The Courier's New Bicycle (10 page)

‘But —'

‘It may not even need to happen,' she cuts in. ‘If it does, it'll only be for a short time — say, incommunicado for a week. Then we'll have another talk.' She watches me sympathetically.

I feel wretched.
But Inez won't see it that way
, is what I'm thinking. Going off to work for Mojo Meg without so much as an explanation will seem like the worst kind of betrayal. I'd better pray the surveillance at Ferguson's nets us a result or my new girlfriend will very quickly come to hate me.

Gail gets up from her chair, our powwow over. Hangdog, I follow her to the door. Anwar stays put, some heavy conversation to be had after I'm gone.

Out in the yard she motions to my bike left here earlier. ‘You going to be okay on that?'

I nod. It'll be a relief to ride and feel the burn.

Last thing, she presses a troche pack into my hand. ‘Tell your friend Lydia this is a month's supply of hormones.
If she takes them
exactly
as directed, it'll smoothe out the oestro flux, but she should consider seeing a Red Quarter specialist and becoming a regular client.'

‘Thanks,' I say. ‘I'll make sure she knows.' At least after tonight one of us is going to be a much happier human being.

 

I seek out Inez. Her place is in Richmond, a semidetached cottage a few minutes' ride from mine. She inspects me through the spyhole then unlatches the chain and deadlock. The door opens. She's standing there in just a tee-shirt. I get a sudden urge to fuck her wildly, insanely.

‘You alright?' she asks.

‘Just here for a hug,' I reply, but it comes out so forlorn.

She takes my hand and pulls me inside, the bike left across her front step.

The door barely closed, we are kissing in the hallway. The press of her lips on mine is electric; hunger surges from somewhere deep. She grabs the waistband of my jeans, drawing our bodies closer.

The tee-shirt is too big for her. I drag it off one shoulder to get to a breast, and kiss fervently, the flavour and texture of nipple like no other.

I have her up against the wall. ‘Make me come,' she says.

My hand dives, searching for the wet. She's not wearing knickers. A wellspring meets me. I drive the heel of my palm against her mound and slip a finger into her.

She moans. Her pelvic muscles grip and release, that
action an incendiary in me. We rock in sync, faster and faster motion. She comes in shudders, and we collapse together on the floor.

She looks askance at me from beneath mussed hair. ‘You seem … different,' she murmurs.

I don't know what to say. ‘Work stuff,' I manage, feeling duplicitous.

She's watching my face, her brow creased. Like everyone, she knows Gail's troubles are also mine.

‘What's your boss got you doing for her now?'

I can't meet her gaze, the truth impossible to tell.

‘Go,' she says. ‘Sleep. You look like you need it.'

‘Love you,' I whisper. And then I'm walking out her door.

Even in daylight, SANE's precinct is well-hidden inside the Red Quarter. It takes several wrong turns through the alleyways to work out the instructions written on the back of the business card Tallis Dankner had handed me at the hospital. Eventually I find the faded lettering of the
Padstow & Flint, Haberdashers
wall, and the doorway hacked in more recent times through its brick.

I remember the mass exodus from this part of town in the first days of the pandemic — mainly yuppies who'd recently bought here. They fled to the countryside in the hope that putting a bit more space around them might act as protection from the virus spreading like wildfire in the close confines of the CBD. It didn't. But it left those parts of the inner city that had been declared plague zones as unpopulated as they'd ever been, and ripe for takeovers. Those who stayed behind the barricades blocking off their streets had no money to do anything else, but as prices
plummeted and more and more properties were offered up for hurried sale, others stepped in who were less afraid. This is how a syndicate of madams was able to buy up the real estate on the main thoroughfares of what is now the Red Quarter, and how the surrogacy organisations and medical professionals who'd been made pariahs were able to move into its backstreets. With that shift in demographic, something of the personality of ‘old Melbourne' was returned to its centre. A reversal of fortunes, I have to say, I've never been sorry about.

I buzz and look up into the lens, and hear the lock release.

