From her startled expression and the way she yanked her scarf in a final loop around her neck, I suspected that this had only just occurred to her.
‘And,’ she added, pausing as if to get it sorted in her mind, ‘she paid Snow his thousand dollars, just for him doing, like nothing.’ She appeared to mull this over. ‘All Snow had to do was show the guy the photos, and say he was going to send them to other people. Like how difficult is that?’
I might have argued the point with her, but hell, I wasn’t Snow’s agent. Someone else could fill her in on the finer and not so fine challenges of his job.
‘What did Niki say when you told her what Snow was up to?’
‘I remember exactly what Niki said: “I know he’s ripping me off. I’ve factored that in”.’ Vex smiled proudly as if the words were her own. ‘“Factored it in”,’ she repeated, shaking her head. ‘She was a really cool businesswoman, you know. Smart as. She could have done anything.’ Vex reached for her coat and laid it across her lap before giving me her feline stare. ‘She was going to go into business with you, wasn’t she? Once she’d got herself totally clean.’
My mouth went dry. ‘She told you that?’
‘Actually, that’s why she started the whole blackmail business. She said she wanted to have some money of her own, so that when she went into business with you she could hold her head up.’
As if to emphasise the phrase, Vex freed the end of her ponytail from the scarf and tilted her chin up. It was an oddly childlike gesture of defiance, one that I’d seen Niki perform. Maybe Vex had learnt it from her.
‘Niki was real cool,’ she repeated, as if I’d suggested otherwise.
Niki was cool, all right. I watched Vex do up each of the oversized buttons on her duffel coat, and pet her ponytail some more, while I waited for my heart to stop thumping. Then I asked the question I’d been holding on to for some time.
‘Vex?’ I waited until she looked at me. ‘Do you know who killed Snow?’
She clasped both hands in her lap, staring at them, taking her time before answering.
‘I think it was probably one of the guys that Niki had … you know …’
‘Blackmailed,’ I added helpfully.
‘Yeah, blackmailed,’ she agreed, with a tiny shrug of her shoulders. ‘I think Snow probably pushed some guy for money, and the guy’s thought, I’ll just kill him, and then I don’t have to pay anything. Something like that.’
‘Snow went on shaking them down even after Niki was dead?’
She gave that tiny shrug again. I waited to see if there was more, but she seemed spent. The nervous energy gone, she looked even younger. How old was this girl — seventeen? Eighteen?
‘Do you have any idea who that guy might be?’
‘I hope it wasn’t one of the guys I … did. That would be too creepy.’ She shivered, and sought comfort in her ponytail. ‘But I only did it, like, a few times. More as a favour to Niki, really, and I …’ She glanced at me nervously. ‘I owed her money for some stuff she’d got me ages ago, and she agreed I could pay her back in, you know …’
‘Sex.’
‘Yeah, sex. I mean, it was her business. Her “baby”, she called it. She did, like, a hundred times more guys than me. She worked really hard.’
I sincerely hoped Vex was the exaggerating type. I didn’t want to imagine that number of men having sex with my little sister. It was no easier when I flipped it and had my little sister on top having sex with that number of men. I couldn’t figure out how the Niki I knew and the Niki Vex knew were the same person. Maybe neither of us really knew her. I was having trouble getting it straight in my head. My little sister, whose favourite book was The Little Prince, had been running a blackmail sex scam. That Niki, my Niki, had made this naive cat-girl pay off a drug debt to her by having her perform all kinds of weird and dangerous sex with men — so that Niki could then blackmail them.
It made me feel sick to hear that this kid sitting opposite me twiddling her ponytail had been grateful to Niki for this. I could feel a cold anger towards Niki growing in me. It was bad enough that she had been doing this crap herself, but the idea that she lured other young girls into the business with her made it so much worse.
Yet by far the hardest thing to accept was that Niki had done all this so she could ‘hold her head up’ when going into business with me. I’d suggested the whole business thing one night when Niki had called round, and I told her about a missing persons’ case I’d been working on. I’d managed to track down a woman who’d been ‘missing’ for twenty years, and had put her and her family back in touch. It had been one of the rare win-win results — everyone was happy, including me, particularly when I realised that the client had added a healthy bonus into my overdrawn bank account — and after a wine or two I think I was probably bragging a bit.
