Sins of the Master

by Catherine Taylor

It had been a long night with little sleep. Mairead lay on her side in the enormous bed, staring at the vacant spot beside her. She had no enthusiasm to get up to a silent house. It was only when the nausea got too bad, that she was forced from her bed and into the bathroom, where she spent the next fifteen minutes crouched over the toilet bowl. As much as she wanted to hold on to denial, it was rapidly being stripped away.

  When she was well enough she threw on her dressing gown and headed out to the kitchen. The calendar would prove how ridiculous her fears were. Staring at the dates, she winced to see that she was a week late for her injection, but it wasn’t enough time to feel this sick, surely.

  Lifting the pages, she turned to the month of September, smiling to see her wedding date surrounded with the tiny love hearts she had drawn. There was a circled date a few days before it, her appointment for her jab. She nodded confidently, silently counting forward three more months to December. There was no date circled.

  “No, no.” Mairead stepped back to lean against the counter, forcing her thoughts to remember. It was now mid-January, at least seven weeks later than it should have been.

  Mairead gritted her teeth and yelled out, “Fuck.”

  Grabbing her phone, she trembled as she scrolled through to find a number and call it. After a few rings a woman’s cheerful voice greeted her with “Wellington Family Planning.”

  Desperate to keep calm, Mairead kept her voice quiet and sweet. “Hi. It’s Mairead Vaughn here. I wanted to check my dates for my Depo shot. I think I might have missed it.”

  “Just a minute, Mairead.”

  A few minutes later the woman was confirming her fears. “As it is now sixteen weeks overdue, we would require you to do a pregnancy test before…”

  “It’s not sixteen weeks,” Mairead insisted. “I had a shot in September.”

  There was a long pause before the woman answered. “No, you cancelled and rescheduled for two weeks, which you also missed.”

  Mairead nodded glumly. “Because I was on my honeymoon. I forgot all about it.”

  “Mairead, even a week’s delay puts you at risk of falling pregnant. Do you believe that may be the situation for you?”

  She was too stunned to answer.

  “Mairead? Are you alright?”

  “Yeah,” she finally replied. “Don’t you people usually send a reminder?”

  There was a pause and the woman came back to her. “That’s right and a reminder text was sent to your phone on the 2nd of October, a week before your appointment.”

  “Thank you. I’ll get back to you.” She hung up and shook her head wearily. “Just a pity I got a new phone number.”

  She looked down and put her hand on her stomach, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. It was certainly incredible to think of this life inside her, and the more she thought about it, the happier she became.

  “A baby,” she grinned. “Mine and James’.”

  At the thought of him, her happiness wilted. James was sitting in a prison cell for a crime he hadn’t committed. He was facing the possibility of a trial. Did he really want to hear that he was going to be a father, when facing an uncertain future?

  Just the thought had her face contorting in despair. Before the tears overwhelmed her, she picked her phone up and tapped in the same number she had rung a hundred times that night. Again, it came back as a long drawn out buzz. No voice to ask for her name. No way of contacting Dylan.

  Her phone rang as soon as she hung up. Looking at the screen, she saw Kylie’s name and quickly answered.

  “Do you have a sixth sense or something? You always know when to ring me when I need you.”

  “Hell no, babe,” Kylie huffed. “I could hardly miss it. I’m just looking at the TV now, and I knew you would be freaking out.”

  Mairead frowned, already moving into the lounge and searching for the remote. “Why? What’s happened?”

  “You mean James isn’t watching this? He’s always watching the news.”

  “James isn’t here.” She finally found the remote and fired up her screen.

  “Why the hell not? Mairead, don’t go looking at this on your own.”

  It was too late. Mairead immediately recognised the house and grounds behind the reporter. A running text was flashing across the bottom of the screen explaining the whole situation. She turned up the volume as the reporter was speaking.

  “We’re still getting no confirmation at this point, but it appears that MP Lance Easton and his wife have been found dead at their Wellington home. We have been given no further details, including anything concerning their daughter, Adele Easton, who was living with them.”

