Spiking the Girl (18 page)

Gemma opened the compartment and found a plastic card on a safety pin.

‘Are my sunglasses in there too?’ asked Angie.

Gemma shook her head. ‘There’s only the street directory.’

‘Damn. I was sure they were in there. I’m blind these days without them.’

Gemma frowned, reading the lettering on the badge under the clear plastic. ‘The Western Australian Police Academy?’

‘Stick it on. And grab the directory. I’ve marked the page. We’re looking for a property half a click past the Warners Creek turn-off.’

As they approached their destination, Gemma spotted the cars. A marked police sedan was parked near the entrance to a run-down paddock. Next to a derelict fence, now not much more than trailing barbed wire between hand-adzed fenceposts, stood a smart blue Saab.

Angie pulled over and the two of them walked through old iron gates that had stood open for years, Angie muttering, ‘Just stick close to me and try to look intelligent.’

It felt fifteen degrees hotter out here and sticky little bushflies homed in on their eyes, lips and nostrils. A tall young woman in linen slacks stood near some stringy eucalypts. When she turned round her face was familiar to Gemma. She tried to place it as she and Angie hurried over.

‘Melissa Grey,’ said the young woman, waving flies away and putting her hand out. ‘I’m with Photographic at Parramatta.’

‘Angie McDonald,’ said Angie, extending her hand. ‘From Sydney.’ The two of them shook hands and Angie turned to introduce Gemma. ‘And this is—’

‘I know who this is.’ Melissa smiled.

‘We know each other.’ Gemma shook Melissa’s hand. ‘We met in circumstances somewhat similar to these. Standing around in the bush.’

‘That’s right. You were with Nick Yabsley at that fire site last year.’ Melissa glanced at the Visitor badge, then turned and indicated a house across the road. ‘My partner’s gone over there to try to find out who owns this piece of land.’

‘So who belongs to the Saab?’ Gemma jerked her head back in the direction of the road.

‘The forensic anthropologist,’ said Melissa. ‘She was out here before we arrived.’ Gemma noticed a space-suited figure bending over near a burnt-out eucalypt at the edge of the scrub.

‘We haven’t taped off yet,’ said Melissa. ‘We don’t know how far it extends. I’m taking what photos I can while I’m waiting for the rest of Crime Scene.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘They shouldn’t be much longer.’

The forensic anthropologist approached them, her gloved fingers bagging what looked like greyish stones.

‘Francie Suskievicz,’ she said, introducing herself, her blue eyes soft but shrewd at the same time behind her glasses.

Angie noted it down, checking the spelling. ‘What’ve you got?’ she asked.

‘A lot of teeth.’ Francie waved another plastic bag towards them. ‘And this looks like part of a female pelvis. The rest is too fragmented and charred.’ She shook the bagged teeth. ‘At first, I thought it might have been an ancient burial ground. But several of the teeth had amalgam fillings, so it’s definitely more recent. Seems to extend from that ridge over there,’ she said, pointing, ‘to where those trees start.’

That was a big crime scene, Gemma thought. A roughly cleared area about the size of a football field, rising to a ridge at one end, straggly eucalypts along one side, the road on the other.

Angie took the bagged piece of bone and shook it, looking at it from another angle. ‘How many involved?’

Francie pulled a face. ‘Can’t really say. Not at this stage. I’ve already got enough teeth to indicate several people. Depending on how many more I find, it’s quite possibly a lot more.’

Gemma peered more closely at the bone fragment Angie was holding. It was astounding that Francie could tell what part of the body it was from, let alone the gender.

Angie passed it back to Francie and shielded her squinting eyes with a hand. ‘So what do you think?’ she asked.

Francie shrugged. Now that her face was relaxed, Gemma could see she was a pretty woman, younger than she’d thought. ‘I don’t know what to think. Looks like someone’s burned several, possibly five or six, bodies somewhere then buried the remains here.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I’m going to be here for some time. This whole area is going to have to be sieved.’

