‘What deal?’ she asked continuing to glare with me.
‘You live with me, but on the condition that you agree to do as I say, if I think a situation’s not appropriate or safe for you.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like anything,’ I said firmly. ‘My rules.’
Her eyes narrowed while she considered my proposition. ‘Can I set up an office for the business downstairs?’
‘Yes. But you can only work in it when you’re not at class or working the deli.’
‘I don’t work at the deli anymore.’
‘Yes, you do,’ I said. ‘Joanna … sorted things.’
‘But I don’t want to work there.’
‘You need the money.’ And the discipline, I thought. But I didn’t say it. I couldn’t really; look at me. ‘You work there until you finish your office diploma. Then we’ll see.’
She picked at the cuticle of a fingernail. ‘Fine.’
‘Cass?’
She lifted her head. The tears were gone and her jaw had softened. ‘I agree to the terms.’ Then as an afterthought she added, ‘Thanks.’
I nodded. ‘Now let me drop you at the deli. See what shifts they have for you. Then I need to do some things. We’ll clean it up and move in later today and tomorrow. But if you have time tonight, you can start packing gear into the boxes I left on the couch.’
She sprang up, suddenly energised. ‘Let’s go.’
‘Hang on! I need to speak to Liv.’
The bathroom door opened on cue. ‘Hot showers are a certain kind of bliss,’ she said as she tucked her pyjamas and wet-pack in the narrow cupboard by the bed. She straightened up, and I saw she was wearing a loose dress and some sandals.
‘Are they letting you go home today?’
‘Yes, apparently. I’m just waiting to see the doctor.’
‘We’ll wait and give you a lift you,’ I offered.
‘No don’t. It’ll be a while yet. Joanna is coming with Wallace.’
‘Crap! I forgot to ring Mum!’ I said remembering that she and Dad were still driving the streets of Euccy Grove searching for Cass.
I pulled at my phone and shot off a quick text. Then Cass and I kissed Liv goodbye in turns.
‘I’ll call in soon,’ I said, adding in a hug for the woman who’d steered me through some of the worst periods of my life. ‘Take it easy when you get home. No running around.’
‘Goodness, you sound like Wallace. He’s threatening to break out Monopoly to keep me still.’
‘Sounds excruciating,’ I said with a grin.
I glimpsed tiredness behind the bright smile she shone back at me. ‘Actually, I don’t mind.’ She stared over my shoulder and out of the hospital window. ‘I’ve been on my own a long time. It’s rather sweet that someone wants to sit and play games with me.’
I squeezed her arm. ‘He adores you.’
Her smile softened to affection. ‘He’s very caring and kind.’
I kept my expression mild, but I don’t know that she and I were talking about the same guy. The Wal that I knew had an AK47 locked up in his wardrobe cum gun safe, and could take down a big, bad-guy biker in less than fifteen seconds.
But love was a funny thing.
‘Bye,’ I said.
And Cass and I headed out to the car park.
Cass didn’t have much to say on the way back to the deli, and I didn’t press her. We’d had one deep and meaningful today. For a teenager that was one too many.
She ducked into the deli while I waited and returned a short time later to tell me she had a daytime shift the next day.
‘Right,’ I said. ‘Good. You can start packing.’
We caught all the green lights and were back at Lilac Street about seven minutes later.
Cass got out of the car while I checked my text messages. One from Tozzi. One from Ed. One from Garth.
I glanced up to tell Cass I’d catch up with her when I’d answered the three men in my life. She was halfway down the driveway and I saw a figure dressed in black detach from behind the three Cape Lilac trees between ours and the neighbour’s fence. The figure had a hood pulled up over his head, despite the warm day and moved straight in close to Cass as if to touch her.
I flung myself out of the door and tried to run down the driveway in a flat-out sprint. My muscles still remembered how to do that from my days doing endless court runs, but my still-sore ankle complained like hell.
