Covet (4 page)

‘I don’t think you realise how beautiful you are,’ he whispered. ‘There is a flower inside you just waiting to blossom.’

She blushed and tilted her head, leaning against the wall of the corridor with her hands by her sides, as open as a book.

‘I mean it. You are beautiful.’

‘Shhh. I am not. Cut it out,’ she protested, but she was smiling. ‘Stevens is coming any minute,’ she warned.

Ed Brown leaned a little closer to the bars. ‘I can’t wait until we’re together,’ he whispered. ‘I think about it every day in here.’

‘Oooh,’ she cooed and glanced at him lovingly, another warm smile creeping across her face. But then she turned and looked up the prison corridor, and her body language changed completely. She stiffened. ‘Stevens. How are you?’ she called out in a dull, professional tone.

He could hear footsteps approaching his cell and Ed retreated to the corner of his cot. In seconds Stevens appeared. He was a solid and imposing six foot four, with arms like a gorilla’s and a chip on his
shoulder. Probably a police academy reject, Ed decided. Stevens worked the day shifts in these protected quarters of Long Bay Correctional Centre, noon till midnight. He was one of the reasons Ed Brown had taken to keeping a nocturnal schedule—anything to spend more time with
her
and avoid the long boring hours with Stevens hovering outside the cell, bereft of any usefulness or even decent conversation. Now Ed slept from five in the afternoon until midnight when the shifts changed, and his woman came back. The lights out didn’t bother him. His lawyer had made sure he could have his own reading lamp and TV on any time he wished, as long as he was courteous about the volume. And Ed was always courteous.

‘What on earth do you two find to talk about?’ Stevens sniffed, running a hand across his shaved head, which was covered in a curious road map of rough scars.

Oh, but you don’t realise we have so very much in common
, Ed thought with a barely detectable grin.

‘Gotta do something to pass the time,’ the night-shift woman replied.

That was true. Unlike in the movies, most prison guards did not go out of their way to make life miserable for those they supervised. The guard had to be there, the prisoner had to be there—in Ed’s case he was still on remand for his upcoming murder trial, now less than forty-eight hours away—so they coexisted as pleasantly as they could manage. No point in making life any more difficult
than it already was. There were plenty of conversations had, and friendship, of a sort, was not unusual between guards and some of the more compliant, long-term inmates. So on the surface, Ed’s late-night gabbing sessions with the night-shift guard were not odd. It was the subject of their discussions that was unusual, but that remained their little secret.

‘See ya tomorrow.’

Relieved from her twelve-hour shift, Ed’s budding ally walked away without looking back. Ed could hear her keys jangling as she disappeared, the sound a kind of music in his ears.

It had taken almost thirteen months, but Ed Brown had found his target. She was perfect—a hardened and unattractive woman, no husband, no children and no social life to speak of, a lonely corrections officer who privately longed to be swept off her feet by a romantic suitor. She had been as tough as nails at first, as one would expect, but just as Ed had anticipated, the hard surface had melted with patience and the right touch. Deliberation and equanimity were some of Ed’s great strengths. In due course she had cracked like an egg for him, all gooey and messed up in the centre.

Perfect.

‘Excuse me, Pete?’ Ed politely addressed Stevens. ‘Could you please turn that there on for me? The uh…TV?’

Ed was careful to show servitude and an exaggerated lack of intelligence when he spoke to
people like Stevens. It made them assume he was dumb and obedient, his apparent meekness inflating them with false feelings of superiority and security that could be used against them. In many ways Ed could still be mistaken for the pale, bespectacled kid who had been knuckle-bait every lunch hour in school, the wimpy boy with no friends, no pocket money, no clean clothes. But that was a deception. Ed had since found his power, and he was eager to regain the freedom to exercise it.

Stevens flicked the TV on for him. It faced Ed’s cell from the safety of the prison corridor.

‘Thank you so very much. I do so appreciate it.’

As was his routine, Ed would go to sleep after watching the news and the daytime TV shows, his last bit of homework for the day. ‘I don’t know how you can watch that shit,’ Stevens had once said. Ed had only smiled in response.

Put your stilettos on, Makedde.

