Spiking the Girl (4 page)

Beatrice de Berigny cocked her head to one side. ‘I shall do that straightaway. I’ll ring their mothers and do everything I can to clear your way.’

She keyed in a few commands on the laptop and Gemma heard the printer on the small desk under the window start to work. Miss de Berigny got up from her desk and walked over to the window, waiting while the page printed.

Gemma studied her: the tailored clothing, the low-heeled court shoes, the erect posture of a woman who knows people notice her.

‘I love this school,’ said Miss de Berigny. ‘I’ve given all my energy to it for fifteen years. Other women have children. I have Netherleigh Park.’ Gemma was startled by the intensity of her expression, the passion in her eyes. Then it was gone and Miss de Berigny raised her eyebrows, smiling. ‘I will do anything necessary to protect it and its reputation.’ She took the page from the printer and handed it over to Gemma.

Gemma ran her eyes down the names and addresses of Amy’s friends. ‘I’ll start as soon as I can,’ she said, straightening up and slipping the paper into her briefcase. ‘I’ll look after this investigation myself.’

‘That’s exactly what I had hoped for,’ said the headmistress, returning to her desk. ‘Your personal touch.’

Again the smile, a brief woman-to-woman moment, and all at once the interview was over and they were walking towards the door which suddenly flew open. Gemma jumped back as a man barged in.

‘Oh, I am sorry.’ His face gleamed with sweat. ‘I didn’t realise you had company. I should take more care where I’m going.’

Gemma turned to the principal, wondering who this man was. Perhaps the art or music teacher?

‘Did you want to see me, Mr Romero? You were late again this morning,’ said Miss de Berigny, her expression changed. Her voice, angry in tone, was also tight and anxious. Gemma thought she saw fear, too, in the pencilled eyes.

‘Tasmin Summers,’ said Mr Romero, waving a hand. ‘She was supposed to be here early this morning to go through her term History essay outline with me. She wasn’t in class just now. I thought she might be with you.’ He paused. ‘I can see she isn’t. Sorry.’

As he backed out and headed off down the corridor, Gemma’s eyes caught the diamond and gold tie pin holding his mauve and green cravat and she wondered if all the teachers wore the school colours.

‘I can find my way from here,’ said Gemma to the principal, extending her hand. But Miss de Berigny didn’t move to take it. She was a thousand miles away.

Gemma dropped her hand and waited.

‘Oh, Miss Lincoln. Goodbye. And thank you again.’

Gemma headed down the two flights of stairs, her mind turning over the curious interlude. You don’t get to be principal of Netherleigh Park without being a skilled strategist and politician, she mused as she climbed back into her car. She went over the interview notes. Beatrice de Berigny wants to tell the board that she’s doing everything possible, but it’s pretty clear she doesn’t really want me to turn up anything new. Or was that just a normal, protective response—a principal protecting her staff? And Mr Romero had walked straight into the principal’s office without knocking. Only someone very close would be allowed to do something like that, Gemma knew. Often only members of a family were permitted that sort of familiarity.

Beatrice de Berigny, despite her maidenly title, was married to a well-known businessman. Are Beatrice and Romero lovers, Gemma wondered. The idea was intriguing. Then she recalled the principal’s icy response. Maybe not, thought Gemma as she drove out of the school grounds. Then why did her voice sound so strained? And why did she look so scared?

•

Gemma was pleased to be back home again. Her apartment was one of four asymmetrical areas developed in the 1960s by an entrepreneur who’d divided up a grand old nineteenth-century mansion originally built by W.C. Wentworth. Her dream was to make enough money one day to be able to buy the apartment directly above hers and have a terrace by the sea. She surveyed the grounds, glancing upstairs at her space-in-waiting. The For Lease sign in the window of the first-floor apartment remained. Coastal views north and south could be seen from up there. It even had a view to the boatshed she’d rented last year as a studio for sculpting. Now, in the place of her boatshed, stood a smart café, with decks on three sides, opened seven days a week in summer and on the weekends during winter months. In a few more years, she thought, the eastern suburbs will be nothing but wall-to-wall cafés, hair salons and security firms’ offices.

On her way to the front door, she patted one of the lions she’d sculpted that guarded her entrance. Glossy, with a mottled iron glaze that gave them more of a leopard look, they strained forward, jaws wide open in their eternal silent roar, looking very fine against the tubs of glaring white petunias and native shrubs on the western wall. She let herself into her place, thinking how this time yesterday had been the last few hours of two perfect weeks at Nelson Bay, swimming and lovemaking, walking and talking, delicious fish meals, too much wine, and long warm evenings along the beaches, where curving dolphins split the turquoise mirror of the inland bay and delighted children splashed to get closer to them.

