Rubdown (8 page)

I walked through the lobby, following signs down a carpeted corridor to the Docklands gym. Every second person wore police ID on blue and white string and looked me over. It was probably the pink polka dot singlet and tight white pedal pushers. Couldn’t be helped. Just when you least expected it Melbourne hit you with an un s easonably hot day. I’d been listening to the Beach Boys all morning in honour of the heat and to buck myself up and get over the night before.

A sign on the gym window advertised
Fifteen Minute Butt
Buster Class—The Fastest Way To Tone Your Butt.
I didn’t have any major butt issues since I tended to gain weight around my stomach. On a good day I was pretty much straight up and down.

On a bad I was an apple on toothpicks.

The gym was nothing fancy. Reception desk, fridge full of sports drinks and a room jammed with weight machines and cardio equipment. I climbed a flight of stairs. On my right a wood panelled sauna and spa were wedged between changing rooms, to the left a catwalk looked down on the squash courts. I leaned against the blue metal railing and checked out court number two. Alex was wearing white and running around like a maniac, grunting and swatting at a teeny-tiny ball, his shoes squeaking on the wooden floor. I’d never seen him in shorts and checked out his legs while I had the chance. Not bad.

Muscular and kind of hairy. His opponent was slimmer than him, with pale skin and red-gold hair. Looked about twenty-five from where I stood, and had nice pins too. What a perve.

Alex won, but his friend didn’t seem too fussed. When they climbed the stairs, towels around their necks, I pushed off from the railing.

‘Hey.’

Alex pulled up short when he saw me and gave me a look like I was a dogshit he’d narrowly avoided stepping on. ‘Didn’t think you’d show.’

His friend looked from him to me and back again.

Alex said, ‘Sean, this is Simone Kirsch. Simone, Detective Senior Constable Sean Shields, Asian Squad.’ He stalked off to the change rooms.

I stuck out my hand and Detective Shields pumped it up and down. ‘Simone, finally we meet. I’ve heard so much about you.’

I raised my eyebrows. Up close I guessed he could be early thirties, but boyish looking, with a passing resemblance to Ewan McGregor. He even had a slight Scottish accent.

‘Alex tells me you have information on Wu Chan,’ he said.

‘I have photos.’ I patted my bag.

‘Great, let me get cleaned up and I’ll take a look.’

Ten minutes later they were out, carrying sports bags and racquets. Alex wore a suit and Sean was dressed in jeans, a blue Bonds t-shirt and Converse All-stars. Alex took off down the stairs. Sean and I trailed behind.

‘Should we go to a café or something?’ Sean asked.

A couple of boofy guys leaned against the reception counter as we passed. One tall and fair, the other squat and dark. Loose singlets revealed back hair and a layer of fat that hid any muscles they may have had. They waited until we’d passed, then murmured, ‘Pooftas.’

Alex stopped at the doorway and turned round. ‘What did you say?’

‘You heard, Christakos,’ said the short one.

The fair guy started barking, ‘Woof woof. A dog and a fag.

Give the dog a bone.’

The short one laughed like this was comedy gold. I knew a lot of other cops didn’t like Ethical Standards, called them dogs.

I hadn’t thought they’d be that blatant about it.

The tall guy stared at my tits. ‘Why don’t ya try a real man sweetheart, ’stead of hanging out with a couple of woolly wooftas?’

Sean walked right up to him and smiled. ‘You know, homophobes act the way they do because they’re repressing their own pent-up desire for the same sex. Admit it, McPherson, you want me.

The truth’ll set you free.’ Then he winked and blew the guy a kiss.

McPherson went bright red and took a step towards Sean.

Alex got between them and I started inching forward, figuring I could always jump on someone’s back and swat at their head like girls do in the movies.

‘You fucking wog.’ McPherson raised his fists and the muscle-bound manager bolted over from the Pec Deck and slapped his palm on the counter.

‘Oi! Not in my fucking gym. I’ll ban the lot of you. I’ve got you on fucking camera.’ He pointed to the closed circuit unit on the ceiling.

The cops stared at each other, no one wanting to back down.

Sean was grinning at the two boofheads, making them madder, and Alex had this look in his eye like he wanted to kill McPherson. I recognised that look. I sometimes got it myself.

Finally McPherson laughed and nudged the squat guy. ‘Come on, Davo. Don’t wanna touch the fuckers anyway, probably got AIDS.’ They strutted off to the bench press.

