Squirrel & Swan Stolen Things Page 2

  “But Roman couldn’t have got this wrong,” Sophie said. “He wouldn’t have.”

  “It’s right there in black and white,” Paige said. “’The lads from SOS Agency’. Do you want to call Roman or the reporter?” Paige already had her phone in her hand.

  Sophie’s head jerked up, looking stricken. “Neither.”

  Paige rolled her eyes. “This is not the time to indulge in your phone anxiety, Sophie. This is an emergency.”

  “Fine,” Sophie mumbled. The prospect of calling Roman made her nervous for a completely different reason than calling the reporter. Roman had been a fixture in Sophie’s heart from perhaps the first moment she’d met him nearly six months ago, and she’d only very recently made the brave decision to cut him from her life so she wouldn’t waste any more time or emotional energy on him.

  Because Roman was married.

  Nothing had ever happened between the two of them. Neither of them had ever even properly verbalised the connection they felt to one another—it did exist, even Paige could see it—but it was still a thing. And the problem of Roman’s wife was one that did not appear to be going away.

  “I’ll take the reporter,” Sophie said miserably. “What’s the number?”

  Paige recited it then scrolled through her contacts to call Roman.

  Both of their calls went unanswered.

  They each left a message asking Roman and an Andrew Finch, respectively, to call them back. But Sophie’s request for a return call ASAP was much less convincing than Paige’s. When she disconnected Paige gave her a disapproving look. “You didn’t exactly hammer the message home,” she said.

  “I asked him to call us back.”

  “But there was no urgency. If I got that message, I wouldn’t bother returning the call.” Paige shook her head and picked up the landline. She dialled the reporter’s contact number and waited, her eyes narrowing with each unanswered ring.

  “Yes, hello, Andrew,” she said, her voice scathing. “What kind of reporter gets key details about a murder case wrong, huh? You bungled the facts about the Radsworth murder, and you need to make it right. Call me back. Doctor Garnet of S & S Investigations. Yes, the agency that actually revealed the murderer.” She recited off the landline number as well as her mobile number and then slammed down the receiver.

  Sophie suspected that Paige had used the landline to make this call not because it was cheaper—that wouldn’t occur to her—but because you could end the call in such a way.

  “There. He’d better get back to me or we are going down there to bawl him out in front of his colleagues.”

  “It’s obviously a mistake.”

  “Yes. Obviously. But how did it get made?”

  “I guess we’ll have to wait for one of them to ring us back to find out,” Sophie said. “Hey, what did that courier deliver?”

  Paige’s eyes slid away. “Oh... hey, did Leo get back to you?”

  LEO, AT THAT MOMENT, was in the waiting room of Auckland City Hospital’s emergency room.

  He looked up at the doors through which his mysterious new friend had been escorted by a nurse some time ago and wondered what he was doing there at all. She was a complete stranger. But how could he leave her? She had no wallet, bag or phone, and more importantly, no memory. She’d clearly been in a traumatic accident of some kind, and she very obviously needed help.

  Just as Leo was considering making a trip to the vending machine, the doors opened and the woman he’d rescued from the perils of Mt Albert Road walked through. When her face lit up with a mixture of pleasure and relief at the sight of Leo, he knew that the person to figure out who she was and what happened to her most certainly would be him.

  Leo stood up as she approached but suddenly felt rather awkward, as if they’d been out all night on a romantic tryst and were at the stage of the evening in which they were to part ways. Which was ridiculous. Leo couldn’t think of a less romantic place than an emergency room.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  She looked uncertain for a moment, touched her hand to her head, then nodded. “I seem to be. I mean, apart from the obvious injuries. I have to go back in a couple of days for follow-up tests to make sure, but I don’t seem to have a serious concussion, which is good.” Her brow creased as she studied Leo’s face. “I can’t believe you stayed for me.”

  He smiled. “I couldn’t leave you.”

  “It’s so strange, I feel as if I can trust you. I’m not sure why. It’s like a gut thing. Are you sure we don’t know each other?”

