Chapter Five Hundred and Four
Gina had hardly slept. Thankfully, John slept like a log and her tossing and turning had not disturbed him at all. Now, bleary eyed, she was sat nursing a cup of coffee, still trying to work out what to do about her new suspicions regarding Roo. She had come to really enjoy her company. She had come to regard her as a friend. It hurt to think that she had been using her, playing her for her own gains. She wanted it to not be true. She wanted to pretend that she was being honest. But she knew she would never find out the truth unless she confronted her.
At the Beach House, Will was barely functioning. It was worrying Lily and it was irritating Irene. She had compassion for him of course. He was like a son to her. She loved him and she wanted the best for him. But wallowing in his own filth, not looking after his child and getting more miserable by the hour just wasn't it.
"I want you to get up, get dressed and go out for the day," she said. "I don't want to see you back here before dinner."
He looked up at her from the sofa, startled, like she had broken into his own little world of pain.
"What?"
"You. Out. Now," she said.
"Where am I going to go?" he asked.
"I don't care," she shrugged. "Just go out and get some Vitamin D, would you? It's good for you."
Charlie and Watson sat in Charlie's office. They were still working on their confidential project, still going through every inch of the Penn Graham file, hoping they might find some gem of information that might enlighten them as to what really happened in that hotel room.
"I just feel like we're going nowhere," Watson sighed, throwing her hands up in the air.
"What about Will Smith?" Charlie said.
Watson looked at her curiously.
"Irene's lodger?"
"Yes."
"What about him?"
"I'm starting to think he might know more than he's letting on."
"Really?"
Charlie nodded.
"Like what?"
"I'm not saying that he killed anyone but… there's just something not right about him," Charlie ventured. "He's shifty. He's got something weighing really heavily on his mind and I don't think it's just cheating on his wife."
Will found himself at the restaurant. It was his day off but he knew Alf would be there and he was hoping not to come home as a complete failure to Irene. He found Alf behind the bar.
"Hello, mate," the older man said. "I haven't seen you for a few days."
"I've not much felt like going out," Will admitted. "Gypsy's filing for divorce."
Joey kept busy nearby, trying her best not to eavesdrop.
"I'm sorry to hear that," Alf consoled him.
"I guess I should have expected it," Will said. "But I guess a part of me still hoped we could work things out."
Alf nodded sadly. He had always assumed that Will and Gypsy would go the distance. When they had left the Bay with baby Lily, they had seemed like love's young dream.
"Alf, do you think there's any chance of getting my job back?" Will asked, getting right to the point. "Losing my hours at the bait shop has really killed me."
"Will, I'm really sorry but I've had no choice but to close the place for now," Alf said. "Hopefully in time, when all this mess with Penn's death is over, I'll be up and running again but there is just nobody coming to the shop right now."
Will just looked deflated.
"I'm sorry," Alf repeated.
"Hey," Roo said. "I don't mean to eavesdrop. I mean, I do, actually. But I think you're approaching this all wrong."
Both men looked at her.
"What I mean is, if the bait shop is failing, you shouldn't give up on it," Roo said. "You should do some real, proper marketing for it. You should fight for it, Dad. You should do everything it takes to make it work. And lucky for you, your daughter is a marketing extraordinaire!"
She grinned. Alf laughed. Even Will managed a smile.
"I don't mean to eavesdrop either but I think Roo is right," Joey added, approaching them.
Roo looked rather pleased.
"Do you?" Alf asked uncertainly.
"Absolutely," Joey said. "You love the bait shop, Alf. It's a massive part of your life. You shouldn't let this awful investigation take that away from you."
"Maybe," Alf said. "I'll think about it."
"Okay," Watson said thoughtfully. "Let's go with your theory. Will knows something about Penn's death. He's hiding something. But what is his connection to Penn? Did he even know him?"
"Well, Penn pissed off pretty much everyone in the Bay," Charlie said. "Even us."
"For the theory to hold weight, there should be a specific link though…"
"I can only really think of one," Charlie said unhappily.
"Alf!"
Everyone's heart's sank at the sound of Robertson's annoyingly cheery voice ringing out through the restaurant. Alf, Will, Joey and Roo had just been discussing the idea of Alf getting himself a lawyer and whether Morag might be in a position to help or whether the situation with Ross was too difficult at the moment.
"And Will!" Robertson said, entering the restaurant with Graves by his side. "Just the two people I was looking for."
"What do you want with me?" Will asked.
Joey observed how worried he was.
"I want to ask you both some questions about the murder of Penn Graham, of course," Robertson said. "Shall we head down to the station?"
"I don't know anything about this," Will said. "I didn't even know the guy."
"Then you shouldn't be worried," Graves remarked.
Will glared at Alf.
"Look what you've done," he snapped at him. "Dragging me into your mess."
Joey and Roo were livid.
"Is that an accusation?" Robertson asked.
"What? No! Alf didn't do anything!" Will said. "But you're going for me because I was working at the bait shop and it's not fair!"
"Well, life's not fair," Robertson said. "I mean, look what happened to poor Penn Graham."
"You're a disgusting person, Robertson," Joey informed him.
"I'm just doing my job," he told her. "Shall we?"
He led Alf and Will outside. Enraged, Joey chased after them, down the steps to the Surf Club and out the door to the police car.
"Go back in, Joey, love," Alf begged.
He didn't even see Roo, who had rushed out behind her.
"No," Joey said, furious. "You can hide behind your job all you like Robertson but everyone knows this harassment. You've got nothing on Alf. He hasn't done anything!"
Robertson left Graves to close the car up. He approached Joey.
