‘I don’t buy anything yet,’ said Angie. ‘We’ve got to look at all angles. Bettina Finn may have been the target. Or her husband. Bryson and Donny Finn might merely be collateral damage. We’re going to have to delve into the background of both those individuals.
‘Now, have you thought about my suggestion?’ Angie changed the subject. ‘If you were one of my informants, I could be very helpful – in a discreet way – as regards information concerning this investigation. And you could be invaluable to me, going places I can’t go.’ She cocked an eyebrow.
‘You’re blackmailing me!’ said Gemma.
‘You’d better hope I never do, honeybun! The things I know about you!’
‘When we spoke to Natalie at the hospital,’ Gemma said, pointedly returning to their discussion of the case, ‘I had the strong impression I was hearing an honest account of what happened. The way she described coming onto the scene, seeing their feet and legs first. The killer would have an entirely different perspective. I’d swear she’s telling it like she found it.’
‘Remember, she’s an ex-detective,’ said Angie. ‘She’s done the half-hour training course, like we have. In fact, back in her day, she might have got a whole damn hour. She knows what honesty sounds like.’
‘Still,’ said Gemma, unconvinced, ‘it felt genuine to me.’ She patted her friend’s arm. ‘You might have to stoop to the level of police gossip to find out who Bryson Finn might have been playing up with. If it’s true that Natalie doesn’t know who it is.’
‘Hell,’ Angie groaned, ‘workplace gossip. I don’t know many times it’s ever been accurate.’ She sighed. ‘Speaking of workplace, I’ve got four cartons of stuff from Bryson Finn’s flat to go through. I’ll bring them to your place and you can give me a hand. Just so long as you remember that I wasn’t there and there were no cartons.’
‘No problem,’ said Gemma as they walked towards their cars. ‘Love helping my ex-colleagues. Speaking of which,’ she said, ‘Julie Cooper snubbed me today. I waved to her and she looked straight through me then bolted.’
Angie, who was about to get into her car, straightened up and grasped Gemma’s arm.
‘Just talk to Steve, Gemster,’ she urged. ‘Like I’ve told you. Tell him about the baby.’
Back at home, Gemma rang Findlay Finn’s mobile, but the number rang out and so she went on to the next job, pulling out the file on would-be princess Stephanie Boyd. She wanted to have a look at Stephanie’s home, where her ex-fiancé still lived. She didn’t ring him, not wanting to alert him to her visit. After that, she thought, she’d call it a day.
She drove to Maroubra looking for the address, the sea deep blue on her left beneath a darkening winter sky.
She found the place she was looking for in a small street off Fitzgerald Avenue, a timber and brick cottage with a large garage attached to the left-hand side.
Gemma parked on the other side of road then crossed over and approached the cottage. It didn’t look like an entrepreneur’s house, she thought. Although nothing so close to the beach would be less than a million, no matter what its condition. She knocked on the door and waited.
‘Martin Trimble?’ she asked the tall, slightly stooped man who finally opened the door, putting her in mind of a downmarket Hugh Grant with his floppy hair and dolorous face. Gemma introduced herself, passing her card, and he took it, frowning.
‘May I come in?’ she asked with a smile, stepping in after him before he’d had a chance to consider.
She followed him into the pleasant, modern lounge room furnished Ikea-style, simple and attractive sofas and chairs in neutrals with touches of colour, giving onto a patio where a clothes horse with washing competed for space with a couple of tubs of struggling herbs. Gemma looked around, noticing a metal trapeze hanging from the ceiling near one corner.
‘I’m here to talk about your ex-fiancée, Steffi Boyd,’ she said, turning her attention back to Martin Trimble.
‘Not that again,’ he said and the uncertain smile that had been hovering around his face vanished. ‘I’ve been hounded by members of her family, especially that brother of hers. Not to mention the police. Why are you here?’
‘I’m a private investigator and I’ve been asked by a member of her family to act on their behalf.’
He grunted. ‘That crazy twin of hers was on the phone, making all sorts of wild accusations. I keep telling him I can’t help him. Steffi’s just gone walkabout. He can’t – or won’t – accept it. Thinks she has to talk to him about everything. She’s a grown-up now. She doesn’t need his permission for everything she does.’
‘What sort of wild accusations?’ Gemma asked.
‘That I know something about Steff’s disappearance. That I’m responsible for it in some way.’
‘You can understand that the family is very concerned,’ said Gemma. ‘She’s been gone for nearly three weeks now, and hasn’t contacted any of them. That is not usual behaviour, according to the family.’
