Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (27 page)

‘I’m really, really scared,’ Skanda was saying, as if Gemma didn’t believe her.

You’re scared all right, Gemma thought. But of what?

Skanda returned to the kitchen, pulled on the rubber gloves again, picked up another spray cleanser and started rewiping the already spotless surfaces. Gemma wondered what Kit would make of this cleaning compulsion and she thought of Lady Macbeth.

‘You’d better go,’ Skanda said without turning around. ‘I have a client due any minute.’

Gemma started to walk towards the door and only then did Skanda swing round, still ashen-faced.

‘Those photographs,’ she said. ‘Who has them?’

‘Only me at the moment,’ Gemma lied. ‘So far, no one else knows who you are.’

‘You don’t have to tell them about me,’ Skanda said. She put the spray container and cloth down. ‘Please. I was just a sex surrogate. I’ve got nothing to do with Benjamin Glass or his life. I was just someone who worked for him, like his cleaner or his driver. No,’ she added. ‘Not even as important as that.’

‘If that’s the case,’ Gemma said ‘why do you need to keep it secret? What’s the big deal?’

‘Oh for God’s sake! Don’t be so stupid!’ the woman snapped. ‘Why would anyone—especially someone like me—want to get dragged into a fucking murder investigation?’

Gemma decided to be cheeky. ‘Your duty as a citizen who respects the rule of law and supports democratic principles?’

Skanda stared at her with blank hostility.

‘When did you meet Benjamin Glass?’ Gemma said.

‘I’ve told you. Through the Chester Clinic. A while ago.’

‘How long?’

Skanda screwed up her pretty face as if it was hard to remember. ‘Bit over a year.’

‘And he was still undergoing sex therapy with you?’

‘Yes he was.’

Gemma thought there’d be no harm in a straight question. ‘Ms Bergen,’ she said, ‘did you kill Benjamin Glass?’

Skanda’s wide eyes became wider. ‘Why the hell are you asking me a question like that?’ she said. ‘Do you think I’m the sort of person who goes round killing people?’ Her jaw had dropped in shock. ‘You must be crazy.’

‘I’m not crazy,’ said Gemma, ‘I’m investigating the case. I’ve been retained by a client and I want to know the answer.’

Skanda viciously sprayed cleaner on a spotless wall and scrubbed hard. ‘I’ve told you everything I know,’ she said. ‘Benjamin Glass came here with a referral from Pauline or Jerry—’

‘From the clinic?’

‘Yes.’

‘And?’

‘We’d do what we had to do.’

‘And what was that?’

‘Book a time, darling, and I’ll show you,’ Skanda snarled, grabbing the vacuum cleaner and pushing it aggressively in Gemma’s direction. ‘I don’t have to answer your damned questions. I can tell you to go to hell, you know.’ She switched on the machine.

‘You can,’ Gemma shouted above the noise. ‘And I can tell the police about you. Right now.’

Skanda lunged around the room with the vacuum cleaner.

‘Turn that damn thing off and tell me what I want to know,’ said Gemma, ‘and I might be able to lose your name for a while. Tell me what you and Mr Glass did.’

Gemma waited. Finally Skanda switched the cleaner off. Then she stamped around like a crazed parlourmaid, straightening a pile of magazines, putting on a CD, plumping up cushions, generally tidying an already perfectly tidy room.

‘Sometimes it was just body work, you know, massage. Pressure points. Breathing techniques.’ Her mouth curled down in distaste. ‘Most men are so fucked up about sex they find it impossible to enjoy full body orgasm. They’re fixated on their pricks. They just do those little spurts and grunts and think they’ve climaxed.’

She opened the front door and stood waiting beside it. Gemma took the cue and stood in the doorway, ready to leave.

‘And was that the case with Benjamin?’

‘He was improving a lot.’

Skanda’s face showed a hard, bitter expression that was gone almost the moment Gemma noticed it. Gemma stepped outside, said goodbye and Skanda closed the door. She took her time going back down to her car, thinking over the interview. Skanda Bergen was a case, that was clear enough, with her crazy cleaning routines. And she was furious. Was she so self-centred that she took Benjamin Glass’s death personally, angry at the loss of such a rich client? Gemma jotted down a few notes about the angry, defensive nature of the woman and her obsessive compulsion to clean. She couldn’t quite find the words she needed to describe whatever it was that lay in those darting eyes. Something volatile, dangerous. She looked forward to discussing it with Kit.

