The Astrologer's Daughter (13 page)

Wurbik grabs me by the arm and says, ‘Steady on.’

‘Do you see it?’ I murmur helplessly. ‘The Mariner’s Compass?’

He nods. ‘Is that what it’s called? It was one of the things I wanted to ask you—whether
she made those pillows because she saw this first, or whether it was just a coincidence.
Some New Agey thing I’m not aware of.’

‘Those pillows aren’t new,’ I say breathlessly, lurching
forward again in the direction
of the small shopkeeper whose expression is now concerned, rather than welcoming.
‘She hasn’t worked on anything like them, all the time we’ve been living here. It’s
just an old design. People have been making them for centuries, Mum said.’

Wurbik and I come up to the counter and I see the black book set neatly to one side,
its spine tantalisingly out of view, mottled, unevenly cut pages facing me.

‘R. Preston?’ I query, my voice sharpened by a weird anxiety I can’t name. ‘Mr Preston?’

The old man is shorter than I am; his grey skin, with a sweaty sheen to it, slack
over his facial bones. I can see his flaking scalp straight through his sparse white
comb-over.

The old man nods. ‘Call me Robert,’ he says huskily, spittle shining at the corners
of his mouth. ‘And you must be Avicenna.’

He hesitates next, as if he’d like to shake my hand, but I take an infinitesimal
step back and his own hands drop flat onto the white blotter I recognise from this
morning. ‘I’m very sorry,’ he says slowly, perspiration shining old gold under the
light overhead. ‘If I can help in any way?’

The act of speaking makes him cough and cough.

‘If you could show her the entry?’ Wurbik queries after the man has stopped dabbing
at his face with the back of one shaky hand. ‘She might be able to explain it to
me in, ah, layman’s terms.’

I glance sideways at Wurbik as the old man brings up a blue, leather-bound journal
from under the countertop. He turns to a page marked with a gold ribbon and I see
it’s some kind of ledger, filled with book-keeping entries in blue fountain pen,
flowing copperplate handwriting.

‘Here it is,’ Robert Preston says, frowning. ‘It’s in my hand, certainly, but I can’t
understand how I would have sold her that particular one. If—as you say—she was a
professional astrologer, this one would have been nigh well useless to her. It’s
a bit of a mystery. I’m sorry, but I don’t recall…’ The rest of his sentence is cut
off by a fit of coughing.

The entry says, as far as I can make out:

Sold—the Kairwan-school (mistake) Astrolabe.
$2200 (excl. GST).

‘Mum bought an
astrolabe
?’ I exclaim. She’d shown me an encyclopaedia entry once,
years ago, of what an astrolabe was, and what it could do. Used for determining latitude
on land, it was essentially some kind of manual calculator or
star taker
; that was
literally what it meant. If you knew how to read it, the thing you held in your hand
could predict the positions of celestial bodies: determine time, latitude, the future.
We’d never been able to afford one.

I explain all that to Wurbik as Preston comes around his counter to fetch one out
of the front window for us to
look at. It’s made of brass: a flat, disc-like thing
on a sturdy fob chain, slightly bigger than my palm. It looks kind of like a manually
manipulated compass—the kind that shows magnetic north, not Mum’s kind, with the
arms—with a rotating bar or ruler in the centre that moves over an ornately designed,
stylised map of what looks like an ecliptic plane. With a pointer finger misshapen
by terrible arthritis, Preston shows us how the map itself can be rotated over an
underlying plate engraved with clusters of circles, like a web.

Layers on layers; all moving and circling. I see immediately the elegance of it,
the genius. How, years before computers were invented, you could use one to take
the measure of your place in the universe, provided the map, and the pointers, reflected
your slice of the horizon.

‘She’s always wanted one,’ I say aloud, tentatively touching the face of the thing
Preston is holding out to us. It swings a little on its chain, when I push it. It’s
surprisingly heavy for its size.

‘But the one she purchased was useless,’ Preston wheezes, laying the astrolabe flat
on the white blotter. He peers over his glasses at it. ‘It was never properly assembled.
I mean, the
tympan
’—he points at the flat plate with etched circles on it that lies
beneath the two moving layers—‘is of no known azimuth or altitude. The celestial
sphere it represents certainly doesn’t correspond
to
our
horizon. And the stars that
are the subject of the pointers on the
rete
are completely unrecognisable, at least
to me…’

Preston twirls the ornate upper layer of metal that lies beneath the movable ruler-like
arm. ‘I bought it cheap out of a private collection, on that basis: that it was some
kind of elaborate 18th-century fake. It’s certainly old, but almost a
joke
astrolabe.
A mistake. That’s what I called it, you see here?’ He points again at the journal
entry, from about a month back. ‘It’s Tunisian in origin—of the Kairwan school—cast
metal, antique, rare; but a joke, nevertheless. Just someone’s interpretation of
a sky I have never seen. Probably worthless but, because of its age, and the delicacy
of its manufacture…’

Wurbik thanks Preston for his time and the old man nods, clearing his throat before
saying, ‘Any time, Detective, any time. If I can be of any further assistance…’

The old man starts turning off the lights as we head back towards the door, but I
stop and turn, remembering the tall man in black with the gleaming hair and skin
like marble, who was reading the old book that still sits to one side of the blotter.
There’s no giant now, though the book’s here, it’s as solid as I am. If I don’t ask,
I will never know.

