Toby nodded. ‘But it’s true that we both stand to inherit a lot of money when our grandmother dies. And I hope that’s not for a very long time. But it’s something that Prince Heinrich probably knows about already.’
‘How much money are you talking about?’
‘I’m not sure of the exact figures, but it would definitely be in the tens of millions.’
He fished another envelope out of his pocket. ‘These are the names of Steff’s closest friends. Talk to them, please, although they haven’t got a clue where she’s gone and she hasn’t contacted any of them.’
Gemma took the envelope from him, then made a quick estimate of the costs of interviewing the people concerned, chasing records and checking alibis.
‘Hell!’ Toby said, taken aback, when she gave him the figure. ‘That’s a lot of money.’
‘That’s a lot of work,’ said Gemma, ‘and a very dedicated agent on the job.’
Three
After Toby Boyd left her office, Gemma studied the picture of his twin. Steffi Boyd had the same frizzy blonde hair and tall frame, but in this photograph she’d piled her hair up into a lacquered meringue, topped with flowers. She looked very sweet, Gemma thought. And, with the addition of a tiara, sash and heraldic brooch, would make a more than credible princess. She wondered if Toby Boyd had done away with his sister, so as not to split the twins’ inheritance, but dismissed the idea as coming from IUP – investigator’s usual paranoia. Her instincts told her Toby was genuine. But then again, she thought, her instincts had never been pregnant before. And there was, as was daily evident, no end to human greed.
Gemma propped up the photograph of the would-be princess’s ex-fiancé and studied it closely. Half the age of Prince Heinrich and with a shrewd, almost suspicious expression, Martin Trimble, floppy-haired and handsome, stood beside a tall surfboard. On the back, Toby Boyd had written his and Steffi’s address in Maroubra.
She gathered up the photographs, photocopied them all, and placed them in the Toby Boyd file, then tidied up other administrative jobs, attempting to clear her desk. She couldn’t lose the feeling of hurt that Grace didn’t want to join them; that she preferred to be with another group of people. Gemma felt angry with the half-sister she’d never met. Unlike Kit, whose profession as a psychotherapist was satisfying and constant, and whose son, Will, was studying at university, Gemma felt her life lacked something. Now that the mysterious sister seemed set on withdrawing from contact, this baby might fill the void. Kit’s life seemed calm and ordered; Gemma felt hers was too often in turmoil.
It was cold in her office on the western side of the apartment and she switched on the small heater near her feet, then sat in front of her monitor, finally eating some crackers as she flicked through her email in-box until she found Grace’s last email:
I’ll ring in the next few days and make a date. At the moment, I’m going through a really difficult time but hope to have the problem sorted out soon. I have some business things to attend to here in Mittagong then I’ll be free to travel to Sydney. Looking forward so much to meeting you and Kit. You can’t imagine how important it is to me, to be part of a family.
As Gemma read the last few words, she caught her breath. So what had happened in the meantime? Grace had been so positive, so excited in her early emails. What had changed her mind? Maybe the ‘wonderful man’ she’d met had prevailed on her not to meet up with her family. The email posed more questions than it answered and Gemma realised she didn’t even know what Grace’s ‘business’ might be.
Maybe this was all for the best, Grace’s change of heart. This ‘Group’, whatever it was, had certainly turned her around, Gemma thought. Maybe she would only have brought tension and heartache to her and Kit.
Her mobile rang, interrupting this disturbing train of thought.
‘Mike!’ she said. ‘Good to hear from you. How are you?’
‘I’m fine. How about you?’
‘I’m still pregnant,’ Gemma said, aware that the biscuits had stayed down. ‘But I haven’t thrown up yet today.’
‘That’s gotta be a good thing then,’ he said. ‘How’s business? Anything for me?’
‘I thought you had plenty of work with the other security firms.’
‘I do. But you know I’d always give you priority.’
‘And you know I’d call you like a shot if I was suddenly swamped.’
‘You don’t have to be swamped to call me, Gemma,’ he said. ‘You can call me any time for a chat. Or a shoulder to cry on.’
