‘Oh?’
‘Nothing.’
‘You know, despite all our problems, Steve and I were always on the same wavelength,’ Gemma mused, returning to her preferred subject. ‘I remember once we were driving to Nelson Bay, and I’d been about to say something but changed my mind, then Steve turned to me and asked: “What was it?” He heard me changing my mind!’
Angie’s mobile interrupted her reminiscence. ‘This’ll be Jaki,’ Angie said, fishing the phone out of her briefcase and putting it to her ear, ‘with some pathetic version of the big brown dog story.’
The big brown dog appeared on numerous police incident reports and insurance claims as the cause of car accidents.
Gemma took a mouthful of fettuccine. This time she could taste it and, cautiously, she took another.
‘It should be someone from Ku-ring-gai anyway,’ Angie was saying. ‘Not Central Area Command. Where are all your people?’
Another pause while Angie frowned in concentration.
‘Yeah, I know it’s a huge area. They all are these days. What about Julie Cooper?’ Angie was saying. ‘She’s rostered on. She should be going.’
Gemma twirled a little more fettuccine around her fork, hoping her stomach would behave.
‘If she’s off sick then you’ll have to ask Paulette Heath,’ said Angie after another pause, then, ‘So? We all work one out most of the time. She might be new in town, but she’s after all the overtime she can get.’
Another long pause. ‘What about that new guy – David? He’s just transferred from up that way. And by the way, Julie Cooper, Sean Wright and I aren’t the only crime scene people in Sydney for God’s sake!’
Gemma recalled Sean Wright, who’d had a crush on her in the days she’d been in the job, and Julie Cooper, a quiet, efficient young woman with wide dark eyes and dark glossy curls, almost ringlets, that formed a swirling cloud around her pretty, girlish face. Gemma touched her tawny hair, depressingly flattened by neglect and hormones. Paulette Heath was a name new to her.
Gemma noticed the frown on Angie’s face deepen, then give way to resigned capitulation. She’s lost this round, Gemma thought, as Angie pulled out her notebook and pen.
‘Okay, okay,’ Angie finally said. ‘Give us the details.’
At the table behind them, a loud male voice delivered the punchline of a joke and the rest of his group shrieked with laughter.
‘It’s going to take me an hour or so,’ Angie said, flinching against the raucous noise and interrupting her scribbling to cover her other ear. ‘I’ll have to swing past work first and pick up my gear. Are the local detectives at the scene?’
Angie grunted and rang off, slipping the mobile back into her briefcase. She gathered up her notebook and pen and stowed them too.
‘A thousand bloody detectives around the place and they have to pick on me,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry, Gemster, but I’m going to have to go.’
‘I’d worked that much out,’ Gemma said. ‘They can’t get anyone else out to attend a crime scene?’
‘Julie Cooper’s rung in sick. Sean’s out of range somewhere. And there’s been a major incident – a multiple shooting scene in a house at Killara.’
‘Killara? What is it with those northern suburbs lately?’ Gemma asked. ‘They seem to be having a mini crime wave. Wasn’t there a murder at Lindfield this morning?’
‘Just a routine domestic,’ said Angie. ‘Murder–attempted suicide. The guy shot his wife after twenty years of fighting. Then turned the gun on himself and shot his ear off. All the ends wrapped up and all over except for the paperwork. Paulette’s been out there most of the day. She’ll just have to gear up and go out again. She won’t mind.’
Angie took a few more hurried mouthfuls of her meal, put her fork down and pulled out her wallet. She extracted a twenty and a five. ‘Sorry to do this to you. Here’s my share,’ she said, getting up. ‘Don’t look so damn miz. Here, I’ll buy yours too.’ She pulled out another twenty. ‘We’ll continue this conversation tomorrow. Somewhere private. Give me a ring?’
Gemma picked up the money, too dejected to resist. She angled her face up as Angie leaned in and pecked her on the cheek. ‘Promise I’ll make up for this,’ Angie added, straightening up. ‘Soon as I can.’
Gemma watched with a touch of envy as her girlfriend hurried out of the restaurant, briefcase in one hand, pulling her suit jacket into line around her slender figure with the other. Angie wasn’t unexpectedly pregnant, nor did she have to struggle with the demands of a small business. And twice a month, no matter how many or how few jobs Angie attended, a pay cheque landed in her bank account without fail.
Gemma signalled the waitress and asked for a take-away container for the fettuccine. As she picked up her jacket and the remainder of her meal, she thought that this must be the saddest celebration dinner she’d ever experienced.
