They made small talk. Stevie could tell that the woman couldn’t wait to get rid of her, but courtesy demanded a show of gratitude to the scruffily dressed woman who’d brought her daughter safely home.
It was patently obvious that Miranda wasn’t interested in Stevie’s polite answers to her polite questions, and was even less interested when Stevie tried to reintroduce the topic of Emma’s deceit. The restless eyes indicated a mind far away on more important things—lunch? Hair removal? Surely the woman couldn’t be as shallow as her daughter had made out.
Stevie knew she’d failed the etiquette test the moment she’d gripped Miranda’s hand too tightly. She shook hands the way her father had taught her. She tried to make up for it now by mimicking her perch upon the barstool, but failed in this too. The stool wasn’t built for comfort, and in jeans the natural tendency was to flop the legs, not keep them taut and together like Miranda’s, constricted as they were in the tight skirt.
Coffee from the overfilled cup slopped onto Stevie’s jeans at her first sip. Damn, another fail, but it could have been worse. Once when she’d been out at a restaurant with Monty, a gulp of coffee had gone down the wrong way and she sputtered it all over the white tablecloth. They’d laughed so much they’d had to leave. Under different circumstances it would have been quite fun to take the piss out of this woman, give her a bit of a shock. No wonder Emma was such a reactionary.
She wondered what Monty would have thought of Miranda. She was very beautiful, no doubt about it, but that wouldn’t have fazed him. He wouldn’t have felt as uncomfortable here as Stevie did, he was at home anywhere, in an outback pub or a reception at Government House. With a good education behind him and well travelled, he could be smooth as molasses when he wanted to be and probably would have charmed the be-Jesus out of her. She shook her head to stop her mind from wandering any further.
Miranda’s fingers were long and graceful and adorned with a tasteful array of rings; nothing too big or garish. Her large eyes followed Izzy as she explored, worried perhaps about sticky fingermarks on the pristine surfaces.
Izzy stopped when she came to an abstract arrangement of steel and glass rising out of the floor, gazing up at it, no doubt trying to figure out what it was. She reached to touch one of the sharp edges and Stevie called out to her to stop, worried she would damage herself on one of the steel points which rose to the vaulted ceiling like spears.
Izzy dropped her hand and turned, bestowing an angelic smile upon the two women seated at the breakfast bar.
Miranda’s smile in response was probably as genuine as she was capable of through the eggshell smooth skin. ‘What a beautiful child,’ she murmured to Stevie, ‘those Shirley Temple curls—’
‘Can I go upstairs and see Emma?’ Izzy asked her.
‘Of course you can, darl,’ Miranda said.
‘Just for a minute, it’s nearly time to leave for Georgia’s house,’ Stevie said as her daughter scuffed up the stairs to the mezzanine landing, calling for Emma.
Stevie’s coffee tasted like mud. She forced down a final swallow, resisting the urge to pull a face. Give her instant coffee any day. A breeze cooled her cheek and she became aware of the musical sound of trickling water, tracing its source to an open window at the back of the family room. Next to it French doors opened into a high walled courtyard blocking the view of the river beyond. The paving and wall were made of recycled bricks, rustic and charming and quite incongruous with the style of the rest of the house.
‘Have you ever thought of signing Izzy up with a modelling agency?’ Miranda’s violet eyes were now focused intently on Stevie’s for the first time since they’d met.
Stevie dragged her gaze from the inviting view outside. ‘Nah, not really, not my scene,’ she said, roughening up her voice just for the hell of it. ‘I suppose I might let her if she was keen when she was older, but frankly I haven’t got the time as things are.’ Now might be a good time to test out one of Emma’s possible lies. ‘I’m a police detective you see, which means a lot of after hours work. I don’t think I’d ever find the time to get her to the shoots, the make-up courses and whatnots.’
Miranda visibly paled under the layer of foundation. Her eyes widened and her hand crept to her throat. Sheesh, Stevie thought, Emma wasn’t lying, not even bending the truth on this one. The mention of police had left the woman looking like a roo in headlights.
Miranda composed herself, slid from the barstool and looked at her wristwatch. ‘My goodness, is that the time?’
