Karen Miceh. So sweet. He'd had to almost pull the piece of paper from her grip, as though she'd changed her mind at the last minute. Face to face when he'd handed it back again, he'd quickened his breathing to match her own, his chest rising and falling in rhythm with hers, listening for the sound of her pulse, hypnotised.
The sound of a dog barking blew in with the breeze from his open window. He frowned, rose from the bed and stepped into some slippers. He walked around the clothesline and the wading pool, passing the squat lemon tree, thick with bees sipping at its blossoms.
Just past three p.m. in Baulkham Hills. He loved this hour. On weekdays at this time, mums, dads and nanas would wait at bus stops and pedestrian crossings outside the schools, lined up in Taragos and four-wheel drives. When the weather warmed up, it would be straight to the local pool and then to pick up a barbecued chook on the way home. Today, it would be softball tryouts and piano lessons, maths tutoring or karate class. When living here as a child, he'd seen these routines as a pantomime just for him – a whole cast of humans playing sugar and spice, frantically ignoring the rot and disease that was born within all of them, that was feasting away as they grew older.
He had reached the back of the large suburban garden. Behind the huge, netted fig tree, a low wire fence hid behind feral camellia bushes, marking the boundary between Karen Miceh's home and her neighbour's. The barking stopped with Cutter's last footstep and was replaced by a pleading whine, a snuffling whimper. The dog wanted a pat. Cutter manoeuvred through the scented bushes and a wet, yellow nose pushed through the mesh of the wire barrier.
'Good doggie,' Cutter crooned, hand outstretched. The golden Labrador thumped the lawn behind the fence in delight, strained to get closer for a good scratch.
'That's a good boy,' said Cutter softly, reaching over the fence.
Jill absently wiped the back of her hand across her nose. Ugh. She reached for a tissue, and then picked up the phone on the desk.
'Gabe, where are you?' she said into the handset.
'At the hospital,' he said.
'Have you interviewed her yet?'
'Nope. Three o'clock.'
'I'll meet you out there.'
She printed out a single page and shut down the computer. She'd finished earlier than she'd thought, and was glad to have the opportunity to watch Gabriel interviewing another victim. She gathered up her bag and the case-file, and stood to leave the squadroom. At the last moment, she grabbed the phone again and left a message for Lawrence Last to let him know her movements.
She jogged down four flights of stairs to the basement carpark and threw her bag in the backseat of her issued Commodore. It wasn't until the M5 on-ramp that she pushed the dashboard vents away from her face and turned the heater down, realising she was now stifling hot. Nudging the bumper of her vehicle into the near-stationary traffic, she waved to pretend that she was grateful to the driver behind for letting her in. She knew she'd be still sitting waiting to merge if that motorist had had anything to do with it. It was dog-eat-dog on this motorway.
Too late, she realised that it would've been far quicker to take the Hume Highway to Burwood. She thumped the steering wheel with the heel of her hand and settled in to wait in the traffic.
Her hot nose throbbed.
'So, guess who used to hang with Henry Nguyen back in the day?' she said to Gabriel in greeting when they met in the foyer of the hospital. There were still twenty minutes before they were due to meet with Donna Moser.
'Joss Preston-Jones,' he said.
'Well, yeah,' she said. 'Good guess. Also, Mr Chew and Spew – Dang Huynh.'
'Hmm.'
Gabriel led her to a tiny cafeteria just off the entrance. 'You want something to drink?' he asked her, gesturing to a half-finished milkshake and hamburger at a table. He'd obviously started before she got there.
She walked to a fridge at the back of the café, selected a glass bottle of orange juice and pressed it, cold, against her cheeks. At the counter, she paid for it and a six-capsule box of Panadol, and walked back to join Gabriel, popping two of the tablets and draining half the juice before she reached the table.
He watched her, eyebrows lifted, as he ate his hamburger. It smelled pretty good.
'Joss was arrested, age twelve, in company with Nguyen, a couple of other juveniles and a nineteen-year-old,' she told him. 'The North Sydney cops caught them stealing petrol from a caryard. The yard had a single fuel pump for its own use and the kids decided to stock up. They filled their car and a couple of containers in the boot. The North Sydney boys released Joss and Henry and the other kids, but the adult copped a charge.'
