‘Love you, sweetheart!’
‘Ugh. You too.’ She hung up and shook her head.
Loulou.
Mak let herself into the apartment and the door clicked shut behind her. It was the middle of the day, and the apartment was light with sunbeams. The garden looked green and overgrown beyond the windows. It was quiet.
‘Bogey?’
There was no answer.
The couch was tidy, the cushions neat, and there was no sign of the doona or Bogey’s things. For a moment her chest tightened with the thought he had gone back to Melbourne already, or found another place to stay. She had bought a bit of extra Thai in case he was home. It had been nice of him to cook her breakfast. Their meeting had embarrassed her, but she didn’t want him to leave.
Ten minutes later there was a buzzing at the door panel, and soon Mak heard her friend make her way down the echoing hallway to Loulou’s door. Mak opened it with a smile.
‘Karen, it’s so great to see you.’
The women embraced.
Karen looked, and felt, thin. She was a detective constable working homicide, and Mak had first met her at the gruesome crime scene of her friend Catherine Gerber’s murder years ago, when she’d first arrived in Australia—the same crime scene where she’d met Andy, whom Karen had been working with. It looked liked work had been tough for the curly-haired redhead lately.
‘I have to say a big congratulations to you again on your promotion to detective. That’s really brilliant,’ Mak told her.
‘Thanks.’ Karen had worked hard to earn it, particularly being one of the younger officers in the department.
‘Come in, come in. I got us some Thai.’
Twenty minutes later, Loulou’s small living room was strewn with dirty dishes, napkins, flimsy wooden chopsticks, and plastic tubs reddened in splatters with remnants of sweet chilli sauce. Karen and Mak were curled up in opposite corners of the comfortable furry sofa, finishing the last of their lunch.
‘I’ve checked with the morgues,’ Mak said, continuing the brainstorming over her missing nineteen-year-old. She was more familiar with such places than most. Her detective inspector father had first taken her to a morgue for father-daughter bonding when she was twelve. ‘No one of his description is listed at the hospitals either. I don’t know where he is, but I doubt he’s lying under a stiff white sheet anywhere. It seems to me that he shimmied down that drainpipe and ran away, but I guess I can’t be sure. It would be pretty awful for his mum. I don’t think she has anyone else.’
Makedde pushed a lonely prawn around a cooling bed of flat noodles, feeling the weight of her own loneliness, despite the company of her friend. ‘And if he’s not okay, I don’t want to be the one to tell Mrs Hart that her son dropped the wrong acid and has turned up as a John Doe somewhere,’ she continued. ‘God knows that happens enough.’
‘I thought he didn’t do drugs?’ Karen piped up.
‘Exactly.’
She took a sip of cold water. It moved down nearly to the base of her belly. She had not eaten enough. She would have
to be careful not to lose too much weight on what Loulou called the ‘Divorce Diet’. Perhaps this was the reason for Karen’s weight loss?
‘Any men on the scene, Karen?’
‘Like romance? No.’
They continued eating.
‘Sorry about the shop talk, but…you know the case I did last time in Sydney? And the homicide scene you attended?’
‘How could I forget?’ Karen replied, flashing her customary wry smile. ‘It was front-page news there for a while…’
‘Well, remember that poor street kid, Tobias Murphy, wrongly arrested for the stabbing? Guess what? Tobias is living down the street from my new client. Tobias’s dad recommended me.’
Karen digested her words. ‘Really?’ She sounded unimpressed. Perhaps, like Marian, Karen wasn’t happy about the connection.
‘I met Tobias this morning. He’s out of rehab and living with his dad and stepmum. It’s a happy ending for him, considering he nearly ended up in prison for life,’ Mak continued. She strongly suspected that the Cavanagh family was to blame, and resented them still being out there, free and privileged and able to do what they pleased. But she had cleared Tobias. She had done that much.
‘It was amazing what you did with that case, Mak. It really was,’ Karen told her.
Makedde stared down at the table, and her regrets returned. ‘I think we both know the bad guys didn’t get caught.’
A frustrated look twisted Karen’s features. ‘Mak…’
‘No, seriously. We both know the Cavanaghs were involved,’ Mak insisted. ‘Enough bullshit with this thing.’