Behind is a passage leading to a courtyard and internal-facing set of buildings. I wonder who lived here in Padstow & Flint's day. Light bathes the worn flagstones and archway relief. A figure sits, mug in hand, on a bench seat beside a gnarly ficus. I cross to an open door where the sign in the stairwell points up. Leaving my bike at the bottom of the stairs, I climb three flights to the top floor.

The emergency team coordinator's office is refreshingly light and airy, the morning sun slicing through open skylights onto wide, scuffed boards.

‘Glad you could make it,' Tallis says, and rescues me an armchair from under a pile of papers.

I don't tell her how I nearly didn't, having slept through my alarm. The memory of the fast and furious sex in Inez's hallway — and my just as speedy departure — lingers in my body, a mix of emotions.

Tallis offers tea or coffee, but I demur, breakfast and no secrets from my girlfriend what I really need. Together we drag the armchair over to another positioned beside the windows looking onto the courtyard.

‘How's Roshani doing?' I ask.

‘Extremely well,' Tallis replies, and plonks herself down, motioning me to join her. ‘She was discharged from hospital late yesterday and is recovering here now.'

A twenty-four-hour turnaround. ‘That was quick.'

‘They never keep them long. They're short-staffed and know we have some expertise.'

Both chairs are low and easy-backed, designed for comfortable conversation, but my host is anything but comfortable right now. She leans forward, elbows on knees, fiddling with a pen.

‘She's told me what happened Sunday night.'

I'm impressed: Tallis has done wonders in such a short time. I remember she mentioned she'd been a midwife until the Nation Firsts confiscated her licence. I'm betting it's some of that talent she's brought forth to persuade the traumatised young woman from behind her veil of silence.

Tallis continues. ‘Roshani was visiting her brother. He lives in a squat in the financial district. It's been a regular thing, dinner at his place every Sunday — something
not
okayed by us or SADA, the Surrogates and Donors Agency. She says she followed the personal safety protocols and is sure nobody saw her leave the Red Quarter. Apparently they converged on her from different directions on Pilgrim
Lane. She didn't realise what was happening until it was too late.'

My spirits sink. I'd hoped it was an unhappy coincidence — wrong place, wrong time — but it sounds planned.

‘Has the brother been told?'

‘We sent someone around early yesterday morning. He'd been worried sick.'

‘So he knows the circumstances of her pregnancy? Is he trustworthy?'

‘That's open to conjecture. Normally SADA would vet every contact, but Roshani did this secretly.'

‘Which squat is he in?'

‘The Tea House.'

A Melbourne icon. Originally a warehouse then offices, it was converted into boutique apartments by a Singapore hotel syndicate that went bust because of bird flu. Its six storeys of red brick are marooned at the bottommost corner of the financial district between the Saviour Street Bridge and the half-finished high-rises that totter like giant pins on the foreshores of the Docklands, all restoration and development there stalled for nigh on a decade.

Along with other older-style buildings in the financial district, the Tea House was gradually taken over by a new breed of squatter: savvy and sophisticated refugees from the business sector after it took a nosedive in the pandemic. Many of them, playing a cavalier game with the money market, had accumulated extraordinary wealth that was just as extraordinarily wiped out. They forfeited everything,
including their homes. The government couldn't help them or anybody else, being in ten different kinds of strife itself. In desperation, the business professionals (brokers and bankers among them) formed ‘guilds', each group targeting a vacated building in their old work district to take up squatters rights in. The Tea House has been run these past years by the Stockbrokers' Guild, its strict membership rules and security measures put in place as bastion against the successive waves of itinerants prowling the city for premises of their own.

So now I know what Roshani's brother
used
to do —

Tallis interrupts my train of thought. ‘The question we're all asking here is how the attackers knew Roshani was a surrogate … and whether they have information on others.'

‘How would that happen?'

‘Roshani or her brother letting something slip to the wrong person.'

Bad.

‘Or a leak somewhere within the surrogacy organisations.'

Worse.

Tallis's strong, square features have creased in worry. She pushes up both shirtsleeves and grips her forearms in an unconscious action of anxiety. I can see those capable arms supporting women in the throes of birthing agony and delivering wrinkly, squalling babies out into the world.

