Feeding the Demons (8 page)

In the morning, Noel came by to pick her up; after a quick coffee, they headed off. During the trip to Camden, Gemma found herself occasionally eyeing Noel on her left as he sat silently beside her, sometimes digging into his bag where he had catalogues and samples of the newest, smartest cameras for covert operations. In the confined space of the car, his male smell was interesting. But she knew what she was up to; that this was a distraction to take her mind off Steve. That’s what I do, she thought. When I’m unhappy or anxious, I immediately think about sex to take my mind off the sadness. Kit was right. What the hell’s wrong with that anyway? she asked herself. But it wasn’t convincing. I can’t go on picking up men for the rest of my life every time the anxiety gets to me. Besides, it would be very bad form, she lectured herself, to become sexually involved with one of my operators. Very bad form, very silly. But Noel was safe. He wasn’t a hell being. He wouldn’t be like a stranger from a club. He was safe, stolid old Noel. And he had a big, hard solid body that she had always found pleasing.

The rural landscape on each side of the freeway gave way to new housing estates, where washing blew on lines, and dinkies and tricycles could be seen in backyards. Domestic life probably is not for me, she thought. I’ll be thirty-five in a minute. Then forty. Steve would never be the sort of person who’d make a good father; undercover work was not the sort of employment taken on by the ideal family man. She tried to imagine him burping an infant and failed badly. She couldn’t quite bring herself to see the infant as hers.

‘What are you laughing about?’ Noel broke the silence.

‘I was just thinking of a U/C cop burping a baby,’ she said.

Noel turned away, shaking his head. ‘This work we do,’ he said after a while. ‘It’s pretty weird.’ It wasn’t often that Noel said much; he was a silent man as a rule.

‘What makes you say that?’ she asked.

‘Remember when you did that undercover job,’ he said, ‘the one at Nutramaid?’

Gemma nodded. She’d been put on the payroll on the assembly line because someone was putting ground glass in the cake mix.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘I’ve been offered something similar,’ he said. ‘Full-time job. Undercover. Might mean I’m not available for a month or two.’ He flashed a glance at her.

Gemma shrugged. ‘I can always put more hours in on the road or get someone on contract. Who’s the job with?’

Noel leaned back in his seat, hugging his shoulders to his ears, stretching and moving his back. ‘It’s not settled yet. I’m not even sure I want to do it. I felt bad last time I did that sort of work. I got to like the bastard. I know, I know,’ he said, speaking before she could. ‘We’re not supposed to get emotionally involved. I know it sounds off, but after you spend hours with someone, drinking with them after work, listening to their shit, hearing their problems, you get to, well, you get to be mates, sort of.’ Noel looked across at her, making sure she was listening, seeing the understanding in her eyes. He turned his attention back to the road. ‘Then I had to set him up. Once I was sure he was the one doing the thieving I had to dob him in. Give evidence at court with him looking at me like I was bloody Judas.’

‘I didn’t get to love my subject at Nutramaid,’ Gemma said. ‘But he wasn’t just thieving. It was a pretty psychopathic thing he was doing. Ground glass in the vanilla sponge, for Chrissake.’

‘But you know what I mean,’ Noel said.

Gemma looked away. She did. We sit outside their houses and we watch their lives, she was thinking. We end up knowing almost everything about them; their interests, their friends, their weaknesses, their sex habits, their diet, how often they shit. We comb through their rubbish and we know what they like to eat, what toiletries, laundry products, wines, spirits, cosmetics and reading material they like. We know all this about them and they don’t even know we’re in the world.

‘I’m not denying that what my subject was doing was wrong,’ said Noel. ‘But he wasn’t a bad sort of a bastard when you got to know him. He was thieving to pay household bills. Bloody wife always at him for not earning enough. He wasn’t a real crim. Then I had to give evidence in court. He was looking at me like I’d betrayed him.’

He paused and wound up his window as a huge rig passed them. ‘Which I had.’

‘Goes with the territory, Noel. That’s why we never get too close. Never get involved.’

‘Woman started doing the business on me a few months ago,’ he said. ‘That Seaforth job. Remember?’

Gemma nodded.

‘The old man was playing out of school and I got the video evidence for her. After she watched it, she rang me. Wanted me to help her make one of her own. To show hubby.’

