Covet (3 page)

‘I wanna be loved by you,’ Marilyn Monroe crooned. ‘You and nobody else but you…’

Suzie Harpin hummed along as she vacuumed the house, cutting a swathe of spotlessness through each of the rooms. She ran the vacuum head over the carpet again and again, detouring around the hefty garbage bags full of clothing and junk she had rounded up and arranged against the walls, like hay bales awaiting collection.

‘I wanna be loved by you,
alo-o-o-ne.
Boop boop beedooo…’

Suzie had the stereo up loud, delighted to have found a CD she liked amongst Ben’s boring Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Skyhooks albums. That type of music was not to her taste. There was nothing romantic about ‘Living in the Seventies’ or ‘Long Way to the Top (If You Want to Rock ‘n’ Roll)’.

She noticed the sky growing dark outside the large living room windows, and she flicked off the vacuum cleaner. Giving a cursory look along the street, Suzie closed the curtains and checked the time. It was already early Monday evening in this sleepy western Sydney suburb and there was still so
much she wanted to do before she headed home to get ready for work. She wasn’t used to keeping these hours and the lack of sleep had really hit her, but she was tough and she soldiered on. Her newfound domesticity excited her, and she threw herself into the role as fervently as she did any new project.

She had begun her chores by taking down all of Ben’s photos: the wedding photos that he still had around for some reason that Suzie could not comprehend, the goofy happy snaps with fishing mates, the old photo with his surfboard. They had gone into the first garbage bag. There was a lot more to be thrown out, but she’d made a start.

Soon she would have to tackle the
clean-up.
The clean-up was going to be so much worse than she’d thought.

‘I wanna be kissed by you…’

Not one to waste time even when she was tested by physical exhaustion, Suzie started the machine again and worked away, pushing the droning vacuum cleaner along the carpet of the hallway. She made it right up to the bathroom door before she finally turned it off.

She frowned.

Plugging her nose with two fingers, she stepped into the bathroom and stopped short at the small pool of blood hardening around the carcass of her brother. She was not sure what to do with the body in the long term, but that was okay. There was no great rush. She had several days to get everything ready, and she didn’t have to worry about anyone
snooping around in the meantime. But the rising stench would not do. She would have to get him in the bathtub before he made more of a mess, then bag him and move him somewhere more convenient.

Oh, what a stench
…

It was with great interest and a sense of serendipity that Suzie had come across Spanish fly and learned of its powers. Spanish fly had, she knew, a somewhat inflated reputation for enhancing sexual prowess. It was believed by some to inflame and arouse, but only by way of a bit of poisoning. Cantharidin was in fact a blistering agent, and like all poisons, the deadliness was in the dosage. Suzie had been careful to administer a sufficiently large amount of the pure form of the poison to terminate her brother, but the result was so much messier and less efficient than she had anticipated. Everything the pie had come in contact with—his lips, tongue, throat, stomach and entire digestive tract—had been ripped to shreds. But who knew it would take so long? Almost five hours had passed before Ben died. Suzie was not pleased.

While she was still watching her favourite soap opera, Ben had managed to somehow get himself up off the kitchen floor and stumble down the hallway to the bathroom to relieve himself when the poison’s grisly destructiveness had progressed all the way to his urinary tract. Imagine the shock and horror she felt in seeing him stagger past, losing his balance a few times in the process, leaving a bloody
handprint on the wall and a mess of sick down the perfect carpet.

Terribly inefficient.

But never mind.

Now he was dead and she could get on with it. Suzie grabbed a mop and bucket from the kitchen and began the long and unpleasant task of making the bathroom presentable.

Which nineteenth-century French painter started pointillism?

Georges Seurat.

‘Excuse me…’

Bolivia and which other country are the only two landlocked nations in South America?

Umm…Paraguay.

What was the name of the cyclone that devastated Darwin on Christmas morning, 1974?

‘Excuse me, Miss Vanderwall?’

Makedde looked up to find a deeply tanned Qantas airline steward addressing her. She fumbled around to take off her headset, tearing herself away from Coldplay’s moody tunes and letting the onboard trivia game penalise her for not choosing one of the multiple-choice answers.

‘Um, hello.’

‘Miss Vanderwall?’ The pretty steward had her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun, and she wore some of the darkest lip liner Mak had seen in some time. It was hard to take her eyes off the heavily drawn burgundy line as it moved with each syllable.

‘Yes? That’s me,’ Mak replied.

‘We’ll be preparing to land soon,’ the lip line said. The attendant squatted in the aisle beside Makedde’s seat and continued in a conspiratorial whisper. ‘We wanted to let you know that there will be some people to meet you at the gate in Sydney.’

