Peepshow (26 page)

I looked at her to make sure I’d got it right and Aurora nodded. I went on: ‘In nineteen ninety-eight Frank opened restaurant Deluxe in Bondi. He was charged with raping a waitress but never convicted. Her name was Myfanwy Gallagher.’

‘My parents had god-awful taste in names,’ Aurora said. ‘Miff was my younger sister.’

‘Was?’

‘She died of a heroin overdose a year ago. Never touched drugs until after the assault. It really fucked her up. She blamed herself, if you can believe that.’ Aurora sipped her champagne and looked into the middle distance. ‘She was just out of high school and it was her first job. Her only job as it turns out. Bastard.’

My silence prompted her to go on.

‘Soon as I found out what he’d done to her I wanted to kill him. Especially when he got off scot-free. And when she died, well, that was it.

‘It wasn’t hard to find him. I just typed his name into an Internet search engine and pulled up a newspaper article about an ex-restaurateur running a strip club in Melbourne. A strip club! A guy with his background shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near women.

‘I quit my research job at the uni and dipped into my trust fund. I knew I had to look like a stripper and I didn’t want Frank to recognise me from the trial. I’d already lost weight from stress after my sister died and the rest was easy, except for the boob job. I bleached my hair, got a good eyebrow wax, coloured contacts, Restylane in the lips. I probably went a bit overboard. All I really needed was the tits. With a rack like this nobody looks very closely at your face.

‘Frank interviewed me and didn’t have a fucking clue who I was. It helped that I’d stolen the driver’s license of another blonde who looked a bit like me. He fell over himself to hire me, even tried it on, but I kept refusing him. He went for the younger, weaker ones. Girls he could intimidate and push around. Everything I saw him do at the club strengthened my resolve to kill him. But I had to wait for the right time.’

‘Where do Betty and Mick fit in?’

‘He raped Betty.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah, you didn’t know that, huh?’

‘Hang on,’ I said. ‘What I don’t understand is why the girls kept working at the Red after Frank raped them.

Why didn’t they just go to the police?’

Aurora sighed like she thought I was a bit dense.

‘You know how they photocopy your ID? Frank had files on all the girls, knew where they lived, knew if they had kids. He threatened them, even said they’d be sorry if they left and worked at another club.’

‘What about Mick?’

‘Needed someone physically strong and we were friends, we’d been sleeping together. He hates pricks like Parisi. Did Mick tell you what he was in jail for?’

‘Assault.’

‘He almost killed a Catholic priest. The guy had abused him at school when he was twelve. Mick was eighteen when he hunted him down and beat him almost to death. A passer-by called the police and Mick served three years.’

‘He didn’t tell me.’

‘I told him not to.’

‘Did you tell him to sleep with me?’

Aurora looked away again. ‘I needed someone to keep an eye on you.’

I felt white-hot rage surge up like bile but forced it back down. I had to know everything.

‘When did you find out about me?’

‘I suspected you from the start,’ she said, ‘but I’m pretty paranoid. Paranoid is good, keeps you out of trouble. That night at Expansion when you asked the questions? You put on this kind of stupid, naive voice which I knew wasn’t you. But I still didn’t know for sure.’

‘So that first night we went out?’

‘I wanted to see the band with you, I liked you, but I still wanted to suss you out.’

‘And Mick?’

‘He didn’t know, he was just being Mick. It was Dakota who told me. She found out about you talking to Ebony at Sexpo. I asked her not to tell anyone else, I didn’t want you knowing I was onto you. At that stage I didn’t know about Sal kidnapping Chloe and I thought you’d been retained by the family or something. It was then I told Mick it would be a good idea if he got closer to you.’

‘And people just do whatever you tell them, do they?’

‘If what I tell them makes sense. Don’t freak out, Simone. He really did fall in love with you, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

‘Did you break into my flat?’

‘Yep.’

‘Fuck,’ I said, angry. ‘How’d you plant the knife on Farquhar?’

Aurora didn’t answer and I suddenly remembered what Farquhar had said at the club. Don’t get jealous . . .

‘Oh no,’ I said, ‘you didn’t . . . sleep with him?’

Her mouth twisted up at the memory. ‘It wasn’t my finest hour.’

‘I can’t believe you fucked Farquhar.’

‘Oh calm down, Simone, it’s just sex. Jesus.’

