The Labyrinth of Drowning

by Alex Palmer

  ‘I want to know if Lynette has a book with her workers’ photographs,’ Grace replied. ‘So far she’s been telling me to mind my own business.’

  Lynette placed a leather-bound photograph album on the desk.

  ‘Everyone in there is legal,’ she said. ‘Have a look.’

  Grace flicked through, finding the workers Doug had described. A number of Asian women and one African, all very lovely, none of whom had been at work tonight.

  ‘Satisfied?’ Lynette asked.

  ‘You have some very attractive workers. I’m sure they bring in the clients.’

  ‘That’s what we do here—bring in clients.’

  ‘But not tonight. You had customers waiting.’

  ‘I was expecting a quiet night. I care about my ladies’ welfare and I make sure they have adequate time off.’

  ‘Then I’ll say good night,’ Grace said.

  She walked out, giving Kidd and Lynette one last backward glance. Lynette was staring into the distance. It was impossible to say if she knew Kidd or not. He was looking after Grace, angry, suspicious. Go on, follow me. Prove you’re what I think you are.

  In the courtyard, only one car remained of the workers’ vehicles, an old yellow Toyota Corolla. It didn’t look like the kind of car Grace would have expected Marie Li to drive and she guessed it to be Lynette’s. She took a quick note of the registration number and went to her own car, which was parked at a distance from the building. She didn’t start the engine but looked back, waiting. This side of the building was in darkness; all the house lights looked out onto the front street. There was only the white gleam of the fluorescent tube over the back door. Suddenly Kidd stepped out. He looked around but didn’t seem able to see her in the dark. Then his phone rang. He answered it, turned and walked back inside. The door closed and she could no longer see him. She waited a few minutes longer to see if he would come back. She was about to ring in for a registration check on the Corolla when Lynette, wearing a leather jacket over her dress and with her bag in hand, came running out and went to the car, yanking the door open. Grace watched her start it and then drive away at speed.

  She gave a quick glance at the back door to see if Kidd was following, then drove after her. Out on the road, she called in to the Orion control centre with the details of Lynette’s car’s make and registration.

  ‘Owned by a Jacqueline Ryan,’ the operative said. ‘Her address is the Royal Hotel on Victoria Road, West Ryde. She must be a long-term resident. Do you need backup?’

  Grace felt the pressure of her firearm against her ribcage, just under her arm.

  ‘Not yet. I think we need to pick this woman up. Can you log that as an urgent request, please?’

  ‘Just a minute. There’s a call coming through to you. Do you want to take it?’

  ‘Yes. Log the number and put it through, thanks.’

  ‘Is that Grace?’ the caller said.

  ‘Yes. Go ahead, Lynette.’

  ‘I will talk to you but only if it’s tonight. Like now. As soon as you can.’

  ‘Where do you want to do that?’

  ‘Do you know the Royal Hotel? It’s on Victoria Road. Can you meet me in the bistro?’

  ‘I’ll be there as soon as I can. Does that suit you?’

  ‘I’ll be waiting. I want this over and done with.’

  Grace didn’t doubt it. The woman’s voice was shaking with fear. As soon as she’d cut the connection, Grace was back at the control centre.

  ‘Did you get that?’ she asked.

  ‘We did.’

  ‘I’ll report in when I’ve seen her. I think we’ll still need to pick her up but I’ll confirm that after I’ve talked to her.’

  ‘We’ll be waiting.’

  Grace hadn’t been to the Royal Hotel before but it was easy enough to find. A renovated brick building, it had the look of a popular local watering hole with several bars, gaming and a restaurant. The sign said it offered long-stay budget accommodation. Was this all Lynette could afford? Or was she saving her money for a rainy day?

  She was in the bistro, drinking a glass of white wine. This late on a week night, there were few diners at the tables. Grace bought a mineral water and went to join her. Lynette looked tired, and the jacket robbed her of whatever glamour she’d had in the brothel.

  ‘I know it’s not that warm but do you want to go outside?’ she said. ‘That way I can smoke.’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Don’t you drink?’

  ‘Not when I’m working,’ Grace replied, this being the easiest explanation.