As she stepped outside, the heavens opened and heavy rain pelted her as she ran for her car.
•
On the drive homewards, the radio playing softly through her thoughts, windscreen wipers clearing the steady rain, Gemma brooded over Angie’s report of her conversation with Steve. There had definitely been something odd about it. Angie had been pressuring her. But she’d been guarded as well, simultaneously revealing and concealing information – about Steve, about something important. Gemma whispered his name under her breath, and in the following moments became aware of the words Rose Tattoo was singing. She joined in with ‘Bad Boy For Love’, but her throat constricted and she snapped the radio off, angry that tears again stung her eyes.
In the last few weeks, almost without her noticing, an imaginary balance seemed to tilt either towards having the baby or away from it. In this moment, the scales, which had been leaning towards termination, tipped the tiniest distance the other way, buoyed by the thought that all might not be lost for her and Steve.
Please, she prayed to nowhere in particular, please let it be true. Let Steve still love me. Because if he does, I can have this baby. And we could be a family. The power of this phrase shocked her so much that she almost started to weep.
Gemma pulled up outside her place and sat a few moments in the car, listening to the sea. Through the darkness of the rain, far out on the ocean, the lights of a distant ship twinkled like stars. This tiny light made the blackness beyond her apartment seem immense, and Gemma felt helpless and alone, at the mercy of forces and tides beyond her control. She put her hand over her belly and felt her blood beating there, startled to realise she was now a player in an evolutionary process reaching back millions of years, before recorded history, a series of huge, generational waves that had very little to do with one individual called Gemma Lincoln and everything to do with the expanding universe, with Life itself. The idea terrified her.
She hastened down the wet stone stairs, slowing only to check the mailbox, pulling out a handful of bills and letters. She ducked past the two sculptures she’d made in clay, copies of the lions of Delos, running through the rain to the front door of the apartment she’d bought just before prices became astronomical. No time for sculpture these days, Gemma thought, as she let herself into her flat, one of four asymmetrical apartments created from an old Victorian mansion by a 1960s developer.
Taxi cat came running at the sound of the front door opening, claws clicking on the floorboards, but he skittered away when she tried to pick him up.
She locked the security grille behind her, disarmed the alarm and paused near the door of her office, then put the light on in the operatives office, opposite her own. Once, she’d been boss of a small but successful and very busy security firm, Phoenix Security Services, employing three other people, spending time in whatever studio space she could grab, working with clay, going out with her girlfriends or her sister, enjoying an exciting, long-term relationship with the man she adored. That was all finished. These days, there was no time for anything except work.
Of the three desks in the operatives office, only Mike Moody’s showed signs of habitation. Mike, ex-Federal Police and IT expert, once a full-time employee, was on stand-by only these days, in case there was a work surge or a new face was needed for surveillance on a suspicious target. But his services hadn’t been required for some time.
Gemma thought of Mike fondly. He had been very kind to her the day she realised she was pregnant, his response that of any good-hearted man to a woman in trouble. At one stage, she’d been attracted to him. Maybe she still was. She’d certainly found him irresistible one night after too many cocktails. Mike was considerate, reliable and consistent, and once she’d recovered from the awful embarrassment about her behaviour that drunken night, Gemma found him a great ally on her cases. Steve was exciting, unpredictable and, more often than not, because of the nature of his work almost impossible to contact. But she still adored him. Some heart connections are very deep – and mysterious, Gemma reflected.
She switched off the light and closed the door on the operatives office. She went into her own office and dropped the mail onto her desk. She checked her email and the next day’s appointments, and as her messages downloaded she opened the bills and put them in a pile to be paid. Then she picked up the letters and examined a hand-addressed one, turning it over. The name Grace Kingston jumped out at her from the back of the envelope. Grace, the half-sister Gemma had traced and finally contacted through the ICQ program – a web-based system that enabled people to track down long-lost friends and relatives. For the first time that night, Gemma’s spirits lifted. She tore the letter open. Grace had delayed their meeting a few times over the last three months and she’d been expecting contact from her to finally set up their first meeting and, now, here it was. She stood reading it.
