The Mak Collection

by Tara Moss

  Suzie surveyed her humble abode unenthusiastically. Her pet bird was silent in the centre of the room, a dark cloth thrown over the cage for much the same purpose as her own closed curtains. Some daisies spread limply from the top of a glass vase on the kitchen table, needing to be thrown out. Her discarded prison guard uniform lay untidily over one of the chairs. She had never been the homemaker type before, never houseproud at all, but now the shabby apartment seemed beneath her. The dim single room, with its fold-out bed and kitchen nook, seemed bleak and claustrophobic. She never had much enjoyed coming home to it. It was just a room to sleep and eat in. But soon she would have somewhere else, somewhere so much better. The thought lifted her heart.

  Despite a small space heater that blew warm air against her ankles, the sparsely furnished apartment was cold and Suzie had fastened the buttons of her pyjamas high on her strong neck. She managed a small smile. Her thoughts would keep her warm.

  Ed.

  Suzie had over a decade of experience in corrections, and had slowly edged her way up the food chain. Women had to work twice as hard in jobs like hers. And they had to be twice as tough. And now Suzie, with her strength and her determination and her constant battling through life, had finally found a ray of happiness.

  Edward A Brown.

  Their conversations excited her, especially their conversations on her recent shifts. Wow! She was enthusiastic about what they had planned together. Ed was an amazing man. He somehow remained so sane and focused and giving, even in the face of this horrible trial. Amazing. And sweet. Just when she thought he couldn’t be any more romantic, he would say something right out of The Bold And The Beautiful, just like Ridge. It was breathtaking how deep their bond had become. She had not experienced anything like it before. Not since she was a teenager anyhow, but that was completely different. That was not a time in her life that she wanted to think about.

  Suzie turned her thoughts to the hardening blister on her forearm, wanting so badly to run her nails over the itch through the thick fabric of her sleeve. But she refrained. She had been sprayed with some body fluid during the clean-up—she had never done that sort of thing before and it took a few tries to figure out how to bag the body and fit it in the freezer, the best spot she could think of for now. During the ordeal she had got some mess on her arm, just above the protection of the rubber dishwashing gloves. Despite her immediate and thorough rinsing under the tap, it had stung and become a disgusting blister. It horrified her that her brother’s blood had touched her bare skin, and worse, had disfigured it, even if temporarily. At first she wondered if the remaining poison in Ben’s blood would take her with him, but now she was not so worried. It was only a superficial blister and it was starting to heal. The real worry was if it got inside her body somehow.

  There was a story she had heard about cantharidin, or Spanish fly, in which a fisherman had put it on his bait in the belief that it would make the bait more attractive to fish. Getting it on his fingers was fine until he stuck a hook in his hand and ‘dropped dead’ from absorbing the poison. After her little experiment on her brother, Suzie doubted that ‘dropped dead’ was the right description. But if she accidentally broke the skin on her forearm, the poison might absorb into her blood-stream like it did with the fisherman. She certainly wasn’t going to go to hospital for treatment, but she had to be careful not to touch the blister in her sleep. I’ll bandage it up some more before I go to bed, she decided. The bandage had come off a couple of times already, so she would double it up.

  Suzie focused her thoughts back on the object of her affection, blocking out the unpleasant memories: the body…the cleaning…the blood…the stench…

  Ed Brown was one of the more high-profile inmates she had worked with, a tabloid celebrity of sorts and someone with whom the virulent jail grapevine of gossip was frequently obsessed. As in the childhood game of Chinese Whispers, the stories morphed and twisted themselves and came back to her as full-blown fantasies. Sometimes it made her laugh.

  ‘He killed dozens that no one wants to talk about. Their bodies are buried under the church…no one ever wrote about that. He’d been working with the clergy. The church covered it up…’

  ‘Apparently he’s the one who killed Fredrick. He just spoke to him through the bars, like Hannibal Lecter, and Fredrick rammed his head into the cell walls until he died…’

  There was not much else to do in Long Bay except gossip, Suzie supposed. The strength of the grapevine was unmatched on the outside. No Catholic girls school or small town rumour mill came close.