Gabriel slurped his shake.
'So all these years later, Henry and Joss meet again,' she said. 'Or had they been hanging out all along? Joss has no adult sheet, but maybe he's been in touch with this gang since he was a kid. What if he knew all about the thing at Andy Wu's? What if that's what he and his wife are hiding?'
Gabriel raised one dark eyebrow.
'I know,' she said. 'Just brainstorming. They're not the type. And if it was the case that Nguyen and Joss are still mates, why would Joss and Isobel tip us off about Nguyen?'
He nodded.
'So, what: they're just at this dinner party and it all goes down just as they said? But then somehow Joss recognises Cutter and tells his wife, and she tells us?'
Gabriel shrugged.
'What, are we playing charades here or something?' Jill rubbed at her eyes in irritation. They felt hot and itchy. She took another sip of juice. She thought she didn't have a lot of words to say to others. Gabriel was so odd sometimes. She sighed and continued. 'Why didn't they just tell all this to Tran and Reid when they interviewed them the first time? Why did they keep Nguyen's name from us when we interviewed them?'
'Scared.'
'Yeah, I get that. But they're gonna be better off with him locked up, aren't they? Wouldn't it be better for them to help us catch him?'
Gabriel shrugged again. Jill finished her juice.
'Are you ready?' She looked down at her watch. Already three p.m., and they hadn't even begun the interview with Donna Moser. She wanted to be at home in a bath.
Maryana Miceh held her finger to her lips, motioning Eva to be quiet. Two-year-olds are so dumb, thought Maryana, as Eva giggled and twirled around and around on the balcony above her. At six, Maryana felt she should be the boss of her little sister, but Eva never listened to her. She knelt down in the grass near the wall under the veranda and crawled carefully forward. When she drew close to the spot with the crack, she held her breath. Mummy had told her five times already not to go near the new tenant, but that just made her want to see him more. At recess, Jasmine Hardcastle had said that maybe he was a murderer and he would kill her family in their sleep. Maryana had squealed and laughed with everyone else, but since then, the idea made her feel kind of like she had worms in her tummy. Standing up slowly in the grass near the wall, her tummy felt fluttery, like the worms had hatched into moths. She heard Eva singing 'Jingle Bells' above her.
Ooh! He's got tattoos, was the first thing that Maryana thought. She pressed her eye closer to the crack in the wall. She wasn't sure what he was doing, but it looked like it had to hurt. Maybe he was sick? He was lying on his bed with his hands on his stomach and it was all bloody!
'Maryana!'
At her mother's voice, the squeal slipped out before she could stop it, and Maryana ran as fast as she could. She felt as though a dragon were chasing her, and when she arrived, flushed and panting in the kitchen, her mother asked her what was wrong.
'Nothing,' she said, mouth turned down, shifting from foot to foot.
Karen Miceh looked twice at her little girl, then bent to pick up Eva, still singing. She put her arm on Maryana's shoulder and led them to the front door.
'Girls,' she said, 'Kylie and James are here from next door. They want to know if we've seen Buffy. He's gone missing.'
'I've never done this before,' said Chloe, p
ropped up in the bed, Andrew's white quilt clutched to her chest.
'Well, you seemed to know what you were doing.'
Andrew ducked when she threw a pillow at his head. He had a towel slung low around his flat stomach.
'Not that, stupid!' she said. 'I mean I've never gone to bed with someone when I've known them less than a week.'
'Actually,' Andrew looked at his watch, 'we met almost exactly seventy-two hours ago.'
Chloe groaned. 'Don't rub it in,' she said, but she felt kind of pleased that he'd memorised the time of their first meeting.
'What are you gonna do while I'm at work today?' he asked, opening a cupboard and pulling out an ironed shirt.
The uniform. Chloe smiled widely and leaned back against the bed head to watch.
'You'd better stop looking at me like that,' he said. 'I can't be late to work today.'
