That remains to be seen, thought Gemma, and said, ‘Please tell me what happened.’
‘One of our Year 10 students, Amy Bernhard, disappeared one morning. One minute she was here with her friends in the school grounds, next minute . . .’ The principal made an expressive gesture with her hands. ‘Vanished into thin air.’
Gemma noticed that when Beatrice de Berigny smiled, the upper part of her face, especially her eyes, remained unmoved.
‘Miss Lincoln, if the parents knew that the school had initiated an investigation of its own, it would surely encourage them to recover their faith in us. It would indicate that we are prepared to go to any lengths towards solving this case. And preventing anything like this from ever happening again.’
Gemma wondered what she could do or find that the police wouldn’t have covered already. ‘Do you have any sense of what might have happened to Amy?’
Miss de Berigny looked across to the large French windows. ‘I have a feeling that it wasn’t family problems. Although I do know there were issues with her stepfather.’ She raised an eyebrow. ‘Two failed marriages,’ she said. ‘It must be hard for a young girl growing up with all that going on.’ Again, she hesitated, then lowered her voice. ‘But what troubles me are the rumours. Nothing of substance. But they don’t go away.’
‘Rumours about what?’ Gemma was intrigued. ‘And from where?’
‘That’s just the problem—no one knows. A couple of teachers told me that some of the girls told them that Amy and her friends had a secret. Something they alluded to—you know the way girls tease each other. “We know something you don’t know” sort of thing.’
‘But you have no idea what this secret might have been?’ Gemma asked.
Miss de Berigny shook her gleaming head. ‘When I asked Tasmin and Claudia, they said they’d only been teasing. That there was no secret.’
‘And you believed them?’
Miss de Berigny looked hard at Gemma. ‘I had to. I had nothing to go on. Nothing to support my questions. As I said, it was all rumour. You can’t imagine how rumours develop and flourish in this sort of environment. Three hundred girls and their hormones.’
Gemma wrote the words ‘rumours of a secret’ and circled them with a big question mark.
‘It’s a year now and there’s been no trace of Amy Bernhard. Her mother still hopes,’ said Miss de Berigny. Gemma felt a sudden pang. ‘But the police are overworked,’ the principal continued, ‘and new crimes tend to push old ones out of the picture. Sergeant McDonald felt you’d be the best person for this sort of investigation.’
Miss de Berigny folded her hands gracefully in front of her on the desk. ‘The school committee also thinks that obtaining your services is a good idea. Would you be willing to undertake such an investigation on the school’s behalf?’
Gemma hardly had to consider. ‘I can do that,’ she said.
Miss de Berigny smiled, her eyes joining the rest of her face. ‘May I ask how one goes about this? I know nothing of these sorts of things.’
‘I’d go over the police case notes,’ said Gemma, her mind racing ahead and wondering how in hell she’d get hold of those, given that she was dealing with an ongoing investigation. ‘I’d check out witness statements, re-interview people where it looks interesting—’
‘What do you mean “re-interview where it looks interesting”?’ said Beatrice de Berigny, her interruption taking Gemma by surprise. ‘Well, with witness statements, for instance, the police are so stretched that sometimes alibis aren’t properly followed up. I’d want to check out that sort of thing,’ said Gemma.
‘Oh? Is that likely—that alibis might not have been checked properly?’
The principal’s friendly smile had vanished and her mouth was now set in an anxious line.
Suddenly, Gemma recognised she was encountering resistance. ‘If there’s a problem with any of this, Miss de Berigny, we need to talk about it now, so we both understand what’s required from the other. Otherwise we won’t have a deal.’
The principal hesitated, putting a gold pen back into its jade holder and fiddling instead with the cover of her black diary. ‘It’s just that some of my staff might not like being re-interviewed or having their alibis and statements questioned. Being forced to go through it all again might make them very uncomfortable.’
Abduction and possible murder is uncomfortable, Gemma almost said. Instead, she tried reassurance. ‘I would handle things as delicately as possible. I’m sure they’d understand.’