  Then there was the tabloid press.

  The Stiletto Killer.

  Sydney’s Ripper.

  The Stiletto Murderer Strikes Again.

  Suzie had read the headlines and press coverage with some interest at the time, and then when they had brought in this sweet man, this mere mortal named Ed Brown, she couldn’t believe it. He wasn’t anything like the monster they’d portrayed. Of course Suzie put absolutely no faith in the reliability of the media and she certainly had no time for gossip, innuendo and the sensationalising of crime and its perpetrators. But still, this man was the monster the public wanted to lynch in Martin Place? This man was the Nosferatu the nation feared? This man?

  Ed Brown was innocent until proven guilty, that was the way the system worked. Except the jail gossip and the cruel press didn’t play by the system. That’s why he was in the special wing of Long Bay. Ed was isolated for his own protection. Someone as gentle and sensitive and famous as he was would not survive with the rest of them. It was fate, really, that he should come under her care.

  Ed.

  My love.

  I’ve made the perfect love nest for us.

  We’ll be so happy together. You just wait and see…

  CHAPTER 9

  Makedde stood in her hotel room, absentmindedly patting the creases in her suit pants as she folded them over a padded hanger. She hung the suit carefully, regarding it as the armour she would wear into battle the following morning.

  ‘I hope you have a suit that’s appropriate. Nothing sexy,’ Bartel had said, in a statement that was probably unintentionally condescending, as if she were a silly schoolgirl or perhaps Britney Spears. As if a miniskirt and long flowing hair would scream, ‘Look at me! I wanted to be abducted! I deserved it!’ He needn’t have worried. Her ongoing employment as a fashion model hardly made Makedde prone to sheer micro-minis or gold Lycra disco jumpsuits, and her choice of courtroom pantsuit was suitably conservative.

  Mak frowned as she contemplated the hours stretching ahead of her before her appearance in court the next morning. She was basically on her own in the southern hemisphere. She had all but given up on the idea of spending any time with Andy Flynn. Even if she did want to see him, just to talk things through and resolve what had gone on between them, she sure wasn’t going to be the one to make the first move. Particularly now that it appeared he was seeing someone else.

  Were Andy and Carol getting serious? Mak wondered. What was she like? Did Carol make Andy laugh? Did she understand his work better than his late ex-wife, Cassandra, had? Did she understand him even better than Makedde, with her father’s police experience and her forensic psych studies? Nurses and cops were an obvious match. They dealt with violence and misfortune all day. Were Carol and Andy a good match?

  Does he love her?

  Mak wanted to call him, but she knew she shouldn’t. Andy knew where she was. He knew how to dial a phone. If he wanted to see her, he would simply pick up a phone and call.

  Get him out of your head, Mak.

  She had to. That was the rational and smart thing to do. And she had to try and get the trial out of her head for a while, as well. She had run over her testimony with Hartwell and Bartel; there was nothing left to prepare. All she could do was roll with the punches once she was on the stand.

  Mak plonked herself down in a seat against the floor-to-ceiling window of the café.

  She was at Starbucks to meet up
with her make-up artist friend, Loulou, whom she’d called after trawling through her address book in desperate need of someone to talk to. Now that she was seated Mak had the uncomfortable feeling that she was in a fishbowl. The café was one big glass box. At least she had her back to a solid piece of wall, having chosen the closest thing to a ‘Clint chair’ she could find in the room. Mak could rarely relax in public until she found the seat that Eastwood’s Dirty Harry would have wanted, the spot where the main door and cash register were both visible and her back was covered. She had spent so much time with police officers over the years that she could no longer sit with her back to the middle of a room. If she did, the feeling of vulnerability was smothering.

  The glass walls still made her feel nervous and exposed.

  She tried to calm herself. For the next few minutes she watched the busy street: a lot of businesspeople rushing this way and that, a few tourists wandering around in comfortable sneakers with backpacks and fake Akubra hats. The sky was blue, reflecting in the multitude of sunglasses that passed by on strangers’ faces. Those who didn’t have the foresight to wear shades squinted at the world around them, shielding their eyes from the glare as they stepped over a curb or looked for a taxi. Makedde wore huge Jackie O style glasses, which she had not taken off inside the café. She was dressed in long black pants and trench coat, a far cry from the colourful attire of her friend, whom she could now see bounding across the street.

