Death by Beauty (25 page)

‘I’m surprised you’ve gone to so much trouble. Why would you check me out like this? I feel quite frightened by such scrutiny.’
Maybe, she thought, picking a fight is the easiest way out of here. She wanted to get out of the confined space of his study
but he was still blocking the doorway.

‘I think I should go,’ she said. ‘Your behaviour is unforgivable. Dinner should be indefinitely postponed.’

‘I want to see your ID. Give me your wallet.’

Hell, the key to his office is still in it, she thought, as she answered, ‘You have no right to ask me this. Please stand
aside and let me leave, Angelo.’

‘Not until I know who you are. You’re a cop, aren’t you? Some sneaky little undercover cop. I want to know why you’re investigating
me. And why they’ve set the dogs on me.’

Gemma spread her hands in appeal. ‘There is no need for this overreaction. Of course I’m not a cop. I don’t know what you’re
talking about. I came here at your invitation, I strayed
into your study and yes, I glanced at a few things and noticed a folder on your desk. And now you’re accusing me of all sorts
of strange things, Angelo. I find your behaviour alarming. And I’d like to leave. Now.’

He didn’t budge, his bulky body blocking her escape.

‘You’re a friend of my wife. She sent you here.’

‘You’ve got a wife?’

‘Give me your wallet.’

‘No. You lied to me. You’ve got a wife!’

‘Give me that wallet!’

‘No way! You have no right!’

He took a step closer, roughly snatching the wallet out of her hand. ‘This isn’t about right, sweetheart. This is about doing
what you’re told.’ The menace in his voice was unmistakable and his face was twisted into a snarl. This was the real Angelo
Tolmacheff, Gemma thought. The man who was plotting the murder of his wife. The man who had some connection with a fleeing
sex worker, a woman who’d had a narrow escape from murder herself … and the vampire.

He stepped forward, leaving a narrow route to the foyer. Gemma did a quick situational calculation. Despite her boast to Mike,
it had been some time since she’d practised any fancy moves. Looming closer, Tolmacheff hissed, ‘
Who are you
?’

Gemma made a split-second decision. She hurled herself against him using her body weight and surprise to unbalance him. He
yelled and stumbled, but quickly righted himself, almost knocking her off her feet, punching out with an arm that she ducked
easily. She wrenched back her wallet from his other hand, then kneed him as hard as she could. She heard his harsh roar of
pain and rage as he crashed to the floor.

She was out the door and racing across the foyer to the front door before he had time to recover.

Fear and adrenaline propelled her until she was back at her car, fumbling with the keys, jumping in and screeching away from
the kerb.

She checked in her rear-vision mirror to see that Tolmacheff was coming after her, hobbling like something out of a horror
movie towards his car. She didn’t have time to be scared; she needed all her energy to lose him. She headed down to New South
Head Road, skidding through a just-changing red light, then swung a hard left and raced away from the intersection. Another
glance in the mirror showed her that Tolmacheff hadn’t made it through the intersection and was blocked by a car in front
of his. She relaxed just a bit, swinging another sudden hard left just in case. After driving about a kilometre, she swung
right and found herself heading for Charing Cross. She parked in a lane near a cafe, dashed inside and sat down to catch her
breath. She ordered a cup of tea and called Mike.

‘What is it?’ he asked urgently at the sound of her voice.

‘I’ve blown it with Tolmacheff,’ she said. ‘At least Gerri Westlake has. He sprung me looking at something on his desk. He
knows where his wife is staying. He’s obviously been investigating me while I was investigating him. If he finds out who I
am, I’m in trouble.’

She gave him a rundown on what she had found at Tolmacheff’s office, of her confrontation with him and her narrow escape from
the house.

‘Gems. Come home. If you’d listened to me—’

‘Don’t start.’

After a pause he asked, ‘So what connection do you think Tolmacheff has with these women from the brochure?’

‘Not sure yet. That’s what I’ve got to chase up. Angie’s looking into Perestroika Enterprises – could be a modelling agency?
I’m wondering if maybe these women worked for him. But in what capacity. Maybe they’re all sex workers like Brie. At this
stage, I’m only guessing.’

