Starlight Peninsula

by Grimshaw, Charlotte

  He was looking at her closely, tipping back his drink. He reached across, picked up a phone that was lying on the next chair, checked its screen. There was a kind of grace about him, as if the air around him was heavy, liquid and he was moving against it.

  ‘I bet your hands never shake,’ she said.

  The rings of light played on the white wall above their heads.

  Eloise followed a line of thought. It wavered, faded. She tried to organise her mind. ‘When Arthur rang you, you were at David Hallwright’s country place. Rotokauri.’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘I met the Hallwrights at the opera. Scott Roysmith introduced me.’

  He looked sharply sideways, as if distracted from some intense calculation. ‘Roysmith from TV? You know him?’

  ‘I work for him. That’s how I met Arthur, we both did degrees in communications, then worked in TV, although he was older than me. I had an internship at TVNZ back then; he’d already been there for years. He started doing freelance work, the comedy shows …’

  ‘Have you talked to people about your … enquiries? Talked to Roysmith?’

  ‘No. Not at all. I haven’t even told my shrink about it.’

  ‘You have a shrink?’

  ‘Well, a therapist. I’m trying it out. I’ve been a bit unhinged since Sean left.’

  ‘What about your sister?’

  Eloise hesitated, lied. ‘No.’

  ‘Maybe the best thing is not to tell anyone at this stage.’

  ‘Do you think?’

  He settled himself closer to her. ‘It occurs to me that this interesting story, this little mystery — even though I don’t actually think it’s a mystery really, just an awful, tragic accident — it might have things about it that make it a bit sensitive.’

  Eloise said thickly, ‘Yes. I agree. You were at Rotokauri with the Hallwrights when Arthur rang you. The Mereana woman is presumably still missing. And Ed Miles was at Rotokauri too. The Minister of Justice. Although he was police minister back then.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Arthur made some notes. I took them from his flat after he died. I was only supposed to take my clothes …’

  Simon swallowed. His face was flushed. ‘Notes.’

  ‘Just a few notes — and also I’ve got a photo of Mereana.’

  His eyes were fixed on her. ‘Really.’

  ‘Well, it’s a faded photo, like a Polaroid maybe, with the name Mereana written on the back. It’s old. She’s a girl. Maybe about twelve, thirteen?’

  Eloise stared into her glass, which was empty already. ‘It’s funny, Simon, I wasn’t going to tell you all this. I was just going to ask you a few things, non-committally. Without really explaining. But you’ve been very nice.’

  Automatically, he refilled her glass.

  ‘And I’ve been short of company. I borrowed my sister’s dog …’

  He was looking down at his phone. ‘My wife’s coming home in a minute.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry. I’d better go.’ She got up, and the world tipped sideways. She caught hold of the top of the deckchair. ‘Whoops.’

  His voice at her elbow. ‘You’re drunk.’

  ‘Nonsense. I’ll be fine.’

  ‘You can’t drive.’

  ‘I walked here actually.’

  ‘Oh, okay.’

  Eloise thought for a moment. The surface of the pool was so dazzling, so dizzy-making. ‘I’m going to call a taxi. What number Pukeora are you?’

  Simon rubbed his face hard, an agitated movement.

  ‘No, look. Don’t bother calling a cab. I’ll drive you home. Where do you live? You could show me these notes of yours.’ He caught hold of her arm. ‘If there’s any mystery, Eloise, perhaps you and I could solve it together.’

  He said, ‘You walked from Starlight Peninsula to my place? All the way? It must have taken hours.’

  ‘It’s not that far. People never get out of their cars; they don’t realise how easy it is to walk. When I was a kid, if I was bored, I used to walk from Remuera out to Avondale.’

  ‘Quite a weird kid, were you?’

  ‘Well, slightly weird, maybe. My sister’s a more normal version of me. Carina. She’s a journalist.’

  The BMW shot smoothly up the motorway on-ramp, merged, accelerated. The wheels of the heavy, expensive car made a clicking sound, like a train. Simon Lampton was still and alert, gripping the wheel.

  ‘What kind of journalist?’

  ‘Carina Hay Hillman. She writes for the Record.’

