Gemma ordered something called Liquid Cocaine and watched while the barman poured double vodka, topping it up with white wine and Red Bull. He swirled it all together and put it in front of her, announcing the price as if he was proud of it. When he came back, Gemma surveyed her change from one of the fifties. At this rate, she wouldn’t be drinking too much.
‘This is a great club,’ she gushed. ‘Who owns it?’
The barman shrugged. ‘I just work here,’ he said.
She went to a table in a corner, away from the throng near the bar. Around her, fragments of words and even whole phrases kicked in between the surges of the music. Looking around, she noticed a number of Sydney celebrities—a glamorous newsreader, a famous soap actor and a criminal lawyer among other vaguely familiar faces. She also noticed small packets being pushed across table tops and knew the people involved weren’t playing Pass the Parcel. A tall girl, her sparkling dress looking as if it had been glued onto her, staggered past Gemma’s table, brushing something from under her nose. Gemma felt sure that one or two of the bulky men who were moving round the tables were off-duty cops and wished Angie were with her—she might even know their names.
She finished her drink too quickly. Liquid Cocaine, she discovered, tended to make the drinker feel reckless, especially when taken on an empty stomach. So she went back to the bar and ordered Sex on the Beach. It might be the closest she was going to get to doing the wild thing for some time. The barman mixed an alarming mêlée of peach schnapps, vodka and various fruit juices topped up with champagne. A young man made a half-hearted attempt to pick her up, but very quickly changed the focus of his attention when the girl in the glued-on dress collapsed herself onto his lap.
Later, common sense warned her against the Pink Pussy—vodka, pink champagne and pink lemonade—but by then she was halfway through it. With something like half a bottle of vodka alone, not to mention the other forms of alcohol starting to compromise her system, Gemma knew it was time to leave. She managed to walk quite normally into the night air—warm and gently putrid after the icy air conditioning inside Deliverance. She knew she shouldn’t drive, so rang for a cab. The first available car would be sent, but there was a delay. Gemma waited for what seemed a long time, plenty of cabs driving by, but all engaged. From time to time she had to fend off men who tried it on. She removed her high heels, wishing she could ring Steve to come and pick her up. Then she thought of Mike. He’d bailed her out once before. Feeling a little self-conscious, she called him.
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ve just put my target to bed. Where are you?’
He arrived so quickly that Gemma, thinking an attempt was being made on her honour, stepped back in alarm when a car pulled up at the kerb. Then she saw Mike leaning across the front seat, holding the door open.
‘Am I glad to see you,’ she said and scrambled in, holding the diamanté sandals, her legs feeling far less reliable than the pair she’d been using when she left her place. ‘These damn things were killing me.’ She sank back gratefully. ‘My cab hasn’t showed and it’s been ages.’ She realised she was quite affected by alcohol and regretted not eating earlier.
He looked her up and down. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I thought it was a good idea to check this place out. It’s a dealer’s paradise in there.’
Gemma settled back and watched Kings Cross going about its business before they headed down the hill to Rushcutters Bay. She was intensely aware of Mike’s presence, even his scent, which was a comforting mixture of clean male and some other spice. Thinking dreamily how nice it was to be driven home safely like this, it was a jolt when the car stopped and she realised Mike was pulling up outside her place. The evening was still warm and as he switched the ignition off, the tune on the radio, inaudible till then, suddenly came into focus.
‘Oh, I love this song,’ she said, leaning forward to turn it up. Mike moved to do the same and they collided, then apologised together. This made her laugh. ‘I know, it’s only rock ’n’ roll,’ screamed the singer. ‘But I like it,’ Gemma and Mike sang together. Gemma grinned. Bugger the neighbours. She felt about seventeen as they belted out the song together. And when Mike leaned over and gently kissed her, she experienced only a second of indecision before kissing him back, hard and hot, winding her arms around him, dislodging herself from her seat, moving over against him, trying to negotiate the gear stick. Everything went hot, hard and fast. Mike scooped her up and started pushing her dress away from her knees, running his hand along her thigh. Gemma was dimly aware of ‘Wild Horses’ as she lost herself in the kiss. Finally she broke away, panting. ‘I’d better go.’