Angie pulled two business cards from her briefcase and gave one each to Melissa and Francie. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘Parramatta Homicide called me and I came out here, but there’s not much I can do right now. Once this place is marked out and you know what you’ve got, let me know and I’ll take it from there.’

She gestured to Gemma and the two of them walked back to the car.

‘No way I’m spending days sieving dirt,’ said Angie. ‘I could just see Francie going to her car and passing a few around. I leave that to the youngsters these days.’

She opened the car and switched on the air conditioning, leaning over the top of the door while the interior cooled down.

Gemma opened her door and climbed in. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve been in the crime scene field. I’d forgotten all the fun of the heat and the flies. And the stink.’

‘This lot is way past stink,’ said Angie, also climbing in and slamming the door. She swung the car around. ‘Let’s get back to town. They’d have picked up Romero by now.’

They drove in silence a while and Gemma took the liberty of finding a nostalgia station on the radio. ‘
This is the end, my friend
,’ Jim Morrison warned. Gemma looked out the window to distract herself from thinking of Steve.

They were just on the outskirts of the city when Angie’s mobile rang. She fumbled for the earpiece, listening intently. ‘Great work, Tracey,’ she said finally, ringing off and Gemma waited expectantly.

‘Okay,’ said Angie, turning to her. ‘Tracey Lee and her lot are going through the laptop you found in the garage. There’s a whole lot of images of Amy in her bedroom.’

‘Romero was the peeper?’ Gemma said, surprised.

Angie shook her head. ‘He didn’t have to go out peeping. Amy was a webcam girl. And so was her friend Tasmin Summers. We found evidence of an archived website. Those girls were sending their bedrooms all around cyberspace. Tracey’s copying all the details for me. She’s got Tasmin’s laptop too. Dangerous stuff for schoolkids.’

‘You remember how naive we were at sixteen?’ Gemma said.

‘I was doing a man’s work on the farm at sixteen, running a family,’ said Angie, ‘and studying. Dad had long gone and Mum was doing her best. I didn’t do naive.’

‘What I’m saying,’ said Gemma, ‘is the whole world had access to Amy and Tasmin.’

‘You said it. School banners on the walls, uniforms. You wouldn’t have to be supercop to work out who and where those girls were. They were practically handing out their addresses.’

‘So Romero got those images quite legitimately?’ Gemma said. ‘Damn. I thought we had him cold. This makes everything far more complicated.’ She thought of something. ‘How come that webcam was never found in Amy’s bedroom when the first investigation was on?’

Angie turned to her. ‘Did you see it when you looked through her room the other day?’

Gemma shook her head. ‘There was only a big old computer there. But I wasn’t doing a search. I was there to get a sense of the girl. Getting to know her.’

‘How could the original investigation have missed that Amy and her bedroom were online?’

They both turned to each other, speaking in unison. ‘Bloody Bruno!’

‘Bruno missed finding an old lady in her flat when I was still in the job,’ Gemma recalled, winding the window down because Angie had switched off the air conditioning. ‘Mind you, the place was a bit of a mess. And she’d been dead for a while.’

‘Somewhere in Amy Bernhard’s room there’s a laptop and a camera,’ said Angie. Gemma recalled the big velvet cushions decorated with the suits of playing cards, the patriotic teddy bear wearing his flag.

‘Soon as I get back in town,’ said Angie, ‘I’m turning that girl’s room upside down until I find it.’ She paused. ‘And talking to the boss about widening the search for Tasmin Summers.’

‘Count me in,’ said Gemma. ‘You know you’ll need a hand.’

The city loomed ahead, and an aeroplane disappeared behind the buildings towards the south.

‘Bruno’s got to be moonlighting,’ Angie finally said.

‘Yeah. I was thinking the same. Or maybe he’s having an affair.’

Angie threw her head back in mock horror. ‘A woman would have sex with him?’

Gemma was stung.

Angie flashed her a wicked grin. ‘He sure hasn’t got approval for a second job, because I’ve already asked.’

‘That wouldn’t stop Bruno. He could be doing VIP protection.’

Angie considered. ‘God help the VIPs.’

