Dangerously Placed

by Nansi Kunze

  The white-suited lady smiled around at everyone, then nodded at Budi, who stepped up to take her spot.

  ‘Thank you, Lindy. Hi everyone.’ Budi stood with his hands folded in front of him. ‘It really is good to see so many people here, especially when many of you have had to travel so far to attend. As most of you know, Pierce was my boss, and in some respects, my mentor. I first met him when I came to work for Simulcorp Marketing, but I’d known him by reputation for some time prior to that. Pierce was a brilliant man and a visionary in terms of both marketing and technology, and we were extremely fortunate to have him with us. I only wish now that I had known him better person ally.’ Budi’s face clouded over. ‘And I really hope that he did feel that we were his friends, as Lindy suggested.’

  There was a rustle of cloth as the people around me shifted uncomfortably. I could see from their faces that just about everyone was thinking what Budi had left unsaid: that Pierce had been nobody’s friend, and had probably never shown any desire to be so. Suddenly it seemed unbearably sad to me that anyone could die like that, to all intents and purposes alone in the world despite his success, mourned only as a duty by his employees. You saw what he was like, I tried to tell myself. Maybe he really never wanted anyone’s affection. Maybe power was enough for him. But what if it hadn’t been? Even though I didn’t really believe that Grody was looking down on his own farewell, somehow I couldn’t stop myself from wondering how much it might have hurt him if he could. In a way, his demise had been just as lonely as poor Yasuo’s.

  I swallowed hard, trying to force away the tears gathering in my eyes. Budi’s eulogy continued, but I couldn’t concentrate on it. Taking deep breaths to steady myself, I let my gaze wander over the strangers in the small crowd. If Grody had no family, who were they? Neighbours, perhaps? The elderly couple with solemnly bowed heads might be. Or were they distant relatives? The man with the cheap, shiny suit and scuffed shoes looked more likely to be someone Grody had owed money to, or maybe an old schoolmate who hadn’t done as well for himself as Pierce had. And the woman in the big dark sunglasses …

  I stared. The pointed chin, the high cheekbones, the thin straight nose … surely it couldn’t be? The woman gazing down at the grave had short, spiky hair of a dull blonde, but that would be easy enough to change. My heart began to thud loudly in my chest. The more I looked at her, the more certain I became that the woman standing only a few metres away was the one in Dale’s video footage. The question was: could it have been sheer coincidence that she was near AU-2 on the day Grody died? I supposed it was possible that she had some connection to Grody that no one had known about. If she’d been a friend of his – a girlfriend, even – it wouldn’t be unreasonable for her to have been near his work when he returned from lunch, as well as here at his funeral. But, I thought, if she was the same woman who attacked me …

  I looked over at Budi, who was asking if anyone else would like to share a few words about Grody. It seemed that no one had anything to say. As he stepped away from the headstone to let the funeral directors bring the coffin to the graveside, I slid quietly back from my spot and began to work my way around the mourners to Budi’s side, keeping the unknown woman in sight all the time. She raised her chin as Grody’s coffin was wheeled to the side of the hole, her lips compressed. If I’d never seen her before, I would have thought she was trying not to give in to grief. Now, however, I wondered what darker emotions she might be striving not to show on that thin, haughty face.

  ‘So we return to the earth the body of our friend, Pierce Brian Grody,’ intoned the male funeral director. Harp music issued from the back of the open hearse as Ricky, Stefan, Hannah and Frankie took hold of the tapes supporting the coffin and began to lower it into the grave.

  I slipped in beside Budi. He didn’t seem to notice me – his eyes were fixed sombrely on Grody’s coffin. I glanced at the unknown woman again. She was staring down too, as cold and motionless as a statue. So far, so good.

  ‘Budi,’ I murmured.

  Budi turned his head, startled.

  ‘Don’t look this way!’ I whispered urgently.

  Budi obediently faced the grave again. ‘Shh, Alex! You’re supposed to be silent for this part!’ he hissed, looking scandalised.

  ‘There’s no time for that,’ I muttered as quietly as I could. Fortunately, the harp music seemed to be loud enough to cover my voice – Jorge, standing a couple of steps away, gave no sign of hearing me. ‘This is urgent. Look at the woman with the short blonde hair on the other side of the grave and tell me if you know her.’