'Anything happen with that name that came through on Thursday?' she asked, wondering if he'd tell her anything else about the anonymous call.
'Yep,' he said, buttoning his shirt. 'They think it's one of them.'
'The home invasion gang? You're shitting me! How do you know?'
He grinned at her. She'd leaned forward, all attention, forgetting about the quilt. She clutched it to her chest again, red-faced.
'A few of us got a memo,' he said. 'There's a rotating shift to watch this guy's last known address. We got instructions not to approach; it's just surveillance right now. At least this nutjob's good for something – me and Hendo pulled tonight's watch. Should be some good overtime.'
'What's his name?'
He looked at her sideways.
'Henry,' he said.
'Go on! Henry what?'
'Yeah, good try, beautiful. That, I'm not gonna tell you. Now come over here and give me a hand. I've got a bit of a problem with this towel.'
At four o'clock, Donna Moser's godparents arrived at the hospital and, seeing her distress, asked Jill and Gabriel to leave. They had arranged for Donna to be moved from Liverpool Hospital to this private psychiatric clinic. They were now the only family that she had – an only child, her mother had died of breast cancer when Donna was in her first year of high school.
Donna had told Jill and Gabriel that her godparents, Eugene Moser's business partner and his wife, had asked her to live with them and their sons in Strathfield. She wasn't yet sure what she was going to do. She and her father had only just moved into the house in Capitol Hill, working together with an architect and designer to incorporate the features they wanted in their home, but right now, she didn't want anything to do with the property.
It's good that she has some choices at least, thought Jill – Donna Moser had just inherited fifty per cent of a multimillion-dollar metal fabrication business.
As they left the room, Jill could see a male nurse gently try to encourage the pale, hollow-eyed girl to take some medication. Donna stared into space, tears coursing unchecked. Jill knew she and Gabe had pressed play on the animation reel of her father's murder. She imagined that the soundtrack was the worst part.
'Do you want to come over to my house?' Gabriel asked Jill as they stood in the carpark.
'What? No. Why?'
'Got some more stuff on Joss Preston-Jones,' he answered, looking at his shoes. 'I thought maybe we could put it all together.' He paused. 'And I'm making penne alla vodka.'
'You're making what?'
'It's pasta in a vodka-cream sauce. Really, you have to try it.'
Jill thought about the contents of her refrigerator. She hadn't been shopping since she'd started working at Liverpool. She had a bag of carrots, some olives and anchovies. Her mum's frozen meals had run out days ago. It would have to be takeaway, or . . .
'I've got garlic bread. And pistachio gelato,' said Gabriel.
'I'll follow you,' she said.
As much as Chloe had wanted Andrew to tell her the name of the suspect in the gang, she was kind of pleased that he hadn't. She respected that he took his job so seriously.
She smiled slowly, thinking about the dinner they'd shared last night. When they couldn't stretch dessert out any longer, they'd had to make a choice. Another venue, or his house. Parting hadn't even been an option. She stretched her neck against the headrest of the driver's seat. Her Mazda 3 was really a little squishy for her long legs, but it had been a good price. Tucked in behind a ute in the Spotlight carpark, Chloe had a good view of the vehicles leaving the Liverpool police complex.
The black Magna was not the Commodore she'd been expecting, but she could never have mistaken Andrew behind the wheel, even though he'd changed out of his uniform into civilian clothing. A red-haired guy in a white tee-shirt laughed in the seat next to him.
She pulled her car into the traffic a few vehicles behind them.
26
HOW IT HAD happened, Jill couldn't figure. She had been curled in a lounge chair listening to the sounds of Gabriel cooking in the kitchen, the little grey cat named Ten warm on her lap, smiling at her, eyes closed.
She woke to Gabriel speaking her name quietly. Her heart shot to her throat and free-fell back again. She stared around wildly, still saturated with sleep, and when she realised where she was, she wanted to cry. Horrified, she felt hot tears well. She couldn't believe she had let her guard down so quickly with him. She straightened in the chair; a bolt of tension fused one side of her neck; her face felt scorched.
'You look like shit,' said Gabriel.
She stared at him, desolately.
