Читать книгу Blood Guilt - Lindy Cameron - Страница 7

'Thistle, please come out. Now, damn you!' Kit was down on her hands and knees opening one kitchen cupboard after another trying to coax out the creature playing percussion with the pots and pans. 'If you don't come out right now I shall shut all the doors and go on holiday for a week. I'm sure what's left of you when I return will make a fine calpac.'

'That's no way to talk to that beautiful feline,' Del said from the doorway.

'You get her out then,' Kit said, crossing her arms and throwing her back against the cupboard with her legs splayed out before her.

Del strolled over, her gaze travelling from the wild black hair, down the slender neck and body till it was arrested with what seemed to be admiration by the naked, tautly-muscled thigh revealed by a strategic slit in Kit's tight black skirt. 'That's a most unattractive way to sit,' she said and knelt down to peer into the open cupboard. 'Come on baby,' she cooed. 'Come on out precious, or your mean mother will turn you into a hat.'

Thistle came bounding out, her tail flicking irreverently at Kit while she rubbed around Del's ankles as if greeting a long lost friend.

'Brazen hussy,' Kit snarled as she got to her feet and pulled her skirt down to straighten it just above her knees.

'Stockings would be a nice touch Katherine,' Del said adjusting the collar of Kit's turquoise silk shirt.

'I do believe you're right, Ms Fielding. But I shall put them on in the car because Mad Manx here can't resist my ankles at the best of times, and stockings send her wild with desire.'

'I don't know how you sleep in here with all these people watching you,' Del said from the doorway of the huge bedroom, across which Kit was throwing shoes in her search for the pair to the one she was holding.

'They help me dream,' Kit said with a wave at the gallery of beautifully framed prints adorning the walls. Amongst them Katherine Hepburn stared with barely contained excitement from the stern of the African Queen; Ingrid Bergman stood on a rocky crag wearing her shining partisan's face while the bells tolled for someone or other; and Audrey Hepburn's Eliza Doolittle made her grand entrance at Ascot; while Deborah Kerr and Yul Brynner reined in the sexual attraction during one of the most famous dancing lessons on celluloid. And that was just one wall.

Above Kit's queen-sized futon, which rested on a carpeted platform two steps up from floor level, an exquisite Catherine Deneuve lounged in a chair offering her shirt to an unsuspecting Susan Sarandon; while over by the window the stunning and silent Louise Brooks contemplated the ramifications of opening Pandora's Box.

'Well I hate to rush you Ms Make-believe but this thing starts in half an hour and as you know I'm only going so you've got a reason to be there.'

'I know, I know. I'm ready, already.'

'Hair,' said Del simply.

Kit stomped back to the full length mirror by the window. 'What's wrong with it?' she asked, offering her customary palms-up gesture.

'It looks like a bird's nest.'

'It is. I've got a whole flock of finches in here somewhere,' she said running her hands through her short hair trying to quieten it down a bit.

Ten minutes later they were in the thick of a traffic jam en route to the Hilton Hotel. At least they were en route to the Hilton, the rest of the jam was going to a night cricket match at the MCG Kit was trying to struggle into her pantihose in the confined space of Del's Volkswagon while Del was swearing out the window at no one in particular.

'My god I'm melting,' Kit complained. 'I need another cold shower already.'

'We could go to Angie's instead,' Del suggested hopefully. 'It would be cool there.'

'It wouldn't help my case but,' Kit stated, finally managing to get her skirt down again.

'Don't call me but or I'll keep driving till we run out of petrol. I really hate these things, you realise,' Del added for the tenth time.

'I know already. But you're such a martyr, Saint Delbridge.'

Kit had discovered, quite by accident, that Del had shelved an official invitation to the very same publishing function that Geoffrey and Celia were due to attend at the Hilton. Del had a great many connections in a lot of surprising places and it never ceased to amaze Kit who her friend knew and why. In this case the cap she wore was that of literary critic, highly regarded for both her regular contributions to weekend newspaper supplements and the reviews of less mainstream fiction published in her own Aurora Press.

