Degrees of clarity, p.1
Degrees of Clarity, page 1
DEGREES OF CLARITY
A crime novella
by
Deborah Sheldon
Degrees of Clarity
© Deborah Sheldon 2015
Cover Art [Copyright symbol] by James, GoOnWrite.com
Internal Layout by Cohesion Editing and Proofreading
Set in Palatino Linotype (tbc)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
‘300 Degree Days and other stories’
Sometimes, the ties that bind are sharp enough to cut. In these eleven stories, set in contemporary Australian suburbia, Deborah Sheldon examines the darker side of family relationships. Unsettling and incisively written, each story of betrayal, envy, loss or bad blood resonates for a long time after reading.
Originally published by the award-winning Ginninderra Press, ‘300 Degree Days and other stories’ is literary fiction at its most accessible.
Praise for Deborah Sheldon:
‘Sheldon has the ability to make you sit up with her insight... I enjoyed 300 Degree Days for its authentic portrayal of how people behave and respond to challenges in their relationships. It’s not always pretty, but it’s real, and that made it a winner for me.’
- Whispering Gums / Australian Women’s Writers Challenge
‘...a wonderful collection.’
- Sandra James, editor ‘Positive Words’
‘...insightful: with the kind of imagery that stays with the reader long after putting the book down.’
- Tiggy Johnson, founding editor of ‘Page Seventeen’ magazine
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FOR ALLEN AND HARRY
1.
The limestone boundary fence of Trilliant Manor ran on for hundreds of metres. Jayne McMurray slowed her car and turned at the gates. The driveway swept in an arc through manicured lawns flanked by crab apple trees just beginning to change colour from burnt orange to green. It wouldn’t be long before their buds started to open. Jayne thought of her own garden, of the seedlings she had put into the earth last autumn, the bulbs that must be pushing up shoots by now, and tightened her grip on the steering wheel.
‘Ah, screw it,’ she muttered. Why think about her home when it belonged to someone else? She forced the memories aside.
Her hatchback finally cleared the last of the crab apples. Trilliant Manor came into view. Jayne had been the cleaner here for a few months now, but still couldn’t get used to the spectacle. Trilliant Manor was a vision in white, its second-storey windows peeping like welcoming eyes from a pitched roof that featured no less than eight chimneys, all of them redundant because the owner’s wife didn’t like the smell of smoke. Jayne knew this from having to dust, every week, the giant baskets of decorative stacked wood and pine cones that filled each of the eight hearths.
At the turnaround by the fountain, vehicles choked the parking area. Jayne edged into a space near the garage. On the far side of the grounds, two men lugged stacks of chairs into a huge canvas gazebo, while a third had his arms filled with bouquets. Tonight was the 60th birthday party for Damien Georgiou, the owner of Trilliant Manor, which was why Jayne was cleaning the house, for the second time this week, and on a Saturday for double her usual fee. The estate would be crawling with event planners and caterers the whole day long.
How amazing to attend a soiree on this kind of scale, Jayne thought, as she got out of the car. She could only imagine the finger-food that would be on offer to the guests. There’d be no party pies or sausage rolls, she could bet her last dollar on that. The Georgiou party promised to be a highlight on Melbourne’s social calendar. Despite the remote location of the estate – some 30 kilometres south-east of the city and set amongst bushland only accessible via rutted tracks that would be hell on the suspension of a luxury car – no one in their right mind would decline an invitation. She opened the boot of the hatchback and grabbed her buckets of cleaning supplies.
‘Morning, Jayne.’
She looked around. Damien Georgiou laid the garden hose on the ground and walked over. He was a stocky man with a jovial face and a few wisps of grey hair on his florid, round skull. He seemed breathless. In one hand, he held a sudsy sponge. Jayne closed the boot.
‘Don’t tell me you’re out here cleaning cars, Mr Georgiou,’ she said, grinning. ‘Not on your birthday.’
