Spiking the Girl

by Lord, Gabrielle

  ‘I’ve done all that,’ said Daria with a sigh. ‘But the police are no use. They don’t seem to take it seriously because he isn’t violent.’

  ‘But surely if he’s trespassing . . .’

  ‘They came round a couple of times but they couldn’t find him. They think I’m making it up. They’re very polite, but I can tell what they’re thinking.’

  In the corner, another candle flared up, then just as suddenly went out. Daria replaced it with a new one. All this holy stuff sure keeps her busy, Gemma thought.

  ‘Did you take out a restraining order?’ she asked. ‘An Apprehended Violence Order? If he breaks an AVO, they have to arrest him.’

  For the first time, the woman’s eyes flashed with the anger of the good girl who’s done everything she’s supposed to do yet things still aren’t going the way they should.

  ‘Of course I took out an AVO!’ she said. ‘I did everything that the law advises—even before the divorce—and it didn’t help me!’

  ‘Who did you talk to?’ Gemma waited, pen poised, ready to note down the name.

  ‘The police at Waverley,’ said Daria, ‘and then the chamber magistrate.’

  ‘Do you remember the police officer’s name?’ Gemma asked.

  Daria reached up to the top of a saint-infested bookcase and took a card down, passing it to Gemma. Senior Constable Diane Hayworth. Gemma jotted the name down, making a mental note to drop in on Diane Hayworth at Waverley Police and make a few enquiries regarding Mr and Mrs Reynolds.

  ‘Did you follow up on it?’ she asked and handed the policewoman’s card back. Too many women took out AVOs and then didn’t have them enforced. So far, this wasn’t sounding like a job Gemma wanted to take on, though right now she couldn’t afford to be choosy.

  ‘Of course I did,’ said Daria. ‘I keep telling them. But they don’t believe me.’

  ‘What about security, Daria? Are you sure your house is secure?’ Gemma asked, though she remembered the multiple locks at the front door.

  Daria stood up and went to the window to touch the wrought-iron grille. ‘This house is a fortress,’ she said. ‘But it’s no use. Nothing can keep him away.’

  The woman’s passivity irked Gemma. ‘He must have keys if he’s getting in,’ she said. ‘Have you changed the locks?’

  ‘I also did that before the divorce!’ Another flash of fire from the wispy woman as she moved away from the window. ‘There’s something I should tell you,’ she said. ‘Something you should know.’

  As Daria stood with the light from the window behind her, Gemma became aware of a dark, menacing atmosphere building in the room. The glare of candles and heady incense made her feel sick.

  ‘But if I tell you,’ Daria continued, ‘I know you’ll refuse to work for me.’

  The brooding heaviness was getting to Gemma. Was she just imagining that the room was closing in, like something from a Poe horror story? Daria seemed to be struggling to find her words as she stood staring at one of her saints. Come on, Gemma urged inwardly. Spit it out!

  The silence continued.

  ‘If there’s anything that will help me in working for you,’ Gemma prompted, ‘you must tell me. I’d only refuse to work for someone if what they wanted was illegal. Is that what’s concerning you?’

  Daria shook her head. ‘It’s nothing illegal,’ she said. ‘But you’ve got to help me.’ Her voice was despairing. ‘Someone has to help me. You were suggested by a woman I know. You have the right background.’

  Gemma, touched by the other woman’s desperation and deciding to take on her case, didn’t immediately note the odd remark. A breeze lifted the curtains at the window and all the candles bowed in the same direction.

  ‘I’ll do what I can, Daria. But you’ve got to do your share.’ Gemma picked up her briefcase and another candle sputtered and hissed. She took out one of her brochures. ‘This is the information about my charges. If it’s acceptable to you, we can put the house under surveillance. That way, we’ve got him on video.’

  Daria stared at the brochure while Gemma made some rapid calculations. She didn’t have any bubble-packed spycams in the car just now.

  ‘I usually take a deposit at this stage, Daria,’ she said, remembering the shopping she needed to do. ‘One thousand dollars would be fine.’

