The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone, page 21
‘That would be a motive for murder,’ says Garth.
‘What a story. Horrible old bear of a father pressuring her at every twist and turn, and Franklin, a disgusting predatory bear pawing at her too. No wonder she felt trapped.’
We sip our drinks.
‘Let’s get you home, shall we? You look like you need your bed.’
‘Should we call Tama?’ Garth says. ‘We need to go through things and fit the jigsaw pieces together.’
‘Not tonight. Tracey’s not going anywhere and we need to process all this new information.’ I’m also thinking about how much work I’ve recently put Tama’s way and am a bit embarrassed to call him again so soon.
I put my traumatised family in the Tomato and off we wend.
Garth: 7 days until Isabella Garrante book launch
I’ve phoned in sick today, which isn’t so much phoning in sick as nudging Eloise and asking her if she can get Phyllis to cover. It’s one of the perks of owning the business, although the other side of that equation is being first in line when other members of staff are away. Phyllis responds with her stock answer of ‘No problem’ and a smiley emoji.
I’m not sick as such, more shaken from last night’s events, and I feel a new urgency to make some progress on Tracey’s case and now Oddbean’s, too. I intend to spend the day wading through the files of paperwork, going over them with a fresh eye and a new focus in light of what I’ve learnt from the Black Dogs.
I fix myself a coffee, instant because I can’t be arsed with anything else, then fat-finger my way through a text to Tama:
Me: Hello M8, There have been some developments. Can we meet up to discuss. Garth.
The response is immediate:
Tama: I’m free this evening. What time and where?
Me: 7pm at the storage unit? Garth.
Tama: WHAT STORAGE UNIT?
I guess we’re still playing the plausible deniability game.
Me: How about our place? 7pm? Garth.
I don’t mention that almost everything from the storage unit pertaining to the case is now in our own incident room, thereby negating any aspects of deniability.
Tama: Kei te pai. See you then.
Meeting arranged, I dive into the paperwork. By lunchtime, I’ve found nothing on Oddbean but have identified two previously unnoticed anomalies. One is a report that during a police canvass of the Village on the day after Tracey’s disappearance a distressed individual was spoken to in Donnelly Street. He seemed to be experiencing some sort of psychotic breakdown and ended up being taken away in an ambulance. His name was Dafydd Edwards — or Teddy, as Meryl informs us he was known as back then.
The second anomaly is in the form of a statement by Victoria White, providing her husband, Franklin, with an alibi on the night of the fifth. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the statement, no smoking gun that proves it to be untrue, only a gut feeling. To my suspicious copper’s mind, it reads like a statement given by someone trying to be deliberately vague so they can’t be pinned down later.
In the afternoon I concentrate on the evidence relating to Franklin White. There are two pertinent pieces that catch my attention: a statement and then, a few days later, a voluntarily interview, which tells me he was very much a person of interest but the police didn’t have enough evidence to arrest.
The statement is pretty much identical to Victoria’s — suspiciously so, in fact — and doesn’t go into any detail other than reconfirming his alibi. The interview is more enlightening:
DS Clark: We know you were involved with Tracey, we just need to know if you saw her the night she went missing?
Franklin White: Tracey worked part time for me and helped with the campaign, it was all strictly professional.
DS Clark: Tracey was seventeen, above the age of consent, so the fact that you were in a relationship is no crime. We’re only interested in finding Tracey.
Franklin White: There was no relationship.
(Papers rustle)
DS Clark: We’re still canvassing the area and getting witness statements. So, if someone places you with Tracey on the night in question and you haven’t told us, that’s going to look pretty bad for you. Better to come clean now, eh?
Franklin White: I say again. There was no relationship, and I did not see Tracey on the night that she went missing. I don’t think I can be any clearer on those points.
As I replace the interview transcript back on the pile, I can feel my synapses firing, making possible connections. There’s something here we might be able to run with. I stare at the incident room’s whiteboard with its names, photos and questions for a long time, and a theory forms.
