‘And did you?’
Lottie Mead sneered a little. She was an unappealing woman. ‘You don’t know my husband. Of course I did, and she was dead a few days later.’
‘Did he tell you he was going to have her killed?’
‘He didn’t have to. He didn’t care what I thought or knew. He knows I’m scared of him.’
‘Yet you had the courage to see Janine, and now you’ve come to us.’
Lottie Mead shrugged. Ellen leaned into the gap between them. ‘We need more, Mrs Mead. You’re not making a strong case.’ She paused. ‘Forgive me for asking this, but have you and your husband been attending sex parties?’
Lottie Mead straightened in shock, which became outrage. ‘How dare you. Certainly not.’
‘Janine McQuarrie and Tessa Kane were murdered by the same man-you say under orders from your husband. The only thing we can find that links both women is the sex-party scene.’
‘No, absolutely not,’ said Lottie Mead, shaking her head violently. ‘Charlie had them shot, but not because of that!
‘What, then?’ said Challis. ‘Spit it out, for God’s sake.’
Lottie flushed. She examined her bony hands sulkily. ‘They both knew things-’ she muttered ‘-or Charlie thought they did.’ She looked up. ‘Don’t you see? I went to Janine to talk about my feelings, Charlie thought I went to her to talk about facts. That’s why he killed her. And Tessa Kane.’
‘What facts?’
Lottie Mead was absorbed with her hands again. ‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘I think it does,’ said Ellen harshly. ‘We will talk to your husband eventually-we’ll have to-but we’ve also talked to other husbands just like him, who’d been challenged by Mrs McQuarrie. What makes your husband so special?’
Lottie Mead remained stubbornly uncommunicative, and Challis, watching her closely, realised that she was more calculating than bewildered or afraid, as though she had things to hide. The murder of Tessa Kane suddenly made sense. He remembered her file on the Meads-there had been many gaps and question marks. Had she uncovered information that she’d not yet recorded?
‘Tessa Kane was writing a story on you and your husband,’ he said. ‘Is there something you’re not telling us?’
Lottie Mead was glumly mute. They waited, watching her. The little bar fridge switched on and whirred softly. The room seemed cloying suddenly. ‘It happened a long time ago, in South Africa.’
They gazed at her without expression. ‘The apartheid era,’ she said eventually.
‘And?’
‘Me and Charlie worked for the government.’
She explained haltingly. It was a story of the interrogation, torture and summary execution of black leaders, for which her husband had displayed a certain proficiency. He’d almost been outed during the hearings of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, but friends had covered up for him. ‘It was a long time ago, everyone’s changed now, but he didn’t want it made public’
‘What was your role back then?’
‘I was in a different department,’ said Lottie Mead, not meeting their gaze.
‘Did you tell Janine McQuarrie about your husband’s past?’
‘I can’t remember.’
Challis was tiring of her evasions. ‘Did you tell Tessa Kane?’
‘No, I wouldn’t let her in the door.’
‘Did Ms Kane challenge your husband?’
‘She might have done. He doesn’t tell me anything,’ Lottie said. She paused. ‘Are you going to arrest him?’
‘We’ll talk to him,’ said Challis cautiously.
‘He’ll get away with it, he always does.’
‘We know the identities of the killers. Do the names Trevor Vyner and Nathan Gent mean anything to you?’
‘I’ve never heard of them, but Charlie was in charge of a prison before this. He would have met all types, including killers for hire.’
‘We can check,’ Challis said. He passed her photographs of Vyner and Gent. ‘You might not know the names, but do you know the faces?’
She froze over Vyner’s photograph. ‘He was at the house this afternoon, looking for Charlie!’ Her eyes danced, excited and alarmed. ‘He looked angry.’
‘What did you tell him?’
Lottie Mead put her hand to her mouth, appalled with herself. ‘I told him to come back at six!’
63
Vyner had got there around 4 p.m., the appointed hour, a little curious, a little wary, but with a buzz on, too, looking forward to this next job, and getting his $ 15,000. Curious because Lottie was normally super cautious, avoiding face-to-face contact, and wary because she was mad and dangerous, and he didn’t want to get on the wrong side of her.
A huge house with trees, deep hedges and a gravelled driveway, the tyres of his stolen Magna crunching down it with a sound that spelt status, seclusion and success. The Brisbane house, where she’d been living when he was pruning her roses, on day release from her husband’s jail-rehabilitation through gardenings-had been a lot humbler. She was ambitious, old Lottie. Charlie Mead might never have been promoted from deputy manager of the prison if the manager hadn’t encountered an armed ‘burglar’ one night. Vyner had got five grand from Lottie for that one. Then no word from her for three years, and suddenly she’d needed him again.
He parked the Magna and knocked on the heavy front door, a door weighted with significance, like the fresh, clean, crisp gravel of the driveway. Lottie answered, he offered her an old-time’s-sake grin, but she wasn’t having it. ‘You’re late.’
‘It’s a long way down here. Plus the traffic’
She peered past him at the Magna, opened her mouth, thought better of it and ushered him inside. ‘It can’t be traced to me,’ he assured her.
‘Trevor, it’s bright yellow.’
He followed her through to a sitting room, where vast leather sofas faced off across a busy Turkish rug on polished boards. A fire crackled, faintly smoky. There were African masks, shields, spears and art on all of the walls. Vyner had lived most of his life confined, personal gear at a minimum, and hated the room at first sight. ‘Who’s the target this time?’ he asked.
‘My husband.’
He was shocked. ‘Charlie?’
Uh oh, he’d set her off. Her face transformed itself in an eyeblink, from timid mouse to feral cat, and she began to pace and snarl, little fists tight. ‘After all I’ve done for him.’
‘I know,’ said Vyner commiseratively, but without a clue.
She whirled on him. ‘He’d be nothing without me, and how does he repay me? Says he’s going to dump me for someone else.’
Things made sense now. ‘Janine McQuarrie?’ Vyner asked, double-checking.
‘Who do you think?’ said Lottie. ‘And she wasn’t even a good therapist.’
‘Charlie needed therapy?’ Vyner asked. The idea amazed him.
‘Don’t be stupid. I was checking her out.’
‘Ah. So how did Charlie-’
‘He met her at the detention centre a couple of months ago. She was relieving for another therapist who had the flu.’
Vyner nodded. Why a bunch of ragheads and sand niggers should need therapy, he didn’t know.
‘I’ve been with him twenty years, and he wants to leave me for someone he’s known only a few weeks!’ Lottie said. She paused. ‘Five minutes with her and I knew she was incompetent, but love is blind, right, Trevor?’
‘Right,’ said Vyner stoutly. He looked around, locating all of the potential weapons in the room: poker, spears, vases, lamp, a wooden chair at a writing desk.
‘He actually grieved for her, as if he didn’t care I’d be hurt by that.’
Charlie had betrayed Lottie, Vyner understood that. ‘Didn’t he suspect you?’
‘Never.’
And right in front of his eyes, she reverted again to the little brown wispy mouse. ‘Right,’ he said. Then, treading carefully, he went on, ‘You could have divorced him, left him, got a good lawyer and screwed him for everything he’s got.’
‘But he would have her, and I couldn’t allow that. I had to act fast.’
‘Right.’ He watched her while she paced again. ‘How do you want to play this?’ he asked eventually. ‘Accident? Home invasion? What?’
She turned on him lashingly. ‘Accident? Like you did with Tessa Kane?’
She subsided, muttering.