Brittle Shadows

by Vicki Tyley

  Half an hour later, she stepped off the tram in St Kilda Road, the open air a welcome relief after the trundling sauna. Marcus owed her answers and she wasn’t about to be fobbed off again. She knew father and son weren’t on the best of terms, but why keep Ash in the dark about Tanya’s shareholding if not for some underhanded reason? She took a moment to orientate herself and then set off for the glass tower block housing Bartlett Developments.

  She exited the lift on the seventh floor, only to find the front desk unmanned once again. Did that Carly do any work? What did he pay her for? Don’t answer that, she thought. She checked the counter for a bell. She didn’t want to walk in on Marcus zipping up his trousers again. Or even worse, coitus interruptus.

  Raised voices, male voices, erupted from the office depths. Glass shattered, a female squealed. Jemma raced down the corridor, zoning in on the source. She found Carly cowered at the door to Marcus’s office. Inside, screaming like two warring Tasmanian Devils, were Marcus and Ash.

  Jemma pushed past Carly, her bravado fuelled by adrenaline. “What the hell is going on?”

  Both men turned, faces engorged, blue eyes flashing.

  Ash bent over and picked up something from the floor. He thrust a picture, the frame buckled and the glass splintered, into her hands. “Here’s your answer,” he said. Then he stormed out.

  Marcus ran a hand through his hair. “Thank you, Carly, that’ll be all.”

  Carly didn’t move. Jemma looked down at the black-and-white photo in her hand. It looked like a building site, a young shirtless man in shorts and work boots stacking bricks in a wheelbarrow taking centre-stage. Though in profile, she saw what Ash wanted her to see. She glanced up. Marcus stood with his back to her, staring out the window. “Please tell me this isn’t what I think it is, Marcus.”

  “It isn’t what you think,” he said, his voice flat.

  Jemma hustled Carly out of the office and shut the door. “No? Are you denying you and Sean were ever sexually involved? How many other men do you know who have a tattoo of a spider on their right shoulder?”

  He turned and met her gaze head on. “It’s not as simple as that.”

  “Nothing ever is. How long had it been going on?”

  “A few months.”

  “And then what? Tanya found out? Her fiancé with her boss, a man she looked up to? God, that must have hurt.” She drew breath. “And why oh why would you film it?”

  “I didn’t, Sean did. He thought he could use it as leverage to get a foothold in the industry.”

  “You mean blackmail?”

  “Call it what you wish. His threats didn’t scare me.”

  Jemma edged toward the door.

  He saw where she was heading. He laughed. “Rest easy. Sean’s death was convenient, I admit, but nothing to do with me.”

  She glanced at the door. “I found the DVD in Tanya’s apartment. Was she blackmailing you with it? Did she take up where Sean left off? Did you pay her off in company shares?”

  Confusion clouded Marcus’s eyes and then cleared. “Don’t be ridiculous. I didn’t even know she had it. I thought it had been destroyed.”

  “So why keep her shareholding secret from your own son, your heir?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “I’m listening.” Her hand touched the doorhandle.

  He shook his head. “The timing’s all wrong.”

  “The timing?” She ripped the door open. “Jesus, Marcus, you mean it’s way past time. Do something about it or I will.”

  CHAPTER 34

  Jemma barreled through the glass doors out into the sunshine. She clung to the handrail with both hands, gulping for breath. She couldn’t stop shaking.

  “Jemma!” Fen’s voice.

  She winced. “Hi,” she said, lifting her head, but not yet able to release her grip on the handrail. “Fancy meeting you here.” Fen’s sallow face and dark-circled eyes painted a picture of too many late nights.

  “I work a couple of blocks from here,” Fen said, pointing up the street. “Just on my lunch break, so thought I would pop in and see Ash.”

  “He’s not there.”

  “Oh. Do you know where he is?”

  Jemma shook her head. “Sorry.”

  “Oh well, Carly will know. Anyhow, I’ve been meaning to call you. I feel really bad about the other night.”

