The phone rang.
‘I’ve made two decent invitations to you,’ said Mike. ‘If I don’t get a positive response, I’m going to have to call the next woman in my little black book.’
‘Oh?’ said Gemma, a little piqued. ‘Who’s that?’
‘My old mum.’
‘Mike,’ she said, ‘I’m not really feeling up to going out this evening.’ However, she thought, it would be good to see him, have some male company. ‘So how about a Thai take-away and a video?’
‘Done!’ he said.
They sat opposite each other at the dining table while Gemma told him what had happened to her friend Jaki Hunter. Mike looked good in a dark blue shirt open at the neck, and his thick hair neatly brushed back. She found herself wondering idly what it might look like if she ruffled it up. She hadn’t remembered how well-shaped his lips were.
‘Do you believe she did it?’ Mike asked.
‘I can’t. And yet everything points to her. Not just the physical evidence. Her emotional state too.’
‘It’s easy to be blind to a friend’s shortcomings,’ he said. ‘See, I think Steve Brannigan is an irresponsible bastard. Who doesn’t deserve you. Though you no doubt have a different position on that.’
She felt the defensiveness rising in her. ‘If you only knew,’ she said, and almost told him about Julie Cooper’s pregnancy. Instead, she filled him in on Hugo’s predicament.
‘Poor kid,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘That father needs a boot up the arse.’
‘Hugo’s back staying with him now,’ she said. ‘We could go round and I’ll hold him down while you kick.’
Her spirits had lifted, she realised, with Mike’s company.
Later, they sat together and watched an old favourite. Feeling about fourteen years old again, she was aware of Mike’s arm lying along the top of the blue leather lounge just behind her.
During a lull in the action on the screen, she was surprised to hear herself say, ‘The reason Steve got engaged to Julie Cooper is because she’s pregnant too.’
Mike drew away in astonishment, turning to fully face her. ‘What?’
‘You heard.’
He jumped up and strode over to switch off the DVD. ‘That’s crazy. The man’s crazy.’ He turned to face her. ‘They do go crazy,’ he said, ‘the undercover guys. You know that.’
‘But he didn’t know about me and the baby. I didn’t tell him until the other business with Julie was well in place. Kind of set.’
‘In concrete? He could always call it off. Who is she?’
Gemma told him.
Mike came over and sat beside her again. ‘How do you feel about Steve now?’
‘I’m not sure. Something’s happened . . . since the funeral. Something’s different. I guess because my indecision is over. I know for sure what’s going on.’
He patted her hand then dropped it. ‘You’re better off without him. He was never here when you needed him.’
‘How do you know?’ she asked, surprised.
‘I notice things, Gemma. I knew you were pregnant and I was only working for you. Steve never twigged.’
‘We weren’t seeing each other,’ she said. ‘So how could he have?’
‘You still jump to his defence,’ said Mike. ‘So what does he think about your baby?’
‘He’s committed to Julie. They’re engaged. Anyway, I’ve decided against having the baby.’ Not entirely sure, she added, ‘I think.’ She told him about the appointment she had made.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ he said. ‘I realise it’s not my place – not anyone’s place except yours – to make that decision. And I’m not in the slightest bit religious. But there’s something about saying no to life that just doesn’t sit right with me.’
‘Easy for you,’ she said. ‘You’ll never be pregnant.’
‘You’re right of course,’ he said. ‘It’s your decision.’
He went over to the dining table and picked up his jacket. ‘I’d better be going.’
‘But the movie’s not finished yet. Don’t you want to see the rest of it?’
‘I’m tired,’ he said. ‘Think I’ll shove off.’
Gemma watched him as he made his way up the steps to the road. He didn’t turn round.
She closed the door and switched on the security system. Surely she had a right to say yes or no to something as huge as bringing a whole new person into this world. The time wasn’t right. Nothing was right for her to have a baby.
•
Next morning, when she woke, she found herself thinking of Mike, of how he’d left last night. Of his unexpected remarks about life. She realised she’d wanted him to stay. She swung out of bed. He was being kind to her, that’s all. Kind and reliable, she thought. The qualities she had so far failed to value.
