Back in the living room Mr Wallace seemed tense at the sound of his wife’s tears. His response was to turn up the volume on the television while Noelene wrung her hands, wrinkling her dress. Tears continued to roll down her face.
‘I’m very sorry,’ Mak said, feeling helpless. She stood in the hallway next to the woman, touching her arm, and wishing there was something more she could do.
‘Toby could not have done this,’ Noelene said, this time with certainty. ‘If we had the money, we would hire someone like you to find the real killer.’ She spoke with such clarity that it took Mak by surprise.
‘You think they have the wrong person?’ Mak asked in response, and immediately regretted her choice of words. It wasn’t fair of her to confuse this woman at a time when she was so vulnerable. Making a baseless suggestion that the police might have the wrong suspect was irresponsible and wrong. She felt like she was getting everything wrong.
‘Meg was…She was doing things that…that she wasn’t telling us about,’ Noelene said between sobs. ‘I knew it. I knew something was going on.’
Mak could see that the older woman had thought this through, probably obsessing over everything her daughter had said to her in the months before her death.
‘Miss Vanderwall…as you can probably tell, my husband and I aren’t rich. We get by, but we aren’t rich people. Meg used to give us stuff all the time. There wasn’t a single visit she made in the past two years where she didn’t bring something for us. Like that TV that Ralph is watching.’ Mak had noticed it was a large flat-screen model—pretty flash. ‘She was always bringing things for us, and she insisted we take them.’ Noelene took a deep breath. ‘I started wondering where she was getting it all. Where was she getting the money from? That television was way too expensive for our blood. How could she afford all that?’
Mak didn’t know what to say, but Noelene was right to think that her daughter’s salary would not support such lavish gifts.
‘She was into something,’ Noelene said, more calmly now. ‘Someone else did this to her. Someone…’
The American, Bob White, sat in the office of his client Jack Cavanagh, considering what he knew of the situation at hand. It was getting late on Friday evening, and they were the last souls remaining on the office floor. Jack had even sent home his secretary, Joy.
Simon Aston, the party-boy friend of Damien Cavanagh, had gone home with his tail between his legs after telling Bob every last detail of his foolish dealings. And his dealings had indeed been foolish. Simon had not impressed Bob: he’d seen recklessly self-serving and arrogant young men like Simon before. Simon was a leech on Damien and the Cavanagh fortune, and now he had jeopardised their security.
‘How bad is it?’ Jack Cavanagh asked The American. He had not been present for Damien’s and Simon’s full confessions—a precaution to keep him innocent of any incriminating details. The less he knew, the better it was for him. He would stay as clean as possible during the events that were about to unfold.
Bob delivered the news. ‘In my professional estimation, we do need Mr Hand’s expertise on this. I recommend we make the confirmation immediately.’
Jack nodded. ‘Okay. Make it happen.’ He had already known.
Mr Hand’s involvement meant that the situation was bad. You didn’t bring a man like him in without things being very,
very
serious.
‘And this Mr Hand…he is highly recommended?’ Jack asked.
‘Very,’ Bob assured him. ‘And he is an expatriate Australian, so he knows Sydney well. I recommend that you not know more than that. Forget you ever heard his name.’
The American’s contact, known only as Madame Q, had nominated her man Luther Hand for the job. He was said to be methodical, fast-working and virtually anonymous, and he had no restrictions on the profile or number of targets he would accept. Black or white; man, woman or child—given the orders, Madame Q’s man Mr Hand would eliminate them all. That was a characteristic not shared by everyone in his profession.
‘I think it is best to keep yourself and your son as distant from this clean-up as possible,’ The American continued.
Jack agreed.
Bob considered his response for a while before he spoke again. ‘The activities your son engaged
in could give him a sentence of perhaps five to ten years. More, if convicted of manslaughter.’
Jack sat upright in his chair, startled, but said nothing.
‘We do need to take that threat seriously. I will have to use some of your contacts within the police.’
Jack nodded. ‘I have some favours I can call on. There is one man—a Detective Hunt, I think. He would be close to it, and should prove helpful.’