  “Completely sure,” Leo said. “But people always say I have a trustworthy face so that’s probably it.” He used to lament that his friendly face got him shunted into the ‘harmless’ category by women, which wasn’t quite where he wanted to be.

  Right now, however, he was rather happy about it.

  They moved toward the exit and went through the doors. Leo kept going in the direction of his car, hoping she wouldn’t stop and say goodbye.

  “I have cuts on my arms and legs,” she said suddenly. “But they’re from weeks ago,” she added. She lifted her sleeve to show him the same scar he’d noticed earlier. This time he saw there was not one but three red lines. “I got them in a separate accident to whatever caused the bump and gash on my head.” She bit her lip. “What do you think that means?”

  “Uh... I’m not sure.” Leo was at a loss as how to comfort her. What could you say to someone with mysterious injuries? “What’s the deal with your memory?”

  She shook her head. “They were vague. They don’t know exactly but it’s probably some sort of traumatic amnesia.” She cleared her throat and wrapped her hands around her body. “Most likely my memory will come back in a few days. I shouldn’t worry.”

  Leo nodded. “That’s good.”

  “I was wondering... where did you find me? Can we... can we go back and see if anything jogs my memory? Or maybe there’s something to tell me what happened?”

  “Of course. It’s not far from here.”

  “Are you sure you’re not busy? Don’t you have to work?”

  Leo waved his hand. “Flexible hours, it’s fine.”

  He found a park on one of the side streets a couple of blocks away from the intersection of Mt Albert and New North Road and they walked slowly up, scanning the street.

  “It was about here,” Leo said, coming to a stop. To their left was a street on the corner of which was a kindergarten. Beyond that was an apartment block, and then the main intersection with a variety of shops. Across the road was the train station and farther down were residential houses.

  “Maybe you got here by train?” Leo said.

  She nodded, looking around her. “Maybe,” she said, then suddenly threw her hands up in the air. “But nothing is familiar. I can’t remember anything at all.”

  “Hey.” Leo stepped closer and tentatively took one of her hands in his. “We’ll figure this out. I promise.”

  She sniffed back a tear and looked down.

  “I was wondering, what should I call you, until we...”

  She looked up again, her large green eyes searching his. “I guess Jane, as in Jane Doe.”

  “Jane? Are you sure? This is your chance to have the name you always wanted.” He gave her a small smile, which she returned.

  “I actually quite like Jane. She sounds like someone who knows what she wants. Someone who is sure about things.” She smiled again. “The irony.”

  “Jane it is.” Leo nodded. “Hey, look.” He pointed at a sign across the road. “That’s a motel.”

  She turned to him. “Maybe I was staying there?”

  “I mean, it’s possible you lived in the apartments over there or any one of these houses or even in an entirely different place, but you do have an accent.”

  “I do?” Jane raised her hand to her mouth.

  “Yeah. Australian. I mean, you could have moved here ages ago, but maybe not? Maybe you’re here on holiday?”

  She nod
ded. “Maybe.”

  “Shall we go over and ask? It’s a start... or at least, it’s worth a shot.”

  A pleasant-seeming woman was standing behind the front desk when they walked into the motel’s reception. “Welcome to the motor lodge,” she said. “Lovely single and family units, nice and quiet, and we have a pool!”

  Leo pulled at his t-shirt, suddenly aware of the clammy heat of his skin. A dip in a pool right now sounded amazing. The January sun had been unrelenting this week and the downside of living in Mt Eden was that all of Auckland’s beaches required driving to. That was of course, doable, but also meant you had to find a park and it could turn into a whole big thing. To have a pool right at your fingertips...

  “This is a weird question,” Jane said to the woman. “Do I look familiar to you? Was I a guest here?”

  She widened her eyes. “Don’t you know?”

  Jane shook her head, tears springing into her eyes once more. “I was in an accident and have amnesia. Temporary I hope.”

  “How awful.” The woman came around the counter to peer into Jane’s eyes. “No, love. I haven’t seen you before. When do you think it happened?”