  ‘Oh yes. I’ve seen the name.’

  Eloise gave directions. Simon drummed his fingers on the wheel, looked at his watch.

  She said, ‘When I took Arthur’s notes from the flat, I wasn’t supposed to. So I hope you won’t mention them to anyone.’

  ‘I won’t.’

  ‘Not that they’re particularly significant, necessarily.’

  He glanced at her. ‘You don’t think they would have been useful to the police?’

  ‘There’s nothing there they didn’t know already.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said.

  Eloise rested her hand against the cold window. ‘Do you believe in ESP?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Would you say it’s just the subconscious, reading signs?’

  ‘Yes. Or coincidence. Or nothing. There’s no science.’

  They drove through an area of industrial sprawl: car yards with lines of fluttering flags, a warehouse standing in a field, the sun sending a flash off its iron roof.

  Eloise said, ‘When the policewoman and I were in Arthur’s flat, I was so shocked I couldn’t think straight. They’d told me he was dead. Everything was incredibly intense. All the layers, everything I expected had been taken away, and I was raw.’

  ‘Everything you expected?’

  ‘Arthur and I had a life we’d built up. Routines, habits — expected life. It made a barrier. And that morning it was as if the barrier had been smashed, and suddenly there was nothing between me and … information. I built up another life with Sean, and now that’s been smashed too. Nothing between me and the world.’

  ‘You’ve been unlucky.’

  ‘When Arthur died, I was frantic to find someone else. To get away from the information. But now I’ve started to think about it, to face it. I’ve been back to Arthur’s flat. It’s on the side of Mt Eden.’

  ‘Right. I suppose that’s why there was a high retaining wall,’ Simon said. His tone was level, smooth. His fingers gripped and twisted on the wheel, making the leather squeak.

  ‘In Arthur’s flat that morning — the morning he died. All my defences were stripped away. The scene hit me, when I was completely raw. I’ve been back. I remember that moment now, and I’m convinced.’

  ‘Convinced of what?’

  ‘That there was someone in the flat with Arthur on the morning he died.’

  Silence. He glanced sideways, his smile crooked, unconvincing. Finally he said, ‘The plot thickens.’

  Eloise winced at his tone. He was humouring her. And she was boring him. It was too weird. Telling all this to a complete stranger, whose home she’d invaded, who was now having to drive her across town to get rid of her, in order to spare his wife the unpleasant intrusion. Simon Lampton was simply someone Arthur — reckless, hyperactive Arthur — had rung in his solipsistic quest for interesting material. She had a sudden terrible vision of herself as an ageing, drunken bore, forever having to be dealt with by normal people.

  ‘Never mind. It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘Go on. It’s all very intriguing.’

  But he sounded so politely insincere. What a disaster she’d become. Even Carina was starting to look a bit fed up, what with the nighttime phone calls and dramatic appearances, not to mention the fire. Although she’d been very forgiving when Eloise had absent-mindedly returned Silvio in a blackened state, covered in toe toe and soot from nose to tail.

  Finally she said, ‘I don’t know exactly why I think som
eone else was in the flat. That’s why I went back, to try to recall. Maybe it was a smell, or an indentation in a chair, or things out of place. It was something the police wouldn’t have noticed, but I picked it up because I spent most of my time there.’

  ‘But wouldn’t there have been visitors often? And even if there was a visitor, it wouldn’t necessarily mean he or she had anything to do with Arthur’s death.’

  ‘The police checked. None of our friends had been by that morning. So if anyone was there, it was a stranger.’

  ‘Did you tell the police you felt someone had been there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s only a feeling, and I’m not sure I even had it back then. I’ve only uncovered it now.’

  ‘Pretty tenuous,’ he said, looking ahead.

  ‘Exactly. You can’t tell people, the police, you have a feeling. That you’ve developed a feeling you didn’t even know you had back then.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have much evidentiary value, no. Also, you said he died the morning he was found, that’s a fact, right? The neighbour came out and found him. So even if you were noticing some missing item or whatever, it could date from any time when you were in Sydney. Not necessarily on the morning he … passed away.’

  ‘You drive very fast, don’t you.’

