When Polly meets Jake no-one expects it to go anywhere. Well—the lady lecturer and the self-made millionaire? But for a while things seem to go along swimmingly. Then a business rival is murdered on Jake’s patio, and everything goes pear-shaped…

The End of It


14

The End Of It


    Jake hadn’t felt much like anybody’s company for Christmas Day, so it was just as well no-one but dear old Marie-Noëlle Schmidt had invited him. And he’d managed to get out of that. Marie-Noëlle and John were okay but bloody Leo—! No way.
    He spent the day firmly buried in work. On Boxing Day afternoon he drove down to the orphanage, as was his custom. They didn’t call it an orphanage any more and most of the kids it took care of had families, off and on. But it was still the same old building: ugly as ever.
    Old Sister Mary-Theresa was long gone, of course. She’d lived long enough to whale into him over the divorce, mind you. Not that she’d ever considered he was married in the eyes of God, because bloody Esmé had insisted on an Anglican church— Oh, well, water under the bridge. Sister Anne was gone, too, now: died a couple of years back: over ninety, she’d been. Had a bit of Alzheimer’s at the end, so it had been a merciful release, really, poor old duck. And Sister Mary Catherine had long since gone back home to Ireland. So there was no-one there now that remembered him and Wal Briggs and the things they used to get up to—and old Sister Anne’s famous stick, bit of half-inch dowelling, by cripes she could lay into you but good!
    Sister Marilyn, who ran the place, was on duty by herself—he knew they were allowed to keep their own names these days, but it still seemed peculiar to him—and said that the kids had all gone, either to relatives or in the case of one or two that didn’t have families of their own, however unsatisfactory, to charitable local families who took an interest in the children’s home.
    Jake nodded, without comment, and wrote out a cheque. “Spend some of it on clowns or—or whatever the kids like these days,” he suggested awkwardly.
    Sister Marilyn, who was one of those capable businesswomen types, you wondered what on earth had made her become a nun, he’d have offered her a top exec spot in the Group without hesitation, replied composedly: “Thanks, Mr Carrano; I think they’d prefer Rambo or a trip to the video parlours, actually.”
    “Whatever,” he said with a groan.
    Sister Marilyn laughed and said: “It’s very welcome.”
    Jake could see she had a pile of stuff on her desk and anyway he didn’t really know what on earth to talk about to an executive-type nun, so after enquiring after the health of all the other nuns, particularly the older ones, it wasn’t a popular vocation any more and Sister Marilyn herself, at around thirty-five, was one of the youngest there, took his leave. Sister Marilyn, with her usual tact, didn’t ask where he was going now. And Jake wouldn’t have told her anyway.
    He drove, as was his custom, over the Bridge, through the quiet city, and out to the big lawn cemetery. To visit Grant’s grave.
    As he drove his thoughts roamed, although he tried to stop them, over his possible ancestry and genetic make-up and Esmé’s genetic make-up, and what the doc had said about the instability in her family that was why young Grant had turned out the way he did... Only it was a fair bit back, now: okay, still well within the era of modern medicine, but they hadn’t known as much about that sort of thing twenty-five years ago as they did these days, and what if the doc had been wrong and Grant had inherited it from him and not her side? Ugh. S’pose he could ask around—get John Westby on the job, he must have a few mates that specialized in abnormal psychology—
    No, what the fuck was the point: now he’d broken up with Polly he wasn’t ever gonna have another kid!
    He parked the car neatly, got out and walked steadily to the tiny plaque that marked the place where all that was left of his only son must long since have crumbled away. Ashes to ashes—Jake made a face.
    Usually he liked the cemetery: he couldn’t have said why, but he found it very soothing. Naturally he regretted that the little boy, who had never developed mentally enough to know either of his parents, and who had spent most of his nearly seven years of life in uncontrollable screaming rages, had not grown up normally and had died so young; but usually he recognised, without much pain after all these years, that it was a mercy that the poor little chap had died when he had done. But today he didn’t feel soothed: he felt bitter and hurt all over again: as if the discovery of Grant’s mental state had been yesterday instead of over twenty-five years ago. His hand went automatically to the inner pocket where for years he had carried the brooch that was the only link between him, his unknown mother, and this tiny grave in the city’s up-market lawn cemetery. But of course it wasn’t there.
    Jake couldn’t have said, now or then, why he’d given the brooch to Polly last month. He’d had an uneasy feeling that people might think that it must be an indication that he was about to propose to her. He hadn’t been, but he’d given it to her all the same.
    The brooch was only a little, cheap thing: hardly more than a gold wire bent into the shape of a heart, with a few tiny seed pearls on it. Polly had stroked it gently with her finger as it lay in the incongruous satin nest of the jeweller’s box he’d got for it.
    “I can’t take your mother’s brooch,” she said faintly.
    He was just about to say angrily “You can!” when it dawned she was about to bawl. So he just put his arms round her tightly, and eventually she sniffled a bit and said: “Thank you, Jake. I’ll treasure it.”
    Jake sighed. He turned away from Grant’s grave and went back to the car.
    He didn’t register that the old lady in black, who was usually there on Boxing Day, several graves over, wasn’t there today. The old lady had become a fixture of these visits and once before when she’d missed he’d felt quite disturbed for the rest of the evening. Nor did he register an elderly Rover in the car park, painted a hideously bright kingfisher blue: normally he was very interested in cars, particularly oldish ones which weren’t old enough to be classics, but were getting on that way.
    He drove home carefully, though there was very little on the roads. Going north he passed a large station-waggon with a family of teenagers in it, but didn’t register it.


