Requiem for Immortals

by Lee Winter

  Chapter 23

  “Amanda Marks.” Alison watched Natalya closely, and waited for her reaction to the naming of her once top suspect.

  Natalya stared at her, disbelief and loathing in a vicious war across her face.

  “You must be joking!” she said, outraged. “That woman makes sock fluff look sentient.”

  “Yeah,” Alison agreed glumly. “She really does. Getting to know her doesn’t change that impression by the way. The more you dig, the shallower she gets.”

  “You would put that creature in the same league as Requiem? The woman is too stupid to even stay in time, so how could you suspect her of implementing Victoria’s gangland killings and staying under the radar for two and a half decades?”

  Alison decided she didn’t like the sneering tone and straightened.

  “Okay, one, she, unlike you, is an out and proud motorbike owner and I know Requiem rides a motorcycle. You aren’t a registered owner or licensed to ride one, but I’ll bet if we look in your garage right now we’d find a hotted-up motorbike.”

  Natalya said nothing but looked a little disconcerted by Alison’s level of information.

  “Shall we check?” Alison asked softly, “Your garage? Right now?”

  Natalya gave her a sour look and abruptly shook her head.

  “Wise. Two, Marks also made contact with me out of the blue. The timing was really weird. She called me ‘quite fascinating.’ Fascinating? Me? All of it raised about a hundred red flags.

  “Oh, and three, she’s also a narcissist who lives in her own fantasy world about her legendary status. Anything’s possible with that degree of self-delusion.”

  Natalya stared at her. “She has the mental capacity of a cockroach.”

  “Yeah, well, hindsight is 20-20 and all that. Look, she was all over me like a rash, pumping me on my life and my former career, like she was looking for dirt on me or my routines or something, and the timing was super whiffy. And then we had this one lunch that still makes me shudder.”

  Natalya looked appalled. “An entire meal spent with her? You must take your work very seriously indeed. So what did she want with you? Did she ever explain?”

  Alison gave a rueful laugh. “Yeah, two days ago she finally coughed up her reasons. You should have seen the look on my face when I got to the truth.”

  * * *

  Alison finished work and headed for the parking garage. As she came out of the elevator and turned towards the yellow section, she saw a familiar figure waiting near the lift doors.

  Amanda Marks. Her step faltered. Alison had never told the woman where she parked for work. She certainly hadn’t told her that she was driving in today, not catching the train. It was enough to set off every alarm bell in her head and Alison was on instant alert.

  “Amanda,” she said slowly and looked around. No witnesses. No cameras. Just cars and more cars. She wiped her sweaty hands down her pants, and gripped her keys tight.

  “I was in the neighbourhood,” Amanda said cheerfully, straightening, “and I realised time was galloping away and I hadn’t gotten to the point.”

  “How did you find me?”

  “I have been tracking you,” Marks said with an unrepentant shrug. “I activated an app on your phone that you haven’t been using.” At Alison’s confused look, she added, “When you went to the bathroom at La Pierre last week. It was just after you’d downloaded that mobile Facebook app I suggested, so you were all nicely logged in for me. You don’t mind, do you, darling? It’ll make it so much easier if we’re working together.”

  “Track…wait, what? Working together?”

  “Yes, you’ve been auditioning for a job, whether you know it or not. Well done—you’re hired. Oh, don’t worry—you can still play with your dead bodies all day, but when you’re not doing that, I need someone well-informed to head up my official Facebook fan page. I have auditioned many of my other fans over the past six months but you are by far the most suitable.

  “You see, the rest of my public isn’t sufficiently musically informed to the standard that I require. That’s important. My social media presence is a reflection of who I am. I need my image to be protected and enhanced, but only by someone who knows one end of a violin from another.

  “So far you have passed every test—you spell well in your Facebook messages, you deal with awkward topics without temper, and project patience and decorum. You are not gifted in the art of fashion, I admit. This is unfortunate as you would, after all, be representing me, so I do need you to address that area promptly. I could help with a shopping expedition if you like. Say…Saturday morning?”