Across the road, under the spreading protection of a huge Moreton Bay fig, a couple were embracing. All the pain and jealousy about Steve came rushing back again. She stared at the pair, wondering where her man was, and what he was doing. Just in this moment, Gemma didn’t care that she had a teasing new lead into the Benjamin Glass investigation. Right now, all she could think about was the fact that Steve was living with another woman, sleeping under her roof, putting his arm around her waist. Gemma straightened her shoulders and got into her car. Earlier, she’d made an appointment to visit Mike. It was time to clear the air in that direction, at least. On the way to Mike’s place, she couldn’t shake the feeling she was being followed. Uneasy, she checked her mirror. The traffic behind her seemed innocent but she checked her rear-view mirror more often than usual.

•

The house Mike Moody shared with another deserted husband was a small Victorian terrace not far from the University of New South Wales at Kensington. Mike opened the door at her knock and she was shocked at his appearance. One eye was black, there was a stitched split over his eyebrow, another on the cheekbone, and the right side of his mouth was grazed and swollen.

‘God,’ she said. ‘You do look terrible.’

‘This is good,’ he responded, ‘compared to how I was the other night.’ His voice sounded flat, bruised lips hardly moving. He watched as she hobbled in. ‘And anyway,’ he said, ‘you’re not too smart yourself.’

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I forgive you. I didn’t think I’d ever want to see you again,’ she said, ‘let alone employ you.’

‘Thanks,’ he grunted. ‘Can I get you something? Tea? Coffee?’

He busied himself in the kitchen and Gemma looked around. It was definitely a rented bachelor domain. An old sunken lounge in front of the television, a dying indoor plant, a few chairs and clothes drying on a clothes horse near a small heater comprised the furniture of the living room. Mike came back with two coffees and set them down on an uncomfortably low coffee table, a refugee from the ’70s, all orange and lime-green ceramic tiles.

‘Excuse the mess,’ he said. ‘I’m not much of a housekeeper.’ He went into the kitchen again and returned with a large round cake tin, opening it to reveal an elaborate chocolate cake and offered her a wicked looking slice.

‘Whipped it up yourself, did you?’ she joked.

Mike nodded. ‘Actually, yes, I did. I’m working through an international cake cookbook. This is a Bavarian recipe. Bit like Black Forest cake. Every week I make the next cake in the book.’

Gemma stared at him. ‘I’m astonished,’ she said.

‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Most of the great chefs are men.’

‘It’s not a skill I associate with police officers,’ she said. ‘It’s delicious,’ she added, when she’d tasted it.

Mike replaced the lid on the cake tin and took it back to the kitchen, returning with a small piece for himself. He ate with difficulty, chewing only on one side of his jaw, and barely moving his wounded mouth. What a pair we are, she thought. But at least Mike caught his target on video. Mine got away.

‘Want to see what I got?’ he asked.

Gemma blinked, wondering for a moment what he was talking about. Then he slid a cassette into his VCR. The image was blurred for a second until the automatic focus hardened the edges around a young girl, tall, full-breasted, her upper body encased in a low-cut bustier in black leather, held together with studs, her back completely naked. Thigh-high boots with dangerously high heels covered tight leather hipster pants, revealing a trim tanned belly with a jewelled navel. Belinda Swann, Gemma thought, looking like a vision from Miss Kitty’s House of Bondage. No one seeing this would imagine the girl could possibly be fourteen. It was the sort of image that would be very helpful to Belinda Swann’s ex-boyfriend’s counsel.

‘How old would you think she was if you didn’t know?’ Mike asked.

Gemma considered. Taking into account her make-up, her height and mature-looking figure, Gemma tried to forget she knew the girl’s age. ‘I think if you said twenty-six no one would argue,’ she replied.

‘Watch this bit,’ said Mike. ‘You can see the two guys there’—he pointed to two murky figures standing behind the queue near the door of the nightclub—‘the ones who bashed me.’

Gemma studied them as they loomed closer.

‘I kept filming,’ said Mike. ‘You never know when it might be needed in court.’

The men’s features became clear as the automatic zoom righted itself. Young, fit, dark, dangerous, she thought. They started walking towards the camera and then it all happened. The camera angle suddenly swerved, swung upside-down and the images became incomprehensible. Then came the grainy black and white tweed pattern as the picture was lost. Mike stood up and switched it off.

‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘But we’ve got those two cold if we ever meet up with them again. I’ve already printed off copies for the cops.’

