by Lee Winter
She’d have to find an animal-boarding service or something while she worked out what to do next. Because, come hell or high water, she’d find a way to avoid that transfer.
She knew she’d hate living in Darwin almost as much as her mother would. It was hot, isolated, parodied by the rest of Australia as some bad Crocodile Dundee throwback, and the nearby towns had reputations for terrible social problems.
She had no desire to work in the Top End, either. Where was the challenge in a place like that for a homicide detective? It sounded like most murders would be solved by asking the next of kin where they’d been on the night of the killing.
She’d left Traffic in the first place to stretch herself. The day she’d cracked one of Victoria’s biggest chop-shop car rackets by simply following a bunch of hotted-up Holdens and Fords that seemed out of place in a poor suburb, she’d discovered the thrill of piecing together puzzles. It dawned on her for the first time that she was good at this. Really good. She knew right then that she wanted to get her teeth into serious crime-solving.
So she’d done the hard yards at the Field Investigation Course and the School of Investigation detective training module, studying her ass off to finish top in the class—only to discover upon starting at the Homicide Squad who its new boss was.
Moore had tossed her straight onto cold cases with a jubilant smirk, proving he’d never forgiven her for her teenage insults. Oh, how he’d loved slamming the door in her face when she’d immediately protested.
And now the bastard was screwing her over again.
Worse, he was doing it when she was so close to one of the biggest breakthroughs in Australian criminal history: She was nine names away from unmasking Australia’s top assassin.
Just nine names.
And he wanted to send her to bloody Darwin.
She lay in bed that night examining the musicians’ faces. Her eyes fell and lingered, as they often did, on the cellist. The one who oozed confidence. The one who’d given her a sneer just for being in the mix with Marks’s adoring fans.
She had long, straight black hair that fell to halfway down her back. Deep, dark eyes that just seemed to stare into her.
How would she have handled her boss? Alison could easily imagine the cellist picking him up by the scruff of the neck and hurling him out a window. Not even saying a word.
She smiled and rolled over. She needed her rest, now more than ever. She technically only had four more weeks left on Homicide, so she had to get cracking on a way to save her career.
Her last thought before she went to sleep was to wonder exactly where the Bear and Clover Hotel was. And whether Viktor Raven still drank there.
* * *
“I’m curious,” Alison asked Natalya, now she had the opportunity to find out, “if you had a boss who threatened to force you to transfer to Darwin, what would you do?”
Natalya’s jaw tightened. “He wouldn’t dare.”
“What if he did dare though? What would you do?”
Natalya merely smiled, a glittery, cold smile that promised every imaginable form of pain. “Darwin is the sweaty armpit of Australia,” she said, enunciating each word. “He would come to rapidly regret it.”
“Right,” Alison said. “Well, that’s one plan. I went a different way.”
“Oh?”
“In a minute. I’m getting off track,” Alison said. “So I had nine VPO shortlisted suspects and I needed just one. The problem is that just over three weeks ago, after I investigated a curious warehouse fire, I wound up with two, and picked the wrong one.”
“How curious,” Natalya said, leaning forward. “So tell me: Who was she?”
Alison looked embarrassed. “I’m betting if I tell you that you’ll wish you didn’t know.”
Natalya studied her intently. “That is a bet you’d certainly lose.”
Chapter 22
Alison placed the article on the warehouse fire from the Herald Sun into her files. Wish lanterns? That was inventive even for her assassin. It seemed like Requiem was upping her game lately, putting even more thought into her killings as the months ticked over.
Her phone rang.
“Detective Ryan, Homicide.”
“Oh good, it’s you,” dulcet tones purred down the phone. “We met at the VPO’s launch. My name is Amanda Marks. I’m quite sure you know who I am. I was wondering, if it’s not too forward of me, could you tell me some more about yourself? Inquiring minds really want to know.”
“Um, what?” Alison asked in astonishment. “Whose inquiring minds?”
“Well, just little old me, really. You are, after all, quite fascinating.”
Alison stared at the phone in disbelief. So fascinating she hadn’t heard from Marks in three months since that season opener?
“I am?”
“Oh yes, dear, you definitely are. Here, let me give you my Facebook details. I really think we should chat more. AmandaMarksTheViolinist. Do you have that? All one word. And you are?”
“Not on Facebook.”
“Any social media?”
“Sorry.”
“Oh. How positively eighties. That’s disappointing. Well then, sign up to Facebook and get back to me at once. All right? Good! Bye, dear.”
The phone went dead.
Well. That wasn’t weird in the slightest. She frowned. Had she been wrong in dismissing Marks as only a remote chance of being Requiem?
Alison’s gaze returned to her desk and the newspaper article. Wish lanterns. The poetry in them was inherently beautiful. Amanda Marks thought herself to be beautiful, too. In fact she prized beauty. Was that really just a coincidence?
Her eye fell to the last part of the paper’s story. The warehouse had a weird smell they couldn’t place.
She phoned the Herb Circle. Her mother loved the vanilla candles they sold, so Alison was something of a regular. Its owner, Janine, might be a little loopy on crystals and mystical things to most people, but Alison thought she had the warmest personality of anyone she’d ever met. And if there was one thing Janine knew, it was aromas.
