Spiking the Girl

Gabrielle Lord
is widely acknowledged as one of Australia’s foremost writers. Her popular psychological thrillers are informed by a detailed knowledge of forensic procedures, combined with an unrivalled gift for story-telling. She is the author of thirteen novels—
Bones, Tooth and Claw, Salt, Jumbo, The Sharp End, Feeding the Demons, Whipping Boy, Fortress, Death Delights, Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing, Lethal Factor, Spiking the Girl
and
Dirty Weekend
. Her stories and articles have appeared widely in the national press and been published in anthologies. Winner of the 2002 Ned Kelly Award for best crime novel for
Death Delights
and joint winner of the 2003 Davitt Crime Fiction Prize for
Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing
, Gabrielle has also written for film and TV and is currently completing
Shattered
, the new Gemma Lincoln novel. She lives in Sydney.

Other Gemma Lincoln novels

Feeding the Demons

Baby did a Bad Bad Thing

Shattered

First published in Australia and New Zealand in 2004
by Hodder Australia
(An imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)
Level 17, 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000
Website:
www.hachette.com.au

This edition published by Hachette Australia in 2007

Copyright © Gabrielle Lord 2004

This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for
the purposes of private study, research, criticism or
review permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968
,
no part may be stored or reproduced by any process
without prior written permission. Enquiries should
be made to the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data

Lord, Gabrielle, 1946- .
Spiking the girl.

ISBN 978 0 7336
 
1980 9.
ISBN 978 0 7336
 
2565 7 (ebook edition).

1. Women private investigators - Fiction. 2. Murder -
Investigation - Fiction. I. Title.

A823.3

Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork
eBook by
Bookhouse, Sydney

To Ken Bruen

Gra agus bheannacht

Tasmin jogged down the hill, long legs striding out in navy trackpants, blonde ponytail swinging, and adolescent
breasts bouncing under a brief sports top, her school backpack jerking up and down in time. Headphones filled her ears with her favourite singers, but even that couldn’t block out the memory of what she’d heard yesterday.

It couldn’t be true, she insisted to herself. Eddie was just trying to frighten her. Or impress her. He did that sometimes when he’d had too much to drink. She hadn’t really
meant
it when she’d said she’d go to the police. It was just the terrible shock of hearing what he’d said had happened to Ames. She didn’t think Eddie would tell anyone about what she’d said. And what good would it do anyway if she did tell what had happened? It couldn’t change anything. And it would mean the end of everything—everything they’d worked for.

Tasmin jogged on, her feet keeping time with
It’s over, it’s done, it’s over, it’s done
. Wasn’t everyone telling her that? To put the past behind her and get on with it? And Amy would
want
her to keep her dreams, surely.
It’s over, it’s done and Amy is gone, it’s over, it’s done and Amy is gone
went her feet, but her mind kept wishing that Eddie hadn’t told her.

Go away, she told the memory. These things happen. They’re happening all the time.

She turned the corner, wishing she weren’t going to school. She wanted to leave. What was the point of staying on any longer? How could the stuff she was supposed to be learning at school have anything to do with real life?

She tried to block out her concerns by dreaming of the promised new lifestyle. Sleeping in till really, really late, then coffee and a leisurely brunch at the beach. Afternoon shopping, parties every night. Three or four lucrative modelling assignments during the week. No more boring classes and rushed homework. No more heavy backpacks filled with boring textbooks. She would be sharing a flat with Cee at Bondi. Last year, she and Amy and Cee had talked about moving out together. Now there were only two. She hoped Cee would still be keen. She’d noticed Cee had become more distant, more disapproving, of late.

She took her mind off that by thinking of the exciting way things were shaping up, the approaches she’d had from working with the guys from the club. She wouldn’t even need a stupid Higher School Certificate. But trying to talk to Mum about it would just mean another fight like last night’s and she couldn’t bear the thought of that. I could get work right now, she thought, high-paid work, too. Fun work. She’d already proved that. But she couldn’t tell her mum about any of that.

