Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing

by Lord, Gabrielle

  •

  She couldn’t get to sleep and ended up taking half a Mogadon. Next morning, when she woke, her first image was of Steve’s hands cupping Lorraine Litchfield’s neat little bottom. She swung herself out of bed, trying to banish the picture. The movement as she stood up sent another painful spasm through her bruised ribs. She checked herself in the mirror, twisting to get a better view. Although the bruising on her flank was fading, for some reason the pain was still quite sharp. Maybe he cracked a rib or two, she thought. A hairline fracture.

  She put on some coffee, wrapped herself in the coat that had covered the Ratbag, and huddled on a corner of the lounge, close to the heater, while the coffee brewed. I really should see a doctor, she thought. She phoned a local GP she’d visited once or twice over the years and made an appointment to see her. She rang off from the call, even more dispirited. The haunted feeling that undermined her as soon as she was alone or took her mind off her work, deepened into desolation. She didn’t want to eat anything. She poured the coffee, strong and sweet. She rang Kit.

  ‘I think Steve’s involved with another woman,’ she said as soon as Kit answered.

  ‘You’d better tell me.’ And Gemma did.

  ‘You have to trust him, Gems. What he said its true. It is his job. Come round for dinner tonight.’

  ‘It might be his job but I don’t like it.’

  ‘You know how I feel about your job,’ said Kit. ‘It’s the same sort of thing.’

  ‘I guess I just have to wear it,’ said Gemma. ‘I’ll call about dinner.’

  ‘Okay.’ Kit rang off.

  •

  Later that morning Gemma visited Sydney University and had a brief interview with Dr Jacob Susskind, head of the Chemical Engineering School. Afterwards, she limped back to her car, climbed in, glanced over the notes she’d taken then pushed her note book back into her briefcase, where it fitted next to Shelly’s diary.

  She sat staring sightlessly at the twisted aerial ropes of a large fig tree whose subterranean roots were already lifting the footpath on either side, considering the information she now had about Minkie Montreau. The woman had been a doctoral student there twenty-five years ago and although Dr Susskind had not been her supervisor, and Ms Montreau had never completed the doctoral thesis she was working on, the university records showed she had been awarded a Masters degree. Dr Susskind suggested that Gemma approach Archives and have a look at the bound copy of her thesis. Minkie Montreau, Gemma thought, was turning out to be a very complex character. She could almost hear Kit’s words in her head again: ‘we express who we are in everything we do.’ Complex character, complex murder, a voice in her mind suggested.

  A research fellow, thin and tall with a slight tic in his left eye, kindly helped Gemma through the mysteries of archival filing and finally located the gold-embossed fake-leather binder.

  ‘Here it is,’ he said, winking. ‘Someone else looked at it a while ago. It’s funny with these research theses. Years will go by and no one takes any notice of them, and then suddenly you’ll get people wanting to see them. There’s one there about the action of a rare protein in the CNS and four people wanted to look at it last week.’

  ‘CNS?’ Gemma was puzzled.

  ‘Sorry. Central nervous system. Hadn’t been touched in four years before that.’

  He wanted to chat, Gemma knew, but she wasn’t in the mood. She thanked him and took the volume from him.

  ‘Sure there’s nothing else I can get you?’ he asked.

  Gemma shook her head. She opened Minkie’s thesis at the title page. The research fellow who’d been filing nearby turned back, hearing her intake of breath.

  ‘Found what you wanted?’ he inquired.

  Gemma didn’t answer, just kept looking through the stiff pages of the thesis. It didn’t make a great deal of sense to her, but she could understand enough to know that once this information was given to the police, Minkie Montreau was in lethal trouble. Circumstantial evidence is never conclusive in the way physical evidence is, but when a series of circumstances starts piling up inexorably into an overwhelming mass of damning facts, a jury is forced to draw certain conclusions. She pulled out her mobile and rang Angie.

  ‘You’ll never guess,’ she said, ‘the title and subject matter of Minkie Montreau’s Masters thesis.’

  ‘How to marry a rich old codger and then knock him off?’

  ‘Just about.’ She quoted the title of the thesis to Angie.

