Killer Twist (Ghostwriter Mystery 1) Read online

Chapter 22: Interviewing Ghosts

  Zoe Callahan was a short, pudgy woman with thinning gray hair and an enormous, warm smile that lit her wrinkled face up like a well-worn Christmas tree when she opened her door. She would have been well into her 80s, her spirit clearly not diminished with age.

  ‘I was hoping you’d arrive soon!’ she exclaimed as she ushered Roxy through the doorway and into her fern-filled living room. Even her wallpaper was decorated in ferns, fading green fronds that gave a cluttered, jungle-like effect. ‘I’ve just put a pot of tea on and the scones are still warm.’

  Roxy took a seat by the window and looked around at the lively room, pot plants and picture frames battling for space between bright pillows and ornaments and dozens and dozens of Thank You cards, most adorned with pictures of stunned babies and storks.

  ‘I’ve kept every one,’ the midwife boasted as she placed the tea things on a spare bench to one side. ‘They’re from my mums and dads. I like to think of them as satisfied customers.’

  ‘You delivered their children?’

  ‘Every single one successfully. Well, if truth be told, there was Margie Dawson’s twins, but they were doomed long before I got involved. And young Ginny. Well, she never called me ’til too late, see? Can’t be helped. But other than them, my strike rate is perfect,’ and she knocked loudly on the table below her.

  ‘You still practice?’

  ‘Ahhh, not really, dear, just look in on a few from time to time is all. Offer my ten pence worth. Now, how do you have your tea?’

  When they had their fill and swapped more than enough small talk for Roxy’s liking, she steered the conversation to Beattie Musgrave, formerly Beatrice Alexander. The older woman’s smile slumped a little.

  ‘Yes, well, it seems I’ve led you on a bit of a wild goose chase. I knew her name rang a bell but now that I’ve had some time to look through my files, I realize that Agnetha worked with her, not me.’

  Roxy couldn’t disguise the disappointment in her voice. ‘I was afraid of that. You don’t know where I can find Agnetha do you?’

  Zoe shook her head uncertainly. ‘She hasn’t been around for years. Last time I saw her was back in the ’90s ... looking the worse for wear I might say. Alcohol, I believe.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes, she had a pretty bad accident, can’t recall now what happened, but never quite got over it. Last I heard, she’d moved down south.’

  ‘Could you be mistaken? Could any other midwives have worked with Beattie at the time?’

  ‘Oh no dear, we were the only two back then. Now, of course, every hippie calls herself a midwife. But back then it was just Aggie and me. ’Course there was a steady stream of young doctors, most of them just out of school and pretty wide eyed, not much use when it came to the crunch if truth be told. One of them even fainted on me if you can believe that!’ She hooted with laughter. ‘So Aggie and I did most of the hard work. And then, after Aggie shot off, it was just me for the next 10 years. Oh those were good years.’

  ‘Can you tell me anything about Beattie then? Did you know her at all?’

  Zoe shook her head again. ‘No, it was Frankie we all knew. If my memory serves me correctly, Beatrice was a toffee-nosed young lassie who thought she was too good for the likes of us, and Frankie for that matter. I wondered why he was with her. Then, of course, when I heard about the baby, well, that explained everything.’

  ‘Why didn’t they get married, do you know?’

  ‘I suspect he wasn’t good enough for her. She cleared out just as soon as the baby was born. Broke his heart.’

  ‘And any idea what happened to the baby?’ It was a crucial question but Zoe was already shaking her head. Then she paused.

  ‘Oh dear, I wonder ... oh, yes, you never know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, Aggie might have kept her own records, like I done.’

  ‘Yes, but if she’s disappeared ...’

  ‘Yeah but her daughter still lives in the old house. Perhaps you can ask her?’

  Roxy’s eyes lit up.

  ‘Not a great relationship I believe,’ Zoe was saying, ‘and, as far as gossip goes, lost touch with each other a long time ago. That’s why, if she’s still hoarding the old woman’s things, I bet she won’t mind you going through them.’

