Randall realised he’d drunk most of the bottle himself, and said no. Something told him even then that with Henry he had to be on his best behaviour.
And yet. And yet. There’d been talk that night, about the woman he’d been with that time in Shanghai, when the accident had happened. Henry had wanted to know about the woman. It had emerged that Henry liked to talk about these things. That was how he’d got into providing him with the DVDs, later, when he came to Sydney.
Not long after he’d settled here, Henry had taken him to his club. Chinese place, amazingly pretty waitresses in skimpy clothes, but nothing sordid. Lot of class, lot of money. They’d talked about sex some more, and things had developed from that. Henry had asked him to do a favour or two in other matters as well, irregular stuff but no danger to himself, interesting to see the guy was into a lot of action. A blind eye to some people coming and going at The Tower, copies of certain invoices. Henry had expressed his gratitude and asked if there was anything he could do for Randall, who said Sydney was fine but he was a bit bored, didn’t feel he’d really connected yet.
‘Connected?’ Henry said, asking Randall to explain. And Randall had been so bored that he had.
Two days later, this Chinese guy turns up at Randall’s office with a small and beautifully wrapped box, size of a cigarette pack, present from a friend. Inside, coke. Lovely stuff, lots of it. And on a scrap of paper, a phone number. He’d called, thinking it was Henry’s mobile, he should say thanks, astonished that the guy knew how to get this sort of stuff and was prepared to share with Randall. The phone was answered by someone with an accent, said his name was Gregor and he’d been asked to take care of Randall, give him good gear for a good price. After that, Sydney had started to make sense for Randall. There were a lot of girls out there who liked getting high. Knew how to express their appreciation.
Pushing Henry from his mind, he turned the car down Richardson and into Timms, slowed as he looked for numbers. There were some cars parked along the way and he could see a yard with grass high as a country field in a rainy season. Next to it an unloved brick house, rags hanging in the windows, one of those dumb peaks on the roof. It was the one, the number Jamal had given him. Slow the car down and park, it’s show time. Save the man from the wrath of Henry Wu. I’m a good man at heart and I want my conscience to be clean.
Except there were bikes. Big, serious American machines. Oh shit. Randall’s heart was pounding as he cruised past, picking up speed and counting the motorcycles in the carport up by the house. There were at least four, maybe more, but the carport was obscured now by a big black Ford parked outside. Tinted windows and big wheels and mufflers, a real cop-magnet. Say what you like about the criminal classes, at least they’re predictable.
He hung right into the crescent and drove away. Walking into a house of bikies was not part of the agenda. They might trounce him, take the car. He’d read that bikie gangs had resources; they might note the number of the rental vehicle, track him down later.
He was shaking, feeling queasy as he deep-breathed the aroma of the air freshener inside the car. Just keep the capsule going, Sean. Keep it steady and back on track to the city, you’ve done your best, but Asaad has his tough mates to protect him from Henry Wu. They deserve each other. Get back to the rental precinct in Kings Cross, back into the Audi, nice clean smell of leather. Forget all this.
Fuck it, he thought. I tried.
Eighteen
At the office, Ruth gave Troy a piece of paper with Margot Teresi’s phone number and address. She lived at the Horizon, a well-known apartment block close to the CBD. He thanked her, explained that Margot Teresi might be the victim. ‘You know who she is?’
‘The celebrity. She went out with Damon Blake but they broke up.’ Seeing Troy’s blank face she added, ‘The singer.’
‘Party girl?’
‘She gets into the mags, drives a Porsche, different man each year.’
‘Who is it now?’
Ruth shrugged. ‘It’s hard to keep up. I could check.’
Troy sat down and called the number. After a while a woman answered. ‘Margot Teresi?’ he said.
‘Not here. Leave a message.’
The woman sounded as though she’d just woken up. Troy looked at the time on his screen: it was eleven o’clock.
‘It’s the police.’
‘Oh God. Not the car again.’
Troy identified himself. ‘Do you know how I can get in touch with Ms Teresi?’
‘I think she’s up the river.’
‘Is there a phone number?’
The woman answered wearily. ‘No. And it’s out of mobile range.’
He said he needed to come and have a talk. In response to a further question, the woman said her name was Jenny Finch. She didn’t sound enthusiastic about the prospect of the police calling by. But she didn’t sound worried either. She asked for half an hour so she could have a shower.
Troy wondered if a rich young woman with an apparently active social life could disappear for two days without anyone knowing. He wondered what river the woman on the phone had been referring to, and what it had to do with anything. But after a decade in the police force, he knew the world was full of strangeness and mystery that usually signified nothing.
The Horizon was a slender white tower, very tall, and dominated the skyline of Darlinghurst just as The Tower dominated its end of the CBD. Troy made his way to Teresi’s place on level nineteen. He was by himself, because there’d been no one to come with him and this was too important to wait. The door was opened by a thin woman in her early thirties, wearing a white T-shirt and black jeans. Her skin was pale and unhealthy, like tissue paper.
‘Welcome to the Horizon,’ she said in a low voice after he’d shown her his badge. ‘I assume you haven’t been here before?’
