by Tia Reed
The door opened just enough to accommodate Jane’s body between it and the jamb. “Yeah, well Alicia’s not missing, she’s dead.” She threw her angular chin up. She was slim but definitely not frail and seemed to be bearing up well.
“I’ve reason to believe the murders and disappearances are related,” Ella said.
Jane thrust her jaw to the side, considering. “What did you bring her for?”
“Reassurance.”
She scoffed.
“Girls are dying. You don’t want to entertain a stranger alone no matter who he says he is.”
Her eyes widened slightly. She drew herself taller, oozing false confidence. “I’ve already talked to the police.”
“Ella is a personal friend. Despite what you might have heard, she has a lot of integrity.”
“How do I know anything I say won’t end up in the Informer?”
“You have my word,” Ella said, “and you can sue for slander if it does.”
Jane opened the door. The place was messy but not unclean. From the variety of objects scattered around, Ella guessed Jane was sharing with other female students. Her eye landed on a French textbook sitting on a chair over which a pink cardigan hung.
“Are you studying the language?”
“No. Biology.” She crossed her arms to reinforce her reticence.
Ella spied a physiology book next to a compact on the worn floral couch. While Adam took that opening to break the ice, she wandered to the laminate shelving at the back of the room. Apart from books and cheap knickknacks, several photographs adorned the shelves, most of a group of girls. Recognising Alicia in one, she picked it up. Chubby and plain, Alicia did not smile enough to part her lips.
“Is this the most recent photo you have of Alicia?”
“No.” Jane came over, took the photo from her, and replaced it on the shelf.
Adam removed a photo from his wallet and showed it to her. “Cecily,” he said. “I used it to ask around the neighbourhood. I covered far more area than the police did.”
Ella felt a wave of sympathy. Adam had not mentioned he’d done that. His honesty struck a chord with Jane, who picked up another photo.
“This is Alicia about a week before she disappeared.”
The difference was remarkable. Where the girl had seemed self-conscious in the first, in this photo she oozed life. Only one thing could change a girl so quickly. “Her boyfriend must have been special, to bring her out of her shell that way,” Ella said.
Jane abruptly set the photo down.
Adam moved his head until he caught her eye. “Please. I really am doing my best to find out what happened.”
Jane sighed. “She wouldn’t admit it. Alicia never felt good enough, with her weight and looks, but I’m sure she was seeing someone. She had that look about her, you know? She even asked Marie to teach her ‘I love you’ in French.”
“Do you have any idea who it was?”
“No. Alicia always gave news in her own time. I think she was afraid it wouldn’t last. But she changed after she started going to service at the Church of the Resurrection. I think she met him there.”
“Did you tell the police?”
“Sure, though her mother insists she would’ve known if Alicia was seeing someone.” She shrugged. “Maybe she’s right. Apparently, there weren’t any unaccounted calls to Alicia’s mobile.” As Jane’s confidence wavered, so did her voice.
“But there are other ways to communicate,” Ella prompted.
The young woman moved her jaw again. She made a decision to speak. “You say you’re studying bats?” she said to Adam. He nodded. “Can they be trained to deliver messages, like pigeons do?”
The question caught him by surprise. “I’ve never heard of it.”
Ella could tell by the way he frowned that he thought it impossible. She wrinkled her nose in distaste.
Jane spoke to the photo. “The night Alicia disappeared, Marie said goodbye and closed the door while I was on the phone. I hung up a few seconds later and didn’t think Alicia had driven off yet, so I opened it again to wave goodbye.” She shifted her gaze to Adam. “A note drifted onto her head as she was about to get in the car. I saw her smile as she read it, but she stuffed it into her pocket and hurried to leave as soon as she saw me.”
“And the bat?”
“I think it was fluttering around the sensor light. I mean, it was too big to be a moth and it didn’t quite look like a bird. I told the police about the note. I even said it seemed to drop from the air. They checked the roof but,” she gave a light shrug, “there was nothing there.”
The girl’s reluctance was a giveaway that she was holding back. “You have an idea, though,” Ella prompted.
Jane looked horror-stricken until Adam told her even the most bizarre story might help with his research. “I thought I saw the bat turn into the letter.” She gave a tentative laugh. “Not possible, right? Just the shadows in the night.”
Ella sure hoped it was not possible. They thanked Jane and walked down the drive. She mulled over the information she had uncovered. One detail was bothering her. She was about to ask Adam a question when a form whizzed past her face and caught in her hair. She twirled, biting off a strangled cry as it fluttered, tugging at strands until it plucked a few from her scalp. Although she had finished turning, the street and house had not. A whirlwind tossed her perspective into a revolving bird’s eye view of Adam gently taking her arms. Then the suburban scene faded and she was dumped near a river where two boys in rough spun clothes tussled as they waited for a fishing boat to bump the muddy shore.
She staggered sideways, disoriented.
“Are you all right?” Adam’s blue eyes were all concern as she took a couple of deep breaths to steady herself. “It looked like you were having a panic attack.”
