Cherry Pie (30 page)

‘You are. Perfect house, perfect life, straight as an arrow. Your only vice was flirting with me and you don’t even do that anymore.’

He shook his head and laughed. ‘You think you were bad ’cause you took some drugs and fucked someone else’s boyfriend? Jesus. When I was in my early twenties I was running around with a gang. Drugs? We were selling the fucking things, doing break and enters, stealing cars.’

‘No fucking way.’ I sniffed back the last of the snot. ‘You’re lying.’

‘Am I?’

‘You can’t join the service if you’ve got a record.’

‘Didn’t come to that. Got busted knocking off a factory in Brunswick by this cop who was a friend of my parents. He beat the living shit out of me and told me if he ever caught me again there’d be more of the same.’

‘You report him?’

‘You’re missing the point. The bastard actually beat some sense into me. I straightened myself out, took an apprenticeship with my dad, got married … not that that worked out. Think you’re debauched for screwing that bloke? I can’t count the number of times I cheated on my wife. Shouldn’t have rushed into it, like the sparky job. When I was twenty-five I got divorced and joined the police. I’d finally figured out what I wanted.’

I started giggling. It bubbled up and I couldn’t stop. Alex frowned. He’d just bared his soul and I was cracking up.

‘What? What’s so funny?’

‘Sorry, it’s just such a blokey story. If a cop beat me up I’d be on a vendetta to get even, or at least report the sick son of a bitch. You learned to respect authority and joined the police. It’s so …’ I caught the look on his face and forced myself to choke down the laugh. I cleared my throat. ‘Look, I get what you’re trying to say. We’ve all done stupid shit but it’s possible to change, yeah?’

‘In a nutshell.’

‘But I’m not sure I can change. I mean, I really like Sean, but what if I get carried away again? How do you deal with that?’

‘Remember when you tried to kiss me on the couch?’

‘Oh god, don’t even talk about it.’ I groaned. ‘I’m still embarrassed.’

‘Don’t be. I wanted to kiss you back.’

‘Really?’

‘Yeah, and in the old days I would have. But when I asked Suzy to marry me I made the decision that I was gonna stay faithful.’

‘That’s all you have to do. Decide?’

‘Yeah, if you want something badly enough. I’m almost thirty-six. I want kids and a stable family life and I’m not going to get it if I keep running around after any bit of … It’s a choice. You’ve got to figure out what you want and what you’re prepared to sacrifice to get it.’

‘I’ve never been any good at sacrifice.’

‘How do you know if you haven’t tried?’ He stood up and pulled me to my feet. ‘We’d better get to your mum’s.’

He turned to walk up towards the pub but I grabbed the back of his shirt.

‘Alex.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Thanks. I always thought you were a bit of a prick, but it turns out you’re quite a nice guy.’ I hugged him and smelled his aftershave and felt his warmth and the span of his hands, one between my shoulderblades and one on the small of my back. I just wanted to bite his neck and throw him to the ground, evil temptress style, but practised self-sacrifice, like he’d said. I supposed the moral of the story was, you could think it as long as you didn’t do it.

‘That’ll be a hundred bucks for the therapy session,’ he said. ‘I take all major cards.’ Then his whole body stiffened, but not in a fun way.

‘What?’

‘Remember our photographer friend from Circular Quay?’

We stood there, clasped in a rigid embrace. I barely dared to breathe.

‘White Camry, half a block down from the pub,’ Alex whispered in my ear as he looked over my shoulder. ‘Same bloke, I’m sure of it. Don’t turn around.’

‘What do we do?’

‘The prick isn’t getting away this time. There’s a bottle shop next to the bistro …’

‘I’m not going back in the pub.’

‘You won’t have to. Wait outside while I pop in like I’m getting us something to drink. I’ll jump the counter, sneak round the back and come up behind him. Just hang by the door and act like I’m in there, yeah?’

‘Sure.’

We turned around and linked arms, walking back towards King Street.

‘Gimme your phone,’ I said.

He handed it over and ducked in the door under the neon bottle shop sign. I leaned on the wall outside and pretended to make a phone call so it wouldn’t seem too suss.

I even leaned into the doorway at one point, and yelled, ‘Not the chardonnay, it’s too woody!’ The attendant barely glanced up from the street press he was reading. Maybe every night was full of counter jumping cops and crazy ladies ranting at invisible friends.