Bob wrote the name down.
‘I will handle it with discretion. You need not become involved. If anyone tries to contact you directly, deny any knowledge. This Warwick O’Connor may be bluffing about having an actual video. He may have learned something about the recording from another source—even Simon himself—without actually being in possession of it. But it still seems likely that such a video does exist, and we must take every precaution in relation to containing it. There may already be copies.’
Jack nodded solemnly.
‘It may not seem so right now, but all this may in fact be a blessing in disguise,’ Bob told him. ‘We now know about your son’s activities and we may be able to contain the damage. Left much longer, it would have become more dangerous. If a recording of these activities exists, we need to find out exactly what was recorded and who might have seen it. That is my top priority.’
Jack knew The American well enough not to ask how he would get his information and how he would handle those who might have seen something dangerous. He had worked with him many years, through many crises…though perhaps none had been as close to home as this, and Jack trusted the man’s judgment implicitly.
‘With your permission, I will get my men to search your home for all mobile phones or phone fragments. I would like to find that phone.’
‘Okay. Do it, but do it quietly,’ Jack said. ‘I don’t want my wife catching wind of any of this.’
‘Understood. I will need a list of Beverley’s movements, and I will need you to excuse your house staff for the day.’
‘Okay.’
‘I need your permission to take whatever steps are necessary and reasonable to remove the threat of the video evidence of your son’s activities. It could come at considerable expense.’
‘Do it,’ Jack replied without hesitation.
The American had reliable and discreet contacts who could help him track down any transmission sent from that phone, including the video recording, if it existed. He had to get rid of evidence, and witnesses. There were ways to minimise or eliminate those threats, but Jack had to be clear about what that might mean.
‘Do what you need to, Bob,’ Jack said once more. ‘Any means you deem necessary. You know how important this is right now.’
The American understood. ‘I will set the wheels in motion immediately. Things will happen very quickly.’
Jack nodded his head sadly. ‘Just, um…’ he began, uncharacteristically caught on his words. His throat sounded tight. ‘I don’t want anyone suffering unnecessarily…’
‘Understood,’ The American reassured him. ‘Don’t give it any further thought.’
At this point, however, suffering was unavoidable.
Detective Andy Flynn looked up to see Makedde crossing the restaurant towards him, returning from the ladies room. She looked damned gorgeous, and the sight of her gave him a tingle in his stomach that was something like pain. He would miss her, and worry.
Mak…
She wore a simple black dress that followed her curves, her stride unselfconscious, her fair hair falling naturally around her face and down to her chest. Her movement was part youthful bounce and part sophisticated saunter from her days on the catwalk. But that wasn’t all she’d retained from the catwalk: Mak still had the long slim legs and head-turning hourglass figure of a model, and several patrons in the restaurant looked up as she made her way to the table. She seemed blissfully unaware of the effect she had on other people; he’d always liked that about her. She’d never been what he deemed a typical model. In fact, there had never been anything typical about her.
The outright stares in Mak’s direction did not make Andy jealous. He was used to them by now, having been with her on and off for nearly five years, during which time she seemed only to grow more frustratingly striking, not less. Whether in jeans and sneakers or in a gown, she had a quality that turned heads. But Andy could never quite give in enough to his feelings to fall fully in love with her again, the way he had before she refused his hand in marriage. Perhaps it was fear of rejection. Sure, she was loving and attentive, but also unpredictable and independent and exciting, even more independent than his ex-wife, Cassandra, had been.
Cassandra had divorced him. It had stung.
Now Andy was with Mak, but he could never quite have her completely, he sensed. Still, something in him wished he could. That desire to possess her was a beast Mak awoke in many men—not just Andy, and some of them less than desirable. There was a quality about her that made men want to tame her. Perhaps it was that fierce independence and strength; her kamikaze dedication to life. She was unique.
I’ll miss her.
Would absence make her heart grow fonder? Perhaps then she would reconsider his offer.