  Her friend’s low whistle rang down the line. ‘That looks very bad for the widow,’ said Angie. ‘You’d better pass that on to Mr Right.’

  ‘Not till I talk to her,’ said Gemma. ‘After all, she’s employed me to investigate her husband’s death. I’m just doing my job, officer.’

  ‘That’s very important information,’ Angie warned.

  ‘That’s why I’m telling you, Angelface.’

  ‘Hey, don’t put it on me, girl. It’s not my case.’

  ‘Relax, Ange. I’m going to check with the insurers, Australian Magister.’ But she couldn’t keep up the lightheartedness; memories of Steve and Lorraine Litchfield from the night before assailed her. She lowered her voice. ‘I saw Steve last night. Accidentally. He was dancing with Lorraine Litchfield in Indigo Ice. Cheek to cheek. Ange, he had his hands around her bum!’

  ‘Listen, hon,’ said her friend. ‘He’s a professional. He’s got to make it look like they’re a serious item. If that’s the script they’ve got to look right—he’s got to have his hands round her bum in public.’

  ‘It looked too damn right to me,’ said Gemma, her voice wobbling. ‘What if they stay there in private?’

  ‘Gemster,’ said Angie sternly, ‘stop carrying on like a girl. I’m doing some shooting practice today. And I think you should take better care of yourself, considering the woman you’re working for. Come to the range. Shoot the crotches out of some B12s. Write Steve’s name on one of them. You’ll feel heaps better.’

  ‘No, I won’t,’ said Gemma, feeling like a five-year-old. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever felt worse.’

  ‘Go to the gym, then,’ said her friend. ‘Do a few laps. Listen to your girlfriend. Men aren’t worth the heartache. They’re good for one thing only, and if you want my honest opinion, they’re not all that good at that.’

  •

  Gemma rang off and instead of driving direct to Minkie Montreau’s, as she’d planned, she took a detour via the boatshed. Angie’s suggestion of doing a few laps was a good idea. Visiting her boatshed was another. She parked on the narrow road and looked down at the tiny thumbnail-shaped inlet. A few fishing boats were piled on one side, and the rocks of the southern end rose steeply to the clifftop house where Gemma sometimes lived in her fantasies. She could see the corrugated iron roof of the boatshed from here, tucked away under the shoulder of the southern headland. Gemma got out of the car and walked to the white railing that separated the path from the sloping beachfront. A gusting south-westerly chopped white-tipped waves over a glass green sea. She exhaled, realising how tightly she’d been holding herself. Here, she wasn’t Gemma Lincoln PI, or anyone’s girlfriend, or soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend, or sister. She was just a woman standing looking at the sea, someone who wanted to make something beautiful and extraordinary out of nothing but cold, damp clay. She saw the scalloped edges left on the sand by the retreating tide, embroidered with tiny shells and pebbles. There is something about waves, thought Gemma, curving over the sand then diminishing, that is like the breathing of the world. Despite everything, she felt a rare, brief peace standing there watching as a crew of gulls squabbled along the waterline and a small dog contemplated them, wondering whether or not to give chase.

  Gemma walked down the path and was about to unlock the boatshed when she saw the colourful iridescence of oil on water. The rainbow marbling ran down the sma
ll freshwater runoff channel from the higher ground behind the beach. Now the water’s edge, as well as being decorated with the usual pretty foam and seaweeds, sported a wide band of pollution that appeared to be spreading. Gemma went over for a closer look, tracing the flow back to its source. It was the big beached launch. You brute, she thought, noting its registration, intending to contact the Council. She returned to the boatshed.

  The second she walked in, she sensed something different. Even the air seemed agitated and not the still coolness she was used to. Warned by instinct, she looked around. Everything seemed untouched and just as she had left it. On the counter, the shrouded shapes of the two lions loomed, one almost finished, the other barely started. She went over to the first one to pull the sheeting off it, but hesitated. For a crazy second she feared what she might find underneath the shroud. Stop being so silly, she told herself, whipping the sheet off it. The familiar, block-like head and open jaw, sightless eye and crouching hindquarters were all exactly as she’d left them. She touched the lion’s fine, proud snout, noticing that now it felt completely dry. All was exactly as she’d left it. You’re being paranoid, she told herself, replacing the sheet. She shivered. It was very cold in here, so she walked outside, relocked the padlock and stood for a few moments in the weak sun. Because of the narrowness of the inlet, and the long arm of headland that stretched out to sea on the south, Phoenix Bay was calm.

