Spiking the Girl

by Lord, Gabrielle

  ‘Could it have been bitten?’ Gemma asked.

  Nicole carefully bagged and labelled the green and white Vectran cord. ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Mr Roper will give it the once-over.’ A systematic search of the rest of the debris from the shark’s belly had failed to turn up anything else of interest. ‘Looks like the belt was used to weigh something down,’ said Nicole. ‘Maybe that dog’s corpse?’

  With these words, an idea flashed into Gemma’s mind. ‘Ring Dr Chang,’ she suggested. ‘Ask her if those post-mortem injuries on Tasmin’s wrist could have been made by the drag of a heavy object.’

  Angie pulled out her phone. ‘You’re thinking the shark went for the wrong end of the rope?’

  ‘Imagine it,’ said Gemma. ‘There’s this nice body drifting down through the depths, with a diver’s belt for weight, and the white pointer snaps the line in half but swallows the wrong end.’

  ‘They don’t have good eyesight,’ said the marine biologist.

  ‘And huge forces tug as the shark bites down on the cord, causing those injuries on the dead girl’s wrist.’

  For a moment, this new information seemed like a breakthrough. But then Gemma thought of all the places along the coast from where a body could be disposed. All it needed was a dark night, and over the cliff or off the bridge with the body and the diver’s belt.

  ‘We really haven’t learned anything new,’ said Angie. ‘Except for a plausible explanation of that post-mortem tear in Tasmin’s wrist. The Australian Oceanographic Data Centre supplied an assessment of conditions for the period Tasmin was missing,’ she added, ‘and the best they could offer was that she could have been put in the water anywhere between Port Jackson and Botany Bay.’

  ‘Any result on the positive semen swabs?’

  ‘We have to wait till the lab lets us know.’

  ‘I am so over men,’ said Angie on the drive back. ‘The only thing that’s keeping me going is what’s going to happen to that bastard, Trevor Dawson, at Graingers. If it all goes according to plan, he’ll be stripped down and just about to get stuck into it when Mrs Trevor,’ she threw a glance at Gemma, ‘for whom, by the way, I have nothing but sympathy, walks in.’

  ‘I’d give anything to be a fly on the wall.’

  ‘It’s not going to be pretty.’ She checked the rear-vision mirror. ‘Melissa Grey told me Mrs Trevor shot her first husband eight years ago. She was never even charged. Claimed it was an accident.’

  ‘Maybe it was,’ said Gemma.

  Angie snorted. ‘Melissa said the investigating team found a target in her basement with his photograph and nine beautifully grouped head shots.’

  ‘Sounds like cops’ gossip to me.’

  ‘Deadset it’s true.’

  ‘You’re a devil woman, Angie.’

  ‘Only when I’m treated bad. Basically I’m just a sweet country girl.’

  ‘You can take the girl out of the country,’ Gemma started quoting.

  ‘Right. But you can’t take the—’

  Their old two-hander was interrupted by Angie’s phone. She plugged in her earpiece, grunted and then rang off.

  ‘That was Julie,’ she said. ‘They’ve been given a couple of extra people. She and Sean are going through ASIC files—trying to get names for the owners of Deliverance. The sleeping partner.’

  ‘What do we do next?’ Gemma repeated her unanswered question from the coffee lounge.

  ‘The usual doorknocks, talk to our integrated corporate resources. Keep on the track of that sleeping partner, the ex-bodyguard Eddie, anything they might know about the club. And once I have something official to go on, once Sandra Samuels talks to me, I’ll go and have a chat with the footie legend. Once we’ve done that,’ she continued, ‘we sit and wait. That’s always the hardest time of an investigation.’

  Gemma knew what she meant.

  ‘Do you think Claudia is still alive?’

  Angie didn’t answer.

  •

  Next morning Gemma checked in with Angie but there was still no news on Claudia Page. ‘I slept in here surrounded by VMO files,’ said Angie. ‘No wonder I had nightmares. If I was the boss and I had the resources,’ she went on, ‘I’d get Deliverance put on around-the-clock surveillance.’