She avoided a pile of dog shit without altering her rhythmic stride. The only good things about Netherleigh Park had been her friends and the secret. Tears pricked the back of her eyes. Even though it was a year, she still missed Amy. Tasmin blinked and sniffed, took a deep breath, trying to dismiss the memories. Eddie had just been trying to frighten her. Maybe he was even trying to put pressure on her, get her to work for
him
. Make her think she needed his protection or something. No way. She would definitely put what he’d told her about Amy right out of her mind. She shouldn’t have threatened him with going to the police. It’d just spoil everything, ruin her whole future, if the police started looking into things. She thought of her mother’s response and her resolve hardened further. No way. The future was where she wanted to be. Right now.

Tasmin took a deep breath before starting up the hill, then noticed Mrs McAdam’s red Merc stopped at the lights at the top.
Shit!
She mustn’t be seen by their neighbour running to Netherleigh Park. Since Amy’s disappearance, her mum had practically made her swear on the Bible that she would get the bus each morning. But Tasmin needed the exercise. In the world she was moving towards, she needed to keep her perfect adolescent figure. Everything she ate went straight to her hips and the five-kilometre run to school each day was a good workout.

The traffic lights changed and Tasmin dived into the driveway of a large block of flats, taking cover behind a clump of yellow hibiscus bushes. Mrs McAdam’s Merc sailed past as Tasmin peered through the dark green leaves. She hadn’t been seen.

She bounced out again, taking the hill in long strides and thinking about the letter she was composing to Romeo. Very explicit. Very
hot
. That was the other saving grace of boring old school—torturing the teacher. She and Cee could giggle over it before she hid it.

Tasmin winced as she nearly went over on an ankle. Snapping her attention back to her stride, she glanced at her watch. If she kept up this good pace she would be there in less than fifteen minutes. She started panting as the hill made her calf muscles and quads burn; her ankle began to throb. To take her mind off how hard it was, she thought of racing into the school grounds, grabbing her spare uniform and shoes from the sports room, having a quick shower and then reporting, fresh and sweet, for her one-on-one History essay meeting.

But then a blue Ford slowed down beside her. Tasmin looked across, not recognising the car. Surely it wasn’t her stepfather trying to put more pressure on her? Or some sleaze trying to pick her up? It took her a moment to see past the dark glasses. When she realised who was driving, her heart skipped a beat and she stopped jogging, pulling the earphones off.

He smiled at her. ‘Want a lift, Tas?’ Then his face became more serious. ‘We need to talk.’

Tasmin thought fast. She could text Cee—that’s if Cee had sneaked her mobile into school—and Cee could write a note for her. Maybe.

‘Okay,’ she said.

Until yesterday, she’d have smiled.

Gemma pulled up in front of the address Daria Reynolds had given her and sat there for a few moments, taking in
the scene. Her fingers traced the gaping hole in the Celtic pendant round her neck as she tried to put last night out of her mind. Jimmy Barnes was singing that ‘
the last plane out of Sydney’s almost gone
’ and Gemma switched him off, thinking how she wished she could fly away with it. Wherever she went though, Gemma knew she’d take her grief and regret with her. Wearily she gathered up her briefcase and the empty folder she’d started with ‘Daria Reynolds’ and the case number written on the cover. If it hadn’t been for last night’s poisonous, terminal fight with Steve, Gemma would have delighted in the perfect summer morning awaiting her outside, the magpies carolling in the trees overhead, beautiful yellow roses in the small front garden beyond the footpath. Then she felt the shadow again and shivered. Condition orange was still prevailing, her every instinct flashing a warning. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was on her tail. But why and who? Maybe it was just paranoia, projecting her own work onto some other agent.