Gemma listened to the news on the radio while she had breakfast, then threw on a jacket and hurried down the hill to the small grocery shop to buy a paper. Jaki Hunter’s arrest was headline news. The police media unit had called a press conference, and Gemma read the piece with a sinking heart. According to the media unit’s spin, Jaki was an unstable woman with a history of depression. The few days she’d taken off recently with flu had been turned into indefinite sick leave.
Back home, Gemma threw the newspaper down in disgust at the inaccuracies. The police department would barely have known of Jaki’s existence, let alone been closely monitoring her mental health, as the journalist’s piece suggested. By the end of the half-page article, any reader would have been left with the impression that an unstable woman had been removed from her job well before the crimes were committed.
If Jaki was innocent, the best way Gemma could help her was to keep the investigation into the Finn murders open. And find the killer.
She looked up the number for her friend Melissa Grey from Parramatta crime scene.
‘I want to talk to Leanne Morrison,’ Gemma said, after the initial greetings. ‘The woman who brought the sexual harassment claim against Dan Galleone?’
Melissa gave Gemma several possible phone numbers and she got through on Leanne’s mobile. Within a few minutes, they had a date.
Gemma drove to an address in Newtown, a second-floor kick-boxing club. Leanne, slight and wiry, dressed in a body leotard and sweating like a Broken Hill brickie, picked Gemma straightaway and walked over, wiping her hand on a towel before extending it cautiously.
‘I need a shower,’ she said, her green eyes making a cool appraisal. ‘Melissa said you were okay. I mean, that you’d been in the job yourself once. Come over with me to the change room. We can talk there.’
Gemma stood outside the cubicle, talking to the semi-closed door, feeling conspicuous as women in various stages of undress moved around her.
‘Tell me about the harassment claim you lodged against Galleone,’ she said through the door.
‘That bloody thing! I wish I’d never done it! It’s caused me nothing but trouble. I thought it was a good idea, sticking up for women. But all I did was stick my own head above the parapet. I’ve been stunned by the hostility it’s caused.’
The shower was turned off and Leanne emerged from the cubicle, wrapped in a towel, hair dripping.
‘Why did you do it?’
Leanne tiptoed over to a long batik carry bag resting under the benches that lined the far wall. Out of it she pulled another towel, which she wrapped around her head, and then unpacked bra, knickers, jeans and a South Sydney jersey. Stooping forward, she continued to dry herself, green eyes suddenly blazing. ‘You mean who leaned on me to do it! Bryson Finn carried on as if he’d been personally insulted. He insisted that I do it!’
She straightened and turned around. ‘Look, I’m not one of those women who gets the vapours when a man makes a sexual remark ab
out them. And after lunch that day, it was clear that Superintendent Galleone was pissed. I thought he was stupid and it was ill-judged of him to make the remarks he did and I told him on the spot that I didn’t welcome his attentions. But I would never have put him on paper if it hadn’t been for Superintendent Finn. He overheard a couple of us talking about it and next thing I know he’s called me into his office and it’s suddenly World War III and he’s telling me I’ve been the victim of serious sexual harassment. He made me feel like I was derelict in my duty as an officer if I didn’t take a stand on this. He said he was putting in a recommendation about me and that he would be deeply disappointed if I didn’t uphold the new workplace sexual harassment regulations. What sort of an example was I setting the junior officers, he asked, if I let something like Galleone’s comments go unchallenged?’
She pulled her knickers up and shrugged herself into a bra.
‘So it was all Finn’s idea?’
Leanne paused in her hair-drying. ‘Not entirely. I have to admit to an interest,’ she said. ‘I knew how Finn liked to cultivate protégés, and I guess I hoped that I could make that work in my favour. I wanted a good report. So although it was his idea, I guess I was happy to go along with it.’ She threw the towel back over her shoulders. ‘Boy, have I grown up since then! I’ve seen more foul play in the job than I ever saw anywhere else. The politics are unbelievable! If there was any way of taking back that complaint without looking like I was a complete idiot, I’d do it. In fact, I even tried.’