  ‘What about a cigarette?’

  A former smoker, Grace mentally gritted her teeth. ‘No, I don’t smoke,’ she said.

  ‘You’re healthy.’

  Lynette bought a half-carafe of house white and they went outside. The beer garden was empty. Lynette lit her cigarette with relief. Grace smelled the smoke and was glad she’d said no.

  ‘How did you get away tonight?’ she asked.

  ‘I rang what’s-her-features upstairs and told her she could close up, I was going home. She screamed at me! Said she had the police there and she couldn’t do it. I said she’d just have to cope. I won’t have a job as of now but it doesn’t matter. I’ve had enough. As soon as I can book one, I’m getting on a flight to Perth.’

  ‘Why Perth?’

  ‘My son’s in Western Australia, working up north with Woodside Petroleum. He’s been asking me to come out and see him for a while. I will now. With a bit of luck, I might be able to get some work over there. There’s a lot of single men working up there besides him. Someone must need a receptionist somewhere.’

  ‘Some details, Lynette. What’s your real name?’

  ‘Jacqueline Ryan. Before you ask, yes, I live here. It’s cheap. I’ve got money but I don’t spend it if I can help it. When I quit the business, I’ll buy my dream home.’

  ‘Who owns the brothel?’ Grace asked.

  ‘Don’t have a clue and I don’t care. I deal with the accountants. Stamfords. They’re in Parramatta. They do everything. If you want to know more, go talk to them.’

  ‘Marie’s new, isn’t she? Where did she come from?’

  ‘Stamfords.’ Lynette blew out smoke. ‘They rang one day and said she was on her way. She was the boss and I had to do what she said. Fine. Why should I give a shit? Look, I don’t ask anybody any questions. In this business, you don’t.’

  No, you just did what you were told by a hysterical girl half your age without a murmur, Grace thought. The same way you took on an illegal and unwilling sex worker without batting an eyelid. Whatever’s in the pay packet must be good.

  ‘Coco,’ Grace said, pushing along. ‘When did she arrive and did she come alone?’

  Lynette shook her head over her glass. ‘No. She turned up with Marie, about two months ago now. When I heard she was dead, I didn’t know what to think. I honestly don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Marie brought her down by the fire stairs,’ Grace said without pity. ‘You handled the bookings.’

  ‘I did not handle the bookings. Whatever that nasty little cow says, she did it all.’ Lynette took another mouthful of wine. ‘Cheap white,’ she said with a grimace.

  Grace could guess what it tasted like. Alcohol was a caustic poison moving at the edge of the blood, twisting your mind into such a disfigured shape you couldn’t recognise yourself. Others could drink; she could not.

  ‘What about the other workers? Didn’t they know she was there?’

  ‘That’s what I used to say to her! They had to see her taking the customers down there. She just laughed at me.’

  ‘How did the customers find out about Coco?’

  Lynette looked at her sharply. ‘You know, don’t you? No condoms if you didn’t want to. On the fucking net!’

  ‘Yes, I know about that. How did you deal with it?’ Grace asked. ‘Normally you’d never do that, right?’

  Lynette wouldn’t meet her eye. ‘There’s ple
nty of men who don’t want that. They like the protection themselves. I couldn’t help her. I wasn’t the boss any more.’

  ‘It can’t be good business to do something like that. Didn’t Marie know that?’

  This time Lynette did look at her. ‘Anything that gives the clients what they want is good business. There’s a fair few arseholes out there, you know.’

  ‘Who put it on the net?’

  ‘Marie. It said Ask Marie.’

  Marie was the front. Possibly even the sucker. The one pushed out there to do the dirty work. From Lynette’s description, she’d got a kick out of it.

  ‘Marie isn’t a big woman,’ Grace said. ‘How did she control Coco?’

  ‘She had someone to help her. Some guy, I don’t know who he was. He used to bring her down and take her up.’

  ‘Can you describe him?’

  ‘I hardly ever saw him. He was a big guy, black hair, Italian probably. Head like a bullet. Never washed. You could smell him before you saw him. I stayed out of his way.’

  ‘Did you ever talk to Coco? Find out anything about her while she was there?’ Grace asked.