‘Tell me about the murder,’ I said. ‘The one you didn’t commit.’

‘First I got Mick to call up Shane and two hours later Shane was in the club, wanting to kill Frank. The same night Dick Farquhar came in and argued with him, which was quite fortuitous, nothing to do with me, but it made me think the time was right. At least two other people had a motive, and with my fake ID I didn’t have any at all. At the end of the night, when just about everyone had left, I asked Frank if he wanted to have a threesome with me and Betty. That was Frank’s thing, you know.

Come to think of it, it’s every guy’s thing. I told him to keep it quiet and not tell anyone, the way gossip flew around the club. Frank was really into it. He’d pretty much given up on the idea that he was going to get to have sex with me.’

‘Where’d he meet you?’

‘A motel on Ormond Esplanade, Elwood. Mick rented it that night, dressed up like a salesman in a shirt, tie and glasses. He was unrecognisable, looked like Clark Kent, and he paid cash.

‘Soon as Frank walked in the door Mick hit him a couple of times and he passed out. When he came to he was gagged, tied to the motel chair, and there were plastic drop sheets everywhere. Scared the shit out of him, as well as the fact we were all wearing gloves and hats and those awful junkie tracksuits that don’t shed many fibres. We took his coke and lined up. It all felt kind of surreal.’

‘Did you have a weapon?’

‘Yeah, the knife.’

‘Shane’s.’

‘No. But it was similar.’ Aurora sipped her champagne, her hand shaking slightly. ‘I told him why he was there, for what he’d done to Miff, and Betty, and god knows how many other girls, and I smacked him around the face a few times. I unzipped his pants. I wasn’t really going to cut his dick off but I told him I was. It was disgusting. A shrivelled little thing. And he’d pissed himself. I’d had enough and I felt sick. He was so pathetic that I just lost interest. I’m telling you revenge is better in fantasy than reality, like a lot of things. And anyway, the Erinyes didn’t necessarily kill their victims, they pursued them relentlessly, driving them to madness and despair for their crimes until, through ritual purification, they were cleansed of their sins. Maybe what we’d just done was like ritual purification. I don’t know. I was off my tits.

‘I had to get out of there to clear my head so I told the others I was going for a walk on the beach and sat on the sand for about ten minutes, watching the moon shine on the ocean. Finally I decided we’d leave him there and piss off out of town.

‘I went back to the motel to tell the others. When I got there Frank was dead, stabbed, and Mick was wrapping him up in the plastic sheets, then covering them with garbage bags and taping them up. Betty was wiping small specks of blood off the furniture with cleaning products we’d bought just in case. It was three in the morning and the streets were deserted. Mick put the body in the back of the Ute and dumped it in the bay. I drove Frank’s Beemer to Prahran with Betty in the passenger seat. We parked the car down a side street, chucked the trackies, gloves and everything in a garbage bag, stuck it in someone’s wheelie bin and went to the Dome nightclub.

‘A few girls from the club were around, so off their heads they didn’t know we hadn’t been there for hours. We stayed until six. Betty scored some E and then we met up with Mick back at Betty’s and dropped and drank champagne all morning. We were so fucked up we even had a threesome. Betty was really into it because she’d fancied Mick for ages. It’s probably why she didn’t like you. Anyway, we finished the rest of Frank’s coke and went up the road and got tattoos. I went home and slept like a baby and the next day it all seemed like a weird dream.’

A voice over the loudspeaker requested Hermione Gallagher make her way immediately to the departure lounge.

‘Oh shit, that’s me.’ Aurora drained her glass. ‘It’s been nice, all this confession stuff. I feel light, kind of unencumbered.’ She slid out of her seat and hurried towards customs. I jogged after her.

‘So who did it?’ I asked. ‘Who killed him?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Bullshit.’

‘I don’t. I never asked. They never said. Believe it or not, we never spoke of it after it happened. We talked about what we were going to do about the police, about you, but not the actual act. It made it less real. The hardest part was the police interview. I was fine, but I had to dose Betty up on a whole heap of Valium.’

We were at the doors to customs. Did I believe her?

I didn’t know. Should I try to call airport security and turn her in? I had a feeling there wasn’t enough evidence for a conviction and I didn’t want Aurora to go to jail. I had a sneaking suspicion that if I’d been in her shoes I might have done the same thing.

