“No,” said Summer with a smile. “But he never rode down the road into the intersection again. I think Mum was afraid he’d be just as reckless when he started driving cars so she encouraged him to start practising safe driving skills in the family cars from when he was around thirteen. Just on the road out the front and always with an adult in the car, of course.”
“Your mother sounds like a truly lovely person, Summer,” said Dusty. “I’ve been trying to find her. You know, get her thoughts about the family, about Marcia.”
Summer lowered her eyes. Dusty pressed her point.
“No-one in the family has seen her since she left. Is that right?”
“She never comes back to Byron.”
“Why not?”
“She just wanted to make a clean break.”
“You and Toby were obviously close to your mother and yet she hasn’t stayed in touch.”
Summer squirmed in her seat and glanced away.
“You do see your mother, don’t you, Summer?”
Summer’s head tilted forward slightly in reluctant acquiescence.
“And Toby?”
“Yes. Dad doesn’t know. Mum doesn’t want him to know.”
“How often do you see her?”
“We both meet up with her when we’re in Sydney.”
“Do you meet her at her Double Bay apartment?”
Summer looked surprised. Dusty gestured toward me.
“My research assistant has been digging,” she explained and repeated her question.
“Sometimes,” said Summer, turning to acknowledge a burst of music from the boys on the stage. “Other times we just go out for lunch or dinner. That sort of thing.”
“Where does she live most of the time?”
Summer looked nonplussed. “What do you mean?”
“Is the Double Bay apartment her primary residence?”
“Of course. It’s her home. She does have to travel a lot because of her work but otherwise she’s at her apartment.”
“With the help of my research assistant, I’ve established that your mother takes frequent flights to Lismore. Do you know why?”
Lismore is a regional town around fifty kilometres south of Byron Bay and about an hour and a half by plane from Sydney. I had used my IT skills to dig up information about Penelope’s travel history. The flights to Lismore could prove to be significant as they were by far the most frequent trips she made.
“She’s never mentioned Lismore,” said Summer. “Maybe she has to go there for work.”
“Maybe,” said Dusty. “Do you think your father suspects that your mother is in contact with you and Toby?”
Summer shrugged. “He doesn’t ask.”
That could mean Fergus simply doesn’t want his wife’s name mentioned. I wondered if that was because his heart had been broken or because his pride had suffered a blow.
Dusty requested Penelope’s mobile telephone number but Summer was hesitant to share it.
“Mum told us not to give her number to anyone, but I’ll ask her. If she says it’s okay, I’ll text it to you,” she said.
Even if I hadn’t seen Daniel approaching, I would have known just by the look on Summer’s face and the rush of colour to her cheeks.
“Just a couple more questions,” said Dusty, acknowledging Daniel with a smile. He returned her smile and greeted me with a handshake.
“I hope you haven’t been attacked by any of our Drop Bears since you’ve been here,” he said.
“I’ve kept an eye out for them. Dusty warned me about their habit of dropping out of trees.”
He nodded his approval, exchanged a glance with Dusty and moved to stand behind Summer’s chair. Dusty waited as he leaned over toward Summer and engaged in a short murmured conversation with her. Then Daniel straightened and waved a casual goodbye to all of us before leaving with the other two musicians.
“How did you get on with your grandmother?” Dusty asked Summer.
“Great,” said Summer, her cheeks still flushed and her eyes shining. “Most of the time.”
“Most of the time?”
“It was just… Well, since Mum went away, Nan sort of took her place a little bit. Most of the time that was okay, but sometimes she could be really tough about things.”
“Like what?”
“Well, like when I decided to defer my uni studies. I wanted to just have fun and do this,” she gestured toward the stage where her guitar was still propped against a chair. “You know… music.”
“Marcia didn’t think it was a good idea?”
“No. We had a big blue about it. Dad wasn’t against it though. He said it would be okay so long as I promised not to take more than a year off. I was really annoyed at Nan for butting in. I heard them arguing about it one day. In the end, Nan grudgingly agreed with Dad.”
