Fall (26 page)

I placed the papers on top of each other and folded them.

‘I'll check this out when I get a minute.'

‘Ehhh, she –'

‘You've done great, mate.' I slapped Ruben on the shoulder. ‘Really great. I'm going to take this information and add it to our run sheet. If you go back down to reception, Gina will give you an event number, and you'll be able to ring the station and check how your information is going.
Graci
.
Graci
, mate.'

‘I –'

‘Reception,' I pointed. ‘Recepciano!'

I went back to the desk. Eden was just wrapping up. She turned to the crowd. Eyes all around me averted again, the way they do when someone cries in public, avoiding the humiliation, ignoring the hurt. There were no questions and the flock of frightened birds that had become my colleagues eventually dispersed. She sat down beside me, looking at the map. I sensed again that strange discomfort in her, the nervousness or the edginess that told me instinctively that something was wrong with her lately, that it wasn't just my slowly blossoming discontent with what she was, not just her slowly healing bones, but something much deeper disturbing her, keeping her up at night. I wavered between resenting her and wanting to help. Found myself bumping her shoulder with my own, the way I used to, the way she'd always hated me doing, making her sway, reach out and steady herself with a hand on the desk.

‘Ready for the hunt?' I asked. She gave a little quarter-smile.

‘Let the games begin,' she said.

A target on the move is the easiest to con. Hooky knew that Ella Preston left the house every evening at half past five, leaving herself a short twenty minutes to grab the 989 to Bondi, four minutes to walk down the hill, another four minutes to unload her stuff in the staff common room, wash her face, apply her make-up and get to work. Give or take a couple of minutes, she was always ready for the after-work customers to start flooding off the buses and in through the wide open doors, for the surf bums to come wandering up the hill in their bruised and warped thongs, spraying sand over the black rubber flooring like stars.

When she popped open her front door, Hooky was there in the hallway, looking at her phone, a black leather folio of printed real estate rental fliers clutched tightly against the chest of her bright red blazer. She made a delicate little noise of surprise and dropped the folio, adjusted her fine red glasses in embarrassment.

‘Oh, excuse me,' she gushed. ‘You scared the life out of me.'

‘Oh, I'm sorry,' Ella laughed, bending down and dragging the pages into a pile.

‘It's my fault. I was listening very carefully,' Hooky grinned. ‘I'm trying to get in touch with Mr David? I called and I thought
I heard his phone ringing inside. God, I'm so stressed. Too much coffee. Too much coffee today.'

Finding out who owned the apartment across from Imogen's had been as easy as rifling through the mailboxes. Sometimes Hooky felt bored with the game. Wanted a challenge. She might have picked Imogen's lock. She might have lifted Frank's keys from his pocket when she lifted his phone to get Imogen's number. But tracking down Ella, hacking
her
phone, looking at her shifts, making sure she'd be in a rush out the door, putting on her real estate agent's uniform … It was all probably very unnecessary. But people don't play games because they're easy. They play them because they're fun.

‘I'm sorry, I don't know that guy.' Ella watched as Amy tried to squash the papers back into the folder with her phone pinned between her cheek and shoulder. ‘Did you have an appointment, or …'

‘Yes, we did,' Hooky sighed dramatically. ‘This is my day though. This is so
completely
my day. I had thirteen people turn up to an auction this morning – all gawkers. My printer is broken and the café next door is turning into one of those two-dollar shops with the recording playing all the time – you know the ones –'

‘
Sports socks, six packs, two dollars only.
Yeah, I know. How awful.' Ella glanced at her watch.

‘Well, now I'm supposed to be taking photos of Mr David's apartment and he's not here.' Hooky threw her hands up, or tried to, managing one full extension and one lopsided flap of her left hand, the gigantic folder pinned by an elbow into her hip. ‘Oh, it's hopeless. Hopeless. This flat's got to go on the website tonight, for god's sake.'

‘Man,' Ella looked at her watch again, ‘that sucks.'

‘I've got parties interested in China.' Hooky rubbed her brow. ‘Urgh. God. If they go with the Mosman property instead of this one –'

‘Um, I'm really sorry for you. I've got to go, though, so …' Ella started walking away.

‘If only there was some way.' Hooky turned to the door at the end of the hall, Mr David's apartment, diagonally across from Ella's door. She watched Ella watching the door out of the corner of her eye, as though the girl expected it to fly open at any minute and reveal Mr David in all his glory, relieving the problem of the pretty real estate agent in the hall in time for Ella to catch the bus. Ella chewed her lip, continued backing away towards the mailboxes.

