Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing

by Lord, Gabrielle

  ‘In the end,’ Kit had said, ‘you’ve just got to trust your own judgment. Write a cheque for the amount he paid you and give it to the Sallies or someone, and then you won’t feel so bad about defrauding him.’ Now, years after that case, Gemma had a similar feeling. She glanced sideways out the window. Peter Greengate was still there.

  He’d continued to stand outside, staring at the door, until finally he turned away. Gemma shuddered. Sometimes people were spooky.

  Her radio crackled again. ‘Tracker Two, Base. Copy please?’ Louise’s voice was as slight as her build. But slightness and transparency, two of the qualities Gemma associated with Louise, had certain advantages in this business.

  ‘Base, Tracker Two. Go ahead.’

  ‘I don’t feel well, Gemma. I won’t come in today.’

  ‘Sorry to hear that, Louise. What’s up?’

  ‘I took Mum out for her birthday last night and we must have eaten something that upset us. We were both up all night.’

  Louise’s cases involved several insurance claimants, none of whom had yet been sprung doing anything they shouldn’t have, and an assistant manager at a retail food chain, suspected of pilfering goods. This job needed the cooperation of the police to intercept the car with the goods in the target’s possession. So far, they’d had no success. The loss of a day’s work wasn’t too drastic at this stage of Louise’s operations.

  ‘Okay,’ said Gemma, feeling irritated nevertheless. ‘Take it easy and let me know if you’ll be in tomorrow.’ She signed off.

  Three

  Two hours later, Gemma sat in the passenger seat of Detective Sergeant Angela McDonald’s car, that being the only way she could get some time with her friend and erstwhile colleague whose day was as heavily booked as Gemma’s own.

  ‘Another sex worker was attacked last night and we finally got hold of her clothes,’ said Angie, indicating a rape kit on the back seat. ‘I’m taking this to the lab.’ She glanced across at her friend. ‘Hey, Gemfish. What’s up with you?’ she asked, shrewd green eyes assessing her under a frown. Angie had always been able to sense her moods.

  ‘Just a nightmare I had last night,’ she said, recalling the black meteor racing through space towards its collision point. ‘It’s hanging around a bit.’

  Gemma fixed her attention on the police radio calls and staring at the students mounting the steps to the university. Youngsters crossed the footbridge to and fro, moving from lectures to the bus stops and Gemma momentarily envied their simple life. Angie turned the police radio right down and zipped through the traffic along Parramatta Road.

  ‘Actually,’ she confessed, ‘I’m certain Steve is working in some sort of operation involving George Fayed. Have you heard any goss?’

  ‘A little,’ she said. ‘There was something going on last year. The Feds were doing a big intelligence-gathering operation on Fayed and Oradoro.’

  ‘Sounds like El Dorado,’ said Gemma, ‘and fabled treasures.’

  Angie laughed. ‘Oradoro is the name of Fayed’s import and export company, his so-called legit business. The fabled treasure is the usual white powder. We’d love to get him off the streets.’

  ‘He’d only be replaced by someone else when you pull him in,’ said Gemma. ‘There are people like him coming up the ranks all the time. He’s replaced Litchfield. That’s how it goes.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like the Gemster I know and love,’ said Angie, glancing at her friend with concern. ‘Where’s your “Let’s get the bastards” muscle?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Gemma. ‘Maybe I’m running out of steam.’

  Angie didn’t pursue the matter any further. ‘Some crims I don’t mind,’ she said after a few minutes. ‘They do their job. We do ours. But George Fayed’s a real smartarse. He knows how to operate right under our noses and he loves doing that. He and his executives use their mobile phones to move his gear around, and set up the deals. It’s so damn frustrating. Our intelligence tells us he buys direct from the Chinese. But you’ll never see him anywhere near the importers. Except for the times he’s supervising unloading of his imported artefacts and antiquities. Fancies himself as a collector of art. We’ve gone over his consignments and never found anything that shouldn’t be there and all the time he’s laughing at us. He’s got people everywhere. He’s even got a couple of nephews in the job,’ she added, ‘trying to get into the Drug Squad. Now I wonder why they’d want to work there?’ Her cheeky grin lifted Gemma’s spirits. ‘We got one of them suspended, we’re working on the other one. The Drug Squad guys would give their cute little chrome-plated .38s to get Fayed.’ She corrected herself. ‘Don’t know how you’d go about chrome-plating a Glock.’

