Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (13 page)

There was a stunned silence.

‘Show me,’ Minkie finally said. ‘How is it done?’

Gemma showed her. In the top left-hand corner, in the intricate etched floral pattern, tiny changes had been made. One of the filigree flowers had its fourth petal missing.

‘Four petals, four suites,’ she said. ‘Now look here.’ She pointed to the design of the border that ran around the edge of the cards, enclosing the floral design. It was a symmetrical Greek key pattern. ‘See how the seventh sequence of the pattern has been doctored?’ she said, pointing to the missing etched line. It was these doctored bits, she realised, that created the effect of the dancing white spots in the fast moving cards. ‘He’s used some sharp pointed object to lift off the surface of the printed pattern,’ she said. ‘This one has the second petal of the four-petalled flower missing. And the ninth castellation of the Greek key border missing. It will be a nine.’ The nine of clubs lay on the table in front of them. ‘And those with the first and third petal removed from the flowers in the corner are hearts and spades respectively.’ She pointed to the tiny white spots.

‘But I don’t understand,’ Minkie said, examining the cards. ‘Why would Benjamin have marked cards?’

Gemma let the silence lie around them for a long moment before holding up the key. ‘What about this?’ she said.

Minkie stared at it. ‘Where did you find that?’ she asked. Gemma waited, watching her. Her bewilderment seemed genuine. ‘Benjamin kept all his keys on a large keyring I gave him,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what that key is for. Or from.’

‘It looks like the key to a safe to me,’ said Gemma. ‘It was hidden inside the babushka dolls.’

Minkie looked shocked. ‘The dolls?’

‘Does your husband have a safe?’

Minkie’s expression brightened visibly. ‘That’s it,’ she said. ‘Yes, he does. It must be the key to the safe.’

‘Where is it?’

Minkie swivelled her head on its sinewy neck. ‘I really have no idea.’ She saw Gemma’s look and her face hardened. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘I can see you don’t believe me. But we didn’t live in each other’s pockets. We were not a conventional couple. Sometimes that’s hard for people to understand. Especially people like—’

‘People like me?’ Gemma asked, angered by the presumption and standing up. Her hostess stood up, too. Gemma took a step closer to Minkie. ‘You don’t know anything about me,’ she said. ‘If you did, you’d know that there’s nothing conventional about me.’ She thought of her parents and their tragic, fatal union. Was there something similar about the union of Minkie Montreau and Benjamin Glass? Is that why the alarm bells were starting to ring in her mind? Is my unconscious presenting me with a big fat clue that I can’t see? she wondered.

‘I didn’t mean to say it like that.’ Minkie tried another tack. ‘I meant, about our marriage—it was different from the usual suburban arrangement of domestic togetherness. Benjamin’s affairs were none of my business,’ she said. ‘I know he kept a safe somewhere. I imagine it’s hidden somewhere in his study. It was his private domain.’ Her face softened. ‘He used to call it his “cubby house”. As I’ve already told you, I never went in there.’ Yet she was a presence in the cubby house, Gemma realised, thinking of the large portrait which dominated the room.

‘Let’s go and check it, shall we?’ she asked.

Minkie followed her back into the study.

‘People often hide their safe behind a painting,’ she said to Minkie and together they struggled with the heavy portrait. It took all Gemma’s strength to lower it from the wall, even with Minkie’s help.

But, apart from a few opportunistic spiders, there was nothing but wall behind. In a few minutes, they’d checked behind the other paintings in the room. Nothing.

‘Okay,’ she said, looking at the rows and rows of books that lined the walls almost up to the roof. ‘They’ve all got to come out.’

•

In spite of the coolness of the day, Gemma soon worked up a sweat lifting and piling books. Stacks of them now stood around in piles on the floor, and on every available surface. They checked the walls behind the now empty shelves, Gemma running her fingers carefully over the surfaces, but there were not even any joins, just the smooth, cold, painted render. She found nothing. They stood in among the piles of books, making their way around them.

‘Is there anywhere else you can think of,’ Gemma asked, ‘where your husband might have kept a safe?’

While Minkie considered, Gemma frowned. What am I hoping to find, she asked herself. Something that will explain why one of Australia’s richest men was a card cheat?

‘Perhaps the safe was at the Bay?’ Minkie suggested, cutting into her thoughts.

