The Mak Collection

by Tara Moss

  Mak wore a uniform, a police uniform, but it was too big for her and the arms and legs were long like an unbound straitjacket, cuffs dragging across the ground of her dreamscape, tripping up her feet. It was her father’s police uniform. ‘Mom!’ she tried to say, and the word came out like her own name, and bounced from the edges of the surreally lit corridor, echoing back into her ears again and again, fading. MAK…Mak…mak…mak…Room 101. She had arrived. Mak broke into the hospital room, door flying off its hinges in a flash of splinters. Inside, the room looked like a bedroom in a cabin. It was familiar. Horrible. A hospital bed stood at its centre. Her mother, Jane, was strapped to the bed, wrapped in tubes that moved in and out of her nose and mouth and twined themselves around her limbs. She was still alive. For a too-brief moment Mak felt a weight lifted. She was in her mother’s presence. Jane Vanderwall. Mom. But there was another figure in the room. A man stood over her mother with a scalpel. He did not hold it as a surgeon would; he held it like an icepick, ready to drive it down.I must stop him! Mak was just in time, and she tried to get the gun, but her arms were useless. The straitjacket was tied, and she wriggled uselessly like a worm, wrestling with herself, frustrated, impotent.

  A strange moan escaped her lips, and the man with the scalpel turned to look at her.

  He was grinning blood.

  Mak knew his face. It was Damien Cavanagh.

  Mak woke on Loulou’s mattress with a gasp, exposed and short of breath. At some point during the previous hours of restless sleep—shifting in the dark and missing the distant sensation of a warm male body next to her—she had remembered that the boxer shorts she wore had once belonged to Andy, and had tossed them aside as if they were cursed. Now her naked body was slick with a sickly sweat, sheets pushed down and twisted around her ankles. Her heart pulsed like a drum.

  Mom.

  Makedde folded her knees up to her chest.

  Damien Cavanagh.

  She turned on her left side.

  Andy.

  Now she was face down, body positioned like a rock-climber, one knee up near her chest and the other straight, a hand extended to touch the cool wall.

  A shiver.

  Her head was abuzz with thoughts of her failed romance, and the failed, dangerous case she had been involved with before leaving Sydney. Andy. She shifted and sighed. The Cavanaghs. Mak finally rose, and paced the small bedroom a few times, then returned to bed, stretching herself across the mattress like a starfish, her long limbs reaching from corner to corner. Loulou’s alarm clock glowed the early hour of 4.53 a.m., which seemed painfully uncivilised. There was nothing helpful about being awake at this time. She was not being productive, and she would feel horrible in the morning for her meeting with Marian.

  Close your eyes.

  Sleep.

  But her mind was too active. Sleep would not come.

  There was one sure-fire way to clear her mind, and it did not involve staring at the ceiling. At a quarter past five Mak crept into the basement garage of the apartment building, where she’d shifted her Triumph after unpacking. She was clothed in a full set of dark leathers, helmet in hand.

  This is the way to reacquaint myself with Sydney.

  She threw the silver cover off her bike and put the key in the ignition, pulled the choke out and started it up, filling the garage with a thunderous roar and the fumes of her exhaust. After a short while she pushed the choke back in, and the engine began idling nicely. It was satisfyingly loud. She belatedly hoped she hadn’t woken anyone on the lower floors. She zipped up her black leather motorcycle jacket to the collar, pulled her helmet on and flicked the visor closed. Now warm, the bike rolled off the kickstand willingly.

  Ah, Sydney streets at night…It had been a while.

  After midnight the city streets opened up. It was a motorcyclist’s dream: the city without cars, the roads welcoming and free, the occasional headlights in the far distance on long roads. Freedom.