Eloise is stropping with me. I have developed my theory further over the afternoon and feel certain that I’m onto something. My refusal to air my findings during dinner, however, has not gone down well — a similarity it shares with the tofu and kūmara stew that Eloise unceremoniously dumped on my plate.
I really don’t understand why she is so upset. I attempt to explain that my behaviour is perfectly reasonable, and that it is quite logical to wait until Tama gets here and I can tell them both at the same time. This serves only to aggravate the situation.
‘Do you want me here or shall I go and hide under the bed with Stevie?’ she asks as I head downstairs to answer the doorbell.
I ignore her, knowing she won’t be able to resist being in on the conversation.
‘Welcome, thanks for coming, Tama.’
‘Too easy. I’m keen to hear your news.’
‘Me too,’ shouts Eloise from upstairs. ‘Perhaps he’ll deem you worthy of telling.’
Tama gives me a quizzical look. I shrug. ‘The incident room is upstairs and to the left. Just follow the sound of complaining.’
‘I heard that,’ shouts Eloise.
‘If it’s not a good time . . .’
‘Oh god, no,’ yells Eloise. ‘Don’t you bloody go, or he’ll never tell me.’
Tama finds his way to Eloise’s voice and gazes about him. ‘Ah, you’ve relocated the case files from my storage unit, I see.’
‘What storage unit?’ I reply.
‘Touché.’
‘It just seemed easier,’ says Eloise. ‘And we’d already created our own incident room, so we’re really just adding to it.’
‘And you’ve discovered something we all missed?’ Tama asks.
‘I’m not sure. It’s more of a theory.’ I gesture him to a chair. ‘But first we’ve got to bring you up to speed with a few events.’
‘Why do I get from your faces that this isn’t good?’
‘Because Garth was kidnapped by the Black Dogs,’ blurts Eloise.
‘What? When?’
‘Last night,’ I say. ‘And I wasn’t exactly kidnapped.’
‘You were hooded, zip-tied and chucked in a van. What would you call it? Extreme Uber?’
‘Yes, that happened. But they mostly just wanted to talk. Or their boss did at least.’
Tama leans forward. ‘You met their boss?’
‘I think so.’
‘Older guy, wiry, smokes all the time and does a thing with his Zippo?’ He makes a flicking movement with his wrist in a reasonable imitation.
‘Yeah, that’s him.’
I outline my encounter with the Black Dogs and Tama’s face runs the gamut of surprise, concern, disbelief and astonishment. When I finish, he says, ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to put you in danger, but there are certain cases I just can’t let go.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ says Eloise. ‘We were already investigating and would have continued doing so with or without your encouragement.’
‘And if I’m correct’ — I tap a red pen on the whiteboard — ‘the Black Dogs have opened this investigation right up.’
‘How so?’ asks Tama.
I uncap the pen and draw a circle around Franklin White’s name. ‘Franklin was always your prime suspect, am I correct?’
‘He was and he still is, although unless he’s concreted Tracey’s body under his patio I doubt we’d ever be able to prove anything, not after all this time.’
‘And why was he your prime suspect?’ I ask.
‘We believed Tracey was having an affair with him.’
‘He was having an affair with her,’ corrects Eloise. ‘She was the innocent party in this.’
‘Of course.’
Eloise picks up a copy of the poem we got from Eleanor. ‘And we can prove it, although maybe only circumstantially.’
‘That was the thing with Franklin,’ says Tama. ‘All we ever had was circumstantial evidence. His alibi for the night of Tracey’s disappearance was paper thin. We tried to get his wife Victoria to recant — I mean, who gives their husband an alibi when they’re off doing the dirty with a schoolgirl? — but she wouldn’t budge.’
‘I thought the alibi was odd, too, but we’ve been looking at this wrong,’ I say.
‘Stop being bloody mysterious and spill.’ Eloise is stern, but it appears I may have been at least temporarily forgiven.
‘Victoria’s alibi is clearly bogus, but she wasn’t alibiing Franklin because he was with Tracey. She was alibiing him because he was with Oddbean.’
‘Franklin was cheating on his missus with Oddbean?’ Tama rubs the side of his head. ‘Oddbean swung both ways but not Franklin. I don’t buy it.’