  Not only did Agnetha Frickensburg’s daughter not mind the intrusion, she even helped Roxy sort through her mother’s boxes for the relevant files. They were piled on top of each other in one half of an unused garage and had clearly not been touched in years, thick dust, cockroach droppings and spider webs shrouding the lot, like time’s own seal.

  ‘I’ve been meaning to get rid of these forever,’ Lana said softly, shaking dust off several boxes and opening them carefully, as if terrified of what she might discover. Lana was in her mid to late 40s, overweight and mumsy looking with an apron over a floral dress and floury handprints across the lot, proof that she’d recently been baking. She worked part-time as a childcare teacher, she told Roxy, and had a brood of her own. Throughout her house were oversized photos of that brood, all crowding happily around their Mother Hen. ‘I guess I always secretly hoped she’d come back,’ Lana was saying and she stopped suddenly, tears springing to her eyes. Roxy could almost see the giant lump forming in her throat.

  ‘When did you last see your mum?’

  ‘About 16 years ago. Christmas. She was drunk ... was drunk all the time back then.’ Lana laughed a dry chortle that belied her saddened heart. ‘I’d just had my third.’ She indicated one of the photos of beaming children, as though her whole life was measured in births.

  ‘And you haven’t heard from your mum since?’

  ‘Oh, a postcard on the odd birthday. That’s about it. We… we never really got on too well, you know? She had me quite late, and was always more interested in everyone else’s kids than her own. Or mine for that matter.’ She reached a hand up to still the tears that were now flowing from her eyes. ‘The worst thing is not knowing if she’s alive or dead. If only I knew she was okay.’

  Roxy shot her a warm smile and looked away as Lana reached for a tissue and blew her nose. It seemed like bad luck had befallen everyone whoever came in contact with Beatrice Musgrave, from Frank O’Brien to her grandson Fabian, and now the woman who had brought Beattie’s elusive daughter into the world, the midwife. They continued searching through the boxes for almost an hour when Lana let out a modest squeal of delight.

  ‘I think I may have found it!’

  She handed Roxy a folder marked with the relevant date and the writer took it excitedly. Inside, the midwife had penned the names of 11 clients for that year including a ‘Beatrice Alexander’ listed as ‘birth mother’. There was no birth father named but there were details of the adoptive parents. Roxy could have leapt for joy. She copied down the words, ‘Johnson, Limrock Lane’.

  ‘You are an absolute champion, Lana! Now, tell me, where can I find Limrock Lane?’

  The large block of land mocked Roxy with its emptiness. Not even the foundations of the old Johnson house remained, just a bleak patch of grass struggling to grow, with an old camphor laurel on one side and a ramshackle fence on the other. Roxy stood on the pavement and sighed. Nothing had been easy in this search and it was obviously not about to start now.

  ‘Ya lookin’ for somethin’?’ came a scratchy voice behind her and Roxy swiveled around to find an elderly man standing there, staring expectantly towards her. He looked straight out of the 1950s in a bowling shirt, cream trousers and a small cane hat. Olie would be green with envy.

  ‘Yes. I was looking for the Johnson house,’ she said.

  ‘It’s gone.’

  ‘I can see that. Any idea where they moved to?’

  ‘Yep. Six feet under.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  The old man let out a weary sigh. ‘They died love, bad car accident ’bout 20 years back. What ya want with ’em anyway?’

  ‘Just looking them up for an old fr
iend. My name’s Roxy Parker.’

  ‘Urrr,’ he grunted and then produced a skinny hand for her to shake. ‘I’m Cyril from next door. Wanna cuppa?’

  Coffee was the last thing Roxy needed, her brain so wired by yet another near miss, but she nodded her head anyway and followed him into the house next door. It was as old-fashioned as its owner, with barely a mod-con in sight. Roxy sat down in a brown vinyl sofa while the old man made their coffee, filtering freshly ground beans through a vintage steel Atomic coffee maker. It smelled divine and her spirits picked up. Perhaps someone in Macksland could make a decent cuppa.

  ‘They were real quiet types, you know,’ he was saying, calling out from above the hissing on the stove. ‘Kept to themselves a lot. Angus was a mechanic, owned a car yard down off Main. She did quite a bit for the local charities, you know. We used to get along well, Joyce and me. She had trouble sleepin’, too, so we’d sit out the back and yak for a while. I kinda liked them in their own way. ’Cept for that horrible daughter of course.’