‘Do you have any assistants, Mr Preston,’ I call out, ‘who might have seen my mum
or maybe talked to her? You don’t remember selling her that astrolabe, but there
was a man here this morning…’ I describe him, and it’s Robert Preston’s turn to look
startled. I see his right hand pause over the book beside the blotter, then come
to rest protectively on it.

He shakes his head. ‘No, it’s just me these days. It’s not a going concern of much
consequence, you understand,’ he rasps. ‘And since I started my last course of treatment,
well…’ He shrugs.

Baffled, I point at the book under his palm. ‘But he was reading
that
book,’ I say.
‘And then he turned and left by the back door.’ I indicate a spot to the left of
the bookcase, unable now to spot the egress through the dim of the shop.

The old man looks down sharply at the leather-bound book and turns it over. ‘
This
book?’ he queries, again surprised. ‘I confess I’ve been dipping into it lately,
as I’ve been much…preoccupied with the things it speaks of: death, time, love, God.’

I feel a cold trickle down my spine as he murmurs, ‘Donne’s
Songs and Sonnets
of
1635. A rare edition, hand-cut pages; I would never dream of selling it or letting
anyone handle it. You must be mistaken,’ he adds, patting the shelving behind him
with pale and twisted fingers that almost shine in the gloom. ‘There’s no back door
here; never was. These are handmade shelves; solid jarrah. I had them put in back
in 1978; cost me almost as much as my car in those days. Behind them? There’s a wall
of
rendered double brick. And behind that? A block of flats, some trendy warehouse
conversion. The side door’—he points to a spot just behind my right shoulder—‘leads
to Boundary Lane. It’s where I park…’

His voice trails off, baffled, and turns into coughing that sounds draining, fatal.
I reach out blindly to Wurbik, who I’m sure can feel strong tremors in the hand that’s
resting on his sleeve.

‘Thanks again!’ the detective calls out as the door with the leg bone for a handle
swings shut behind us.

14

‘What was
that
all about?’ Wurbik says as he steers the car back into Exhibition
Street.

We’re only minutes from home, so I babble through my recollections of the morning.
‘I know what I saw,’ I insist fiercely. ‘He had to have been at least seven feet
tall. He was standing there like you’re sitting there, reading that black book. Then
he disappeared through a
wall
.’

‘Grief does strange things to people,’ Wurbik mutters, firing up the siren long enough
for us to get past a turning bus.

‘I know what I saw,’ I repeat numbly. ‘He was real. He looked at me and he
shook
his head
.’

Wurbik stops the car outside my building in a
No
Standing
zone, because he can, and
I suddenly remember the word Mum played:
always
. Thinking about it again sends a
shiver straight across the skin of my belly and I clutch at it as if I have just
been knifed. Eagerly, I hold up my mobile to Wurbik’s scrutiny. He peers intently
at the screen, then pulls his notebook out of a side pocket in the car door, jotting
down the word; the time and date it was sent.

‘I passed on my turn,’ I say shakily, ‘in the hope that she’d play something back
straight away, but she didn’t.’

‘It could be a spasm in the system,’ Wurbik says cautiously, handing my mobile back.
‘Word was maybe sent a lot earlier, but it came through on delay. My wife plays this,’
he adds, sounding resigned. ‘Gets locked out all the time; up to a day, even two.
She’s always getting invited to play phantom games with strangers who resign without
making a single move, days later. Drives her bananas. The system seems to just, I
dunno, generate things.’

But he can see the whites of my eyes, feel my desperation, and says hastily, ‘But
we’ll double, triple check, okay? It’s important, and I’m glad you told me. But it’ll
depend on where the server is. If it’s run out of another jurisdiction we’ll have
trouble getting a straight answer. But someone will be on it right away.’

I nod, shoving my phone back into the pack at my feet. ‘Well, thanks for the lift.
Saved me walking.’

I’m pulling on the car door with fingers that won’t work
properly when Wurbik says
from behind me, ‘They’re organising a line search for tomorrow, Avicenna. Nothing
definite yet, but I’ll call you the second we know anything.’

I turn back to face him. ‘That’s the update?’ I whisper.

He nods, his eyes never leaving mine. ‘Mount Warning National Park.’

