Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing

by Lord, Gabrielle

  A thin drizzle started as she left the footpath and ran down to the cliff walk. Because of the damp and the relative lateness of the hour—most people were at or on their way to work—there were only a few other joggers. Beneath her, the gunmetal sea exploded on the rocks, pushed by strong southerly gusts and a rolling swell. The horizon itself was invisible, hidden by curtains of squalls and showers.

  Gemma glanced behind her, thinking she heard footsteps. But there was no one on the track and now the drizzle turned to real rain. She puffed up the rise through the old tram cutting, reflecting on her general level of fitness and her ability to defend herself. Although the unarmed combat she’d learned in her time in the police had been very basic, like many women these days she’d taken it further, enrolling in a martial arts course, building up her strength and stamina with gym work and circuit weights. Great for preventing osteoporosis, and for general wellbeing, but when it comes to self-defence, Gemma discovered, nothing beats dirty old-fashioned street tactics.

  At the top of the hill, she paused, catching her breath and taking in the spectacular southern headlands, the misty shrouds, part ocean spray, part rain, that veiled them. She quickly made the descent to the boatshed in Phoenix Bay she’d been renting since the beginning of the year. Although many people had heard of the Phoenix Bay rip, notorious for taking swimmers on long detours, and responsible for several deaths over the decades, the beach itself was not well known, tucked away as it was between Tamarama and Bronte. The rip normally ran off the northern end of the beach, just past the old surf club building, and went out to sea for a mile or more. Today, she could see its curve—a denser, darker texture on the surface of the sea. Dinghies in rows bleached on the boat racks built on the sloping rise to the coastal path and at the southern end of the bay lay a large launch, beached some weeks ago after an accident. Gemma went over to it, noticing the large, padlocked outboard motor. It’s a wonder someone hasn’t tried to knock that off, she thought, as she headed back to the boatshed.

  Although she kept nothing of value down here, the double doors that faced away from the sea were secured with a small padlock. Gemma unlocked and went inside, shivering in the cold, still air, pleased all over again when she pulled the damp cloths off her lion. His poised presence seemed to charge the atmosphere of the boatshed, and because his position on the bench made him a little taller than her, she had to look up at him. She wasn’t quite sure what to do about his open-jawed head. The blunted face of the original had no features save this ancient, silent roar. Beside him, also under damp fabric drapings on a square of timber, crouched the unformed lump of his potential brother. She pulled the sheets off and picked up a clay tool, cutting it through the embryonic lump. When she had time, she’d start modelling his back legs and haunches, the place she’d started with the other one. Then the forequarters and head. She put the tool down and re-covered the clay.

  Her surroundings were very simple—a tiny fold-up bed she’d stowed under the bench on the southern side of the shed, the ‘kitchen’ area, a cold water sink and a power point for a jug. Next to it was the ‘bathroom’—merely a shower head on a rubber hose that attached as required to the tap—and an old-fashioned toilet, a rope replacing the original chain flush. Her dream was to buy this place, renovate it into a beautiful space and spend a lot more time here. She glanced at her watch. Time to go.

  Running back home Gemma enjoyed the downhill slope, gearing up for the next rise. A nankeen kestrel hung suspended above the cemetery, reminding her of the boy, Hugo, whom she privately called the Ratbag, who used to live in the next-door flat. She wondered where he was now and how he was getting on with his corporate mother whose new boyfriend had caused her to sell up and move to Melbourne, taking her nine-year-old son with them. Gemma realised she still missed him and his frowning, anxious face, his unswerving and loving allegiance to the father who completely neglected him. He’d be nearly thirteen now, she thought.

  She was running between Bronte and Tamarama when a bedraggled rat staggered across the path, almost stumbling into her feet. Revulsion turned to pity when she realised both its eyes were coated with a grey film. The wretched thing was blind. She waited while it blundered into the bushes on the side of the path before continuing. Gemma shivered. It felt like a bad omen.

