I tried to get back to sleep—no success. At six-thirty I got up and dressed quickly, grabbing undies, socks, shorts and T-shirt on auto-pilot. I paused a moment, then went over to my sock drawer and opened it again. The contents were strangely tidy. Socks lined up in a neat row, undies neatly stacked, hankies folded.
I stood there a moment. I don’t run an obsessive-compulsive sock and undie drawer, not normally. I have plenty of more interesting things to do than spend time squaring up my clothing. So who had been in my sock drawer?
I knocked on Brad’s bedroom door. ‘Brad?’
He groaned.
I opened his door. A face-full of stale air. I really wish Brad would open his window at night; some fresh air would probably do him good, especially considering all his recent contact with the ferrets.
‘Someone’s tidied up my sock drawer. Was it you?’
‘For God’s sake, what time is it?’
‘Half past six.’
‘Well, can we chat about your socks later?’
‘I think someone’s been through the house. Did you go out last night, while I was at Ernie’s?’
Another groan. ‘I was minding the shop, like you asked me.’
‘The whole time?’
‘Does everyone have to be on my back all the bloody time?’ He rolled over.
‘Does that mean no?’
‘Maybe I went out for a minute. There weren’t any customers—it wasn’t like my being there counted for anything.’
I flicked on the light. Brad sat up, blinking, his dark hair tousled. He put a hand across his eyes. I wondered why he wasn’t over at Madison’s. He spends most nights at her place these days. Well, he used to. Until recently. Weird.
‘How long were you out for?’
He shrugged. ‘Twenty minutes, max.’
‘I’d say someone went through the place in those twenty minutes.’ And…wait. ‘Remember the blood in the ferret cage?’
‘You think someone opened the ferret cage? To get himself bitten?’
‘And my sock drawer. Looking for something, I’d say.’ My voice was grim.
‘Looking for what?’
Excellent question.
*
I did a quick change into a smart skirt and office-style shirt. Nasty tight shoes with heels—Helen’s cast-offs. I threw down a rapid breakfast, then popped some sausage rolls from the freezer into a lunch box. Checked the White Pages: Peluso & Son had no street address, just a post office box in Mildura. I put in a quick call to Taylah.
‘He lives in Sydney most of the year, Cass.’
Shit. Sydney’s a thousand k’s away.
‘But he’s in Mildura this week, so you’re in luck. He stays at Hotel Miramar.’
‘Miramar?’
‘Means view of the sea.’
‘Mildura’s at least a four-hour drive from the coast.’
‘You shouldn’t take everything so literally, Cass. Hey by the way, Showbag says Joanne’s been in touch.’
Had Showbag developed mind-reading skills?
‘He saw Vern climbing in your window. Thought he was an intruder. Stood outside your place waiting to see if you needed help.’
Maybe that meant Showbag was thawing. Long story involving a gun that no one bothered to tell me was loaded. Just an unfortunate accident. And aeons ago.
‘Said he overheard you and Vern talking about Joanne,’ Taylah went on. ‘So it’s true?’
I confirmed the Vern conversation, and Taylah got off the phone pronto. ‘Better let you get on with the manhunt. Woman-hunt.’
A few minutes later, I pulled up outside Vern’s. He was waiting by his back door, smartly dressed as I’d requested: a check shirt and black trousers. Possibly the only occasion I’d seen Vern in anything other than a singlet and shorts, apart from that ghastly time when he suited up and asked me to marry him. Yeah, no need to go into all that.
He got into the passenger seat of my car, saw me looking at the bruise on the side of his head and winced, a bit of a theatrical motion.
‘Someone’s searched my place, Vern. Snuck in and neatened things up. What about you?’
He shook his head.
I started my car. ‘So, you phoned Paula?’
He pressed his lips together. Good thing I’d called Dean.
I passed the row of silos and took the turn north onto the highway. Vern wound down the window to get some breeze.
‘First up,’ I said, ‘we’ll see Peluso. Then this evening there’s this birdwatching venture we have to attend. You’re my, err, cousin, OK? We live down south.’ I flicked a look at Vern.
He nodded.
‘You know anything about birds?’ I said.
‘I’ll tell them about me chooks.’
Great. Well, I hoped I’d be able to do justice to Brad’s bird training. I wasn’t looking forward to an evening of maintaining my bird-childhood fiction.
‘Maybe someone from the bird club will have some ideas about where Joanne took those photos. They might even know the bloke in the Iceland hat. I’ll start with Dorothy. Or Liam.’
Unless they too were people we weren’t supposed to show the photos to?
‘Joanne ever mention Nic Peluso to you? I mean, before she disappeared? Anything that might help us understand why or why not to show him the photos?’
Vern shook his head.
‘Come on. You must remember something. You seem to know bloody nothing about this woman and, frankly, you’ve been pretty useless about her phone call.’
‘I told you everything she said, Cass. And I reckon we’d be better off not arguing about it. We gotta present a united front to the bastard.’
Fair point. We did need to work together if we had any hope of getting answers to questions. If only I had some idea of what those questions needed to be.