Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (28 page)

•

Half an hour later, Gemma was knocking on Minkie Montreau’s huge front door. Minkie’s face was apprehensive as she opened it. Not all your locks and bolts and castle gates can keep this away from you, Gemma thought, as she walked into the spacious foyer.

‘What is it now?’ asked Minkie nervously.

Gemma swung round to face her. ‘Three things,’ she said. ‘First, someone has reported a yellow BMW in the vicinity of the beach house prior to the fire. Secondly, I checked with the company which insured your Nelson Bay property. You asked for a copy of the policy to be sent out to you only last week.’

‘I did
not
!’ said Minkie indignantly.

‘Your broker’s records prove it,’ Gemma continued relentlessly. ‘And thirdly, I went to Sydney University and tracked down a copy of your Masters thesis.’

She watched Minkie’s face as she pulled out her notebook. A look of pure terror contorted the usually regular features and too much of the whites showed in the strange green eyes.

‘Why did you do that?’ she said in a barely audible voice.

‘And this is what I discovered,’ Gemma said, finding the notes she’d scribbled down in the university archives. ‘A Masters thesis submitted by Miriam Montreau titled “Applications of synthetic and natural polymers in the production of high temperature accelerants”.’ Gemma read from the title page.

She turned on the woman who was now huddled on a chair like a frightened child, twisting a handkerchief between her fingers.

‘I can’t believe this is happening,’ whispered Minkie.
‘Who is doing this to me?’
Her voice was like a smothered scream.

‘Minkie,’ said Gemma, ‘you’ve lied to me every time we’ve met. And every time I’ve discovered something else you haven’t told me. I’ve had to drag the truth out of you. I don’t know what your game is but I think it’s only fair to warn you that when I hand this information over to Sean Wright, the police could well believe they now have enough on you to charge you with the murder of your husband.’

‘No!’ cried Minkie. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

‘Personally,’ said Gemma, to drive it home, ‘I think they’ve got more than enough for a committal hearing.’

‘But they can’t do that!’ she said. ‘
I didn’t do it.
You’ve got to believe me. Please don’t pass this on. You’re working for me, not the police!’

‘Why should I believe you?’ Gemma asked. ‘You’ve lied and continued to lie.’

‘Only about things that have nothing to do with Benjamin’s death,’ she said. ‘I’ve told you the truth about everything else.’ Tears ran down her face. ‘I’ve had a very difficult life,’ she said. ‘People only see this’—she waved her hand vaguely at the lavish surroundings—‘they don’t know what it was like to grow up with parents who were Communists in the ’50s. Ideologues are the pits when it comes to parenting. I was a political
ideal,
not a little child.’

Here we go, thought Gemma. The sob story to soften me up again.

‘I’m not going to give you the story of my unhappy childhood,’ Minkie said, as if reading Gemma’s mind, ‘but I was forced to do that wretched Engineering degree and that bloody Masters thesis by a woman who’d didn’t even finish her own degree. I was halfway through my doctorate before I cried enough! Even then, I didn’t start living my own life. I started designing and manufacturing sexy underwear. You know why? To get right up my mother’s nose! I knew she’d hate it and I was right. But after a while, I found that I couldn’t sustain my interest in it. It wasn’t what I really wanted to do either. But by then I’d met and married Benjamin.’ She paused. ‘It took me years to discover what I really wanted in life. And years to find what was important to me in matters of love.’ She walked to the long window and looked out at the garden for a moment before turning back to Gemma. ‘I know I’ve appeared dishonest. But I’ve only tried to keep some things .
 
.
 
. someone .
 
.
 
. out of the picture.’

‘Why?’ asked Gemma. ‘Who cares if you’ve got a boyfriend? Your husband’s dead. What’s the big deal?’ She remembered the time she’d rung Anthony Love and a woman had answered. ‘Is he married?’ she asked. ‘Is that it?’

‘It’s much more complicated than that,’ she said. ‘Anthony could be in real trouble if the truth came out.’

Gemma swung round, ready to leave. ‘I’m going. I’ve had enough of this,’ she said. ‘I’ll total up what you owe me and fax it to you.’

She went to the door. Minkie made no move to open it for her.

‘You don’t seem to appreciate the very real danger you’re in,’ Gemma said. ‘Stop pretending to be noble. If all these lies have been to protect Anthony, you’re wasting your time and energy. It only makes everything look worse. As a person connected to a murder investigation, he’ll have to be interviewed by the police.’

