‘I didn’t find it particularly funny,’ she said.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘What about you shooting the crotch out of those B12s?’
Gemma hated to admit he had a point.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘be reasonable. Do you really think I’d be working here with you, knowing that you’re investigating those bashings and the murder? Think about it. I’d want to be on the other side of the state, not across the hallway from the very investigator who’s taken on the job.’
‘If you were working for George Fayed,’ she whispered, ‘it makes perfect sense.’
‘I’m not. I can explain why I have his number.’
‘And Angie’s,’ Gemma added. ‘How do you know Angie?’
‘It’s a long story,’ he said.
Gemma lowered the Glock. Now she could hear the sirens.
‘I can understand your fear,’ he said. ‘And I can see how you got there—my house, my bedroom, my jacket, my handkerchief. It all makes perfect sense except that the jacket and the handkerchief aren’t mine.’
She was starting to worry that squad cars might be about to pull up on the road above and a dozen armed police come crashing into her place. Now the sirens were wailing down the main road. Any minute now, she’d hear the screeching of brakes.
‘Last year I worked on a JTF with the New South Wales police. Angie was part of it.’
‘Angie never mentioned any Joint Task Force to me,’ Gemma said. ‘She’s my girlfriend.’
‘There’s this thing called the Official Secrets Act,’ Mike said.
‘I don’t know what to do,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what to say.’
She could hear the cars skidding to a halt up on the crescent, the thud of running feet, the sound of disembodied radio voices. She went to the door and opened it.
Three police officers faced her, Glocks drawn.
‘Drop it!’ one of them screamed.
For a second, shock froze her. Then she let the gun fall and even as she heard it hit the floor, so did she, pinned in a painful wristlock.
‘What’s going on here?’ said a pockmarked heavy, twisting his face down to hers, battle madness already showing in his eyes. ‘We heard you got a Signal One here.’
‘Please, Officer—’ she started. ‘Officers. There’s been a misunderstanding. I can explain. Please can I get up?’
Eighteen
When Gemma had explained it all and the police had left, Mike followed her across the hallway as she collapsed on a chair in her office. He stood at the door, not stepping in. Her embarrassment was fading. Better to have a red face than a dead face, she remembered someone telling her a long time ago. She looked around. I have to let the police concentrate now on finding the street girl basher. I’ve got plenty to do in my own house. I’ve got Steve to worry about. I have to find out who is sabotaging my business and clear my name. Am I just doing it all over again? she wondered, recalling how she’d once wanted to clear her father’s name. Am I compelled to live my life constantly trying to prove that I’m all right and that my family is all right? Am I just another less obvious version of Skanda Bergen’s compulsion to clean and wipe everything up?
‘You’ve been under a lot of stress lately,’ Mike said. ‘It’d make anyone jump at shadows.’
‘George Fayed’s number in your diary is hardly a shadow,’ she said. ‘If I rang that number, what would happen?’
‘Nothing,’ said Mike. ‘It was a connection we set up with him for a while. It’s long been disconnected.’ He paused. ‘I can tell you this much,’ he said. ‘It was a joint operation with the Federal Police, the National Crime Authority and the State police. A surveillance operation on George Fayed. ASIO was involved.’
Gemma felt restless. She stood up and went to the window where the coprosma bush made a green darkness outside.
‘I don’t know who to trust, Mike,’ she said. ‘I’m clutching at straws. My business and my life are just going down the gurgler so fast. Now I’m hearing things that I knew nothing about. It’s not a good feeling.’
‘Look,’ he said, ‘you couldn’t have known. Your response was understandable under the circumstances. I’d have done the same.’
‘What else don’t I know?’ she asked. ‘Any more surprises?’
Mike shook his head.
‘I’d never know anyway,’ she said, ‘with that cloak and dagger stuff.’ She sat down, feeling suddenly drained. ‘Sean Wright will want to pull in everyone who was at your party once Ric Loader gives him that information,’ she said, thinking of the voluntary DNA samples that would have to be given. ‘It’ll be the end of your social life. Your friends won’t like it.’