Gemma thought of the spread-out twisted molten metal she’d visited, a whole house melted across the earth like a huge pancake. And even though most safes claim to be fireproof, she had little hope that any safe could have survived an inferno in which steel girders vaporised. Gemma thought about the likelihood of the safe being at Nelson Bay. That would put its contents, whatever they were, too far away. As a rule, people want access to their valuables without an intervening two- or three-hour drive. She shook her head. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said.

‘Your jewellery,’ she said to Minkie. ‘Where’s that kept?’

‘Here,’ said the other. ‘I keep it in my bedroom because I wear my pieces all the time. I know it’s not satisfactory, but the security is very good here.’

Gemma glanced at the pearls, worth a hundred thousand at least, she thought, just for them. She tried another tack. ‘Do you have any idea where he kept important documents?’

Minkie shook her head. ‘Things like his Will are with his solicitors. His practice was to keep all his other papers here. You would have seen these when you looked through his study.’

Gemma nodded.

‘Will you be telling the police about these things,’ Minkie said, ‘the key and the cards?’ There was a little-girl lostness in her voice, which surprised Gemma.

‘I’m not obliged to tell them anything unless it involves a serious offence.’

‘They’re not really important, are they?’ asked Minkie.

‘I can’t say that at this stage,’ said Gemma. ‘My feeling is that these cards could be very important indeed.’

Minkie looked as if she were about to burst into tears but she rallied quickly and shoved her hands in the pockets of her jacket, shivering.

‘I’ll need a letter from you,’ Gemma said, ‘authorising me to look around your husband’s office.’

Minkie pulled open a drawer, took out some stationery, and scribbled and signed a short letter on the heavy paper. She put it in an envelope and passed it to Gemma.

‘Give that to Rosalie, his assistant,’ she said. ‘She’ll look after you.’

‘And I’d like to take these with me, too,’ Gemma said, picking up a deck of cards from the pile. ‘I’ll return them when I’ve finished with them.’ She slipped them in her pocket with the letter and the key. Now that she had what she needed, Gemma decided it was time to show some of her own hand. ‘Minkie,’ she said, ‘I’m puzzled by you.’ She paused: she had the woman’s complete attention. ‘You hired me to investigate the mysterious fire at your holiday house. You say you believe your husband died in that fire. Yet you withhold vital information from me.’ The indignation in Gemma’s voice was genuine, she realised, as she felt irritation at Minkie’s duplicity. ‘I know that you’re keeping things from me,’ she said. ‘And this is just another instance. You first told me that the games he played here once a week were only social games. Now I discover he used marked cards. And he played for money. That’s a very different picture.’

Minkie looked away. ‘I don’t think you understand,’ she snapped, anger showing in her own eyes. ‘Money meant nothing to Benjamin. It was winning that was important.’

‘Money might have meant a great deal to the people he was playing with.’ Gemma put the decks of cards down in a small tower, one on top of the other. ‘Tell me the truth. How much money was involved?’

‘In the card games?’

Yes, Gemma was about to say, did you think I meant something else? She filed that away with what she’d seen in the BMW.

Minkie shook her head. ‘I really have no idea,’ she said. ‘I loathe card games myself. I never joined them. It was Benjamin’s thing.’

She paused. ‘I suppose,’ she conceded, ‘that the card games could have some bearing on the matter.’

‘It’s quite possible that your husband took large amounts of money from people in crooked games. It’s quite possible that someone is very angry about this. Being cheated of money is quite different from losing it gambling. It provides a definite motive and if I’m to work with you in an investigation into your husband’s disappearance, I should have known about it. You should have told me. I’ll need the names and numbers of all his card-playing friends. I’ll have to talk with them.’

Minkie sat in silence under Gemma’s relentless onslaught.

‘Now,’ she said, giving the woman one last chance, ‘is there anything else I should know? About either your husband or yourself that might have a bearing on my investigation? Any relationship perhaps, that might be problematic?’

There was a long silence during which the unknown dark man from the café loomed in Gemma’s mind. The cat eyes looked across at her, long and cool, and Minkie Montreau shook her head.

‘No,’ she whispered. ‘There’s nothing else. Nothing at all.’

