The Shadow Maker (32 page)

They climbed into the glassed-in speedboat and it carried them surging through the waves to the far side of the harbour. From there they took a conventional cab to the rocky headland that rose from the northern point of the ocean beach. Her apartment was on the seventh floor of a block overlooking the Pacific, but the view was the last thing on their minds. She closed the door behind them and slumped back against the wall.

‘You’ve got years to make up for,’ she said, an accusing tone in her voice.

He pressed against her and bent down to kiss her neck, his hand loosening her red silk top and sliding down over the slim curve of her abdomen.

She took hold of his arms and eased him back, breathing more heavily now. ‘I’ll get the lubricant,’ she whispered. ‘Then I’ll tell you what you’re going to do to me.’

They were using her customised sex stool. The narrow, oblong surface was upholstered in black leather, with the legs and handgrips made of chrome. It stood on the rug in the middle of her lounge room among the overstuffed armchairs and sofa with their red ochre coverings. Aboriginal paintings decorated the walls - a series depicting the rainbow serpent. They hovered in the shifting glow of candles, the flames flickering in a breeze that slipped through the open balcony doors, fanning the curtains and wafting the smell of incense from a pair of joss sticks on her coffee table. From outside came the roar of the surf and the shouts of drunken teenagers enjoying a beach party. Inside, from her music system, came the soft, plaintive sounds of Gaelic mood-song - while from the centre of the room, where the two of them heaved and strained against each other, came much more animal noises.

The stool rose to groin height for an easy angle of penetration, which Barbie, naked and sweating, was delivering with rhythmic force.

‘Faster,’ she said.

He ignored her and continued pleasuring himself at his own pace.

Curtis lay on her back like a contorted nude, her body doubled up, her legs over her shoulders and her thighs pressing onto her stomach. Her grunts and gasps were as much from the pressure on her torso as from him pushing deep inside her - a taut expression on her face as he pinned her to the leather contraption, her black curls shaking, her small breasts bouncing, and her eyes dilated with a feral intensity. But he wasn’t looking at her face. His eyes were on the tight cheeks of her buttocks, cupped in his hands like an exquisite sin.

‘Harder,’ she said.

He had a flashback to her power trip in the office that afternoon, when she’d played the unscrupulous vixen and hurled a file at him.

The thought heated his blood and he thrust as hard and deep as he could till she cried out with pain. From the open balcony doors came a burst of shrieks and laughing from the beach party below, but her cries drowned them out as she started to orgasm.

When he woke next morning, still tired from his exertions, she was already dressed. Sun was streaming through the windows. The heavy rollers of the Pacific were thudding along the beach. The smell of fresh coffee was in the air. He got up out of the bed and walked naked into her lounge room. The glass doors were still open onto the balcony, but the chrome and leather stool had been packed away out of sight. She gave his body a look of approval, poured two cups of espresso and handed one to him.

‘I’ve got a meeting with a bunch of spineless accountants to go to. But you’re welcome to stay here as long as you like. Spend the day. Make yourself comfortable. I could get used to you again.’

‘The offer’s tempting but I’ve got a meeting myself this morning.

Some final haggling over figures before a deal’s clinched. I’m signing away my first production company.’

He sipped his coffee and padded barefoot onto the balcony, taking in the slightly vertiginous view - though that was probably due to last night’s drink and sex. Below lay a great swathe of sand gleaming in the morning light. The bodies of sunbathers, tanned and oiled, stretched out in the heat. The muscled torsos of the lifeguards. The shrieks of beach volleyball. Surfers in wetsuits bobbing on their boards as they waited for the big waves to roll in. And lining the promenade, the tall fringe of Norfolk Island pines.

She sidled up to him and said, ‘I know we’ve got our differences, but we’re on the same wavelength. We’ve got a hell of a lot in common.’

He grimaced. ‘Hell being the operative word.’

‘So what? A boring, peaceful life - who needs it!’

‘Let’s face it,’ he sighed. ‘We’re bad people, Curtis. We each need a steadying influence in our lives. Together we become too destructive.’

She pressed against the balcony rail. ‘But I miss having you around - even just for a fight. Everyone else is such a pushover.’

‘You’ll soon be CEO. That’ll keep you occupied.’

‘And what about you, Mr Millionaire? You’ve come a long way since your first attempts to crack the business side of the media. It used to give me a buzz listening to your evil plans. Have they all paid off ?’

