It was only a couple of minutes later that the three of them, with Mike following in his car, lurched and swayed in the Rodeo while Spinner executed a three-point turn. Naomi glanced at Gemma who was squashed in the middle seat.
‘Did the camera work?’ said Gemma, noticing the laptop on the floor near Spinner’s feet.
‘It worked,’ he said. ‘I saw what was going on.’
‘I meant, did we get the close-ups that I wanted?’
‘Geez, Boss,’ said Spinner, ‘I wasn’t real keen on the pictures I was seeing. I mean, I didn’t study them.’
Gemma turned to Spinner. ‘I don’t know what would have happened if you and Mike hadn’t interrupted things. You saved me from a fate worse than death.’ She was trying to make a joke out of it.
Spinner gunned the motor. ‘That bastard will be on the line to the cops right now. He’ll know Mike’s a phoney.’
‘I’m going to be sick!’ said Gemma, leaning out and hurling all over Brissett’s stone gateposts. The footie legend could have her breakfast and lunch back. And dinner as well.
‘I just hope and pray there was enough light,’ said Gemma as they drove Naomi back to Darlinghurst.
When they let her out, Naomi pulled the money out of her white basket. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘You take half of this.’
Gemma shook her head. ‘No, Naomi. You keep it. I couldn’t have done what I did without you.’
‘You know,’ Naomi said, stepping out of the cabin and closing the door behind her, ‘with a bit more practice, I reckon you’d be a really top worker.’
•
As Spinner set up his laptop in Gemma’s office and started running the program again, Gemma felt a surge of hope. If what she was hoping for showed up on this screen, Brissett would be brought to book and Angie would be safe from his malign influence. Her body seethed with adrenaline—some of it left over from the encounter with Brissett, the narrow escape she’d had; the rest excited anticipation of seeing what she’d captured on the tiny camera.
‘Okay,’ said Spinner. ‘Here’s what we got.’
On the screen, a series of images appeared one after the other, shadowy, grainy. At first glance, the first half dozen or so could have been mistaken for close-up images of some rare form of sea life, but the later images were quite clear.
‘Look at this!’ Spinner enlarged one of them so that it filled the screen.
Gemma stared then peered closer, feeling her spirits lift. Her suspicions had been correct. She had made the right choice. She grabbed her mobile and called Angie.
‘Wow!’ said Angie a little while later, as she stood staring at the same images. ‘What is this? Or should I ask
whose
is this?’
‘Scott Brissett’s virile member,’ Gemma said. ‘I was wearing a camera.’
‘You went down on Scott Brissett with a spycam?’ Angie was shocked with admiration. ‘I would never have let you do that if I’d known what you were up to.’
‘See that?’ Spinner said. He touched the screen with a pencil, indicating a crescent-shaped series of marks. ‘You done good, Boss,’ he said, turning round to her. ‘You are the ace operative in this business.’
Gemma felt foolishly elated. If Steve were here, she thought, everything would be perfect.
‘Jesus, Gemster. You’ve done it. This is great stuff!’ Angie stared at the marks Spinner was indicating. ‘Spinner,’ she ordered, ‘print them all out. These pics by themselves would be good enough for a physical match.’ She straightened up. ‘How the hell did you know about this?’
‘That report you faxed over—I studied the DNA profile of the blood in Tasmin’s mouth,’ Gemma replied. ‘It couldn’t have been hers. The only thing I know about interpreting those profiles is that the first marker is the sex marker. I looked at that and saw twin peaks—’
‘A male,’ said Angie. ‘Tasmin Summers had male blood in her mouth.’
‘I couldn’t stop imagining how Tasmin had died,’ said Gemma. ‘And I suddenly understood how the blood might have been there.’
‘You’d wonder,’ said Angie, ‘how he could want more sex if he was sore enough to limp from the injury.’
‘I thought about that myself,’ said Gemma. ‘But a man like Scott Brissett probably doesn’t have much sensitivity left. He didn’t want sex with me, anyway. He wanted to humiliate me.’ And he’d almost succeeded, she thought, shuddering.
‘The marks would have faded in a few days,’ said Angie. ‘And we’d have nothing.’
She picked up one of the printed images from the small pile. ‘Even a non-expert like me can see what this is.’ Her face shone. ‘This is fantastic. Scott Brissett has a bite mark on his penis.’