“And your mother? What did she think about your deferring?”
“That’s just it,” said Summer, her face animated at the mention of her mother. “She was all for it. But of course, I couldn’t tell Dad or Nan that.”
“Your mother has put you in a difficult position, you and Toby, by asking you to keep your association with her secret.”
“I don’t mind. Besides, it’s not going to be forever. She’s going to have a meeting with Dad and sort things out. She planned to do it last year. Then when Nan died the way she did, Mum decided the time wasn’t right.”
“I take it you and your nan patched up your differences before she died? I mean she bought you that special gift on her last trip overseas.”
Summer smiled. “Yes. I think that was her way of saying sorry.”
“What about Toby? Was she tough with him too?”
“Not really. She’s always been a bit soft with Toby. Dad said it was because Toby looks just like he did when he was young. But I know Nan didn’t love me any less. Most of the time she treated Toby and me the same. It was just that Toby could always get round her when she was trying to be strict.”
“But she did refuse to buy him the car he wanted.”
“Of course. It was a silly thing to ask for. I don’t know what made him think Nan would agree.”
Chapter 31
“I’ve asked Chris to join us here. I hope you don’t mind,” Dusty said to Fergus when he opened the sliding doors to let us in.
In the two days that had passed since we had spoken to Summer, we hadn’t come any closer to tracking down Penelope. However, we had heard from Chris. We’d arranged to meet with Fergus today after Chris had texted Dusty that Monique had followed through on her promise to revise her statement to the police.
“I don’t have a problem with Chris joining us,” Fergus said, leaving the sliding doors open in acknowledgement of yet another perfect spring day. “Any special reason?”
“Monique has made a new statement to the police outlining the real reason why she was on the walking track that morning.”
Fergus nodded. “I see.”
“You’re not surprised?”
“I’m not surprised that her previous statement wasn’t a true explanation. It sounded weak to me.”
“Well, we’ll find out more when Chris gets here. In the meantime, I’d like you to look at some photos.”
We sat at the table. Dusty pulled a folder from her bag. It was a large shoulder bag which seemed to have unlimited space. I was often surprised at the number of items she was able to retrieve from it.
“I almost forgot,” said Dusty, placing the folder on the table. “I wanted to ask you about something, Fergus. I understand you and Monique went to Marcia’s house before you reported her missing on the Wednesday.”
“Correct. Monique had a key.”
“Monique said she remembers picking a business card up from the floor near the stairs and putting it on the hall stand.”
Fergus shook his head. “I didn’t see her pick anything up.”
“One more thing,” said Dusty as she opened the folder on the table in front of her.
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“According to the police reports, Marcia’s set of keys which included her car key and door keys were in her handbag. Do you know if she usually took those keys with her when she went on her morning walk or did she use a separate spare key?”
“I have no idea,” said Fergus, with an expression that questioned why he would know that.
“Not to worry,” said Dusty, removing a bundle of large glossy photos from the folder.
“These are the copies of the photos the police took of Marcia’s home on the morning after she was reported missing. I don’t think you’ve seen them before.”
The police had been thorough in their photographic documentation of Marcia’s house. They had initially been concerned that Marcia might have been abducted from her home either in the evening after she arrived back from dinner or in the early hours of the morning. However, that theory was dismissed when they found no evidence of intruders. There was no sign of forced entry, robbery or violence and the house alarm had not been activated. In fact, the evidence pointed to her having slept in her bed that night and leaving for her morning walk in the usual way.
I hadn’t seen the photos Dusty was spreading out on the table so I moved closer to have a look. The doors of the built-in mirrored robes in Marcia’s large bedroom which lined one wall had been slid back to expose the contents. Rows of beautiful dresses hung on elegant hangers. Shoes were neatly lined up on a rack: dressy evening shoes and evening sandals, several pairs of brightly coloured sports shoes, day sandals and rows of boots. The bed was rumpled and looked as though someone had slept in it. There was nothing to suggest abduction.
