Death by Beauty

by Lord, Gabrielle

  The front door opened as she approached. A man leered at her, the blemish beneath his left eye creasing under his psychopathic glare as he blocked her way.

  ‘Lorraine told me to come. Where is she? Where is my son?’

  The vampire moved closer and started to pat her down with relish, running his hands over her body, lingering as he checked her inner thighs. It was all she could do not to punch him. Of course he found the Glock.

  Gemma felt his hold on her loosening as he roughly tore off the ankle holster. Then he took her by surprise, knocking her to the floor and straddling her chest, his heavy arse over her face. His mobile rang and the vampire stopped it almost immediately. But in those few seconds Gemma recognised the sound that had woken her three weeks ago in the early morning: the first few strident bars of the stabbing, atonal violin shrieks from the shower scene in Psycho.

  ‘Get off me, you bastard!’ she swore, heaving him off as he clambered to answer his phone. He had been outside her bedroom and forgotten to silence his phone. The vampire had been scoping her before she even knew he existed.

  He spoke briefly on the phone, then grabbed her and pushed her into the room she remembered from the last painful time she’d been here: the mother-of-pearl furniture, the giant hot-pink scallops that lined the huge mirror at the opposite end of the room, two black candelabra, studded with Tahitian pearls on either side, the long pink-and-grey granite table, and doors leading off to the other areas of the house. Gemma caught sight of herself in the mirror, dishevelled and distraught.

  Litchfield stood preening herself in front of an oval mirror, between two heavy gilded dolphin candlesticks. She was wearing one of her favoured outfits, a low cut, mauve angora jumper and white trousers. Silver sandals decorated her permanently tanned feet and her hair fluffed out like yellow fairy floss. She turned as Gemma stumbled into the room. Gemma noticed three matching suitcases in pearlescent-pink fake crocodile in a row beneath the mirror. The almost empty champagne bottle and two glasses on the table indicated that she and the vampire had been having one for the road, celebrating their triumph.

  Premature celebration, Litchfield. Gemma’s eyes narrowed, scanning for the chance to move as the young woman sauntered over to the table, picking up her glass.

  ‘Where’s my son?’ Gemma demanded from across the table. ‘No talking until I see my son.’

  ‘You’re not in a position to tell me what to do,’ snapped Lorraine.

  Then Gemma heard Rafi in a room nearby, his despairing wail, and her heart nearly exploded. She took a step closer until she was pressed up against the table that divided them. ‘Please, please, give me back my son! What do you want from me? I’ll give you anything. I swear Raimon will never see any of that footage.’

  ‘You know, I actually believe you. But it doesn’t really matter. I can’t take the risk that you’ve left some sort of insurance that he will get hold of eventually. You’ve forced me out of town. So I need an ace card. That card is your son. I’m taking Rafi with me. Kind of a guarantee.’

  No no no! screamed through Gemma’s mind. Reflected in the mirror, she could see the smirking vampire behind them, sprawled on one of the armchairs, legs apart, enjoying the scene. Near his right hand and sunk into one of the fat cushions was Lorraine’s thick-nosed M1911 from which Gemma had recoiled some years previously. Then, it had been grasped in Lorraine’s shaking hands.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get hold of you and that baby for a while. Now I’ve got all of you – the trifecta – in my territory. And I can do what I like.’

  ‘Please, Lorraine,’ said Gemma, her mind firing and discarding ideas with the speed of an automatic pistol.

  ‘You can beg all you like,’ she said, her face no longer beautiful but contorted into a snarl, leaning closer over the table so that Gemma could see her tanned cleavage. ‘I’m leaving the state – heading for another big city. Maybe even leaving the country. But there’s one thing I know about Raimon: he never gives up. He’s like Nestor here. That’s why I hired Nestor. Headhunted him from the guy he mainly works for.’

  The vampire grunted at the sound of his name.

  ‘Raimon boasted to me what lengths he went to to get to his ex-wife, and you know what he did to her. She’d moved house but he tracked her down. He’d do that to me, I know. He’s got that sort of crazy love that turns to crazy hate – especially if he sees something like the footage you took. So that’s why I’m keeping Rafi with me. He’s my guarantee that you will never, ever show that footage to Raimon. Who knows, after a while when it all cools down, you might get your son back. I could get sick of him. Then again, I might keep him. He’s kind of cute – when he’s not screaming.’