‘No!’ Minkie’s voice was a shriek. ‘That mustn’t happen. The success of his latest work depends on it. You don’t understand!’

‘It’s you who doesn’t understand,’ snapped Gemma. ‘Now please open this door for me.’

For the first time, she felt a shiver of fear. If this woman had murdered her husband, Gemma might be next on the hit list. She wondered how well she’d be able to defend herself, with her strength compromised by her injuries.

Minkie, however, proceeded to open the heavy door and Gemma went down the path as fast as her leg would let her. By the time she got back to her car, it was aching again from the effort. Once or twice, she fancied she saw a black car in her rear-vision mirror that made all the same turns as she did, but she dismissed the idea as paranoia.

•

Next morning found Dr Heather Pike poking and probing around Gemma’s ribs. Gemma had told her about the events of the night in the lane and the injury to her leg and flank. First, Heather had checked her knee and ankle, and pronounced herself satisfied at the way it was healing.

‘You’ve taken a terrible whack across the ribs,’ she observed.

Gemma shuddered, remembering. But there was another danger to address, and this was the main reason she’d made the appointment.

‘Heather,’ she said. ‘There’s something else I want to talk about,’ she said. ‘It might sound crazy, but here goes—I want a Naltrexone implant.’

Heather’s dark eyebrows rose in surprise. ‘What on earth are you asking me, Gemma?’ Her shock registered on her clear, intelligent face. ‘I don’t know what to say. Surely you’re not a user, are you? If you are, we need to have a talk.’

Gemma shook her head. ‘Certainly not. But I might be put in a situation where heroin could be forced on me,’ she said. ‘That’s why I want you to give me an implant.’

‘You don’t understand,’ said Heather. ‘I can’t just go putting implants of potentially dangerous drugs into people to avoid something that
might
happen. You’re asking me to do something I can’t.’

‘Please, Heather,’ said Gemma. ‘I don’t need you to understand. Just tell me whether or not you’re willing to do it.’

‘Naltrexone implants are still at a very experimental stage,’ said Heather. ‘It could be dangerous.’

‘It could be much more dangerous for me without it,’ Gemma said, wishing she’d talked to Steve about it before he went undercover anywhere near George Fayed. ‘I wouldn’t be asking you to do it otherwise.’

Heather’s frowning face irritated Gemma. ‘Look,’ she said impatiently, ‘I’ll get someone else to do it if you won’t.’

Heather picked up her pen and wrote something down on a pad. ‘Give me a couple of days to research this, will you?’ she said. ‘I’ll ring you.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

Gemma walked out of Heather’s surgery and down the hallway. She was aware of a child crying in the busy waiting room, the sound wailing like a siren as she stepped outside into the cold air. She had skipped breakfast and, instead of crossing the road towards her car, walked without thinking around the corner, hoping to find a milk bar. She found herself in an ugly back lane. Piles of cardboard and newspapers lined the narrow footpath, reminding her of the scene of her attack where she had been hurt so badly that even now, days later, the ache in her flank had not stopped. Ahead of her, she was aware of two men coming towards her. Every instinct signalled danger. Her melancholic mood vanished immediately, replaced with the hot ice of adrenaline. She swung round on her heel and barely had time to register shock when she collided with two more men who’d suddenly materialised behind her. One of them grabbed her in a painful wristlock and before she could scream, fight or kick, Gemma felt herself lifted off her feet, something was thrown over her head, the briefcase snatched from her shocked hands, and her body was crushed in a powerful grip. The sound of a car screeching to brake behind her had her screaming ‘
Let me go!
’
uselessly into a suffocating gag of denim. Not into the car, she told herself. Once they’ve got me in the car I’m gone. Gemma struggled with all her strength. She tried to kick but both legs were already pinned. She heard a car door open. Then she was flung painfully onto the back seat, pushed down to the floor. Someone leaned on her back, wedging her between the front and back seats. Her face was grazed on harsh nylon carpet; she felt the bite of disposable cuffs around her wrists. Helpless, she tried to breathe, moving her head to one side, trying to dislodge whatever it was that was over her face, stinking of male sweat and engine oil. Doors slammed, and the weight of someone’s boot slammed onto her. The pain in her flank was agonising. George Fayed had her, her frightened brain told her. She was helpless. He was going to force-inject her. Her scream was drowned in the gunning of a V8 engine.