But despite her intentions, she remained, staring at him, as if seeing him for the very first time, unsure of this exciting stranger she’d discovered wearing the body of a colleague. She couldn’t leave the car, she couldn’t do anything except kiss him again, this time more desperately. Her blood crashed loud and hot in her ears. Through the heat and the vodka, Gemma heard a tiny voice say, ‘Stop this now and say goodnight. You can put it down to the Liquid Cocaine and Pink Pussies. All you’ll have to do is apologise in the morning.’ But another, more urgent voice was saying, ‘Do it, do it now! In the car, like kids! It will be so good!’
She couldn’t remember feeling this degree of desire for ages. She pressed against Mike’s strong body, yearning to get closer, her hand closed over his crotch, cupping his penis. Heat haze and Mike’s mouth close to her ear.
‘Come on, Gemma. Not here,’ he said.
But she wilfully struggled for his belt. ‘I want to liberate you.’ She thought that was very funny. ‘But I can’t find your buckle.’
She tried swinging herself over to get on top of him. But she bumped her knee into the steering wheel, the other grazing painfully against the clasp of her evening bag, forcing it open, spilling the mobile and coins over the passenger seat.
He indicated the flat but she was too fired up. ‘No, let’s do it here,’ she breathed into his ear. Again, she swivelled on her right knee, struggling to get her left leg over to straddle him. But there was something unyielding under her right knee as she moved. Damn it, she thought. If it was the evening bag, she’d break the bloody thing, although right now she hardly cared. She moved her knee off it and stopped worrying about whether or not she might be breaking anything because now she was in position, kneeling over Mike, with only the fabric of her knickers and his jeans between them. Finally, she unzipped him and his cock sprang out to meet her.
‘I can’t wait!’ she said. ‘I want you inside me.’ She pulled her knickers out of the way and started to lower herself onto him. At the same time, Mike began to press himself home. Words formed in her head of how good this felt but she was past speaking them. The softness of his kiss contrasted with the hardness of his erection. Gemma gasped, thinking she might die of pleasure. Through her rising excitement came another sound. A voice. A very familiar voice.
‘Gemma? Gemma?’ Gemma froze. It was Steve.
‘Shit!’ Mike hissed. ‘He’s on the bloody phone!’
Gemma’s desire and Mike’s cock fell away.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Steve’s disembodied voice. ‘Did you call me just so I could hear you screwing another man?’
She scrambled off Mike, almost kneeing him in the face, adjusting her clothing, struggling to find the mobile.
‘Steve? I didn’t mean to ring. I must have pressed your number by accident.’
The effects of the drinks evaporated. Now Gemma’s mind was horribly focused. Steve was on the phone and he’d heard everything since she’d knelt on her mobile. Beside her, Mike zipped himself up, rebuckled his belt.
‘It’s not like that,’ she said, feeling honest because now it certainly wasn’t like that. ‘It’s just Mike here with me. We’re back from a job. We were having a chat and I must have pressed your number by mist
ake.’
She heard him click off before she’d finished and she switched the mobile off. Clutching it, she swore, leaning forward. She felt the biggest fool in the world. She’d practically tried to ravish Mike, and meanwhile God knows how long Steve had been on the line. This was the worst thing to have happened. Beside her, Mike stared straight ahead. She’d insulted him as well, belittled him with her dishonesty. He’d heard her make him part of a pathetic, cowardly lie.
‘I’d better go,’ she said, wishing she’d done so about six minutes ago.
‘Yes.’ He still didn’t look at her. ‘I think that’s the best idea.’
Gemma got out of the car on legs that would barely hold her up, clutching her evening bag and the sandals. She felt nauseous. All the vodka sloshed together in the pit of her stomach and drained down into her shaky legs. Suddenly the diamanté sandals seemed pitiful and ridiculous.
