A Woman Worth Waiting For

by Meredith Webber

  Max felt a sense of sadness, as if he’d lost more than an opportunity to simply enjoy Ginny’s company.

  He finished his sandwich and they returned to A and E, finding Sarah in the office.

  ‘So, you see, I’ll be over there watching a couple of videos.’

  ‘Actually, there are more than a couple.’ Max broke in as Ginny finished her explanation. ‘The department store keeps their tapes for two months, and although the police experts have taken out the ones with no relevance—say, for days when the woman wasn’t working—there are still a dozen, maybe more!’

  Ginny sighed.

  ‘Looks like dinner out again tonight,’ she said to Sarah. ‘Do you like Thai food? There’s a good Thai restaurant about the same distance as Ciao, only in the other direction.’

  ‘Sounds like a plan,’ Sarah told her, checking her watch then rising hurriedly to her feet. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. She turned to Max, and added, ‘Make sure you stop for coffee-breaks between tapes and don’t stress the poor woman. It’s supposed to be her day off!’

  ‘Hey, I’m the stress expert here!’ Max protested.

  ‘Expert at causing it as well as preventing it?’ Sarah asked, but she couldn’t have expected a reply for she walked away.

  Max looked at Ginny. He was trying desperately to avoid distraction, though the way the clingy dress emphasised her lush curves didn’t make avoidance easy. When they’d parted this morning, things had been easy between them. In fact, before she’d returned to her flat, things had been downright special.

  Was this going to spoil it?

  Damn! He was getting more and more confused…

  ‘I’m sorry if I’ve spoilt your day,’ he began. ‘I’m sure we could do it some other time if you’ve already made plans.’

  ‘Don’t start apologising,’ Ginny warned him. ‘I said I’d do it and I will, and I don’t mind watching the things at my place so let’s grab them and go.’

  He escorted her out of the office, an exit marred by the beetroot stain on his trousers, now enhanced by blobs of white paper where he’d tried to clean if off.

  ‘I left them in the office with Ruth,’ he explained, battling to carry off the sad state of his trousers with aplomb. ‘Brent had them in a big plastic bag, and Ruth said she’d keep an eye on it.’

  More examples of your brilliant conversational skills, McMurray? He sighed inwardly at his inadequacy. They had paused outside the office while she spoke to a male nurse, and standing near Ginny was causing more problems than sitting opposite her and not thinking about the curves beneath the dress. Standing beside her meant he was trapped in a perfume zone, tantalised by the faintest suggestion of an alluring scent, probably deliberately designed to drive men to thoughts of lustful behaviour.

  He recalled this morning’s parting, with him teasing her for a goodbye kiss and her resisting his demands.

  Because she hadn’t wanted to kiss him or because Paul Markham had appeared?

  The nurse moved away and Ginny touched him lightly on the arm, bringing his attention back to the present.

  ‘If I walk out through the waiting room and see huge queues, I’ll feel guilty about not being at work, so I’ll go the back way and meet you back at my place,’ she said, then she solved his dilemma over the closeness by striding briskly away.

  He collected the bag from the office at A and E, and as he crossed the car park Isobel intruded into his thoughts.

  It’s why you’re here, he reminded himself. And if you want to learn more about victims, you should be talking to Paul Markham, becoming better acquainted with him, encouraging him to talk about Isobel.

  But no matter how long he lectured himself, his mental attitude to Paul remained the same. Some stubborn instinct in his brain continued to see the man as a rival for Ginny’s affections, and this was colouring all his perceptions.

  She was waiting on the veranda, her keys dangling from her fingers.

  ‘I know your keys fitted my locks, but are they all the same, or were you given a master key by mistake? May I try mine in yours?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Her request nudged his earlier disquiet back to life, raising doubts he didn’t want to have, given Ginny worked here, about the reliability of the hospital’s security staff.

  ‘No, it doesn’t.’ Ginny sounded disappointed which, perversely, cheered him up. A dizzying mood swing, immediately counter-balanced by what he—they—had come to her flat to do.

