‘Some,’ she said, turning away and hurrying down the steps. ‘I’ll be talking to you again.’
At the bottom of the steps, she paused and turned round. ‘Two questions.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Only two?’
‘When did you do that picture?’
‘I started once the police left. Next question?’
‘The girl at Manly,’ Gemma said. ‘How did you know the dog didn’t like you?’
‘Bastard bit me,’ he said, putting his left hand out for her to see. Angry red marks were evident on the back of his hand near the thumb and forefinger.
‘Have the police asked you about those injuries?’ she asked.
‘Nobody’s noticed so far,’ he said. ‘And you only know because I told you.’
‘One more thing,’ Gemma said. ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
Findlay Finn started laughing, a grating, staccato sound. ‘That’s a funny question.’
Gemma waited. But instead of answering, Findlay stepped back. ‘Goodnight,’ he said, as he closed the door firmly.
Nine
Gemma went to her car and climbed in, driving away up the hill and across the intersection that transected the main road. Once on the other side of the intersection, she made a U-turn and pulled over, a little way back from the lights. In a few moments, the red Subaru that had been parked in Findlay Finn’s driveway appeared opposite, indicators flashing for a left-hand turn onto the highway. Once the lights changed, Gemma turned too, to follow the red Subaru back towards the city.
Gemma followed Findlay Finn all the way to East Sydney, musing on the shocking painting she’d seen on his work table. She tried to rationalise it; after all, he was an artist. And artists probably debrief in ways different from ordinary folks, she thought. But it didn’t help. What she’d seen stayed in her imagination, imprinted in her mind. Her mobile rang. She fumbled the earpiece into place.
‘Jaki!’ she cried, realising who was calling. ‘What the hell happened to you the other night?’
‘I’m so sorry, Gemma,’ said Jaki, her voice trembling on the verge of tears. ‘I just forgot. And then, afterwards I . . . I’d had a shocker of a day and I just went home and had a bath. And then . . . I’m so sorry.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘I was just lying in the bath all the time. How could I have been doing that when all the time . . .’ Her voice choked up.
‘Hey,’ said Gemma. ‘It’s not that bad. I accept your apology. Can’t speak for Angie, but it’s hardly worth getting all upset about.’
The sound of sobbing at the other end of the line took Gemma by surprise. ‘Hey, Jak. I’m sorry if I was a bit abrupt when I answered. I didn’t mean to upset you like this. I just wanted to know what happened, that’s all.’
The line went suddenly dead; Jaki Hunter had rung off. Gemma sat in her car, waiting for the lights, Findlay Finn two cars ahead of her. She was puzzled by Jaki’s overreaction. She sounded in a really bad way. More than most, Gemma was aware of the price crime scene work could exact from its practitioners. Jaki might be heading for burnout. Or a breakdown. She wouldn’t be the first. Gemma made a note to ring back in a day or two to see how Jaki was.
She followed Findlay Finn until the red Subaru finally stopped in Burton Street, Darlinghurst. Gemma, who’d overtaken and parked some way down the road ahead of the Subaru, watched in her rear-vision mirror as Finn got out of his car and went into a terrace house. Although Gemma couldn’t be sure, it seemed as if he let himself into the premises using a key.
After a few minutes, she got out of her car and walked towards the house. Number 63 was a two-storey pale green terrace with an iron railing fence running along its border with the road, an iron gate, and a letterbox with several items of mail shoved into it. Swiftly and discreetly, Gemma pulled them out. She read the envelopes before pushing them back in.
Findlay Finn was visiting Ms Lottie Lander.
Late though it was, Gemma decided to make the most of Finn’s absence from the house at Killara. Despite her tiredness, she drove back across the harbour, pulling up outside number 28 some thirty minutes later. She hoped that Findlay would be taken up with Ms Lander for enough time to make her visit worthwhile.