  Daria nodded, unsurprised.

  ‘If you can give me cash,’ Gemma continued, ‘I’ll make it GST inclusive.’

  Daria left the room and returned with twenty fifty-dollar bills which Gemma tucked in her wallet.

  ‘We’ll also put a covert camera in your bedroom, just to be—’

  ‘But that’s what he wanted to do!’ Daria took a backwards step, nearly knocking her untouched coffee over in her distress. ‘He expected me to behave like some whore, like some prostitute in a porn movie! He wanted to make videos of me and his disgusting filthy behaviour.’

  She bent down and moved the coffee cup to a safer spot, then looked at Gemma and her breathing calmed a little as she gathered herself. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered, the dark hollows in her face deepening. ‘I know that’s not what you meant. I didn’t mean to say all that.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Gemma, finally breaking an awkward silence. ‘Before I go, I’d like to look around. Check the layout of the house, see the exits and entrances.’

  She went outside, Daria following, and they walked right round the house as Gemma checked the windows. They were all screened and locked, except for the front ones, which were grilled. Gemma searched for any scrapes or tool marks on any of the frames but they were all quite dusty and untouched.

  ‘He must have a key,’ Gemma repeated, turning back to her companion.

  Daria shook her head. ‘He hasn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps he got in once and was able to get hold of one? Had it copied, got it back without you noticing?’

  Daria Reynolds stared at her. Again, Gemma wondered about her new client’s grasp on reality. Then Daria slowly turned her gaze towards the back garden, squinting against the bright sunlight. The spooky moment passed.

  Gemma finished her examination of the outside of the house and they went back inside. She followed Daria down the narrow hall, away from the smoky front room. She went into the two bedrooms, both of them with locked windows; the first smelled like the spare room and needed a good airing. The second, the erstwhile marital bedroom, was similarly decked out with icons and statues, although the candles in here had all burned out.

  Gemma glanced at the bedroom ceiling, thinking about where she or Spinner might put the spycam. ‘Do you have smoke detectors?’ she asked, unable to see any. Daria shook her head.

  ‘Don’t you think all these naked flames everywhere could be a bit dangerous?’

  Daria stared hard at her again, then took a step forward. ‘I know what’s dangerous.’ Her tiny voice contrasted with the way she’d closed in, invading Gemma’s space.

  Gemma stepped back, deliberately putting distance between them. Daria immediately closed up the gap. ‘Now, Miss Lincoln, I have a question for you. Is it true that your mother was murdered?’

  Gemma’s shock must have showed on her face because Daria Reynolds’s expression changed. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve offended you. Believe me, I wouldn’t be asking you this if it weren’t important. You must understand that.’

  ‘Important?’ Gemma rallied. ‘To whom?’

  ‘It’s important to me.’ She paused. ‘If it’s true.’

  ‘What can my personal circumstances possibly have to do with your situation?’ said Gemma, suddenly angry.

  ‘I don’t mean to pry or distress you. It is important for me. That’s all I can say at this stage. It is true, isn’t it?’

  Gemma remained silent but Daria Reynolds took her confusion for affirmation. ‘So would you please light thi
s candle and walk through the house with me?’

  Gemma’s initial reaction was to refuse. But the soft beseeching so obvious in Daria’s huge eyes touched Gemma. The best thing to do was humour her, do the job she wanted and send her a large bill.

  Gemma took the long white candle passed to her, inclined it to be lit and followed her new client through the house, proceeding in and out of the remaining rooms. She’d worked in a lot of weird places, Gemma thought, but never in a million years did she think she’d be wandering round a stranger’s house with a lit candle in her hand.

  ‘Thank you,’ Daria whispered when they’d finished. ‘I also want someone to watch the place at night.’

  ‘You want physical surveillance as well as cameras?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That will be very expensive.’

  Daria Reynolds handed Gemma a key from under a vase in the hallway. ‘You can throw the key back through the window grille when you’ve finished. And as for expensive, I don’t really care.’