Managing to get down the steps and through the front garden, Gemma grabbed at the mail on autopilot. She heard Mike’s car pull away as the outside light came on and she fumbled her door open. Staggering in, she dumped the letters and the sandals on the hall table.
‘God,’ she said out loud, falling on the blue leather lounge. ‘That was so pathetic!’ How could she make what had just happened somehow unhappen? She didn’t know what part of it was worse: her attempt on Mike or the fact that Steve had heard her practically having sex with another man.
Taxi clicked across the floorboards and jumped on her stomach, settling down in a ball. His warm weight was a comfort once the nausea eased. She stayed there for a while, nursing her misery. Despite the amount of alcohol in her system, sleep was out of the question. Soon, probably tomorrow or the next day, she would have to face Mike again. How could she have hurt both him and Steve in one fell swoop?
Gemma bowed over and hung her head between her knees before rallying and making some Milo, then sat staring sightlessly at an English comedy. Eventually, she took half a Mogadon and went to bed.
Seven
The ringing of her mobile dragged Gemma out of bottomless sleep. She made a few lunges for it, pushing Taxi out of the way.
‘Hullo?’ She struggled to wake up through the storm of a splitting headache and the full awfulness of last night’s memories. The front seat of Mike’s car. Steve on her mobile. She flinched again and not only because the woman on the line was screaming in her ear.
‘You were supposed to help me! He’s just been here! Where were you? You went through the house with me! I paid you! You were supposed to stop him!’
Gemma sat up in bed. It was actually a relief to have an angry client to deal with. It kept her mind off the cringing embarrassment that welled up and spilled over whenever she thought of last night. ‘Mrs Reynolds, Daria. Please calm down.’ She glanced at her watch. It wasn’t yet five in the morning and the east was lightening in a streak above the sea. ‘I’ll contact my operative and see what he’s got on video.’
‘I don’t need video! I need you to be there! You were supposed to stop this from ever happening again!’
‘Daria, listen to me. Our brief was to get evidence of your ex-husband getting into your house. My operative wasn’t instructed to act against him. He can’t do that. We have to be very careful about that sort of thing. The police—’
‘The police! They’re useless and so are you! I thought you were the right person, but you failed me!’
This was going nowhere. As decently as she could, Gemma said goodbye and rang off. The phone immediately rang again and she switched it over to voice mail. She threw herself back on the bed. What was the woman going on about? The right person indeed. The right idiot, thought Gemma, reliving last night’s atrocious embarrassment. How different it all looked in the clean white light of early morning without a belly full of booze. There was no way back to sleep—her mind was racing with regret and frustration. It was only 5 a.m. and she couldn’t deal with this without strong coffee and a shower. Her head throbbing, she made up a cocktail of vitamins and aspirin, swallowing it down with water and fighting a gag reflex for a few seconds after.
By the time she’d come out from the shower with clean hair, a glowing body and coffee aroma filling the air, the sun was shining radiant gold light over a brilliant blue ocean. She poured herself a coffee and went down the hall to her office. She was going to have to contact Mike, she knew. Apologise. But there was nothing she could do about Steve. The pain in her heart wasn’t the sort that analgesics could touch.
Once she had some of her brain cells firing, she radioed Spinner. ‘Base here, Tracker Three. Copy, please.’
Spinner’s radio crackled into life. ‘Copy, Boss.’
‘I’ve just fielded a hysterical phone call from Daria Reynolds,’ Gemma said. ‘I’m surprised you couldn’t hear it from where you are. Which is?’
‘Across the road from her place. I saw the lights go on half an hour ago.’
‘That’s about when she was abusing me! Yelling at me that her ex got in again.’
There was silence on the radio, just the occasional crackling of the frequency and the distant distortions of other voices as an aircraft flew in, breaking the curfew.