  Alison blinked at her.

  Marks looked at her in concern. “I know you’re overcome by the wonderful opportunity, so I’ll let it pass that you haven’t said, ‘Oh, thank you, Amanda’ yet.”

  She gave Alison an amused smile but there was a coolness in her eyes at her lack of immediate, enthusiastic response.

  “Do you accept?” Marks asked. “What am I saying? Of course you do! We violinists must stick together, right darling?”

  Alison swallowed.

  * * *

  “Did you accept?” Natalya demanded.

  “Well, it was tempting,” Alison deadpanned.

  Natalya’s face froze in an appalled sneer. “You’re not serious.”

  Alison suppressed a smile. Of course she hadn’t accepted.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” Natalya muttered.

  “This is what makes a gangland murderer sick? This?”

  Natalya gave her a sour look. “Don’t call me that.”

  “You’re still going to deny it?”

  “Assassins are professionals. Murderers and serial killers are just amateurs with mummy issues or no self-control. Never confuse the two groups—the only thing they have in common is the bodies.”

  “So you prefer to be called an assassin?”

  “I prefer to be called by my name.” Natalya regarded her then tapped her fingers impatiently. “Now, enough games: Who put the hit on you? And how did you find out?”

  Alison studied her for a few beats. “Okay,” she said, and inhaled. She folded her hands in her lap and braced herself. “I’ve known from the first day. And I knew because I ordered the hit myself.”

  Chapter 24

  Natalya’s face became ashen. Her mouth opened and closed a few times before she finally spoke.

  “You’re insane,” she ground out. “Tell me you didn’t put a hit on yourself just to avoid a transfer to Darwin?”

  “That was one factor that sped up my need to find Requiem quickly. Another is Moore threatened my life, Charlotte, and my access to my family. That was enraging. Then I realised he can’t force me to go anywhere if I’ve just solved the biggest case in Victoria Police history. He would want me around for the glory, so he couldn’t do anything to me if I was suddenly the toast of the hour—in fact it would look bad for him if he couldn’t keep me on his team. So I decided to back myself,” Alison explained.

  Natalya was still staring at her.

  “Look, it wasn’t as nuts as it sounds. It wasn’t even a rash decision. I’d been thinking about it for ages, how easy it would be to flush out my mystery assassin if I just had the courage. How simply it could be done. Who I could approach to get to Requiem.

  “But I had no real reason to go ahead until Barry did what he did. And something inside just snapped. I thought about how everyone just pushes me around, and I keep taking it.

  “So, I had a new look at my unorthodox idea. I broke it all down, what I had to do, like a plan of attack. I knew I had three weeks to flush out Requiem where I was safe from being killed before the deadline expired, and then a week to arrest her before I was forced to leave for Darwin. I had a nine-name list of suspects at that point, but no way of narrowing them down on my own in such a condensed time frame.”

  “That was an exceedingly stupid plan.”

  “Was it? Because I flushed Requiem out and I’m s
till alive aren’t I?”

  “Only by the grace of god. Even then, you’re testing me sorely. This is beyond crazy.”

  “No, crazy is suddenly finding two members of the VPO who are on your initial suspect list appearing in your life within days of ordering a hit on yourself. That’s weird.”

  “True,” Natalya agreed grudgingly. “So how did you manage to book a hit if you didn’t have a clue who Requiem was?”

  “How does anyone else do it? Me, I tracked down Viktor Raven and, for a small fee, he agreed to be the middleman and use his contacts to order the hit. I wound up getting an encrypted email message from your associate. In it were a lot of questions about why I wanted it done and I didn’t want to answer so I paid double the next day to make the questions go away. I was actually surprised they did.”

  “How on earth could someone like you afford a Requiem hit?”

  “Ever heard of Bunny Leighton?”

  “The socialite?” Natalya asked. “Died in a car crash?”

