Brittle Shadows (22 page)

A flash of
silver caught her eye as she backed out. Her body contorted into a position she
hadn’t realized was possible, she glimpsed what appeared to be a CD or DVD
taped to the inside of the wardrobe’s sliding door. She sat back on her
haunches and felt for the object, gently prizing it away when her fingers found
the edges.

She turned her
find over in her hands. Encased in a transparent sleeve, the unlabelled disc
gave no indication to its contents. She scrambled to her feet and powered up
her laptop, pulling on a T-shirt and trackpants in the time it took to boot.

She inserted
the disc and selected Play. The screen filled with moving black-and-white
images. She leaned in, squinting, trying to determine what she was looking at.
Her eyes widened as the camera panned out. A naked man stood with his back to
the lens, his partner kneeling on the floor in front of him. Neither face was
visible. Why would Tanya have kept a grainy, silent movie of a couple having
sex? More to the point, why had she hidden it? Like a voyeur, Jemma kept
watching, hoping to find a clue. Were the man and woman even aware they were
being filmed?

Her jaw
dropped. It wasn’t a male and a female, it was two males. The man kneeling on
the floor lifted his head and winked at the camera. Her stomach lurched. She
felt sick. Poor resolution or not, she would recognize that smug leer anywhere.
Why would Sean have risked his engagement to Tanya by recording such damning
evidence of his sexual proclivities and infidelity? When had the DVD come into
her hands? Before or after her fiancé’s death? Why had she kept it, instead of
destroying it?

Jemma forced
herself to watch the rest. At the end, she exhaled, took another deep breath
and replayed it, this time at half-speed. Rather than focus on the act, she
concentrated on the room and Sean’s co-star. The lack of personal items on the
tables either side of the sheet-strewn bed suggested a hotel room, rather than
a private bedroom. A posh hotel room, if the expanse of space and massive bed
were anything to go by. From what she could make out, the unknown man appeared
in good shape, tall and broad-shouldered. He had light-colored hair, but beyond
that she couldn’t tell, the monochrome images making more detail impossible.
She willed him to glance her way, if even for only a split-second.

Then she
spotted something she hadn’t noticed before. What she had assumed to be shadow
on the man’s right shoulder, wasn’t. The dark pattern moved with his body. She
stepped the DVD back to where she thought that part of the shoulder was the
most visible and captured a still. Zooming in on the resultant picture, a pixilated
image of a large spider emerged: a tattoo. She squeezed the back of her neck.
How did that information help her? She didn’t know any men with tattoos, let
alone of spiders. And she couldn’t exactly go around asking the males in
Tanya’s life if they minded taking their shirt off. Why did she think the man’s
identity was important, anyway?

“Because,” she
said, thinking aloud, “this is what the intruder was after.” It was the only
thing that made sense. But sense or no sense, it still left her in a quandary.
What did she do with it now? Did she tell someone else about it – two heads
being better than one – or keep it to herself? She shook her head. She needed
to sleep on it.

Before she
ejected the disc, she saved a copy to her hard drive, only then thinking to
check the file properties. Though the Summary Details tab was empty, she at
least had a Date Created for the 938 megabyte QuickTime file. Little had Sean
known then, that two weeks later he would be dead.

Showered and changed after her
first personal training session, Jemma felt invigorated and more alive than she
had in a long time. Whilst Kerry must have had to use all her wiles to
encourage, coax and push her new client’s recalcitrant body to its limits,
Jemma had yet to see the side to Sean’s ex-wife that so freaked Fen. What
caused such a dramatic Jekyll and Hyde shift in someone’s personality? Or was
it simply that Fen had over-exaggerated, maybe even embellished, the facts?
Just as she had when she told Ash that Jemma thought he was treating her like a
Tanya substitute.

Lost in
thought, she almost didn’t hear Kerry call out. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“See you
tomorrow.” Kerry gave a cheery wave and disappeared through the swing doors.

Jemma hitched
her gym bag over her shoulder and headed in the opposite direction. Outside,
the day was heating up, the sky a crisp blue. She skipped down the steps.
Though she dreaded to think what her muscles were going to feel like the next
morning, right then, she felt strong enough to take on Jeff Fenech. And win.

Her phone rang
while she was waiting to cross at the lights. She didn’t recognize the number.
“Hello?”

“Jemma Dalton?”

“Yes?” She
still had no clue to the identity of the acid female voice on the other end.

“Well, Jemma
Dalton, keep your fucking hands off my husband. Do you hear me?”

The lights
changed. Jemma didn’t move. “Excuse me, who is this?”

“Excuse you?
Exactly how many married men are you screwing?”

“Danielle?”

The woman gave
a high-pitched cackle. “Give the lady a prize.”

“No, you have
it all wrong. It’s not…” Jemma cupped her hand over the mouthpiece and pulled
back from the curb, away from the gathering pedestrians. “Now listen to me: I
am not – I repeat not – screwing or otherwise yours or anyone else’s husband.
Got it?”

“Don’t fucking
bullshit me. I know what I saw.”

Jemma flinched.
Such genteel language for a society woman. “I don’t know what you thought you
saw, but—”

“And he stank
of perfume.”

Yes, but not
mine, she could have said, but didn’t. “I was there on business and nothing
else.”

“And what sort
of business would someone like
you
have with Bartlett Developments?”

She ignored the
obvious slur. “I can’t answer that. The person you should be talking to is
Marcus. Goodbye.” She hit the End key before Danielle could retort.

Burying the phone
in her gym bag, she rejoined the group waiting to cross. Fen had it wrong:
Kerry wasn’t the unhinged one, Danielle was. Not that Jemma could exactly blame
the wronged woman. The wife was always the last to know, as the saying went,
but in Danielle’s case, she knew her husband was playing around, just not the
who. She finished zipping the bag as the ‘Cross Now’ light flashed.

