Spiking the Girl

by Lord, Gabrielle

  ‘He’s back with bloody bells on now,’ said Angie.

  ‘No wonder you’re worried,’ said Gemma. ‘With Bruno G-for-Gross supervising and Sean Wright as a team member.’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Angie. ‘I need all the help I can get. Most days, we’ve got a third of our people away. Sick leave, court attendances.’

  ‘I’ve noticed something in the witness statements that I want you to see,’ Gemma said. ‘Go have your shower and I’ll dig it out.’

  While Angie showered, Gemma brought out the relevant statements and the phrases she’d underlined and placed them in a pile for Angie to look at. Then she read the autopsy report Angie had brought with her. Positive ID had been obtained via the gold chain recognised by Amy’s mother and further confirmed by the dead girl’s dentist.

  Gemma flicked through the detailed weights and measurements until she came to the summing up. From the skeletonisation of the body, the post-mortem doctor believed that Amy had died very shortly after she’d disappeared. Some of the smallest bones were missing, probably through the action of scavenging animals. There were no visible signs of violence on the bones, the report stated, the only injuries being post-mortem. Rats had chewed through the blade of the left scapular, the tiny crescent-shaped bite marks were clear in the photographs. No obvious signs of violence, Gemma reflected, meant no ante-mortem breaks and none of the linear marks on bones that would indicate penetrating knife wounds. She recalled something one of the scientists had said to her years ago: ‘Absence of evidence doesn’t mean that evidence is absent’, meaning it could just be harder to discern. The green and white nylon cord told an ominous story. Amy had been restrained. Gemma looked closer at the photos of the small length of cord that had been attached to the girl’s right wrist. She spent some time with the tight close-up of the knot but it looked like a common reef knot. Nothing interesting there. She studied the pictures of the patterned vinyl—quarry-tile-type squares in soft terracotta.

  Gemma was putting the report back into its envelope when Angie suddenly appeared, enveloped in a mist of steam, perfume and excitement and looking superb in her glamorous underwear. She slipped a clingy, slinky top over her head before pulling up her skirt and twisting to zip it up.

  ‘What do you think, girlfriend?’ she said, giving Gemma a flirtatious look.

  Gemma smiled. ‘Trevor is a lucky man.’

  Angie plugged in the hair-dryer and dried her new haircut into a glossy curtain.

  ‘We’re meeting for lunch and staying at Graingers at the Rocks. Trev has to leave early in the morning. I’m on call tomorrow but I’m hoping to get some more shopping done. There’s a gorgeous jewellery place down there, not far from the cop shop. Lovely gemstones.’

  ‘Amy’s body just lay there, under a pile of vinyl only a few metres away from a busy highway, for a year.’

  ‘There’s no pedestrian access,’ Angie explained, straightening up and switching the dryer off at the mains. ‘Okay. How does that look?’

  ‘See for yourself,’ said Gemma, indicating the mirror on the wall opposite the dining table. ‘Very, very gorgeous.’

  Angie stood in front of it, patting and fluffing her hair, turning her head from side to side. ‘The piece of land she was found on is part of a Water Board easement. There’s no reason for anyone to ever go there. Unless, of course, they wanted to dump a body. The grass and weeds were almost up to my waist when we went out there.’

  Gemma tapped the envelope containing the post-mortem report. ‘Thanks for this. Any joy with that vinyl or the nylon cord?’

  ‘We’ve sent photos off to all the manufacturers. Should hear back from the makers soon, I hope.’

  ‘And the knot?’

  ‘That’s gone to our knot man,’ Angie said then started laughing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘His name. You’ll never believe it. Mr Colin Roper.’

  ‘Remember Sergeant Basham?’

  Angie laughed again. ‘He bashed ’em all right.’

  ‘Talking of mean bastards,’ Gemma said, ‘I’d really like to know why G-for-Gross was taken off the investigation when Amy first disappeared last year.’

  Angie turned from the mirror. ‘You think he’d say something.’

  ‘You were involved in it at the same time. I thought you’d have noticed his unique presence.’

