“That should be Christine, the babysitter,” Greta said.
“You’re so lucky having a regular girl,” Claudia replied.
“Christine’s great – works at the local SupaMart during the day.”
They looked round as footsteps echoed along the hallway and Greta stood up. A strange woman appeared at the entrance to the lounge. Greta stared at her, confused.
The woman stepped forward a little nervous, a hand extended. “Hi, I’m Julie, Julie O’Connor.”
Greta noted the SupaMart uniform and badge.
“Christine went home sick from work. She did call you, yeah?”
“Er, no, Julie, she didn’t.” Greta forced a weak smile.
“Oh. Well I’ve a lot of experience. I sometimes babysit with Christine. We’re old friends …”
“It’s not that,” Greta said stonily. “It’s just, I don’t know you …”
Julie let out a gentle sigh. “Okay … I understand.” She turned to leave.
Brett stood up, touched Greta’s arm, whispered in her ear. “We’re stuck, darling. It’s your party, we have to go now, but we can’t leave the kids on their own.”
“Just a sec Julie,” Greta said. “Just let me try Christine.” She plucked her cell from the table and hit the speed-dial number. It rang five times then went to voicemail. Irritated, she snapped shut the phone.
“We’ll be good,” Serge said.
“It’s not that, sweetie.”
“Too late to get anyone else,” Brett muttered.
“Okay! okay!” Greta put her hands up resignedly. “Julie …?”
Julie’s face was expressionless.
“I apologize. Would you …?”
Julie smiled sweetly.
Chapter 60
SHE CLOSED THE door. Nikki and Serge were standing together eyeing their babysitter.
“Where have your eyebrows gone?” Nikki asked.
Julie tilted her head to one side, touched her face and feigned surprise. “Aaaggghhh! They’ve vanished!”
The girl didn’t even smile.
“Okay, okay,” Julie said frowning. “I woke up this morning and they were gone!”
Nikki was skeptical. “No you didn’t!”
“Honest, I did! I think my cat ate ’em!” Julie clapped her hands together. “So what’s your favorite game, kids?”
The siblings argued about whether they should play Pocket God on the iPad, Xbox, or the interactive game that came with the latest Harry Potter DVD. In the end, the wizard won out.
Julie indulged them for an hour, then it was bedtime and Julie’s turn for some fun.
She’d wanted to see inside a house like this, see how the bitches around here lived. Earlier that day she’d told Christine, the Thorogoods’ regular sitter, that Greta had dropped into the store and asked her to pass the message on that she had to cancel tonight. Then she’d slipped Christine’s cell from her work overall.
The plan had worked, and now that she was here she was stunned. She’d never been in a house like this and couldn’t get her head round the fact that only four people lived in it. It did nothing for her state of mind.
She walked through the main living-room picking up ornaments, settling them back down carefully. The stairs beckoned. She spun round and walked up the wide metal and glass steps to the first floor. The kids were asleep.
She took the second flight of stairs to the top floor, a single expansive area devoted to the parents. A vast bedroom, a wall of windows looking out to the ocean. A bathroom bigger than most people’s living-rooms, and a walk-in wardrobe. Julie slipped between the rows of clothes running a hand along the parade of dresses and coats. At the end of each row stood a set of shelves, floor-to-ceiling and filled with expensive shoes.
Beyond the walk-in was a small room, Greta’s personal dressing-room. A counter, a chair, necklaces hanging from stands, make-up set out in precise rows.
Julie squatted down and picked a lipstick, applied it carefully and studied the result in the mirror over the counter. She gave herself an approving little nod, found the mascara and put it on, then walked back to the clothes.
She took her time, sifting through the garments carefully. She read the labels, Lanvin, Chanel, chose a bright red dress, slipped into it, managed to zip it up halfway. It was real tight on her, but she didn’t care.
She picked a pair of leopard print Christian Louboutin shoes, crammed her toes into them and strode into the bedroom where a mirror occupied half a wall.
