Shattered

by Gabrielle Lord

  •

  Early next morning, Gemma showered and dressed warmly and, before the traffic built up, set off for Katoomba. Like Angie always said, she was covering all the options. Findlay Finn, if he knew about his brother’s affair, and if he wanted to remove his brother and his unloved wife, could well have proved creative with Jaki’s DNA. It was a good trip and in a little under two hours she was parked in Katoomba’s main street, checking the notes she’d taken from her interview with Findlay. She climbed out of the car and immediately felt the chill of a mountain winter’s day. The sky was grey and a bitter wind lifted her hair. She stood by the car a moment, putting her coat on, then started walking. She spotted the café in minutes: orange checked curtains and brilliantly coloured plastic parrots hanging on gold hoops. So, she thought, the place at least exists.

  A little bell rang when she walked inside. Gemma looked around. Oil paintings and watercolours hung on the walls, each with a price tag underneath. She had a closer look at one – a woman feeding chickens behind a country cottage. The colours and the mood were tender and she wanted to buy it. Feeling ready for breakfast, and confident of keeping food down, she approached the neat woman behind the counter and ordered orange juice, raisin toast and a pot of tea. The Sydney papers had already arrived and she flicked through a couple of them, interrupted by the proprietor bringing her order.

  ‘Thanks. A friend of mine recommended this place,’ Gemma said with a bright smile.

  ‘Really?’ The woman smiled back. Sometimes, Gemma thought, even though part of the job is bullshit, it can bring pleasure and goodwill to people.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s an artist. He was here last week. He mentioned he chatted to you about the paintings you have for sale.’

  The woman’s smile vanished. ‘Him?’ she said. ‘I kept the place open late just for him. But he was very rude. Insulted my artists. Said he painted, and that if these were his, he’d burn them.’

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ said Gemma, thinking: that’s Findlay – he was here, all right. ‘And I was just thinking how attractive they are,’ she continued.

  ‘I’ll leave you to your paper,’ said the woman.

  Gemma munched cautiously on the toast and waited. Nothing happened. She flicked through the newspaper until a heading caught her eye: ‘Sect unwelcome, say residents.’ Gemma frowned as she read the small piece. The Group was about to open a new centre in the Southern Highlands and the locals weren’t happy. ‘“I don’t want to be living next to a bunch of hairy hippies,” long-term Mittagong resident Mrs Elsie Pitt said.’ Gemma folded the paper. They must be doing very well, she thought.

  •

  On the drive back to Sydney, Gemma had to concede that Findlay’s alibi partly checked out. But there was no way of tracing the lost hour or so, when he said he’d visited Manly Beach, bought an ice-cream and been bitten by a dog. She’d wasted the morning, she thought. The time would have been better spent tidying up the paying jobs, not chasing after illusions that might get Jaki off the hook. Get over it, Gemma, she told herself.

  But she couldn’t.

  As she walked in her front door, her office phone started ringing and she ran to snatch it up. ‘Yes?’ she said. ‘Hello?’

  A long silence made her wonder if this was a nuisance call.

  ‘Hello?’ she repeated. ‘Who is this?’

  Finally, a soft, hesitant voice. ‘Is that Gemma Lincoln?’

  ‘Yes. Who is it?’

  ‘It’s Jade. Jade Finn.’

  The missed call from Maddison Carr’s phone now made sense.

  ‘Sorry I missed your first call, Jade. I’ve been wanting to talk to you.’

  Another silence.

  ‘Please talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in your family.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Why else did you ring?’

  ‘You gave me your card,’ said Jade. ‘You said I could call. I need to know how Donny is. I can’t ask anyone else.’

  ‘You could call your mother. Or just go home.’

  ‘I do want to go home, but not like you mean it. I want to go back to the house. To get some stuff. But I don’t want to go there alone. You said I could ring you . . .’

  Gemma took pity on the girl. ‘Donny seems fine. I saw him the other day and he was awake and on the mend.’

