Sharp Edge

by Marianne Delacourt

  ‘Boss, you’re bleeding,’ he said.

  ‘He got off a punch,’ I said. ‘But it’s OK. Nothing broken.’

  Wal put a steadying hand on my shoulder, which I appreciated. My mouth throbbed, my ankle hurt, and my tooth felt a little loose. But more than that, I was affronted and a little shocked. I don’t think anyone had ever punched me in the mouth before.

  ‘You should have waited. What if he’d knifed you? Or worse,’ growled Wal.

  I hid being shaken in brazenness. ‘If I’d waited, I’d never have seen where he was looking. We’d never know if he was just a plain old burglar or not.’

  ‘What was he after?’ asked Wal.

  ‘He was checking the floorboards, so I’m reckoning a safe.’

  ‘Is there one?’

  I shrugged. ‘Maybe. But it won’t be in the floor. Not if I know Garth.’

  ‘You recognise the guy?’

  ‘No. But I got a good look at his face thanks to Cass. I’ll know him next time we meet.’

  ‘You could do an identikit for the cops,’ said Cass.

  I shook my head. ‘No cops. Not yet. They’ll assume I’m involved in something. Did you take down number plates?’

  ‘I took photos of all the cars not in driveways, on the east side of the block. Then Wal turned up and we came running because you didn’t answer when we rang.’

  I pulled out my phone and saw the missed calls. ‘Well thanks.’

  ‘Where does that leave us right now?’ said Wal.

  My shoulders sagged as a wash of exhaustion flooded over me. I’d had enough of today. ‘Heading home for a shower and some food. Now that my adrenalin was fading, I was ravenous. ‘Pizza. My treat. I’m starving and I’ve got a couple of phone calls to make.’

  ‘We have to celebrate anyway,’ said Cass.

  ‘Why’s that?’ asked Wal.

  ‘Tara and me … we’re moving in next door to you,’ she said.

  13

  Wal took Cass home while I drove to Al’s pizza parlour, taking care to wipe the blood from my lip and tighten the laces on my sneaker so I didn’t limp, before I went in.

  That arrangement spared me any immediately awkward conversations with Cass about moving, and gave me time to recover from my altercation. I flexed the ankle as I waited. Only a light sprain, I decided. Those always felt worse than they were.

  How was I going to tell Cass she was staying with JoBob at Lilac Street without upsetting her? I mean I couldn’t have a sixteen-year-old living upstairs from a slightly dubious investigative agency. And much as I would prefer not to have to admit it, it was dubious. I mean, I wasn’t an ex-cop with strong law enforcement ties, I didn’t have a private detective’s licence, and I wasn’t always exactly pedantically lawful.

  I was just trying to get by and manage this strange ability I had. Sometimes that meant my choices weren’t clear cut. And Cass needed clear cut. She was a teenager. It was bad enough that I had her out stalking cat burglars.

  Guilt threatened to overwhelm me, so I distracted myself by calling Bon Ames.

  ‘Yeah,’ he said.

  ‘Hi is that—’

  ‘You got the wrong number lady,’ he said, cutting me off.

  I hesitated. He knew my voice, I was sure of it, which meant his phone was tapped, or he was somewhere he couldn’t talk.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ I said and hung up.

  Al called my order of a Supreme, a Meatlovers, and three lots of garlic bread, so I collected the food, feeling the flutter of panic in my belly. How did I contact Bon Ames now? I wanted the Cheaters out of my life as soon as possible. And then there was Garth’s problem.

  It was only a ten-minute drive from Al’s to home, but I decided to call Garth and get it out of the way.

  I heard background music and voices as he answered.

  ‘Tara?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘The Cocked Dog, having dinner with Jasmine?’

  ‘Can you step outside for a minute?’

  ‘Sure, hang on.’

  I kept the speaker on and waited for him to find a quiet spot. The streets were quiet for early evening, but the car park at the Napoleon Street markets was crowded. Everyone must have stopped there to buy dinner. Those that could afford it. I never went there on account of the cost.

  ‘You there?’

  ‘Yup, I said.