She tried calling Kit again, only to find that according to her sister’s new voice message, she was out of town for a day or two. Gemma hung up the phone, frustrated that Kit hadn’t yet got a mobile. She wondered again what Rowena Wylde might know about their family.

She spent the rest of the afternoon tidying up outstanding jobs and, despite Spinner’s lack of interest, ordered one of the micro spycams. She carefully entered her notes from her visit to Netherleigh Park Ladies’ College into her notebook. She remembered how Miss de Berigny had said she’d do anything to protect the school. In her report, Gemma highlighted the word in bold type.
Anything
.

Next morning, as soon as she’d showered and dressed, Gemma made herself a cup of tea and sliced an apple. She was
eating it on the timber deck under the umbrella when she heard Mike’s car pull up on the road at the front of the building. Very handy with technical know-how, Mike Moody worked fifteen to twenty hours a week for Gemma, and for other security businesses the rest of the time. She glanced at his figure on the CCTV monitor in the corner of her living room as she went to let him in. Though he and Spinner had keys, they only used them if Gemma wasn’t at home.

‘Hi. How’s it going?’ Gemma asked, opening the grille.

Mike nodded in answer and she followed him into the operatives’ office, across the hallway from her own. ‘How about you?’ he asked. The pink shirt he was wearing emphasised his well-built upper body and the light tan on his powerful arms.

Gemma shrugged. ‘Been better.’ She was pleased to see him. Mike’s was a comforting presence, especially with the emptiness in her heart.

Gemma went into her own office, delicately furnished in soothing light greys and white with a huge recently re-covered club-style armchair under the window. Taped to the wall above her colour monitor was a double-page article from the newspaper’s weekend magazine: ‘Sex, Signs and Subterfuge’ by Amanda Quirk, a journalist acquaintance. Gemma examined the picture of herself that accompanied the article mostly grey and half in shadow, apart from her dark red lipstick, suggesting she was mysterious and even a little forbidding. Published earlier in the year, the piece focused on Gemma’s Mandate option, and had resulted in many enquiries and a steady building of work. After last year’s catastrophic penetration of her sensitive files, the phones of her business had almost stopped ringing. But now, slowly at first, but lately with more regularity, they’d started again. Business was picking up.

She took the card Beatrice de Berigny had given her out of her briefcase and dialled Lauren Bernhard, mother of Amy, missing now for a year. She heard the desperate eagerness in the woman’s voice when she answered. Does she hope it might be Amy every time the phone rings, Gemma thought. She explained who she was and asked if she could make an appointment time.

‘You can come round any time,’ said Lauren. ‘I’m always here. Waiting.’

Waiting, Gemma thought. For a daughter to come home. Or a grave to be found.

She collected the new files together, intending to offer some of them to Mike. As well as the jobs she’d delegated to Spinner, she had a brand new contract with Australian Access Insurances, thanks to the efforts of a friend. She was hopeful of more. She was just heading towards his room when Mike suddenly appeared in the doorway. ‘Do you know the rent of that upstairs flat?’ he asked. ‘Maybe I should enquire about it for me. It’d cut down on travel time. I’m already spread all over Sydney.’

Gemma hesitated. The thought of Mike in the upstairs flat made her feel uneasy, for some reason that she didn’t quite understand. Some instinct was saying, ‘Not a good idea. It’s good to have a bit of distance between job and home. Are you sure you want to be so close?’

Mike pointed down the hallway towards her apartment. ‘You’ve only got an interconnecting door.’

‘Exactly,’ said Gemma, ‘and work dominates my life way too much.’

Mike leaned against the door frame, folding his arms. ‘Maybe you have a problem with me being up there? Too close to your space?’

Gemma ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back behind her ears. It really needed cutting. ‘I’ll give it some thought.’ It was her stock reply when unsure.

‘Keep me informed. If you really don’t like it, I won’t do it.’ He looked more closely at her. ‘You okay?’

Gemma realised she was feeling wobbly and close to tears, but she nodded. ‘Yeah. Just got a lot on.’

‘Don’t forget that appointment in your desk diary with Mr Dowling. I put him down for 10 a.m.’

Mike glanced past her to the cut-out magazine article taped to the wall. ‘That photograph doesn’t do you justice.’

Gemma felt her cheeks flush. ‘Here,’ she said, proffering several new files. ‘See what’s there that you can work in with your other jobs.’

He took them and she checked her diary. ‘I’d better do a bit of housework if I’ve got a client coming,’ she said, picking up her briefcase. Ducking past him, she was aware of his gaze following her down the hall.