She checked the Bondi Junction streetscape in the rear-vision mirror. Only a couple of parked cars on the road—all vacant. No one sitting inside them, pretending to be reading the papers or a road map. She waited in case someone was circling the block. But no one drove past. Settle down, she told herself. Her increasing sense of danger must be because of last night—the gaping injury caused by Steve’s walk-out. There was a hole in her heart.

She gripped her briefcase and, giving the street one last sweep, got out and locked the car before walking up the short path to the house. Smoky glass panels on either side of the front door provided an ad hoc mirror, and she pushed a stray lock of tawny hair back behind her left ear. The ancient fragrance of frankincense caused her to wonder. It must be coming from inside the house.

The front door suddenly opened. Gemma’s first impression of the slight woman was that Daria Reynolds appeared to be younger than she probably was. An Alice band held back her hair above a pale, round face.

‘Miss Lincoln? Please come in.’

Gemma stepped inside, noting the four heavy-duty locks on the door. This woman took security seriously. She followed her hostess into a large living room. Daria Reynolds was too thin, but shapely, in her simple black dress cinched with a narrow red leather belt. The room was hot and Gemma immediately saw why. Masses of candles flickered in front of crowding religious paraphernalia: icons, statues and pictures of saints. She was glad she hadn’t sent Spinner on this particular job. He’d go crazy at all this Popish superstition.

‘Please sit down,’ Daria whispered, gold crosses swinging from her ears, pink pearl rosary beads around her neck. Gemma wondered why she was whispering until she realised that the feathery, sibilant voice was the woman’s normal speaking tone. Gemma put her briefcase down and pulled out her notebook, pen ready.

‘It’s good of you to come to me,’ Daria added. She would have been a pretty woman except for the anxious shadows around her eyes. ‘I find it increasingly difficult to leave the house. Except for church.’ She pulled up a venetian blind, allowing daylight into the stuffy room, and the candles paled.

Outside, a siren wailed and Gemma idly wondered if anyone she knew was driving past. After eight years out of the job, there weren’t many faces she recognised anymore. Her best girlfriend, Detective Sergeant Angie McDonald, was one of her few remaining links to the service.

‘Can I get you anything?’ Daria hovered.

‘A coffee would be nice. Milk and no sugar.’

The woman’s absence gave Gemma a chance to take in more of the extraordinary display. It wasn’t just Popish, she now realised. This was a very ecumenical gathering: the Buddha, a menorah with lighted candles, Jesus and the Chinese goddess of mercy were among the figures Gemma could identify. Displayed on a black lacquer stand, Michael Archangel plunged a heavenly lance through the body of a demonic dragon. Would a candle lit to this fellow, the patron saint of police, help her salvage the mess with Steve? No. It was too late now.
Go away!
she’d screamed at him out of the depth of her rage last night.
I never want to see you again! Just get the hell out of my life!

And so he had.

Gemma felt tears burn and focused her attention on a peculiar carved angel that reminded her of the vicious winged monkeys from
The Wizard of Oz
. She didn’t have any time for tears. After this interview, she’d go straight to Netherleigh Park Ladies’ College. Keep busy, girl, she told herself. It was going to take her a long time to rebuild her business to how it had been before the crash of last year. Despite the good work of the risk management team called in by Mike, Gemma knew she’d lost contacts and goodwill that had taken her years to develop.

From the kitchen came the aroma and sounds of coffee-making. Daria Reynolds hadn’t said much on the phone, just enough for Gemma to work out that she was having man trouble. One popular service Gemma’s business offered was the very reasonably priced Mandate, a service available to women who had their doubts about the man in their life, or the man they were inviting into their life. For around five hundred dollars, Gemma could check out that the man was in fact who he said he was, that he worked and lived where he said he did, and, in some cases, that he had no major criminal record. Most of this information was legally available, but it might take an unpractised searcher weeks to discover it, whereas she could check it out in about twenty-four hours. Was Mr Reynolds up to mischief? She gritted her teeth, trying not to remember the way Steve had walked away without a backward glance, and Daria appeared carrying two cups on a small square tray.