  Gemma smiled. Tough little Angie who liked to beat the boys on both sides of the crime coin at their own games. Like any successful woman officer, she’d learned the hard way how to survive in the brotherhood, but she’d never lost her own individuality, or capitulated to becoming ‘one of the boys’ and, Gemma knew, some of the senior officers would never forgive her for that. Like any military organisation, the police service was hierarchical, power-dominated, favour-driven and on too many occasions, unbelievably inefficient and downright stupid.

  Angie’s face suddenly became serious. ‘I’ve heard on the grapevine that Steve’s involved in a joint operation with the Drug Squad and the Plastics,’ said Angie, referring to the nickname of the Federal Police. ‘You tell that gorgeous boyfriend of yours,’ she said, ‘to be real careful. He’s got the cutest bum in the job. I’d hate anything to happen to it.’

  ‘I’ve tried,’ said Gemma, ‘but you know what Steve’s like.’ She swung around to face her friend. ‘And don’t you dare look at his bum!’

  ‘Calm down, girl. Only teasing. And you always bite. Fayed’s place is on the way to the lab. Want a look?’

  Angie took a right-hand turn and drove up a residential street. ‘I don’t want to park too close,’ she said, ‘but you can see the place from here. It’s that charcoal monster on the corner over there. The whole family lives there now, George and his wife, their sons, George’s old mother and a couple of other male relatives.’

  Gemma pulled her binoculars out of her briefcase and studied the Fayed fortress.

  ‘He’s a real family man,’ Angie was saying. ‘He had the whole building renovated and rebuilt so that the first floor could accommodate his oldest daughter’s wedding—over a thousand people, three priests including an interstate bishop—Fayed’s a good Catholic family man. We heard he spent a million on the reception. Can you believe it?’

  What would it be like to be the son or daughter of a drug boss, Gemma wondered, feeling a flash of empathy for Fayed’s children. What do they tell their friends? She studied the building. Three-storeys high, it had been converted from a warehouse or factory and had a sloping driveway that ended in a huge metal roller door suggesting an underground level. The large wedge-shaped building squatted blindly on the corner block, no windows except for narrow incisions of smoky glass, and then only on the upper level, reminding Gemma of an old Martello tower. The only other distinctive feature was a black and white sign embellished with a stylised golden lizard and the words ‘Oradoro Export Imports’ on the northern wall. Access from the street appeared to be only by way of the huge roller door.

  ‘I’ve had a chat to some of the guys who were involved in the surveillance last year,’ Angie said. ‘Fayed’s paranoid about security. Never leaves the place empty. Which makes it impossible for our technicians to get in and do their sneaky little fit-out.’ Gemma remembered that the technical people needed a clear stretch of time to get their electronic gimmicks into position. ‘The guys created a fault to the power in the street,’ Angie was saying, ‘and then tried to get inside posing as Energy Australia to test for a fault, but it didn’t make a scrap of difference to Fayed. He’s got his own generator in there so h
e wouldn’t let them in.’ Angie settled back in her seat, looking at the corner building. ‘Hell, we’ve heard he’s even got a zoo in there! Can you believe it? What sort of weirdo wants to keep animals locked up in a prison?’

  ‘What does he keep?’

  ‘He’s licensed to keep reptiles.’

  ‘That’d be right,’ said Gemma. ‘Like attracts like.’

  ‘Hey, I like snakes,’ Angie said. ‘I don’t like George Fayed.’

  ‘That explains the logo,’ said Gemma, passing the glasses. ‘Take a look.’

  Angie took the binoculars. ‘That’s some big goanna,’ she said, responding to the stylised reptile behind the sign’s lettering.

  Gemma shrugged as she took the binoculars back. ‘Why would you want a goanna as your logo?’