  Her desolate mood now had an overlay of anger and jealousy that even the soft winter sun and the wash of the sea couldn’t dislodge. Steve’s comments to her after her rash phone call to him seemed increasingly unconvincing. She knew her boyfriend had to pass with George Fayed. He had to talk, walk, think, speak, act, dress, smell like a big time interstate drug dealer in the company of a man who had honed his survival skills in refugee camps and the savage crucible of a war zone, where the slightest false note could mean death. Steve’s fictional history had to hold up to scrutiny and checking; he had to ensure he didn’t make some tiny slip that could bring him undone to his increasingly paranoid enemy. She tried to find some empathy with Steve, living the lie of undercover work, his life in the hands of a woman who had at best only teamed up with him out of a desire for vengeance. Even if Lorraine Litchfield imagined herself in love with him, Gemma knew how fast that sort of ‘love’ could fly out the window if Steve did not do her bidding. In fact, Gemma realised, the only thing standing between Steve and a very bad outcome, was the fragile goodwill of Lorraine Litchfield. Like it or not, she concluded, Lorraine Litchfield was Steve’s partner in this operation.

  She turned and retraced her steps back to the roadside. As she got into her car, she realised fully the danger she’d placed Steve in last night. I can’t keep behaving like this, she told herself. Angie’s right. I’ve got to get right off Steve’s case or I’ll go crazy. She pulled out her mobile, looked up a number and rang Australian Magister. She spoke with one of the brokers and what he told her added another brick to the cell that Gemma felt sure would soon wall up Minkie Montreau.

  ‘How recently?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘Last week, according to our records,’ said the broker. ‘Posted Monday before last.’

  So a few days before the fire, Minkie Montreau had requested a copy of the policy be sent to her. Taken together with the title and content of Minkie’s Masters thesis, Gemma could see a long gaol sentence in the offing.

  Gemma rang off and drove to the widow’s mansion but found no one at home. She left a message for Minkie to ring Gemma urgently and then she drove home.

  •

  Gemma felt hungry and cooked some chicken and herb sausages, eating them without tasting, her mind, despite her earlier intention, preoccupied with Steve. She tried to confine her thoughts to the certainty that she now had Minkie Montreau in the bag. But it was almost impossible to suppress the anxieties that forced themselves into her consciousness. In order to distract herself, she pulled Shelly’s diary out of her briefcase and made herself comfortable on the lounge. Taxi immediately pounced on her, settling on her stomach.

  Gemma worked her way through the diary. Many of the entries were self-explanatory: engagements with Kosta, reminders to buy items for Naomi, business meetings with accountants, men’s first names and references to jobs for the discreetly named Chester Clinic—Kosta’s ‘can’t-get-it-up’ clinic. On two of the Chester jobs, Shelly had written ‘Me or S. Confirm’. Gemma looked away, remembering. ‘Two of us work for them’, Shelly had said in the hospital lift. Gemma looked out to sea. Was ‘S’ the other worker? She turned to the last day of Shelly’s life. There was her friend’s neat writing. ‘Peter,’ she’d written. Peter Fenster and his ugly remarks about the attacks on the sex workers leaped into Gemma’s mind. He certainly had the right attitude, and his car was involved in one of the attacks. He needs further investigation, she thought. The phone rang.

  ‘I’ve just got the result on your clothes,’ Tim Conway from Kings Cross police told her. ‘Nothing doing as far as DNA goes.’

  ‘I’d already formed that conclusion myself,’ said Gemma.

  ‘But they found something. Fibres of some sort.’

  ‘What about the Ford? Any results back yet?’

  ‘I haven’t heard anything,’ said Tim.

  ‘Why is it taking so long?’ Gemma grizzled. Then she sighed. ‘Here’s something for you, at least. The name of Shelly’s last client was “Peter” And a Peter Fenster owns the Ford.’