‘I toyed with the idea of tailing him,’ admitted Gemma. ‘Seeing what he does, where he goes. Then, when I’ve got some dirt on him, maybe he could be helpful.’

‘Helpful? Bruno?’ Angie gave Gemma a look then leaned back in her seat, stretching her arms on the steering wheel. ‘I asked him about that memo—the one from Jim Buisman taking him off the earlier investigation.’

‘And?’ Gemma prompted.

‘And he hit the roof. Accused me of trying to dig up dirt on him. I told him to stop being so paranoid, that he’d given me the memo himself accidentally mixed up in the case notes. That shut him up.’

‘But did he say why he’d been removed?’

‘Reckoned it was a personal thing. They didn’t see eye to eye over certain things is how he put it. I told him I thought him and old Jim Boozeman saw eye to eye over everything. Including a schooner or ten down at the Kensington Club.’

‘If I had the time,’ said Gemma, ‘I’d keep an eye on him. Maybe there is some dirt to dig.’

She took the warning note out of her briefcase and waved it. ‘Speaking of dirt—I got this in the mail. I’ve sealed it up and I don’t want to open it again.’

‘What is it?’

‘Something I want you to pass on to the analytic lab. See what they can get off it. I’d get Lance at Paradigm to do it except I know they’re up to their eyeballs in work.’

‘Why? What is it? Death threat or something?’ Angie said, grinning. The grin faded as Gemma spoke.

‘That’s exactly what it is. Anonymous tip-off. There’s a contract out on me.’

‘On you? You’re not the type!’ exclaimed Angie.

Gemma reached over and slid the sealed envelope into Angie’s slim bag on the back seat.

‘So what exactly did it say?’

‘There is a contract out on your life,’ Gemma quoted. ‘Watch your back.’

‘Who do you suspect?’

Gemma shrugged. ‘There’s no one I can think of.’

‘What about last year? The way your files were outed? And you had some trouble with that one fellow,’ said Angie, making a fast right-hand turn.

‘Some trouble? Ange, the bastard tried to kill me!’

‘That’s what I mean. Maybe you’ve offended someone else?’

Gemma thought of the confidential jobs made public last year. It was quite possible that she’d mortally offended more than one vengeful person.

‘I’ll see what the scientific fellows make of it,’ said Angie, settling down in the right-hand lane. ‘So are you taking it seriously? You should.’

‘Of course I am,’ said Gemma ‘I’m watching my back.’

‘You should probably make it official.’

‘What? Tell the police?’ said Gemma.

‘You’re hurting my feelings,’ Angie retorted.

‘What the hell could “official” do that I can’t?’

‘Then we’ve got a record of it—’

‘When I’m dead that’ll be a great comfort!’

Gemma stared sightlessly at the houses, the traffic, the glare off the enamel and chrome of the cars ahead. Above, she heard a jet whining closer.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Make it official.’

Angie phoned ahead as they neared Lauren Bernhard’s house to warn of their arrival, treating her gently. Then,
with Lauren standing in the doorway, Gemma and Angie made a thorough and systematic search of Amy Bernhard’s bedroom, starting at floor level and moving slowly higher. Barely had they begun on the lower middle grid of the room when, well hidden at the bottom of the big box of clothes and old toys, Angie found a small black laptop wrapped in a shawl and the webcam hidden in a teddy bear.

Lauren Bernhard’s dismay was obvious as she moved closer to inspect what Angie had discovered. ‘I didn’t know she had one of those. How could she afford something like that?’ Lauren looked from Gemma to Angie. ‘How could she have been running that from my house and me not know anything about it?’

‘The cost of running the webcam wouldn’t show up on your accounts,’ Angie explained, ‘because you’re on broadband.’

‘I thought access to the net would be helpful to her studies.’ Lauren’s voice was a whisper. ‘Instead she was broadcasting her life, her bedroom, to the whole wide world!’ Her voice rose in anger and distress. ‘I can’t believe this! I knew nothing about it!’