Trimble turned away and stared out the tall sliding glass doors that separated the verandah from the lounge room. ‘She could have won. She could have become Princess Stephanie von Hinault. She could have been huge. She had the drive, the talent – and me backing her up. It’s a blow to me, her going off like this. And I don’t know what her bloody family think I can possibly do about it.’
Gemma frowned. ‘You don’t sound very concerned,’ she said. ‘Weren’t you going to marry Steff yourself?’
‘There were some plans concerning that,’ he admitted.
‘But you called it off,’ said Gemma. ‘That must have hurt her.’
‘Look,’ he said, bringing his attention back to her, ‘I don’t go in for all that women’s magazines nonsense. All that carrying on about love and stuff. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter to me whether we’re married or not. The whole point of our relationship, as I told Steff, is that it’s a business. I’m here to get her where she wants to be because I know it can work for me too. I like Steff, she’s a nice girl, but I don’t see why there has to be all this hoo-ha about love and marriage.’
Maybe that’s why Steffi’s taken off, Gemma thought. She’s suddenly come to her senses – seen what he’s like – and decided she doesn’t want him or the dodgy prince. Like the runaway American bride, she can’t find a graceful way out of the mess except by bolting. Into her mind flashed the image of her fantasy wedding to Steve – a summer night on the beach at Phoenix Bay, with the moonlight tracking the trajectory of the notorious rip.
‘Can you throw any light on what might have happened to her?’ she asked, getting the interview back on track.
‘Like I told the cops – she just came home from work one day and the next thing I know, she’s packed up her gear and gone.’
‘Packed up? What did she take?’
‘I don’t know. She flew round the bedroom throwing things in a bag. Underwear, make-up, jeans, tops. Some sandals. Only what would fit in a small case. The sort you can take on an aeroplane. Then she left.’
‘Did she say where she was going?’
‘No,’ he replied. ‘And I didn’t ask.’
Gemma gave him a look. ‘I find that very difficult to believe.’
‘Suit yourself,’ he said, shrugging.
‘Did she take her car?’ Gemma said, thinking of the double garage.
‘She doesn’t have a car,’ he said. ‘She sold it last month. We were going to make do with mine until she got a new one.’
‘So did she ring a cab?’
‘I don’t know. I’d just got back from the city and I was having a shower. She was throwing things into the case when I came out. Then she was gone.’
‘Did you make any inquiries? Ring any friends?’
‘Not really,’ he said.
‘So you have no idea where she might have gone?’
‘No.’
‘Do you mind if I take a look around your house?’ she said.
‘I do,’ he said. ‘But you can take a look. I’ve got nothing to hide.’
Gemma walked through the cottage, starting with the large double bedroom. She slid open the doors of the long built-in wardrobe to reveal dozens of skirts, blouses, pants and dresses crammed in tightly, with perhaps two dozen pairs of shoes on the floor. Trimble’s side held only a few pairs of trousers and some shirts – all designer label and very expensive, she noted – and the wall nearby had several surfboards of varying lengths and sizes stacked against it.
She opened a few drawers and found underwear, T-shirts and jewellery. One of the bedside tables held some books, more jewellery, bridal magazines and a slim vibrator. The opposite bedside table revealed several magazines on photography or pornography, a pair of reading glasses and some prescribed drugs that Gemma recognised as medication for depression. She closed the drawers and rechecked the wardrobe, briefly flipping through Steffi’s dresses, tops and jeans. She frowned. There was something missing.
She made a quick examination of the bathroom before turning her attention to the kitchen. Everything seemed superficially in order, but despite the furnishings and knick-knacks, the house seemed oddly unlived in; it felt like a theatre or television set.
Gemma returned to the lounge room, curious about the purpose of the trapeze in the corner, approaching it for a closer look. Glancing down, she noticed a large stain, barely visible, in the pale beige carpet.
‘This trapeze,’ she said, ‘what’s it for?’
‘Steffi had that put in,’ Trimble said. ‘It’s attached to the ridge pole through the ceiling. She was into health and exercise. She used to hang from that. Or attach those spring things with handles so she could work out.’
Gemma followed his gaze to a framed snapshot of the missing woman, tanned and athletic in her lycra shorts and sweatshirt, beaming as she straddled a bike. The picture of health, thought Gemma.
‘And under it?’ she said, pointing to the carpet beneath the trapeze. ‘What’s that stain?’
‘I spilled something,’ he mumbled.
‘What?’
‘Acetone,’ he said, looking around and finding a fake Persian rug to pull over the stains. ‘I repair surfboards – not a full-time business, just for pocket money really.’