  ‘So, do I just sit back in my chair and watch, or should I look at the pictures in a certain way?’

  ‘There’s no certain way,’ he assured her, ‘but you’ve a reverse on your remote control so if there are any bits you want to pinpoint, rewind them and watch them over again.’

  He was studying the labels on the tapes, putting them in chronological order.

  ‘There are so many! I hadn’t realised. But even so, it can’t be a record of every minute of every day in the shop and mall.’

  She’d curled up in the chair, her ridiculously long legs tucked under her.

  ‘The cameras both in the mall and in the store are placed at strategic points and are movement-activated. Which means they run continuously at busy times but turn on and off if no one’s walking around. Each camera has its own tapes.’

  Ginny eyed the pile. It was easier to think about video tapes and cameras than to consider her reactions to having Max in her home.

  Again!

  When no one was likely to disturb them…

  ‘I realise the department store would be different but twenty-four hours of mall tapes every day for a month would make bigger piles than that, Max.’

  The shiver of alarm she felt succeeded in diminishing the distraction of his presence.

  ‘Has someone seen someone on these that they think I might recognise?’

  He looked across at her, his eyes seeming darker than usual, his expression concerned.

  ‘I know they’ve been edited to reduce the number of watching hours but I have no idea what the police may or may not have seen. Brent came to A and E this morning to see you himself. I told him you were off duty and said I’d speak to you about them.’

  ‘And offered to watch them with me?’ Ginny asked.

  She didn’t know whether to be pleased Max wanted to be with her or annoyed that he thought she needed someone.

  ‘Would you have preferred one of those ridiculously young constables?’

  ‘You left out handsome. Young and handsome the one who interviewed me was.’ Ginny chuckled at the expression on Max’s face. He’d sounded so put out that she couldn’t resist teasing him.

  ‘I’d rather have you,’ she admitted. ‘And now I’ve agreed, shouldn’t we get on with it before I change my mind?’

  Max inserted the first tape and started it.

  ‘This is in the mall, some weeks before the first victim— the hairdresser—died. The police actually had this tape as there’d been a spate of bag-snatching at that time.’

  Ginny watched what looked like a normal shopping scene. People ambling along, peering into shop windows, chatting, stepping aside to let those in a hurry pass by.

  ‘Mostly women, although some men in business suits,’ she commented. ‘What a boring job the policeman assigned to watching security tapes must have.’

  ‘Until he picks up on someone,’ Max reminded her.

  At the same instant a group of people passed in front of the camera.

  ‘That lot have walked up and down three times,’ she noted.

  ‘Maybe they’re waiting for someone.’

  A figure detached itself from the group and moved out of camera range while the young people, perhaps noticing the camera, began to push and shove each other.

  ‘Oh! I see what you mean. They work as a team, fooling around to get the attention of the passers-by, then one of the group grabs a bag and darts off, while the others make pursuit difficult.’

  She rewound the videos and watched the li
ttle scene again.

  ‘He’s got away with it,’ she muttered in disgust. ‘That woman who walked past earlier was lucky to escape without becoming a victim.’

  ‘Brent told me about this,’ Max said. ‘And thanks to the tapes, they caught the lot of them.’

  ‘Well, that’s something,’ Ginny replied, though her voice suggested she’d barely listened.

  ‘Have tapes been joined together?’ she asked, peering at the corner of the screen where a counter showed the recording’s date and time. ‘I’ve been to that shopping centre and although the mall is covered, the roof is that clear plastic stuff or glass. The gloominess inside suggested it was overcast in the beginning, while now it’s all bright and sunny— a totally different kind of day. Oh, there’s someone we saw in the early part—that woman who didn’t get robbed. She must work somewhere nearby—maybe in a bank or real estate office. She’s wearing what looks like a work suit.’

  She peered at the screen as the images rolled by.

  ‘That man there, the one in the red hat—he was in the last one.’

