The Shadow Maker (37 page)

‘Where did you learn that?’ he groaned.

‘Never you mind,’ she answered, raking her fingernails down the middle of his back with one hand, while the other slid into his trousers, clamping him in a groin hold; his penis was already hard.

He pulled her mouth up to his and kissed her until she pushed him back onto the bed, laughing.

While he struggled out of his shoes and pants, Rita stripped off, tossing her clothes onto the floor beside his. Her body was impressive

- strong and athletic, with full breasts, her slim buttocks smooth and glossy in the dim light.

She bent down to him, her voice husky, close to his ear. ‘I’m going to fuck your brains out.’

‘You’re bad,’ he said with a wolfish smile.

‘You’d better believe it.’

And that’s where the conversation ended as she got astride him on all fours, lowering herself till the pointed tips of her breasts brushed his cheeks. She kissed him again, her lips and tongue gliding softly over his. Then she sat up, straddling his thighs, his erection rigid and straining inside her. As he pushed deeper, she arched her spine and tossed back her head, running her fingers through her hair. It was a moment of intimacy worth waiting for, letting herself go and moaning freely, as her body responded to the erotic rush.

They sat in white bathrobes on either side of an antique dining table, eating a late breakfast in Huxley’s hotel suite. The full menu, including fried courses, toast and coffee, had been delivered on a silver service by a waiter in a frock coat. Rita sipped juice and picked at a fruit bowl as she watched Huxley tucking into a plate of sausages, bacon and hash browns.

‘I’m ravenous,’ he explained.

‘I’ve noticed,’ she said.

He finished his fry-up and yawned. ‘Would you pour me a coffee?’ he asked.

‘Yes, dear,’ chuckled Rita, filling a china cup and pushing it across to him.

‘This is an unexpected surprise.’

‘Enjoy it while it lasts,’ she told him.

He stretched, yawning again, a contented smile on his face. ‘We seemed to have a lot of sex last night.’

She threw some grapes at him. ‘We were at it like rabbits,’

she chided.

‘We must do it again soon.’

‘Then finish your coffee,’ she said, standing up, loosening her bathrobe and letting it drop to the floor. ‘How about now?’

Huxley didn’t need any further encouragement, flinging off his robe and chasing her as she ran, naked and shrieking with laughter, to the bedroom.

It was late morning when Huxley pulled his Range Rover into the driveway of Lola’s apartment block to drop off Rita.

‘If I didn’t have a damn postgraduate barbecue to go to I’d spend the rest of the day with you,’ he complained. ‘But I’m guest of honour.’

‘That’s okay, you’ve worn me out enough already,’ she said.

As she opened the door to get out he took hold of her hand.

She turned and looked into his eyes.

‘I need to see you again soon,’ he said, expression serious.

She stretched towards him and kissed him softly on the lips, before getting out, laughing happily. ‘I think that can be arranged.’

Rita walked into the apartment to find Lola groaning her way through a black coffee, head in hands, elbows on the kitchen table, a loose silk robe covering her.

‘Oh God,’ moaned Lola. ‘Why did I mix my drinks?’

‘You seemed fine when I left,’ said Rita.

‘Yes, but then Erin ordered some cab sav. We got through two bottles of it.’

‘Sake and red wine? Bit of a funky mix.’

‘Erin’s got the palate of a petrol can. It’s
her
fault,’ said Lola, letting out another groan. ‘And what have you been up to, swanning back home the next day with a smug look on your face?’

‘Well I drank champagne for the rest of the evening.’

‘If you ended up shagging Martin Barbie I owe Erin a hundred bucks.’

‘Your money’s safe,’ said Rita. ‘But guess what?’

‘What?’

‘I spent the night at the Windsor.’

‘Thank God - at last! You got it together with the hunky professor.

I knew you were made for each other.’

Lola was interrupted by Rita’s phone ringing. The call was from Jack Loftus. Nothing urgent, he told her - he just wanted to come and see her. He’d be there in half an hour.

By the time Loftus arrived Rita had changed out of her evening wear, pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, and cleaned up after Lola, who’d withdrawn to the bathroom, thrown up and taken to her bed.

As Rita filled the kettle he sat down at the kitchen table, pushing aside the empty coffee cup.

‘So,’ he said. ‘How’re you feeling?’

‘I’m fine. Ready to get back to profiling the Hacker. Why do you ask?’

