man seemed shyly friendly, or perhaps cordially aloof, like someone dragged to a party by friends too soon after a divorce or a death in the family. He moved from group to group, he smiled, he chatted, he was charming, he kept moving. Laura heard someone say, “I didn’t catch your name,” and he laughed quietly as though this were a particularly clever joke and moved on. She watched him gradually work his way further from the fringes of the crowd until he disappeared behind the bamboo.
Perhaps he was someone her ex-husband had hired. But then again, perhaps he was just a friend of the Spicers.
She slipped away to the pond.
The man was sitting cross-legged beside Caliban, with his hand on the gargoyle’s head, staring into the water. Laura looked at his reflection and thought he had the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. It’s his garden, she thought with sudden certainty. He’s grieving for it.
Oblivious to Laura’s presence, the man began stroking Caliban’s head in a blind, desolate way, a gesture both intimate and … what? Hungry.
Stricken, Laura said: “I ordered Ariel to go with him. Do you like him?” and the man started violently, as wild-eyed as Caliban himself. Laura felt momentarily frightened. She could not tell if the look was hostile, or haunted, or simply that of a man much disoriented by loss. Then he smiled, and Laura thought with a shiver that his smile was a little like that of her former husband, who could move from charm to threat to charm again without warning.
Caliban’s reflection grinned at her from the water. A real steal, he smirked. She thought uncomfortably: it is a kind of theft, a foreclosure.
“I know how you must feel,” she said apologetically. The man’s eyes unnerved her. She spoke to his reflection, which watched hers. “Look, if you want to come and sit here sometimes … well, that’s okay. I’ll understand.” She felt as though she were placating some capricious force, and couldn’t tell if she spoke from compassion or fear.
“Mrs Spicer,” she said, when the flow of the party had reabsorbed her, “that man over there, just coming up from the pond. Is he Mr Voss?”
Mrs Spicer was startled. “Good God,” she said. “I shouldn’t think so.” She studied him intently. “To tell you the truth, it’s hard to say. We practically never saw him. I don’t believe we ever once saw him face to face.” She squinted, and tipped her head to one side. “It could be … but no, I don’t think so. That man’s a friend of the Taylors, I think. I’ve seen him round. Mr Voss was stockier, heavier than that. Just the same, I wouldn’t take chances. I’d notify the police.”
“The police?” Laura said apprehensively. “Why the police?”
“Well, confidentially,” Mrs Spicer lowered her voice. “I didn’t want to alarm Jilly with the whole story. But I play tennis with Milly Layton whose husband’s a cop. Voss was suspected of murder, you know.”
“Murder?”
“The story is that his wife ran off with another man. He got custody of their daughter, and that was the situation when they moved in here, Voss and his kid. She used to babysit for us, as a matter of fact, when Key was a baby. Lovely girl. Just about Jilly’s age. Could never get a word out of her about her dad or mum, though I poked around. Discreetly, you know. Then one day she just disappeared. His story was that the wife had kidnapped her, but the police weren’t so sure. They couldn’t find any trace of the wife or daughter, and for a while they had a theory he’d murdered them both. Came and dug up the pond because they thought he might have buried them in the mud.”
It seemed to Laura that she could feel the meaning of the gargoyle’s leer seeping into her body like cold water. “But they never found anything,” Mrs Spicer said lightly, “so charges were dropped. Voss went a bit berserk, Milly says. They had to cart him off. All I know is, the police cars came and went, came and went, I don’t know how many times. Then the For Sale sign went up. It was there for months you know. They couldn’t sell it. Word spread, people had a bad feeling about the place. Quite frankly, I say where there’s smoke, there’s fire. You’ve got to wonder what someone was hiding behind all that jungle. I expect you’ll be having it cut back.”
“Oh, well, I grew up in a house like this out past Samford, you see. Right in the rainforest. I like it this way. Mrs Spicer, Jilly says that man drives past when she’s at the bus stop and stares.”
“Really?” Mrs Spicer studied him more intently. “You’ve got to wonder about some of the Taylors’ friends. Bloody peeping Toms, it’s disgusting. Listen,” she said, “I’d inform the police. You can’t be too careful when you’ve got a daughter.” She looked obliquely at Laura. “Especially when you’re managing on your own. Not easy, I’m sure, being a single mother.”
“No,” Laura said.
“Jilly says you’re doing a book on Patrick White’s Voss. Funny, isn’t it? The name, I mean. The coincidence.”
“It is a bit weird,” Laura acknowledged.
“Read Voss in high school. Based on Leichhardt, wasn’t he?”
“More or less, yes.”
“All those explorers were raving lunatics,” Mrs Spicer said. “Well …” She squinted across the lawn. “No, I’m sure that’s not Mr Voss, he’s too shrunken and pale for Mr Voss, but you must call the police. We don’t want pervs in The Gap, it’s a family place. Ask for Milly Layton’s husband. As a matter of fact, I’ll give Milly a tinkle myself.”
“Mrs White,” Sergeant Layton said. “Staring is not a criminal offence. I’m not saying there aren’t loonies around, but if we followed up every phone call we get from a frightened woman, we’d never do anything else, d’ya see what I mean?”
“Yes,” Laura said. “It’s just that … I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have it on the record, you know, in case anything … He drives a red Toyota, my daughter says.”
“Mrs White.” The sergeant spoke in the patient tones of one whose daily task involved fending off — wearily, kindly — hordes of neurotic women. “I have a daughter myself. I worry myself sick about her safety. Know what I do? Tell her never to accept rides from strange men. It’s that simple. Train them to be sensible, know where they are, give them a curfew: that’s all any parent can do.”
But look, she wanted to say. I think I may have done something stupid. I told this man he could come and sit by my pond. I could see he was hurt you see. I could see he was in pain. But that wouldn’t necessarily mean he wouldn’t do harm, would it? And now I’m worried that he’ll read something into my offer, I’m frightened that …
But how could she expose such foolish behaviour to the police? Women ask for it, you know. They’re all masochists at heart, they’re like children really.
She said: “Well, you see, I thought he might be Mr Voss, the former owner. My neighbour says not, and I suppose she would know, but I don’t feel completely certain, and your wife told my neighbour that Mr Voss—”
Sergeant Layton laughed. “My wife,” he said fondly. “Listen, Mrs White. For number one: women embroider things, bless their souls. And for number two: I don’t tell Milly everything. And for number three: we never had anything solid on Voss, he was a routine suspect, that’s all. And as a matter of fact, we got the bodies