She had suffered from panic attacks after her humiliation in court. Thinking the whole of Adelaide was looking at you every time you emerged from your house tended to rattle the nerves. This had been nothing like those. The scene played out before her eyes had been too vivid, too encompassing. She reminded herself it was past one and she’d had nothing to eat today. She was willing to put the episode down to low blood sugar. She certainly felt like she needed some chocolate.
“What was that?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“A bat. A bent-wing, I think. It’s okay, it’s harmless.”
“What’s it doing out at this time of day?” It sounded like she was blaming him, but her irritation covered her jitters.
“I have no idea. Maybe it thought there was a moth in your hair.” He smiled. “You know, you really should consider yourself lucky. Two close encounters with bats in one lifetime. That’s almost as many as your friendly expert here has had.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” Ella forced herself to walk. Adam kept close. She resented her overreaction. A touch embarrassed, she thought it best to change the subject and remembered she had been going to ask a question. “Adam, when you said you thought the church was involved, what did you mean?”
“You’ve met Genord. What do you think?”
His evasion was beginning to nettle her. At first, she had put it down to his not wanting to appear crazy, but now that she had seen what he had, she wondered if he were being completely honest with her. “I think whatever we saw down there was quite capable of killing.”
“Maybe, but Cecily ran in the opposite direction. She didn’t scream either. She would have screamed if she’d been attacked by an animal.”
Ella turned at the car and studied the gravel on the driveway. “But why the church?” Although they had potentially uncovered two links that had eluded police, the area was as suspect as the building. If a wild animal was prowling around the canal, then anyone in the vicinity was in danger. The only question would be whether Genord knew about it. Or worse, if he had released it there.
Adam shook his head. “There had to have been someone in there. There was light
from below, and yet the police found the building locked from the outside and the light out. I mean, where else could she have gone?”
Ella dropped the subject, sure that mention of an abduction would alienate him.
Chapter Seven
24th October. Afternoon.
THE NEWSPAPER WAS a flurry of activity. Phones were ringing, journalists diving for pens. A cadet wound his way around desks clutching hard copy that occasionally fluttered out of his hands and wafted onto a desk, where journalists irately brushed it away. Ella wove around desk corners and coffee-carrying colleagues wondering, as always, how the Informer ever managed to get a daily paper into circulation.
Debbie Esperto glanced up from her desk. “Should’ve known you’d be in today, being payday and all.” She immediately returned to the sketch of a fanged shark that took up considerably more room on her page than the text did. “Waterman’s been looking for you,” she added as an afterthought, a smirk on her lips. She held up her hand and examined her blue nail polish for imperfections, frowning when the fluorescent lights dimmed overhead.
Ella dropped her bag on the desk next to Debbie’s, took out her packet of Rolos and tore the wrapper to access the next button. “I expect he’s waiting for inside information on Melanie Denham’s disappearance.” She popped a chocolate into her mouth and strode straight for the editor’s office, leaving Debbie gaping at her back. The self-styled journalist frequently penned the Informer’s lead articles. They were rubbish down to the last word, but it didn’t stop her from lording it over Ella. The fact Ella had been assigned a parking space on her first day at work when Debbie, who commuted by bus and saw no advantage to having a car at work, had not, had sealed her animosity. Her bitter and constant complaints had not moved their editor.
“She’s an investigative journalist. She needs to travel for Pete’s sake,” Phil had said.
“So am I,” Debbie had replied, to which Phil had merely raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Ella smiled at the memory. Their editor was not a complete jerk.
“Get in here!” Phil ordered as soon as Ella appeared at the door. She noticed Debbie, eyes narrowed, leaning forward as she closed the door.
“Well?” Phil asked, from behind his cluttered desk. He was casually eyeing a relic of a monitor. “What you got?”
“How did you find out about the body before the press release?” Ella noticed a squashed cardboard box of the kind that held a dozen doughnuts on top of a jumbled pile of papers at one end of the desk.
“My job, Jerome. Now, you want to tell me what you’ve been doing since eleven yesterday or will I assume it’s not work and dock your pay?”
“I haven’t got enough for a story.” The fluorescent lights buzzed on and off.
He leant forward, placing fists on the battered wood as though he meant business. “Word has it you visited the morgue.”
“Are you following me?” She shook her head. “Stupid question.” Phil knew she always investigated thoroughly before penning an article. He would have sent another journalist to get an interim write-up. Debbie was his usual choice, and she would have had no qualms about following Ella around. She sighed. “I can’t go to press with what I know at the moment, I gave my word. But there’s a story here, and it looks like it could fit right up with everything the Informer stands for.”
“What do you need?”
“Are you serious?”
He thumped the thick monitor. Apparently satisfied the glitch was rectified, he turned his attention back to her. “I took a chance on you. Now it’s payday.” He blinked and added, “Figuratively,” not about to forget she had absconded from the office. “Look, when I started this rag, I was aiming to probe the murky depths of crime in this city. I thought if I could get even half the credibility of the defunct Truth, I’d be happy. Instead, I end up with a sci-fi journal. Now, I’m not complaining coz it’s earning all of us a decent living, but when I leave this creative invention, I want to think, in different circumstances, it might have been possible. Just get me that one story, Ella. You get your second chance.
