Spiking the Girl (19 page)

‘You won’t see from there.’

‘Where did you see from?’

Did he make the whole thing up, Gemma wondered. Some people would do anything to feel part of something, even an investigation into a missing person. Made them feel important. ‘Are you sure you saw someone that night?’

His face shifted, irritation. ‘Of course I did.’

Gemma waited, letting the silence build the tension.

‘I saw it from upstairs.’

‘I’d like you to show me.’

‘What? Go upstairs?’

For a moment, Gemma was spooked. Did he have his mummified old mother up there? Would he come after her with the carving knife like Norman Bates in
Psycho
?

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I want to go upstairs and have a look.’

‘But why? What good will that do? There’s nothing to see now.’

Don’t be too sure of that, sport, Gemma thought, sure now that Forde was hiding something. He shrugged and put the model destroyer down on a table near the window and, in silence, Gemma followed him up a flight of stairs and along a corridor until they came to a half-open door.

‘This is my bedroom,’ said Forde. His tone was plaintive but she walked in and looked around. A dark, cramped space—a single bed, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers surmounted by a cedar mirror on a small stand. A large table pressed against the flowery curtains hanging on each side of the window. Strange place to put a table, Gemma thought, as she tried to lean across it to look outside. ‘You saw the prowler out of this window?’ Her disbelief was evident.

Forde nodded.

‘Not with this table here.’ She made it sound more of a statement than a question. Forde seemed to have shrunk further since coming upstairs; she was reminded of a snail pulling back into itself.

‘It wasn’t there that night.’ Now he sounded sulky.

‘Can you help me move it then, because you couldn’t have seen anything out of the window with that standing in the way.’

Silently, the two of them lifted the table away and Gemma noticed the deep impressions left in the carpet by the table legs. Even now, standing close to the window, she could barely see any of the hedge and bushes that separated the properties. She stood on tiptoe. That gave her a slightly better vantage point. Gemma did a few rough spatial calculations. She worked out that the window towards the back of the house next door belonged to Amy Bernhard’s bedroom. But unless she was able to get higher up—stand on a table, for instance—she wasn’t able to see over the fence between the properties.

She turned back to Mr Forde, who stood in the doorway, his hands in his pockets. ‘In your statement, Mr Forde, you said you were changing a light bulb. Can you please show me which one you meant?’

Forde looked around the room as if the shaded light fitting had the habit of moving around and appearing in unexpected positions. Finally he pointed to the shaded light hanging in the middle of the room.

‘That one?’ Gemma moved to stand under it, then looked towards the window. ‘But you can’t see out the window from here! What did you mean?’

‘I pulled the table over to reach it. And I could see from up there.’ Forde fidgeted with a button on his shirt, twisting it. ‘You can see from up there,’ he indicated the light fitting, ‘if you’re standing on the table.’

‘And which room was the intruder outside?’ Gemma peered out again, trying to see the hedge near Amy’s room.

‘He was crouched down there. In the bushes outside her bedroom.’

‘Are you sure it was this window you looked from? I don’t mean to badger you, Mr Forde, but I want to get it clear in my head. If you were standing on the table in the middle of the room, I don’t see how it would be possible to see out the window at all. Let alone be able to see someone down there in those bushes over the fence.’

‘I’m taller than you. So I can see down there better than you.’ He was rattled. ‘I want to go back downstairs now. I’m in the middle of making something, you know.’ His voice had become querulous. ‘I don’t like being interrupted.’

‘Thank you,’ said Gemma, stepping back from the window. ‘That’s very helpful. Let me give you a hand putting the table back. Where does it normally stand?’

‘No need for that,’ he said. ‘I just pushed it over when I was doing the carpets earlier. Like I said, it’s not usually there at all.’

This must be the only room that Mr Forde does any housework in, Gemma thought, following him downstairs again, the information she’d just absorbed going round in her mind. This time, instead of leading her back through the house, he headed her off near the front door. ‘You’ve seen what you came for. You must excuse me,’ he said. ‘I’m rather busy just now.’

‘Of course. You’ve been most helpful.’ More than you know, pal, she thought.