Janine agreed to come with her on her fact-finding mission, and she nervously chatted with Alison the entire ride over.
She understood. Crime scenes wigged out most people.
Alison parked at the abandoned industrial estate and pointed to the burnt-out shell of a building. They made their way carefully inside and Janine shivered.
“So much bad energy here,” she told Alison. She swept her eyes around the area. “What happened?”
“A wish lantern was used.” Alison glanced about, unsurprised but still disappointed not to see any police tape up. Another homicide crime scene abandoned as not relevant to the masses. Moore and his boys were really outdoing themselves this year with their indifference.
“But the smell is…” Janine faded out. “Petrol obviously—on the walls, I think, as well as the floor, yes, there and there—but also…benzoin resin. From incense sticks. And quite a number of them. Given the strength of the smell after all this time, perhaps half a dozen? Eight, tops?”
“Benzoin resin? What does it mean? Any significance?”
“A lot of my clientele like it for its purification properties,” Janine said and shivered again. “I would say in the presence of such evil, it’s quite fitting.”
“Such evil? The killer?”
Janine stared at her. “The horrible man who died. Didn’t you see the story in the paper? He kidnapped and hurt a little girl. I, for one, am glad he’s off the streets. I’ll be honest: I hope you don’t try too hard to find his killer.”
And there it was. Again. Alison sighed. What would it take for people to care?
“How easy is it to find benzoin incense sticks?” she asked.
“Pretty easy.” Janine looked up suddenly. “A cleansing ritual.”
“Huh?”
“If there was a wish lantern, the burning incense sticks would have showered down and lit the fire. It would be like falling sta
rs. Like a cleansing. Hence the purification. It would have been quite beautiful except for…well, the rest.”
“This killer is pretty poetic,” Alison admitted. “Always has been.” She looked sharply at Janine. “Please don’t repeat that to anyone.”
“I won’t. On one condition?”
“What?”
“Get me out of here!”
Alison was about to get back in her car when she saw a hint of movement behind one of the industrial bins.
“Who’s there?” she called.
Nothing.
“Please let’s go,” Janine said urgently, getting in the passenger seat. “I have two kids. Please.”
“One sec.”
She walked across to a nearby building and glanced through the vandalised windows. A young kid with a wild mop of dark, wiry hair looked up guiltily and hid something behind his back. Given the still-dripping paint from the tag on the wall beside him, it didn’t take much effort to work out what he’d been up to. She’d seen this tag all over the place, including on the wall of the place that had gone up in smoke.
“Here kid,” she said, and pulled $10 out of her pocket. “I just need some answers.”
“Who are you?”
“The lady with ten bucks.”
“Whaddya want to know?”
“About the night of the fire. See anything?”
“Maybe.”
“Hear anything.”
“A bit.”
“Care to share.” She waved the note. “No questions asked about how your tag is all over this place.” She reached slowly into her wallet, his eyes following her movement suspiciously.
“I won’t bite,” she added, showing him her police badge. “But I can arrest you for graffiti. Carrot or the stick,” she added waving the money. “You decide.”
He studied her for a moment, then folded his arms defensively. “We was sniffing,” he admitted. “Not many of us out here nowadays. All the fires gettin’ lit. We wasn’t gettin’ left alone.”
“How many of you were there the night of the fire?”
“Me an’ two mates.”
“So the three of you were sniffing petrol together; then what?”
“Saw a dark shadow go by. Wearing black. It stopped close to me, facing towards me, but he was all in shadow. Then I heard the music.”
“Music?”
“Guy had a silver music player. Turned it on. I could see him adjustin’ it, like he wanted the right volume or whatever before he put the thingies in his ears. And that’s when I heard music. Then he put the ear bits in.”
“Most people put earphones in and then adjust the volume,” Alison said. “Are you sure?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. He seemed a bit, like, I dunno, that was just the way he does his thing.”
“Right. How could you hear music so faint? Earpieces aren’t loud.”
“It was a real quiet night. No cars out here. Only sound for miles. Me mates were already down for the count so it was just me holdin’ my breath, listenin’, tryin’ not to be seen in the shadows. I was behind that wall. Only, like, five feet away.”
Alison looked at the low wall of crumbling bricks. At night, if there was no other light source, someone could easily hide in the corner, unnoticed, with a clear line of sight of the other building.
“Did you recognise the song?”
“Nah—it’s some dead white guy stuff. Ya know, violins and shit.”
“You mean classical?”
“Huh?”
Alison pulled out her MP3 player and found a classical piece. She hit play.
“Yeah,” he said, eyes lighting with recognition. “Yeah. That kinda thing. And then he left.”
“Just drove off?”
“Well wailed off.”
Alison frowned. “Wailed?”
“On his bike.”
“He had a motorbike,” she repeated. “Did it sound powerful or…”
“Fuck yeah. Thing had teeth.”
“How do you know it was a guy?”
He shrugged. “Ain’t they all? He was in shadow though. And tall.”
“How tall?”
He shook his head. “Do I look like I have a fuckin’ ruler? Taller than you an’ me, okay. We done?”