  ‘If the public and the press make enough fuss you just might get them. They’ve already put extra people on the ASIC search,’ she said, remembering Julie’s call. ‘When Spinner gets back from the country,’ she continued, ‘the three of us here could manage a bit of surveillance. Build up some mosaic intelligence.’

  ‘You’ve got your own business to consider,’ said Angie. ‘You can’t afford to take time off that.’

  ‘I feel responsible. Claudia went missing while I was talking to her,’ said Gemma, feeling helpless.

  Angie yawned. ‘Your friend Sandra Samuels still hasn’t contacted me.’

  ‘She will,’ said Gemma, and rang off.

  She opened her emails, hoping against hope that there was something from Claudia. There wasn’t. As she logged off, the radio came to life. It was Spinner, on his way home.

  ‘Spinner! Base here. Good to hear from you. How’s it all going?’

  ‘I’ve got some information about Mr Romero that I know will interest you. Not to mention some pretty interesting video footage of the man whose sex life is finished.’

  ‘What’s the information on Romero?’ She couldn’t have cared less about Mr Pepper just then.

  ‘I got the name of someone who’d been a student at Bathurst High during Romero’s last year there and pretended I was his brother. I heard the same thing from three different people. About Mr Romero.’

  Gemma pulled out the Romero file and grabbed a pen. ‘Okay. Go.’

  ‘Mr Romero didn’t leave the public system because of the workload. He left Bathurst High because of an inappropriate relationship with an under-age student.’ Spinner paused. ‘In fact, they ran away together.’

  Gotcha! thought Gemma. ‘You’re sure of this?’

  ‘You bet. There’s no doubt at all. One of the people I spoke to was on the staff at the same time. He’s going to look up the records and get back to me with the girl’s name. She was only fourteen.’

  ‘Spinner, you really are my ace roadie.’

  ‘Just doing my job, Boss,’ he replied, but Gemma could hear he was pleased. ‘I should be there in an hour or so.’

  The TV technician arrived to sort out the poor reception on the Sky channels. Gemma trusted him from his earlier visits and left him to it, going back into her office to try to call Beatrice de Berigny. Again, all she heard was the cool voice mail instructions. She rang the school office. Miss de Berigny was temporarily out of town, and out of touch, she was told. The secretary promised to pass on Gemma’s message if and when the former principal phoned the college. Apart from that, she said regretfully, there was little she could do.

  When Gemma went through to the kichen to make a snack, the technician was running through the channels, tuning them. ‘I’ve got them all looking good except one,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure why there’s a problem with it. Are you transmitting anything around here?’

  Gemma shook her head.

  ‘There’s some sort of interference happening. I’ll have to come back later with some gear and try and track it down.’

  •

  Although Gemma felt she was now getting somewhere with two of her cases, it was still hard to settle to work. The memory of Claudia in that mausoleum of a house, the girl’s guilt and shame about the way she’d covered up her friends’ disappearances and her helplessness to make it all better, had touched Gemma deeply. She went over and over the last few minutes with Claudia, desperate for a clue. Damn it. She should have been sharper.

  Her desk phone rang and she picked it up. Sandr
a Samuels.

  ‘I got the job,’ said Sandra. ‘Receptionist handling cremains and grieving relatives. In fact, I’m working here now. There’s quite a backlog of paperwork so I won’t talk for long. Mr Gardiner was knocked out by my references.’

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Gemma. She gave Sandra Mike’s name and number. ‘Someone else on my payroll,’ she explained. ‘If anything comes up and you need back-up or a helping hand and you can’t raise me, ring Mike.’ Sandra said she would.

  ‘You still feel okay about having a look around that place?’

  ‘Gemma,’ Sandra said, ‘I’m really grateful to you. Not just for taking what happened to me seriously, but for everything you’re doing. I’m happy to help out. Makes me feel like I’m joining the human race again. I’ve been in hiding for too long in refuges—one way or another.’

  ‘Don’t forget to call Angie McDonald,’ Gemma reminded her.

  When Sandra rang off, Gemma considered the way the gang of men had organised their attack, using the handsome, outwardly courteous youth as bait to catch their prey. Then, once they’d caught her, they all converged on the wasteland, like hounds tearing apart the quarry.