She walked outside and heard the front door close behind her. In this job, it’s a shame but we always assume the worst of everyone, she thought. Not a nice character trait. But niceness doesn’t get them arrested and put away. She wondered just how many neighbours knew which bedroom was which in the house next door. Not only did Mr Forde know where Amy slept, but he was lying through his teeth about that table. And Gemma knew why. She thought of Angie’s workload; her own wasn’t any lighter. She needed to talk to Kosta.

Scrolling down to his number, she rang him, leaving a message asking him for any information about an Eddie who worked at Deliverance. She was also curious to discover if he knew anything about the man with the diamond stud.

She turned off William Street into Macleay, taking a detour on her way home, her senses stimulated by the biscuity odour of cooking. She suddenly longed for ice-cream in a cone. She found a parking spot on Macleay Street; the late afternoon sun still hot and making rainbows in the fine spray from the El Alamein fountain.

Across the road at the ice-cream shop, a family group were walking out, licking their cones, the kids’ ones piled high and sprinkled with hundreds and thousands. The mother and father, arms around each other, swapped ice-creams. Then the father noticed ice-cream dripping from the chin of the smallest of the children and quickly wiped it off before it could fall on his clothes. The adults laughed together and then kissed in that easy well-oiled way that long-time couples have. Gemma felt a pang of jealousy. Why didn’t she have a nice husband like that and a couple of happy kids? She looked again at the family group. Then she looked closer and, in that moment, the man swung round and made eye contact. Too late Gemma turned away. Oh my God, she thought. It can’t be. It’s not possible. It mustn’t be.

But it was.

•

Back home, she tried to take her mind off what she’d just seen at Kings Cross by making a detailed study of Mannix Romero’s CV. He’d been educated at Bathurst, she read, worked in one of the local banks as a clerk for five years before going back to college and training as a teacher. Then he’d taught History and English at Bathurst High School before resigning after seven years and apparently leaving the public system. He’d spent twenty years working in two private schools before joining the staff at Netherleigh Park some years previously. She made a note of the two private schools—St Angelica’s in Bowral and Boronia House in the lower Blue Mountains—jotting down the office phone numbers.

There was nothing immediate or obvious in the pattern of his employment history to excite her suspicion. But she’d definitely check up; find out why he’d left his last jobs. If there was a breath of scandal surrounding Mannix Romero, Gemma was determined she’d sniff it out.

•

After another night with the Glock under the pillow, Gemma rose early to hear the Ratbag still snoring gently. After she’d showered and dressed, she and Taxi had breakfast under the big sun umbrella, watching the nor’easter wrinkle the sea. She barely tasted her toast and marmalade, haunted by what she’d seen yesterday evening outside the ice-cream shop and what she was going to do about it, her mind compulsively going over and over it, until it almost pushed aside the notice of a murder contract. She went into her office and waited while her email messages downloaded. Her email program sounded and she opened her inbox. Most of it was junk about penis enlargement, cheap Viagra and Zanax or offers of pornography. She went through, deleting them. She wasn’t fast enough for one though and it started opening on her screen.
If you want to know what happened to Amy and Tasmin, check this website
, said the summary. There was no name in the sender field. Gemma’s heart beat hard as she clicked on the link www.xxxtremelycuteschoolgirls.com and waited for the website to unfold. She was disappointed.
This page cannot be displayed
, said her browser. Gemma tried again, using variations of the website’s name. Her search engines came up with similar material—over twelve thousand references. Checking each of those just wasn’t possible; she’d get Mike to see if he could trace the sender instead. Meanwhile, she sent the email onto Angie. It could be a crank, but someone had taken the trouble to find Gemma’s email address. And she wanted to know who that someone was.

The Ratbag shuffled out, still half asleep heading straight to the fridge, until she sent him to have a shower, promising to make him scrambled eggs. After he’d showered, he ate them and then another three slices of toast spread thickly with peanut butter as well as two more with honey before helping her with some pruning, chopping away at the scrubby bushes below the timber deck and cutting back an old lemon tree that Gemma had never known to bear fruit. As she piled the offcuts into bundles and tied them up, she found herself thinking again of what she’d seen outside the ice-cream shop.

