A few minutes later, Gemma, with the bundle now under her arm, walked alongside Hugo with as much nonchalance as she could muster down the side passage of the adjoining property, along the driveway and out onto the street. She had a partly true script prepared in case they were challenged and it was while she was rehearsing this that she remembered the Malibu board.
She swore. ‘The surfboard. It’s still propped up against the wall of the garage.’
‘We’ll have to leave it,’ said Hugo, as they negotiated the low mesh gate of the property they’d just walked through and found themselves on a street parallel to the one in which Gemma’s car was parked.
‘Actually,’ she said as they hurried around the corner of the nearest cross street on their way back to the car, ‘it’s quite a good prop. Makes it look as if some surfer was trying to access materials for the dinged board.’ She hoped Trimble wouldn’t notice any interference to his cartons, one in particular. Although she feared that with his guilty conscience, that would be the first place he’d check.
Once they were in the car, Gemma looked sternly across at her passenger.
‘If I ever take you out on a job again,’ she said, ‘you must promise me you will never, ever, do anything like that again, okay?’
‘Sweet,’ he said, nodding. ‘Can you pay me now?’
‘That was work experience,’ she said. ‘You should be paying me! I already advanced you twenty.’
‘That didn’t last long. I’m not being greedy,’ he said, ‘but it sucks not being able to get money. Adults can get jobs and get money.’ He leaned back in the seat, sighing. ‘No wonder I ended up working for criminals. At least they pay a guy.’
‘Lay off, Hugo,’ she said, trying not to smile.
She started the car and drove homewards, and the minute she was in her office, having dropped Hugo near a bus-stop with ten dollars, she looked up the mobile number for Mark Simons at Missing Persons. She rang him, explaining who she was and where she fitted in – Toby Boyd was a client and she was calling about Stephanie Boyd. Yes, said Mark Simons, he’d interviewed Martin Trimble.
‘I had occasion to be in Trimble’s garage,’ Gemma said. ‘And I found something in a carton that you should know about. Stephanie Boyd’s wedding dress. Stained with what appears to be blood.’
She cited ‘a broken window’ as the way she’d got into the garage. ‘I know it’s a very unorthodox entry into the premises,’ she said, ‘but given the potential seriousness of the bloodstains –’
‘It’s okay,’ said Simons, ‘I don’t want to know any of that. The boyfriend lives at Maroubra if I remember right?’
‘Yes,’ said Gemma.
‘I’ll call Susie Deacon at Maroubra,’ he said. ‘She’s rostered on over the weekend. She can pick up the dress. And send someone to have a chat to Trimble.’
‘No,’ said Gemma. ‘Don’t show your hand until there’s a result on the dress. You don’t want to spook him.’
‘That could be six months,’ said Mark. ‘The back-log of DNA samples waiting for profiling is horrendous.’
‘In that case,’ said Gemma, ‘I’ll do a deal with a private lab I know. They’re fully accredited. If I can get some preliminary findings established, like whose blood is on that dress . . .’
‘If it belongs to the missing woman, the Maroubra police would haul Martin Trimble in, no question. But I can’t allocate any funds for that.’
‘Leave it with me,’ Gemma said. ‘I’ll find a way.’
Her next call was to Toby Boyd.
‘Bugger that for a joke!’ Toby said, after Gemma told him about waiting until her friend Lance at Paradigm Labs could do a DNA test before approaching Trimble. ‘I’m going straight round there myself. I’ll make that bastard tell me what’s happened to my sister!’
‘No! Don’t do that!’ cried Gemma. ‘First of all, you don’t know what this guy is capable of, and also you don’t want to freak him out. We want to find out what’s on Steffi’s dress first. But Lance will need a reference sample. Can you provide something of Steffi’s that will have genetic material on it? A toothbrush, hairbrush – that sort of thing?’
‘Okay,’ Toby said finally. ‘I’ll look through her stuff and see what I can find and bring it over. That bastard. I’ll be watching every move he makes.’
Twenty-One
Gemma spent the rest of the day cleaning the apartment and working in the garden. She tried Darren’s number again, but this time all she heard was a message asking her to leave her number. By the end of the day, she was tired and fed up. How would she manage with a baby as well?
The next morning she emailed both Grace and Kit, feeling lonely and dejected. She almost rang Mike, thinking that a movie would lift her spirits. But behind her desire to keep busy and find distraction in cinema land was the one big call she had to make – the phone call she’d been putting off. It was time to bite the bullet, she knew. She reached over and picked up the desk phone. Her fingers were trembling as she dialled. She was shocked when he answered almost on the first ring.
‘Steve Brannigan.’
‘It’s me,’ she said, and feeling stupid added, ‘Gemma.’
‘Gemma!’
‘Can you speak?’ she asked.
‘Hang on.’
While she waited, she imagined all sorts of things: Steve extricating himself from Julie’s bed, wrapping a towel round his waist and tucking in the end like Gemma had seen him do a thousand times. Tears pricked her eyes.
‘Okay,’ he said a few moments later.
‘I need to talk to you.’
‘Yes. When?’
She wanted this over and done with. Already, she’d procrastinated too long.
‘Now?’