‘People?’

‘It seems that the media may have been tipped off about your arrival. Some Qantas ground staff have been organised to escort you through a more convenient exit.’

‘Really? Why thank you. That’s very kind.’
The media?
‘Oh,’ Mak added, remembering that the police had organised an airport pick-up, ‘I have some people waiting for me—’

‘That’s okay, Miss Vanderwall. They have been informed also. It’s all organised.’ The steward nodded and smiled politely, as if to say, I know
everything.
‘Hey, are you feeling okay?’

Mak felt a little ill. ‘I’m fine,’ she lied.

The steward patted her arm in a familiar way, and leaned closer, cocking her head to one side, the lips held tight, eyes wide. She was bubbling over with unspoken questions, waiting for any sign that she could go ahead and start probing. She hovered for a few moments and when Mak failed to confide any deliciously gruesome details she said, ‘Well…good luck. I hope you enjoy your stay,’ and stood to leave.

Enjoy your stay?

Mak couldn’t help but feel queasy imagining that she had spent almost thirteen hours on this
plane without even considering the possibility that everyone around her might know who she was, what had happened to her and why she was there.

Creepy.

‘Um, can you help me with something?’ Mak asked, just as the steward turned to walk away.

‘Sure, what can I get you?’

‘Do you know the name of the cyclone that devastated Darwin in 1974?’

‘Sorry?’ The drawn lips formed a confused pout.

‘Never mind. It’s not important.’ Mak hated being posed a question and not knowing the answer, no matter how irrelevant. ‘Thanks for letting me know about the, uh…welcome party.’

The steward smiled sweetly and disappeared up the aisle.

Makedde yawned and stretched her sore muscles, her mind frantically running over the possibilities of what might be in store. There had been plenty of headlines back when the killings were still taking place and Sydney was in the grip of its fear and fascination with the Stiletto Murders, but she had hoped the trial would not attract the same amount of interest. Perhaps her hopes were in vain, if the steward’s news was anything to go by. That wasn’t a comforting thought. She couldn’t stand the idea of seeing poor Catherine’s beautiful face in the papers again, with the caption ‘Slaughtered’, ‘Murdered’ or simply ‘Victim’ underneath.

Mak adjusted her watch to Tuesday, 5.55 a.m., Sydney time, and rubbed some gritty sleep out of
her eyes.
Yuck.
She craned her neck to see the Opera House come into view as the plane dipped its giant wing and banked left. The sky was a brilliant azure, the blue reflected in a vast expanse of Australian waters below. But the dazzling sight only added to her queasiness, thanks to those not-so-fond memories of her last trip.

Surely the worst was over?

Mak strapped herself in and prepared to arrive in Sydney.

You’ll soon find out.

Detective Senior Sergeant Andrew Flynn leaned against the far wall of Arrivals Gate C at Sydney International Airport, holding some flowers in his hand and his heart in his throat. His tall, rough-and-tumble handsomeness drew an admiring glance from an attractive blonde at the Hertz car rental desk. He failed to notice her, lost as he was in a battle with his own thoughts.

Ditch the flowers.

No, women like flowers.

You look like an idiot. Ditch ’em.

Barely five minutes after buying them, he chucked the small bouquet of mixed flowers—he didn’t know what they were—into a nearby bin. He resumed his position, leaning with his back to the far wall close to the sliding doors of the main exit, and crossed his arms. Andy felt much better without the silly bouquet. It had been a stupid
impulse, not his style at all. The truth was, his normally steady nerves were getting a working over this morning and he worried that he might be in danger of doing something he would regret later. A fax had come in overnight that threatened in not-so-subtle terms to jeopardise some of the vital funding of the new New South Wales Profiling Unit, of which he was set to be a major player once it was up and running.
Fuck.
But he knew that wasn’t the only thing responsible for his mood. Or even the main thing responsible for it.

Makedde Vanderwall was arriving from Canada this morning, any minute now. Andy wasn’t quite sure what to expect from her or their relationship, if that was the right word for what they had.
She is one of those unpredictable types
, he thought. Then again, weren’t all women? He hadn’t been able to sleep so he figured he might as well come to the airport and try to be useful, but he didn’t feel so good as he stood there anticipating her arrival. The midnight Jack Daniels run probably hadn’t helped his condition.

‘Are you back on the booze, Andy?’