  ‘He’s a busker in the mall. Apparently he appears in quite a few scenes.’

  ‘There’s Isobel!’

  Ginny breathed the words as a nameless fear, as old as time, tightened her throat. She knew some tribes refused to look at images of themselves, but looking at a dead person moving, turning around to smile at someone behind her—

  ‘No, it isn’t. It must be the hairdresser. They’re very alike.’

  Seeing the young woman’s image banished any sense that watching the tapes might be ‘fun’, or even enjoyable in some bizarre way. It was a job—a duty—and she had to endure it.

  No, forget endure! She had to concentrate, in case something she saw might help prevent another death.

  But as they switched from video to video Ginny realised that the task was almost impossible.

  ‘I wouldn’t know if any of these people had ever been in A and E,’ she said, when Max had ordered time out and made them both a cup of coffee. ‘Any one of them could have been a one-off patient but, unless they’re regulars, one face blurs into another after a while.’

  ‘I don’t think the police were expecting much of you.’ Max’s assurance revealed his anxiety on her behalf. ‘It was a long shot at best. If you’d prefer, we could leave the rest for another day—or I could tell Brent it’s too much for you.’

  Too much anxiety on her behalf? Ginny turned so she could study him.

  ‘Is this some cute psychological trick to get me to keep watching?’ she asked, sidetracked by the slight hollows beneath his cheekbones. ‘Like telling a kid of course he can leave home, knowing he’ll opt for staying once his going isn’t an issue.’

  Now Max’s grin distracted her.

  ‘Not really,’ he said, but his tone weakened the words.

  ‘I wouldn’t stop, anyway,’ she told him. ‘As you said, it’s a long shot, but long shots come off every now and then.’

  He pushed a new tape into the slot and pressed the play button.

  ‘This is in the department store. The tapes have been edited to show people who appear near the cosmetics counter more than once.’

  Ginny picked him immediately.

  ‘That young chap with the blond hair. He’s walked past three times, all on the same date.’

  ‘Keep watching,’ Max replied, and Ginny guessed Brent had told him more than he was prepared to share with her.

  At this stage, anyway.

  The young man, in different clothes, appeared again and again.

  ‘I’ll have to have another look at the mall tapes,’ Ginny said, as a sick excitement churned in her stomach. ‘I was looking for someone I recognised from work. I might have missed the young man.’

  Max touched her shoulder.

  ‘All the police are asking you to do is look for someone you know from work,’ he reminded her.

  The touch diverted her attention, but not sufficiently for her to miss the man as he walked into view again.

  ‘And look,’ Ginny said. ‘There’s the woman from the mall tapes—the one who wears the dark suit to work. I guess as she works nearby it’s logical she should shop for her cosmetics there.’

  The tape stopped and set itself to rewind, the noisy whirring of the machine a background noise as Ginny thought about the young man who’d walked past the cosmetic counter so often.

  Then she turned to Max, the horror dawning in her mind making her feel ill.

  ‘I’m wrong, aren’t I?’ she whispered. ‘That woman doesn’t work anywhere near the department store. The store is in the main CBD and we first saw her in the big shopping mall in the southern suburbs. There are a couple of pharmacies in the mall that sell cosmetics if she needed them…’

  ‘Would that prevent her going to the city to buy them?’ Max asked, and Ginny considered this for a moment.

  ‘What’s the date on that last section of the tape?’ she asked, and saw him nod.

  ‘It’s the day the young woman from the cosmetic counter disappeared.’

  Ginny felt her intestines cramp and she dropped her head into her hands.

  ‘Hey! It’s good we noticed it. Now we can look at some enhanced images of her and maybe you’ll recognise her.’

  But Max’s encouragement failed to comfort Ginny, and she hunched in the chair as if by being small she could avoid the horror.

  Max knelt beside her and touched her gently, his hands clasping her arms and holding all he could reach of her.

  ‘Do you know her?’ he asked, and she realised he must be mystified by her behaviour.

