Fatal Liaison (20 page)

Dumbfounded, Megan hung up the phone. Clearly, Pauline and she were
never going to see eye to eye, but did that mean any chance of getting through
to Lawson was out of the question? Megan was not a defeatist, by any means.

And any means were what she was prepared to resort to.

Greg wasn’t Pauline’s favorite person, either, but the private
investigator he’d employed seemed to have the inside track as far as access to
police information went. Perhaps there was a way, after all. She reached for
the phone, stopping herself as she remembered the time. She wasn’t about to
make the same mistake twice.

Too restless to sleep, she headed for the small study. After moving
the wastepaper bin from where she had left it on the desk to back to the floor,
she sat down in the swivel chair and picked up the first envelope on the pile
of unopened mail, her telephone account for the last quarter. A quick glance at
the due date confirmed it was now overdue. She opened the next envelope, her
American Express statement. It too was past due.

With the intention of logging onto the Internet to pay her bills,
she switched on her computer. While it ran through its start-up processes, she
continued opening and sorting the mail. Envelopes and junk mail into the bin,
bills and statements into a pile beside the keyboard.

She opened her Internet browser, the page defaulting to Google.
Moving the pointer over the bank icon in the links toolbar, she hesitated.
Something about the flashing cursor in the search box drew her.

She stared at it for a moment, her fingers poised over the keyboard,
then typed “missing persons,” refining her search to pages from Australia. In
less than a second, she had hundreds of thousands of hits.

Fortunately, what she was looking for was on the first page.
Brenda’s disappearance had been canvassed in both print and television media,
but Megan wanted to make sure all bases were covered. She clicked on the
national Missing Persons link and found the page for Victoria.

Sorted in alphabetical order, Brenda’s photo was in the third row
down, Samantha Jenkins’ on the next page. But they were only two of many.
Confronted with photo after photo of women and men still missing, not for days
or weeks, but months and years, Megan felt as if she’d been punched in the
chest. What if, like many of those people, Brenda was never seen again?

Her throat tight, she clicked Brenda’s name. A larger image of
Brenda’s happy laughing face appeared on the screen. Last seen, year of birth,
height, build, eyes, hair, complexion, gender. Impersonal data. Those details
weren’t what made Brenda the person she was.

Looking at Brenda’s vibrant face only served to intensify Megan’s
anguish, a harrowing reminder of everything she held dear. With one click, the
image disappeared from the screen.

There was no mistaking the vivacious woman in the next photo. She
shared the same curly hair, dark eyes and chiseled features as her brother.
Samantha Rose Jenkins, 1970, 170cm, slim, curly black hair, olive complexion,
brown eyes, female – details again that belied the flesh and blood woman behind
the photo. She knew exactly what Greg was going through.

The unpaid bills forgotten, she pushed back in her chair, the
heaviness in her chest no less. Then barefoot and still in her singlet and
boxer shorts, she headed for the French doors leading out on to the balcony.
Outside it was light, but the streetlamps still glowed. Breathing in the
heavily dew-laden air, Megan stood at the rail, looking out across the
patchwork of houses – houses where families slept oblivious to the evil in the
world.

The damp and cold eventually drove her back indoors. Chilled to the
bone, she set the gas heater in the lounge on high and went in search for
something warmer to wear. A short time later, she was rugged up in a
pastel-blue velour robe several sizes too large for her.

A good cup of tea had been her grandmother’s answer to all the
world’s ills. The panacea for everything from fatigue to depression to murder.
She headed for the kitchen to make a cup of tea, only to discover she was out
of milk.

Damn. She shut the door with more force than intended, the fridge’s
rubber seals absorbing the impact of her irritation.

A few minutes later, dressed in a pair of jeans she’d fished out of
the laundry basket and an unbecoming green puff jacket, she collected her
wallet and car keys and headed out the door.

She’d inserted the key in the Nissan Pulsar’s ignition and was about
to turn it when a tap on the passenger’s side window almost sent her through
the car’s roof. She spun around, ricking her neck. Joe’s intense deep-set eyes
stared back at her.

After a moment’s hesitation, she lowered the window enough to talk
to him, but not enough for him to put his arm through. “Shit, Joe. What are you
playing at?”

Joe peered at her through the gap, his fingers hanging on the glass
edge. “I was worried. You haven’t returned my calls.”

Megan rolled her eyes. “I thought we talked about this.”

“You said you wanted to be friends. Friends look out for one
another.”

He had a point. “But friends don’t creep up and scare you witless,”
she countered.

“Sorry about that. Seriously, though, I’ve been concerned about you
and I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” He paused before adding, “Just
as a friend, of course.”

Megan now wished she’d listened to the little voice in her head that
had told her the “let’s be friends” approach might backfire in Joe’s case. He
either had the hide of a crocodile or genuinely believed perseverance would win
her over. Or both.

She flicked the air with the back of her hand as if shooing a pesky
fly. “I’m okay.” She sighed and turned back to the steering wheel, gripping it
tightly. “Now go away. Please, Joe, just leave me alone. I don’t need this
shit.”

She started the car. As she moved the shift selector into reverse,
she glanced sideways at Joe, immediately regretting it. She had nothing to feel
guilty about, so why did she feel so bad? Taking her foot off the brake, she
kept her gaze fixed on the rear-view mirror and started backing out of the
driveway.

A piece of white paper fluttered through the passenger’s side
window, landing on the seat. Megan ignored it and continued reversing. Out on
the street, she wasted no time in straightening up, speeding off without a
backward glance.