Gemma walked to a door opposite the entrance and tried it. It was locked.
‘What’s through here?’ she asked, turning.
‘That leads into the garage,’ Trimble said. Gemma stared at him. His face was bright red. Martin Trimble was blushing.
‘I’d like to see in there,’ said Gemma, pressing her advantage. But this time the passivity had vanished.
‘No way,’ he said. ‘I’ve got some very valuable surfboards happening in there right now. Keeping the temperature and airflow constant is essential for the mends to dry out evenly. Plus I’ve got dangerous solvents stored in there as well.’
Gemma stepped away from the locked door. ‘You say Steffi just came home, packed up and left. Is that right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About .
.
. Look, I’ve told all this to the police.’
‘Tell it to me?’ she said, with a smile.
‘About one in the afternoon.’
‘Was that usual?’
He shrugged. ‘Depends. Sometimes, they’d be taping the show all day. Other days, they’d finish early. Depending on their other commitments.’
‘Help me see it, Martin. She walked in –’
‘Right.’
‘And just started packing. No talking, no conversation?’ she asked with disbelief.
‘Not that I remember, no,’ he replied. ‘She might have said a few things while she was racing round like a maniac, throwing things into her cabin case.’
Martin Trimble’s eyes flickered towards the door leading to the garage. He hesitated. Was he pausing to make something up, Gemma wondered.
‘You said you were in the shower when Steffi arrived home,’ Gemma reminded him.
He nodded.
‘So how did you know she’d come home?’
‘I heard the front door slamming shut and then I heard her in the house.’ He spoke with deliberate slowness, talking to her as if she was stupid.
‘And then?’
‘Like I said. She just packed up and left.’
‘You didn’t say, “What are you doing? Why are you going?”’
Again, that hesitation, a ripple of unease across his symmetrical features.
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Did you have a fight that morning?’ Gemma suggested.
‘No!’
‘Then why didn’t you greet each other? That’s what people do when they come home. They say hello. Unless they’re not talking.’
‘Is that so?’ he said. ‘Well, we didn’t have a fight and we didn’t talk, okay?’
‘Didn’t you think it was odd? Her just packing up like that and leaving?’
‘She might have been going off on another glamorous weekend with the prince and the TV entourage.’
‘And you didn’t say anything to her?’
Trimble shook his head.
This was going nowhere, Gemma realised. She was being stonewalled and lied to, she knew. But she was extremely curious about the garage, and was determined to come back some time when he was away. She’d find a crack to peep through. There’s something in that garage, Gemma thought. Something happened in there.
‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘I’ll be late for a work engagement.’
‘Where do you work?’
‘I’m working for an agent at the moment,’ he said. ‘Assisting him with a few of his clients.’ Trimble looked at his watch. ‘In fact, I’ve got to go now.’
‘Okay,’ said Gemma, walking to the door, keeping her voice light and easy. ‘There’s just one thing that’s troubling me.’
Trimble glanced at her, careless. ‘Yeah? What’s that?’
‘Steffi’s wedding dress. I know she already had one. Where is it?’
Martin Trimble went very still and his face suffused a sudden dark red. Then it drained pale as death. His eyes glanced towards the door to the garage and back again in a diagonal flicker. The garage, Gemma thought. She’d been right on the money. Trimble rallied and gathered up his car keys and an expensive jacket from the back of a chair.
‘How am I supposed to know that? Don’t females hide them away or something?’
‘I know it was here,’ she said. ‘We have a witness who saw it here. And now it’s gone.’
‘Is that the best you can do?’ Now he was contemptuous. ‘It could be any damn place. Maybe back at the shop for alterations. Maybe she didn’t like it and got rid of it. Now I really have to go.’
He shot her a sideways glance that she couldn’t read. Then he opened the front door and waited until Gemma walked out.
On her way to the car, Gemma took a quick look at the garage. She peered through the dusty window on the side facing away from the house, but all she could see were tins of solvent, epoxy resins and glues stacked up against the glass. She crossed the road, back to her car, and as she was climbing in, Martin Trimble’s garage door opened and a silver Audi emerged and turned onto the street. Gemma pulled out and followed him as far as Anzac Parade, where he turned right towards the city.
Gemma headed home.
Typing up her notes on her laptop, she underlined ‘whatever happened, happened in the garage’, then posed some questions for herself. Was there a fight? Did Steffi open the garage at some critical moment and damage something?
She tried, too, to make sense of the stain under the trapeze.
Whatever had happened in that house, Martin Trimble wasn’t saying.
Gemma knew he was lying through his teeth.