She had to read it twice more before its reality started to sink in. Slowly, she walked to her living area, stunned by the letter, reading it yet again:
Dear Gemma
,
Things have become clearer to me now and I’ve come to a decision. It’s better that we don’t meet now because of the way my life has changed. In fact, I must insist on it. I’ve decided to become part of a spiritual community called The Group, and with the busy regime involved I believe it’s better to let go of anything from the past. I didn’t really know about you and Kit until your email, and now I’m making a new life here and I hope you can respect this decision. I’m sorry that I initially led you to believe that a meeting and a relationship with me were possible. Things have really changed for me since I found this place. Please forget about me.
Sincerely,
Grace Kingston
Gemma threw the letter onto the dining table, feeling the pressure of tears in her eyes and throat. Automatically, she went to ring Kit, then stopped, remembering. Taxi cat, curled back in his favourite spot on one of the blue leather armchairs, regarded her with his green eyes, but as Gemma picked him up, needing a cuddle, he struggled out of her arms and jumped to the floor, turning his back on her. This was the last straw. Usually, the peaceful emptiness of her apartment was a luxury. But tonight the emptiness seemed tainted with loneliness – even desolation. The whole evening had fallen over, she thought, putting the container of fettuccine in the fridge. Once, a minor upset like this wouldn’t have fazed her. But tonight, and with Grace’s letter to finish the evening off, Gemma felt abandoned. She sank down onto the chair left vacant by the cat.
The words of the newsreader penetrated her misery: ‘In news just to hand,’ the woman said, ‘police are attending the scene of a multiple shooting at Killara in Sydney’s northern suburbs. At this stage, there are two fatalities and a critically injured nine-year-old boy. The boy, the only survivor of what appears to be a family tragedy, is now in intensive care after being found by his mother. More details as they come to hand.’
A nine-year-old boy, Gemma’s mind repeated. Found by his mother. A shooting at a house at Killara. This sounded like the scene Angie had been forced to attend earlier.
•
Because she was too restless to go to bed, Gemma sat at her desk. She’d been tempted to make coffee, but had made herself a virtuous herbal tea instead.
Outside, the rain had eased and its steady rhythm was a comfort as Gemma made a list of jobs to do next day. It was good to keep busy, she told herself, and not take the disappointment about Grace personally. Things were difficult enough as it was, without that rejection knocking her ego around.
Restless, she left her office and went down to the living area to stand near the sliding doors, turning the lights off so that she could stare out to sea, listening to the swing and thud of the waves against the cliffs below.
Maybe it was best after all that Grace didn’t contact her. Gemma hadn’t been looking forward to bringing their half-sister up to date with family history. How to explain the tragedy that lay there? Their father, psychiatrist Archie Chisholm, had been a most difficult man – a philanderer and worse. If she and Grace met, she would have to tell Grace the truth about the man who had fathered her.
Gemma went to the drawer in the cedar chest, where her mother’s crystal decanters sat, and took out the long letter she’d had from Grace after their initial email contact a few months earlier. She read it again.
Dear Gemma
,
You asked me in your last email to write something of myself and my life and so I’m taking the opportunity while I’m in Sydney tidying up the last of my grandmother’s estate to write to you. I almost rang to organise a visit, but something held me back – a ‘too much too soon’ sort of feeling. I thought a handwritten letter might be a better way for our first conversation.
The handwriting was good, Gemma noted. Much tidier than her own, slanting to the right, balanced and precise. She read on:
I was raised by my mother’s parents after the suicide of my mother. We moved to Tamworth when I was very small and so I grew up in a big country town, with all the spaciousness and adolescent boredom that goes with that sort of life. My grandmother told me something of the tragic story of my mother and my birth, but she refused to speak my father’s name in the house – all she would say was that my mother’s heart was broken by ‘a wicked man who deserted her’. It took a great deal of underhand searching when she was out of the house to unearth newspaper clippings and some letters written by my mother before she died. From these, I was able to piece a little of my history together. I’m hoping that you and Kit will fill in more. Fortunately, I’ve met a wonderful man and may have found the way to release the grief of my early years. But more of that when we meet. As soon as I move into my grandmother’s cottage down south, I’ll contact you. Until then .
.
.
Gemma refolded the letter, wondering if the wonderful man was connected to The Group mentioned in Grace’s latest communication.
There was no address on the writing paper or the envelope. Gemma put the letter, which she’d reread many times, back in the drawer, once again touched by the similarity in their respective histories. At least, and unlike Grace, she had known her mother. Until she was five, anyway. Her thoughts turned to the grave that lay only a few kilometres away, in Waverley cemetery. Her and Kit’s mother had also died in tragic and horrible circumstances. Gemma had discovered only recently that Grace’s mother had committed suicide because her lover, Dr Archie Chisholm, refused to leave his wife. Gemma thought: my family is cursed. It would have been better all round if Dr Archie
had
left his wife for his mistress. Two lives might have been saved.
