Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (7 page)

‘Steve’s got a job ahead of him,’ said Angie. ‘But if anyone can do it, he can.’

I hope so, thought Gemma. And I want this to be his last job. She corrected herself—his last job
undercover
, she added silently. Otherwise the phrase sounded too ominous.

Angie dropped her back at her car in Riley Street a couple of blocks from the Police Centre. Gemma resisted the impulse to go back to Fayed’s fortress once more, despite the man with the binoculars. His minders wouldn’t know her car. Another time, she thought. Instead, she bought a meat pie and ate it in the car,
‘
You shook me all night long
’ belting out on the radio. She regretted that pie for the rest of the day.

•

Several times in the afternoon she found herself in her office starting to do the same job twice, or leaving something half-finished, only to pick it up again a little later. Her work was constantly being interrupted by thoughts of Steve and Fayed. Finally, she stopped, made a brew of strong coffee and took it to the dining table, where she sat, staring through the glass doors out to sea. For a moment, she was tempted to take the rest of the day off and go down to the boatshed, but she rejected the idea. I’ve got to get my head back together again, she told herself, and do my job properly. First things first. Gemma knew she was good at switching off any worrying thoughts by taking practical action. So she spent the late afternoon busying herself with productive paper work, making sure the records were up to date with the many jobs the operatives on the road covered, entering any final results into her computer files. She made a note of the jobs that needed finalising, frowned when she saw that Louise hadn’t got much in the way of results over the last three weeks and then checked her voice mail. There was a message from Kit suggesting she come over for dinner tonight because she was cooking Gemma’s favourite lasagna, this message followed by a hurried but lecherous thank-you-for-last-night call from Steve that made her smile. This made her want to hear Steve’s voice, even if only for a moment. She dialled his mobile.

‘Hullo?’ A woman’s voice.

Gemma felt her hackles rise. Who was this woman answering her man’s mobile? ‘Steve, please,’ said Gemma, her voice curt. ‘I want to speak to him.’

There was a silence, then Gemma heard the woman’s voice. ‘Steve? It’s for you.’ The voice was dismissive. ‘Some woman.’

Too right, honey, Gemma thought.

‘It’s me,’ she said to Steve’s formal and distant voice.

‘I’ll call you later,’ he said, still in the same impersonal tone.

She rang off, regretting her impulse. She checked the third message.

‘Gemma? It’s me. Shelly. Please ring me. It’s really urgent. He’s done it again and he’s nearly killed her.
Ring me.
’

Shelly Glover, now retired from active service, as she put it, owned and managed one of the better brothels in Sydney. Gemma had met her years ago at a Neighbourhood Watch meeting. Despite the enormous financial liability of her on-again off-again boyfriend, Kosta, Shelly had paid off the house, Baroque Occasions, not to mention the elaborate nymphs in fountains in the courtyard and florid mirrors in the bedrooms, and her daughter Naomi went to one of the better Eastern suburbs private schools. Apart from some financial assistance from her stepfather, Shelly had done all this ‘lying on my back’, as she liked to say. Very few sex workers had got things together like Shelly had, Gemma thought. She played the piano beautifully and embroidered gorgeous cushion covers with silk and gold that sold for a small fortune in an exclusive homewares shop in Double Bay. Gemma remembered Kosta as being a spoilt Greek boy whom Shelly sometimes doted on and at other times abused, as he did her.

She wanted to eat before she returned Shelly’s call. Taxi nearly tripped her as she went to the kitchen to make some late lunch then nagged at her while she chomped her way through peanut butter on two thick slabs of bread washed down with orange juice, before dialling Shelly at Baroque Occasions. They spoke only briefly, arranging to meet at St Vincent’s Hospital later in the afternoon.

•

Nothing prepares you for the terrible damage caused by a violent assault, Gemma thought, until you see it for yourself. The only reason she knew that the grossly swollen face lying on the pillow belonged to a young woman and not some monstrous alien was because she could read the name ‘
Robyn Warburton
’ above the bed in the four bed ward.

Gemma winced as she saw the tight red-purple skin of the bashed woman’s face where it showed through gaps in the bandages. She noted inflamed ligature marks on the girl’s narrow wrists, bruised fingers and broken nails. She felt a sense of kinship with her already, knowing that it was her clothing that had been in Angie’s car for delivery to the laboratory for examination. Another woman, older, with a gaunt, handsome face, sat nearby holding Robyn’s hand. Gemma hadn’t noticed Shelly’s presence at the long window until she walked over to join them.