‘I might take you up on that,’ she said. Then there was a silence that she cut short. ‘Bye,’ she said, calling off, her voice sounding overbright to her ears.
She was still a moment, wondering why it was that in her dealings with Mike she’d begun to feel more rather than less self-conscious.
Turning back to her computer screen, she googled The Group.
‘Why are terrorists and suicide bombers murdering the innocent all around the world?’ announced a banner as Gemma opened the site. ‘We can tell you why. The truth of why these cataclysmic events are happening now, when revealed, will shake and terrify all those who are not steadfast in their faith. Archangel Reziel reveals all when the time is right. The Group invites all seekers of the Truth to join us as we discover why our lives have suddenly become so fear-filled. And discover how you can be safe during the approaching End of Days. Join us and hear Archangel Reziel’s teachings. Learn AA Reziel’s personal message just for you!’
The website was adorned with images of a towering archangel hovering above an idyllic neo-classical scene of men, women and children dressed in tunics, veils and sandals, frolicking with lions and lambs amongst vines loaded with both red and white grapes. Beyond this merrymaking, a city lay in smoking ruins. Gemma peered at the destroyed city and recognised the Centrepoint Tower crashed across other iconic Sydney buildings.
And she thought she had problems. Gemma leaned back in her seat then clicked a hyperlink to find more. It seemed The Group could be visited at its property, Cana, inland from Gosford, on the Central Coast north of Sydney, and for a fee the visitor could enjoy a shared meal and a group session listening to the channelled teachings of the archangel. Personal sessions with the archangel cost considerably more.
‘Trade your anxiety for God’s certainty,’ she read. ‘If you’ve had enough of 21st-century life, with its vicious technologies, corporate greed, violence, terror attacks and pornography, join us at The Group and return to the clear guidelines of Archangel Reziel’s teachings. Find out how your life can change. Read God’s word as revealed in the Book of Revelation. As you move through the levels of teachings, you will discover how you and your family can be kept safe, no matter what calamity might befall during the coming period of the End of Days.’
Maybe Archangel Reziel, whoever that was, had put Grace off meeting her sisters. Gemma tried googling Grace’s name next. She’d got nowhere last time. Nothing now either. Then she tried Grace’s mother’s name: Beverley Kingston. This time she was successful, but the entry only referred to the old news account of the events that took place when Gemma was only five. Even now, more than thirty years on, reading of the death of her mother and the arrest of her father caused a clenched feeling in her body. She read of the suicide around this time of Beverley Kingston, one of Dr Chisholm’s patients. But there was little else. Only that Beverley’s baby was being cared for by relatives. It hadn’t added to the information she’d already gathered concerning Grace – and that was mostly half-remembered local history passed on by her music teacher, Mrs Snellgrove. No wonder Grace felt abandoned by both her parents.
Gemma sighed. Music lessons, sculpting – all these creative pleasures had been put on hold for the time being while she devoted all her energy to work, to survival. Only a few months ago, she remembered thinking all she wanted was a nice, simple life
. Things had never been so complicated.
Gemma printed off The Group’s material, deciding to read it later. Already she was feeling unduly hostile towards these people who’d caught the attention of her sister.
Grace’s defection reminded her of Jaki Hunter and she rang her number, annoyed that Jaki hadn’t even realised her misdemeanour, or worse, hadn’t bothered to ring to apologise. After several rings, the phone clicked onto voice mail and Gemma left a message.
To focus herself, she picked up the file of the other missing person case she’d taken on recently – a young girl, Maddison Carr. Gemma unclipped the photograph of the girl that Maddison’s father, Dr Leon Carr, had given her, then made some copies of it on her printer.
Gemma had decided to start looking for Maddison locally. She’d called the youth refuge in Kings Cross, but the number had rung out and she wasn’t sure if it still operated. So she’d called Naomi Glover, the daughter of her late friend, Shelly, now young mistress of the East Sydney brothel, Baroque Occasions, and arranged to drop in on her that afternoon. Taking it to the street was often the most fruitful method with runaways. Gemma glanced at her watch. Time she left for her appointments. She slipped the copied photographs into an envelope.