‘We were wondering whether you might do some digging on our behalf,' she says, her deft use of the plural reminding me of the raft of invisible worried others.

‘You know I'm a bike courier not a private detective, right?'

‘Yes.' She smiles. ‘But Gail speaks very highly of you …'

‘Ahh,' I say. Never underestimate a SANE worker's capacity to network. I feel her eyes on me, patient and remorseless, and can't refuse.

‘I guess I could pay the brother a visit,' I offer.

‘That'd be wonderful. We'll introduce you as an independent whom we've hired to help find Roshani's attackers. Not everyone is a fan of what we do here. He might find it easier to talk to someone from the “outside”, so to speak.'

Or he might not.

I realise I know very little about how the surrogacy organisations operate and what measures they take to protect their own.

‘It might help me get my head around the situation if you can take me through your protocols; for instance, how you go about shielding the identities of your workers,' I say, and Tallis is happy to comply, leaning back at last in her chair.

‘There are strict protections in place for the surrogacy arrangements,' she starts, ‘all of which are brokered by the madams and SADA. Surrogates take no direct part in any of the negotiations, and never meet those they've contracted to give birth for, and vice versa. Their anonymity is zealously protected, as with all donors, regardless of what service they're supplying. On acceptance, each donor is given an alias. From
then on, this is how they're referred to in all discussions and on all written agreements and medical reports.'

I think of Roshani — which I guess isn't her real name.

‘So how do potential donors and surrogates put up their hands for the various jobs? And how do you choose?'

‘They apply through SADA, and are vetted before interview like any other worker in any other job. Of course, the difference is that what we do here is illegal, so there are a few more hoops to be jumped through before they even get a look-in. The successful applicants are contracted to the relevant fertility organisations under SADA's umbrella. But it's only the surrogates who are sponsored to live in the Red Quarter, which they do for the duration of their pregnancy. That way we can take care of their health requirements and safety — usually.' Tallis looks pained. ‘The only other people in the loop are the Red Quarter doctors who do the monitoring and procedures.'

‘Could any of them be turned?' I ask.

‘Unlikely, since it means putting their own heads on the chopping block.'

From everything Tallis has said it seems to me the weakest links in the chain of secrecy are the surrogates themselves.

‘I take it the successful applicants know each other?'

‘They share living spaces and provide support for one another.'

A thought strikes me. ‘Do you ever have any trouble when it comes to handing over the newborns?'

‘I won't say never — and we have contingencies for that — but on the whole these women come to it as professionals, and are paid accordingly.'

Which makes them supremely well-adjusted with it. I can't help wondering what they think of the brave new world those paid-for babies are being born into.

‘What about the recipients of the surrogacy arrangements?'

‘They're handled by the brokers — the madams — who liaise with SADA and the fertility clinics on their behalf. The two parties in the arrangement are kept completely separate the whole way through.'

‘And the recipients of Roshani's baby?'

‘They'll be contacted by the broker and told the hard news. A no-liability clause protecting SADA and its workers is built into the contract they signed; after all, we're dealing with an event that can bring a multitude of unforeseen complications. In time, they'll have the opportunity of a new arrangement.'

Sounds hard-nosed, but this is business. I say my thanks and push up out of my chair, then turn to Tallis at the door. ‘It might be worth finding out whether Roshani made any enemies among her fellow surrogates.'

She nods sombrely. ‘I'll look into it, and let you know as soon as we've contacted her brother.'

Downstairs, the person with the mug is gone from the bench seat. I wheel my bike out into the bluestone alley. At my back, the signage barely tints the brick; ahead,
close-hugging walls shade the cobbles and shuttered windows are latched behind rusting metal bars, the layers of grime on the walls making unreadable hieroglyphics of the paintwork. Hunkered beyond them are the surgeries and procedure rooms of the fertility doctors and cosmetic surgeons, nothing to advertise their existence apart from numbered buzzers beside bolted entrances. In SADA's protected territory, there are no real names. Here, there are no names at all.

I fasten my helmet strap and zip up my cycling vest. Tallis has given me a lot of food for thought, most of it bitter and unpalatable.