    “It was him!” gasped Angie Michaels. “I’m sure it was!”
    “Yeah, yeah,” agreed Bill.
    “It was!” cried Angie crossly.
    “Yeah, yeah: keep ya hair on,” her spouse recommended.
    “It was a super Merc, anyway,” noted Mark wistfully.
    “Consumable-fixated cretin,” said the Queen’s scholar witheringly.
    Angie pretty well agreed with Col: Mark was getting worse, he didn’t seem to have any values at all except what was expensive, pictured in the horrid, glossy pages of Metro, and might be attained with a Gold Card (whatever that was), but nevertheless she felt obliged to say: “That’ll do, Colin.”
    “I thought he looked quite ordinary,” noted Barbara.
    “The Merc wasn’t gold-plated, either,” noted Helen, glancing up for a fleeting instant from the inevitable Yachting.
    “P’raps it wasn’t him,” said Barbara.
    Bill rolled his eyes madly.
    “It was!” cried Angie. “We saw him that time up at Kawau—you remember, Bill!” she said fiercely.
    “Yeah. Well, we saw a joker that looked a bit like that joker up Kawau standing at the wheel of Jake Carrano’s Maybelline, yeah.”
    “Bill!” cried Angie angrily.
    “All right, it was him,” he said hurriedly. “Um—where we going for this picnic, again?”
    The kids immediately broke into the usual Michaels family dispute over where to have the Boxing Day evening picnic.
    Bill just closed his ears and drove. He wouldn’t have half minded if it was him heading home to his air-conditioned mansion on his peaceful lonesome to a glass of decent burgundy and a hunk of porterhouse, actually. In his Merc, an’ all. Passing beat-up station-waggons as if he hadn’t so much as noticed ’em. Oh, well, couldn’t have everything; and possibly Jake Carrano also had his troubles. –Yeah, name one.
    “SHUT UP!” he bellowed suddenly.
    The family shut up in astonishment.
    “We’ll go up Carter’s Bay way. To that pipi beach, okay? Anyway, we’re GOING!” he finished.
    Barbara tried to argue but Bill ignored her, and they went.