  ‘She didn’t speak enough English. One thing though—I’d give her a break sometimes when there was no one else around. I couldn’t let her go, but I’d let her out of that room and get her a cup of tea and something to eat in the kitchen. She wanted to use a phone one day. She kept pointing to my mobile. She was crying so I let her use it. I think she called Peter, whoever he was.’

  ‘Peter. That’s all?’

  ‘That’s all I could understand. But I do know that whatever that call was about, it made her happy. That’s when she started to jack up.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘When the men came into the room, she’d be curled up in a heap. Sometimes she’d be in the corner on the floor. She wouldn’t move, wouldn’t even look at them. If they wanted sex, they’d have to force it. Look, the place we run—a lot of our clientele is suburban dads. This is their break. They want someone to give them a good time. Marie would leave the clients there, and often enough they’d come back to me and say they didn’t want that. It wasn’t what they’d paid for. Then Marie started getting angry with Coco because she wouldn’t cooperate. One day, madam dragged me down there and told me to sort her out. What was I supposed to do? Coco was wrapped up like this tight little ball. You could see her shaking. I lost it. I shouted at that little bitch for once. I said, you can’t fucking do this! It’s creating too many bad vibes. That shut her up. Anyway, after that Coco disappeared.’

  ‘Disappeared?’

  ‘She wasn’t there any more. That was maybe three weeks ago. I never saw her again. Then a bunch of cleaners turned up and went through that room like a dose of salts. Marie came and saw me. She had that look in her eye. She hadn’t forgiven me for swearing at her. If I told anyone about Coco, I was going to regret it, she said. She meant it, too.’

  Easy enough, once the brothel was closed, to take someone down in the service elevator and out the back door to a waiting car, Grace thought. But where to from there?

  ‘Were you expecting us tonight?’ she asked.

  Lynette shook her head.

  ‘You were, weren’t you? Someone called. When? Early? Late? And what about your workers?’ Grace asked. ‘Quite a few of them weren’t there tonight. You had customers waiting. Did you call them or did someone else?’

  Lynette refilled her glass. ‘It was just a normal night.’

  Someone had called, Grace felt certain of it. But too late to stop Marie making preparations to meet her lover, who instead had sent along his watchdog, Kidd, to keep an eye on her. Not much of an exchange for her.

  ‘Who’s Marie’s boyfriend?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have a clue. I’ve never seen him and I don’t want to.’

  ‘Was there anyone there tonight that you recognised? Anyone you’d seen before?’

  ‘In your mob?’ She grinned. ‘No, no clients. None that I recognised anyway.’

  ‘It was your more exotic workers who didn’t turn up tonight, wasn’t it? The Asian and African workers.’

  Lynette shrugged, waving Grace away with one hand.

  ‘Does Marie look after them as well?’ she persisted.

  ‘No. She didn’t have anything to do with them. I handled the bookings and the money, that’s all.’

  ‘Do those workers cost more?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘And do they get paid more as well?’

  ‘Of course they do.’

  ‘You’d know that, wouldn’t you? If you look after them,’ Grace said, watching the sudden panic in the woman’s eyes. ‘Let’s assume they’re not getting paid as much as they should. Where does the money go? Do you split it with the owners?’

  Lynette put down her glass. ‘That’s it from me. Good night.’

  ‘Walk away from here and I’ll have you arrested.’

  Lynette, half on her feet, slumped back into her chair, tired and frightened. Her make-up seemed to be slipping away.

  ‘How can you have me arrested?’

  ‘There’s plenty in what you’ve told me tonight. Harbouring an illegal immigrant for starters. Deprivation of liberty. Now let’s do this the easy way. You answer my questions. You get looked after.’

  ‘What do you think I can tell you? I’m just front of house. That’s all.’

  ‘How much do these workers get paid?’

  Lynette looked away. ‘They don’t.’

  ‘You take the money.’

  ‘I take a percentage. Do you know how old I am? I’m fifty-three. If I don’t get some money together, what I am going to live on ten years from now? The fucking old-age pension?’

