Maryana Miceh held her finger to her lips, motioning Eva to be quiet. Two-year-olds are so dumb, thought Maryana, as Eva giggled and twirled around and around on the balcony above her. At six, Maryana felt she should be the boss of her little sister, but Eva never listened to her. She knelt down in the grass near the wall under the veranda and crawled carefully forward. When she drew close to the spot with the crack, she held her breath. Mummy had told her five times already not to go near the new tenant, but that just made her want to see him more. At recess, Jasmine Hardcastle had said that maybe he was a murderer and he would kill her family in their sleep. Maryana had squealed and laughed with everyone else, but since then, the idea made her feel kind of like she had worms in her tummy. Standing up slowly in the grass near the wall, her tummy felt fluttery, like the worms had hatched into moths. She heard Eva singing 'Jingle Bells' above her.
Ooh! He's got tattoos, was the first thing that Maryana thought. She pressed her eye closer to the crack in the wall. She wasn't sure what he was doing, but it looked like it had to hurt. Maybe he was sick? He was lying on his bed with his hands on his stomach and it was all bloody!
'Maryana!'
At her mother's voice, the squeal slipped out before she could stop it, and Maryana ran as fast as she could. She felt as though a dragon were chasing her, and when she arrived, flushed and panting in the kitchen, her mother asked her what was wrong.
'Nothing,' she said, mouth turned down, shifting from foot to foot.
Karen Miceh looked twice at her little girl, then bent to pick up Eva, still singing. She put her arm on Maryana's shoulder and led them to the front door.
'Girls,' she said, 'Kylie and James are here from next door. They want to know if we've seen Buffy. He's gone missing.'
'I've never done this before,' said Chloe, propped up in the bed, Andrew's white quilt clutched to her chest.
'Well, you seemed to know what you were doing.'
Andrew ducked when she threw a pillow at his head. He had a towel slung low around his flat stomach.
'Not that, stupid!' she said. 'I mean I've never gone to bed with someone when I've known them less than a week.'
'Actually,' Andrew looked at his watch, 'we met almost exactly seventy-two hours ago.'
Chloe groaned. 'Don't rub it in,' she said, but she felt kind of pleased that he'd memorised the time of their first meeting.
'What are you gonna do while I'm at work today?' he asked, opening a cupboard and pulling out an ironed shirt.
The uniform. Chloe smiled widely and leaned back against the bed head to watch.
'You'd better stop looking at me like that,' he said. 'I can't be late to work today.'
'Anything happen with that name that came through on Thursday?' she asked, wondering if he'd tell her anything else about the anonymous call.
'Yep,' he said, buttoning his shirt. 'They think it's one of them.'
'The home invasion gang? You're shitting me! How do you know?'
He grinned at her. She'd leaned forward, all attention, forgetting about the quilt. She clutched it to her chest again, red-faced.
'A few of us got a memo,' he said. 'There's a rotating shift to watch this guy's last known address. We got instructions not to approach; it's just surveillance right now. At least this nutjob's good for something – me and Hendo pulled tonight's watch. Should be some good overtime.'
'What's his name?'
He looked at her sideways.
'Henry,' he said.
'Go on! Henry what?'
'Yeah, good try, beautiful. That, I'm not gonna tell you. Now come over here and give me a hand. I've got a bit of a problem with this towel.'
At four o'clock, Donna Moser's godparents arrived at the hospital and, seeing her distress, asked Jill and Gabriel to leave. They had arranged for Donna to be moved from Liverpool Hospital to this private psychiatric clinic. They were now the only family that she had – an only child, her mother had died of breast cancer when Donna was in her first year of high school.
Donna had told Jill and Gabriel that her godparents, Eugene Moser's business partner and his wife, had asked her to live with them and their sons in Strathfield. She wasn't yet sure what she was going to do. She and her father had only just moved into the house in Capitol Hill, working together with an architect and designer to incorporate the features they wanted in their home, but right now, she didn't want anything to do with the property.
It's good that she has some choices at least, thought Jill – Donna Moser had just inherited fifty per cent of a multimillion-dollar metal fabrication business.
As they left the room, Jill could see a male nurse gently try to encourage the pale, hollow-eyed girl to take some medication. Donna stared into space, tears coursing unchecked. Jill knew she and Gabe had pressed play on the animation reel of her father's murder. She imagined that the soundtrack was the worst part.
'Do you want to come over to my house?' Gabriel asked Jill as they stood in the carpark.
'What? No. Why?'
'Got some more stuff on Joss Preston-Jones,' he answered, looking at his shoes. 'I thought maybe we could put it all together.' He paused. 'And I'm making penne alla vodka.'
'You're making what?'
'It's pasta in a vodka-cream sauce. Really, you have to try it.'
Jill thought about the contents of her refrigerator. She hadn't been shopping since she'd started working at Liverpool. She had a bag of carrots, some olives and anchovies. Her mum's frozen meals had run out days ago. It would have to be takeaway, or…
'I've got garlic bread. And pistachio gelato,' said Gabriel.
'I'll follow you,' she said.
As much as Chloe had wanted Andrew to tell her the name of the suspect in the gang, she was kind of pleased that he hadn't. She respected that he took his job so seriously.
She smiled slowly, thinking about the dinner they'd shared last night. When they couldn't stretch dessert out any longer, they'd had to make a choice. Another venue, or his house. Parting hadn't even been an option. She stretched her neck against the headrest of the driver's seat. Her Mazda 3 was really a little squishy for her long legs, but it had been a good price. Tucked in behind a ute in the Spotlight carpark, Chloe had a good view of the vehicles leaving the Liverpool police complex.
The black Magna was not the Commodore she'd been expecting, but she could never have mistaken Andrew behind the wheel, even though he'd changed out of his uniform into civilian clothing. A red-haired guy in a white tee-shirt laughed in the seat next to him.
She pulled her car into the traffic a few vehicles behind them.
26
HOW IT HAD happened, Jill couldn't figure. She had been curled in a lounge chair listening to the sounds of Gabriel cooking in the kitchen, the little grey cat named Ten warm on her lap, smiling at her, eyes closed.
She woke to Gabriel speaking her name quietly. Her heart shot to her throat and free-fell back again. She stared around wildly, still saturated with sleep, and when she realised where she was, she wanted to cry. Horrified, she felt hot tears well. She couldn't believe she had let her guard down so quickly with him. She straightened in the chair; a bolt of tension fused one side of her neck; her face felt scorched.
'You look like shit,' said Gabriel.
She stared at him, desolately.
'Probably we should eat something,' he said.
Dull pain pressed at the back of her throat and pulsed behind her eyes. She still felt utterly exhausted, and she allowed Gabriel to grab her hand and drag her from the chair. What am I doing here? she thought. She recognised the aches she felt in her elbows and knees as signs of a cold. The travelling, the new people, the case, the fucking air-conditioner. It had worn her down.