  ‘Sorry. I wasn’t thinking.’ He slowed down, then almost immediately speeded up again.

  Eloise gripped the top of her seatbelt.

  After a moment she said, ‘Missing item.’

  ‘Do I turn left here?’

  ‘First left and then right, onto the peninsula road.’

  Silence. The big car hissed over the chip seal.

  Eloise bit her nail. ‘You said missing item.’

  ‘Did I? No. I’m not sure.’

  ‘I didn’t think of that. I thought I must have seen some clue, or sensed it. I didn’t think maybe something was missing.’

  It was a high tide, the estuary a brimming stretch of silver beyond the tip of the land. Inland, the water looked viscous, almost bursting, like the skin of a blister. The creek was full almost up to the bridge, and only the tops of the mangroves were visible in the still water. Skeins of high cloud stretched over the dog park, a line of grappling ropes thrown towards the horizon, their angle making the whole vista seem as if it was on a slant.

  Simon parked and she led him down to the creek, showing him the wooden bridge and the path along the peninsula.

  He stood shading his eyes, looking over at the dog park. He was very tall. Broad shoulders, curly hair, big hands. Something so self-contained about him, so controlled. She had a moment of — what could you call it — incredulity? That she was standing here with this unknown person. It was entirely improbable he should be here at all. Sudden memory: when she was a student she used to think, I like that person. Somehow, I am going to find my way into his house. It was usually a man — she was better at making friends with men. She had managed to enter Lampton’s house, now he was about to enter hers.

  Did she like Simon Lampton? The way he’d led her to the wooden seat in his garden, sat her down and placed two fingers on her wrist. Looking into her eyes, his expression intent, respectful, serious. The freshness of his shirt. The clean, masculine smell of him. His big hand resting lightly on her arm.

  Don’t get carried away. It’s called a good bedside manner. They all do it; they learn it at medical school. They touch you somewhere nice and safe, a brief comforting squeeze on your arm or foot, before leaving you to get on with your dying.

  All that. But yes, she did like him. He had a way of looking sideways, as if, beneath his smooth politeness, there was something more real. His patients were women; he must be used to covering his male nature under a veneer of gentleness, concern. Not scaring the ladies — he was good at that. But sometimes his smile dropped and he gave you a shrewd, assessing look, as if, during a crisis, he would swap the pleasantries for toughness, efficiency, pragmatism.

  Funny, he is most charming at the exact moment he stops smiling.

  He followed her along the creek path; now they surveyed the blackened bushes on the fenceline, and the base of the toe toe, rising crookedly out of the grass like a dead tooth.

  ‘What happened here?’

  ‘We had a little scrub fire.’

  ‘This weather. Everything’s tinder dry.’

  ‘And then some moron drops a cigarette …’ Eloise pointed across the lawn. ‘This is my house.’

  ‘Very nice. Someone’s home, I see.’

  ‘No. I live alone.’

  ‘Someone’s upstairs. At the window.’

  She squinted up, shading her eyes. ‘There shouldn’t be anyone in there.’

  He shrugged. ‘Your ex. Your sister.’

  ‘No. No one. And it’s not Amigo’s day.’

  ‘Well, let’s go and see.’

  The door was deadlocked. She opened it and called, ‘Sean?’ The hallway was silent and hot, crossed with sunlight from the high window. Dust motes whirled in the air. The alarm was switched off. Hadn’t she set it, since there was no Silvio to trigger it?

  She called out again.

  There was no sound except the seagulls crying above the house and the ticking of the noisy clock in the kitchen. And a faint, metallic clang, as if someone had bumped against the garage door at the front. Could Sean have gone out through the door that connected the garage to the house?

  But there were voices behind her.

  Nick and Simon Lampton were facing each other on the path, Nick slowly raising his sunglasses, pushing them to the top of his head. He was wearing jeans and a red T-shirt.

  Simon turned to Eloise, his face inscrutable.

  ‘Oh Nick, hi! Nick, Simon Lampton.’

  The two men shook hands. Nick looked hard at Simon, who declined to meet his eyes, only looked at Eloise with an odd, smiling expression.