‘There was a full confession from that Aston guy. Case closed.’ Simon Aston had been Damien Cavanagh’s right-hand man for a time.
‘We both know that Damien Cavanagh was there when that girl died, and she was
underage
for godsake, and it sure seemed like they had been pretty intimate with each other…yet he was never even formally questioned? Come on, we both know that isn’t right.’ Mak was angry. ‘He’s a monster.’
The problem was money. The Cavanagh family was so powerful, they could evidently protect their son from anything. There had even been video footage placing the Cavanagh heir at the scene. Sure, it was grainy, but Mak had seen it. It was him. The Cavanagh family’s heir, right there.
‘Maybe you saw Aston in the video, not Cavanagh?’ Karen suggested. Simon Aston had supposedly confessed to the killing, and was shortly afterwards found hanging from a chandelier in an apparent suicide. To Mak, he seemed a little too conveniently dead. He would have known a lot about Damien.
‘Simon Aston was
blond
,’ Mak pointed out. ‘And built. The guy in the video looked exactly like Damien Cavanagh. Dark hair, slim build. He had his shirt off for Christsake; there was no mixing them up.’
Karen seemed a little less sure of her position. ‘Well, I haven’t seen the footage, but they’ve looked at it and decided it’s not Damien Cavanagh. We’ve talked about this before, and I really don’t think—’
‘Who are
they
?’
Karen furrowed her brow. ‘What?’
‘
They
have looked at the video and decided it’s not him. Who are they?’ Makedde demanded, getting worked up once
more over the police handling of the case, and now in front of a police officer, a member of that clique. She and Andy had already fought over the issue many times. Was it to have the same detrimental effect on her friendship with Karen? ‘Who
has
looked at the video?’ Mak went on, unable to stop herself. ‘Because Andy hasn’t seen it.
You
haven’t seen it. Andy said that Jimmy hasn’t seen it, either. So exactly who
has
seen it?’
‘Well, Hunt, for starters,’ was her friend’s reply. ‘He was on the case.’
‘Ah, Hunt,’ Mak said with a hint of incredulity. She raised an eyebrow.
Detective Hunt was Karen’s senior. He was politically minded and intent on climbing the ranks. Mak did not like him, or trust him. And like many who wanted to make it in Sydney, he apparently mingled with the Cavanaghs.
‘Okay. But others would have seen it too.’ Karen screwed up her face. ‘You know, Hunt knows you’re back, and he mentioned it to me this morning like I would be impressed that he knew.’ Karen seemed a little disturbed by the fact, in light of Mak’s comments. ‘I think you should just drop this stuff. Be careful. The Cavanaghs probably haven’t forgotten about you,’ she warned.
Well, that’s mutual then.
Mak knew she was complaining about something Karen had no power over, but she could not help but continue to plead her case. ‘So the death took place in the Cavanagh home, as I managed to prove by getting in there myself, because no one else would try. And there is a man on the video with the dead girl, and he looks exactly like Damien Cavanagh. And he has never been formally questioned? Never a person of interest? Nothing?’
Silence descended on the small apartment. Mak was seething over the injustice and Karen had crawled into her own thoughts. The air was icy.
‘
Time takes a cigarette. Puts it in your mouth…
’
The strains of David Bowie’s ‘Rock ’n’ Roll Suicide’ drifted across the courtyard, and with the tension temporarily allayed, Karen spoke. ‘That murder was one of the more horrible ones I’ve seen.’
Karen had been part of the team called to the scene when Meaghan Wallace was found slashed to death in her apartment. The victim had struggled valiantly with her attacker, and Karen had been confronted with blood streaked across the walls, the furniture, and soaked into the carpet. Stabbings were notoriously messy, and television shows did not accurately capture the graphic horror of real-life crimes. It was Makedde’s strong belief that Meaghan Wallace—who was Tobias Murphy’s cousin—had been killed in this horrible manner simply because she witnessed the Cavanagh heir up to no good, and the family was afraid she would go to the police. The witnessing of one death had led to the other. It was a hit.
‘Karen, I don’t want to put any heat on you, but—’
‘Then
don’t
.’ Karen glared at her with glistening green eyes, the intensity of which gave Mak pause.
She soon regained herself. ‘Come on. You used to be a lot more fun with this stuff.’