  ‘Please, Lorraine,’ Gemma repeated. ‘You can’t take my son. Just hand him over to me now and we’ll forget about everything. I’m begging you.’

  ‘You are. And I’m loving it,’ she hissed, the perfect mouth shrivelling in contempt.

  In the nearby room, Rafi’s crying had reached high-pitched choking despair until its crescendo formed his first word. ‘Mama!’ he called. ‘Mama!’

  Mama. His first word, and he was calling for her!

  Lorraine’s face contorted with relished hatred as she came even closer, almost shoving her face into Gemma’s across the table, enjoying Gemma’s suffering. ‘I just wanted to see you grovel, here in my house. To rub your face in the shit, like you’ve tried to do to me!’

  Rafi’s cries became more and more distressed. ‘Mama! Mam-aa!’

  Her son’s call for her surged a red-black fury through her body, searing through her right arm. In a speedy blur, she grabbed the champagne bottle and smashed the neck against the granite table edge in one rage-fuelled swoop, and shoved the jagged glass straight up into Lorraine’s jeering face. Lorraine’s head and chest slammed back, cascading blood. Gemma spun round, yelling like a crazy woman, ready to take on the vampire, hurling herself and the sharp, bloodied bottle at him like a berserker. Somewhere on the pink carpet, making incoherent sounds on the other side of the table, Lorraine Litchfield floundered.

  The vampire leaped to his feet swearing, the M1911 raised ready to fire. Gemma barely registered it as she lunged at him with the bottle, desperate to get to him before he fired. But she missed because suddenly he’d lurched forward, sprawling on the floor near her feet, the heavy M1911 hitting the carpet.

  Gemma stood, uncomprehending as Steve, miraculously materialising through the door behind the pink armchair, continued his trajectory, diving over the armchair, snatching up the M1911 and turning it on the scrabbling man, snarling, ‘Move and I’ll blow your bloody head off, pal!’

  The trifecta! Just as Lorraine had said. She’d gathered them all together – Steve, Rafi and herself.

  ‘Steve! Oh thank God. Help me! I’ve got to go to him!’

  She threw down the bloodied bottle and ran towards the door, following the sound of Rafi’s distraught screams.

  ‘I’m coming, Rafi! It’s all right, darling!’ she called. ‘I’m here, I’m here!’

  She pushed the door open. In the master bedroom, where the décor was a cross between Versailles and Disneyland, Rafi sat up in the middle of the bed, his face red and crinkled with screaming, twisting the bedcovers with convulsive grabs of his fingers. When he saw his mother, the screaming briefly stopped. Then it started again, even louder.

  Gemma, whispering soothing words, clambered up onto the huge canopied bed and gathered him to her. Rafi seized her and the screaming stopped as he snuffled and shuddered, looking up at her every other moment, his face crumpled in bitter disappointment. Where were you? his cries demanded. Why didn’t you come? I was crying and crying and you didn’t come.

  Gemma collapsed back against the fluffy animals, pillows and bolsters, holding her son’s heaving little body tight against her heart until both of them slowly calmed down. ‘Everything’s all right,’ she told him. ‘Mama’s here.’

  She looked up to see Steve at the door and only then did
she realise he was injured; his right eye was swollen and half closed, set in discoloured flesh, and he limped as he approached. ‘Gems, she had a key to my place. God knows how she got it. Could have been someone at work. That thug was with her and they took us both at gunpoint. I’m so sorry, Gems. I had to go with her. I couldn’t endanger Rafi. I did what she told me. I was nearly out of my mind.’

  ‘It’s okay, Steve. Everything’s okay.’

  ‘I checked Lorraine. She’s gone.’

  There was a pause; and exhausted as she was, Gemma understood what he was saying. ‘I didn’t mean to kill her. It was a reflex action. She was going to take Rafi. I had to stop her. He was screaming. He was frightened, hungry. He was calling for me. He said, “Mama”!’

