‘What do you expect me to do about it?’ asked Angie.
‘Lean on the Maroubra police,’ said Gemma. ‘Get them moving. This guy’s really furious. He could do something rash.’
Gemma raced across the road after Toby. She could hear the altercation from the terrazzo-floored foyer of the building, and as she ran up the steps she could see the door to one of the flats standing open. God, she thought, I’m fed up with this life. Here she was about to make a citizen’s arrest. Toby Boyd would sue her for assault.
She ran in to find Martin Trimble whimpering on the floor.
Toby Boyd kicked him hard.
‘Stop it, Toby!’ Gemma shouted. ‘You’ll end up wearing an assault charge. Just stop it right now!’
‘Help me!’ screamed Trimble, his nose streaming blood, trying to crawl away from the kicks and blows Toby Boyd showered on him.
‘Where is she, you mongrel?’ Toby yelled, delivering another kick. ‘What have you done with my sister?’
Trimble had reached the wall and was pressed up against it, as if trying to pass through it.
Boyd reached down and grabbed Trimble. The beaten man was shivering like a whipped dog and Gemma could see a wet patch at the front of his jeans.
‘Toby! That’s enough!’ she ordered, jumping on his back. But he shook her off without turning round, lashing out with a backwards kick to her shin. Gemma howled with pain and staggered back, hopping, to collapse against the wall.
‘I’ll tell you what happened! Just stop it!’ sobbed Trimble. ‘Stop it. Please. I’ll tell you!’
‘He’s going to tell you!’ Gemma screamed as Toby ran with Trimble against the opposite wall, crashing him into it and pinning him. ‘Stop it!’ she yelled. ‘You’ll kill him!’
‘Okay,’ said Toby. ‘Tell me, you mongrel. The truth or I swear I’ll kill you.’
‘Let me go first.’
Finally, slowly, Toby Boyd let go and Martin Trimble, his teeth red with blood and his nose already starting to swell, staggered to a couch and collapsed.
‘Steffi’s okay,’ he said. ‘I swear. She’s not dead or anything. She . . . she left because she . . . she walked in while I was –’
‘While you were what? Screwing someone else?’ roared Toby. ‘Is that it?’
‘No! I wasn’t doing that. I was . . . I was doing something that she didn’t like. That’s all. She got angry. She hit me.’
Trimble dragged a handkerchief out of his pocket and blew his nose, then folded the bloody square up and pressed it against the bridge of his nose in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
‘Tell me what happened!’
‘I lost my temper and I hit her back.’
‘You hit her? You hit my sister?’ Toby Boyd yelled, raising his fist again.
‘I didn’t mean to! She hurt me and I just lashed out. I slapped her. She was carrying on, hysterical.’
‘Her wedding dress is bloodstained! Her blood! Why was she bleeding?’
Why was Steffi wearing her wedding dress, Gemma wondered, as Toby Boyd continued to glower at the bleeding man huddled on the couch. Slowly, Toby lowered his raised fist.
‘It’s okay, Trimble,’ said Gemma. ‘It’s only a nose bleed. Tilt your head back.’
He did as she directed, looking warily at Toby Boyd all the while. Between herself and Toby, they’d set up a good cop, bad cop dynamic.
‘Why is Steffi’s blood on the wedding dress?’ she asked.
‘Her lip bled,’ Trimble mumbled. ‘It wasn’t a serious smack, but it split the skin on her lip.’
‘You’re lying!’
‘Take it easy, Toby,’ warned Gemma, as Toby Boyd started to shape up again.
‘I swear that’s all it was. I clipped her over the face and her lip bled. Just like my nose is bleeding now because of this maniac here.’ Frowning, Trimble examined the contents of his saturated handkerchief. ‘It won’t stop bleeding,’ he muttered.
‘Why was Steffi wearing her wedding dress, Martin?’ Gemma asked.
Trimble looked away.
‘You told me the other day that Steffi just came home and packed up. Now you’re telling us she had her wedding dress on? That doesn’t make sense.’
Martin Trimble dabbed at his bloody nose in silence.
