The Silent Inheritance Read online

  About The Silent Inheritance

  Sarah Carter, mother of twelve-year-old Marni, is raising her daughter alone in a small granny flat in suburban Melbourne. A serial killer, dubbed ‘The Freeway Killer’, is headline news and when Marni’s classmate is abducted from the mall where Sarah and Marni shop, their city no longer feels safe.

  Detective Ross Hunter’s investigation into the abduction leads him to dead ends – until an unrelated incident sends him to the door of Freddy Adam-Jones, an unscrupulous barrister, who is guarding a secret that could ruin his life.

  When an unexpected windfall changes the lives of Sarah and Marni, their sudden wealth opens doors long closed, and threatens to cast light on history better left buried.

  What might Sarah’s past reveal? What is her connection to Freddy? And can Detective Ross Hunter discover the link in time to save a young girl’s life?

  Joy

  Dettman

  The Silent

  Inheritance

  Contents

  Cover

  About The Silent Inheritance

  Dedication

  Lupine

  Saint Valentine’s Day

  The Summons

  Peach-pink Drapes

  The Wolf

  Finding Monica

  That Monday

  The Girl with the Fancy Mobile

  Home Videos

  That Tuesday

  The Wanting

  Playing Millionaire

  Appeasement and Aggravation

  Friday 15 March

  Get Yourself Home

  The Devil Friday

  Winners and Losers

  The Cover-up

  Missing

  Blind

  The Phone Call

  The Howl

  Sunday Morning

  Monday 25 March

  Maureen Crow

  A Clumsy Disposal

  The Cake Tin

  Do You Know This Man

  The Break

  Friday 5 April

  The Commodore

  Backpacks

  The House

  Heat

  Padlocks

  Tombstones

  The Clarks

  Above the World

  The Long Night

  Renovators Opportunity

  For Sale

  The Sale

  Dave and Pop

  Chains

  Ecosystem

  Sunday Morning

  A Morning Date

  Loss and Gain

  The Farm

  Lemon Segments

  Home Beautiful

  A Sturdy Model

  Such is Life

  About Joy Dettman

  Also by Joy Dettman

  Copyright page

  For those who allowed me to interrogate them,

  Pete, Shani, Don, Rob, Donna and Karli ...

  LUPINE

  Once upon a time there was a big bad wolf, quite charming and disarming.

  Born of a dog and a holy hog, he had appetites alarming.

  A mutant seed, he feeds his greed.

  Christmas barely behind him with its tinsel and baubles, Easter seven weeks away, but hot cross buns already on sale at the supermarket, twelve for the price of six. They were not the hot cross buns of his boyhood, fresh from the baker’s oven, but an improved twenty-first-century variety, vacuum sealed, guaranteed to remain mould free for a month, or six, or maybe twelve.

  He picked up a packaged dozen, seeking a use-by date. It was there, or the best-before date was there, in print he needed to squint to see. He smiled, tossed the buns back to the display table and continued on to the checkout.

  He’d queued at an ATM today, then queued at the post office to pay a bill. Now he queued at the checkout, just another obedient sheep, waiting to be counted.

  ‘Baaa,’ he mouthed to big brother’s hidden camera. They were everywhere, watching every move. No man, woman or child would pass through this place today and not be trapped on security video. The assistant bagging, then waiting patiently for an elderly customer to swipe her card, to enter her PIN, knew big brother was watching – or her boss. A picture of patience – and what was the difference between one sheep and the next?

  ‘Have a good day,’ she said as she turned to the next sheep in the run.

  The woman ahead shuffled forward to begin the unloading of her trolley; the woman queuing behind him, over-eager to get ahead, nudged him with hers. He didn’t move, or not until there was space on the conveyer belt to place his supermarket-supplied basket down then take his time unloading it.

  He hoped to annoy the sheep counter by offering two green environmentally friendly shopping bags. They preferred to use plastic, but she filled his bags, asked if he had a rewards card.