  Mairead switched to another channel and there was an aerial shot of the house before another reporter appeared. “Police are being tight-lipped at this stage. All we can tell you is that we have unconfirmed reports that Lance Easton and his wife Vivian have been found dead and their daughter, Adele Easton, is missing. We’re staying live at the house and will bring you up to date as news comes to hand.”

  The nausea was back and Mairead was trembling violently. She sat heavily on to the couch and looked blankly at the phone in her hand. Bringing it up, she heard Kylie shouting her name.

  “I’m here, Kylie, I’m alright,” she lied. “Kylie, I need to go and get hold of James.”

  “Hell, babe, this is just fucking insane. You don’t think Adele knocked her own parents off, do you?”

  “No,” Mairead snapped. “I don’t. Adele loved her parents. It’s only me she hated. Please, Kylie, I need to go.”

  “Alright then, but you have that husband of yours stay close. You don’t need this shit. Love you, girlfriend.”

  “Love you, too.” Mairead hung up and her phone rang straight away. It was an unknown number and she quickly answered, praying it was Dylan. “Hello?”

  “Can I speak to Mairead Vaughn?” The voice was unfamiliar.

  “Speaking.”

  “Mairead, this is Janice Holt from TV9. Are you aware of what’s occurred at Adele Easton’s home?”

  “What?” Mairead sat up. “Why are you ringing me?”

  “Do you have any comment regarding the death of Adele’s parents and…”

  “Yeah,” Mairead yelled. “Fuck off.”

  She hung up and the phone rang again with another unknown number. This time she switched it off and tossed her phone to the end of the couch. A shot of Adele with her parents flashed up on the TV screen.

  Mairead stared at it, as her tears spilled over. Of course she didn’t have any answers, though one lurked in the back of her thoughts, too horrific to believe.

  She shook her head. “No, I trust him. He didn’t do this. He didn’t do this.”

  * * * * *

  In fifteen years of service, Cooper couldn’t remember feeling more disturbed by a crime scene. The Georgian mansion was set well back on the extensive grounds, with a circling driveway that ran past the front and was now cut off by yellow tape. The police cars and official vehicles were well back towards the front gates, allowing the driveway to be examined for any evidence of tyre tracks or boot prints.

  After her initial inspection, Cooper was relieved to stay back from the carnage, having already seen and smelled the blood sprayed over white walls and pooling on white marble tiles around Lance Easton’s body. The slaughter in the bedroom had been far worse with his wife having received a headshot.

  She felt weary, and when Sam approached with two foam cups of coffee, she could have kissed him.

  “Did you get any sleep?” he asked her.

  “An hour in my car, before heading to the other crime scene.”

  Sam scowled. “Yeah, I’m not in the loop on that one. SIS have got the whole place cordoned off, but that’s Tyler’s gallery, isn’t it? Some old guy’s been half decapitated.”

  “Yeah,” Cooper replied wearily.

  “What the fuck is going on, Lizzie?”

  “I can’t. I’m sorry, Sam, but this one is a lot more than a sla
p on the wrist if I open my mouth.”

  “Yeah, well good luck keeping silent on this one. Media have been on this since it was called in.”

  Cooper frowned. “Who called it in?”

  “An anonymous call came in just after eleven last night. Same person probably gave the heads up to the journos, though they would have found out. How would you even keep them out of this? I mean, Lance Easton has been around in the government forever. Fuck, it was only yesterday that we were talking to the poor cunt.”

  “Not to mention Adele, wherever the hell she is, dead or alive. This is just insane. Why so much damage?”

  “One of the coroner’s boys reckons it was a standard, two barrelled shotgun. No casings have been found. Neighbours are too far apart to have heard much, but a few of them reported hearing a few bangs, which they thought were fireworks.”

