Spiking the Girl

by Lord, Gabrielle

  ‘Please,’ Gemma begged. ‘I can understand that you’d be reluctant to revisit those memories—’

  But it was as if she no longer existed. Sandra Samuels had turned her back and hurried away, almost breaking into a run. Gemma heard a door slam. Interview terminated. She picked up her business card and took it over to the table where the youth was still lost in his book, leaving it propped up against the vase of roses.

  Slowly, she walked back to where Mike waited in the car. He saw her face as she slid in beside him. She shook her head.

  •

  Back in her office, Gemma tried ringing Mr Dowling to discuss hiring the services of an outside undercover operator but he wasn’t answering his phone.

  She gathered up the folder in which she’d put the expenses incurred so far by Daria Reynolds, plus the summaries and charges for the long hours spent watching the Reynolds’s house for a phantom who never came, and went outside to her car. At the top of the steps leading up to the roadway, she turned and saw the new tenant had finally put up plain white curtains. She hoped they meant the tenant would be a plain, quiet soul.

  She climbed into her car and rang Angie. ‘Any news yet on Claudia?’

  ‘Negative,’ Angie said. ‘But Francie rang me to say they’d found a pile of polystyrene boxes near where all those bone fragments and teeth turned up. That’s news.’

  The curious case of the multiple remains didn’t interest Gemma right now. ‘All I can think of is Claudia Page,’ she said.

  ‘Today’s papers are already on the case,’ said Angie. ‘Listen to this front page: Murder College: Third girl vanishes! And the Herald is almost as hysterical. Police always too late says neighbour.’ Gemma could hear newspapers rustling at the other end of the line. ‘And guess what?’ Angie continued. ‘The principal of Netherleigh Park Ladies’ College has resigned.’

  Was it because of the disgrace, Gemma wondered, or was Beatrice de Berigny on the run because the truth was slowly revealing itself?

  ‘We’re going to talk to the Wilcox boy’s family,’ Angie said. ‘They might have some idea where he and Claudia have got to.’

  ‘That’s if they went somewhere voluntarily,’ said Gemma.

  ‘I’m still waiting on toxicology and other results on Tasmin Summers,’ Angie sighed. ‘Anything comes up you should know, I’ll call you.’

  Gemma drove to Daria Reynolds’s house and parked outside. She swung her briefcase with the account in it over from the back seat and got out of the car, went up the path and banged on the door. She sniffed. Something was different—no incense. She knocked again and could hear it echoing through the house. As she peered through the front window, Gemma could sense that the place was uninhabited. A voice interrupted her investigation.

  ‘No use knocking on that door, love. She’s gone.’

  Gemma swung round. A woman in next-door’s front garden pushed hair out of her face with a gloved hand. A wheelbarrow piled with trimmings from camellia bushes stood nearby.

  ‘She hasn’t been around for a couple of days.’ The woman picked up a pair of secateurs and continued with her snipping. ‘Does she owe you money too? There were debt collectors round earlier.’

  ‘Do you know where she’s gone?’

  The woman shook her head. ‘She never spoke to me.’

  Damn and blast, thought Gemma. She went down the side of the house and looked in through a side window. The place was bare. All the saints, statues and candles gone.

  Even though she felt it was hopeless, she shoved her account under the front door. Now she’d have to do more work tracing a missing person if she wanted to be paid. And even then there’d be no guarantees. Her instincts had been right all along. The woman was a nutter.

  Gemma hurried back to the car and drove to the Cross considering her position. Now that Miss de Berigny had resigned, did that mean Gemma was no longer required by the school as an investigator? She recalled the tally of hours she’d kept on this investigation. Netherleigh Park owed her a substantial amount of money even if they paid her off right now.

  She dialled Miss de Berigny’s number again, leaving a message asking her to return the call as soon as possible. She stowed the mobile feeling miserable. Business was not going well. She’d taken on a case that made no sense and now Daria Reynolds had skipped without paying. And she might be just about to lose the Netherleigh Park contract. Even so, she knew she would never be off this case until those responsible for the deaths of the girls were brought to justice. She needed to find out all she could about Eddie and the sleazebag, Vernon, who’d interviewed Claudia.