Stevie followed suit. ‘I suppose we should get those girls moving,’ she said, heading towards the stone stairway. She called out for Izzy, heard footsteps thumping on the mezzanine and saw her daughter peering down at them through the decorative balustrade.
‘Thank you for telling me what Emma’s been up to. I think it’s best that Emma stops working for you. It’s the only way for her to learn.’ Miranda looked pointedly at her daughter who was coming down the staircase. Stevie agreed, adding that Emma was more than welcome to call by any time for a visit.
‘But I want Emma’s stories!’ Izzy cried.
Stevie stopped on her way to the stairs, feeling something cling to the wisp of a thought in her mind, something connected to the Bianca Webster case. But like a feather in the wind, it blew away before she could grasp it.
18
Monty stared down from his office window, watching the white figures spill onto the oval while the seagulls circled in a cloud above. He was a rugby man; cricket had never held much interest for him although the view from the window provided a handy focus for his restless gaze. He couldn’t count the times he’d had to put up with the grumbles of colleagues that his fifth floor corner office was wasted on the likes of him.
He sat at his desk looking at Stevie’s photo, gazing into her clear blue eyes. He traced the high ponytail that accentuated the curve of her neck, at the little gold kinks still visible even when her hair was pulled taut against her head. She hated the kinks, but wouldn’t be bothered doing anything about them—not a straightening-iron kind of girl, she’d say, occupied with more important things—Izzy, the job, even him he liked to think. He knew the grunge fashion and offhanded manner belied a girl with old-fashioned tastes and a passion for real family values. Her reluctance to move in with him was a mystery, even more to her than to him he suspected.
The funny thing was that once he’d felt pretty much as she did now. For years he’d punished himself for a mistake he’d made one night when he was drunk, a mistake that in the long run turned out to be no mistake at all. But he’d put himself on the wagon, desperate to take control of his life. Now he could take or leave a drink, the same as the next man.
Couldn’t she see that she was doing the same thing now, punishing herself for something that wasn’t her fault? If only I could explain it to you in a way that wouldn’t make you turn your back on me, he muttered to the photo as he put it back in his drawer. Whatever was going on with Natasha Hayward seemed to be stretching her loyalties like a spinnaker in a storm and he worried she would snap.
He had been relieved and genuinely pleased to find the fax waiting for him on his desk from ballistics, stating the bullet that killed Kusak could not be traced to any of the confiscated guns in the armoury. Nevertheless, his suspicions of Hayward niggled no less than his aching tooth; at the very least he thought, she was a major incident waiting to happen.
Monty stretched, unable to get comfortable; his toothache seemed to have travelled down his neck and into his arm. It dawned on him then that his anger stemmed largely from the fact that Stevie had failed to tell him, failed to trust him. If it turned out Hayward was involved in Kusak’s death in any way, Stevie would go down for it too. She’d be accused of ignoring the possible breakdown of a team member, which subsequently led to that team member committing murder; her career would be in ruins. Why the hell hadn’t she told him at the start, got his advice when she first had trouble with Hayward in the park? Why hadn’t she l
et him help her with this? Why sacrifice her career for a loose cannon like Natasha when she must know he’d do anything for her?
He looked up at the phone, willing it to ring. Stevie would doubtless be talking to Tash today, but he had no idea when. The pain in his arm worsened. It seemed to be spreading to his chest. He took some deep breaths and, deciding it was better to err on the side of caution, phoned his doctor. The receptionist said there was a space in two hours time, sooner if it was urgent. Monty said it wasn’t.
He put the phone down, his gaze dropping to some unconscious doodling on his notebook—Natasha’s name woven into a maze of Celtic knots. To his dismay he discovered that her name had pressed its way through all the pages that lay beneath.
That afternoon, after a piece of news that had initially dumbfounded him, Monty called an impromptu progress meeting with the senior detectives involved in the Zhang Li case. The three men grabbed swivel chairs and clustered around Monty’s desk, sipping coffee from foam cups and balancing notebooks on knees.
‘Firstly,’ Monty said to his gathered team, ‘the report from ballistics on the bullet that killed Miro Kusak was waiting on my desk when I got in. Apparently it’s an exact match for the bullet that killed our Asian loan shark, Zhang Li.’