  ‘We’ll get cameras installed in the back and front gardens,’ said Gemma. ‘And in the bedroom. When would be convenient?’

  ‘How about now?’

  Gemma watched while Daria Reynolds hurried to her small silver Honda and drove away. It’s as if she suddenly doesn’t care anymore, Gemma thought. As if my visit here today was all that’s necessary to sort out a stalking ex-husband. If only, Gemma thought. I’d be a rich woman.

  She went back to her car and picked up the radio, calling Spinner. ‘Tracker Three. Copy, please.’

  The sound of her number one operative’s voice was calming. Spinner was a gem—her most treasured business asset. It was hard work being a surveillance operative, out on the road all day. His particular talent lay in his silent patience, his capacity to sit, hour after hour if necessary, waiting for a cheat to slip up, to forget to adopt the limp, just once, on the way to get the newspaper, or forget the bad back and start building a swimming pool. Spinner would be there with his zoom camera, shooting his damning footage, getting it all down for the insurance companies’ assessors. His contemporaneous notes were clean, clear and concise, despite his truncated education—or maybe because of that. Gemma was blessed to have him on the payroll. Good road operatives were hard to find—and even harder to keep. Since last year’s collapse of her business, Spinner was her only full-time employee, with Mike Moody, ex-Federal policeman and in-house IT manager, now just working part-time—as the need arose and her finances permitted.

  Gemma told Spinner what she wanted.

  ‘I’ll meet you there,’ he said after she’d filled him in and given him the address. ‘And give you the files of the jobs I’ve finished. You can take them back with you to the office. Save me driving over later on.’

  Gemma rehoused the radio then checked the street up and down. It looked innocuous, incapable of hiding evil or danger, just a pleasant suburban morning streetscape. So why this beating of her heart? This crawling of her scalp?

  Gemma took a deep breath, before pulling her laptop out and taking it back inside Daria’s house. Balancing the computer on her knees, she transferred the scrawled notes she’d just written into her electronic file: the date, time, address, the weather, their conversation, everything necessary to ground her report as far as possible in reality.

  When she’d saved her notes, she folded the laptop lid down and gazed sightlessly through the window. This time yesterday everything had been fine with Steve. She’d gradually been getting closer to letting go of her jealousy and pain around his infidelity. But when he talked about the possibility of them buying a bigger place together, those issues had suddenly loomed large again. The argument had flared. Now it didn’t matter if she had all the time in the world.

  Her mobile rang and she dived for it, eager for distraction from her sad thoughts.

  ‘Miss Lincoln?’ A frail, female voice. ‘It’s Rowena Wylde here. Do you remember me?’

  It took Gemma a few seconds to cut through the shock. Remember her? Of course she recognised who her caller was—psychiatrist Dr Rowena Wylde, her late father’s colleague and mistress, whom she’d briefly met some years ago.

  ‘I haven’t got much time,’ the woman continued. ‘In fact, Miss Lincoln, I’m dying.’

  Gemma made some sort of murmuring noise, rallying as fast as she could. It’s not often people say that straight out, she thought.

  ‘There’s something you should know,’ Dr Wylde continued. ‘You and your sister. Something I must tell you. It concerns your father—your family.’

  Gemma was surprised at the depth of the feelings this woman’s words aroused in her; she wanted to protect, defend, her family, her mother—the mother she barely remembered.

  ‘What could you possibly tell me about my family?’

  ‘Something that you need to know. Something I should have told you a long time ago.’

  ‘And what might that be?’ Despite herself, Gemma was intrigued.

  ‘Please,’ Rowena Wylde’s voice was already weaker now, ‘please visit me. It’s not the sort of information that should be delivered over the phone.’

  Extremely curious now, Gemma agreed and, after reacquainting herself with the psychiatrist’s address and telephone number, made a time for later in the week.

  Once she’d rung off, she continued to sit, pen frozen in her hand. What could it be, she wondered? Was it something about their father? Their mother? Perhaps it was information relating to their father’s imprisonment or their mother’s murder.