This was her chance to have a discreet tour of the grounds. She pulled the powerful torch she always carried out of her glovebox, checked that the batteries were in order and crept into the grounds, hurrying down the left-hand side of the house where a flagged path led into the overgrown garden. She followed the flagstones until she came to a cleared area, where a stained marble nymph stood on a large sculpted clam shell, now full of weeds, in the centre of a sunken circle rimmed with marble. Once, the nymph would have been the centrepiece of a restful pool, with water trickling from the leaning jar in her graceful hands.
After a moment, Gemma retraced her steps along the flagstones and made her way towards the back fence, which she could barely see through the growth of banksias and bottlebrush bushes. The police would have searched all this area, she knew, but that didn’t stop her flashing her torch along the ground, just in case they’d missed something. But all she could see was stony ground and the occasional rocky outcrop. Intending to make the fence the last checking point before heading back to her car, Gemma saw something glint among the mess of bushes and vines illuminated by the torchlight. She had to battle her way through overgrowth but when she pushed a prickly branch away, she saw what it was. The torch beam had caught on the only shiny area of a very old rusted padlock. Gemma fought her way closer, pushing loops of vine aside. The rusted padlock hung off a slide bolt on an almost invisible timber gate. It was clear from the condition of the lock that no one had opened it for years.
Curious, Gemma climbed past prodding boughs and sharp leaves and twigs until she could stand on the lower support of the fence. She looked closely at the top of the gate. From here, she could see that the hinges had lifted right off and were only leaning on the timber. She gave the gate a shove and it moved. As she looked closer she could see flattened undergrowth, where the gate had been pushed hard to clear an opening. It looked recent. She peered over the fence, making arcs of light with the torch. Nothing but bushland. Findlay Finn’s house seemed to back onto a national park – and that wasn’t all. Gemma could just discern a track leading from the gate in the fence, winding its way out of sight through the dense growth.
Dropping the torch over first, she scrambled over the fence then forced her way along the old track. She had to constantly push boughs and leaves out of her face. It rose in a moderate gradient and soon she was aware of how tired she was as she walked. Finally, after about ten minutes of struggle, she came to a relatively clear area. Able to move more quickly now, she hurried along towards streetlights in the distance. In another few minutes she reached a grassy area with picnic tables, several brick barbecues and three timber shelter sheds with benches. Beyond this was a quiet, bush lined road. Gemma stood a moment and considered, playing the torch beam around.
Something flashed on the ground at the edge of the clearing. Keeping the torch trained on it so as not to lose it, Gemma hurried over. The object gleamed gold and crystal. Pulling a glove on and taking a tissue from her pocket, Gemma carefully picked it up – part of a Venetian glass bead. She looked closely at it. Once it had been formed in the shape of a heart with a swirl of gold dust in its depths. Was this part of the bead necklace Angie had mentioned? A good third of one side had been either broken off or shot away. How had it got here?
Gemma put it in her pocket and shivered, then turned to head back along the overgrown bush track.
Back in her car, she rang Angie but went straight to voice mail so left a message. ‘Hi Angie. It’s me. Guess what? Findlay Finn has a back entry to his place from the bush. And a couple of other things you should know about. Call me and I’ll give you all the details.’
Right this minute, all Gemma wanted was to drive straight
home and have a bath and fall into bed.
•
The moon was high in the inky sky as Gemma pulled up outside her place and descended the steps to her front garden. Findlay’s ugly painting suddenly flashed into her mind and it was then that she noticed a movement in the shrubs that grew outside her office window. Gemma froze. Perhaps it had been nothing more than a slight eddy of wind. But the night was perfectly still. There was no movement at all in next-door’s foxtail palms, silvered by the moon. Gemma knew that paranoia and darkness could create figures out of shadows but now her instincts told her that there was someone there, near her front entrance.
A shiver of fear ran through her body and she hesitated. Apart from her keys, she wasn’t carrying anything she could use as a weapon and her hand-to-hand combat skills were extremely rusty. Keeping her eyes trained on the spot where she’d seen the bushes move, she remained where she was, knowing the car was only a few metres away.