  She pulled out of the garage and headed in the direction of the CBD. It was, as she’d expected, a corporate ghost town. The buildings in the central city were modern rectangular monoliths—many forty or fifty floors apiece—their windows now but dimly lit. Streetlamps lined empty footpaths where businesspeople would begin gathering again in a couple of hours. Mak ripped across the bitumen on her sleek machine, crossing white lines at will, leaning into corners, the wheels gripping the road as if they had claws. George Street, Elizabeth Street, Macquarie…She circled near the giant white shells of Utzon’s Opera House, beautifully lit up, as an icon ought to be at any hour. A security man stepped out of his booth to peer at her. With a roll of the throttle she was back up the road, then passing the wharves of Woolloomooloo, boats bobbing up and down, water shimmering in moonlight. She slowed through Kings Cross, still abuzz with groups of revellers at that late hour. Neon lights glowed, spruikers invited groups of men into their strip clubs, and revellers exited nightclubs to stagger home via the kebab shop. A thin woman in very high shoes and an even higher hem swayed and beckoned to passers-by. Mak flicked her visor up to take in the sights and sounds, then kept on her way.

  Gradually her tension disappeared into the play of throttle and gears, the sound of her engine and the feeling of the wind through her helmet. Makedde sped through the dark streets, content in her concentration. She found a good pace down Kings Cross Road, and made a little detour to Kellett Street, where, she’d read, a bloody showdown of razors and guns had occurred in 1929 between the rival gangs of underworld queens Kate Leigh and Tilly Devine. Prostitution. Prohibitionera booze.Tonight, a few scantily clad women with hard faces loitered about neon doorways. No blood on the streets. She turned her bike and headed out past Rushcutters Bay Park, picking up pace again. Her bike flew along the streets, not planning her path, and when she reached the hill on New South Head Road she geared down.

  Go on.

  Darling Point. She was being pulled towards it. And there could only be one reason for that. She turned onto Darling Point Road, passing the former home of Nicole Kidman, and the gate where a bug had notoriously been discovered, supposedly planted by a paparazzi photographer to monitor the movie star’s comings and goings. Mak rode slowly past the homes of Sydney’s sleeping multi-millionaires, and before long she saw the familiar high stone wall and gates of the Cavanagh house. She geared down to second, then to first, her bike purring between her legs.

  The Cavanaghs.

  The Cavanaghs were one of the most powerful, rich and influential families in Australia. And they had ended up being the focus of Mak’s last investigation. Her failed investigation.

  Frowning, she imagined them sleeping soundly on Egyptian cotton sheets in their safe, luxurious abode while others took the blame for the deaths of those who got in their way. The Cavanagh heir, Damien, still lived in his parents’ palatial home. Born into all that money, he wouldn’t have to worry about things like rent, like making a living, abiding the law…

  His powerful father protected him, and it seemed there was little anyone could do about it.

  Perhaps.

  Makedde drifted in slow circles with the engine purring low, and then braked directly across the street from the front gates of the property. She could not see the house over the stone walls, but she knew it well. She had bluffed her way inside Damien Cavanagh’s swanky thirtieth birthday party there shortly before everything had spilled onto the front pages of the papers, and before her departure to Canberra for doomed love and temporary escape. To fake her way in, all it had taken was some cubic zirconia, a chauffeur-driven luxury car and a couture gown with a distractingly high split. It had probably helped that she could still pass herself off as a supermodel if she needed to; she would use those looks where necessary while she still had them. Looking the part had worked to get her in, but had also got her spotted by the wrong people among those hundreds of rich and influential guests—people who wanted her dead. The fireworks, the expensive champagne, the long corridors bedecked with priceless artwor
k—it had been the opulence she had expected, and more. But it was no better than a very salubrious crime scene, and that birthday party had feted a sick young man who’d managed to successfully avoid being charged with sex crimes, drug possession, murder and perverting the course of justice. Few, if any, of the guests could have known that, of course.

  Mak knew.

  There was a lot Mak knew.

  ‘These are very powerful people, Mak. You can’t just go accusing them of murder.’

  Andy, her cop ex-boyfriend, had defended the way the police were handling the case. That was ridiculous. How much evidence did the police need?

  The Cavanaghs were protected, and not just by the high walls surrounding their luxurious home. They had their power, their influence and their teams of lawyers and spin doctors. Mak would like nothing more than to bring them down. She just wished there was a way.