I look at him blankly. Never heard of it; never been there. I would remember, I know
I would.

‘It’s in New South Wales, near the Queensland border. They’ll start at first light.
Her phone goes offline inside its boundaries just before 9pm on the Friday. Your
dad, you know, the anniversary of the fire, would have been the Saturday. But if
the place had any special significance to her, we’re struggling to find it. She was’—he
stares out the windscreen for a second, then back at me—‘a long way from home. That’s
all I want to say at this point. I’ll tell you more when I know more.’

I do the math like I’m standing underwater with concrete shoes on.

Friday was three days ago. Although it was sent on Saturday—
the anniversary of the
fire?
—I saw her word
today
. Any way you look at it, by the time it reached me, the
word was already a lie.

It didn’t mean
always
, as in
love always, be home soon.

It meant
gone for always
,
dead for always
.

I find myself shrieking, pounding on Wurbik’s chest.
‘You need to work on your
delivery
! Your delivery
sucks
!’

Then I slam my way out of his neon-bright car and into my building, a raging, noisy,
tearful bull, blundering up the stairs in the dim afternoon light, bouncing off the
turns and railings like a pinball. I don’t notice the young man leaning against the
wall outside my front door until I’m almost on top of him. But the sight of him chokes
me silent. I stare at him appalled, face smeared, tears still clumping my eyelashes
together, as he pushes off the wall, crossing his arms like the explanation I’ve
got for him had better be
good
.

He is honestly…breathtaking. I see that right away. It’s unavoidable, how good-looking
he is, like a hand seizing you around the throat.

My gaze snaps away from his face, then back again. I can hardly stand to look at
him, having to take tiny, incredulous, up-from-under-the-eyelashes peeks. People
like this actually
exist
? It’s an insult to the rest of us.

The guy is tall, and built along these perfect lines. Early twenties, I’m guessing.
Dark-blond, tousled, collar-length waves, great shoulders, great bones; slim-fit
jeans with torn knees under a dark-grey flannel shirt open at the collar and rolled
up tight at the elbows to reveal forearms corded with veins and lean muscles. Artfully
maintained two-day growth shadows his jawline and he wears a shark tooth pendant
around his neck. A leather satchel
with a black jacket and grey-toned scarf draped
over it sits near one boot-shod foot.

I blink as the stranger begins moving towards me with a languor that doesn’t quite
match the fury in his dark eyes. I figure he must have blundered his way into my
stairwell by mistake until he demands harshly, ‘Who are
you
? Where’s Joanne?’

A sneer curls his beautiful mouth as he looks me up and down, his eyes narrowing
momentarily on my scars. ‘She told me to come back today for my
reading
, so I came,
preparing to be
read
to, and no one was here. Do you know how long I’ve
waited
?’

An awful thought is forming.

Ish Hee-yoooooo
.

I’d completely forgotten about him. What had I promised him the other night, to make
him go away? My hands rise up to my face in horror and I shrink back in the direction
of the stairs as he draws closer, snarling, ‘You’re crooks, aren’t you? Scammers?
It was
you
the other night, in the bathroom, wasn’t it? Not Joanne. I thought she
sounded funny, different.’

I’m shaking my head as he spits, ‘Where is it? My so-called “fortune”? She hasn’t
done it, has she?’ He pushes his hair back off his forehead. ‘What you people don’t
understand,’ he adds slowly, like I’m stupid, ‘is that I’m not your usual brain-dead
spiritualist who’s easy to put
off and
con
. Unless I see every cent of my money back,
I’m going to report you charlatans to the
police
.’

The shouted word reverberates, hanging there in the still, cold air of the stairwell,
and for a churning instant—when he extends his hand in accusation—I think he’s going
to touch me. Or hit me.

Then there’s a sudden clatter of shoes on the stairs and I back straight into a hard
male chest, my scream freezing in my throat as a large hand falls on my shoulder
and gives it a squeeze. I slump where I stand, recognising the tobacco-raddled scent
of the man’s aftershave.

‘The police are already here,’ Wurbik says laconically from behind me, causing the
young man to blink and straighten in surprise. ‘What seems to be the issue, Sport?’

Inside my apartment, Wurbik refuses to hand me back the bag I’d left in his car until
he has established to his own satisfaction who it is he’s looking at. But when he
realises that he’s actually in the presence of the last client named in Mum’s journal—in
the flesh—not a single muscle moves in his face. I can almost hear him thinking:
Well, that’s all of them then, come forward. Kircher, Bawden, de Crespigny.

While Wurbik’s distracted, I grab my pack out of his big callused hand and kick it
under the overhanging lip of
the kitchen bench, giving him a speaking look with one
eyebrow that says:
Thanks,
Dad
, I can take it from here with the angry hot guy
.