Despite her reputation she rarely attended publishing or media industry soirees unless the guest speaker was an author she particularly wanted to meet. She'd had no desire to get within three suburbs of tonight's special guest but Kit had finally managed to talk her into attending after agreeing that Del could join any stakeout of Geoffrey afterwards. Kit had warned her that it would probably just be hot and boring - but that was the deal. Kit was to be Del's assistant editor for the duration of the Hilton affair, then Del would get to play detective for a night if Geoffrey decided he needed stimulation of something other than his brain.

The cocktail party was the last thing on the agenda for Week One before Kit met with Celia Robinson again the next day. Although, knowing Geoffrey, it would be just the first part of the last thing.

She thought back over the events of the last couple of days while Del raged at the traffic. Kit had followed Geoffrey on Tuesday to his luncheon rendezvous with Ian Dalkeith at a pub bistro in South Melbourne, where she'd had to drink a glass of water for every beer she ordered so as not to get drunk sitting at the bar for two and a half hours. Her subjects ate a casual lunch and then gave their undivided attention to a collection of neatly bound reports of some kind. There seemed to be nothing furtive in their discussion and they had taken a table by the window rather than a booth at the back so whatever they were up to appeared to be above board. There was, however, something about the immaculately-dressed Ian Dalkeith that made Kit's skin crawl so when their meeting was over she'd followed him instead of Geoffrey.

She'd tailed him to an expanse of desolate, weedy riverfront land, littered with twisted metal and huge dislocated cranes and bordered in parts by the battered remains of a corrugated iron fence. Totally incongruous in this vision of post-nuclear devastation was the shiny new cyclone wire fencing, about 20 metres in from the street, that cordoned off a row of dilapidated wooden warehouses and a sagging wharf. Dalkeith had obviously not visited this wasteland to revel in his dream of transforming it into a 'state-of-the-art integrated district'. All he did was drive along the fenceline, stopping only to get out and check the gate.

Kit had picked up her tail on Geoffrey again when he'd turned up at The Patrician at 8 that night. A long and stiflingly hot two hours later he emerged and Kit once again followed him to the house in St Kilda. This time he'd picked up a woman of similar build, and no doubt disposition, to the crimson tart of Monday night, although this floozy was a blonde, and together they selected a matching blonde boy to play with.

It was on that occasion that Kit wondered whether the apartment or maybe even the whole house belonged to Geoffrey, as it was he who punched in the combination that unlocked the door. Or perhaps he was part-owner in what Kit's ex-partner Marek called an Accordion Conglomerate, where a bunch of so-called respectable businessmen buy into such an establishment so they can decorate their own 'squeeze boxes' to carry out private takeovers of the body corporeal.

On Wednesday morning she'd called in a favour from a friend at the local council to find out just who did own the house. Geoffrey's scheduled lunch with Miles Denning and Marjorie Finlay that day, yesterday, was cancelled by accident, or rather by an accident the witnessing of which was a sight indeed for Kit's sore eyes.

Guessing that Geoffrey and his companions might do lunch locally, Kit had been sitting as nonchalantly as possible on the brick wall in front of OHP's terraced and landscaped front garden trying to blend in with the clutch of desperate smokers who were obviously banned from doing so inside their place of employment. Just after the second wave of midday lunch-takers - those who actually took lunch rather than a smoko - had passed through OHP's double glass doors Geoffrey emerged from his imaginary empire followed closely by Ms Finlay and Mr Denning. Geoffrey had taken a deep breath, surveyed the world at his feet and promptly fell arse over tit down the front stairs, all six of them.

Kit had resisted both the automatic reflex of leaping up to help a fellow human being and the much stronger urge to roll about laughing. Which was more than can be said for Miles Denning who, once it had been ascertained that his colleague had not had a heart attack or been taken out by a sniper, assumed an expression that basically said Geoffrey's novel way of getting to the front street had in fact made his day.

Marjorie Finlay on the other hand had sounded somewhat like a fishwife, screaming Geoffrey's name in apparent horror as she watched him tumble to the footpath below. She'd rushed down to help him, realised he wasn't dead or seriously injured and, after regaining her obviously much-practiced Lauren Bacall voice, assumed full executive control of the situation by ordering everybody about.