Gemma couldn’t help imagining being in bed with Noel. She took another quick glance at his handsome, calm figure beside her, his good profile and thick hair. She briefly wondered what might happen if she ran her hand over his thigh and into his crotch. ‘Did you?’ she finally asked.

Noel didn’t answer directly. ‘He’d been playing up with his daughter’s best school friend.’ Gemma brought her attention back to the conversation. ‘It would blow the whole family apart. His daughter, his wife. The little school friend’s family, too.’

Gemma looked sideways at him again. ‘Did you make the video? To help the aggrieved wife?’

Noel turned to her and smiled. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘Do you think I did?’

Gemma looked away. She had to let the matter drop now, or reveal too much. She shrugged. ‘None of my business,’ she said, staring at an insect that had smeared itself across the windscreen in a pale orange glaze.

‘You know something?’ he asked and she didn’t answer, waiting for him to go on. ‘Sometimes I don’t like what we do.’

The last of Gemma’s erotic thoughts were blown away by her irritation. ‘Hell, Noel, we don’t
do
anything. We just watch and wait. And gather intelligence about what
they’re
doing. Then we hand it over to the relevant authorities. We don’t do a damn thing towards creating the messes people make of their lives. They do that all by their own little selves.’

There followed a silence in which Noel shifted gears as he came up close behind a slow driver in the fast lane. ‘All we do is focus on what’s already going down,’ she said. For some reason that she couldn’t fathom, it didn’t sound convincing.

•

Cross Weld Construction was spread over an acre of land surrounded by high cyclone fencing with triple razor wire trim. It had taken Gemma and Noel nearly an hour and a half despite the freeway to arrive at the long, hangar-like buildings set in landscaped, low-maintenance gardens of wiry natives. The office building lay to the right of the gate, with the name of the firm over the double doors in imposing marble-like letters. Scaffolding and the sound of drills screaming through metal reminded Gemma that the works were closed for renovation.

As they pulled over to park, a substantial, well-dressed man came down the steps to greet them.

‘Richard Cross,’ he said, extending his right hand as Gemma got out of the car. Shrewd eyes narrowed in a good-looking, weathered face and a firm handshake made Gemma take more notice.

‘So you’re Gemma Lincoln,’ he said. There was something in the way he said these words, an oddly personal note, that made Gemma think he’d been expecting something different—or at least someone different. She felt pleased. Too many ex-policewomen have big bums, she thought, and was glad of the gym and her habit of walking to Bondi for coffee. She introduced Noel and they all went into the noise of a building site, a mess of unfitted gyprock, timber linings and large, draped piles of furniture against the walls.

‘Come through here,’ said Richard Cross, guiding Gemma with a hand under her elbow, ‘and I’ll show you where the new retail premises are going to be.’ He showed them around the office and retail spaces and then the three went outside again, to the large warehouse buildings, locked at the moment and signed in blue and white squares that ‘BlueCheck Security Patrols these Premises’. Wherever they went, both in the office and retail areas as well as in the outlying hangars, Noel noted, scribbled and sketched in his folder, inquiring about the position of wiring and fittings. After half an hour, he’d developed his plan. In the cubbyhole room that served as Richard Cross’s office at the moment, they had coffee and Gemma noted the good china cups.

‘After the renovations,’ he said proudly, drawing their attention to a draftsman’s plan pinned on the wall, ‘I’ll have a decent office looking over the lake.’

‘The lake?’ said Gemma. Richard went to the window and raised a blind to reveal a huge, bulldozed crater a hundred metres away from the buildings. ‘I’m having a lake there,’ he said, ‘with water lilies all over it. And a red Japanese bridge like in the Monet.’ He turned around to face her again. ‘Monet is my favourite painter,’ he said, and Gemma thought she detected the ghost of an accent in his spoken words. This is a man who has put the past behind him, she sensed. A man who has built a completely new life successfully. I should watch and learn from this.

‘It’ll be beautiful,’ she said. ‘Not many building suppliers’ yards have a living Impressionist painting on the premises.’ She could tell he was pleased by her comment, and she looked at him closely while he and Noel talked about the most suitable places to position the covert cameras.

