Feeding the Demons (5 page)

‘How’s your daughter?’ Gemma asked.

‘High school next year. I’m getting to the stage where I’ll have to give the game away. I tell her and the family that I’m in Public Relations, which in fact I am, but she’s a smart cookie, that one.’

‘What will you do?’ Gemma asked.

‘Not sure yet,’ she said. ‘I’ve put some money away. My stepfather said he’d help me get something.’ Shelly squashed the cigarette out. ‘It’s the least he can do. He’s been screwing me for years.’

The doorbell chimed. ‘That’ll be my next job,’ said Shelly. ‘I’d better run. Let him in for me, will you? Let’s have a coffee soon.’ And she ran up the stairs, leaving Gemma to open the gate. The middle-aged man looked her up and down, then smiled. Gemma pushed past him and out the gate, hurrying through the courtyard.

•

Silverwater Road seemed unnaturally busy and the sky above was a glaring white, hot and humid, the air stinking with diesel fumes. It felt more like a February day than October. Gemma made the turn towards the prison and then swung off the road up to the boom gate and the gatekeepers. She told them who she was and who she’d come to see. They checked their visitors’ lists and indicated where she might park.

After parking the car, Gemma walked towards the entrance. Inmates in their dark green overalls eyed her. Although the cyclone wire fences surrounded block-style buildings that could have been a modern high school or university complex, the razor wire hooped around the barriers at the top of the fence reminded people where they really were. As she walked towards the office area, she was met by a middle-aged man wearing a Corrective Services uniform. He recognised her from previous visits and accompanied her down to the recreation room.

‘He’s waiting for you,’ said the officer. Gemma walked quickly down the linoleum corridor, where a couple of the inmates laboured over a mop and bucket. They stepped back to allow her to pass and she walked into the large recreation room, where tables and chairs stood around and vending machines offered chips and instant cappuccino. Gemma passed a man making a phone call from a coin-operated telephone on the wall, and another inmate looked up at her as she made her way towards the other side of the room.

Gemma saw an old, frail man waiting for someone, sitting alone at a far window, looking out. She realised he was looking out for her, but she’d parked behind the building this time so he hadn’t seen her
.
This was her third visit. She paused a second, looking at him. He seemed immensely alone and sadness welled up from deep inside of her. She collected herself, then went over to him. His face lit up when he saw her and he rose quickly from the chair. They hadn’t got to the hugging stage yet, but Gemma longed to say something from a heart that was overflowing with love, awkwardness and confusion.

‘Hullo, Dad,’ she finally said, putting her hand out to pat his arm. Then she squeezed her lips together to stop herself from crying.

The following afternoon, Gemma decided it was time to take her body in hand. Finishing work early, she changed into shorts, sports bra and joggers, grabbed her gym bag with its towel and toiletries, and took a jacket.

The Seals Club at Maroubra had a gym that would never attract the lycra set, thought Gemma, and a good thing too. Right on the top of an ugly ’sixties building, it commanded stunning views of the wild and wilful beach that never made it in the fashion stakes, despite Little Patti stomping at Maroubra. The rifle range and the headland covered in low coastal scrub met the pale blue of the sky, and Gemma stood there a moment, watching the gulls riding the wind. It was always windy there and Gemma shivered, thinking of a window left open during the night in a street not far away. She walked into the club, paid her two dollars and went up in the lift, crossing the dance floor where sometimes she would have to navigate around elderly couples, the women wearing elegant, gold-strapped high-heeled sandals, and dancing to old time music.

Gradually the rhythmic effort of pedalling the exercise bike calmed her. The visit to Silverwater had taken precedence, for the moment,
over her fear
.
She went over the conversation she’d had with her father, the two of them looking out the window of the large, untidy recreation room to where a few inmates kicked a ball around in a caged-in area.

‘I’ve already been out working on day release for some months now,’ he told her. ‘It’s not as if I don’t know what the world’s like any more.’

Part of her had longed to tell him about the awful incident of the night before last, but she couldn’t tell him that. He was still too much a stranger. In the next few days, she’d look around the real estate places for something for her father.

Yet as she pedalled, images from Angie’s horrible crime scene video haunted her imagination. She deliberately looked around the gym to block them. It was her policy to maintain ‘safe houses’—places that were hers alone, where she never went with a man, and the Seals Club was one of them. Occasionally, men tried to pick her up as she sat in one of the lounges with a cool drink after a workout, but she had a number of friendly rejoinders sufficient to deal with any contingency. She would never take a man home from here because she would never drink alcohol here. This was strictly her space: safe and sexless.

She pedalled harder and noticed that the weightlifter at the eastern end had been joined by a second man, a younger fellow, who was leaning against the chest high windowsill and staring out to sea. When he suddenly turned and saw her staring at him, she felt caught out and looked away hastily, concentrating on her legs. The bike was now simulating a hill climb and the demands on calf and quad muscles claimed her full attention. Sweat itched her brow and armpits. Gradually, the electronic terrain levelled out and Gemma went faster, according to the speedo of the stationary bike. It wasn’t long before she felt calmer. My house is secure, she thought. I’m not going to let some homicidal maniac take up rent-free space in my head. She pedalled harder.

