Death by Beauty (23 page)

As she was walking down the steps into her front garden on Monday morning after taking Rafi to daycare, her mobile chimed.

‘Gerri,’ he exclaimed, ‘I’ve been waiting for you to call. How about dinner tonight? My place?’

‘Angelo, nice to hear from you,’ she said in what she hoped was a demure tone. ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve been very busy otherwise
I would have called you much, much sooner. I can do tonight.’

‘Excellent. I’m a great cook. All you have to do is bring your beautiful self and maybe a bottle of red wine? I’ll supply
dinner and flowers. Do we have a deal?’

Hugo was still tinkering with the badly buckled front wheel of Mike’s bike as she opened the front door and went inside, thinking
quickly.

‘That sounds great,’ she cooed.

‘Wonderful! About seven-thirty? I’ll text you the address.’

‘I’ll be there.’

If Tolmacheff was at home cooking prior to seven-thirty, she would know where he was. She went into her office and opened
a drawer, taking out the key to the Edgecliff office that Delphine had given her, and then she called Delphine.

‘I’m fine,’ Delphine said when Gemma asked her. ‘I’ve moved into this cute little boutique hotel, Beecham House. It’s gorgeous.
Looks straight over to the Opera House. And, you’ll never believe this, but I’ve just won a fantastic prize in a cosmetics
competition! I don’t even remember entering it! That’s cheered me up a bit.’

‘Sounds nice. But you must do everything to keep safe until your husband is out of the picture.’

‘I’m just hoping I can go home soon. I’ll be a new woman without him.’

‘Good,’ said Gemma. ‘I’m very hopeful I can get him off your back.’ And mine too, she thought as she ended the call.

Washing up the breakfast dishes gave Gemma time to plan her day, then she rang Angie for an update.

‘I’ve spoken to the guy who headed up the Britt Goodwin murder investigation,’ Angie said. ‘They got someone for that on physical
evidence and a confession. Illegal immigrant. He’s currently in prison as a flight risk and awaiting trial.’

‘So, he’s out of the picture,’ Gemma said. ‘That was a dead end. What about Phoebe Wilson?’

‘An open verdict. I had a quick look through the coroner’s findings and the police notes. There was no way to know how she’d
come to be in the water. She was fully clothed, which could indicate an accident, or even suicide. According to the notes
here, she lived at Kirribilli in an old waterfront apartment block. It’s possible that she fell from a window, or from the
jetty on the southern side of the apartment. I’ll skip this next bit – oh – here’s
another relevant section … “the jetty had been condemned some months earlier”.’

‘She might have gone for a walk on the jetty anyway,’ said Gemma, ‘and fallen through the timber, injured herself, drowned,
bled out and then collided with the speedboat.’

‘Okay,’ sighed Angie. ‘We’ll need to check this one. She’s a possible victim.’ There was a short silence.

‘We’re almost back where we started,’ said Gemma, ‘and that was never a very good place. We still don’t know anything about
this killer, except that he seems to carry out a vicious minor assault, and then comes back for the kill. But not in all cases
– and we don’t know why.’

‘Gems, I do have some more information,’ Angie said. ‘Bob Stein’s just called me.’

Gemma recalled Bob Stein, who headed up the DNA section as chief analyst at DAL, the Department of Analytic Laboratories,
the government laboratories where police exhibits were taken to be examined, the results delivered to the prosecutors to be
placed before the courts.

‘Bob ran all the items from the murders through the PCR again just in case they missed something the first time. He said he
knew I’d want to hear back as soon as possible about any new results but I’m afraid he hasn’t been able to get much out of
the samples. He repeated how thoroughly the bodies and clothing had been washed down and said the second results were as inconclusive
as the first. And results on the arrow brooch were inconclusive too.’

‘So it was just a waste of time?’ Gemma asked.

‘Not completely. He said they found traces of an anti-bacterial wash that’s normally only found in labs, and not used by the
general public. He’s sent the clothes off to Andy Morphett, the palynologist. He might be able to supply some sort of profile
from pollen evidence. He also mentioned they’re going to try a very new technique from Zürich, lifting fingerprints from the
skin surface of dead bodies.’

‘What about Janet? Any result on her?’

‘Nothing yet. I’ll let you know when I hear. Morphett is pretty good. If there is anything in the pollen profile, he will
find it. Is that Rafi or the Ratbag I can hear in the background?’

‘That would be Hugo. He’s trying to fix Mike’s bike. He’s driving me crazy and being helpful all at the same time.’

‘He could be quite an asset, Gemster. I remember him handling a Glock very well indeed. He’s a smart kid.’

Mike looked across at her as they were preparing lunch. ‘Come on, Gems. We both worked too much over the weekend, how about
I take us out to dinner tonight? I’ll even shout Hugo. We can go to your favourite Thai place.’

‘Oh. I can’t, Mike. I’ve got a date tonight. With Tolmacheff.’

Mike’s face hardened. ‘I don’t like you using yourself as bait for Tolmacheff. It’s a bad idea going into his territory. It
makes you too vulnerable.’

‘Mike, it puts me right in the belly of the beast.’