‘Who’s there?’ she called in a loud voice. ‘I know you’re there. I’ve seen you! Come out right now!’
There was a moment when nothing happened, but then a figure separated itself from the darkness around the bushes and stepped out into the moonlight, activating the powerful security light – a slight figure in jeans, the cowl of a hoodie covering its head.
‘It’s me!’
‘Hugo?’ she said, relief flooding her tense body. ‘What are you doing here?’
She hurried down to join him. The Ratbag was at least an inch taller than last time she’d seen him, she thought.
‘I was waiting for you. I didn’t want to stand in front because that light kept coming on and I thought your neighbours might think I was trying to break in.’
‘How long have you been there?’
She put her hand out to touch his shoulder, which was only an inch or so lower than her own. A year or so and he’d tower over her.
‘It’s good to see you,’ she added. ‘I just wasn’t expecting you. What are you doing here?’
‘I’m staying at Dad’s place,’ he said, ‘for a few days over the holidays. But they don’t like me being there during the day when they’re both at work.’
Like the Matthew Talbot Hostel, she thought. Get them all out early and make them stay out all day.
‘But Hugo, this isn’t daytime.’
‘They don’t care if I stay out. They’re much happier if I’m not around.’
‘Come in,’ she said, unlocking her security grille and walking through. Hugo followed, stepping along her polished floorboards with feet that seemed twice as long as hers, wearing huge baggy jeans, a fashion, Gemma suspected, that had its origins in the enveloping clothes of obese teenagers in the USA.
‘I hope you haven’t been sitting there for ages,’ she said.
He shrugged, pushing the hoodie back from his face. ‘I made a few phone calls,’ he said. ‘Talked to a couple of my mates from my old school.’
The sadness in his voice touched her.
‘I keep wanting to say really daggy things like how much you’ve grown,’ she said, going to the fridge to see if there was anything to eat, realising she was starving. Sorry, baby, she thought to her tummy as it rumbled.
She pulled the remnants of a barbecued chicken from a couple of nights ago out of the fridge and straightened up, taking in the physical changes Hugo had undergone since they’d last met. There were even the beginnings of down on his upper lip, and his eyebrows, always a feature, had become darker and heavier.
‘I remember how adults used to say that to me when I was a kid: “My goodness, how you’ve grown!” I used to want to say, yes, that’s what kids do. They grow. I had this old aunt, Essie, and I always wanted to say to her, “And Auntie Essie, you’re just exactly the same as when I saw you last, still saying the same stupid things.”’
The Ratbag’s face softened into a near smile.
‘I can make you a chicken sandwich,’ Gemma said, looking at the bananas in her fruit basket. She had ice cream and plenty of milk. ‘And maybe a banana smoothie?’
‘Cool,’ he said. ‘If it’s not too much trouble.’
‘No trouble at all,’ she assured him.
Taxi deigned to wake up from deep sleep therapy on the blue leather lounge, stretched himself into an arc then dropped to the floor for more cat yoga. Hugo approached him, squatting down to pay his respects. Taxi bunted at his knees and allowed the boy to pick him up and carry him across the room, before deciding he’d had enough and clawing his way to freedom and a dash outside.
‘Your cat is freaking crazy,’ said Hugo.
‘Hugo,’ said Gemma, ‘sometimes so am I.’
Gemma made herself a salad with some sliced cheese to accompany him and buttered some reheated bread rolls, made his smoothie and opened the jar of coffee substitute Kit had given her before she went away. They sat at the dining table, listening to the swing and dump of the surf on the unseen rocks at the bottom of the cliff beyond the edge of her scrubby eastern garden, moonlight burnishing the surface of the sea. The coffee substitute was actually quite pleasant, she found, if she entirely forgot what coffee tasted like.
‘You look different,’ he said to her, pausing mid-munch. That was the second person who’d noticed a change in her appearance today, she thought.
