Covet (24 page)

‘Hello?’

Lisa Milgate-Harpin looked up in the direction of the noise and frowned. She moved along the hallway.

‘Is someone there?’ she called.

She had been sure the house was empty, but there had been a noise in the kitchen. There it was again. A loud bang.

‘Hello?’ she repeated with apprehension. She reached into her purse and took out her keys, gripping them like a weapon.

Bang.

She stepped into the kitchen, her arm extended, and saw with relief that the window was wide open. The venetian blinds were catching the wind and banging against the window frame.

She exhaled and lowered her arm.

Now she was here she would get the Gaggia, and a few odds and ends like the Alessi corkscrew. Ben was out fishing with his mates, and she was tiptoeing around the house, freaking out at every little noise. Christ, he was a bastard. She would take
what she wanted and he could get stuffed if he didn’t like it!

Then Lisa saw something that made her freeze.

She paused mid-step, her eyes riveted to the bloody mess in the kitchen sink, just below the open window.

Oh my God, Oh my God, Oh my God!

She screamed.

It was a severed arm. A man’s arm, cut off at the shoulder.

The stairs creaked under her feet. Loud disco music drifted up from the bar downstairs. A couple could be heard grunting next door, a bed squeaking. Suzie Harpin climbed the stairs of a run-down apartment complex in the Wan Chai district with a plastic bag of Chinese takeaway in her hand. She was prepared for a confrontation, if it came to that. Her face was set in a frown. She positively hated the apartment that her boyfriend, Ed, had rented for them with her money. She hated this place called Wan Chai. In less than a day she already hated Hong Kong. Why did they have to come here?
Why?
Suzie could never be happy here, she knew that already.

Wan Chai seemed to be a red-light district. Strip clubs and girlie bars lined the main streets, and there were tourists everywhere, mostly men. Suzie guessed it was the type of place people who lived a safe distance away visited to do lewd and unsavoury things in anonymity. Ed had explained that it was the best cheap and fully furnished apartment he could find on such short notice, in an area where people were conveniently slack about formalities
like identification, home addresses, credit cards. But surely anything had to be better than this? Suzie couldn’t believe they had left the comforts of the love nest she had made for them in Sydney to come to this irretrievably hideous hellhole. They would have been so much happier if they had stayed; it had been a terrible choice for them to leave her beautiful, cosy house. Suzie felt she was taking a huge step backwards after working so hard to finally get somewhere. She had worked so
hard.

She put her key in the door and turned the handle. It creaked. The plastic bag she was carrying caught on one of the rusty, loose screws that kept the door handle in place. She untangled it with a grimace. She entered the apartment and found Ed sitting at the kitchen table, just as she imagined he would be. He looked sombre. He didn’t jump up to greet her. There was no ‘Welcome home sweetheart, I’ve missed you!’, no ‘Honey, you’re home!’.

‘Hello darling,’ Suzie said, closing the door behind her and locking the bolt.

There was that smell again. Stale cigarette smoke. Despite the noise from outside Suzie had kept the windows open all day, but it did little to help the odour. Now it was simply loud
and
smoky.

‘Sweetheart, where have you been all day?’ she asked.

‘I came home and you weren’t here,’ he replied in an unfriendly tone. He didn’t even look up at her.

Suzie walked into the kitchen area and spread the takeaway out on the counter—sweet and sour
pork, noodles, some kind of soup. As she watched, his eyes went to the food and then back up to her face.

‘I just went out to get some food,’ she lied, quietly seething. ‘I didn’t know when you were going to come back. I got enough food for both of us, just in case. Would you like some, darling?’

In fact, Suzie had followed Ed’s every move from the moment he had left the apartment that afternoon. Ed had camped out near a model agency called Wang Models Hong Kong for more than three hours until they closed up and everyone went home. He had then followed a couple of the young women from the agency to a restaurant in Lan Kwai Fong, a place swarming with expats from around the world, particularly Englishmen, Americans and Australians, as far as Suzie could tell. There he had drunk beer and watched the girls from across a steep, cobblestoned alley. The whole time Suzie had thought about confronting him. But she was interested to see what her boyfriend would do next. Eventually he had headed back to Wan Chai, not having even spoken to the girls from the model agency. He didn’t notice Suzie tailing him, barely a block behind. Suzie had bought the takeaway just before following him back inside the apartment. She wanted an excuse to have gone out.

‘Oh,’ Ed replied, uninterested. He didn’t bother to explain where he had been. Did he really believe she had spent all afternoon and evening pining for him in that sleazy little apartment? He actually believed she would sit around and wait for him while he went looking for that girl?

That girl.
Makedde Vanderwall.

Suzie had seen the headline too. She knew what was going on.

M
ODEL
W
ITNESS FLEES TO
H
ONG
K
ONG
.