Geoffrey's sprained left ankle and his consequent reliance on a pair of crutches had not, unfortunately, put the kybosh on his mystery 6 p.m. appointment that day which turned out to be a meeting in the cocktail bar of the Regent Hotel, with Ian Dalkeith and two other men, one of whom was of the American persuasion. Kit had not been able to photograph them together as it would no doubt have drawn attention to her leisurely drink at the bar, but had managed to snap each of them afterwards from her car across the street as they left the hotel. Geoffrey had then gone home, and stayed there for a change.

'There's only one thing worse than a horde of stuffy publishing types getting pissed on free champagne,' Del stated, as she parked the car in Clarendon Street near the Hilton, 'and that's a horde of scruffy journalists doing the same. And tonight we have both.'

'Ah, but it will be much more fun for me to keep an eye on the roving, randy Robbo if I am also getting pissed on free champagne,' Kit said. 'After all Celia didn't really want me skulking around the streets - it's so tacky, you know.'

'Hi. Katherine isn't it? My name's Julie,' said the ungainly, bespectacled young woman who approached Kit with a glass of champagne in each hand.

'Er, yes,' said Kit a little taken aback. She'd been feeling like a shag on a rock since Del had deserted her after the first five minutes, which was only ten minutes ago. She'd gone to get them another drink and forgotten to come back. Using the cover of looking for a place to set down her empty glass, she glanced around the room till she spotted Del grinning at her from the midst of a clutch of semi-inebriated journalist types. Her reluctant escort, suddenly the life of the party, was probably setting her up for something. Kit accepted the champagne from Julie, who'd barely drawn breath after introducing herself.

'Your boss said you might be feeling a bit desperate, not knowing anyone else here.'

'Well, not exactly desperate. Del tends to exaggerate a bit,' Kit said. I'll kill her, she thought.

'Really? I only know her by reputation. She was chatting to one of my colleagues, who does, know her I mean, and she just mentioned that you were standing over here all alone so to speak.'

'So to speak,' Kit said, wanting to crawl under the smorgasbord and hide. 'So, are you a journo?'

'Good gracious no!' Julie exclaimed with the same surprise Kit would have felt had she said yes. 'I'm an editorial assistant. Well more a general dogsbody really. I work for Sandy Everett at Orlando House.'

Kit nearly snorted her champagne all over the general dogsbody. Oh Del, you're beautiful. You've earned a reprieve, she thought as she coughed out a politely interested 'Really?'

'Oh yes. That's my boss over there,' she said, pointing in the general direction of about fifty people.

'I actually applied for a job at OHP some time back,' Kit lied. 'What did I miss out on?'

'It's a great place really. Everyone's so friendly. I have to deal with most people there in one way or another in my capacity as Mr Everett's, Sandy's assistant. He's a commissioning editor; quite high up.'

'What's the big boss like?'

'Mr Denning? A lovely man. Probably quite experienced I'd say, and friendly.'

Kit was reconsidering the pardon she'd given Del. This woman was a dipstick of the first order. 'What about the other top brass? I always find that if the chairman of the board is a regular human being for instance, that it sort of flows right on down through the ranks, so to speak,' Kit said, quite at a loss of how to get useful information from someone who felt that a man of Miles Denning's calibre and reputation was 'probably' quite experienced.

'Well our chairman is a woman. Mrs Robinson. We don't see much of her though. She was married to our founder Mr Carl Orlando, before he was killed in a car accident a few years back. That was before my time of course. I think she's expected here tonight; she usually attends these sort of functions. Rumour has it she drinks a bit, and there's certainly a bit to drink here,' Julie said with a conspirational nudge on Kit's elbow.

'She obviously married again after her husband's death,' Kit said, realising she could probably ask this woman anything she liked and it wouldn't appear strange. A ditzy gossip monger would be unlikely to realise she was being pumped for information.

'Oh yes. She married Geoffrey Robinson, our business manager. They're quite an odd couple really, when you see them together I mean. She's sort of all roly-poly and jolly and he's stiff and conservative, a real cold fish.'

'Well, I suppose even the most mismatched couples must have something in common,' Kit said.

'Money probably,' Julie said. 'And power I suppose. Being the boss's husband makes you more than just a business manager, doesn't it?'