  ‘My reward will come in heaven,’ he said, and handed her a fifty.

  There may come a day when cash was no longer acceptable, but perhaps not in his lifetime.

  The sheep counter handed him both receipt and change, an annoyance to him each time they did that, so he held up the traffic until he’d sorted one from the other, until he’d put his change into his wallet.

  ‘Have a good day,’ she said.

  ‘And you,’ he said, then, taking up his purchases, he left the store.

  The tinkling music of an infants’ carousel drew him. He stood watching it turn in its slow circles, three infants riding on colourful fibreglass mounts.

  And he saw her, his chubby-limbed Angie, a pink plastic bow in her pale white hair.

  The carousel turned, but he stood on until she again came into view. Her features were not Angie’s, only her hair and baby-fat limbs, her little white sandals. He smiled and wiggled his fingers in a wave, then stepped nearer, stepped close enough for her helpless circling to offer him the scent of her baby sweetness.

  She didn’t return his smile or his wave, but clenched her fat little thighs, her eyes searching for Mummy.

  Mummy was leaning on the handles of an empty stroller, which would not be empty long. She was young, her belly fruitful.

  Again the infant came into view, again he wiggled his fingers, and this time was rewarded with a full-bodied wail which moved fruitful Mummy to her offspring’s side to seek the source of her fear.

  The very young were on familiar terms with terror. Still so close to their time in that place before the light, they remembered old Lupine’s hot breath on their naked skin, remembered the sound of his teeth snap-snapping at their pretty pink heels. Babies had no cause to fear him. He may be waiting out there somewhere in her future, but she was safe today.

  He smiled when Mummy turned his way. Seeing no threat to her young, she returned his smile, but he’d dallied long enough for the shopping bags to grow heavy and, swapping them from his left hand to his right, he walked towards the escalator.

  And he saw her, as she might be today, a long-legged gazelle of a girl, clad in her high school uniform, schoolbag over her shoulder. That sexless uniform failing to camouflage her perfection, she stole his breath.

  He moved so she might pass close by, and when she did, a slight swing of his shopping bag nudged her, just enough to make her turn her face. He wanted to see her face.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said, and she was Angie, but gone fast, up the escalator, unaware that his eyes followed each swing of her skirt, each sway of her long clean hair. Watched her until she became lost in the morass of sweating humanity, until a piercing infant scream claimed his attention, and his was not the only head to turn.

  Only chubby rider with her pink plastic bow, fighting fruitful Mummy’s attempt to buckle her into the stroller, fighting so hard she lost her pink bow, which skidded across the polished tiled floor to his feet. Embarrassed Mummy didn’t see where i
t fell. Eager to place distance between her screamer and the disapproving stares, she walked away from the bow. He retrieved it. A pretty thing with silver and gold sparkles trapped within the pink plastic. Made in China, no doubt. Everything else was.

  The falderal in his hand, his grip on it strong enough for the points of its bow to punish his palm, he stood again to watch the carousel turn, its repetitious melody now urging on two male bronco-busting infants, obvious brothers, ugly little toads. He had no interest in infants of his own sex, so he went on his way, that plastic bow a promise in his hand.

  SAINT VALENTINE’S DAY

  Five days a week Sarah Carter boarded the 7.40 train at Blackburn Station, opened her current library book and read her way into the city. Not today. An oversized male boarded at Box Hill and sat beside her. She used up little space. He required a larger share of that seat, and his newspaper required more, so she closed her book and read his newspaper, a Herald Sun, its middle pages jammed this morning with messages of undying love from Bub, Cutie and Sexi-boy.

  Only storybook love was undying. In life, it died, or the people you loved died. She read one message where Cupid shot an arrow from Rob to Sarah.

  She worked with a Robert Webb but he was a Bob, not a Rob, and her office manager, who’d developed the recent habit of placing his hand on her shoulder when he wanted her attention – a light-fingered, timid touch, which reminded her of a huge hairy huntsman spider she’d brushed from her shoulder one day in the tent. Still cringed when she recalled that tent, and the creeping touch of the huntsman spider.

