by JD Nixon
“What happened to you?” he asked me in that blunt way that many elderly people have, staring at me rudely after he closely examined my identification photo. I figured they thought they didn’t have enough time left on earth to bother with manners at their age. “You look like you’re normally a hell of a beauty.”
Boy, was his eyesight fading, I thought dryly, and told him, equally blunt, “I was beaten up by some Bycrafts.”
“Oh, them,” he sniffed in disapproval. “Bunch of yobs, the lot of them. They’re forever in the paper for getting arrested or appearing in court. I’m glad they don’t live here in Wattling Bay.”
“Mr Macostic, we’re looking for Lionel Mundy,” cut in the Sarge. “Nobody appears to be home.”
He cackled. “If you want to find Lionel, you’ll have to go to the crematorium. He died three years ago.”
“Oh,” said the Sarge, taken aback. “Did he have any next-of-kin?”
“His wife, Anne. She moved to a retirement village in the city after he died. Haven’t heard from her for ages though. Oh, and they had a useless layabout son, Graham. Don’t know where he is. Spent all his time playing those stupid games on the computer instead of getting a job like a real man.” He shook his head. “I’ve never understood those games. What the hell’s the attraction? It’s just a bunch of –”
“Do you have an address or phone number for Mrs Mundy?” I asked, butting in.
He shot me a dirty look, not happy about being interrupted during his rant, and snapped, “Yes. Come with me.”
We followed him inside his house, which was cool, dark and spotlessly tidy, the faint citrusy smell of furniture polish hanging in the air. I had a sudden nostalgic pang because it reminded me of the smell of Nana Fuller’s house. She’d been a great one for polishing her furniture. Personally, I’d never polished a piece of furniture in my life and I certainly didn’t intend to start now. My furniture was lucky if I had time to give it a dust now and then.
A querulous female voice called from another room in a different language, Italian I think, and Mr Macostic yelled out a response in same language. There was a brief exchange of expressive words, shouted loudly, either opinions or insults. Who could tell?
“My wife,” he explained with a heavy sigh and went to a side table in his lounge room. He rummaged in a drawer for a moment, pulling out an address book. He took his time, cleaning and then popping on some spectacles before slowly writing down the contact details for Mrs Mundy in a notebook in shaky handwriting. He ripped off the page and handed it to the Sarge.
“Thank you, Mr Macostic. We’ll see ourselves out,” the Sarge told him, but he followed us to the door anyway and watched as we walked back to the car and climbed in.
“What now?” I asked, doing up my seatbelt.
“Back to the station to ring Mrs Mundy.”
And before long we were pulling into the Big Town police station carpark again. There was a different crowd in the counter area this time, so I had to endure another round of shocked and pitying looks, as well as more teasing from Phil before he let us out the back to use the phone. This time I sat on the desk and the Sarge sat on the chair and phoned Anne Mundy, while I listened in on his side of the conversation, my feet up on his chair. It didn’t sound as though he was having much luck.
Frowning he hung up. “She didn’t know anything about a company called Traumleben Pty Ltd. Had never even heard of it. And she denied that her husband had ever been the director of any company. Apparently Lionel Mundy had Alzheimer’s disease for five years before he died and was therefore completely incapable of running a company.”
“Isn’t that strange?”
“It certainly is. And when I asked whether her son could help us, she was very dismissive. Like Mr Macostic said, he sounds like a total no-hoper.”
“None of that’s getting us anywhere,” I complained, frustrated.
Don’t despair,” he said, looking up at me, smugly pleased, his hands clasped behind his neck. He swang on the chair, forcing my legs to rock back and forth along with it. “She thought that maybe her brother might be able to be of some assistance though, because he has looked after their business affairs for the last forty years. He’s a lawyer and he lives right here in Big Town.” He grinned up at me. “And . . .”
I looked down at him impatiently. “And?” I prompted.
“And his name is Stanley Murchison.”