‘What are you going to do in London?’

‘What do you think? Strip. I love it, I’m addicted.

It’s art, power, self expression and you can’t beat the money.’

They called her name again.

‘I guess this is it, Vivien Leigh,’ she said. The hawk-like look was gone and sugar-coated Aurora was back.

Which was the real her? Perhaps they both were. She tilted my head up and gave me a full, lingering kiss on the mouth and a fat businessman did a double take. She put a finger to her lips. ‘Sweet,’ she said, and disappeared through the automatic doors.

Too broke to catch a cab I got the Skybus back to town, my heart thumping and my brain going into overdrive.

Who killed Frank? Mick? Betty? Both of them?

Or was Aurora lying?

Mick had lived on a farm. He’d slaughtered animals, gone pig and roo shooting. If you could kill an animal was it really such a stretch to kill a human? But then Frank had raped Betty. She had a real reason for revenge.

And she was kind of unhinged, to put it mildly.

I had to find out what had happened or I’d drive myself crazy wondering for the rest of my life.

The bus pulled up at Spencer Street station and I took a train to Flinders Street then hopped on the Sandringham line to get to Prahran. It took me five minutes to walk to Betty’s place and when I got there I saw no cars parked outside. Nobody answered when I knocked so I took the key out of the potplant, shook the dirt off and unlocked the door.

‘Hello?’ I called.

The house was gloomy and smelled of cigarette smoke, beer dregs and a long burned out incense stick.

I walked into the lounge, then through to the kitchen, the beaded curtain clicking as it fell back into place. The kitchen was a mess of paper plates dotted with limp salad and smears of tomato sauce, and cigarette butts floating in beer bottles.

‘Anyone home?’ My voice sounded weird and loud.

Where was everybody? Had Aurora called them from the airport and warned them that I knew?

I poked my head into Betty’s room—no one there—

then went to Mick’s. His things were packed ready to go, clothes stuffed into a duffel bag and records and books in a milk crate.

Sitting down on the bare mattress I looked through the crate. A lot of junk was stuffed down the bottom: old batteries, a couple of screwdrivers, a square of sand-paper. I found a photograph of Mick and his dog. The dog had brown fur, like forensics had found on the garbage bag. I slipped the photo into my back pocket.

Faint traffic sounds drifted through the air and the roof ticked as it expanded in the summer heat, but the house was cool.

Back in the kitchen I opened the fridge. Force of habit. A container of mouldy takeaway sat next to three individually wrapped cheese singles. I grabbed one, peeled off the plastic and was nibbling at the edges when I sensed someone behind me. Just as I started to turn something slammed into my head, bang, and I saw the pain in rainbow colours as I fell to my knees on the black and white checked lino. I spat out the cheese, unchewed, and put my hand up to shield my head while I looked at my attacker, vision brown around the edges.

Betty came into focus. I saw her drop a thick wooden breadboard on the floor and turn and pull open the cutlery drawer so hard it crashed to the floor. She rummaged around and picked up a knife. One of those stay-sharp ones they advertise on TV.

I got to my feet, holding one hand out in what I hoped was a placatory gesture.

‘You fucking bitch.’ Betty held the knife in one hand and ran the other through her hair so her fringe stood up at an odd angle. She was grinding her teeth, chewing on nothing, and her eyes were glassy and unfocused. ‘Aurora called me,’ she started raving. ‘I knew we should have got rid of you, or fucked off as soon as you came on the scene, but Aurora said if we kept you close it would be just as good. Said you were just a stupid bimbo, all talk no action.

‘That’s the only reason Mick was with you, you know, to see what you found out. The only reason—oh, and to get an easy fuck,’ she spat. ‘He was screwing other people. Everyone knew except you.’ She laughed and her face twisted so she looked like a witch.

My head was pounding but I forced myself to sound light-hearted: ‘What makes you think I was so in love with Mick?’ I said. ‘He’s a good root, sure, we all know that, but he’s not the only one.’

‘That cop?’

‘Among others.’

‘You could be a cop yourself.’ Betty alternated between pointing the knife at me and smacking it on her bare arm. She fluttered it lightly over her skin until thin red scratches appeared.

‘Yeah, but I’m not.’ I didn’t know where this ridiculous conversation was going but as long as we were talking she wasn’t stabbing me.