  Some names slid easily from the tongue. Bob Webb did, Sarah Carter did. Other names twisted the tongue. Jacqueline Jefferson twisted it, Jillian Jones used to, though not any more. Never thought of her now. Never said her name.

  And they were almost there. She pushed her library book into a too-large tapestry shoulder bag that needed a new zip – or she needed a new bag. Maybe she’d shout herself one if she got the job.

  She deserved it. She’d worked for David Crow for twelve years and had barely missed a day. Five days a week she climbed those stairs at Museum Station, walked that same block to the same office building in Melbourne’s sun and wind and rain, and she knew every crack in the pavement and knew it would be shimmering with heat when she walked it in reverse tonight to catch the train home. Channel Seven’s weather girl had promised Melbourne a day in the mid-forties, and another total fire ban.

  Sarah had been six years old the day she’d followed her mother’s pointing finger to where the mists of distance had melded Melbourne’s tall buildings into a singular mystical grey castle shimmering in the clouds, then Daddy had turned the old green wagon’s back on that castle because Gran and Gramp’s farm was the other way. They were going to live there. They were going to stay in Gramp and Gran’s house forever, and live on honey.

  Seven when she’d sighted that grey castle again, this time through the rear windscreen of a different car. A sad sighting, that one. It meant no more farm, no more honey and baby cows with their pretty white faces, no more Gran and Gramp and warm cardigans Gran made from the sheep’s woolly coats.

  Hadn’t seen her grandparents or the farm again, or not until she was eighteen, when she’d bought herself a one-way bus ticket across the Nullarbor to that mystical castle in the sky, and got lost in its crowd. Not so mystical that day. Melbourne had been shimmering, but with heat.

  Her office building was cool, and a lift was waiting. She ran to catch it, to squeeze in with ten more, and ride it up to the fourteenth floor, her fingers crossed, hoping that today would be the day she received her summons to David Crow’s office.

  The payroll officer’s job had to be hers. She’d been acting payroll officer since Annette had to leave in a hurry. Wanted that title, Mrs Carter, Payroll/Accounts Officer. Wanted Annette’s cubbyhole office, with its window and needed the extra money that went with the job.

  *

  David Crow’s office had three windows. It was empty at nine o’clock that Thursday morning. He was battling the traffic on Monash Freeway with more on his mind than traffic. He’d got himself into a situation he had to get out of, and the only way out of it would raise greater problems than it fixed.

  He wasn’t alone. He glanced at the pale beauty at his side. She had the appearance of a vestal virgin. He knew otherwise. He’d spent the night in her bed. She had baggage too, and was older then he’d initially believed, old enough to expect commitment.

  ‘I drove in this way yesterday,’ she said. ‘The traffic was worse at eight.’

  ‘We call it the car park,’ he said.

  ‘I could get to work easier in Sydney.’

  ‘The tram stop is a five-minute walk from the house, one of my reasons for buying it.’

  ‘If you’re wearing running shoes it might take five minutes – and it takes an hour or more to get into the city, and they set off before you’re sitting down. I hate trams.’

  ‘They can be slow,’ he agreed.

  ‘Are you driving me home tonight?’

  ‘Sadly no. My appointment with Smyth is at four thirty. I could be tied up with him for over an hour.’

  ‘About the divorce?’

  That D word again. She’d shed her Yank. ‘Yes,’ he lied – or perhaps it was not a lie.

  ‘When will I see you?’

  ‘At work, my pet. All day.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘I do,’ he said, his words raising the memory of an earlier I do, in the holy Catholic church, Maureen at his side through an hour of smoke and bells. Catholics weren’t into divorce. He’d never considered divorce.

  Catholics were into separation. Maureen had found her own solicitor and they were threatening to split the company, the properties and bank accounts.