  Loulou was impossible to miss. Eccentric to an extreme, she wore a denim dress with frayed edges, purple nylons with fishnets layered over the top, and her usual black military-style boots—a kind of Kelly Osbourne meets 1980s queen Cyndi Lauper look. Mak felt comparatively drab in her dark ensemble. Understated could be boring sometimes. It was good just to see Loulou. She had been by her side when things had gone bad in Sydney last time. She was an ally, albeit an odd one.

  ‘Mak! Darling!’ Loulou declared as she burst through the glass doors. Everyone in the café looked up, as did several people on the street. ‘Oh my gawd! I read that you were going to be back here soon!’

  ‘Would that be the “Serial Killer Slayer” headline or “Model Witness”?’ Mak wondered, rolling her eyes and accepting Loulou’s generous hug.

  ‘“Supermodel Stiletto Survivor”,’ Loulou replied with apparent seriousness.

  ‘Yeah, great, I get abducted and finally I get to be a supermodel. Why the hell didn’t I think of that before?’ quipped Mak.

  ‘…But I like the “Serial Killer Slayer” thing,’ Loulou went on. ‘That’s cool. Very catchy. I read that you would be back for the Sydney trial any day now. Doesn’t the trial start like…tomorrow?’

  ‘Afraid so.’

  ‘Sorry about the Starbucks thing.’ It had been Loulou’s choice of meeting place. ‘I am like, a totally pathetic addict. There must be nicotine in this stuff, or something. Or there ought to be for the price.’

  Mak laughed.

  They settled into their plush leather chairs, nursing frothy oversized coffees and smiling excitedly. Loulou crossed and uncrossed her legs like a nylon cricket. She had changed her hairstyle completely, probably several hundred times since Mak had seen her last. At the moment it was styled into a kind of trendy mullet, blonde and orange through the front, and black down the back. It was hard to resist staring at it.

  ‘It’s so great to see you, Mak! It’s been like…’

  ‘A year and a half,’ Mak said.

  ‘A year and a half!’ Loulou exclaimed. ‘Well, I’m so glad you called.’ She examined Mak’s face. ‘You look good. The layered hair works.’

  When Loulou had seen her last, Mak was still recovering from the injuries inflicted by Ed Brown, including broken ribs and jaw and the now infamous severed toe. She had also suffered a subdural haematoma, or brain haemorrhage, courtesy of the large workman’s hammer, wielded by Brown, that forensics discovered with her blood and hair on it. A small part of her scalp had been shaved for the surgery that drained the internal bleeding. Loulou would know perfectly well that Mak’s hairstyle was a stylish improvisation to cover the uneven growth, not a fashion choice. The evidence of the wound was now invisible under masses of thick mane. Much like the rest of her wounds—invisible unless you knew where to look.

  ‘How’s the toe?’

  Mak frowned. ‘The toe irritates the crap out of me. Sometimes I wish they’d left it at the scene.’

  ‘Ewww! Don’t say that!’ Loulou covered her ears.

  ‘Well I guess if they’d left it, it would make a few things more difficult…minor issues like mobility, balance…’

  ‘Shoe shopping.’

  ‘Oh yes, that too.’ Mak laughed and stirred some more sugar into her latte. ‘Hmm, do they make prosthetic toes? I bet they do. That would be something wouldn’t it? I could paint it differently for each photo shoot…red polish or natural? French manicure? Fake tan or no fake tan?’

  ‘Mak, you are gross!’

  Makedde was smiling from ear to ear. Loulou was one of the few ‘Darling!’ people she liked, and her high spirits were contagious. The unsinkable, unstoppable make-up artist was a rare gem, brimming with genuine enthusiasm and possessing an undeniably good heart.

  ‘Have you lost weight?’

  ‘Spoken like a true make-up artist, Loulou. Yes, it’s called the “Stress Diet”. I don’t recommend it.’ She rubbed her temples. ‘And truth is, I look rather gaunt. But I love you for being polite. How’s work at the moment? Busy?’