‘Damn it.' Hooky tried to keep her tone sorrowful, to not blow her cover by letting her exasperation at Ella's retreating steps creep through. She gestured to the door across from Mr David's apartment, the door next to Ella's. ‘Shit. I'm so close.'

‘I'm really sorry. I hope he comes back.' Ella turned and grabbed the handle of the glass door to the foyer. Hooky bit her tongue. Hard. Ella was slipping away. It was time to bring out the big guns. She sobbed just once, loudly, her face buried in her fist. She heard Ella pop open the door, but not the creak as the glass swung open.

Hooky sobbed again.

‘Oh. Um. Are you okay?'

‘I'm fine,' Hooky gave a pathetic, crooked smile, shuffled the folders in her arms and searched her pockets for a tissue. ‘Long day, that's all. I just wish it was over.'

‘I wish I could help,' Ella said.

You can, you idiot
, Hooky thought.

‘Hang on,' Ella half-turned.

‘Yes?' Hooky held her breath.

‘Mr David's apartment and Imogen's should be mirror images of each other,' Ella said. She pointed to the door next to her own. Number five. ‘You could take pictures of Imogen's apartment. It's just for like, a preview, right? You'll have the layout all correct. Just reverse the photos.'

Ella smiled at her own genius. Hooky felt the colour returning to her face.

‘That's brilliant!'

‘Well, you know …'

‘Who's Imogen?' Hooky blinked.

‘She's a doctor,' Ella said, walking back into the hall. ‘She's my neighbour, in number five there. Is she home?'

‘I don't know,' Hooky lied. She let hope saturate her voice. She rapped on the door to number five. There was silence. ‘Would she have keys to number four?'

‘No. Well, I don't think so. I don't know. But I've got keys to Imogen's place. She gave me one once after she locked herself out. You could –' Ella paused. Appreciated Hooky for a moment. Seemed to decide she was trustworthy. Hooky tried to look sweet. ‘Yeah, I mean. We'll be quick, right?'

Ella swung her backpack off her shoulder, unzipped the front pocket.

‘You've got keys?' Hooky covered her mouth, maybe too dramatically. She'd have to work on that one. ‘That's fantastic.'

‘All the apartments are exactly the same, so Imogen's corner apartment will be the same as David's. We'll go in and you can snap a few shots and then we'll be out.'

‘That'd be perfect.' Hooky clapped her hands awkwardly, gripped the folder before it could slide again. ‘Oh you're the best. You're an absolute lifesaver. You sure Imogen wouldn't mind?'

‘She'll be alright,' Ella said. ‘I'll go in with you and watch you. We'll be quick as a flash. She's a really nice chick. Uptight, but nice. We've got to be fast, though. I'm gonna be late in a minute.'

‘Alright, quick as a flash.' Hooky made a show of prancing into the apartment, knees high, a happy elf. ‘You're the absolute best for this. Thank you so much.'

Hooky went straight into the bedroom. This was Imogen and Frank's bed. She stood wondering at its hospital corners, the expensive cream coverlet, waffle-textured, the kind she'd forbid him dragging to the sofa on movie nights. There were books on her side of the bed – true crime novels – and nothing on his. Not committed enough to bring his books over yet, the permanency of them sitting there in a lopsided stack like promises, a list growing higher and higher towards a ceiling he couldn't bear reaching, couldn't believe he'd ever reach, before the inevitable fall. The room wasn't him at all. It was too clean, too bare, too orchestrated. The en suite was free of shards of his stubble, his scraggy hair on the shower walls. There wasn't so much as a toothbrush to symbolise that he even existed. The cat had been a resident for a short while, she knew, but now it was gone too, the strange imbalance of the token he had taken from his dead girlfriend living and lounging in his current girlfriend's place too much, too weird.

Hooky snapped a couple of photographs. Wandered around appreciating the ceilings.

‘This is perfect. Thank you again so much. You're an absolute lifesaver. Nice apartments, aren't they? My Beijing investors are going to just snap these up, I'm telling you.'

‘Well, I'm glad I could help.' Ella was hovering by the front door, checking at the time on her phone now, as though it was slower than the watch and could somehow give her more seconds before the bus pulled up outside. She itched to go. Hooky stalled.

‘I'm just going to be a second.' Hooky snapped some photos of the balcony, came inside and stood by the desk in the corner. Looked at the manila folders all in a stack, their spines labelled neatly with printed surnames and dates. ‘Just one sec here.'

Evans. Cherry. Bithway. Heildale. Smith.