'I suppose it does,' Kit said with a smile. 'I wouldn't imagine you'd have a lot to do with him though.'

'No, not really. But he does do his rounds regularly. You know, sort of wanders about the office like a prison warden with his hands behind his back, making sure that everyone's in their right place doing what they should be doing. If he's looking in on someone who has their own office, like my boss, then he stands around in the doorway making inane conversation about publishing deadlines, or book covers or the cricket. He always loiters longer than necessary, because he doesn't really have anything to say and he never remembers people's names. It drives Sandy mad, but at least he's got an office. The rest of us suddenly find Mr Robinson looking over our shoulder.'

'I gather you don't like him much,' Kit said emptying her glass and wondering how soon she'd be able to get another.

'It's not a matter of like or dislike. I mean he's never done anything to me to make me dislike him. It's just that he's sort of sleazy, in a rich sort of way. Like if he thought you had something to offer him then he'd take the trouble to remember your name; if not, then he's polite enough to keep his options open. It's creepy really. Speak of the devil. See what I mean?'

'Absolutely,' Kit said, in no doubt that Julie was referring to the very peculiar sight indeed that marked the arrival of Celia and Geoffrey. Odd was an understatement. Geoffrey swung along on his crutches, his ears making him look like a businesslike radar dish in a soft grey suit, while Celia and her hair rolled in like a beach ball in a flurry of flame-red silk. 'I think another drink is definitely in order.'

Julie, who it seemed was also all alone 'so to speak', followed Kit to the bar like a good little general dogsbody. As they stood waiting for the barman to open a fresh bottle of champagne, an elegant hand with fingers ringed in gold brushed Kit's arm as its owner reached for the ashtray on the bar. There was a throaty 'excuse me' as the woman took a very deliberate look at Kit, gave Julie a cursory nod and then interrupted one of the men beside her to disagree with some point he was trying to make about promotional schedules.

Kit recognised her as the grey-eyed woman from Geoffrey 's outing to the Japanese restaurant on Monday night. At such close quarters, however, the angular face revealed a certain calculated fierceness that Kit had not noticed then. Her general demeanour almost shouted 'approach with caution', and her not unattractive features were made almost severe by a bun that pulled her brown hair back so tightly it looked painful. The deep voice however had an unforgettable tone and the intensity of the woman's gaze had quite surprised Kit.

'Who was that?' she asked Julie when they got out of earshot.

'You mean Miss Enigma? That's Adele Armstrong, Mr Robinson's secretary.'

'Miss Enigma?' Kit said, taking a long look, over Julie's shoulder, at yet another player in Geoffrey's little theatre of surprises. Kit watched intrigued as the woman revelled in the power of holding three men at bay with an oh so subtle barrage of contradictory body language. Yes. No. Yes. No. No chance fellas, thought Kit.

'Yeah, Miss Enigma or the Dragon Lady. She is not generally well-liked. Not that she gives anyone the chance. She is just so superior. She thinks that because her boss is one of the bosses that it makes her more important than the rest of us. We're all expected to call her Ms Armstrong, can you believe it. Mostly we call her Miss H and M; you know, high and mighty. After all it doesn't matter who she makes coffee for, she's still only a secretary.'

Kit guessed that Julie's venom was born of envy not dislike. Adele Armstrong was quite obviously a manipulator, someone who always knew exactly what she was doing and what she wanted or, more to the point, what she had to do to score the extra points. Kit knew the type. She was important because she made sure she was. Someone like Julie would always have a Ms Armstrong above her because she saw the importance in the position rather than the power in the person.

'How long has she worked for Mr Robinson?' Kit asked, trying to drag her attention back to the scowling Julie.

'Only about two years. She didn't even go up through the ranks like most of the other secretarial staff at OHP. She came right on in from nowhere and sat at Mr Robinson's right hand, so to speak. God look at her now. All those men hanging off her every word. She's not even attractive or anything.'

'I think she's quite striking,' Kit said.

Julie looked at Kit as if she'd just arrived from Planet 10. 'You think so? It's probably the air of masculinity that surrounds her that makes you think that. Most of the women at work think she's actually a transvestite,' she said in all seriousness.

