Bright Air - Barry Maitland [41]
I stopped at a toyshop and bought a handheld electronic Spiderman games unit that the man assured me was perfect for a boy of six, then bought a bunch of roses and some chocolates next door, and made my way to the address Damien had given me. I parked outside, and stared at the blank front door, imagining all the pain and turmoil on the other side, and lost my nerve. I would have started up the engine and driven away again, but then I saw them approaching along the footpath, Suzi pushing the baby in a stroller with one hand and holding Thomas’s little paw with the other. It hadn’t really struck me at the funeral how like his father the boy was, with that serious, studious expression, and the same black hair. In a couple of years I expected he’d be wearing glasses just like his dad, too. I got out of the car and Suzi looked surprised, then glad. We went inside for a cup of tea, and I handed over the gifts. Thomas took to the game as his father might have to a new electron microscope, and after I’d set it up for him he sat in a corner of the room, utterly engrossed. Suzi and I chatted, mostly about London and the places she’d like to visit in Europe one day, and then I escaped. Of course I didn’t bring up any difficult issues. Sitting there, the doubts and suspicions that had been going through my head seemed simply obscene, and I came away convinced that there had to be some other explanation for what her husband had whispered before he died. I went back to the hotel and began to sift through all the material again, determined to find it.
Anna rang me that evening.
‘Did you read the schedule of items of evidence at the back of the coroner’s report?’ she asked.
‘Not really.’
‘Among Luce’s possessions on Lord Howe they found a diary. I checked with someone in the coroner’s office. Apparently it was returned to Luce’s father after the inquest closed.’
‘Hm.’
‘I think we should have a look at it.’
‘Oh look, I said before, Anna, this isn’t some detective mystery with the murderer’s name spelled out in the victim’s diary in invisible ink. If there was anything interesting in it, the police would have picked it up, surely?’
‘We won’t know until we see it. It depends what they were looking for. I’ve told Mr Corcoran that we’re connected to the research project Luce was working on, and we need to see if there was any missing data in the diary.’
‘You’ve spoken to him? But he knows you, doesn’t he?’
‘Luce and I went to boarding school together in Sydney, but I only ever met him once, and again briefly at the funeral. He won’t know what subjects I was doing at uni. He was all right when I called him. Bit cautious, but all right. He said he’ll be available tomorrow, and I’ve arranged to take the day off. Can you make it? If not I’ll go on my own.’
‘No, it’s okay, I’ll come. I’ll borrow the car.’ Then I told her about my lunch with Damien, and visiting Suzi.
‘He’s right,’ she said finally. ‘I don’t want to do anything that will make things worse for her. But I want to know, Josh. I want to know what happened.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Me too.’
I followed the old Great Western Highway early the next morning, so that I could pass Ambler’s Pies. It was a pet shop now and I hardly recognised the place, the front rebuilt and the pie removed from the roof. I could see that a giant meat pie might not be the most appropriate symbol for a pet shop, but I felt sad, and wondered what had happened to it. Dad and Pam had long gone, too, their hard-earned cash reinvested in an allocated pension fund and a Winnebago Explorer motor-home, in which they were now roaming the continent with all the other grey nomads.
I turned off into Blacktown, following the directions Anna had given me, and found her waiting at her front door. At least she didn’t live in the nursing home, but in a flat nearby. She grinned hello as she got in the car, and I felt a touch of warmth at seeing her again. She was wearing a dark green shell jacket that