Okay, I’m sure I was bragging — I’d suddenly caught myself at it. I’d turned the conversation back round to Niki, and asked what she was doing. It was then that she’d said how much she’d love to be doing work like I was doing, and I’d said well, why not join me? I remembered how thrilled she’d been at the idea, and we played with it for the next few hours as we polished off two more bottles of wine. It was fun, we had a good night, but the truth is that I’d not really given it much thought after that.
I was so caught up in my thoughts I hadn’t noticed Vex watching me.
‘You think Snow killed Niki, don’t you?’ she said. ‘That’s what I heard.’
I dragged my attention back to the present. The very least I owed this girl was honesty.
‘Yeah, I did think that. Now I’m not so sure.’ I watched for a sign from Vex. Any sign that would tell me I was on the right or the wrong track. ‘Now I think that maybe whoever killed Snow also killed Niki.’
She’d gone completely still. When she finally spoke it was so quiet I had to ask her to repeat what she’d said.
‘Snow did kill her,’ she said. ‘He told me he did it.’ A sweat broke out on my forehead. ‘He said Niki told him she wasn’t going to do the blackmailing any more. That she was going into a legit business with her sister.’ Vex threw me an apologetic smile. ‘He tried to get me to do it instead of her, but no way was I going to work for Snow! I mean, it was okay to do it for Niki, but not for that creepstake!’
‘And you think Niki wanting to end the blackmail racket was enough to make Snow decide to kill her?’
She thought about it for a bit, and then nodded. ‘Uh-huh.’
I took out the sheet of photos, checked that there was no one directly behind Vex, and handed it to her.
‘Well, I think Snow probably did kill Niki,’ I said quietly. ‘But I think someone put him up to it.’
She showed no emotion as she examined each image. I’d gone this far, so I decided I might as well try out the rest of my theory on her.
‘I think someone offered Snow more money to kill Niki than he got working for her.’
Vex looked up at me. I could see her thinking this through. Saw it make some kind of sense to her. She turned her attention back to the photos.
‘And you think that person might be one of these guys?’
‘Maybe.’
I watched as she studied the last photo on the sheet. She’d already spent more time looking at this one than any of the others. I felt a little shiver of excitement. Vex ran a finger gently over the image of my sister. In this particular photo Niki was dressed in a school pinafore, her hair in high pigtails. She was licking a big swirl of fake lollypop. At least she had some clothes on. Vex stabbed her finger at the face glancing wild-eyed in the direction of the camera.
‘Chris Ross.’ She stabbed at it again. ‘Niki hated him. Said he deserved to be blackmailed for the stuff he was into. She said she didn’t have to make anything up with him — he was already way ahead of anything she could think up. Chris Ross was the genuine thing.’ She rolled up the sheet of photos and snapped the elastic band on one end. ‘One totally sick jerk.’
‘Do you know if he paid up?’ I asked.
‘Last I heard, Niki sent Snow around twice to threaten him, but Ross was digging his heels in, refusing to pay up. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have the money. He was loaded.’
‘When was this? When was Ross being blackmailed?’
Vex’s hand suddenly flew to her mouth, and her eyes widened as she put two and two together.
‘It was just before Niki was killed. Oh my God! It was him, wasn’t it? Chris Ross paid Snow to kill Niki!’
Yep, I thought. It sure sounded like it. What I still couldn’t figure out was why Ross had waited another whole year before killing Snow. Maybe he’d heard that Snow had blabbed to an undercover cop about the killing. Word of Gemma’s attempt to snare Snow would have leaked out through the legal fraternity, and who knows what connections Chris Ross had. He might even be a lawyer or a judge for all I knew. Maybe Ross realised that as long as Snow was alive, he would remain vulnerable.