  ‘Well, as you know, Paris sucked for me, unlike some people…so I’ve been keeping it pretty local, but I’ve had some good money work with DJs and some celeb pieces for Who magazine. Dannii Minogue. Sophie Monk. Sarah O’Hare.’

  ‘Good for you. That’s great.’

  ‘And by the way, you don’t look as bad as you think you do. You never manage to look bad. A little sleep is probably all you need.’ She took a sip of her cappuccino, leaving a large purple lip print on the cup.

  Mak let her eyes follow some of the passers-by on the street, wondering what they wanted to be. Superstars? Olympians? Billionaire businessmen? Surely none of them aspired to be an occasionally successful model with a stalled thesis and a serious psycho-magnet affliction.

  ‘Still modelling?’

  ‘I’m afraid so. At eighteen it was amusing. At twenty-seven it’s more like the joke is on me. I can’t resist the pay. Every time I try to get out of the game, it sucks me back in. I guess that’s a blessing considering my thesis is all but dead in the water. Gotta make a living somehow, and I won’t be starting a practice for a couple of years at least.’ She wondered how much longer her modelling clients would be interested. She had already outlived the average model lifespan by a few years. ‘I’ve been offered the Ely Garner show next week in Hong Kong, which is exciting, but I don’t think I’ll do it. I’m not sure I’ll be feeling up to it after all this, and besides, the defence team might still have me on the witness stand…asking me what kind of underwear I had on and if I asked for it.’

  ‘Ely Garner? That would be huge.’ Loulou uncharacteristically paused for a moment. ‘Am I allowed to ask what happened with the other thing?’

  Was she talking about the relationship with Andy? ‘Um…I think you know most of it, don’t you?’ Mak replied cautiously.

  Should I call Andy today? It might be good to just talk a bit. Would that be the right thing to do?

  ‘At UBC, I mean,’ Loulou said.

  Ah, the University of British Columbia…that little debacle. Loulou had alluded to something in their email correspondence, and Mak wondered how much she knew of it. ‘Nope. That’s a no-fly zone. Please don’t be offended.’ Mak had firmly put her latest dramas out of her head. There was no need to revisit those experiences now, when she had such pressing matters to deal with. It would be all too easy to let her horrors intermingle, distorting and growing on one another. That could be dangerous. But still, when lightning strikes the same spot often enough, it is natural to wonder w
hy.

  ‘I thought so,’ Loulou said, successfully pulling Makedde back from the slippery slope of her own thoughts. The colourful young woman brought a painted fingertip to her lip, thoughtful. ‘It’s only okay if I get to call you Buffy. Deal?’

  ‘Buffy? The vampire slayer?’

  ‘Buffy the serial killer slayer.’

  ‘Sure,’ Mak agreed, dully.

  ‘How’s the love life? Are you still seeing that hot detective?’

  ‘Any other subject will do, I think.’ Mak chuckled awkwardly to loosen the lump in her throat. So many no-fly zones for one human being. ‘The short answer is no. It’s complicated.’

  ‘Tell me about it! It’s always bloody complicated. I was seeing this guy for like, three days last week, I thought I was on to something, and he stays over on Friday night and snap.’ She clicked her fingers together. ‘No sooner are we alone together than he’s asking if he can wear my undies. I mean, why do I attract these freaks?’

  Mak smiled. ‘I’ve got a psychological test for you. Wanna hear it?’

  ‘Yeah, okay.’

  ‘This is a real psychological test,’ Mak continued. ‘I want you to listen carefully. While at the funeral of her mother, a girl met a guy she didn’t know. She thought he was really amazing, her dream man. She felt that she was falling in love with him from that very moment. But unfortunately she didn’t ask for his number and she could not find him.’

  ‘Oh no. I hate when that happens.’

  ‘Pay attention, Loulou. This is where it gets interesting. A few days later, the girl killed her own sister.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘So the question is, what was her motive? Think about this carefully before answering.’

  ‘Do I get to phone a friend?’

  Mak smiled. ‘This isn’t Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.’