Out in the corridor Sean slapped Alex on the shoulder. ‘Just like old times, hey?’ He turned to me. ‘Sorry about that.

Occupational hazard when you work with dumb-arse rednecks.

Let’s go to a café and check out these photos. Coming, Alex?’

‘Gotta work,’ Alex grunted and disappeared up an escalator.

‘Dunno what’s up his arse,’ said Sean.

We left the building and Sean led the way across Flinders Street to the Grand Hotel, an Italianate sandstone building with an outdoor café. We sat under a red and white umbrella and I ordered a double espresso and a mineral water. Sean asked for a pot of tea and a salad sandwich and sparked up a Marlboro Light.

‘Go health, Detective Shields,’ I said.

‘Christ sake, call me Sean. Tell you the truth I’m not that fucking into squash. Any sport for that matter. It’s more an exercise in male bonding and the only time we ever meet up without getting smashed. Can I take a look at the photos?’

‘Sure.’ I slid the packet across the table. ‘What was that about at the gym?’

‘Meatheads. Went through the academy with Alex and me.

Couldn’t handle that we were smarter than they were. I know for a fact McPherson’s failed the detective exam twice.’

He examined the photos and told me the woman in the pink suit who’d met Neville at the flats was indeed Wu Chan, illegal brothel operator and Nev’s defacto wife. Despite Wu’s youthful looks she was actually forty-three. They’d been together for more than twenty years and had a six year old son. Neville’s mistress turned out to be Ling Sun, a good friend of Wu’s who’d started as a working girl before moving on to managing some of Wu’s brothels. Some friend.

In turn I sketched what I’d been doing, leaving out Vincent’s name. I showed him the brochures for the travel agency and the Gold Coast apartments and mentioned that Tamara might have had something on Neville Annis. He looked doubtful and I told him I hadn’t believed it either until last night.

‘Why, what happened?’ He poured tea into his cup, added milk and sugar.

I told him about the argument with Alex and when I got to the part where I was attacked, inexplicably started to cry. Man, how embarrassing.

He reached across the table, squeezed my hand and passed me paper napkins from a metal dispenser. I gradually got the story out between sobs.

‘Jesus, mate. I’m sorry. Want me to report it?’

I shook my head. ‘No point. There’s no evidence. I didn’t see his face.’

‘I can run a trace on the call he made. What time was it?’

‘About nine.’

‘Give me your phone number.’

I wrote my home number on the back of one of my cards.

‘Do you have any idea who attacked you?’

‘Someone big. Maybe Craig Annis, but I don’t know. I never heard Craig’s voice.’

‘What you up to for the rest of the day?’ Sean asked. He took a bite of his sandwich. It was wholemeal with a lot of alfalfa sprouts.

‘Dunno. Probably typing up the report for my client and trying to stay away from big guys in black balaclavas. Why?’

‘Fancy going for a drive?’

Sean wanted to see the flats, so we left my car in the Trade Centre car park and drove to Clayton in his white Saab. It was old and a bit dented, but spotless inside. He turned onto Citylink off Flinders Street and we drove past the Rod Laver Arena. The Yarra River was on our right, Olympic Park on the left. Sean lit a Marlboro Light and stuck a CD in the player. Nina Simone again.

‘Alex played that last night.’

‘Music’s one of the things we’ve got in common. We clicked right away when we met at Glen Waverley Police Academy in the early nineties. Both been to uni, played instruments, liked jazz. We used to be in one of the police bands. The Jazz Squad.’

‘Alex was in the police band?’ I tried to imagine it, couldn’t, and realised I hardly knew anything about him except that he was moody, a great kisser and pretty damn good with his hands. ‘What does he play?’

‘Piano. Keyboards.’

Well I never. ‘What about you?’

‘Clarinet. It’s a bit nerdy, isn’t it? Saxophone’s a lot sexier. And I sing a bit—not very well.’

‘Did you study music at uni?’

‘No, languages. I speak Vietnamese, Cantonese, Mandarin, French, German, Italian, Spanish. I’m currently learning Thai.’

‘Are you shitting me?’

‘No. Once you’ve learned a couple it gets easier.’

‘Talk about cunning linguist!’ I know, it was corny.

Sean said, ‘You reckon I never heard that one before?’ But he smiled at me.

‘Sorry. Your accent, you’re originally from Scotland?’

‘Emigrated here with my mum and sister when I was fourteen.’