Chapter 21
We pulled up in front of Mr Murchison’s lovely home again and climbed out. I pressed the doorbell and we waited. And waited. Nothing. I pressed it again. More waiting. More nothing. I looked up at the windows and could have sworn that I saw some movement behind one of them. I pressed the bell again.
“I think he’s there, Sarge. He just doesn’t want to talk to us.”
“We can’t force our way in,” he said sensibly. “Let’s go have some lunch and we’ll come back again afterwards. He might be feeling more sociable then.”
He chose a sandwich and juice bar and ordered a tuna salad sandwich while I went for the chicken salad, carefully counting out my change. It was still another week until payday and I was currently skint. The sulky, over-pierced emo cashier swept up my coins with contempt and dumped them into the register, shooting me dirty looks the whole time through heavily eye-lined eyes. She wasn’t a fan of the boys and girls in blue, I decided. We sat at one of the small tables to eat, although I was finding the curious stares of everyone who came in and out off-putting after a short while.
“I’m sick of everybody looking at me. I’m grotesque,” I complained, slumping down in my chair.
“You’re not at all grotesque. You need to ignore them,” he advised.
“That’s easy for you to say. They’re not gawking at you.” My self-esteem was taking a belly-dive.
“Tess, it’s good for people to see such a stark reminder that policing can be a very dangerous occupation. It’s easy for people to forget that when all they notice is us giving them speeding tickets and breath tests.”
“I suppose,” I conceded reluctantly and we finished our lunch in silence. On the way out, I remembered something that I’d promised to do.
“Sarge? Can we make a detour before we go back to Murchison’s place?”
“Okay, as long as it won’t take too long.”
“Nah. I’ll be quick.” I gave him directions to the store I needed and ducked in and out before he even had the chance to miss me.
“What did you buy?” he asked, leaning over to peer in my bag.
“Aren’t you a nosy sergeant? You ought to be a detective,” I teased and pulled out my purchase. It was another brown mug with ‘Kenny’ written on it in gold lettering.
“You’re a very nice person, Tess,” he commented as he drove off.
“Not really,” I admitted honestly. “But I promised Young Kenny I’d buy him a new mug and I’d be letting him down if I didn’t deliver.”
“Most people wouldn’t care if they didn’t keep a promise to an old homeless man.”
“Well, I do care. It means a lot to him.”
His eyes slid sideways to me. “Like I said, you’re a nice person.”
I remained silent. He didn’t know the first thing about me.
Back at Stanley Murchison’s place, we received no response at the door again.
“We’ll try his office,” suggested the Sarge. We made our way there only to be told by a nervous, frizzy-haired bespectacled woman, who couldn’t tear her shocked eyes away from my face, that Mr Murchison wasn’t in the office today. He was working from home.
The Sarge sighed impatiently. “I want you to ring Mr Murchison and tell him that we want to speak to him now.”
The woman looked at him, her eyes huge behind her glasses, and quickly did as he asked, picking up the phone and ringing.
“Hello, Mr Murchison, this is Deidre from the office. I have two police officers here who wish to speak to you.” She listened for a moment. “Certainly . . . Yes
. . . Thank you, Mr Murchison.”
She hung up. “Mr Murchison would be more than happy to talk to you, Officers. Do you know where he lives?”
“Yes,” said the Sarge curtly, and stalked out.
“Thanks, Deidre,” I smiled and followed him out. It didn’t cost anything to be nice. The Sarge should remember that now and again.
We drove back to Murchison’s house and stood at his door, pressing on his buzzer again. No response.
“This man is seriously starting to give me the shits,” said the Sarge angrily. “What the hell game is he playing at?”
“He clearly doesn’t want to talk to us.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck what he wants,” he spat out. “I’ll –” His phone rang, halting the impending tirade and he answered snappily. “Maguire . . . Yes . . . Great . . .Okay, thanks.”
He turned to me. “That was forensics. They just finished dusting Mrs Villiers’ windowsill and managed to lift a couple of prints from the window glass.”
“Our peeper?”