  She glanced out the window and saw Spinner coming down the steps from the road. Gemma opened the front door for her much-valued colleague. ‘Welcome back,’ she said as he came into the operatives’ office and threw down his overnight bag. He slung his computer bag onto the desk looking slightly less miserable than when she’d last seen him.

  ‘Here are the names of the people I spoke to about Mr Romero,’ he said, digging a small notebook out of a pocket in the camera bag.

  Beatrice de Berigny will faint, Gemma thought, when she hears that the senior History teacher at Netherleigh Park Ladies’ College is the sort of man who’d run away with a student half his age.

  ‘Then there’s Mr Pepper,’ said Spinner. ‘Claiming the end of his sex life.’

  Gemma came up close and watched while the video fast-forwarded. Spinner stopped it at the relevant section and played it. ‘Cop a look at this,’ he said. There was Mr Pepper somewhere in bushland, digging furiously around the base of a Gymea lily, the densely packed petals burning like an eternal flame high above him.

  ‘Talk about nimble,’ said Gemma as the busy little figure on the camera’s tiny screen dug into hard soil around the plant. ‘But he wasn’t claiming crook back syndrome.’

  ‘Wait,’ said Spinner. ‘Keep watching.’

  Mr Pepper stopped labouring, wiped his brow, scratched his balls and walked towards a large tree, pulling his penis out of his shorts.

  ‘Do I have to watch him taking a leak?’

  ‘He hasn’t got it out for a leak,’ said Spinner.

  Spinner was right. Mr Pepper started fondling his dick and was soon going for his life. After a few seconds Spinner hit the stop button. ‘You don’t need to see the rest of that,’ he said primly. ‘You get the picture.’

  ‘Nothing wrong with his sporting gear,’ said Gemma.

  ‘You can take my word for it, Boss.’ Spinner switched the video camera off. ‘Imagine how he’s going to feel when the insurers invite him in to discuss his case and then put this on the VCR.’

  Gemma almost felt sorry for the cheat.

  ‘Oh,’ said Spinner. ‘I’ll be starting that new Mandate check.’ A man, away on business, wanted the marital house watched overnight, certain that his wife was bringing a man there in his absence.

  ‘It’s just down the hill at Bronte. I won’t be far from you,’ he said, grinning. ‘You could bring me a nice cup of tea.’

  ‘I might even do that,’ said Gemma.

  They both fell silent as the radio news began. The first item was the search for Claudia Page and her boyfriend. ‘Police now hold grave fears for their safety,’ the newsreader said.

  Spinner started to leave then turned back, pulling a small flat gift-wrapped parcel out of his pocket. ‘Here,’ he said, awkward. ‘I thought you might like this.’ He hurried away, embarrassed at his own generosity, and Gemma had to chase him to thank him.

  She opened the little packet. In spite of everything, the softness and beauty of the purple, aqua and blue painted silk caused her a soft, involuntary ‘oh’ of pleasure. It would be too hot for summer wear, but the scarf would look stunning draped across a black jumper. She tried it against her skin in the hall mirror. It was perfect for her colouring. As she fiddled with it, her mind empty of everything except the colours and fall of the exquisite silk, something in her mind flashed on. The scarf! Sandra Samuels’ scarf. She’d used it to clean herself up; the rapist had used it to tie her hands. Enough of it had been saved for Colin Roper to identify the thief knot. She ran to her office and scrambled to find Sandra’s phone number.

  ‘Yes?’ The hesitant response at the other end of the line.

  ‘It’s me, Gemma. That scarf! What colour was it? The one you wore that night?’

  ‘Pink and red,’ she said. ‘Why?’

  Gemma told her.

  •

  At Strawberry Hills, Gemma waited outside for Angie. She’d pulled the crime scene envelope containing the old blood-streaked fabric from where it had sat for years in a plastic sleeve, mixed up with old VMO files. As well as providing them with the thief knot, that scrap of torn fabric could provide evidence of every person at that crime scene—Sandra’s blood and epithelial cells together with the rapists’ semen. It was better than a photographic record of the crime. And one of those profiles would match the sporting legend, Scott Brissett.