  I was almost at Glyde Street, and gave a glance at my new premises as I passed by. Maybe I’d leave the Gar Lock sign up. It was a good casual cover that might confuse the idle passers-by, which was likely a good thing. I didn’t really want tyre kickers.

  ‘What is it?’ said Garth.

  ‘I’ve had people watching your place and there’s been a break in.’

  ‘What! Where are you…? I’ll come right away. Have you called the police?’

  ‘Whoa, settle,’ I said. ‘First off, the burglar’s gone and he didn’t take anything.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I was inside watching him.’

  ‘You were what!’

  ‘I don’t want to explain on the phone. Tell me, do you have a safe?’

  He hesitated and I could imagine the expression on his face: part anxious, part annoyed, part cagey. A Garth face.

  ‘Let me put it another way. Have you kept any evidence of the thing we’ve been discussing at home?’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘It’s somewhere else.’

  ‘Good. Leave it there. And do me a favour, stay with Jasmine tonight. I don’t think he’ll come back now, but I’d feel better if you weren’t there. I have to go home and get some sleep and think. We’ll talk in the morning.’

  I could tell he wanted to protest, but he knew that I was likely to bail on the whole thing if he didn’t do what I asked.

  ‘OK. Are you OK? Should I be worried?’

  ‘Yes and no,’ I lied. ‘I’ll call you first thing.’

  * * *

  Five minutes later I was on my bed, ankle elevated on a pillow, managing to chow down my pizza with extra pineapple and anchovies despite a fat lip and swollen cheek. Cass had transferred all the clothes from the couch onto her cot bed and she and Wal were propped on the two-seater. Wal had the pizza box on his lap, and his hand dived in regularly to retrieve the next slice. Cass had taken a couple of slices onto a plate and was picking the anchovies off.

  ‘I’ll have them,’ I said.

  She pulled a face. ‘How can you eat them?’

  ‘The expression is “acquired taste”,’ I said.

  ‘Code for old-folk-weird,’ she countered, which caused Wal to snort some salami down his windpipe.

  Cass had to get him a glass of water.

  By the time he’d quit spluttering, I’d eaten my share of the Supreme and was eying his pizza box.

  He saw the avarice in my stare and slid the Meatlovers down behind the couch away from me.

  ‘You wanna talk about this case, boss?’ he said in an effort to distract me.

  It was better than talking about the ‘moving house’ thing, I figured, so I told him them about Garth and Jasmine and Jasmine’s link to Viaspa. Cass asked questions to fill in the bits that were new to her.

  ‘This job on mate’s rates?’ asked Wal.

  I sighed. ‘Worse. Ex-fiancés rates.’

  Wal nodded sagely. ‘I had one of them once.’

  ‘An ex-fiancée?’ I said incredulously.

  Wal was one black Sobranie shy of being mistaken for Russian Mafioso, despite having Irish, Scottish and Polish ancestry. He’d been a band roadie for most of his life when he wasn’t working ‘foreigners’ as muscle for a mate or a mate’s mate. He wasn’t tall, just brawn with the manner of a person who didn’t give a flying fuck who he messed with if the mood took him. I mean, in a fair fight, I’d even back Wal over Bon Ames, the man mountain bad biker...

  I suppose as a younger guy he might have borne a slight mystique around him, though truly it was hard to imagine Wal as any other age. When I�
��d met him a few months back, he was suffering from untreated narcolepsy. Little did I know that months later he’d be my security chief and that my cultured and wealthy aunt would fall in love with him? Or that he’d return that love a hundred-fold. Uncle Wal he’d be, the way things were going. Whoever said that fact was stranger than fiction knew what was what.

  ‘Her name was Janice. Hairdresser from Gosnells.’

  ‘What happened?’ asked Cass, her eyes bright with curiosity.

  ‘Her dad had other ideas. Wanted her to marry their bean counter.’

  ‘Why’s it always the bean counter,’ I said dramatically.

  ‘That sucks,’ said Cass.

  ‘No,’ said Wal. ‘He was right to do that. I had nothin’. Was goin’ nowhere. Can’t say I like the bloke much though. Even to this day.’

  ‘The accountant?’

  He nodded.

  Before I could say something about not holding that against our client, Garth, there was a knock at the door.

  Wal and I exchanged quick glances. It was after 11pm. Past the time for normal visitors.

