Bede grinned and sat back down at the table. ‘Of course, you’re right, but I think another conference is definitely called for, Aunt Meredith.’ She helped herself to salad. ‘Immediately after lunch, I think. There are a few gaps I need filled.’ She looked at Hera briefly, then turned back to Meredith. ‘And I will not be put off with vague mutterings from you.’
Meredith grimaced, but calmly continued eating. ‘Pass the wine, Hera’, she looked at her younger niece, ‘and stop scowling.’
Hera spoke suddenly, ‘Meredith, what I understand from what you said this morning is that our family, yours and mine, are all crooks of some sort and have been for generations, right?’
‘Yes, dear, but mostly now, all the companies are legitimate, and although James, Penelope, and I tried to remain at a distance from the entity, the Family, we are still connected financially to some extent. James does have, or rather, did have business dealings with Justin and various other members. I think he has some connection to Gabriel as well.’ She frowned and looked at the two girls. ‘He’s a cousin of sorts, but not really. The relationships within the family are almost impossible to work out, which is why it’s become important that we have no more intermarriage.’ She looked at the startled expressions on both the girls’ faces then continued, ‘So do not become emotionally involved with anyone with any connection to the family.’ She dropped her head into her hands and sighed.
‘So who did you become emotionally involved with, Meredith? Not George obviously, but perhaps Justin?’ Bede allowed sarcasm into her voice. ‘You are still concealing something, Meredith, so stop it and be completely honest with us for once in your life.’
Hera murmured, ‘Stow it Bede, she’s only trying to help.’
‘No she’s not, are you, Meredith? You have told us a lot but not enough. You have told us as much as you think necessary to stop us from investigating further. We need to know everything that could have a bearing, however remote, on the murder of our father, your brother. We need to know how much you suspect and who you suspect, if anyone.’
She was feeling anxious and confused. Pushing back slightly from the table, she looked down at the beautiful rug at her feet. The muted colours against the rich polished Jarrah boards took her back to when James had bought it back from Turkey on one of his trips overseas. She missed him dreadfully. Getting up from the table, she suddenly started pacing again. ‘James was murdered, that’s now beyond question.’ She looked at Meredith again. ‘Isn’t it, Meredith?’
‘I don’t think you can make that sort of statement, Bede.’ Hera was agitated, and she turned to look carefully at Meredith, then drew a deep breath and sighed. ‘Okay, your face tells the story, Meredith, you had better come completely clean.’
‘I don’t have any proof. It’s just a feeling, intuition if you like. Justin is avoiding me. And yes, Justin is, was, the love of my life.’ She sighed. ‘I may as well continue with all the sordid details you’re certainly old enough to understand.’ She looked around the table. ‘If you’re both finished, we should move into the office. It’s comfortable there and Robby can clear the table.’
Meredith felt drained. Just remembering caused her heart to beat faster, and she felt a fine sweat break out briefly on her hands. She calmed herself and started baldly, ‘Obviously, it was a long time ago, Justin and I were engaged to be married until he walked out on me to try to seduce Mette, Dominik’s wife. Admittedly, it was before they were married, but you can imagine the fallout. James was furious on my behalf, to say nothing of how I felt. Dominik was furious, Mette was shocked, as he had tried to pass himself off as Dominik and had almost managed to get her into bed.’ Glancing quickly at the startled expressions facing her, she continued quickly, ‘It was years before the scandal was forgotten, or Dominik and Mette would forgive him. He admitted that it was a complete betrayal of his brother and his brother’s fiancée, to say nothing of me. He insisted it was some sort of weird aberration and spent many years trying desperately to make it up to them. I don’t know if they ever really trusted him again, but he eventually became a sort of mentor for the twins. He never married. I think personally that he did genuinely feel something for Mette, certainly more than he felt for me obviously, although there was always that competitive thing between him and Dominik.