‘Gemma, please just come home. This is getting deadly serious. And I mean deadly.’

‘Mike, I’ll be home soon. Promise.’

She heard his angry sigh from the other end of the line just before he hung up.

As Gemma started her car to drive home, a call came through.

‘Ambrose Cobcroft, Gemma. Apologies for the time of my call, but I found something that might interest you. Could you drop
by my place sometime?’

Gemma looked at her watch. Her pulses were quietening. ‘How about now? I’m not too far away.’

He hesitated for just a moment. ‘Fine,’ he said.

She was soon in Cobcroft’s smart apartment. On the dining table were the remains of two half-eaten meals.

‘I hope I haven’t interrupted you,’ said Gemma, glancing at the dishes.

‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘I meant to have them cleared away before you arrived. My dinner guest left early.’

As he swept past carrying the plates to the kitchen, Gemma picked up the faintest trace of perfume – ‘Songes’.

‘Let me guess,’ she said, with a smile. ‘Your dinner guest was Yvonne Creswell?’

He stopped in his tracks as he emerged from the kitchen. ‘How on earth did you know?’ Then quickly covered his unguarded question.
‘You’re very good at your job.’

‘I’m pleased you think so.’

‘Drink?’ he offered, heading towards a tray of crystal decanters on the polished cedar sideboard.

‘Scotch-and-ice, thanks,’ she said, ‘with a dash of water. You mentioned on the phone you had something to show me?’

He poured two drinks, vanished into the kitchen for ice and water, then reappeared and handed her one. ‘Cheers,’ he said,
tinkling his glass against hers. ‘I’m sorry Yvonne had to leave. She mentioned you’d had a chat with her. She mentioned too,
that you had shown her the suicide note.’

‘Yes,’ said Gemma. ‘Yvonne pretty much told me the same things that you did. That Magda had everything to live for – that
she was on top of the world. That she called Yvonne, possibly drunk, to say—’

‘No, no. Not possibly drunk.
Impossibly
. Magda almost never drank prior to the cosmetic surgery, and afterwards not at all. It was completely
verboten
to anyone on the DiNAH therapy. There’s no way Magda would have been drunk.’

‘Magda’s speech was slurred, Yvonne said.’

‘Whatever was causing that wasn’t alcohol. No way. She must have already been affected by the drugs she’d taken to – to …’
He couldn’t finish the sentence.

‘What did you want to show me, Ambrose?’ asked Gemma finally, letting the silence hang between them while sipping her scotch.

‘These,’ he said, putting his glass down and going to the
sideboard. ‘I found them in Magda’s bedside drawer. I almost threw them out while I was clearing out her things.’

He passed Gemma a small glass pill bottle containing several capsules. ‘It’s from Sapphire Springs Spa.’

‘I thought clients had to go back to the spa for the therapy,’ said Gemma, reading the handwritten label: ‘
DiNAH Growth Factor. Take only under managed medical supervision. Must not be removed from premises at Sapphire Springs Spa
.’

‘I was under the impression that DiNAH was always kept very tightly under wraps,’ she continued, ‘so that no one could discover
what it was until the rights to produce it were finally secured.’

‘Magda clearly broke the rules,’ he said.

Gemma turned the small bottle around in her hands, thinking that with a wedding to organise Magda might have decided that
taking two days out of every week to go to Sapphire Springs was time she didn’t have. Somehow, she’d purloined her own supply.

‘I’d like to take this,’ she said. ‘I have a contact who can run a few tests on the capsules, separate the components and
deliver a report on what’s in them.’

‘Maybe there’s some component that causes sudden mood swings or depression?’

‘My thoughts exactly,’ said Gemma. ‘And if that’s the case, no wonder the team that’s responsible for creating DiNAH don’t
want anyone to know about it.’

After taking possession of the small bottle and assuring Ambrose that she’d call him as soon as she found out more about the
drugs, Gemma finally headed home.

‘I was really worried, Gemma,’ Mike said, when she walked in. ‘I thought you were coming home when we talked.’