‘No,’ he said, wondering if this was supposed to be offensive.
‘What do you think of it?’
‘It’s very white, isn’t it?’
Actually, as he’d seen when he came in, the outside walls were a light beige. But from a distance the building looked pure white, and that was how he still thought of it.
‘Less is more,’ the woman said, pausing as though this was somehow significant.
He nodded politely.
‘Won’t you come in?’
She showed him into the lounge room and through to an oddly shaped balcony, which thrust you out into the sky. It was where the view was best. He didn’t know why she was showing it to him, but he had a look anyway.
Below him, Woolloomooloo spread down the hill to the silver harbour. He could see all the way out to the Heads and up the North Shore. To the left was The Tower, big even from this distance, protruding above all the buildings around it. Bending his neck he looked down to the street. It was a long way, and he quickly straightened up.
‘I’d never make a mountain climber,’ he said to the woman, who was standing behind him patiently, as though the view had long ceased to impress her. She had her arms wrapped tightly around her chest.
They went back inside and she showed him to a couch, sitting in a large armchair herself. Jenny Finch seemed to be a troubled soul. Her eyes were vacant and didn’t meet his gaze. Despite what she’d said on the phone about taking a shower, her hair was dry and looked brittle. He wondered if she knew anything about Teresi’s death, or if something else was wrong with her.
‘Do you live here?’ he said.
She nodded with her whole body, rocking in the chair, but said nothing.
‘Tell me about the place at the river,’ he said.
Margot had a house on the Hawkesbury above Brooklyn, where she’d sometimes go for days without telling anyone.
‘Not even you?’ he said.
‘Margy says she doesn’t want to feel tied down. It’s tedious when people ring up wanting her all the time.’ She paused, as though speaking required a great deal of her available energy. ‘Some nights, after she’s been to a club or somet
hing, she just gets into her car and keeps driving.’
‘What happens when she gets to Brooklyn?’
‘She’s got this boat. You know, a tinnie.’
‘She uses the boat in the dark?’
‘I don’t know, maybe she sleeps in the car. The seats go back.’
Troy wondered where the car was now. ‘So she stays at the house by herself?’
‘Usually. She says it gives her time to think.’
‘What does she think about?’
The woman frowned at Troy as though the question was stupid. Maybe it was.
At last she said, ‘Everything. There’s so much to think about, don’t you agree?’
Troy stared at her. ‘Is she up there now?’
‘If her car’s not in the garage. Have you looked?’
‘How could I look?’
‘Aren’t you a cop?’
Troy took two photographs out of a pocket and laid one of them on the coffee table. It showed the bracelet, and he asked Jenny if she recognised it.
‘It was Elena’s,’ she said with a catch in her voice. ‘Ghastly, isn’t it?’
He put down the other photograph, of the dolphin tattoo, wondering if Jenny Finch had even heard about the death at The Tower. There were no newspapers in the room and he couldn’t see a television screen. She stared at the dolphin.
‘That’s Margot,’ she said at last.
‘I’m afraid,’ he said slowly, ‘we think something might have happened to her.’
The woman raised her legs and clasped her knees, and rocked back in her chair. She began to cough, a dry, rasping sound. When it didn’t stop, Troy went to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water. He gave it to Jenny who drank it and stopped coughing. Tears were running down her cheeks, attracting the light, bringing life to the sallow skin. This was the worst part of his job.
‘It was The Tower, wasn’t it?’ she said after a while. ‘She was the one.’
‘We think so.’
‘Oh God,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t do it.’
‘Do what?’
‘Identify the body,’ she sobbed. ‘Please don’t ask me. I just can’t. It would make me sick. I need to keep the nutrition in me, it’s very important.’
Behind her head a transparent white curtain across the open door to the balcony was flapping gently in the breeze. He thought about telling her that an identification was out of the question. But he wanted to keep her fear alive, keep a little pressure on so she’d give him some names. It was one of the first things they told you as a detective: keep information to yourself unless there’s a reason to share it. Sometimes, it’s all you’ve got.
It didn’t always work, but it did now. Jenny was eager to please and told him about Margot’s friends.
‘Damon Blake?’
‘Last year’s model. Ben Wilson came after him and then . . . I don’t know. There’s an older guy who’s rung a few times these past weeks, I don’t know his name.’ The hands holding the glass of water were shaking. ‘Please don’t make me do it. I won’t.’
‘Tell me about the new man.’
‘She’d go into her room when he rang. She didn’t always do that before, but this was like some big secret.’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper.
‘So, you’re Margot’s flatmate?’
Jenny nodded. ‘I had a bad run, and Margy took me in. We rub along.’
‘When did you last see her?’
‘Sunday afternoon. Then I went for a walk to Paddington. I like the shops there, although it’s never been the same since they opened the new Westfield—’
‘When did you get home?’
She thought for a while, as though it was a difficult question. ‘At seven. Margy said she was going out at six. I think, sometimes, it’s best not to be here when she’s going out.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘She took a long time to get dressed, she’d put on music and dance around the place, she was happy. I’d rather go out.’ She looked sadly at a painting on the wall; it was large, mottled grey with a few black scuff marks. ‘Margy had nice things. She wanted me to go clubbing with her more often, but, you know . . .’
