A tidier kitchen than I’d expected. A natty row of red- and-white-striped mugs beside the sink and a perfectly healthy-looking fern in a blue pot in the corner.
‘I really need to pack,’ said Devlin.
‘Off you go,’ I spoke smoothly. ‘I can find my way around a kitchen.’
He hurried off down the hallway. I flicked on the kettle and found a box of teabags on a shelf. Then I had a silent little fossick in each of his kitchen drawers. Nothing to report.
The kettle boiled and clicked off. I poured out our drinks, let them brew. Headed down the hallway to the sounds of packing.
‘Earl Grey, hope that’s OK?’ I leaned against the door-frame.
Devlin was poring over his passport, a black suitcase on his bed.
‘So, anyway, Bill said you used to work with Joanne Smith…?’ I said.
‘Yeah.’ He kept flicking through his passport.
‘You know Joanne well?’
He shrugged. ‘Well enough.’ He slid the passport into his pocket.
‘Bit concerning, isn’t it? That she’s gone missing.’ I fiddled with a fleck of loose paint in the doorway. ‘Why had she gone to, where was it…Sheep Dip?’
‘Why the interest in Joanne?’
‘Oh, just making conversation.’ For some reason, I was starting to feel nervous. Don’t talk too much, Cass. Just act normal.
‘Two minutes,’ he glanced at his watch, ‘and then I need to go. Whether or not the letter’s arrived.’
Bugger bugger bugger. I mooched back into the kitchen. Took the teabags from the mugs and opened the kitchen pedal bin, ready to flick them in. There was a phone in the bin: a silvery phone in its little stand. A phone that looked remarkably like Joanne’s.
I put the teabags on a saucer, moved quietly over to the doorway and stood there a moment, listening. The sound of drawers opening and closing. A zip. The clomp of shoes on a hard wooden floor. Devlin’s voice floated down the hallway. ‘I really have to go. I’m just heading to the loo and then I’ll be off.’
‘Righto.’
Now or never. I slipped off my shoes and scurried down the hallway, following the sound of the liquid stream. White door with a newish lever-style door handle. No lock, not on the outside, anyway. I raced back to the kitchen and grabbed a chair. Ran back down the hallway, silent slithering steps. Breathing fast, I shoved the back of the chair under the door handle. Just in time. The toilet flushed.
I stood well back from the door. The handle rattled but the chair held. I headed silently back to the kitchen; checked my phone. Still zilch from Dean.
More door-handle rattling. ‘Hey!’ Devlin’s voice from the toilet. ‘The door’s stuck.’ Music to my ears.
‘Pardon?’ I popped my head around the kitchen doorway.
‘The fucking door.’
I walked down the hallway. ‘The door? What’s wrong with it?’
‘It won’t open from this side. Can you open it?’
‘Oh, right.’ Leaving the chair in position, I gently pushed the door handle, it moved a millimetre. ‘Seems to be stuck from this side too, I’m afraid.’
‘Fuck’s sake.’ More rattling, followed by a whole lot of pounding.
I didn’t want him breaking down the door. ‘Is there a window? Can you get out through that?’
‘No way. It’s tiny.’
Excellent. ‘Do you want me to call a locksmith? I had to deal with one earlier this week, as it happens. Excellent service: he came over immediately. Think I’ve got his number with me.’
‘Christ. What is wrong with this?’ More rattling. ‘OK. Call him. Just hurry, will you?’
I headed back to the kitchen. Rang Dean for the millionth time and left another message.
I’d finished my second mug of Earl Grey by the time Dean finally arrived, and it had turned out to be a bit of a mistake: my bladder was in serious danger of erupting. I sincerely hoped we’d have Devlin out of his loo and into police custody before I peed myself.
I met Dean at the front door.
‘What the fuck have you done to your hair?’ he said.
I whispered the Andy-Devlin-shut-in-the-toilet situation. Crossed my legs.
‘You can’t go around locking people up.’
‘Keep your voice down. Look, it’s just a citizen’s arrest, all perfectly legit. I have reasonable grounds to believe an offender is trying to flee the country.’
‘He’s not an offender.’
‘Well, not officially, not yet. But that’s only because you haven’t had a chance to question him.’
Dean’s eyelid flickered. ‘Devlin’s father is the Police Minister.’
A micro-beat pause. ‘Well, you could have mentioned that.’
‘It’s Stephens’ view that connections shouldn’t matter.’
‘Right. So we’re good to go. All you need to do is open the toilet door and take the bloke away.’
‘On what basis, exactly?’
‘That he’s a person of interest in the murder of Vivian Bentley.’ Hang in there, bladder, not long now.
‘Devlin was in a job interview the morning Vivian Bentley was killed.’
‘Ah.’ I crossed my legs a little tighter. ‘Well, you’ll still need to question him about Patterson’s fire. Something dodgy there. Patterson didn’t like Devlin.’
‘Andy Devlin was in Broken Hill the night of the fire.’
Something caught in my throat. ‘You sure of that?’
‘The six witnesses with him certainly are.’
‘They spent all night with him?’
‘Only till fucking midnight,’ he spat out. ‘Patterson’s fire was at 12.30. And I really don’t see how Devlin could have driven three hundred k’s in thirty minutes.’
A nasty pause. Devlin must have sensed something too—there was some heavy-duty thumping on the toilet door.
‘Well, there’s a phone in his kitchen bin. Bearing a striking resemblance to Joanne’s. Plus the diesel.’ I explained about the rats-dipped-in-diesel connection. Possible connection.
Dean drew a hand across his forehead.
I folded my arms and bent over, in the hope that overall-body compression might help with the bladder crisis.
‘Listen, Dean. You might want to pretend you’re a locksmith.’