She closed the door that sheltered her private life from the offices. There was definitely a charge between Mike and her. No use denying it. And with Steve gone, she’d have to be careful about entanglement. She picked up the small oval portrait of her mother on the table near the doorway and looked at the hint of a smile on the serious face, the eyes so like Kit’s. You were years younger than I am now when you died, she thought, searching her mother’s face for similarities to her own. And when this was taken, how could you know that you had only a short time to live? She put the portrait down.

Why had Daria Reynolds asked that strange question about her mother’s death? Again, the shadow fell across Gemma and she re-experienced the unease she’d felt earlier. Then it had been because she’d felt someone on her tail. Now it felt more like an old sadness. To change her mood, she logged on and checked Vincent Reynolds with CrimeNet and her other sources. There were no results, but this didn’t necessarily mean he was a cleanskin. Unable to settle, she sat at the rented piano and propped up the new piece that Mrs Snellgrove had given her. Much more pianissimo, her teacher had written. Gemma attempted to sight read. The result was so dispiriting that she put the music back on top of the piano and got up again. Keep busy, she scolded herself.

Back in her office, Gemma checked her email then turned her attention to her notes on Amy Bernhard. She recalled Beatrice de Berigny telling her that her friend Angie had recommended Gemma to follow up the police investigation into the girl’s disappearance. Perhaps Angie still had some records of interviews on her laptop—although access to this information might be problematic.

While she considered how to proceed, she wrote the covering letters for several completed insurance jobs and made out the accounts. This made her feel a little better; she needed the several thousand dollars these would bring in to maintain cash flow and keep paying Spinner and Mike. Gemma was just clearing her desk when a glance out the office window revealed an elderly man approaching the entrance. She opened the security grille and shook his proffered hand. ‘Mr Dowling.’ She led him into her office where he removed his cap and balanced his walking stick against the desk.

‘What can I do for you?’ she said, after he’d made himself comfortable.

‘I’m not sure where to start,’ he said. ‘It sounded like just the thing. But I don’t know what to do, where to turn.’

‘What do you need from me, Mr Dowling?’ she asked, guessing from his faint smell of old leather and moth balls that he was well into his eighties.

In reply, the old man took a card out of his top pocket and passed it to her. ‘This is the mob I want you to take a look at. It sounded like a good service.’

Gemma read the logo headed up by an embossed diamond in silver ink.
Forever Diamonds
, it said.
Now your love can be truly eternal.
There was an address in Trafalgar Street, Newtown, and Gemma wrote it down in the new file.

‘I took Shirley over to them in her little box, like they told me to, and left her there.’

Gemma, puzzled by this information and about to ask if Shirley was a cat or dog, was saved from what would have been a terrible gaffe by Mr Dowling’s next remark.

‘Shirley is—was my wife. The best wife a man could ever have.’ Tears filled his eyes. ‘They have this process,’ he continued, ‘where they transform the ashes of your loved one into a diamond.’

Gemma recalled she’d read something about this process quite recently, claimed by both the USA and the USSR to be not only feasible, but capable of producing near gem-quality stones.

‘It’s expensive,’ said Mr Dowling. ‘Nearly nine thousand dollars all up by the time I’d had the diamond made into a little ring. I used the gold of her wedding ring.’ He fumbled for a handkerchief and blew his nose. ‘I picked it up last week. It looks good.’

He put his hand into the inside pocket of his sports jacket and pulled out a small jewellery box. ‘Here.’ He put it on the desk beside Gemma. ‘You can take a look for yourself.’

Gemma opened the lid. A small bluish-grey stone winked from a band of gold. ‘May I?’ she asked. After he nodded, she took the ring out and looked at it.

‘And you’re concerned that it’s not genuine?’ she said, putting the ring back in its housing. ‘You’d need to take it to a good jeweller for that sort of information.’

‘It’s not that,’ said Mr Dowling. ‘It’s a genuine diamond all right. I took it to my old watchmaker up at the Junction.’

‘Mr Dowling, I don’t understand. What do you want me to do?’

Mr Dowling took the box back from her and turned the ring in his fingers. ‘You see,’ he said, ‘I keep looking at it and putting it on. But then I take it off again. I just can’t wear it. I did for a day or so, but then I got this terrible feeling.’

He put the ring into its slot in the black velvet and snapped the lid shut. He leaned closer. ‘Miss Lincoln. It’s just not Shirley, I know it isn’t.’ The sadness in his eyes was replaced with anger. ‘I don’t know who it is in this ring, but it’s not my wife.’ He put the box back in his pocket. ‘That’s why I want you to check out these people. There’s been a mix-up, I’m sure of it, and now I’ve got nothing of her. I want you to find out what became of Shirley. I want her back. Someone else is wearing my wife. While I’ve got goodness knows who.’

