart, that perhaps they do have common interests? That maybe they just wanted some privacy?’ Astor said in a tone that was close to reprimanding but not quite there.
‘Granny’s old, Uncle Astor! He was trying to take advantage,’ Gilly said, pouting.
‘I don’t know that he is,’ Astor said, meaningfully. ‘Max has retained the Forrest Suite here for many weeks. While I think the Holly Park Sydney represents excellent value for a six-star hotel—’
Esmerelda snorted at this remark and I shushed her.
‘—that’s not something one can do on a pension. He’s always immaculately dressed. Uses the inhouse barber almost daily—’
I shoved Esmerelda in the ribs at the mention of a barber.
‘—the inhouse laundry service, has manicures and pedicures at the spa. These are not things a man on a budget does. And I think his prayer bracelet is Tahitian black—’
‘Spas? Pedicures? Bracelets?’ Gregory piped. ‘Pfft! What a gigolo,’ said the man who almost single-handedly supported the survival of exclusive spa resorts on the east coast.
Gilly snorted and nodded in agreement with her father, before adding, ‘Well, it’s all mood now, because according to this—’ she tapped a nail on her phone screen, ‘—he’s back, and he’s proposed and she’s said yes.’
A wave of financial fear went around the Holly family table, crashing hard over everyone but Astor. Unsurprising. He was the only one who knew how to earn a living.
Esmerelda shot me a questioning look and mouthed mood?
‘Moot. I think she meant moot.’
Esmerelda’s expression did not change.
‘I’ll explain later,’ I hushed.
‘Not for long, he’s not,’ Gregory blustered. ‘I’m going to go and have another talk to him. He can bugger off back to Asia.’
‘I thought you said he was from Adelaide?’ Bettina queried.
‘That’s what I heard, but he told one of the bus boys he worked most of his life in Asia. Who knows with these gigolos?’
Astor laid a hand on his brother’s arm. ‘I think Max is a bit long in the tooth to be a gigolo. Mother’s been trying to get to know this man quietly. Perhaps we should let her.’ This was not posed as a question.
‘But Father’s—’ Gregory started.
Astor removed his hand from Gregory’s arm. ‘Father has been gone for a good many years now. I think you and I both know he had his own interests,’ he said purposefully.
‘Why wouldn’t she tell me?’ Bettina uttered, more to herself than anyone else.
I felt some genuine sympathy for her for the first time since the fourth grade, when she’d had her school bag, lunchbox, drink bottle and pencil case all superglued shut as an April Fools’/tenth-birthday prank.
Then I recalled her interaction with Claire the gardener and her Garden Miser status. I understood why Dame Elizabeth might not want to introduce Bettina to a man Bettina might perceive as a threat.
It was Bettina’s turn to be soothed by her uncle.
‘I’m sure she’ll tell you. In time. Besides, you’ve been away, hard at work for months. You’d barely landed when you spotted that poor homeless man who’d wandered into Florence Hasluck-Royce’s back garden. Laid out in the lilies. So sad.’
‘What?’ I squeaked in objection.
‘I still can’t believe you scaled that boxwood hedge and broke into the old cow’s garden to try to rescue him,’ Gilly said, retrieving her untouched lemon meringue pie from the centre of the table, where it had, not of its own volition, but assisted by Gregory, migrated.
‘Yeah,’ Esmerelda muttered. ‘Totally hard to believe.’
‘Giuliana!’ snapped Astor. ‘Mrs Hasluck-Royce has been an excellent customer for many years. She’s also a dear friend of your grandmother.’
‘Come on!’ Gilly exclaimed. ‘We all know she’s a—’
‘She’s a bit prickly, yes, but she’s also an incredible feminist. A trailblazer.’
Gilly, Bettina and Gregory all rolled their eyes. In truth, Grandmother was both prickly and a trailblazer. She would, however, be furious to be called a feminist. They were far too left-leaning in her opinion. But what was important here was that Bettina was claiming to have found the man in the lilies. I wondered if I figured in her version of the story at all. I hoped not.
Astor switched subjects. ‘You were extremely level-headed to have secured the scene and called the police, Bettina.’
‘Well, of course, I would have taken care of it had I been there,’ Gregory said, eyeing Gilly’s dessert. ‘But I was working.’
‘Working? At the Diamond Goat Health Spa?’ Gilly scoffed, her eyes moving from her father to her dessert, which had once again begun moving across the table towards him.
‘Research, dearest. I’m always researching ways to improve the Holly Oak resorts.’ His hand reached across the centre of the table and took her pie.
‘I think you’ve heroically done quite enough research for us, Gregory,’ Astor said. A sentence I am guessing he had said to his brother many, many times before.
