Shattered

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘I’ll come straight over,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring something to eat and a bottle of something nice. You sound like you need cheering up.’

  ‘No!’ she cried. ‘No, please. I just need to be by myself.’

  ‘Okay,’ he said after a pause. ‘But I want you to know I’m here if you need anything. I mean it, Gemma.’

  ‘I know you do,’ she said.

  Blinded by tears, she went and ran a bath. ‘You can never get out of a bath,’ Kit had once said, ‘feeling as bad as when you got in.’

  She lay in the hot water, trying to block out the pain with the radio, but still her tears trickled down her cheeks. It was the suddenness, she thought. The shock and the finality of it that had thrown her into this grief. Until that moment outside the church, Gemma realised that she hadn’t really believed that she and Steve could be finished. They’d been a couple for so many years now. It hadn’t been a perfect relationship, she knew, and Steve had often been unavailable, away on police business and not able to contact her. Sometimes weeks would go by without hearing from him. But the fun they had when he was around, the way they got along together, the jokes, the words they didn’t have to say to each other, the love-making – she still couldn’t believe that Steve was gone from her life. And marrying – marrying – someone else. He’d never asked her. Or she him, she ruefully admitted.

  Goodbye, Steve, she thought.

  She placed both hands over her belly where the beginning of the tiny being they’d made pulsed. The tears became a flood.

  Finally, she climbed out of the bath, dried herself and wrapped herself up in an old dressing-gown. Taxi, sensing her distress, wound himself round her legs. Gemma picked him up and cuddled him, then went into her office, determined to focus on work.

  A sound at the front door made her switch on the CCTV. There was Mike’s broad-shouldered figure on the doorstep. For a moment, she deliberated, then opened the door to let him in.

  ‘I just don’t get it,’ he said as they walked down the hall to her living room. ‘I don’t understand. Why would Steve Brannigan go and do a thing like this? You two have been an item for six years. And then he goes and gets engaged in two months!’

  ‘I told you not to come over,’ she said.

  ‘Bloody Brannigan. I feel like tracking him down and knocking a bit of sense into him.’

  Gemma found herself defending Steve. ‘He’s got to do what he thinks is best, Mike. If I’m not the one for him, and it’s pretty clear I’m not . . .’ she said, her voice catching. She couldn’t finish what she was going to say. She didn’t even know what it was. ‘You shouldn’t have come,’ she repeated.

  ‘Gemma, I wanted to see you were okay. And let you know in person I’ve done that title search for you.’ He looked closely at her. ‘Look at you,’ he added.

  In her shabby dressing-gown, feeling old and ugly, she took the photocopied pages from him. ‘I’ll brush up all right,’ she tried to joke, ‘with the help of expensive European cosmetics.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean.’

  There was a long pause.

  ‘I made a cake for you,’ said Mike, holding up a canvas bag. ‘A big fat chocolate cake. Chocolate makes the body release endorphins. Like falling in love.’

  She looked at him, the tall man who’d worked for her over the last two years.

  ‘Mike,’ she said. ‘You and your bloody cooking.’

  She was relieved when Mike left, because she didn’t want him to see her crying. The Ratbag would appreciate the cake, at least, she thought.

  To steady her confused state of mind, Gemma studied the pages from the title register that Mike had brought with him. Grace Kingston, she noted, owned a residential property in Mittagong in the Southern Highlands.

  She rang Cana, and a woman answered. It didn’t sound like Gretel. It could have been Grace, Gemma thought, and she wouldn’t know.

  ‘I need to talk to Grace Kingston,’ said Gemma, after giving her details.

  ‘Miss Kingston is no longer with us, I’m afraid. I can put you through to Yeshwa. Maybe he can help you.’

  When the man she had concluded was Sheridan Stark came on the line, the memory of him groping at her through the angel veil filled her with revulsion.

  ‘Where is she?’ Gemma asked. ‘I’ve just been told Grace Kingston is no longer with you.’

  ‘That’s correct. Miss Kingston is no longer a part of our group.’