But Wurbik steps around me and opens my fridge door. He peers at a bowl of collapsed
and weeping tomatoes with every appearance of interest, saying casually, ‘So, Mr
de Crespigny, you haven’t seen or heard
any
of the blanket media coverage regarding
Joanne Nielsen Crowe’s disappearance last week?’

Beside me, Hugh de Crespigny visibly hesitates. ‘Disappearance?’ He looks to me for
confirmation, but a sudden wave of pain makes me look down. As the silence lengthens,
Hugh blusters, ‘I’ve been in Tasmania all week.’ He draws himself up, saying like
it matters, ‘At the opening of an
arts festival
, if you must know.’

‘They get the news in Tasmania, too, last I heard,’ Wurbik replies evenly, giving
Hugh a sideways glance, before slamming the fridge door shut. ‘But it does go some
way towards explaining why you haven’t returned a single one of our calls.’

‘Look,’ Hugh says in a more conciliatory tone, ‘I got back late on Friday and this
girl
here’—he jerks a thumb in my direction—‘promised me a reading if I came back
on
Monday
. That’s all this is. I’m here for a
reading
. And if she can’t do it, I
will settle for my money back and be on my way.’

‘He was
drunk
,’ I tell Wurbik beseechingly when his pale gaze alights on me. ‘He
came with a couple of mates while I was locked in my bathroom.’ Wurbik frowns and
I dart Hugh a venomous look, which he declines to acknowledge. ‘I was scared.’

The detective comes out of my galley kitchen and leans against the bench, studying
the younger man expressionlessly. ‘You one of the Ballanchine Road, Toorak, de Crespignys?’
he says, and I can tell by Hugh’s sudden stillness that he’s been caught off guard.
‘The judge’s boy? Justice Alaric de Crespigny? Look like him.’

The younger man’s brows draw together. ‘He’s my uncle,’ he responds warily. ‘What’s
that got to do with anything?’

‘Ah,’ is all Wurbik says.

Hugh’s eyes widen. ‘Surely, you don’t think I had anything to do with, with…’ His
voice rises incredulously.

‘Can you give a good account of your recent movements, Mr de Crespigny? We’ll be
needing a statement from you in short order,’ Wurbik says, deadpan. I know Wurbik
is shit-stirring, but it still shakes me, to hear the words, how official they sound,
the weight of them.

Hugh’s frozen expression suddenly dissolves. ‘I have been out of the
state
,’ he enunciates
bitingly. ‘Happy to give you the names of all the people I
slept
with over the course
of the last few days,
Officer
.’

For some reason known only to my traitorous subconscious, I flush a hot beet-red
right up to the roots of my hair.

‘Well, I’ll be off then,’ Wurbik replies.

Ducking forward awkwardly, I open the door, and it is Wurbik’s turn to hesitate when
he realises the furious younger man—watching us with arms crossed—is actually intending
to stay. ‘You don’t have to do it,’ Wurbik urges, his deep voice going quiet and
gravelly with concern. ‘I know Eleanor Charters made contact, asking for answers.
Lovely woman, but her judgment’s skewed. She’s desperate, tried everything, is willing
to believe. I can understand why it would make sense for you to see Elias Kircher—I
mean, Mal and I talked long and hard about it but decided there was no harm because
his chart was already done—but you don’t have to deal with
him
’—he tosses his wiry,
clipped head of grey hair in Hugh’s direction—‘or get involved in “finding” Fleur
Bawden’s murderer. The $250,000 reward Eleanor posted in 1985—that’s a quarter of
a mill in
1985 dollars
, Avicenna—has not yet been touched. The best police minds
in the country haven’t been able to pin it down to a single man. There’s just not
enough to go on and no star chart’s going to do it. You can just say
no
, okay?’

Behind me, Hugh is very still, very silent. But I’m tough enough and ugly enough,
I tell myself sternly, to handle a rich boy who wants to know how his rich life is
going to pan out; piece of cake.

Wurbik and I continue to glare at each other, both refusing to be the one to look
away first, but I feel something in my face softening. He would have made a great
dad. A scary, gun-toting, hard-arse—but great—dad. ‘I know, I know,’ I say finally,
‘if you had a kid, you would be telling her the same thing. But even if Mum’s journal
doesn’t hold any answers, I owe it to her to finish, don’t you see?
No loose ends
was one of her favourite sayings.
All loose ends
, I used to say right back. Meeting
her halfway, for a change.’ The laugh I give sounds harsh, like a bark.

Wurbik blinks. ‘Well, you call me if this clown gives you any trouble, understand?
And the duty to provide updates is an entirely mutual one, unlimited by normal office
hours. If I don’t hear from you, Avicenna, you’ll be hearing from me, right?’

Wurbik scans Hugh de Crespigny’s face again, as though searching for visible signs
of a flawed character, saying in his direction, ‘And you’ll be hearing from us,’
before pulling the door shut behind him.