‘Thanks for coming,’ Shelly said as Gemma kissed her. Just by looking at her, Gemma thought, no one would ever guess how this slender woman in tweed slacks and a blue jumper made a living. She wore little make-up, apart from pale lipstick. Even the fabulous long gold fingernails that flashed with every move she made could have belonged to any successful business woman, and her dark hair was simply brushed back and tied behind with a ribbon. Gemma recalled a time she’d seen Shelly floating down the staircase of the brothel in a dress like a stream of molten gold, hair piled up, golden bracelets and stilettos, matching fingernails—a golden-goddess illusion for the mugs.

‘This is Brenda, Robyn’s mum,’ Shelly said, introducing her to the older woman. Brenda raised her tanned face to Gemma, her mouth set in a narrow line that looked like it hadn’t smiled in years. Gemma noticed the powerful muscles rippling in the woman’s upper arms and shoulders under the loosely draped jacket as she automatically put out her hand.

‘Look what he’s done to my little girl,’ Brenda said, clamping her lips even more tightly. She gently put her daughter’s hand back down on the bed and lifted the light coverings up.

Gemma saw the heavy dressings that covered both breasts, and angry red stripes fanned over her ribs and belly.

‘Why would anyone want to do something like this?’

Because he can, Gemma thought. Purple-red weals were embossed on the delicate skin, some of them punctuated with bloody wounds.

‘You wouldn’t believe what he’s done to her between her legs,’ said Brenda, smoothing the nightdress back over her daughter’s body. ‘You just couldn’t imagine it.’

I don’t have to imagine it, Gemma thought, recalling the victims of other sexual attacks she’d seen over the years. Too many people imagine rape victims as merely having tousled hair, a torn skirt and perhaps a scratch or two. They don’t think what a powerful right hook with a man’s rage behind it does to a woman’s face. They can’t imagine what it’s like for a lightly framed human body to be bashed with a crowbar, or a hammer. Repeatedly. They don’t think of what it’s like to be almost choked to death.

The girl stirred and moaned through the heavy sedation.

‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ her mother said, stroking the bruised hand, distress contracting her face.

Robyn opened her eyes. Then closed them again.

‘I wanted you to see first-hand what he did,’ Shelly whispered. Gemma couldn’t take her eyes from the restless young girl. ‘The bastard disengages the handle on the inside passenger door,’ she added.

Gemma had a sudden memory. Ten years ago, when she was still in the job, she remembered a series of attacks on street girls where the attacker used exactly this technique. Then, suddenly, the attacks had stopped.

‘She’s probably going to lose the sight in one eye. I’d give a lot to get this bastard alone,’ Brenda said, her voice choking.

Me too, Gemma was thinking. She felt nothing but contempt for this cowardly attacker who preyed on the vulnerable.

‘If I get my hands on him .
 
.
 
.’ Brenda whispered.

‘The cops are doing as much as they can,’ Shelly said, ‘but they never get the resources they need.’ She paused. ‘And really,’ she continued, ‘until he strikes again, there’s not much they can do. They’ve pretty well told us to look out for him. That reminds me.’ She fished into her snakeskin purse and pulled out a dirty business card. ‘The girl that was beaten up last month,’ she said, ‘found this next to her when she came round.’

Gemma took the business card. ‘
Oradoro Imports Exports
,’ she read, superimposed over the dinosaur-like reptile she’d already seen once before. ‘That’s George Fayed’s business,’ Gemma said.

Shelly grimaced. ‘That doesn’t surprise me.’

Was it a message? A warning? Or just a business card dropped on the footpath? It certainly didn’t constitute evidence of any sort. Gemma put it in her briefcase.

Shelly noticed something and leaned forward. ‘I think Rob’s trying to say something.’

Both Brenda and Shelly moved closer.

‘What is it, darling?’ said her mother. ‘I’m here.’

Robyn opened her eyes again. They were panicky and unfocused.

Brenda smoothed the hair on her daughter’s forehead. ‘You’re safe,’ she said. ‘It’s okay.’

Robyn shook her head. ‘He kept singing. All the time he was hurting me. He just kept on singing.’ Her eyes were wide as she relived the terror and pain, thrashing from side to side in the bed and Gemma feared she’d hurt herself more.