  She narrowly avoided a car that cut in too close, leaning on the horn to advise him of his bad manners. He gave her the finger. She decided to ignore it and turned her attention to the traffic again.

  Gemma parked near Kellett Street and walked down to Baroque Occasions. Beyond the open door, a new minder, long and thin and looking as if a gust of wind would blow him over, lounged in an armchair in the front room, half-dozing in front of a small screen showing a porn flick.

  ‘Naomi in?’ she asked.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Girlfriend. Who are you?’

  He pointed upstairs, giving Gemma an appraising look. She climbed the stairs, calling out, and found Naomi in the bathroom.

  ‘Come in, Gemma,’ said Naomi. ‘I heard you from downstairs. I’m having a lovely soak—a break between the mugs.’

  Naomi, hair tied up in a gold lamé turban she’d inherited from her mother, lay back in the suds of a bubble bath, painted toenails showing through at the opposite end of the bath. ‘Schwarzenegger down there is supposed to be keeping cocky.’

  ‘He doesn’t inspire much confidence,’ Gemma replied. ‘Even I’d beat him in a fight.’

  ‘You’d beat most people in a fight,’ said Naomi. ‘Sit down. You look awful. What’s up?’

  Gemma sat on the toilet lid. ‘A heap of things. Overworked, underpaid.’ She thought of Claudia. ‘I’ve let someone down. She might be in terrible danger because I wasn’t vigilant.’

  ‘You can’t save everyone, Gemma. Steve should look after you better,’ said Naomi.

  Gemma put her head in her hands. ‘There’s no Steve anymore, Naomi. We’re finished.’

  As she said this, a wave of grief rolled over her and she let it have its way for a few seconds, covering her face with her hand, sobbing.

  ‘Men,’ said Naomi. She wrung out the washer and passed it to Gemma who wiped her eyes.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said. It was hard to remember that Naomi was only a few years older than the Ratbag. She was decades older in experience. ‘I sometimes wonder if I’m ready for a grown-up relationship. I just couldn’t stop punishing him for being unfaithful.’ She still couldn’t bear to recall the scene with Lorraine Litchfield and the Colt M1911—her terror, Lorraine Litchfield’s triumph. ‘It was part of his work, his script. And when I strayed, he just forgave me.’

  Naomi shrugged. ‘We’ve got to get over that stuff,’ she said, sitting up in the bath. ‘You straight girls don’t look after your men. You keep pushing them around, trying to make them different. Us workers, we take men the way we find them.’

  Gemma listened. The people skills of a modern courtesan were not to be sneezed at.

  ‘Tell him he’s wonderful, that he’s got a big cock, that he’s the best in the world.’ Naomi paused in her soaping. ‘And you know something Mum used to say? If you love a man, all of that’s true anyway.’

  Shelly, thought Gemma. Where were you when I needed you?

  ‘But you didn’t come here to talk about men with me,’ said Naomi.

  ‘Couple of things,’ said Gemma, reaching for a box of tissues and blowing her nose. ‘Can you keep an eye out for young Hugo? He seems to have gone back out there.’

  ‘T
he Ratbag? Sure. What else?’

  ‘A young couple.’ Gemma described Claudia Page and Damien Wilcox. ‘I’m hoping they’ve gone underground.’

  ‘But if they haven’t?’

  ‘They could be in real shit.’ Gemma thought of Claudia and her fears. I’m the last one, she’d said.

  ‘I’ll ask around,’ said Naomi. ‘The street girls know what’s going on out there.’

  Gemma leaned forward and tucked the tissue into the toilet. ‘Thanks. I’d do it myself, but I want to stay out of sight.’

  Naomi subsided under her covering of bubbles again and Gemma thought of the man whose name had come up twice—with Hugo and also with Claudia. ‘Have you heard of someone called Eddie?’

  ‘The guy who works at Deliverance? I was there last night with my girlfriend. Eddie’s built like a tank.’

  ‘That sounds like him,’ said Gemma. ‘What do you know about him?’

  Naomi shrugged, pink nipples moving in the soapsuds. ‘He’s just a heavy who works there. King of the bouncers.’

