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Garima ached to join Lexi in their journey of discovery. But a nondescript beige vehicle careened into the car park bearing Mrs Barrymore behind the steering wheel. Four other ladies tumbled from the passenger seats as though squeezed through a narrow aperture. Garima settled his customary welcoming mask over his misery and clasped his hands before him. “Ah,” he said, “They’ve arrived early.” He shot Lexi a doleful expression and crossed the car park to greet his visitors. His shiny shoes dragged across the gravel as though weighing him down.
“I’ll let you know,” Lexi called, and he shot a lacklustre wave over his shoulder. “Hey, Gari, your keys.” She walked around his dilapidated vehicle and locked each door with the bent key. He turned to face her and caught the neat throw in his outstretched hands.
Darlene extracted herself from the group and strode towards Lexi. “Hello, dear,” she called. “How are you?”
Lexi tamped down a smirk. The elderly woman still wore the bandage around her head. She tilted her eyes to peer at Lexi from beneath its folds. “I’m good, thanks,” she lied. “Shouldn’t you be at home resting?”
“Oh.” Darlene patted her bandage in the pretence of having forgotten about it. “It’s the end of the month,” she said with a smile, as though Lexi should know what that meant. She dipped at the waist in response to Lexi’s confused expression. “Ins and outs and totals,” she continued. Her slender hands waved in front of her. “Budgets. Invoices, expenditure, and GST. It’s a requirement of our charitable status to stay abreast of our accounts.” She tapped the side of her nose in an attempt at humour. “The tax man won’t even wait for God.”
Lexi feigned a chuckle. “You’re the church treasurer?”
“Oh, yes.” Darlene’s head wobbled on her stalky neck. “And my husband before me, God rest his soul. We owned the biggest accounting firm in Hamilton, but I sold it after his death back in 2015. He’d diversified into investments and proved a whizz at it. We met at school and he adored mathematics. He knew when to cut his losses and always came out on top.” She exhaled and her chin dropped. Sadness wrapped around her. “The Good Lord made us for each other,” she murmured.
Lexi nodded with sympathy. She understood the loss which ached in her marrow. A thought occurred to her, and she frowned before asking it, hating to intrude on a grief ridden moment. “Do you know an investment banker named Keith Barnard?” she asked.
Darlene blinked up at her soft voice as though her thoughts had spirited her away temporarily. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “Very well. He started his career with us and still works for our old firm. My husband, Hilly, liked him a great deal.”
“Mrs Barrymore!” A shrill call wavered from the church. Garima had unlocked the rear door and proceeded inside. A lady with fluffy white hair gesticulated from the doorway. “We’re ready to begin,” she trilled. “Stanley needs his injection at nine o’clock. I must get home on time.” She tilted her wrist and mimed checking a watch.
Darlene inhaled and raised a pencilled eyebrow at Lexi. “Onwards and upwards,” she sang. Her sensible shoes crunched in the gravel as she walked away.
Neurons fired in Lexi’s brain as she connected more players together via tenuous links. Father Donald was Trent Barnard’s brother-in-law and Casey Brown’s business partner. He’d used Sam’s identity to initiate the investigation and must have met Keith through their shared connection to Trent. Keith Barnard and Darlene Barrymore’s husband had worked together in the business world. Lexi sensed something click, but its immediate significance evaded her. “Mrs Barrymore! Darlene!” She ran after the elderly woman as Darlene stepped into the church.
“Yes, dear.” She schooled her severe features into a careful smile.
“What time did you go to unlock the big skip behind the church on Monday?” she asked. “I forgot to write it down.”
Darlene stared up at the dusky sky and seemed to consider her answer. “I put my handbag in the office and went straight outside to do it. So, just before nine o’clock.”
“But weren’t you late on Monday? Car issues?”
Darlene’s features became pointier, and something snapped behind her eyes. Her brows narrowed. “Who told you that?” she growled. Her lips turned down into a grim arch. But her gaze shifted to the rear of Garima’s diarrhoea coloured car and then back to Lexi. “I must go,” she stated. All pretence at civility between them evaporated. The rear door clanged behind her, and Lexi stared at the faded wood.
“Bye then,” she said aloud.
She patted the bug nestled in her pocket and sighed. Downloading and sifting the recordings might take hours. But she at least had a ball park time to examine. Monday, between six o’clock in the morning and two in the afternoon. From the confessional to Father Donald’s approximate meltdown. She wondered why the forensic checks carried out by the police hadn’t revealed the bug. Or had Rojas placed it there while he had the opportunity? The latter theory destroyed all her links between confidential phone calls to a dead priest and Lachlan’s absent chauffeur driver.
Hunger gnawed at Lexi’s stomach. She pictured the contents of her fridge and hung her head with exhaustion. The last thing she needed was an evening trip to the busy supermarket. Back at her SUV, she swung the RF detector around her vehicle. It located the GPS tracker beneath her bonnet and hiccupped over her dashcam. “Technically correct,” Lexi stated. “It is a camera.” She powered off the detector and stowed it in her truck’s copious boot.
A call from Grant Herbert prevented her from exiting the vehicle when she reached the supermarket nearest to her house. Cautioned by Lachlan’s reach now, she didn’t let the car speaker pick up the connection. Instead, she reached for her phone and lifted it to her ear. “Hey,” she said. “You’re working after hours. Who’s paying for that?”
His low chuckle reassured her. Their fledgling friendship had survived their minor spat at the pub. But he’d threatened to subpoena her, and it reminded her not to drop her guard. He continued through her pause, “I’ve found the records you asked for. A Hamilton business paid for the wrongful imprisonment suit. It seemed weird at the time but who cares who pays the piper as long as they do? K Barnard signed the invoices. Those earlier records are archived so I’ll get a clerk to scan them and forward them via email. I had to go into the basement and get filthy. Hope you appreciate my dedication. And Legal Aid paid for the 2020 defence case because Trent Barnard owned no assets.”
“Keith Barnard?” Lexi couldn’t keep the confusion from her voice. “Why would he fund an appeal nine years too late?” Her mind ran across the scattered fragments of information. Did Keith discover the truth about Lala’s parentage and withhold his help until the last moment? She exhaled. “It perhaps explains his antagonism towards me when I called him. If he’d paid for your time because he believed in Trent’s innocence, his faith took a battering when the police added charges for the other two victims.”
“Yep.” Grant’s tone held the strained threads of distraction. “I figured you’d like to know. Thanks for the registration number too. But it doesn’t exist.”
“Wait, what?” Lexi’s heart thudded at an unnatural rate. “Of course it does. I saw it parked across the road from my house when you left. It followed us from Te Awamutu. Didn’t you see it?” The frantic edge in her voice sickened her.
“No,” he replied. “I remember you seemed edgy, but you didn’t explain why.”
Lexi balled her free hand and released it. She fought for control before continuing. “So, there’s no record of that number plate?”
“Oh, sorry. I didn’t make myself clear. It exists, but not for a motorbike. The plate belongs to a 1960s Bentley kept in a garage in Northland somewhere. Its owner hasn’t unregistered the vehicle, so the number is still tied to it. The car is marked as ‘off-road’ on the transport system, so it doesn’t incur tax or duties. It’s possibly one of those project vehicles that someone renovates at the weekend. The plate exists but isn’t in use.”
“But it is,” Lexi murmured to herself. Arguing with Grant again wouldn’t serve her. She thanked him for his help and left her vehicle. The doors of the supermarket cast a pale light into the darkening evening. And there seemed no end to the intrigue.
