"We need God more. We can't rely on people. We all carry baggage concerning our families. The only way we can abandon this baggage is through God. Are you sure your eye is on God? Aren't you bitter about your father? Hasn't your bitterness led you to do things that are against God?"

"I was angry. Very angry. But that's all in the past."

"But what would happen if you suddenly found evidence of your father? That he's alive?"

"That would be wonderful. That's been my dream. I'm not expecting it anymore, but..."

"And it turned out that your father wasn't what you were expecting. That he didn't even care about you. What then?"

I paused. When the pastor spoke you sometimes felt that it was God Himself speaking to you. And right now something in the pastor's words was vaguely unsettling. Just as happened when I heard Pastor Reezall call down the wrath of God, I felt a slight shudder.

CHAPTER TEN.

With trepidation I rang Miriam's doorbell. Nearly twenty-four hours of investigation had given me little to report other than to confirm what she'd told me the previous day-that her father had been bad-mouthing Go-Go Greene Financial. What would she think of my abilities?

Oh, and my pastor had reported that her father was a hothead who might not have thought God was working fast enough. But I wasn't going to tell her that.

So I was delighted by the cheery smile I received, almost as if I had arrived for one of our dates together. She even seemed eager to make me a cup of coffee. We sat together in her living room.

"How did you sleep last night?" I enquired.

"What do you think? Not well." She brushed at her hair with one hand. "Johnny, I'm sorry for involving you in all this. I realize I'm being selfish. Asking you to investigate. Just for me. The police will do a good job. I'm sure you have plenty of other things to do."

No, I didn't have much to do at all. That's another thing that worried me. I could survive on little. But if I was serious about developing my relationship with Miriam, she would expect a husband who could support her and her son. Maybe it was time to find a proper job.

"I'm happy to do it," I said. "Speaking of the police, have you seen them again?"

"You mean apart from being chased by them at my father's house?"

"Apart from that."

"They came round again yesterday afternoon. Soon after Jonah got home from school."

"Any news?"

"They said they didn't have much to go on at all. Someone almost certainly poured petrol around the house and set fire to it on Monday night. They haven't been able to find any witnesses. The house was virtually destroyed, along with just about all of Dad's stuff, so there's very little evidence there. They haven't been able to find anything important. And it seems Dad-his body-was also badly burned. Beyond recognition, they said. They won't let me see it. Not that I want to. There'll be an autopsy of some kind, apparently. They wonder if he was in a fight of some kind."

"A fight?"

"They said it's possible."

"Your father's unlikely to have been in a fight. Not at his age."

"He loved a good fight. But with words, not fists or weapons. But he was an old man. He wouldn't be in a real fight."

"A burglar of some kind?"

"That's what the police are speculating. Broke into the place. Got surprised by Dad. Knocked him out or something, then burned the house down. But why would a burglar go there? It's so remote. And Dad had nothing. Nothing." She paused and took a deep breath. "And they asked me lots of questions. Did I know if my father had enemies? That sort of thing. And they asked about my own relationship with him. That wasn't pleasant. Do they think I might have done it?"

"I'm sure they don't. But when there's a murder they have to check out every angle. Often it is relatives who are involved."

"They even asked where I was on Monday night. I was where I always am. With Jonah. Actually, I'd been watching his cricket training for most of the evening, with all the other mothers. So it can't have been me."

I looked at her, her head turned away and her fingers cradling her mug of hot tea.

Miriam was a young teacher when she got married. Her husband was a fine young man, a good Christian, kind and gentle, heartily approved of by her domineering father.

Just one problem. After a couple of years it transpired that he was...well...not really interested in women. He had married a fine young Christian lady to appease his own domineering father. The marriage broke up, Miriam reclaimed her maiden name of Reezall and some years later had a brief fling during a trip to Asia with a man who was a friend of her father's and became pregnant with Jonah.

Now, I was no psychologist-I struggled to understand my own self-destructive behaviour-but I wondered how easy it would be to develop a relationship with Miriam, a single mother with one failed marriage behind her. But still I found her intensely attractive and desirable. She was intelligent, warm, caring and disciplined.

"Is Jonah at school?" I asked.

"Yes, I gave him the choice of staying home. But he wanted to go to school. Why does he need to stay home and mourn a grandfather he hardly knew?"