‘What? No one came near the place,’ said Spinner. ‘I’ve been here since about nine last night. I can tell you everything that moved in this street since.’
‘That’s not what she’s saying. You should’ve heard her.’
‘The woman’s a nutter. Probably got the horrors. All those idols in the house. Think about it—how the hell could anyone get in? She’s got technical surveillance everywhere and me sitting out here wasting my life as well. She’s got more money than sense.’
‘You sure you didn’t doze? It’s easy enough to do.’ Any surveillance operative knew that a moment’s inattention could be the moment the target moves. And usually was. Even an ace worker like Spinner might have had a lapse from pristine vigilance. There’s a first time for everything, Gemma thought.
‘I did not doze.’ Spinner’s voice sounded hurt. ‘And even if I did, which I bloody didn’t, those external cameras are movement-activated. They automatically film anything that moves and I’m alerted via the laptop. And all the cameras are live.’
‘Okay, okay,’ said Gemma.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘if it’ll relieve your mind, I’ll review everything captured on the memory and ring back. Okay?’
‘Okay.’
She called off and went back to the living room, sprawling on the blue leather armchair. Taxi had clawed holes all up one side, so that it looked like a sieve. He didn’t care that she’d paid over three thousand dollars for it and the matching lounge. To him, it was just a top scratching post. She checked the message on her voice mail. It was more of the same from Daria Reynolds. The way she phrased her complaints made the event sound like Gemma’s fault. As if she didn’t feel bad enough already. It was definitely past time to talk to Diane Hayworth at Waverley police, Gemma decided, the officer whose card she’d seen at Daria’s place.
Gemma did a couple of hours in her office, clearing email, sorting and finalising several accounts. She neatly bound the surveillance reports that she or Mike or Spinner had done together with any video evidence ready to be given to the clients, along with the bill. She totalled up what she could expect in the next few weeks and it wasn’t as much as she’d hoped. The thought of approaching the bank again made her heart sink. She reviewed her job sheet. There was plenty to be getting on with and no time to waste, she told herself sternly. She cleared her desk, cleared her throat and rang Waverley police station, asking to speak to Diane Hayworth. She wanted to gather as much intelligence as she could on Daria Reynolds and her ex.
‘She’ll be in later. Can I take a message?’ came the reply.
Gemma said who she was, and asked if Diane Hayworth could ring her as soon as convenient and glanced at her watch.
Heading down the hall to see whether any of the mail she’d dumped on the table last night contained cheques, she picked up the diamanté sandals as well, stopping when she heard a sound. Someone was moving around in the top apartment. Gemma went outside and looked up. The For Lease sign was no longer there. Please don’t let it be Mike, she thought, clutching the sandals and feeling sick. She couldn’t bear that. But surely he’d have mentioned it again if he were about to move in?
Back inside, Gemma glanced at her desk diary and realised she had a couple of hours to fill before her meeting with Eric Stokes, president of Fathers for Family and Marriage. She retrieved her car, reparked it closer to the city then caught the bus into the State Library, continuing her search through the microfilm stocks of old newspapers.
After an hour of useless searching, her mobile rang and, aware of the disapproving glances around her, she hastily gathered up her belongings and took the call out to the foyer.
‘We’ve got to talk about last night, Gemma,’ said Mike, taking the initiative. She should have rung first, Gemma realised. Now she’d have to cop this one sweet.
‘Mike,’ she started, ‘I was completely out of order. I’d had three cocktails in a very short time. I’m not making excuses, just letting you know the reason for my behaviour. I’m really sorry that I made such a fool of myself. And that I did it with you, of all people. A valued workmate.’ Feeling the blood burning in her cheeks and her heart pounding in her ears, she glanced around the foyer, sure that everyone was listening to her.
‘It wasn’t all you,’ he said. ‘I made the first move. And I was a willing party from there. I should have escorted you to the door and said goodnight. Not sat in the car with you, singing old songs.’
‘It’s not the singing old songs that worries me.’
Spiking the Girl Page 12
