Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (20 page)

•

An hour later, she pulled into Benjamin Glass’s Recycling and Manufacturing Industries’ parking area. The disappearance of the owner hadn’t made any difference to his business, she could see. Behind the tall cyclone fences the yards were busy with trucks delivering goods to the long factory building. The reception and information area was marked with a red and white sign. Gemma checked her briefcase and found the letter Minkie had written, glanced at her hair and lipstick in the mirror and swung out of the car, careful to place her feet together before she stood up. She managed the three wide steps to the building and pushed open the glass door to the foyer where a receptionist sat. The long timber counter was bare apart from a phone and a tall glass of artificial magnolias.

In a few minutes, she was sitting in Rosalie Luscombe’s office as Benjamin Glass’s personal assistant read the letter from his wife.

‘Here,’ Rosalie said, handing over a key on a tag. She had short cropped hair and a clean-scrubbed face. Until she stood up she reminded Gemma of an American boy actor who’d played in a family sitcom. Then Gemma saw that she was over six feet tall, and built like a footballer. She looked up at Rosalie’s unadorned face.

‘Do you know, Ms Luscombe,’ she asked, ‘if your boss had a safe in the office?’

‘I believe he has one,’ she said, and Gemma noted her use of the present tense, ‘but I’ve never known where it is.’

‘Any ideas?’

‘I’m not paid for guesswork,’ said the hefty woman. ‘And it was not my business.’

‘Ms Luscombe, I appreciate your discretion. But your employer is missing, possibly dead, and his wife needs your assistance. Not to mention the police and the insurers.’

This reference caused a further tightening of almost non-existent lips. Rosalie Luscombe’s features clamped down in distaste. ‘The police and the insurers can make their own arrangements as far as I’m concerned,’ she said. ‘And I’m sure that woman doesn’t need me.’

She led Gemma to the room at the end of the hallway, took the key back from Gemma and deftly unlocked the door, standing back to let her enter.

‘Call me if you need anything,’ she said. ‘I can hear you from where I sit. I could always hear Mr Glass when he called.’

Gemma watched her walk back down the corridor. Then she turned to examine her surroundings. If the home office had been the elegant and richly furnished retiring room of a gentleman, this office was all briskness and efficiency, with a lot of black and white epoxy resin around the light fittings, the desk lamp and even the furniture, the whole space lit by frosted windows. It was a cool white place of business, a bit like the inside of a Tupperware box, Gemma thought. She looked around. She was starting to get a sense of the character of the missing man now. Someone with very clean-cut boundaries between the different components of his life, she thought. Someone who kept these areas widely separated. In this way, she imagined, he could be a man of moral contradictions without creating too much inner conflict: a philanthropist and cardsharp, patron and cheat, gentleman and ragpicker who made his fortune recycling garbage.

She went over to Benjamin Glass’s black chair and sat in it, surprised to find it was covered in soft suede and not the leather she’d been expecting. Here was another little bit of information to add to the puzzle—someone with a love of comfort, a sensualist. Apart from framed certificates and awards, the walls of the office were bare of decoration. Gemma swung round and checked the desk, going all over it and even under it, looking for secrets. It was clean. She got down on the floor as she’d done in the Vaucluse study, taking great care of her injured leg, and patted her way across the serviceable grey carpet tiles, failing to find any irregularity. Then she went all over the walls, tapping and listening, but there was nothing. Just the solid sound of the timber framework, all in order, and all where it should be, behind gyprock cladding.

Years of experience had taught Gemma that men kept their secrets in the shed. It didn’t have to be an actual shed, just somewhere completely personal and private. She’d found all sorts of things there over the years. She’d even cut down a couple of men who’d hanged themselves in their sheds. A man’s shed was his bolt-hole, his earth. The study at the grand mansion Benjamin Glass shared with Minkie and the now destroyed work tower of the Nelson Bay holiday home were neither of them private enough, she thought, to be the shed, because they were both areas of shared access. But this place was different. In spite of its bareness, she felt that this arctic office was Benjamin Glass’s ‘shed’.