“I want you to study them. See if you can see anything that doesn’t look right,” Dusty said to Fergus. “Anything at all.”
Fergus studied each photo carefully, first looking at Marcia’s bedroom and en suite and the other upstairs rooms and balconies. He shook his head as he passed over each one, sometimes pausing thoughtfully. The images must have stirred memories for him. He then looked at the photos of the stairs leading to the living area, after which he directed his attention to the spacious living area itself.
“What about Marcia’s study?” Dusty pointed to a space that had been separated by layout design to provide a study area which had a sense of intimacy even though wide clear windows provided views of the ocean.
Fergus’s eyes lingered there for a moment before he shook his head.
“This door here opens into the garage. Is that right?” said Dusty, pointing to a closed door near the bottom of the stairs.
Fergus nodded and started to slide the photo back across the table to Dusty. Something must have caught his attention because he paused momentarily and, it seemed to me, his face paled. His hand hovered over the photo as if he wanted to pick it up. He stared at it with furrowed brow. The moment lasted only for a split second before he quickly recovered himself and pushed the photo away with a decisive shake of his head.
“As far as I can tell, there’s nothing out of place,” he said. “Nothing at all. In fact, it’s proof that nothing untoward happened at Mum’s home. It’s all very ordinary and exactly as it should be.”
Dusty pushed the last photo back toward him. “Are you sure? Take another look at this photo, Fergus.”
But Fergus didn’t look at the photo. He kept his eyes on Dusty. “I’m sure,” he said, his lips tightening.
I could see that Dusty didn’t believe him, but she said nothing as she gathered up the photos.
“When were these photos taken?” asked Fergus.
“As I said, on the day the police went to the house; the day after you reported your mother missing.”
Fergus nodded. “It’s a little unsettling, seeing Mum’s house like that. I mean it looks just as it was before… before… when she was alive.” He stared at the bundle of photos. “Would you mind putting them away? If Summer or Toby come in and see them they’d find them upsetting. They haven’t been back to their nan’s house since she went missing. They were too distressed.”
Dusty obligingly gathered the photos back into the folder and slipped it into her bag just as Chris arrived, providing a convenient break for the serving of cold drinks.
Chris, who accepted a glass of beer from Fergus, looked like a man whose world had caved in around him.
He thanked Dusty for visiting Monique. “You helped her to see things more clearly. She’s been so worried and confused. They say once you tell a lie you have to tell another and then another and so on just to cover up the first lie. That’s what happened with Monique. The awful thing is, she’s been doing all this because of me.”
“What do you mean?”
“She wanted to talk to Marcia on my behalf. That’s why she was on the walking trail that morning.” Reaching into a document holder, he took out several sheets of paper. “I have a copy of Monique’s revised statement to the police.” He shuffled through the pages until he found the one he wanted. “This is what she told the police about why she’d been on the track.”
His hand trembled slightly as he passed the sheet across to Fergus. “Would you mind reading it out, Fergus? I just can’t do it.”
Fergus glanced at Monique’s statement and began to read, his actor’s training evident in the quality of his voice.
“I just had this sudden impulse to go and ask Mum for help. I was working on my computer – going over the figures for Cavenbah Creations and trying to work out how to turn things around. I thought about asking Mum for financial help but then I dismissed the idea. I decided a better option would be to go to the bank. It’s not as if I needed millions. There’d be interest to pay but that’s all part of business.”
As I listened, it struck me that Fergus’s voice, though resonant, lacked warmth and probably made him suitable for playing Machiavellian characters or hard-nosed corporate executives.
