Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing (41 page)

Gemma nodded. ‘I just hope the dragon made it,’ she said and started to laugh when she saw the glances exchanged by Heather and the young nurse. She stopped as suddenly, as a spasm of pain hit her flank. ‘I need to make a phone call.’ She reached over and picked up the phone.

As she did, Angie walked in.

‘Speak of the devil,’ said Gemma as Angie leaned over and kissed her. She’d brought an early bunch of jonquils.

‘Ange,’ she said, ‘I was just going to ring you and tell you. His jacket was slashed to ribbons. The night I was attacked. His jacket was cut into strips.’

Angie whipped out her notebook and noted this. She looked up, a puzzled frown on her face. ‘Why does a man wear a slashed jacket?’ she asked.

The doorbell sounded and Gemma peered sideways out the window. Minkie Montreau was on the doorstep, no
longer dressed in her usual black elegance but glowing in a dark red velvet suit over a figure-hugging leopardskin print sweater, a little black hat, iridescent feathers curving round one subtly rouged cheek. Gemma opened the door and was wondering whether or not she should ask her visitor in when Minkie resolved it herself.

‘I’m not staying,’ she said. ‘I won’t come in. Anthony and I are about to leave on a nice cruise together. Courtesy of the Stanford Macquarie Prize.’ She winked. ‘You didn’t know he won? Isn’t that wonderful?’

‘Art prizes have not been uppermost in my mind lately,’ Gemma said.

Minkie continued. ‘Patricia Greengate has been entering the Stanford for years and years.
And
many other art competitions. Patricia Greengate has never won a sausage.’ Minkie waved the envelope she was holding to make her point. ‘But Anthony Love wins the first major prize he ever enters! Just you wait till the time is right and I ring my contacts in the industry Can you imagine what sort of furore this will create in the so-called art world? Art snake pit, more like it.’

She almost handed Gemma the envelope she was holding, but pulled it back to flutter it around a little more.

‘Your account,’ she said. ‘I’m settling it in person to say thank you. I’m so grateful to you for not saying anything about that little matter on the video you sent me.’ Gemma took the envelope next time it came near, fearing Minkie might never relinquish it.

‘It doesn’t matter now what Patricia’s tiresome husband says or does anymore. She’s divorcing him. I presume it was he who procured your services?’

‘I took myself off the case,’ said Gemma, ‘as soon as I realised there was a conflict of interest.’ Not to mention the fact that my business has collapsed, she didn’t say.

‘It’s a small world, isn’t it?’ laughed Minkie as she trotted off with a wave.

It sure is, thought Gemma, when you’re engaged to work for two parties who happen to share a spouse. Especially when that spouse creates a whole new identity.

She was about to close the door when she saw Mike’s van pulling up. Minkie and Mike passed each other on the top step, Mike turning to take a second glance at the extraordinary feathered figure. Gemma was reminded of some strange mythological beast, half-bird, half-woman. But not, after all, a harpy, she thought. She stood in the doorway, waiting for Mike to come down. He was looking much better than when she’d last seen him, tense and exhausted. She stepped back to let him in, closing the door after him. She looked up at him and he paused on his way down the corridor.

‘Thanks for everything you did, Mike,’ she said.

‘You weren’t too bad yourself.’ He grinned and walked into the operatives’ office. Gemma followed.

‘I’m just picking up a few things,’ he said. ‘And I also wanted to warn you,’ he said. ‘The pictures of George Fayed being eaten by the Komodo dragon are all over the Internet,’ he said. ‘Just in case someone thinks it’s funny to send them to you. The CCT frames just kept rolling on right up until the roof caved in.’

She shivered. ‘I never thought I’d get out of there alive,’ she said. ‘And I thought Steve was a goner, too.’

‘How is he?’

She shook her head and looked away from him. I can’t even think about Steve at the moment, she thought. ‘He’s still in hospital,’ she said.

‘What’s up with him?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I heard there were a couple of fractures and lacerations. He was protected from the worst of the cave-in by the same pillar that saved me. It half-fell and then got wedged across at an angle. We were lucky enough to be in the corner pocket.’

‘You heard?’ said Mike. ‘You mean you haven’t visited him yet?’

She put a hand around to feel the injury on her side. ‘I don’t trust him, Mike,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe in him anymore.’

‘You’ve got to talk to him,’ said Mike.

•

I’ve got to talk to him, thought Gemma, as she drove to St Vincents an hour later. She’d been putting this moment off but Mike was right. She remembered the horrible moment of Steve’s unblinking choice, the humiliating difference between herself, dishevelled and dirty, and the beautiful swansdown powder blue vision of Lorraine Litchfield.