I pulled up the collar on my too-thin orange jacket and watched Vex hustle her way through the business crowd towards the taxi rank. Seeing her approach, the cab driver leaned across and threw open the front passenger door. I watched his face tilt up hopefully as she leaned in and gave him directions, then slump in disappointment as she opened the back door and climbed in. The driver pulled the front door shut and adjusted his rear-vision mirror so he could glance at Vex as he drove. I didn’t blame him. There was definitely something about Vex that made you want to look at her.
As the taxi passed me Vex raised her hand in a small wave. The driver’s head bobbed as his eyes flicked rapidly from the road to the rear-vision mirror. I watched until the car had passed the police HQ on the corner and exited onto the motorway. I’d parked in the HQ building, so figured I could spend a couple of hours on my John Doe report before going to see Sarah Crossen-Smith and wrapping up the case.
As I stepped out from between two parked cars, another taxi whooshed past. I arched back quickly, feeling like a batsman bowled by a mean bouncer. The taxi changed lanes suddenly, causing a blast of horns, and sped through an orange light onto the motorway. I stepped back to safety, and stared in the direction the taxis had gone.
I’d glimpsed a man leaning forward from the back seat, pointing out the front window as he urged the driver on. It was Stoke, the guy I’d watched at the club. The guy who was at Snow’s funeral. The guy I’d been told was in love with Niki.
Maybe it was a coincidence that he’d caught the taxi directly behind the one Vex had climbed into. I gave myself a talking to — Molesworth is a one-way street so it was no surprise both cars drove off in the same direction. And taxis cutting lanes? Well, that was hardly an indication of anything suspicious. I told myself Stoke probably wasn’t following Vex at all. I told myself I had an overly fertile imagination. That’s what my father accused me of each time I told him that his live-in girlfriend — numbers three, four and five — didn’t like Niki or me.
And just like back then, when the little voice inside told me I was right about Dad’s girlfriends, that same little voice told me I was right about this. Stoke had been watching while I talked to Vex, and was now following her. I didn’t have Vex’s phone number, and had no idea where she lived. What would I say to her anyway? I had no proof Stoke was following her. All I knew was that he was in a taxi going in the same direction as hers. Hardly enough to warrant an armed offender turn out. There wasn’t anything I could do except feel uneasy. I’d learned a long time ago not to discount feelings of unease, so I nursed them in my gut as I made my way across the road towards police HQ.
Joey was on the front desk security again, placating a man with a face the shape and colour of a beefsteak tomato, who was arguing his right to a just and fair hearing. Why he thought that was on offer at police headquarters was a bit of an enigma. Joey had his hands up, palms out in a calming gesture, but it didn’t seem to be working on tomato-face. Catching sight of me, Joey called my name, but I scooted past, waving my new security pass in a ‘I can let myself in’ gesture. It was only when I reached the lifts that I realised why Joey had called out to me. It had nothing to do with my security clearance or beefsteak man. It had been a warning.
Sean had one hand on the elevator up button, the other resting protectively in the curve of a woman’s back. He saw me in the same instant I saw him. The woman had her back to me, and only turned when she saw Sean’s sudden change of expression. I had never met Sean’s new partner Sylvie but I was in no doubt this was her. At about five foot five to my five-eight, with styled, short blonde hair framing a bright little made-up pixie face, she exuded a kind of optimistic confidence, as if the world had always been good to her and she expected nothing less from it.
First impressions told me she was everything I wasn’t. In fact, if I was crass enough to think ‘types’ — and crass is something I’ve never baulked at being — then Sylvie and I were definitely at opposite ends of the type spectrum. Where I was tall, she was short. Where I scowled at the world, assuming the worst, she smiled in expectation of good things to come. Where she appeared composed, tidy and guileless, I was jittery, scruffy and suspicious. Sean made the awkward introductions, and Sylvie stepped forward to shake hands. It was yet another indicator of how trusting she was. It obviously didn’t occur to her that I just might deck her. Sean stepped up protectively beside her — I’m fairly sure the possibility had occurred to him.
‘It’s nice to meet you at last,’ she said, as if she meant it.
‘Nice to meet you, too,’ I lied.