Wayne put his cup on Monty’s desk and leaned back in his chair. ‘Well, well, that is interesting.’
Angus beamed. ‘I thought two murders by an automatic pistol within weeks of each other was a bit of stretch for Perth—I mean this is hardly downtown LA. Looks like there is a God.’
‘And it seems he wants to help us out for a change,’ Barry said. ‘Though he could have waited till after the weekend.’
‘Don’t get too excited, fellas,’ Wayne cautioned. ‘The bullets might have been fired by the same gun, but we don’t have the gun. What about the impounded guns, Mont? With the state of the armoury since the amnesty, anyone could have lifted one and then put it back.’
So Wayne had been thinking along these lines too. The thought left Monty feeling slightly vindicated.
‘One of us you mean?’ Barry sounded incredulous.
Monty nodded. ‘Yes, we couldn’t rule out the possibility that we might have a cop playing vigilante—but rest easy, there’s no match.’
Wayne shrugged. ‘Without the gun then, we’re not really any the wiser.’
‘Only now, Wayne, we have a link, bizarre as it might seem, between the death of a loan shark and the death of a paedophile,’ Monty said.
And I have no reason to be suspicious of Hayward, he thought. So why then am I still plagued by these doubts, this deep sense of foreboding, as if she is still some kind of a threat? He thought back to what the doctor had told him that morning; that he must attempt to cut down on his workload and reduce the stress in his life. He had to drop the subject. He slashed a pen through his doodles and tore the page from the book.
He attempted to pull himself together and pointed at Wayne. ‘You and Angus said you thought the Vietnamese girl at the herbalist’s was hiding something. Have you followed that up yet?’ Monty asked Wayne.
Wayne shook his head. ‘The dead rock spider put paid to that yesterday, boss. I’ll pay her another visit this afternoon.’
Barry smirked at Wayne from where he sat spinning in his chair. ‘He’s sweet on her,’ he said with one of his infuriating Alfred-E-Newman grins, ‘that’s why he hasn’t done it yet.’
Monty listened to the exchange with the distance of a weary headmaster.
‘Don’t be ridiculous, I’ve been flat out,’ Wayne said, a faint blush circling his collar line.
‘Turned into quite a softy in your old age ... You should have seen him, Mont, carrying on and laughing with this babe, making bad jokes about herbal aphrodisiacs...’
Monty had had enough. He slammed his hand down on his desk, forgetting it was the one he’s damaged on Henry Grebe, and let out a blue streak of obscenities. When he’d recovered he pointed to the door and snapped, ‘Shut it or just swivel out of here, Barry.’
Barry touched his chest, ‘Who, me?’ but he still didn’t make a move.
Angus climbed to his feet. ‘I need to go, I have some leads to follow on the kid running around with Zhang Li.’ He flicked his hand at Wayne. ‘Keep your phone on, I think I might have you a name soon.’
When Angus had gone, Monty said to Barry, ‘I’m sure you can find something to do. Go over the statements from the Kusak neighbours and chase SOCO up over the evidence reports we’re still waiting on. Oh yeah, and check Mrs K’s bank statements too.’
Barry nodded complacently, but the only move he made was to take another bite of his doughnut. Monty gave him a heated look, and even that didn’t penetrate the kid’s thick skin until he registered the flexing of the fingers on Monty’s left hand.
Barry wiped sugary fingers down the legs of his pants. ‘Okay, keep your hair on, I’m going.’
When he’d gone, Monty leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes for a few seconds.
‘He can’t bear to miss out on anything, the nosy little prick.’ Wayne looked with concern at Monty. ‘You okay?’
‘No.’ Monty wondered if Wayne had heard about his altercation with Henry Grebe. It was unlikely that Grebe would have reported it, given that he had behaved so atrociously. The fear that had been gripping Monty didn’t have anything to do with the possible fall-out, it was more about his own lack of control, a control that seemed at the moment to be increasingly shaky.
Monty opened his eyes at the sound of the loosening of a screw cap, cocked an eyebrow at Wayne’s hip flask, but said nothing. Wayne took two glasses from the tray, poured a generous measure of scotch into each, and added water from the jug on Monty’s desk.