‘We’ll need to take the laptop.’ Angie’s voice was gentle. ‘We’ll get it back to you as soon as the technical people have checked it out.’

‘Is there someone you can ring?’ Gemma suggested, not liking to leave Amy’s mother so clearly distraught. ‘Someone who could come over and be with you for a while? It might be better for you not to be alone.’

Lauren Bernhard’s face clenched. ‘What good would that do? They’d have to go again.’ She picked up the teddy bear, which had hidden the webcam and its cable and put it back on the shelf again, redraping the Eureka flag. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘alone is how I am.’

The two of them climbed back into Angie’s car, Gemma carefully stowing Amy Bernhard’s laptop onto the floor behind her seat. ‘The day of the laptops,’ she said. As she spoke, Angie’s mobile rang.

‘Bruno?’ Angie turned to Gemma and winked. ‘What a surprise! We were just talking about you.’ Gemma saw the smile on her face fade. ‘Leave the copy on my desk, please.’

Finally she rang off and started the car. ‘Two things,’ she said. ‘He’s still off work—just dropped in to leave his medical certificate. The call was to tell me the full PM report is in on Amy Bernhard.’

‘And?’

‘It gives us nothing that we didn’t already know from the prelim report.’ She paused. ‘But the best bit is,’ she grinned at Gemma, ‘that Bruno’s just discovered that both Amy and Tasmin seem to have had websites. And webcams! He’s going to look into it.’

•

Angie stopped outside Gemma’s place. ‘Keep the visitor’s badge,’ she said. ‘You never know when it might come in handy.’ Gemma started to get out of the car. ‘And get Spinner to keep an eye on your cute arse,’ Angie added, leaning over.

‘I’ve done that already.’ But, Gemma realised, he couldn’t be there all the time.

She hurried down the steps to her front garden, letting herself in as Angie sped away. She found the Ratbag still tangled up in sheets on her lounge, watching television. She walked over and switched it off. Hugo threw the sheet over his head and lay back, a shrouded mummy, but Gemma dragged it off him.

‘Hugo. We’re going to have to do some serious talking. About your future.’ She sniffed the air. ‘You’ve been smoking dope!’

‘So?’ he said, careless.

‘So not in my house, sport. Okay?’

‘Okay.’

‘I’m serious, Hugo. This is a business I’m running here. And if I’m ever going to employ you, I’ll need you to have a clear mind. I don’t want some brainfucked dopehead on my staff.’

He nodded, impressed by her language. ‘Okay. What’s to eat?’

She sent him up to the shops to buy a barbecued chicken for a late lunch, and rang Kit. After bringing her up to date with everything except the warning note about the contract, she told her sister about Hugo.

‘He seems to always end up at your place,’ Kit said. ‘He must really like you.’

For the first time, the idea pleased Gemma. Maybe the kid could stay for a few days. It would be a distraction from her heartache about Steve and her fear concerning the threatened contract. And it was nice to have some company. ‘His parents won’t be too impressed,’ she said.

‘Have you found out any more about our half-sister?’

Gemma thought a moment. ‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’

‘Because,’ Kit continued, ‘I was thinking that your music teacher of the Paddington Historical Walks Society might be just the right person to ask about the Kingston family of Hargreaves Street.’

‘Kit, I’m not so sure about it now. That’s what I wanted to talk about.’ She heard the Ratbag arriving back. ‘I have to go. I’ll call you later.’

They both wolfed down chicken with fresh rolls and salad at the dining table—it was too hot outside on the deck. Taxi nagged around, jumping up on the table and generally being annoying, until Gemma had to lock him in her bedroom so they could eat in peace.

Outside, a flock of rock pigeons flew past, disappearing beneath the level of the cliffs. Gemma remembered the Ratbag’s earlier devotion to a small injured falcon. She recalled his intensity, his perpetual frown and expression of bewilderment, still evident in his face now.

‘Hugo,’ she said. ‘I’ve decided that you can stay here for a couple of days.’

The worried frown lifted. Not a smile exactly, but a brightening of his features.