‘Actually, my birthday isn’t until next week. And I like getting my hands dirty every now and then. It’s good for the soul. Tell me, am I doing a good job?’
He gestured a thumb over his shoulder. Behind him, the vehicles he owned – a Range Rover, Jag, BMW, Maserati – sat wet and shining on the turnaround nearest the guesthouse. Jayne’s Holden Astra wouldn’t be worth one set of their tyres.
‘Excellent job,’ she said. ‘How about giving my car the once-over while you’re at it?’
He laughed. ‘That’s my girl. Has Valma given you the details?’
‘Yes, the whole house, but particularly the bathrooms and powder rooms.’
‘Okay, sounds fine. Just go on in, the front door’s open. Leave your invoice on the kitchen bench as usual and I’ll take care of it Monday. If you need Valma, she’s in the gym being put through her paces.’
‘On the day of the party? I’d have thought she’d want to save her energy.’
‘It’s because of this new dress.’ Damien Georgiou shook his head. ‘She reckons it shows off her pot belly. She hasn’t got anything to worry about, but you know Valma. You can’t tell her anything.’
‘Yes, of course,’ Jayne said, smiling politely. Valma Georgiou was tall and lean; a handsome older woman with a style that revolved around sensible heels and navy pantsuits. Jayne couldn’t picture Mrs Georgiou feeling insecure about anything. Jayne continued, ‘If I don’t see you before I go, have a great time tonight.’
Damien Georgiou touched a forefinger to his head in salute, picked up the hose and went back to his fleet of cars. Jayne took the steps to the double doors and went inside, the latch clicking softly behind her.
The air smelt like jasmine. As usual, Jayne slipped off her sneakers and left them in the entrance hall. Padding on thick socks, she entered the living room, a space big enough to contain her granny flat some three-times over. Lingering, she admired the familiar sights. She loved the decor in this room above all others in Trilliant Manor: walls butter-yellow, furniture off-white, accessories lilac. If she ever again owned a home of her own, she would decorate it in these exact same colours.
She cut through the kitchen, kept walking across the expanse of the meals-and-family area. The sliding glass doors to the patio offered a glimpse of rose garden, tennis court, in-ground swimming pool. Beyond the lawn at the distant gazebo, the two men who had been lugging the chairs were now setting them up, the remaining man packing vertical planters with flowers.
At last, Jayne approached the laundry, which was next to the gymnasium. Fully outfitted, the gymnasium took a long time to vacuum and dust, so Jayne usually cleaned there first to get it over with. However, she didn’t want to interrupt Valma Georgiou during a workout. Today she would start at the entrance hall.
Jayne began to fill one of her buckets with hot water. While waiting, she pondered the design of Mrs Georgiou’s new dress. If Mrs Georgiou felt worried about her abdomen, then either the material was clingy or else the cut was snug. Which would it be? Actually, Mrs Georgiou’s slender frame could carry a dress that was both clingy and snug. Jayne, on the other hand, would look like a sausage about to split its casing. At thirty-two, the neat hourglass figure she had maintained so effortlessly in her twenties had decided to get a little more generous in its proportions. Her new career as a cleaning lady hadn’t kept the extra kilograms in check.
The bucket was full. Jayne turned off the tap. From a pocket in her tracksuit pants, she took a scrunchie and twisted her hair into a ponytail. While unrolling a pair of rubber gloves, she stopped, listened. She couldn’t hear any noise from the gymnasium. No clink of weights, no thrum of the treadmill or stair master, no words of encouragement from Christopher Llewellyn the personal trainer, no brusque requests for clarification from Valma Georgiou. Perhaps the workout had already finished. Jayne went to check.
The gymnasium, originally purposed as a media room, had few windows; just a bank of frosted, slitted panes arranged horizontally down one wall. Without the electric lights switched on, the space was gloomy in the late-winter sunshine.