'Really?' said Kit with astonishment, for there was nothing at all masculine about Adele Armstrong. Standing at the bar, Kit had practically been bowled over by the almost tactile look that Adele had cast over her. From head to foot it had been fleeting, penetrating, overtly sexual and unmistakably female.

'Mind you,' said Julie leaning close and dropping her voice to a whisper, 'most of the men, at least those who've tried to crack on to her, say she's a...you know, a lesbian.'

Kit looked suitably surprised while she tried not to laugh. Oh dear, you poor thing, she thought. Julie could obviously accept the notion that Adele Armstrong was a man in drag more easily than the possibility that she was a woman who chose to love women. Julie had rolled the 'L' word round her mouth as if trying out a new swear word on her best friend at primary school.

She was still nodding at Kit, with a raised eyebrow and a knowing look as if this was her most valuable piece of gossip, when the cavalry arrived in the form of Del, two strange men and a whole bottle of icy cold champers.

'That was great fun,' said Del as she sloshed port into a couple of glasses while Kit made coffee.

'Yeah, well he's not usually that quick. I was sitting outside that place till 2 a.m. on Tuesday.'

'Do you suppose the guy in that other car was watching us or the house?' Del asked.

'What guy?' Kit set the mugs down on the coffee table and threw herself on the couch.

'The guy in the car down the street.'

'Why didn't you say something at the time?'

'What, and wake you from your beauty sleep? Besides you're the detective, I thought you'd noticed him.'

'When did he turn up?' Kit asked.

'He was there already.'

'He probably just lives there then. In his car I mean. Could you see what he looked like?'

'Interested are we?'

'Of course I'm bloody interested Del,' Kit snapped. Her friend had the most annoying habit of playing games with useful bits of information. She was at her most exasperating when she prefaced juicy gossip with 'you'll never guess who'.

'OK. No, I couldn't see what he looked like, even through the telephoto, it was too dark. I can tell you that he's a chain smoker with a moustache and possibly a beard. That much I could see every time he struck a match. And I did take a photo of the car for you.'

'Thank you Dr Watson,' Kit said with a grin. She reached over with the port bottle and refilled Del's glass. 'The thing I can't figure is the part Ian Dalkeith plays in all of this, whatever this is.'

'Maybe your Mr Robinson is investing in Dalkeith's property development.'

'Maybe. But if it's above board why would he be dodging questions about it? It's more likely tied up in that little salon of sin.'

'So perhaps that's all there is to it. A couple of wealthy guys with a mutual interest in sex with anything on two legs set up their own private whore house. What else would you expect from all that male bonding at The Patrician Club. That was Ian Dalkeith with Robinson in the lobby of that house tonight and they were obviously providing that Yank with a bit of local culture. So where's the mystery?'

'Who is that American, though?'

'I don't know darling. You seem to have more questions about this case than your client does. I'd like to remind you, before you lose any sleep over this randy band of men, that Celia hired you just to follow her husband, not to solve every mystery in town.'

'Ah, but I do love a mystery Del. I can't help myself. I have to develop that last film, do you want to stick around?'

'Sure, why not. I doubt that Brigie will be waiting up for me.' Del followed Kit down the short hallway that opened off the landing that surrounded her sunken lounge room. Kit had turned the smallest of her apartment's three bedrooms into a darkroom. Her friend Angie, who was particularly handy with a monkey wrench, had done a bit of creative plumbing on the pipes in the adjacent bathroom so the new darkroom would have running water.

'A photographer you ain't,' Kit said an hour later as she collected the prints from where she'd pegged them to a piece of string hung across her open lounge window.

'But thank you for your time and assistance,' Del said snidely. 'I warned you I was only used to a totally automatic camera.'

Kit dropped the prints on the coffee table beside the orderly piles of photos she and Del had been selecting to present to Celia the next day. She sat down next to Del and gave her an apologetic grin. 'OK, let's see what we've got.'

She extracted some of the prints and put them to one side then sorted the remainder into chronological order before choosing the clearest shots.

'Why are you leaving those out?' Del asked, picking up the discarded pile which included a photo of Del and Thistle and several of Ian Dalkeith surveying his wasteland property.