‘But you must try to sort things out with your parents,’ she continued. ‘You can’t just keep arriving on my doorstep every year. You’re not a migrating bird.’

‘I like it here. I liked living here when me and Mum lived next door. You’re cool.’

‘That’s not the point.’

The Ratbag was demolishing the rest of the chicken so she salvaged a bit for Taxi’s dinner. Then she cleared the table and he helped stack the dishes in the dishwasher, trying to be as good as good can be.

‘How much money have you got with you, Hugo?’

He pulled fistfuls out of his pockets. ‘I had about three hundred. But I spent some.’

‘I hope Eddie No Name decides not to come after you for that amount.’ She watched while he stashed the money back in his pockets. ‘First thing, I want you to ring your mother and tell her that you’re safe. You can tell her you’re quite welcome here for a couple of days, but that something has to be sorted out,’ she said, handing him the phone.

‘Would you talk to her?’

Gemma shook her head. His faith in her was touching and she wished she had Kit’s wisdom.

Reluctantly, he picked up the phone. It rang for a while and she saw his whole face change when someone answered. ‘Hi, Mum. It’s me,’ he said, then listened for what seemed like minutes to the heated response from his distant mother, looking pained but resigned. His deep frown was back along with the puzzlement.

Gemma had the feeling he’d heard it all before. Finally, he passed the phone to her. ‘She wants to talk to you.’

Gemma took it.

‘Is it true?’ Hugo’s mother asked. ‘He can stay there for a few days?’

‘Yes. I’m happy to have him,’ Gemma replied.

‘I don’t know what I’m going to do with him. He’s a very difficult child. We have to sort something out,’ Hugo’s mother continued. ‘Something that Hugo is happy about.’ There was a pause. ‘I’ll ring his father and we’ll work something out. And thank you for offering Hugo hospitality,’ she added.

That sounds rather grand, Gemma thought, ringing off. Is that what she’d done? But there wasn’t time to feel pleased with herself. She had to deal with one of her clients. She turned to the Ratbag. ‘I have to go out for a couple of hours, Hugo.’

‘Get some decent food, will you?’ he said, waving a twenty-dollar bill at her.

‘Pizza?’ she said, taking it. He nodded.

Gemma rang Beatrice de Berigny and drove to Netherleigh Park.

Beatrice de Berigny let her into the small sandstone residence, once the gatekeeper’s house, now an elegant home to the presiding school principal of the college. Inside, the stone walls were hung with tasteful art and distant glimpses of the harbour to the north-west and the bays and marinas of the harbourside beaches to the east could be seen through the gauzy curtains. A framed photograph of Miss de Berigny’s merchant banker husband stood on a table. Somewhere, Gemma had read that he preferred living in the marital home in Woollahra.

The principal of Netherleigh Park had been crying, Gemma was sure. She looked older, plainer, without her usual make-up. ‘It’s all been a most dreadful shock,’ she said as Gemma followed her in. ‘I just don’t know what I’m going to do. The phone hasn’t stopped ringing in the office. I’ve even had some calls on my private line although it’s supposed to be a silent number.’

She wiped her eyes with a tiny handkerchief and seemed to recover. ‘You must excuse me, Miss Lincoln.’ Her voice was icy now. ‘We’ve never had a staff member arrested before. I’ve just come back from taking him some personal items.’

‘What’s Mr Romero saying?’ Gemma asked.

‘That he’s completely innocent. That all he did was use that telescope as an aid to anatomical accuracy in his paintings.’

‘I’ve heard about the images he had on his laptop,’ Gemma said. ‘They might have been anatomically accurate, but that’s not all they are.’

The principal averted her face. ‘I am so absolutely shocked and stunned by all this.’

Gemma wished she could see Beatrice de Berigny’s face as she spoke. There was some other quality underlying her words. Was it rage? Humiliation?

‘But,’ the principal continued, ‘he’s an adult and there’s no law against downloading the sorts of things he did. It’s all a matter of personal taste.’ The bitterness in her voice as she uttered these words could have corroded steel, Gemma thought. ‘He’s screaming that he’s completely innocent,’ Miss de Berigny continued.