She woke the next morning with the scene still in her mind. What a way to start the week, she thought.

The doorbell sounded later and she looked up to see Mike’s burly figure taking up a lot of room on the CCTV monitor. She went to the door to let him in and stood back as he entered, noticed that he was avoiding eye contact. ‘Mike,’ she said before he could start unpacking his camera, ‘can you please come into my office and have a look at something that came in last night?’

‘Sure,’ he said, briefly meeting her eyes.

She pulled up the email that contained the schoolgirls’ website address. He leaned over, frowning at the message on her screen. ‘Open it and let’s have a look,’ he said.

‘That’s just it,’ she said. ‘The website’s been taken down. There is no website.’

‘Do you think it’s a genuine tip-off?’

Gemma shrugged. ‘Can’t say. But I sure want to check it out.’

Mike peered closer. ‘The email’s from anonymous at Hotmail,’ he said. ‘It’ll be hard to trace. We can only try.’ He paused. ‘There are a couple of reports hanging over from last week that I need to write up. That real estate job—the one Spinner was doing, checking out the neighbours for the interested buyers?’ He pulled out a diskette. ‘These are Spinner’s notes. Looks like they’ll be buying next to the neighbours from hell if they go ahead.’

He indicated her laptop and held out the diskette. Gemma didn’t take it. ‘Mike. We have to talk.’

‘Yes,’ he said.

She finally took the diskette from him and put it on the desk. Mike picked it up again, fiddling with it, glancing at her. ‘I’m getting plenty of other work. I can hand in my notice. I think that’s the best thing to do.’

Gemma felt shocked. Though she’d foreseen this as a possibility, now that it was actually happening it felt terrible. And she’d occasioned it herself with her intoxicated, wilful lust. ‘Mike. Please. Don’t say that.’ She hesitated. ‘Unless it’s really what you want to do.’

‘It’s not what I want to do. It’s what I think I have to do.’ He threw her another long look then busied himself with his video camera, his broad back turned against her.

‘I have to accept responsibility for what happened,’ she said. ‘But can’t we find a way that doesn’t mean you have to go?’

He turned round at this and she saw the sadness in his face and the concern. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘You can’t go because you’re the boss. I can’t stay because I overstepped a mark the other night. And a certain situation occurred.’

‘God, you sound like an incident report! And you didn’t “overstep” anything!’ Gemma’s voice rose sharply. ‘I pulled you over whatever “mark” you’re talking about. I made the first move.’

‘No. I kissed you.’ He was looking at her intently and she wondered what was going through his mind.

‘But I took it further,’ she persisted, unable to look into his eyes any longer. ‘It’s not fair that you should lose your job because of my behaviour.’

‘We don’t live in a fair world. You must have noticed. And like I said, there’s plenty of work for me.’

A sound came from Gemma’s apartment and Mike frowned. ‘Who’s in there?’ Then, shaking his head, ‘Sorry. That’s none of my business.’

‘It’s the Ratbag. He’s staying over for a couple of days.’

‘That kid?’

She nodded.

‘I thought it might’ve been Steve.’ Again, he spoke without looking at her.

She was incredulous. ‘After what he must have overheard the other night?’ Immediately Gemma regretted bringing the subject up again. She continued, talking too fast, awkward and off-balance, ‘I don’t know quite how to say this, but if you and I—I mean, if we could somehow just put the other night behind us. What I’m trying to say is, I’d like us to get back on a professional footing. Forget those few minutes. Forget they ever happened. Maybe you’re—
we’re
making more of this than is warranted.’

A long silence. Then, ‘Maybe.’

They stood together in more silence a moment.

‘I’m really sorry for my part in it. And now, I’m going back to work,’ Gemma said. ‘I’ll call you later, after I’ve spoken to the cop at Waverley about Daria Reynolds’s husband. What’s a good time? I don’t want to disturb you.’

‘I don’t mind if you wake me up,’ he said with the hint of a smile. ‘I’ll get cracking on tracing that Hotmail email before I crash.’

Gemma turned to go back to her office.

‘And I’ll consider what you’ve suggested,’ he added. ‘Maybe the situation can be salvaged.’

God, she thought. He made her sound like a shipwreck.