  ‘You’re so quiet this morning. What are you thinking about?’

  He reached out a manicured hand to brush her flawless face. ‘Your beauty leaves me speechless,’ he said.

  Like the Catholic marriage service, he was all smoke and bells – though not last night. She made him smoking hot. He’d burn out. He had before, and until he did, he had to … to appease the wife… and her parents. Nine twenty-five when he drove into the car park, and suggested she go up while he parked. Watched her walk behind the car, heard the click-click of her heels on concrete, saw the sway of her hair, and knew he had to find a way to keep this one, and keep the business intact.

  *

  Three streets south of Crow’s office, Frederick Adam-Jones, of Ainsworth, Adam-Jones and Smyth, punched the down button then waited for the lift to trundle him to the ground floor.

  A man of substance, Frederick; his voice had substance, his profession gave him substance, as did his most recent acquisition, a red Ferrari. He owned a significant property in Camberwell and was in the process of selling a less significant property in Vermont.

  His handsome wife gave him substance – and might have given him more if she’d learn not to open her mouth at inappropriate times. He had a son, as handsome as his mother, and already being pursued by pretty girls.

  Frederick had never been pursued. Pretty girls had been more likely to run from him. Physically, he had little substance, other than around his girth. At fourteen he’d measured five foot five and three-quarters, and had grown no taller. He blamed genetics for his weight. His wife blamed lack of exercise. She suffered from hyperactivity.

  For twenty years, Ainsworth, Adam-Jones and Smyth had rented spacious rooms in an elderly building where an elderly lift made frequent appeals for retirement. It appeared too to be losing its memory. He’d hit the ground floor button but was delivered to the basement car park.

  Frederick Adam-Jones didn’t make mistakes – or perhaps he had. His Ferrari dominating his thoughts since parking it this morning, his subconscious may have overridden his conscious mind. A brief glance told him his prize was there, its red striking amid the silver, the blue, the white. He offered it a satisfied nod, then very positive
ly thumbed G for ground, and waited.

  A glance at his watch told him he was due in court twenty minutes from now. The courthouse was a five-minute walk away.

  The doors hiccupped but remained open. Use the stairs, the stressmonger within urged, but no stair climber, he thumbed the button again and waited, tapping the heel of one pointy-toed shoe, ultra-pointy. They restricted his toes but offered small feet the illusion of size, and their higher than average heels gained him an extra centimetre of height.

  Another hiccup, the doors closed and, arthritic joints creaking, the lift trundled on its way while Frederick turned his mind to the day ahead. He hadn’t liked this case from the start and liked it less this morning. Losing it was not an option he cared to contemplate.

  ‘They tell us you’re the best, Freddy,’ the father of the accused had said, words that meant more than they should have to one who’d spent his early years the least of the best.

  The last born in a litter of seven, little Freddy had ever been the runt. His mother had loved him. His difficult birth had led to her hysterectomy. She’d told him once he had been sent by God to save her from his father’s excesses.

  She’d put her all into her last born; she’d had little Freddy reading from her Bible before he’d seen the inside of a schoolroom. By his eleventh birthday, she, her church and Freddy’s headmaster had weaselled him into one of Melbourne’s prestigious schools. All very exciting to an eleven year old – until he’d been buttoned into his scholarship-supplied uniform and dragged blubbering from his mother’s apron strings.

  John Swan may have been born wearing that same school uniform. Freddy had learnt to wear it. He’d learnt a lot during that first year, learnt that his mother who loved him hadn’t looked or spoken like the other mothers who’d filled the auditorium on presentation night, and that John Swan’s mother had. During Freddy’s third year, he’d coveted John’s mother, who hadn’t been plain Mrs Swan but Lady Cynthia Swan.

  And they’d come to him in their hour of need, John and the widowed Lady Cynthia. They’d ridden that antiquated lift up to his floor, sat on his clients’ chairs.

  ‘They tell us you’re the best, Freddy.’