Shadow over edmund stree.., p.7
Shadow Over Edmund Street, page 7
*
Alex was angry with the world, but mostly with himself. He was angry about the interview with Rose, angry about Edwina. Even though they knew there’d been a transition, they’d been fooled by this woman who had been driving a new car, wearing a well-cut trouser suit, sporting a short sensible haircut, living in a pretty, renovated cottage and working at a job in a pathology lab. None of it was ‘real’.
The real Edwina Biggs was a short dumpy woman who, for most of her life, had lived in a rambling dump that was falling to pieces. The only money coming in was from a job with friends, slaving in a vegetable shop at five in the morning.
Alex was angry he’d missed the phone. It was an old model with a pre-paid SIM card. Two numbers in its phone book. They should have picked up on the fact someone had given it to her. He was furious they’d missed the driving instructor. Why on earth hadn’t they thought about the driving instructor? They knew she’d just learnt to drive. But at that stage, the real Edwina Biggs had been hiding behind her glossy new facade.
He took out his phone, called Jerry and Marion. Everyone in the briefing room first thing in the morning. No exceptions. This case needed to be taken apart and then put together again. In the meantime he headed off to find the driving instructor.
*
‘How is it possible to spend over one hundred hours with a person and not know a damn thing about them?’ Alex was talking to the dog, but it was Mr Chan who answered. Mr Chan who had seen Alex parking his car, and called out to him, invited him in for dinner. In the space of a few minutes Alex was installed on the sofa with Dog lying next to him while Mr Chan whipped up a meal. The one man in the city who could steam up a magnificent spread at the drop of a hat. The dog, sensing Alex’s agitation,
crept closer.
‘Ah,’ Mr Chan said, foraging in the freezer and operating the steamer, ‘practical reasons. Driving doesn’t come easy to everybody. I suspect there was no time for conversation except mundane things, such as “indicate”, “brake”, “merge left” or “go into the right lane”. All of it said while trying to stop oneself from screaming. Have you forgotten the pain of teaching someone to drive?’
Alex stroked Dog, smiled when he snuggled closer. There was pain, but not the sort Mr Chan meant. In his case the distress had been caused by another man teaching his children to drive. His wife’s new husband. The one who lived two hundred kilometres away, owned a stud farm, drove a Mercedes, had a holiday house and according to his children, a new light aeroplane. He’d been the one to teach them to drive along the private roads on the farm and the winding country back lanes.
‘Yes, you’re probably right,’ Alex replied. The instructor had surprised him. He’d expected someone tough and stern. She could have been anyone’s grandmother, with curly white hair and glasses. The nerves of steel well hidden behind a sweet smile.
‘There should be something. I think I’ll send Marion out tomorrow.’
‘Ah, Marion, your attack dog. The one disguised as a kitten.’
‘Well I wouldn’t put it in quite those words. Be fair. She never attacks.’
‘The best attack is the one a person doesn’t see coming. Marion finds the weak points, does she not? You also, my friend. If this case is a problem then it must be baffling indeed.’
Alex took the dog’s face in his hands. ‘Well, Dog, between you, me and Mr Chan we have nothing. Not a thing.’
‘Then you will need all your strength. Try these and see what you think.’ Mr Chan finished laying out an array of steamed dumplings and vegetables.
Alex took in the table loaded with food and rubbed his hands together. ‘Heaven.’
DAY 4
Wednesday morning, eight-thirty. The room was jammed with officers. Alex counted twelve. The two young constables who’d coordinated the crime scene search began first. They had nothing that could be called evidence. By the time they’d organised a team to search the park, the area around the car was a pool of mud filled with rubbish washed down from the cliff, and leaves stripped from the trees.
The house-to-house interviews on the clifftop had been equally futile. No one had seen a thing. No strange people, no strange cars, no strange behaviour. Nothing out of the ordinary. They still had two householders to talk to. One was the chief of a large energy company who was overseas, and the other was a judge. They’d talked to his wife but needed to confirm her statement. Alex wasn’t surprised. The houses on the clifftop faced the sea, not down the hill to the park.
