A Certain Malice Read online

  “So you’re the one the bikies were after over east, eh? I thought your name rang a bell. Well, that’s mighty interesting now, isn’t it, Sarge? I wonder how many other guys out there will find it interesting – you now living in Glenroyd I mean.”

  Cam sprang forward, stopping himself just in time.

  Cliff tilted his head and pointed to his jaw.“Go on then, Sarge, hit me.”

  Cam balled up his fists. For a moment Leanne’s hand on his arm was the only thing holding him back. He ended up stabbing at Cliff’s chest with his finger. “Don’t think I don’t know what happened to Vince,” he said, through clenched teeth. “Soon it’ll be two counts of murder.”

  With a flick of his head to Leanne, he headed back to the parked ute.

  31

  They sat on the back veranda. Ruby chatted to her father about her day, explaining the trip to the wildlife sanctuary in painstaking detail. How they’d fed the orphan joeys from bottles with special milk of a certain temperature to prevent diarrhoea. How the tiny joeys were called pinkies because they had no hair so they had to be kept in insulated eskies, like humidicribs. Then there was the walk by the river with Prudence and the bath they’d given her because she’d rolled in something foul. The pancake making, the photography equipment…

  Cecelia watched Cam as Ruby talked, finding it increasingly hard to hide the irritation she felt with his detached grunts and faraway gaze. Damn the man! His daughter was finally talking to him, showing an interest in something, and here he was, so preoccupied with his own thoughts he wasn’t listening to a word she was saying. Thank God Ruby was too involved with the narration of her adventures to notice how distracted her father was.

  He swallowed some beer and absently watched his daughter slide from her chair to the floor to tickle Prue’s stomach. The dog obligingly flopped open a back leg.

  “Dad, can I have some money? I want to get some doggie treats for Prue. She’s been such a good girl today.”

  Cam blinked. “Not now, love, it’s too late.”

  “But the Deli stays open till eight.” Girl and dog climbed to their feet expectantly.

  “No.”

  “Dad, for God’s sake…”

  “Ruby, you’ll find some doggie treats on the top shelf of the pantry cupboard,” Cecelia interrupted.

  Ruby gulped her last swallow of Coke, slammed the empty glass on the table. “See what I mean, Cecelia, he thinks he’s…”

  “While you’re in the kitchen, do you think you could make a start on that pancake mess we made? After the feast comes the reckoning.”

  Their day together had made Cecelia more aware than ever of Ruby’s almost vulnerable need to please her. She felt a pang of guilt for taking advantage of it now.

  Ruby gave her a brief smile and blew the hair from her eyes. “Oh, I suppose so,” she said, dragging out the words.

  After shooting her father a death stare, she called the dog and they disappeared into the kitchen.

  “Thanks,” Cam said, letting out a pent up breath. “I’ve booked her flight. I’m sending her back to Sydney on Monday. She’ll have to miss the start of the school term. There’s a chance I’ll have to cancel her enrolment altogether and find a boarding school.”

  Cecelia stared at him for a moment. This was not what she’d expected. “I don’t understand.”

  “You don’t need to understand.” Short and sharp, his sentence stabbed at her like a pike.

  She flinched. He turned his head away.

  Cecelia struggled to keep her voice on the level. “Have you told her?”

  His pause suggested he was well aware of the difficult task he had ahead. She drummed her fingers on the table, waiting for his answer.

  “I’ll tell her in the morning.”

  He fell silent. The sound of croaking frogs reached her from the river. Their pools were drying; time was running out for them.

  “She’s not going to be very happy about it,” she said when it became obvious he would say no more. “She was telling me she’s finally begun to like it here. She’s met a nice boy...” She frowned at Cam’s snort.“And she’s looking forward to starting school at Glenroyd.”

  “I haven’t made this decision lightly, Cecelia. There’s a lot going on that you don’t know.”

  “Try telling me.”

  His answer was to move to the veranda railing, to lean out and catch the gardenia-scented breeze. Prudence clacked through the veranda screen, licking the food from her chops and collapsing at Cecelia’s feet. Satisfying day, contented dog, attractive man. The evening should have been perfect.