‘It worries me that, because of the bedlam of the past week, you didn’t get to talk through things with a counsellor,’ he said, frowning.

‘I don’t need a counsellor.’

‘Maybe a counsellor could tell me that.’

‘Jesus, Jack.
I’m
telling you - as a cop, as a psychologist, as a hard bitch who’s had her share of personal traumas -
I’m
telling you I’m okay. And the only way I’ll go nuts is if I
don’t
get back on the Hacker case first thing tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, well I just needed to hear it from you.’

She put her hands on her hips and looked at him, sitting there in his scruffy weekend casuals. A frayed tartan shirt and brown cords.

He was a different person out of his formal office wear. There was a spray of sawdust on his sleeve and a smear of paint on his trouser leg. Eggshell pink.

She gave him an affectionate smile. ‘Interrupted your hobbies, have you?’

‘Redecorating the dining room,’ he said. ‘Forced labour. I bloody hate it. You’re my excuse for a break.’

It made her laugh, how often women got their way. No matter how tough a man was outside the home, inside they were often pushovers, Loftus and O’Keefe being perfect examples.

Rita poured a mug of tea and handed it to him.

‘Okay, Jack. Anything new?’

He spooned in some sugar and said, ‘I don’t think you’ll have Nash to worry about. He’s been ticked off himself. The Chief Commissioner’s pissed off with how you and O’Keefe have been treated, calling it heavy-handed. And the lawyers are convinced neither of you have a case to answer over the deaths of Kavella and Moyle. They say there’s a powerful argument of self-defence in both cases.’

‘Excellent!’ She gave him a gleeful hug. ‘And just when I was getting other job offers.’

‘Like what?’

‘Never mind.’ She clapped her hands. ‘Any more fallout from Taskforce Nero?’

‘Yes, Jim Proctor’s turned over a couple of dirty cops who were in Kavella’s pocket - both constables, one from Homicide.’

‘Just as well we stopped him when we did.’

‘Yeah, and that’s largely down to you rattling his cage - and nearly getting yourself killed in the process.’

‘I told you I’m okay. What about the crime lab - are they any further on the smartcard?’

‘No.’ He drank some of his tea. ‘But as I hinted on Friday, I’m thinking we should start from scratch with the Hacker case. If our assumptions were wrong then Kavella, his associates and his customers had nothing to do with it - and his nightclub has no bearing at all on the case. Which begs the question.’

‘Exactly.’ She reached over to her handbag and slid out the glossy Plato’s Cave card. ‘I’ve been carrying this thing around with me for weeks.’ She brandished it in front of her face like a black and silver laminated riddle. ‘It’s like one of my accessories. I shuffle it in and out of my wallet. I put it down on cafe tables. I contemplate it. I turn it over. I tap it against bottles of water. I flick sugar cubes with it. I even tried to put it in a cash machine by mistake.’ She pursed her lips and tossed the card onto the kitchen table. ‘What I can’t do is crack its secret.’

Loftus picked it up, looked at it and put it down again. ‘I’ve done some follow-up checks of my own. The brothel. The academic fellowship. Like you, I can’t find a connection. At the moment, it’s got me stumped.’ He finished his tea and pushed away the mug.

‘On that note, I’d better get back to my bloody decorating.’

‘Think of it as therapeutic,’ she said.

‘I don’t want to think of it at all.’ He got up to leave. ‘By the way, after I spoke to the guy from the fellowship he wanted to tell you something about Plato.’

‘Phillip Roxby?’

‘Yes.’ Loftus was feeling in his pockets for his car keys. ‘But I wouldn’t let him talk to you on Friday, you had enough to think about.’

‘Did he say anything else?’

‘He asked if you could call him over the weekend. I only said maybe.’

She called Roxby straightaway but he wouldn’t talk over the phone.

He wanted to meet.

‘Why?’ she said.

‘Plato’s Cave,’ he answered. ‘You want to know about it?’

She bit her lip and wondered. Was he toying with her? Or did he really have something to say? And if so, what? She had to find out.

‘Okay.’

‘Great. Let’s do lunch.’

‘Where?’ she asked.

‘There’s an old Edwardian pub in Abbotsford. The Retreat.’

‘I know it,’ she said.

‘I’ll be there in fifteen minutes. I’ll get a table in the snug.’

She hung up abruptly and bowed her head. This was an unexpected date. But what exactly was he up to? Perhaps just another mind game.

