The Courier's New Bicycle

by Kim Westwood

  Then I take my leave down Gail’s neat drive, the blood drumming a fearsome tattoo in my head, his eyes like leeches on my back.

  The speakeasy is aflutter with the news of Gail found dead in her home from a dose of tainted hormones. How I made it here from Toorak, I don’t remember, but after ringing Anwar, I’d stumbled in and collapsed on Rosie’s broad shoulder.

  A full shot glass appears at my hand. It isn’t the first. I surface from my stupor to concerned faces looming in and out of view, the speculation rife around me. But it wasn’t me who told the news. It arrived before me. Doug Smeg, or someone in the constabulary, has a high-speed connection to the speakeasy grapevine.

  ‘… anaphylactic shock,’ a voice says loudly. ‘Something toxic in the kit. So much for trusting Ethical Hormones.’

  ‘Fancy Gail of all people getting her own medicine wrong,’ someone else chimes in.

  ‘Getting greedy, more like — or desperate,’ another replies. ‘I always thought she looked too good to be true.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I say to my empty glass, and the bar goes quiet around me.

  The room is suddenly oppressive, the smell of alcohol and kit cloying. I start for the door, but a hand places itself on my arm. Merlyn steers me firmly over to Mojo Meg’s alcove, its tasselled curtains secured to give a bird’s-eye view of the bar. I wait unsteadily at the table as Meg drums baubled fingers lightly on its surface, Merlyn and Sandy standing point duty.

  ‘My busy little courier.’ The fingers drum.

  ‘Busy no more,’ I say, unable to mask the bitterness. ‘I quit.’

  ‘I’ll ignore that because you’re upset. Sad news about Gail, but we all step over that mark sooner or later.’

  ‘This was premature.’ Grief and drink have made me unwary.

  The fingers still. Mojo Meg’s eyes glitter in the lamplight. ‘I’ll give you that. It’s not like Gail to capitulate.’

  I’m on the edge of an avalanche of sobs, but Meg is the last person I want to break down in front of.

  ‘You went there?’ she probes.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And found her?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So who did?’

  I blink soddenly. Doug Smeg said the police had called him. But who called them?

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Meg is having her own thoughts, some of which might be about why I went there in the first place.

  ‘Who told you she was dead?’

  ‘The Neighbourly Watch guy who was rifling through her things.’

  She says nothing to that.

  ‘Take the day and sleep off the booze,’ she orders. ‘Be in my office Monday, 9 am.’

  I linger, bleary-eyed, until I realise I’ve been dismissed. Lurching up the speakeasy stairs to the door, my second attempt to leave is stopped by Marlene. Knocked out of her usual superiority, she sniffs, eyes red-rimmed, and reminds me in a throaty lisp to collect my cycling gear.

  Rosie puts an arm around my shoulders, turning me away from the storeroom where my bike is stashed. ‘You’re not leaving here on that,’ she rumbles in my ear. ‘I’ve called you a taxi. Want someone to see you home?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Chin up, mate,’ she comforts. Then the door locks behind me and the spyhole closes over.

  The taxi is already at the top of Wickerslack Alley. I make for it, the gossip at the bar replaying in my head.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ I say again, to the stinking bins and stacks of cardboard boxes. I know better — two things better: Gail didn’t do kit, and didn’t need to, being one of the rare few who’d retained their full complement of hormones in the wake of the pandemic. My business-savvy employer was a walking, talking fertility factory, a modern-day wonder, so no way had she overdosed.

  I’m on my couch, crying into Nitro’s purple fur. Gail was my boss, but she was also the rock of dependability around which my fickle, unfocused life revolved. And she was family to me.

  Reaching in my jacket for another tissue, I pull out a slip of paper. It’s a number with a scribbled message: We need to talk. Marlene.

  Marlene never wants to talk to me. So why start now?

  I flick the paper to the floor. She can go talk to the wall. Two weeks ago I was cracking jokes with Albee in his workshop and happily couriering for Gail. Now Albee is in a coma and Gail is dead.