  ‘Maybe Kosta might know more?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘He’s got problems of his own,’ said Naomi.

  ‘Business going bad?’ Gemma handed Naomi the washer from the end of the bath that she’d been trying to pick up with clenched toes.

  ‘Worse than that. There’ve been break-ins at Indigo Ice, damage done to the building. He reckons it’s the people from Deliverance. Reckons they’re trying to put him out of business.’ She washed her neck and ears.

  ‘Kosta has always been a bit of a misery guts though,’ Gemma said. ‘Always paranoid.’

  ‘Maybe he’s got a reason this time.’ Naomi used her toes more successfully this time to add hot water. ‘Deliverance is the only place doing all right at the moment, if you believe what everyone’s saying. Most of the businesses reckon they’re struggling. Deliverance is a dealers’ paradise. It’s always full of celebs too. Stacks of coke get moved there.’

  Gemma remembered the stoned girl with the glued-on glitter dress who’d staggered past her the night she’d visited the club.

  ‘Very discreet,’ Naomi was saying. ‘All done on mobiles. A punter moves his money electronically into the dealer’s account. The dealer checks his account and then sends a delivery boy round. And there’s never any trouble. The bouncers are very professional. Slightest hint of trouble and out you go.’ Naomi washed an elegant foot, splendid with scarlet nails. ‘Which reminds me. Remember those two regular mugs I was grizzling about losing? The one who fucked and the one who watched?’

  The guys with the sports trophies, Gemma remembered. ‘Don’t tell me they’ve come back to the fold?’

  ‘Last night me and Rob took the night off.’ Naomi washed the other foot and squeezed out the washer, delicately wiping the skin under her eyes, removing mascara. Under the glitzy golden turban her face shone like the kid she was. ‘We try doing that every week if we can manage it. Go out, get a meal. Go dancing. Go to the flicks. Sometimes together, sometimes with a boyfriend. And like I said, last night we went to Deliverance.’

  Gemma leaned forward, listening intently.

  ‘I was on my way to the Ladies,’ Naomi continued, ‘a little worse for wear I have to say, and I opened a couple of doors before I got the right one. Behind the second door—what a surprise. There’s one of them—the watcher—sitting up in the office behind this big desk like Jacky. No wonder I haven’t had any outcalls to him in ages. If he’s working at that place, he gets all the free pussy he can handle. And so would his big mate.’

  She lay back in the suds, ten painted toes in a line along the end of the bath. ‘He’s put on a lot of weight. I don’t remember him being that fat when he was watching me doing the business with his mate. And then, just as I was backing out, up behind me comes the other one! He didn’t notice me. And he was all over this kid. I mean really. She couldn’t have been more than fourteen. And he said, “Vernon, look what I’ve got.”’

  ‘Vernon? He called the fat man Vernon?’ Another connection jumped a gap and sparked.

  ‘What are you so excited about?’

  ‘Can you describe the girl?’

  ‘She’s a new girl. Only been working round here a few weeks. Very thin. A user. I feel sorry for her, really. She’s not going to last much longer. She could hardly stand up that night.’

  ‘Someone called Vernon has been mentioned in a case I’m working on, Naomi.’ A real sleaze, Claudia had said. ‘So Vernon was one of the guys you told me about earlier—the ritzy house with the GPS trophies?’

  Naomi shook her golden turban. She lathered up her legs, prior to shaving. ‘I’m sure it was GBS. That mean anything?’

  ‘George Bernard Shaw? Gilbert and Sullivan? Grievous bodily something?’ Gemma ran out of ideas.

  ‘But I haven’t told you the really interesting thing,’ said Naomi, pulling the washer over her face. ‘The guy with the little worker didn’t recognise me. The mugs never do when they meet us socially. And I’m just one among hundreds, probably. But I sure recognised him.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Gemma.

  ‘Now that his face has been all over the news,’ Naomi said. ‘It was that footie legend. The one who’s suing the woman. Scott Brissett.’