  Roxy’s stomach fluttered a little but it was a casual voice that said, ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yeah, Marian. A right little brat. Always gettin’ into trouble, shopliftin’ and stealin’ cars.’

  Marian Johnson, Roxy thought excitedly, I finally have a name. As the old man handed her a cup of the strong, delicious brew, she said, ‘Perhaps Marian had some issues to deal with,’ and, noticing the look of confusion on his face, quickly added, ‘You know, being adopted and all.’

  ‘Oh, yeah, I see.’ He sat down across from her and studied his coffee. ‘Not an excuse if you aks me.’

  She took a long, joyous sip. ‘That is wonderful, thank you! Tell me, you don’t happen to know where Marian is now, do you?’

  ‘Wouldn’t wanna know. My guess is jail. Why?’ He shifted in his chair and eyed her strangely. ‘What ya really up to? What ya want with them? You’re not really lookin’ them up for an old family friend are ya?’

  Roxy hesitated before saying, ‘I’m a journalist.’ The man smiled smugly at himself. He thought as much. He clucked his false teeth noisily and indicated for her to continue. ‘I’m doing a piece on a wealthy Sydney woman called Beatrice Musgrave who recently died. I believe she may have been the birth mother of Marian Johnson.’

  He cackled to himself. ‘Manic Marian Johnson come from good stock you say? Now that’s one for the books!’

  ‘Well, I’m not 100 percent sure. You don’t happen to have a photo of Marian do you?’

  The man rubbed one leathery hand slowly over his chin thoughtfully for a few seconds and then, placing his cup on the kidney-shaped coffee table in front of him, struggled to his feet and wandered over to a side cabinet in which at least 10 photo albums were stored. ‘You know, I probably do,’ he said, grabbing five and handing two of them to Roxy. ‘’Ave a look through them and see if you can’t spot ’em.’

  ‘Well, I don’t really know what I’m looking for—’

  ‘Family shot, two kids, one in a wheelchair. Can’t miss it.’

  ‘Wheelchair?’ Roxy’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Yeah, the oldest daughter was a cripple. You didn’t know that?’

  Roxy shook her head, opened the album and began scanning the pages. Midway through the second album she spotted the shot he had mentioned and felt a pang of excitement. She held it up to the light. It was in black and white, badly exposed and tattered around the corners where time had played its hand. The snapshot had been taken on a stretch of lawn in front of an old wooden house and, judging from the small camphor laurel on one side, Roxy guessed it had been taken right next door before the house had been torn down. There were four people in the photo including a middle-aged couple who must have been Marian’s adoptive parents, Joyce and Angus Johnson. They were both smiling meekly into the camera, dressed in what looked like their Sunday-best: he in long socks, shorts and a short-sleeved business shirt, she in a formless spotted frock with a small hat over curly short hair. Beside them, a young girl of perhaps 15 or 16, was hunched over in a wheelchair. She had straight lightly colored hair and was not looking at the camera, but towards her parents with what seemed like a smile of delight. Behind her stood another girl. She looked about the same age as the disabled girl but she was standing with her hands on her hips, half concealed by the wheelchair, and she wasn’t smiling so much as scowling towards the camera, mocking the photographer. Her hair was darker than her sibling and curly and she had thick, bushy eyebrows across a plane, angular shaped face. Roxy had seen that face before but it was the girl in the wheelchair who sparked her attention.

  ‘What’s her name?’ Roxy asked the old man and he thought for a few minutes. ‘Can’t quite remember, love. It was a long time ago. Sounded like a flower, I think. Suited her, I thought. She was a sweetie.’

  ‘Lotus?’

  ‘Nah, that’s not it ...’

  ‘Lilly?’

  ‘Lilly! That’s right. Lillian!’

  Roxy beamed. The jigsaw was starting to come together. ‘If I promise to return this photo to you in one piece, can I borrow it for a bit?’

  He shrugged. ‘Can’t see why not. Ya gonna put it in ya story?’

  ‘Most likely, yes.’

  ‘Gonna mention me?’