  ‘Simon says he saw someone in the house. At the window. Did you see anyone?’ she asked.

  Nick shook his head.

  Simon smiled with mouth not eyes. He was impatient, keen to move on. ‘The sun was right on it. Impossible to see really. Probably a curtain blowing.’

  Nick said, ‘A trick of the light.’ His tone was faintly derisive.

  Silence.

  Nick tried to engage, to catch Simon’s eye, but Simon turned away, jingling his car keys.

  Eloise said to Simon, ‘Are you in a rush?’

  ‘I was just going to ask if you wanted me to cut your grass,’ Nick said.

  ‘Oh, thanks, that’s really nice of you, but I’ve still got Goodfellow. Goodfellow Nkemba — he does a lot of lawns around here.’

  ‘Okay. See you later, Eloise.’ He flipped his sunglasses down over his eyes and went off along the path, with a backward glance.

  Simon passed his keys from one hand to the other. ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Nick, he lives across the way.’

  ‘All right, is he? Seems a bit, I don’t know …’

  ‘A bit what?’

  ‘What was he doing on your property?’

  She laughed. ‘We’re a bit more relaxed about boundaries here. Not like over your side. With your gated communities. Your security details.’

  ‘I hope you trust him.’

  Eloise thought about Nick’s backward stare. He was much younger than Simon Lampton. Next to Nick, Simon appeared smooth, affluent; everything about him, from his clothes to his expressions, was infinitely more complex. She looked at his expensive shoes, his air of competence. He was a doctor. Well respected. A pillar. It was right to trust him.

  ‘So, Eloise …?’

  She refocused, understood the tone: he meant she was using up his time. Time is money.

  ‘Do you want to see Arthur’s file?’

  He nodded casually. ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘Come inside. Nick’s okay, he’s just a neighbour. He’s incredibly useful around the place. One of those practical guys. Always has h
is toolkit on him. Do you want a drink? Just sit there if you like, sorry about the paw prints, that’s Silvio, he’s always covered in mud. From the estuary. He likes to get down and wallow in it. I’m thinking of getting a puppy, but I’m at work all day. I have to move out, my husband and I will have to split the assets, you know, go fifty-fifty. Because he’s left me, and he’s not coming back. His family’s rich, he’s an heirloom. He’s got this actress. This bimbo, narcissist. Everyone says she’s an idiot; she’s into spiritual self-improvement, all kinds of humourless New Age bullshit. He’s making us sell the house but I love the peninsula; I love the dog park but it’s a bit challenging at night sometimes. That’s why I borrow Silvio. For the company.’

  She left him and went out to the Honda, sliding the file out from the cavity under the spare wheel. Should she take it to Klaudia next session?

  Klaudia. An image of the therapist appeared, along with a lingering sense of tristesse. Transference again. Not erotic exactly (not so much about Klaudia’s soft, fair hair and wry, crafty smile), more just a yearning for her large, square, blonde presence. Note to self: think up something very ‘worrying’ for next session. Something to get old Klaudia frowning intently and reaching for the textbooks …

  Eloise now entered a daydream she’d begun to have lately: filling the house with people. Klaudia, on an extended house call. Carina and the Sparkler. Silvio. Nick. Scott and Thee. Maybe Simon Lampton, too. The more the merrier. Having them move in and stay. After an earthquake, say. Catastrophic floods. All in it together. Camaraderie. Never a moment to yourself.

  Simon hadn’t moved. He was staring out through the ranch slider, over the brown grassland to the dog park. His expression was far away, distracted.

  ‘Air,’ he said, vaguely.

  She sat down next to him with the file on her knees. ‘You want the window open?’

  ‘You said your ex is an heirloom. You mean an heir.’

  ‘That’s what I said. He’s an heirloom to the Rodd family fortune.’

  ‘An heir. To the Rodds. The Rodd family, no less. How did you meet him?’

  ‘He’s an intellectual property lawyer. He came to ask me if I had a copy of a screenplay Arthur had written for one of his clients. Then one day he came to the studio with a Chinese businessman who’d been buying up farms. The guy presented us with photos of himself and the prime minister. Sean was part of the entourage. He’s a lawyer at Jaeger’s.’