Blood Work (33 page)

Kelly grinned.
“Yeah. Anyway, part way through the first set, Kat decides she
can’t sing for this mob of homicidal drunks anymore and storms off
stage. Leaves us behind looking like idiots. I was all for running,
too. Forget the expensive equipment. Then this girl appears out of
the crowd. I thought she was a school kid at first. Short, skinny,
dressed in this preppy little outfit with all these black curls
just bouncing around her face. Not at all what you’d expect from
this place, trust me. Leather jackets, torn jeans, studded collars
were the dress code. So, she clambers up on the stage, grabs the
mike and asks if we know Pleasure and Pain by the Divinyls.”

Erin nodded.
“We saw a clip of it on YouTube.”

“That was
taken about a year later, when Mercy had really found her groove.
This first night, in that pub, she was awesome, don’t get me wrong,
but she only got better and better. About halfway through that
first song, Mel and Delia are looking at me and we all just knew.
This girl was our singer.”

“And history
was made,” Ivan said.

“What about
Mercy’s past?” Erin asked. “Where did she come from? Did she have
family?”

“Her family
was back in Western Australia. She’d come out here to get away from
a pretty dominating father. Very Catholic family. Mercy isn’t a
conformist soul. She didn’t really fit in. Things got bad when,
after paying for her singing lessons, he decided she needed to go
into classical or opera or something equally repressed. Mercy
didn’t want that, so she ran away. Spent years travelling around
with various bands and finally wound up in Brisbane, walking past
that shit hole when we were playing.”

“Did you try
to reach her family after you lost contact with her? To see if
she’d gone home?”

Kelly snorted.
“By that time, I didn’t really care where she was. At the start, we
were all just fascinated with ourselves, unable to believe that
we’d got that good that fast. We were in hot demand and had our
pick of gigs around here and down the coast. Played a blues and
roots festival at Byron, a Big Day Out, did a few turns about
Sydney. It was really heady stuff. There were rumours of agents
prowling around us, producers putting out the feelers. But before
any of them could actually contact us, things started going
downhill.” She sighed. “I guess it happens to a lot of bands like
that. The moment you get a sniff of success, real success, you
start to learn a few truths about the people you thought you knew
really well.

“Delia started
it. She began making comments about how Mercy was taking all the
glory for herself. I mean, lead singers always end up the face of
the band. And with a face like Mercy’s, and that voice, it was
really hard for any of us three to be noticed. I understood it and
I thought Delia and Mel understood it too. Maybe it has something
to do with sitting behind a big drum set all the time. You don’t
expect to get noticed, so when you aren’t, you don’t miss it.”
Kelly shrugged off the memory. “And that was the beginning of the
end of Nasty Kitten. Mercy had always been a wild child. She took
it to new extremes when Delia began in on her. I think Mercy had
issues, you know, about being controlled. She didn’t want Delia
telling her what to do. So she set out to make Delia as angry as
possible. Began hanging out with people we didn’t really want to be
associated with. Getting drunk just about every night. I was never
sure, but she may have got into the heavy drugs. Whether or not she
had, Mel and I knew that without Mercy, Nasty Kitten was nothing.
We tried to talk Mercy around, to get over Delia’s attitude and
come back, but she wouldn’t listen. I think she was on the verge of
running away again. Couldn’t deal, so she would run. And that was
it.”

“This bad
crowd Mercy ended up with,” Erin said. “Was there any one person in
particular she was with? Someone who might have drawn her into the
crowd and away from the rest of the band?”

Kelly
considered it. “No, I don’t think so. She threw herself in
voluntarily.”

“What about
when the band was playing? Was there anyone who had an abnormal
interest in her?”

“Just about
every audience member had an abnormal interest in her.” Then Kelly
frowned. “But there was this one guy, toward the end. He was at
every gig, always at the back of the room. I wouldn’t have noticed
him if Mercy hadn’t pointed him out. She joked that she had her own
personal stalker. I think she said it to get under Delia’s skin. We
all knew that if anyone was to get stalked, it would be Mercy.”

Erin pushed
aside her mineral water. Her stomach still wasn’t feeling great,
and getting worse as she listened to Kelly. “Can you describe
him?”

