The Bat(24)

Evans’s voice faltered. The kitchen fell silent. Either he’s a good actor or he does have human emotions after all, Harry thought.

‘If you didn’t see any future in the relationship, why didn’t you split up with her?’

‘I was already on my way. Standing in the doorway about to say bye, sort of. But she was gone before I could do anything. Just like that . . .’ He snapped his fingers.

Yes, his voice has thickened, no doubt about it, Harry thought.

Evans gazed down at his hands. ‘Quite a way to depart, wasn’t it.’





12


Quite a Big Spider


THEY DROVE UP steep mountain roads. A signpost indicated the way to the Crystal Castle.

‘The question is: is Evans White telling the truth?’ Harry said.

Andrew avoided an oncoming tractor.

‘Let me share a crumb of my experience with you, Harry. For over twenty years I’ve been talking to people with a variety of reasons for lying or telling the truth. Guilty and innocent, murderers and pickpockets, bundles of nerves and cold fish, blue-eyed baby faces, scarred villain faces, sociopaths, psychopaths, philanthropists . . .’ He searched for more examples.

‘Point taken, Andrew.’

‘. . . Aboriginals and whites. They’ve all told their stories with one objective: to be believed. And do you know what I’ve learned?’

‘That it’s impossible to say who’s lying and who isn’t?’

‘Exactly, Harry!’ Andrew began to warm to the topic. ‘In traditional crime fiction every detective with any self-respect has an unfailing nose for when people are lying. It’s bullshit! Human nature is a vast impenetrable forest which no one can know in its entirety. Not even a mother knows her child’s deepest secrets.’

They turned into a car park in front of a large green garden with a narrow gravel path winding between a fountain, flower beds and exotic species of tree. A huge house presided over the garden and was obviously the Crystal Castle that the Nimbin sheriff had pointed out to them on a map.

A bell above the door announced their arrival. This was clearly a popular place, for the shop was packed with tourists. An energetic woman greeted them with a radiant smile and welcomed them with such enthusiasm it was as if they were the first people she had seen here in months.

‘Is this your first time here?’ she asked, as though her crystal shop were a habit-forming affair people flocked to regularly once they had been hooked. And for all they knew that is exactly how it might have been.

‘I envy you,’ she said after they confirmed it was. ‘You’re about to experience the Crystal Castle for the first time! Take that corridor there. On the right is our wonderful vegetarian cafe with the most exquisite meals. After you’ve been there, go left, into the crystal and mineral room. That’s where the real action is! Now, go, go, go!’

She waved them off. After such a build-up, naturally it was an anticlimax to discover that the cafe was basically a standard outlet selling coffee, tea, lettuce with yogurt and lettuce sandwiches. In the designated crystal and mineral room there was an exhibition of glittering crystals, Buddha figures with crossed legs, blue and green quartz and uncut stones in an elaborate light display. The room was filled with a faint aroma of incense, soporific pan-pipe music and the sound of running water. Harry considered the shop nice enough, though a touch camp, and unlikely to take your breath away. What might cause respiratory difficulties, however, were the prices.

‘Ha ha,’ Andrew laughed, on seeing some of the price tags. ‘The woman’s a genius.’

He pointed to the generally middle-aged and evidently well-off customers in the shop. ‘The flower-power generation has grown up. They have adult jobs, adult incomes, but their hearts are somewhere on an astral planet.’

They walked back to the counter. The energetic woman was still wearing her radiant smile. She took Harry’s hand and pressed a blue-green stone in his palm.

‘You’re Capricorn, aren’t you? Put this stone under your pillow. It will remove all the negative energy in the room. It costs sixty-five dollars, but you really should have it, I think, so let’s say fifty.’

She turned to Andrew.

‘And you must be a Leo?’

‘Oh no, ma’am, I’m a policeman.’ He discreetly held up his badge.

She blanched and stared at him in horror. ‘How awful. I hope I haven’t done anything wrong.’

‘Not as far as I know, ma’am. I presume you’re Margaret Dawson, formerly White? If so, may we have a word with you in private?’

Margaret Dawson quickly pulled herself together and called one of the girls to take charge of the till. Then she accompanied Andrew and Harry to the garden where they sat round a white wooden table. A net was stretched out between two trees. At first Harry thought it was a fishing net, but upon closer inspection it proved to be an enormous spider’s web.