‘Nearly all.’

‘What about Plato’s Cave?’ she asked.

He gazed out over the ocean to the dark blue rim that curved along the horizon. ‘Plato’s Cave,’ he said cryptically. ‘Of all my plans, that was the killer.’

It felt like she was emerging from hibernation. After sleeping un interrupted for fifteen hours, Rita awoke feeling relaxed and refreshed. It was what she needed after living on caffeine and adrenalin for the best part of a week in which she’d confronted the worst violence of her life. Now she could put it behind her.

It was after nine a.m. as she drank orange juice in Byron Huxley’s kitchen, with its view into the depths of the eucalypt forest. He’d come and gone last night and this morning without disturbing her, his hospitality faultless in his effort to provide a quiet haven. It was a type of devotion she hadn’t experienced before, and if this was the beginning of a relationship she had to think carefully about what happened next. Whatever developed, it was essential to maintain her independence, and with Lola due to return today that meant moving back into town. Rita sent her best friend a text message.

Then there was work. As much as she was enjoying a well-earned rest, she needed to stay up to speed, so she phoned Jack Loftus.

‘Don’t come in today,’ he told her. ‘It’s chaos.’

‘What about the fallout over Kavella and Moyle?’ Rita asked.

‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ said Loftus. ‘The media’s all over it and everybody’s getting in on the act, from the Commissioner down. I don’t know if I’m coming or going.’

‘Don’t you need O’Keefe and me on deck?’

‘No,’ insisted Loftus. ‘I’ve told Nash I want the pair of you to keep a low profile today, and he agrees. When you get back tomorrow we’ll start going through all the legal formalities. For today, your initial reports are enough.’

‘That’s good, I’m enjoying the break. It means I can catch up on some sleep,’ she admitted. ‘What about the Hacker taskforce?’

‘That’s on the back burner till next week,’ said Loftus. ‘There’s nothing new to work on, no fresh leads and no viable suspect who owns both an MX-5 and a black ute. Anyway, the decks have been cleared to deal with the aftermath of Proctor’s raids.’

‘Any more smartcards turn up at the club?’

‘What’s left of them, yeah. And the computer boys say Kavella’s electronic fortress was definitely rigged for a virtual private network, accessible globally, but most of the data’s been trashed. He actually installed a floor of satellite-linked studios in there. He wasn’t setting up a city-wide consortium, he was going international.’

‘Jack,’ she interrupted, ‘any Plato’s Cave cards?’

‘That’s what I’m getting to,’ he explained. ‘The crime lab people have been going through a basement incinerator full of burnt discs, molten silicon and God knows what. Looks like Kavella had a bonfire to cover his tracks. They’ve retrieved the remains of smartcards with Delos Club on them, but that’s it. It’s possible any Plato’s Cave cards may have been reduced to a pool of melted plastic. Anyway they’re doing their best to analyse what’s there.’

‘Damn,’ said Rita. ‘If they could just partially identify one card, it would narrow the search for the Hacker.’

‘Forget the Hacker for the time being,’ Loftus advised her. ‘You won’t be able to work on the case properly till next week. In the meantime, I need you and O’Keefe back on board tomorrow, focusing on what went down in and around the church. I need statements, reports, interviews, all clear and consistent. I don’t want any comebacks from the family lawyers waiting in the wings. Have you seen the coverage this morning?’

‘No, and I think I’ll give it a miss.’

‘Probably a good idea,’ agreed Loftus. ‘So what will you do with your day off ?’

‘Something I haven’t been able to do for a while - just chill out.’

‘Good for you,’ he said.

Rita showered, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and wandered into the village, past wooden shopfronts and craft centres, till she found a restaurant with outdoor tables. She was eating a breakfast of pancakes when she got a phone call from Lola, who’d just flown in.

‘I’ve been reading all about you on the flight down!’ Lola shrieked.

‘I can’t believe what a hero you are!’

‘So they don’t get any news up in the Whitsundays,’ said Rita.

‘You’ve got to be kidding, they’re too busy partying. I swear I was drunk for four days, but I’ll tell you later. Where are you now?’

‘I’m having breakfast in Olinda.’

‘What are you doing in the Dandenongs?’ asked Lola. ‘Have you gone bush?’

‘I’ve been staying at Byron Huxley’s place.’