  “No need. We’ve all done it.”

  “I can vaguely remember something about a spider. What was all that about again?”

  Jemma hesitated.

  “If you don’t want to tell me, don’t,” Fen said, pushing out her bottom lip. “I haven’t exactly lived up to my promise to help you, have I?” She tilted her head and peered at Jemma. “Are you okay? Has something happened?”

  “Why are some men bastards?”

  Fen laughed, the dark circles under her eyes shrinking. “Welcome to my world.” She rested her hip against the rail and folded her arms. “Specifics, please.”

  “Some other time, eh?” Jemma summoned up a smile. “I’m supposed to be somewhere else now.” Where, though, she didn’t know.

  Fen flapped a hand. “Don’t worry, I can take a hint.” She flounced off in the direction of the building entrance before Jemma could stop her.

  Jemma vented a silent scream into the air. What had she unleashed? She thought she wanted the truth, but did she really? Her gaze traveled up the building tower, stopping at the seventh floor. All roads led to Marcus Bartlett. She should have listened to Chris.

  The hairs on the back of her neck rose. She turned slowly, surveying the streetscape, searching the faces of drivers and pedestrians alike. No one paid her any attention. She shuddered, unable to shake the prickly sensation of being watched. She needed to get out of there, if only to the nearest café.

  Only when she was off the street and hidden in the back booth of a fifties-style American diner, did Jemma start to relax. She ordered a double-shot latte, leaving it until the waiter left to dig in her bag for her mobile phone. She’d had it with lying, deceitful men.

  Of course Ethan wasn’t available to take her call. She left a terse message and hung up. For someone who supposedly cared for her, he had a funny way of showing it. He had yet to report back to her about the second security breach, let alone anything else. She didn’t know what or who to believe anymore. She only had Ethan’s word – for what that was worth – that the platinum blonde woman was his sister.

  Then in her next breath, Jemma wished she could take back her message. He wasn’t the one who screwed everything that moved, including his loyal employee’s husband-to-be. He wasn’t the one lying to his son, to his wife, to the world. He wasn’t the one…

  She shivered, her next thought too repugnant to contemplate. But who knew what that man was capable of?

  CHAPTER 35

  Jemma’s pulse raced. Too much coffee or something more sinister? She couldn’t shake the feeling someone was shadowing her. She ducked into a newsagent’s alcove. An elderly, hunchbacked lady hobbled past on her cane. Then a couple of teenage boys in blue school uniform. A fat-bellied man in shorts and a striped T-shirt approached from the other direction. He waddled past without even a cursory glance her way. She breathed out.

  But instead of continuing her journey, she headed into the shop. At the rate she was going, it would take her until nightfall to get back to the apartment. She loitered near the postcard rack at the door, feigning interest in the glossy, over-glamorized images of everything from koalas and kangaroos to Melbourne’s historic Flinders Street Station.

  Twenty minutes later, her heart rate restored to something below hyper-speed, she stepped back outside, a paper bag containing two postcards clutched in her hand. Gail would appreciate them.

  She heard footsteps behind her and froze. A spectacled man, his pinstriped suit hanging from his gaunt frame, veered around her. After a couple of thumps on her chest with the flat of her hand, she set off again.

  She caught movement in her peripher
al vision. She whirled around. Had she imagined it? The closest person to her was at least fifty meters away. Hallucinations and paranoia. What next? If she weren’t careful, the white-coated men would come to take her away.

  Her intention had been to board the next tram, but if someone was following her, she wanted to know who and she wanted to know why? Resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder, she continued on across the intersection and down another block.

  At the next corner, she dug in her shoulder bag for her mobile. On the pretence of making a call, she held it near her ear. Her fingers found and pressed the button for the phone’s inbuilt camera. Click. She kept it to her ear, every thirty seconds or so, taking another shot.