"I've got plenty on your best friend or your long lost Dad or whoever he is to you," he said. "The best thing you can do right now is convince him to confess and hope the justice system goes a bit easier on him."
He returned to his car. The anger in Joey slipped into fear. She could feel Roo behind her but she couldn't tell what she was feeling as Alf and Will were taken away.
"But Alf wouldn't have known about it," Watson said. "Even if Will had done something to try and stand up for him or protect him."
"Of course not!" Charlie said. "I am absolutely convinced that Alf is not involved in any of this."
Watson nodded her firm agreement.
"So, do you think maybe he went to confront Penn and it got out of hand?" she asked.
"Perhaps."
"But what about the sequins?"
"Maybe they're a red herring," Charlie suggested.
"How?"
"Maybe Penn just had a girl in his room or something earlier in the night," she said. "She left. Will showed up. Then it all went horribly, horribly wrong."
They were interrupted by voices they recognised in reception. They both left the office, unhappy to find that Robertson and Graves had brought both Will and Alf in for questioning.
News had quickly got round the Bay that Will and Alf were being questioned about Penn's death. Irene had done her best to protect Lily from the gossip but she was even more worried about Will than she had been this morning. Every day, he concerned her more.
Gina, however, was not going to be deterred from her need to speak to Roo about the money situation. She found her in the restaurant, where she had been parked pretty much all day. She asked to join her at the bar and ordered herself a drink, careful to pay for it separately to anything Roo was having.
"I need to talk to you," she said seriously.
"Is it about…?"
"Yes," Gina said. "I don't think you've been very honest with me."
It had been a long day. Alf felt like he had been interrogated far beyond the call of any police officer's duty and he wasn't sure it had got anyone anywhere. He felt embarrassed beyond belief to have been carted away from his place of work, through the Surf Club and into a police car. Now, all he wanted to go was go home and get a good night's sleep. But he feared the memory of Penn and more specifically Penn's mother, would never truly let him.
Will delayed going back home. He was stressed and angry about being hauled into the police station. It had been embarrassing and frightening and he had tripped over himself a million times, saying all the wrong things and getting confused. He wasn't sure he could face Irene and Lily. Oh, poor Lily. She didn't deserve a failure of a father like him.
"How dare you?"
Robertson turned at the sound of a very angry voice. He had been surrounded by very angry voices all day. But this one upset him immensely. It was Leah.
"How dare you use a conversation you and I had privately about Will and Alf and their lovely friendship and the bait shop and all of that to the advantage of you damn investigation?" she demanded.
"Leah, I'm a police officer," he said calmly.
She found it patronising.
"If a conversation with a friend helps me make important links in an important investigation then I have to follow them through," he said. "Really, you should be pleased that you've helped."
"Helped?" she balked. "Helped upset my friends and put them in situations they shouldn't be in? Yeah, I should bake myself a congratulations cake!"
He sighed.
"I'm sorry," he said. "Truly I am but I have to do my job."
"Fine," she said. "Do it but you won't be getting any tip offs from me as your friend anymore because it's over. We're no longer friends, Robert. I don't ever want to see you again."
She walked away, leaving him heartbroken.
Roo sat at home, waiting for her father to return. She had worried about him all day. She had also fought jealousy over Joey for a lot of the day. And she had had rather an unpleasant conversation with Gina, who had accused her of lying about Hugo and Martha and trying to scam the money for herself. That had hurt. She had denied it. But now she felt more alone than ever. She had started to feel like Summer Bay wasn't so awful after all and that perhaps she was starting to make connections after all. Perhaps not.
"I am exhausted!" Watson announced, arriving home and flopping down on the sofa.
Kerri chucked and moved over to her.
"Penn Graham case?" she asked.
"You heard?" Watson asked, raising her head slightly.
"The whole town heard," Kerri said. "Sounds pretty rough for Alf and that Will guy."
Watson nodded. She sat forward and held her head in her hands.
"I feel like we've got a massive jigsaw in front of us with a couple of pieces missing," she said. "We keep redoing it and redoing it but it's never going to be solved correctly."
Kerri reached out and put her arm around her.
"You'll get there," she said. "And I mean you. You and Charlie. And you can send that fucker, Robertson back to the city and far away from here, where he belongs!"
Watson laughed. Kerri always knew how to cheer her up.
Irene was pacing. Will still hadn't come home and she was worried. She felt like she was constantly worried about him. He was a grown man and yet she was worried about him as if he was a child. She had tried calling him and she knew he had been released because she had asked Alf. And yet he hadn't come home. Where was he? Why wasn't he back? Why didn't he understand how much he was stressing her out?
At home, Gina felt no more consoled than she had been the night before. Talking to Roo about the money hadn't resolved things. Roo had been wounded by her accusations and if she was a liar, she was a damn good one. She had insisted that Gina had got her wrong. She had confessed to having serious money troubles and explained that she had kept them secrets because she didn't want to worry her father on top of everything else going on in his life right now. But, reminding her about the letter Hugo had written, she had insisted that everything she had told her about him and Martha was legitimate. They did need her help and they needed it desperately. Now she didn't know what to think.
That night, Charlie and Joey cuddled up in bed together, both affected by the events of the day. Joey was desperately worried about Alf and Charlie was desperate to find a way to save him. She was starting to feel like she might be onto something. She just didn't know how to prove it. And she didn't want to hand any of her theories over to Robertson until they were tangible. He'd either run away with them and she'd lose control of anything she suggested or he'd absolutely trample them. And neither of those outcomes was good.
Next time… Charlie, Joey and Bianca prepare for Bianca's wedding, Gina seeks advice about Hugo and Martha and Robertson tries to make amends…
