Day 5
Ryder’s day began with an improvised exercise routine of stomach crunches until he was buggered. In Sydney, he’d pound the pavement for forty minutes then tune into the news while the endorphins continued to work their magic. But running wasn’t an option in Charlotte Pass, and with the room devoid of a television he hit the shower with twenty minutes to spare. He shaved and donned his suit, which now felt odd in his snowy surrounds, ate a quick breakfast, and was ready by the time Flowers and Lewicki walked in at eight.
Ryder made the introductions, registering Flowers’ surprise to find the man dressed in corduroy trousers, a roll-neck skivvy and a knitted jumper was a former high-ranking member of the Force. And Ryder had no intention of telling Flowers that Lew had disposed of the DNA samples back in the nineties, not unless Flowers somehow found out and put it to him. All Flowers needed to know was that Lew was here to share his knowledge. Unofficially.
‘So, where are you dossing down?’ Lewicki asked, looking at Flowers with interest.
‘In the staff quarters out the back. It’s full of hospitality staff. It’s hard to sleep with the usual antics going on. The walls are paper thin.’
Ryder checked his watch. ‘Okay, listen up. Flowers, you and I will conduct the interviews on the lounge like we’re having an informal conversation. Lewicki will sit at the desk in the other room, as though he’s working. We’ll leave the office door open so they’ll see him as they come in and realise he can hear what’s being said. If they’ve lied in the past, they’ll be on edge as they try to remember details. Hopefully, some will slip up.’
There was a soft knock at the door. Ryder looked from Flowers to Lewicki and back again. ‘All set?’
They nodded.
Lewicki rubbed his hands together as he headed into the makeshift office. ‘Let’s go.’
Ryder watched as Di Gordon sat on the lounge and crossed her legs. She was dressed in the formal skirt and jacket she wore while working in the hotel office, and he could tell now she was one of the women in the photograph from the 1960s. Her dark-brown hair was styled in the same chin-length bob, only her hair was thinner, her face harder, and her mouth sloped down at the corners like she was disappointed at how her life had turned out.
Ryder sat opposite her while Flowers stood and offered a glass of water.
‘No, thanks,’ she said with a quick glance at the office door. She hadn’t missed Lew on the way in.
Ryder ran through the preliminaries. When he mentioned that he was recording the interview, she gave an impatient nod. ‘Yes. Is this going to take long? I have a busy day ahead of me.’
It was the green light for Ryder to go in hard. ‘Nigel Miller said he was having an affair with you at the time his wife went missing in 1964. Is that true?’
Her eyes widened, and then her mouth pulled into an unattractive sneer that Ryder would have liked to capture on camera if they’d been doing this at the station.
‘How is that relevant now, more than half a century later?’
‘Because with the discovery of Celia Delaney’s body, the Coroner’s finding that she went missing in bad weather will be set aside. Detective Flowers advised the media half an hour ago that we’ve opened a formal murder investigation.’
‘Murder?’ Suddenly Di Gordon looked her age, despite the carefully pencilled eyebrows and heavy make-up. ‘How?’
‘According to the autopsy, she was bludgeoned to death and buried,’ Ryder said bluntly. He leaned forward, his elbows propped on his knees. ‘I’ll ask you again. Were you having an affair with Nigel Miller?’
‘It was hardly an affair, more like a bit on the side.’ She pressed her lips into a line and challenged Ryder with her eyes.
‘How did you keep it from becoming common knowledge?’
‘I run a hotel. I kept a room free. It wasn’t difficult.’
Ryder changed tack. ‘It says on the file that you inherited the lease of Charlotte Pass village.’
‘Yes, from my uncle. He didn’t have any children. I used to come down here and ski as a child. We shared a great love of this place.’
‘It must have been tough when you almost lost it?’
She frowned. ‘Lost it?’
‘That awful weekend when Celia went missing, and the chairlift all but disappeared in the snowdrift. It was supposed to save this place—connect it to the outside world. It failed.’
Di Gordon gave a reluctant nod. ‘Yes, it was tough, but we’ve had lots of difficult times in the past. Surviving one year to the next is a challenge.’
‘Do you remember which ski patroller was on duty the night Celia Delaney went missing?’
Di Gordon stared at him in disbelief. ‘It’s over fifty years ago.’
Ryder didn’t reply, just waited for the growing silence to make her so uncomfortable she’d talk again to fill the gap. He didn’t have to wait long.
‘We used to have all the records going right back to when my uncle first took over the lease, but there was a fire in the storeroom one year. Everything was lost.’
Ryder made a mental note to check her story and decided not to question her whereabouts in the early evening on the day in question. It was all there in Lewicki’s notes. Multiple witnesses had seen Di and Henry working in the hotel and serving glühwein to the guests. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t arranged the whole thing.