‘You said Finn liked cultivating protégés,’ Gemma said. ‘Were they always female?’
Leanne hesitated. ‘There was one young fellow: a constable – Hayden David. He seemed to be a favourite for a while. But then I heard they’d gone their separate ways and David transferred out.’
It took Gemma a few moments before she remembered where she’d heard the name before. Angie had mentioned Hayden David as a recently recruited member of the crime scene group.
‘I’m really worried now,’ Leanne was saying. ‘This complaint might fuck up my career in the police for good. What do you think?’
‘You may have reason for concern,’ Gemma said, choosing her words. ‘Sadly, that’s how it usually goes. Make a legitimate complaint, detail corruption, do all the things that you’re supposed to do, and you’re the one shunned and ostracised.’
‘And passed over for promotion,’ said Leanne.
‘That too,’ said Gemma. She was going to mention her own bitter experience but thought better of it.
‘Talking about protégés, did you ever see or hear anything about Finn and Jaki Hunter?’
‘The woman they’ve charged? No. I vaguely remember some gossip about some girl, though. You know what the rumour mill is like.’
‘Do you know her name?’
Leanne frowned. ‘Finn was always very careful, I heard. Very few people even had any idea. I don’t think it was Jaki Hunter, though.’
Leanne started wriggling into her jeans. ‘You know, when I saw Galleone and Finn fighting at the Police Association dinner I realised I was just a pawn in some game they were playing. I didn’t know anything then about the history of hostility between them.’
Gemma almost dropped her notepad in surprise. ‘You saw Galleone and Finn fighting? You mean physically? At the Police Association dinner?’
‘Sure,’ Leanne responded. ‘I was at the dinner and wanted to talk to Superintendent Finn about withdrawing the sexual harassment allegation. It was already starting to cause me all sorts of shit. I followed him out of the dining room, trying to get him alone.’
‘Could you tell what the argument was about?’
Leanne pulled her jersey over her head. ‘No. I couldn’t really hear their voices.’
‘And Natalie, Finn’s wife?’ Gemma asked. ‘Where was she?’
‘She attended the dinner, but she wasn’t with him just then. It was the perfect chance, I thought, to grab him. But in the hallway, I saw that Galleone had already collared Finn just near the gents toilets and I’d lost my chance. So I continued further down the hall, towards the ladies. That’s when I heard Finn swear. I turned and saw him swing a punch at Galleone.’
‘What did he say exactly?’
‘The usual, when words fail you: “Fuck you, Galleone.” Then he tried to hit him. But Finn had been drinking and Galleone sidestepped the blow easily.’
The woman of the I think he knows letter could also have been there that night, Gemma thought excitedly. ‘You didn’t happen to see Finn in a huddle with a woman anytime?’
‘What sort of a huddle?’
‘The sort you might expect of two conspirators talking damage control,’ said Gemma.
‘God, half the police force are doing that most of the time. That night, Finn was circulating a lot. He talked to a lot of people. I know because I was keeping an eye on him all night, trying to get him alone. Come to think of it, there was one woman he spent some time with, but I didn’t recognise her. I can’t even remember what she looked like now. I just know she was wearing a black dress.
‘But there are plenty of little annexes in the hallway outside the ballroom where the dinner was held where a couple could have some privacy, sort of telephone alcoves off the main corridor. Or they could have ducked into one of the other function rooms for a private chat. At least one of them wasn’t locked.’ Leanne grinned. ‘I know because I was having a stickybeak to see what it was like and there was my boss upending one of the secretaries. There were legs and arms everywhere, going at it on the floor under a pile of stacked tables. If I get to stay in the job, that information has to be worth something!’
She reached into her bag and pulled out a comb. ‘I’m thinking of going for a private licence. Like you,’ she said, combing her hair back.
‘Good luck,’ said Gemma, trying not to sound dry.