As she unlocked the security grille, she noticed an ice-cream container on the doorstep with an envelope attached. Curious, she stooped and picked it up, tearing it open. She hadn’t heard anyone pull up.
Inside the envelope was a note: ‘Don’t know if these might help with morning sickness. But anyway, I hope you like them. Mike.’
She prised the lid off the container to find a batch of homemade biscuits. She took them inside, smiling. He must have crept down and delivered them in person. She’d forgotten how Mike was working his way through the cookbooks abandoned by his ex-wife, tackling – in his methodical way – one new recipe every week. She put them in the fridge and took one with her, eating it on the way. It was delicious, and it stayed down.
•
As she knocked on the door of the terrace house and brothel that Naomi Glover had inherited from her mother, Gemma glanced along the street. She was well aware that a large percentage of missing youngsters ended up around Kings Cross, drawn by some dark glamour that still inhered, despite the squalor and the traffic of the area.
After a moment or two, the door opened to reveal Naomi in jeans and a polar fleece vest, her hair tied in a high ponytail, her scrubbed face shining with perspiration.
‘Aunty Gemma!’ said Naomi with a laugh. ‘Great to see you!’
Gemma followed Naomi right through the house and out again via the door in the kitchen, down a small set of steps and into the tiny square of garden at the back. Naomi pulled her gardening gloves back on; it was clear she was working on a raised garden bed of heaped-up potting mix. Sections of the mound were already planted with green seedlings.
‘What are you growing?’ Gemma asked, bending to pull out a grass runner as Naomi picked up her trowel again.
‘Don’t know,’ shrugged Naomi, digging around the base of the mound. ‘I got them half price because there was nothing on the punnet.’
They worked together for a few minutes. ‘So how’s business?’ Gemma asked.
‘Okay,’ said Naomi. ‘But nothing to bring the house down. Enough work for me, and Robyn comes in a couple of times a week.’
‘Same as me,’ said Gemma. ‘I’m pretty well running my business myself these days.’
‘I’m still studying,’ said Naomi. ‘Fine Arts part-time. Degree course. I can’t believe I got my HSC finally.’
‘Congratulations. I know you studied hard.’
‘Heard from Steve?’
Naomi, whose ability to read silences had undoubtedly saved her life on occasion, got it in seconds.
‘Don’t tell me you’re still not seeing each other?,’ she said, sitting back on her heels.
Gemma nodded.
‘Oh, Gemma. That’s so sad!’
‘I didn’t handle things well. I was jealous. We had a fight. Or rather, I couldn’t stop having the same fight with him, over and over. Eventually, he had enough.’
‘But we’ve had this conversation before,’ Naomi pointed out. ‘And didn’t he come back last time?’
Gemma shook her head. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Well, that’s not quite true. We did go out for dinner to talk things over, but I started on him again. I can’t seem to help it. It just takes me over.’
‘That’s crazy,’ said Naomi, shaking her head slowly. Her ponytail swung over her shoulder, a wave of golden brown reminding Gemma of her dead friend, Shelly.
‘You straight girls,’ Naomi was saying. ‘You just don’t – or won’t – get it. Going to bed with a woman can mean absolutely zero to a man. And a woman too. I should know! You were way too tough on him!’
‘Steve was too tough on me!’ Gemma snapped, aware of tears not far beneath her words. Abruptly, she pulled out the envelope with Maddison Carr’s school photograph in her pocket and opened it.
‘This is the photograph you wanted to show me?’ Naomi asked.
‘Yes,’ said Gemma, passing it to her. ‘Have you seen this girl anywhere round?’
Naomi wiped sweat off her forehead with the back of her glove, smearing a line of dirt across her nose, then she frowned at the photograph of the tall, fair schoolgirl, hair tied back, wearing a prefect’s badge on her collar, squinting against the sun in her green and white uniform complete with blazer and hat, a slight frown hiding her eyes under heavy brows, the habitual downturn of her full lips already in evidence. It was clear to Gemma that Maddison Carr was not a happy seventeen-year-old.
