‘Not at all, honey.’ She was glad Morgan couldn’t see the man. ‘Go back to your reading for a few minutes, then we’ll order some food.’
Catherine’s eyes seemed to move of their own volition as again her gaze rested on her husband’s doppelgänger. She began straining to hear his voice. Was it, too, like Paul’s? Filtering out the extraneous noise, she concentrated on the conversation at the other table.
‘… get going on the development as soon as you can sell me the Tomachuk property,’ Grant was saying.
Catherine started, knocking her spoon against her saucer.
‘Don’t say that. I don’t own the land, remember,’ the other man growled. His voice was lower than Paul’s.
‘OK, OK.’ Grant fluttered his hand placatingly. ‘But you control the kid’s trust fund. If you consider the sale a good idea you can go ahead with it.’
The waitress interrupted the conversation to take their orders. The younger man ordered a salad while Grant, the heavyweight, ordered a burger and fries with gravy. The unknown man’s gaze roamed around to Catherine who quickly lowered her eyes and stirred the dregs of her coffee but her attention didn’t waver.
‘Will the old house stay or will you be bulldozing it for the subdivision?’ the man asked, returning his attention to the real estate agent.
‘Bulldoze it likely,’ Grant replied. ‘No one wants to live there. The only way I could lease it at all was to let it go for a pitiful rent. Even then, only a stranger was interested.’
The conversation drifted on to property values in general and Catherine was left in suspense. What was going on? What was wrong with the house she’d rented? Glancing at Morgan, she was relieved to see her daughter was oblivious to everything but her fashion magazine. She tapped her lightly on the arm. ‘Shall we order now?’
With lunch time fast approaching, the restaurant filled up and Catherine and her daughter were immersed in the hum of conversation. They were just finishing their dessert when she noticed the background clatter fade and die. She looked around. What was happening?
All eyes were turned, either boldly or surreptitiously, towards the door. When she craned around she saw Ed Royce silhouetted against the sunlight. He stood still for a moment and then slowly moved into the restaurant, letting the door close silently behind him. Catherine noted the tightness around his mouth. He blinked every few seconds as he scanned the room. Catherine’s heart sank when his gaze came to rest on her. Involuntarily she tightened her grip on her fork.
Ed took a deep breath and began threading his way among the tables, his stare fixed on Catherine like a drowning man on a life ring. As he passed, the diners drew away as if he had a contagious disease. Catherine watched in disbelief. Why was she, who desired anonymity above all things, being singled out? To her eyes it took an eternity for him to approach, each step played in slow motion. He stopped beside her table. The room held its collective breath. Catherine’s stare avoided his eyes, fixing on the beads of sweat glistening on his forehead.
Ed swallowed. ‘Your car is ready, ma’am.’ He licked his lips. ‘You can pick it up whenever you like.’
Catherine goggled at him, a caricature of a smile pasted on her face as the ordinariness of the message caught her off guard. ‘Um … OK … um … Thanks,’ she stammered. ‘I’ll be over shortly.’ She watched the man walk through the silence and disappear out of the door. As it closed behind him a bear of a man hurled himself from the kitchen brandishing a knife. ‘Where is he? I told him never to come back!’
A babble of voices chased away the tense silence and eventually the ursine man lumbered back to the kitchen. Catherine, straining to make sense of the jabbering, sat immobile.
‘Mom?’ Morgan whispered. ‘What was that all about?’
Catherine dragged her attention back to her daughter. ‘Our car is fixed,’ she replied.
‘I know, but why was everyone staring at him?’
‘I’ve no idea.’ Catherine rose and gathered up their belongings. ‘But it’s time for us to leave.’
They felt eyes boring into their backs as they made their way to the desk and paid the bill. A few fragments of conversation rose above the general roar. ‘… got his nerve …’ ‘… as cool as you please …’ ‘… not wanted around here …’
‘Now what?’ Morgan asked, fanning herself with Seventeen magazine as the wall of heat greeted them.
‘We get the car and go home. I’ve had enough of Atawan for one day.’ The Datsun was parked in front of the garage. ‘Do you want to wait in the car while I pay?’
Morgan nodded and climbed in. ‘It’s hot in here so don’t be too long.’
Catherine pushed her hair off her forehead and marched into the office.
The proprietor, his face pale and damp, waited for her in the stifling gloom. ‘Your car needs a good tune-up, Mrs Edison, but I think that’s all that’s wrong with it.’ He swallowed and blinked. ‘I changed the plugs and points and cleaned up the carburettor, but when you’ve more time you should have the timing done and the hoses and oil filter changed.’
‘I will,’ Catherine assured him. ‘What do I owe you?’
Ed smoothed the invoice in front of him and then handed it to her. ‘Most of it’s for parts,’ he mumbled defensively.
Catherine fumbled in her purse and retrieved the new pad of cheques she had received at the bank. In the upper left corner she wrote her new address before filling out the rest. She pushed the cheque across the counter.
‘Thank you, ma’am,’ he said, glancing down at the piece of paper. He let out an involuntary gasp and his hand shook as he stuffed the cheque into his cash drawer.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing,’ Ed stammered, licking his dry lips yet again.
She leaned forward, hands gripping the edge of the counter. ‘It’s where I live, isn’t it? The Tomachuk place.’ This time she wasn’t going to be put off.
Ed nodded jerkily.
‘What’s wrong with it? Everyone’s acting strange as soon as they find out.’
‘Ed dropped into the swivel chair behind him. Catherine watched the tension pull his face into harsh planes. At last he cleared his throat. ‘A woman was murdered there.’
If there had been a chair on her side of the counter, she would have collapsed into it. As it was, she slumped against the counter. More death. Would she never escape?
Her reaction forced Ed to elaborate. ‘The woman who owned the place – Tracy Tomachuk – was killed ten months ago.’
Catherine looked at him, confronting his darkened blue eyes. ‘Did they find out who did it?’
The silence stretched taut. ‘No.’
A bluebottle fly buzzed against the freshly washed window. ‘How did she die?’
‘Strangled.’
Catherine fingered her neck. She again felt those fingers squeezing away her life. She stared at Ed but didn’t see him. Ed leaned forward. ‘Are you OK?’ Her obvious distress forced him out of his own misery.
‘I’m fine …’ Catherine smiled mechanically, then walked from the office like an automaton, but by the time she got back to the car she had carefully erased the shock from her face.
‘I’ve got to leave for work now,’ she told her daughter as she pulled into the driveway. ‘I told Martha I’d be there early afternoon.’ They went in and she gathered up her boxes of papers and her desktop computer. Morgan helped her haul them out to the car.