Hit (35 page)

‘Are you
sure
?’ Simon Aston demanded. ‘But how?’

‘I’m telling you, I saw her. She walked right past me.’

‘Vanderwall, the investigator?’ he asked again, disbelieving. This girl had been caught poking around his house, and now this. The American had warned Simon about her in case she approached him.

‘Yes. Only she looks more like Elle Macpherson than a PI, and what she’s wearing doesn’t leave much to the imagination. She has legs like a gazelle. I’ve seen her picture in the papers…’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’ Simon stood out on the lawn, out of earshot of Damien, listening with horror to what his friend Jason was saying over the phone. He shook his head. ‘Well, why the fuck is she here? This is just what I bloody need, some nosy bitch snooping around.’

‘She was wearing some black dress slit up the wazoo. I wouldn’t kick her out of bed, I tell ya.’

‘Thanks, Jason, I’ll be sure to fuck her before I ask her why she is trying to ruin my life,’ he spat.
‘Keep an eye out and find her for me. If you see her again, corner her and call me straightaway. I’ll be looking.’

Simon ended the call and gripped his mobile tensely.
What the fuck? How can that investigator be here at the party?
An investigator snooping around the house could be a major disaster. He hoped to God that Jason was wrong. Surely it was some other blonde who had walked in?

Simon looked over to Damien, who was oblivious to the conversation. After his grand entrance, the birthday boy was standing near the garden steps only a few feet away, still in his robes, having the ashes of his cigar tapped by some young Asian babe the model agency had organised. Simon had to admit that she was a good-looking chick, even if she wasn’t his type.

You’ve got no idea, my friend, no idea the things I do for you…

Damien looked over and gave Simon the thumbs up. Simon smiled in return and returned the sign. He pretended to answer another call, then laughed and signalled to Damien to say he would take the call elsewhere. Damien didn’t seem to notice that his friend was heading inside. He just took another drag of his Cuban and told lame jokes to the hired women who hung on his every word, while Simon disappeared to look through the crowd for a meddlesome blonde investigator named Makedde Vanderwall.

If the girl was here, he’d take care of her.

Mak opened a door on the lower floor and was hit with a cold rush of air.

There’ll be no Whiteleys in here.

It wasn’t a bedroom, but a garage. And what a garage it was, containing not one or two but half-a-dozen magnificent luxury vehicles. Mak spotted a Jag, a four-wheel-drive BMW and even a low-slung red Ferrari among the cars. This was where models like the Enzo Ferrari ended up, apparently. Two millions dollars’ worth of car, and it could not even be driven on the streets. These were boys’ toys—
very rich
boys’ toys. Mak stopped gawking and closed the door again quickly, not wanting to be identified in case there was a video surveillance system or alarm protecting the glinting cars.

The rest of the ground floor of the Cavanagh house contained bedrooms and sitting rooms, each dark and unoccupied. One by one Mak investigated the rooms, listening first for noise, trying the doorknob, flicking on the light and taking a quick tour. She was mindful of the time.
She had been away from the party for twenty minutes so far and counting. She had to assume that her entry had worked—no one seemed on the lookout for a limping girl with big hair in a black dress who had pretended to be Claudia Schiffer. She’d made it. But Mak also assumed that the security staff might do a round of the house every thirty minutes or so.

As with many homes of people of great wealth, the rooms in the grand Cavanagh home were stylish and yet somehow devoid of personality or individualism, decorated as they were in the impossibly perfect style of an upmarket showroom. Everything was in its place—just that little bit too perfect—each key item no doubt worth more than Mak’s entire annual income. Room after room was the same, be it a lounge or spare bedroom; not one thing out of place, and not one single item of bad taste or curious beauty to be found. She could not find any personal artefacts tucked away in a corner room, not even here on the ground floor. It left Mak with the impression that one could not glean a single piece of relevant information about the owners from the décor, except perhaps that they had an unlimited budget for a good decorator.

After taking a quick look through half-a-dozen rooms, Mak cupped her hand around the doorknob of the last doorway in the hall and listened for movement. There was no sound or
vibration. Confident that the room was unoccupied, she turned the knob and flicked on the light.

Her heart skipped.

Across the room was a painting of pale flesh against white, depicting a sitting woman with generous, exaggerated curves, painting her lower abdomen with red lipstick.

The Whiteley. Bogey was right!