  ‘Expecting someone?’ asked Wal quietly.

  I shook my head. The curtain was pulled across the glass sliding door, so it was impossible to know who it was without peeking.

  ‘It might be Ed,’ I whispered back.

  ‘Or Nick,’ said Cass helpfully.

  Wal signalled for Cass to go over next to the fridge out of the line of sight. Once she was there, he pulled a knife from an ankle sheath, climbed onto the kitchen sink and carefully opened the window that faced onto JoBob’s swimming pool. ‘Turn the lights out, count to ten then open the curtain real quick, but not the door,’ he said quietly. Then he climbed through it.

  I began to sweat. Had the burglar followed me home? Come to finish the job? Had Viaspa heard I was helping Garth and sent someone to abduct me? That was stupid, I told myself. Kidnappers didn’t knock.

  Keeping most of my body to the side of the door so that it was protected by the wall, I reached out and threw the floor length curtain back.

  There, behind the glass, stood a young guy I’d never seen before dressed in leathers and MC boots. He glanced nervously over his shoulder, like he’d heard a noise behind him.

  ‘Who are you?’ I asked politely from behind the locked door.

  ‘Bon Ames sent me.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘OK. Hang on.’

  I opened the door.

  ‘I’ve got a burn—’ he said, reaching inside his jacket.

  But Wal tackled him from behind before he got the rest of the words out—a heavy, knee hugging, bone crunching clinch that sent them both sprawling onto the floor. A second later they were wrestling earnestly. Wal had the upper hand but the young guy wasn’t going down easily.

  ‘Wal! Ssstop!’ I hissed. ‘He’s from the Cheaters.’

  Neither of them seemed to hear me, so I was forced to try and pull Wal off him. But it was like trying to separate dogs in a fight and my sprained ankle meant I kept overbalancing. Neither listened to me and all I got was a kick in the leg and an elbow in the chest.

  Just as I thought about grabbing the hose from the back yard something unexpected happened to end their ruckus.

  ‘Ta-rah!’ said a piercingly plummy voice that could un-varnish woodwork at five hundred paces. ‘What on earth is going on here?’

  Her offended tone worked like fire blanket on their testosterone. Both men instantly stopped their wrestling, and Wal rolled off Leather Clad Guy.

  ‘Mrs Sharp,’ said Wal breathlessly, scrambling to his feet. If he’d been wearing a hat, I swear he would have tipped it.

  Leather Clad Guy got up more slowly, but kept his head bowed in deference to the might of Joanna’s tone.

  ‘Wal was just showing our new employee some self-defence moves,’ I said blithely into the wake of the pregnant silence.

  Joanna crossed her arms. She was wearing a pale pink tracksuit and had a string of pearls around her neck as if she’d come home from some grand event and forgotten to take them off. At least, I hope that was the case. Her head was tilted to the side, her expression sceptical.

  ‘Indeed. Well there is a time and place for such things Wallace. You’re keeping poor Bob awake. Next thing the neighbours will be calling.’

  ‘Pardon for that,’ said Wal meekly.

  ‘Sorry Mum,’ I added.

  She glanced around the room frowning. ‘Cassandra, what are you doing down there in the corner.’

  Cass emerged from her hidey hole. ‘I … err … dropped something behind the fridge,’ she said.

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘Oh, just a book. I put it there and then knocked it down accidentally.’

  Joanna’s frown deepened. ‘How very odd, Cassandra. And Tara, I’m not pleased to find a young man here so late at night. Cassandra is only sixteen.’

  I blushed in a way that only my mother could make me do. Normally her interfering would madden me, but right now it was fortuitous. ‘They were just leaving.’

  Wal nodded vociferously, and the Leather Clad Guy began to sidle towards the door.

  But Joanna pinned him with a stare. ‘What’s your name dear?’

  ‘Pete.’

  ‘Well, Peter. You seem nice enough, except for those drawings on your hands. But don’t call in to the house this late again. Understand?’

  ‘Mum!’ I exclaimed, mortified.

  Pete nodded nervously. He had the startled look of someone who’d stepped into another dimension without a tour guide.

  ‘What on earth are those drawings anyway?’ Joanna demanded of him.