  Gemma and Angie drove to the Division of Analytical Laboratories at Lidcombe. ‘We want this yesterday,’ said Angie to the clerk at the counter.

  ‘They all say that,’ said the clerk as she numbered the job and gave them their receipt. ‘You know it takes at least twenty-four hours.’

  ‘If I say the names Amy Bernhard, Tasmin Summers and possibly Claudia Page,’ said Angie, ‘would that help speed things up?’

  It would.

  ‘While I’m here,’ Angie said, ‘would you mind checking on another job for me? It would have gone through Melissa Grey from Parramatta Crime Scene for the forensic anthropologist, Francie Suskievicz. Multiple human remains out Richmond way. Including a lot of teeth. I’m very curious about that case.’

  The clerk raised an eyebrow. ‘I remember that job coming in because it was so weird. Hang on. Linda Shipper was doing that one.’

  The clerk vanished through a door in the back wall of her office and Gemma and Angie waited. Gemma was halfway through reading a poster about evacuation drill in case of fire when the clerk returned. ‘That job was dispatched a little while ago, Angie. The results have been sent back to the investigating police.’

  ‘Good, I’ll call Melissa.’

  They drove back to Strawberry Hills where Gemma had left her car. Sean was waiting for Angie, having been delayed at ASIC headquarters. ‘I’ve got what you want,’ he said to her. ‘Guess who’s Vernon Kodaly’s sleeping partner?’

  ‘Ned Kelly?’

  ‘Scott Brissett.’

  He told Angie Brissett’s address and Gemma noted it too, working out her plan of action. Angie disappeared upstairs, returning within minutes.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Gemma didn’t want to push her luck so she hung back as Angie and Sean got into the car. As Angie buckled her seatbelt, she looked up at Gemma. ‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I had quite a conversation with Sandra Samuels, over the phone. She’s pretty convincing.’

  ‘I knew she’d contact you,’ said Gemma. She hurried to her car and followed Sean and Angie to Watsons Bay and then in and around a maze of little streets until they found Brissett’s house hidden away at the end of a shady driveway. The heat beat down furiously, cicadas shrieking, and a wisp of high cloud visible through the
leaves. It was one of those days, Gemma thought, that just keeps getting hotter.

  ‘A few quid here,’ said Sean, looking through the wrought-iron gate, taking in the formal front gardens, the pristine beds of summer flowers, the mature cycads in pots moving stiffly in the ocean breeze.

  ‘Okay,’ said Angie, looking at Gemma. ‘You’d better make yourself scarce.’

  ‘But I want to go in there. See what his place looks like.’

  ‘You are joking. This is an official visit. No way.’

  ‘What about my student “visitor” ID?’

  ‘Go home,’ said Angie. ‘Now. You shouldn’t even be here.’

  ‘I’m part of this! You wouldn’t have had the Deliverance connection without me. You wouldn’t be here without me!’ Even Gemma was surprised at the passion of her defence.

  ‘I’ll fill you in later, okay?’ Angie hissed. ‘Now go.’

  •

  ‘He was very relaxed,’ Angie said later, referring to her visit to Scott Brissett. ‘Confident that whatever business the police had with him, it could only work to his benefit.’

  ‘What’s his place like?’

  ‘Ritzy. Lots of leather and chrome. Cedar plantation blinds, ceiling fans. Very resort. A huge nude portrait of his wife—she was a model—letting it all hang out. She was posing on a cane chair. Imagine the indentations that’d make on a girl’s bum. And beside that, another painting of a million-dollar cruiser.’

  ‘His two trophies,’ said Gemma.

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought,’ said Angie. ‘Lots of trophies.’

  Naomi had mentioned those, Gemma remembered, sporting trophies with engraved initials.

  ‘He’s a pantsman, for sure,’ Angie said. ‘And he’s the sort of man who talks about his wife as “The Missus”. His sporting injuries must be coming home to roost,’ she went on. ‘He’s walking with a slight limp and stooping over just a little. I noticed him wincing a couple of times at sudden movement.’