‘Maybe I could get a job with you?’
They both laughed. But it wasn’t funny.
‘Were you involved with Bryson Finn?’ Gemma asked, now that Leanne was well and truly off guard.
‘Me?’ Leanne stood stock-still, shocked. ‘No way! I’m not that stupid.’
Someone was, Gemma thought, as she left the club and headed for her car. And so was Jaki Hunter.
Twenty-Four
Sitting in the car, Gemma tried a long shot, ringing Superintendent Galleone at work. To her surprise and his, she got straight through to him.
She explained who she was and launched right into it.
‘We’ve got a witness, Superintendent,’ she said, ‘to an incident at the Police Association dinner. You were seen involved in a heated exchange with Bryson Finn outside the main function room. Bryson Finn threw a punch at you.’
‘Who told you this?’
He’s not denying it, Gemma noted.
‘I can’t tell you that,’ she said. ‘But it was another police officer. Why did Finn try and hit you?’
‘Senior police sometimes don’t see eye to eye on operational matters.’
‘So you admit there was an altercation?’
‘It was nothing. Just an overreaction by a man who’d had too much to drink.’
‘What was the operational matter you were talking about?’
‘You know I’m not really permitted to discuss operational matters, Ms Lincoln. I’ve already been interrogated on this matter by Angie McDonald. But I’m about to go on leave and I’m in a good mood, so I’ll tell you what it was about. Finn was demanding more resources for a follow-up to Operation Skylark – to chase down more lines of inquiry. I told him that it wasn’t possible. We’d already run way over our budget. He wasn’t convinced. He believed money should be diverted from other areas.’
‘And he felt about this budget issue so passionately that he was ready to take a swing at you? I find that v
ery hard to believe.’
‘I don’t really care what you find hard to believe, Ms Lincoln. That’s all I have to say on the matter.’ He rang off.
Gemma swore softly, noticing she’d missed another call while speaking with Galleone. The number was vaguely familiar, and at first she couldn’t recall the owner. Then she remembered Maddison Carr’s breathy voice. She called back but the phone rang out. Why was Maddison calling her? Curious, Gemma thought.
Back in her office, Gemma wrote up her notes from the interview with Leanne and the short conversation with Superintendent Galleone. She didn’t believe that Jaki was a murderer. She sighed, sinking back in her seat. She’d been here once before, she reminded herself. Once, she’d reopened a murder case because she couldn’t accept that someone close to her was a killer. Interfering in that case had almost been the death of her.
With Darren the escort missing, there was no way to confirm Natalie’s story. People who worked in the sex industry were often hard to trace, she knew, moving from place to place, state to state, chasing work. The confusion of working under assumed names, the unsettled lifestyle, made it hard to know where to begin.
Donny had screamed at the sight of his mother, and Gemma couldn’t forget that. Natalie certainly had the know-how to lay a false trail. Although she’d been out of the police for years, she worked in the legal profession and would know all about DNA contamination. It was not incredible that Natalie Finn might murder two people, and even accidentally wound her own son in the process. Furthermore, it was entirely possible that, determined to destroy her rival, she’d ensure that all leads would point to Jaki Hunter.
Gemma pushed back her chair and walked through her living room and out into the feeble sunshine, stepping off the timber deck into the small, wind-blown garden that faced the sea. Only very hardy natives survived here, and the boughs of the few stunted coastal trees that still managed to find a living in the rocky soil all pointed north, bunted by the strong southerly that lifted her hair, blowing over a lavender grey sea. She pulled her jacket closer. How could Angie be so sure of Jaki’s guilt? Until the identity of the woman who had written the I think he knows letter and who had called the Bryson Finn household was made known, questions remained in Gemma’s mind. Until such time as Jade was willing to talk about the fight she’d had with her father, and thus throw light, perhaps, on Bryson and Natalie’s relationship, that aspect of the investigation remained unresolved. Rather than let it all go, Gemma thought she could use her time in the interim to ensure that Findlay Finn’s movements were verified.
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