‘I don’t care about that,’ he said. ‘And neither will anyone who’s innocent. It’s a worry to know that one of my acquaintances is a real bastard.’
‘It mightn’t have been one of your friends,’ she said. ‘Maybe someone has a new boyfriend?’
Mike laughed. ‘Could be my ex’s new boyfriend,’ he said.
‘You astonish me,’ said Gemma. ‘You invited your ex?’
‘Only joking,’ he said.
Spinner went to that party, Gemma remembered. He wouldn’t mind providing a cheek scrape in the slightest.
‘I’ve been working on Fayed,’ Mike said.
Gemma forced herself to focus on Steve’s situation again.
‘I got some really interesting stuff out of the air near his place,’ said Mike. ‘I borrowed a van from a mate. Now I need to go to Mum’s for a while, run a few things.’ Mike checked his watch.
A lot of coppers, Gemma knew, used relatives’ homes for a safe house, as a storage facility. She also knew that wireless networks, despite their built-in security codes, transmit publicly over the airwaves, providing the medium for television receivers, for cell phones and radios. Any decent technician could surreptitiously grab and analyse data, pulling it out of the air, find the master password and gain access to pretty well anything transmitted.
‘I’ll come and pick you up,’ Mike said, ‘when I know more about what I’ve got.’
She turned from the window to face him. She nodded, keeping her fingers crossed behind her back for luck.
‘Okay,’ she said.
I have to trust him, she told herself. I really don’t have an alternative right now. She went to her desk, pulling a drawer open. There lay the Scorpio zodiac charm. She picked it up and turned it over in her hands, hardly seeing it, feeling its weight. Be safe, Steve, she prayed. Be safe wherever you are.
•
Gemma limped into Kings Cross police station. Deb shook her head from the other side of the counter.
‘If you’re looking for Tim,’ she said, ‘he’s not here. Someone found a body in a bag in a lane behind Springfield Avenue and he’s gone down to check it out.’
‘I wanted to ask him about a friend of mine,’ Gemma said. The only people around the Cross she hadn’t checked with about Steve were the police.
She thanked Deb and left, deciding it would be quicker to walk than try to find another parking spot. In a few minutes, she noticed a small group of police clustered in front of the police vehicles blocking each end of the lane. She caught Tim’s eye and he nodded at her, allowing her through. On the footpath near an overflowing wheelie bin squatted the Crime Scene examiner and, as Gemma hurried over, he stood up. The laughter took her by surprise. Someone must have made one of their usual bad taste Crime Scene jokes, she thought, until she came closer. She saw the corpse in the same moment, where it lay stretched out in the now opened green garbage bag. She put her handkerchief to her nose in a useless gesture and thought of one more use for a dead cat. On top of the putrefying remains of what might have been old cuts of meat, the stiff body lay, legs stretched fore and aft, tail up. Already, interest in the scene was e
vaporating as people walked back to their cars.
‘Got called out to a bag under a bridge once,’ the Crime Scene officer was saying as he repacked his case. ‘Took me an hour to get through all the wrappings without disturbing things too much.’ He paused, snapping the case closed. ‘It was half a goat.’
He nodded at Gemma as she came to stand beside the stinking rubbish and the dead cat. Suddenly she looked closer. She’d seen that cat less than twenty-four hours ago. The distinctive houndstooth check marking left her in no doubt. There were no obvious marks of violence on the animal. Underneath it, she could see what looked like a can of hairspray. She pushed the carcass aside with the toe of her boot and stooped down to read the label on it. What she saw made her run after the Crime Scene Examiner, who was just stepping into his station wagon.
‘Please,’ she said, ‘come back for a minute?’
‘Who are you?’ he wanted to know, frowning in partial recognition.
‘Gemma Lincoln,’ she said. ‘I used to work with you, remember?’ She steeled herself for a lie. ‘I’m a mate of Sean Wright,’ she added.