Richard Cross was probably in his fifties, she thought, but he looked extremely fit and youthful, possibly a legacy of his earlier days in the building trade, to which he’d made references as they walked around his property. He was the sort of self-made man, Gemma thought, that Australia does well; the hands-on maker who later buys the means of production and becomes very rich thereby, because his knowledge is based on wide, practical experience. He is probably a millionaire, she thought to herself, and now he’s widening his world further by seeking pre-selection and a new political direction for his life. And what am I doing? She turned her attention back to the conversation.

‘I’m not sure if materials and tools are going out in a system of pilfering,’ Richard was saying, ‘or in big chunks.’

‘This is what I think will work best,’ Noel said, checking off the points he’d noted. ‘We put cameras over the gates, with sensors so that they’re movement activated. That way you get all the comings and goings and you can tally the trucks out against the orders. One camera in each of the warehouses to cover the stores area where stuff is signed in and out, and two cameras in the areas above both tills in the retail section, so that all activity round the tills is also recorded. That way, we get them both ways. If you really want to go the whole hog, we can put an undercover operator on your payroll. But that could be a very costly procedure. At the moment, let’s see what can be done just with electronic surveillance. Later, when we’ve got a suspect or two, might be the time to bring someone on site, if you don’t get what you need in the first sweep. I’ll go back to the office now and work out the final quote. Then I’ll get back to you.’

Richard Cross nodded and then looked at Gemma and smiled. ‘I also want a couple of sensor lights to go into my place at Darling Point. Could you do those as well?’

‘Of course,’ said Gemma. ‘I’ll see to it myself.’

‘Do you always go out on the jobs with your operators?’ he asked, green eyes glinting. He had a smile that was never allowed to develop fully but seemed bitten down halfway through, so that his mouth had a quirky tilt to one side that was very attractive.

‘Only the important ones,’ she said, flirting back as she stood up, ready to leave.

Noel packed away his notes and pen and on the way out, Richard held the door open for them, holding Gemma’s eyes just a fraction longer than was necessary for politeness. She felt him move towards saying something and also felt him change his mind. As she walked down the steps she sensed his eyes on her back; it was a good feeling. He was still standing and looking after them as she turned the car, and Gemma felt pleased she’d worn her scarlet suit and good cream blouse.

•

The moment she walked into her office, the phone rang. She threw the Cross Weld paperwork on the desk as she snatched it up. A girl’s voice was on the other end, thin, frightened.

‘Is that Gemma Lincoln?’

‘Yes, who’s this?’

‘Bo Bayliss. Shelly’s friend.’

Gemma leaned forward in her seat, alert. ‘Yes, Bo. I was expecting your call. Thanks. When can we meet?’

‘Tonight?’

‘Sure. Where? What time?’

‘How about before I start work? Seven o’clock at Hernandez?’

‘I’ll be there,’ said Gemma. She pressed the phone connection and immediately dialled Angie.

‘Homicide,’ Angie answered.

‘Hullo Homicide, it’s me,’ said Gemma. ‘I’m hopeful of getting a description of a man.’ And she explained the situation to her friend. There was a pause.

‘Hey, Gems. Thanks for what you’re doing. I really appreciate it. The boss has put me in charge of this investigation and Bruno is totally pissed off. He can’t stand having a mere female tell him what to do.’

‘Tough toenails, Bruno baby,’ said Gemma.

‘That’s more or less what I told him. But how I’m ever going to work with him I don’t know. Would your contact be willing to speak to us?’ Angie added.

‘I haven’t said anything about that,’ Gemma told her. ‘I don’t want to frighten a potential witness by mentioning the police force.’

‘Madam,’ said Angie drily, ‘may I remind you that we’re a service now, not a force.’

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ said Gemma.

‘Silver service,’ said her friend. ‘Next time you’re being attacked, don’t call the cops. Call a waiter.’ Gemma rang off, still thinking of Bruno. There are some men who are completely impossible.