When she arrived he was sitting there, looking urbane in his blazer, blue cotton shirt and neat navy trousers. She was still in T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes. The place had the quaint, cosy atmosphere of a bygone age. Lunches in the dining room. Couples chatting over glasses of beer. Sunday drinkers propped on stools along the curving bar with its serving hatches, brass rail and beer pumps. Stained-glass windows and glazed tile walls. Framed photos from the horse and buggy era.

He stood up as she came in. ‘I’m glad we could get together,’ he said, waiting for her to get comfortable before resuming his seat.

‘Last time we met was a bit alarming. I didn’t respond very well.’

She gave him a level look. ‘What do you want to tell me?’

He held up a finger and said, ‘First, let’s order lunch.’

He went for nachos and a glass of chardonnay. She asked for a lime and soda.

‘Isn’t it nice to have a rendezvous here?’ he went on wistfully. ‘I once brought my ex-wife to this pub way back when we were courting. Long before the divorce turned my life to shit.’

‘Is that so?’

The sentiment drained from his face. ‘Another strange paradox, isn’t it, how love can turn into hate. How we build our lives on illusions. How nothing we take for granted is real.’

She tried to interrupt, ‘What specifically -‘

But he kept on. ‘How fantasy dominates our minds. How people who appear to be rational, and function perfectly in society, are objectively insane.’

She moved uneasily in her chair. ‘I don’t need a lesson in psychology.’

‘You want to know about Plato’s Cave?’ he said sharply. ‘Well, I’m telling you.’

She couldn’t guess where he was leading. ‘What are you saying?’

‘I was less than candid when you came to see me on campus.

You asked me a question but I didn’t respond appropriately.’

She sat back, her pulse beating a little faster. What was coming next? ‘Go on,’ she said.

‘I had trouble collecting my thoughts. Doesn’t happen very often.’

He blew out a sigh. ‘Just around certain types of women.’

She caught the accusation in his eyes, and the self-pity, then looked away.

‘I read about you in the papers.’ His voice more subdued.

‘How you shot dead the man who ran the nightclub, the man we spoke about, and how the hunt’s still on for the guy maiming hookers. I realised then I could’ve been more helpful. Given you a straight answer.’

‘To which question?’ she asked.

‘You asked me the meaning of Plato’s Cave. That question.’ He took a deep breath, and explained, ‘Your question is about the foundation of western thought - back there, among those ancient Greeks …’

‘Am I about to hear one of your lectures?’

‘Bear with me,’ he insisted. ‘Plato says the citizens of the cave believe the fake images projected around them are real. Well that still applies today. If anything, it’s more valid than ever in our media-saturated, celebrity-obsessed, consumer-driven mass culture. We all inhabit the cave. We’re all deluded, believing the cinema-screen version of reality - unless we can get up, and turn around, and see the projector.’

A thought struck her. Something Barbie had been going on about.

She said hesitantly, ‘And he who controls the projector …’

‘… controls social reality.’ He nodded. ‘Projecting phoney images onto the walls of our collective mind. But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. Plato gives us a way out.’

‘I’ve read
The Republic
.’

‘Which tells us we can crawl out of the cave and into the dazzling light of truth.’ Roxby gave a sniff of satisfaction. The same as when he delivered a punchline to an auditorium full of students, no doubt.

‘And there’s one other thing. That card you showed me. I’ve been thinking about it. Have you worked out what it represents?’

‘If you can tell me,’ she said soberly, ‘I might not put you on file.’

‘What an offer.’ He scooped up some spicy topping with a tortilla chip and waved it, as if to tantalise her. ‘You’ve been looking in the wrong places. The club, the brothel, the fellowship. It’s not a business card. It’s a token. A talisman. An emblem of private membership.

Like a key that unlocks an exclusive fantasyland.’

‘Don’t suppose you can point out which one?’

‘Sorry, I’m giving you a philosophic profile. The geographic one I’ll leave to you.’

‘For the sake of argument,’ she said, ‘let’s assume you’re right.

Now there’s a basic premise of profiling - decipher what the serial offender is dreaming when he indulges in ritualistic violence and you know where he’s coming from. You can formulate his background, his motives and his strategy.’

‘And what you’ve stumbled on, Detective Sergeant, is a secret dreamland.’

‘So, logically, the Plato’s Cave I’m looking for has no sign over the door, no phone number, no website, no public face,’ she said,