‘In Asia we could afford to live like kings on the money we have,’ Ed had said only a few days before. ‘We can get married there, no questions asked.’ But she knew the reason he wanted to be in Hong Kong. He wanted to be there because of that girl.

I’m no fool, mister.

Suzie knew she needed to be patient. If the only way for them to move forward was to get this girl, so be it. She was willing to be patient, even help out if she could. She wanted Makedde Vanderwall off the face of the earth as much as he did. But what about his lying? Ed’s lack of honesty caused her pain. And his behaviour was changing. She was beginning to see that this might not turn into the romance that she had imagined. She’d had such high hopes. Every once in a while she would get a glimpse of her dream man—he would become sweet and affectionate, but then he would switch. He ran hot and cold, worse than the taps in this awful, run-down, stinking apartment.

He hasn’t proposed yet. When will he propose?

She hoped he wasn’t another of her disappointing loves. There was Michael when she was just fourteen, he was experienced and exciting, but it turned out he already had a fiancée. And the next year brought sweaty evenings spent in the back of Colin Garrison’s creaking car, and news
that she had become pregnant. Suzie was sure it would be a beautiful baby girl, that her daughter Rose was in her belly waiting to be born. But
he
didn’t want her. Colin made Suzie kill her, and as soon as the abortion was done, he too was gone. She’d since focused her attentions away from wicked men. She got her first bird when her parents were still alive and she was living at home, and she called him Rose after her daughter. He didn’t sing like he was supposed to, and after six weeks Suzie stopped feeding him. The next one was a female. She lasted a little longer.

When Suzie met Ed, he was in a cage of sorts, and now that he was out he was not living up to his promise. Like the new little peachface Rose she had bought the day before Ed came. It sang beautifully in the store, but when she got it home it wasn’t the same. She was glad she had returned it and got her money back, though in truth she hadn’t known what else to do with it once Ed had convinced her she had to go away. But it wasn’t good enough anyway. When their feathers grew dull and the singing stopped, she knew they would soon be gone. Would it be the same with Ed? Was he growing dull?

‘Darling, would you like something to eat?’ Suzie persisted.

He didn’t respond. She served him some soup anyway, and sat across from him at the table. She noticed that he had some tourist maps in front of him. There were areas circled in red felt pen. Ed picked up his spoon and ate his soup quietly. Not
even a thank you! Not even a sorry for being gone all day!

Be reasonable, Suzie. Be patient.

Although Suzie knew that she had to make allowances for Ed, disappointment was seeping into her bones like acid. Her head was filling slowly with dark thoughts until she felt she could barely breathe. Ed was
not
giving her the love and attention she deserved. Suzie had freed him. She had taken leave from work, just as he’d suggested. She had taken almost all of her money out of her savings, just like he asked, and then charged two flights to her credit card that she couldn’t afford. And what about the house she had made for them, and what she had done to get it? She deserved something in return, dammit! She deserved his devotion.

I won’t let him leave me for this stupid girl
, she thought.
I’ve done all the work. She’s not going to have him.

‘Sweetheart, let’s do some sightseeing tomorrow,’ Suzie said. ‘Please?’ She reached across the table and squeezed his hand. ‘There is so much I want to do with you.’

And if I have to get rid of her myself, so be it.

The vast warehouse smelled of smoke and expensive perfume.

Damn this corset is tight…

Hong Kong socialites, film stars and fashionistas were crammed in side by side, their perfumes, personas and personal assistants fighting for dominance. The din of excited gossip was rivalled by a loud smoke machine to the side of the stage that sent pale clouds tumbling across the T-shaped runway, spilling into rows of media and VIPs waiting to view Ely Garner’s latest collection, EG.

It was Ely’s first major show since she’d severed the partnership of Nobelius Garner, and the PR machine had been in overdrive to secure her status as the winner in the fashion fight. The front row was armed with the necessary arsenal for media success—Leonardo DiCaprio sat next to Chloë Sevigny, with Lucy Liu nearby, a wisp of couture falling open to reveal an expanse of toned thigh. There was a slew of local starlets Mak did not recognise, but it was clearly a paparazzo’s wet dream. Flash bulbs and bleached teeth got a workout. The international names were no doubt
wooed by personal friendship, if not the promise of clothing and front-row status. The locals were just lucky to be there.

Anyone not deemed important enough for the front row was bitching about who had been chosen over them. There was the usual sneering, leering and whispering. The models backstage jostled for a quick peek of anyone famous, their heavily made-up faces peering out from behind the curtains—all except Makedde’s. She’d already glanced at the celebrity royalty and was now busy begging one of the backstage hands to loosen the corset on her dress.

‘Pssst.’

This thing is killing me…

‘Psssssst!’

‘What is it?’ The woman finally turned around. She wore head-to-toe black, and a heavy belt weighed down with a crackling walkie-talkie. A neon-pink streak of hair fell over harsh, squinting eyes.