The officers combing through Edwina’s phone records hadn’t had much to do. She made very few calls. They handed Alex a list. Every phone number identified. Doctor, hairdresser, real estate agent, solicitor, Mrs O’Brien, her two children, Rose, calls to a small group of women the officers had identified as ‘church friends’. He’d check the list to reassure himself there weren’t any nuggets hidden in the numbers, but it seemed unlikely.
Same thing with the uniforms who’d followed up the carjack idea. They’d combed through the hospital Accident and Emergency records for Saturday night. All they’d come up with was a group of four teenagers from a rugby club, drunk in the A&E at about the right time. Jerry had talked to them. Nothing. Their furious coach had driven them home. No CCTV in any useful spots, but they hadn’t given up yet. They were still on it.
The officers examining the mountain of documents from Parks Pathology reported similar results. Every person Edwina had contact with at work, on the phone, in the hospital, in the pathology labs—nothing. The forensic accountants trawling through the finances of Parks Pathology's and Edwina’s personal accounts had a while to go, but so far everything they’d scrutinised had been above board.
The search of Edwina’s cottage had turned up nothing. Three generations of family life reduced to one box of keepsakes when she moved house. No computers, cameras, very little evidence of a life lived. A few snaps of her children, some women from the prayer group. The photo Alex had noticed on the mantlepiece of Edwina and Mrs O’Brien smiling outside the house, had been taken by the real estate agent on the day of the sale. A present to her.
Alex could feel the combined exasperation in the room. He tried to remember other cases when there’d been as little to go on. Couldn’t. He looked at Marion for salvation. She shook her head. Nothing from Edwina’s children. The daughter, Rowena, and son Michael had not seen their mother for about eighteen months. They talked to her on the phone, knew she’d sold the family home and bought another. They’d been gobsmacked by how trendy the cottage was, were trying to reconcile the smart woman she had become with the mother they’d grown up with.
Alex stood up, told everyone the story of the driving instructor. Someone who’d sat with Edwina for a hundred hours. Used it to illustrate Edwina was not your average person. Thought of Rose’s words, borrowed them shamelessly. Edwina was someone who had undergone a metamorphosis, had recently emerged into the real world.
They were searching for a contact, but whoever it was might be easy to overlook if they didn’t understand the recent changes in Edwina’s life. This case was going to be solved by attention to detail. Some small, tiny, inconspicuous detail.
He urged them to keep going, to keep at it.
Detective Superintendent McKay, who’d been standing, watching from the back of the room, made a face. It was an ‘I’ll see you later’ face. The raised eyebrow, the hand jerked towards his office. Alex pretended not to notice. It wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have.
*
Jerry and Marion followed Alex back to his office. Alex felt the pressure on his shoulders. ‘We knew from the start Edwina had transformed herself. But we didn’t understand what it meant.’ He spat it out, wanted to pace but there was no room in his box of an office. ‘We saw a woman with a brand new car, smart clothes, a new job, a nice house. We missed the phone for example. We should have realised someone had given it to her. An old phone, pre-paid SIM with two numbers in the log. And the car, new. Tough one. Who would think a fifty-five-year-old had just spent one hundred hours with a driving instructor?’
‘And it wasn’t even a fucking man.’ Jerry was desolate.
‘Language, Jerry.’ Marion’s voice was sharp.
‘Sorry Mar, but Jeez …’
‘More to the point,’ said Alex, ‘she was no help. One hundred hours and nothing.’ He shook his head. ‘I have asked her to think about the routes she drove with Edwina. She has set routes, but with Edwina, because they did so many hours, they drove around the city more than usual. Said she kept a checklist of where they’d been so she could vary the route. She’s going to try and find it. Could be Edwina had been to Pierce’s Park before. Marion, I want you to interview the driving instructor again. And …’ he added, addressing his shoes, ‘Rose. She gave me the information about the phone and the driving instructor, but there could be more.’
Marion nodded, gazed out the window.