Kit did the last of the unpacking as the sound of Hildegard von Bingen’s music filled the house, spare as bones. There were things she couldn’t quite bring herself to throw out. Vases from her old house with Gerald, a large seashell from Crete that he’d given her in the early days and other bits and pieces. I’ll probably cart them for another move and then throw them out, she thought. In the bottom of one box, she found a quarto-sized envelope and when she upended it, a collection of children’s drawings fell out. They were Will’s. Pictures of her and him at the zoo. Several pictures of elephants—he’d been obsessed with elephants, she remembered, never tiring of hearing about them or drawing them. In one picture, a small boy sat on top of a huge green elephant with a trunk that was holding a house up. Inside the house were two figures, and it wasn’t hard for her to make out herself and Gerald through the windows. She studied this one until the tears came to her eyes. You couldn’t carry it all, Will, she thought. Not even with a huge elephant to help you. She had to stuff them back in the envelope and put them away in a drawer. She rang Alexander to organise next month’s supervision visit and then had her meal sitting in the twilit garden.

•

The Cross at night is all action. Traffic crawls along Macleay Street; people cross the road as they please, paying little attention to the traffic lights. Not quite as sleazy as it was five years ago, Gemma thought, but spruikers still collar single men and couples too, describing in incomprehensible terms the delights that await anyone who cares to step inside. Gemma drove along the street, past the fountain where tall Nordic backpackers sat on benches studying maps next to burnt-out street drunks and a group of Aboriginal kids waiting around for something to happen. She kept her eye out for the breathalyser boys, worrying that she might be over the limit. She had to drive quite a long way down Greenknowe Avenue before she found a spot.

Walking back to the main drag, Gemma felt the tug to go to a nightclub, drink more and find a man. It would stop the pain of Steve’s absence. But for how long? she asked herself. And again she would find herself waking with a stranger.

Near the Pink Pussy Cat Gemma walked past a group of adolescent males ogling the publicity photos in the glass case outside. An almost life-size drawing of a stripper, hugely endowed, with yellow hair piled up in snaky coils and an impossibly pouting collagen mouth had been defaced by someone’s crude drawing of a woman’s genitals over the area where the stripper’s g-string was painted. Gemma kept walking until she’d turned the corner, passed the Hyatt and walked down the hill towards Hernandez’ cafe. A coffee will do me good, she thought, stepping inside and looking around. It wasn’t hard to pick Bo out from the others in the place. Dead white platinum fringe and even from the doorway, Gemma could see the mark of acne scars on the girl’s young face. She squeezed past the piano and the bad portraits. Bo looked up through blue-mascaraed eyelashes, wary.

‘Gemma?’

‘Yes,’ said Gemma, sliding in opposite the girl. Bo blinked, pushing a strand of silver from the painted eyes. The waiter took her order for a strong black and another cappuccino for Bo and Gemma turned her attention to the slight girl opposite. ‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘everything you remember.’

‘He was real weird,’ Bo said, moving the froth of her cappuccino around with a spoon. ‘I was real lucky.’

‘You bet,’ said Gemma. So was I, she was thinking. Bo lit up a cigarette and blew the smoke sideways. Gemma could see how sick she was. She took out her notebook. ‘Tell me everything you can about that jerk,’ she said.

Bo looked upwards through her fringe as if the pictures in her memory were hanging a little to one side of her mind. ‘He was just ordinary looking,’ she shrugged. ‘About—I don’t know—thirty maybe. I don’t take much notice of them. They all look the same to me. Anyway, when I’m on the junk, I’m not seeing too good. He pulls over and I tell him how much and at first he tries to get me to his place.’ She stubbed out the half-finished cigarette as the coffees arrived. ‘“No way,” I tell him.’

‘What was he driving?’

Bo considered, then shrugged. ‘Dunno. Van of some kind. Don’t know the make.’

‘Colour?’

Again Bo tried. ‘Light,’ she finally said. ‘Maybe white. Or cream. Not black or dark blue or red.’

Gemma scribbled in her notebook. ‘So where did you go?’

‘We ended up going up the steps to the place I use, just off William Street near the trannies’ hang-out. It’s just a room with the basics. We go inside and I could tell he was real, you know, uneasy, looking around at everything. Once we were in the room, he tells me to take all my clothes off and put them on the floor, but in a neat way, like they were on me. In order, you know—blouse on the top and then the skirt underneath and my boots laid out under the skirt like legs.’

Gemma could feel the hair on the back of her neck rising, and an icy tightness round her heart. This is him, she was thinking.