  He wet his lips, trying to summon an answer to Joanna’s direct and faintly entitled question about his tattoos.

  ‘They’re religious tattoos Mrs S,’ piped up Cass. ‘Pete is very devout. It’s a family thing.’

  Joanna’s expression mollified and rather ridiculously, Pete gave Cass a grateful look. The young biker seemed petrified of the Euccy Grove matron.

  I wanted to stop the charade right now, but felt powerless to articulate my thoughts. Wal was acting just as impotent, holding his hands in front of him like a chastised school boy.

  ‘Devout, you say? Not one of those strange cult religions from overseas, I hope,’ said Joanna.

  ‘Russian orthodox,’ volunteered Cass again. ‘Been around since … God.’

  I stared at her. Where on earth did that girl get her sang froid?

  Cass didn’t return my glance but kept a steady comforting smile directed at Joanna.

  ‘Very well, then. I’m going up. Perhaps Wallace and Peter and I should all leave together,’ said Joanna.

  ‘It’s alright Mum. I’ll see them out,’ I said finding my tongue finally. ‘You go on up to bed.’

  Joanna took one more look around the room, sniffed at my clothes piled on Cass’s bed, and whooshed her pink tracksuit and pearls out of the room.

  We all sagged in the wake of her exit.

  ‘Peter?’ I said when I recovered my composure.

  ‘Pete,’ he said reaching into his jacket again. He tossed me a burner phone. ‘There’s only one number on it. Ring the sarge tonight.’

  I nodded.

  He nodded. Then he couldn’t help but look at Cass again. They exchanged something. No more than a look but their auras surged towards each other. I guessed he was her type. Lean and dark and looking like he might grow into someone with charisma.

  ‘I’ll go with him,’ said Wal. ‘Call me if you need me boss.’

  I nodded, mute. My bed looked so enticing. This last little hiccough with Joanna had sapped the rest of my interest in today. But I couldn’t sleep yet.

  I waved Wal and Pete out. Then I limped over and locked the kitchen window and closed the horizontal blind.

  ‘I have to make a call,’ I told Cass. ‘I’ll be out on the lawn.’

  She tilted her head to one side, and accurately assessing my mood, got about removing the clothes from her bed back to the couch
, without comment.

  I went outside and stood, letting my eyes accustom to the dark, listening to the sounds of Pete’s motorbike growling away down Lilac Street. Wal would be walking home. He was good in the shadows.

  Up in JoBob’s house, Joanna extinguished the kitchen light and a few minutes later the bedroom light.

  I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. One more thing to do before my bed and I got to have that date.

  I moved slowly away from the flat down to the very bottom of the garden where Joanna had a row of hibiscus against the back fence. There was a stone two-seater in front of the bushes she called Night Fire and Persephone. During the day, the flowers were an electric pink with deep purple tinged edges. Right now, they were closed up, like most of the rest of the city. I took a seat and enjoyed the peace. I should probably call Ed as well, but that wasn’t going to happen.

  When I was ready, I turned on the burner phone and found the one stored number. Bon Ames answered almost immediately.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Hello to you too.’

  ‘Don’t fuck around Sharp.’

  I swallowed the dry lump that had suddenly manifested in my throat. Should I tell him what I’d found out? And if I did, would that be enough to level my debt to the Cheaters.

  ‘I might have something,’ I said carefully.

  ‘Speak,’ he demanded.

  ‘He spent the last hour before he died with Phoebe Kenilworth … the Premier’s daughter.’

  Ames was silent for so long I wasn’t sure he was still there. ‘Bon?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Yeah. You did good, Sharp. Now toss the phone. If I need to speak to you again I’ll send Bubba over with another burner. Meantime, scrub my number from your SIM card.’

  ‘Bubba? You mean Pete?’

  He didn’t answer. Instead he hung up.

  I sat for a few more minutes in the quiet dark of Night Fire and Persephone’s shadows wondering where that left me. Then I went back inside the flat and locked the door.

  14

  I woke up with a dry mouth and a headache. Rolling over, I saw Cass was still asleep on the fold out bed. She tended to work her way onto the top of her blankets and she liked to crook her knees up until she was curled in a ball.