‘I’m getting a nurse,’ said her mother, but as she reached for the red panic button, her daughter suddenly lapsed back into unconsciousness.

Shelly looked at Gemma and picked up her purse. ‘I need a smoke,’ she said. ‘There’s a balcony down the end of the corridor.’

They left Robyn and her mother and walked the length of the corridor, stepping out onto a little balcony where an unhappy rubber tree languished in a pot that smokers had used as an ashtray, and a couple of plastic chairs were propped against a wall. Shelly teased a cigarette out of the packet with her impossibly long golden nails and lit it.

‘He hit her with something heavy, maybe a shifter or something like that, as well as his fists,’ she said, exhaling. ‘And whatever it is that leaves that odd-shaped bruising just for good measure.’ She leaned against the parapet of the balcony, staring through the bare plane trees at the street below.

‘What was she saying about singing?’ Gemma asked.

‘He sings. He turns up the music on his car radio and sings along while he’s doing that to them. Whistle while you work.’ Shelly’s voice was bitter. ‘I’ve had about enough of this life. Maybe I should sell out to the Lebanese drug lord.’

‘What Lebanese drug lord?’

‘Ex-client of mine’s been putting a lot of pressure on me to sell. So’s Kosta. He wants the money. But I don’t want to sell. That house is my life. God knows I’ve worked my arse off for it.’ She became aware of Gemma’s face. ‘I know you don’t have a very high opinion of Kosta. But lately he’s been really sweet to me.’

‘Because he wants something,’ Gemma warned.

Shelly ignored this. ‘The ex-client won’t say who the buyer is,’ she said, ‘but I know George Fayed has already bought up some of the houses in Kellett Street and Bourke Street.’

‘Fayed?’ Gemma was all ears.

‘You’d never know it. It’s all done with front men. The word is that he’s buying the brothels, stocking them with his own addicted girls and then just chucking them out without any pay when they’re too sick to work.’ She sighed. ‘One girl objected and ended up dead from an overdose. Then a girl gets bashed and that card is found beside her. Makes me think.’ She looked out over the balcony in the direction of the Cross. ‘Once this place had some sort of class. People would come here for a bit of Paris.’

Gemma remembered the elegant clothing shops and shoe shops that had once enticed shoppers from the suburbs, now long gone.

‘They’d come to the Cross for a bit of glamour and wickedness,’ Shelly continued. ‘Now it’s just addicts and dealers and dirty little hangers-on.’

These days, the main drag was filled with fast-food outlets, garish tourist junk shops selling plastic koala key rings, and strip joints with overweight spruikers bothering pedestrians. The back lanes were filled with rubbish, needles log-jammed the drains and barely conscious teenagers staggered against walls trying to sell themselves. And the only people from the suburbs here were the folk who’d come to gawk at or buy the services offered. Or their children, on the run from difficult parents.

Her thoughts were interrupted by Shelly.

‘Naomi does her School Certificate this year.’ She plonked herself down on one of the chairs. ‘She wants to go to university. That’s when I’ll sell my house, so my daughter can go to university. I’ll get a nice little unit near the city. But not a moment before I’m ready, and certainly not to the likes of George Fayed.’ She paused a moment, reflecting. ‘That poor little kid lying in there is only a few years older than Naomi. What sort of life has she had? What sort of future?’

‘How well do you know her?’ Gemma asked.

Shelly shrugged. ‘I’ve sort of kept an eye on Rob for a couple of years. She’s a good kid. She worked at Classique until she got busted for drugs. Once a girl’s using, no one wants them in a house.’ She blew out a jetstream of smoke. ‘She was stoned when she got in the car with him. Staying alive on the streets depends on a girl’s instincts. Once they start doing drugs, they’ve lost their best defence.’

‘I’ll want to talk to the other girls he attacked,’ Gemma said.

‘If you can find them,’ said Shelly. ‘I’ve heard they left town.’

‘Robyn’s very slight,’ said Gemma. ‘What did the other ones look like?’

‘You’re asking me if he goes after a type?’

Gemma nodded. ‘Because if I’m going to be attractive to him, I need to look like his style.’

‘I can tell you now what his type is. He’d probably go for me if I was still on the street. I lost five kilos with Hep B at the beginning of the year. He likes that wasted Ally McBeal look.’