‘What I’m trying to say,’ said the principal, ‘is that perhaps you wouldn’t have to go to extremes. You could just do a little bit of work on the case here and there, fit it around your existing work. You must be very busy. So that you’d officially be on the case, but there wouldn’t be the need for it to take up a great deal of your time. After all, it is in police hands.’
Gemma raised an eyebrow, deciding to tackle this head-on. ‘Are you saying you want me to give the impression that I’m investigating Amy Bernhard’s disappearance rather than actually doing so?’
Beatrice de Berigny looked shocked. ‘Oh, no,’ she said. ‘That’s not what I meant at all. I just meant that seeing as it’s all been done before, there wouldn’t be the same sort of need as in the first investigation.’ Under the ivory foundation, Gemma noticed the woman’s skin reddening. Bullseye, Gemma congratulated herself. You got it in one, girl. ‘I’m sorry if I gave that impression, Miss Lincoln.’
‘Gemma,’ said Gemma, pulling out her brochure and placing it on the polished cedar surface. Despite the ambiguous manner of her client, this could be a good job, with good contacts. Certainly the income would be welcome. ‘This is a list of my hourly rates,’ she said. ‘You should be aware that something like this is going to take a lot of time and it’s going to cost real money.’
‘We’ll find the money, Gemma,’ said the principal, taking out a gold credit card. ‘Would a one-thousand-dollar deposit be acceptable?’
Gemma processed the payment, noting the principal’s signature, and passed back the credit card. With this and the money from Daria Reynolds, she could pay the phone bill and do some shopping. Even though she had no appetite just now, a fridge full of good things and a nice chilled bottle or two could only do her good. Maybe she’d buy a new lipstick.
Miss de Berigny opened a drawer in her desk and pulled out a business card. ‘This is Amy’s mother’s address,’ she said, writing an address on the back. ‘I’ve spoken to Lauren Bernhard and she’s happy to talk to you. She will have details that might be helpful.’
Gemma thanked her and took the card, noticing the intricate flourishes of gold and green illumination decorating the ‘B’s of the principal’s name.
‘I’d also like the names of Amy’s closest friends,’ Gemma said. ‘And it would be good if you could mention to their families that I’ll be having a chat with them. With their permission, of course.’
Beatrice de Berigny cocked her head to one side. ‘I shall do that straightaway. I’ll ring their mothers and do everything I can to clear your way.’
She keyed in a few commands on the laptop and Gemma heard the printer on the small desk under the window start to work. Miss de Berigny got up from her desk and walked over to the window, waiting while the page printed.
Gemma studied her: the tailored clothing, the low-heeled court shoes, the erect posture of a woman who knows people notice her.
‘I love this school,’ said Miss de Berigny. ‘I’ve given all my energy to it for fifteen years. Other women have children. I have Netherleigh Park.’ Gemma was startled by the intensity of her expression, the passion in her eyes. Then it was gone and Miss de Berigny raised her eyebrows, smiling. ‘I will do anything necessary to protect it and its reputation.’ She took the page from the printer and handed it over to Gemma.
Gemma ran her eyes down the names and addresses of Amy’s friends. ‘I’ll start as soon as I can,’ she said, straightening up and slipping the paper into her briefcase. ‘I’ll look after this investigation myself.’
‘That’s exactly what I had hoped for,’ said the headmistress, returning to her desk. ‘Your personal touch.’
Again the smile, a brief woman-to-woman moment, and all at once the interview was over and they were walking towards the door which suddenly flew open. Gemma jumped back as a man barged in.
‘Oh, I am sorry.’ His face gleamed with sweat. ‘I didn’t realise you had company. I should take more care where I’m going.’
Gemma turned to the principal, wondering who this man was. Perhaps the art or music teacher?
‘Did you want to see me, Mr Romero? You were late again this morning,’ said Miss de Berigny, her expression changed. Her voice, angry in tone, was also tight and anxious. Gemma thought she saw fear, too, in the pencilled eyes.
‘Tasmin Summers,’ said Mr Romero, waving a hand. ‘She was supposed to be here early this morning to go through her term History essay outline with me. She wasn’t in class just now. I thought she might be with you.’ He paused. ‘I can see she isn’t. Sorry.’