  “The whole scene doesn’t make sense,” Cooper said. “Easton goes to the front door, opens it and gets shot in the back a few metres from there. He must have seen that his security system had been taken out and the cameras were down, and yet he still opens the door at that time of night. Why, especially after what happened to Brendan North? His wife doesn’t wake up to the humungous blast and then gets her head blown away in her bed.”

  Sam nodded. “And then we have the one and only sign of a break in, a glass cutter used on Adele’s window. Not smashed, but cut out neatly to gain access. No sign of a struggle in her bedroom. Maybe she wasn’t even there.”

  “That’s just it. If they had already got inside via the front door, why the window, and again, why so much damage? A shotgun? Really? A thousand neater ways to kill a person and they choose a shotgun. It’s almost like it was designed to shock.”

  Sam’s phone rang and he answered. Cooper wandered forward, chilled by the sight of body bags being wheeled from the house on gurneys. It had been years since any high profile New Zealander had been murdered so brutally.

  She glanced at Sam as he came to stand next to her. “Who was that?”

  “The boss. Apparently the toxicology report came in and there was ketamine in Vaughn’s system. The amount still present at the time of the blood test suggests he was given a hefty dose. He wouldn’t have had enough awareness to assault anyone at the time of the attack. His lawyer is going to be all over this. Vaughn will be out in hours.”

  Cooper wasn’t surprised. “Good for him. I’m going home, Sam. I need some sleep. Call me if anything else develops.”

  Her phone rang just as she reached her car. Frowning at the name on the screen, she answered wearily.

  “What’s up, Tobias?”

  “You’re needed,” he replied. “At the Russian embassy.”

  “What the fuck for? I was just headed home.”

  “Sorry, Lizzie, but we’ve both been summoned there. I’m nearly there now and you’re only twenty minutes away.”

  “Yes, and only forty minutes from my bed. What the hell do they want now?”

  “We have another body, Lizzie, and from what I’ve been told, don’t stop for breakfast on the way.”

  * * * * *

  For two hours, Mairead had stared at the news on the screen, and was no closer to making any sense of it. Dylan was still unobtainable and it was becoming easier to imagine the worse. Everything she believed about him was being tested, but she refused to give in. It didn’t help that there were other reports of Dylan’s gallery in Porirua having been cordoned off. So far, there had been no suggestions of the two crime scenes being linked, but Mairead was already convinced. She just didn’t know what to do about it.

  The doorbell chimed, sending her into a panic. Switching the screen off, she slowly got up from her chair and moved to where she could see the door. The chime rang again, and she nervously approached the monitor. As she identified her visitors, a wave of emotion came over her, and she hurried to open the door.

  Sean Kavanagh was nearly knocked off balance as Mairead launched into him, determined to get her arms around his stout body.

  He chuckled as he returned a firm embrace. “Hello, princess. How are you doing?”

  “Just happy that you’re here, Daddy,”

  Mairead held onto him and closed her eyes to savour the moment. She only released him to follow up with another heartfelt hug to the woman beside him. Joanne was not long married to her father, after having been his housekeeper and secretary for years. To Mairead, she was as much a mother as she had ever known, since losing her own as a child.

  Joanne kissed Mairead’s cheek, until she looked at her face and frowned with concern. “It’s going to be alright, Mairead. We’re here for you.”

  Mairead tried to smile. “I take it you know about James.”

  “Ron called us. We would have liked to get here last night, but we couldn’t change our flights.”

  Joanne wrapped her arms around her again, while Sean hovered over them, frowning. “Come on, let’s take this inside.”

  Nothing was said until they were seated in the lounge room, with Joanne holding Mairead’s hand and Sean sitting back frowning in the armchair.

  “Mairead, why is your phone switched off?” he asked.

  “I didn’t want to talk to anyone,” she explained. “People are ringing me, asking me about Adele’s parents and I don’t know anything. I don’t know why they’re dead.”

  “Baby girl, look at me.”

  She looked up to see him smiling softly.

  “Ron has been trying to ring you. James has made bail. He’s going to be home anytime now.”