By the time she’d found him, sitting up on a small enclosed verandah, working on his laptop with one hand, the other awkward in plaster, one plastered leg stuck out onto a chair opposite, she’d composed herself.

He turned at her presence, moments before he could have heard her approach and his face softened into the smile she’d always loved to see. His hair was shorter than she’d ever seen it, and shaved patches on his scalp were criss-crossed with stitches.

He put the laptop aside and crookedly began to stand up, groping for the crutches angled against the chair.

‘Don’t get up,’ she said.

But he was already standing, gripping the crutches. ‘Look at me,’ he said. ‘What a pathetic figure.’ He looked into her face. ‘I didn’t think you’d ever come,’ he said, in a voice so low she had to strain to hear.

She started to move forward on automatic, then stopped and stepped back, not knowing what to say, how to start. ‘I can’t trust you anymore,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t think I can ever trust you again.’

Steve hung between his crutches, the iron stirrup under his plastered leg scraping as he adjusted his position, his face suddenly serious. ‘I guess we’ve both got issues of trust to hammer out,’ he finally said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You know what I mean. Your cyberstalker. Your chat room flirting.’ He saw her shocked face. ‘Remember how you wouldn’t tell me how it all started? Did you really think I wouldn’t work it out?’

Sometimes I forget, she thought, that my boyfriend is a highly intuitive detective.

Steve’s face was dark now, no hint of the earlier pleasure in seeing her. ‘It’s such a crap thing to do. All the lying that goes on there. A person doesn’t even have to show their face.’

‘I know it was silly,’ she said. ‘And I regretted it straightaway. Hell, Steve, I’m only human.’ She paused. ‘And
you
should talk. You
work
in lying. Your living is lying.’

With unfliching eyes locked onto his, Gemma spoke. ‘Did you do a deal with George Fayed?’

‘Yes,’ Steve said. ‘But I had my fingers crossed behind my back.’

Then he patted another chair on the verandah. ‘Sit down, Gems,’ he said. ‘It’s time we talked.’

She felt her stomach turn at the words. He’s going to call it off, she thought. He’s going to tell me he’s in love with Lorraine Litchfield and he and I are finished.

‘I’ve got something to tell you,’ he said and her heart contracted. ‘I’m going to be off work for a while with this—’ He indicated his bandaged limbs. ‘When I get out of here, why don’t we jump in my car and take a drive up the coast somewhere? Find some sunshine, take a break?’

She leaned across and gently kissed him. Her eyes were filled with tears. ‘I thought you were just about to sack me,’ she said. ‘I’d love to, but I won’t be able to afford it. I’ve got to lay everyone off and by the time I give them severance pay, I’ll be flat broke. I could take a week off, maybe,’ she added. ‘But that’s all. I’ll have to hire myself out. Become a Pinkerton’s girl, or something.’

He smoothed her hair. ‘Just so long as you don’t get into mischief again on the Net.’

‘I didn’t actually
do
anything except pretend to be someone else in a chat room,’ she continued and it sounded pathetic. ‘That gold Scorpio charm,’ she began, ‘it’s still somewhere at my place.’

She could tell from his frown that he didn’t know what she meant for a moment.

‘That thing?’ he said. ‘I don’t want it.’

She geared herself up emotionally for the question she had to ask. ‘I’ve got to ask you this,’ she said. ‘Have you been having an affair with Lorraine Litchfield?’

The expression on Steve’s face suddenly changed and he looked past her.

‘Oh shit,’ he said.

Gemma turned to see a vision in a fluffy white angora long-sleeved, short-skirted figure-hugging dress, knee-length white boots and a cascade of finely tuned and tousled hair approaching them. Behind her was the budgie man, still wearing the pineapple Hawaiian shirt. Lorraine Litchfield propped like a startled horse when she saw Gemma. Gemma noticed her new, thick, collagen-enhanced lips glistened wet with scarlet lipstick.

‘What’s
she
doing here?’ she yelled, jabbing a long purple nail in Gemma’s direction.

Gemma saw Steve get a firm grip on his crutches.

‘Lorraine,’ he said, ‘I could ask the same of you.’

Lorraine’s blue eyes narrowed into navy slits. ‘I’m here,’ she announced to the whole corridor, pouting her impossible lips, ‘visiting
my fiancé
.
And
that
woman’—the purple nail jabbed towards Gemma again—‘has got no business here at all.’ Lorraine clutched a fluffy little bag and Gemma wondered if the M1911 was stashed inside and wondered also when hospitals would become more security conscious.

‘Your
fiancé
must be on another floor of the hospital,’ said Steve. ‘I’m having a private conversation with my girlfriend. I’d like you to leave us in peace now.’