She stood in the centre of the room and looked around. Apart from a photograph of himself and his cat, there were no other personal items in the room. She picked up the picture and studied the missing animal, noticing its unusual patterning, like black and white checks. She put it down again, feeling dejected, no closer to discovering the lead, the break, the mysterious
something
that might help her in this case. Defeated, she turned towards the door and was walking out when she remembered something from an old police investigation. On a hunch, she went back down the corridor to where Rosalie Luscombe sat, frowning at her monitor screen. She looked up sternly at Gemma’s approach.

‘Ms Luscombe,’ she said ‘I can’t find the safe. His wife says he had one, you say he has one. Why can’t I find it?’

‘I really can’t help you,’ said Rosalie Luscombe, a tad too happily, Gemma thought.

She cleared her throat. ‘This might sound odd, but I want to ask you something.’ Rosalie Luscombe cocked her cropped head, waiting.

‘Have you ever .
 
.
 
. I’m not quite sure how to phrase this .
 
.
 
. did you ever walk into Mr Glass’s office and find him in an odd position? An unexpected position?’ She tried another way. ‘Have you ever surprised him in his office when he wasn’t expecting anyone?’

‘I always knock.’ The woman bridled.

‘I’m sure you do. But sometimes people don’t hear.’

Rosalie’s eyes narrowed as she searched her memory. ‘Once or twice over the years I’ve worked for Mr Glass,’ she admitted, ‘he hasn’t heard my knock. Why do you ask?’

‘Just tell me what happened on those occasions,’ Gemma said.

‘I had the feeling he’d just straightened up from doing something.’ She sniffed. ‘As if he was looking through the keyhole or something, near the door.’ She picked up a blue folder and put it down again. ‘I did wonder at the time what he might have been doing,’ she said. ‘Because we don’t have keyholes anymore, do we?’ She shrugged.

Gemma felt warmer towards her. ‘You’ve been a great help,’ she said, turning away from the puzzled secretary with a smile.

As fast as her injuries would let her, she hurried back to the cold white office. She closed the door and squatted down, wincing as she did, so that she was looking straight at the lock. Okay, she thought, looking around. There’s nothing to see. Just the door. No one could see through a modern lock, she knew. So what was he doing down here? She looked down. On the floor on the inside of the door ran a metal strip trim, forming a division between the grey carpet tiles of Benjamin Glass’s office and the even more serviceable rattan tiles of the corridor. Gemma focused all her attention on the metal strip, feeling along the length of it, studying the small brass screws that kept it firmly in position. And, sure enough, she saw what she was looking for: around each of the screws were innumerable tiny scratches, fine as cobwebs. These screws had been loosened and tightened many, many times. She pulled out her Swiss Army knife and started on the first one. It came away easily. In a few minutes, she had all six screws out and was lifting the metal trim up. Underneath the partly lifted carpet squares, Gemma could see dull metal, not the concrete slab that she’d expect to find here. Benjamin Glass had organised the safe so that the body of it lay in a cavity that started just inside his office and ran underneath part of the hall floor. She pulled the carpet tiles away. There it was, a plump solid safe with the door side exposed. Returning to her briefcase, she found the key and got down on the floor again. For a painful moment it wouldn’t turn, but then the mechanism slid into place with ease and the door opened sideways.

Gemma peered into the metallic silver-grey interior. There was no fortune in banknotes to tempt her integrity—just another two decks of playing cards, a surgical scalpel and a large envelope. Carefully, she drew the items out, closing the safe door, replacing the carpet squares, refitting the metal trim, screwing it back down and putting the objects safely into her briefcase. She went over to the desk and picked up the photograph of the millionaire philanthropist and his cat with its funny checked face. ‘The cat’s out of the bag now, maybe,’ she whispered to them and left, locking the office behind her.

She walked back down the hall and said goodbye to Ms Luscombe but just as she was about to leave her office, she turned back.

‘Ms Luscombe,’ she asked, ‘where’s Mr Glass’s cat?’

‘The cat?’ said the other, surprised. ‘I have no idea. It’s certainly not here. I imagine Mr Glass took it to the Bay with him. Poor thing must have perished in the fire.’