‘I’ll need to know more than what you told me over the phone, Daria.’ Gemma took a sip of coffee. ‘You said you were having some sort of trouble with your husband?’

‘Ex-husband,’ Daria corrected, perched on the edge of her seat opposite. ‘I divorced him eighteen months ago.’ She raised her eyes to a statue of a bearded saint holding a staff and lily. ‘Even though it hasn’t made any difference. Even though divorce is against my religion.’

Outside, a second siren wailed louder and closer and Daria Reynolds automatically blessed herself. The woman seemed quite self-possessed, Gemma thought. Exhausted, but collected. She showed none of the agitation you’d expect from someone unbalanced. Nor did she seem to be under the influence of tranquillisers.

‘What can I do for you?’ Gemma asked, pen poised over her notebook.

The woman lowered her eyes. ‘I’m at my wits’ end,’ she whispered. ‘He just won’t leave me alone. He keeps coming back.’

‘His full name and date of birth?’

‘Vincent John Reynolds. 19 September 1953.’

Gemma jotted the information down.

‘I’m terrified of him,’ Daria whispered, head lowered.

That was evident but Gemma noted it. The assembly of saints and celestial beings started to make sense. ‘Is he violent? Has he threatened you? Assaulted you?’

There was a silence.

Gemma leaned forward, speaking gently. ‘Mrs Reynolds, I need to know things like this. I understand this isn’t easy for you but I have to ask these questions.’

Daria stood, moving suddenly like a woman twice her age, and went to a box on the mantelpiece. She took out a narrow stick of incense and lit it with a cigarette lighter, waved the flame out and stuck the smoking stalk in a crystal holder. Finally she sat down again.

‘He doesn’t touch me.’ Again, a long pause, the pressure of silence building. ‘He comes at night.’ Her voice barely registered.

Like a vampire, Gemma thought, and the religious icons made even more sense. Almost as the thought came, a candle sputtered and died with a sharp crack. Daria jumped out of her seat again to attend to it and Gemma had to strain to pick up her words.

‘I wake up and he’s there, beside me.’

Daria returned to her seat and hunched in it. ‘I wake up and I can smell him.’

Gemma felt the hairs on her neck and arms prickle.

‘And I know he wants to have sex with me.’ She looked at Gemma. ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘I don’t know what to do.’

Even after divorce, Gemma thought, some men just don’t get it. And some women don’t get it either. Daria Reynolds just lies there. Why the hell doesn’t she ring the police? Get the bastard thrown out of the house? She felt irritation rising.

‘You’re wondering why I don’t take action, why I just let this sort of thing happen, aren’t you?’ said Daria before Gemma could speak.

‘I’ve done everything I can,’ she continued, ‘and he’s never touched me. I always feared his violence, he knew that. But that wasn’t the reason I divorced him.’ She put the lighter down, eyes watering either with tears or incense smoke. ‘He was .
 
.
 
. unnatural. He wanted unnatural things from me—disgusting things. I had to get away.’ She threw her head up in defiance. ‘I refused. I told him what he wanted was sinful. Finally, I divorced him.’

‘And you hoped that would be the end of it?’ Gemma prompted.

‘I prayed he would find some other woman. But even after he—’ The defiance had been short-lived. Now her face was stricken.

‘After he what?’ Gemma asked.

Daria shook her head, and Gemma noticed for the first time how pale and sick she looked. It’s unhealthy, she thought, to stay shut up in a place like this, with all these images and candles. Daria Reynolds needed fresh air. Not to mention a life.

‘But it’s no use,’ Daria whispered. ‘He won’t leave me alone. I can’t get away from him. Nothing I do makes any difference.’

Gemma considered. Even after a divorce, some couples just couldn’t get untangled. ‘You’ve been to the police?’