‘Why’d you join the police? With all those languages you could have made a lot of money.’

‘I’m not in it for the money,’ he said, and left it at that.

As Nina sang ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’, Citylink turned into the Monash Freeway and all I could see was shrubby trees, concrete noise walls and massive electricity pylons. I stuck my hand out the window to float it on the warm air. Sean was one of those people you meet who instantly feel like an old friend. He was also the kind of person who can’t stay quiet for long.

‘So what’s going on with you and Alex?’ he said. ‘That was weird this morning.’

‘Nothing’s going on between us.’

‘That’s the problem then.’

‘He’s got a girlfriend.’

‘Suzy?’ He shook his head.

‘What, don’t you like her?’ I wanted him to say no.

‘I wouldn’t say I don’t like her. She’s just … I don’t know. Alex has fancied you since he met you.’

‘Really?’

‘Big time. What about you? Do you like him?’

This was not the sort of conversation I’d expected to be having with a baby faced senior constable I’d only just met, but his openness was engaging and made you want to respond in kind. Especially after a kick-arse double espresso.

‘I don’t know. Maybe. Kind of. There’s something there but I don’t really think about it because of the girlfriend issue. And at the moment I don’t like him at all because he’s being a prick.

Besides, he’s a Libra and I’m a Scorpio. It’d never work out.’

‘I’m a Virgo.’

‘Now there’s a sign I’ve always got along with.’ It was true. My ex-fiancé had been one.

‘You know it’s not true we’re all obsessive-compulsive clean freaks.’

I looked around the Saab’s immaculate interior. The floor appeared to have been recently vacuumed. I picked up Sean’s CD

case and saw the discs were in alphabetical order.

‘Really,’ I said.

Outside the red brick flats the street was deserted.

‘No bad guys,’ Sean said.

‘What now?’

‘We check the place out.’

The gate in the fence was chained shut but there was enough of a gap to squeeze through. Finding the main door locked, we followed the concrete driveway around the building, Sean checking every window to see if it would open.

‘What do you reckon they’re up to?’ I asked.

‘Renovation show?’ He tried a small window of bobbled glass and it screeched open, old paint flaking off.

‘Don’t you need a warrant?’

He grinned like a naughty little boy.

‘You’ll never get in there,’ I said.

He grinned some more. ‘Why do you think I brought you along? Come on, I’ll give you a boost.’

‘I won’t fit either.’

‘Sure you will.’

‘Maybe if I was naked and covered in goose fat.’

‘Interesting image.’ He knelt, lacing his fingers together, and I sighed and put my foot in his hands, fingers gripping the splintery window frame. He stood up, shoved me through and I dangled front in, arse out and surveyed the grotty bathroom. I was above a toilet and the brown tile floor seemed a long way down.

‘It’s too far to—’

Maybe he didn’t hear me because he tipped my legs up and pushed. I slithered out like a calf being born, did a brief handstand on the cracked toilet lid and crumpled to the dusty floor. Great.

My pink top was torn at the side and an oily mark stained the pedal pushers. Maybe only Liz Hurley could get away with white pants. Every time I tried it was a nightmare of sump oil, beetroot juice and unexpected periods.

‘Let me in the front of the building,’ Sean yelled.

I walked through the musty flat, keeping my eye out in case Neville was using it to store drugs—perhaps a package of pure cocaine I could slip down my knickers. No such luck. All I saw was filth and bet the previous tenants hadn’t gotten their bond back.

The carpet was covered in cat hair and crushed corn chips. Poster sized rectangles and BluTack marked the walls. With each step molecules of stale nicotine and rancid fat landed on me, insinuating themselves into my skin and hair. I stepped into the foyer and saw Sean waving frantically through the glass door, hurried over and let him in.

‘What is it?’

‘The bad guys!’

We raced back to the flat and locked ourselves in. Sean’s eyes were wide.

‘Shit,’ I whispered. ‘What do we do?’

‘Stay put. They didn’t see me and there are eight flats in this block. Not much chance of them coming in here.’

The door banged shut. A cough. Two sets of footsteps and jangling keys. I was holding my breath and heard the blood rush in my head.

Neville’s voice. ‘I’ll just measure up one of the rooms before we pick up the beds, yeah?’

A key scraped the lock. Sean and I looked at each other. He grabbed my hand and pulled me down the hall towards the bedroom at the other end of the flat.