Gemma thanked her again and hobbled out of the building back to her car. So, the cat must have been in the house. It wasn’t here and it wasn’t at the Vaucluse mansion. But she was too eager to examine what she’d found in the safe under the floor in Benjamin Glass’s office to worry about the missing cat right now. She couldn’t wait to check out what she’d found so she drove a little way down the road, parked and pulled out the items to have a closer look at what Benjamin Glass had so carefully secreted away.

First she examined the cards, flicking through the deck. One pack was quite normal and the other had only a few of the flickering white marks when she whizzed the cards through her fingers. The marking process obviously hadn’t been finished on this deck. She examined the fine point on the scalpel blade then turned her attention to the envelope and opened it. She looked through the contents. Wow, she thought. What have we got here? And, more to the point,
who
have we got here? She felt elated by this new line of inquiry, enlivened with new enthusiasm.

She shoved the items back in her carry bag, stowed it on the floor and drove home, finding that her injured foot was starting to ache. She was resigned to the fact that eventually she might have to hand the articles she’d found over to Sean Wright. Section 316 of the Crimes Act made that very clear. But there was nothing she’d discovered so far that suggested any serious crime and on this basis, she decided, she could give herself a little grace. This could be the breakthrough I need on the Benjamin Glass disappearance, she thought.

On the way home, she dropped into Gallery Europa. The same receptionist with the varnished helmet-like hair-do was behind the desk. As the woman raised her head to greet Gemma, she showed no sign of recognition.

‘Anthony Love,’ Gemma said. ‘Any word of him?’

‘As a matter of fact, he hasn’t been near the gallery in the last week or so.’ She peered at Gemma. ‘You left your card, didn’t you?’ Gemma nodded. ‘I said I’d give it to him when I see him. Haven’t seen him, couldn’t give it, could I?’ Then she lowered the helmet again.

•

When Gemma let herself in, she could hear the sound of the television. ‘Hullo?’ she called. ‘Hugo?’

He was sitting up on the lounge with Taxi, the two of them watching a video, and he jumped up, looking guilty, as she came in.

‘I took the money from the kitchen,’ he said, ‘in the jar.’

For a second, Gemma didn’t know what he meant, then she realised he was talking about the jar of change on top of the fridge that came in handy for the occasional bus fare and newspaper.

‘You said I could help myself.’ He looked away. ‘The man at the video shop remembered me,’ he continued sadly. ‘He asked me if I was living back here again.’

She came and sat beside him. ‘Hugo, just pause that film for a sec?’ He did so, looking scared. ‘It’s okay, Hugo,’ she said. ‘But you must realise that a boy your age can’t live here and just watch videos all day. It’s not right. I’ll have to ring your mum.’

His despairing face nearly broke her heart. Don’t do this to me, she begged inwardly. It’s not fair. You’re not my responsibility. I don’t even think of you for long periods of time. I don’t owe you anything. Instead, she tried patting him awkwardly.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Everything will be okay.’ She knew from her own experience this was a stupid thing to say to a child. But she had so much to deal with—the pressure of work, the fears she had concerning her own safety, the worry about Steve. I’ve got so much to do right now, she thought, I can’t have a bloody kid hanging round my neck.

‘What’s your phone number in Melbourne?’

The Ratbag looked at her. ‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘Don’t be so damn stupid, Hugo,’ she snapped. ‘Of course you know your own phone number.’ Now she was really angry.

But his set face and determined mouth did not change.

Gemma jumped up. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘we do it nicely or we do it hard. Which way do you want?’ Now she felt mean, using the sort of pressure she’d applied to crims in the past on a little lost boy. ‘If you don’t tell me,’ she continued, ‘I’ll have to go to the police. They’ll track your mother down in ten minutes flat. So what’s it to be?’ She stood, hands on hips, waiting for an answer. Behind her, the paused movie clicked off and a television program took its place. Gemma swung round and snapped it off. Her phone rang and she snatched it up.

‘Yes?’

‘It’s me,’ said Angie. ‘I’ve just heard that Sean and the Crime Scene people found what looks like human remains at the fire site at Nelson Bay. I knew you’d like to know rather than have Mr Right teasing you about it. The bits and pieces are at the morgue right now. They were found in the lowest section of the place, probably protected when the building collapsed.’

‘So they’ll have him identified?’

‘The lab out at Lidcombe is running the DNA tests soonest.’