‘Sorry,’ she said, almost tripping on Rafi’s wooden train as she went into the living room. The place looked a mess, she thought,
with Mike’s work piled up on the dining table and Hugo’s gear strewn around the floor and the lounge. ‘I did a couple of things
on the way. I have to try to get hold of Delphine Tolmacheff again, then I’ll fill you in.’

Delphine’s mobile was still switched off, so Gemma poured herself a glass of water and a weak scotch-and-water and told Mike
about her visit to Ambrose Cobcroft. ‘I’ll ask Lance at Paradigm to test the samples. I’m convinced there’s something in that
therapy that’s very dangerous – so dangerous that they don’t want anybody to know about it. And that Janet was killed because
she discovered what it was. DiNAH therapy costs over a million dollars. It’s a goldmine, and ridiculously secret. We’re incredibly
lucky that somehow Magda Simmonds was able to smuggle some of the stuff out.’

‘You think that the medical team at Sapphire Springs is involved in some kind of criminal activity? A cover-up?’

‘I know it sounds a bit unbelievable. It’s such a well-known health resort. But think about it: it only takes one or two of
the team to be capable of this sort of thing. The other staff might not have any idea what’s going on.’

‘Whatever happened to Hippocrates and “First, do no harm”?’

‘Millions of dollars, that’s what’s happened.’ Gemma swallowed the last of the scotch before continuing. ‘What I need to do
is talk to someone who really knows about DiNAH—’ She picked up her phone and went straight to Google.

Mike stood beside her and Gemma pointed to the screen. ‘Maxine Wentworth. She was one of the first, if not the first, to receive
the DiNAH therapy three years ago. She’s a great-grandmother and look at her! You’d think she was thirty-five. She’s the one.
I need to talk to her.’

‘So tell me again about what happened at Tolmacheff’s?’ Mike asked.

‘He caught me snooping. He was furious, but I got away.’

‘You make it sound very simple.’

‘That’s pretty much it,’ she said. ‘I told you I can take care of myself.’

‘So it was a waste of time,’ he said, ‘putting yourself at risk like that. Now he’ll really wonder who you are.’

‘He thinks I’m an undercover cop.’

‘You hope he does. It mightn’t take him too long to work through the list of female private detectives,’ he said. ‘We just
don’t know what he’s capable of, Gemma.’ He looked at her, shook his head, then walked out.

She called Wentworth Thoroughbred Breeders. A recorded message gave her several options and she left a message inquiring about
contacting Maxine Wentworth.

Wearily, she stood up and went into the bedroom to look in on Rafi, who was sound asleep, one fist clenched against his cheek,
his other hand softly on top of his woolly bear. She checked the grille at the window – it remained locked as usual – and
then she opened the gun safe, taking the Glock 27 out of its box and turning it over in her hands before replacing it, relocking
the safe and gently kissing her son, then tiptoeing out of the room.

Hugo hadn’t been there when she got home, and when she went to bed she lay awake worrying about him. This is crazy, she thought.
Worrying about Hugo is not really my job; he has two parents who are supposed to be doing that – but are almost certainly
not
. Then her mind jumped to Mischa Bloomfield. Rafi’s contented grunts as he slept couldn’t distract her from the treadmill
of thoughts running in her wakeful mind. She wondered where Mischa was now, and who the friend was who had picked her up so
fortuitously. Gemma would lean on Angie to hurry along the search for the owner of that car.

Mike came in an hour or so later, then around 2 am she heard Hugo fumbling at the front door and got up to let him in.

‘Hugo! Where the hell have you been?’

‘Sorry I’m so late,’ he whispered, tiptoeing in behind her. ‘I had dinner with Dad. And I sort of went to sleep on the couch.
I didn’t want to be there in the morning when his girlfriend wakes up.’

‘Okay. Now go to bed.’

‘Night, Gemma.’

‘Sleep well, Hugo.’

‘You too.’

But she couldn’t. Dark, foreboding dreams troubled her all night, and it was a relief to finally wake from a restless sleep
to Rafi’s polyphonic conversation with himself in the dim dawn. She reached over to the remote on her bedside table and turned
on the feed from the security camera. The front garden area around the window was dark and quiet. She switched it off.