  Jade gave what sounded like a half-sob – relief, Gemma thought.

  ‘So why don’t you want to go home alone?’ she went on.

  No reply.

  ‘Tell me then why you don’t want to talk to your mother.’

  ‘I just don’t, that’s all.’

  ‘Human beings never do things without a reason. Are you scared of something . . . someone?’ asked Gemma. ‘Is that it?’

  But Jade wasn’t talking.

  ‘I was hoping that you could just, you know, be there,’ she said, ‘while I get some stuff. I won’t take long.’

  ‘Jade, I’ve got a lot to do. Couldn’t Maddison go with you?’

  ‘Maddy’s really sick. She’s been diagnosed with Hep C and I’m getting scared. I want to get out of Sydney.’

  Maddison’s predicament had spooked Jade, but driven her even further from home. ‘Where are you thinking of going?’

  ‘Byron. I know some people up there.’

  Gemma considered. Carrying out this favour would give her a chance to look around Natalie’s house, maybe get something more out of Jade.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘When do you want to get your stuff?’

  ‘Kind of now? No one’s home.’

  Clearly, Jade was scared of her mother, Gemma thought. She glanced at her watch. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I can be there in about half an hour.’

  •

  Jade turned her key in the front door and disarmed the alarm as Gemma walked in behind her. Donny’s toys had been piled up in the corner of the living room. Jade hurried down the hallway. ‘I won’t be long,’ she called back.

  ‘Take your time,’ Gemma said.

  A half-opened door on her right looked like the marital bedroom and Gemma pushed the door open and stepped inside, hastening to the bedside tables, the dressing table, a small desk in the bay window that looked out onto a tiled patio with palms in pots. A very handsome bedroom, thought Gemma, even though the bed looked as if it hadn’t been made for days. After a hurried look around, she went down the hall and knocked on Jade’s bedroom door.

  Jade didn’t answer so Gemma stepped in anyway to see the girl shoving clothes and personal items into an airline carry-on suitcase with a tall handle.

  ‘Is that all you’re taking?’ Gemma asked.

  Jade turned to face her, and when Gemma saw the girl’s eyes, haunted with grief and desolation, she put a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘What is it, Jade? There’s something troubling you. Tell me.’

  ‘I don’t want to live like Maddison,’ said Jade. ‘Like I said, I’m going up north. I’ll get a job. Find a nice place to live.’

  ‘But this is your home,’ said Gemma, looking around at the beautiful room furnished with fashionable and expensive fittings: the heavy, luxurious curtains that hung either side of a damask blind, the large dark timber French bedhead and footing, the graceful heart-shaped dressing table. ‘And what sort of job could you get without any qualifications? Without even finishing school? You must think very seriously about this move. You’re home now. Why not stay here? It’s certainly in your best interests. And it’s what your mother wants.’

  ‘No way,’ said Jade, shaking her head vehemently and pulling clothes out of drawers. ‘I hate this place. I hate all the lies, the secrets.’

  ‘What lies?’

  A pile of clothes fell to the floor: jeans, singlet tops and something else that made Gemm
a take notice. She stepped forward and picked it up. It was a miniature superintendent’s dress uniform coat, stitched with care and accuracy, complete with miniature stars and embroidered patches.

  ‘Do you have a police doll?’ Gemma asked, frowning.

  Jade shook her head and snatched the uniform from her, stuffing it back into the drawer together with the spilled garments. Alerted, Gemma turned to look at the beautiful wall-hanging above Jade’s bed, the fabric collage of Cinderella and her sparkling glass slipper.

  ‘Did your father have a superintendent doll?’ Gemma asked.

  Reluctantly, Jade nodded.

  ‘Where is it now?’

  Slowly, Jade sank to the bed. Seizing the moment, Gemma grabbed the heart-shaped seat in front of the dressing table and dragged it closer.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me about it? Maybe I can help you.’