‘I don’t wear underwear when I’m working,’ Bo was saying. ‘He seemed to get really angry about that. Demanded that I get some panties from somewhere. Where do you expect me to get them from? I ask him. Apart from that, I do what he says. Anyway, after a bit he calms down and then he tells me to lie on the floor, not on the bed.’

‘Didn’t you think that was a bit unusual?’ Gemma asked.

Bo shrugged, sipping her coffee. Her faraway eyes blinked slowly, like a baby who is very tired. ‘Nothing’s unusual in this business,’ she said. ‘When they want me to hurt them, or want me to shit on them or piss on them, that’s when it can be a bit—unusual. Or when they want to hurt me. But I’d just had a shot and I was feeling pretty cool. So I did what he said and then he ordered me to close my eyes. I could see that his cock was still soft so I thought he just wanted some privacy while he had a tug or whatever—you know—but I didn’t know how long he meant for me to keep them closed. And I’ve got this talk I do at them, oh baby, that is such a wonderful big cock, I’ve never seen such a strong one and I tell them how much I want it and how good it’ll be for me—that sort of crap.’

She stopped and lit another cigarette and the faraway eyes focused, staring straight at Gemma. ‘Do you want to know when it’s really good for me?’ she asked. ‘When I’m so out of it I can’t feel anything. That’s really good.’ She exhaled and stirred sugar into her coffee. ‘So I automatically start doing that oh baby your big dick routine and he yells at me to shut up bitch, you’re supposed to be dead. That gives me a fright, you know. Not so much the words, but the loud voice, so I opened my eyes and he had this knife. I tell you I jumped up, I don’t know how because I was truly wasted, but I was out that door before I knew it, screaming. I ran down to the front of the house, grabbed someone’s coat and ran outside. I just kept running till I came up to Romero’s on the corner. I haven’t run like that since I got the trophy at school for the hundred metre sprint when I was eleven.’

‘It’s really important that you try and remember this man,’ said Gemma. ‘Tell me about his body. His build.’

Bo squashed out her cigarette and poured more sugar into her cappuccino. ‘He wasn’t much to look at. Smallish. Skinny. But that knife was bloody big. I told Matt at Romero’s what had happened and he wanted to ring the cops but I wouldn’t let him, so he and Basil walked down with me back to the house but the guy had gone by then. Plus he’d taken my clothes, the fucker.’

‘Your clothes?’ said Gemma. ‘What did he take?’

Bo considered. ‘Short yellow skirt, white crop top and my white boots. I loved those boots.’

Gemma noted this down. She looked up again and saw how young Bo was. Maybe not even twenty yet. ‘Hair colour?’ Gemma asked.

‘Lightish brown—you know? Like that girl’s over there.’ She pointed to someone passing outside and Gemma turned just in time to see a woman with medium to light brown hair.

‘Eyes?’

Bo shook her head. ‘How would I know?’

‘Any distinguishing marks? Tats, scars, that sort of thing?’

Bo shook her head again. ‘He was just an ordinary jerk—you know. Just another arsehole. The world is full of them.’

Yes, thought Gemma, but they don’t all kill women. ‘What was he wearing?’ she asked.

Bo considered. ‘Jeans,’ she said. ‘Might have been Levi’s. And a shirt. Checked shirt.’

Gemma scribbled again. ‘How tall?’ she asked.

‘Average,’ Bo answered. ‘Average height.’

She lit up another cigarette and swallowed the last of her coffee. ‘Can I have an iced chocolate?’ she asked. ‘I haven’t got any money until I start working.’ When the iced chocolate came, Bo spooned the cream and ice-cream out first.

‘Tell me anything that comes to mind about this man. If there’s one point about him that you can recall.’

‘He had a thin little voice,’ she said. ‘You know. Squeaky.’

Gemma thanked the girl and left her, pushing a twenty under her plate, wondering what it must be like to be a junked-out street worker before your twenty-first. From her car, she rang the details through to Angie’s voice mail and then drove home, deciding to have a quick shower and change into something warmer. In the shower, Steve’s plastic razor lay across the soap and she threw it out of the recess onto the floor. Then she started sobbing, the hot water running over her tears.

•

Kit was curled up with a book on the sofa in the lounge room when some tiny sound disturbed her. She looked around the room. Surely there was something moving outside.

