Sleight Malice

by Vicki Tyley

  “Not much to report, I’m afraid,” he said, keeping his voice low. “So far, they’ve scoured every piece of the airport’s security footage for the time around when the rubbish bins in the men’s toilets were emptied, and 24 hours either side. And unless they were in disguise or avoiding all the cameras, which is virtually impossible, then neither Laura Noble nor Ryan Moore were at the airport. That then brings us to Ryan’s mobile phone. Even though the only fingerprints on it belonged to Ryan and the man who found it, it seems unlikely Ryan was responsible for dumping it there.”

  “So where to from here?” Brandon asked.

  Fergus sighed. “To be honest, I don’t know. But one thing I am sure of is that Grant… DI Buchanan,” he added for Brandon’s benefit, “is a tenacious bastard. He won’t give up easily, regardless of how cold the trail is.”

  “Maybe so,” Desley said, “but whoever is behind this isn’t stupid. Hell, far from it. Regardless of whether it’s a ruse, wild goose chase or some sort of sick game, they’ve had the police running around like blue-arsed flies.”

  “Yes, and that could be their undoing,” Fergus said, catching sight of Trent leaning in the doorway.

  “I bloody well hope so! Then the cops can get off my back,” Trent said, positioning himself between Fergus and Desley.

  “What do you expect when you give false alibis?”

  Trent grunted. “I’ve already explained that, you dumb prick,” he said, turning away from Fergus to whisper something in Desley’s ear.

  “Doesn’t matter.” Fergus glared at the back of Trent’s head. “Do you really expect the police to take the word of someone who’s already proved he’s untrustworthy?”

  Trent swung around, the tremor evident in his clenched fists. “Look here—”

  “Whoa!” Brandon stepped in slicing the air like a referee at a boxing match. “Timeout.”

  Desley tugged at Trent’s shirtsleeve and gave him a shove. “Kitchen. I’ll deal with you later.”

  Trent sauntered off without a murmur, flashing a supercilious grin at Fergus before disappearing into the other room.

  “Give me half an hour,” Desley said, her hand on the back of Fergus's arm as she propelled him in the direction of the door. “Brandon and I were just going to the pub. Why don’t you join us?” She gave him an impish grin and whispered, “No Trent, I promise.”

  The door closed behind him. Pulling his collar up around his neck, he strode down the path and across the street to his car, only pausing to take stock once he was out of the chill wind. Although the streetlights had come on, it wasn’t yet dark enough for them to have any real effect.

  He glanced back at the townhouse, wondering how Trent came to be inside in the warm with Desley, while he froze alone in his car. He started the Falcon, letting it idle for a moment before switching on the heater.

  Trent had called him a dumb prick. Insensitive perhaps, but not dumb. Though annoyed with himself for letting Trent get under his skin, the man had played straight into his hands. How else could he have proved not only to himself, but to Desley, that Trent’s ‘wouldn’t hurt a fly’ stance was all a charade? If Brandon hadn’t stepped in when he had, Fergus had no doubt he would be nursing a bloodied nose now.

  Buckling himself in, he smiled. Desley had invited him, and not her ex-husband, out for a drink. Even with her brother there, it would be the closest to a date they had come. Why hadn’t he been able to pluck up the courage to ask her out? After all, what was the worst thing that could happen?

  CHAPTER 17

  Desley eased herself into the bath, the near scalding water bliss for her weary body. Reaching for the glass of Shiraz on the edge, she lay back, closed her eyes and inhaled the humid bergamot and lavender scented air. Peace at last; the heavy metal music Brandon had on full volume downstairs more white noise than disturbance.

  Men. She’d just about had her fill of the males in her life, all of them vying for her attention in one way or another.

  Trent’s needy and hard done by act was wearing thin. Sure, he had been subjected to intensive police questioning, or interrogation as he insisted on putting it, but he wasn’t the only one. Then his relationship with Selena had crumbled, but expecting sympathy from the wife you left for her was a bit rich. And if he thought he could just waltz back into her life and start where he’d left off, he’d better think again. Yet, egotistical love-rat or not, she refused to believe he could be in anyway implicated in the unknown man’s death or Laura and Ryan’s disappearance.