  ‘I know. I could hear him. It was his crying that helped me break free.’

  Steve sat on the bed, putting his arm around her shoulders, drawing her close to his chest. Together they gazed on their son, exhausted and finally at peace.

  And that’s how they were when Mike walked in.

  CHAPTER 38

  Later, after giving her statement to the police, she was too exhausted and shaken to walk. When Mike finally drove her home, Gemma was grateful for his steady presence. ‘Mike, I didn’t mean to kill her. I didn’t – I’m not a killer, am I?’

  ‘It’s okay, Gemma. We’ll talk about it later. Let’s just get you home.’

  Kit was waiting for them when they arrived. She threw her arms around Gemma who sobbed out the whole story.

  Later, as Gemma was sitting in the bath with Rafi, trying to wash the scenes from the mother-of-pearl hell out of her mind, Angie rang.

  ‘We’ve charged Tolmacheff. He’s in hospital under police guard. The detectives are interviewing April Evans and Lizzie.’

  ‘What has Lizzie said? Why did she help them?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘She swears blind she didn’t know what was going on down there. We’re trying to find out how the vampire got her to cooperate with him to pick up Mischa. Dr Evans is saying she only just discovered what was going on the day she called you over.’

  ‘That leaves me,’ said Gemma. ‘I killed – someone.’ She couldn’t say the name.

  ‘Gems, I saw your statement. And don’t worry about copping a manslaughter charge. Even if you do, it’ll never come to court. The DPP wouldn’t waste the time and money. No jury in the world would convict a mother defending her baby.’

  Gemma put the phone down and pressed Rafi closer to her heart. She never wanted to let him go.

  CHAPTER 39

  It took her a week of talking with Kit and Angie, going over and over the events that ended in Lorraine’s death before the incident stopped dominating her mind all day and most of the night.

  Eventually, a call from Angie put an end to some questions. ‘I’ve got a long report here from Ted Ackland. You’d have to be a scientist to understand it fully but it explains the mutilation of the hip areas. Apparently, the hip bones are one of the best places for extracting the genetic material needed to manufacture the growth factor that was part of DiNAH therapy. This was given to the future recipients of the face transplant so that they already had their donor’s DNA code in their system prior to the transplant. That made them more receptive to the donor tissue. That, plus the growth factors from the client’s own DNA material, meant the transplant was more easily accepted and healed very well.’

  ‘In the end, though,’ Gemma said, ‘they just wanted to take Harlow Hadley’s money and leave the country.’

  ‘Mmm, yes. Now, Gems, don’t worry about Gross ripping up your investigator’s licence,’ Angie continued. ‘I had a word with Steve’s contact in internal affairs. Gross has been standing over a sex worker about a drug matter and getting free sex in exchange for not charging her. She’s now willing to make a sworn statement about it – and she’s got plenty of witnesses to back her up. When I pointed this out to the Acting Inspector, he suddenly decided that blurry images on a security camera were probably not the strongest basis for a break-and-enter charge.’

  ‘What would I do without you?’ Gemma asked.

  ‘Get into a lot more trouble, no question.’

  She barely saw Mike during this time. He seemed to be working all hours, and Hugo had gone to his father’s place to get ready for his return to school.

  It felt like there was only Rafi and herself in the world. The awful images of what she’d done continued to assail her – but she knew she’d do it all over again if she had to.

  Finally she wore the sequences out and found she was able to put the nightmare away for minutes at a time. Then hours. She heard through Angie that Delphine had settled into her new life in the Southern Highlands and Mischa was happy in a new job.

  On the matter of Lorraine Litchfield, Angie was more prosaic. ‘Look, honey, Litchfield had been gunning for you for years. This was the second time she’d tried to destroy you. One of you had to go, and I’m really pleased it wasn’t you.’

  A week later as Gemma carried Rafi into the kitchen to mash up some banana for him, she noticed an envelope with Mike’s handwriting on it propped up against the electric kettle. She sat Rafi at the table, pulled a chair up next to him and opened the envelope.

  Dear Gemma,

  I hope you will understand my sudden absence. I made the decision to go away for a while now that you and Rafi are safe and most of the cases you were involved in are resolved. I would have done this earlier except the Litchfield business happened and I simply couldn’t leave then.