  She waited until she reached the more populated Arts Centre to check what she had captured on her phone. Lost-looking tourists milled about her as with her back up against a concrete wall, she opened the picture viewer and scrolled through shot after shot of unremarkable streetscape. In the last photo, she had sliced a man in half. She enlarged the image, panning in on the left edge of the frame. Even with only half a face and out of uniform, she recognized the thickset man. How could she not?

  Standing on her tiptoes, she scanned the crowd, moving out to the far edges when she couldn’t see him. She knew he had to be there, knew she hadn’t imagined it, the photo proof of that. She maneuvered through the crowd, checking faces. But it was his back she saw first, his distinctive bulky gait giving him away as he charged down a footpath and around a corner.

  She chased after him, almost bowling over a Hawaiian-shirted man in the process. She rounded the corner just as her quarry disappeared down a concrete stairwell. Wrapping the straps of her shoulder bag around her right hand, she took off after him. Bigger and uglier he might have been, but she wasn’t about to let that stop her.

  Gerry Hobson was waiting for her at the bottom. “Well, well, look who we have here.”

  Her grip tightened on the straps in her hand. “What the hell do you think you’re playing at?” she hissed.

  “Who, me?” he asked, his eyes widening.

  His innocent act didn’t fool her for a second. “I don’t know what your game is, but I’m warning you, if you continue to harass me, I’ll have you charged.”

  “Aww, I’m scared.”

  “You should be. A criminal conviction and you’re out of a job.”

  His grey eyes flashed. “I would watch what you say, missy.”

  “Or what?” she asked, goading him. Playing with fire sprang to mind, but he daren’t attack her in public.

  He sniggered. “You don’t want to know, darlin’. You really don’t want to know. But I would watch your back if I were you.”

  Something touched her back. She jumped. Gerry laughed.

  “Excuse me,” said a mature female voice.

  “Sorry,” Jemma said, as she skipped sideways to allow the woman and her friend to pass.

  Taking a deep breath, she drew herself up to her full height and squared up to the off-duty security guard. “Just for the record, if anything happens to me, my lawyers have instructions to release a letter naming names to the police. Talking of letters, sign yours next time. And oh, by the way, roses aren’t my favorite flower.”

  “Huh?” His mouth gaped. “What planet are you on?”

  “A different one to you, obviously.”

  “You can say that again.” He started to walk away, but then hesitated. “When I said watch your back, I meant it.” The brusque edge gone, it sounded more like a warning than a threat.

  She waited until he disappeared from view and then headed back up the stairwell to street level. What would prompt an off-duty security guard, someone with whom she had hardly exchanged a word, to give up his free time to tail her? And to what end? Was the only reason she had picked up she was being followed, because that’s what he had intended all along? Was it part of some obtuse plot to scare her off, send her packing? But if his reaction to her barbs about the letters and roses was legit, that discounted that theory somewhat.

  That or her presence in Melbourne threatened more than one party. She felt sure that Marcus was behind the theft of the DVD. Whether in person or by proxy, it didn’t matter. Then there were the nuisance phone calls in the wee small hours. Except instead of making her more nervous, each additional incident just served to piss her off further. She’d had enough.

  CHAPTER 36

  The first thing Jemma did when she walked in the door was download the photos from her phone to the laptop. Her next task was something she had told Gerry she had already done: a letter to her lawyer to be opened in the event of her death or disappearance. Melodramatic she knew, but a necessity nevertheless.

  Her fingers flew over the keyboard. While putting it all down in black-and-white provided no new answers, it did help to clear her head. Like a computer’s hard disk, her brain worked more efficiently when it wasn’t overloaded.

  In the end, though, she had to accept that all she had was a collection of seemingly unrelated incidents that didn’t prove or disprove anything except that Marcus Bartlett was a bisexual, philandering cad. His wife was a shrew, but with Marcus as a husband, Jemma couldn’t blame her. Kerry’s past behavior toward her ex-husband and his mistress, too, was irrational but understandable. Jemma hadn’t come up with any feasible explanation for why Gerry would harass her, but it didn’t make him a murderer. It didn’t make any of them killers.