‘Mrs Gordon,’ he began, adopting a more conversational tone, ‘the way I see it, you had motive—’
‘You’ve got to be joking!’
‘You were sleeping with her husband.’
She gave a harsh laugh that dripped with self-righteous sarcasm. ‘You think I wanted Celia out of the way because I wanted Nigel?’
‘Did you?’
‘No. Nigel was a convenience for a few years, like all the men I’ve slept with since.’
‘How would you describe your relationship with your husband?’ Ryder asked, refusing to break eye contact.
She shifted in her seat, then glanced at Flowers as though wondering if he was going to speak. ‘My relationship with my husband is workable. I run the hotel, the front desk, and the cleaning staff. I oversee the restaurants, take care of the hiring and the firing and look after our guests. Henry retrained as an accountant after he came home from Vietnam. He keeps to himself in his office. He does all our ordering, pays the bills, attends to the payroll, oversees our taxation obligations, that sort of thing.’
‘You just don’t sleep with him.’
‘Henry is impotent, Detective Ryder.’ Di Gordon gave him a withering look. ‘He has been since he came home from the war.’
‘I see. So, did your husband know about Nigel?’
‘He would have, though I always tried to be as discreet as possible. The situation was painful for Henry.’
Ryder studied Di Gordon, and the lines of disappointment he’d noticed earlier. Maybe it had been painful for her, too. ‘You were never tempted to get out of this place and take off with your lover?’
‘Never. If you haven’t noticed, Charlotte Pass is my life. Do you really think I’d do something to Celia, just so I could have Nigel?’
‘You said yourself it’s tough down here.’
‘If I wanted to bump anyone off it would be Henry.’ She swept a hand around the room. ‘Why would I give up all this for a struggling musician?’
‘Were you and Celia friends?’
She frowned at this sudden shift. ‘No. She was an acquaintance, that’s all. She was naïve. Needy. They had a troubled marriage because Nigel’s music always came first. In the beginning, I got the impression she liked being married to a musician. But I think in time the sheen wore off, probably the nights spent at home while he played in some seedy pub, or the groupies …’
‘Or his lovers, which he expected her to tolerate,’ added Ryder.
She gave him a poisonous look, and it struck Ryder how easily a person could get on her bad side. He suspected her relationships would last for as long as she benefited from them.
‘Nigel said that you were the cause of the argument he had with Celia just before five pm the night she went missing. Did he tell you about that argument?’
She glanced towards the office door where Lewicki could be heard shifting papers around and snapping the ring binder closed. ‘I can’t remember. It’s a long time ago.’
‘Was Nigel getting tired of Celia’s neediness? Did you suspect he might have wanted a more permanent relationship with you?’
‘Yes, he was tired of her, but it had nothing to do with me. The band had been offered a tour of England, and there was a possible record deal in the works. Nigel was champing at the bit. He hoped it would be their big break, you know, like The Seekers. But Celia didn’t want them to go.’
From the corner of his eye, Ryder saw Flowers glance at him. There had been nothing in Lewicki’s file about band disunity. The musicians had been on stage when Celia had disappeared, and so had never figured prominently in the investigation. Lewicki had, however, taken statements hoping to learn something of the relationship between Nigel and Celia. In the band members’ opinions, they were like any other couple. They argued occasionally, but the marriage appeared to be solid.
The band posters in Celia’s bedroom came to Ryder’s mind, especially the one advertising The Beatles concert she had attended in Melbourne not long before her death. Her objection to the band going to London sounded contrary to everything he’d learned about her. ‘Why wasn’t Celia in favour of the tour? I would have thought she’d have seen it as an amazing opportunity.’
Di snorted. ‘She wanted a house in the ’burbs with a quarter-acre block and a white picket fence. Nigel was desperate for the big time. She was cramping his style. The other guys couldn’t stand her.’
Ryder maintained his professional neutrality as he absorbed this new information. ‘Has the band line-up changed over the years?’
‘No. They’re all the same guys.’
Ryder pretended to think over what she’d said. He looked at Flowers like they were exchanging some silent communication. When he sensed her growing nervousness, in the way she clasped her hands together then crossed and uncrossed her legs, he turned back. ‘Why do you think Nigel chose to tell us about your affair yesterday?’
‘I don’t know. Why don’t you ask him?’
‘I’ll do that.’ Ryder slapped his knees and looked at Flowers. ‘Is there anything you’d like to ask, Detective?’
Flowers shook his head. ‘I think I’ve heard everything I need to know, Sergeant.’
It was a good answer, and Ryder hid his smile as he pushed himself to his feet. He could almost smell the woman’s growing panic.
‘Thank you, Mrs Gordon. That’ll be all. For now.’