Even though she’d only intended driving a couple of blocks to her
local 7-Eleven store, she completely missed it, driving straight past until the
distinctive red and orange number seven of the next store caught her attention.
She turned down the side street next to the convenience store and pulled into a
parking space not far from the corner.

With the ignition turned off and the doors locked, she closed her
eyes and leaned back in her seat, trying desperately to regain her composure.
Joe turning up unexpectedly like that had really unnerved her. As if she didn’t
already have enough to contend with.

Opening her eyes, she reached across to the passenger side and
picked up what she’d earlier mistaken for a piece of paper from the seat. It
was a square, white envelope. Turning it over in her hands, she found her name
written neatly in blue ink across the front. She ripped the envelope open.

The picture on the card inside looked to be a print of an
Impressionist watercolor depicting a field of red and yellow tulips. With a
sinking sensation in her stomach, she opened it.

“Dear Megan,

Just a short note to tell you that even though we haven’t known each
other for long, your friendship means a great deal to me. Believe me when I say
that I do understand that you are not ready for commitment at this stage in
your life. Obviously at this time, your focus must be with your friend.

Take care and please remember that if you ever need me I’ll be there
for you.

Yours truly,

Joe Renmark.”

If Megan didn’t feel like a right bitch before, she certainly did
now. She’d left the poor guy standing in her driveway, undoubtedly completely bewildered
by her outright rudeness. Talk about getting the wrong end of the stick. His behavior
had been beyond reproach. The same couldn’t be said for hers.

She read the card again and replaced it in the envelope. At the very
least, she owed him an explanation, if not a full-blown apology. Promising
herself she would call him as soon as she got home, she clambered out of her
car.

Less than twenty minutes later, she was back in her kitchen
reboiling the kettle and pouring milk into the bottom of a large white
breakfast cup. She finished making the tea and, with
The Sunday Age
tucked under her arm, carried it over to the oak table.

Her grandmother’s cure-all worked wonders. Sipping the hot tea and
browsing through the newspaper, she almost felt human. Although she wasn’t
quite sure if she knew what that was anymore.

The newspaper laid out in front of her, she finished her tea and was
steeling herself to phone Joe, when the headline “Call for Witnesses to
Warehouse Sexual Assault” caught her eye. Megan scanned the article, her pulse
quickening as she read how a Melbourne woman in her thirties had been lured to
a vacant warehouse, where she’d been sexually assaulted. The police were
calling for people who may have seen a man acting suspiciously in the area on the
day of the incident.

Megan’s immediate thought that the police were looking for Robert
Lockwood, the ginger-mustached bastard who’d assaulted Brenda the day before
she disappeared, was cut short as she read on. The man they were seeking was
described as being dark-haired, thin, wearing workman's pants and worker’s
boots and a dark jacket. Robert Lockwood’s hair matched his moustache and no
one could ever accuse him of being thin.

The phone rang while she was in the throes of tidying up and folding
the newspaper.

Greg’s smooth voice greeted her. “I hope I haven’t woken you.”

How little he knew.

“Thought you should know that Lawson Green was released late last
night.” No pleasantries, no beating around the bush, just straight out with it.

“Excuse me? Did you just say what I think you did?” It would
certainly explain Pauline Meyer’s mightier than thou attitude on the phone that
morning.

“I’m afraid so.”

Trevor Smith left
the rough gravel bush-track and battled his way through the dense undergrowth.
His camera hung free around his neck, his hands occupied with brushing aside
vines and tree fern fronds. Dappled sunlight filtered through the treetops,
stopping short of the damp leaf mulch strewn across the earth, the rising
clammy cold seeping through his jeans.

For a second he lost sight of his target, the flash of scarlet
that’d drawn him into the bush, vanishing and then reappearing high in the
branches of one of the national park’s majestic Mountain Ash trees. Intent on
capturing the perfect photographic shot of the brilliantly colored male
Australian King Parrot, he ventured deeper into the undergrowth, stumbling over
rocks and fallen branches, rotting timber giving way under his feet.

The parrot flitted from branch to branch, taunting him. Straddled
across the broad trunk of a fallen tree, Trevor bided his time, camera at the
ready. The bird eventually alighted on a branch directly above him. As
stealthily as possible, he swung his left leg behind him and slid front first
down the other side of the fallen trunk. He felt the ground yield beneath his
weight.

Before he could stabilize his foothold, the putrid stench of
decaying flesh enveloped him. He screwed up his nose, instinctively looking
down at his feet. Gagging, he reeled backwards. He kicked his feet out,
repulsed by the bits of long-dead animal and live maggots clinging to his
boots. A kangaroo or a wombat perhaps.

Using leaf litter and a frond he had stripped from a tree fern, he
managed to remove most of the muck from his boots. The parrot was long gone,
along with his appetite for photography. Now all he wanted to do was get back
on the track and return to his four-wheel-drive. Looking around him at the
dense bush, he knew he’d no other alternative but to return the way he had come.
That meant climbing back over the remains of an animal that had crawled under a
log to die. The same log where minutes earlier he’d been sitting, blithely
unaware of the rotting carcass beneath him.

Pinching his nostrils closed with his fingers, he approached the
tree trunk from an angle. He tried to keep his eyes averted, but a flash of red
caught the edge of his vision. Puzzled, he looked down, crying out in horror at
the sight before him.

The red he’d seen wasn’t another parrot. The red he’d seen was the
painted fingernails of a bloated and flyblown human corpse. From the
fingernails and the matted long black hair, he assumed it was a woman. But he
couldn’t be sure, the features too disfigured to tell.

Lurching back, he fell against a large branch. Clinging to it, he
vomited and kept on vomiting until there was nothing left to bring up. Even
then the stomach spasms didn’t stop.