A few minutes later I heard a car door wrenched open, a muffled curse and scuffling. I whirled around and back down the street to the Camry where Alex was attempting to haul the fat photographer out of the driver’s seat. This time the guy was wearing a brown checked shirt and baseball cap.

‘Hey!’ he protested. ‘Whaddaya think ya—’

‘Police, arsehole.’ Alex pulled him out and a half eaten kebab and a digital video camera fell from his lap. While Alex shoved the guy over the bonnet and held his hands behind his back I picked up the camera, turned it over and inspected it. Nice. Exactly the same model I wanted to buy for my agency.

‘There’s been some mistake, mate. I was minding my own business. It’s not a crime to sit in a car.’

‘Cut the bullshit. Think that cap’s a fucking disguise?’ He flicked it off, exposing the bald pate and white ring of hair.

‘You’re the son of a bitch from Circular Quay. Who you working for, huh?’ Alex twisted the man’s arm behind his back so his face pressed into the duco and his jowls spread out like puddles. Tough cop. Just as well Daisy wasn’t around. She might have spontaneously combusted.

‘Mate, I dunno what you’re talking about. You musta mistaken me for someone else.’

When Tony Torcasio had tutored us in PI school he’d always said if you got made, deny it, then get the fuck out of there.

While Alex patted the guy down I leaned over the bonnet and got in his face.

‘We know you’re working for Rochelle,’ I said. ‘We know you cut the head off that possum!’

‘The fuck?’ He looked at me like I was completely insane.

Some student types sauntered by. ‘Police brutality!’ They flashed the peace sign.

‘Oh fuck off,’ Alex told them. ‘Simone, check the glove box for a wallet.’

I dived into the car, which smelled very much like a taxi driver’s at the end of a twelve hour shift, flipped open the compartment and looked inside. There was a wallet alright, and next to it a small silver pistol.

‘Holy shit! He’s got a gun!’

Alex slammed the guy’s head into the bonnet and the car bounced. ‘Minding your own business, huh?’

I pulled out the wallet, held it under the interior light and saw a driver’s license on one side and a laminated ID card on the other.

‘There’s a New South Wales private investigator’s license,’

I yelled, squinting and holding it closer to the light. ‘Name of Roderick … McCullers.’

I poked my head out the car door. Alex and I looked at each other then stared at the man. Alex let go his wrists and stepped back but the guy stayed bent over the car, breathing heavily.

‘Who hired you to follow us?’ Alex said quietly.

‘Wasn’t following you … just parked to eat my kebab …a misunderstanding.’

‘Give it up, mate, you’re made, not to mention carrying concealed.’ Alex didn’t sound angry anymore, just resigned.

‘Who hired you?’

‘Suzy McCullers,’ Roderick said. ‘Your fiancée. My niece.’

We were all sitting in the Camry, Alex in the passenger seat, me in the driver’s, Roderick smoking a cigarette in the back.

I was watching the video and Alex was scrolling through shots on a digital still camera.

‘The McCullers family has three generations of cops,’ Alex explained. ‘Dear old Uncle Rod here is one of the reasons Suzy joined up. How you finding the private sector?’

‘Can’t complain. Work part time, bit of extra money. Didn’t want to spend my retirement playing golf.’

‘And you swear you haven’t shown her any of this?’ Alex asked.

‘Not yet.’

‘Suzy saw these she’d go ballistic. Champagne by the harbour, Simone on my balcony in a fucking bathrobe, hugging outside the pub.’

Roderick leaned over from the back seat and pointed a fat finger at the screen. ‘Yeah, I really busted youse there. Thought I’d hit the big one.’

‘I was comforting her, you prick.’

‘Hey, I believe you.’ He shrugged and sat back down.

‘I love Suzy, that’s why I’m marrying her. But she has a slight jealousy problem, understand?’

‘Slight?’ I was about to laugh when I saw the look he was giving me.

‘So here’s what we do,’ Alex told Rod. ‘I delete any photos or video footage that may cause her to draw the wrong conclusion and you report back that there was no evidence of anything going on. When we meet at the wedding, it’s for the first time.’

‘But—’

‘But nothing.’ Alex pointed at the glove box. ‘That’s an unregistered gun.’

‘Fair enough,’ Rod said. ‘Far be it from me to break up a happy home. What do youse want for a wedding present?’