  Nothing was turning out as she’d hoped. The moment she’d opened the door she’d felt the tension emanating from him like a protective force field. It made her revise her earlier intention of asking him to stay for dinner.

  “You’d make a good neighbour,” she said to his back. He looked over his shoulder at her. The boyish glow of the morning was long gone, his face pale, the skin around his eyes tight.

  “Good fences make good neighbours.”

  He frowned.

  “It’s from a poem. You’ve got fences around you, Cam, that even your daughter can’t seem to get through.”

  When he tensed, she could almost see the gaps closing. Then he did the only thing a man like him could do under the circumstances: he switched the topic to work.

  He reached into his top pocket for a photo and magnifying glass and rejoined her at the table under the veranda light with its halo of buzzing insects, as if the last few minutes had never happened.

  “There’s one hell of a lot of chemicals here for one school lab,” he said, tapping at the photograph.

  Cecelia wouldn’t look at the photograph and kept her eyes riveted on him.“You can’t expect to get off this lightly, Cameron Fraser.”

  As she attempted to penetrate his neutral mask, she knew her own face would be reflecting every emotion coursing through her body. She’d never been good at hiding her own feelings; they were a part of who she was and to deny them would be like denying a part of herself. Her disastrous marriage, the stillbirth not long after she’d thrown her husband out – sometimes she felt as if the whole world knew of her troubles. But she believed most wounds mended best in the light. It was frustrating to deal with someone who was trying to heal himself, and his daughter, in the dark.

  “We need to talk about Ruby, Cam.”

  He exhaled. “Please, Cecelia, this is important. Answer my questions, then you can do all the analysing of Ruby and me that you like.”

  He wasn’t giving her a choice. She clenched her jaw and glared back. Getting nowhere, her eyes eventually dropped back to the photo. She shrugged. “Not all of them were for the science lab. Some were cleaning products, some were for the photo lab.”

  “Did you ever see them delivered?”

  “No, but several times Ruth mentioned she had to stay back late for a delivery.”

  A muscle in his jaw jumped. He handed her the magnifying glass, pointing to something on the photo.

  “Have a look at that box and tell me what the writing says.”

  She peered at the photo closely, sounding out the indistinct letters. “Coffee filters?”

  Cam nodded. “Your friend must really like her coffee,” he said, not bothering to hide the sarcasm.

  Her eyes narrowed.“What do you mean?”

  He took a deep breath.“Cecelia. How well do you know Ruth?”

  She shot him a look to let him know he was travelling through dangerous territory. Unintentionally, her voice rose.“What do you mean by that? She’s my best friend. I’ve known her since my divorce; she’s been very good to me. What are you getting at?”

  He persisted, ignoring her tone. “Are you aware that she lived in London for a while, that she was married?”

  She could no longer hold his gaze, a fact as irritating to her as the quaver she heard in her reply. “Yes, he was a chemistry professor at one of the universities there. He died.”

&n
bsp; “Do you know how?”

  She had the feeling he already knew the answer. Why the hell did he ask, then?

  “No,” she said. “She doesn’t like talking about it.”

  “He died in a house fire. A Molotov cocktail through the window. Scotland Yard attributed it to arson. They thought a disgruntled student might have done it, though the perpetrator was never caught.”

  His implication made her feel hollow and sick, almost as if he was accusing her. “Are you trying to suggest that it was Ruth who set fire to the photo lab?”

  Cam shrugged.

  “How can you implicate her in this mess? How dare you suggest she tried to kill us!”

  “I’m not implicating anyone at the moment, just touching all the bases. This is how I do my job.” Cam returned her burning look with eyes as cool as a frozen pond.“And there’s something else,” he added.

  Cecelia stood and whirled her back on him. He took a step towards her at the same time as they heard Ruby’s approaching footsteps. She couldn’t have Ruby witness this scene.

  “I think you should go,” Cecelia said, under her breath.

