The Celibate Mouse Read online

  I stared at her for a long moment. A split second of slyness in her eyes startled me, but vanished, leaving normal concern. You’re getting paranoid. The woman was trying so darned hard to be helpful, I tendered the information and then bent to pick up my handbag which I had dumped against the brick wall of the toilet. My bag gaped open with my driver’s licence jammed into a side pocket. I checked the purse, but my money was intact and the young woman had disappeared.

  I shrugged, thankful there was no indication of my Detective Senior Sergeant rank, but why would someone want to check my ID? A nosy journalist? Or a bystander who thought there might be something worth stealing? I chalked the incident up to experience, because we had far more to worry about than the identity of a snooper. I was desperate to get out to the farm and settle in. We’d had one hell of a day.

  Sunday: 9am

  Memories of Jack Harlow’s murder brought demons to torment me in a chase through the night. Marli, whom I expected to be traumatised, slept soundly, snuggled under the covers with her pup. The aftermath of the previous day is setting in. Decisions present mountainous obstacles which I have no inclination to scale–to stay in the police force or leave and do–something–is on hold. Marli clatters around the house, talking to the dogs, chatting on Facebook to one friend while she texts another on her mobile. The puppy, Titch, growls as he wrestles the legs of her jeans.

  I want to stay right here on the side verandah, watching Eloise’s Highland cows graze in the paddock below the house, listening to a light aircraft, a silver and red dragonfly buzzing over the nearby and hopefully, long-dead volcanic peaks. The country air, devoid of city sounds and smells, has a cleansing effect but is unable to quell the feelings which are threatening to destroy me.

  I have always been moved to tears when observing the beauty of nature. An amazing sunset, baby animals and glorious paintings bring a lump to my throat, but now, gazing up at the great rocky crags of the mountains behind the small farm, I want to scream and fight the pain and anger inside me. Many cultures rend their clothes and shriek their agony of grief to the world. I take deep breaths and endeavour to force back the sobs which threaten to undermine my composure.

  My memory parachutes back to the dreadful twenty-four hours two months previously and the terrible night when the youngest member of my team, Detective Constable Danny Grey, was shot dead by a vicious criminal. But, unable to cope, my thoughts curl away and alight on the disaster of my marriage and its ignominious ending. This is something on which I can vent my bitterness and rage.

  The morning after the debacle of the warehouse siege, I’d awakened at nine, having only gotten to bed at five that morning. I remember staring at the ceiling for a few minutes, tracing the pattern of the old-fashioned embossed plaster. Through the fog of exhaustion, I knew there was something I should remember, and it crashed back to face me, a demonic wave of horror, with Danny Grey’s lifeblood a black river streaming down a concrete driveway. I never wanted to get out of bed again, to pull the covers over my head and remain hidden forever until blessed darkness claimed me. Reality had to be faced. I hauled myself into the bathroom to shower and dress.

  Numb with shock and grief, I walked into the kitchen, not at first seeing the bulging bags standing by the back door. I had no premonition of anything out of the ordinary. My husband, Harry, ran his architectural business from home and frequently supervised building sites in far-off places. He was buttering his toast with short, angry sweeps of his knife and didn’t look up when I entered. As I went to the electric kettle to make coffee, he made his announcement. ‘Susan, I won’t be here when you get home tonight.’

  I was about to answer flippantly, then something about his tone of voice alerted me to other possibilities. I turned to face him, cup of coffee in hand.

  ‘I’m leaving you for good.’ He faced me defensively, handsome face rigid with tension, as though expecting me to draw a gun. I would have loved to accommodate him. ‘The fact is, Susan. I’ve had it with you and your job. Your career. I’ve met someone who actually cares about me and who wants to stay at home fulltime.’ He paused to stab me with an angry glare. ‘I bought a house in Taringa and Sharon is coming up from Sydney to live with me.’

  Up from Sydney? Who? He’d bought another house? What with? His money? Her money? Our money? My brain refused to compute. He noted my confusion with sly amusement. I took a sip of the hot liquid, trying for self-control, because throwing it over Harry would constitute assault, and wouldn’t he just love that.