  ‘There’re a lot of Peters in the world,’ said Tim.

  ‘I’ll go to the lab and see Ric Loader myself,’ she said. She knew it was time to come clean about the fact that she had the same bruises on her flank that Shelly had. ‘I was attacked by the same man,’ she said. ‘Unless there are two chain-wielding maniacs attacking women on the streets of Sydney.’

  ‘I’ll send that statement you made on the night to Sean Wright,’ said Tim.

  ‘It won’t help him much,’ said Gemma remembering how she’d been unable to give any description.

  ‘The girls are still out there,’ he said. ‘Getting into cars. Not using the safe house. You can’t talk reason to them.’

  ‘You can’t talk reason to a habit, Tim,’ she reminded him. ‘Have you heard the theory that Fayed’s behind these bashings? That he’s moving into brothels?’

  ‘It’s been around for a while,’ he said. ‘Fayed’s got his digits in a lot of pies.’

  She rang off and dialled Kosta.

  ‘God, man, what time is it?’ he said, sounding hurt.

  ‘Time you were out of bed and talking talk to me, Kosta,’ she said. ‘Does the name “Peter” mean anything to you?’

  There was a long pause at the end of the line.

  ‘Hell,’ he said, ‘she saw a lot of Peters over the years. Peters, Johns, Toms. You name it. Why you asking?’

  ‘Shelly wrote “Peter” down in her diary as her last client on the day she was killed.’

  ‘Peter,’ he said, and Gemma could almost hear his effort to think over the line. ‘Oh,’ Kosta suddenly said. ‘Peter.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I’m asking you,’ said Gemma, rolling her eyes heavenwards.

  ‘No way,’ said Kosta. ‘Not Peter.’

  ‘Peter who?’ she asked.

  ‘But he’s a teacher.’

  Artists and now teachers, Gemma thought, are apparently thought to be incapable of committing homicide. ‘So tell me about Peter the teacher.’

  ‘He was one of the guys referred to Shelly from the can’t-get-it-up clinic.’ There was a pause. When Kosta spoke again, his voice was stronger. ‘She told me about him. Said he was a hopeless root.’

  Kosta and Shelly must have had a refreshingly honest relationship, Gemma thought. Then she remembered something Shelly had told her. ‘Sticks it in, wiggles it around a bit, comes in thirty seconds and dribbles on my neck.’<
br />
  ‘Kosta,’ she said, ‘I think she might have told me about him too. Or at least described him to me.’

  ‘The fucking cops were at me again last night,’ he said and now his voice was angry. ‘After you left. You’re talking bullshit, I told them. Get out and find the killer, the mongrel who did that to Shell instead of wasting time harassing me.’

  ‘We’ll get him, Kosta,’ Gemma promised him. There was a silence filled with the presence of Shelly. ‘Tell me more about this Peter.’

  ‘I only know what the Shell told me,’ he said. ‘She worked with him a couple of times. That’s it.’

  Gemma tried another angle. ‘Shelly told me that she was doing this surrogacy work with another girl. It’s possible that her name might also start with an “S” too. Does that suggest anyone to you?’

  ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I dunno any names, but I know she worked with some other girl.’

  ‘If you hear anything about her, will you let me know?’ Gemma said. ‘It’s important, Kosta.

  ‘All I know for a fact is that this other girl always wears black lace gloves when she does the business,’ Kosta said.

  The nameless blonde kneeling on the bed, gloriously naked except for her gloves filled Gemma’s imagination.

  ‘It’s like her trademark,’ Kosta was saying. ‘Kinky, eh?’

  Black lace gloves. The portly photographer captured in the mirror as he snapped the photo.

  ‘Hell, Kosta,’ she said. ‘That’s great information.’

  ‘What I say?’ asked Kosta, bewildered.

  But Gemma rang off and sat, stunned, for a few seconds. Black lace gloves. With these three words, it was as if two transparencies, each etched with pictures from two completely separate worlds, had suddenly been laid one over the other, and a whole new world, deeper and more complex, was now emerging. Investigation is all about building up links and connections, creating a mosaic of information until one day the picture emerges. And boy, was it starting to emerge.