“Possibly. They’re going to run them through the database for us. But they want us back in Little Town straight away so they can also do Miss Greville’s house and the station for our safe-buster while they’re there. We’re going to have to abandon Murchison for now.”
The forensics team was waiting patiently for us on the front verandah of our police station, eating a late lunch of meat pies and Cokes from the bakery. We let them inside and watched, well out of their way, while they dusted the safe and back door for prints. When they’d finished, they promised to go straight to Miss Greville’s house and then be in touch as soon as possible.
“Now that we’re back in town, let’s go walk the beat for a while,” said the Sarge, so we drove to the main shopping strip and did exactly that. Where he was mobbed yesterday, today it was my turn and we progressed slowly down the street as every person I crossed paths with wanted to hug me or chat to me and commiserate on my injuries, telling me just what they thought of those Bycraft brutes.
We strolled past the town's small primary school at the exact moment that school ended and the kids streamed out of the gates. Of course they were curious when they saw my face and crowded around me, the little girls holding my hands and giving me hugs. The Bycraft brats slinked past, casting me hostile looks, which would make them the fourth generation of Bycrafts in Little Town to personally hate me. I couldn’t blame the young ones about that today though. Because of me, some of their dads were now in the watch house in Big Town.
“What happened, Officer Tess?” the kids asked in various ways, their mothers also coming over to talk to me, or maybe it was to check out the Sarge.
“I had a fight with some bad guys,” I told the kids solemnly.
“Did you win?” asked one big-eyed little girl.
“I sure did. They’re all sitting in jail right now.”
“Was it some Bycrafts?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Someone told me you killed one of them with your gun,” said one seventh-grader.
“That’s not true,” I responded quickly. “They’re all still alive.”
Abe’s little daughter, Toni, came up, gave me a big hug and clutched my hand. “Hello, Tessie,” she said shyly.
“Hello, cutie-pie,” I smiled and leant down to drop a kiss on the top of her head, sliding my arm around her shoulder. She was a darling little girl with her parents’ dark eyes, a tender temperament, and dark brown hair naturally curled into the sweetest ringlets I’d seen since I watched an old Shirley Temple movie on TV one night. “Are you waiting for your dad?”
She nodded and looked up at the Sarge in awe. He must have seemed like a giant to her.
“Kids and mums, this is Sergeant Maguire. He’s the town’s new police officer. He’s my boss now.” The mothers smiled in a friendly way at him, while the kids regarded him with all of a child’s blunt curiosity.
“Do you have a gun too?” asked one inquisitive fourth-grader.
“Yes, I do. All police officers have a gun, but we try never to use them,” he said, looking down at the kids tolerantly.
“Have you ever shot anybody?” asked the same curious kid.
“No, but I don’t think we should talk about things like that. It’s not a nice thing to talk about in front of the little kids,” he reproved gently. The child’s mother grabbed his hand, embarrassed by his questions.
“Oh Tessie, look what’s happened to you,” said a familiar but upset voice from behind. I turned to find my friend, Gretel, one of the two teachers at the school gazing at me, aghast. She gave me an awkward hug, Toni still clinging to me and some of the other little girls hanging off my arm. I was a bit of a role model to the young girls in town for some reason. They were always mobbing me. Maybe it was the uniform? Or maybe because I gave regular talks at the school on stranger danger, crossing the road safely, fire safety, bike safety, and other kid-friendly topics, and handed out lollies at the end to the kids who had listened.
“I’m okay really, Gretel. It was nothing. Just another day at the office,” I dismissed airily with the best smile I could muster. She laughed with me at my mock toughness and then noticed the Sarge standing next to me. The change that swept over her face was embarrassingly transparent. I think it was love at first sight for her. I guess I should be grateful that she’d noticed me first, otherwise I don’t think I would have got a look-in.