‘Oh no, Inspector Kelley, don’t worry about that…’

He looked at his watch:
6.20
a.m. It was bloody early, but it could have been midnight or one in the morning to him, he wouldn’t be able to tell the difference if it weren’t for the light outside.
No sleep.
He looked around for someone brandishing one of those chauffeur’s cards with Makedde’s name on it, but it seemed there was no one to collect her. He thought someone had
organised for Senior Constable Mahoney to pick her up from the airport, but he hadn’t seen her or anyone else who was familiar. None of his colleagues were milling around, which was a relief because he would never live down the bouquet thing if they’d seen it.

The sliding glass doors beside him opened with a waft of crisp air and yet another TV crew walked in, surveying the crowd. Now there was a handful of photographers assembled in the arrivals area, and crews from both Channels Nine and Seven. Who were they there to see? Ian Thorpe maybe? He was reportedly coming back from overseas soon. Brett Lee or Shane Warne perhaps? Or one of those Los Angeles-based Aussie actresses he could never remember the names of?

Andy unfolded his arms and put his hands in his pockets. He looked over at the gift shop. Perfumes. Cards. Chocolates. Flowers. Should he buy her something? Would that be assuming too much?
Yes it would be. Just leave it.

Some travellers finally began to appear through the arrivals gate. He saw a tired-looking tanned couple with backpacks and an older woman pushing a trolley overflowing with baggage. A young man with a huge Canadian flag sticker plastered to his suitcase followed, rubbing his eyes and looking anxiously at the sea of faces. Mak probably wouldn’t be too much longer.

She hadn’t returned his last few calls, and he hadn’t told her he would be at the airport to greet her. They’d left off their long-distance relationship
on a kind of odd note, that much was true. There had been a lot of phone calls since he’d returned to Sydney from his extended work trip to Canada six months earlier. At first everything seemed fine. Then about two months ago she’d said that she thought they should see other people. She’d said that long-distance relationships never really worked and they shouldn’t put too much pressure on themselves. Of course he’d agreed. What else was he supposed to say? But then he’d gone ahead and followed through. It had only been a weekend fling, really. A nurse. Carol was her name. A nice girl, but not really his type. Or rather, she wasn’t Makedde.

It hadn’t taken long for him to realise he had done the wrong thing. And now there was this stand-off. What was he supposed to do? It had been her idea after all. Why would she say something like that if she didn’t really mean it?

Women.
Were they even the same species? Andy thought it ironic that he could map the psychological processes of the worst kinds of serial killers and rapists, but he still couldn’t figure out what made the opposite sex tick. They truly were a mystery to him.

A tall, attractive blonde appeared through the arrivals gate in jeans and a zip-up top, her suitcase bearing another of those ubiquitous red and white Canadian flags. Andy stood up straight and looked at her, his heart beating a little faster. But it was not Makedde. He noticed the film crews and photographers edging forward excitedly. And then,
without a single flash bulb going off, they shuffled back into place, clearly disappointed.

And that’s when it dawned on him.

Oh shit. They know she’s coming back this morning. How the fuck did they find out?

He panicked.

Andy didn’t want Mak to be met with a flurry of invasive questions about the murder trial straight after a twenty-hour trip from Canada. Some welcome that would be. There seemed to be someone tipping off the media lately. Perhaps it was one of the new constables? Never trust an underpaid cop. Andy ran through scenarios in his head, ways he could help her avoid the throng. It would be tough enough for her to face it outside the Supreme Court in a few days, but she didn’t need to deal with this now.

He approached airport security.

‘Good morning,’ Andy said to a sleepy young uniformed guard. He flashed his badge discreetly and asked to be taken into the customs area.

‘No problem, detective,’ the young man replied, looking somewhat more awake. ‘Come with me.’

He hoped he wasn’t too late.

Minutes later, when Andy was told that the witness he sought was already being escorted to her hotel, he felt he masked his disappointment fairly well. He didn’t punch a wall, or even let out a string of expletives, although those responses crossed his mind. He simply said, ‘Good work. Carry on,’ and quietly exited the airport where he’d just wasted ninety minutes. He couldn’t have been farther out of the loop if he tried.

Fucking fool.

By the time he got back to his apartment it was past eight, leaving just enough time for a couple of fried eggs and another wrestle with his desire for a shot of Jack Daniels before he headed to work and forced Makedde Vanderwall safely out of his mind…for a few hours at least. Then there would be the unavoidable briefing over dinner with Hartwell and the gang.

Andy would have to get his act together and keep it professional in front of his colleagues. They all had a trial to prepare for and it was of great importance that everything ran as smoothly as possible. There was no room for emotional baggage. This was a big one, and the nation was watching.

It was two days till show time.