The next morning passed for Gemma in frenetic phone calls and chasing loose ends.
Melissa Grey dropped by with a package and a certificate from Paradigm Laboratories. ‘I was there picking up a job for DAL and thought I’d collect this for your client, Mr Dowling,’ she said. ‘Partial remains of Mrs Shirley Dowling—retrieved from the Richmond dump site and identified by mitochondrial DNA testing.’ She wouldn’t stay for coffee, because she was having a day off and wanted to do some shopping.
Gemma put the package in her office, thinking of the kindness of individual police officers, the way they used their own time for the public good, even if their seniors seemed often to have lost sight of the real goals of policing. She rang Mr Dowling with the good news.
‘I’ve bought a white rose called Shirley,’ he told her, ‘so now I can bury her somewhere beautiful and mark the place with her rose.’
Next, Gemma rang Sandra Samuels at the youth refuge.
‘The police are hoping to build a really strong case,’ Gemma said, thinking of Scott Brissett’s smirk, his sense of invincibility. ‘They want it watertight before they bring him in.’
‘I heard Vernon Kodaly’s had a heart attack,’ said Sandra.
‘Natural justice?’ said Gemma.
‘I can’t believe that, after all these years, I might get justice,’ said Sandra. ‘Then it will be finished.’
‘You did a great job at Forever Diamonds.’
Angie rang the moment Gemma had finished speaking to Sandra. ‘Bruno’s gone. He’s off on indefinite stress leave. He’ll be out of the way for a while,’ she said with great satisfaction. ‘When this investigation is nicely filed away, I just might have enough to go after him. The boss is furious that the newspapers did a story on Bruno’s connection with Deliverance. He’s taped Bruno’s locker up as well as the gear he left here, and if there’s so much as a trace of coke anywhere, he’s in real strife.’
‘No wonder he got an infected ear lobe,’ said Gemma, ‘living two lives. Pulling that ear stud in and out all the time.’
She was suddenly serious. ‘What about my spycam photographs? Brissett’s defence team might argue that what I did was illegal and disallow them as evidence.’
‘Stop worrying,’ said Angie. ‘You’ve been watching too much American television. We don’t have Miranda out here and the court has power to admit evidence even if it’s obtained illegally. Gemster girl, since when has art photography been a crime?’
‘I want it all over and finished,’ Gemma said. ‘I want Sandra Samuels to have her day in court. Even if it’s watching him go down for other, more recent crimes.’
‘Relax. Your pictures have already gone to the pathologist. The forensic dentist is probably making a cast of Tasmin’s teeth right now and she’ll match them up with the bite marks. They won’t even need to see Brissett’s horrible dick if he wants to make things difficult for them.’ She laughed. ‘I’m thinking of sending Trevor a nice video to watch during his convalescence. Stephen King’s
Misery
seems apt. And then I’m taking some leave. Going back home for a while. Remind myself what life’s really about. Milk the cow. Do some gardening. Try not to fight with my mother.’
Gemma put the phone down and, thinking of mothers and daughters, hesitantly called the Page household. Mrs Page answered and they chatted for a moment before Mrs Page called her daughter to the phone.
‘Good to hear your voice,’ said Gemma. ‘I just wanted to say hello, see how you were coming along.’
‘Pretty good,’ said Claudia. ‘I’ve done a whole lot of thinking lately. About life. I mean,
my
life.’
‘If you ever want to talk about things .
.
.’ Gemma said.
‘I’ll call you in a week or two,’ said Claudia. ‘Could we go to that café again?’
‘Sure thing,’ said Gemma.
‘Every time I think of what could have happened to me—’
‘It didn’t,’ said Gemma. ‘You came home.’
‘I can’t stop thinking of the others,’ she said. ‘I even wrote to them. But there’s nowhere to post letters like that.’
‘We’ll buy some flowers,’ said Gemma ‘and you can attach the letters to them and let them float out to sea. Your friends will get the message.’
When she hung up, she had tears in her eyes. She realised she was feeling a whole lot better than she had in days. The winding up of a successful case had a very beneficial effect. In some way, order was restored in her spirit as well. She hoped that the next series of jobs coming into Phoenix Business Services would be plain insurance jobs, not complicated cases like murders, fraudulent synthetic diamonds and violent assaults from another decade. All she needed now was a nice quiet life.