  •

  Back home after a smoked salmon sandwich, Gemma left a message for Angie, passing on the gist of her conversation with Naomi, then wrote up her notes. That done, she went into the operatives’ office and from the hanging space where Spinner kept his working wardrobe chose a Lightning Couriers black and lime-green lycra outfit. She checked the velcroed back pocket and found a Lightning Couriers receipt pad and Spinner’s fake ID card which she jettisoned. Digging through a box of bits and pieces in the corner she found a spare video cassette. After she’d stuck a label down the spine she paused for a second to think, then scribbled a title in black pen, wrapped the cassette in bubble-wrap, changed into the form-fitting outfit and, with the package, drove back to the Cross, having remembered to throw Spinner’s bike helmet into the backseat.

  Twenty minutes later, with the helmet in place and feeling strange in the hot clingy outfit, Gemma presented herself at the front entrance of Deliverance. One side of the black double doors was open and she slipped in, getting her bearings while her eyes adjusted to the dim light.

  The security wouldn’t be far away, she thought, and there’d be a camera watching her every move. It was only a matter of time before her presence was discovered. With the packaged cassette ready in her hand, Gemma hurried along. Turning a corner she noticed the Ladies sign at the far end of the hall. Naomi had mentioned opening a wrong door on the way to the toilets the other night, Gemma recalled.

  The first door on her left, marked ‘Private: Do not enter’, was locked. Too early for the management to be here, she thought. That must be the room Vernon was sitting in. She moved to the next door and found it standing slightly ajar. She felt around for a light switch in the windowless, airless environment. As her fingers groped, the light suddenly came on and she jumped back, startled.

  ‘Who are you? What do you want?’

  Someone was already in here. Gemma blinked, momentarily blinded by the brilliance of the chandelier in the centre of the room. A big Polynesian with bleached blond hair and a white shirt that stretched across his chest for a metre or so, blocked her way, chewing gum and gazing down at her from a great height, exuding a strange mix of peppermint and body odour.

  ‘Lightning Couriers,’ she said with a smile, tilting her bicycle helmet back a little and waving the package. ‘Got a delivery here for Scott Brissett. He’ll need to sign for it.’ She whipped the receipt pad and a pen out of her back pocket then thrust the cassette and the paperwork in his direction.

  The big man took the package and ripped the bubble-wrap off, checking the cassette. Gemma peered around his b
ulk and saw a huge bed covered in black satin and fake bearskin rugs, lit by the glittering jet and black diamonds of the central chandelier.

  ‘I’ll sign for this,’ he said, inclining his bleached head. He scribbled something on her receipt pad and shoved it at her. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘You can go now.’

  ‘You’ll make sure Mr Brissett gets it?’ she asked. ‘I was hoping he’d sign in person. He does come here a fair bit, doesn’t he?’

  ‘I think you’d better go now,’ he said, switching off the light and closing the door.

  Gemma hurried back outside, aware of the big Polynesian following her to the main entrance doors. Her failure to connect with Scott Brissett was compensated for by what she’d seen. The room featured in the video streaming teaser—the Black Diamond Room. Angie could get a warrant and raid the place, she thought. Maybe they’d find the necessary physical evidence to link that room with Amy Bernhard. She left another message for Angie on the drive back.

  She couldn’t wait to get the hot lycra suit off and was almost home when her mobile rang. ‘Angie?’ she started as she answered. But there was a long silence. ‘Hullo?’ she said again. She started to wonder if it was a prank call. Then felt a clutch of fear.

  ‘It’s Sandra Samuels,’ said the caller and Gemma relaxed. ‘I’ve thought about what you said.’ There was another long silence. ‘And I know that the time has come for me to do something about the men who raped me. Especially now.’

  Gemma felt a surge of relief and gratitude. ‘Thank you so much for changing your mind. I’m not all that far away.’ In the excitement of having Sandra call, she forgot the tightness of the bike outfit. ‘I can be back at the refuge really quickly.’

  ‘No need,’ said Sandra. ‘I’ve got a part-time job at Coogee. I can call in at your place on the way. I’ve got your card here. See you in a little while?’

  Finally, Gemma felt she was getting somewhere. She tried ringing Angie again but went through to voice mail. She didn’t leave another message; just rang off, praying that Claudia was safe.