“I was born for this,” Julie said to herself and did an ungainly twirl, almost falling off the shoes. That’s when she saw Nikki Thorogood staring at her, mouth open.
Julie reacted with incredible speed, whirled on the girl and grabbed her before she could take a single step back, brought a rough hand to the girl’s mouth and pulled her backwards against her body. Nikki’s petrified squeals muffled by Julie’s large fingers.
“Shut up,” Julie hissed in Nikki’s ear. Twisted her to face the mirror. She slipped the stiletto off her right foot and lifted the blade-like heel to the kid’s throat. “Tell anyone about this, Nikki … and I will come for you in the night and I will kill you very, very slowly. Do you understand me?”
The kid was too terrified to move. Julie tightened her grip. “DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME, NIKKI?”
The girl nodded and slowly Julie loosened her grip.
Chapter 61
THE THOROGOODS HAD booked out the entire restaurant for Greta’s birthday party. A hundred guests. I had to admit the place was a great choice. Icebergs is ultra-chic, sits on the side of a cliff, has an amazing, panoramic view back across a stretch of ocean to Bondi Beach.
Justine looked stunning in a tight-fitting white cocktail dress. She’d put her hair up and wore a delicate, jeweled head-band, Audrey Hepburn circa Breakfast at Tiffany’s.
I felt her tug my arm and she led me toward a balcony across the room, plucking two champagne flutes from a surf dude who’d brushed his hair and put on a uniform for the night.
“Greta seems to be having a fun time,” I said. She was dancing with Brett and did look happy, a champagne glass in one hand, laughing at something her husband was saying close up to her ear.
“It’s good to see. Hasn’t had the best time recently.”
We stared out at the darkness broken by the lights of Bondi, a half-moon revealing the silver shimmers of a calm ocean.
“Ice,” Justine said suddenly.
“What?”
“We seem to have a thing for ice, you and me. You took me to the Ice Bar and now I get you here, Icebergs.” She produced a gorgeous smile.
I looked into her eyes. “Where next?” I said. “Would you like dinner somewhere with Ice in the name?”
“Ah,” Justine said. “I’m flattered but …”
“Sorry.”
“No, don’t be. But …”
“You’re taken … lucky man.”
“It’s Jack, Craig. Jack Morgan. We’ve been …”
I raised a hand. “No need. I didn’t realize, Justine.”
There was an awkward silence, then she said, “So, Craig … How did you end up here, doing what we do. This crazy job?”
“Nice diversion, Justine!” I laughed. “Long story.”
“Got time.” She took a sip. I turned, leaned on the balcony. “I was born in England. Mom died when I was twelve. I never knew my father. I was sent to Australia to live with my uncle and his family.”
“And why PI work?”
“Ah, well that was thanks to the love of a good woman.”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I studied Law, but when I actually got round to practising it I found it bone dry. At the same time, I met my future wife and fell in love. Becky was a free spirit and pushed me into trying something I really wanted to do. So, I set up my own company: Solutions Inc.”
It was clear Justine knew something of what happened to my family and trod carefully around the subject … “Another?” She
held up her champagne flute.
My cell trilled. I recognized the Private Sydney number. “Darlene … you’re working late.”
“Sorry to ring you at the party. Just had a call from Police HQ. There’s been another murder.”
Chapter 62
THE BRUNETTE LAY on her back, face horribly disfigured, legs akimbo, a roll of fifty-dollar bills in place.
“This is becoming bloody repetitive,” Darlene snapped as she knelt beside the body. “This bastard’s getting me down.”
I stood beside her staring down at the corpse. The woman’s blood had pooled on the concrete beneath her, clothes drenched red. I’d already learned her name was Yasmin Trent, forty-one, mother of three young boys, lived in Gervaine Road, Bellevue Hill, fifty yards from Stacy Friel and Elspeth Lampard. Yasmin had been a home-maker, and her husband, Simon Trent, a dentist. So that pretty much wiped out the finance motive theory.