  Something will come, something…Something will slip…

  They could not be impenetrable forever.

  Mak snapped her visor shut and sped home through the dark Sydney streets, feeling no greater pull to the arms of Morpheus than she’d had before she’d left.

  Hours later, Mak was on a bus bound for Marian’s office, eyes puffy, stifling a yawn.

  She crossed and uncrossed her legs impatiently, tugged on her pencil skirt so it would cover her kneecaps, and tapped her pointy stiletto absent-mindedly. Instead of reading her paperback, she was fidgeting with her nails, staring blankly out the window, wrestling with the adaptations necessary for her new life.

  Her prime reason for staying in Australia was no longer a going concern, but she was not sure she wanted to return to Canada, the country of her birth. And she was about to be drawn back into PI work, despite her intention to become a forensic psychologist. This wasn’t what she’d had in mind for her life, but she’d always been adaptable enough to use the opportunities that came her way.Maybe just a few jobs with Marian and I’ll apply for that job at Long Bay Correctional, and make a career for myself there? Mak didn’t yet have enough money saved to open her own practice, a situation her stint in Canberra had not improved. That meant scraping together some extra cash working for Marian, or going back to her old model agency to try to drum up some catwalk or photographic jobs. But imagining walking into Book Model Agency gave her a rush of insecurity. Modelling was increasingly unlikely work for her, she knew. Despite the politically correct sound bites of those in the fashion industry, models over twenty-five were not in demand unless they were already famous brands, like Kate Moss or Elle Macpherson. In Australia Mak might arguably be infamous in some circles, but she was certainly not famous. Being snapped on the courthouse steps was not exactly good for one’s portfolio.

  Ugh. Body odour.

  Someone’s smell drifted up to her nostrils and Mak rubbed her nose.Terrible.She had opted to take public transport so she could wear something businesslike for her reintroduction to Marian Wendell, instead of her tomboyish motorcycle leathers. Already she wondered why it had seemed important to dress up. Marian knew her well enough. Perhaps after her hiatus she wanted to feel like she was ‘going to work’, the way normal people did.

  Who was she kidding? She was anything but normal.

  As if to emphasise the point, Mak felt plastic brush against her bare elbow, and her edgy survival instincts kicked in. But it was only a silver-haired woman manoeuvring her shopping bags next to her. No threat there. In seconds the bus braked, and she was pulled a few centimetres across the seat towards the woman’s shopping before the vehicle came to rest and let a new passenger on. It was an odd-looking man. He wore his few strands of hair in a greasy comb-over, and had on a woolly turtlenecked sweater with a pilled business suit, a choice that seemed more than a little out of place for the warm Sydney weather. Had he been wearing a long coat, she might have ducked for cover. In Mak’s experience, people wearing long coats in summer generally harboured weapons. As it was, she watched the man in the periphery of her vision as she pretended to read her novel. He walked past her and took a seat nearby. His appearance made her uneasy.

  You are paranoid.

  The doors of the bus hissed closed with a familiar hydraulic sound, enough of a sensory cue to temporarily transport her back to her early twenties, to New York City, hearing that same hydraulic sound as she fought a horrible man with a similar penchant for comb-overs to the man on the bus. She had been living in a model’s apartment in a modern high-rise, and arrived home from a shoot to notice someone dressed in a tracksuit near the bell panel. The instant she unlocked the glass lobby door to go inside, the man leaped on her, groping her breasts and trying to push into the building. Self-defence classes had taught her well, and she shouted with all her might and smashed her umbrella into him like a nightstick. But he persisted, and each time she managed to get him back outside the doorway—beating his prying hands out of the way with her umbrella—she would try to slam the door closed, and instead hear that horrible hydraulic hiss, the door fighting against her urgency. Mak and her attacker struggled violently for what seemed like five full minutes before she managed to close the maddeningly slow hydraulic door, finding safety in the lobby on the other side of that locked pane of glass, exhausted and in shock.

  You are a psycho-magnet.