Gemma lay terrified, unable to move from shock, not to mention the heavy boot that still lay on her. Now she was
half-lying, half-crouched around the differential hump, her body shivering with adrenalin, fright and fight. She’d have to try and escape when they dragged her out of the car. The conversation around her, desultory though it was, was not in Lebanese. It was, in fact, very ocker. She thought of the cyberstalker. Could he have organised this? Was she going to be raped? Murdered? She tried to concentrate on keeping track of the turns the car made, imagining the roads they were taking, trying to remember how the lights went along William Street, sensing they were driving towards the city. But then came a turn south and she imagined College Street and the Avery building full of armed police, just metres away but useless to her. A few minutes later she heard the noise of trains and thought they must be near Central. The sound faded and in a matter of minutes, Gemma gave up. It was no use: they could be anywhere. She lay there, planning the next move, knowing that her only chance of escape would present itself when the car stopped and these men transferred her to wherever it was they were taking her. She wondered if her briefcase was with them in the car, or whether its contents lay scattered on the lane.

‘Listen, girlie,’ a voice said, close to her ear. ‘I don’t get no thrill from hurting women. But you come quietly when we get out of the car, or I’ll break your fucking arm. What’s it to be?’

Gemma was aware the car was slowing, and in a few minutes, had stopped. The voice continued, not so close now.

‘Lorraine just wants a chat with you. Nothing to worry about. I’m going to let you get up now.’

Lorraine? she thought, relieved that she wasn’t going to be forcibly injected or raped and murdered by a computer nerd. But the feeling was short lived. Her fears had materialised. Lorraine Litchfield, whose eyes had blazed through her the night before,
had
recognised her. Please God she didn’t know about her relationship with Steve. God, Gemma, she asked herself, what have you done?

‘Just move real quiet and easy,’ her captor was saying. ‘If you start chirping and carrying on, I’ll cover you over again just like my budgie. Get it?’

‘Okay,’ she said, although her answer was largely muffled by the carpet. The coat was removed from Gemma’s eyes and she struggled awkwardly with her legs and left arm, backing out in a crawl to get out of the car. She stood up and looked around as her captor cut the cuffs off. She was standing in a courtyard. Before she could think any further he applied a wristlock, hard on her right arm and hand. She straightened up to see who held her, a solid block of a man, short back and sides, dressed in an aqua Hawaiian shirt printed with pineapples. He could have been a barman at a beachside pub. He loosed his hold on her arm as soon as he realised she wasn’t going to fight him.

‘This is depriving a person of liberty,’ she said to him. ‘It’s kidnapping.’ It was a stupid thing to say, but it was what had come to her lips, unbidden, in her shocked state.

His face softened. ‘Don’t be like that, darlin’,’ he said. ‘You’re just making a social call.’

‘People usually ring first,’ she said, her voice shaking, ‘and issue an invitation.’

‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly what we’re doing.’

She tried to walk, but the shock of her abduction suddenly hit in waves again and her legs felt wobbly beneath her. The car, a big black Commodore, was parked in the courtyard of a project builder’s idea of a Tuscan villa, but there was nothing artificial about the three-metre lime-washed wall that surrounded the two-storeyed house, or the security cameras trained onto the barren, prison-like yard. As she approached a paved terrace where a row of classical urns grew weeds and grasses in their chalices, the double doors of the large house beyond opened, and the blonde who’d been hanging round Steve’s neck the night before walked out. Behind her and still inside, Gemma saw Steve. She quickly looked away, fearing her face would betray her.

‘Bring her in here, Murray,’ said Lorraine to the budgie man as she went back inside.

Gemma offered no resistance as she was hustled up the couple of steps from the bare garden area onto the tiled patio. She blinked as she went inside, her eyes adjusting to the light as she took in her surroundings. Lorraine Litchfield’s taste in furnishings ran to the extreme end of neo-rococo. Mother-of-pearl chairs and tables were reflected in huge gilt mirrors, which also reflected elaborate chandeliers as well as the group of three people, her captors and Gemma, that now stood in front of Lorraine.

Gemma kept her face averted from Steve and focused on two carved mother-of-pearl cherubs, twined together and surmounting the back of a chair, aware of the slender figure of Lorraine Litchfield lighting up a cigarette. The cloud of smoke that surrounded her kidnapper as she exhaled and shook the match away was a similar hue to the baby-blue angora-trimmed suit that hugged Lorraine’s perfect figure, its short tight skirt revealing long legs ending in silver high-heeled sandals. The wristlock had suddenly dropped away and Gemma focused all her attention on the powder-blue vision in front of her.