‘I’ve done all that,’ said Daria with a sigh. ‘But the police are no use. They don’t seem to take it seriously because he isn’t violent.’

‘But surely if he’s trespassing .
 
.
 
.’

‘They came round a couple of times but they couldn’t find him. They think I’m making it up. They’re very polite, but I can tell what they’re thinking.’

In the corner, another candle flared up, then just as suddenly went out. Daria replaced it with a new one. All this holy stuff sure keeps her busy, Gemma thought.

‘Did you take out a restraining order?’ she asked. ‘An Apprehended Violence Order? If he breaks an AVO, they have to arrest him.’

For the first time, the woman’s eyes flashed with the anger of the good girl who’s done everything she’s supposed to do yet things still aren’t going the way they should.

‘Of course I took out an AVO!’ she said. ‘I did everything that the law advises—even before the divorce—and it didn’t help me!’

‘Who did you talk to?’ Gemma waited, pen poised, ready to note down the name.

‘The police at Waverley,’ said Daria, ‘and then the chamber magistrate.’

‘Do you remember the police officer’s name?’ Gemma asked.

Daria reached up to the top of a saint-infested bookcase and took a card down, passing it to Gemma. Senior Constable Diane Hayworth. Gemma jotted the name down, making a mental note to drop in on Diane Hayworth at Waverley Police and make a few enquiries regarding Mr and Mrs Reynolds.

‘Did you follow up on it?’ she asked and handed the policewoman’s card back. Too many women took out AVOs and then didn’t have them enforced. So far, this wasn’t sounding like a job Gemma wanted to take on, though right now she couldn’t afford to be choosy.

‘Of course I did,’ said Daria. ‘I keep telling them. But they don’t believe me.’

‘What about security, Daria? Are you sure your house is secure?’ Gemma asked, though she remembered the multiple locks at the front door.

Daria stood up and went to the window to touch the wrought-iron grille. ‘This house is a fortress,’ she said. ‘But it’s no use. Nothing can keep him away.’

The woman’s passivity irked Gemma. ‘He must have keys if he’s getting in,’ she said. ‘Have you changed the locks?’

‘I also did that before the divorce!’ Another flash of fire from the wispy woman as she moved away from the window. ‘There’s something I should tell you,’ she said. ‘Something you should know.’

As Daria stood with the light from the window behind her, Gemma became aware of a dark, menacing atmosphere building in the room. The glare of candles and heady incense made her feel sick.

‘But if I tell you,’ Daria continued, ‘I know you’ll refuse to work for me.’

The brooding heaviness was getting to Gemma. Was she just imagining that the room was closing in, like something from a Poe horror story? Daria seemed to be struggling to find her words as she stood staring at one of her saints. Come on, Gemma urged inwardly. Spit it out!

The silence continued.

‘If there’s anything that will help me in working for you,’ Gemma prompted, ‘you must tell me. I’d only refuse to work for someone if what they wanted was illegal. Is that what’s concerning you?’

Daria shook her head. ‘It’s nothing illegal,’ she said. ‘But you’ve got to help me.’ Her voice was despairing. ‘Someone has to help me. You were suggested by a woman I know. You have the right background.’

Gemma, touched by the other woman’s desperation and deciding to take on her case, didn’t immediately note the odd remark. A breeze lifted the curtains at the window and all the candles bowed in the same direction.

‘I’ll do what I can, Daria. But you’ve got to do your share.’ Gemma picked up her briefcase and another candle sputtered and hissed. She took out one of her brochures. ‘This is the information about my charges. If it’s acceptable to you, we can put the house under surveillance. That way, we’ve got him on video.’

Daria stared at the brochure while Gemma made some rapid calculations. She didn’t have any bubble-packed spycams in the car just now.

‘I usually take a deposit at this stage, Daria,’ she said, remembering the shopping she needed to do. ‘One thousand dollars would be fine.’

Daria nodded, unsurprised.