Gemma turned to him. ‘Mike,’ she said, ‘I owe you an apology. I was furious with you. I thought you’d just stood me up.’ She didn’t tell him she’d really wanted to see him to make sure his injuries justified his no-show the other night.

As if reading her thoughts, Mike attempted a lop-sided smile. ‘You came round to check me out, didn’t you?’ he said. ‘Make sure I was fair dinkum?’

He’d got it in one, she thought.

‘I’d do the same,’ he said, ‘if I’d been in your shoes. After all, you don’t really know me very well yet. It takes ages to build up a working trust in a game like this one. I just hope you believe I’m trustworthy. I like working with you.’

It was hard to know if he was trying on a low grade flirt, or merely speaking his mind.

‘That’s nice,’ she said vaguely before continuing. ‘I didn’t realise you’d been so badly assaulted, Mike. And then your dopey flatmate lost my mobile number and couldn’t ring. So I didn’t know what the hell was going on.’

Mike rehoused the cassette in a black cover and put it away.

‘My flatmate is now my ex-flatmate. He moved out a few days ago,’ he said. ‘He’s always got to keep one step ahead of his ex. She finds out where he lives and does terrible things to him.’

‘Like what?’

‘Mean things. Prawn heads in the hub caps. Graffiti on the walls. Shit in brown paper bags type of things. That sort of stuff. She broke into one of the places he was renting and destroyed everything in his wardrobe. But she’ll get her comeuppance.’

‘What do you mean?’ Gemma asked, uneasy at the turn the conversation seemed to be taking.

‘I ran a check on her new boyfriend,’ he said. ‘And he’s got a criminal record. Real nasty.’

Gemma stood up, brushing crumbs off her knee. ‘I’d better get going.’

‘I won’t be far behind you,’ he said, picking up the cups and plates, taking them back into the kitchen. Then he went into the bedroom, leaving Gemma perched on the arm of the lounge. From that position, she could just see into the bedroom, painted an ugly green, with stacks of CDs and books, and on the wall, a poster of a naked woman, a bullseye target on one breast.

The door moved slightly and Mike came back out carrying a coat.

‘I want to do a full forensic on that computer of yours,’ he said. ‘Make sure everything’s ridgey-didge. You’ll definitely need to upgrade your security.’ He checked his wristwatch. ‘I’ll need it for a couple of hours. You can have it back as soon as I’ve finished. Is that okay?’

It was more of a statement than a question, and Gemma nodded.

‘Just excuse me for a moment,’ Mike said, vanishing into the bathroom, closing the door. While he was occupied, Gemma crept into the green bedroom. An old suede jacket hung from the doorknob. Gemma felt around in its pockets and found a man’s handkerchief. Gingerly, she pulled it out. It was heavily bloodstained. Pinching it between two fingernails, she folded tissues from the nearby box around it and slid it into her pocket. Close up, she could see that the poster of the naked woman had been further defaced, not only by the bullseye over her heart, but also by what appeared to be small stab wounds around her other breast, belly and groin. Both eyes had been scratched out with a sharp instrument. It was so ugly that she jumped in fright when she heard a sudden sound. It was only the toilet flushing next door so she limped back to the living area and was innocently loitering near the front door when Mike came out, drying his hands. She felt the purloined handkerchief, safe in her pocket. I’ll get this matched against any DNA traces from the previous attacks, she thought. I 
have
to eliminate Mike from this or I’ll forever be unsure about him. The two assaults were hours apart; it’s possible for him to have been involved with both. And I need to see Kit soon, too, and talk to her; do whatever it takes to get our relationship back on track again.

•

Her mobile rang. It was Minkie Montreau returning her call. Gemma arranged to see her but first she dropped the handkerchief off to Angie at the Police Centre who parcelled it up neatly for the Analytical Laboratory and promised personal delivery later that day.

‘Tell Ric to match it against the attacks on Robyn Warburton and Shelly.’

‘What are you up to?’ Angie asked. ‘Whose is this?’ And she indicated the package.

‘Just do it,’ said Gemma. ‘I’ll explain later.’

‘You’re not withholding anything from the relevant authorities, are you, girl?’ asked Angie.

‘It’s just a real wild card,’ said Gemma. ‘Elimination purposes only.’ But Angie’s words reminded her of another package. She fished it out of her briefcase. ‘And give these photographs to Sean?’ She handed over the pictures of Skanda Bergen in her birthday suit and gloves. ‘Tell him I found them among Benjamin Glass’s possessions.’ She wondered how long it would take Mr Right to track down the late philanthropist’s bedmate.