    Jake didn’t have a piece of porterhouse, he didn’t feel much like eating. He just had a cheese sandwich. But he did wash it down with a bottle of burgundy, true. Followed by one or two brandies. By which time it was a respectable hour for bed. Mechanically he shut and locked the French windows. But he left the pool lights on, as he had done every night since the discovery of the body. The thought of walking past the dead Don Banks in the dark gave him the cold grues. If only he’d— There might still have been time— He gave a little shudder and, moving like an automaton, went through his usual sequence of putting the alarms on and turning the downstairs lights out, before climbing wearily up to bed with the brandy bottle.
    He lay on the dark brown sheepskin cover of his big circular bed staring sleeplessly into the dark. He’d had some more brandy on first lying down, and unbuckled his belt. But he didn’t feel like drinking any more; and couldn’t be bothered to undress properly. In fact he couldn’t be bothered with anything. He lay very still, eyes open in the dark, for several hours.
    Towards dawn he slept a little, waking in a cold grey light. There was chilled Évian water in the thermos in his bedside cabinet. He drank thirstily, swallowed some of the aspirins that the cabinet also contained, and lay staring at a mental picture of Polly’s face that wouldn’t go away. After a time he dozed again, waking in the light of day to find himself, as he had been every morning since first meeting Polly, stiff with the need of her. He turned his face into the soft brown fleece, remembering Polly laughing at her first encounter with it: “Help, Jake! You got a whole flock of woollies here!” and slowly, painfully, wept.
    It was the first time in his adult life since he had received the news of his infant son’s untreatable mental condition that Jake had wept. The sobs were slow and somehow rusty.


    Daphne had just popped up to do a wee bit clearing up for him—of course he hadn’t asked her to come in on the 27th, but it was no trouble to her, living so close. She paused in horror, about to tap on his door and see if he wanted a cup of tea or something. Surely he couldn’t be— But the sobs were unmistakeable.
    Silently she turned and fled downstairs, closed the heavy front door behind her with the utmost care, hurled herself into the ageing station-waggon, and shot down the road like a scalded cat, back to her Tim.
    He was clipping the front hedge, still a wee bit green about the gills after the Christmas blow-out, not to mention that Boxing Day tea at his Mum and Dad’s.
    Ignoring that nosy old bat Ma Bailey peering at her from behind a rosebush next-door, Daphne hurled herself into her husband’s arms. Uncontrollable tears poured down her face.
    “Tim, Tim! Huh-hold me!”
    “Fuck, what’s up?” he cried. “Jesus!”—Ole Ma Bailey’d love that, she thought through her distress: she was a strict Brethren, or something.—“It’s not another murder, is it?”
    “Ndo!” she sobbed “Nothing like that!”
    “Come on inside, Daph.”
    She suffered herself to be led into the living-room—still a bit of a tip, with the kids’ new toys all over the place. And that blimming tree was shedding pine needles all over the new carpet, too, she registered dully.
    Tim got her settled on the couch, and mopped her up gently. “Come on, love, what’s it all about?”
    When she’d gulped out her story he stared at her in perplexity, scratching his sandy head. “I don’t see what you’re so het up about, Daph.”
    “He was crying—Mr Carrano,” she repeated painfully.
    “Yeah, but—” New tears were threatening, so he hurriedly put his arms round her again, muttering: “I s’pose he’s got his troubles, like everyone else.”
    Daphne gulped into his shoulder, but didn’t try to explain. In any case, a man wouldn’t understand how awful it had been: a big strong man like Mr Carrano, hearing him like that: he’d always seemed so—so masterful, so completely in control of everything, including himself. Blast! She was crying again.
    Tim said helplessly, patting her back: “Wouldja like a cup of tea?”
    “No,” she gulped. “Just hold me.”
    Finally the tears seemed to have dried up.
    “Sure you wouldn’t like a cup of tea?”
    “No, I’m fine.” She looked round groggily. “Where are the kids?”
    “Uncle Ben and Aunty Kathleen dropped in on their way up to the bach. The kids wanted to go with them, so I said we’d meet them up there.”
    “Oh.” She knew perfectly well he wouldn’t have made Chrissy change out of that ghastly pink party frock that Mum had given her for Christmas and the kid had insisted on putting on this morning. And Harry was wearing Charlie’s old shorts, which were far too big for him—oh, well.
    “That was okay, wasn’t it?” said Tim cautiously.
    “Yeah, fine.”
    There was a little silence. Then he said: “You okay now, love?”
    “Mm.” She hesitated. “Tim?”
     He looked down at her, and saw in surprise that she was very red. “Yeah?”
    “Let’s go to bed,” she said in a squeaky voice, not looking at him.
    “Eh?”
    “You heard,” she muttered.
    “But—” He was about to point out that it was broad daylight; ole Ma Bailey was in her garden, ears flapping, about three metres from their bedroom window. And here was Daph, who always insisted on waiting till the kids were fast asleep and it was too late to expect anyone to drop in for the evening— Jeez, I’m an idiot! he thought, hurriedly shutting his mouth.
    “Okay, love.”
    The big bed was neatly made, the bedroom tidy and spotless. Tim shot over to the window and closed the long curtains before Daphne could register ole Ma Bailey standing in her garden with her eyes on stalks.
    Afterwards, Tim looked down at her as she lay peacefully against his shoulder, face relaxed, eyes half closed. He could feel the smirk on his own face.
    “What was that all about, then?”
    Daphne laughed weakly, and gave his bony hand a kiss. “Dunno! Just glad we’re us, I guess.” She paused. She wasn’t very sure of her own emotions and motives; how could she explain them? “It was just… when I heard Mr Carrano crying like that… He was so unhappy. I dunno, Tim. It—it just made me glad I’ve got you, I suppose.”
    Yeah? Carrano could bawl his heart out every day if this was the effect it had on Daph!
    She snuggled into his shoulder. “I do love you, Tim.”
    “I love you, too, old girl.” He relaxed against the pillows, staring up at the ceiling, allowing the smirk to grow into a great, pleased grin.