  Yesterday, she’d felt her world swerve off its axis, unbalanced by the absence of Steve. Now she had Daria Reynolds’s ex-husband and Rowena Wylde’s phone call to deal with. She noticed that one of the candles on the mantelpiece still guttered, sending up a column of black smoke. She went to pinch it out and saw that it stood in front of the image of an angel, all in black with huge dark wings. Gemma squashed the tiny flame, noticing the writing at the bottom of the picture. Asrael, Angel of Death, she read. She shivered.

  Two

  Gemma hurried out to her car, calling Kit’s number on the way. She wanted to talk to her about Rowena Wylde’s call but her sister wasn’t answering, replaced by the warm words of her voice mail inviting a message. Probably with a client, Gemma thought, glancing at her watch. Her sister ran a busy psychotherapy practice and was often difficult to catch on the phone. Gemma left a message and slid into her car, putting the mobile back in its travelling holder near the radio. She needed food, suddenly hungry. She decided to head off and find something to eat with Spinner when he arrived.

  She switched on the ignition and pulled out, almost collecting an oncoming car. The blaring horn and screech of brakes shocked her into immobility and the driver of the car sped past, swearing.

  When she’d calmed down, she drove to a nearby shop and bought some pastries and a drink, then returned to Daria Reynolds’s place, letting herself in with the key Daria had given her. She left the white paper bag of pastries on the table, then walked right through the house again, eerier now with its owner absent. The place stank of stale incense and smoke and she hoped Spinner wouldn’t be too much longer. This was the sort of empty time she didn’t want right now.

  She sat down with a fraud investigation magazine she kept in her briefcase for quiet moments, nibbling on a pastry, looking through an article on high-resolution micro cameras. One in particular took her fancy, so compact it fitted into the top of a functional pen.

  She heard the distinctive sound of Spinner’s white Rodeo ute pulling up outside, reminding her of the early days, when they were the only two workers in her business. Putting the magazine down on the table, she looked out the window. Today Spinner was ‘Fletcher Bros Plumbing’. He had several magnetic signs that he could slap along the length of the utility, and hanging in the operatives’ office were various tradesmen and courier
outfits—Spinner’s ‘dress-up’ clothes.

  She watched him as he got out, knowing that if anyone rang Fletcher Bros Plumbing they’d get Spinner’s friend Darren Fletcher, who was, Gemma knew from experience, a good plumber. Spinner did a quick check round the front of the house, then started up the path. She felt a surge of affection for her colleague, aka Bede MacNamara, the wiry little ex-jockey who’d got too heavy for the gallopers.

  She opened the door for him and he walked in looking tired and sad, his wizened face more furrowed. ‘What’s that smell?’

  ‘Incense,’ Gemma said. ‘This client burns a lot of it.’

  He peered closer. ‘Is that thing around your neck supposed to be like that, or is something missing?’

  Gemma looked down at the pendant. It had been a gift from Steve in happier days: plaited silver serpents encircling what was now an empty oval. She lifted the heavy dark silver chain from which it hung. ‘There used to be a very handsome polished onyx in it,’ she said. ‘But I lost it up at Nelson Bay a couple of days ago.’

  Spinner pulled a couple of folders out of his bag. ‘This report is ready to go back to the insurers,’ he said, handing her a file. ‘I need to process the video and I can do that when I come over to the office next.’

  Road operatives like Spinner were rarely in the office. Their workplaces were the roads, businesses and houses they did surveillance on. They dropped in only to collect more briefs or carry out the clerical work they needed to do.

  Spinner found a place in the living room to put his kit and the remaining folders under his arm before looking up and seeing the collection of icons and statues. ‘Stone the bloody crows.’ Because he wouldn’t swear, Spinner was forced to fall back on expressions from earlier, simpler times when he was riding gallopers round country training tracks. Gemma found it a disarming habit. But only when she was in a good mood. ‘What the hell are all these?’ he continued.

  ‘I thought you’d know. You’re the God-botherer in this turn-out,’ she said.