  A short time later, she ran down the stone steps into her front garden where the heavy sky was reflected in pools on the pathway. The new owner of the flat where the Ratbag and his mother had lived had created an elaborate terrace garden on the southern side, complete with fountain, urns, tiles and statues so that it looked a bit like a Disney-style Pompeii. The once grand old house in Phoenix Crescent had been divided into four asymmetrical apartments in the ’60s, Gemma owning the downstairs northern section that looked east out to sea. On summer mornings she had to keep the blinds down because the sun shone in before 5 a.m. and bleached the fabrics of her lounge room. Thus Taxi had the run of the little patch of grassy lawn and Gemma’s spasmodic gardening attempts, battered by southerly winds and currently little more than weedy turf and scrub. Below that, the land fell away to a steep drop and the rocks lashed by the sea.

  She let herself into her apartment and collapsed on the lounge where Taxi had embedded himself in the corner. He barely looked up from his sleep as her weight jolted the blue leather cushions. Then, remembering the odd moment she’d experienced halfway up the steps on her way out, she went back outside again. The peripheral movement had come from the environs of the coprosma bush. Beside it, one of her neglected roses wintered away, one tiny mummified bud all that remained of the last autumn flush. She carefully lifted the thorny cane aside to check the bush. Cold drops showered her when she moved its branches, peering through. When she looked closely she could see definite signs of disturbance in the soil under her window, as if someone or something had trodden down some of the bottom leaves and smaller branches of the bush and left indentations in the damp earth. She stared hard at the marks but they were too inconclusive to make out. It could have been a blackbird, she thought. She’d seen one recently on a run to Kit’s place near Gordons Bay, the floundering, surreptitious movements of those birds as they hopped around the lowest reaches of bushes and shrubs, or ran low across the ground were well known to her from trips to Melbourne and the Police Academy at Goulburn, but not so common in Sydney.

  Back inside she had a quick shower, dressed and was pulling up her skirt zip as she entered her office. She nudged the mouse and there they were again across her screen, line after line of new emails. She deleted the first, then the next and the next, not opening any of them, knowing from the past few days how ugly they’d be. Gemma could feel the blood of anger and fear pumping through her body as she dealt with one after the other. It was going to take her a while. She couldn’t just lean on the ‘Delete’ button because, interspersed between the repetitive lines of ‘Please Hurt Me. Make My Violent Rape Fantasies Real’ were what looked like genuine messages concerning her business and even a couple from friends. She avoided those, saving them till later, working her way through the deletes. This was crazy. She’d have to contact her server and have something done, even if it meant closing down her email for a while and getting a new electronic address.

  She was halfway through the vicious infestation when her buzzer rang. Sidling up to the window, she glanced over the bushes outside. A well-dressed man, her 10 o’clock appointment, stood on her doorstep, looking around him as people often do when they’re waiting for a door to be opened, nervously adjusting his tie.

  She hurried back to her desk to delete the last message. She didn’t want anyone, particularly Steve, ever to see this horrible stuff. Even having deleted all these, she wondered how many there would be by tomorrow morning. She logged off, leaving the genuine correspondence for later.

  From the lounge room Gemma picked up the manila folder with Peter Greengate’s name on it. Determinedly putting the cyberstalker out of her mind, she
hurried into the second office opposite her own, used by the operatives when they came in from the road, and placed a cassette in the player, switching it on. The others were only very rarely in the office so she was alone a lot of the time. Their job was to be out on the road, tailing, trailing, sitting off houses, watching targets through their high-powered binoculars or the automatic zoom focus on their digital video cameras, punching out their reports on laptops from where they sat in their cars, only dropping by the office to file information or to be briefed on new cases.

  She answered the intercom on the next buzz. ‘Yes? Who is it?’

  ‘Peter Greengate,’ he said. ‘To see Gemma Lincoln.’ The voice was hesitant, fading away at the end.

  She pressed the switch and the front door unlocked. ‘Please come in, Mr Greengate,’ she said, going to the door to let him in, standing back as he entered, taking her time to appraise his tall, stooped figure, his passive handshake, the caved-in look of his face, especially under the cheekbones. Late forties, she guessed, and looks like he needs a good feed.