‘No.’ I point at the board. ‘What I’m saying is—’
‘Fuckety fuckeroo.’ Eloise leaps to her feet and riffles through a stack of papers. She pulls out an envelope and a photo showing Oddbean and a male and female friend at an art opening. ‘Look at the photo, I think this is—’
‘Meryl Thompson and Dafydd Edwards,’ says Tama.
I take the photograph for a closer look. Even knowing who he is, I struggle to see Dafydd in the handsome hippy reveller, but there’s no doubt that the pretty woman is Meryl in a pre-dreadlock and legwarmer era. They both seem so young, and beautiful, and successful, and most decidedly mates with Oddbean. ‘What does it mean that Meryl and Dafydd knew Oddbean?’
‘It means we can question Meryl about it.’ Eloise glances at Tama. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Pinter, so we’re okay to be doing that.’
Tama nods. ‘What’s in the envelope?’
‘Photo negatives. All girls, all unsavoury. They were in the padding of the envelope the book came in.’ Eloise passes over the envelope and Tama holds one of the acetate strips to the light.
‘Sleazy, probably not illegal.’ He returns the negative. ‘Are any of them Tracey?’
‘None of the ones not chewed by Stevie. The others I couldn’t tell.’
‘It could be Oddbean’s work,’ says Tama. ‘Art, porn, it can be a fine line.’
‘Which in a roundabout way brings me back to my original point,’ I say. ‘Victoria alibied Franklin because he and Oddbean were holding a hundred thousand dollars of the Black Dogs’ cash that disappeared.’
‘And she was too scared of them to drop him in it in case it blew back on her,’ says Eloise.
‘Exactly.’ I draw three connecting lines on the whiteboard. ‘And with the joint disappearances I think we can assume that something went wrong that night between Franklin, Oddbean and Tracey.’
Eloise: 6 days until Isabella Garrante book launch
It’s the ‘Pilfered Petals’ launch and we’ve all decided to go, more to support Kitty than Meryl. Phyllis, Amelia, Garth and I potter around the shop, waiting for Kitty to be ready. Even with Amelia locking up, me cashing up, Phyllis putting out the final few bits of new stock and Garth getting in the way, we’re still running behind schedule because Kitty ‘just has to do this one thing’.
At last everyone has had a wee, gathered their keys, phones, lip balm, etcetera and we’re out of the front door. I lock it behind me and give it the three-rattle security measure.
As we wander down the road, Phyllis and Kitty are deep in conversation about some murdery book, Garth and Amelia are discussing, quite seriously, the contents of a zombie apocalypse survival kit. I have one of those moments I identify as contentment, its ingredients appreciation, friendship, security, and its measurement ‘just enough’. God, I hope I can hang on to this simplicity, this safety.
It’s not far. We reach the library and there’s a bit of a scuffle as to who should enter first. It’s amazing how booksellers talk to people all day long but once you get them out of their natural habitat, they’re quite reluctant to socialise. Garth relents and is the first through the automatic doors.
‘Team Sherlock!’ Lucy, the librarian tasked with the evening’s events, hurries over. ‘Drinks over there, artists over there, and you know where the loos are.’
Garth and I usually stick together like glue, and there’s no change this evening as we head to the drinks table.
‘Hello!’ An excited figure reaches for my sleeve. It’s Meryl. Her cheeks are delightfully rouged, and her pale eyes gleam as though it’s Christmas Eve and she’s six years old. I’ve never seen this Meryl. It suits her.
‘Congratulations, Meryl. How’s it all going?’
‘Brilliant. Just brilliant. Please come and see what I created from your beautiful blooms. Where’s Kitty? Oh, I see her. Follow me, follow me.’ Meryl keeps hold of my sleeve and pulls me around the room, gathering Kitty, Phyllis and Amelia as she goes.
The artworks are set up in a space that’s been cleared of book stacks for the purpose, and she leads us to an easel at the very centre.
‘Ta-da!’