Nothing. Not even a smirk in response.
‘Look, if you just happen to find yourself tying up loose ends with the old Wallace case…’ she dared to continue ‘…and the Cavanagh stuff—’
‘Don’t even start.’ Again, the look was intense.
‘All I’m saying is that there might be something obvious that’s been overlooked, and if you were to find it, it could be amazing. It would be great for your career.’
‘Don’t come back to town and immediately start stirring up shit, Mak.’
Mak pulled a fingertip across her pouting lower lip, signifying that she would say nothing more on the subject. For now.
Karen folded her arms. ‘Come on, enough talking about work and crap. I want to know. Have you spoken to
him
?’
Him.
‘Why won’t you speak to him?’ Karen’s voice was a touch accusatory. She had not even given Mak time to answer. Her red curls trembled like snakes ready to strike.
‘We
have
spoken,’ Mak said, feeling unreasonably defensive. ‘Actually, we’ve spoken a great deal. We both just need a little space right now. And I don’t particularly want to talk about it.’
Karen was adept at interviewing, but with Mak she had met her match. Karen knew Andy well, but she was a loyal friend to Mak, and in this break-up she had to try to be Switzerland. It was not always easy to tread the thin line of impartiality in such matters. Mak sympathised with that. Still, she did not want to discuss her love life with anyone for the moment. She didn’t want advice. She didn’t want a shoulder to cry on. She just didn’t want to talk about it.
‘I’ll talk to him again, just not right now,’ she offered as a way to close the matter. ‘I don’t have the energy for another emotional face-off—it’s too soon.’
Silence.
‘You’re my friend, Karen. I don’t want to fight,’ Mak murmured.
‘Neither do I.’
But their frosty exchange hung heavily. The reunion was over.
‘I better get back to work.’
‘Me too,’ Mak said. ‘I have to see a man about a coin.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Let me help with those dishes,’ Karen offered.
‘I got it,’ Mak insisted. ‘It’s takeaway. It practically takes care of itself. You should get back to work. It’s nearly one.’
She wondered if Andy was there, complaining that she had kicked him out. Perhaps even waiting for Karen’s report.
‘Good luck finding your boy…Adam.’
‘Thanks.’ Mak led her to the door, disappointed. They didn’t hug. Karen’s footsteps retreated, and Mak closed the door.
Shit.
I’m sorry, Karen.
Mak carried the remains of their meal into the kitchen, and tried to compose herself. She ran the tap, and let her hands sit in the warm soapy water once the sink was half full, dishes slippery to the touch, a prawn tail floating at the surface.
Andy.
He had left her a couple of new messages, but she wasn’t going to call him back. She had not asked him to come to Sydney.
A plate slipped from Makedde’s hand and clanged in the sink.
Fuck.
Mak had seen a lot of odd bookshops, but never a place such as this before.
She was the only customer in the shop, and she wandered from shelf to shelf, feigning a sense of purpose as she examined books on the American illusionists Thurston and Kellar, the inventive French magician Robert-Houdin, and the famous American escape artist Houdini, who borrowed the Frenchman’s name. She noted books on various illusions, levitations, mindreading techniques and card tricks, and flicked through them with a cursory interest. Many of the shelves were dusty. The shop did not sell the toys and magic kits for children she’d been expecting, but catered for those serious about the art of magic.
A book on lock-picking caught her eye, and she took it off the shelf with an eagerness unrelated to her current mission. She was pretty good with simple locks like handcuffs, but her effort with more sophisticated locks had been abysmal the one time she’d really needed the skill. She could make a three-pin lock look like a seven-pin. Which was not a compliment. She put the book under her arm and continued browsing.
Eventually, the shopkeeper approached her, as she had hoped. ‘Is there anything I can help you with, miss?’ he asked.
Makedde found herself face to face with a man who could only be a magician himself. His mane of silver hair was slicked back dramatically from the temples and forehead, displaying a distinctive widow’s peak and elongating a pleasant face with oversized teeth, presented in a polite and disingenuous smile. The man was dressed in a high-collared coat and slacks, and had the air of one who’d just emerged from one of the dusty books.
‘This is a great shop,’ she told him.
‘Thank you, miss.’
‘You’re the owner?’ Mak ventured.