  ‘In here,’ she said, standing back to let him go ahead into her office on the left of the front door. Across the hall from the other office issued the sounds of male voices and laughter.

  ‘Excuse me for one moment,’ she said to her visitor with a smile. ‘I’ll just ask my colleagues to make less noise.’

  The tall man stood watching her while she went into the opposite room. Behind the door she turned down the cassette player recording of Spinner and Mike’s office chatter, a tip she’d learned from Shelly. ‘I never let the mugs know I’m working alone,’ Shelly had once said. She came back, closed the door of her office and indicated that Peter Greengate should sit down in one of the comfortable chairs near her desk.

  He began to talk in a dull monotone and Gemma wished, as she always did at times like this, that she could have something printed and hand it out as people came in.

  ‘I’ve never done anything like this before,’ he said.

  Gemma nodded. They all had variations of these same themes. Now, she thought, he will go on to tell me he’s not the sort of person who usually does this sort of thing.

  ‘I’m not the sort of person who usually does this sort of thing,’ he said.

  Gemma chimed in with her stock response. ‘I’m sure you’re not the sort of person who goes around spying on people,’ she assured him, ‘let alone your wife.’

  ‘But in this case . . .’ he started.

  ‘In this case, you’ve made a wise decision,’ she said. ‘So what can I help you with?’ she asked, opening the folder and picking up her pen.

  Peter Greengate looked away and his light grey eyes seemed to stare at the leaves of the bush outside the window.

  ‘I think she’s seeing someone else.’

  ‘Involved with a man?’ said Gemma because the expressionless way he spoke made it sound like his wife might be interviewing the plumber, or electrician.

  Greengate nodded. Gemma made brief notes for the record of the interview.

  ‘What makes you think this?’

  He was silent a long while. Gemma mentally listed some of the indicators of adultery: the sudden interest in looking fit and tanned, glamorous new underwear, visits to the gym, a new diet, a change of perfume or aftershave, a new hobby that took the person away from the marital home once or twice a week, absences from work, changed routine, ‘taking the dog for a walk’ or ‘going out for some fresh air’ after dinner, evening classes, unexplained expenses on the credit cards, vagueness, telephone calls where the caller hung up—the list of clues left by adulterers was depressingly familiar.

  ‘What have you noticed,’ prompted Gemma, ‘to make you suspect this to be the case?’

  He turned back to her and his answer was unexpected. ‘I found her washing some clothes,’ he said. ‘She was really embarrassed when I walked in.’ He leaned forward. ‘Men’s clothes,’ he said. ‘I asked her whose they were and she could hardly talk to me. Said something about someone at work and a broken-down washing machine. And then there was the other thing.’ He paused and Gemma waited, pen poised. ‘Something she said to a friend on the phone when she didn’t know I was in the house.’

  ‘What was that?’ she asked.

  ‘I heard her ask her friend to say that if I ever asked her—the friend, I mean—’ Gemma nodded— ‘if Patricia was with her, she was to always say yes she was, even if she wasn’t.’

  ‘Any other things?’ said Gemma. ‘Does she go out a lot?’

  He shook his head. ‘Her mother sometimes. Outings with a girlfriend.’

  Patricia, he told Gemma, was a teacher librarian in a high school. He passed over the picture of his wife that Gemma had asked him to bring with him and she studied the pretty face of a woman with an uncertain smile, wearing an exotic silky outfit and a necklace of what looked like dead snakes around her neck. Smaller snakes dangled from her ears. Interesting-looking woman, Gemma thought. Pity about the snakes. On the back of the print was Mrs Greengate’s birthday and her home and work addresses.

  Although Gemma had developed what she called ‘Sunday School’ language for many of her clients, she still liked to give them a little warning that she was going to get personal. ‘I have to ask questions that concern delicate matters,’ she said and Peter Greengate’s pale eyes stared her. ‘Have you noticed any changes in your intimate life?’ she asked.

