Bright Air - Barry Maitland [110]
It appeared that Maddox was only really interested in Marcus’s drugs in so far as they might relate to the aspect of the whole case that most intrigued him, which was the hold that Marcus had had over his students, which he described as messianic. I wasn’t sure that was the word I would have used, but maybe he was right. I found it hard now to pin down the nature of that magnetism, like trying to describe a colour or a taste.
Marcus’s funeral was a very quiet affair. Damien was still in a coma and Lauren didn’t go, nor did Suzi. Anna and I sat on one side, the deceased’s family on the other. They comprised a cousin and his wife and their two teenage children, who were all rather amazed to have inherited the house at Castlecrag. ‘Very special, of course,’ the wife said. ‘I mean, Walter Burley Griffin and everything. But so much work to be done. And the stuff Marcus accumulated!’ I mentioned the Lloyd Rees print that Luce and I had liked, and offered to buy it, and they said I was welcome to it.
We didn’t notice Detective Sergeant Maddox at the back of the chapel until we stood up to leave.
‘He’s facing the Supreme Judgement now,’ he murmured.
‘I suppose so,’ I said.
‘Your circle of friends has shrunk mighty small, Josh. You should think hard on that.’ Then, as if changing the subject entirely, he said, ‘I was speaking to Grant Campbell on the phone the other day. He told me about your little misadventure when you were over there recently. I really think you and Anna should consider hanging up your climbing shoes. It’s a dangerous game.’
‘Yes, we’ve come to the same conclusion.’
‘Funny, it reminded me of something that came up in the Lucy Corcoran investigation.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. There’s a strange pinnacle of rock out in the sea to the south of Lord Howe, called Balls Pyramid. You must have seen it.’
‘Yes.’ I found I was holding my breath.
‘There was lots of confusing information to sort out in the days after Lucy disappeared,’ he went on. ‘People charging all over the place, rumours of sightings and false alarms. We had to decide what was relevant and what wasn’t. It’s always like that with an investigation of course, but afterwards you wonder. On the day after the accident, the helicopter from HMAS Newcastle flew over Balls Pyramid. They spotted two people who’d landed on the Pyramid from a Zodiac off one of the visiting yachts.’
‘Really? Did you find out who they were?’
‘Mm. One of them had a beard, the other red hair. Sounded like Damien Stokes and Curtis Read to me. Later on I asked them, and they said they’d wanted to check that Lucy hadn’t been washed up on Balls Pyramid. With the direction of the currents that would have been impossible, of course, and I took it for an innocent mistake. But then you wonder …’
‘What do you wonder?’
He just shrugged.
‘Did they find any sign of her?’ I asked.
He said, ‘No. Well, they couldn’t have, could they?’
That evening I met Rory in the hallway of the hotel. He regarded me quizzically over the top of his glasses, the way he no doubt considered all dubious witnesses, then asked sombrely if I’d care to join him in a tot of whisky. I didn’t, but I couldn’t think of a reason to refuse.
We sat in the little bar while he poured the Glenfiddich, then he said, ‘You’ve been to a funeral, I hear. That feller who was the tutor of those climbers, your friends.’
‘That’s right.’ Mary must have kept him informed.
‘All over now.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘No.’ He repeated, with emphasis, ‘It is all over. The coroner has accepted the police report. There’s no suspicion attached to yourself or Ms Green.’
I looked at him in astonishment.