‘You speak English?’ Mak said, surprised.

‘What was your first clue?’ Attitude. Fair enough.

‘Could you do me a favour please and just loosen this corset a fraction?’ She spun around to reveal the tight lacing up the back of her leather dress. ‘It’s absolutely killing me. I feel faint.’

The woman looked at the dress. ‘Oh, I don’t think I should do that.’

‘Come on. I don’t want to pass out.’

‘Ely doesn’t let us touch anything. I really should call her over.’ She raised her hand and was about to shout.

‘No, don’t!’ Mak pulled the woman’s hand down, horrified. The last thing she wanted was to offend the designer who had seen fit to fly her all the way over. She probably wouldn’t have too many more of these jobs as it was. ‘Never mind,’ she said. ‘Everyone’s busy, so don’t bother. I guess it’s only for a few more minutes.’

But Makedde had already been waiting too many minutes. Her ribs had begun to ache, and she felt dangerously dizzy.
This can’t be healthy.
Sitting was always banned once models were dressed, and there were never any chairs backstage at fashion shows. Anyway, sitting down would probably make the boning in the corset buckle and pierce a rib, or at the very least cause some further repositioning of vital organs. Mak was stuck standing and panting.

‘If I pass out and die, can you make sure my body is sent back to Canada?’

‘What?’ The model behind her gave her a frown. Or perhaps the frown was permanent.

‘Never mind.’

Why is it against the rules to ever start a fashion show on time? Why?

The show was already thirty minutes late, now forty minutes, forty-five, fifty…Mak could feel the restlessness of the crowd on the other side of the curtain. She scanned the waiting line of models for the girls who were staying at the apartment with her. She didn’t see either of them, or maybe she didn’t recognise them under the make-up and hairpieces. Mak was up front, standing a not-so-close second in line behind the magnificent
Brazilian supermodel Gisele—the star of the show and probably the main reason Leo DiCaprio was in the crowd. Her appearance would be costing Ely at least a cool $20 000 over Makedde’s humble fee. In modelling terms, Mak was eating Gisele’s dust.

‘I’m dying for a fag,’ someone said.

A petite man wearing artfully ripped jeans and a black T-shirt brushed past Mak to reach Gisele. He sprayed oil on her bare, bronzed flesh without saying a word. For her part she turned when he had finished her stomach and chest, so he could spray down her back and buttocks. Then he disappeared. Not a word was exchanged. Mak stayed well out of the way of the nozzle.

Finally, after what had seemed an eternity of shallow breathing, the grumpy woman with the walkie-talkie made her signal. Gisele, newly oiled, slinked gracefully into position, as ‘Get Me Off’ pumped through the powerful speaker system, drowning the din of the smoke machine, the chatter, the clicking of Manolo Blahniks on impatient feet. The lights came up on the stage, sending shafts of red through the smoke, and revealing Gisele positioned with her hands on her hips, clothed in a black leather bikini and impossibly high stilettos with straps that snaked all the way up to her knees. She waited for her cue, her lithe body firm and voluptuous, and when the first raw beats had come and gone and the chorus began, she strutted down the runway to the raunchy rhythm, every ounce of her considerable sex appeal aimed at the audience and cameras.

It was almost Makedde’s cue.

‘Go!’

Mak was shoved forward, barely recovering herself, striking a practised pose just before the spotlights found her. As a second act to Gisele, Mak felt that she would hardly be noticed, but the audience dutifully turned to watch her. Cameras flashed. She set her features in the mandatory mask of mild disdain, and made her way down the catwalk. On automatic pilot after years of shows, she placed her feet perfectly, jutting her hips forward, head held high. The corset was still too tight, but under the glare of the spotlight she didn’t feel a thing.

Then, at the end of the runway, a pale, ginger-haired man with a camera around his neck lunged forward, catching her eye, and Makedde’s organs fairly seized up.

Oh my God…Ed Brown!

The tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Her legs went rubbery with terror, she felt like she couldn’t take another step…

On second glance it wasn’t Ed Brown at all. The man was merely a member of the overseas media contingent sent to cover the fashion show. He barely bore any resemblance to Ed, in fact. But it was too late, Ed had invaded her thoughts and she was rapidly spinning towards panic.

This is Hong Kong. Ed is not here. You are safe. Ed is not here
, Mak repeated like a mantra in an effort to calm herself.

Ed Brown was still able to poison her thoughts, even now, so many miles away in a new and exotic
country. Even on the job, he was there in her mind. It was as if she had never really escaped his clutches at all.

Makedde’s stilettoed feet continued to do their job with precision despite the inner demons that tormented her, threatening to overwhelm her. She glided back along the catwalk under an impenetrable veneer of poise, and the hundreds of eyes and camera lenses that studied and captured her every move were ignorant of the fear pulsing fiercely within.