‘You’re in a lot of trouble, lady,’ said Gemma in her best cop’s voice. ‘You’ll go a row for this. Assault, deprivation of liberty, they’ll throw the book at you.’

‘Listen to her,’ said Lorraine, not even addressing Gemma. ‘What a joke.’ Then she came right up to Gemma, jabbing her cigarette frighteningly close to Gemma’s face. ‘You’re the one in trouble, you little slut.’

Hatred and jealousy blazed in her eyes and Gemma grasped the situation fast. She really has fallen for Steve. She’s fallen for the man who is playing the role of her boyfriend. Gemma took a deep breath. Please God it’s not reciprocal. I’ve got to have all my wits about me, she told herself. I’ve got to stay calm and reason this out. I’ve got to stay detached.

‘I don’t care for your language, lady,’ Gemma said. ‘It sounds vulgar.’

Lorraine swung away, turning on the silver Italian heels.

‘Listen Miss-up-Yourself, I’ll tell you what’s vulgar. Kev and Murray,’ she ordered. ‘Out!’

Gemma watched in alarm as the two men who’d brought her inside left. Compared to this acid-spitting blonde, these men now seemed positively decent and caring and Gemma didn’t like being left inside with Lorraine Litchfield and Steve. The other two seemed to have vanished. Maybe, thought Gemma, they were only there to bring me in. It was a cheering thought in an otherwise bleak situation.

‘Okay,’ Lorraine said to Steve. ‘Now let’s hear her version.’

‘Lorraine, stop this,’ said Steve in an unnaturally mild voice. ‘This is silly.’

It was a mistake.

‘Don’t you dare call me silly!’ she hissed at him, her whole body writhing in a whiplash of anger. Again, she coiled herself round to face her rival and Gemma was reminded of a snake, doubling itself up to rear and strike.

‘Her version,’ the woman had said, implying Steve had already given his version of whatever it was Lorraine Litchfield wanted to know.

‘How do you know this man?’ Lorraine said, pointing a long manicured finger at Steve.

Gemma’s mind raced. So that was it: she wanted to know where she stood, and where Gemma stood in relation to Steve. Somehow, Gemma had to come up with an answer that matched Steve’s explanation. She knew, and she knew that Steve knew, that telling the truth is always the best policy when it comes to interrogation and cross-examination. But a qualified truth, with certain areas of omission. Steve would have told Lorraine as much of the truth as was safe, Gemma thought. That gave her a clue.

‘Answer me!’
Lorraine had come too close again, pushing into Gemma’s space, provoking her. If the woman had sent four men to bring me in, thought Gemma, she must already know something of my history.

‘Him?’ she answered, sounding as uninterested and careless as she could. ‘You want to know how I know him?’ she said, shrugging and throwing a glance at Steve, who had turned away and was leaning against the mantelpiece underneath the most ornate of the gilt mirrors. ‘I know him from the job.’

‘What job?’

Again, Gemma prayed that her answer matched Steve’s. ‘I used to be a police officer,’ she said, then continued with a tone of distaste that was partly genuine. ‘So was he, but I guess that’s no longer the case, given the company he’s keeping.’

Lorraine tossed back her white-blonde hair. ‘That’s rich, coming from you,’ she said, with an ambiguity that was worrying. Did she already know of their relationship? she wondered. Lorraine went to the sliding door and turned back, her figure silhouetted against the light.

‘How well did you know him?’

‘You see people in the corridors. In the lift. Different divisions. I knew his face. Why?’

Lorraine shoved her face bare inches from Gemma’s. ‘You knew a damn sight more than his fucking face, you moll!’ she screamed. ‘I saw you looking at him last night.’

Gemma resisted backing away, standing her ground, narrowing her own eyes as she confronted her enraged rival.

‘When a face is familiar,’ Gemma started to say, ‘it’s perfectly natural to—’

But her words were interrupted. ‘I’ll give you natural!’ shrieked Lorraine, snatching something up from the depths of the cushions on the mother-of-pearl three-seater lounge. Gemma froze when she saw what it was. The crazy woman was pointing the nasty end of a Colt M1911 at her, the barrel trembling and jerking about at Lorraine’s every word and movement. Gemma felt her courage drain away and she was suddenly cold.