'Probably we should eat something,' he said.
Dull pain pressed at the back of her throat and pulsed behind her eyes. She still felt utterly exhausted, and she allowed Gabriel to grab her hand and drag her from the chair. What am I doing here? she thought. She recognised the aches she felt in her elbows and knees as signs of a cold. The travelling, the new people, the case, the fucking air-conditioner. It had worn her down.
'Come and tell me how much you want.'
She followed him to the kitchen. And this guy. Never before had her nervous system habituated so rapidly to the presence of a man. She couldn't believe she'd fallen asleep in his house. She glared at the back of his head, angry with him somehow for that.
The smell of garlic finally made it past her muffled senses and Jill began to salivate. She hadn't eaten since breakfast. Unself-consciously, Gabriel helped himself first, filling a deep bowl with pasta from the pot on the stove. He handed her the spoon and stood back to watch. While she filled her mismatched plate, he began eating as he stood there, waiting for her. When her plate was full, he opened the oven door and pulled garlic bread off a tray with his fingers, dropped two fragrant wedges onto her plate. She hurried to sit, starving. The creamy sauce had a grainy heat behind it. It was almost gone before she reclined back in the lounge chair. She licked garlicky butter from her fingers.
Ten sat propped against a wall like a polar bear, her legs spread out in front of her, cleaning her stomach. A cool rivulet of breeze from the balcony washed over Jill's flushed cheeks. Gabriel spoke.
'I spent the morning here on the computer,' he said. 'Checking out our boy, Joss.'
Jill tucked her legs up under her and leaned back into the cushion, listening.
'He moved from Canley Vale High School when he was thirteen and finished his schooling at Sandhurst College,' he continued. 'He must've hung out with Cutter while he was living with his mother. She has schizophrenia. Been in and out of Rozelle and Cumberland for the last thirty years. Joss did his Higher School Certificate. Joined the army, Infantry corps. Went with the second contingent of Australian peacekeepers to Rwanda in 1995. The Australians on his tour got caught up in the Kibeho massacre. Do you remember watching the news about the war in Africa in ninety-four, ninety-five?'
'Yep.'
Jill had grown up horrified, along with the rest of Australia, by the famines in Africa. When Australians troops had joined the UN peacekeepers over there in 1994, she'd avoided the news programs for weeks because it seem
ed every story was about the 'rivers of blood' in Rwanda; images of mounds of corpses and scores of bodies floating down a river had left her feeling helpless, ill. Just as she'd changed the channel and ignored it, the world had also looked the other way.
She thought about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Supposedly the allies were there to liberate the people from the tyranny of their governments. No soldiers had been sent to fight for the tens of thousands of people who were slaughtered in Rwanda. Australia's peacekeepers had been impotent. Their rules of engagement had not allowed them to fire a shot in defence of the victims. They were there simply to observe and to assist the wounded when they could.
There was no oil in Africa.
'Preston-Jones was medically discharged from the army on psych grounds,' Gabriel continued. 'He married Isobel Rymill in ninety-three. As we know, they have one daughter, Charlie Rymill, aged four. His maternal grandparents are deceased. His father's name was not listed on his birth certificate. He works for a large insurance company in Martin Place.' Gabriel stood and stretched.
'You want a drink?' he asked, on his way to the kitchen.
Jill unfolded her legs on the couch. Ten now slept with a paw over her eyes, blocking out the soft light in the room. Her little body twitched as she dreamed. Jill took a look at her watch. Seven o'clock. I should go home, she thought, and sat up.
Gabriel returned with two cups. She took hers and sniffed it. Held the cup back out to him.
'It's butterscotch schnapps. It'll be good for your cold,' he said.
She lifted an eyebrow, stared flatly. He took a sip from his glass, a china teacup bearing red roses, and licked his lips, grinning at her.
She looked down into her brown earthenware mug; in an inch of amber, viscous liquid, two fat ice cubes circled lazily. It smelled great. She took her first sip of alcohol in ten years. The toffee liquid coated the back of her throat, burning and freezing at the same time. She had another taste, her lips sticky.
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