  Jade’s despairing eyes filled with tears. ‘How?’ she whispered. ‘No one can help me.’

  ‘Tell me why you left home. Tell me what the fight with your father was about. Tell me why you hate your mother. What’s been happening in this family to make you so distressed?’

  Across Jade’s face flashed a series of emotions that Gemma felt she could read: hope, relief, sadness and an openness that almost spoke. Then something happened and the display finished. The young face hardened.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said, grabbing the airline bag and a large fabric shoulder bag that she filled from the dressing table – cosmetics, hairbrush, some photos. A pink box.

  ‘How much money do you have?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘Enough to get up the coast.’

  ‘And then – what?’

  Gemma could see the pink box sitting on top of the other items in the shoulder bag.

  Jade shrugged. ‘Can you give me a lift?’ she asked. ‘To Central?’

  ‘Okay,’ said Gemma. ‘That pink box. May I have a look?’

  Frowning, Jade pulled the pink box out of the bag and Gemma lifted the lid, revealing a mess of hairpins, scrunchies, lip glosses and other teenage girl paraphernalia. The inside of the box was lined with a softly radiant pearly pink paper. Gemma had seen this before; the I think he knows letter had been written on paper identical to this.

  ‘This is from a stationery set, isn’t it?’

  ‘Used to be. I use it for stuff now.’

  ‘Must have been really pretty,’ Gemma said. ‘But sometimes these fancy finishes make it hard to write. Did you find that?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know. I never used it.’

  ‘Where did it come from? Whose is it?’

  ‘It was Mum’s.’ Jade’s face showed suspicion. ‘What is this? It’s just some old box.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Gemma. ‘It’s just some old box.’

  •

  Gemma pulled over in Eddy Avenue near the long-distance bus stands at Central. As Jade went to unlock the car door and haul her bags out, Gemma fished a lone fifty-dollar bill from her wallet. ‘Here,’ she said, thinking she was crazy but feeling responsible for the girl as well. ‘Take this, and promise me you’ll ring me if things don’t turn out. Okay? You can owe me fifty. But I want something first.’ She pulled the note back as Jade tried to grab it. ‘Tell me what you know about Jaki Hunter.’

  Jade’s face was suffused with a dark red hue. ‘That bitch. I hate her.’

  ‘You sent her a police doll with some glass skewering it.’

  ‘I’m going! You can keep your lousy fifty!’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ said Gemma, handing it to her. ‘No strings. And I know it’s no use telling you to go home. I remember what it’s like at your age. But there’s something I should say to you. We can’t run away from problems, Jade. Especially family problems. I’ve learned that much. We carry our family with us wherever we go.’

  Jade’s large dark eyes met hers. ‘No way. That’s not true.’

  ‘I feel really bad just dropping you off here, Jade. Not knowing how you’re going to manage.’ Short of forcibly restraining the girl, there was little Gemma could do.

  ‘I’ll be fine!’ said Jade, throwing open the door and jumping out.

  As the girl hurried along the footpath, Gemma accelerated and drove past, glancing in her rear-vision mirror to see her disappearing into the bus office.

  Thoughtfully, Gemma drove home. At least in my family, she thought, the buck stops here. She wouldn’t be raising a child who’d have to take on the legacy of the Chisholm–Lincoln family, with its distorted patterns and dark history.

  When she pulled up on the road above her place, she was no longer thinking family thoughts. She sat for a long moment in her car, sightlessly staring ahead. Ideas, generated by the pearly pink stationery box and the miniature superintendent’s uniform jacket, were starting to gather momentum.

  She knew she should call Natalie and say that she’d seen Jade and that the girl was getting a bus to Byron Bay. But something was preying on her mind, something that she’d overlooked so far. And no matter how hard she tried to grasp it, it slipped back like a dream into the well of her subconsciousness.

  Twenty-Five

  When she got inside, she checked her messages and found one from Lance from Paradigm Laboratories. Quickly, she called him.