There were two Police Forensics officers working on the body. They’d mellowed toward us recently. Realizing we weren’t going away, I guessed. Plus they’d benefited from Private’s resources. I caught a glimpse of Mark at the wheel of his car, the door open. He was talking to a sergeant.
I left Darlene to it and nosed around. It was a patch of waste ground behind a gas station in Sandsville in the Western Suburbs. The late evening traffic was light up on the freeway beyond the forecourt. The place was scrappy and grimy. A rusting car stood to one side. A few weeds poked through the concrete nearby. A dead palm stood close to the rear wall of the gas station building.
The MO had altered. It was another new disconcerting aspect to this case. Killers rarely changed their MO, even subtly. The dead woman was from the Eastern Suburbs. She’d probably never even been to Sandsville before. Maybe just seen it on TV when Channel 9 News carried an item about a knifing or a house blaze in the West. It was only, what? Thirty miles from here to Bellevue Hill? But the two places may as well have been in different solar systems.
So what was Yasmin Trent doing here? Killed here or in Bellevue Hill? Much of the MO was the same – facial disfigurement, multiple stab wounds to her back, vaginal ATM in reverse. We were looking for one sick mother-fucker.
I felt a tap on my shoulder, turned to see Darlene. She had her box of forensics equipment in her left hand.
“That was pretty quick.”
“I’ve learned what to look for. That part of it’s predictable. The hard work comes later. But you know what, Craig? There’s something not quite right about this.”
“You mean the body being here?”
“No, it’s not that. I can sense something isn’t right. I can’t put my finger on it. But I will.”
Chapter 63
HO DAI WAS thinking about hitting the sack. He’d just got back to his apartment after leaving his father’s house, walked into his tiny kitchen, got a glass of chilled water, turned and heard a sound.
He held his breath. The noise came again. He saw two shadows pass by a glass wall close to the front door, then watched as the handle turned and released.
He padded across the floor and into the bedroom, reached the built-in wardrobe, pulled inside and eased the door shut. It was dark but he knew where he kept the gun his father insisted he have. He felt the handle just as the intruders made it through the front door and into the hall.
Dai pulled the weapon down from a shelf and pointed it directly ahead. He heard someone enter the room.
“Mr. Ho,” a voice said. “We know you’re in here.”
“I have a gun,” Dai panted. “Open the door and I’ll shoot.”
A bullet thudded through the door and smacked into the wall a foot to Dai’s left. He felt his bowels loosen, just managed to control himself. A second bullet sent shards of wood flying in the dark and crunched into the wall at the back of the wardrobe. It was so close splinters flew into Dai’s arm making him cry out.
“Open the door a crack and drop the gun outside, or we’ll shoot again,” said the same man.
Dai stood rigid trying to think, trying to rationalize.
“I’m counting to three. One …”
Dai was wreathed in sweat, breathing hard. He couldn’t win, he was dead meat whatever he did.
“Two …”
The kid could barely move. Had to force his arm forward. The door opened an inch, two inches. He tossed the gun onto the carpet and slammed the doors outward, propelling himself into the bedroom. He tripped, crashed to the floor and felt the cold barrel of a gun on the back of his neck.
Chapter 64
ANTHONY HILARY WAS feeling really horny. Everything had been arranged with Karen. He would surf at 6 am with his buddies, Trent and Frankie, and then he would meet her at the empty old house he’d found the day before. When he’d first suggested it, Karen was reluctant, but he’d eventually persuaded her.
“I can promise you the most comfortable and cleanest sleeping bag in Sydney,” he’d told her with a grin.
“Oh! I’m touched!” she’d responded. “I must remember to mention that to my parents when they quiz me over why I’m leaving the house an hour early for school.” But then she had shaken her head and smiled. “Okay, Ant. 7 am.”
The surf was good this morning, but Anthony’s mind wasn’t on it. Frankie and Trent noticed. “Dude, what’s with you? You totally wasted that wave.”
