Secrets & Lies

by Gina Amos

CHAPTER FIVE

  ‘Excuse me, William, the police are here to see you,’ Anita said anxiously as she led the two officers into his office and closed the door behind her on her way out.

  If William Phillips was surprised, he didn’t show it. He stood and pushed his chair back from his desk. They were both fresh-faced kids and looked as if they had just graduated from the Academy. William imagined that they would be more at home by a roadside in the middle of the night attending a crash scene, than standing here in his plush office with the antique carpets on the floor and expensive art work on the walls. He noticed the female officer looking at the Joan Miró painting hanging on the wall behind him. She was obviously drawing her own conclusions as to the type of person he was.

  William sized them up quickly, the way he usually did when he met a client for the first time. She was short, solidly built, but had a pleasing body, even though it was concealed behind an ill-fitting uniform. Her straight mousey-blonde hair was neatly tied back in a no-nonsense ponytail, making her look even younger than she probably was. He couldn’t help but notice the Glock in her holster sitting neatly on her hip. Her sidekick was spotty faced and tall, and William wondered how he would hack it in a tight situation. They flashed their IDs at him and introduced themselves.

  ‘Senior Constable Jill Brennan.’

  ‘Constable Daniel French.’ They nodded, straight-faced as they each shook William’s hand. They were fidgeting with their caps, looking at each other, half expecting the other would take the initiative and speak first. Finally, it was Brennan who broke the silence by addressing William in a clear and in an almost too confident voice. ‘Side kick’ looked down at his polished boots concentrating too hard William thought, perhaps he was hoping to see his reflection in them.

  ‘Mr Phillips, we need to ask you a few questions,’ Brennan said.

  As the female police officer looked down at her notes William wondered what was coming next. He was sure he had paid all his outstanding speeding fines and was puzzled by their unexpected presence in his office.

  ‘Can you tell us your mother’s full name and address, please?’

  William worked the back of his neck with his fingers, looked into her eyes which were framed by thick lashes and answered her question. ‘What’s all this about anyway, officer?’

  Brennan cleared her throat. ‘Unfortunately, I have some sad news, Mr Phillips. It’s your mother. She was found dead this morning in her home. A real estate agent found her in the kitchen.’

  William's head began to spin; he grabbed the side of his desk and sank slowly into his chair before inviting them to take a seat. ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  ‘We’re not sure at this stage. We don’t know the circumstances surrounding her death.’

  William and Brennan locked eyes. He was searching for answers and wondered if she knew more than she was letting on.

  ‘Mr Phillips, can I ask how old your mother was?’ She was holding a police issue note pad and William wondered how many times she had delivered news like this.

  A knock on the paneled door broke the silence. Anita slipped into the office and set down a cup of milky tea in front of William. ‘Can I offer you anything officers? Would you like tea, coffee?’

  ‘Nothing, thank you.’ Brennan replied for both of them.

  William sipped from the white china teacup. The tea was hot and sweet and it coated the back of his throat as he swallowed. He thought of his mother and took another sip. The cup chinked against the saucer as he set it down. As he turned his thoughts back to his mother, he concentrated on how old she was as he massaged the back of his neck again, a quirky habit he had when he was exhausted, troubled by work or by something he was feeling deep inside and didn’t want to talk about. He replied that she was eighty-five, not eighty-six until her birthday at the end of the year, which he realised after he had said it, was a dumb thing to say.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to identify your mother’s body. Do you think you’ll be capable of doing that or can you suggest someone else who could do it on your behalf?’ Brennan asked.

  Anita slipped out of the office quietly closing the door behind her and William realised the whole office would soon know about his mother.

  ‘Mr Phillips?’ Brennan was waiting for an answer to her question.

  William knew there was nobody else. ‘No, I’ll do it.’ His voice was hoarse and his face paled beneath his suntan. He coughed to clear his throat.

  ‘Mr Phillips, I'm not sure if you realise, but because your mother hasn’t seen a GP in the last three months, by law, an autopsy needs to be performed to determine the cause of her death.’ Brennan wondered if William Phillips had heard a single word of what she had just said.

  He nodded, his face crumpled.

  ‘If you have any questions, or if we can be of any further assistance, don’t hesitate to give us a call.’ Jill was standing over him now and impulsively she placed her hand gently on his shoulder. He looked up at her, surprised. She stepped away embarrassed. She and French handed their cards to him. He took them and placed them on his desk.

  ‘Is there anyone we can call to be with you?’ French asked kindly.

  ‘No, there’s nobody.’

  ‘You sure?’ Brennan asked.

  ‘Yes, really. I just need some time for all of this to sink in.’

  As the two officers left his office, William remained motionless at his desk. The reception area outside his door was deserted and the noisy background buzz of what was usually a busy office, was surprisingly quiet. He looked at the ivory coloured business cards sitting in front of him, examined the solid wording, then tucked Senior Constable Brennan’s card in the top pocket of his business shirt and threw Constable French’s in the waste paper bin.

  William stood and walked towards the bank of windows which looked out across Sydney Harbour. The dark clouds which had been hovering around earlier in the morning had all but disappeared and the sun was now shining. He rested his closed fists on his narrow waist and with his flat, glassy eyes looking back at him, he saw the pride and stubbornness in them, the result of a working life spent asserting the rights of others. He still had a youthful look about him for a fifty-four year old and as he combed his fingers through his hair, a loose strand fell across his eyes and he realised he needed a haircut.