  Roxy laughed. ‘I’ll see what I can do!’

  He was already jotting down his name and details for her. ‘It’d be good to see my name in print. I’ve never made it in print before. Once I got interviewed by the RSL Club’s newsletter but they never used it. Would love to see me name in print.’

  Roxy took the paper he was handing her and, along with the photo, slipped it into her handbag. ‘Well I’ll try my best,’ she told him, shaking his hand warmly. ‘You’ve been an enormous help.’

  ‘Ya welcome, love.’

  ‘Just one thing?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Was it definitely Marian, the able-bodied one who was adopted?’ He looked at her strangely so she added, ‘It couldn’t have been Lillian, could it?’

  ‘God no. Who’d wanta adopt a retarded kid?’

  Roxy cringed at his insensitivity. Small towns often bred small minds and she wasn’t about to change that. When she got back to her car she took the picture out again and stared at it for some time in the broad daylight. She trusted her memory implicitly and knew she had seen the face of the disabled girl before.

  She had a fairly good idea who the other girl was, too.

  Back at the hotel Roxy made three final calls. The first was to book a flight back to Sydney on the last plane out that afternoon, and the second went through to Agnetha Frickensburg’s daughter, Lana.

  ‘I forgot to ask you something when I stopped over,’ she said when Lana answered. ‘And this may sound strange, but it’s very important. Did your mum happen to be missing any fingers?’

  Lana seemed unconcerned by the question. ‘Oh yes. That was the whole problem. She lost three of the fingers from her right hand in a car accident a few years before she disappeared. She could still work okay—she was left-handed—but it seemed to scare a lot of young mothers away. They didn’t want her bad luck to rub off on to them, I suppose.’

  Roxy felt a brief moment of triumph before her heart dropped. Lana deserved to know what had happened to her mother, but she wasn’t the right person to tell her. After she hung up she dialed Police Chief Butler.

  ‘You still around?’ he asked jovially enough.

  ‘Hey, I’m on the 6 o’clock flight,’ she promised. ‘But I think I might know what happened to Lana Miles’ mum, Agnetha Frickensburg.’

  Chief Butler paused trying to connect the names for some seconds. ‘Oh, the missing midwife?’ he said at last. ‘I remember now. She took off a long time ago. Had her daughter worried sick. Still drops in here every now and then, asks us if we’ve heard anything.’

  ‘Well I think she went to Sydney. If you call the police chief at Rushcutters Bay, I think you’ll find they have a Jane Doe who fits her description.’

&n
bsp; The lights of Sydney’s CBD sparkled on the horizon as the plane began its descent and Roxy let out a long sigh of relief. The country might be slower and cleaner, she thought as she fastened her seatbelt happily, but Sydney was the place where she felt most at home. She could get lost in Sydney, that’s why she loved it.

  When she got home, she checked all her messages and was surprised to find there wasn’t one from Max. ‘Fine,’ she said aloud. ‘We both need some distance.’ Yet she couldn’t help feeling a stab of disappointment. It was Thursday night after all. Roxy replayed her messages. Maria had called with an update on some work she had on offer and there were two rather panicked messages from her agent, Oliver. ‘Where the hell are you?’ he demanded. ‘I’m worried sick! Call me!’

  She stepped out of her clothes and slipped into her bathroom for a long soak in some bath salts. She was exhilarated now, feeling closer than ever to solving Beattie’s baffling murder, but she needed to get her head together first, and a long, hot bath just might help. As the tap gently streamed with warm water and the salts worked their magic on her weary limbs, Roxy slipped into a sense of calm. She felt her mind go blank and went with it, not trying to steer her thoughts in any specific direction.

  It was only later, once she had eaten something and poured herself a generous glass of Merlot, that she allowed herself to return to the case. With the file of Heather Jackson in hand, she sat on the sofa and began flicking through for recent pictures of the famous artist. Once located, she couldn’t help smiling. Heather Jackson was now older, blonder and definitely more sculptured, but there was no mistaking those ice-cold eyes. They were the same eyes that scowled out at her from a tattered family snapshot taken on Limrock Lane all those years ago. They were the eyes of Marian Johnson.