  For a moment, she thought he hadn’t understood her and was about to rephrase her question in a more direct fashion when he spoke.

  ‘We don’t have an intimate life,’ he said. ‘I presume you’re talking about marital relations? All that business stopped a long time ago.’

  Gemma decided to wind up the interview. ‘Reports no sex,’ she jotted in her notes before looking up. ‘Mr Greengate—’

  ‘Call me Peter,’ he said in the same flat voice.

  ‘—Peter,’ she said, ‘we can certainly help you. But are you aware that it’s a costly undertaking? The base rate is fifty-five dollars an hour. That doesn’t cover extras like meal allowances or extra travel expenses. Or any other contingency that might arise.’

  ‘I knew it wouldn’t be cheap,’ he said. Then he became oddly animated, new colour in his face, lowering his voice to a whisper. ‘You must be very discreet.’

  ‘We are extremely discreet,’ she said. ‘I use only very experienced operatives on these matters. In fact, Peter, I’m going to handle this case personally.’ Every now and then Gemma liked to get back on the road, sharpen up instincts made dull by too much desk driving. Pick a new brief and see it through.

  ‘When do you think she’s meeting the other party?’

  ‘She and her friend Sandra always go to art classes on Tuesday nights,’ he said. ‘Then they have supper. So she says. She leaves the house at about four and doesn’t get in till sometimes nearly ten. She’s always’—he searched for the word and his face tightened into contempt—‘happy when she comes home.’

  Gemma could see how this aspect of his wife’s behaviour alone might well affront a man like Peter Greengate.

  ‘We’ll start next Tuesday,’ she said. A few hours might be all it takes, she thought, to establish whether she plays up. ‘May I suggest a deposit of two hundred and twenty dollars?’

  He nodded.

  ‘We’ll pick Mrs Greengate up as she leaves the house,’ she said to him, ‘and take it from there. Is there anything else you think might be important that I should know?’ she added.

  He sat there, unmoving, then briefly shook his head. She finished writing, closed the manila folder and waited. He didn’t seem to notice her cue, but remained seated in some dream of his own. Finally, Gemma stood up and so did he. Because of his stoop, his eyes were on the same level as her own. If he’d stood straight, she realised, he’d be much taller.

 
‘It all started a few years ago,’ he said suddenly. ‘Some of her work was exhibited at a fancy art gallery. Since then she’s been different.’ He paused and Gemma saw something shift in him. ‘If she’s being unfaithful to me . . .’ His eyes darkened and the sunken cheeks flushed. She waited for him to finish his statement but abruptly he turned away. ‘Really,’ he said, ‘she leaves me no option.’ Greengate pulled out his wallet and made the deposit in cash.

  As she showed him out, he turned on the front doorstep. ‘I want proof,’ he said. ‘I want it on video or photographs.’

  ‘Peter, we always provide video evidence for our clients. It’s part of the service.’

  ‘I want to see with my own eyes,’ he said, suddenly savage. ‘What she’s capable of doing.’

  There was a pause and Gemma had the distinct impression that Peter Greengate was deep in some dark sexual fantasy concerning his wife and a stranger. She didn’t want to shake his hand so she started closing the door, a bright smile on her face.

  ‘We’ll be in touch,’ she said, ‘as soon as we have something to show you. It won’t be long, I’m sure.’

  She was pleased to close the door on him. As she put the money away she remembered how once, not long after she’d started her business, she had decided not to hand on evidence of adultery gathered on another man’s wife, instead telling the client she’d found nothing incriminating. She knew it was unethical, illegal and that she’d defrauded him of his fees. But something about that man had chilled her, making it impossible for her to hand over the video evidence and report. She’d talked it over with Kit.

  ‘I really thought he would do something terrible to her,’ she told her sister. ‘I could sense his hatred. I felt he was hoping she’d been unfaithful to him. He didn’t want a divorce. He wanted vengeance.’ In fact, Gemma thought, most people really don’t want to know the truth. She recalled the silly rationalisations some clients engaged in when confronted with incontrovertible evidence of adultery.