As he backed out and headed off down the corridor, Gemma’s eyes caught the diamond and gold tie pin holding his mauve and green cravat and she wondered if all the teachers wore the school colours.
‘I can find my way from here,’ said Gemma to the principal, extending her hand. But Miss de Berigny didn’t move to take it. She was a thousand miles away.
Gemma dropped her hand and waited.
‘Oh, Miss Lincoln. Goodbye. And thank you again.’
Gemma headed down the two flights of stairs, her mind turning over the curious interlude. You don’t get to be principal of Netherleigh Park without being a skilled strategist and politician, she mused as she climbed back into her car. She went over the interview notes. Beatrice de Berigny wants to tell the board that she’s doing everything possible, but it’s pretty clear she doesn’t really want me to turn up anything new. Or was that just a normal, protective response—a principal protecting her staff? And Mr Romero had walked straight into the principal’s office without knocking. Only someone very close would be allowed to do something like that, Gemma knew. Often only members of a family were permitted that sort of familiarity.
Beatrice de Berigny, despite her maidenly title, was married to a well-known businessman. Are Beatrice and Romero lovers, Gemma wondered. The idea was intriguing. Then she recalled the principal’s icy response. Maybe not, thought Gemma as she drove out of the school grounds. Then why did her voice sound so strained? And why did she look so scared?
•
Gemma was pleased to be back home again. Her apartment was one of four asymmetrical areas developed in the 1960s by an entrepreneur who’d divided up a grand old nineteenth-century mansion originally built by W.C. Wentworth. Her dream was to make enough money one day to be able to buy the apartment directly above hers and have a terrace by the sea. She surveyed the grounds, glancing upstairs at her space-in-waiting. The For Lease sign in the window of the first-floor apartment remained. Coastal views north and south could be seen from up there. It even had a view to the boatshed she’d rented last year as a studio for sculpting. Now, in the place of her boatshed, stood a smart café, with decks on three sides, opened seven days a week in summer and on the weekends during winter months. In a few more years, she thought, the eastern suburbs will be nothing but wall-to-wall cafés, hair salons and security firms’ offices.
On her way to the front door, she patted one of the lions she’d sculpted that guarded her entrance. Glossy, with a mottled iron glaze that gave them more of a leopard look, they strained forward, jaws wide open in their eternal silent roar, looking very fine against the tubs of glaring white petunias and native shrubs on the western wall. She let herself into her place, thinking how this time yesterday had been the last few hours of two perfect weeks at Nelson Bay, swimming and lovemaking, walking and talking, delicious fish meals, too much wine, and long warm evenings along the beaches, where curving dolphins split the turquoise mirror of the inland bay and delighted children splashed to get closer to them.
She tried calling Kit again, only to find that according to her sister’s new voice message, she was out of town for a day or two. Gemma hung up the phone, frustrated that Kit hadn’t yet got a mobile. She wondered again what Rowena Wylde might know about their family.
She spent the rest of the afternoon tidying up outstanding jobs and, despite Spinner’s lack of interest, ordered one of the micro spycams. She carefully entered her notes from her visit to Netherleigh Park Ladies’ College into her notebook. She remembered how Miss de Berigny had said she’d do anything to protect the school. In her report, Gemma highlighted the word in bold type. Anything.
Three
Next morning, as soon as she’d showered and dressed, Gemma made herself a cup of tea and sliced an apple. She was eating it on the timber deck under the umbrella when she heard Mike’s car pull up on the road at the front of the building. Very handy with technical know-how, Mike Moody worked fifteen to twenty hours a week for Gemma, and for other security businesses the rest of the time. She glanced at his figure on the CCTV monitor in the corner of her living room as she went to let him in. Though he and Spinner had keys, they only used them if Gemma wasn’t at home.
‘Hi. How’s it going?’ Gemma asked, opening the grille.
Mike nodded in answer and she followed him into the operatives’ office, across the hallway from her own. ‘How about you?’ he asked. The pink shirt he was wearing emphasised his well-built upper body and the light tan on his powerful arms.
Gemma shrugged. ‘Been better.’ She was pleased to see him. Mike’s was a comforting presence, especially with the emptiness in her heart.