She nodded. He snatched the bill from her.
“Can I get a name?” Alison asked.
He nodded towards his tag.
She glanced at it and saw “Snake.” When she turned back he was bolting for another building.
She headed back to the car, mind whirring. So Requiem liked classical music. She’d been right. Holy hell, she’d been right! All the pieces were starting to fit. And now she had the biggest clue of all.
* * *
As soon as she got back to work, Alison hit the database, cross-checking VPO members with owners of registered motorcycles. Her biggest surprise was just how many professional musicians had them. And how many women, too! Eighteen was a ridiculously high number.
She cross-matched them with her short list of suspects and put a line through all those without motorcycles.
Only four names were left. She had narrowed the killer of dozens of gangland assassinations across Melbourne to only four names.
Amanda Marks (Violin)
Bella Oakley (Clarinet)
Justine Chen (Viola)
Alex Tilsen (Percussion)
She immediately scratched out Chen. If the woman was over five-foot tall it’d be a miracle. Marks, Oakley and Tilsen she’d seen at various VPO events and all three were taller than Alison.
It was odd how surprised she was to find that the cellist wasn’t on her list. Tsvetnenko’s eyes, so dangerous and cool, had seemed capable of anything. And when it came to height—she definitely had it to spare. And then there was the power…
She changed directories and looked up whether Tsvetnenko held a motorcycle licence—now or ever. She stared at the results, almost disappointed. No. Just a car licence. Nothing else. She tapped a few more buttons.
Not so much a ticket for speeding.
Alison gave a disappointed scowl and scratched “Natalya Tsvetnenko” from her suspect list.
Her eyes returned to the final three. How interesting the timing that one of this trio had called her out of the blue when she had. Suspicious wasn’t the half of it.
So now she had a top suspect. She grinned, logged onto the web, and threw herself into setting up her first Facebook page.
* * *
Amanda Marks was nothing if not persistent. Over the next two weeks since Alison had created her Facebook page, the violinist had begun to call and message her at random times, sometimes quite late at night. It was clear the woman was hellbent on learning about every facet of Alison’s life. She grilled her relentlessly.
Each time Alison had messaged her back to ask why, Marks airily dismissed the question with, “Later.”
Then one day she received the note: “Enough of the small talk, darling, come and have lunch with me and we’ll talk properly.”
Small talk? That’s what she called it? Marks could show the Gestapo a thing or two about interrogations.
They’d met for lunch at some small French bistro, La Pierre, where Marks insisted on trying to order in French. She did it smoothly and confidently, her perfect, plump lips arching into a superior smile.
The pained wincing of the waiter told Alison how well she’d actually done at his language.
Alison had been using their chats so far to drill down through Marks’s layers of vacuousness and frippery to try and find the real woman. She was curious as to Marks’s worldviews on anything other than her own greatness.
How does an assassin think, anyway?
She’d been unsuccessful. If Alison thought her own mother was a narcissist, Marks was the gold medallist. Every single conversation, no matter the topic, she turned back to herself. Alison had tested this repeatedly. It had become almost a game.
By the time Marks had turned a grim news story about hostage
-taking in South Africa into a discussion about a concert she’d performed in Johannesburg once, Alison was very sure that she was being toyed with by a master.
Did Marks do this for some sort of sick kicks? Alison felt like a small animal being batted around a few times by a predator before it bites its head off. She probably found Alison amusing in that sense.
Alison wished it was mutual.
Over their luncheon, during Marks’s unpronounceable French salad dish and Alison’s plain croissant, she learned more about the eccentric violinist than she’d actually wanted to know. A documentary on television had sparked the discussion.
“Bondage,” Marks exclaimed, “should be more mainstream, not hidden away like a dirty little secret.”
“Bondage,” Alison repeated, mid-bite. “Um, why?”
“Pain is delicious when delivered well,” Marks said and studied her in such a way that Alison shifted nervously in her chair. “It helps that I’m well versed in knots,” she added. “I think I’d be good at it.”
Alison had stared at her food for a good two minutes, trying to swallow. Either Marks was propositioning her for some kinky times, or she was letting her know who she really was. She had a good knowledge of knots? Come on. It was amazing how many times Requiem had expertly hogtied a person.
“I don’t think I’d like pain,” Alison said, finally forcing the pastry down her throat and reaching for her serviette.
Marks had smirked and patted her hand. “Well, of course you wouldn’t,” she said and laughed lightly. “Isn’t that the point?”
“The point?”
“It’s about flipping the experience. It’s not pain if you’re loving it. It becomes pleasure.”
Alison looked at her sideways as she wiped her mouth. “I think the idea is that it’s still a little painful. That’s the actual point. Otherwise it’s not bondage. Or so I hear.”
Marks waved her hand airily. “Who knows? We’re just talking. Since you seem so squirmy on the subject of pain, what would you like to talk about?”
“Motorcycles,” Alison said immediately and returned her serviette to her plate in a scrunched ball. “I’d love to know: Do you own one? I heard a rumour that you do. Something with teeth.”
Marks looked delighted. “Well, well, don’t you do your research? I knew I was right about you.”