"What about your sister Sarah?"

"She's arriving this afternoon. Flying down from Sydney. I have to leave soon to pick her up from the airport."

"I can drive you."

"Oh Johnny. You're so sweet. Really you are. I don't know what I would have done without you. I don't like to admit it, but I do need a man. Sometimes. But no, I'd rather be alone with Sarah. I'll pick her up."

"When do you leave?"

"The traffic shouldn't be too bad. I don't need to leave for at least half an hour."

"So I think I need to ask you some of the same questions as the police."

"It wasn't me. I swear. I have witnesses."

I smiled. "I've brought my handcuffs, just in case." Then I paused. "Do you think your father had enemies?"

"You mean apart from the Australian general public?"

"Apart from them."

"I can't imagine who. That's what the police kept asking me. But I couldn't think of anyone who really hated him personally. Enough to kill him."

"Did he have any problems of any kind? Any worries?"

"They asked me that, too. No, nothing I was aware of. Apart from what I'd heard on the radio. About that financial planning firm. I didn't even mention that to the police. It was so vague. Johnny, do you think I should have said something?"

I shrugged. "Right now I can't think what it means." I told her about my visit to the radio station, and how I had been able to listen to her father's last broadcasts. "You're right, they were very vague. Anyway, I have an appointment with the financial planner later this afternoon. Maybe that will help give us some answers."

She began sipping at her tea. "You know, I hadn't seen Dad for a few weeks. I had to tell the police that. It wasn't easy. Goodness knows what they think of me."

"The police don't judge these things. They've got plenty more to worry about."

"But maybe my father had some recent worry. Some sort of problem. And I wasn't there for him. And somehow that got him killed."

"It sounds to me that your father wasn't scared to speak out. If there was something you needed to know he would have told you. How long had he been living in that house?"

"He moved there about five years ago. After my mother died. He had nothing. I told you. All the money he raised went to his charities. The orphanages in Asia. He was living on support from lots of Christians. And then someone from his church offered him that house. Until then he'd been renting a cheap place somewhere in western Melbourne. But this house was free. And he was told he could have it until he died. It was a pretty basic place. Actually it was a dump. A shack out in the country. A derelict converted farm shed with a corrugated iron roof and some basic plumbing. Freezing cold in winter and boiling hot in summer. But he didn't care about that."

She went silent again. "I sometimes wonder if he didn't move there to be nearer to me. I was twenty minutes away in Healesville. Maybe to try to reconcile. Maybe to have someone to look after him as he grew older. He didn't have anyone else after Mum died."

"Don't keep beating up on yourself."

"But whenever we met we'd end up arguing or something. You know what people say about Dad. That he's a typical judgmental Christian.

Well, he was. Berating me for not believing the things he believes about sinners and heaven and hell. And especially about Jonah. He could never accept that I could have a baby without being married."

"And the father was one of his friends."

"Grapper. Yes. That's right."

I paused. "Who did you say?"

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

Grapper?

I tried hard to recall if Miriam had previously mentioned to me the name of Jonah's father. Almost certainly she hadn't. I had never asked. Probably I was scared about what she might start telling me. Somewhere deep down I think I had told myself that I just didn't want to know about the circumstances of her trip to Asia and how she became pregnant. But of course, I did want to know.

"Grapper. That's what everyone called him. He was an associate of my father's in Asia."

"I knew a man named Grapper. A long time ago. When I was a freedom fighter in East Timor. I only met him once. He supplied me with guns. But..." I paused, and thought of the right words. "He was middle-aged then. As best as I could tell. Eleven years ago, when you met him, he would have been, well, quite old."

She laughed. "He was a friend of my father's. So he was quite old. He was my father's age."

"You got pregnant with a man your father's age?"

"Yep."

"Did he sell guns?"

"Yes, he told me about that. That's what he did. Though it seemed he did everything. He traveled all around Asia. He was a kind of adventurer. But he had a special passion for East Timor. We had that in common. He told me how he'd helped the freedom fighters there, supplying weapons. I think that's how I fell for him, when I heard that. And he was full of funny stories. He had me laughing all the time."

Well, not all the time, I wanted to say. I was jealous. I had yet to make it as far as kissing Miriam on the lips. "And you ended up having a baby. Was that planned?"