‘I could say the same to you,’ she said. She studied his young face. There was something in his eyes that no kid of fourteen should have – the sad, lost look of a child nobody really wanted. Gemma sighed, thinking of his history of being shunted between divorced parents in two different states, each intent on finding personal happiness and fulfilment and not letting a mere kid get in their way. He’s always turning up on your doorstep, Angie had said. Like some sort of homing pigeon.
‘So your dad’s finally built that extra room for you,’ she said, putting her ersatz coffee down, pleased with the distraction the Ratbag offered from the shocking images in Findlay Finn’s painting. One of the reasons Hugo’s father had given for not being able to take him during the holidays was that there was no room at his new place in Sydney.
The Ratbag shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’m still sleeping on the floor in the living room. That’s why I can’t be there during the day. Andrea likes everything all folded up and neat before she leaves for work. She was nice to me at first, but lately she’s gone real mean and bitchy.’
‘Sorry to hear that,’ said Gemma.
‘They’re always fighting now. No more lovey-dovey bullshit like at the start.’
‘How’s your mum?’
‘She’s okay.’ He shrugged.
‘And school?’
He compressed his lips. ‘I’ve been sent to Dad’s old school. He’s on the board. Probably gets a discount.’
‘Which school?’
‘Bassett Grammar.’
Gemma had heard of it – a prestigious Melbourne school.
‘And?’ she prompted.
‘And I hate it. It sucks,’ he replied.
‘I hated school too. Year after year of being bored to death.’
He looked up at her suddenly, his heavy eyebrows gathering, and for a moment Gemma thought he was about to say something. But the moment passed and he looked away out the window, frowning past his reflection in the glass of the sliding doors.
‘Don’t forget your sandwich,’ she reminded him. Usually, he fell on food like a wolverine.
‘So what have you been doing with yourself during the holidays?’ she asked after a pause.
Again, he looked away before answering, and when he did return her gaze, Gemma saw the pleading in his eyes.
‘I kinda hoped I could maybe do some work for you. Help out with your jobs.’
Some time ago, the Ratbag had been discovered acting as courier for a drug dealer at the Cross. Until he’d been r
ipped off by some street kids and ended up in bad trouble with the dealer. Who had been dealt with, Gemma recalled.
‘Business is really slow, Hugo,’ she said. ‘I’m hardly making ends meet as it is. I’ve even had to put Spinner off.’
‘What about Mike?’
What about Mike indeed, she thought. After a pause, she said, ‘He’s only very part-time. I only call on him when there’s a whole lot of jobs. And that hasn’t happened for a while.’
‘I could go out with him on surveillance. That would be cool as.’
‘Have you any idea how boring surveillance is? It’s not like you see on the movies – high-speed chases and action all the time. You sit on your bum hour after hour, waiting for something to happen. And when it does, it’s just as dull. Someone walks out of a house and into a car and you start following. And then the car stops and they get out and you wait. Again. Then next day you do exactly the same thing. And make notes about it all.’
‘I wouldn’t mind. I could talk to Mike. He could tell me about the exciting jobs he’s been in. When he was in the feds.’
‘Not as exciting as the jobs you and I have been in,’ Gemma said, remembering the time last year when she and Hugo had been crawling around on the floor of her place, trying to find a hidden camera. ‘And it wouldn’t be very professional on my account to allow a kid to go out on one of my jobs like that. I thought you liked going into town and hanging with friends and playing video games.’
‘You gotta have money for that. I only get ten bucks a week and that goes the first day.’
‘That’s what I’m trying to tell you,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t pay you anything even if you did help out in some way.’
‘What about Steve or Angie? I could get some work with them maybe?’
‘Work experience with the police has never been a paying proposition, Hugo. You’d spend your days going up and down in the lifts with envelopes for people to sign off,’ she said. ‘Or taking orders for lunch and delivering sandwiches and trays of take-away cappuccinos. Running to the canteen. Boring as.’
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