•
That night, Gemma watched a French movie that made no sense at all, and was thinking of going to bed when a sound at the door had her on her feet within seconds. The CCTV revealed the Ratbag standing on the doorstep and Gemma hurried to let him in.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ she said flinging the door open. ‘I was worried about you!’
Outside, the air was heavy and hot and a wind from nowhere lifted the shrivelled petunias then dropped them again. She looked at him, his worried brow, the smile that never quite arrived, the anxiety he carried. She put her arms out and he came over. They stood in the hallway, hugging.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Supper first. Then I want to know what you’ve been doing and where you’ve been.’
Over bacon and eggs, Hugo explained. ‘I ran into Dad’s girlfriend after you dropped me off near Central and went with her to Dad’s place.’ He pushed a huge forkful into his mouth and chewed. ‘I think his girlfriend really likes me.’ He grinned.
It was the first time Gemma had seen such a big smile on his face. ‘Hugo,’ she said, ‘lots of people like you. You’re a likeable kid.’
He bit into a piece of bacon, tearing away the rind with greasy fingers.
‘I don’t want to sound unwelcoming, but why did you come back here then?’ Gemma asked.
‘I wanted to thank you and I left some of my stash here, under your lounge. I want to say goodbye to Gerda and give her some of the money. To help her pay for her operation. She doesn’t keep ordinary hours but I know where to find her.’
‘I should ring your mother then,’ said Gemma. ‘Get you on a bus back to Melbourne.’ She switched on the television, hoping to get the latest news.
‘You don’t have to. Mum’s coming up tomorrow to pick me up. She needs to sign something about the house with Dad.’ He licked his fingers. ‘So I’ll be going back down with her.’
Gemma took his plate out to the kitchen.
‘Hey,’ he called. ‘They’ve arrested that old footie dude for murder. You know—that famous guy?’
Gemma hurried in and sat down with him, but the segment was finished. She ran through the other channels, trying to find more news on the arrest. Finally, she passed him the remote. ‘See if you can pick up something about it.’
While she rinsed the plates, she could hear the syncopated sounds as Hugo flipped from channel to channel. She remembered that the technician hadn’t come back to sort out the channel he hadn’t been able to tune properly.
‘Hey!’ Hugo yelled. ‘Here he is again!’
Gemma hurried from the kitchen and watched as Scott Brissett, face pixilated, was escorted from a car surrounded by jostling people. A deep satisfaction filled her. Tonight, she thought, I’ll sleep soundly. What a week it had been. So much had happened. Maybe now she could take some time to consider whether or not she wanted to continue with the search for Grace.
She went back to the kitchen to finish cleaning up. When she turned the taps off, she was aware of a strange, pervasive silence. An atmosphere, almost a presence. Something made her go to the kitchen doorway and look through to the lounge room. Hugo was sitting bolt upright on the lounge. Taxi too was staring straight ahead, jet ears swept back.
‘What is it?’ she asked, spooked.
Hugo pointed at the screen and turned to her, mouth opened. The silence spread, taking on a dark and menacing tone. She hardly dared to look. ‘Hugo! What is it? You’re frightening me!’
He pointed again. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘How come? We’re on TV!’
She followed the path of his entranced stare. To see herself staring at herself, to see Hugo staring at himself, Taxi sitting up alert—all there on the television screen.
Hugo turned to her again. ‘Did you do that?’
She had not done that. Someone else had. Someone had set up a spycam. In her house. In her living room. Someone was watching everything that she did in this space, all her comings and goings. Someone was watching them now. Gemma’s first impulse was to throw something, destroy the screen. But she knew that somewhere else, in a van not too far away, was another screen and another watcher, and they would see her smash the screen but that wouldn’t touch the screen they were watching. The hidden camera would simply keep recording her distress, her fear.
‘Help me,’ she whispered to Hugo, in case they were stealing audio too. ‘Somewhere in this room is a tiny camera. It won’t look like a camera, it’ll look like anything else. A light switch. The buttons on a radio, a clock. Anything. It’ll be tiny. But it’s in this room and it’s transmitting all the time.’
‘Why?’