‘A Collette Dinnigan black cocktail dress,’ Troy said gently. ‘Did she have one of those?’
Jenny started to sob again. She was so thin Troy wondered how her body would take the physical effects of grief.
After taking down details of the dinner party Margot had planned to attend that night, he said, ‘Who’s her next of kin?’
‘No one. The others are all dead.’
‘If it is Margot, if she died at The Tower, would that surprise you? I mean, that she was there?’
Jenny slowly stopped crying and thought about this. Troy waited patiently.
‘She was a very obsessive girl, she got that from Tony. Lately she’d started to brood a lot about how The Tower had destroyed his reputation. She could get quite upset about it. I’d never seen her obsess about something like this before.’ She shook her head rapidly as though to clear it. ‘She thought he’d been badly done by. She once took me up there.’ She looked at Troy anxiously. ‘I won’t get into trouble, will I?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll need to get a written statement from you later, but you won’t get into trouble.’
‘At a police station?’
‘We’ll see. Do you know the name of Margot’s dentist?’
Jenny put a hand over her eyes. ‘Oh my God.’ She sat quite still for half a minute, then: ‘I went there once, it was in Edgecliff. I don’t know the name.’
‘In the building over the station?’
‘Level five,’ she said. ‘Or three.’
‘What time did you go to The Tower with Margot?’
‘She always went up at night. We took a taxi, a man met us at the gate and took us up in the lift. I didn’t want to go but she told me I had to see it, as a member of the family. It was incredibly dirty.’
‘Dirty?’
‘Dust, you know. Concrete and stuff.’
‘What did Margot say while you were there?’
‘It was all about how Tony’s business associates had driven him bankrupt. She became really passionate, not like Margy at all.’
‘She was a calm person?’
‘No way.’ Jenny tried to laugh. It was an unpleasant, barking sound. ‘She used to get angry a lot. But that was just her way. This thing about The Tower was a lot deeper, it only came up in the last year. Maybe less.’
‘Would you say she was depressed?’
Jenny shook her head fiercely. ‘She’s not the one who was depressed. She was . . . energised.’
‘Did you ever hear her talk about the business with her father to anyone else?’
‘Once a journalist came here. She had some documents and thought they were really important. He didn’t agree. She was pretty upset.’
Troy wanted to ask her more about everything, but it would have to wait until he got her back to the station. For the moment he was after the broad view. ‘Do you remember anything about the man who took you up The Tower?’
When she described the man, it sounded like Bazzi.
Jenny was crying a lot now, working a box of tissues on the coffee table. ‘It was just that I was family,’ she said. ‘Margy wanted me to know Uncle Tony was a genius, he’d built this mountain in the sky.’
‘So you’re Margot’s cousin?’
‘Why else would I be here?’
He said, ‘Did the man take part in the conversation when you were up there?’
She shook her head. ‘He had this pass to the lifts, it was like he was an employee. You could tell they’d met before.’
‘How many lifts did you go up in?’
Jenny frowned, trying to remember. ‘Three I think. When we reached the top she showed me this giant metal box they have up there.’
He looked at her, wondering if she was making this up. The metal box in the mountain in the sky.
For a while he didn’t sa
y anything more, not sure whether to go on or get her down to the station now for a formal interview. She was a gold mine, and it made him nervous that he was here without a partner, that there was no tape running. But there was something wrong with her and you had to think about the emotional effects of taking her to the station. Some detectives wouldn’t worry; they thought if you could just get someone onto your territory, you were ahead. But it wasn’t always like that.
Jenny was curled up, her arms clasping her knees again, crying rhythmically now, as though on a familiar path. It was better than the barking sound. Suddenly she stopped and blurted out, ‘Oh God. I’ll get all her stuff, won’t I?’
‘Did she have much?’
Jenny nodded emphatically. ‘Shares, bank accounts, companies, accountants. This is a nightmare.’
‘Do you have family, anyone you could call?’
‘I could call my mum.’
He stood up. ‘Why don’t you do that? I’m just going to have a look in Margot’s room. Where is it?’ She pointed to one of the doors leading off the lounge, and he opened it and went into the room beyond. Glad to get away from her for a moment.
The room was an elaborate home office. Against one wall stood a big antique walnut desk with curved legs and an inlaid leather top. There was a row of timber filing cabinets too. He wandered around, opening drawers. In one he found a small plastic container with the words SPARE KEYS embossed on it. Inside were keys with tags marked FLAT, RIVER and CAR. Poor security but convenient, he thought, as he pocketed them. He flicked through a pile of opened letters and statements from financial institutions on the desk. From the names he came across, it seemed Margot Teresi had been involved with a number of companies. His guess from looking quickly through the pile was that her affairs were up-to-date, but after a few minutes he realised they were so complicated he’d have to get a forensic accountant to go through the place and give him a summary. They’d need to get into the computer standing on a small table next to the desk, which he discovered was protected by a password.
He found two things though: her latest Optus phone account, which also went into his pocket, and an advice that her car was due for its annual registration payment. He noted the plate number in his notebook.
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