Astor moved the spotlight back to Bettina, the real hero. ‘You were very brave, Bettina. And to have calmed poor Indigo-Daisy … Violet.’ He paused. ‘I always forget the last one. Some kind of crystal, isn’t it? Amethyst?’ He looked around the table for help. Shockingly, the rest of the Holly clan had no interest in contributing to a conversation about me or my names.
‘Yes, Indigo was terribly distressed. And a little drunk I think,’ Bettina added in a conspiratorial tone.
‘Well, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it?’ Gilly sniped.
I felt like I had been punched in the chest. I was not drunk. I hadn’t even had my second caipiroska for the day! And I found the body. Well, I tripped over the body, but still. Plus, I was not the one who had been hysterical. The nerve of that woman! I looked to Esmerelda for moral support, but she was gone, crawling under the table like a demented paratrooper, towards the final tablecloth. I had forgotten about her undying loyalty to Mother, and to Mother’s impressive sobriety. If someone had plucked me out of prison and placed me in a harbourside mansion, I would probably be quite loyal too.
It was likely that Esmerelda was about to try to beat Bettina and Gilly about the face with those lemon meringue pie plates. It did not pay to think about what she would do with the tiny dessert forks.
I lunged after her and grabbed her by a sneakered foot. ‘No! Stop!’ I very almost yelled.
I pulled her lanky brown legs towards me, grabbing hold of the rolled cuff of her jeans now not-so-hidden under her maid’s uniform. ‘She’s a horrible gossip!’ I hissed. ‘Ignore her.’
Esmerelda may never have seen the inside of a gym, but she had seen the inside of a prison cell. It was like playing tug of war with a body part. I’d pull her legs towards me only to have her grip the floor like Spiderman and pull herself back towards the thin gold cloth that separated us from the Holly family.
With a wave of panic, I realised the family were moving about. They’d heard us! At any second, Bettina was going to pull back the silky tablecloth and my humiliation would be complete. I would be the drunken Heiress who had set fire to her husband and then groped a maid under a table.
The voices grew louder as the family walked towards us. My world blurred at the expectation of discovery and humiliation. I knocked myself on the side of the head with my right palm to clear the fuzz that had gripped it, while my left hand and arm struggled to pull Esmerelda’s squirming leg up to my chest into a bear hug.
‘I think she likes a bit of strange,’ came Gregory’s voice as his legs walked past the tablecloth. He was so close the cloth waved in the wake of his motion.
‘I think she likes a bit of rough trade,’ Gilly said, following behind. ‘Big poles.’ I saw Gilly’s shoe skim the bottom edge of the cloth. Blue satin Manolo Blahniks with a crystal embedded buckle. She was not worthy.
Both Gregory and Gilly were, at least momentarily, out of Esmerelda’s reach. But not mine. No one slut-shames my mother. I lunged. I was going to rip that shoe right off her foot and plant its heel in her eye socket like a spring bulb.
Thin, scrappy arms wrapped around my upper thighs, pulling me back. I scratched at the floor and scrambled to grab hold of one of the metal table legs for leverage. I was so wild with rage I could not speak. Small guttural noises came out of the back of my throat, risen up through my heart and my chest.
‘Dude,’ Esmerelda huffed as she pulled at my arms and legs, trying to wrestle me back from the edge.
I heard the door clop closed at the end of the room and the voices stopped.
They were gone.
‘I’m like, so totally proud of you,’ Esmerelda said earnestly.
CHAPTER 8
UNDER THE TABLE
Almost. They were almost gone.
I don’t know who was more astonished to see whom: Astor Holly, head tipped almost upside down, floppy hair hanging, his hand holding back the tablecloth, bright blue eyes taking in the view, or me, both my billowing uniform skirt and my own dress skirt up over my waist (my underwear was mercifully new and well-fitting), one foot (no shoe—it had fallen off in the struggle) clutched tightly under Esmerelda’s arm, the other wedged on her shoulder (I was trying to use her as leverage to launch myself at Gilly). At least my cap was still on.
I pulled my skirts down and blocked the humiliating, dizzying image of Astor Holly seeing me this way. As I retrieved my shoe, I reassured myself that while Astor did seem to adore beautiful women (he sent Mother a large basket of Chanel on her birthday every year), he had only ever been publicly linked to male partners. The realisation that he would probably have less than zero interest in my underwear comforted me and my head cleared.
‘Aren’t you … ?’ he said, pointing at me.
‘No,’ I said smartly.
‘Oh, so you must be …’ he said, peering at Esmerelda.