‘He tried to resurrect our relationship years later, but of course, I wasn’t interested by then. I would never trust him again in that respect, but I think that he really does care to some degree, and he genuinely admired James. He would never now do anything to hurt James or myself or either of you.’ She got up from the chair and walked across to Bede standing by the window. She put her hand on her shoulder. ‘Bede, please, you must believe me. I was only trying to protect you and Hera from the worst aspects of the family. I trust Justin to look after our interests now that James is dead.’ She frowned. ‘But there is something that’s not right about all of this. I just wish I could contact him.’
Bede smiled gently, and said quietly, ‘Aunt Meredith, everything you have just told us argues against trusting Justin. He proved in the past to be completely untrustworthy and ruthless if he wanted something badly enough. What he did all those years ago is as shocking as anything I’ve heard so far, and how you can calmly say you trust him now? I don’t understand. I know it was a long time ago, but I don’t think I would ever be so forgiving.’ Bede caught Hera’s eye, and a look of understanding passed between them. ‘We need to find that contract, and we need to speak to Inspector Campbell. I’m going to ring him now.’
Meredith was very pale. ‘I don’t, for a moment, believe you are right about Justin, but I’ve already rung Campbell. He’s due here soon. I’ll go through the accounts and all the contracts in the study, you two search James’s bedroom and the library.’ She left quietly.
Hera raised her eyebrows at Bede. ‘It needed to be said, I know, but I think she is much more fragile than we ever realised. We need to go gently. I’ve always wondered why she never married. She must have been absolutely beautiful when she was young. I have a bad feeling about everything we’ve heard so far about this Justin person. Bede, it’s all starting to look and feel very ugly.’
Bede was looking pale and tired. ‘Yes, it’s starting to feel really nasty. You take the bedroom, I’ll start in the library.’
Bede wandered across to the library and looked around. She hadn’t wanted to come in here since her father’s death over a month ago; it was so essentially him. It was clean and ordered, she could still faintly smell his particular brand of cigarettes and thought of all the times she and Hera had nagged him to stop smoking. They could have saved their breath and not put such heavy guilt trips on him. Life seemed to be a confirmation to take each day as a bonus and make the most of it.
She drew a deep breath and moved to the large desk. Going through the drawers here seemed a useless exercise. The solicitor had been through everything, looking for the will, which he had found; all straightforward, no surprises there. Still, he wouldn’t have taken any notice of a contract that should have been in the study, would he? She continued to open drawers while thinking.
Her father had been a secretive man in some ways. He had never hinted at any problems from the past, and although he had talked about both Justin and George, he had never even hinted at any involvement between Meredith and Justin. Would he have kept any references to the past? Meredith had the CD as a deterrent to George, but perhaps there was something else. She looked thoughtfully at the bookcase taking up two thirds of the wall space. It was an impressive collection, quite a few first editions, and some antiques—really quite valuable.
Bede had been in Sydney on that dreadful day and had caught a flight immediately. She had been shocked, tired, and stressed when she arrived. Thinking back, Inspector Campbell had been saying something about the library being in something of a mess with books all over the desk, and some on the floor. She’d not thought anything about
it at the time. James quite often had books all over the floor when he was engaged on one of his projects, but it was strange for him to go sailing in the middle of it.
‘The library had been searched,’ she said aloud, and astonished that she hadn’t thought of it before. ‘Hera’, she yelled, ‘get in here now, and you too, Aunt Meredith.’ Seeing their startled faces, she explained. ‘We need to look very carefully through all the books. I think someone searched the library the day Dad was killed.’ She recounted her conversation with Inspector Campbell, but she had been too tired and shocked to respond in any rational manner. Now, her mind clear, she looked at her sister and aunt. ‘This is going to be a long process I think, but we need to look at every book, make sure it’s where it should be on the shelves, and there is nothing stuck between the pages.’
Meredith looked slightly startled and very tired. ‘Do you really think that’s necessary, dear? Don’t you think you’re making too much of this? Inspector Campbell will be here later. Why not wait and discuss what to do with him?’