‘Shit,’ said Alex. The others stared. He wasn’t one to swear. Not aloud, not in front of Marion. ‘Even the hairdresser was new and exciting. You see? Who’d think a hairdresser might be a new influence on her life? Rose hinted though, didn’t she?’ He glared at Marion. ‘She told us the first time we saw her.’
‘Yes, she did. I missed it. Didn’t have it in context. All right. I’ll see him too.’
Alex nodded. ‘I’m going to drop in on her children myself, Marion. I want to get a feel for the family dynamic. But first, I think I’ll visit the woman who runs the ‘return-to-work’ course. Edwina must have got to know the group well. There must be something there. Edwina’s life falls into the old and the new. We have to assume at this point it was something in the new that caused this.’
‘A man,’ said Jerry. ‘My pride’s a bit dented, I’ll admit, but my money’s still on a man.’
‘I’m inclined to agree, Jerry. But where did she meet him? Not on the internet for sure. Not at work. Not at church according to the ladies there. Everyone said the same thing. She wasn’t interested in men. I don’t know. Every which way we turn, nothing. You stay on the hospital and the company. They are both very much in it. The net is so wide we don’t know what we’re getting. Unless we narrow it down in the next few days, concentrate on something, we’ll be struggling.’
‘Her old life and her new life. The old and the new. Where,’ Marion mused, acid in her voice, ‘does Rose fit in?’
‘Well,’ said Alex, not looking at her, ‘she’s new, although she was born and raised in Ponsonby same as Edwina.’
‘Exactly. She’s old and new. A link.’ Marion swept up a bundle of papers and walked out of the office.
Jerry watched as Marion marched down the corridor, her tread heavy. Turned back at Alex. ‘Jesus. What have I missed?
*
The woman who ran the ‘back-to-work’ course looked like no-one Alex had ever seen before. Short and square with dyed jet-black hair cut in sharp lines and angles. Her glasses were black rimmed to match her black suit and black high-heeled shoes. Her lipstick siren red. Against the white of her skin, she could have been an extra in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. She sat straight-backed behind a large desk in her office and motioned Alex to a chair with one hand. He felt his hope drain away. This was not a woman who sat around drinking coffee and gossiping, picking up titbits of people’s lives.
‘I’m sorry to tell you, Detective Cameron,’ she said, her voice brittle, ‘but I know very little about Edwina Biggs. It wasn’t a particularly cohesive group, you see.’
‘In what way, Ms Marsden?’ he asked. Polite, patient.
‘Well, there were five in the group. Four of them were in their late thirties, getting back into the workforce after having children. They got on well together, bonded I’m sure, but Edwina was different.’ She tapped her pen on her desk. ‘I’ll be blunt.’
‘Please do,’ he said, feeling himself tense. It was taking all his concentration to keep his dislike of Ms Marsden hidden.
‘Truth is Edwina was a hopeless case. She was in her fifties and, as far as I recall, had only had one job in her life— unpacking fruit and vegetables. Not selling them. So she’d never even used a cash register. Trying to teach her about computers was like trying to teach her to fly to the moon.’ She sat back in her chair and glared at him.
‘So, did she learn to use a computer?’
‘The basics.’
‘Yet she got a job.’
‘Who else would want it? Thursday, Friday and Saturday night. Running back and forth with samples and answering the phone, putting glassware in sterilizers, all for next to nothing. On occasion she had to look things up on the computer. I think she probably managed. I’m not sure if she was capable of entering anything into the database. You’d have to ask them, but I wouldn’t have let her near any computer of mine. God knows what she would have messed up. I was very thankful when this job came up. I can’t imagine what else we could have found for her. We’re not magicians.’ Ms Marsden put her pen down on the desk, sat back in her chair.
Alex felt his lips form into a thin line. Worked hard to put a polite smile on his face. Nodded in agreement.
‘How did she relate to the others?’
‘Ask them if you like, but I didn’t see any kind of friendship. They were very different. Edwina was not a well-educated person, Detective Cameron. It showed. It showed in every way.’