  Mairead stared at him for a moment and then burst into tears. Joanne held onto her while Sean fetched a box of tissues and came to sit on the other side.

  “There was something called Ketamine in his system, lots of it apparently, and enough to prove James was innocent.”

  Wiping her face, Mairead nodded angrily. “Couldn’t they have found that out yesterday before they threw him in prison?”

  “I asked the same thing, but apparently these tests take a while.” Sean shook his head. “Sweetheart, you should have called us straight away, not left it up to Ron. And now this other bloody business…”

  He seemed to choke on his words and Mairead felt awful for him.

  “God, I’m so sorry, Dad. I’m forgetting Mr. Easton was a friend of yours.”

  “They both were. I’ve known Lance thirty odd years and Vivian was a truly good woman. I know our friendship was strained through this thing with you and Adele, but… Lance was a bloody good man…” He stopped and plucked some tissues from the box to dab at his eyes. “I just don’t get it. Who’d want to kill them?”

  Mairead was too aware of her stomach to answer. The nausea was getting worse and she was suddenly overcome with the need to vomit. She tried to excuse herself, but in the end had to jump up and hurry to the downstairs bathroom, getting there just in time.

  The dizziness in her head left her weak, sitting on the floor and crouching over the toilet bowl. Her face was cold with sweat and she felt exhausted.

  Joanne knocked on the door, calling to her. “Mairead, are you alright?”

  “Yes,” she answered as her vision swam. “I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”

  She wasn’t sure a minute would do it. Mairead couldn’t remember ever feeling so fragile. Pulling herself up, she leaned on the vanity and turned on the cold water, splashing it on her face. Cupping a handful, she brought it to her mouth to wash away the taste of bile. The nausea didn’t seem as if was about to go away anytime soon.

  Her reflection had shadowed eyes and pale skin looking back at her. Somehow, she had to get herself together before questions were asked that she had no wish to answer. If only the cursed nausea would settle.

  The door opened and looking up, she gasped to see James standing there in the clothes he had left in. His face was filled with concern as he gazed at her. Mairead was overcome with happiness. She smiled awkwardly and mumbled his name. A tear ran down her face, just before her legs gave out and s
he fell to the floor.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Mairead sat up on the couch as James put a tray on the table. She gaped at the size of the meal he had made her and looked at him mournfully.

  “I should be looking after you. This isn’t right.”

  “I’m not the one who just fainted,” he told her sternly. “Now, you’re going to sit there and eat, and you’re not getting off that couch until I’m satisfied you’re alright.”

  It was wonderful to hear James asserting his authority over her. For that moment, the world seemed normal again and Mairead could feel her strength returning. The chaos finally seemed survivable.

  She reached and clasped his hand, unable to speak. He smiled at her. “Eat and then we’ll talk.”

  “So what happens now, James?” Sean asked, leaning forward in the armchair. “Is this still going to trial?”

  “I don’t know. The toxicology report confirmed my drugged state, but my blood and watch were found at the scene.” He held out his hands, showing the swollen, bruised knuckles. “And it certainly appears that I was in some sort of altercation, even if I can’t remember it. I don’t think they’re going to let me off the hook too soon.”

  A melody played and Sean pulled out his phone. “Damn, the car is out front. We have to go. I need to get Joanne settled in at the hotel before this meeting. By the sounds of it, I could be there all day and night.”

  “I can’t imagine it will be easy for any of you today,” James said.

  “It’s a bloody bad business. Emotions will be running high. MP’s are being flown in from all around the country, and apparently at some stage, we’re going to be addressed under a National security protocol.”

  James frowned. “Which is what?”

  “Public gallery closed to everyone. No media allowed and if it’s like the last time we did this, we’ll be sworn to secrecy. Anything up to ten years in prison for opening your mouth.”

  “We won’t question you,” James assured him. “Good luck.”

  “I’ll need it. Retirement is looking better every day.”