Hera moved across and put her arm around Meredith’s shoulders, ‘Aunt Meredith, we don’t need Inspector Campbell to help search the library. Bede is right, we’re the only ones who will know if anything is out of order, and we need to start now.’ She gently moved Meredith toward the shelves nearest the French doors and flung them open. She dragged one of the comfortable chairs over to the doors and pushed her aunt into it. ‘I’ll bring you a stack of books, and you go through them carefully. When you’re finished, you can start on another. But in the meantime, sit quietly and try not to let yourself become anxious.’ She smiled gently and quickly kissed Meredith on her cheek.
Moving back to the centre of the room, she and Bede exchange rueful glances. They looked around. It was a beautiful room, warm and inviting, with polished Jarrah floors and beautiful rugs from Afghanistan and Turkey. The ceiling fans at each end of the room helped keep it cool in the summer, and the bookshelves were built into the sides of the room, some reaching the ceiling. There were paintings on the walls, and a locked glass-fronted affair to house the most valuable of the antique books and first editions.
‘Okay, let’s get started, Hera. Maybe you could start on the desk, make sure there is nothing there out of order, and maybe I should start on the antiques. I know everything he’s bought, and there should be a list as well. I’ll check to make sure nothing is missing then I guess we start on the rest of the house. It’s going to take days.’ Bede sighed.
All was quiet for a while then Meredith looked up. ‘The last time I spoke to Justin, he was looking for some old book relating to the history of the Family. See if there’s anything there, Bede, he rang especially to ask.’
Bede frowned and opened the glass-fronted bookcase. Some of the books were extremely old, one illuminated manuscript from Valencia, c. 1460, The Book of Hours, was on vellum. It had always been one of her favourites, and even as a young girl, the beauty of the intricate miniatures had fascinated her. She carefully replaced the book in its container. There was nothing there, and she continued quietly thinking all the time.
They had been working for forty minutes when Mrs Robinson announced, ‘Inspector Campbell is here. Shall I send him in?’
‘Yes,’ Bede answered. ‘And I think we all need a cup of tea.’
Chapter Twelve
Still Justin’s Apartment
Gabriel smiled gently at Kamila with a smile that sent shivers down her spine. She drew a deep breath. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you all I know. George betrayed Lucien in some way, and no, I don’t know the details, but Lucien is furious. He wants, or maybe, needs George out of the way, possibly dead, and suspects that you, Justin, would not be averse to helping with this. George is scheming to take over some aspect of Lucien’s world, I think. But that’s speculation on my part. I will give you Lucien’s current address and telephone number if you will please let me go now. This really is the very last job I was to do for him, and Jakub is waiting for me outside in the car. He will come looking for me soon, particularly after seeing the police arrive. I was to look for any indication of a priceless antique book you have recently bought, or documents indicating you are in the process of buying. But why Lucien thought the information would be lying around here somewhere, I have no idea. Really, that’s all I know.’
Justin looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Okay, the phone number and address, I will accept. The story about Lucien sending you to look for an antique book in my library is not believable, but that you know about the book, I do believe.’ He regarded her thoughtfully, raised one eyebrow, and looked across at Gabriel. ‘What do you think?’
‘I think that we should bring Jakub in now,’ Gabriel moved to the door, and called quietly to Martin.
Kamila sat frozen, not moving a muscle, her gaze on the open doorway. Jakub came through the door with Martin and two others behind him. Jakub’s hands were tied behind his back, and he was scowling furiously. Justin waited while Kamila wrote something on the pad he handed her then rang the number, waited, and spoke briefly into the phone. ‘Lucien, my friend, I have Kamila here and Jakub. They are a little anxious. We, my nephews and I, would like to meet tonight and discuss our mutual friend George with you. Wonderful, see you in twenty minutes.’
Looking frantically from Gabriel to the two police officers, Kamila wailed, ‘The police, you bastard.’
Gabriel grinned, and said smoothly, ‘Meet some of the younger members of our family.’ He indicated the two men in uniform holding Jakub firmly between them.
Kamila was speechless. ‘You bastard!’ She turned to glare at Jakub, ‘how did you come to be caught?’
He glared back at her, ‘I was looking for you of course. You were taking too long. What have you got us into now?’