I’m coming for you…

Makedde sat straight up, jolted awake by a nightmare that faded as soon as she opened her eyes. Her heart pounded like a hammer in her chest.

What…?

Oh yes…you are safe…Sydney hotel room, courtesy of the Crown. You closed your eyes for a moment, that’s all
, she recalled. Another nightmare. Should she enter it in her book? For over a year Mak had used a small notebook, a dream diary of sorts, to try to keep track of her strange nightmares and broken sleeping patterns. She had suffered from insomnia after the events of the last Sydney trip, and back in Vancouver, Dr Ann Morgan, now her father’s girlfriend, had used Makedde’s notes to help her decipher some of those nightmares. One rather telling dream revolved around Mak wearing her father’s uniform and watching helplessly as Ed Brown killed her mother in the same fashion he had almost killed Mak herself—with a scalpel.

This time Makedde couldn’t remember her dream so she simply entered the date and the word ‘Nightmare?’ in her notebook. Her jaw ached and
she felt an unhappy twinge in her neck. She had probably been grinding her teeth during her doze. After the stress of the past two years it was amazing she had any canines left at all. Mak stretched her sore jaw muscles, opening and closing her mouth in a series of painful yawns. She rolled across the unfamiliar bed in search of a clock, the tangled hotel sheets wrapping her weary limbs like a shroud.

You’ve got to get yourself up, girl.

Mak planned to have a quick stroll around the city to stretch her legs and acclimatise herself before her seven o’clock date with some of the prosecution team. She was dreading it, picturing it in her imagination as some kind of ‘Welcome to Sydney where your Worst Nightmares Come True’ dinner.
Will Andy be there? Do I care?
She untangled herself from the sheets—her T-shirt seemed to have put itself on backwards—and rolled the rest of the way over to the bedside table. The glowing red digits of the hotel clock were bad news: 6.01 p.m.
You’ve got to be kidding!
She’d passed out for at least five hours. So much for the stroll. So much for getting a decent sleep tonight. She had just enough time to bathe and change, and try to snap herself out of her malaise before facing the team in charge of Catherine’s post-mortem justice.

That’s it, Mak. You have nothing to do now except take the witness stand. There is nothing left to focus on. Just this trial. Just him. Facing HIM in that big bloody courtroom.

Facing Ed Brown and being forced to recall every last painful detail of the things he had done
to her would be hard, she knew, but getting the guilty verdict that would lock him up forever should be a given, shouldn’t it? It’s not as if there were any question of Ed Brown’s guilt. After all, he had been caught red-handed during his attack on her. Both Andy and his police partner, Jimmy Cassimatis, had walked in on the scene. Andy shot Ed right then and there, though not accurately enough for Mak’s liking. A criminal could hardly be guiltier than that. How would his defence team even attempt to defend an indefensible position?

Another look at the clock. She needed to catch her father before he went to sleep.
Hmmm…After six in the evening here would be nineteen hours ago in British Columbia, making it just after eleven at night in Victoria.
It was almost too late to call home but she decided to ring anyway, even if it meant waking someone up. She had promised to call and let them know she had arrived safely, and though it was late she knew the chances were good that her worried father was not going to pack it in for the night until he heard from her. She imagined him wide-awake in his office, sorting paperwork he didn’t really need to be working on at that hour, or perhaps doing a crossword, surrounded by his dusty police caps and service awards, relics from his days as detective inspector.

The phone rang twice on the other end.

‘Hello?’ It was Ann.

‘Hi, how are you? It’s Mak.’

‘Makedde, it’s great to hear from you. How was your flight? How is Sydney?’

‘Sydney is beautiful, of course, though I haven’t been out and about yet. Oh, and the flight was fine. Lucky me, a nice boy at the check-in desk in LA decided to upgrade me. We
love
him.’

A laugh.

‘Hang on, I’ll get your dad on the other line.’

Mak was still adjusting to the happy fact that these days her father was not always alone in the house. She suspected that the relationship between him and Ann was going well.

‘Wait…’ Mak said. ‘Before you get him, how is he? Is it looking any better?’

‘We got the results from the X-rays. Dr Olenski wants to do an endoscopy now. There is a fifty–fifty chance that he will need surgery. The doctor says it is possible that he may improve on the medication if he follows through with the right diet and takes it easy.’