  ‘Ah, Gemma. We’ve got a result for you,’ he said, ‘on that bridal dress and the sample references you sent us. We cut samples from various sections of the dress and also prepared samples from the control items – the toothbrush, etcetera.’

  ‘Yes, and?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘The blood on the dress matched the profile we got from the toothbrush – a female. Presumably belonging to the woman who owned both items.’

  Steffi’s blood, thought Gemma.

  ‘And we also found an amount of semen. Subject unknown.’

  ‘Not to me,’ said Gemma, thinking of Martin Trimble.

  She sat a moment in thought. Had Trimble raped and murdered Steffi in the garage? Then she rang Mark Simons at Missing Persons.

  He listened and took the details. ‘Okay,’ he said when she’d finished. ‘I don’t like the sound of any of that. I’m going to pass it on to the Maroubra police.’

  Next, Gemma tried Toby Boyd’s number. Still no luck. He must be out of town, she thought. ‘Call me,’ she said in the message she left. ‘I must speak to you.’

  But at least now the police were taking things seriously and she didn’t feel so responsible.

  •

  Toby Boyd rang just as Gemma was about to make herself a meal for later, feeling relieved that she hadn’t thrown up for a couple of days. Since her shopping trip, she had a well-stocked larder and was chopping vegetables for a soup when he interrupted.

  ‘I’ve been trying to ring you,’ she said.

  ‘I’ve been following Martin Trimble. He’s staying at a flat in Bondi. I’ve had him under surveillance.’

  Gemma was about to tell him the Paradigm results but stopped. If Toby heard that, he might do something stupid.

  ‘Look,’ she said. ‘I’ve got some news but I want to deliver it personally.’

  ‘Have you found Steffi?’ His voice brightened.

  Far from it, she thought.

  ‘Tell me where you are and I’ll meet you there in about half an hour.’

  •

  Gemma spotted Toby Boyd parked near the grounds of a large public school, and hurried over to him.

  ‘You’ve got a cow of a job,’ he said, as she slid in beside him. ‘I’ve had a taste of it over the last couple of days.’

  ‘Surveillance isn’t much fun,’ she said. ‘Where’s Trimble staying?’

  Toby pointed to a liver-brick block of flats with square balconies overlooking the street. ‘It’s that flat with the beach towels hanging up, near the
top of the frangipani tree.’

  Gemma followed his pointing finger past the bare limbs of the frangipani.

  ‘His friends went out so he’s probably alone in there. He doesn’t go out much. Down to the bottle shop or the corner shop for a newspaper. Don’t know how he’s living.’ He turned to her warily. ‘What’s the new information you have?’

  ‘Toby,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t sound good. I’ve alerted the police and they’ll want to talk to Trimble.’

  ‘Tell me. What is it?’

  ‘I ordered a DNA test on a wedding dress found in Trimble’s garage.’

  ‘Steffi’s dress? With the coloured spots?’

  She nodded.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The lab got a positive result for human blood. And a profile, Steffi’s profile.’

  She saw him digest that.

  ‘And there was also another genetic deposit. Semen.’

  It took a couple of seconds, then Toby Boyd’s face darkened. ‘That bastard!’ He swung his door open and was out and halfway across the road before Gemma caught up with him.

  ‘Toby, no!’ she cried, trying to stop him without using an obvious restraining hold in public. ‘Don’t do this. Let the police do it. That’s their job. I’ve alerted them. They’ll get a warrant and do it the proper way.’

  ‘I’ll kill him! Let me go! I don’t want to hurt you, but I’m going in there! Please, stand aside, Gemma.’

  ‘Toby, there could be another explanation. It’s a police matter. You can’t take the law into your own hands.’

  ‘Like hell I can’t!’ he said, breaking away from her. Toby Boyd was a big man and Gemma decided to let him go. As he raced across the road and into the block of flats, Gemma whipped out her mobile and called Angie.