Gabriel smiled at his two young cousins. ‘I’m amazed how frequently that works. We’ll have to be careful how often we use it. It’s illegal, you know, to impersonate a policeman.’ He shook hands with both the newcomers, slapping them on the back in a friendly manner.
‘Are you going to untie me?’ Kamila snarled.
‘Not yet.’ Martin drawled, looking at his brother, while holding up the decanter of brandy. ‘What will you all have?’
‘Make them all Perrier. We need to keep a cool head here,’ Gabe replied.
Chapter Thirteen
International Airport Perth Western Australia
As Gabriel came through the exit gate of Perth International Airport, he looked across at the tall, slim woman with the beautifully cut dark hair holding a placard bearing his name. It was she, the woman in his dreams over the last few months. This was obviously one of his ‘cousins’, or at least some relation of sorts. Bugger, he refused to become involved with anyone within the family. It was too horrendous to contemplate. But it was she without any doubt.
He and Martin moved through the crowd and greeted her. ‘You must be cousin Bede, or are you Hera?’ He smiled his most charming smile, the smile that never quite reached his eyes.
Holding out her hand she replied, ‘Bede, and you are?’
‘Gabriel at your service.’
‘In that case, you must be Martin,’ she said, extending her hand toward him. She looked at both of them. ‘You didn’t take long through customs and border control. Is that your entire luggage?’
Martin shrugged, ‘Yep that’s it, we left Prague yesterday. I think spent one hour in Dubai, not enough time to acclimatise to your time zone or your temperature. I think we’re going to need lighter clothes.’
Gabriel cut in, ‘A couple of days ago, Martin was in Istanbul and I was in London. We spent a total of two days in Prague, then flew straight here. ‘After your phone call, Justin thought it would be best if we came ASAP even though’, he, turning to look at his brother, ‘Martin wanted to spend some R & R with friends in Prague skiing.’ He paused. ‘But I guess that’s out of the question here.’
Bede grinned, ‘Try between 37° and 40° Celsius. We can probably accommodate some lighter clothes for you both though.’ She considered them carefully. ‘I hope you’re not too exhausted. We have the property helicopter waiting, it’s easier than driving. Two days in a car is probably not what you want at the moment.’
Gabriel looked at Martin, and then turned back to her. ‘Lead on, we’re right behind you.’
She was magnificent, her eyes were a clear hazel with flecks of green and gold, her hair a rich mahogany with red highlights, and she moved with a dancer’s fluid grace, just as in the dreams. She was dressed in shorts, a loose cotton top with long, long brown legs ending in battered leather riding boots. But he would not allow himself to become emotionally involved with anyone in the family. Both he and Martin had made that sacred vow years ago.
They walked out of Perth International Airport to a battered Jeep Wrangler in the car park. Martin strolled at her side, with Gabriel walking a few paces behind. ‘So tell me about this property you own, where it is in relation to Perth, and how long will it take to get there?’
Martin, aware of Gabriel’s strange reaction to this beautiful girl, was prepared to run interference, step in, and distract her. It would obviously be a while before they could speak privately, so in the meantime, he would get as much information as possible. Justin hadn’t any concrete information about Australia. He had never visited ‘James in his den’ as he called it. He smiled down at the girl strolling beside him.
‘By helicopter, it’s about an hour and half northeast of here, mostly wheat country, but our property grows and exports fresh native cut flowers. We export to Europe, UK, and USA as well as the domestic market. It’s a fairly large property. To be honest, I’m not exactly sure how big it is now, quite a few square kilometres. James bought it when he and Mum first came back to Australia, and he’s expanded it at different times over the years. It’s a bit isolated. I hope that won’t worry you too much. The nearest township is about fifty kilometres south and it’s tiny, but I don’t imagine you will be here long enough to become stir crazy.’ She looked back over her shoulder at Gabriel, and her grin encompassed them both as she led them to the waiting four-wheel drive. This was obviously a working vehicle. It was covered in red dust with two very solid looking aerials, one on the roof and another on the front bonnet of the car with ‘roo bars’ attached to the front of the engine.
A Conundrum Page 7