‘That’s what I’m worried about. He’s going to want dessert. It’s bloody dangerous, Gemma.’

There was a silence in which Gemma could feel the distance between them but as they ate and talked they both relaxed, and
forgot about work for the moment.

‘I’ve got something to show you,’ Mike said when they had finished.

Gemma followed him down to his office.

‘Take a look at this.’ He indicated the image on his laptop. ‘You can read the registration now – plain and clear.’

‘Great,’ she said, writing it down on a piece of paper: BAW 06Z. ‘I’ll get that through to Angie straight away.’

She noticed Mike hesitating, about to say something. ‘What is it?’

‘What are you going to do about Hugo?’ he asked in a low tone, closing the office door. ‘He can’t go on staying here indefinitely.
This apartment isn’t even big enough for you and me. Factor in Rafi and Hugo … and it becomes very crowded. He’s a good kid
and I like him, but …’

‘I know, Mike. It’s just for a little while. The school holidays.’

‘And what about the next school holidays? Is he going to be living with us over Christmas as well?’ Mike sighed. ‘We’re trying
to run a business here, out of a couple of cluttered rooms with a baby and an adolescent boy thrown in. I just haven’t got
the liquidity at the moment to rent office space somewhere else. I don’t want to sound mean, and I want to live with you,
but under different circumstances. You’re off meeting Steve Brannigan again and dealing with some very unpleasant characters.
I don’t like any of this, Gemma.’

‘Mike, I’ll do something about it just as soon as I can. But right now I’ve got a lot on my plate. Please understand my position.’

‘I’m trying,’ he said, frowning. ‘Believe me.’

Just after three o’clock, Gemma met Spinner outside Steve’s place. ‘Feels like the old days,’ Spinner said as Steve let them
in.

He had made some attempt to tidy up, Gemma noticed as she and Spinner followed him into the small living room. The plants
she’d watered looked even more promising, the rug had been straightened and possibly vacuumed.

‘Good to see you again, Steve,’ said Spinner, vigorously pumping Steve’s hand. ‘I have mixed feelings about this, you know.’

‘I can imagine. I remember your scrupulous nature, Spinner,’ said Steve, with the barest smile. ‘Aiding and abetting attempted
sins against the sixth and the ninth commandments.’

‘I really hope that things stop at the attempted stage, mate,’ said Spinner. ‘That Litchfield woman is deadlier than Delilah.’

‘We should start with the bedroom,’ said Steve. ‘I’ve got a date tomorrow night.’

‘How?’ asked Gemma. ‘How did you set it up? Did you call her?’

‘No, I thought I’d … Gems, you don’t really want to hear about this.’

She didn’t say anything. Finally, he sighed and continued. ‘I know her favourite nightspot is Astro Lunar. I went with a mate
as cover, and once I’d spotted her I ordered her favourite cocktail and wrote a note to accompany it. She came over. She was
furious. She threw the drink over me – let me have both barrels. How I’d humiliated her, how she would never forgive me, how
I was going to be as sorry as hell. She was practically
spitting
with rage.’

‘How did you turn it around?’

‘It took a while. I sat there, like a good boy, sucking it up. Literally. My face was dripping with Bundy and Kahlua. By then
my mate had bolted to the Gents. Once she’d run out of steam
I told her if she ever wanted to hear my side of the story, all she had to do was call me. I gave her my card and then I stood
up. She seemed quite stunned and had nothing more to say, so I got in close and whispered something to her.’

‘What did you say?’

Steve hesitated. ‘I said, “I can’t stop thinking about you.”’

Gemma reminded herself that this was part of a script, nothing more.

‘I can’t stop thinking about you,’ he said.

‘I got that part,’ she said, her voice sharp.

‘Gemma – I meant—’

She cut him off. ‘Just tell me what happened.’

After a long pause, Steve continued. ‘About three am, my mobile rang. I was sound asleep. But there she was. From throwing
drinks to calling at three in the morning. Extremely keen to get together again. She said now she
did
want to hear my side of the story. So, I asked her out. We had dinner and I could tell from the way she was dressed and how
she behaved with me that she was interested in taking things further. I hear Raimon has trouble getting it up.’

‘So what
is
your side of the story?’ asked Gemma.

‘I think it was convincing. Besides, I could see she wanted me and it was convenient for her to be convinced. I told her that
I’d been under a lot of pressure from you, that I owed you money, that you’d threatened to expose me for an incident that
I didn’t want to tell her about.’

Irrationally, Gemma could feel herself growing angry at this scenario. Calm down, girl, she told herself. This is an act,
not reality.

‘In the end, she agreed to come over to my place. Tomorrow night. You and Spinner better be close by. Be in position by eight
or even earlier.’

‘We will.’

‘When you see things getting really heavy, Spinner, can you bang on my front door. Make up something that’ll get me out of
there.’

‘Sure, no worries,’ Spinner said.

‘And Gems, I’ll never forget this. If this works …’

‘You’ll owe me,’ she said.

‘I’d put another one in here,’ said Gemma, looking around the lounge room, ‘just in case things get a bit ahead of themselves.’
Her heart ached as she remembered a time when she and Steve could barely get inside the door and keep their clothes on.