‘I can do that,’ he said slowly. ‘Where?’
‘Phoenix Bay? The coffee shop?’
‘It’ll be closed this time of year.’
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I meant the deck area.’
There was a pause. ‘I can be there in an hour,’ he said.
An hour later, wrapped up in her winter overcoat because the wind was strong, Gemma waited by the roiling sea. It was hard to remember how hot and crowded this place could be in summer; how balmy the long, vacant evenings when she and Steve sometimes sat on the rocks near the cave while earnest walkers and joggers passed by on the cliff path above them. Today it was eerie and desolate; the line between sea and sky could barely be discerned.
She saw him hurrying down from the road, head down, carrying a coat – dressed to go out. She stood silently as he came right up to her, his face anxious in the murky light, the shadow under his brows making his face guarded and mysterious. Was he expecting a hard time, she wondered. She noticed a graze to the side of his cheek and had to check herself from reaching out and touching it.
‘Let’s go and sit in my car,’ he said. ‘You’ll get cold here.’
Gemma shook her head. It would be too sad to be back in that car with everything so different between them.
‘This won’t take long,’ she said. ‘I’d prefer to do it here.’
Here goes, she thought.
‘Steve, you should know this. I’m pregnant.’
She saw that it hit him hard. He winced. ‘I don’t believe it!’
‘You’d better,’ she said, her voice harder than she’d intended.
‘I didn’t mean it like that. Of course I believe you. I mean, I can’t believe that you’re pregnant . . .’
He dropped the coat so that it hung across the low white railing fence, then started walking away towards the closed-up coffee shop, turning near the door and coming back – pacing, she thought – while he considered the news.
‘I’m not going to ask you for anything. I’m only telling you just in case . . .’ She started again.
‘I’m telling you because as the father you deserve to know the truth.’
‘Jeez, Gems, this is awful. See –’ He broke off and walked away again, standing a distance from her, again swinging around.
‘Will you stop pacing around like a panther in a cage,’ she said. ‘I’m not going to ask you for any emotional commitment like fathering or anything else. In fact, I’m not too sure I’m even going to be able to have this baby. I just thought you should know.’
‘But I’d want to help,’ he said. ‘I’d want to do the right thing.’
‘Good for you,’ she said, trying to keep the anger out of her voice.
‘That came out wrong. Jeez, Gems. I’m in an impossible situation –’
‘You’re in an impossible situation?’ She could feel the anger rising and took a deep breath.
‘The reason I’m engaged to Julie,’ he said, ‘is because she’s pregnant.’
‘Oh no!’ Gemma wailed. ‘How could you?’ The plaintive question was out before she could bite it back. She felt tears prick her eyes.
‘I know I’m a real jerk,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how it happened.’
‘Get a book on biology,’ she said. ‘I’ll tell you how it happened!’
Her head was spinning. This was how it went with her and Steve, she remembered. The anger, the smart comments from her, the argument building, then storming off until she’d calmed down. This time, she was determined to behave with dignity. She took another deep breath although her heart was racing and her stomach felt like a washing machine on spin cycle.
‘Julie can’t explain it either,’ he said. ‘It’s a one in a million shot. I never have that sort of hit rate with picking the gallopers.’
‘Trust you,’ she said.
‘Gems, I don’t know what to do now.’ Again, he walked away, head down, deep in thought. ‘When Julie told me she was pregnant, I was already thinking it was time for me to stop haring around . . . I found myself asking her to marry me. The minute I said it, I regretted it.’
‘You never asked me,’ she said, her voice sad and low.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘I should have thought about these things earlier.’
There was a long pause, broken by the crash and roll of the low breakers.
‘Gemma, if things were different –’
‘If things were different,’ she said bitterly, ‘I wouldn’t be pregnant and we wouldn’t be having this conversation and you’d be happily somewhere with Julie.’
Steve shook his head. ‘It’s not like that. It’s very different, Julie and me. She doesn’t see that much of me.’
‘Neither did I,’ she said.
‘But you didn’t mind that,’ he pointed out. ‘That’s why we’re such a good team.’
‘You mean were, don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. Were. You had your own life and friends and interests. You weren’t looking to me to make a life happen for you.’
She decided it wasn’t the right time to discuss the gender divide. Instead, it was time to finish. But there was a question she had to ask.
‘Do you love Julie, Steve?’
When he spoke, he turned away.
‘I didn’t hear what you said,’ she said.
‘I said, I think so. But now, with you having a baby too . . . this is unbelievable.’
She’d done what she had to do. ‘I’d better be going.’
‘What are you going to do?’ he said, touching her on the arm.
She pulled her arm away. ‘I’ll manage. I always have.’
‘You must let me know when the baby’s born,’ he said. ‘I want to be there.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘That wouldn’t work. I’ve got to go.’
Gemma walked away, hurrying up the steep rise to the road, wanting to be somewhere quiet so she could lick her wounds and finally say goodbye to Steve Brannigan. This anger was a much better feeling than the soppy regret she’d been ailing from for too long. She heard Steve’s footsteps catching up with her.
‘I’ll drive you to your place,’ he said, his hand on her arm.
‘I’d rather walk.’