I look from the easel to Meryl, then back to the easel. My prepared, empty words of benign congratulation die on my lips. It’s stunning. The frame of the work must be a metre square, the background painted smooth and black. The creation within is a firework of colour, lacquered petals glowing as they reach from the frame. I glance around. It’s easily the most arresting piece in the exhibition; the others may stand up to closer scrutiny, but there’s a reason Meryl’s piece is front and centre.
There’s a sharp intake of breath, and I glance up to see Kitty, hand held to her mouth in astonishment.
‘Meryl, it’s incredible,’ I say. ‘I don’t know about Kitty, but I would say it’s a fine use of our pilfered petals. Thank you for choosing us to steal from.’
Kitty nods. She appears unable to speak.
Tears are running down Meryl’s cheeks. ‘Oh. My eyes are leaking,’ she says.
The team murmur congratulations, offer little pats and smiles, and peel off to investigate the other works.
‘When’s the last time you exhibited, Meryl?’ I ask.
‘It’s been a while, I’ll tell you that. Life took a very odd turn a ways back and I sort of lost my mojo. But there was something about this project that inspired me.’
‘Its criminal element?’ asks Garth.
‘Oh, ha ha, maybe. But I’m not a lawbreaker, not me. I’ve seen where that leads.’
‘Speaking of which, Meryl. I did want to ask you about something I found recently. A photograph of a very beautiful young woman at an art exhibition. She was pictured with friends, I think. Teddy and Oddbean.’
‘Friends!’ splutters Meryl. ‘Teddy was my friend. I hope he still is, somewhere in that fuzzy head of his. Not Oddbean, though. Right nasty git he was. I don’t miss him one bit. Oh, my poor, poor boy.’ Her eyes leak fresh tears.
Garth and I steer her through to the sofas in the otherwise empty computer area. We sit, and I can see that Meryl is so full of emotion that she keeps scrabbling around, wringing her hands and frantically searching for a hankie in her . . . yes, they actually are sequinned leggings.
‘Meryl are you okay to talk now? I don’t want to spoil your party,’ I say.
Garth frowns at me but keeps his gob shut. He would be quite happy to spoil her party.
Meryl locates her pink-flowered hankie and has a bloody good snort into it. In an ill-advised sequence of events, she wipes her eyes with it, then takes to fiddling with it in her lap. ‘I’m fine, I’m fine,’ she says. ‘This whole thing has brought back memories of the old days anyway. I’d like to get them off my chest.’ She smiles and takes a couple of soothing deep breaths.
‘Teddy and I were great mates back in the day. He was something of a mentor to me, actually. Thought I had a bit of talent. He’d been to Elam School of Fine Arts and everything. He was always very humble, very quiet about it in his way, but he was one of our generation’s most talented artists, I reckon, right up there with the best. He could turn his hand to most things, but his pen-and-ink work was just sublime. I’d watch him work and he was like a whip-crack, so fast and accurate. It was like he could reveal some great deep truth in just a few strokes of his pen. It was unsettling in some ways.’
‘And what about Oddbean?’
‘Huh. No talent to speak of. A hanger-on and a leech. He knew Teddy was the real deal and that he could cling to his tailcoats and make a killing.’
‘Not your favourite bloke then?’
Meryl sniffs with a great deal of disdain. ‘I don’t know what Teddy saw in him, I really don’t. But the one thing I’ll say for Oddbean is that I think he truly loved Teddy. The only time the scales fell from his eyes and you could see a decent human being was when he was in Teddy’s company.’
‘They were in love?’
‘Oh yes. Teddy was so happy, so animated when he was with Oddbean. His work reflected it, it really did. Splashes of colour, a new energy to it. It was like he imprinted his love on the page. It was so, so intense that it’s understandable what happened when Oddbean disappeared. Shocking, of course, but I totally got it.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, you don’t think Dafydd was always like this, do you? It was pretty sudden. His mind just cracked. I got the news that Oddbean was gone — upped and buggered off, I thought, probably been caught doing something dodgy — and I went to find Dafydd. He wasn’t in any of our usual haunts and eventually I saw him in the Village, just walking, hurrying even, as though he had somewhere urgent to be.’