Ahead of them, she saw Tim’s van moving out of the lane, allowing passage again. ‘Talk to Sean if you want, but there’s something in that rubbish that he’ll want to know about in connection with a murder investigation.’
‘A dead cat?’
The young man’s face was a picture.
‘You’ll want to bag that cat and what’s underneath it,’ she said. ‘In fact, I don’t want to tell you your job, but you’ll want to bag everything in and around that garbage. I believe that cat belonged to Benjamin Glass.’
His face registered a faint interest at the name of the dead man.
Gemma hurried on while she had his attention. ‘And underneath the cat’s body is a canister of carbon monoxide gas. Benjamin Glass died of carbon monoxide poisoning.’
‘I thought he died in a fire,’ said the crime scene examiner. ‘A high temperature accelerant fire.’
‘That’s what everyone thought. But lethal amounts of carbon monoxide were found in tissue samples from the deceased. I believe that dead cat is his. And under the cat is something you should look at.’
‘Look, ma’am,’ he said, with heavy-handed correctness, ‘I’ll tell Sean Wright. On account of you’re a friend of his. But that’s all I’m doing. No way I’m bagging a dead cat.’ He threw her a look of amused contempt.
That look, thought Gemma. All my life I’ve copped that look from men. She struggled to keep the anger out of her voice.
‘It’s not just a dead cat,’ she said, ‘The cat and the canister underneath it could be vital evidence in a murder investigation. Can you get that?’
‘My job,’ he said, speaking in a loud, slow voice as if she were stupid, ‘is to attend crime scenes, to notice, record, collect and collate physical evidence.’ He paused for effect, turning away to open the door of the wagon. ‘It is not my job to pick up dead cats off the street.’
Gemma watched as he drove off. Then she went back to the garbage and carefully teased the canister out, using her toe. It rolled towards the gutter and she blocked it with her foot, looking around for something to put it in. An empty plastic bag fluttered at the top of the wheelie bin, and Gemma pounced on it, swept the canister into it without touching it and dropped it into her briefcase. Only then did she head back to the main drag.
She was about to flag a taxi when she spotted two of the Koori kids she’d spoken to near the El Alamein fountain.
‘Hey,’ Gemma called. The girl turned. Gemma saw recognition in her eyes. ‘Have you seen that kid I asked you about?’
The girl’s eyes followed Gemma’s hand as it pulled a twenty-dollar note out of her briefcase. The boy clutched a heavy suitcase closer.
‘Look,’ she said to them, ‘he’s not in trouble. I’m just worried about him.’ She felt a sudden rush of intense sadness as she spoke. ‘I know what it’s like to be little and for no one to want you.’
The girl looked at Gemma in silence for a long minute. ‘Yes,’ she said at last. ‘We see him around a bit.’
‘Where?’
The girl shrugged.
‘Where’s he living?’
‘Just around.’
That’s the Ratbag, Gemma thought. Just crashing wherever he can.
The girl’s mouth compressed and she turned her dark eyes away, pocketing the note. Her younger companion tugged at her sleeve. ‘Give it to me,’ he said but the girl pushed his hand away.
‘When you say “just around”,’ Gemma tried again, ‘what do you actually mean?’
‘He beds down all over the place. Like us. Sometimes people let us stay at their place. Sometimes we get into a refuge. Mostly we sleep around here’—she made a vague sweep of her arm—‘lotsa different places. Maybe he does, too.’
‘Do you wanna buy some stuff?’ the boy asked, tapping the suitcase.
‘Like what?’ said Gemma.
The boy shrugged. ‘Got it off a friend,’ he said.
‘I’ll have a look,’ said Gemma.
He opened the suitcase and Gemma peered in. It was a typical minor thieves’ haul: CDs, bits of jewellery, a decent watch or two, several pieces of china, clothes, some pharmaceuticals.
‘No,’ she said, ‘there’s nothing here I’m interested in.’
‘Give you the lot for fifty bucks?’ he said.