  “Yeah. She wasn’t just a socialite. She was the Face of Emirates in Australia. She married my dad and she was pretty nice, actually. Like, she always made sure Hailey got tickets to the Birdcage at the Cup each year because she knew how much my niece loved the horses. Bunny’s friends at Emirates still send them to us every year.”

  “So that explains it: You two amidst the gliteratti set.”

  “I don’t usually go—but how could I pass up the opportunity to see the VPO’s string section doing a Russian program? Especially since I had a few questions to ask its cellist about why she was suddenly ignoring me.” Alison folded her arms.

  Natalya’s eyebrow rose. “I’m sure you have a theory as to why, now.”

  Alison ignored that. “So Bunny, who was quite wealthy, died; then a few years later, Dad did, too. My sister and I both got sizeable inheritances from Dad’s estate. Mum called it ‘whore money’ and made it clear that if either of us spent a cent of it in her presence she’d be most displeased.

  “I was in a pretty bad place back then and couldn’t care less about money. So I left it in the bank and didn’t know what to do with it until this came up.”

  “You blew your inheritance on a hit on yourself?” Natalya asked, incredulously.

  “No. I invested it. In my career. It would either pay off or not, but I was sick of having my dreams taken off me. I was determined to prove to all those assholes who’d dismissed me that I’m actually good at this. To hell I was going to lose everything I’d built for a second time.”

  “How is that not insane?”

  “It was a gamble, sure. But you take risks all the time.”

  “This wasn’t some sensible risk. You would have DIED, Alison. For what? A job!”

  “So? I’d hardly have packed out the church,” Alison said dryly. “I’ll tell you a secret: it’s easy for someone with nothing to lose to risk it all.”

  “I was wrong: You’re not insane, you’re suicidal.”

  “No! I truly believed I could find Requiem before the three weeks were up. All I needed was someone out of the ordinary appearing suddenly in my life, someone on my short list. High risk, high payoff. Of course I knew what would happen if it didn’t work. But I saw it as a calculated roll of the dice.”

  “You’re just…” Natalya threw her hands up. “Do you have any idea what Requiem’s success rate is? One hundred percent! And your insane gamble didn’t pay off, did it? You had Amanda Marks as your suspect! With that mistake you should be dead right now.”

  “Yes,” Alison admitted, still annoyed she’d stuffed up so badly. “I should be. So about that—why aren’t I?”

  There was a long silence as Alison studied the emotions flitting across Natalya’s face.

  “I suppose you should ask Requiem that, not me.”

  Alison saw no deception in the use of the third person this time. Natalya actually seemed defeated by the question.

  “You don’t even know, do you?” Alison asked her quietly.

  Natalya gave her an irritated look and then glanced away. “Did Lola know that you’d booked the hit on yourself?”

  “Why would Lola know?” Alison asked, baffled. Her brain whirred, joining dots furiously. “Wait, she was who I contacted for this? She’s your associate? Oh my God—that cruel witch works for you? Or is it vice versa?”

  “It hardly matters any more. That relationship has now been severed.”

  The room temperature shifted, and Alison sensed so much pain in those few words. “I’m sorry,” she said, wondering what had happened.

  “Don’t be. Some relationships go for too long. And some should end before they start because they’re that toxic and lopsided.”

  Alison thought back to the woman she’d seen. Arranged like a goddess. Directing her thug. What was his name? Gunther. How did he even fit into anything?

  “Why does Lola need her own bodyguard if she manages the mighty Requiem?”

  Natalya gave a hollow laugh.

  “Lola has far bigger concerns than just Requiem. Requiem was just a toy to amuse herself with. Her real enterprise was the empire she inherited from her husband when he died.”

  Alison stared at her, startled at how much Natalya had revealed.

  “Empire?” she asked, her heart suddenly thudding. “Um, what’s Lola’s surname?” she asked, trying not to sound too keen.

  “Why?”

  “You know why,” Alison said. “I have a professional interest in understanding Melbourne’s underworld.”

  “And you also want to know how deep the wounds go? Whether I’d sell her out?”

  Natalya looked as though she was contemplating exactly how many wolves she should toss Lola to.