  ‘That was only after Amy had been missing for months. I got the feeling the case had been neglected because of understaffing. Bruno definitely wasn’t involved by the time I was on it.’

  Angie put the envelope with the post-mortem report back into her briefcase. ‘You said you’d spotted something in the witness statements?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Gemma. ‘Take another look at this.’ She pushed the copies of the witness statements across the table. She’d marked the relevant bits with bright pink highlighter.

  Angie read through them a couple of times. ‘That’s interesting.’ She pushed them back. ‘I’ll let you follow that up. And then you can brief me. I’m flat-strap at the moment trying to push for more resources. We’ve got one lousy computer between the five of us. Julie Cooper and Sean are supposed to be assisting us—when they’ve got the time away from their stuff at Child Protection. We’ve got the use of one car. And Bruno’s supervising. Which means not doing a goddamn thing if he can avoid it. But you can bet he’ll be there as soon as a press conference is called, preening his bloody tail feathers.’ She shot Gemma a cheeky look. ‘I hope he was better in the cot than he is in the job.’

  Gemma grabbed the dryer, switched it on and chased Angie round the room.

  •

  After sending her friend off prepared for an afternoon and night of love, Gemma spent far too much time doing her BAS statement—already overdue—and cursing John Howard and all those who’d believed his claims of ‘simpler tax-paying’.

  Next, she called the number Lauren Bernhard had given her for her first ex-husband. But Amy’s father wasn’t answering so she left a message with her number. Then she called Eric Stokes, Amy Bernhard’s stepfather, who answered straightaway.

  ‘Fathers for Family and Marriage. How can I help you?’

  ‘Eric Stokes?’

  ‘And you are?’

  ‘Gemma Lincoln. I’m an investigator working on behalf of Netherleigh Park for Beatrice de Berigny. I’d like to make an appointment to speak to you about your stepdaughter, Amy.’

  He’d know by now, she thought. But just in case, she hadn’t said ‘late stepdaughter’.

  There was a short silence. ‘I can make time for you tomorrow,’ he said.

  Gemma arranged a time and put the mobile down. It was telling, she thought, that he’d said nothing about his stepdaughter. Nothing at all.

  She took her car into the city, found a spot in a parking station and started the search for her half-sister at the State Library, viewing microfilm. It was a slow, painful business finding the Births, Deaths and Marriages section, then slowly scrolling through them. She found a couple of Chisholms but the mother’s name wasn’t the Kingston she was searching for. And the babies were male. After what felt like hours, she looked up, her neck stiff. She stretched, wishing she had enough money to delegate this boring job to someone else. But she needed Spinner and Mike out on the road if she was going to rebuild her business. She’d have to do a lot more of the boring jobs herself until things picked up.

  She was up to March of the Daily Telegraph’s listings when she looked at her watch again. Around her, people searched or scribbled, heads down, absorbed in their own quests. Maybe this is a wild goose chase, she thought. Maybe Beverley Kingston never advertised the birth. After all, the baby wasn’t ‘legitimate’.

  She walked out onto the steps. It was a glorious late afternoon—a cloudless, pearly sky and the trees of the Botanical Gardens an intense dark
green on black across the road. A couple of very early bats flapped overhead and a sudden wave of fear took her breath away. She took some deep breaths and remembered her trainer’s words about SA, situational awareness. She took stock of the people striding or driving past. None seemed to have the slightest interest in her. Her mobile buzzed and she dug it out, grateful for the distraction. It was Andrew Bernhard, Amy’s father, returning her message.

  ‘I’m in Sydney and free right now,’ he said. They agreed to meet in half an hour in a café near the hotel where Bernhard was staying in the Cross.

  Gemma returned to the Domain parking station, the haunted feeling hastening her steps. As she pulled out in her car, she checked her rear-vision mirror. No white Ford appeared. She drove up to the Cross and found a parking spot near Darlinghurst police station.

  She quickly spotted a man in the café talking on his mobile in the corner seat as Andrew Bernhard. She dawdled outside for a few moments, pretending to examine the cakes in the window while she checked him out. He was a handsome, heavy-built man in his late forties, well-dressed and completely focused on his telephone conversation. Gemma watched a little longer then went inside, heading straight for his table.

