I didn’t need it. I didn’t even want it anymore.

He didn’t ring me. I didn’t ring him. But somehow I knew it wasn’t all over.

I’m just too curious to leave anything alone for long. Anyway, I felt sorry for the guy. Mother only had to jerk his chain, and back he ran to her.

I began writing a series of songs for a new cabaret, as well as rehearsing, performing, and ingesting overdoses of crime fiction. I saw some friends I’d been neglecting. Life settled down.

Until I suspected murder.

I rang Ange.

"Did you see Saturday’s Age? The news item about the mysterious illnesses and strange disappearance – all happening not far from Terence’s place. Do you think he’s been a naughty boy?"

"Not in the way you’d like, obviously. What makes you think it’s him?

"Well – the location, and he has the right profile – Mummy’s boy, self-centred obsessive loner, strange around people – he never wanted to go

out anywhere, you know. Just to bed."

"Oh, poor old you! But that doesn’t mean he’s involved. Maybe you read too much crime fiction."

"You know what Roy and H.G. say: too much is barely enough. Except I think they’re usually talking about sport."

Angela sighed heavily. "Stick to the point. Sometimes talking to you is like dodging fire on a rifle range."

"I didn’t know that was in the current job description for teachers.

Look, anyway; read the article. Some kind of poison is involved, but they don’t know how it’s administered. Several people were ill for a while then recovered. One completely disappeared after a game of bowls."

"Spooky!"

I snorted, and hung up. So it was all circumstantial, but I had a feeling in my water about this.

A few weeks after that, Ange came to see the show. I wowed a capacity audience with my terpsichorean skills, then went on the turps. Feeling ready for anything, I tossed back what was left of my most recent margarita.

"I think I’ll drop in on Terence tonight."

Angela looked bemused. "Is that a good idea? I thought it was all over, Red Rover. Anyway, would he be home?"

"Does Elvis like peanut butter? Unless Terence has run back to Mother. In which case, we’ll see what we can find."

"What – you mean – break in?

"Of course not, silly. I had a key cut months ago." I twirled it round my finger. "I’d really like to look around a bit, just to set my mind at rest."

"Well, you’re not driving. You’ve had far too much to drink."

"O.K., Guardian Angela – suits me. Lead the way!"

A half an hour later we were at Terence’s pied-a-terre at the foot of the Dandenongs. Prolonged knocking met with no response, so I used my key.

It looked like he hadn’t been there for a while – a few unwashed dishes in the sink, dust everywhere. Apart from that, it was obsessively tidy.

"You take the bedrooms – I’ll look around here."

"What do you hope I’ll find – a corpse in the wardrobe?’

"God – I hope not! I slept in that room."

I gave the kitchen the once-over. Nothing much in his drawers except what you’d expect to find. Some disgusting cheese in the fridge, ripe enough to stand up and speak. I pulled out the crisper, and found some slimy, smelly mushrooms. At least, some kind of fungi.

Angela yelled from the bedroom. "Yuk!"

"Found the corpse?"

"No – his shoe collection. And I thought you were joking!"

I went through to the lounge. Everything was as I remembered it, which gave me a sudden unexpected pang. His desk seemed the most likely place to find any incriminating evidence. It was an old roll-top desk, but it wasn’t locked.

I wasn’t prepared for what I found.

An album, filled with photos of, and clippings about, yours truly.

"Ange – come and look at this! I knew he had all my CD’s – but …"

She leafed through the pages, and shivered.

"Wow - creepy. Maybe you were going to be his next victim!"

"Thank you, Angela, for your constant support."

She ignored this clever riposte.

"Where do you suppose he got the pics - from the Net?"

"He’s a Luddite – a technophobe. No computer. Only got a touch-phone

a little while ago. Must have asked a friend for the pictures. I think he’s got a friend."

"This guy gets weirder the more I know about him. Let’s go. I don’t want to be here when he comes back. I suppose he chops his own wood too?"

"This had nothing to do with an axe murderer. It was some kind of poison …"

The image of the fungi in the crisper flashed into my mind.

"I don’t think he’ll be back - I think he’s hiding out at Mother’s. I’m rather curious about Mother. Let’s pay her a visit."

"Are you crazy?"

"You should know that by now. Also, I like endings. I want closure."

"You might get closure – permanently. Anyway, you don’t know where she lives."

"How it hurts when you underestimate me! He dropped her first name once, and I simply looked her up in the phone book. Easy peasy."

I took the album with me, and locked up. We studied Ange’s Melways in her car. Mother lived in the Dandenongs, in a fairly remote area. It looked like there was access from a back road to right behind where her place should be.

We decided on a rear assault.

It seemed to take no time at all to go from Terence’s place to his mother’s. Angela parked next to the road where we could see a thickening of the darkness around a solid phalanx of trees. As we got out of the car nervous energy kicked in and I felt giggly again from the after-show booze.

Ange shooshed me.

"Getting close. Should be right here."

We pushed though the trees and undergrowth, leaves fleshy and slick on our faces in the slight drizzle. Walking on wet leaves in stilettos is an art I hadn’t yet mastered. I took them off. In a moment of sanity I realised fishnet stockings and a sequinned red mini-dress were not suitable attire for this kind of expedition. A trenchcoat and fedora, now …

"Ange – I’m cold." I whined, and shivered on cue.

"Too late to think of that now," she whispered.

"Are you sure this is it?"

"Trust me – I’m a teacher."

At that moment we walked from the half-circle of the trees into one of the circles of hell.

Great vines looped down from the trees like snakes in the faint moonlight that now showed between the clouds. Large bell-like flowers on the vines echoed the shape of the white trumpets on bushes nearby – even to my botanically dyslexic eyes. Tall plants with black glossy berries that looked like weeds seemed to have been cultivated in rows.

