Take Out (22 page)

‘No, not that, stupid boy!’

‘This?’ Stevie said, extracting the tapestry from beneath the basket and handing it over. A mess of tangled wool, it was almost impossible to see which side of the tapestry was which. ‘We know Ralph was involved with Jon Pavel’s activities,’ Stevie went on, ‘and we think we now know what those activities were. They were bringing girls over from Thailand to work against their will as prostitutes.’

‘Snoodle pinkerds
—
we told you that.’ Mrs Hardegan didn’t look up, carefully pierced the fabric with her needle, her face a lined study of concentration.

Stevie frowned. ‘Snoodle pinkerds? You mean girls—prostitutes?’

The soft expulsion of breath said yes, of course that’s what she meant.

‘Is there anything else we should know about this? Can you tell us anything at all about the people who killed Ralph and Delia?’ Stevie asked.

Mrs Hardegan finished her stitch and looked thoughtfully at the picture on the table. Finally she said, ‘The Japs killed him.’

‘Bloody Japs, bloody Japs!’

The sudden racket made Stevie clap her hand to her chest. She’d forgotten all about that damned bird hanging in its cage in the far corner of the room.

‘Cover up our feathered friend,’ Mrs Hardegan commanded. Fowler placed the blanket over the cage. The parrot gave a squawk of protest and fell silent.

‘But it’s still our fault,’ Mrs Hardegan continued. ‘We couldn’t help it, couldn’t love him—no wonder the boy turned out like he did.’ She paused, her mouth was turned down but Stevie could see no evidence of tears in the age-washed eyes. ‘We’ll tell you soon what happened, we’ll tell our story, but only when we’re ready. You must have hours and minutes.’

Hours and minutes: patience. This was something Stevie found to be in very short supply. ‘But Mrs Hardegan, please, tell us. Do you know who killed your son?’

‘The Japs did—didn’t we just tell you that?’

Stevie looked toward the parrot cage, waiting for the nerve-grating echo, but it remained silent, thank God, cage gently swinging from the roof beam. She’d better steer the conversation to smoother waters. ‘The baby, Joshua, what can you tell us about him?’

Mrs Hardegan began another laborious stitch. Fowler sighed, put his hands in his pockets and started to pace to and fro. Stevie bit her lower lip. ‘Fowler...’

‘They stole him,’ Mrs Hardegan said at last.

Fowler stopped pacing and met Stevie’s eye.

‘And when the boy found out about it,’ Mrs Hardegan continued, ‘he went quite mad. He was always stupid, only a poor uneducated peasant, but nice, we liked him despite all that. But then stupid turned to mad.’

‘What boy, Mrs Hardegan? Jon Pavel? Skye? Ralph?’ Stevie asked. ‘No, that boy.’ The old lady pointed to the Pavel house with the tip of her needle.

‘Delia Pavel, you mean Delia Pavel went mad?’

Mrs Hardegan stabbed the needle into the tapestry and left it there, as if she’d had enough of her sewing. ‘He came to us and told us what the boys were doing and then that boy of mine said yes they were when we asked him. And then we went mad too.’

With a rush of excitement, Stevie sprang up from the footstool and began to speak rapidly to Fowler. ‘Maybe Delia didn’t know the baby was illegally adopted—although with the upstairs bedroom as it was, she had to have an idea of her husband’s other activities. Somehow she found out that the baby was stolen and the knowledge tipped her over the edge. The madness must be the depression Skye suspected Delia of having and the reason for the house being kept in such a mess. Delia must have confided her fears to Mrs Hardegan, telling her about Ralph’s involvement in her husband’s illegal activities, which Ralph later admitted to his mother when she questioned him.’ No wonder the old lady had had a stroke, Stevie added silently.

Mrs Hardegan nodded her head; all her words had escaped her now. The news of her son’s death had taken its toll, despite her efforts at hiding it. She put her tapestry back on the table and sank back into her chair.

‘Mind waiting for me in the car?’ Stevie said to Fowler. ‘I won’t be long.’