  ‘No, but I hate it being a woman,’ she whispered, pushing the words out through parched lips. ‘It seems like such a betrayal. And if the woman isn’t the killer, if she lures young girls to him, that’s even worse.’

  ‘For all we know, her being in both places could have a very logical explanation. She might have nothing to do with it. But if she does, should she get away with it?’

  Ginny straightened.

  ‘Of course not!’ she muttered. ‘Run the bloody tape!’

  Max patted her arm then stood up, moving across to the VCR and leaving her feeling far more alone than the situation warranted.

  She concentrated on the screen. The images were of poor quality, but the second time around she knew when to look for the woman.

  ‘The police will never get a good picture of her no matter how much they enhance the shot,’ she said to Max when the futility of the exercise made her feel even more depressed. ‘It’s as if she knows about the camera and approaches so it’s behind her, though she could work somewhere down in that direction and she always passes with her back to the camera.’

  ‘Going both to and from work?’ Max asked, adding further chills to Ginny’s dismay.

  They watched in silence after that, but found no clear, front-on pictures of the woman.

  ‘There’s one more tape Brent threw in. It’s of Isobel’s funeral. No sign of the woman, but he wondered if you’d look at it anyway.’

  ‘Because of some traditional police idea that murderers like to attend the funerals of their victims, I suppose,’ Ginny snapped, but she nodded her assent.

  She saw Max’s lips thin into an anxious expression and realised she was taking her own anger and frustration out on him.

  ‘Maybe the man went and I’ll see a patient I recognise,’ she said, her tone softer, reaching out to him. ‘Though that wouldn’t be so odd, as some people Isobel treated in the past might have gone along to pay their respects.’

  ‘Were you at the funeral?’

  Ginny shook her head.

  ‘People don’t stop having accidents or feeling unwell for funerals,’ she said. ‘I was on duty so I worked. The head of Outpatients, who’s nominally in charge of us as well, went along to represent the department, and I think Brad went. He’s been on night duty practically all the time since Isobel disappeared. The hospital is still trying to come to terms with the securit
y side of things, which is why male staff are on at night.’

  The new video began to play, and images of colleagues, soberly dressed and moving with the heaviness of loss, drifted across the scene.

  ‘Some photographer this was!’ Ginny said, when the camera moved so people’s heads were chopped off.

  But the sight of a back attracted her attention.

  ‘That’s not—’ she muttered, shock stopping her from uttering her supposition. Then the camera angle moved again and she saw suit trousers, realised the black suit coat she’d glimpsed belonged to a man, not the mystery woman.

  The video played on. Mercifully the film was silent so though she saw the minister speaking she didn’t have to listen to the words.

  When the congregation filed out, the camera must have been positioned so that each person, as he or she exited, was caught, if only momentarily, on film.

  ‘Oh, there’s Sal— No, it couldn’t be.’

  She corrected herself before she’d even said the name, but Max had hit the rewind button and the image played again.

  ‘It’s right near the end, so you might as well have another look,’ he said.

  ‘No, it was just a comment. Not connected with any of this. I was just surprised to see someone on it. I thought she was overseas.’

  The tape replayed the minister again, then movement as people began to stand up and shuffle into the aisles. The young woman slipped past the camera, possibly as it was being carried outside.

  ‘It certainly looked like Sally,’ Ginny said, more to herself than to Max, though he must have picked up on her surprise.

  ‘If she’s a colleague, why wouldn’t she be there?’ he asked.

  ‘I told you. Because she’s supposed to be overseas. She worked in Pathology but I went to her farewell party two or three months before Isobel’s death. I guess she could have been back for some reason—a family wedding perhaps—or maybe she didn’t like being away from home. Or it mightn’t even be her. The film quality isn’t all that good and whoever it was had a handkerchief up to her face, which, at a funeral, isn’t all that surprising.’

  She was aware of a testiness in her voice, brought on, she had no doubt, by her failure to help in the search for Isobel’s killer.