‘And is he taking it easy?’

‘Well…’

Mak had taken Dr Olenski aside and asked him if she had given her father an ulcer. He insisted that was impossible, and explained that contrary to popular belief, the vast majority of ulcers were caused by a viral-like infection with a bacterium called
Helicobacter pylori
, not stress. They were only
aggravated
by stress. Same difference, Mak figured. Same damn difference.

‘Mak.’ It was her father. ‘Have you heard anything yet?’

The phone beeped as if another call was coming in. Was that on her end, or theirs?

‘Hi Dad,’ she said. ‘I’m meeting with counsel tomorrow to review my testimony. Tonight I have a little welcome dinner with the local brass in charge of this circus. Should be fun,’ she added sarcastically.

‘And have you heard anything from
him
?’

‘Oh, Andy?’ He could mean no one else. She swallowed hard. ‘Um, no.’

The line was quiet for a while. She really had expected to hear from Andy at some point. Some part of her had even thought he might come to the airport, but no. There had been no note at the hotel either, and Karen, the policewoman who’d picked her up at the airport, hadn’t mentioned him. She supposed it might really be over between them. Perhaps he was seeing more of that nurse he’d dated. He had probably moved on. She really shouldn’t have been surprised. It was time for her to move on herself, officially, and accept that they weren’t right for each other.

‘When are you going in for the endoscopy, Dad?’

‘Uh, soon.’

She knew full well that it would be killing him that he wasn’t in Sydney with her. There was nothing that she could say that would make him happy about not being there, let alone telling him that it was better for his health. But while Mak appreciated that he wanted to be in Sydney for moral support, she didn’t need or want anyone to hold her hand. She was twenty-seven, and more than capable of handling herself, no matter how bizarre things seemed to have become. And
besides, her father had a way of getting himself a little too involved in what was going on in her life. It was amazing how far some of his police connections could stretch. She found it embarrassing when he started to meddle.

‘I’ll let you go,’ Mak said. ‘There’s no news yet, but I’ll keep you updated. I was just checking in to let you know I arrived safely. I love you, Dad. Take care, okay?’

‘You call us right away if you have any problems at all.’

‘Okay. Love you…’

Hanging up, Mak spotted a red light flashing on the phone.

‘You have one new message,’ the hotel voicemail declared. ‘Miss Vanderwall, it’s Gerry Hartwell from the prosecution…’

Oh boy. Here we go.
She found herself gripped by an irrational fear that his message would bring some horribly bad news about the case.
What’s happened?

‘…just confirming that we will be in the hotel bar downstairs at seven o’clock. Let me know if you need anything, or if you have any problems. My number is…’

She pulled the sheets up over her head again.

You’re fine, Mak. You’re fine.

Why do you always expect the worst?

‘I don’t think you realise how beautiful you are…There is a flower inside you just waiting to blossom.’

Suzie Harpin recalled the words with immense excitement. Her true love had spoken them to her that very morning.

Although there was so much more to do, Suzie couldn’t help but take a moment from her grim task to close her eyes and think about the positive turn her life had taken. She let her arms drop to her sides as she thought about love, about the importance of it, and how she had always known that it would find her eventually. She had waited so long and now it was her turn.

Oh my love.

A deep breath. A smile.

Suzie had her wedding dress picked out. It was long and beautiful and adorned with tiny silk bows. She had found a picture of it in one of her wedding magazines and cut it out. It was pure white, as white as snow, and she deserved to wear that flawless white as she had not had sexual relations with any man. Not since she was very young, anyway, but that didn’t count. That was none of anyone’s business. She had since reclaimed her virginity. For over two decades she had saved herself for her beloved husband, and now she had finally found him. Soon they would be together. There were just a few more preparations to make, some of them easy, some more difficult. There were books to study, items to purchase, chores to tackle. She was in the midst of finishing one of those chores now, and with so much more to do she knew she should get on with it.

Suzie pulled another clear sheet of Glad Wrap across the kitchen bench. With her nose wrinkled in
distaste, she reached into the bucket and took the left arm. It was heavy and stiff, but at least most of the blood had already drained out into the bathtub. She wrapped it once from fingertip to shoulder joint.