  Budi looked up quickly and I elbowed him in the ribs.

  ‘Discreetly!’ I rolled my eyes. Honestly, he was as bad as Sky.

  Lowering his head a little, Budi blinked around at the mourners until he spotted her. He frowned for a moment, looking her up and down, and then I saw his eyes widen.

  ‘Yes, I do know her – although I wouldn’t have expected to see her here,’ he whispered. ‘She used to work with us. I think I told you about her – Christina, the one who was fired? I didn’t recognise her at first – she had dark hair in those days – but she used to program 1940s-style skirts on herself for the office, just like the one she’s wearing.’ He shot another glance at her, just as Grody’s coffin hit the bottom of the grave with a gentle thud. ‘I never forget a hemline.’

  I followed his gaze … and gasped so loudly that Jorge looked round to see what was wrong. I made myself give him an apologetic smile and wave to show that I was okay, but my mind was working feverishly. Images and sounds crashed together in my head: the second pair of power cords hanging from the ceiling in AU-2; Budi telling me they never found the guy Christina was fired over, that it was before they installed a lot of the login protocols; a dark narrow skirt glimpsed through the open door of the Mainframe Room …

  ‘It all fits together,’ I whispered, staring wide-eyed at the woman I now knew was Christina. Her face seemed to thaw slightly as she watched spadefuls of dirt spatter down over the coffin. Her lips twitched briefly and tightened again. It was impossible to say whether her momentary lapse of control had been the beginnings of a smile or a fleeting urge to cry.

  Suddenly she seemed to wake from her trance, glancing around at the other mourners and smoothing down her clothes. She looked as if she was about to leave.

  ‘Budi, I have to go,’ I murmured.

  Budi swivelled to face me.

  ‘Now? Alex, the service isn’t over. It won’t be much longer … are you finding it too hard, emotionally?’ His eyes were full of concern.

  ‘It’s not that!’ I tried to put all the urgency I could into my voice, willing him to believe me. ‘Budi, I know who the murderer is. And she’s getting away!’ I pointed to where Christina had already turned her back on the funeral group and was walking briskly towards the gates.

  ‘Christina?’ Budi looked so incredulous, I actually thought he might fall over. I grabbed hold of his black shirt to steady him. ‘Christina murdered Pierce?’

  Several of the mourners closest to us looked up, startled.

  ‘Shh!’ I hissed from behind a fixed smile. ‘Do you want everyone to panic? Just think up some excuse for me – I’m going after her. I’ll ring the police as soon as I know where she’s heading.’

  Budi blinked a few times. ‘No’ he said suddenly. ‘I gave your father my word that I wouldn’t let you out of my sight.’

  Christina disappeared through the gates.

  ‘Budi! If we lose her now, they may never catch her!’ I made to run after her, but Budi caught my wrist.

  ‘All right,’ he muttered. ‘But I’m coming with you.’

  He looked around at the Simulcorp employees, many of whom were giving us strange looks by now.

  ‘Uh … sorry, everyone …’ he stage-whispered. ‘Alex isn’t feeling well. I’ll just take her out to get some fresh air. Back soon!’

  And he darted off with me at his heels, leaving the entire funeral group gaping after us.


  ‘Take me out for some fresh air?’ I panted as we ran for the gates. ‘We’re in a park, Budi! I thought you were the master of putting a good spin on things!’

  ‘You can hardly expect me to do my best work under these conditions!’ Budi puffed as we dashed through the gates and out into the street. We stopped, looking all around for Christina. I spotted her heading west at a rapid pace. Clearly she had somewhere else to be, and the sooner the better. At the far end of the road I could just make out a bus stop.

  ‘Let’s go,’ I said, pulling out my phone as I led the way.

  ‘I thought I was the boss around here,’ complained Budi, following me. ‘Are you phoning the police?’

  ‘First things first,’ I said. ‘If she gets on a bus, we’re not going to be able to follow her on foot. We need transport, and fast.’

  ‘Alex?’ said a voice from my phone. ‘Why’re you calling me at work?’