  ‘I met her when she came to Georgie Hird’s funeral,’ he explained, referring to the passing of a close friend of Eloise, who had been murdered by one of my niece Ally’s kidnappers, last year.

  ‘They met when they were taking a course at the New South Wales Conservatory of Music, just before Ally left for London.’ He smiled with cruel joy. ‘We were introduced at the wake.’ I seemed to remember her; a short, serious-looking girl with straight brown hair.

  Harry waited hopefully for me to make a fool of myself by grovelling for him not to leave. I dumped the cup on the draining board and reached for my mobile to phone headquarters, but he stepped forward, took it out of my hand and set it on the table. He looked disappointed in my seeming lack of reaction to his exciting news.

  ‘You may as well go to work, Susan, you’re always there anyway. I’ll come back tomorrow to collect the rest of my things. Of course, this house will need to be sold and the finances sorted. You can have all the furniture, except for the portrait of my parents and some photos of Brittany. I’ll come back later and pick up my music collection and books, tools from the shed and things like that.’ It was a fait accompli. No discussion or negotiation. Tiny beads of perspiration had broken out on his upper lip; I realised with savage pleasure, that he wasn’t as calm as he pretended.

  ‘I don’t want to discuss anything with you. My solicitor will be in contact and we’ll get a straightforward divorce–if you don’t make trouble. I’ve relocated the office to Mt Gravatt. Mary’s going on holiday, then moving with me when I get back,’ he added, referring to his faithful secretary, who’d worked in his office at the back of our house for the last ten years and who loathed me. I hadn’t realised his office was closed. Had I been that blind? Quick as a flash with the experience of thirteen years of marriage, he pre-empted my question. ‘No, not even you could be that insular, Susan. I moved everything out yesterday while you were at work.’

  An icy ball formed in my stomach, but I managed to focus on something concrete. ‘The girls! What are we going to tell them?’

  ‘Not we, Susan, you. When all’s said and done, they’re your daughters. I’ll talk to them later.’

  Rage and hurt flared through me. I wanted to strangle Harry. ‘All of a sudden they’re my daughters? You’ve been their father since they were four. Are you planning to leave them too?’

  He looked at me coldly. ‘No, of course not. I just meant–’

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the edge of an envelope peeping out from under the daily paper. ‘I suppose I would have found the traditional note, if I hadn’t been here this morning? Or would your solicitor have sent me a letter?’ His face said it all; I realised he was already long gone. ‘At one o’clock this morning I was telling Helen Grey she’s a widow at twenty-four. You couldn’t have picked a worse time to spring this on me if you’d tried.’ Oh, Danny, I should have protected you.

  ‘I wasn’t to know what would happen last night.’ He flashed a nasty smile. ‘As I said, my solicitor will get in touch with you. I’m going now.’ He picked up his bags; the door slammed behind him.

  The radio played softly from the other side of the room. I glanced at the clock. 9.10am. Of course, Danny’s death would have been on the morning news. My legs gave way. I groped for a chair and sank onto it, racked with grief and guilt, but before I gained any sort of equilibrium, the wall phone started to ring and as though choreographed by fate, or Harry, my mobile went off as well. I got to my feet, unab
le to decide which one to answer first, as the dogs started huffing at the back door begging to be let inside for their breakfast.

  The clock ticked on the top of the refrigerator; down the street, someone shouted good-bye to his wife. Children ran past the front gate on their way to school, screaming with laughter as they bashed each other with their schoolbags. Life was going on and I stood in the middle of my kitchen not knowing whether to laugh or cry, while technology badgered me on all sides.

  Sighing, I took my mobile out of my bag and flipped it open–DI Peterson, my immediate superior– shuffled to the wall phone–the press. I laid the receiver on the bench without answering and then spoke to the DI, ignoring the squeaks of protest coming from the house phone. ‘Yes, Sir?’

  He commiserated with me and wanted to know when my report on the “incident” would be on his desk. Through the fogged mire of my mind I must have made the right responses, because he asked me to be at headquarters in three hours. Asked? It was an order. I wondered briefly whether I should request the union rep be present, but then decided to see what panned out first.