  Andrew Bernhard looked up as she approached and almost immediately rang off, half stood and put his hand out. They shook and Gemma sat down, putting her briefcase at her feet. As soon as she’d neared him, his demeanour had changed. Now he was the grieving father. You’re a con man, she thought.

  After offering her condolences, Gemma cut to the chase. ‘Someone told me that Amy ran away to Brisbane. Before she disappeared. What can you tell me about that?’

  He shook his head. ‘That’s not so,’ he said. ‘Amy didn’t ever come to Brisbane.’

  ‘But maybe she contacted you? Told you she was coming? Wanted to show you her modelling portfolio?’

  ‘I’ve already told you,’ he said. ‘She didn’t come to Brisbane. She didn’t contact me. I know nothing about a modelling portfolio.’ He gathered up his mobile. ‘I told my ex-wife I’d talk to you about what Amy was like, that sort of thing. I’m not here to be interrogated by you.’ He rose from his seat. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must go. We have a funeral to organise.’

  Gemma stood with him. ‘Are you saying you weren’t involved in a modelling agency? That there was—is no such agency?’

  ‘You have no authority to ask me anything.’

  ‘Mr Bernhard,’ Gemma said, ‘why do I get the feeling that you’re not committed to any investigation into what happened to your daughter.’

  ‘I don’t have to talk to you,’ he said.

  She passed her card to him. ‘If you think of anything that might cast some light on Amy or her state of mind when she went missing, please ring me.’

  Andrew Bernhard left, leaving her card on the table.

  •

  On her homeward drive in the golden evening light, Gemma took a diversion and found the Bellevue Hill address that Beatrice de Berigny had given her for the family of Tasmin Summers. Behind a four-wheel-drive tank in the driveway, she noticed an unmarked car. So, she thought, detectives were inside.

  She sat in the car for a while, taking in the large white house with timber verandahs facing northeast over Rose Bay and thence out to sea. A formal garden curved down to the stone wall. Proserpine Avenue was definitely a multimillion-dollar address. Was this another family home where huge amounts of money, a father away on military exercises and a mother preoccupied with her work, provided the background for a disappearing daughter? Gemma called Mrs Summers on the number provided by Miss de Berigny, but could only leave a message on voice mail.

  Gemma found herself thinking of Claudia Page and the grand mausoleum in which she and her mother lived. Claudia must be feeling very vulnerable right now. Time to lean on her.

  She rang the Page household. Claudia answered. ‘I’m sitting outside your friend Tasmin’s house,’ Gemma said. ‘It made me think of you. Are you okay?’

  ‘I think so.’ The girl’s voice was strained, tremulous.

  ‘It might be a good idea to stay home for a while. I’m sure Miss de Berigny could ask your class teachers to send home whatever work is required.’

  ‘Mum’s already got me staying home. She reckons I’ll be safer here, too. But I’m going crazy stuck here all day. And Mum’s on my back all the time about practising. It’s all she thinks of.’ A pause. ‘Does anyone know what’s happened to Tasmin yet?’

  ‘Claudia, I’ve seen the witness statement you gave the police. And Tasmin’s. Do you want to change anything you wrote in that?’

  She heard the sharp catch in the girl’s breath. ‘Change what? I don’t know what you mean!’

  ‘Why wasn’t Amy sitting with you and Tasmin that morning?’

  ‘She was. We always sat together.’

  It’s hard to remember a lie told a year ago, Gemma thought, because it’s not located in your recall of past events. Truth, on the other hand, stays available, as part of the sequence in memory.

  ‘In your statement,’ Gemma reminded her, ‘you said you saw Amy sitting at the front of the bus.’

  ‘Did I? Then she must have been.’ The answer was too quick, defensive.

  ‘I’m surprised you forgot that. Seeing it was the last time you were ever to see your friend again.’

  There was silence on the line.

  ‘You all caught the bus at the turnaround stop,’ said Gemma quietly. ‘You always sat together in the seat across the back window. But that morning Amy didn’t sit with you. I want to know why. I want to know why, on the morning of her disappearance, Amy did something different.’

