Rubdown (3 page)

I felt my face go hot then cold. A couple of minutes later a dark green Laser braked hard in front of me and a young man in a striped tie and rolled up shirtsleeves slammed the door and hurried along the concrete path to the flats, a big keychain jangling in his hand. The urge to know what was going on overrode concerns about blowing my cover and I jumped up and followed him, lurking out of sight in the stairwell as he tried different keys.

‘Hurry up,’ screeched dressing gown lady.

The real estate agent fumbled with two keys before the third caught the lock and clicked it open. The lady shoved past him, pushed open the door and ran inside. He trailed after her.

Five seconds later my shoulders spasmed in shock as I heard a short, sharp scream. I didn’t think, just ran to Tamara’s, elbowing curious neighbours out of the way. The real estate agent was sitting on a tatty brown couch, head in his palms. Dressing gown lady was crawling along the hallway outside a closed door, panting like a dog, strings of saliva hanging from her mouth. As I approached the carpet became spongy and wet. I pulled my jumper down over my fingertips and reached for the handle.

‘Don’t,’ said the agent.

But I did.

The bathroom was covered in blood. Arterial sprays splattered the tiled walls as far up as the ceiling and the air was ripe with a metallic slaughterhouse tang. Tamara floated naked in the overflowing bath, face up on a sea of red. Bloody water bubbled up from the blocked drain hole and lapped at my feet. I saw her wrists had been slit deeply, lengthways, the puckered wounds exposing severed veins and tendons.

Her dead eyes stared right at me.

Tamara’s funeral was seven days later at a church in Brighton.

It had been a shit of a week. Questions from St Kilda CIU and interviews with the Homicide Squad, called in whenever a death is suspicious. Tony, Dave and I had to surrender client instructions, surveillance logs, still photos and video. We were about to be re-interviewed when the forensic pathologist in charge of the case ruled suicide. Tamara had taken a whole bunch of Temazepam, then slit her wrists. Her prints were on the packet and blade and no one else had been in the flat. End of story.

The media wallowed in it like pigs in shit.
Poor Little Rich Girl,
From Private School to Prostitution.
They faked sympathy while revelling in the salacious details. As I crunched through brittle leaves I saw them huddled across the road from the church.

Cameras, tripods, boom mikes. Not one gave a damn about poor dead Tamara, just the money shot of Veronica and Blaine.

I slid on sunglasses and turned up the collar of my brown suede coat before entering the gates and hurrying up the steps to the old sandstone church. I’d had my photo in the paper after Chloe’s kidnapping and once was more than enough in an industry where anonymity was your greatest asset.

Inside the double doors I looked for a place to sit. The pews on the left held family, footballers, entertainment types, journalists scribbling notes and a whole bunch of straight folks all dressed in black. A smattering of sex workers stood out in bold colours and shiny fabric on the right hand side and that’s where I sat down, in the last row next to the aisle for a fast getaway. Four pews in front I noticed a tall woman in a silver lamé dress with matching pillbox hat and veil. When she turned to swig from a half bottle of Wild Turkey I saw it was Lulu, the trannie from the Good Times Club, and she was crying. Rivulets of black mascara ran down her cheeks.

My throat constricted and I looked away, right to the altar where white flowers draped a glossy mahogany coffin. Jesus. Hot welling joined the tight throat and I was glad of my sunglasses. I hadn’t been to a funeral in a long time. Why had I come to this one?

I’d tried to work it out during the drive over. There was definitely guilt involved. For not realising she was suicidal. For sitting outside her flat like a stalker while she was in there slicing up her veins. In a small way she reminded me of me but probably the main reason was a selfish one. By coming to the funeral I might get some Oprah style ‘closure’ and stop seeing Tamara’s wide open eyes, burned on my retinas like I’d stared straight into the sun.

A priest got up and did his thing. ‘Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death’, a hymn and then Blaine Wade approached the lectern looking like he’d just stepped off the pages of GQ: black suit, broad shoulders, sun-kissed hair flopping onto high cheekbones. He cleared his throat and read from a series of index cards, telling the crowd how Emery married Susan and adopted two year old Tamara. That he was born a year later and couldn’t have asked for a better older sister … until…

‘She was fourteen when the trouble started. Typical teenage stuff, I guess. Staying out late, sneaking cigarettes, arguing with Mum and Dad. Then came the drinking, and later, the drugs.’ He shuffled cards and his voice cracked. ‘I … I should have reached out to her but I was so into my sport then, training morning and night. When she was sixteen she ran away and moved in with an older friend. Eventually, like so many others, she drifted into prostitution and drugs…’

God, he made her sound like a smacked out street whore when I suspected it was just handjobs and eccies.