  “All cleared up,” Ruby said, smiling as she rejoined them. The smile fell away as she looked from one adult to the other.

  “Ruby, we’re going now. Gather your gear and meet me in the car.” Cam said.

  Ruby whined out a protest. When Cecelia held up her hand, it stopped.

  “Thanks for having me, Cecelia,” Ruby said in a monotone, before turning on her heel and sloping back into the house.

  “I’m conducting a murder investigation,” Cam said to Cecelia, keeping his voice low. “I expect your full cooperation. You mentioned before that Vince sent you a letter apologising for his inappropriate behaviour at a traffic incident. I’ll take the letter now if it’s handy, otherwise you can drop it off to me at the station tomorrow morning.”

  “I’m not sure where it is.”

  “Find it. It’s important.”

  Ever the officious policeman, she thought.“And I suppose if I don’t you’ll throw me in jail?”

  He blew out his cheeks. “Cecelia, please.”

  “And I thought we were friends. You’re speaking to me as if you think I know something, that I’m hiding something. As if I was one of your witnesses.”

  “You are a witness,” he said, and took his daughter home.

  32

  Cecelia closed her eyes and leaned with her back against her front door until she heard the car leave. She let out her breath and reasoned with herself. Perhaps she should humour him, see if she could find the damn letter. Maybe once that chore was over, she would be able get some work done, forget the events of the last two days, the anger and doubt he’d sown in her mind. The school term was starting next Wednesday; there were lessons to plan, form lists to organise, timetables to confirm.

  She was about to start searching her bedroom when the phone rang. She picked up the extension; it was Anne ringing to make sure she was all right. Apparently Jeffrey had spoken to Sergeant Fraser earlier and they’d come to the conclusion that vandals had started the fire in the photo lab. Anne seemed to think this a satisfactory explanation, obviously knowing nothing about the locked door, and Cecelia wasn’t going to tell her otherwise.

  Anne mentioned that she and Jeffrey would be spending their last few days of holiday in their city apartment. It would be up to Cecelia to liaise further with the police should the necessity arise. Great.

  When she hung up, Cecelia took her correspondence box from her top dresser drawer and sat on the bed with it. She hadn’t noticed the letter yesterday when she’d retrieved the photos for Cam and figured it must have got jammed against the side. But when she slid her fingers around the box’s edge, there was no sign of it. Back at the dresser drawer she rifled through undies, gauze pouches of potpourri and discarded soaps, again coming up with nothing.

  She sank back on to her bed and rested her chin in her hand, trying to remember the last time she’d seen it. She knew she’d shown it to Ruth after the interview with Cam, when they were recovering from the effects of Ruth’s moonshine upstairs in her flat. She tried to visualise the scene. In her mind she saw herself putting the letter back in her bag, but the image was cloudy, probably due to the tipsy haze through which she’d viewed most of that afternoon.

  Cecelia padded down the hall to where her handbag rested on the table near the door. She started working her way through it, opening clips, searching compartments. Her fingers stiffened as frustration grew. Soon she’d had enough of this methodical search and opened every compartment, tipping the bag upside down. She found crumpled papers, old receipts, unpaid bills and long lost documents: anything and everything but Vince’s letter.

  Shit, she must have left it in Ruth’s flat after all. She put a hand out to the phone, then stopped, remembering Ruth was out for the night with Cliff. Her keys lay on the table among the handbag clutter. Last year Ruth had given her a spare key to water her plants when she was away. When she returned she’d told Cecelia to keep the key and use her flat whenever she liked, as a bolthole from the Smithsons. Cecelia slipped on a pair of sneakers and headed for the front door.

  Ruth’s flat was as stark as Cecelia’s house was cluttered. It took no more than a glance to see that Vince’s letter was no longer on the coffee table where she thought she’d left it next to a pile of Ruth’s papers. Ruth had recently tidied up; the small kitchen was immaculate, the pristine carpet striped with vacuum cleaner lines. Perhaps she’d scooped up the letter with some of her own documents and filed them away in her desk? No cardboard box in an undies drawer for Ruth.