  ‘Mr Stark,’ she said, ‘I’m considering having you charged with indecent assault. If I go to the police with my complaint and tell them that I’m concerned for the wellbeing of a young woman, your community could be in for some . . .’ she paused, ‘. . . unpleasant scrutiny.’

  ‘Hysterical women are not uncommon, alas, in communities such as ours,’ came the smooth reply. ‘Our community isn’t a prison, Miss Lincoln. People are free to leave whenever they want.’

  ‘Did she leave a forwarding address or a contact number?’

  ‘No,’ said Stark.

  ‘Would Archangel Reziel know?’ Gemma asked.

  Stark hung up.

  Gemma stood up from her desk. Something must have happened to Grace. She recalled the way Gretel had interrupted Grace in her weeding and taken her into the building. As if Stark had summoned her inside just after the groping incident. Surely, that couldn’t have been coincidental.

  Gemma changed into shorts, windcheater and joggers. It seemed her life at the moment was filled with unanswered, unanswerable questions. Sometimes a hard run wiped her mind clean. Hoping for more clarity, she set off, stopping near Phoenix Bay to stretch leg and lateral muscles against the new fence around the cliffs, blinking tears away when she passed above the spot where she and Steve had made love – a low-roofed cave hollowed out by the sea. ‘Damn you, Steve Brannigan,’ she said. She was going to run him right out of her system.

  But the bravado failed. She was carrying Steve’s baby; his very DNA was multiplying deep in her body.

  Reaching the higher ground near the cemetery, she ignored – as almost everyone did – the sign forbidding joggers through the hallowed grounds and headed down the narrow incline between the graves and the cliffs to the sea. Rock pigeons, wind-surfing gulls and the swell of the ocean to her right, while on the other side, eroding limestone headstones and broken angels covered the sloping grounds. She was starting the harder work as the land rose towards Bronte when she passed the aisle that led to her mother’s grave. On an impulse, she stopped and jogged up the incline, taking a while to find the right headstone among the tangle of asparagus fern, kikuyu running wild and clumps of looking-glass plant.

  ‘Marianne Lincoln,’ she read. The family had buried her under her maiden name. ‘Here I am, Mother,’ she whispered, ‘and I’m not finding it easy. Any suggestions?’

  Gemma checked the dates of her mother’s too short life. Hell, she thought. She was older than her mother now.

  ‘I thought I was going to make you a granny again,’ she whispered. ‘But now I’m not so sure.’

  She was aware of movement, high up in her peripheral vision. She looked up to see a tawny nankeen kestrel hanging in the sky above her, wings spread wide, tail feathers fanned, lightly riding the curve of the wind’s edge. Further to the north, and higher in the sky, its mate also hovered. Somewhere on the rocky ledges, safe from human eyes, would be their nest and, in spring, their young.

  Gemma pushed welling tears away with an impatient, angry hand then stooped to pull away prickly strands of asparagus fern, deciding that she’d spend a few hours here one day soon and clear the grave of weeds. She looked around and saw a couple of freesias on a nodding stem, plucked them and laid them together with a stone on top of the grave before proceeding with her run.

  She continued up the rise to the Bronte cutting. Thudding down towards the be
ach, it was all she could do to focus on her breathing and the effort. She stayed a few minutes, watching a treacherous series of diagonal waves crashing onto the rocks.

  By the time she’d started climbing the hill and turning south again, thoughts of Steve still oppressed her.

  Fifteen

  ‘Just want to make sure you’re okay,’ said Angie when Gemma answered the phone, still puffing from her run. ‘Also to let you know that I didn’t do any good with the technician from Genoservices. She told me it was a standard paternity test. There’s a much more expensive, complex and stringent test that meets ATA standards for use in court proceedings. The standard one simply provides a yes/no answer. No record of the mother is taken because it isn’t needed. All she could say was that it was a negative result, which we already knew. So we’re still looking for a woman who hasn’t had a baby with him.’

  ‘But to go to the trouble and expense of a paternity test,’ Gemma argued, ‘Bryson must have thought he was the father – or been told he was.’