Momentarily forgetting herself, Mak raced towards it and read the signature on the lower left-hand corner.
Whiteley. Yes.
Three feet by two-and-a-half feet. An original. There was no question that this was the exact painting Bogey had showed her in his book. Unless there had been an imitation or print in the video, this was the very painting that had hung over the scene of the young girl’s death.

It was here in the Cavanagh house. I was right.

Mak stood, squinting at the painting, puzzled. The remaining conundrum was that this room was not a bedroom.

She found herself in a lounge decorated with two small cream sofas, a coffee table and an entertainment unit. A huge flat-screen TV took up half of one wall and closed curtains took up another. It was different than the other rooms, less put together. While the furniture was nice, it didn’t quite match so perfectly.

Mak could not afford to become sloppy and get discovered now. She sprinted back to the
doorway, temporarily forgetting her soreness, and looked down the hall both ways. The corridor appeared empty. Heart beating a little too quickly, she shut the door, dropped her shoes and put her champagne glass down, then brought out her digital camera. Was this the scene of the death in that video? It had to be, didn’t it? With the reputation of people like the Cavanaghs at stake, if she was wrong, her career would be well and truly over practically before it had begun.

She had to be certain.

Mak took a deep breath and walked ‘the grid’ across the carpet in a straight pattern, careful not to disturb anything.
Think, Mak. Think.
She switched on the date and time code bar on her camera to imprint the photos with their proper sequence, and began taking photos at every possible angle, scanning every minute detail of the room as she did. Yes, this was the painting Bogey had shown her, there was no doubt about that. But was this the same room? There was a window directly across the room on the other side. Mak pulled the curtains back a fraction to see a courtyard that would most probably throw sunlight into the room during the day. She moved across the room and cautiously lifted one corner of the painting. The wall was a slightly different hue underneath, the paint protected from sunlight.

Yes.

The painting had hung in that position for a long time. So unless there was a copy somewhere,
this lounge room had to have been a bedroom recently. Perhaps that was why the room seemed different. No interior decorator had put his or her touch on this.

This was a rush job, to cover up a crime.

Huffing and irritated, Simon Aston flicked on the light in the garage.

That investigator better not be anywhere near this party…

He made straight for the four-wheel drive he always borrowed, leaned inside and opened the glove box.

He feasted his eyes on a brand-new .22 pistol.

Look at that.

His heart pounded uneasily in his chest at the sight of it, something like exhilaration and fear filling him, offsetting the mellow cocktails in his bloodstream. He’d had a few drinks, blowing off steam. Simon picked the weapon up, the feel of the cold metal in his hands giving him pause, but only momentarily. He didn’t have experience with guns.

That fucking bitch had better not be here, or she’ll regret it.

Simon had never shot a handgun before, but he certainly wasn’t afraid to, especially feeling like he was. If this investigator bitch didn’t know
what was good for her, he would give her a fright. He’d give her a really good fright.

Behind the gun was a box filled with ammunition. Jason had shown him how to load the magazine, and now Simon impatiently stuffed it with rounds.

One…two…three…four.

That will do.

Armed and with the gun half-cocked, Simon blundered out of the Cavanagh garage and set off to search for the uninvited guest.

Mak was on her hands and knees in the hastily renovated former spare bedroom of the Cavanagh house, her face to the plush carpet, sweeping her eyes across the grain, when she thought she heard a noise.

Oh shit.

She limped to her feet and shut the light off, body throbbing. In the dark she listened.

Mak had already found two slightly flattened areas of carpet, each smaller than a fist and about six feet apart.
Bed legs.
Someone had taken a bed out of here and moved the furniture around to make it into a lounge, but the indents from the bed legs remained. The other two indents would be under one of those sofas near the wall.

My God, I am standing in a crime scene.

With the painting and the indents of the bed legs, Mak was convinced she had proof that this was the room in the video. She only had to call it in now, before she was discovered and all hell broke loose.

Mak kept her ear to the door. The hall seemed quiet, and slowly her heart returned to its normal pace. It had probably been a noise from another floor, she thought, or perhaps it had even been her imagination. She was so wound up that she might imagine anything. Satisfied that it was safe, she got out her mobile phone. It was time to get a crime-scene investigation team in to find any evidence that hadn’t been cleaned over. She only hoped that they would believe her, and act fast.

‘Cassimatis,’ Jimmy answered on the second ring.

‘Jimmy, it’s Mak,’ she said softly, her hand over the mouthpiece.

‘Mak? Is that you?
Skata
, I can’t barely hear you.’