At the Police Centre it seemed to take ages before the stout young woman calling Angie from the security desk
finally located her. Eventually, Angie, trim and neat in her dark blue suit, auburn hair neatly tied back, a pale pink blouse giving a lift to the navy blue, appeared on the stairs to the foyer. She and Gemma greeted each other and walked to the lift.

‘Sorry to keep you waiting,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t get away from a meeting. I’ve just been given a new title. Sex Industry Liaison Officer.’

‘Congratulations. Any money in it?’

‘Of course not. But it gets me out of the house.’

On the fifth floor, Angie swiped them both in through the security door of her section and ushered Gemma through, past littered desks and filing cabinets covered with photos of pets and postcards and into Angie’s glassed-off office.

‘Want a coffee?’ Angie offered. Gemma nodded and her friend vanished for a few moments, returning with two steaming white polystyrene cups.

‘Take a look at these,’ Gemma said, putting the marked cards in their box down on the desk next to her coffee.

Angie frowned, opened the box and took them out, looking closely at the backs of the cards, then studying the business sides, cutting and splicing them in a fast blur, just as Gemma had done, from halves to the full deck again. She smiled broadly. ‘Pick a card, any card. And I’ll tell you what it is.’

‘Ah-ha,’ said Gemma. ‘You worked it out.’

‘I learned more than just how to drink the boys under the table when I was with Fraud. Where did you get them?’

‘They belong—or belonged—to Benjamin Glass.’

‘The missing billionaire. Sean Wright’s on that job.’ Angie made the cards into a fan then, with a deft wrist movement, expertly opened them into a 360-degree circle. ‘Does Mr Right know about these?’ she asked.

‘Not yet. I’ll tell him about them if he tells
me
anything useful.’

‘You know our friend Mr Right isn’t known for his generous spirit when it comes to sharing information about an investigation.’

‘I’m hardly competition anymore, surely. I’m out of the job.’

‘There was a rumour going round a while ago that he liked you.’

‘What? Mr Right? He doesn’t like anyone.’

‘I’m just passing information. How’s Kit?’

Gemma sighed. ‘I don’t think I’m talking to her at the moment.’

‘But you can’t have an argument with Kit. I know what she’s like,’ said Angie.

Gemma came straight out with it. ‘Do
you
think I’m doing something dangerous by going on the street? To get a lead on that guy who’s been bashing the street girls?’

Angie sat down in her chair and leaned back, looking at Gemma with her clear eyes. She shook her head. ‘No more dangerous than what we do all the time. In fact, because of your background, probably less dangerous than most. Why?’

‘Kit reckons I’m living out some sort of compulsion. Putting myself at risk.’

‘She would. That’s how she sees life.’ Angie laughed. ‘You know I like your sister. And I admire the work she does, Gems. But these bleeding heart social workers .
 
.
 
. from a police perspective .
 
.
 
.’

Angie’s opinion of tertiary qualifications had always been dismissive and Gemma was stung. ‘She’s not a bleeding heart. And she’s not a social worker, either.’ said Gemma, defending her sister. She stood and walked over to the fabric screen partition which gave Angie’s office some privacy and stared at the photographs of Angie’s two dogs, Flo the German shepherd and Gig the Samoyed. Around them on the partition were stuck pictures from several hideous crime scenes treasured by Angie for reasons known only to herself. Gemma turned away from the photograph of a headless man sitting upright, his shotgun at an improbable angle nearby. She focused on her friend.

Angie was eyeing her curiously. ‘You’re really letting this get to you, aren’t you,’ she said. ‘That’s not like you.’

‘I don’t know what I am like anymore, Ange. I’ve had these strange feelings .
 
.
 
. premonitions. I don’t know. I had this dream. About a meteorite.’ She went over to a filing cabinet and fiddled with an empty vase on top of it. ‘It’s spooked me. I keep feeling I should be looking out for something, but I don’t know what.’

‘Stop dreaming, girl. I’ll knock off early and we’ll get our good clothes on. Go out for a night on the town. How long since you’ve been to Indigo Ice?’

‘I’m not so crazy about nightclubs anymore,’ said Gemma. ‘I haven’t been out for ages. Things are difficult at the moment. Psychos are tormenting me with obscene email. Steve’s out there doing something dangerous. I feel there’s something missing from my life. Something important.’