  “Yesterday, perhaps? Or maybe before that?”

  “I was here yesterday and I didn’t see you,” she said. “If you give me your name, I could check a few days back but...” She broke off when she saw Jane’s face. “Sorry I can’t help.”

  “Thanks anyway.”

  They turned and exited the office but paused near the entrance, both hovering uncertainly.

  “I don’t know what to do,” Jane said.

  “We should probably go to the police.”

  As Leo spoke, he wondered why hospital staff hadn’t insisted on the same. Wouldn’t that be the normal course of events for someone in her situation? But they’d just released her into the lobby; into the arms—so to speak—of a stranger.

  “Jane? The police?”

  She shook her head suddenly and violently. “I can’t.”

  Leo frowned but said gently, “Why not?”

  “I don’t know... I just... I just know that I can’t; I shouldn’t.” She cast anguished eyes to Leo. “Please don’t make me.”

  “Of course not; I wouldn’t make you do anything.”

  They fell silent for a moment. Leo watched her twist her hands, her expression troubled.

  “Um, I was thinking. You need to stay somewhere and even though you do trust me, you probably don’t trust me enough to accept my offer to stay at my place. Plus,” Leo added, going a little pink, “it’s just a studio. It’s probably too small. But why don’t you get a room here for a couple of days. Maybe something will come back to you.”

  “But I don’t have—”

  “I can lend you some money. I’ll pay the bill and you can pay me back when you figure out who you are.”

  Jane pressed her lips together and nodded.

  “We’ll get you set up now and I could come by later?”

  “That would be... thank you. Thank you so much, Leo. You are, literally, a life-saver.”

  Once they’d gotten her checked-in—Leo dismissed a surge of uncertainty as he handed over his credit card information—they located her room at the top of the stairs. “You’ll be okay on your own for a while?” Leo said.

  “A long hot shower and then sleep is all I want.” She opened the door. “The doctor said I needed to rest, which is good because I feel as if I could sleep for days.”

  “Okay. I’ll come back tomorrow then? I’ll give you my number in case you need me. You can use the phone in here to make a call.” Leo walked inside the room to scribble his number down on the notepad next to the phone.

  “Thanks again, Leo,” Jane said as he shut the door behind him.

  As Leo exited the motel he glanced back at the deliciously cool-looking pool. His first thought was to bring his togs when he came back tomorrow, but his second was: Why didn’t Jane want to go to the police?

  3

  Zelda Ko scratched her hair and scrunched her nose as she leaned closer to her laptop screen. Without looking, she reached out and pulled a Wet Wipe from the packet on her desk and absent-mindedly wiped her hands. She discarded the tissue, finished reading the article, then sat back to think for a moment. Eventually she nodded to herself, opened up a new MS Word document and copied both the link and all the text in the article, then pasted it into the document. She saved it as Zelda Home>True Crimes>New Zealand>TBD>Radsworth.

  She was not yet sure whether this case was worthy of her attention, but in order to make that decision she needed to follow her process: write out a summary, let the details of the case percolate for a while, then wait for her subconscious to provide her with the answer. She also needed to do a bit of due diligence—to check whether the information Myra had given her was bona fide.

  More of a university acquaintance than a friend, Myra Chadha had told her about a conversation she’d overheard regarding the well-publicised Scott Radsworth murder. Not the murder itself, so much—that was pretty cut-and-dried—but a nugget that hadn’t made the papers and indicated the possibility of an old crime: a cold case. Maybe even an unsolved murder, which was exactly the kind Zelda liked to get her teeth stuck into. Especially during summer break when she had no classes to attend.

  She probably wouldn’t have paid much attention to Myra except for one thing: Her flatmate was Dr Sophie Swanephol, and Sophie was interesting for two reasons. One, she had a PhD in behavioural analysis, which was on Zelda’s list of possible future study and career options. Two, she was the co-founder of an investigations agency with Dr Paige Garnet, whose PhD was in cognitive neuroscience. Zelda wasn’t sure where her conjoint law and psychology degree would take her but Paige and Sophie’s relative expertise, as well as their world of criminal investigation, was of definite interest.