As she was about to call out Mrs Georgiou, she heard it: short, rhythmic grunts, high-pitched, a woman’s register, sounding too abandoned and greedy in nature to be anything else but...
In alarm, Jayne’s hand flew to her mouth.
Oh my God, she thought. And with hubby on the premises?
Then, panicking, Jayne realised that she had to sneak out before Mrs Georgiou spotted her or else there would be no saving the cleaning job. She turned to leave. Christopher Llewellyn was standing in the shadows by the lat-pulldown machine, hands on hips, his shorts around his ankles. He had his gaze fixed on the ceiling. The
Shocked, Jayne froze.
In that same moment, Llewellyn looked straight at her.
Some people appreciated an audience, Jayne knew, and Llewellyn was obviously one of them. His face lit up. Staring into Jayne’s eyes, suddenly animated, he grabbed Mrs Georgiou’s coiffed blonde head in both of his hands and drew a loud, shuddering breath. Jayne bolted from the gymnasium, silent on socked feet, before Llewellyn could share any more of his performance.
***
Jayne scrubbed wildly at an upstairs bathtub. If Mrs Georgiou found out that she’d been sprung fellating the help, she would dismiss Jayne on the spot. Losing this income would jeopardise Jayne’s rent payments. Most cleaning jobs took two hours; Trilliant Manor took all day and paid time-and-a-half thanks to Damien Georgiou’s generosity. Shit, Jayne thought, this could be a disaster.
Then again, perhaps Christopher Llewellyn wouldn’t tell Mrs Georgiou. It had been almost half an hour since Jayne had witnessed them in the gymnasium. Nothing had happened yet. Llewellyn may well have decided to keep his mouth shut in case Mrs Georgiou, embarrassed and angry, fired him too.
Exasperated, Jayne dropped the scouring pad, ripped off the rubber gloves, and sat back on her haunches. This worrying was getting her nowhere. She needed a break. After standing up and stretching to ease the fatigued muscles of her back, Jayne went across the hall to the library.
The shelves held hundreds of books. However, each book was exactly the same size and leather-bound, as if from the same set. In Jayne’s experience, this usually meant that the entire collection had been purchased for show. She selected a book at random and opened it. The pages parted reluctantly. The spine creaked. Definitely for show, she thought, as she returned the book to its slot.
She crossed to the window, propped against the arm of a Chesterfield sofa and looked out over the estate. At the party tonight there would be a string quartet, apparently, and valet staff, waiters in tuxedos, crates of imported champagne...
An anguished yell came from somewhere in the mansion: ‘They’re gone.’
It sounded like Mr Georgiou. Jayne hurried to the library door. Turning one way and then the other, she scanned the long hallway, straining her ears. There was nothing but the far-off whirr of ride-on mowers. Mr Georgiou’s voice sounded again, this time as a grief-stricken wail.
‘Hello?’ she called out. ‘Where are you? Do you need help?’
Pausing at every door, she glanced into the music room, sitting room, billiard room, ran past the elevator and adjacent stairwell. Was she going in the wrong direction? She stopped by another bathroom, and called, ‘Hello, can you hear me?’
This time, the voice was nearby: ‘They’re gone.’
Jayne dashed across the mezzanine towards Damien Georgiou’s private study.
The room had panelled wooden walls and bookshelves, a giant desk, red leather furniture. At first, there appeared to be no one in the room. Damien Georgiou lurched out from behind an open cupboard door and slammed it heartily. His face appeared both chalky and flushed.
‘Are you all right, Mr Georgiou?’ Jayne said. ‘Can I get you anything?’
He groped for the red leather chair and slumped into it. The impetus carried the chair across the floor on its castors and bumped him against the nearest wall. He didn’t seem to notice. At a guess, the man was drunk.
‘I’ll get Mrs Georgiou,’ Jayne said, and went to leave.
‘They’re gone,’ he shouted, his voice a constricted gargle. ‘They’re gone.’