Fowler hesitated before nodding a sombre goodbye to the old lady. He was about to move when she held up a finger. ‘No, wait where you are,’ she commanded. ‘You are to come back another time. We have some books belonging to the boy and we want you to take them to his parents.’

‘I can get them now if you like, it’s no trouble, I’ll be seeing them at the funeral.’ Fowler made as if to move toward the book-crowded hallway.

‘We said not now. Later. You will have to take them to that place, where they live, that place with all the dust and woolly animals. It’s a long drive but you will do it.’

Fowler said he would. They watched him as he opened the back door and stepped into the garden, shoulders sagging under his creased suit jacket. Mrs Hardegan looked at Stevie and let out a breath. ‘Stupid is as stupid does. But not a bad boy.’

Stevie agreed, tried again to clasp the old woman’s hand. This time she didn’t pull away. ‘Are you going to be all right?’ she asked. ‘Can I get you anything, anyone I can ring? A priest maybe?’

‘We’ll miss the boy.’

Skye, Delia or Ralph?

Stevie didn’t ask.

Stevie called in at the deli and paid the girl Leila for the DVD. Fowler curled his lip when she climbed back into the car and tossed
Gone with the Wind
into his lap. ‘What you watching this crap for?’ he asked as he held the cover up to the interior light.

‘It helps me relax. Don’t you have a favourite movie you watch over and over again, something you can just veg out to?’

He shrugged. ‘I’ve watched
Saw 3
a few times, I guess.’

Right.

After dropping Fowler back at the hospital for his car, she returned to her mother’s house, read to Izzy for a while and then settled on the couch in front of the TV. She’d had little sleep over the last few nights, her mind spinning like a hamster on a wheel even when she did get the opportunity. Tonight she was asleep before Scarlet and Rhett could fall into their first clinch.

Lilly Hardegan continued to sit in her chair well after her visitors had gone. She didn’t feel like writing any more of the letter tonight and anyway, the Thai girl knew the rest of it. She wondered if Mai would see the irony of it all.

As she gazed at the picture of Percy on her sewing table, grief wrenched her to the core. She’d refused the policewoman’s offer of a priest, didn’t need one. What good was a priest, she thought, if you don’t have the religion to go with it? Lilly Hardegan had lost her faith in the jungles of New Guinea some sixty-odd years ago. (Image 22.2)

After a good night’s rest, Stevie felt energised for the first time in days. She dropped Izzy off at school and did some grocery shopping, stocking up the pantry and freezer with Monty’s favourites in preparation for his return from hospital. She bought soy sauce and egg noodles, Asian greens and coriander. It seemed a shame to condemn the fresh tiger prawns to the freezer, but she wasn’t exactly sure when he would be discharged and couldn’t risk food poisoning on his first day home. Wait a minute, prawns were full of cholesterol, weren’t they? Vegetable curry with lots of healthy chickpeas, she decided, that’s what they’d have, and enough chilli to blow the tongue off a giraffe.

She pulled up outside their house and looked seaward. A row of conifers guarded the coarse lawn of the beachfront near the café. Before their curry, if Monty were up to it, they’d sit there on the bench near the swings and watch the sun set, talk about anything but work, talk about Izzy, talk about their new house.

She found the revised extension/renovation plans waiting in a cardboard tube in her letterbox. The architect must have dropped them off while she was out—God only knew she hadn’t been home much over the last few days. There was a note saying that he’d implemented the changes they’d discussed at their last meeting, and as a result these plans would have to be re-submitted to the council. Christ, when was all this red tape and dilly-dallying going to end? Just as well she didn’t have a sledgehammer close at hand or she would’ve been tempted to start the demolition herself.

She spent the afternoon at the hospital with Monty, but omitted to tell him the latest developments with Mrs Hardegan and what she’d found out about the baby’s illegal adoption. Under normal circumstances she would have valued his input, but now she wanted him to think she had withdrawn or lost interest. She didn’t think she could cope with any more staged heart attacks.