  ‘They don’t talk,’ said Angie, ‘and that flickering tongue is always gathering intelligence about the environment. That’s Fayed to a T. He’s got closed circuit cameras on the street so he knows what’s going on outside. And he’s got them on the inside as well. Can you imagine closed circuit TV in all your rooms? Keeping tabs on what’s going on in your own house?’

  ‘Must be a sultan thing,’ said Gemma. ‘Back in the old days, they had to murder all their brothers when they took the throne. That way, they got rid of any rivals.’

  Angie laughed. ‘Fayed has much the same ambition. Always looking to expand his markets and eliminate the competition. Like any corporate CEO.’

  Gemma picked up the binoculars again. ‘I can’t see any cameras,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t—they’re microscopic—pinhole lenses. They’re probably watching this car right now. We should have gone in yours,’ she said. ‘They’d recognise this as a police car.’

  Gemma peered around the street. There were several cars and a tradesman’s van parked across and down the road from the huge building. A few pedestrians went about their business. It looked just like any ordinary, inner west suburban Sydney street, she thought, with neat little Victorian terraces, geraniums in pots, a cat curled in view in one window. Fayed’s castle was not even a particularly discordant note; there were several old converted warehouses in the district. She moved the binoculars back to one of the narrow windows on the third floor of Fayed’s fortress and then almost dropped them. From the dark corner building someone was looking straight down the lenses of her binoculars with his own. Their eyes connected. It was a nasty shock.

  •

  On the way to the Lidcombe laboratory, Angie filled Gemma in further on Fayed’s form. Despite a history of standover violence, drug distribution and suspected gun running, the police had failed to make anything major stick. Fayed’s own legal team, augmented by the best counsel money could buy, ensured that. And apart from three months in prison on an assault charge years ago, Fayed had lived the luxurious life of a Sydney drug lord. ‘He’s got a real nasty streak in him,’ said Angie. ‘He grew up in refugee camps, violent war zones.’ She threw Gemma a quick glance, then concentrated on changing lanes for a right-hand turn before continuing. ‘Have you heard of the “French Connection”?’ she asked.

  ‘The movie?’

  Angie shook her head. ‘No. But I suppose it’s based on that. One of Fayed’s preferred punishments. He abducts people who’ve offended him and injects them until they’re addicted. Then he chucks them back onto the street when they’re hopeless addicts and no further threat to him.’

  ‘Sounds like an urban myth to me,’ said Gemma.

  ‘I’m just passing on street talk,’ said Angie. ‘Otherwise he uses a lethal dose.’

  Gemma thought of Steve and her blood ran cold. ‘What do you think he would do to someone like Steve?’ she asked, ‘if he discovered his real identity?’

  Angie threw her a glance. She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. But then she leaned over and patted Gemma’s knee. ‘C’mon, Gemster. Steve’ll be fine. He’s a good cop. He knows how to survive. Hell, girl, he’s survived for years!’

  It’s true, Gemma thought, but it’s time he stopped and came home. Came in from the madness. She rooted through her briefcase looking for a tissue and finally found one hiding right at the bottom, under her Filofax, notebooks, diary and Swiss Army knife.

  Angie noticed it and laughed. ‘You’re such a boy scout,’ she said. With one hand she lifted the console between them and brought out a silver pen. ‘Look at this,’ she said, pressing the side of the pen. A wicked narrow blade sprang out. Angie laughed. ‘Now that’s what I call a knife.’

  •

  Gemma waited in the car park of the laboratory while Angie took the package up. She took the switch-blade pen out of the console and examined it, finding its pressure point, wondering what had become of the hoodlum Angie must have downed to acquire it. By the time she’d put it back again, her friend was striding across the parking area, trim and athletic in her navy suit, jacket blowing back to reveal the white polo neck jumper sleek around her upper body, red hair clipped back into a chignon.

  ‘They’re flat out in there,’ Angie said, jumping back in and slamming the door. ‘Never enough staff, always too much work. Just like us. Whinge, whinge.’ She belted up and drove out of the grounds, and was back onto the highway within minutes. ‘What do you think Steve’s doing with Fayed?’ she asked, keeping her eyes on the road.