‘I can’t believe it’s all happened while I’ve been away!’ Lola was beside herself with excitement. ‘I’m dumping my things and driving up to see you.’

They arranged to meet at a tourist cafe in the forest.

After finishing breakfast, Rita strolled back to Huxley’s cottage, got in her car and drove to the cafe, arriving with time to spare.

She decided to stretch her legs.

It was peaceful to walk here, therapeutic, the scent of eucalyptus heavy in the air among the gum trees and towering stands of mountain ash. The ringing calls of bellbirds chimed against the raucous sounds of the kookaburras and the squawking of parrots that dived in flocks of crimson shapes, flashing among the branches.

The occasional scuttle of a lizard rustled the undergrowth on the forest trail strewn with bark and overhung by the fronds of tree ferns. In the musty quiet of a fern-lined gully, she stopped to lean on the wooden rail of a footbridge, gazing distractedly at the muddy water of a creek, before strolling back to the cafe in time to see Lola arrive.

They sat on the wooden verandah and chatted over coffees. Rita was reluctant to talk about her recent brush with violence - she’d be doing that officially over the next couple of days - but what details she did reveal simply horrified Lola.

‘I can’t believe you’re so brave!’ she said, clasping Rita’s hand.

‘And I wasn’t even here for you. I was too busy being chased around a sundeck by a randy lesbian.’

Rita laughed. ‘So tell me, how’s your new girlfriend - I thought she was supposed to be hot?’

‘Hot, flash and mad as a fruit bat,’ said Lola. ‘Whenever we were alone I spent most of the time fending her off.’

‘Successfully, I hope.’

‘To tell you the truth, I was so paralytic a couple of nights, I can’t actually remember what, or
who,
I did!’

Rita chuckled. ‘So you might be a designer dyke?’

‘How the fuck do I know?’ said Lola, tossing back her long hair.

‘I’d rather not think about it.’ She put a cigarette in her mouth and lit it. ‘Let’s change the subject. Enjoy the scenery. Watch the parrots crap on the tourists.’

A coach had just pulled up, spilling out a party of Japanese sightseers, cameras clicking. Right on cue, a flock of rosellas descended on the picnic tables, with sulphur-crested cockatoos waiting in the wings.

‘What’s far more interesting,’ resumed Lola, ‘is what you’ve been getting up to with the hunky professor. Have you had sex yet?’

‘No.’

‘Oh my God, you cold-hearted bitch! You’ve been sharing his bed without letting him bang you!’

‘He’s been on the sofa,’ Rita explained, ‘while I’ve been in his bed alone -
sleeping!
Lots of sleeping.’

‘Well, I suppose you’ve got an excuse.’

‘Thank you. But you’re right, I’ve imposed on him enough.’

‘I hope you’re not thinking of going back to your house,’ said Lola, blowing out a stream of smoke. ‘Not after what happened there.’

‘No,’ sighed Rita. ‘I’ll put it on the market.’

‘Good. Then you’re moving in with me.’

‘I was counting on that,’ said Rita. ‘And it should be an interesting experiment. We’re complete opposites.’

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Lola said, flicking ash on the wooden floor. ‘I’ll leave a mess, you’ll tidy up. We’ll be perfect flatmates!’

As Lola drove back to the city and a belated return to her duties at the magazine, Rita headed back to Olinda and the cottage she now thought of as the Byron Huxley Retreat. She packed her bag, left him an effusive thankyou note and took a leisurely drive along the freeway to Lola’s place in South Yarra.

The apartment was in a converted Victorian house set in a garden among hibiscus plants and old oak trees, with a view down a steep road to the river. It had two bedrooms, a spacious kitchen and an old-fashioned parlour strewn with magazines, fashion accessories, bags, shoes and more shoes. Despite the chaos, Rita felt at home straightaway. Within hours of moving in, her bedroom was the tidiest space in the apartment.

‘Bloody hell, you’re anal,’ was Lola’s comment when she got home that night.

They opened a bottle of wine and slumped down on the sofa, gossiping busily, not paying much attention to the news program on the TV until the late-night preview of the next morning’s first editions.

‘My God!’ screamed Lola, grabbing the remote and boosting the volume. ‘Look at that!’

Rita stared at the TV screen to see a photo of herself - a provocative full-length shot in a purple bikini - filling the front page of tomorrow’s tabloid under the headline police siren.