They clinked. Wayne took a sip and said, ‘You going to tell me about this morning’s appointment?’ Wayne was the only person Monty had told about his chest pain and subsequent visit to the doctor.
Monty leaned back in his chair and scowled, keeping his eyes focused on something invisible above the office door. ‘Bloody scare-mongering doctors.’
‘I take it it didn’t go so well?’
Monty swirled the whisky in his glass and put it down without a taste. ‘Did a few simple tests in the surgery, doesn’t think it’s too critical, but wants to book me in for an angiogram ASAP. I said I couldn’t possibly take time out at the moment, not with my current caseload, at which he got rather shitty with me. My caseload, huh!’ he threw his hands into the air. ‘The murder of two low lifes who, truth be known, I really couldn’t give a flying fuck about.’ He patted his chest. ‘High blood pressure and some problems with the old heart too, thinks it’s stress related. He’s given me some pills and a spray pump thing to tide me over.’
‘Does Stevie know?’
The crowd roared from the WACA and a flock of parrots jetted passed the office window as if fired from a cannon. ‘Bloody cricket,’ Monty grumbled.
‘I’ll take that as a no.’
‘I haven’t had the chance to tell her yet.’ Monty felt a sudden need to change the subject. ‘Okay, so the paedophile and the loan shark were killed by the same gun, and I want you to find the connection.’
Wayne’s jaw dropped. ‘Me? how...’
‘The Vietnamese girl in the herbalist shop?’
‘It was just a gut feeling of mine, don’t set your hopes on it. Angus still has some more digging to do.’
Monty steepled his fingers and tapped at his teeth. Those who didn’t know Wayne well would be excused for seeing in his face nothing but a wall of rock split by a million year old frost. Monty knew better.
‘Wayne,’ he said. ‘Far be it to teach my grandfather how to suck eggs, but I hope Barry’s wrong about all this...’ He waved his hand trying to find the right words. ‘I mean, you’re not getting too involved here, are you? Not letting your personal feelings get in the way of the case?’
Monty grunted to himself—he could talk. Again he thought he detected a faint blush in the face of older
man. ‘Shit, Wayne, an old codger like you should have more sense.’
Wayne pushed himself up from the desk and attempted to pull the frayed cuffs of his mustard coloured shirt further down his hairy wrists. Rumour had it that Wayne had not bought new clothes since the death of his wife twenty years ago.
‘Nah Monty, it’s nothing like that, I just feel like looking out for the girl, that’s all. Now is there anything else?’ Wayne said, his face back to its usual wall of granite.
19
EXCERPT FROM CHAT ROOM TRANSCRIPT 260107
HARUM SCARUM: u shld nvr meet up wit some1 u don’t no
BETTYBO: bt hes soooooo nice!
HARUM SCARUM: u need anotha KE story. U need her powa. U don’t need a boy 2 giv u that
BETTYBO: I want KE to kill some1 this time
HARUM SCARUM: okaaaaaaaay ... lets see what she’s got
The high temperature in the van hadn’t hurt Miro Kusak’s hard drive as much as they’d feared. In Central’s operations room Clarissa explained in a steady stream of techno-babble how she’d managed to extract the valuable information. Unfortunately none of Kusak’s correspondence with Bianca had shown up yet. Stevie loved her new job, but found the technical side of it a bit of a stretch. She rubbed her gritty eyes and did her best to focus on the screen, but without much success.
This was like no incident room she’d ever worked from before. No cigarette smoke in here, no fusty odours of unwashed clothes and sweaty sandshoes, cheap bourbon and cheaper aftershave. Someone had received a bunch of roses for her birthday and put them on the windowsill, and the scent mingled with the different perfumes of the room’s occupants. A collection of cuddly toys stood sentry in the workstation next to Clarissa’s, while the partitioning of its neighbour was papered with children’s colourful artwork.
‘Okay, I can see by your blank expressions that the details of my cyber investigations are less to you plebs than pearls before swine. In a nutshell...’ Clarissa stopped for a moment to see if anyone was listening and let out a martyr’s sigh when she realised they were all looking vacant.
SH02 - Harum Scarum Page 12