She turned away from the sliding doors, thinking about her own baby. If she did keep him or her, what would she tell her child about their grandparents? Angie’s comments at dinner had made her realise she hadn’t even started to deal with the pregnancy. She hadn’t even decided whether or not to go through with it. All she’d done so far was flinch away from it.
Gemma knew she had a very tough decision to make. And she was running out of time.
•
She woke next morning to find the rain had stopped. Another day, and she was still pregnant. As she rolled over to check the time, her mobile rang. Angie.
‘Sorry about running out on you last night, Gemster,’ said Angie. ‘Any word from Jaki yet? Little bugger wasn’t at the Killara scene – no one could reach her. Bloody Mr Right strolled in around the same time I got there,’ Angie was referring to Sean Wright, ‘and whinged all the time. Then Paulette finally arrived. She’d barely had time to turn around from attending the Lindfield job. Very tired, naturally. But she got on with it, nice and steady. Not Sean. He wouldn’t stop grizzling. I felt sorry for Paulette. As if there isn’t enough to worry about attending a scene without your colleagues acting like dickheads.’
‘I saw the news flash about it on television last night,’ Gemma said. ‘How’s the little boy?’
‘Hanging in there. I can’t say too much until the details are released, but it involves someone we know. You’d remember Natalie Sutherland?’
‘Of course I do,’ said Gemma. Natalie Sutherland had been an ambitious and brilliant young inspector a few years older than Gemma who had presented lectures during Gemma’s days at the Police Academy in Goulburn. Inspector Natalie Sutherland was a bit of an icon in those days, and held in high regard by women police. ‘What’s Natalie’s involvement?’
‘I can’t talk on the phone. What are your movements today?’
‘I’ve got a doctor’s appointment,’ said Gemma, ‘then a new client to see, and then I’m dropping in on a brothel.’
‘Baroque Occasions?’ asked Angie. ‘Okay, then let’s meet near there. You know that place on the corner near the El Alamein fountain? Where we had coffee that time Julie and Sean came with me?’
‘I remember. What time?’
‘Call me when you’re finishing your business and I’ll shoot over.’
‘Ange, before you go, have you heard anything about something called The Group? I had a letter from my half-sister. She sounds like she’s very involved with some community by that name.’
‘The Group? Isn’t it some sort of spiritual community?’ Angie asked. ‘But surely you can find out more about it when you meet each other.’
‘She doesn’t want to meet me any more,’ said Gemma.
‘Sorry, gotta go,’ said Angie, calling off.
•
By nine-thirty, Gemma was sitting in Heather Pike’s consulting room, watching as Heather unwound the velcroed tourniquet from her upper arm.
‘You’re a bit elevated, but nothing to worry about. The morning sickness will pass,’ the GP assured Gemma. ‘I must say, it’s a surprise. Why did you leave it so long before coming to me?’
‘I was busy,’ Gemma said, aware how pathetic it sounded.
‘Were you now?’ said Heather. ‘Then get used to it. Because in six months or so, you’re going to be busier than you ever thought possible.’ She smiled. ‘So, Gemma. How are you feeling about this? How are you coping?’
Gemma tilted her head and gave her GP a look.
‘Okay,’ she said.
‘Let’s have a look at you, then, and see how things are going for baby.’
Gemma clambered onto the examination table and lay back, legs apart, a sheet over her knees, staring at the poster-sized aerial photograph of the eastern suburbs and coastline from Manly to Maroubra, trying to find the main road near Phoenix Bay.
‘This is a very inelegant position,’ she said.
‘Who’s the baby’s father?’ Heather asked. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘We’ve split up,’ said Gemma sadly.
Heather made a soothing noise. ‘That feels like a healthy three months uterus,’ she said finally, pulling off the rubber gloves. ‘Where are you going to have the baby?’ she asked as Gemma sat up and readjusted her clothing.
‘I haven’t decided anything like that yet, Heather. I haven’t even decided whether or not I’m keeping this baby.’
A knock at the surgery door interrupted them. Heather excused herself and went to answer it. ‘I won’t be a moment, Gemma.’
‘It’s okay,’ said Gemma, swinging off the examination table. As she waited, she couldn’t help overhearing the conversation with Heather’s husband, another GP, about picking up their children after school.