  ‘And being in possession of a great deal of the usual investigator’s scepticism,’ said Angie, ‘he’s made sure. And found that he isn’t.’

  •

  Gemma showered and, although too sad to feel hungry, cooked up some pasta with creamy cheese sauce. She could barely eat any of it and had made far too much. Pain made her restless and she poured the excess into a container. She needed to get out of the house. Get out of herself. Do something for someone else. Taking the container of pasta and the chocolate cake, she hurried up the stone steps to her car.

  On the way to Coogee, Gemma stopped and bought some lemons, a knob of garlic, some ginger, a small jar of honey and a small flask of brandy. Then she continued up Dudley Street to ‘Santiago’. She had to try the buzzers on two flats, before striking the right one.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Jaki Hunter’s voice, hesitant and tremulous.

  ‘Me, Gemma.’

  Jaki released the lock and Gemma pushed the door open and walked up to the third floor, as instructed, to find Jaki peeping guardedly round the door.

  ‘I’ve brought you some natural remedies and some tucker,’ said Gemma, stepping inside.

  Usually an attractive woman, Jaki appeared drained and pale, rugged up in a light blue dressing-gown, her eyes shadowed in their sockets. Gemma looked around the charming main room, whose large bay window looked north-east to an expanse of light and dark blue visible beyond one or two intrusive buildings. The windowsill held a collection of African violets, and Gemma imagined the late cat sitting there in style, watching the tides and the street as cats do. The apartment was exquisitely fresh and clean, indications of Jaki’s fastidious nature.

  ‘Lovely spot, Jaki,’ Gemma said, placing the grocery bag on the dining table. ‘If you’re going to be sick and miz, you might as well do it here. My sister taught me a great remedy for a cold. Do you know about honey, lemon juice, ginger and garlic tea?’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ said Jaki with a wan smile. ‘But everyone around me would, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I know it sounds revolting, but if you drink it really hot and spice it up with a little of this,’ said Gemma, indicating the brandy, ‘it’s really very acceptable. And you don’t want people around you when you’re ill anyway. So there’s no one to offend.’

  Jaki took the groceries, the cake and the container of pasta into the kitchen while Gemma poked around.

  ‘You need somewhere nice like this with your job,’ said Gemma.

  Jaki nodded. ‘Take a look around,’ she said until a fit of coughing seized her. Gemma stepped back, out of the line of fire.

  ‘How was the funeral?’ Jaki asked, her voice very small and sad.

  ‘God,’ said Gemma, her voice catching on a sharp ache in her heart. ‘The funeral. What do you want to know?’

  Jaki threw her a glance that Gemma couldn’t read before answering. ‘Just how it went. Who was there. That sort of thing.’

  ‘Lots of the brass. The widow, lots of colleagues. It was a big turn-out.’

  She didn’t want to think about the shocking meeting with Julie Cooper. And then with Steve.

  Gemma glanced to the right, into the small area, too tiny to be called a hallway, that led to the bathroom and bedroom. Despite her illness, Jaki’s bed was neatly made and her white and blue bedroom shone. Gemma walked halfway into the room, then stopped midstride. Something on the bedside table had caught her attention. A police doll. Although Gemma knew they were made and sold by a social group of police wives and friends, she was surprised that Jaki was the sort of woman who bought toys like that. She was about to make a joke of it when she frowned. This wasn’t an ordinary police doll. Gemma stepped forward and picked it up. It was a Jaki doll, she realised. The same dark gold hair, the Monroe-style mole near her mouth, the senior constable patches. She turned to see Jaki in the doorway behind her.

  ‘Did you make this?’ Gemma asked, indicating the doll.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘Someone sent it to me.’

  Gemma noticed something and frowned. ‘It’s got something stuck through it,’ she said, peering closer.

  ‘I should have chucked it in the bin,’ said Jaki, hugging the dressing-gown closer around her, ‘the moment I saw it.’

  ‘Why? What is this?’ Gemma asked, trying to see what was stuck through the clothes. ‘It’s cut through the fabric.’

  ‘Someone’s idea of a joke, I guess.’