  Her sister did not kill herself. If Jemma’s lobbying to have the case reopened was to work, she needed a more heavy-handed approach. The lawyer had mentioned in passing that publicity might force the situation. Maybe he was right, but it would also be a sure-fire way to get Chris offside, especially if she went behind his back. She needed allies, not enemies.

  She was still thinking about it when her phone rang.

  “You’re never going to believe this,” said an excited Fen the instant Jemma answered.

  “Believe what?”

  “Marcus Bartlett and Sean Mullins were lovers.”

  “What?”

  “It’s true. What’s more, there’s a rumor that Marcus killed Sean when he threatened to make the affair public.”

  “Where are you getting all this?”

  “Off the Internet. I didn’t see it, but apparently there was also a video of them at it posted on YouTube.”

  “You’ve got to be joking,” Jemma said as she plugged Marcus’s and Sean’s names into Google.

  “I know, unbelievable, isn’t it? How awful for Tanya.” Fen paused. “I wonder if she knew.”

  Jemma gulped. News of the alleged affair between the ‘wealthy property developer and his chauffeur’ had spread like a computer worm, replicating itself on blog after blog. By tomorrow, the original posting would be buried even further, along with its poster.

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “Sorry, I was just…” Jemma shook her head. “Sorry, Fen, tell me again.”

  “I was asking if you knew where it might have come from.”

  “Where what might have come from?” Jemma couldn’t think straight.

  “You know: the video, the goss, everything.”

  “I wish I knew.” Only four living people that Jemma was aware of had known of the DVD’s existence, and of those, only two had access to its contents. The person who stole the original DVD and Chris. Though Ash had viewed the footage, all he had was the cropped image of the tattoo. And she couldn’t see Marcus outing himself. But like a badly kept secret, it would only take one to leak it to the outside world. “Fen, there’s someone at the door. Can I call you back?”

  A white lie. Jemma needed time to think, but before she had a chance to do so, her phone rang again. Chris.

  Like Fen, he didn’t give her a chance to say hello. “What on earth possessed you to go and do something like that?” He gave a snort. “Utter madness.”

  “Stop right there. I’m not sure what it is exactly you’re accusing me of, but whatever it is, am I not at lea
st entitled to a fair trial?”

  “I’m talking about putting that vulgar video up on YouTube. As if you didn’t know,” he added with a huff.

  “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

  “If it wasn’t you, who was it then?”

  “I don’t know, but I can assure you it wasn’t me. I didn’t even know about it until a minute ago.”

  “Who else did you send that link to?” he asked.

  “No one. What about you? Did you forward it to anyone?”

  “Only to one of the techs,” he said. “He was going to have a go at enhancing that tattoo. But I’ve known the guy for years. It’s not the sort of thing he would do.”

  “And it’s not the sort of thing I would do either. Have you even considered that whoever stole the original disc posted it online as some sort of bizarre payback?”

  “Payback for what?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the detective.”

  He laughed. “You’re right and I should have known better than to jump to conclusions.”

  “Thank you. Anyway, knowing how you feel about Marcus, I’m surprised you’re not applauding the culprit.”

  “It wasn’t him I was concerned about,” Chris said, his voice softening. “Defamation isn’t something the courts take lightly.”

  “No doubt, but you can stop worrying. On that count at least, my conscience is clear.”

  “Good. Keep it that way. Now, how are you placed tonight? Care to have dinner with this crusty old cop?”

  “You’re not crusty – overprotective perhaps. But I like that.”

  “And the old?” he prompted.

  “That, too.”

  “That too what?”

  “I like that, too.”

  “Thanks a lot.”

  She laughed, the banter lifting her spirits. “You said it, not me.”

  “You’ll keep,” he said. “So what’s your answer? Are you free for dinner tonight?”

  She hesitated. As tired as she was, a night out with living, breathing company had to be preferable to staying in with her thoughts.