  At the top of the document she typed RADSWORTH—she would change the name when she knew more—and started typing a summary of the case as it had been presented in the news article. For the next three hours, only stopping once to visit the bathroom, she expanded her online search. She noted those involved, the possible terrible secret she hoped to uncover, and made sure all the available information about the case was included in the document.

  Finally, she sat back. There could be something here worth pursuing. Whether or not it would make it onto her True Crime podcast was another story; but for now, at least, this was an investigation she wanted to pursue.

  PAIGE STOOD UP. “LET’S go over. Her time’s up.”

  “Her time’s up?”

  “You know what I mean.” Paige paused at Sophie’s desk, clearly waiting for her to stand too. “We’ll never get anywhere if we are too scared to go after clients, Soph, you know this. Let’s go talk to Cecilia.”

  Sophie conceded a nod and followed Paige out to 2B where Paige rapped on the door. It opened almost immediately.

  “Oh, hello,” Cecilia said. “I was going to come and see you today.”

  Cecilia looked to be in her late forties, a little shorter than average with a freckled face and sandy-coloured hair. She gave the impression she ran yoga or meditation retreats rather than being a commercially successful novelist, as they’d learned last month.

  Sophie eyed Cecilia’s linen kaftan-type dress. It looked comfortable and light—perfect in this heat. But her sandals were rather ugly. Sophie wondered whether one could wear jandals instead, and whether this would enhance or lessen the hippie commune vibe emanating from Cecilia.

  “Great,” Paige said. “Shall we talk about your potential case?”

  Cecilia opened the door wider and gestured for them to come inside.

  Paige and Sophie looked around the office with interest. They’d been in here before but only when it was empty. Cecilia had, in a short amount of time and with only a few pieces of furniture, managed to put her own personal touch on the space. While the second room remained empty, the main office had two very large and rather strange paintings on the
wall—one of which looked somehow inappropriate—two large pot plants, a nice leather armchair in the corner, and two chairs in front of the desk, in which Sophie and Paige sat down. Cecilia dropped into the chair behind the desk and eyed them appraisingly.

  “Tell me about your business,” she said.

  “Well,” Paige began. For nearly ten minutes she explained their expertise and their amazing work solving cases. She omitted their first actual case, in which they’d rescued Mary Burmeister’s cat from the Remuera Petnapper, and instead focussed on the gaslighting of Hazel Berryman and the murder of Scott Radsworth.

  “Very impressive,” Cecilia said, nodding. “My issue is rather different, I’m afraid. A little unusual.”

  Paige leaned forward. “We like unusual.”

  “I’m a novelist, as I told you, and I write under the pseudonym—” she broke off to eye them warily. “This is all confidential you know, and even though I haven’t engaged your services yet, I need you to assure me you won’t reveal my identity.”

  “Of course not,” Paige said.

  “Absolutely.” Sophie nodded.

  “My nom de plum is W. I. Sandstorm.”

  “Oh,” Sophie blurted. “I love your books.”

  Cecilia smiled. “Yes.”

  “I just finished The Buried Sister. I really enjoyed it. A page turner.”

  “If you bring by your copy, I’d be happy to sign it,” Cecilia added with a gracious nod.

  “Oh, erm, yes, of course.”

  Sophie had read all of Cecilia’s books by borrowing them from the Pt Chevalier public library, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to admit this.

  “Anyway, my most recent publication was a collection of short stories by a series of authors, an international effort. But before that I’d been working on an exciting new novel called The Breaking of Dead. It was all finished, just waiting for a final review in January. You see, once you’ve finished a novel you need to set it aside for a month or so, give it space to breathe, give yourself a chance to clear your head so you can come back to it with fresh eyes. Anyway, once I’d submitted the short stories, I went to open up the manuscript and it wasn’t there!”