‘Come on, Martin,’ said Gemma. ‘I want an answer. Now. Otherwise I’m out of here and he can take over.’
She jerked a thumb at Toby Boyd, silently cursing him for the damage he’d done to her shin bone, where a dull ache was now spreading both up and down.
‘She wasn’t wearing her wedding dress at all, was she?’ Gemma said.
Toby Boyd swung round. ‘But you just asked why she was wearing it. Her blood’s on it. She must have been wearing it – or holding it.’
‘Tell us, Martin,’ said Gemma. ‘Tell us about the wedding dress.’
Another long silence.
Gemma sat on the edge of a lounge chair, leaning forward, closer to Trimble. Blood and semen, Lance’s findings on the samples he’d cut, she recalled.
‘Okay,’ she said finally. ‘I’m going to tell you then. Steffi wasn’t wearing her wedding dress. You were. You like to dress up in women’s clothing. Isn’t that right?’
Toby Boyd stood staring down at the huddled figure. The surfing entrepreneur had diminished to a pathetic figure dabbing a bloody nose.
‘You get off dressing up in women’s clothes and masturbating,’ Gemma continued.
Trimble huddled smaller still, not looking at either of them, and Gemma experienced a pang of compassion for his humiliation.
‘That’s what happened, isn’t it, Martin? You were wearing Steffi’s wedding dress and masturbating in the garage and she unexpectedly walked in on you. You were so engrossed in your activity you didn’t hear her arrive.’
Toby Boyd’s face went from incredulity to disgust. ‘You pathetic perv!’ he said. ‘You sicko!’
‘Leave it, Toby,’ Gemma said as Martin Trimble hunched forward over his knees, hiding his face. ‘He didn’t murder your sister.’
‘But why did you let everyone think you’d killed her?’ Boyd persisted. ‘Why put yourself through all this?’
Martin Trimble remained silent. He’d rather people believed him to be a murderer, Gemma thought, than talk about what really happened.
‘Come on, Toby,’ she said, limping to her feet. ‘Time we got going.’
‘But where’s Steffi?’
‘He doesn’t know. Come on.’
She almost had to drag Toby Boyd outside. Then they stood a moment beside his car.
‘Put yourself in her shoes for a minute,’ said Gemma. ‘If I’d been in love with a man and then walked in on him wearing my wedding dress and wanking, I’d want to run away too.’
‘But why the hell wouldn’t she let me know?’
‘Toby, she probably didn’t want to have to explain anything. You’ve always disliked Trimble. Something like this – well, it’s too embarrassing for her to admit that you had a point. And what a point!’
Gemma started walking back to her car, then turned. ‘It would be very demoralising,’ she said, ‘to find that the man you loved was far more interested in your frocks than in you.’
•
Once home, Gemma had a bath, lying back in bubbles, like Natalie Finn in the escort agency’s bathroom. Gemma couldn’t stop her mind from racing with theories. Natalie had the oldest motive in the world – jealousy – to set up her rival, Jaki Hunter. And because of her police background and contacts, she’d have the know-how to do it: leave a false trail and dispose of the weapon. But when? And how? Donny would have bled to death in a few minutes. Would she have left her son like that while she hid the weapon? And the shooting of Donovan made no sense in this scenario unl
ess it was an accident. She’d stopped the bleeding as best she could and rung the ambulance. If she’d wanted to take time to hide the weapon, it made much better sense to let the boy die. No witnesses, and enough unpressured time to find a good hiding place before the emergency people arrived. From then on, she’d been at the hospital for hours. No chance to slip away and hide a bulky weapon. The boy must have been running downstairs as the murders were in progress, and his actions had spooked the shooter who instinctively squeezed the trigger.
Gemma topped the bath up with hot water. But for this theory to have any legitimacy, Natalie must have known Jaki’s identity, and so far there was no absolute proof of this. Apart from a photograph in Police Service Weekly – merely another of hundreds of similar staff snaps taken over the year – there was nothing to link Jaki with the superintendent. And despite Jaki’s claim that Natalie was a brilliant poker player, Gemma knew that there were certain autonomic responses that were impossible to control, unless one was a yogi in Tibet: increased heart rate and breathing, flushing of the skin. Jaki’s presence that day in Angie’s office hadn’t caused the slightest difference in Natalie’s manner.