The figure had hold of Cass’s hand and I didn’t bother to shout. Instead I threw myself at him. It wasn’t the first time I’d tackled someone. I knew what I was doing: head tucked, shoulder first, catch them around the knees.
The tall, lean figure went down like a felled sapling. Just kinda bent and buckled. I landed on his calves and felt the heels of his boots jab into my soft bits. Immediately, I rolled and got to my knees. I didn’t have a weapon but there was a tree branch leaning against the house already neatly cut and ready to go into the birds’ cage.
Dimly, I heard the birds screeching at the end of the driveway where the path led up to my flat. That wasn’t good.
‘Cass! Quick! Hand me that branch.’
She was standing there, hand over her mouth. Frozen.
‘Casssss!’ I yelled at her.
She jerked out of her trance and burst out laughing.
I glared up at her then down at the collapsed figure next to me, suddenly recognising leather guy, Bubba Pete.
He was holding his nose, which was bleeding, after having face-planted straight into the concrete floor.
The sight of it made me realise that my own knees were stinging from the impact. So were my wrists and palms. I thought, vaguely, that my cousin Crack would describe it as arm pump—the ache you got from gripping the handle bars of a motorbike over rough terrain.
‘Sorry about that, Pete,’ I said, offering a hand to pull him up.
He cast me a filthy look and got to his feet unassisted.
‘Thith ith for you,’ he said thickly, handing me a phone. ‘Wanth you to ring thwaight away.’
Had I broken his nose? Please, Lord no! Two in two months. How would Bon Ames take me maiming his messenger boy?
‘Cass, take Pete to the flat and clean him up. I’ll just make this call.’
Cass held out a hand to the young biker who gave several backward glances to make sure I wasn’t following too closely.
I trailed them slowly up the dip into the driveway, limping past the birds and into the garden. While they disappeared into the flat, I made myself familiar with Nightfire and Persephone again. Persephone’s flowers were looking a little curled still.
The burner phone rang three times before my behemoth biker comrade answered.
‘We’ve got a job for you,’ he said.
‘Hang on… I thought we were … you know … settled.’
‘Yeah. When we say so.’
I felt the knot return to my stomach. I didn’t want this crap. I wanted Lindt white chocolate balls, and pepperoni pizza and easy jobs reading the body language of cheating married men. Bikies. Criminals. Too much! Dead bodies. Too much!
‘What do you want?’ Fear made me terse and short. Not that Bon Ames would notice blunt.
‘Get close to the Kenilworth bitch.’
I felt a sudden rush of exasperation with Mr Cryptic and Scary. ‘What? Just like that? I haven’t spoken to her since school. I can’t just waltz up and act like her best friend. And anyway, she probably doesn’t know anything about anything. Sleaze balls like him never tell gorgeous women about their seedy activities.’
‘If that’s the case, she’ll stay healthy.’
It was a statement. And I didn’t feel good about the implication. Phoebe Kenilworth wasn’t my kind of person, but I wasn’t about to hand her over to the likes of the Western Cheaters.
‘You need to give me a bit more,’ I said. ‘I got no idea what I’m looking for.’
He was silent for a few seconds.
‘Let’s just say that we provide ce
rtain products to sectors of the community. So did Romeo. It caused some problems between us.’
‘You killed him?’ I whispered.
‘Sadly, no.’
‘So?’
‘Romeo should have kept information about his side business.’
‘Can’t you find that out for yourselves?’
Another pregnant pause.
‘The people Romeo ran with. They’re not our type. Jake thinks you’d be our best shot,’ he said.
‘Won’t you find out in good time anyway?’
‘That ain’t the point.’
‘You mean forewarned is forearmed,’ I ventured.
‘You need to get on this today. We’re on a timeline,’ he said.
They’re on a timeline. Sheesh. For the thousandth time, I regretted my actions in Brisbane which had left me owing the Cheaters a favour. It had seemed a sensible decision in the moment. ‘And if I find out where this information is, we’ll be done?’
‘Jake says, you do this for us, he’s ready to consider an arrangement.’