  The wail rises in my solar plexus, pressing up my windpipe into my throat. Nitro riding my lap, I launch back in the couch and let loose. Nitro leaps. I wail harder. It becomes a guttural scream, raw and primeval; I swing round on my knees and begin to pound at the back cushion.

  When my arms have become too weak to punch another time, I slump into hiccupy sobs. Nitro returns to the couch and begins to knead himself a place beside me. I stroke him, feeling his warmth; the vital spark coursing through him the same one that runs through me and connects us all, including Albee in his deep sleep. But not Gail. Not Gail ever again.

  23

  Anwar said he’ll ring me when he finds out where Gail’s body has been taken; meantime, I have to go be with Albee.

  My bike’s still at the speakeasy, but the panel van is parked outside. I climb into it, grief-stricken and drunk, then sneak along every side street between home and hospital in an effort to avoid the notice of the roving Temperance Units and emissions patrols.

  Driving, I think of Marlene’s note. There’s nothing I want less than a mutual sob session, but maybe she has something useful to say. She’s got cosy at various times with a number of Gail’s competitors, and occasionally I wondered if my boss was using her as a source. Information, even from Marlene, would be welcome right now, because while I believe there’ll be no lack of takers for Gail’s territory, I can’t bring myself to believe anybody would be so desperate as to kill her for it.

  I find a parking spot around the corner from the hospital entrance, and text off a message. If Marlene wants to talk, let her.

  Overhead, a single old-style neon shines down, punctuating the dark of the deserted street. Drained, I stare across the parade to the buildings of the university precinct. Behind them the sky is beginning to lilac up. How many dawns have I seen lately? Too many. I blow my nose, zip up my jacket and step out of the van.

  Five hours later, the Glory Hole’s statuesque cloakroom attendant is waiting for me in the Good Bean and attracting the interest of the regulars.

  Frank clasps my shoulder with a thick hand, the droop of his eyes telling me the news of Gail has reached his establishment. He shoots a glance down the row of tables.

  ‘One of yours?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  Marlene has pretensions to a Lamborghini lifestyle and never visits what she calls the bohemian section of town, but has made an exception for me. As for getting past Frank, she’s in luck. He has his own set of identifiers that decide entry to, or rapid exit from, the Good Bean. Top contenders for the latter are Nation First politicians and exponents of B2N; next, known snitches for Neighbourly Watch. Clearly he’s decided Marlene fits none of these.

  Her eyes are rimmed Hepburn-like with liner, her cheekbones subtly rouged. A dove-grey jersey dress with fur trim sheaths long, graceful limbs above stiletto ankle boots. She looks suitably downcast, but this is a woman who, even in sorrow, knows how to dress for effect.

  I say hello and sit, feeling woolly-headed from grief and lack of sleep, unable to dredge up any small talk. She saves me the trouble by launching straight in.

  ‘We’ve not been close,’ she begins, ‘but we both had a very special connection to Gail, so I’m hoping we can help each other.’

  ‘Sure.’ It comes out a bit lame, but this is more than Marlene has ever said to me in one go.

  ‘I heard about Albee. How is he?’

  ‘Still in a coma.’

  She tuts sympathy and sips her latte. ‘Of course you know Gail and I were lovers?’

  I nod, not sure Gail would have used that word in relation to her.


  ‘She was my first,’ she adds from under her lashes.

  I assume she means lesbian bedmate, but she could mean vegetarian cooking teacher for all I know. I wait for what might be next.

  She reaches for a hanky, then dabs expertly at her made-up eyes and says, ‘I’ve asked myself a million times: why did she do it?’

  Marlene knows as well as I do that Gail is too smart for this to be an accident, but, unlike me, she’s assuming Gail did it deliberately to herself. For a moment I’m lost for an answer. I finger my mobile in my pocket and wonder why Anwar hasn’t got back to me.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I say wearily.

  A coffee appears at my elbow, the lush aroma reaching my nostrils. Distractedly I stir in the crema with my teaspoon while Marlene fiddles with her hanky, building up to something.

  ‘I heard you were at her house afterwards. I don’t suppose you saw anything there addressed to me?’ she asks.

  ‘Actually, I didn’t get past the front door, thanks to an overly diligent member of Neighbourly Watch.’