“So, what do you need?”
Ella blinked, a little stunned. She’d never figured Phil to be serious about the industry. “Time,” she said, “to dig into Genord’s past and the history of the Church of the Resurrection.”
The lights died. Phil swore. “What is it with the electrics today?”
A complete overhaul of the ancient building and equipment in it would not, in Ella’s opinion, be an overinvestment.
“We get one bat in the ceiling and everything goes haywire,” Phil said, rising. He didn’t notice her bewildered silence as he opened the door. “Esperto! Quit that doodling. Your ass is on research. Get all the information you can about the Church of the Resurrection and its caretaker Genord. Then give it to Jerome here.”
Debbie’s jaw dropped. “I’m still on tomorrow’s cover, Mr Waterman.”
“You’re on whatever I say you’re on if you want to remain on staff. Who the hell is that?”
Ella prised her eyes away from Debbie, who had dropped into a glowering sulk. She blinked when she saw Brendan Rhymes, and intercepted him, relieved to have something tangible to deal with.
“What are you doing here?”
“We’ve got to talk.” He was glancing nervously all over the place. To her left, Debbie was leaning back in her chair studying them, her pencil twirling between two fingers. “Not here.”
“That goes without saying.” Ella grabbed her bag.
“Do you realise you’ve probably blown your cover?” she asked as they stepped into fresh air.
He turned to the left and walked briskly down leafy Halifax Street. The direction upset Ella. She went to great lengths to avoid the eastern end of the street, where the heritage-listed sandstone building which housed the Nationwide Daily soared above the surrounding offices, even driving down parallel Carrington Street in the morning and backtracking once she had ringed Hurtle Square. The structure itself she could possibly deal with, even though the pit of her stomach swirled every time she saw it. It was her former colleagues who brought on such intense feelings of inadequacy that she wanted to hide herself away for another year. She manoeuvred herself to Brendan’s left and kept her gaze on her side of the street.
“I’m here because of an inconsistency in your statement this morning.”
“Great. That’ll wash until Debbie Esperto pokes her head into whichever café we’re going to. Now why are you here?”
“Someone wants to meet you.” Unexpectedly, he opened the passenger door of an unmarked car, checking the street for plants as he did.
As far as Ella could tell, the al fresco lunchtime crowd milling around Cibo appeared ordinary, but she had to admit she wasn’t exactly trained in surveillance. She got in, not at all surprised to see Debbie staring after them in the side mirror as they drove off and out of the city. Her probing didn’t produce much more information.
They pulled up at a sixties’ style cream brick home on the top of a hill, a weedy drive leading to a carport, a gleaming gold Jaguar announcing the owner was home. Brendan’s knock was answered by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a leather jacket. He admitted them into the fully refurbished house. The latest ergonomically designed furniture, in red, black, and white, rested on polished floorboards in spacious rooms with spectacular views over the city. Despite the unkempt front garden, this house was grand.
The man waved them into ball chairs opposite the giant plasma television. He remained standing, his thumbs hooked through the belt that circled his ample waist.
“This is a pleasant surprise, Ella. You don’t mind if I call you that, Ella?”
“Hardly, since it is my name.” She doubted he was about to give her a choice or that this meeting was anything but orchestrated, but Brendan had no right to divulge information about her without her permission. “May I ask yours?”
“You can call me Doer.”
“What is it that you do?”
>
“Probably better that you don’t know.”
“Understood. So why am I here?” They both completely ignored Brendan. It was clear Doer was calling the shots and Ella was the one he wanted to speak to. She grappled with her cloak of bravado to hide her growing discomfort.
“Because I reckon I can trust you.”
Ella hesitated. “I don’t reveal my sources, if that’s what you mean.”
He grinned. “I know, and I owe you for it. That’s the second reason.”
She turned her head slightly, her lips parted, but her eyes never left his face. She had a feeling this meeting would bring trouble rather than information. She wasn’t about to invite the former by clarifying her suspicions.
Doer crossed his arms. “So, Ella, do you want me to pay you back for your little stint in jail?”
“Look, Doer, it wasn’t my intention to help you out.” Brendan shifted in his chair. Ella didn’t break eye-contact with their host. “I’d sooner give the police information to help them make a drug bust than score an interview with an underworld boss.”
“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”
She rose. A glance in Brendan’s direction showed sweat glistening on his forehead. The snitch was probably taking bribes for police information. Her estimation of him plummeted. She wondered if she would have taken the rap for him if she had known of the extent of his duplicity back then.
“I’m already on a story. I’m sorry, Mr Doer, but I don’t have time for anything else right now.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and thought about addressing Rhymes as Detective. Common sense prevailed. “I think we should go.” She didn’t wait for Brendan.
Doer timed his comment so she was just leaving the room. “Judge Alden is firmly in Genord’s pocket. Interested?”