‘Nice’ was probably the very last thing in the world this meeting was. Sean and I shuffled and avoided looking directly at each other. Sylvie beamed her open gaze from one to the other of us as if amused by our awkwardness, but still neither of us could manage any social chit-chat to help smooth things over. The silence became deafening. In the brief moment before the bell signalled the arrival of the lift, I thought I saw a flicker of doubt on Sylvie’s face.
The lift doors slowly parted, and Sean ushered Sylvie into the lift ahead of him. He was in such a hurry to escape that he almost man-handled her right into the slow opening doors. Even though Sylvie had her back to us, neither Sean nor I took the opportunity to make eye contact. As the lift doors began to close, Sean threw his arm out to hold it for me.
‘Sorry. Are you going up, Di?’ he managed.
The lift door stuttered, then clanged wide open again. I couldn’t have moved my legs even if someone had yelled ‘Fire!’
‘No, I’m good thanks. I’m going down,’ I replied truthfully.
Instead of closing, the lift doors perversely now stayed wide open, framing Sean and Sylvie directly in front of me. I had to do something, frozen as I was with a scowling, sickly grin on my face. I might as well take advantage of the moment.
‘Hey, Sean,’ I said, managing to keep my voice steady. He looked up from studying his shoes. ‘Have you looked at a guy called Chris Ross for Snow’s murder?’
Sean’s lips tightened in a way that I knew so very well.
‘Jesus, Diane,’ he said, and punched the lift button with his index finger. ‘Would you leave it alone!’ The bell pinged in anticipation of the doors closing.
‘You know Niki was blackmailing Chris Ross, don’t you? Well, I think Ross might have paid Snow to kill her.’ The doors began to glide together. ‘Then a year later, when things heated up again, Ross killed Snow.’
I’m not sure if Sean heard the entire last bit before the doors closed. He sure as hell wasn’t looking at me, and I reckoned, knowing Sean, if Sylvie hadn’t been in the lift, he would’ve put both hands over his ears and sung ‘lalalala’ loudly, just to be sure I got the message. Knowing Sean.
Instead he’d rolled his eyes heavenwards, and pretended to ignore me. I guess that must be the new grown-up Sean. The one I didn’t know. The one who was having a baby with that bright little blonde pixie in the lift. Sylvie and I had looked each other in the eye before the lift door s
lid shut between us. I wouldn’t go so far as to say we bonded in that look, but there was a definite acknowledgement this had been no fun for either of us.
I watched the numbers light up as their lift rose through the floors. It stopped at the seventh. Legals. Maybe Sean was seeing someone there about the Snow homicide. Or maybe Sylvie had some work there, and Sean had accompanied her for some reason. Maybe they’d just had lunch together.
Maybe they’d gone home to bed for lunch, like we used to.
The lift began its descent to the ground floor. As I watched the numbers light up and then extinguish, I was thinking about Sylvie and me. I was wondering why I was comparing us, when after all, I was pretty sure the only thing we had in common was Sean. That was the weird thing — if Sylvie and I were totally different types, as far as Sean was concerned, which of us was the aberration? Sylvie or me?
The doors whooshed open. The lift was empty. What did I expect? Sean coming back down to check I was okay?
I thought about going up to the third floor to start on the John Doe report. I even stepped into the lift, and had my finger poised over the third floor button — but I stepped straight back out again. I’d caught a whiff of perfume. Chanel N°5. I’ve never liked it. Too cloying. Too feminine. Just too bloody … nice.
CHAPTER 18
The national library two blocks down the road from police headquarters has a publicly accessible internet system with fast broadband. There’s an okay café, a brilliant newspaper room, comfortable seats, and clean toilets. They even supply, free of charge, scrap paper and HB pencils sharpened to exquisite points. The atmosphere in the huge high-ceilinged research rooms is cool and hushed. No one looks at you. No one speaks. No one points and laughs at your mottled, cried-out face. No one asks about your red-rimmed eyes or the snail tracks down your cheeks. Don’t believe those articles in magazines that tell you to splash cold water on your face to hide the crying blotches — instead of a smoothed, serene, professional look, you could end up with the same swollen red face accessorised with big, wet, mock-turtle teardrop blobs on the front of your T-shirt.
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