  Thankfully the past several months, though emotionally trying, had not offered up any fresh psycho-magnet stories. But she wondered how much longer this respite from the bizarre would last.

  ‘Hey…you’re that woman from the papers, aren’t you?’ came a male voice.

  Mak looked up. It was comb-over man. She had sensed that he would be a problem. She really didn’t wish to engage with him, especially as she was trapped, at least until the next stop.

  ‘It is. I thought it was you,’ the man persisted, pleased with his discovery. He continued to stare at her, expecting a response. He had caught the attention of several other passengers, who were now doing the same.

  Though seemingly crazy, the man had recognised her from the press coverage of the Cavanagh case. Her involvement had been widely reported in Sydney, she knew, but she had hoped people would have forgotten. Didn’t they say it was ‘today’s news and tomorrow’s fish ’n’ chips wrapper’? She’d hoped that the better part of a year would have made it all blow over. Evidently not. Not in the mind of the public, and certainly not in her own mind. The Cavanaghs had not left her thoughts. Or her early-morning motorcycling routes…

  Outside the bus windows she recognised the buildings near Marian Wendell’s investigation agency. Frankly, her stop could not come too soon. She took the opportunity to stand and move away from her unwanted inquisitor.

  ‘Yeah, you’re that private eye chick,’ the man said to her back as Mak stood waiting impatiently for the doors to open. ‘I reckon those rich people did it,’ he added. ‘You can just tell they’re guilty.’

  Makedde stiffened.

  Guilty. Yes they are. I know they are.

  She disembarked with her head down. ‘You must have me confused with someone else,’ she lied, more for the benefit of the other passengers than for the strange man who had clearly pegged her. She felt eyes on her as she stood at the kerb and the doors of the bus closed with that hideous hiss.

  Next time you’ll ride over on your own wheels, under the anonymous shield of a helmet, she promised herself. But if she was going to work for Marian, she needed a car.

  Mak waited for the traffic to clear, mentally shaking off the encounter. The bus dawdled away down the busy street, and she stood alone on the side of the road near Bondi Junction, looking across to the three-storey, seventies-built concrete box that had been Marian’s office building for decades. The traffic eased and she dashed across clutching her black leather purse to her shoulder, stiletto heels clicking on the uneven surface. Despite her reservations about returning to investigation work, a smile found the corners of her mouth as she pushed the lobby door open and stepped inside. It seemed she had missed the place more than she’d thought.
The old office block was a thing of curious, kitsch beauty, from the overabundance of brown and yellow tones right down to the faux wood panelling in the lobby. It was a feast of tacky 1970s delights. In the seven months since her last visit to Marian, the rather tired green-and-yellow carpet had been replaced with something in an inoffensive modern grey. Perhaps no one made reams of yellow and green diamond-patterned carpet any more.

  The old lift took its sweet time, as always, but soon enough she arrived at Marian’s agency on the second floor. She read the words on the door, and took a deep breath.

  MARIAN WENDELL INVESTIGATION AGENCY

  PROFESSIONAL PRIVATE INVESTIGATIONS

  Here goes.

  A chiming bell announced Makedde’s arrival. She let herself in and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Be there in two minutes,’ came a familiar and immediate shout from the main office down the hall.

  Mak located one of the spy cameras and gave it the thumbs up for her boss’s benefit. She was aware that the offices were fitted out with all kinds of surveillance equipment, and that Marian could watch everyone entering or leaving from the comfort and safety of her desk chair.

  The carpeting outside may have changed, but nothing inside the investigation offices had, not even the magazines in the waiting room, many of which were now several years out of date. The Australian Women’s Weekly, Woman’s Day and National Geographic respectively boasted stories on Olivia Newton-John’s personal life, Angelina Jolie’s ‘shocking!’ weight loss and the plight of radio-tagged deforestation-tracking tarantulas. There was even an old, dog-eared cover of a fresh-faced Princess Diana, smiling with her prince. Mak was sure she’d already read every page of every story during previous visits to the waiting room, so she left the glossies alone, and picked up a section of the local paper.