‘Although Tamara had fallen by the wayside she deserved our compassion, not our condemnation, and so do all the other girls caught up in that nightmare world. Because if it happened to my sister it can happen to anyone.’ Blaine was crying now, but my eyes were definitely dry. Nightmare world? Puh-leese. Then it got worse.

‘Veronica and I refuse to let Tamara’s death be in vain so we’ve set up the Tamara Wade Foundation. A charity to get girls out of the sex industry and off drugs by providing rehabilitation, education and sporting programs to help them reach their true potential and be the best they can be.’ He was smiling now, sad but hopeful. ‘To kickstart the foundation we’ve pitched in twenty thousand of our own money and Veronica has recorded a ballad, “Tamara’s Song”. A dollar from every copy sold will go to the foundation. Veronica, come up here, honey.’

Veronica walked up to the altar like she was walking onto a stage. She was thinner than she looked on TV and appeared to be composed entirely of different shades of caramel, from her tawny skin to her hair to her eyes. Her flowing black dress managed to be both groovy and virginal and would have left no change from two grand.

The priest handed her a microphone and sad piano music seeped from hidden speakers. Veronica began to sing, swaying and swishing her hair around, not in a slutty, Christina Aguilera way, but all soulful and churchy.

The song was shithouse, in the same vein as ‘Wind Beneath My Wings’ but with lyrics about broken dolls and street kids.

When she hit the high notes I feared the stained glass windows would shatter and impale us all with deadly shards. Soon as she stopped warbling the entire left side of the church jumped to their feet and clapped. The sex workers remained seated, arms crossed.

When the applause finally died down Lulu slurred loudly, ‘Tammy would have hated that. She liked Limp Bizkit.’

I was leaning against a rough stone wall in the churchyard hiding behind my sunglasses and smoking a cigarette when pallbearers slid the coffin into a waiting hearse. I’d promised myself not to smoke unless I drank but felt sure alcohol was only moments away.

The sun was doing its typical Melbourne thing, ducking in and out of clouds as mourners spilled down the church steps onto a gravel driveway. Emery, an anaemic blonde who had to be his wife Susan, Blaine and Veronica arranged themselves into a receiving line and people in expensive black ebbed around them, complimenting Veronica on her beautiful voice. A motley band of working ladies, nightclubbers and trannies congregated under an oak tree and sparked up durries, debating the whereabouts of the nearest pub.

From where I stood Susan Wade didn’t look so good: pale and sweaty with eyeballs darting all over the place. I wasn’t surprised when her knees sagged and she lurched against her husband.

Emery caught her around the waist and nodded towards a short, barrelly guy hanging around the edge of the family. He wore cowboy boots and a curly mullet and the two of them helped Susan into a waiting black Mercedes.

Soon as they were gone Lulu broke away from the oak tree posse, swigged the last of the Wild Turkey and chucked the empty bottle over her shoulder into a shrub. She weaved her way over to Blaine and Veronica and stood in front of them, swaying on her heels.

‘Darlings,
so
happy to hear about your engagement,’ she said, and spread her arms as though to gather them both in a group hug.

Blaine blushed, looked down and kicked a small stone.

Veronica’s gracious smile froze on her face. She looked around for help and the guy with the mullet trotted back from the car on his miniature feet, inserting himself between the celebrities and six foot trannie like an overprotective pitbull. Too short for security, I wondered if he were their publicist, desperate to keep his charges from being photographed next to a chick with a dick. The photographers, sensing trouble, inched into the driveway.

Lulu kept coming. Mullet guy pushed her back and told Blaine and Veronica to get in the car. The cameras moved like a multi-headed hydra. Flashes, electronic clicks.

Veronica grabbed Blaine and dragged him towards the Mercedes. Lulu lunged to stop them and mullet shoved her in the chest. She stumbled, recovered and slapped him on the face.