Angie picked up the deck of cards and let them fall through her fingers. Then she slowly swivelled in her chair from side to side. ‘You want to hear what I think?’ she said. ‘I think we’re sold that line, us single women, by a whole lot of people. For a whole lot of reasons. And eventually we come to believe it—that because we’re not doing the family thing, there’s got to be something missing. Then everyone loads us up with
their
stuff. Like, you have to have babies, or you have to have a man to look after, or you have to meditate, or you have to listen to your inner whatsit, or have whatever they think you have to have. It’s crap, girl. It’s a beat-up. No way
I’m
going to end up cooking dinner every night and folding socks and ironing some dickhead’s can’t-see-me-suits,’ said Angie, referring to the dark police overalls. ‘I’ve got my job, the dogs, the gym, training with the SPG, volunteer work. Occasionally, I even get sex. Hell, I haven’t got
time
for anything to be missing. And neither have you.’

Gemma collected up the marked deck. It was time to go. Angie saw her to the lifts.

‘Come on, honey. Let’s kick up our heels. We’ll have a drink and stir a few men.’

‘I think I’ve done that already,’ said Gemma, pulling out a card. She grimaced. It was the queen of hearts.

•

It was late by the time she arrived back at the office. She pulled up outside, switched the ignition off and sang along to the loud radio music. ‘
Will I ever get to see your face again?
’ she sang, thinking of Steve. Then she noticed Mike’s car still parked on the street. Once inside, Gemma knocked on the door of the operatives’ office and went in. She plonked the cards on the desk beside him. Mike picked them up, turned them over a few times then looked up at her.

‘Where did you get these?’ he asked. ‘They’re crooked.’

‘Minkie Montreau’s husband has five decks, all like these.’

‘So the great, possibly late philanthropist is a dirty rotten cheat,’ said Mike. ‘You just never know about people, do you?’ He chuckled. ‘I’ve got that program,’ he went on. ‘To block those emails.’

A short while later, she watched while Mike started entering the forbidden words as she read them from her list.

‘
Fuck
,’ she read, leaving a pause while he typed it in.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Next.’

‘
Cock
,’

She heard a sound behind her and Louise suddenly materialised, standing by the door, blinking in a startled way.

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’ll come back later. I just wanted to get my laptop.’ She stood awkwardly by the door.

‘Come in and get it,’ said Gemma, jumping up, feeling unreasonably irritated by the pale, quiet woman. This would be the first time Louise had wanted to take her laptop home with her. ‘It’s quite all right.’

Louise stared first at Gemma then at Mike. ‘I thought I was interrupting something personal,’ she said.

‘I didn’t know you were coming in today.’ Gemma frowned. ‘You didn’t ring.’

‘I’m sorry if I’ve come at an inconvenient time,’ said Louise. ‘I was in the area and I wanted to see what new jobs had come in as well.’ She paused. ‘Mike told me he was going out with you on some street job tonight. I don’t want to miss out on jobs just because I’m not here.’

‘You’re not missing out on anything,’ said Gemma in a matter-of-fact voice.

‘But I could’ve worked with you tonight, Gemma,’ said Louise, and there was no mistaking the resentment in her voice.

Mike swung round on the swivel chair, interrupting. ‘Gemma, speaking of tonight, I need to get some footage on Belinda Swann. I know she’s going out with a girlfriend this evening. It’s a chance to see her out of school uniform. I can do that early, then afterwards, I’m yours.’

Gemma saw Louise’s expression as Mike ignored her and it wasn’t pretty.

‘Louise,’ she said, determined to keep the irritation out of her voice, ‘I need a man for the job we’re talking about. It’s nothing to do with your competence, or you being away sick.’ Then she turned her attention back to Mike. ‘Okay. Back to business.’

‘Are these all the words you want listed?’ he asked.

‘So far,’ she said. ‘I’ll check my email today and see what’s there. It’s so damn depressing.’

‘I’ll deal with them for you if you like,’ he offered. ‘I can go through them and make a list. See what words and addresses we need to block.’ Gemma felt immensely grateful. ‘Thanks,’ she said to him.

‘I still don’t see why you couldn’t have asked me,’ Louise persisted. ‘You know I’m available at nights if Mum’s okay.’ Now she sounded forlorn as well as resentful.