Alex shook his head. I’d swapped the video for the still camera and was going through it. Shots outside my mum’s place. Me wandering around Kings Cross. I started looking at people in the background, to see if there was any image of pink-shirt Perry following me. I didn’t see him, but I did see something else that was curious. I twisted around.

‘Can you enlarge this?’ I asked Rod.

‘Yeah. Just press menu, then click on zoom.’

‘What is it?’ Alex asked.

I showed him a photo. ‘See this photo of me outside the Hot Rock? Check the figure on the right, sussing me out.

Jeans, Nike jacket, baseball cap? The person’s small. Reckon it’s a woman?’

‘I don’t know, why?’

‘Well, here they are again.’ I showed him another photo from the Cross, taken much later in the day. Same person, same outfit, hanging around looking in my direction.

‘Probably just a street kid. Take a lot of photos in the same place you’ll snap the regulars.’

‘Check this out.’ I flicked back to one of the first photographs at my mum’s house. Walking down the street, back to the camera, was the same person, exact same outfit. In all the shots the person was too far away or at the wrong angle for their features to be clear. But when you zoomed right in you could make out a wisp of dark hair escaping the cap. Maybe I’d been wrong about the suicide. After all, I’d found her bag in Kings Cross.

‘Shit,’ said Alex.

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘I’m not a hundred percent sure, but I think it could be Andi.’

I showed Alex the back way to Annandale and we drove through Camperdown and Stanmore. Streets became wider as we travelled away from the inner city, small front yards appeared and the terrace houses began to expand. Occasional scrubby trees sprouted from footpaths.

We turned onto Parramatta Road at the McDonald’s, scooted up Johnston and passed a church with a soaring spire.

The whole way I prattled on about the figure in the photos.

If it was Andi how come she was in Sydney, why hadn’t she told her mum she was okay and what the hell was she doing following me around? Alex didn’t say much, just told me not to jump to conclusions when I didn’t know for sure it was her. We didn’t talk about Suzy or her Uncle Rod, but I could tell he was thinking about it. His mouth was set and he stared hard at the car in front.

By the time we turned into Mum’s street it had started to rain, lazy drops exploding sporadically onto the windscreen, crackling like cellophane. The house was dark and Steve’s ute wasn’t parked out front. Nobody home. Alex cruised around the block, checking for suspicious cars, big-haired ex strippers and pink-shirted kickboxing champs. Finding none, he reverse parked the Commodore into a spot half a block down from the house. Fresh rain on the pavement gave off a faint chemical fragrance that almost made me swoon. It was up there with leaded petrol, new car interiors and that purple ink stuff from primary school. We creaked through the gate.

‘Wait here,’ he whispered. ‘I’m gonna do a circuit of the house.’

‘Rochelle and Perry probably think I’m with the police. Or halfway to Melbourne.’

‘Better to be safe than sorry.’

All I wanted to do was race inside and jump in the shower but Alex made me wait on the porch while he secured the perimeter. A bunch of potted palms huddled together at one end of the veranda and I felt between them until I found the broad, flat river rock with the smiley face I’d painted when I was eight. The colours had faded long ago and I couldn’t believe Mum had carted the damn thing all the way to Sydney from northern New South Wales. I lifted the stone, swept my fingers underneath to retrieve the spare key and waited on the sagging armchair, feeling the coagulated tomato juice itch beneath my breasts and in the creases of my neck. Raindrops pattered onto the grevillea and bottle brush, shicking together spiky leaves as I silently rehearsed the conversation I was going to have with Mum.

‘I know about the demo,’ I’d say, ‘how they threatened you and your family. But it was a long time ago. The danger is past, if it ever existed at all. Is this why you’re always so worried about me? Maybe it’s turned into phobia?’

And she’d clock the bruise on my face, raise one eyebrow, and say, ‘Maybe it’s because you keep getting beat up and almost killed.’

Impossible to win an argument with her, even in my own head.

Alex appeared from the opposite side of the house, walked softly onto the veranda and nodded at me as I handed him the key. I watched while he pressed his ear to the door, finally unlocked it and crept up the hallway, crouching into rooms and flicking on lights. His technique was similar to Chloe’s, but without so many high kicks. I was just wondering if she was ready to apologise yet when he came down the corridor and gave me the all clear. Under the naked bulb his eyelashes glistened with rain and a fragment of spider web caught in his hair shone silver in the light.