Then again, Jade had known the identity of her father’s mistress. And if the daughter knew, maybe the mother did too. Then Gemma shook her head. Jade had refused to have anything to do with her mother for weeks, or her friends. She’d withdrawn into herself, not shared her worries with her mother. It was unlikely she’d have told Natalie about Jaki Hunter; instead, she’d expressed her anger her own way – by sending Jaki the voodoo doll.
Gemma lay back in the bath, tired of trying to work things out. She raised her body so that the swell of her belly broke through the bubbles. She could see no change in the external landscape of her abdomen, yet underneath the soapy skin, housed in its nest, a tiny being pulsed away. In order to prevent herself thinking of what was going to happen very soon at Family Planning, she deliberately thought of Steffi Boyd’s wedding dress and how it had contained a secret, which, when properly uncovered, had revealed the whole sad story. All that had been needed was the DNA testing of the fabric, the cutting of some samples. DNA testing and the cutting of samples from the body of the dress, her mind repeated.
The mini-tsunami Gemma created when she suddenly sat up washed over the edge of the bath. The cutting of samples! She jumped up and grabbed her towel, wrapping it round herself, then hurried into the bedroom, drying and dressing as fast as she could.
Bryson Finn hadn’t been sentimental at all. That battered bear stashed in the bottom of the carton of files and papers wasn’t a memento of his son. That bear was evidence.
Five minutes later, she was on the phone to Angie. ‘I’ve got something to tell you.’
‘You’ve changed your mind? You’re not having the termination? You’ve decided to break the family curse?’
‘Angie, please. Be serious.’
‘I am serious. I’ve given it a lot of thought.’
Curiosity drove Gemma to ask, ‘What curse?’
‘You know. Your sad mother. Your sad childhood. You and the baby can change all that. Change the family curse into a family blessing.’
‘Angie, have you flipped? What sort of blessing is it to bring a baby into my muddle? I’m going in first thing Thursday to Family Planning.’
‘I picked a friend up from there once, afterwards. You should talk to her sometime.’
‘I didn’t call to talk about this. I’ve got some information that’ll change your mind about the arrest of Jaki Hunter.’
‘Not this again! I haven’t got time to listen to your theories.’
‘I’m an informant with information, for God’s sake. I’ve discovered something huge about Natalie Finn. You’ve got to listen to me!’
‘I’m going. Bye.’
‘Just give me one hour. You, me, Natalie. That’s all I’m asking. Please!’
Twenty-Six
The next day the three of them – Gemma, Angie and Natalie – stood in the hallway of the late Bryson Finn’s family home.
‘You’d better come through, I suppose,’ said Natalie, anxiously frowning at Angie. ‘I can’t imagine why you’d want to talk to me again. I thought this whole terrible business had been concluded – at least until the trial. And that I could start getting on with my life – such as it is.’
‘I’m afraid not,’ Gemma said.
Angie stood near one of the grilled windows of the living room, her eyes alert, her notebook at the ready. ‘Gemma has a few more questions – or rather answers, Natalie,’ she said, ‘that she needs to check with you.’
Gemma made herself comfortable on the edge of one of the plump armchairs, while Natalie sat in her favoured spot, the angle where the two large lounges met in an L-shape.
‘I wondered why Donovan’s bear was missing an ear,’ said Gemma. ‘And I realised why the ear had been cut off.’
‘It was so chewed,’ said Natalie shortly, ‘it probably fell off. But why on earth are you going on about a decrepit toy bear? Angie, what is this? Jaki Hunter’s been arrested. Why are you here?’
‘We believe the ear was deliberately cut off because it was chewed so badly, but not for aesthetic reasons, Natalie,’ said Angie. ‘Can you tell us why your husband might have taken that soft toy and cut one of its ears off?’
Natalie glared at Gemma then Angie in turn. ‘This is ridiculous,’ she said. ‘I think you should both leave.’