‘I don’t want an arrangement.’
‘People don’t refuse Jake’s arrangements,’ said Bon. ‘You got two days to find out what we need. Then I’ll send Bubba around with a new burner.’
‘I think I broke his nose.’
Yet another silence.
‘Bon?’
‘Fuck, Sharp,’ he said, and hung up.
I tried uncurling one of Persephone’s leaves to no avail. So I gave up and went to check on Pete and Cass. She had him leaning over the sink and was dabbing at his face.
‘I don’t think it’s actually broke,’ she said when she saw me.
I stayed at the door, not wanting to spook Pete who looked rather wild eyed. ‘Good to hear. Sorry about that, but you shouldn’t sneak up like that.’
He just kept staring at me, flashing the whites of his eyes.
‘Right, well I have things to do. Don’t stay long, my mother will be down to check on Cass.’
They both nodded, understanding my meaning. I pointed to the boxes. ‘Cass, tape them up and then throw our stuff in. I’ll be back later today.’
‘What about Garth,’ she said. ‘You want to me to go there?’
‘Who’th Garth?’ said Pete.
‘None of your beeswax,’ I told him. And to Cass. ‘No. Stay put.’ I scooped up my laptop and headed out to Gloria Jeans. It was time for cake and uninterrupted WiFi.
15
Call me shallow, but a date and honey loaf with butter and a large latte made me feel a whole lot better about the day.
I set up in a corner, kicked the spare chair over to another table and generally adopted a don’t bother me hunch over my keyboard. Before I got down to research on Phoebe Kenilworth, I read my texts from Tozzi and Ed.
Tozzi’s was inviting me to dinner tonight. Ed’s was the same.
I looked at the ceiling and cursed Smitty. Then I rang her.
‘Just a moment,’ she puffed into the phone. Fridge has got Henry’s… I’m just wrestling it … bad dog! Fridge! Oh! No...!’
I heard a crunch and then a slam.
‘Bad time?’ I asked.
She sighed heavily. ‘I can’t even blame this on you. He’s just chewed up Henry’s stamp collection. Moth balls and all.’
‘What was the dog doing with the stamp collection?’
‘I was spring cleaning…’
‘Right. Well … moral of the story you know.’
‘Tell me something distracting.’
‘Tozzi and Ed have both asked me out to dinner tonight. Who do I accept?’
‘Ooh,’ she said, in the tone she gets when a delicious morsel of gossip drops in her lap. ‘Who do you want to accept?’
‘If I knew that I wouldn’t be ringing you,’ I pointed out.
‘What will you wear?’
‘Hang on. I haven’t even decided who I’m going with or if I’m even…’ I trailed off, hit with a sudden brainwave. I didn’t have to accept either of them.
‘T?’ said Smitty suspiciously.
‘I gotta go.’
‘Fine, but you need to come to dinner. It’s the only way you and Henny will get past the nose thing.’
I sighed. ‘Fine. Set it up for the weekend. Make sure Bok can come too.’
‘More the merrier?’
‘I was thinking more of eat, drink and be merry…’
‘Pessimist.’
‘And it’s served me well.’
I hung up and texted both of them back that I had a prior engagement. Then I started googling.
It turned out that Phoebe Kenilworth attracted the media almost as much as Nick’s wife, Antonia. In fact, they were pictured online together at several social engagements. In one photo, they were even embracing and bestowing air kisses on each other. It shouldn’t have been a surprise; they ran with the same set, yet seeing Antonia with her, settled a weight back on my chest.
I loved this city, but sometimes it felt like only half a degree of separation between me and everyone else.
Interestingly, there was nothing about her being the last person Bernard Romeo had seen before he died. Nothing about them knowing each other at all. Somehow, she’d managed to keep it all out of the public eye.
I made a list of people from school who knew both Phoebe and me. Then I crossed out the ones who would find it too weird to hear from me unexpectedly.