  Grace ignored this. ‘Why are these workers doing this? There must be something in it for them. Is it a visa? For them or their families?’

  ‘I don’t know what the deal is. Some of them have other jobs as well, I’m pretty certain about that. They come in, they work a set number of shifts each week, they go home. I handle it. That’s all.’

  ‘Do you know Jon Kidd? The man who was at the reception desk when I left.’

  ‘That little shortie? I’ve never seen him before. And that’s a fact. I never have.’

  ‘Who brings these workers in to meet you?’

  ‘They come themselves.’ Lynette took a mouthful of wine. ‘They say they’re here to work for Amelie. I know what that means and I look after them from then on. The money they make gets recorded separately against their names. I send it off to the accountants. They deal with it and then I get my bit at the end of the month. In cash.’

  ‘They just front up out of the blue? You don’t know they’re coming.’

  ‘All right. I get a note from the accountant. It comes in a sealed envelope. If they don’t front, I have to send a letter back saying so.’

  Someone tells them they’d better be there if they know what’s good for them, Grace thought. And if they don’t or won’t listen to that advice, what happens then?

  ‘Do they always turn up?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lynette said. ‘Except one. That was just a month ago. Another African girl. I had her picture. She was a stunner.’

  ‘Do you still have the picture?’

  ‘No, I sent it back when she didn’t turn up.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘I wasn’t given a name. I don’t get names for any of them and I don’t ask. We settle on a working name when they get there.’

  ‘What happened to the one who didn’t turn up?’

  ‘I don’t know and I didn’t ask.’

  ‘Why didn’t Marie handle these workers?’

  ‘Because she doesn’t know her arse from her elbow.’

  ‘But you do. You’ve been in this business for years. How long have you been working at Life’s Pleasures? Has this been going on all the time you’ve been there?’

  ‘All my fucking life, it feels like. Three years.’ Lynette had stood up. She was
crying. ‘Yes, it’s been going on the whole time. I got paid for it, didn’t I? You can have me arrested now. I don’t give a shit. I’m walking away. I need to get some sleep.’

  ‘One last question. Did Coco have a wedding ring when she was with you?’

  ‘Is that a joke? What would she do with that?’

  And she was gone, leaving behind an empty glass and carafe and a full ashtray.

  Grace walked out to her car, passing a man a distance away from her on his way in. She glanced at him but he was heading for the bar. In her car, she rang the control centre.

  ‘Did you get that conversation?’

  ‘We did,’ the operative replied. ‘What’s the request now?’

  ‘We need to pick her up for questioning ASAP. Her movements need to be monitored and Clive needs to be notified as well. We should pick her up before tomorrow morning at the latest if we can. We also need to notify the police. Can you forward them a transcript of everything that was said tonight? And we need to check Jacqueline Ryan’s mobile phone records for any calls to Thailand.’

  ‘Will do,’ the operative said. ‘I’ll send that request for a team through now.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m off duty. You can close my wire down. Call me if you need me.’

  ‘Okay.’

  Grace was tired and it was late. She hadn’t seen Ellie that evening and by now she would be in bed, hopefully asleep. She felt jaded; she didn’t like badgering worn-out, middle-aged women in desperate circumstances, it made her feel grubby. When she got home she would wash off her make-up and become herself. But wasn’t this who she was, with or without the pancake? The hard-faced operative? Orion had extraordinary powers. Those powers were hers to exercise even if they broke people’s lives apart. This was the tightrope she had to walk: find the killers without doing too much damage to herself or anyone else.

  She began the drive home, to Harrigan’s Victorian terrace in Birchgrove. His haunted house, she called it; ghosts from his past lived in every room. He had told her to change it as much as she wanted—repaint it, redecorate, whatever she liked. Make it her own. She was working on it, room by room.

  It was only after she’d crossed the Gladesville Bridge that she began to wonder if she was being followed. A single light as if from a motorbike seemed to be always at the same distance behind her. Then the light grew closer—a small, agile bike, the kind that slips easily in and out of the traffic. Was it Newell? It couldn’t be. Every police officer in New South Wales would be looking for him. Even he wouldn’t be so mad as to show himself in public right now. And how could he know where she was?