Makedde took her seat across the intimate table setting of their candlelit dinner at Bondi Icebergs. Andy watched her as she took her seat and she gave him a champagne grin.
She liked the way he was looking at her. He looked delicious in a dark suit and open shirt, and she leaned in to him, her full mouth closed in a pleasant, pouting grin, urging him to cover the remaining distance to kiss her. He did.
Mmmm
…
She’d had a couple of glasses of champagne since they’d arrived at the restaurant and her cheeks felt warm. There were two fresh glasses of bubbly on the table, and a candle flickering in the centre of the white tablecloth. Oysters had come and gone.
This had been a good idea. This restaurant was booked out weeks in advance for a Friday night; he’d done well to get them in. She was pleased that he’d made the effort.
‘I love this,’ she said and smiled. She didn’t want to talk about his flight to Virginia, or his impending three-month absence. For now she just wanted to bask in the champagne glow and relax in his presence. It felt like it had been ages since they’d dined together—or made love.
How long have we been together?
Five years.
It had been just over five years since they’d first met on the beach at La Perouse. It had hardly been an ideal encounter, considering that
she was at the time the traumatised witness to the body of her murdered best friend, Cat, and the site of her brief initial meeting with Andy was a bloody crime scene. But somehow, in the ensuing weeks, and despite the horror of that beginning, an attraction had blossomed. It had been a rocky five years, but despite their on-again, off-again start, they had managed to spend the past year living together.
‘It’s great to be here, just you and me,’ she said. ‘The bubbly is nice, too.’
Mak waited for him to respond as she smiled and sipped from her glass of champagne. He returned her playful look, which she found encouraging.
‘You look great tonight. It makes me wish I wasn’t leaving,’ he said.
That’s the idea.
Mak crossed her legs and leaned back into the chair. ‘You scrub up okay yourself, detective. I have to grudgingly admit that I’ll probably miss the sight of you…a little.’ She laughed and he looked at her with one of his sexy, lopsided grins.
‘Andy, I’m really sorry I was so late tonight. I didn’t expect my meeting to go that long,’ she apologised again.
‘Don’t worry about it. It worked out perfectly. Stop thinking about it.’
‘Okay,’ she agreed. ‘We haven’t been to this place since…’ She paused. ‘
Years ago
,’ she said,
avoiding a discussion of the circumstances of that last dinner here.
‘I pulled a few strings to get us in,’ Andy admitted. ‘Someone owed me a favour.’
It had been more than two years since they had dined here. And that had been at the end of the first triumphant day of the Stiletto Murder trial. That night everyone had been delighted, not least her and Andy. They had broken up for several months and had dated other people—or at least
he
had—but they found themselves coming together that night over more than a few champagnes, the stress of the trial lifted. Mak vividly recalled their erotic reacquaintance, how they had found themselves entwined in a rocky overhang by the nearby cliffs, eagerly making up for their time apart. He’d had to go to work the next day with rock rash on his palms and elbows, from fucking her over and over at the cliff’s edge. She wondered if she could lure him back to that rocky outcrop once more, on this eve of his Quantico trip.
Mak craned her neck in the direction of the crashing waves outside the large windows, and said, ‘It really is beautiful out there.’ The spectacular view—which they could see but not fully enjoy from their table—overlooked famous Bondi Beach, which was lit up in a speckle of lights at night, the fine white sand and crested waves moonlit.
‘What was your meeting tonight? You said you were in someone’s bathroom.’
Mak smiled. ‘Yes. Meaghan Wallace’s parents. I’ve been hired to look into her murder. I’m really excited about it, actually,’ Mak finished the last of her champagne. ‘The case is complicated, and interesting.’
Andy frowned. ‘Hunt told me about it. A junkie kid stabbed someone for cash for his next fix. It happens all the time.’
Mak pulled back a touch from the table. He had a way of subtly belittling her work that sometimes irritated her.
‘It’s not that simple, Andy,’ she retorted.
‘Isn’t it that simple? Sweetheart, really…’ He took her hand. ‘Try telling that to that girl’s parents.’