  ‘I’m still working it out,’ Gemma said hesitantly. ‘I had to ask myself how come the widow of an old crim like Terry Litchfield would agree to work with the cops. So I thought Lorraine Litchfield must believe . . .’ She paused, to refine her interpretation. ‘No,’ she said, ‘it’s got to be stronger than that. I reckon the police have shown her proof that George Fayed was responsible for her husband’s death.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ said Angie. ‘Terry Litchfield was the Man around Sydney for years. He’d be an obstacle for someone like Fayed. They hated each other’s guts. You should have a talk to the Major Crime people.’

  As they drove, the messages on the police radio, almost incomprehensible unless the listener was conversant with police codes and acronyms, provided a constant reminder of Sydney’s simmering underside. The business of crime was just another part of the city’s activities—break and enters, assaults, motor vehicle accidents, reported shootings. The passionless voice allocated work, accepted bids to attend, updated the record and occasionally cracked a joke so deadpan as to make the listener wonder whether it had been intentional or not.

  ‘So if Fayed killed Lorraine’s husband so that he can be Sultan, that makes him her enemy now. Just like the police always have been, and—’ Gemma paused and Angie flashed her a look—‘do you know that old Arab proverb?’

  ‘“The enemy of my enemy is my friend?”’ Angie quoted.

  ‘Right,’ said Gemma. ‘So she agrees to team up with Steve and together they cook up a way to get at Fayed.’

  ‘That’s good,’ said Angie. ‘That’s how I’d do it if I were working in with Lorraine. I’d suggest that she put the word out to Fayed that she’s interested in doing a deal with him because she’s just a lone, lorn widder woman. She could either be looking for a partner or she might say she wants to get out of the business altogether but she could offer him the Litchfield infrastructure, the distribution and services built up over many years as her part of the deal, and then introduce Steve as some big interstate buyer and business mate of her late lamented husband. That would give Steve the bona fides he’d need to meet Fayed.’ She paused. ‘And then, set up a meeting where Fayed is busted holding. Or get evidence on video like they did during the Royal Commission.’

  ‘That’s not going to be easy,’ said Gemma. ‘Men like him never hold now. The crims are getting better educated every day. That’s only for the lieutenants and the mules.’

  ‘Steve’s got a job ahead of him,’ said Angie. ‘But if anyone can do it, he can.’

&nb
sp; I hope so, thought Gemma. And I want this to be his last job. She corrected herself—his last job undercover, she added silently. Otherwise the phrase sounded too ominous.

  Angie dropped her back at her car in Riley Street a couple of blocks from the Police Centre. Gemma resisted the impulse to go back to Fayed’s fortress once more, despite the man with the binoculars. His minders wouldn’t know her car. Another time, she thought. Instead, she bought a meat pie and ate it in the car, ‘You shook me all night long’ belting out on the radio. She regretted that pie for the rest of the day.

  •

  Several times in the afternoon she found herself in her office starting to do the same job twice, or leaving something half-finished, only to pick it up again a little later. Her work was constantly being interrupted by thoughts of Steve and Fayed. Finally, she stopped, made a brew of strong coffee and took it to the dining table, where she sat, staring through the glass doors out to sea. For a moment, she was tempted to take the rest of the day off and go down to the boatshed, but she rejected the idea. I’ve got to get my head back together again, she told herself, and do my job properly. First things first. Gemma knew she was good at switching off any worrying thoughts by taking practical action. So she spent the late afternoon busying herself with productive paper work, making sure the records were up to date with the many jobs the operatives on the road covered, entering any final results into her computer files. She made a note of the jobs that needed finalising, frowned when she saw that Louise hadn’t got much in the way of results over the last three weeks and then checked her voice mail. There was a message from Kit suggesting she come over for dinner tonight because she was cooking Gemma’s favourite lasagna, this message followed by a hurried but lecherous thank-you-for-last-night call from Steve that made her smile. This made her want to hear Steve’s voice, even if only for a moment. She dialled his mobile.