“Average, I
guess. I never saw him that much.” She gestured a few drum moves.
“Behind the cymbals, remember. But apparently he walked with a
cane.”

Ivan slanted
Erin a meaningful look. Erin had been expecting it, though.

“He didn’t
make any threatening moves toward Mercy?” she asked Kelly.

“Not at all. I
think he was just a fan, maybe a little in love, or lust, with
Mercy. But there were a lot of people in that situation. It was
probably only his walking stick that made him stand out. Is this
the guy you’re looking for?”

“I think he
is. Thank you for talking to us, Kelly. You’ve helped.”

Erin and Ivan
were almost at the door when Kelly caught them.

“Not sure if
it makes a difference, but Mercy Belique isn’t her real name,” she
said. “She took it as a stage name when we started getting regular
work.”

“What’s her
real name?” Erin flipped open her notebook.

“Susan
Grayson.”

Ivan rolled
his eyes. “I can see why she’d want to have something flashier for
the stage.”

Erin thanked
Kelly again and they left.

“That was all
really interesting but what did it gain us in terms of finding, and
keeping a hold of, Matthew Hawkins?” Ivan asked on the drive back
to the office.

“Just more
questions, I’m afraid. It looks like Hawkins had an obsession with
Nasty Kitten, probably focused on Susan Grayson, aka Mercy Belique.
She was with him last night, so something happened to turn that
obsession into something more personal.” She swallowed and
admitted, “And I think Mercy is what Hawkins stole from
Veilchen.”

“What?
Why?”

She told him
her suspicions about Mercy being related to Veilchen, by way of
their shared very pale complexions. “If Veilchen is Mercy’s mother,
or some sort of relative, then that would explain why she’s intent
on finding Hawkins. If there’s been trouble in the family, it’s
possible they don’t want the police involved so Mercy, or Susan,
can’t tell them why she ran away.”

Ivan accepted
that. “So our next step?”

“Contact the
Graysons in WA.”

“Gee, I wonder
how many Graysons there are over there,” Ivan mumbled.

“That’s why I
pay you the big bucks, boy.”

While Ivan
trawled through the listings for Graysons in Western Australia,
Erin called home and checked on William. He was sleeping and Gavin
and Kate were watching a movie. Erin promised them a weekend at any
resort they wanted for their trouble, fended off their well-meaning
invitations to more social outings and was saved by a second call
coming through.

“It’s that
detective,” Ivan announced dryly. “You know, the really charming
one.”

“Thank you.
Put him through.” The line clicked over. “Hello, Courey. What did
you get me?”

“Fine thanks,
though the sciatica is playing up a bit. Must be the nasty bitch
stuck in my back by my boss.”

“Hey, how are
you, Detective Courey? I hear Chinese massage is really good for
back pain, and that relieving yourself of all that information you
found helps dislodge those nasty bitches.”

“Keep this up
and you might just make it to Mrs Courey number three, girl. So,
Jane Doe at the Mentis Institute. She was some real piece of work,
apparently. Took out several of their more robust orderlies,
dispensed a black eye or five, broke two noses and one of them was
her own. Some sort of violent psychosis, apparently.”

Erin sighed.
“You didn’t get the correct name for it?”

“Darl, this is
off the books. No, I didn’t get the technobabble name for it. All
it boils down to is she was a pint sized cyclone of trouble for the
good folk at the mental ward. They had to keep her sedated, but
that wasn’t enough to keep her down, though. Each morning, doped to
the eyeballs or not, she went spastic and hid in a closet. Wouldn’t
come out all day.”

Erin stopped
writing. “She wouldn’t come out during the day?”

“That’s what I
just said. You might yet be dumb enough to get that marriage
proposal.”

“But not dumb
enough to accept, I’m afraid. So, is she still there?”

“Nope. A
family member came and discharged her about three weeks after she
was admitted.” There was a triumphant pause. “And here’s the rub.
Family member was described as a tall, skinny guy walking with a
limp and a cane.”

Letting out a
long sigh, Erin said, “Of course he was. What name did he
give?”

“Let’s see
here. It was John Grayson, of Freemantle, WA. Her brother,
apparently.”