‘I’ll walk with you. Please, Gems.’
‘Just go, Steve,’ she said.
When she got home, she threw herself on her bed and cried and cried. Then she rang Angie.
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Angie.
‘That’s what he said.’
‘What does he think he is? A walking sperm donor? So that’s why they got engaged. Does he love her?’
‘He says he thinks so.’
‘He thinks so!’ Angie exclaimed. ‘That’s like thinking you’ve had an orgasm. You have or you haven’t. Steve bloody Brannigan! Now I’m going to lose another experienced crime scene person. Julie will go off on maternity leave and there’ll be no replacement.’
‘I was surprised that when we met just then I felt really separate from him. I was thinking it would be much harder than it was.’
‘See? You’re getting over him already. You’re like me. We just love those unavailable men!’
‘Maybe so,’ said Gemma.
‘I’d come over,’ said Angie, ‘except I’m having dinner with Trevor.’
‘I thought you were just having coffee together? You be careful, Ange,’ said Gemma. ‘He’s still a family man. And eighty per cent of them go back to their wives.’
‘He reckons that won’t happen. And Trevor’s might be the only family I’ll ever have,’ said Angie. ‘I’m fast moving away from the child-bearing years. Not sure if I’d make a very good mother either.’
‘My thoughts exactly. Angie, what am I going to do? I’m in no position to make a decent life for a child. I can barely support myself!’
‘It’s a big decision, I know. But, Gemster, we’d all rally round. Me and Kit. And Spinner. And Mike.’
After Angie rang off, Gemma had a long bath. She went over the meeting with Steve, surprised at how well she was taking it. She hadn’t tormented herself with ‘what ifs’: what if she’d told Steve earlier – would he be engaged to her and not to Julie Cooper? And would that really be a good choice? When she climbed out, she felt a lot better, restored to a calm equilibrium. While ever there’d been a chance of reconciliation, she’d been torn and indecisive. Now that Steve was moving on to a different life with Julie, Gemma felt she could let go of the struggle and the regrets. It was over; it was finished.
The idea of a baby had been a romantic notion tied up with the possibility of reconnecting with Steve. Now, when she examined it in the cold light of reason, it made no sense at all. Millions of women had decided not to be mothers. Life was full enough as it was. It would be irresponsible of her to bring another person into the world without having the means to provide for them.
She wrapped her towel around herself and hurried to her bedroom to get dressed. Steve was gone, and she was not going to have a baby. It was simpler that way. Sad, but true. Part of her felt great relief. She didn’t want to investigate the other parts.
•
‘You’re absolutely sure that you want to go ahead with this termination?’ Melanie, a pretty woman in a printed dress and long knitted jacket, asked Gemma on Monday morning at Family Planning.
She’d been talking to Gemma for ten minutes, outlining the procedure. Gemma listened, occasionally glancing round the interviewing room. Now, she had to answer Melanie’s question.
‘I’m very sure,’ said Gemma. ‘It’s too late in my life for a baby. I’m self-employed. I simply couldn’t support myself and a baby – not in my line of work.’
‘What about the supporting mothers’ benefit?’
‘My costs and overheads are constant,’ said Gemma. ‘And it’s not just for practical reasons that I don’t want to have a
baby. Without going into the details of my life, I didn’t have a very good family experience.’
‘No family is perfect,’ Melanie smiled.
If only you knew, Gemma thought. She sighed. At every important decision, her past rose up to haunt her and she was tired of talking about it. ‘I had a very difficult childhood and adolescence,’ she said. ‘It’s affected me in various ways.’
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Melanie offered.
Gemma shook her head. ‘Not really.’ She had spent all the previous day thinking about what she should do. She uncrossed her ankles restlessly. ‘I’m not doing this lightly,’ she added.
‘Few women do,’ said Melanie. ‘And if you’re sure . . .’
‘I am.’
Gemma followed her out of the interview room and back to the counter.
‘The doctor is here Wednesday and Thursday mornings,’ said Melanie. ‘I can book you in for this Thursday?’
Gemma nodded and Melanie wrote her name down.
‘Be here nice and early,’ she said. ‘Seven o’clock? Nothing to eat or drink for twelve hours beforehand. We’ll have you out of here by lunchtime.’
Gemma walked down the narrow flight of steps, opened the security door and stepped out onto the street, trying to convince herself that the powerful feeling that threatened to overwhelm her was relief. She recalled the face and shining hair of the woman who, according to Angie, only went for men who already had a partner. She thought of her own pattern of dating men who couldn’t make a commitment, recalling the many conversations she’d had with Kit about this. Was she going to be a prisoner of her childhood for the rest of her life?
Gemma didn’t think she could bear going home. Now that she’d made the decision and the appointment, the reality of the end of her relationship with Steve seemed to rise up like a huge tidal wave. Every room, every surface of her apartment was brushed with memories of Steve’s presence, his humour, his anger, his Steveness, their times together, laughing, arguing, making love. She made her way to Kings Cross and parked in a lucky one-hour spot some distance from Darlinghurst Road. She’d been needing to do a big shop for a few days now. Shopping would provide an escape and distraction from her grief.
Shattered Page 27