    In his hurry to close the curtains Tim had failed to notice that the big sliding window was open a good six inches at one end. Outside in her garden, three yards away, old Mrs Bailey dug furiously in her flowerbed with a small trowel.
    Those Greens! Disgusting! That’s what it was: disgusting! It was bad enough with their noisy friends and their dreadful cars coming and going at all hours! –This was a reference to the poker game on the night of the Banks murder: the first time for months that Tim and Daphne had had friends in late.
    Angrily she dug out a small self-seeded marigold that had no right to be there.
   … And those dreadful children, always throwing their balls over her fence, and trampling on her garden, making life hideous with their raucous shrieks and quarrelling, their cap guns and other dreadful noisy toys. That little one had got a drum for Christmas: a drum! His parents must be mad!
    She rooted out a whole clump of huge oxalis bulbs: horrible things! –Next spring when her freesias failed to come up she would wonder what on earth had gone wrong: she never failed with freesias.
    But this—! This was too much. This was... indecent!
    She dug viciously, loosening the soil around the roots of a small kowhai that only needed to be left alone. Something should be done about it! It was an offence against public morals, that was what it was! In broad daylight—and those noises! Yes, she’d report it: that nice Mr Banks—he’d know what to do about that sort of thing!
    Then, with a sickening jolt, she remembered: poor Councillor Banks was dead. Well, he should never have gone up to that Carrano man’s house—everyone knew what he was! Of course, she worked for him, didn’t she? Well, that showed you, didn’t it? Birds of a feather!
    Sniffing scornfully, old Mrs Bailey shovelled dirt fiercely. If you asked her, the police ought to investigate Jake Carrano. What were they doing, that’s what she’d like to know! Because everyone knew all about him and his goings-on!


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