  But she wished Fergus wouldn’t bait Trent so much.

  An unbidden image of the private investigator’s tongue-tied antics of the night before sprung into her mind. She chuckled. Normally so self-assured, the poor guy had been on tenterhooks all evening, on the verge, Desley guessed, of asking her out, but never quite getting there. She had a knack for scaring off men. Sometimes to her disadvantage, sometimes not. What was it about her they found so intimidating? She didn’t bite. Much.

  Her smile turned to a sigh. The bigger question was would she have said yes if Fergus had actually managed to get his words out in some sort of semblance of order? She didn’t know. Another time perhaps. The antithesis of her ex-husband, she couldn’t deny he had a certain charm, but until she found Laura, she could ill afford to have love and sex – if she were lucky – complicating things.

  Her real dilemma, though, was whether she should tell Fergus about Laura’s visit to Helen Escott. She had gone over and over it in her head, trying to decide what significance, if any, it had on the case. Not only would passing on the information be disloyal to Laura, it would also mean breaking her promise to Helen.

  The bathwater cooled, the luxuriant layer of bubbles thinning, and still she didn’t have her answer. Setting her empty wine glass on the tiled floor next to the bath, she pulled out the plug and stood up.

  A knock at the bathroom door almost sent her into orbit. Until then she hadn’t been aware that the music had stopped.

  “You haven’t been sucked down the plughole have you?” Brandon said through the door.

  Her heartbeat slowed to a gallop. “Not quite,” she called, the emptying soapy bathwater dragging at her ankles. Careful not to slip on the damp tiles, she climbed out of the bath and grabbed a towel. Ridiculous as it was, she couldn’t talk to her brother naked and dripping wet. Too weird.

  “I have to go out for a while. Not sure how long I’ll be. Don’t wait up.”

  She tucked the edge of the towel in. “Out where?”

  “Nowhere special: just checking out an old car. Catch you later, Sis,” he said, his footsteps already retreating. “Call my mobile if you need me.”

  For a few moments, she stared at the closed door. She didn’t begrudge him a night out, but it wasn’t like her brother to be so cagey. But he’d been like that since the day before, when she had arrived home unannounced and overheard him talking on the phone.

  She recalled his exact words: “If you don’t tell her, I will.” The instant he spotted Desley, he had hung up and started rabbiting on about his mate Pete who had been two-timing his girlfriend, how he didn’t think it was right and how he thought Pete should tell her. He hadn’t paused for breath once.

  Desley still wasn’t sure what to make of it. Somehow, she couldn’t see Brandon taking the moral highroad against a friend. Mates stick together. Unless, of course, she thought, drying herself off with the towel, a woman is involved.

  Gathering up the wet towels and her dirty clothes, she switched on the light, blew out the six tealight candles dotted around the bathroom and padded back to her bedroom.

  Minutes later, she emerged wearing a pair of cozy but decidedly unsexy bright yellow with pink elephants flannelette pajamas. The men’s thick mountain socks on her feet added the final touch.

  She bounced down the stairs, looking forward to curling up in front of the television with a bowl of reheated chili con carne and another glass of wine. As much as she loved her brother, she still needed
time to herself. And food, she thought when she discovered the greasy fork and now empty bowl in the kitchen sink. At least he’d had the decency to leave the bottle of Shiraz alone. Deciding she wasn’t that hungry after all, she carried the wine and a fresh glass through to the living room.

  Flicking through the channels trying to find something worth watching, her mind drifted back to Brandon and the old car he told her he was on his way to check out. Could ‘old car’ be code for ‘young woman’: his so-called mate’s wronged girlfriend? Did Brandon have an ulterior motive for urging Pete to confess his infidelity? Could it be that he fancied the lady for himself? Or was it all just a story designed to keep his nosey sister at bay? Anyway, it was none of her business who he did or didn’t see; he was a grown man.