‘Hey, Lorraine! Baby.’ Steve’s voice was calm and unhurried, as if it were a gin and tonic Lorraine Litchfield was waving around, not a pistol. ‘Put that down, baby.’

Gemma saw his eyes meet hers briefly in the mirror and they were hard as stone. He turned back to Lorraine and in that second she swung the M1911 round on Steve, her hands shaking as she pointed it at his face.

‘Baby,’ he said, holding a conciliatory hand out to her, and Gemma felt her heart go cold. ‘Baby, put that down. You don’t have to worry. This woman means nothing to me.’

Lorraine swung the pistol back towards Gemma. ‘Then you won’t care if I kill the bitch right here and now, will you?’

Gemma held her breath. Her eyes flickered to Steve and back. He was coolly ignoring her.

‘You’re overreacting, baby.’ Steve’s voice was soft and steady. ‘Don’t make a big fuss about nothing. Just take it easy and put that damn thing down.’

‘Don’t you start telling me what to do!’ Lorraine yelled. ‘I had enough of that from that bastard Terry.’

She swung the gun back towards Steve then around again to Gemma who realised she was clenching her toes up into little fists inside her shoes. She tried to relax them but Lorraine’s next words had her toes curling again.

‘You’ve gotta choose, Steve,’ she said. ‘Right now. Who’s it to be? Me or her?’

Gemma felt trapped in someone else’s nightmare. The unreality of the scene she was witnessing, its craziness, its hysteria, made it even more terrifying. Part of her was finding it hard to believe her eyes. But the Colt was more real than anything else in that pearl-infested room. Her rational mind told her that of course Steve was playing it as safely as he could, telling Lorraine what she wanted to hear. Keeping Gemma safe. But there was another voice saying
he’s been involved with her all the time
.
She killed her husband for him. They’re in this together. This has been going on for a lot longer than the police operation.
Gemma clenched her jaw. No emotion moved on her face. She stood still as death.

‘Baby,’ came Steve’s soft voice as he moved closer to Lorraine, coming up behind her. Now Gemma turned away to watch the scene in the mirror. It was easier somehow to watch this insanity in mirrorland than to face the pistol that still wavered in her direction, the deadly snout revealing the dark hollow through which sudden death could blaze. Now Steve was almost touching Lorraine. His eyes met Gemma’s briefly, expressionless. Then he looked deliberately away, turning towards Lorraine.

‘Baby doll, look. Just use those beautiful eyes of yours and look. Look at her. Then look at you. Just do that for me?’

Gemma found it impossible not to do what Steve was suggesting to Lorraine. She had a clear view both of herself and Lorraine. The woman pointing the gun at Gemma in the mirror, despite the snarl pinching her features, was extremely beautiful: willowy, tall, perfectly proportioned and gorgeous as only twenty-something can be, the soft sheer suit a haze around her slim figure. Gemma, on the other hand, with the pallor of shock on her face, dishevelled, lips bloodless and hair tangled from the denim coat that had half-suffocated her, knew she looked every moment of her thirty-eight years and had never been a beauty in the first place. The ugly sister, she thought to herself, and the perfect princess. She steeled her jaw. This could be life or death, she knew, for both Steve and herself. Or betrayal so big and deep that she didn’t even realise she was falling into it.

‘Baby,’ Steve was saying, ‘calm down and take a look.’

Lorraine lowered the pistol and Steve drew her to him. He took the weapon from her hand, checked the safety catch with a deft flick and shoved it well out of the way onto the cushions behind him. Then he turned Lorraine round to face him, looking into her eyes.

‘She means nothing to me,’ he said. Then he looked Gemma straight in the face. ‘There’s no contest.’

And Gemma had to stand and watch them embrace, watch Steve’s dark head close to Lorraine’s, their mouths pressed together, see Steve’s arms sliding around this woman who had ordered Gemma’s abduction and humiliation. Then Lorraine surfaced from the kiss and snaked her head around to look at Gemma triumphantly. Gemma stared back, using her old expressionless face, the blank she’d perfected as a defenceless child surviving in a world of hostile, contemptuous adults. Behind her stony mask, Gemma wondered if she could stand all this much longer. Her flank was aching, her head spinning with grief, jealousy and fear. Her mouth was dry and something weird was happening to the back of her head. She hadn’t eaten anything since yesterday and the hateful victory in Lorraine Litchfield’s wide blue eyes blazed like a death ray.