  I’m writing because I’m a bit of a coward when it comes to this sort of thing, and I know that talking to you would make it very difficult for me to leave. You’d probably talk me out of it, which wouldn’t solve anything but only put things off for a while. I’ve tried to make it clear that things weren’t going well between you and me. When I walked into Litchfield’s bedroom to find you, Steve and Rafi cuddled up together, it hit me like a bomb – all the things that had been worrying me. Somehow, although I live with you, I still feel like an outsider. You pay more attention to Hugo than you do to me. You’ll probably deny that, but I know I’m only getting a part of you. I need more.

  I’ll call in a week or two and give you the details of where I’m staying. I need some time alone to think about the direction I want my life to take. Maybe we can make a life together. Maybe not. You give more to Steve than to me, and the worst thing is, there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.

  As always,

  Mike

  Gemma stood up, dropping the note onto the table, and blindly walked out to the deck. It was a blustery morning with the sea white-tipped ahead of the nor’-easter pushing fast clouds across the sky.

  Mike hadn’t signed ‘Love as always’, she noticed through the daze, just ‘As always’. The ‘love’ had gone. She sat on the bench by the table, staring blankly out at the horizon. The shock numbed her for a little while and then the tears came.

  Hours later when she was all cried out, she called Angie and told her about the letter.

  ‘I’d better come over and make you a stiff drink.’

  ‘Yes, please. A stiff drink and a good friend are what I need.’

  During their chat, Hugo arrived to pick up some things he’d forgotten, letting himself in with his key, clattering across the floorboards, appearing on the deck holding Mike’s note in his hand. ‘Has Mike really gone?’

  ‘Give that to me, Hugo,’ said Gemma. ‘You’ve got to stop reading other people’s stuff.’

  ‘He’s leaving because of me. It’s my fault.’

  ‘Hugo, that’s not true. Sit down. Listen. This has nothing to do with you. It’s between me and Mike, okay?’

  ‘I found out some things for you,’ he said, ‘using the info Mike had already hacked. I’ve printed it all out and it’s sitting on Mike’s desk. About Tolmacheff and the companies he’s been using to launder money. Something called Perestroika Enterprises. About his business contacts and his connections to Sapphi
re Springs Spa, brothels and a college that’s supposed to teach English but doesn’t have any students – I hacked into its website to check its enrolments: totally zip. He’s got connections to really bad guys in Serbia and Russia. Man, he is a major criminal.’

  Gemma walked him to the door and waved him off as he ran up the stone stairs to where his father waited in his car. Hugo didn’t look back and Gemma, with her own tears blurring her vision, understood why.

  ‘Mike doesn’t know what I’ve been dealing with,’ Gemma sniffed, blowing her nose as she joined Angie again. ‘The pressure I’ve been under. It’s been a hell of a time with a baby, work, and trying to do a live-in relationship as well. I don’t have any experience in two out of those three. And now, with this Litchfield business …’

  Angie leaned over and patted her hand, saying, ‘It’s been a tough time for you both. And you’re learning on the job.

  ‘Mike does have a point, though,’ she continued a few moments later, putting the note down after reading it a second time. ‘You are still emotionally involved with Steve.’

  Gemma was silent, then said, ‘Mike is such a good man. It hasn’t been easy for him. I know all that, and yet …’ She stood up and swallowed the rest of the stiff scotch that Angie had insisted on, then leaned over the railing, staring out at the sea. Finally she turned back to face Angie. ‘I don’t know what to do about that. It’s just something I live with. That connection to Steve. It’s in me. Maybe it’ll fade.’

  After a pause Angie changed the subject. ‘Tolmacheff comes out of hospital today. Girl, you are one tough chick. What did you do to him? He couldn’t swallow for days. He’s being transferred to the remand centre. The charge sheet is as long as your arm. And we’re very close to picking up the vampire. You’ll possibly be charged with manslaughter. But I guarantee it’ll be No Billed.’

  As she walked with Gemma and Rafi up to her car, Angie paused and turned back to her. ‘What do you want, Gemma? Who do you want?’