  She tossed the remote on the coffee table, giving up on the idea of watching TV, and picked up her wine glass. Something Brandon had said the other night about not knowing people as well as we think we do had been playing on her mind.

  How much did she really know about Laura and Ryan? How well did any one person know another, even those closest to them? Only as much as that person wanted you to know, Desley decided. After all, she was guilty of it herself. She hadn’t discussed her failed marriage in detail with Laura. Best friend or not, some things were just too personal to share.

  CHAPTER 18

  “No wait! Please hear me out. I don’t care what happened between you and Trent or you and Ryan. My only concern is finding my best friend. I know it’s probably a long shot, but I need you to tell me everything you can about Ryan and Laura, no matter how trivial. Please. I’m asking for your help.” Desley took a breath. “Don’t you owe me at least that?”

  Silence.

  “Selena, are you still there?”

  A sigh. “I wasn’t trying to steal him away. It just happened.”

  Who was she talking about? Trent or Ryan? “Forget about it,” Desley said, her tone sharper than she had intended. “It’s all in the past.”

  “No really, I’m so sorry…” Selena sniffed. “No one was supposed to get hurt.”

  For a split-second Desley almost felt pity for the forlorn woman. Could pregnancy hormones be at the root of Selena’s uncharacteristic contriteness? Desley hesitated a moment too long.

  “Please forgive me…”

  Click.

  Damn! So close, yet so far. Desley hit her phone’s redial button, cursing when she heard it ring twice and then divert to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message. She needed to talk with Selena face to face.

  She called Trent, who sounded happy to hear from her until she told him why she was calling.

  “How the hell should I know?”

  “Oh come off it, Trent. Stop playing the victim here. Is what Selena did any worse than what you did to me?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “If I mean as much to you as you say I do, then you’ll help me out.” Two could play his game.

  “Why do you want to see her? Is it about us?”

  “It’s not always about you.”

  “Not me – us. You and me.”

  She gave a long drawn-out sigh. “Trent, how can I make you understand? There is no us. Not anymore. You left, remember—”

  “Is it because of that poncy PI prick?”

  She groaned. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, shall I? The address, Trent, that’s all I ask.”

  “I could drive you there and wait for you in the car.”

  “Trent!”

  “All right. All right. It’s in the Dandenongs. If you hold on for a sec, I’ll hunt out the address.”

  She heard a clonk, followed by a scraping noise then a rustling of paper.

  “Found it. Are you sure you don’t want me to come with you? What if she won’t see you?”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Don’t say I didn’t offer.” With a huff, he read out the address of Selena’s parents.

  Desley jotted the details on a Post-it note, calculating it would take her at least an hour to drive to Olinda. The sooner she left, the sooner she would get there.

  She scribbled a note for her sleepyhead brother and stuck it on the fridge door, the one place she could guarantee he would see it. She had no idea what time Brandon had arrived home, but his boots lay in an untidy heap just inside the front door.

  Minutes later with her leather gloves stuffed into the side pockets of her long wool coat she was out the door, rugged up in so many layers of clothing including a scarf and knitted hat that she felt like the Michelin Man about to embark on an expedition to the Antarctic.

  She headed east toward the Dandenong Ranges, turning left off Burwood Highway onto the winding but scenic Mount Dandenong Tourist Road.

  Driving through the towering Mountain Ash forest and lush fern gullies, the soft pinks, grays and dusty greens darkened with the lightly falling rain, she wished she were traveling the road under different circumstances. She lowered her window a couple of centimeters, tasting the earthy eucalypt air, only closing it again when the side of her face started to freeze. With a promise to herself that she would return with her hiking boots and camera, she focused on the rain-slicked road ahead.

  She found the address Trent had given her on the outskirts of Olinda. Smoke rose from the dormer-roofed house’s chimney, reassuring her she hadn’t come all that way for nothing. She parked the Peugeot as far off the road as was possible without losing the left wheels down the drain and set off down the long rhododendron-lined driveway. She walked quickly, blowing warm air into her gloved hands cupped over her nose and cheeks.