"Of course it wasn't planned. Maybe deep down I think I was trying to upset my father."

Again I tried to be tactful. "You must have wanted a baby?" At last I was getting a chance to ask the questions I had wanted to ask from the time I first met Miriam. I cursed myself again for being such a wimp-the tough-guy private detective who freezes in fear when it's time to develop a relationship with a woman.

"Yes, there was that. I wanted a baby very much. But you know something? Those three weeks with Grapper changed my life. Before that I was the dutiful daughter. Do you know what it's like having a pastor as a father?"

I wanted to reply that I'd have welcomed a father of any kind. But I simply shook my head with as much sympathy as I could muster.

"We always had to buy the cheapest stuff. Often we lived on handouts. I never had pretty clothes. I was never allowed make-up. I couldn't go to clubs or discos. And do you know what happened when boys started coming round?"

Again I shook my head.

"A boy would arrive at the front door and my father would open it and comment on what a lovely day it was. The boy would agree and then my father would say: 'And to think this is the day the Lord made.' Then he'd try to talk to him about the Bible. Of course the boys never came back again. My sister Sarah moved to Sydney as soon as she graduated. I should have done the same. Instead I moved to Healesville. It wasn't Melbourne, but it was only an hour's drive out of Melbourne. I was still the dutiful daughter. Still around for my father so I could be there if he needed me. And still under his influence. I'd have loved a little sports car, but instead I bought a sensible Toyota Corolla. I could never buy flashy clothes. I wanted to, but I knew it would make me feel guilty. I could never spoil myself. Or take a nice holiday."

"But then you went to Asia."

"Even that was for my father. I was meant to take over his ministry. Did I talk to you about that?"

"No, you didn't."

"I've been telling you about how I didn't get on with my father, but of course I admired what he was doing with all his charities. So ten or eleven years ago he said to me that he was getting older and felt I might be the person to take over running them all."

"So he sent you to Asia to learn the family business?"

"The family business. Very good. That's it. I decided to take a term's sabbatical from teaching, and see if I wanted to run my father's charities. I mean..." She paused. "Look, if you want to know, what was probably happening was I was having a bit of a personal crisis."

"A bit of a personal crisis?"

She laughed. "That's rather dramatic, isn't it? I'm such a calm and measured person. I don't have a full-blown personal crisis. Just a bit of a personal crisis. I'd been married and divorced, and of course I blamed myself, even though Greg-that was my husband-even though I can see now that he wasn't really interested in women. Then I had a couple of relationships, but they went nowhere. I'd stopped going to church, but then I'd start going again, and then I'd get into yoga and meditation and all the other stuff that my father hated. I liked my job, teaching English, but I was in my mid-thirties and felt life was going nowhere. I didn't get on with my father, but I still admired what he was doing. When he suggested that I might like to take over running his ministry-well, it sounded like the chance for a real change in my life. Raising money for all those orphanages. Doing something to help the world. With regular travel to Asia thrown in. And of course, deep down, I was still the dutiful daughter."

"But something went wrong."

She laughed again, a bright sparkling Christmas-bells sound that gave me pleasure. "Something went right. I spent a while learning the ropes here in Melbourne, working together with my father. That wasn't easy. Then I went to Thailand. And one of his associates was there to meet me. We were meant to spend time together at some of my dad's orphanages."

"Grapper."

"Grapper. That's right. We were together for three weeks. I didn't spend much time at any orphanages. Just one day, I think-that's all. We spent most of our time in a cabin in the rain forest. And I completely changed. For the first time I felt free. You can't imagine what it was like. Grapper taught me all about life. About myself. I'd never met anyone like him before. He was someone who just did whatever he wanted and damn the consequences. I decided to do the same. After three weeks I came back to Australia a completely different woman. In just three weeks I'd gone from pastor's daughter to free woman."

"And pregnant."

"Yes, soon after I got home I found I was pregnant. And Dad essentially cut me off. Didn't want me helping him anymore. He was furious."

"You said it wasn't planned."

"No, no. Of course it wasn't, but..." she shrugged her shoulders. "I'm an adult. I know the facts of life. I guess I didn't care. In a way I was kind of tempting fate. Or as I said before, wanting to infuriate my father. And I did want a baby."