  Her eyes narrow ever so slightly, and a tiny warning light blinks on in my hindbrain.

  She treats me to an especially shiny look. ‘I fell head over heels for her,’ she confesses. ‘I’d be devastated if she left me nothing, not even a note. We were … soul mates.’

  I feel an involuntary recoil on those last two words and shift in my chair to cover. Now she’s getting really spooky.

  ‘Like I said, Marlene, I didn’t even get in the door.’

  She sags in exaggerated disappointment, then presses in close. ‘I’m going to let you in on a little secret.’

  Please don’t.

  Too late.

  ‘We were planning to have a baby together.’

  My mouth opens in an ‘O’ and stays there.

  ‘I think you know already Gail was a fertile,’ she says sotto voce. ‘What you might not know is that she’d been selling her eggs through a Red Quarter broker: the madam of the Shangri-La.’

  Savannah. Marlene knows a hell of a lot for someone who I thought was just a casual fuck.

  ‘Anyway, she promised me one of her egg sets, and I’ve been having the fertility supplements and uterine rejuvenation shots to be ready for the embryo transfer.’

  Gail’s egg implanted in Marlene’s rejuvenated womb? I don’t want to ask about the dollop of donor sperm.

  ‘Unfortunately, her silly broker refused to take me on as a recipient, and so Gail was going to sign a special permission for a set to be released directly to me for my procedure. I know she wouldn’t have forgotten.’

  ‘Silly’ is the last word I’d use to describe Savannah, and as far as I remember from Tallis, the donor–broker relationship is a secret kept between those two. I suppress the spurt of anger, and shrug.

  ‘If I come across anything with your name on it, I’ll be sure to hand it over.’

  Marlene’s shiny look tarnishes. ‘I’d like to believe you wouldn’t withhold from me, Sally — but I don’t.’

  My shoulders tighten. My friends know never to call me that.

  Her tone drops further into hurt. ‘If you can’t bring yourself to give your blessing to Gail’s and my fertility arrangement, perhaps you could find it in your heart to do one other little thing, for her sake?’

  I curse silently. ‘What do you want, Marlene?’

  ‘I posted her some very soppy love letters, which I’d be mortified if anybody else read. You were closest to her, so you might know where to look for them.’

  I’m surprised she doesn’t think of Anwar as Gail’s closest friend, but let it slide. I suppose she still believes my boss was bedding me.

  ‘Maybe she entrusted you with some of her personal effects?’ she presses. ‘They say suicides often do that before the … event. It’d be protecting Gail’s privacy if I had them — and saves you from getting into any trouble later.’

  Trouble with whom? Now she’s pushing all my buttons.

  ‘I’ve got nothing for you,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

  Marlene draws herself up haughtily. ‘Have it your way and play the dumb courier,’ she hisses. ‘Just don’t be surprised when there are repercussions.’

  She swivels expertly out of her chair and swishes down the narrow aisle beside the counter. Frank lifts his pear-shaped posterior off a barstool and goes behind the register, but she sashays right past. The front glass rattles and then she’s gone, an angry swirl of movement out the door.

  Left with her bill, I sit awhile trying to get my head around the notion of Marlene and Gail having a baby. Eventually, I give up. It’s as counter-intuitive as a Cute’n’Cuddly dung beetle and my imagination just won’t go there.

  Marlene can look for her own letters. She doesn’t need my help. Besides, I can’t see Gail keeping them. Seems to me, the desperation to conceive has consumed a number of Marlene’s other capacities, including niceness. I’m wondering what ‘repercussions’ might be headed my way when Frank comes over, bar cloth slung over one shoulder.

  ‘Your boss left something with me earlier in the week,’ he says quietly. ‘Said it was to go to you if anything happened to her.’

  He gives my table a perfunctory wipe, then removes a manila envelope from the big front pocket in his apron. My name, Gail’s handwriting. It clinks as he hands it over.

  I cast a guilty look towards the door. Something for me and not Marlene. I half-expect a jersey-clad cyclone to come swirling back to denounce me for being an arrant liar.