“It was while I was thinking about raising money for my business that I had the idea to talk to Mum about Chris’s new software app. He has this idea for an incredibly ingenious app that has the potential to save millions of lives, but it takes a lot of money to develop and market things like that. I wasn’t going to ask Mum for a handout but I thought she might be interested in becoming an investor. This app has enormous potential. I knew there was a chance Mum might consider it if she saw it as a good investment and I knew Chris needed the money quickly. It would only be a matter of time before someone found out about the software and copied it or stole it. We were always mindful of what happened to Ric Richardson with Microsoft.”
“Ric Richardson?” I interrupted.
“He’s an Australian inventor,” said Chris. “He developed an anti-piracy software and discovered that Microsoft was using it without his knowledge. Richardson brought a patent infringement case against Microsoft and eventually received millions of dollars in damages.”
Fergus looked over the sheet of paper at us, waited until we had obeyed the command of his eyes by being quiet and then continued reading.
“I knew Chris would be upset if I approached Mum. He’s always been against taking advantage of her wealth. But I thought if I could convince Mum to invest in the project, Chris would see the sense in accepting her as an investor. It would be purely business. So I left my computer on this sudden impulse and jogged down to the track while Chris was still asleep. As it happens, I changed my mind almost as soon as I got there. It dawned on me that if I was to approach Mum, a better time would be just after her return from the meditation centre. She would be in a more relaxed frame of mind then.”
Fergus paused, poured a glass of water from a nearby jug and took a sip before continuing.
“So I came back home. I didn’t say anything to Chris. That’s why I lied. I knew I hadn’t done anything wrong so I didn’t see the point in telling the police. If that birdwatcher had kept his camera on for a few more minutes he would have seen me leave straight away.”
“Oh, Mon,” lamented Chris with his head in his hands. “You didn’t have to worry about
me.” He looked up and addressed Dusty. “Mon’s in this mess because she wanted to help me.”
“Chris, this explanation of Mon’s,” said Fergus, waving the sheet of paper, “has given the police exactly what they wanted: motive. Mon wanted money to help you develop your new computer program. Instead of going to the track to talk to Mum, she went with the intention of killing her so that she could get her trust fund money.”
“How can you suggest that, Fergus? Your own sister?”
I had had the same thought about Fergus. Was he trying to confirm Monique’s guilt?
“It’s what the police will believe, Chris,” he said.
Chris groaned. “They can’t think she’d kill her own mother just to help me.” He pulled his rat-tail to the front and caressed it as though patting a pet on his shoulder.
“Not just to help you,” said Fergus. “If this new software has the potential to make millions of dollars, Mon stands to benefit. That’s the way the police will think.”
Chris looked directly at Fergus. “It’s what you’re thinking as well, isn’t it?” He snatched the copy of Monique’s statement out of Fergus’s hand. “You’re supposed to be her family.” He marched out of the room. Fergus called after him.
“Chris! We’ll get the very best defence lawyers to help Mon.” He raised his hands in a gesture of helplessness as Chris slammed the front door on his way out.
We sipped our drinks in silence during which thoughts whirled around in my head. It occurred to me that Monique might still be lying. After all, this was her third explanation about why she had been on the track. Was she really telling the truth now? Another unwelcome thought came to mind. Were they working as a team: Monique and Chris? If this version of events was the truth why had she insisted on speaking to Chris before revealing it? Did she in fact need to collaborate with him?
Dusty and I could both have been wrong; me about Chris and Dusty about Monique. The more I thought about it the more convinced I became. Dusty might have been right to suggest that Chris had planned to murder Marcia on the Friday evening. After all, Monique had a spare key to the house. What if Chris planned on using the key to let himself into Marcia’s house that night, wait for her to come home and murder her, perhaps make it look like a home invasion? Going to the office to set the alarm gave him a legitimate reason to be out that evening, in case anyone reported seeing his car in the area. But something went wrong and they came up with the plan to kill her in the morning; slightly more risky but desperation to get the money and a determination to carry out the act once they had committed to it might have pushed them to take the risk.
A Devious Mind Page 20
