'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, propped 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 seemed 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.
The ice cubes clinked softly and Jill leaned back into the couch. Ten breathed heavily as she slept. The peal of a phone suddenly split the silence, and Jill snapped forward, grabbing for her bag.
'Jackson,' she said.
'Yo, J.'
'Scotty! What do you want?'
'What do I want? Nice. I have to want something now to say hi?'
'Sorry, Scotty. I didn't mean to say that. It came out wrong. How're you doing?' Jill stood and walked with the phone, acutely aware of Gabriel staring at her openly, as though she were a live stage show, or a scene from a riveting movie.
'Okay, but I miss you. Well, I miss beating you at things. It's not the same thrashing Robbo on the bike. He doesn't try as hard as you, and he never gets as pissed when I teach him a lesson.'
She smiled wryly.
'Jackson. You still there?
'Yes, Scotty. I'm still here. You don't always win, you know.' She found herself almost whispering.
'What are you doing now? I could whip your arse with a game of squash and then we could have a swim?' He cleared his throat. 'Or, maybe we could get something to eat?'
Jill's stomach lurched a little at the sudden vulnerability in his voice.
'I, ah, I already ate. I just finished working.' Why did she feel guilty?
Right then, Gabriel called from the kitchen.
'Jill, you want some ice-cream?'
'Ice-cream,' said Scotty. 'Working hard?'
'I said I just finished.'
'Uh huh. So who was that?'
'Gabriel Delahunt. New partner.'
'Gabriel,' said Scotty. 'Girl's name.'
Jill sighed. Oh for goodness' sake. 'Look, I was just about to head home. I think I caught a cold today. I just want to get to bed.'
'Yeah, well, don't let me keep you, Jill. I'll catch you later.'
'I'll call you next week.' She closed her phone.
'I think we should go to Balmain first thing Monday morning,' Gabriel said when she joined him in the kitchen. 'Speak to Joss and Isobel before they go to work. What do you reckon?'
'Yep. Good idea,' she answered sleepily. She drained her cup.
'So, you want some dessert?'
'No thanks, Gabriel.' Her voice sounded formal to her ears, and she felt suddenly shy, then annoyed that she should feel this way. 'I'm going to head home.'
'No worries. So, we'll make it six on Monday then?'
She nodded and moved to leave, determined to get out of there, her thoughts churning. Why did she feel like she was cheating on Scotty when she didn't think of him that way? And why should she feel like she was cheating at all when she barely knew Gabriel? They'd only eaten together, for heaven's sake.
She climbed into her car and threw her bag onto the seat next to her. That's why it's easier not to get too close to people, she told herself. These confusing feelings.
She buzzed her window all the way down as she drove, the evening breeze helping to dispel some of the dullness that smudged her senses. She still could not believe she'd fallen asleep in someone else's house.
Not counting her parents' home, that was a first.
Chloe returned to the house in Cabramatta at eight-thirty that night. The black Magna had left and she could see a green late-model Falcon sitting in its place. She chewed her lip.
What was the good of knowing about this place if she didn't get some more on this guy? Investigative journalists are like detectives, she reminded herself. They've got to have a cover and they've got to take some risks.
She knew by the end of this year there'd be a hundred new journalism graduates hungry to take her spot. That was not going to happen. Chloe got out of her car and opened the gate out the front of the small fibro house.
Cutter's house.
Mrs Tu Ly Nguyen wasn't sure what she should do. Although her English was limited, she knew enough to know that this lovely young girl wanted to speak to Henry. Henry had always told her never to speak to anyone about him. And her daughter-in-law and children were out visiting this evening.
/> It would be best to say nothing, to close the door, and she determined to do so. She sighed. The girl was so pretty.
Mrs Nguyen worried so much about her first-born grandson. He should have had a wife, a family by now to take care of him. She had hated leaving him in that room under the stairs. He should have more friends like this one.
She looked up at the girl on the porch. So tall. So beautiful! Something told her she could trust this girl. But she worried that Henry would be angry. She sighed.
Certain now that she was doing the right thing, Cutter's grandmother turned away from the door and walked back into the house.
She returned thirty seconds later with a piece of paper and an orange.
Mrs Tu Ly Nguyen pressed the fruit and the scrap of cardboard into Chloe's hand. Upon the paper was scribbled an address. A street number in Baulkham Hills.
No one should live under the stairs, Mrs Nguyen thought, shuffling back inside to pray to her ancestors at her shrine.
27
KAREN MICEH WAS torn. Her parents had taught her to share, to treat others with respect, and she wanted to pass the same morals on to her daughters. It was Henry's first weekend living downstairs, and before she'd met him she'd always intended to invite the new tenant to Sunday lunch with her, her brother Ken and the girls. She and Ken had kept the Sunday ritual going after their parents died, although her dropkick husband had often stuffed things up by getting stoned and trying to start an argument with her brother or hitting on whichever girl Ken might have been seeing at the time. The lunches since Eddie had been gone had been lovely. She had thought that inviting the new tenant along would be a pleasant addition to their party. She loved to cook.
But then she'd met Henry. Something about him made her uneasy, although she felt guilty about that. Her grandmother had always told her not to judge people by their appearance alone, and she tried to live by that saying, finding that she'd met many beautiful people who maybe hadn't seemed respectable at first glance. When she'd seen Henry with his hair tied back for the first time, his tattoos visible, she had freaked. But it wasn't just the tattoos – even Ken had tattoos – although the beautiful tiger on Ken's deltoid was hardly the same thing as spiders on one's neck, she thought. She hoped that she wasn't a closet racist. She'd heard you could be such a thing without even knowing. Her good friend, Jamie, who was a lesbian, had told her that, saying that even members of the gay community could be closet homophobes. Ashamed of their own sexuality, even when they were out and supposedly proud! Imagine that.
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