Another sheet.

Darn it.

She was running out of Glad Wrap. What if she only got through half? Suzie continued, her eyes averted from what she was doing. She let her fingers do the work, wrapping and tying off. Wrapping and tying. She felt sure she was as efficient as any butcher.

‘I can’t wait until we’re together…I think about it every day in here,’
he’d said.

And I think about you too, my love
, she thought as she put the arm aside and reached for her brother’s head.

When Makedde Vanderwall sauntered into the dimly lit hotel bar, Andy Flynn was the first to look up. Her distinctive crown of blonde hair caught his eye as she appeared through the doorway from the main foyer, standing tall in long black pants and a simple toffee-coloured top that matched her fair hair. She had a dark trench coat over one arm and a small handbag slung over her shoulder, and her quick blue-green eyes surveyed the patrons of the bar from one side of the room to the other. Many of them had noted her entrance and surveyed her right back. Andy noticed some
poor hubby a couple of tables away get a jab in the ribs for looking at her too long. He hoped Mak hadn’t seen that. She would have hated it.

Makedde stood in the entrance until she spotted their familiar faces, by which time Gerry had eyed her and was walking forward to greet her. A barman had also been moving towards her, presumably to ask if she needed any help, but was robbed of the opportunity at the last minute when she strode past him, his assistance unnecessary. Andy felt his throat tighten as she approached. He took a quick swig of his drink to mask his nerves. The ice cubes clinked in the glass as he put it down, and when he looked up she was there,
Makedde
, standing by their table. He rose to greet her.

‘Mak-deeVanderwall,’ he heard the young solicitor saying, mispronouncing her name. ‘I’m Gerry Hartwell. I hope you’ve recovered from your flight?’

Mak nodded, politely ignoring his gaffe. She looked unreasonably attractive, that never seemed to change. Andy found it hard to draw his eyes from the lines of her face, her cheekbones, the shape of her lips with that plump pout in the centre.

‘Her name is pronounced Ma-Kay-Dee,’ Andy interjected, all eyes turning to him.

In her high-heeled boots Mak stood level with his six foot four. She was one tall woman who never seemed ashamed of her stature.

‘Andy,’ she said in a low voice, acknowledging him.

He reached out and shook her hand in a formal manner that felt aberrant to him, far from the
passionate kiss goodbye they had shared in Vancouver a mere six months earlier. She returned his impersonal handshake with a strong grip, her eyes looking into his with a steady, almost challenging glare.

Gerry appeared to be blushing a little. A couple of his pimples had turned a brighter shade of pink. ‘Oh, of course. Sorry, yes.
Makedde.
It’s an unusual name, isn’t it?’

You know all this, Gerry
, Andy thought with irritation.
Stop falling all over yourself in front of her.

‘Um…This is Senior Constable Mahoney, Detective Senior Constable Cassimatis and Detective Senior Sergeant Flynn—’

At least he remembers all our names. ‘Uh, we’ve met,’ Andy said.

‘Yes, we’ve all met,’ Mak confirmed, saying a quick hello all round.

Obviously we’ve met. Obviously we’ve done more than just meet.
Which was why the prosecution was a little unhappy, to put it mildly. There is nothing more likely to cast doubt on a rock-solid criminal case than bringing up the issue of inappropriate relationships during those brutal cross-examinations in the witness box. And it had all been
very
inappropriate between Andy and her—hence his subtle sidelining in the case. Just another of the many reasons he would have to act very cool in Makedde’s presence now.

They all sat down, settling into place and trying to look relaxed, leaning on elbows, crossing and uncrossing legs. He noticed Gerry pat his hair a few times in what he guessed was an unsuccessful
attempt to smooth its wayward wiriness. He was perhaps five-six, overweight and still plagued by acne in his late twenties. Andy saw his eyes move over Makedde occasionally when she wasn’t looking. He guessed that Gerry had never been in the same room as a former
Sports Illustrated
model before, let alone one with an intimidating IQ and a PhD in forensic psychology within her grasp. If the guy started drooling or convulsing he would have to take him outside.