  The house telephone receiver squawked madly. The media were frothing because they couldn’t dial out again. An insistent noise penetrated my mental fog. I opened the back door, let the dogs inside–I supposed Harry was divorcing them as well–fed them and then made another cup of coffee. The receiver started screaming.

  Questions whizzed around my soggy brain, but I could only face the ones concerning my marriage, right then. ‘Could I have been a better wife to my husband? At what point did a partner and wife renege on her responsibilities? At what point had I allowed my career to so totally take over my life that Harry’s love for me turned to indifference? ‘And your’s to him?’ my inner voice insisted. Annoyed by the persistent squawking, I dumped the receiver back on its cradle. Considering the number of times a case broke and I was late home, the occasions when Harry attended school concerts without me, I wondered why our marriage hadn’t broken up long ago. Of course, Mary had been only too pleased to deputise. But what about Harry’s betrayal at the start of our marriage? Not long after our marriage, he admitted–

  The penetrating ring of the house telephone brings me back smartly to the here and now. I immediately fear bad news from either Brisbane or Sydney. After all, we have only just arrived and do not know anyone here who might call us.

  ‘Mum! Nurse Someone-or-other from the local hospital wants to speak to you!’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t catch her name. She wants to talk about the old lady you got out of the toilet yesterday.’

  Dread curls like the swirl of a hurricane in my belly. ‘Don’t tell me she’s passed away?’

  ‘Dunno.’

  I get slowly to my feet and pad barefoot along the hallway to the telephone. The voice is crisp, the tone professional. ‘Mrs. Prescott? Nurse Rachel Armstrong from the Emsberg Hospital. I’m ringing on behalf of Mrs Edna Robinson. Apparently you attended her when she collapsed in the park toilet yesterday afternoon?’

  ‘Oh yes, how is she?’

  ‘Poorly, Mrs Prescott. She’s asking for you to come and see her, if you would be so kind. She’s very agitated, so could you please make it this morning?’

  She’s alive! Thank you, thank you God. Flushed with relief, I forget to answer.

  ‘Mrs Prescott, can you still hear me?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry, I was wool-gathering. I’ll come in as soon as I can.’

  I go back to the verandah to set the alarm on my watch for five minutes time, close my eyes and take several deep breaths. ‘Better than drugs any day, my dear,’ the counsellor had chirped in the infuriatingly practical tones adopted by the truly dedicated. Stifling the urge to arrest her for something, I tried meditation with some scepticism at first, but with increasing confidence as time went on. The final session, I took her a box of chocolates, which we agreed were the best therapy of all.

  ‘Marli, I’ve got to go into Emsberg this morning. Want to come? You can mooch around the shops while I visit Mrs Robinson.’

  She is not enthusiastic. Titch tumbles around, pulling at her clothes and licking wherever he can reach. I am anxious about leaving her here by herself, but what could possibly happen in the short time I will be away? She’s seventeen and surrounded by dogs, for God’s sake.

  Emsburg boasts a 60-bed hospital situated in pretty, rose-bedded grounds on a hill overlooking the town. Warm smiles greet me on arrival at the reception desk and I am escorted to the Close Observation Ward– COW, they laughingly explain. Edna Robinson looks smaller than I remember and very frail. The well-padded frame which collapsed against the toilet door the day before appears to have diminished. Her hair is stuck to her skull in straw wisps. Luminous eyes, owl-like behind thick-lensed glasses, light up when I enter the small high dependency unit.

  ‘I’m so glad you came,’ she whispers breathlessly, gesturing for me to take the chair beside her bed. Instinctively leaning toward her, I whisper back–one tends to reciprocate on these occasions–and ask how she feels. Edna’s ‘I’m all right dear, thank you,’ is an aside. There are more important matters on her mind. ‘You must promise not to tell anyone this, dear. Please give me your word you’ll not repeat what I’m about to tell you?’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure. It depends on what your information is.’ Why tell me if you don’t want anyone to know?

  Her face creases with the effort to impress me with the gravity of her message. ‘You have to promise! I need to tell someone in case I die.’ She clutches my arm so tightly that her fingernails leave half-moon indentations.

  ‘Why, Mrs Robinson? If–’ Her grip tightens; the wrinkles on her face crumple into a myriad of faintly blue petals.