  ‘Sky! I need your help – please tell me you can get to Kennedy Road in the next three minutes.’

  ‘The Brighton end of it? Maybe, if I leave right now and don’t hit any red lights. But –’

  ‘Do it. It’s a matter of life and death. Watch for me on the south side of the road.’ I shut the phone. Christina was still ahead, but at least she wasn’t getting any further away. ‘My friend’s going to pick us up in her car,’ I explained to Budi.

  ‘Excellent. Now perhaps you could explain to me how you came to the conclusion that it was Christina who killed our former Head of Marketing?’

  ‘It was you who made me think of it,’ I told him, keeping my eyes on the slim, black-clad figure of Christina half a block ahead of us. ‘When you mentioned her skirt. I remembered that when I went to get my draft proposal back from Mr Grody’s desk that afternoon, I went to check the Mainframe Room for a saved copy first, like you told me to. But I never went in, because there was someone in there – a woman in a dark, knee-length skirt, the same style as Christina’s wearing now. I didn’t see all of her. She was …’ I tried to find a suitable way to put it. ‘Well, it sounded like she was making out with someone. So I shut the door and went to Mr Grody’s office instead. And I guess with all the shock of finding him dead, I forgot about the little Mainframe Room incident altogether.’

  ‘So you think Christina had logged in to the office and was hiding in there, having just killed Pierce?’ Budi was panting again.

  ‘You said yourself that she was fired before they put in a lot of the login protocols,’ I said. ‘What if she still had a valid retina scan? The codes are a good backup, but they’re probably not impossible to find out. And Mr Grody’s Virk Room must have been set up to accept more than one logged-in identity at a time if he was using a second suit to pass himself off as Yasuo. So Christina could’ve gone into his Virk Room, waited until Mr Grody changed out of his second suit, and put it on herself. That way, she could watch what was happening in Virk and choose a time when no one was likely to see him being attacked. He used the Virk Room’s bathroom as his changing room; she could have been in the main part of his Virk Room all afternoon without Mr Grody ever having suspected there was anyone near him in realspace.’

  ‘It does sound possible,’ agreed Budi. ‘But what I don’t understand is why she would have wanted to kill Pierce.’ He winced as I increased the pace even more. Christina was nearing the bus stop.

  ‘I don’t want to sound mean or anything, but I got the impression that a lot of people around the office really didn’t like Mr Grody. Not that I’m saying that’s enough to make anyone want to murder him, but everyone did agree he could be pretty nasty. It’s not a big stretch to think that he might have done something really horrible to Christina, is it?’ I actually had a pretty good idea of what that something might have been, but I couldn’t be completely sure yet.

  ‘No, I suppose not. It does all make sense, Alex, but there’s still some room for doubt there. You sounded so sure back in the memorial gardens.’

  ‘She came to his funeral, Budi.’ I squinted up ahead. Sure enough, Christina had stopped beside the bus shelter. I scanned around for buses, but to my relief none seemed to be heading this way. We still had time up our sleeves. ‘Would you have gone to the funeral of a man who was briefly your boss ages ago, and not a nice one, either? And even if you did, would you leave as soon as they began to shovel the dirt over his coffin? It was like … like she wanted to make sure he was dead, or something.’ I looked over my shoulder at Budi, who had slowed down and was wincing with every step. ‘Come on, Budi! You’re fitter than this, surely!’

  ‘It’s not a matter of fitness, Peaches,’ said Budi, biting his lip. ‘It’s just that if I’d known I was going to do this much power walking, I wouldn’t have worn my best sandals!’ He pointed down at the black beaded straps encircling his feet.

  ‘I see what you mean. But you’ll just have to –’

  ‘Oh, that’s not good!’ exclaimed Budi suddenly, pointing in front of him.

  A bus was turning right from the intersection ahead of us, heading straight for the stop where Christina was waiting.

  ‘Damn!’

  ‘Shall we run and try to get on it?’ asked Budi.

  I stood still, in an agony of indecision.

  ‘I don’t know – what if she sees us? She could be armed … But there’s no way of knowing where she’ll get off the bus …’

  ‘Then let’s run!’ shouted Budi, taking off at top speed despite his sandals. I sprinted after him. The bus was slowing. Now it lowered itself down to let passengers off. Christina stepped in. We were never going to make it.