They discussed the revised plans, which lay stretched over his bed like an extra sheet. She’d also brought in some interior decorating magazines and they pored over them together, selecting fittings and furniture, trying to balance the old-world feel to which they aspired with the comforts of modern life.

‘We’ll need air-conditioning,’ Monty said.

‘I don’t think so, too expensive and not necessary—besides, those things on the walls are a terrible eyesore. I’d prefer ceiling fans and sea breezes.’

‘It doesn’t have to be on the wall. I have a mate in the business, Frank Caravello, he’ll be able to give us a good deal on ducting.’

‘You have friends everywhere.’

Monty shrugged. ‘All ex-cops who left the job early enough to start again with new careers...’ He broke off and gazed at the blank TV screen above his bed.

Stevie knew the direction his thoughts were going. ‘I don’t think you should be thinking about that now. The doctor said you should take one day at a time. You’re still recovering; you mustn’t start making crucial decisions just yet. The house should be giving you enough to think about for the moment.’

‘If I’m not working, how can we pay for the house? We can’t borrow any more money from your mother.’

Stevie rolled up the plans and slid them back into the cardboard tube, her way of indicating that the conversation was over. Her mother was a wealthy woman, having sold the family cattle station when prices were high. She’d be beside herself if she knew how stretched they were despite her generous loan, and it was something they were both determined to keep from her.

Once more Mont insisted that she and Izzy stay at her mother’s for the night. ‘And then after that, they’ll be letting me out of this place and I can protect you.’

She smiled back at him, ‘Sure you can,’ and relaxed back into her chair. ‘God, I’m looking forward to getting back to normal again.’

‘I need to find some stairs.’ He wriggled his eyebrows suggestively; money worries apparently forgotten.

‘Our house has no stairs. Bad luck.’

‘Then I’ll practise on the beach steps.’ He took hold of her arm and pulled her toward him, cupping her breast in his large hand and giving her a full kiss on the lips. ‘Y’know,’ he murmured as he continued to knead her flesh. ‘I don’t think I’m going to need to practise for this at all.’

The door whooshed open. ‘Feeling better are we, Mr McGuire?’ the soft-faced Irish nurse said as they quickly pulled apart.

‘Home soon,’ Monty said.

‘Only if you behave yourself.’

For many years Stevie and her mother, Dot, had lived on the same street. It was a convenient arrangement that suited them both when Izzy was born and Stevie still very much on her own. Now, Dot’s was almost half an hour’s drive from their new place near the beach, though it still served as a home away from home for Izzy. Dot had a large backyard with a fishpond and a small gazebo. Her house was immaculate with deep spongy carpets, vanilla cream walls and a tasteful collection of antiques.

As if in keeping with the civilised surroundings, Izzy tended to behave like a model child when she stayed with her grandmother. Sometimes Stevie felt that Dot had no inkling about what the kid could be like at home, as if her tales of horror were exaggerated or made up. Which was why she couldn’t help smiling when she opened the front door to the sound of Dot’s raised voice and her own child wailing back at her.

‘What’s going on?’ Stevie asked her mother, who appeared red-faced from the kitchen, blowing a loose tendril of silver-blonde hair from her eyes. Stevie gazed into her own clear-blue eyes looking back at her. They had the same colouring, were physically alike in so many ways other than height. Dot Hooper was ballet-dancer petite, whereas Stevie took her height from her father’s side of the family. If she aged half as well as her mother, she reflected, she’d be happy. This reminded her of something. She hadn’t yet seen the age-enhanced picture of Jennifer Granger, and made a mental note to ask Col if it was finished.

She tuned back in to what Dot was saying.

‘She’s had a bad day at school; said she got in trouble with the teacher for not bringing her reading book back this morning. She wanted me to drive all the way to your place and get it. I told her no, and now she’s refusing to do her homework. The plumber didn’t come, you know, the guest room loo is still blocked, and I can’t find anyone to cart away that tree branch over the fence.’