“And he IDed
her as Susan Grayson, right?”

“On the mark.
You might be too smart.”

“No, no. I
think I’m pretty dumb. I took this case, after all. Listen, Courey,
thank you for this. I do appreciate it.”

He gave a
small grunt. “If it finds this guy before he becomes another lump
in a body bag, then I guess it’s worth putting up with you.” He
hung up.

Erin put her
head down on the desk, covered it with her arms. So, she had an
enigmatic man running around with a girl who, after being beaten
very badly, shuns sunlight and was a mere pale shade of her old,
all too alive, vibrant self. A fight of fantastical proportions
that she had witnessed herself. A disturbingly strange face peering
out of a van during a drive-by shooting. A kid talking about her
man and werewolves in the one sentence.

Something
about that last bit caught her whirling thoughts and anchored them.
She sat up and checked the calendar on her computer. It was full
moon tonight.

No. She was
crazy for giving the mad thought credence. It was ridiculous. There
were no such things as werewolves, or vampires, or narrow, sick
faces with sharp pointed teeth. It just wasn’t real.

Yet, her hand
strayed to the intercom.

“Did you know
there are about a million Graysons in—” Ivan began.

“We don’t care
about the Graysons in WA anymore,” she said. “That’s not important
now.”

“We don’t? It
isn’t? What did the detective have to say?”

“That the kid
you found online is the one we need to find now. The one talking
about Night Call and werewolves. Can you track him down?”

“I can leave a
message but that’s about it. Why?”

“We can’t wait
for a message. I think Hawkins is going to be wherever that kid is
tonight. Get me the address for the message he left. I’ll see if
Courey can trace him through that.”

“Right,” Ivan
said. “And then you’ll tell me what’s going on?”

“Just do it,
Ivan.” She cut off his reply and spun around to look at the city
cast in shadow. The sun was sinking behind her building, throwing
long grey fingers over her view.

It was utterly
crazy. She should be carted off to the mental ward just for
thinking it. But that didn’t discount it as an honest lead. Like
Hawkins had said, some people believed, and that was good enough
for her.

Something woke me just before dawn.
Not a clue about what it was, but a moment later, bam! Mercy’s
whammy wore off just like that. It wasn’t the mind wiping pain of
when Big Red fell on it, or even the piercing stabbing of when it
had first been smashed. Still, it was a big ol’ ball of throbbing,
bone aching pain that had me clenching my teeth so hard they were
in danger of grinding away.

“Mercy!”

“Matt!” After
a second, there was a frantic rattling of her cage door.

Goddamnitall!

I pulled a
pillowcase off one of the pillows, wadded it up and bit down hard.
Standing was an exercise in self torture, so I settled for sitting
on the floor and hauling myself backwards with my arms, pushing
with one leg. Not that that was much better. Tears were streaming
down my face by the time I reached the kitchen, halfway to Mercy’s
room. And there, spilling across the floor like a golden swathe of
expensive silk, was the morning sun.

Even if I made
it to Mercy’s room, managed to open the door, reach up somehow to
get the cage key and then unlock it, she would be about as much use
as a surfboard with handlebars. Damn dozy vampires.

I leaned
against the kitchen wall for a while, panting, trying not to think
about the pain. Maybe it would just go away. Mind over body and all
that malarky. Screw it. Who was I kidding?

Hauling arse,
literarily, back to my bedroom, I crawled into the en suite. A
small monumental effort later, and a strangled scream when I lost
balance and landed on my bad leg, I had my little emergency kit on
the tiled floor beside me. It was only little, because it held only
a few small items. Syringes, needles and ampoules of morphine.

Last time
Mercy had taken the pain away and it had ended like this, I’d just
slept it out. Okay, and bitched and moaned it out, too. This time,
I didn’t think I would have the luxury of letting nature run its
course. Two clashes with Big Red and he didn’t seem to be
understanding that no meant no. And he’d brought Erin into it.
Whammied her harder than I’d ever seen before. That wasn’t going to
go unanswered.

So I broke the
ampoule, drew up the morphine and like any helpless addict, shot up
on the floor of a bathroom.