Lorraine looked from one to the other, for a few seconds speechless with fury. ‘Your
girlfriend
?’ she shrieked. ‘That bitch? You chose me! You said there was no contest!’

‘That’s right,’ said Steve. He swung closer to Gemma on his crutches and they stood together, blocking Lorraine’s entry into the enclosed area. ‘And I meant it. There isn’t.’

‘Come on, Lorrie,’ said the budgie man. ‘This isn’t the time or the place. Let’s get out of here.’

‘You promised me!’ she screamed. ‘What can you see in her? She’s
old!
’

‘Leave now, Lorraine,’ said Steve, ‘or I’ll get security up here and have you forcibly removed.’

The budgie man attempted to steer Lorraine away. ‘You can see how things are here. This isn’t doing any good. Come on.’

Lorraine swung round on him, shoving him. ‘Piss off, limpdick!’ she yelled.

Then she turned on Gemma and her face was distorted with hatred. ‘Why don’t you tell your so-called girlfriend about what we did in Tezza’s bed! I’ll bet you haven’t told her that!’ Her eyes had turned black with fury and her chin was lifted in triumph and somehow, the plumped-up lips had become tight and mean.

Despite feeling her heart give a great lurch, Gemma didn’t miss a beat. ‘Of course he’s told me about it, Lorraine,’ she said. ‘My boyfriend tells me everything.’ And in that moment she could feel a wave of loving gratitude emanating from Steve as he grasped her hand and squeezed it. Inspired, Gemma continued. ‘He even showed me the proof that you murdered your husband. Come near either of us again, and he hands it over to the investigating detectives. By the time you get out of Silverwater, you’ll be even older than me!’

Lorraine Litchfield’s face paled with shock. She was struck speechless. The plump lips gaped. Kosta’s source was right on the money, Gemma realised. You did kill your husband. Steve pressed the red button in the wall with the end of a crutch and Lorraine, still stunned, backed away.

‘Goodbye, Lorraine,’ Steve said.

Lorraine looked from Steve to Gemma, her gaze filled with poisonous hatred.

‘Lorrie, come on.’ The budgie man hauled her away, but she swung round, screaming. ‘You’re
dead,
bitch! Do you hear me?’

The lift doors opened and a nurse and a security officer hurried down the hallway as the budgie man squashed Lorraine into the lift before the doors closed on them.

‘What’s going on here?’ asked the nurse as she hurried over. The lift hummed downwards, Lorraine Litchfield’s last hysterical curse floating in the air like a bad smell.

‘Who was that?’ asked the nurse, turning round at the sound.

‘No one important,’ said Steve. He tightened his arm around Gemma.

On the drive back home, Gemma was preoccupied with two things: she wished she’d asked Lorraine why she always dressed like a matching bathroom set and she wondered how long it would take before she could completely forgive Steve.

•

When she arrived home, Mike was sitting at the desk in the operatives’ room watching the news on the small portable TV.

‘Look at this,’ he said as she walked in. On the screen, despite the blanket she was clutching over her face, Gemma saw the sharp profile of Skanda Bergen between two suited detectives, being pressed down into the back seat of a police vehicle.

‘She was refused bail,’ said Mike, leaning over to turn the set off.

‘I should hope so,’ said Gemma.

‘How did it go?’ he asked, referring to her visit to Steve.

‘I’m not sure,’ she replied, turning on her way into her office. ‘Lorraine Litchfield turned up and created a scene.’ She paused. ‘And I heard something I didn’t want to hear.’

‘Look,’ said Mike standing up. ‘Give yourself a break. And Steve. You’ve been through a hell of a lot lately. You’ve cracked a major murder investigation, you’ve been through a fire fight, you’ve been badly beaten up, you’ve only just escaped from a collapsing building, and your business has almost been destroyed by some malicious bastard. You need to take it easy for a while.’

‘I can’t afford to take it easy,’ she said, going over to her desk. ‘I have no idea how I’m going to climb back out of this hole.’ She indicated the pile of bills on the spike on her desk to Mike who stood at the doorway.

‘I had a dream,’ she said, ‘of a meteorite rushing towards me. I didn’t realise it would hit so hard.’

She ripped open the envelope Minkie Montreau had given her. ‘Here’s a bit of good news for a change,’ she said, barely glancing at the cheque in her hand. ‘I tripled the bill and rounded it up before I sent to Benjamin Glass’s widow, and she’s paid up without a squeak. Ten grand will keep me solvent for just a little while longer.’ Gemma remembered the bills that waited to be paid: credit accounts, rates, an astronomical telephone bill, the bank card.