He roared and charged her in a rugby tackle, grabbing her waist and slamming her onto the gravel where they rolled around punching and grabbing. Everyone froze except the photographers, who crowded around, madly snapping off shots.

Jesus. I ground my cigarette under the heel of my boot, ran over and pushed through the throng. I don’t like men hitting women, no matter if they’re the kind with an Adam’s apple and three day growth.

I tugged on mullet’s shoulder. ‘Hey, get off her.’

A woman in purple crushed velvet appeared at my side and took hold of his other arm. Together we dragged him away and Lulu picked herself off the ground.

‘Fuckin’ freak,’ he spat.

Lulu brushed gravel off her dress and raised one perfectly arched brow. ‘At least I’m not a washed up one hit wonder.’

We strained to hold him back as Taylor and Janine raced over and bustled Lulu out. ‘Come on, love. We’ll get you home.’

Mullet pulled himself free, smoothed down his jacket and stalked off. I turned to the woman who had helped me. She was mid-thirties with curly auburn hair and a heart shaped face.

‘Who was that?’ I asked.

‘Billy Chevelle, seventies pop star.’ She brushed hair from her mouth, pulled a Ginger Nektar out of her big patchwork bag and offered me a sip. I took it. Grappling a mullet guy was thirsty work. ‘He’s Veronica and Blaine’s manager.’

I held out my hand. ‘Simone.’

‘I know.’ She shook it. ‘I’m Hannah. You’re the PI got my relaxation centre closed down.’

‘Say what?’ I said.

‘Homicide paid me a visit after you gave them my card. Wasn’t a raid, just wanted to know about Tammy but under the circumstances I thought it best to close up shop and move.’

‘Jeez.’ I shrugged. ‘Sorry.’

She tipped her head to the side and rubbed my shoulder.

‘Don’t worry about it. I’m not. Stressing only gives you cancer.

You’ve just got to go with the flow.’

Uh-huh. I said, ‘I wouldn’t have picked you for an illegal brothel owner.’

‘And what’s an illegal brothel owner supposed to look like?’

She had me there so I changed the subject. ‘What did you think of the funeral?’

‘Tammy and I had our differences but she didn’t deserve that. That was completely fucking offensive. Listen, can I have a card?’

‘Why?’

‘Never know. Might need your services.’

I shrugged as I handed it over. People always said that when they found out I was an inquiry agent. No one ever followed through.

One of the photographers approached, face hidden behind an oversized lens. ‘Hey, ladies, wanna be in the newspaper?’

Hannah spun around and marched off, curls bouncing.

‘Come on.’ He turned to me. ‘Everyone wants to be in—’

He lowered the camera and stared. I stared back. I couldn’t believe it. It was Curtis Malone.

Curtis was a perpetually dishevelled reporter for
Picture
magazine who covered important stories like jelly wrestling and topless car washes and scouted for girls to appear in ‘glamour’ shoots. I’d met him at the Miss Striptease finals while investigating the Parisi murder.

‘Why’s
Picture
covering a funeral? Nobody got their jugs out.’

‘I’m not working for
Picture
anymore. Well, the occasional article. I’ve moved to Melbourne and gone freelance.’

‘But you loved
Picture
. You said it was better than working for the broadsheets. You got to make up words.’

Curtis fiddled with the lens cap and tucked the camera into a padded bag. ‘I know, but it was turning me off the female form.

I became desensitised to funbags, completely sick of spadger.

Seriously. I’m dead from the waist down and I don’t know if I’ll ever recover.’ He pulled a Peter Jackson from the pocket of his flannelette shirt. ‘Investigative journalism’s my new gig, specialising in true crime.’

‘Why Melbourne? Surely there’s more crime in Sydney?’

‘Are you kidding? Drive-by shootings, ethnic drug gangs.

Dullsville. Here you’ve got crime bosses gunning each other down on the street. It’s like Chicago in the twenties.’ He grinned and sucked hard on his cigarette. I rolled my eyes, then looked around. Everyone else had left.

‘Listen,’ he said, ‘my savings are running low and I really need a story. You on the case?’ He spoke with the ciggie in his mouth as he crouched down, rooting around in his backpack, finally coming up with a notebook and pen.

‘No! There is no case. It was a suicide.’

‘Word on the street says you were watching Tamara Wade when she topped herself. Care to comment?’