  Again, the long silence, then, ‘Mum’s home. I’ve got to go.’

  Gemma pressed on. ‘I’m going to keep working on those witness statements, Claudia. And the witnesses. I’m determined to get to the truth.’

  There was a click as Claudia rang off. Gemma cursed, angry with herself. She hadn’t handled that very sensitively. Maybe, she thought, if she hadn’t lost her mother so early, she’d be better at this sort of thing. Whatever the case, she needed to find a way to break through the girl’s evasiveness.

  Gemma drove home and went immediately into her office where she checked the spare laptop for the images being transmitted from Mrs Annie Dunlop’s living room. But the program wouldn’t run. She’d done a test run as soon as she got back after Mike had installed the camera and it had been working perfectly. She scribbled a note for Mike to organise a visit to check the installation and the program as soon as possible.

  She flung herself on the lounge and Taxi pounced on her, making bread on her stomach. Briefly, she wished she was a nice normal housewife, doing whatever they did at this time of day. Making school lunches for the next day, watching television. Feeling wilful and guilty, she dialled Steve’s number but went straight through to voice mail. She hung up again. She had no right of appeal. Even if he picked up the phone when she rang, what could she say to him that would change what had happened? Look at yourself, Gemma, he’d said. As if the fight and resulting separation had been somehow all her doing.

  She felt restless and unhappy and couldn’t settle in for the evening, she had no appetite. Somewhere, Angie and Trevor were feeding each other oysters and champagne. Somewhere, Steve was getting on without her. Somewhere, the slender bones of a young girl, her shoulder blade chewed by rats, awaited burial. And somewhere, a young woman of thirty-three or four—with half her genes the same as Gemma’s—was going about her business. She lay back on the lounge. What about her own life? Did she fill it up with other people’s dramas because she didn’t feel enough on her own? Was that what Steve had meant? He’d been offering her himself, wanting to buy a place with her, where they could build a life together.

  Gemma put Taxi gently down on the ground. Her first job was to find out w
hat happened to Amy Bernhard. Now get on with it, she scolded.

  But she couldn’t get on with it. Memories of happy times with Steve would not let her go. She had a bath but that didn’t settle her either. She felt edgy and restless and the crack in her heart, instead of healing over, seemed to be widening. Wrapped in two towels, she went into her bedroom and, flinging open the wardrobe, looked through her clothes, finding herself drawn to a cheeky black skirt and a white scoop-neck spandex singlet edged with black diamantés. She inspected her shoes and decided on black high-heeled sandals with diamanté ankle strap. If she fell off those, she’d need to be medivaced home. She practised walking in them until she found her equilibrium, grabbed her briefcase, pulled out her purse and stashed the credit card in her bedside drawer so that she couldn’t get into too much trouble. She stashed two fifties and her mobile in her little square evening bag. Just about the right size to stow a man’s heart in, she’d joked when she’d bought it.

  Locking up, she went up to the road to her car, admiring the way her legs looked in the diamanté ankle-strapped heels. Damn it, she thought, swinging them into the car and slamming the door, she’d check out Deliverance as well as the talent. Ask a few questions. She was a free woman. A cutting-edge nightclub might be just the thing to mend a single Sydney woman’s broken heart. And she hadn’t forgotten how to party.

  •

  Gemma parked a few streets behind the main drag, wishing she’d brought some flat shoes for the walk up. Most of the businesses around here had closed down, apart from those servicing tourists. She cut through one of the smaller streets swaying gracefully, she hoped, on the impossible heels, passing by the rear entrances of the takeaway places and tourist shops. Finally, she turned into Macleay Street. The doorman outside Deliverance gave her an appraising look and greeted her. It had been ages since Gemma had done anything like this and for a second she regretted it, wishing herself safely and boringly at home with Taxi on her lap. But once inside, the driving rhythm of the DJ’s selections blotted out anything cerebral and she fronted the bar, checking the list of drinks on the wall. The place was packed and she understood what Kosta had been grizzling about.