Gemma went into her own office, delicately furnished in soothing light greys and white with a huge recently re-covered club-style armchair under the window. Taped to the wall above her colour monitor was a double-page article from the newspaper’s weekend magazine: ‘Sex, Signs and Subterfuge’ by Amanda Quirk, a journalist acquaintance. Gemma examined the picture of herself that accompanied the article mostly grey and half in shadow, apart from her dark red lipstick, suggesting she was mysterious and even a little forbidding. Published earlier in the year, the piece focused on Gemma’s Mandate option, and had resulted in many enquiries and a steady building of work. After last year’s catastrophic penetration of her sensitive files, the phones of her business had almost stopped ringing. But now, slowly at first, but lately with more regularity, they’d started again. Business was picking up.
She took the card Beatrice de Berigny had given her out of her briefcase and dialled Lauren Bernhard, mother of Amy, missing now for a year. She heard the desperate eagerness in the woman’s voice when she answered. Does she hope it might be Amy every time the phone rings, Gemma thought. She explained who she was and asked if she could make an appointment time.
‘You can come round any time,’ said Lauren. ‘I’m always here. Waiting.’
Waiting, Gemma thought. For a daughter to come home. Or a grave to be found.
She collected the new files together, intending to offer some of them to Mike. As well as the jobs she’d delegated to Spinner, she had a brand new contract with Australian Access Insurances, thanks to the efforts of a friend. She was hopeful of more. She was just heading towards his room when Mike suddenly appeared in the doorway. ‘Do you know the rent of that upstairs flat?’ he asked. ‘Maybe I should enquire about it for me. It’d cut down on travel time. I’m already spread all over Sydney.’
Gemma hesitated. The thought of Mike in the upstairs flat made her feel uneasy, for some reason that she didn’t quite understand. Some instinct was saying, ‘Not a good idea. It’s good to have a bit of distance between job and ho
me. Are you sure you want to be so close?’
Mike pointed down the hallway towards her apartment. ‘You’ve only got an interconnecting door.’
‘Exactly,’ said Gemma, ‘and work dominates my life way too much.’
Mike leaned against the door frame, folding his arms. ‘Maybe you have a problem with me being up there? Too close to your space?’
Gemma ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back behind her ears. It really needed cutting. ‘I’ll give it some thought.’ It was her stock reply when unsure.
‘Keep me informed. If you really don’t like it, I won’t do it.’ He looked more closely at her. ‘You okay?’
Gemma realised she was feeling wobbly and close to tears, but she nodded. ‘Yeah. Just got a lot on.’
‘Don’t forget that appointment in your desk diary with Mr Dowling. I put him down for 10 a.m.’
Mike glanced past her to the cut-out magazine article taped to the wall. ‘That photograph doesn’t do you justice.’
Gemma felt her cheeks flush. ‘Here,’ she said, proffering several new files. ‘See what’s there that you can work in with your other jobs.’
He took them and she checked her diary. ‘I’d better do a bit of housework if I’ve got a client coming,’ she said, picking up her briefcase. Ducking past him, she was aware of his gaze following her down the hall.
She closed the door that sheltered her private life from the offices. There was definitely a charge between Mike and her. No use denying it. And with Steve gone, she’d have to be careful about entanglement. She picked up the small oval portrait of her mother on the table near the doorway and looked at the hint of a smile on the serious face, the eyes so like Kit’s. You were years younger than I am now when you died, she thought, searching her mother’s face for similarities to her own. And when this was taken, how could you know that you had only a short time to live? She put the portrait down.
Why had Daria Reynolds asked that strange question about her mother’s death? Again, the shadow fell across Gemma and she re-experienced the unease she’d felt earlier. Then it had been because she’d felt someone on her tail. Now it felt more like an old sadness. To change her mood, she logged on and checked Vincent Reynolds with CrimeNet and her other sources. There were no results, but this didn’t necessarily mean he was a cleanskin. Unable to settle, she sat at the rented piano and propped up the new piece that Mrs Snellgrove had given her. Much more pianissimo, her teacher had written. Gemma attempted to sight read. The result was so dispiriting that she put the music back on top of the piano and got up again. Keep busy, she scolded herself.
Spiking the Girl Page 4