“Gretel, this is Sergeant Finn Maguire, the new officer to replace Des. Sarge, this is my very good friend, Gretel Harcourt. Gretel is one of the two teachers here at the primary school.” They shook hands politely but Gretel’s eyes didn’t leave his face for a second. She was completely dumbstruck and only managed to splurt out some inane greeting in response to his that I knew she’d be kicking herself about for the rest of her life.
Oh dear, another heart I was going to have to shatter by telling her that he was already engaged. Why couldn’t men wear an engagement ring like women did, I thought in irritation. Then everybody would instantly know they were taken and someone like me wouldn’t have to go around breaking hearts as I broke the bad news. Gretel was single, but left nobody in any doubt that she wanted to change the status of that situation as soon as humanly possible. Being a reasonably sensible woman though, and in close contact with Bycraft brats every work day, she refused to have anything to do with the Bycraft men, so her options in Little Town were significantly limited. A man like the Sarge turning up in town would have been a dream come true for her. If he hadn’t been taken already, that was.
The man I really hoped she would end up with, Abe, came strolling down the footpath at that moment to pick up Toni. I had tried everything I could think of to get those two hooked up, but it never seemed to pan out. I know they liked and respected each other, and had even gone on some dates. And from the coy hints they’d both dropped, I think they’d maybe even slept together a few times, but there didn’t seem to be that spark between them needed to set a friendship on fire to something hotter.
He stopped in shock when he saw me and I gave him a rueful half-smile. “My God, Tessie.” His face grew grim. “I’m going to kill those fu–”
“Abe!” I said sharply, reminding him that we were surrounded by little children with big ears.
He pulled me into his arms and hugged me tightly. I let him for a minute, but then struggled to free myself. I was always very circumspect around him, knowing that he had amorous feelings for me that I wasn’t keen to encourage in any way. But he was a dear friend and a great support for me and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings either. It was a difficult balancing act at times and I wasn’t sure that I always managed it well.
“Why don’t you and Trev come to dinner at the bistro tonight?” he suggested. “On the house.”
“Thanks, Abe, that’s so nice of you. But I’d put all your paying customers off their dinner looking like this. Can I take a raincheck until I’m more presentable?” It killed me to turn down a free m
eal. Especially when I hadn’t had a chance to do the grocery shopping for the week.
“Sure Tessie, if that’s how you feel, but I couldn’t care less what other people think. It pains me to see you hurt like this.”
I was sincerely touched by the sentiment and reached up to give him a pat on the cheek. “Thanks, Abe, that’s such a sweet thing to say. But I’m just doing my job.”
“No you’re not, Tessie. And we both know that,” he said seriously, his big palm affectionately cupping my cheek in return. Our eyes met, so full of dark emotion, the ghost of Marcelle between us, that we both needed to look away immediately. Then he deliberately lightened up before bending down to Toni, tweaking her nose, “Let’s go home, little possum. I need you to set the tables in the bistro this afternoon for me before you do your homework. We have a big group booked in tonight celebrating a wedding anniversary.”
“Okay, Daddy,” she smiled, slipping her hand into his. They both gave me a kiss on the cheek in farewell and I watched them walk back towards the pub fondly, hand-in-hand, waving back at them when they turned to wave. He was a great father and a good man and would make a lucky woman a wonderful partner. I looked over to Gretel, hoping she was paying attention to his many sterling qualities. She wasn’t, her concentration and eyes firmly fixed on the Sarge. Unfortunately for her though, he hadn’t noticed because he was too busy shooting me meaningful glances that I correctly interpreted as “come on, I’m bored, let’s get moving”.
I said goodbye to everyone and the Sarge and I headed off again, Gretel watching after us as we did. We walked around for another three-quarters of an hour, being stopped every few minutes by someone who wanted to talk to me.
“You’re well-loved in this town, Tess. I’ve never seen a cop hugged and kissed so much in my life. Not even on New Year’s Eve in the city, surrounded by drunk people,” he commented neutrally.
I shrugged, smiling. “I was born and raised here and I’m not a Bycraft, and that’s pretty much all you need to do to be well-loved in Little Town.”