She'd have the Tanner file tucked away somewhere. Tanner, the names Imogen kept Googling on her laptop over and over again, right after the texts and emails about the Archers started flying. Hooky didn't know what the connection between the Tanners and the Archers was yet, but she was going to find out. There had to be a reason Imogen was so hot on Eden's tail.

Hooky swiped away the camera on her phone and switched to the contacts list, pushed the dial button. Ella cocked her ear in the hallway as she heard her phone ringing inside her apartment.

‘Shit. Shit! That's my landline. I'm just going to leave you for a sec –'

‘I'm almost done,' Hooky shouted as the door clicked closed. She threw open the drawers one at a time, found the Tanner file in the very last one, under a stack of old newspapers. She shoved the file open on the desk and spread the papers out, went back to the camera and began to click. She was just pushing the bottom drawer closed, the file replaced, when Ella threw open the door again.

‘All good?'

‘Yeah, hang-up call.' Ella shuffled her backpack higher on her shoulder, annoyance edging into her tone. ‘You done here?'

‘All done.' Hooky smiled. She strode to the door, slipping the phone into the pocket of her blazer. ‘You've been instrumental.'

If you count dreaming about work as work itself, which I do, I was on the planning for the running festival for about thirty-seven hours straight. When Imogen found me the night before Take Back the Parks I was sitting at her kitchen table with a glass of milk staring at the balcony doors, no idea that she'd even arrived home, my fingernails bitten down to stubs. I'd actually turned my phone off for an hour and was playing a sort of mental game with myself, battling back the desire to turn it on again, when she walked into the room. I knew when I turned it on, it would explode with messages from Eden, Hooky, Captain James, some journalists I'd known over the years. There were maps spread all over the floor of the kitchen, all over the bench tops, some stuck to the fridge, all representing the structure of security for the event in different colours and patterns.

Together, Eden and I had tracked down as many CCTV cameras on each of the run routes as possible. We'd directed a team to work through the registered runners, looking for participants with violent pasts, and we'd composed watch lists of their likenesses for the foot patrol teams. Four different security companies were covering the events – we'd briefed them all on what we were looking for, what codes to use for
what kind of backup should they spot anything unusual on the night.

While all that was happening, I'd tried about seventeen times to get through to Caroline Eckhart to persuade her to cancel the event, despite being told to leave all the schmoozing to Eden. Caroline erected a wall of people to field any communication I tried to throw at her, whether it was email, call or message. I was fairly sure if I'd attempted to send a carrier pigeon to her massive apartment on the Finger Wharf, it would have been shot down. Probably with lasers. If she didn't hear from me, she couldn't refuse my direct appeal. As far as I knew, she was doing the same to Captain James.

The tension surrounding the festival was feverish. Journalists and the public wanted to be there when someone was killed. Everyone else wanted to prevent a killing taking place. The whole thing was like some horrific hunting expedition, the bear trap snapped open and set, teeth gaping, the trigger ready for the slightest breath of wind to whisper over it before it snapped shut. I was more afraid of what might happen if we lured and cornered the bear. I still had no idea who the Parks Strangler was. What sort of creature we were dealing with. I'd stood by Jill Noble's badly decomposed body in Glebe morgue and tried to get a feel for the killer – and all I got was malice. Pure, inhuman malice, the kind that takes over soldiers pushed too far by the intensity of war, the kind that makes them do sick things like burning villages, forgetting their humanity, forgetting their lives before that moment. Someone out there was letting go completely with these women, and what that person was surrendering to was nothing but a monster. It takes a long time to cultivate that sort of evil power in a human being. No one is born that angry – you have to be made that way.

Eden had said the victims were being punished by proxy, that the killer was living out revenge on them that she couldn't enact on the real target of her fury. The real target, it seemed, was unavailable somehow – she was dead or out of reach. The killer couldn't strangle and beat the real target the way she wanted to, so it was these runners who copped the violence. The original target was a runner then? A fitness junkie? Was her athleticism, her propensity to run, what was being punished? I spent three or four hours wasting time on the internet looking into the backgrounds of famous Australian athletes, trying to find female runners who'd been issued threats, who had violent boyfriends, sons, daughters, husbands. I looked at Caroline Eckhart's ex-boyfriend for a long time, half-heartedly inspired by Mr Esposito's weird tip. But Caroline and her bulky former beau were good friends. She was hardly unavailable to him for punishment.

I kind of knew I was wasting my time, fishing without bait, but I couldn't stop myself. I fell into an exhausted helpless pattern, trudging through one web page after another. Night fell. Takeaway containers lay everywhere, though I didn't remember ordering or eating anything.