'As you say Del, Celia hired me to follow Geoffrey. I doubt she'd be interested in how Mr Dalkeith spends his afternoons.'

Kit selected the shots of Geoffrey's Wednesday meeting at the Regent Hotel with Dalkeith, the American and the other mystery man. She wrote the date, time and place on the back of each. The last photos were the seven Del had taken that evening. They were blurred but the identities of the three men standing in the foyer of the St Kilda house were still unmistakable. Geoffrey and Dalkeith stood to one side as the American leered in response to the attention being lavished on him by the same crimson tart Kit had seen Geoffrey with the first night she'd staked out the house.

'She looks familiar,' Del said looking over Kit's shoulder.

'She's in the earlier pics. She's also of a type,' Kit said indicating the top photo on one of the other piles. 'Our Geoffrey is obviously a legs man, although a well-endowed crutch seems to attract his attention too.'

'She's side-on, you can't see her face properly. And you criticise my photography,' Del said picking up the photo of the two blondes Geoffrey had played with on Tuesday.

'I gather this is the mysterious car that was lurking in the street with us tonight,' Kit said turning the photo around several times pretending she couldn't work out which way it went.

'Oh you're such a card O'Malley. You're...' Del was about to say something truly smart when something in the photos of Dalkeith she still had in her lap caught her attention. Kit didn't notice Del had stopped talking. She was too busy staring open-mouthed at the photograph of the car.

'I've seen this somewhere before Del,' she said reaching for the magnifying glass.

'Quite possibly, it's a fairly common make,' Del said absently, taking the magnifying glass from Kit's hand.

'No, I mean I've seen this one before. It was parked in the lane opposite the Patrician the other night.'

'Yeah? Well I think maybe it is following you then. Take a look at this.'

It was the last photo Kit had taken of Dalkeith on Tuesday, as he was leaving his riverfront investment. She snapped him as he'd turned his car left out through the old broken gateway heading away from where she had parked a short distance down the street. There in the background, parked an equal distance from the gate on the other side was the same beat-up brown station wagon.

'Shit! What's going on? Who the hell would be following me?'

'Beats me,' Del said. 'But I'd brush up on your techniques of observation if I were you, sweetheart. Fancy not noticing that old heap tailing you everywhere.'

Kit felt a chill up her spine. Maybe Celia had hired someone else to make sure she got the job done properly. That was unlikely.

'It could be Douglas,' she said aloud.

'Who the hell is Douglas?' Del asked.

'Celia's solicitor. I don't mean it's him. But maybe he hired someone else to dig into Geoffrey's financial dealings, while I'm running around sorting out Celia's suspicions of adultery.'

'Seems like a waste of money to hire two detectives for the same case.'

Kit stared at the two photos for a long time. She picked up the other piles and flipped through them.

'There it is again!' Kit said horrified. How the hell could I have missed this?'

'That's Dalkeith with that Yank again,' Del said. 'Who are you investigating here? Robinson or Dalkeith?'

'That was the day Geoffrey had the meeting with Dalkeith, the American and this bloke,' Kit said pointing to the next photo. 'But this is the shot with that bloody car in it.'

'So, what's the common denominator here O'Malley?' Del said, as if the answer was sitting right in front of them sharing the port.

'Geoffrey... or me,' Kit said.

'Or Dalkeith. Come on Miss Marple, this is your area of expertise not mine.'

'God, I think I need a holiday,' Kit groaned. 'Somewhere cold. I think this hot weather is making me stupid. The night I saw that car opposite The Patrician was the first time I saw Dalkeith, in the flesh I mean. You said you think the driver has a moustache?'

'Yeah, either a big bushy one or a beard as well. I only glimpsed him by match light remember.'

'Well maybe Douglas did hire him. If Geoffrey's in some sort of shonky business deal with Dalkeith it would be logical to have someone follow Dalkeith. Obviously I can't do everything. I'm sure Celia would have mentioned it to me though. This is very curious.'

'Curious indeed, my love. But I don't intend to lose any sleep over it. And neither should you. Speaking of which I am going home, and you should go to bed. You can ask your client all about it tomorrow.'