Because someone wants me under constant surveillance, she thought. Immediately, the pencilled note of warning, all but forgotten in the excitement of recent events, filled her mind again. ‘Someone’s watching me.’ She didn’t want to think why.
‘We need to switch the lights off,’ she hissed. ‘And the TV. Make it look like we’re going to bed.’ She switched off both, then dropped to all fours.
‘But how will we find the spycam without light?’
Gemma crept into the bedroom and came back with her torch. ‘We’ll find it.’ If it’s the last thing I do, she thought. Then shivered at the expression she’d just used.
She felt weak and helpless. ‘Where’s my mobile?’ she whispered.
Hugo skittered across the floor like a huge crab and snatched it off the dining table. He brought it to her and she dialled Mike’s number but her call went straight through to voice mail. ‘Mike,’ she said. ‘I’ve been going out live to someone. From the lounge room. I need to find the camera. Can you come over when you get this message?’
‘But what if Mike put in the camera?’ Hugo’s question jolted her.
‘Why would he?’
Hugo shrugged. ‘I don’t know. But men spy on women, don’t they? There’s this place in Macleay Street where there are peepholes drilled in the walls. Gerda told me.’
Gemma dismissed the idea. Mike had been an employee and colleague for over a year now. She trusted him like she trusted Spinner. Despite her bad behaviour towards him, she felt there was no way she could have misread him for so long. And why would he be wanting to watch her? He could check up on her any time in the normal run of his work.
She wished hopelessly that she had Mike or Spinner’s electronic know-how. There would be a way, she knew, to tune in to the frequency that the unknown observer was using and use it to work back along his own signal until she found him. But she didn’t have that expertise here with her right now.
‘Let’s find the little sucker,’ said Hugo, crawling near her. Taxi, picking up the fearful urgency in the room fled, and hid under the lounge. ‘Who do you think did it?’
Hugo’s question brought her to earth. That should have been her very first thought. She was more exhausted than she’d realised.
‘Someone, some time, who has been in this flat. Someone who had the chance to install a tiny camera lens. It only takes a few minutes if you know what you’re doing.’
She reviewed all the people who’d been here. It didn’t narrow the field. Spinner, Mike, Sandra Samuels, Angie. It couldn’t be any of them, surely?
‘The only people who’ve been in here are my friends. Or a client.’
‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ said Hugo. ‘You’ve forgotten someone.’
‘Who? You?’ The idea of Hugo being suborned by an enemy of hers was unbelievable.
‘No, not me.’ The boy’s voice was reasonable and steady. ‘You’re forgetting the television technician guy and the gasman.’
She was. She thought about them. The TV guy had been here a couple of times before, but the gasman was a complete stranger—a quiet, seemingly competent tradesman. He’d gone about his business. He’d run out of fittings. She’d had to explain to Hugo what a bayonet was. He was going to come back. He’d never come back.
The gasman had never come back because he’d achieved his objective.
‘I know where it’ll be,’ she said.
They crouched together to examine the bayonet fitting, Gemma holding her torch in her cupped hand so as not to reveal what they were doing. There it was, innocently fixed inside the housing for the gas pipe, a small beady eye transmitting the events of the room with a wide-angled lens to whomever and wherever it was required.
‘There’ll be a van,’ she said to Hugo. ‘If they’re watching right now, they’ll have seen that I’ve found their camera. Chances are they don’t watch all the time. It’s about the most boring job in the world.’ She’d done it often enough in her past; sitting in a nondescript vehicle, watching nothing happening on a small screen.
‘Let’s go up to the road and have a look for it now,’ Hugo suggested. ‘We could creep up on them and
wham
!’
‘Let’s not,’ she said. ‘Not without reinforcements. Not without a whole lot of wham.’
‘But we could do it together. You’ve got the Glock.’
She sat on the floor, out of the spycam’s field of view. God, she thought, I’m not thinking. Spinner’s on a job just down the road. She groped for her mobile again.
‘What was that?’ hissed Hugo.
‘What was what?’ Gemma froze.
‘I heard something.’
The torchlight from the floor threw weird shadows on his face. Gemma looked past him to the CCTV. The front garden area showed nothing but darkness. But the automatic front garden light hadn’t come on. Maybe the halogen tube needed changing. Or maybe it had been sabotaged. Thankfully, there was no way an intruder could get past the grille on the front door, not without oxy equipment.