  ‘Another coffee?’ Frank asks.

  My stomach is saying no, too much caffeine already poured into a foodless cavity.

  ‘Might as well.’

  I poke diffidently at the envelope then cast my gaze across the Good Bean customers, their backs hunched and heads together over the tables — all, it seems, with secrets to share. I’m not sure I want to open mine.

  I tear the end of the rectangle then tip it, and a set of keys lands on the table. A little shake and a second envelope slides out, embossed with the plush letterhead of Curlewis & Yang, Barristers & Solicitors. In the envelope is a certified copy of Gail’s Last Will and Testament. The first page reveals Frank to be executor of the will. I glance down to where it says ‘Residuary Estate’, and there my eyes stop. My name is written in as sole beneficiary. Gail’s protected Toorak citadel is her last gift to me.

  Tears prick, the pages blur. I lower my head to my arms on the café table and weep soundlessly.

  24

  Anwar’s seated behind the desk in Gail’s secret office at Cute’n’Cuddly — and he looks like crap.

  ‘Hey,’ I say wearily. He’d rung just as I got home from the Good Bean and was sinking into a pit of exhaustion on the couch.

  ‘Rough night,’ he replies in his understated way.

  There’s a chair placed my side of the desk, but I don’t want to sit in it. I close the door and choose my usual position against a filing cabinet.

  He leans forward with a concise intensity.

  ‘She’s disappeared.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘There’s no record of her arrival at either of the city morgues, and nothing in the Ambulance Service’s log about a pick-up in Salmon Close. In addition, the police say they never attended a call-out to that address.’

  I can’t process what he means. ‘Someone else took her body?’

  ‘If there was a body. I think she’s been abducted.’

  My mind races back twelve hours. I didn’t see the ambulance, just the police cars. Or was it that I saw the blue flashing lights zoom past and assumed that’s what they were? Then there was Doug Smeg from the Local Incident Committee blocking my way as he’d delivered the news.

  Anwar interrupts my runaway thoughts. ‘The SOS guard said the ambulance and police cars arrived at the northern neighbourhood entrance at 11.45 pm, and left the same way several minutes later.’

  ‘If she didn’t call them, how did they get into her place?’

  ‘Good question.
’ Elbows on the desk, he steeples his fingers. ‘Her gates were jammed open. The security system had been disabled and the surveillance hard drive taken. I found her mobile in pieces on the back patio.’

  I remember Doug’s searching hands. ‘The LIC rep was looking for a drugs cache,’ I say.

  ‘Describe him to me.’

  ‘Big mean guy called Doug Smeg. More ’roids in his system than is good for anyone.’

  Anwar looks interested. ‘Sounds like the go-between who arrived here Monday with an offer on Cute’n’Cuddly. He was representing a syndicate that preferred to remain anonymous — as did he; but we have him on camera.’

  He opens Gail’s I Spy screen set in the desk, and brushes it with a finger. Then he swivels the image my way and I’m looking at Doug Smeg sitting in Gail’s front office.

  ‘Yep.’

  He flips the cover down. ‘The deal was simple: cash upfront for a company in financial freefall. But their man was too self-interested to be just an intermediary. He informed us Neighbourly Watch had Gail and every person working for her targeted for “special attention”, and, as a bonus if she agreed to the sale, he could make her problem go away. She didn’t appreciate being treated to the same tactics the NW racketeers use on the hormone farms, and he left unhappy. I’d say that’s when they decided to up the ante.’

  My heart leaps in my ribcage at the thought of Gail still alive, then just as quickly bogs in a quagmire of terrible possibilities.

  ‘They could have killed her by now.’ I hate to think it, let alone voice it.

  Anwar frowns down at his fingers. ‘Mr Smeg must have got quite a shock when you showed up. But whether his news was the plan all along or a spur-of-the-moment decision, it made for an effective blindside and sent you away. You didn’t call the police because you thought they’d been. No reason to mobilise a search, we begin to grieve — that is, until we can’t locate her body.’

  I leave my leaning post and plonk myself in the spare chair. ‘This morning I got a package from Frank at the Good Bean,’ I say quietly.