Forbidden Fruit (8 page)

‘Certainly,’ agreed Daniel, rummaging in his satchel. He had a number of these, into which he could stuff all his notes, electronic equipment and lunch. This one had Tintin and Snowy on it. ‘The labourer is worthy of his or her hire. Mr O’Ryan will be paying her. I still haven’t reached the end of a rather generous retainer. Shall we say fifty dollars an hour?’

‘We shall,’ I smiled, and went to unearth the phone from under Horatio.

As it happened, Goss was home, had washed and dried her hair, and was bored. She was also eager to earn fifty dollars an hour for talking, something she was willing to do for free.

‘I’ll be a detective, then?’ she asked breathlessly half an hour later, as we sat down to listen to our briefing.

‘Yes,’ said Daniel. ‘Now, this is what we know about the O’Ryan
household. Mr O’Ryan is a big, red-faced, loud sort of patriarch. Free with his hands, to judge by the way he was about to belt the boy’s father last night. A violent temper, I’d say. His children are afraid of him. Not so his wife, who is just as loud and violent as he is. She was the one doing most of the shouting when I interviewed everyone for the first time.’

‘Nice,’ shuddered Goss. ‘Usually there’s, like, one nice parental unit and one nasty one. This sounds gross.’

‘My view entirely. Mrs O’Ryan is, however, as thin as her husband is fat. He’s covering it with good tailoring and she probably lives on communion wine or whatever they have in the happy-clappies. She’s very religious, or so her husband says. He told me that Mrs O’Ryan made the girls go to church every day on the holidays.’

‘And what did she say about him?’ I asked. Couples like this always have a favourite fault with which to flay their opposite half.

‘She says he bellowed at the girls and scared them,’ said Daniel, raising an eyebrow at me. ‘They both blame each other for not keeping a closer eye on Brigid. Mrs says that Mr is away most of the time and Mr says that so is Mrs, going to all these church activities and spiritual retreats.’

‘Yeuk,’ commented Goss. I had to agree.

‘All right, now what about the staff?’

‘There is a housekeeper called Sandra Beecham. Not Irish or evangelical, oddly enough. Sensible woman of about forty. Handsome and well dressed. She has a legion of cleaners and people to assist her, but they are casual and only come in for the day. That includes the gardener and his boy. They hire a caterer for any important dinners, but usually Sandra does the cooking and runs the household. I don’t get the impression that the O’Ryans are home much for meals. Typically he would be
at a working lunch and an even more working dinner, and she probably exists on no-cal frozen dinners and the occasional sip of Evian.’

‘You didn’t take to the clients, did you?’ I asked.

‘I don’t have to,’ he responded seriously. ‘My real client is that poor girl and her heavy burden. And the missing boy, who is a good boy. The sister and only child still at home is Dolores. She’s fourteen. Not pretty like her sister but the same type: dark hair and blue eyes. She has spots. She didn’t say a lot to me but she seems intelligent enough. Her sister is good at maths and science, while Dolores is getting very good marks for English and such. Her mother made me read the school reports. Reading between the lines I got the impression she’s dreamy and disconnected and her teachers are concerned about her. Not so her mother, who says she’s greedy and lazy.’

‘With a mother like that, who needs enemies?’ I asked.

‘I gather that Brigid was the apple of the parental eyes, and poor Dolores comes in a distant second.’

‘Right,’ said Goss, getting to her feet. ‘I know enough about her now. And we need to stop off on the way.’

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘To pick up a few things.’

Goss refused to tell me anything more. Timbo, Daniel’s driver, was waiting in the big car. It was, fortunately, air-conditioned, as the weather was getting into its stride. The coolness brought by the rain had burnt off and the sky was that achingly cloudless blue which presages heat rash before bedtime. Timbo, who is the nicest possible big fat slob, was sweating. By the evidence of the wrappers strewn all around him he had been reducing his temperature with frequent applications of ice cream.

Goss grinned at him. He smiled back. A smile from Timbo is a wonderful thing.

We sped off to Kew, stopping only at a food hall where Goss directed. She came back carrying a large bag, which she concealed in the patchwork carrier she had brought along. I sniffed. I could smell food.

At the house, we left Timbo in the car with the air conditioning running and spoke into the radio thingy at the gate. It swung open and admitted us.

A woman opened the front door. This must be the handsome and well-dressed Sandra, who was indeed well dressed, in a linen shift and jacket. And handsome, if you consider perfectly dressed hair, immaculate fingernails and immovable lipstick handsome. She smiled an exact two centimetres at Daniel, swept Goss and me with a glance which priced our clothes, shoes, makeup, hairstyles and comparative worth, and allowed us into the cold house.