  “Lola goes by the surname Kozlovsky when it suits her,” Natalya finally said. “Sweetman, as well. But she was Tsvetnenko for a little while, too. Only two years. But they were an educational two years for an impressionable teenage girl in her formative years.”

  Alison’s mouth dropped open at such nuggets of information. Natalya was throwing Lola to all the wolves. Then the name recognition hit her.

  “Oh! Kozlovsky? As in Dimitri?” she said. “Are you shitting me? She inherited his…wait…Lola is now the boss of Fleet Crew? Your, what, ex-stepmother?”

  “I do not shit anyone,” Natalya said, turning the word over distastefully. “But essentially, yes.”

  Alison considered how to word her next question tactfully.

  “You two’ve obviously had a falling out. And now you’ve shared some information that isn’t commonly known. Does this mean you’re getting out of this business? Retiring maybe?” She didn’t bother to disguise the hopefulness.

  “No,” Natalya said. “I love being a cellist.”

  Alison rolled her eyes. “From your other job.”

  “You can’t unlearn what you know or unsee what is seen. How could I retire?”

  “Just stop,” Alison said. “Go cold turkey. Walk away.”

  “I had thought of a holiday,” Natalya said, examining her nails as though the idea had just struck her. “Reassessing certain things, such as priorities and choices made.

  “It’s funny how I find myself wondering at my motivations of late, for a lot of things. How much of it was Lola pulling strings, and how much of it was my own decisions?”

  She dragged her gaze over Alison. “Everything used to be so cut and dried. And now I find my life more in a state of flux.”

  “Is that why I’m still alive?”

  Natalya didn’t answer.

  “Will you help me then?” Alison asked suddenly. “To bring down Lola? An assassin is small beer compared to a crime family boss. Look, we have a witness protection scheme…”

  “No,” Natalya said. “Never. I’ll not be caged. And assassins are never ‘small beer.’ Even the dial-a-thug, cut-price ones are still dangerous. Listen to me on that. Never ever dismiss one.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I could shift focus if I had a differ
ent target. You wouldn’t be hunted. She would—as the bigger target.”

  “No,” Natalya said again.

  “What about informally? No one would ever know if little hints and tips just happened to come my way,” she suggested hopefully.

  “So busy with thoughts on my career,” Natalya noted. “Let me offer you some free advice on yours. It would be wise not to mention putting hits on yourself to your superiors. Your psychiatric assessment would be ordered within the hour, your dismissal on unfit medical grounds within the day. No one in the police force would see the creative side to your insanity. I’m not entirely sure I do, either, and I have a very flexible view on what counts as creative.”

  Alison stopped cold. She hadn’t thought about it like that. Okay, it did sound a little nuts. Even if she wasn’t. She absolutely wasn’t. Yes, she’d gambled big. So what? Go hard, or go home, isn’t that what they said?

  Natalya shook her head. “Sometimes I wonder where you sprang from, if that was actually news to you. As for my plans, it’s no lie to say they are to focus on music for the foreseeable future. I need distance. What you do or don’t do regarding Lola or Requiem or anyone else you scrape up from Victoria’s underbelly is your concern, not mine.”

  Alison studied her, seeing only sincerity. Was Requiem announcing her retirement plans? She was about to ask when Natalya spoke first.

  “I do need one favour,” she said. “In the spirit of our little frank and honest truce.” Natalya’s eyes were half-lidded.

  “What?”

  Natalya rose and left the room, returning a few moments later. She held an exotic plant which she placed gently in front of Alison.

  “My pride and joy,” she said touching one leaf tenderly. “An African violet. I need it looked after while I’m away. I’d collect it later.”

  “You want me to plant-sit for you, while I’m also pursuing you?”

  Natalya’s lips twitched. “It doesn’t like water on the leaves, just water here,” she said, pointing to the soil. “Keep it dust-free, too. That’s important.”

  Alison stared at her, mystified by this turn of conversation. “This is kind of nuts.”