‘You want to tell us the truth now, Natalie?’ asked Gemma. ‘Or should I tell you what I think happened? And why it happened.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about!’ said Natalie. ‘You’re just fishing! I used to be in the job. I know how you go. If you had anything real, I’d be sitting in a formal interview room with the clock and the video running. You are completely out of order! So don’t try this amateur bullshit on me. Setting up a trap with no information whatsoever, so that some poor unfortunate idiot gives himself away!’
‘I wouldn’t describe you that way,’ said Gemma.
Natalie made an explosive sound of frustration and anger.
‘Okay,’ Gemma continued, ‘I’ll tell you then, seeing as you’re unwilling to talk.’
‘Go ahead,’ said Natalie with palpable derision. ‘This should be very interesting.’
‘Your husband cut the ear off that bear because it would be saturated with saliva and epithelial cells from Donny’s mouth. He sent the chewed-up ear to a private lab called Genoservices that specialises in – guess what?’
Natalie’s eyes widened. Her expression of ironic superiority drained away, like the blood from her face.
‘Yes?’ Gemma prompted, aware of a movement. ‘You were about to say something?’
Natalie looked away, her hands fidgeting with a tissue she’d pulled from a nearby box.
‘I’ll make it easy for you,’ Gemma said. ‘We found a receipt in your late husband’s papers. For Genoservices. It’s a private laboratory that advertises a reasonably priced DNA test – not the full procedure necessary for the courts, but a smaller niche-market test called “peace of mind” paternity test.’
Natalie’s intake of breath was audible. For a moment she sat motionless, her expression of shocked disbelief frozen on her face.
‘Oh God,’ she said finally. ‘Oh hell. I need a drink.’
‘No problem,’ said Gemma, rising from her perch and pulling out the brandy from the liquor supplies in the glass-fronted cabinet above the small drinks refrigerator.
‘Make it strong,’ said Natalie.
Gemma did so, adding a little soda and ice, watching Natalie’s demeanour all the time. ‘Will I keep going?’ Gemma asked, bringing her the drink, ‘or do you want to take over?’
‘Why don’t you tell us the whole story, Natalie?’ Angie said, coming away from the window and sitting
with her notebook on her lap.
Natalie took the drink without a word and tossed most of it back in one hit, grimacing. Then she finished what was left and handed the glass back to Gemma.
‘You’re doing so well, Gemma,’ she said bitterly. ‘You might as well keep going.’
‘I’ll get you another drink,’ said Gemma. ‘Looks like that one hardly touched the sides.’
She poured another brandy, feeling for the woman who’d lost the love of her daughter, whose frightened son still lay in hospital, and whose husband – with or without her connivance – had been murdered.
‘I wish I’d never got you involved in this in the first place,’ Natalie said, throwing a hard look Gemma’s way. ‘It was a family matter. No place for outsiders.’
‘It gives me no joy to be telling you what I’ve discovered,’ said Gemma. ‘And as to family matters, what else are these murders but a family matter? Which then becomes public. That’s how it goes in most murder cases.’
‘I didn’t know what I was saying that morning at the hospital!’ Natalie said. ‘I was distressed. I didn’t mean that you should go poking your nose into such intimate matters. The police in charge of this investigation wouldn’t have wasted any time on a toy bear with a missing ear, for Chrissake! They wouldn’t even have noticed it.’
‘Thanks for the vote of confidence,’ said Angie.
‘Well, let’s hear what the private investigator has privately investigated,’ said Natalie. ‘She seems to have a gift for sniffing out sad family secrets.’
‘Only when they’re present,’ said Gemma. ‘I speak from experience.’
‘Okay, you two,’ said Angie. ‘Take it easy. I think you should tell us, Natalie. After all, it’s your story.’
Natalie briefly covered her face with her hands before taking them away and running her fingers through her hair in a gesture that was becoming familiar. ‘I always knew, somehow, that this would come out,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what it’s been like, living with this.’
The terrible, terrible thing, thought Gemma, that Natalie had so deeply regretted. A life of deception.
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