“Yeah, sorry, man,” Ant responded. “Look, I’m gonna bail.”
“What?”
“Can’t focus. I’ll put the board in your car, right, Frankie?”
His friend waved and slipped back into the surf.
Half an hour later, Anthony was standing outside the house on Ernest Street, Bondi, watching the shifting morning light on the roofs across the road. He didn’t normally do this sort of thing. He and Karen were good kids from the same co-ed school. But he loved her and he believed she loved him. They were seventeen, Year 12. Some kids their age were parents already, but he and Karen could never be alone together, watched over 24/7. It pissed him off no end.
Karen was fifteen minutes late and Ant was growing increasingly frustrated as the seconds passed. When she arrived, he just managed to stay cool.
“Okay, lover boy,” she said sexily, sidling up to him and reaching on tiptoes to kiss him full on the mouth. He looked down at her gorgeous tanned face ringed with dark curls, feeling himself harden almost instantly.
“Come on,” he said, and took her hand.
The front door was broken and hung half off its hinges. Ant escorted her along a narrow passage to the second room on the left. She could hear music drifting along the hall and glanced at her boyfriend as she recognized the tune, Angus and Julia Stone’s Big Jet Plane.
Karen stood at the entrance to the room, holding Ant’s hand, entranced. He had cleaned it up, swept the floor, made a bed of sleeping bags. The curtains were drawn, two dozen candles glowed. An iPod played softly through a portable speaker system. The song ended and was followed by Karen’s favorite, No One by Alicia Keys.
“Oh! Ant. This is … just lovely.” She turned and kissed him again, sliding her tongue between his teeth and producing a low moan in the back of her throat. Ant felt he would burst there and then. He swept her up, lowered her gently to the soft layers of the sleeping bags.
The music flowed over them, and when it was over, they lay together, looking up at the shabby, pitted ceiling.
“Back in a sec,” Karen said softly, pecked Anthony on the cheek, and pulled herself up. “Bathroom!”
“Hey, take this.” Ant reached into his bag for a large bottle of water. “No mains supply!”
Karen looked pained and then crouched down to kiss Anthony again. “That’s very thoughtful,” she purred.
He watched the girl’s naked form in the candlelight and threw his head back onto the makeshift pillow. He thought that this was the high point of his life. That things could never be better than this.
Then he heard Karen scream.
Chapter 65
INSPECTOR M
ARK TALBOT felt unwell, and days like today, the ones that started out really crappy, were almost impossible to bear.
He’d woken up at 6 am with a sore head from a big night out with his buddies and had dragged himself into the station by seven-thirty. Forty minutes later the call had come in – another grisly find. It was all getting a bit ridiculous.
The traffic was terrible all the way to Bondi, and about eight o’clock it turned stormy – black clouds rolling in over the ocean. He switched on the radio, pushed the button for Classic Rock FM and felt better as Steely Dan’s Reeling in the Years filled the car.
“Alright, what’s the story?” Talbot said as he got out of his car and a sergeant led him to the empty house, the rain crashing down around them.
“Best see for yourself, sir.”
Talbot dashed into the hall, his jacket soaked. Forensics were everywhere. Huge spots blazed, powered by a portable generator. None of it did his head much good. At the end of a corridor there was a bathroom, two officers in plastic suits crouching down. The tub, toilet, floor and white walls were splashed with pints of dried blood. A lab guy was photographing the scene. Talbot saw a line of dry red-black dots leading from the room out toward the kitchen and the rear of the property.
The stench hit him as he entered the yard. The smell of death. He knew it well.
The blood trail stopped one side of the back garden. There was a large stain on the patio close to the fence. His team had already lifted the pavers and dug away some soil. Talbot, hand over his mouth, could see part of a corpse, a woman, face-up in the dirt.
He waved over one of his sergeants standing the other side of the shallow grave. “The basics,” the Inspector insisted, his voice phlegmy.
“Young guy called us about seven-thirty. By the time we got here, the place was deserted.”
“What was he doing here?”
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