  ‘Damn it, Sky, where are you?’ I yelled, scanning the traffic, but there was no sign of her little yellow car. Budi was still running, but the bus was shutting its doors. He stumbled to a halt, doubled over and puffing as it rumbled away. I yanked my phone out of my pocket as I drew up beside Budi.

  ‘The bus’s number is 173. I’ll ring the police and tell them,’ I panted. ‘Maybe they can get a car to stop the bus before Christina gets off it. Maybe.’

  ‘We were … so close …’ wheezed Budi. I dialled 000.

  Suddenly there was a loud honking behind us, and we spun round to see a bright pink van with ‘Beachside Blooms’ painted in fat green letters on its side swerving through the traffic towards us. Curses and emphatic hand gestures erupted from the nearby cars as the van screeched to a halt and the passenger door was flung open.

  ‘Hop in!’ called Sky, grinning at us over Ki’s shoulder.

  I didn’t wait for a second invitation. Leaping in, I squashed up as far as I could to make room for Budi and pulled him in after me.

  A muffled voice was issuing from my phone.

  ‘Police, please,’ I said, putting it up to my ear again. ‘Sky – follow that bus!’

  ‘Anything you say!’ Sky beamed over at Budi as she veered off into the stream of cars again. ‘Hi! I’m Sky. Sorry – if I’d known Alex had a friend with her, I would’ve made Ki sit in the back.’

  ‘Why are you here, Ki?’ I asked. ‘Not that I’m complaining or anything – I think we’ll be needing your strategic skills.’

  ‘It’s my lunch break,’ said Ki. ‘Sky and I were going to try out the new wholefoods cafe on Windsor Street.’

  ‘And I had to take the van so I could do the deliveries afterwards,’ explained Sky. ‘Robbie’s still out of action after the bee sting.’

  ‘I see. Oh, by the way, this is Budi, my mentor,’ I added. ‘Budi – my best friends, Sky and Kiyoko.’

  ‘Oh, you’re Budi! We’ve heard so much about you. I love your sarong!’ gushed Sky.

  ‘And I love that crochet dress,’ grinned Budi. ‘It’s daring and old-school at the same time!’

  ‘Could you guys give the mutual admiration a rest for a minute?’ I demanded. ‘I’m on the phone here! Yes, hi – my name’s Alex Thaler, and I need to speak to Detective Sergeant Montague or Detective Sergeant Hargreaves at the city precinct, please. It’s in relation to the Pierce G
rody murder case.’

  ‘Please hold,’ said the voice at the other end.

  ‘Are we to assume that you believe the murderer is on this bus we’re pursuing?’ asked Ki, steadying herself against the dashboard as Sky made a wild swing into the right lane.

  ‘Yes, we – oh, hello! Detective Sergeant Hargreaves?’

  ‘This is Senior Constable Rivers, Alex,’ said a familiar voice. ‘I’m afraid the detective sergeants are interviewing someone right now – can I take a message?’

  Dale! He must have been showing them the footage.

  ‘Yes! Or maybe you can help. I’m in pursuit of a bus – it’s the number 173 heading west from Brighton on Kennedy Road – and there’s a woman on it, Christina, uh …’

  ‘Wilkinson,’ Budi supplied.

  ‘Christina Wilkinson. She’s a former Simulcorp employee, and I have reason to believe she murdered Pierce Grody.’

  ‘Crikey,’ said Rivers, then seemed to remember that he was supposed to sound professional. ‘I have to advise you not to try to apprehend the suspect, Alex. She may be dangerous.’

  ‘I know that – she beat me up!’ I frowned into the phone, clutching at Ki’s arm with my free hand as Sky made a tyre-grinding right-hand turn. ‘What I need is for you to get some officers down here right away. She could get off the bus at any … Wait a sec. She’s getting out. Sky, stop the van. And try to do it quietly!’

  Sky managed to pull up at the kerb without any screeching of brakes. We watched Christina walk up the street a few metres and stop at a security gate outside an apartment complex. She keyed in a code on the gate’s number pad and it swung open. I motioned to Budi to get out of the van.