Alex stood up. ‘If you can give me the names of the other people on the course please, we’ll talk to them.’ He couldn’t manage a smile. Edwina might have been uneducated and rough around the edges, but she was his Edwina. She didn’t deserve to be judged by such a cold, unfeeling witch.
*
Alex was still out of sorts when he knocked on the door of Edwina’s house. He forced a smile for the woman who answered. Rowena, the thirty-five-year-old daughter. As he stepped into the living room, he stopped short, shocked. Edwina’s pristine living room was crowded with piles of household items. Her new, store-bought clothes, so long in coming, were tossed in a heap.
‘We’ll only be here for a few days,’ Rowena said seeing the look in his eyes. ‘We thought we’d try and sort things out before we go back. Your colleague said it would be okay as long as we didn’t throw anything out.’ Her voice was shrill and edgy.
He didn’t say anything, couldn’t trust himself to speak. Families, he thought. Who’d have them?
‘Come through to the kitchen. I’ll make some coffee.’ A truce, then. ‘Michael will be here soon. He’s gone out to buy some groceries. We thought we’d stay here instead of the hotel. Easier to get things done.’
‘Yes,’ was all he could manage. Pull yourself together, he told himself watching Rowena, her face untroubled, no sign of distress. She was whippet thin, sharp angular cheekbones, her wavy red hair pulled back in a loose twist, her blue eyes clear.
Michael, when he arrived, resembled his sister. A little bit taller, his hair a little bit darker, his face more welcoming. In him, Alex could detect a trace of humanity, an inkling of sorrow.
Alex was calmer when the inevitable questions came. It was Rowena who did the talking.
‘It’s difficult,’ she said, her voice hard, as she served the coffee, ‘having a mother who’s been … murdered. Tell us about this woman, the one who latched onto Mum. The one who seemed to be pulling her strings. New house, car, job. Who is this woman?’ It was
spat out.
Alex sipped his coffee. Looked around the room.
‘Don’t you like it here, then?’ He let his gaze linger on the French doors that ran along the back, opening onto a patio, letting in the sunshine. On the red and pink geraniums in planter boxes, their heads moving in the morning breeze. Turned back towards Rowena. A challenge. He couldn’t help it.
‘Well … yes. It’s pretty.’ Rowena gathered herself. ‘But this woman. Mrs O’Brien told us this person had a lot of influence over Mum. We deserve to know if this was true. What happened to the money Mum made from the sale of the house? Is it all accounted for?’ She had worked herself into a frenzy. Taken the righteous high ground.
Alex took another sip of coffee, strong and bitter. ‘It must have been a big thing for your mother to sell the old house after it was in the family for so many years.’ He phrased the next question with care. ‘Did one of you help guide her through the transaction?’
Rowena glared at him. Michael, he saw, was trying to hide a grin.
‘Detective,’ Michael said, ‘I could do with some more air. Why don’t we take a walk together?’
*
‘Don’t mind Rowena. At the moment, I think she’s consumed by guilt. The sort that rears its ugly head when you realise you haven’t been much of a daughter and it’s too late to make
amends.’
Michael had his hands in his pockets and his head down as they strolled. The two of them were drifting around the neighbourhood. One street after another. White weatherboard, cream weatherboard, grey weatherboard, white weatherboard. The paint immaculate on most of the houses. The gardens neat with a scatter of autumn leaves on the mown lawns.
‘I understand,’ Alex said. But he didn’t, didn’t want to. Rowena showed no signs of sorrow. It wasn’t right.
‘It came as a shock to Rowena to find Mum had moved on. Managed somehow to reinvent herself. Shed those bitter years. Mum had told us about the house, but it was a huge surprise to see it. A different life from when we were kids.’
Alex didn’t say anything. Tried to imagine this man, with the Rolex watch and the Italian leather loafers, as a deprived kid.
‘Rowena’s angry about Mum’s new young friend. A daughter replacement, perhaps? I don’t know. Psychology isn’t my thing. I’m guessing the idea someone else took her spot isn’t sitting easy.’