And then suddenly Imogen was there, with her fingers working my neck on either side beneath my ears, nails reaching up over my scalp, dragging through my hair. She bent over my chair and kissed me on the cheek, put her arms around me. I sat back and let her squeeze me. The smell of her, the warmth of her lips against my neck, was a relief as potent as a drug. I was snapped awake, electrified.

‘How's the dazed detective?'

‘I'm wide awake now you're home.'

‘I've been home for half an hour,' she laughed, pressing her nose against mine. ‘I've had a shower and everything. You've just been sitting there staring at the windows.'

‘Sorry, sorry. I'm just … I'm just tired. And starving, for some reason, although I think I've eaten.' I looked around.

‘I've ordered pizza.' She sat down beside me. ‘It'll be here soon.'

‘Oh, you're a doll face.' I reached out, squeezed her taut cheeks so that her lips poked out. ‘You're an absolute doll face. What happened to your arm?'

She had a massive bruise on her bicep. I gave it a squeeze and she slapped me.

‘I ran into something. I don't know.'

‘You tell those other men not to be so rough with you.'

‘You're hilarious.' She rolled her eyes.

Imogen was a strange creature, an odd choice for me. I knew that much without Eden having to tell me. She could be very mild and gentle, as she was now, quiet in the way that suggested she'd ticked off all her goals for the day, whatever they had been, and she was satisfied to pass the soft decline of the evening light curiously poring over my maps, holding my hand, now and then looking at messages on her phone and tapping away replies. She wanted nothing from me, not that I'd have minded if she had. I might not have been there at all.

There were times, however, when I couldn't talk to her, when her mind was so tangled with clients and their problems that when she walked through the door she was ten people. She was the needy little girl with daddy issues, the OCD sufferer exhausted with worry about her health, the angry old man trying to push down the abuse suffered as a child, which rose
and rose over again through the decades like bile. She could be manic with her own hidden desires and concerns – I knew the armchair detective thing was a flag of something, some ancient point she had to prove or dream she couldn't ignore, a childhood fascination with cops that needed some outlet other than me. She needed to unravel things. Part of the hobby was the money, which she greedily fantasised about, but some part of it was the thrill of the investigation – which also poked its head up in her ordinary work. She dug down into people, uncovered buried traumas, brought secrets out into the light and examined them. There was power in that. Control. Perhaps the unhealthy kind.

A part of me also recognised that what I liked about Imogen was what I liked about Eden. There was no wearing of the heart on the sleeve with these two. Their weaknesses, insecurities, embarrassing little joys were nowhere to be seen. Once or twice I'd seen the masks slip on both of them – once I caught Eden lose herself to some tune on her headphones in the station's locker room. When I say ‘lose herself', I mean she did a smooth little wiggle of her hips, frowned and mouthed a nasty lyric or two, then went back to packing her things away in her locker, robotic. That was Eden ‘losing herself'.

Imogen did it too, albeit more obviously. She tried too hard to get people to like her. Me, sometimes, when she ordered pizzas after spending all week trying to cram carrots and hummus down my throat. When she asked hidden or sidelong questions about our future together, trying to work out how I felt about it. Whether I loved her.

Her obvious, inescapable jealousy over girls she caught me looking at, over Hooky. I knew it must be a powerful kind of
jealousy for it to emerge in the accusations over Amy. Imogen had never had a specific target for her jealousy before, but now I knew its intensity for the first time. Imogen was the kind of woman who wouldn't let an embarrassing emotional failing like jealousy show in anything more than the tips of waves, no matter what massive undercurrents swept the ocean floor. I could see hate in her eyes at the mere mention of the girl. For some reason, she didn't feel the same way about Eden, which was strange. I spent every working minute with Eden. It was natural, given what we faced together, that we might develop feelings for each other – plenty of cops did. Why was Imogen so sure Eden was no romantic threat to her? Did she know something that I didn't?

I watched her scrolling through the day's news on her phone, stopping now and then to examine commentary on some high-profile sex scandal or another, an old actor and his obscenely young wife. There was a story about some guys in council-worker uniforms who had beaten up a couple in Lavender Bay, five of them on two, with no apparent reason for the attack. Imogen looked soft in the dim light from above us, gold light falling on her arms, on the curves of her collarbones, on the backs of her hands. She had one word, ‘payment', written on her hand. I don't know what she'd been doing that day, as I'd commandeered the apartment and she'd simply gone off to entertain herself and keep out of my way, but I hoped she hadn't spent her time paying bills. I reached out and took her hand, and without looking at me, she squeezed my palm.

‘You're funny,' I said.

‘You're funny.' She smiled to herself.