Ange pointed with a shaking finger.

"Belladonna - deadly nightshade." Her voice trembled. "Shit, shit, SHIT, Stevie – let’s get out of here!"

But I was fascinated in some unaccountable way. I moved further in, while Ange hovered at the edge of the trees. Clumps of pale, slimy-looking fungi crouched like toads here and there.

Tall spears of plants with spotted bells edged a path leading to the back of the house. There was an all-pervasive sweet smell of rottenness. I looked closer at the freshly-dug bed nearest to me.

I didn’t like what I saw.

I beckoned Angela and she tiptoed over. "What are you doing?" she hissed. "Let’s go!"

"What do you make of that?"

Her face turned white, and she clasped her stomach.

"It – it looks like someone’s hand."

The fingerbones flew flags of rotting flesh that glowed faintly green in the moonlight. Somehow, they didn’t seem out of place.

"Talk about Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Only difference is, there’s nothing good about it."

Angela was stressing badly. "How can you talk so calmly?"

"It all seems so inevitable. Like I’m living in a horror story. At least I know now what he meant about the gardening!"

When we saw the head, Angela chundered. A large black shape nearby hissed at us, and streaked away into the trees.

"I can’t take any more, Stevie – please, let’s go.’

I was going to agree when a light came on in the back of the house, and we crouched down behind some thick bushes. We could see a shape sitting in a chair with its back to the windows.

"It’s Terence."

"What’s he got on his head?"

"Looks like – a school cap!"

A small round figure came into the room, a figure in shiny black that reminded me of the belladonna berries. Terence appeared to struggle, but didn’t get up.

"Mother!" Ange and I elbowed each other.

Some sort of argument was going on, but we couldn’t hear individual words.

I couldn’t understand why Terence didn’t rise, then I realised.

"He’s tied up. Tied to the chair."

"Oh, Stevie, look!" Ange pointed to the scene, lit up as though it was on a stage. The small figure had moved over to the figure in the chair. It had something in its hands, something long. It began to hit the stationary figure.

"That’s it!" I said, standing up and striding towards the house. "I’ve had enough. I’ve got to find out what’s going on."

Angela followed me, trying to pull me back.

"It’s their business, surely, Stevie."

"Murder is everyone’s business. And I to think I used to like that guy enough to sleep with him!"

The back door stood ajar. I pushed it open, and we crept more or less silently through a kitchen and down a darkened hallway. I was drawn like a moth towards the light at the end of it. Ange just didn’t want to be left behind.

We burst through the door. The room looked even more like a stage set, with Terence tied down and cringing in his chair, school shorts around his feet. His tiny mother was slashing at his hands with a long heavy metal ruler.

I briefly wondered which part of his anatomy was next, then couldn’t stop

the nervous laughter. "Is this for real? Or are you rehearsing a play? Terence – you didn’t tell me …" I stopped suddenly as I saw Mother’s face. If I had ever wanted to see what hate looked like, I saw it now.

"Who are these whores?’ She gave Terence another slash for good measure.

"Stevie – go away! Now! You don’t know…" He was babbling pitifully.

"I’ve seen your - gardening, Terence. Most impressive. You have been a naughty boy." I heard Angela moan behind me. She sounded scared.

"Stevie – you don’t understand. It’s not ..." Terence bleated.

"I can understand now why you didn’t want me to meet your mother. Not full of the social graces, is she? Not even a cup of tea or a glass of sherry."

I had her attention. She advanced on me with the ruler, but all the wrestling I’d been forced to practise in my life paid off, and I twisted it till she let go.

I handed it to Angela. Mother backed away.

"Haven’t you heard – this century teachers aren’t allowed to hit their students, even if they have been very, very bad. So, tell me, Terence,"

I seated myself on the arm of the chair next to him. "How did you kill them?"

Terence was a mess. His ridiculous cap was askew, his hands were bloodied, and tears streaked his cheeks. But his brown eyes were steady on mine.

"How could you think I could kill anyone? I chose you – I thought you were strong enough so that we could make another life away from – this." He looked down at his mutilated hands. "But it all got too difficult."

"Well, you’ve certainly got the profile: loner, obsessive, unresolved issues, built-up resentment - motive and method - enough poisonous plants in that garden to wipe out an entire endangered species." I was just warming up when Terence gabbled, "But it wasn’t me – it was her!"

Ange shrieked in horror. I had forgotten the Mother. She came at me with a small square case, aiming for my head. Ange rushed in with the ruler, I ducked, Terence yelled: "The poison’s on the balls. Don’t touch the balls .." when his mother, deflected by the ruler, smashed the case into the side of his head. Then it flew open, and two black lawn bowls fell to the floor with dull thuds, heavy as cannon balls.

If Terence was a mess before, it was nothing to the way he looked now.

He was dead before he finished speaking. Blood poured from the side of his head and streamed down his naked legs. Angela drew a breath that became a sob, but held onto the ruler like a sword.

Mother stood transfixed, watching her son’s blood pooling on the floor. She turned to us with her palms held out, as if puzzled.

"I only wanted to win at bowls," she said plaintively. "I like winning. I’m very clever. Nobody guessed how I did it. I always changed them back."

Then she slowly picked up one of the black balls and held it in both hands above her head for one moment. Bringing it to her mouth, she licked it with a pointed pink tongue, like Pushkin licking cream.

She crumpled like a small wizened fruit on top of her son, and lay still.

Ange sank to the floor in loud hysterics, rocking back and forth.

I kicked gently at Terence’s naked, pathetic foot, then shook my head, feeling only bewilderment.

"Men and their mothers," I muttered.

Then I rang the police.