Once across the
street, she picked up her pace, weaving through a centipede of camera-toting
tourists. Cliques of smokers lurked in the shadows, no doubt escapees from the
surrounding office blocks. Jemma felt for them. She had been there, done that.
She kept moving. Danielle’s accusations followed.

She was wrong
about Jemma, but not about her husband. Ash had laughed off his father’s
alleged infidelities as the paranoid insecurities of a gold-digging wife.
Either Ash was blind or he was covering up for his father. Which was it?

How far off the
mark had Danielle been when she targeted Tanya as the other woman? Was it
possible that in her grief Tanya had turned to her suave, long-time boss –
someone whom she could trust – and one thing led to another? With nothing else
to go on, Jemma couldn’t rule it out. Her head spun. After ten days in
Melbourne, she was still no closer to ruling out anything. It was as if the
pieces she had collected belonged to another puzzle.

Ignoring the
muffled ringing sound coming from her gym bag, Jemma let herself into the
apartment. Danielle could rant at her voicemail instead.

Jemma glanced
at the mail still on the table from the day before. Sleeping on it hadn’t
helped. She still had no idea what to make of the anonymous letter. And even
less of the DVD recording of Sean and his male companion’s sexual encounter.
She stopped in the kitchen for a glass of water, using her foot to propel her
gym bag along the tiled floor as she drank.

Once in the
laundry, she set the glass down and began to sort the contents of the bag.
Sweaty clothes she tossed straight into the washing machine, followed by the
two damp towels. She found her mobile phone lodged inside one of the sneakers.
At least they were new.

Danielle hadn’t
called, Chris had. No new messages.

She called him
back.

“You still on
for that coffee?” he asked.

“Sure. When and
where?”

“I’m going to
be in the city mid afternoon if that suits. The where you can choose.”

Jemma suggested
an Italian café deli with outside tables she had passed on her trips to and
from ShapeZone. “I have no idea what the food’s like, but it looks nice.”

“See you there,
then.”

No sooner had
she hung up, than her phone rang again. Ethan. She bit her lip. She had been
waiting for him to call, but now that he had, she wasn’t sure she wanted to
talk to him. She pressed the answer button. Everyone deserved a second chance.

“Really sorry about
last night,” he said, leaping straight into an apology. “I was on my way to
meet you when all hell let loose. Nic called to say Andrew – her husband – was
bashing the door down, threatening to kill them all.”

“Shit. I mean
are they all okay?”

“For now. Nic
and the boys are on their way down to Apollo Bay to spend some time with a
friend of Nic’s. Andrew’s in police custody, awaiting a bail hearing.”

“What happens
when he gets out?”

“I’m hoping his
brother can talk some sense into him. Enough of that,” he said, his tone
lifting. “How are you fixed for tonight? Let me make it up to you.”

“There’s no
need, really.”

“Need doesn’t
come into it. An evening out with a beautiful woman? What more could a man ask
for.”

“Flattery will
get you everywhere.”

He laughed.
“Good to hear.”

She hung up,
her faith restored. If it weren’t for her promise to Gail to be contactable at
all times, she would have switched off her mobile. Instead, all she could hope
for was that Danielle had got whatever it was out of her system and wouldn’t be
calling back. She and anyone else out to ruin Jemma’s mood.

The headline leapt out at her.

‘AUTOPSIES
REVIEWED AFTER FORENSIC DOUBTS’

Jemma read on,
her pulse quickening. A senior forensic pathologist had been found guilty of
unsatisfactory professional conduct after he wrongly ruled a double murder was
an accident. The killer had drugged, strangled and suffocated his adoptive
parents, before propping their bodies in their car and pushing it over an
embankment south of Sydney. The injuries they sustained weren’t from an
accident, but from fighting for their lives.

‘…invited
families concerned about the handling of a case by the institute to approach
the HCCC, which can conduct an independent review.’

“Sorry, I’m
late—”

She spun the
open newspaper around, sliding it across the table before Chris had a chance to
sit. “Do you realize what this means?

He frowned.
“What’s this?” he asked, taking a seat.

She tapped the
news article. “This. Proof that the authorities don’t always get it right. Read
it.”

“This is in New
South Wales,” Chris said, running his finger down the type, “not here.”

“That’s not the
point. No one’s infallible. Who’s to say that similar mistakes haven’t happened
in Victoria?”

“I’m sure they
have, but maybe not to that extent.” He signaled a waiter. “Dare I ask where
you’re heading with this?”

“That perhaps
Tanya really wasn’t in denial when she said Sean didn’t kill himself. That we
owe it to her to leave no stone unturned.”

Chris reached
across and patted her hand as if she were a young child in need of reassuring.
“In my job I see it a lot. Families never want to admit their loved one could
have committed suicide, or in Sean’s case, engaged in deadly sexual acts.”

She yanked her
hands away, hiding them in her lap. “So what are you suggesting? That people
should just take what they’re told at face value, and not question anything?”

“No,” Chris
said, hunching forward and lowering his voice. “That’s not what I’m saying, but
don’t forget I was part of the investigating team into Sean’s death. Nothing
unusual was observed on the building surveillance tapes, there was no evidence
of a crime and the autopsy was inconclusive. I don’t know what more could have
been done.” He paused long enough to give the waiter his order for a
double-shot espresso, waiting for him to leave before continuing. “You have to
give this up, Jemma. It’s not doing anyone any good, least of all you. It won’t
bring Tanya back.”

“What if I told
you I had evidence that Tanya had been threatened?”

“What
evidence?”

“That’s not
important right now.”

His eyebrows
shot up. “Not important? You must know that withholding evidence is a criminal
offence. Not to mention perverting the course of justice.”