She put the book down, and tiptoed out of the room and down the hallway. It was in darkness and she tuned her ears. There it was again; a small sound, but this time she was sure it was outside, in the back garden. She decided against putting on a light, knowing that she was at an advantage, moving through the darkness down the hall towards the kitchen at the back of the house. In the kitchen, she stopped again. A soft ‘plop’ sound, as if someone had lightly dropped over the wall of her garden, onto his feet. Now she started to feel alarmed. Alarmed and fearful. She crept to the kitchen window and peered out, keeping well back, turning her head sideways to glance outside. She froze. The dark figure of someone—the outline suggested it was male—was clearly visible in the moonless dim night. Kit jumped in shock.

‘Who are you?’ she screamed through the window. ‘What do you want?’ At her words, the man seemed to leap into the air and vanish back over the wall. She heard the sound of breaking vines and somewhere a cat let out a bloodcurdling yell that made her jump again. She slammed the sliding kitchen window closed and locked the back door, standing in the darkness, panting in fright. Relax, her sensible adult voice said. It’s just some kid looking for a chance to burgle. You probably gave him a terrible fright. At this, she clutched the sideboard running along the sink, and breathed deeply. Her heart started to slow down. She went around the house, securing windows, checking doors.

Maybe I should get a big dog, she thought. She switched on the light in her room. It was twenty past ten. She picked up the phone.

‘Gems?’ she said when her sister answered. ‘There was someone here,’ she told her. ‘In the garden.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. Some prowler.’

‘What happened?’

‘I screamed and he bolted.’

‘Probably just some junkie looking for money.’

The image of Will came into her mind. ‘Probably,’ she agreed. ‘But a couple of times I’ve gone outside thinking that someone was there.’

Gemma suddenly thought of evil stirring. She shivered. ‘Do you want me to come over?’ she asked. ‘I could stay the night.’

‘No. Thanks anyway. I’ll be okay. I’ve locked everything. I think he got a bigger fright than me.’

‘You must get grilles on the windows,’ said Gemma, thinking of Kit’s house backing onto the coastal path around the beaches. Gemma remembered from her ‘perv patrol’ days what these public areas could be like at night. ‘I’m surprised that a house in that position hasn’t already been made secure. Hang on a tick and I’ll get a card.’ Kit waited till her sister returned to the phone. ‘These people are good, and reliable.’ She gave Kit the number of a wrought-iron manufacturer. ‘Promise me you’ll give them a ring first thing tomorrow.’

‘Yes,’ said Kit, jotting the number down. ‘I won’t be able to relax otherwise.’ She hesitated. ‘What’s up, Gems? Your voice sounds really sad.’

‘I’ve been talking to a street worker,’ said Gemma, ‘and I’m tired.’ She told Kit about the meeting with Bo Bayliss. Kit immediately thought of Clive Mindell’s fantasy. Someone else had the same idea, she thought.

‘Kit?’

‘Yes?’

‘Do you ever think of Dad?’

Kit felt the clench in her guts. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘Because I want to know.’

Eventually, Kit could speak. She felt an unreasonable anger with Gemma for bringing up this subject yet again. ‘I think of him from time to time. I think of our mother, too. He took her away from us. He orphaned us with his rage.’

‘I don’t think he did it, Kit.’

‘You’ve always said that. You were only five when it happened. I remember the terrible fights. I remember his rage.’ Her anger was increasing. ‘Gemma, this is not a good time to be discussing this. I’d prefer to do it another time. We’re both tired.’

‘Okay, okay,’ said her sister. ‘Goodnight. Sleep tight.’

‘Goodnight,’ Kit replied.

•

She didn’t sleep well. She felt claustrophobic with all the windows and doors locked up and the mention of her parents had disturbed ancient, deep layers in her mind. She was startled awake from agitated dreams of a couple quarrelling violently, and although the figures in the dream were Gerald and herself, she knew they were really her parents. Weird dreams of Will shattering into her house through broken glass woke her in the dawn. At first light, she was out in the garden, noting the broken branches of Boston ivy and the mess of torn leaves on the ground and floating on the pond. Later in the morning, she rang the wrought-iron manufacturers. They could have the job done in a week’s time.