‘Sorry. I can’t talk too loud right now,’ she whispered. ‘I’m in the Cavanagh house.’

‘What!’ He went off in a flurry of Greek expletives, and she held the phone away as he continued to rant. ‘Hunt is gonna shit a brick!’

Once he stopped yelling she brought the phone back. ‘Just calm down. As part of my investigation work I happened across the crime scene from your murdered Jane Doe, the Dumpster Girl in that video. You’ve got to get Crime Scene on this right away before there’s no trace evidence left. The man in that video is definitely Damien Cavanagh. I am standing in the room right now. That’s why I have to be quiet.’

‘What? Hold on. Hold on…What are you saying?’ Jimmy was clearly distressed, unsure of what to do. ‘You
happened across
a crime scene at the house of the Cavanagh family? Christ!’

She didn’t want to explain the whole thing over the phone, and she didn’t have the time to, either. She might be discovered at any moment. ‘Jimmy, I know everyone thinks the Tobias Murphy case is open and shut,’ she said, ‘but there is more to it. And now I have the proof. Meaghan Wallace filmed that video of the Dumpster Girl and sent it to her friend, and then she was killed. And now her friend is missing. Just trust me—this is it. Get a team over here right now. Hunt seems to have the brakes on, but that doesn’t matter now. You can go around him. The Cavanagh son was involved in the death of your Jane Doe, and that girl died right here in the Cavanagh house. Just send police here now to cordon it off.
Please
, Jimmy. Just trust me.’

His protests became weaker. ‘
Skata
, Mak. This could be my job. Are you…sure?’

‘Yes.’

There was a long pause. ‘Okay. What’s the address and the location of the room?’

Mak explained the location. ‘Send the nearest patrols. And you’ll want a good crime-scene investigation team in here. Someone has cleaned up the room and moved things around, but if your team is good enough they’ll probably still find plenty of trace evidence.’

‘Mak—’

‘I’ll be waiting here,’ she said firmly and hung up.

Mak closed her eyes and leaned against the wall by the door. Jimmy was a good guy, for all his faults. She could trust him to act on what she’d said. She hoped.

Wait.

A sound.

Dammit. Someone might have heard me.

Mak stood in the dark with her back to the wall, listening for movement outside the door. Someone was definitely in the hall. And approaching. Mak hurled herself behind the nearest leather couch, misjudging the distance and hitting her leg against the arm, right where her bruise was. She stifled her yelp with one hand.

Oh fucking hell, that hurt…

The door opened.

The light came on.

From her position pressed up against the wall behind the couch, Mak could see a man through a gap between the cushions. It was a tall, good-looking man in a dinner suit and trendy T-shirt. He looked familiar.

Oh my God.

Simon Aston.

Standing out starkly against his matinee-idol looks was a row of stitches that ran across his chin and down his neck. They appeared fresh. She’d
caught a glimpse of them when he’d come out of his house in Tamarama, but they looked worse up close, the edges of the cut an angry pink.

Maybe that poor girl did it to him, before he and his mate killed her.

Mak realised her mobile phone was on. She hoped to God that Jimmy didn’t call her back. Even taking the battery off the back of it might make enough noise at that distance to alert Simon to her presence. She wasn’t going to move one centimetre. Stifling her breath with one hand, she sat motionless, curled up awkwardly, one leg aching and the other starting to go to sleep.

Mak kept her eyes on him through the thin view between the cushions as he walked over to the coffee table and picked up her half-empty glass of champagne.

Dammit.

It had a smudge of her lipstick on the rim. And just near his feet were her discarded stilettos.

Oh no…

He hadn’t seen them yet, but it was only a matter of time.

And then Mak saw something terrible. She got a cold feeling in her belly at the sight of it.

He retreated to the doorway, brandishing a gun he’d removed from his suit jacket.

Things were out of control. She shouldn’t have risked all this. It was just an investigation, right? Not enough to risk her life over.

‘Where are you? I know you’re in here!’ His voice gave Mak a chill.

Mak had no weapons with her. She could use a pistol well—probably better than this guy could, by the looks of the way he was handling the .22. But Mak didn’t like guns. Guns were terrible things, and she’d had to use them before. She knew what they could do.

Mak was unarmed but she had her mobile phone still in her hand. She took a leaf out of poor Meaghan Wallace’s book and pressed record on the phone’s humble video camera.

The video probably wouldn’t be very clear, but she could give it a try.