Now, I like cold. In this climate, cold is becoming an indicator of wealth. Perhaps Sandra thought that too. The house was stuffed with the usual decorator furniture. I noticed that Mrs O’Ryan was into French Provincial. Sandra led us into the parlour and stood waiting for us to explain ourselves.

‘I need to look at Brigid’s room,’ said Daniel, ‘and talk to Dolores.’

‘And these are your associates?’ asked Sandra, in a neutral tone which was very annoying.

‘They are,’ said Daniel, pointedly not introducing us. ‘Now, if you please.’

‘Refreshments?’ asked Sandra, abruptly capitulating.

‘No, thank you,’ said Daniel. ‘Is Dolores in her room?’

‘Yes,’ said Sandra.

‘Then we will go there first,’ said Daniel, and led the way up the stairs.

I was impressed. I had no idea Daniel knew how to be so
rude. So politely rude. Goss was leading the way. The air conditioning was turned up so high that she was shivering. Then again, Goss had not an ounce of protective fat on her whole body. If she had found any she would have gone on another of her ‘starve yourself thin’ diets.

Dolores had a suite of rooms of her own, directly under those belonging to her absconding sister. Daniel knocked on the door, which had a pink fuzzy rabbit on it.

Dolores answered, saw Daniel, was struck afresh by his beauty, then caught sight of the rest of us and recoiled a little. This allowed us into the room.

The room was pink—very pink. It had fairies all over the pink wallpaper and pink carpet and pink curtains. Dolores had placed a pink teddy bear on the bedcoverings (pink) and through the open bathroom door we could see pink towels, pink shower curtain and tiles (pink).

Goss giggled a little and said to her, ‘And you grew out of pink how long ago?’

Dolores, who was just as Daniel had described, scratched her spotty chin and croaked, ‘Five years.’

‘I did, too,’ said Goss. ‘Chill. Sooner or later they will get the idea and let you have a real room. Where are your pictures and posters and real stuff?’

‘In the desk,’ said Dolores, who seemed to be comprehensively enchanted by Goss.

Daniel sat down on the couch (pink) and I joined Goss. The hinged top of the desk rose to reveal a jumble of girls’ magazines, flyers for bands, scribbled notes and even a string of glittery beads. Goss pounced on a picture.

‘Orlando! He’s a hottie!’ she exclaimed.

‘Dreamy,’ crooned Dolores. ‘Who are you?’ she asked rather belatedly.

‘Goss,’ said Goss, sticking out a hand. ‘That’s my boss, Corinna—she’s a baker. You know Daniel. We’re trying to find your sister.’

‘I don’t know anything,’ said Dolores flatly.

‘You do,’ said Goss. ‘And we won’t tell a soul, not one soul. And because I know what kind of mum you have, I brought some stuff. And we won’t say a word about that, either.’

‘What stuff?’ demanded Dolores suspiciously. ‘How do you know what sort of mum I have?’

‘This stuff,’ said Goss. She shut the desk lid and laid out the food from her bag. A foil-wrapped hamburger. A packet of chocolate biscuits. A bag of crisps. A half-litre of chocolate milk. ‘And I know what kind of mum you’ve got because I’ve got one too.’

Dolores looked at the food as St Anthony must have stared at the temptations in the desert.

Goss was continuing. ‘Been on a low-calorie diet for years, no rice or potatoes, only salads and grilled chicken,’ said Goss. ‘Hence the spots. Won’t let you do any exercise because it isn’t nice for girls. Locks you in here when there’s company because she says you’re disgustingly greedy and not as pretty as your sister. Sit down and eat,’ she said, and Dolores sat down and picked up the hamburger, tearing at the wrappings with taloned fingers. As she bit into it Goss added, ‘But it doesn’t last forever. You can get away in the end. I live in a flat with my bestie, Kylie.’

Dolores ate the hamburger in ten bites and Daniel opened the bag of crisps for her. It was like watching a starving puppy wolf down food. What must life be like for poor Dolores, not as pretty as her sister, locked in up here in this stifling pink room which belonged to a younger girl, not allowed to grow up? How she must have envied Brigid.

We did not say anything else until she had sipped down to the last millilitre of the chocolate milk. There were tears in her eyes.

‘How do you get on with Sandra?’ asked Goss.

‘She’s all right.’ Dolores wrinkled her nose. ‘Sometimes she slips me a chip or two when she’s cooking for the olds. She gets me books from the bookshop if I pay her for them and do the orders online.’