‘Nope,’ Esmerelda said, shaking her head, outfit akimbo, trying to appear casual. Our reputation preceded us. To his credit, Astor did not run away or call me out. ‘I see. Well, then, ah … social visit?’
I shook my head.
He smiled mischievously. He was probably in his early sixties, but he wore it well. The work he’d had done was exceptional. ‘Job interview?’
I recoiled. Esmerelda snorted in laughter.
‘Well, ladies, I’m out of ideas.’
‘Like,’ Esmerelda started, ‘I was thinking of getting one of these tables.’ And she thumped the thick centre leg of the table.
‘I see. Just checking on their sturdiness?’
‘Yep, exactly,’ she said. And for all the world I believed her.
He tapped the top of the table and grinned. ‘We like them. Perhaps you’d like to see them from the outside?’ He offered Esmerelda a hand to help her out. She declined.
‘I’m good here,’ she said, examining the table’s underside.
The expression on his face was a mix of intrigue and bafflement. As he studied us, a thought crossed his face. ‘I do apologise for my niece and brother.’
‘Which niece?’ Esmerelda wanted to know.
‘The rude one,’ he said.
Esmerelda eyed me. I shrugged. They were both rude in my book. I still felt I had the moral high ground on both sisters, even while spying on them from under a table.
‘The ruder one, then,’ Astor said, trying to avoid repeating the insults. ‘Giuliana.’
Esmerelda looked at me, still confused.
‘Gilly,’ I said to her.
‘Yeah, thought so. The other one’s just got a few karma problems. Bad juju from that birth date. Can’t pick ya birthday.’
I was about to tell her that yes, in fact, you could choose your birthday, well, your parents certainly could. No one civilised gave birth to a child through, you know, the prehistoric way. And if you were having it done on an allocated day, then you might as well choose a day that is convenient to you. Or fits with your astrological chart. A day that is not April first, Friday the thirteenth or the twenty-ninth of February. I digress.
‘Is there anything I can get you ladies? A cushion? A glass of Champagne?’ he said, his face beginning to darken slightly as all the blood ran into it.
‘That is kind of you to offer,’ I said, shaking my captured foot free from Esmeralda, untwisting my body parts from her body parts and generally trying to elegantly extricate myself from under the table. ‘I would just love a manicure.’
His eyebrows jumped, and once I had crawled from beneath the golden canopy, he held out a gentlemanly hand to assist me into standing position.
‘That wouldn’t have been my first guess. Then again, who doesn’t like a manicure with their nightcap? You always were a trendsetter, Indigo,’ he said with a smile.
That was a big lie. I bought my outfits straight off the catwalk. The only things I changed, on occasion, were the shoes. And the handbags. And the jewellery. Perhaps accessories didn’t count. They were, after all, so personal.
‘What about me?’ Esmerelda wanted to know, emerging like a butterfly, stretching out to her full five foot ten.
‘Oh, yes, of course,’ Astor said, thoroughly amused. ‘What can I get you, miss?’
‘Esmer—’ She stopped. ‘I mean, Jane.’
‘Don’t bother, Esmerelda,’ I said to her. ‘We live in a small world. He already knows your name.’
‘Not your last name,’ Astor said helpfully.
‘I’d like an ice cream sundae. And some of that lemon meringue pie,’ Esmerelda chimed, not missing a beat.
‘But first,’ I interrupted, ‘what you really want is to see the inhouse laundry, and then you would just love a haircut from the salon.’
‘Frig off,’ she reproached. ‘I totally don’t wanna do that.’
‘Yes, you do,’ I said with all the dignity I could muster, unzipping my now wrinkled uniform and shaking my shoulders out of it. It fell in a pointy starchy heap at my feet. ‘Remember? You said you wanted to see the laundry because it’s where they shot that movie.’
Astor and Esmerelda both stared at me, confused.
‘The movie shoot,’ I prompted.
‘Oh, right!’ Astor said, clicking his fingers in recognition. ‘It wasn’t a movie shoot, it was a photo shoot. For Pazzia Australia. And they shot in the—’
‘Yep, totally wanna see that laundry,’ Esmerelda said, changing her attitude so quickly she had ideological whiplash. ‘I’m a movie location buff. Big, big buff.’
‘But—’ Astor tried.
‘Buff!’ Esmerelda insisted. She wrenched my stolen uniform out from under my feet so quickly, I tripped on it. In stark contrast, she unzipped her uniform and gracefully shed it like a catwalk pro slipping out of a Valentino jacket as she stalked towards the exit.
‘I can have someone escort you to the laundry,’ Astor called out to her back. ‘To give you a … a tour.’