‘I need Mr Romero’s employment details,’ said Gemma.

‘What relevance would they have?’

Is the woman stupid, Gemma thought. Or is this just stalling?

‘I need to have a look at where else he’s worked,’ she said patiently. ‘I’m surprised the police haven’t yet contacted you about that.’

‘He’ll never work in teaching again,’ said Miss de Berigny after a pause. ‘Besides, that sort of thing is confidential.’

‘Miss de Berigny,’ Gemma was getting irritated, ‘I’m investigating a murder case. “Confidential” doesn’t really apply when two of your students were displaying themselves and their bedrooms to the world and the dead body of one of them is found dumped on a vacant lot. Especially when images of both girls have shown up on Mr Romero’s laptop.’

Those words had a sobering effect. Beatrice de Berigny sank onto a pink linen lounge and blew her nose on the tiny hankie.

‘Just let me do my job, please.’ Gemma’s voice was hard. ‘Both the girls had an early appointment with Mr Romero the day of their disappearances. According to him,’ Gemma continued, ‘neither girl showed up for those meetings. And he was late arriving at school on the day of Amy’s disappearance and also Tasmin’s disappearance.’

Gemma let that sink in.

‘I don’t understand what’s been going on.’ Then Beatrice de Berigny straightened herself up and, right in front of Gemma’s eyes, transformed into her professional self. She picked up a set of keys from the table. ‘Follow me, please,’ she said. ‘We need to go over to the office.’

Twenty minutes later, Gemma was driving home, copies of Mr Romero’s CV safe in her briefcase, thinking over the way Beatrice de Berigny had transformed from genteel obstruction to cooperation. What had happened to make her change that way? Had the awful possibility of one of her employees being a murderer finally penetrated her consciousness?

She drove back to Lauren Bernhard’s and parked her car opposite. The house summered in the deep shade of the trees around it and the leafy hedges that separated it from its neighbours. On the left stood the two-storey house in which Mr Alistair Forde lived. Gemma got out and crossed the road, enjoying the slight breeze that moved the trees. Languid roses dropped petals as she stepped up to his front door. How many doors have I knocked on, she suddenly wondered, with my questions? And who have I offended to the point of wanting me killed?

She turned her attention back to the man Lauren Bernhard had called a harmless old bachelor.

When Alistair Forde answered the door, Gemma noticed how he shrank back. ‘Yes?’ he asked, the lines in his face deepening. Was it suspicion or just puzzlement? In his hand, he gripped a model battleship. ‘I’m gluing this,’ he said. ‘Have to keep it firmly pressed for a minute or two.’

Gemma flashed a smile and her ID and briefly explained the reason for her visit.

‘You’d better come in then,’ he said, stepping back as she did.

The house seemed very dark after the brilliant afternoon and she was happy to follow him out to a less dim place, a large room with windows onto the back garden, but partly covered with dusty venetian blinds that looked permanently fixed at half-mast. She waited as her eyes adjusted, but because the house was aligned east–west it was still rather dark inside. Then she took in her surroundings. All the surfaces were covered with models: aeroplanes, battleships and tanks.

‘You’ll be wanting to know more about that dreadful business next door. Young Amy Bernhard.’ The whites of his knuckles showed as he pressed the topside of the small plastic ship onto its hull. ‘I don’t know what the world’s coming to.’

Gemma hurried on. ‘Can you tell me about the person you saw in the garden? The one you mention in your statement.’

‘Just over there he was.’ Mr Forde pointed through the venetians with the plastic destroyer.

Gemma went to the window. Dead flies lay along the sill and small patches of cobweb filled the lower corners of the pane.

‘I’m particularly interested in what you saw that night, Mr Forde,’ she said. ‘Can you point out exactly where the person was?’ She strained but could see no bushes. ‘You said the person was crouched in bushes. I can’t see anything like bushes from here.’

She straightened up again. Forde was looking distinctly uneasy. He put the plastic battleship down, then picked it up again, fiddling with it.