  William Phillips had put in the hard yards, worked long hours, made all the important deadlines and had delivered ‘the goods’. The sacrifices he’d made in his personal life had paid off. He was a corporate counsel in Lewis Stockland, a leading city merchant bank and he wasn’t ashamed of the means by which he had used his contacts and colleagues to get to where he was. Considering his humble beginnings, sitting in a swanky corner office on the fifty-second floor of a prestigious office building located in the heart of Sydney’s financial district was something of which he was proud.

  Now as he looked out at the breathtaking harbour view, his thoughts turned to his wife and hoped Suellyn didn’t have anything to do with the death of his mother. It was all he could think of when he dialed their home phone number. It was engaged. ‘Typical,’ he thought. He hung up. He would try again later. He was still clutching the handset, staring at the whites of his knuckles, contemplating what he would do next, when he wondered how long his mother had been dead before her body had been discovered. The police said a real estate agent had found her in the kitchen. That didn’t make any sense to him, no sense at all. What was his mother doing making appointments with real estate agents? She didn’t even own the Eden Street house, technically Suellyn did. It had been bought in her name for tax reasons. William knew that Suellyn had been trying to persuade his mother to move to a retirement village for months. He’d told his wife to leave her alone, told her she was wasting her time. He knew his mother and knew she was stubborn enough not to allow herself to be happy living anywhere else. He wasn’t surprised when Suellyn told him Rose had said that the only way she was leaving the hou
se was in a pine box. Rose Phillips was one hell of a stubborn woman and she wasn’t going to be told what to do by her daughter-in-law or by anyone else for that matter.

  The last time William had spoken to his mother was in a café in the city almost ten years ago. They had both said things to each other, things that perhaps shouldn’t have been said, and now, it was too late. He had told her that he couldn’t forgive her deceit, no matter what the reason and he regretted that now, regretted that he didn’t give her the chance to explain and that she had been too proud and too stubborn not to make him listen. In hindsight, she was his mother and that should have counted for something. But Rose Phillips never attempted to contact her son, and they never spoke to each other again. William realised it was now too late for apologies, too late for anything. Death was permanent.

  William walked out of his office an hour after the police had left. He’d been working on the Bellamy case before the police arrived and as he gathered the loose papers on his desk, he suddenly felt older than he was supposed to feel. He shoved the file and his phone into his leather briefcase and didn’t say a word to anyone as he locked the door to his office and walked down the corridor towards the lifts. The call button lit up. Anita was sitting at her work station with her back to him and he was glad that she had the good sense not to speak to him. Anita Lewis knew William Phillips and knew his moods. His head was throbbing and he hoped that when the lift door eventually opened, it would be empty. He wasn't in any frame of mind to speak to anyone. A high pitched ding announced the lift’s arrival. It startled him at first, but when he realised it was on the way down, he sighed with relief. He stepped into the lift and stared past his black Florsheims to the swirling dusty-green circles in the carpet, anything to take his mind off his mother.

  ‘Sorry to hear the bad news, Mr Phillips.’

  William turned his head towards the voice. Gavin McLeod, a first year graduate, looked at him from the corner of the lift with heavy-lidded eyes and acne pocked skin. He was holding an armful of documents against his chest and was on his way down to the twenty-eighth floor. It was lunchtime and William thought as he looked at him, that there was probably a soggy homemade sandwich in a paper bag waiting for him back at his desk. ‘What was that Gavin?’

  ‘Your mother, Mr Phillips.’ Gavin was suddenly embarrassed, his face turned crimson and relief washed over him as the lift door suddenly opened at the twenty-eighth floor and he stepped out into the carpeted hall.

  ‘Thanks,’ was the only word William Phillips had thought to say to him.

  When the lift door opened at the ground floor, William walked briskly across the terrazzo-tiled foyer, conscious of the click-clacking of his leather soled shoes as he made his way towards the entrance of the building. The rotating glass doors spun him out onto the footpath. Jostled by the busy rush of the lunchtime crowd, he looked around in an emotional daze at the busyness of the city. Dark suited men and women with phones pressed hard against their ears, young female office workers in short skirts and high heels, carrying shopping bags, giggling, calling out to each other, a group of tourists holding city maps upside down.

  ‘I’ll go to the morgue later,’ he thought to himself. Identifying his mother’s body wasn’t something he was looking forward to. He dodged a FedEx delivery van as he crossed Elizabeth Street against the traffic lights and headed towards the Botanical Gardens. The Gardens were usually packed at this time of day with crowds of office workers vying for the pick of the timber seats under the fig trees or else working up a sweat as they took to the bitumen paths and jogged around the Gardens’ perimeter. A red, miniature tourist train packed with elderly tourists and parents with young children passed in front of him as he crossed the narrow path towards a grassy knoll near the Oriental Gardens. He found a semi-secluded spot under the canopy of a large Port Jackson fig and stood for a moment surveying the scene in front of him before he sat down on the cool grass and loosened the knot of his tie. He removed his jacket, folded it and placed it down beside him. With his legs sprawled out in front of him and his elbows supporting his weight, he gazed out across at the harbour and focused his attention on a container ship heading towards The Heads.

  The Gardens were William’s favourite place, especially at a time like this, at a time when he needed to think.