That left two names: Janis Hargrave and Sulia Yeo. Janis was a critical care nurse at Royal Perth Hospital and I couldn’t imagine her having time or interest in socialite nonsense. Last I’d heard of Sulia she owned an expensive beauty salon upstairs in the Claremont Centre. That seemed more promising. Old school tie and all that crap.
I jotted down a few things I’d found out about Phoebe; that she’d been to Switzerland’s last remaining finishing school, Institut Villa Pierrefeu, graduated from UWA in Business and Commerce with honours, and thanks to finding a list of current office bearers, she was on a Claremont Neighbourhood Watch committee, and—of course—a member of the Liberal Party.
I called Sulia’s salon and made an appointment for a pedicure with ‘their best person’. It must have been a slow morning, because they fitted me in straight away.
Melissa met me at the counter. She was an attractive woman with dark hair and a generous smile. She wore crisp clinic whites and her aura glowed pink with serenity. I liked her on sight.
She ushered me into a small room, lit the incense burner and checked that the meditation music was suitable.
It wasn’t the first time I’d gone to a beauty salon for information. I hoped this time proved just as enlightening.
Once I was settled, Melissa sat on a stool and began the process of cleaning and preparing my feet. Some people can’t bear pedicures. I adore them and listened blissfully as Melissa chatted. Later on, when she got to the calf massage, I made appropriately appreciative gargling noises.
At toe nail painting stage, I made my move. ‘Melissa, that was wonderful,’ I said. ‘You were as good as they said you were.’
‘Oh,’ she said. ‘May I ask who recommended me?’
‘I can’t remember,’ I said vaguely. ‘Might have been Phoebe Kenilworth, I think.’
Melissa blushed and I felt a little guilty.
‘That’s kind of her,’ she said.
‘She does come here then? I got that right?’
‘Oh, yes. Every Friday morning. She’s one of our best clients.’
Friday was three days away. In two days I could be chopped up and fed to the fish in the Swan River.
‘Oh, I should book in at the same time as her, so we can catch up,’ I said, wracking my brains for another way to see Phoebe sooner.
Melissa’s aura swirled a little faster, telling me that she was attempting to hold something in.
I gave her a little prompt. ‘We go way back, you know. Went to school together,’ I said and took another peek at her. ‘That’s how I know Sulia too.’
‘Special occasion, no doubt?’
‘Yes, so I believe. Tonight.’
‘She’s always had a busy social life being a Premier’s daughter.’
Melissa nodded as she put the finishing strokes of top coat on my toes. Her aura was in normal rhythm again and her lips pursed as she concentrated. She was too much of a professional to be drawn on anything more about another client, but what she’d told me was enough.
I paid up as soon as she let me go and promised I’d call for another appointment. Then I went across the street to the nearest coffee shop to wait until Phoebe came, so I could accidentally bump into her.
Knowing it would take a couple of hours, I ordered some food and sat eating, drawing up strategies in my mind to manage Garth’s problem.
Someone clearly knew Garth was involved and potentially a danger to them. The messed-up office and the intruder in his home were soft approaches: a warning and an attempt to locate any incriminating evidence. They’d stop short of harming him physically, but that might change. I needed to come up with a strategy for him, or get him to hand it over to the police.
I spent the next hour reading everything I could find online about his new girlfriend and her partner. Grazia Santoro, Johnny Viaspa’s sister had married into decent money on the face of things. Her boutique sold to high end middle-aged clients and tended towards tailored suits and eco-friendly dress clothes. The kind of place Liv would buy clothes. Maybe it was worth a call to her to see.
Grazia had two kids at private school according to her Facebook page which was set to public. It was littered with recent family photos of two spoiled looking kids holidaying in the snow.
Grazia’s husband was a portly, but handsome guy in his late forties with a classic dimpled chin. A hundred years ago and few kilos lighter he would have made a great black and white movie star. Grazia, herself, was glamorous in a heavily made up kind of way. Her hair wasn’t lacquered to attention in the way that Eireen Tozzi’s was, but a decade or two and I could it see happening.
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