‘You’re online?’ asked Goss, sounding surprised. ‘Haven’t they caught on to that?’

‘No,’ said Dolores, and actually laughed.

‘MySpace or Facebook?’

‘Both,’ said Dolores gleefully.

‘And you let your sister out?’ asked Goss calmly.

‘No,’ said Dolores.

Goss remained unmoved. ‘You did, you know.’

‘No,’ said Dolores.

‘You let her out, didn’t you?’ accused Goss for the third time.

‘Yes,’ said Dolores. ‘Because I hated her and I wanted her to die!’

And she burst into tears.

For there is no friend like a sister
In calm or stormy weather

Christina Rossetti
      ‘Goblin Market’

‘Girls will be girls,’ I commented, finding pink tissues and a glass of water. Dolores had flung herself into Goss’s arms and the storm of wild weeping was showing signs of settling down into hiccups and sobs and dabs with a tissue. I hoped she wasn’t going to be sick. She needed that meal, poor mite.

The person who had dressed her, I decided, needed a good smack in the mouth. The girl did have a certain amount of embonpoint, so to make her wear a white pencil skirt and a form-fitting (pink) T-shirt was pure cruelty.

‘One day you can come to visit,’ coaxed Goss. ‘We can get you some better clothes. Ones that aren’t pink, for starters.’

Goss herself was wearing a pair of straight-legged jeans and a really well-cut gentleman’s white shirt, belted loosely over an aquamarine chemise. At least I think it was a chemise. The notable thing about her clothes is that none of them were in the least pink. The belt was a thing of beauty, decorated with heavy silver studs. It struck me as vaguely Western. The poor girl was asking about it.

‘It’s a concha belt,’ Goss informed her. ‘From the Wild West, one of my fave boutiques. I’ll take you there. Now, we’ve gotta get some more facts. Was Brigid online, too?’

‘Yes,’ sighed Dolores, who was really living up to her name. ‘But she hasn’t … hasn’t …’

‘Nothing at all since she went away? Are you friended on her MySpace?’

‘Yes,’ said Dolores. ‘On MySpace. She hasn’t done blogging since she left. We talked a lot. She had lovely things. Mum won’t let me borrow any of them. She doesn’t like me, either. No one likes me!’

‘I like you,’ declared Goss. ‘Now chill, and tell us all. Did you know her sweetie?’

‘I thought I did,’ said Dolores slowly. ‘Manny used to let me help with the planting. And the weeding. I love flowers.’

‘Then you can go and be a gardener too,’ said Goss boldly. ‘I got friends at the agricultural coll. You get to live there, too,’ she said meaningfully. Dolores looked up with a wild surmise. A place to live which wasn’t pink! Bliss! Then she went on, carefully. Goss was doing Dolores a lot of good.

‘He was a nice boy. He loved Brigid but I would have sworn she never looked at him. I don’t know when they managed to … get together. But they must’ve, somehow.’

‘Love will find a way,’ Daniel whispered to me. Dolores heard him.

‘She had this major crush on Sean Reilly,’ she protested. ‘Or maybe it was all an act. She lied a lot,’ she said matter-of-factly. ‘Well, we both did. Do.’

‘Only thing to do with parents like that,’ encouraged Goss. ‘Did she see much of this Sean?’

‘He’s at the college across the road from the school. He used to walk across and talk to her sometimes. She would go all gooey, it was sick. He’s the captain of the cricket team, prefect, all that stuff. He’s a hottie all right, but I don’t like him. Too full of himself. But Manny, he was nice.’

‘All right,’ said Goss. ‘What was it like here with Brigid locked up?’

‘It was awful,’ said Dolores, about to weep again. ‘Dad yelling and Mum yelling and Sandra yelling.’

‘What was Sandra yelling about?’

‘She said that Brigie had to see a doctor. That she ought to have some exercise. That it was cruel to lock her in like that.’

‘Did she win?’ asked Daniel quietly.

‘No, except about the doctor. He came one night and examined her and said she was healthy. He wasn’t our usual doctor. Sandra was worried. Tried to feed her extra. She used to carry trays all day.’

This did not sound like the haughty woman downstairs. I said so.

‘She’s been with us a long time,’ said Dolores, as though she was just realising this. ‘I suppose she feels responsible for us. A bit. I wasn’t a lot of help. I was furious with Brigid.’

‘Why?’

‘Because she was silly!’ snapped Dolores. ‘She never paid any attention to the outside world. She just did maths and science and more maths and science and she wanted to be a doctor and save the children and now …’