His voice caught on the last few words and he looked as if he were about to cry. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened in this office, Gemma thought. Right now, she felt like crying herself.

‘Mr Dowling,’ Gemma warned him, ‘without getting someone in there undercover, it could be impossible to find out how they really manage their business.’

‘I hoped you could just ask the right questions,’ he said, looking dejected.

‘Sometimes, that’s sufficient. I’ll see what I can do myself,’ she said, ‘and, should it become necessary to put someone in there, I’ll let you know before incurring any extra expenses.’ She touched his arm. ‘Now, how about a cup of tea?’

•

Gemma spent the rest of the morning compiling new files and writing up her notes on Mr Dowling. She reviewed the information he’d given her about Forever Diamonds and checked them on the net. She’d never had a case quite like this one before.

Then, she changed into her shorts and T-shirt and went for a run along the cliffs, hoping that a good sweat would relieve some of her stored-up grief and frustration. She stretched out, passing the eroding angels and broken columns of the seaside cemetery which contained her murdered mother’s grave. Fat skinks plopped off stone ledges and disappeared into the grass at her passing. No breeze came from the flat surface of the Pacific and she thought she must be mad to be running in the building heat.

Back home, she showered and changed and went to her office. She checked her mobile—there was a text message from Angie:
Call me
.

‘I can’t talk for long,’ said Angie, sounding strung out. ‘It’s jumping round here. Another girl’s gone missing. From the same school.’

‘Netherleigh Park? I was only there yesterday. Thanks for the referral, by the way. The principal wants me to work on Amy Bernhard’s disappearance.’ Gemma paused.

‘So you’ve met Madame Beatrice de B? She’s really something, isn’t she?’ Angie lowered her voice. ‘It’s a madhouse here. Half are off on sick leave, half are at court and the other half are just plain mad.’

‘That’s three halves, Ange.’

‘Smartypants! I’m supposed to be compiling a list of possible VMOs—violent major offenders—for the boss so he can send them on to ViCLAS at the Crime Commission. Plus I’m on call-out for hostage negotiation.’

‘Well, Ange, you always say you like it hot.’

‘Not this hot. G-for-Gross is supposed to be assisting me as well, but ever since he got promoted to Inspector he’s been impossible.’

‘Promoted—Bruno Gross? How did that happen?’ It was painful for Gemma to think of Bruno, with whom she’d had a brief, ill-judged affair nearly ten years earlier.

‘God knows. He must have blackmailed someone. Or bribed them. His idea of policing these days is to lock the door of the station, take the phone off the hook and put the telly on.’

‘What’s ViCLAS?’

‘Violent crime linkage analysis system. Supposed to identify and track serial offenders. They want to marry my VMOs with theirs. G-for weaselled out of it and dumped it on me. So here I am with a tower of files. Gotta go, hon.’

‘The name of the latest missing girl—is it Tasmin Summers?’

‘How’d you know that?’

‘Someone was looking for her yesterday, when I was at Netherleigh Park,’ explained Gemma, looking at her watch.

‘You’d better come in and we’ll have a chat,’ Angie suggested.

As Gemma looked in the fridge, deciding on what to eat, she wondered where Taxi was. He should have appeared by now, nagging for food. Finally she made a couple of cheese crackers, brewed a pot of tea and, deciding to do things in style to cheer herself up, fetched a large crystal jug and a tray from the large sideboard near the dining table. The tray, its decanters and the matching crystal jug were almost the only family possessions she still had. The decanters, wide and heavy-bottomed, were specially designed for stability on the tray in heavy seas and even the tray had a little fence around it to keep articles from sliding off. They had come from long-widowed Aunt Merle’s master mariner grandfather. Gemma filled the crystal jug with apple juice and carried the tray back out to the timber deck, remembering Aunt Merle who had raised Gemma and Kit after the loss of their parents.

Despite the still summer day and the hazy blue of sky and ocean, Gemma felt storm-tossed. She bit into a cracker and cheese and went looking for Taxi, checking all his secret hideouts. Sure enough, she spied a lump under the cream and blue damask cover of her light summer doona. ‘There you are, you straight-tailed, orange-flavoured cat!’ She dragged him out and hugged him, wondering if a cat was all she’d be hugging for quite some time. She carried him out to the deck and put him down, watched him arch his back then roll over and stretch front and back legs into star paws.