  No one answered the door on her first knock. She knocked again and heard movement inside. She waited, doing a little jig on the spot in an effort to ward off the bitter wind.

  The door opened. Selena looked Desley up and down. “Why can’t you leave me alone?”

  “Please, Selena, I’m not here to cause you any trouble.”

  Still holding onto the door handle, Selena stuck her head out, looking past Desley to the road.

  “There’s no one else. I came by myself.”

  Selena stared at her through puffy, red-rimmed eyes. “You’d better come in then,” she said, opening the door wide. “Close the door behind you.”

  Shedding layers of clothing as she went, Desley followed Selena inside. An imposing bluestone open fireplace dominated the spacious cathedral-ceiling room, the heat generated by the fire enough for a house twice the size.

  Selena shambled across the room, her Ugg boots scuffing the polished floorboards. She turned and made a sweeping gesture with her arm toward the sage-green loose-covered couch opposite.

  Seating herself at the end farthest from the fire, Desley dumped her bag and outerwear in a heap next to her.

  Selena remained standing, her oversized red-and-black sweatshirt hiding any pregnancy bump. “My mother will be home soon. Please say what you came to say and leave.”

  “I’m hoping it’s more about what you have to say.” Desley shifted forward on her seat. “You might not realize it, but you could hold the key to finding out what happened to Ryan and Laura. Don’t you want to know where Ryan is? Isn’t that why you were at the cottage?”

  Selena sunk down onto the other couch, her hands resting protectively over her lower abdomen. “I don’t remember anything,” she said, her gaze lost in the fire.

  “I know that’s what you told the police, but amnesia is a funny thing: memory can return when we least expect it, sometimes as flashes, sometimes as a dream.”

  Selena continued staring into the flames.

  “Whatever you tell me is strictly between us. Unless you say otherwise, of course,” Desley hastened to add. “No blame, no recriminations, I swear. You have my word.”

  "What is it you want to know?” Selena’s voice sounded distant, resigned.

  “Well, how about starting with when and how you became involved with Ryan.” Desley wasn’t exactly sure how it tied into anything, but if nothing else, it might help fill in some of
the blanks. Had Laura been wise to Ryan’s philandering, or had she, like Desley with Trent, been completely in the dark?

  “It just happened.” Selena sighed. “You know Ryan. He could be a real charmer…”

  Desley raised her eyebrows. Were they talking about the same man? Desley would not have described the Ryan Moore she knew as charming. Aloof, standoffish, cold even, but never charming.

  “…and Trent and I had been having a few problems.”

  Though also news to her, Desley didn’t pry and Selena didn’t elaborate.

  Selena continued as if she were in a trance, her voice a low monotone. “Ryan was there for me when Trent wasn’t. He listened. He cared. One thing just lead to another. We didn’t plan any of it. And we didn’t intend for anyone to get hurt.”

  Finding it hard to catch all of Selena’s words, Desley moved down the couch closer to the fire. “How long ago did Laura find out about you and Ryan?”

  Selena shook her head. “She didn’t as far as I know. Nor did Trent, that is until I told him I was pregnant. Ryan was never going to leave Laura and believe it or not, for all his foibles, I do love Trent.”

  Funny way of showing it, Desley thought, keeping her opinion to herself.

  “Then I found out I was pregnant.” Tears ran down Selena’s fire-reddened face. “I was excited but scared at the same time. Trent and I had been trying for so long and I really wanted it to be his. I had only once missed taking precautions with Ryan. Anyway, I told Trent the good news, only to find out all those months we tried to conceive had been a lie. I know two wrongs can never make a right, but he hurt me as much as I hurt him.”

  Yet she claimed she still loved him? “And you’re sure Laura didn’t know about the affair?”

  “Ryan assured me she didn’t, but who knows,” Selena said. “Women are generally far more perceptive than men give us credit for. Put it this way, even if she sensed something was going on, I don’t think she could’ve known who it was with unless he told her.”