  A reluctant search for the letter turned into an obsessive quest, as irritation at herself for losing it joined with the compulsion to shove it in Cam’s face and wipe away his suspicions of her friend.

  In the deepest desk drawer in Ruth’s living room she found a pile of papers stacked upon a decorative box. Not finding what she wanted among the papers, she eased the box from the drawer.

  It was old and battered; a schoolgirl trend of their time to keep mementos in boxes such as these. Cecelia still had one, stashed away somewhere in the garden shed. Like her own, Ruth’s box was decorated with a colourful appliqué design and coated with thick varnish.

  She lifted the lid, surprised to discover her no-nonsense friend had hoarded the same kind of sentimental treasures as she had herself: letters from ex-boyfriends, an old school tie, diaries, sports badges, exam results and a large battered scrapbook. She’d written School Days on the front above a photo of herself in her old Glenroyd uniform.

  Cecelia turned to the first page. To her surprise, another familiar face stared back at her: Cameron Fraser, Year 12, with a love heart pencilled around his picture. No wonder she’d not relished renewed contact with Cam, Cecelia thought, smiling. Perhaps he was a reminder of something she was now ashamed of. The crush might also explain her embarrassing behaviour towards him in the science lab.

  She turned the page and found another photo: St Bart’s first fifteen footy team. And there, sitting in the centre of the group of boys was the captain, Cameron Fraser.

  The next clipping was of a young couple on their wedding day. Cam was clearly recognisable as the young man. His bride’s head had been cut out and replaced by Ruth’s.

  Cecelia snapped the book shut, suddenly feeling cold despite the heat of the third storey flat. She should never have looked in the box; her blind determination to find the letter had violated Ruth’s privacy. What did it matter if Ruth had once had a crush on Cameron Fraser?

  Everyone is entitled to fantasies. Provided they hurt no one.

  As she moved to put the book back in the box, some yellowed newspaper clippings fluttered to the ground by her knees. A headline caught her. Her hand crept to her mouth as she read:

  MILLION DOLLAR BIKIE DOPE CROP DESTROYED

  Police have destroyed a $1 million Blue Mountains bikie cannabis crop after a tip off from an undercover National Crime A
uthority officer. The NCA officer had infiltrated the Razorback motorcycle gang while working undercover as a barman at a popular bikie watering hole. The cannabis crop, raided yesterday, was protected with sophisticated booby traps and equipped with an irrigation system. Bikies at the scene of the raid surrendered without resistance and two men have so far been charged.

  FIRE KILLS POLICE FAMILY

  The wife and a son of a police sergeant due to testify against Razorback gang members, died yesterday when a fire swept through their Randwick home. Police Sergeant Cameron Fraser found his home on fire when he returned from his older child’s netball game, and was badly burned when he tried to rescue his family from the inferno. He was rushed to hospital where his condition is listed as serious. Sergeant Fraser had lead the recent raid on the $1 million Blue Mountains bikie dope plantation and was due to give evidence against two Razorback gang members next month. Police are treating the fire as suspicious and appealing to the general public for information.

  Ruth’s husband had died in a mysterious house fire.

  Cecelia and Cam had almost perished in the burning prefab.

  Herb Bell’s body had been burned beyond recognition.

  Cecelia screwed her hand into a fist and bit into her knuckles until she tasted blood.

  33

  SUNDAY

  The wait for dawn had been interminable, but worth it. Cam stuck his torch in his belt and crouched on his hands and knees on Vince’s lounge carpet in the manner of a sniffing dog. He held the tweezers in the growing patch of natural light to examine the fibres he’d extracted.

  “A perfect match,” he said to himself, feeling his heart leap. No matter how complicated the puzzle, the discovery of the smallest piece was one of the greatest highs he could imagine. Sometimes you just couldn’t fight what you were meant to be.

  With shaking hands he dropped the samples in a small evidence envelope and buttoned it into his top pocket, giving it a pat for good measure. He took a moment to stretch the kinks out of his back before sitting on the milk crate to make his call.