After the bike, she did the trolley weights, lifting twenty to thirty kilos depending on the work. Bench presses, the rowing machine and finally, the stepper. Up and down she went, until her legs ached and demanded a rest. Finally, she stepped down, shaky and spent. She went into the women’s change rooms, had a quick shower and slipped on her swimming costume. She went to the pool, pulled on her cap and tested the tepid water with a toe. She pulled her goggles on and stood a moment. As she hit the water, she encountered the eyes of the younger man through her misty goggles. He was pedalling the same bike she’d been on, with a ringside seat of the pool.

No way, sport, Gemma said to herself as she swooshed to the surface, slicing the water with her arms, moving steadily towards the other end of the pool. She did two laps and rested, then another four, hauled herself up and out of the water, wrapped the towel around herself, and took her gym bag back into the change room. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed the younger man swing upright from the bench press machine. She couldn’t tell if he was watching.

She had another shower and, wrapping the towel round her, stepped into the sauna room. Stretched out along the top bench in the hot darkness, Gemma felt the water drying from her body and the surfaces of her eyes. She closed them. But the slashed body and clothes of the woman in the crime scene video kept erupting in her mind. She sat up, swearing. She couldn’t relax.

Half an hour later she was dressed again and walking against a stiff southerly towards her car. It was still light at ten past six, and the aquamarine waves and pale sand were touched with apricot and mauve shadows. She threw her gym bag in the back, climbed into the car and started it, noticing another car doing the same some distance behind her. Gemma glanced over. It was the younger man from the gym, she was sure, driving a dark green Ford. He’s keen, she thought angrily, as she revved up Marine Parade. She noticed him settle a distance behind her, and her heart froze. Broome Street was just behind her. The image of the woman from the crime scene video flashed into her mind again.
It’s him,
she thought.
He went through my bag. He saw my ID. He knows who I am.

Fear surged from her heart into her arms as she swung the wheel hard left into Torrington. The fear doubled as she saw him do the same in the mirror. Calm down, she instructed herself. You’re being paranoid. He’s just a pest playing games. It’s not the killer because if he already knows who I am, there’s no need to follow me. She signalled right and drove onto the roundabout and then, instead of taking the right-handed turn into Arden Street, she kept turning, making a complete circle back to Malabar Road. In the rear view mirror, she had the pleasure of seeing the green Ford forced to move into Arden Street with another car hard on his back bumper. Gemma memorised his registration before he vanished, shouted aloud in triumph and headed for home.

•

Gemma realised she was still holding her gym bag in a clenched fist. She put it down. The horror was closer now. She took a deep breath and went to the lounge room, needing a drink. She made herself a Scotch and went back to her office. Angie answered and Gemma took a deep breath. ‘Some idiot tried to follow me from the gym. I need a rego check. QGT 178, late model Ford sedan.’

For the sake of the logging tapes at her place of work, Angie’s voice switched to professional mode. ‘I’m sorry, madam, we can’t give you any information about vehicle registration. I suggest you take your query to the Roads and Transport Authority.’ Gemma knew that Angie treated every phone as ‘off’ but nevertheless would have written the registration number down by now.

‘Usual place, usual time tomorrow?’ Gemma asked.

Angie agreed. ‘By the way,’ she added, ‘Lance got a perfect match from the murder scene with the semen deposited on your clothes.’ Gemma couldn’t speak for a moment. Although it wasn’t really a surprise there was a terrible finality.

•

Gemma pulled up outside the West Lindfield Uniting Church as people started pouring out of the doors and onto the grassed area around the church. Spinner had told her Imelda Moresby was to speak there tonight. She glanced at her watch. It was nearly half past ten. She got out of the car and had to move against the traffic.

‘You’re a bit late, luv,’ said a woman wearing an orange and black printed blouse. ‘Show’s over.’

‘I want to see Imelda Moresby,’ said Gemma. ‘Do you know where she is?’ The two of them stood in front of the entry as people flowed around them.

‘She was just back there, talking to some people from the country.’ The woman indicated the far corner of the room.

‘What does she look like? What’s she wearing?’ asked Gemma.

‘You can’t miss Imelda,’ said the woman, smiling. ‘Anyway, she’ll probably know you.’

Gemma thanked her and battled her way in. She hadn’t been in a church since she left boarding school, she realised, and she looked around, wondering why places dedicated to worship seem always to be so heavy and ugly. In the corner indicated by the orange and black bloused woman stood four people. They had their arms lightly linked around each other, as if they might all suddenly break into the steps of a folk dance. Gemma was about to approach them but something extraordinary started to happen. The four people raised their heads from what had seemed like fervent conversation, lifted their hands in the air and several fine, high notes issued from them. An electric thrill ran through Gemma’s body. An eerie yet beautiful and wordless chord was sustained by the singers, a sound resembling Tibetan singing bowls of subtle pitch, tones and harmonics layering the air. Gemma stopped where she was. Her hair was standing on end and a thrill of heat rushed through her body. Her eyes filled as if she wanted to cry. No one else seemed to be taking any notice of the extraordinary sound, which had reached an ethereal pitch. High, pristine voices sang, using strange words and phrases, the men’s voices of the quartet forming a base of chords and harmonies as the soprano voices floated and spiralled. It reached a climax, hovered there for a few seconds, then softly fell away. Gemma stared at the group of people who had created such unearthly music.