Jayne hesitated. The poor old bastard, she thought. He must have discovered his wife and her personal trainer in flagrante delicto, which caused them to subsequently flee the manor. And on the day of his birthday party too.
‘Is there anyone you would like me to contact for you?’ she said. ‘A relative?’
Damien Georgiou’s eyes glazed over. Perspiration sprang across his forehead. Grimacing, his face turning grey, he began to reflexively grope at the collar of his t-shirt as if he couldn’t get enough air. No, this man wasn’t drunk. In horror, it dawned on Jayne that he might be having a heart attack. The effort of washing the cars must have brought it on.
‘Oh Jesus,’ she said. ‘Look, wait; everything is okay, Mr Georgiou. You’ll be okay. I’ll get help.’
Flustered, she grabbed the phone from the desk and dialled 000. As she gave directions to the emergency operator, Damien Georgiou clamped his damp, cold hand over hers and gave a wretched sob.
‘They’re gone,’ he whispered.
Then his eyes rolled up into his head.
***
At nearly 7 p.m. came a knock at the door of Jayne’s granny flat.
On the veranda were two strangers. The slightly built, stooped woman looked to be in her late fifties, and wore her white hair combed flat as a bathing cap. Next to her stood a soft and fleshy man; perhaps in his forties, he had the kind of hooded eyelids that made him appear both sleepy and bored. The strangers were dressed in cheap two-piece suits. The man held a satchel against his thigh.
Jayne smiled. ‘You’ll find Mr and Mrs Radmacher in the main house. They’re a little deaf, so just keep ringing the bell. They’ll hear it eventually.’
‘The Radmachers are your landlords?’ the woman said.
‘That’s right.’
‘And you rent this granny flat from them?’
Jayne dropped her smile. ‘The Radmachers should be at home. Excuse me, I’m about to make dinner.’
‘We’re here to see you,’ the woman said.
‘Sorry, I’m not interested in any kind of religious conversion.’
Jayne went to close the door.
The man put his hand against the door and said, ‘Jayne McMurray?’
‘We’re from the Organised Theft Squad,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Pam Thorpe. My colleague: Detective Constable Nigel Rudkins.’
‘Pleased to meet you,’ Nigel Rudkins said, not looking pleased at all.
‘You’re the police?’ Jayne said.
Pam Thorpe nodded. ‘We’d like to talk to you about Damien Georgiou.’
‘Oh my God.’ Jayne opened the door wide. ‘Is he okay? I took a first aid course a few years ago, and absolutely none of it came back. The paramedics got there pretty fast, though, considering the country roads. He isn’t dead, is he?’
Pam Thorpe said, ‘Not yet. They’ve got him in intensive care.’
The detectives crossed the threshold. Jayne gestured towards the two-seater couch. The detectives sat down, looked around. The flat had a square layout: the living room and kitchen on one side of the square; the bedroom, bathroom and laundry on the other. The furnishings were cut-rate and meagre. Jayne felt her face colour. You should have seen the house I lived in back when it was mine, she wanted to say, it was beautiful.
‘So you’re the one who found Damien Georgiou,’ Pam Thorpe said.
‘Yes. I called for the ambulance. Do you know what hospital he’s in?’
‘Melbourne Private,’ Pam said. ‘Not that you can visit him, considering you aren’t family. You aren’t family, are you, Miss McMurray?’
‘No, I’m the house cleaner. I’d like to send flowers.’
‘How long have you been working for Mr Georgiou?’
‘About three months.’
Nigel Rudkins widened his eyes, a reaction that didn’t make any sense to Jayne. Then he unzipped his satchel and took out a notepad. From an inner pocket of his jacket, he extracted a pen, uncapped it, and started writing.
‘How many times a week, on average, would you clean the house?’ Pam said.
‘Once,’ Jayne said. ‘Look, is there anything in particular I can help you with?’
Pam said, ‘Tell us what Mr Georgiou does for a living.’