‘Who is she when she’s not being the good little prefect?’
‘Maddison Carr,’ said Gemma. ‘That’s about all I know of her. Her father is a doctor, a cardiac specialist. He’s a difficult man – very superior, authoritarian. Reminds me a bit of the Duke of Edinburgh. According to him, she was living this perfectly happy, idyllic life until one day on her way to school – where she was top of the class in every subject – she got off the train at Kings Cross and never came home.’
Naomi peered closely at the photograph. ‘Perfectly happy and idyllic, eh? She does look kind of familiar with those Brooke Shields eyebrows. And is that all the information you have?’
‘Yup. The railway security cameras picked her up getting off at Kings Cross. She used an ATM and the last sighting anyone had of her was walking down Darlinghurst Road towards St Vincent’s. Then she seems to have dropped off the screen.’
Naomi studied the photograph a little longer before holding it out to Gemma. ‘I could have seen her around. But I can’t be positive. Girls come and go.’
‘You keep that,’ said Gemma. ‘Show it around and see if any of the girls have seen her.’
‘Sure,’ said Naomi. ‘And I’ll mention it at our next precinct committee meeting. The sex workers liaison officer might be helpful. She’s cool and she’s on the street a lot.’
‘Social worker?’
Naomi shook her head. ‘Uh-uh. We’ve been assigned a cop who liaises with us – takes complaints if anyone’s ripped off or bashed.’
‘What’s her name?’ Gemma asked, remembering that some time back Angie had acted in that position.
‘Constable Karen Lucky. Talk to her. She’s good value. A couple of ugly mugs put Gerda in hospital overnight a few weeks back. She gave good descriptions of them and their car and Karen picked them up and charged them the next day. They were sleeping it off in the same car in a No Stopping area.’ Naomi smiled. ‘Talk to Sandra Samuels too,’ she suggested, referring to the woman who ran the youth refuge.
‘I was going to,’ said Gemma – ‘I rang before I came here. No luck.’
‘Or better still,’ Naomi continued, ‘talk to Gerda. She knows even more abo
ut waifs and strays. Your little friend, the Ratbag? Gerda gave him floorspace in her tiny flat when he didn’t have anywhere to go.’
Gemma remembered Hugo telling her about Gerda, the tall transsexual who’d let him stay at her place and who’d been saving for the op.
‘So why aren’t the cops out looking for the missing prefect?’ said Naomi, pulling her gloves off and taking the photograph inside, where she propped it up on the counter in her kitchen.
‘They’ve decided she’s not really a missing person. That she’s a runaway,’ Gemma replied, following Naomi inside. ‘She fits the profile of a high achiever who suddenly goes AWOL on the way to school.’ She studied the propped-up photograph of the fair girl again. ‘No boyfriend, no history of running away. Her friends have been grilled; her laptop’s been checked, according to the police – nothing there. She withdrew all the money from her savings account over the first few weeks of her absence. Looks like she’s decided to walk out of her pressured life.’
‘And onto the streets of Kings Cross,’ said Naomi. ‘Not a good start. Too many kids do that. Was the great doctor shafting her?’ She frowned and reached for the electric jug.
‘I’ve no idea about that,’ said Gemma. ‘But kids don’t leave home without a good reason. Could have simply been overload, carrying parental ambitions, I suppose.’
‘Want a coffee?’ Naomi asked.
Gemma glanced at her watch. ‘Better go. Let me know if you hear anything about Maddison. And I’ll have a chat to Karen Lucky. Where does Gerda live?’
Naomi found an old envelope and scribbled the address on the back of it for her. The two of them walked through the house and Naomi let Gemma out, putting a hand on her arm.
‘You okay?’ she frowned. ‘You look pale. And you’ve lost weight. Hope you’re not coming down with something.’
‘I already have come down with something, Naomi. It’s called a baby. I’m pregnant.’
Naomi blinked. ‘Hey!’ she laughed. ‘That’s great!’
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