‘Are you looking for me?’ One of the women turned around and Gemma saw the regular features, familiar even after thirty years, oval face and soft dark hair.

‘Mrs Moresby .
 
.
 
.’ she started to say. But Mrs Moresby broke away from the group and beckoned her to follow. Gemma did so, pursuing the woman down a corridor until they came to a small office. Mrs Morseby opened the door and ushered Gemma in. ‘That singing,’ Gemma said. ‘I’ve never heard anything like it.’

Mrs Moresby smiled. ‘We call it tongues,’ she said. ‘It’s a way of praying.’ Her fine eyes were tired but they gleamed with intelligence. She picked up a light jacket that lay on the back of a chair, pulling it on while she spoke.

‘It’s Gemma Chisholm, isn’t it,’ she said, but it wasn’t a question.

‘It is,’ said Gemma. ‘But I don’t use that surname. I use my mother’s maiden name—Lincoln.’

Mrs Moresby nodded. ‘I think of you often, you and your sister. Does that surprise you?’

‘It does,’ Gemma admitted.

‘I have never forgotten that night. Or that sound I heard at the back of your house well before your father arrived home.
’

‘That’s what I want to talk about.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Moresby and she laughed. ‘You don’t have to be clairvoyant to know that!’

‘Are you clairvoyant?’ Gemma couldn’t help asking.

Mrs Moresby sighed. ‘There is a place in mind,’ she said, speaking the words as if she’d said them a thousand times, ‘that is beyond space and time. Every mind shares in it. Every mind has access to it. It’s something like the dream world. Very few people practise getting there. Now, you’re not here to discuss clairvoyance.’

‘I’ve got a newspaper clipping,’ said Gemma. ‘You mentioned hearing a noise that night about half an hour before my father’s return to the house,’ Gemma continued. ‘The prosecution lawyer suggested it might have been a possum.’

‘Might have been a possum. Might have been anything. I had to agree with him. I didn’t actually
see
anything.’

‘Could you see the french doors from your house?’ Gemma asked.

‘Partly,’ the other woman answered. ‘There was a patio—’

‘Yes. I remember.’ The old memory came up like a misty vision in Gemma’s mind. ‘With a stone flagging and huge flower tubs. And a trellis.’

‘It was the trellis that was in the way. I think it had a passionfruit vine over it. Very dense in parts. Two tubs—I wouldn’t call them huge, but you were only a little child then—with citrus trees in them. Cumquats? Bergamot? Two large containers, at any rate.’ Mrs Moresby closed her eyes. ‘Everything goes in twos in this.’

‘What do you mean?’ Gemma asked.

‘Two citrus tubs. Two sisters. Two mistresses. Two killers.’

‘
Two
mistresses? Two killers?’

‘I get a very strong sense of two killers whenever I think of Mrs Chisholm’s death. But that was a long time ago.’

‘Mistresses?’

Mrs Moresby shrugged. ‘As I said, it’s a long time ago. It’s you and your sister I’m concerned about. There is a double death around us.’ Mrs Moresby opened the door of the office and walked out, switching off the light. Gemma followed her. The phrase ‘double death’ almost made Gemma giggle. It sounded like something an ice-cream company might market, excruciatingly sweet and rich. In the long hall, shadows loomed and the recessed doorways were pools of darkness. She followed Mrs Moresby back along the corridor and into the body of the hall. Only a few people stood around, talking. The chairs had been replaced in piles against the walls, and all except one of the exits was locked. They went out of it onto the grassy area, where two thin cypress trees pointed to a waning moon. Gemma looked around the dark shrubbery of the grounds of the church, suddenly spooked.

‘What is it?’ she asked Mrs Moresby. ‘Why are you concerned about me and my sister?’

‘Because we are karmically bound, your family and me.’ Mrs Moresby unlocked the door of her car, then straightened up and looked at Gemma. ‘Information comes to me in images and sensations. Sometimes, it’s just a powerful feeling. All I can do is pass on things that seem to be important. Then I’ve done my part. It’s not important to me whether people believe me or not. Sometimes the information is inconclusive. Because it comes from a place beyond time, it’s not clear to me whether it’s about the past, the present or the future. I’m not a perfect receiver so I don’t always know the difference. But there is a lot of energy about
two.
’ Mrs Moresby opened the door. ‘Evil is stirring,’ she said. ‘Pray,’ she commanded over the top of the little car. ‘You must pray.’

Great, Gemma thought. That’s all I need. Evil is always stirring, lady, she wanted to say as the car started up. And people have been praying since forever. She stood and watched the car drive away. In her imagination, two shrouded figures now crept between the tubs of citrus trees and soundlessly jemmied open the french doors. She shivered and hurried to her car.