Gemma looked at the pair. What would become of them? Where would they end up? Why did nobody care? Instead, she found herself groping for words of encouragement, suggestions of what they could do to improve their lot. But she knew they would sound stupid and ineffectual. She opened her wallet and pulled out another twenty. It was all she could do. The girl grabbed it and the kids took off with their haul, vanishing round a corner.
Gemma stood a moment under the bare plane trees where dejected Indian mynahs pecked at plastic litter. Poor little wretches, she thought, turning her steps towards Kosta’s place.
•
Kosta took her in his big Ford with the gold komboloi dangling from the rear-vision mirror. ‘There’s someone who wants to meet you,’ he said as they drove towards the end of Victoria Street. He parked outside a large terrace house and Gemma got out of the car and followed Kosta through the open door. ‘I’m working as doorman here now,’ he said. ‘But I don’t knock on till later in the day.’ Together, they walked through the narrow hallway of the house, with its bedrooms down one side, until they reached the kitchen at the back. Shelly had renovated this area into a pleasant north-facing living room with a heavy door that locked these rooms off from the rest of the house. Like my place, thought Gemma. We stalkers of the night have a lot in common. The public and the private worlds.
‘Girls,’ Kosta called out as they stepped down into the living room past the heavy door, ‘I’ve got a visitor for you.’
Two young women turned round from where they’d been sitting together at the wooden kitchen table, their cigarettes smoking in the ashtray, coffees steaming. As soon as she saw the girl nearest her, Gemma knew who it was. She reached out her hand to the younger woman, who had her mother’s golden fingernails as well as her determined jawline.
‘Naomi,’ she said, ‘it’s lovely to meet you again. Last time I saw you, you were going off to child care.’ She paused. ‘I’m so sorry about your mum.’
Naomi’s blue eyes filled with tears and she nodded, unable to speak for the moment.
‘She was a good person,’ Gemma said, ‘and a friend of mine. I want to go to the funeral.’
‘I’ll let you know,’ said Kosta. ‘And this is—’ He was about to continue when Gemma interrupted.
‘I know who this is,’ she said, nodding to the girl. ‘Robyn. I’m pleased to see you out of hospital. You look much better than when I last saw you.’
A lot of the swelling had subsided, but Robyn’s face was still darkly bruised, and her left eye was covered with a patch. It wasn’t till then that Gemma saw the pair of crutches leaning against the table. ‘I met you with your mother at the hospital a little while ago,’ she explained. ‘I wouldn’t expect you to remember.’
The bruised girl shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t remember much about the first few days.’
‘You needn’t be sorry,’ said Gemma. ‘Whoever did this to you is the one who should be sorry.’
‘Mum’s determined to track the animal down,’ said Robyn.
Gemma remembered the athletic woman with her powerful shoulders. ‘I really hope she does,’ she said. ‘Save us all a lot of bother.’
‘We were just talking then,’ said Naomi, ‘when you came in. Wondering what sort of man does this sort of thing.’
‘A real mean one,’ said Kosta, settling himself down in a gingham-dressed kitchen chair. ‘Gemma wants to know if anyone’s heard anything about George Fayed. Or anything unusual. A friend of hers might be in a bit of trouble with him.’
‘I haven’t heard anything about Fayed personally,’ Naomi said, looking across at Robyn who also shook her head. ‘But no way he’s getting his hands on this place. We’re all going to run it now.’
‘Like a proper family business,’ Kosta added. ‘Rob here is off the gear.’
‘You bet,’ said Robyn. ‘Nearly got me dead, that stuff.’
‘Naomi’s going to do the books,’ Kosta continued, ‘and this young bloke here’—Gemma turned around to see who Kosta meant and there was the Ratbag, large as life, stepping down into the lower level of the living area, still wearing the dirty maroon anorak, hair slicked back like a gangster from a ’30s movie—‘this young bloke is going to be gopher. He’ll keep cocky for us.’
The Ratbag didn’t see Gemma until she spoke.
‘Hullo, Hugo,’ she said. He seemed to stop in mid stride like a character in an animated cartoon, and his eyes were huge in a face that was slowly blushing.
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