‘You were
sick
,’ said Gemma, starting to lose patience with her. ‘And I didn’t know you were coming in right this minute. And anyway, that’s not the point with this job. Louise,’ she tried again, choosing her words carefully, ‘first, I need a male on this particular job, because of its nature. And secondly, Mike’s living arrangements leave him completely free at night.’ Mike batched with another separated man whom Gemma had only spoken to on the phone. ‘It’s no reflection on your capabilities. Okay?’

Louise remained staring at her, face tight and angry. Gemma had been aware of underground rumblings between Louise and Mike for some months now. Hostility wasn’t uncommon between operatives in a business such as hers where there is always an unspoken rivalry—different contracted rates of pay, different success rates ‘scoring’ solid evidence—and these differences can create jealousies if not handled with sensitivity and discretion, Gemma knew. Sometimes, she had to admit, she wasn’t the most practised manager of other human beings.

Gemma smiled, attempting to soften the situation. ‘I’m going to be a sex worker for the night. And like the other girls, I’ll need a minder.’

Louise looked from one to the other. ‘You mean a pimp,’ she said.

‘No,’ said Gemma with deliberate patience, ‘I mean a minder. “Pimp” is no longer a reflection of what the job entails.’

Louise glared at both of them, picked up her laptop, put it in its bag and left the room without another word.

‘Right,’ said Gemma briskly as soon as she’d gone, ‘I’ll ring when I start work, Mike, and tell you where to meet me.’ She went into her own office and gathered up her things. Maybe Louise wasn’t going to work out after all, she thought. I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment without having to deal with sulky women.

Mike crossed the corridor, knocked on her door and came into her office.

‘Let’s get this program into your system now,’ he said.

She started up her computer and gave him her seat. She liked seeing his broad, strong body sitting at her desk, scrolling through the email. It was good, she thought, to be taking action and to have his support. For a moment, she wished it was Steve sitting there. Then was glad it wasn’t. She didn’t want Steve ever to see the stuff that was coming through to her just lately. She left Mike to it, and went through the door at the end of the hall into her personal domain, where she made a snack, took a shower and changed her clothes.

On her way out, she called goodbye to Mike who was still sitting at her computer. ‘I’m going out now,’ she added, popping her head round the door, ‘so will you just close the front door when you leave? And slam the security gate? It’ll lock automatically.’

‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I’ll see you later. With a bit of luck, when you turn this on next, the only email you get will be email you want.’

She waved goodbye, leaving him at her computer making his list of nasty words, while she checked her notebook for Peter Fenster’s address and left.

•

Gemma pulled up in the narrow street. This was it. She got out of her car, noticing a plastic gilt icon of Agios Yiorgos dangling from the rear-vision mirror of a bronze Mitsubishi Scorpion parked outside the address, a one-storey terrace house. She walked in through the rusted open gate. Weeds grew among the pavers of the front path, rows of cacti in rusting tins decorated the length of the verandah and two wintering rose bushes struggled to survive in the cemented front yard. She stepped up onto the verandah, past the cacti and pressed the bell. Nothing happened. She tried again and waited. She was about to press the bell yet again, thinking that she might have to come back another time, when a man opened the door.

‘Peter Fenster?’ Gemma asked, flashing her private investigator’s ID. His heavy gold watch glinted and his mouth twisted into a smile as he took and read Gemma’s licence, molten brown eyes narrowing in a tanned face.

‘So?’ he said in a deep voice that matched his solid body. ‘Who wants to know?’ He looked at her card again. ‘“
Gemma Lincoln
”’ he read, ‘“
Mercator Security and Business Advisers
”.’ He handed the card back. ‘Not interested,’ he said. Gemma couldn’t help noticing the way his eyes travelled over her body. Some men are offensive from the moment they open their eyes in the morning, she thought, and Peter Fenster was one of them.

‘I’m a private investigator,’ she said. ‘May I come in?’ She had to roar her request because next door had suddenly started a chainsaw.

‘No way, lady,’ said Peter Fenster. ‘What’s this all about?’ He scowled. ‘If it’s anything to do with that bitch I divorced—’

‘It’s about a vehicle registered in your name reported as being involved in a vicious attack on a young woman,’ Gemma interrupted, watching his face closely.