  ‘A joke? I don’t think so.’

  Jaki had used those words back in Angie’s office, Gemma remembered. She looked closer. ‘This is no joke. This is supposed to be you! It’s like a voodoo doll with a pin through the heart. Who did this?’

  ‘I don’t know. It came in a police envelope,’ Jaki said finally, unwilling to look at it. ‘That’s why I think it must be from someone I’ve worked with.’

  ‘When did it arrive?’ Gemma asked, wishing now she hadn’t touched the doll.

  ‘Last week.’

  ‘You should send it to DAL – or a private lab,’ said Gemma. ‘Get it tested. Find out who made it up. I’d be furious if someone sent me something like this. It’s really nasty.’

  ‘I know,’ said Jaki. ‘Do you think it’s a warning?’

  ‘About what?’

  Jaki shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Isn’t that usually what this sort of thing is about? Making a threat about something?’

  ‘About some investigation you’re involved in?’

  ‘I’m involved in several. That’s what makes it so stupid. And I’m only a gatherer of evidence. I don’t have any say whatsoever on the outcome of cases.’

  ‘Anyone in the job would realise that,’ Gemma agreed.

  ‘That’s right,’ said Jaki. ‘We’re all of us working on several cases at once. Too many cases. That’s what makes this stupid if it’s a threat about a job. How am I supposed to know which one the sender means? And that’s why I think it’s something personal. Not related to the job at all.’

  ‘Any idea who might have sent it?’ Gemma asked. ‘Someone you’ve offended? Some woman whose boyfriend you’ve pinched?’

  ‘I don’t have a boyfriend,’ said Jaki. ‘I wish I’d just thrown the damn thing away.’

  In the ensuing silence, Gemma looked around and spotted a box of latex gloves nearby. She remembered Angie saying Jaki always supplied her own, not thinking police-issue gloves good enough. She put the doll down, grabbed a pair of gloves and slid them on, then picked it up again. ‘What is this?’ she asked, carrying it carefully over to the window, the better to study the object pinning the uniform into the doll’s body. She pulled fabric away from the object until she could get a clearer view. When she realised what it was made of, an involuntary gasp escaped her.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ said Jaki, swinging round.

  ‘Jaki, y
ou must give this to Angie. Haven’t you noticed what’s stuck into the doll?’

  ‘I didn’t want anything to do with it.’

  ‘But you haven’t noticed what it’s made of. You’d better take a good look at it. Now.’

  Unwillingly, Jaki took a step closer and peered at the doll as Gemma’s gloved hands pressed back the fabric surrounding the small penetrating spear. As she did so, she heard Jaki’s sharp intake of breath.

  ‘I’ll call Angie if you like,’ Gemma offered, ‘and get someone to drop by and pick it up. The arrival of this thing opens up a whole new line of inquiry.’

  ‘But why me?’ Jaki asked, looking as if she was about to burst into tears. ‘Why did they send it to me? There are others working on the Finn murders. There’s a whole team!’

  Gemma met Jaki’s desperate, tear-reddened eyes and saw something that shocked her. Terror.

  ‘Jaki! What is it? Tell me!’

  Jaki shook her head. ‘I’m upset, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s not all,’ Gemma said. ‘You said it came in a police-issue envelope. Where is it?’

  ‘I threw it out.’

  The terror was there again: in the huge eyes and white face, in the way Jaki clutched herself through the dressing-gown.

  ‘Jaki, what’s going on?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you know something about this case that you’re not telling?’

  ‘No!’ Jaki leaned against the wall. ‘I’m not well. I can’t think. I can hardly stand up just now. I need to lie down. Please go now.’

  She lay down on her bed, hugging an extra pillow.

  Gemma sat on the bed beside Jaki, her hand gently on the young woman’s shoulder. ‘I’ll bag it and take it into Angie for you. But you’ll have to contact her about this yourself. You’ll have to make a statement.’

  Outside, a siren wailed, trailing off into the distance. Finally, Jaki rolled over and sat up, tearing a handful of tissues out of the box beside the bed.