  ‘Shall I call a nurse?’

  ‘No!’ Edna almost shouts, and then lowers her voice to a hiss, pausing for breath between rushes of words. ‘Listen to me, someone has to ... know. He had to be punished, so they beat him to... the dirty beggar ... the filthy ... beast.’ Her lips turn down in disgust. ‘He was always so careful to cover his tracks. Those things weren’t talked about in those days ... and they had to do it. We made a vow not to ... say anything ... but now–’

  She releases my arm and gropes with trembling hands for the glass of water by her bed. I pick it up and assist, as the old lady takes a huge gulp, gags and starts coughing gobs of phlegm. I jump to my feet, snatch a towel from behind her locker and thrust it into her hands. She plunges her mouth into the folds and scrunches her eyes shut. I reach for the bell to call for the nurse, but she wipes her mouth and gestures me not to. ‘If anyone ever finds out I told ... they don’t know about you. But now Jack’s been killed ... that shouldn’t have happened.’

  My cop training springs to life, like a hunting dog chasing quarry. ‘You know who killed Jack Harlow?’

  ‘We agreed not to talk, but it was only a matter of ti–’ Edna bursts into a paroxysm of coughing. A fleeting presence moves on the periphery of my vision, a shadow in the doorway. I glance across, but only the energy of someone’s presence remains.

  Edna Robinson doubles over and slumps forward, her skin translucent, exposing tiny veins running hither and thither under her skin, like ant trails. I ring for assistance, keeping my finger on the buzzer until a nurse rushes in, takes one look at Edna and hits Code Blue on the buzzer. The room swarms with medical staff. I slip out and head down the hall, carefully keeping my eyes averted from ambulatory patients, trying not to run to the exit. Beads of perspiration trickle down my back and prickle my skin; for my own peace of mind and recovery, I cannot allow myself to become involved.

  CHAPTER 3

  A Moment of His Time.

  Sunday evening: at the hospital: 8pm.

  The evening visitors had left. Here and there a bedside reading light glowed. A nurse re-made a patient’s bed at the far end of the corridor. She flung the sheets across the mattress, and flicked the covers over the bed, tucking them into perfect hospital corners
while the patient, sitting in a chair beside the bed, made low-voiced conversation. Her shadow flashing on the opposite wall cast an old-time lantern show.

  Doctor Jason Hardgreaves gave a sigh of relief, as he hovered over Edna Robinson. ‘She’ll rest now. Take thirty minute obs, Cecily.’ They noted the tiredness in each other’s faces, the doctor from a long afternoon to evening shift, the nurse on her last night duty before her break and day shift. The staff had battled to keep Edna’s heart stable.

  Now, at nightfall, it looked as though she would live. The nurse left to monitor another patient. Hargreaves carried out a final check on Edna’s vital signs, adjusted the oxygen and left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. He was cautiously congratulating himself on a job well done, when a Code Blue alert sounded at the other end of the hospital. After a frozen moment, he rushed through the doors several metres away; the nurses charged in breathless pursuit, Edna Robinson momentarily forgotten.

  None of them noticed the tall man who stood in the shadows of the hallway opposite, which angled away from the light and ended in a door leading to the outside of the building. He waited a few moments in case there was more than the three staff he knew to be on duty, but when nothing happened, he twitched the hood of his coat further over his face, stepped forward and emerged into the deserted corridor.

  Nothing stirred; perfect conditions. A ‘fair weather night,’ but not for Edna.

  The intruder knew his presence in the hospital, if discovered, would be sanctioned even at this late hour. He slipped quietly across the corridor to the Close Observation Ward, the hood of his jacket hiding his identity from the rifle-barrel gaze of the nearby security camera mounted high on the wall. He pulled the door half-closed behind him, leaving just enough of a gap to hear if anyone was approaching the unit. This would only take a moment.

  The old woman slept peacefully, under the influence of a mild sedative, her face grey and haggard beneath the oxygen mask. He leaned over the back of the monitor, located the wall connection, moved the trolley forward with a gloved hand and flicked the switch off. He braced himself, listening for running footsteps.