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‘I gave notice at my apartment, but I have to pay the lease until the fifteenth,’ Loulou
continued. ‘Why don’t you come down with me? We’ll have fun!’

Mak put down her chopsticks and stared at her friend. She didn’t know what to say.

Please tell me this will last two weeks. Or one week. Please.

‘Come down this weekend and meet him. We would have a blast tearing it up in Mel-boring!’

‘Sorry, Loulou,’ Mak said. ‘I have to work.’

‘Awww, please? You have to meet him!’

‘What’s the rush? If you two are going to move in together, I’ll have plenty of time to meet him. Maybe I’ll meet him at your wedding next month…’

Loulou squealed with laughter.

Truthfully, Mak didn’t want to think about the possibility of her friend moving interstate; she could literally count her true friends in Sydney on her thumbs. It was depressing. She changed the subject. ‘I’m seeing your friend Brenda again this afternoon.’

Loulou had asked—no, pleaded—for Mak to see Brenda Bale, a woman who had a few psychological issues she wanted to work through. They had a session for an hour every Friday in Mak’s living room. Loulou had seen Mak at her worst and stood by her as a true friend, and so when Loulou had begged her to talk to this woman as a ‘huge favour’, Mak had caved in, agreeing to a session or two.

So far it had been every Friday for
nine weeks.

‘Oh! I can’t thank you enough,’ Loulou squealed again. ‘Brenda says it is sooooo helpful. Really. It’s helping her big-time.’

‘I feel like a bit of a fraud, you know. She would probably benefit a lot more from seeing a real therapist.’

‘But you are a shrink,’ Loulou said, confused.

‘Yes, but I don’t specialise in the right field. She needs a…
different
kind of psychologist. Trust me.’

‘It’s helping her so much, though. She’s really grateful.’

Mak wasn’t charging Brenda for the weekly sessions, although truthfully she could use every cent she could scrape together.

The friends downed a few pieces of California roll and fought over the last piece of inari.

‘I got a new assignment today. An investigation,’ Mak said with a slight smile. It was exciting—an assignment just big enough to feel like a real job.

Loulou sat forward, extra-attentive. ‘So what is it? What are you working on?’ She gestured to the file. ‘T-o-b-i-a-s M-u-r-p-h-y’ she read upside down off the folder.

‘I just got it today, so I only have the most basic details. It’s confidential, of course, so I can’t say much.’ Mak pulled the folder away from Loulou’s prying eyes.

Loulou worked away on another California roll and her can of soft drink. ‘Come on. I would
love to go on one of your stakeouts.
Pleeease?
I’m sure I could help!’

‘Loulou.’

‘Please? I think it is so cool that I have a friend who’s a PI.’

Mak rolled her eyes.

‘Well! What is it? Another bastard cheating on his wife? Are you gonna nail him?’

Mak smiled. ‘Actually, it’s not a marital case this time at all. It’s a bit more interesting…’

The phone call came to Jack Cavanagh’s city office just after two.

Joy Fregon, Jack Cavanagh’s loyal secretary, put the call through. ‘Mr Cavanagh, there is a man on line one who wants to speak to you. He won’t give his name and he says that he doesn’t want an appointment.’ She sounded a touch anxious, which was out of character for her.

Jack shook his head. ‘Well, tell him to go away,’ he said impatiently.

‘Um, Mr Cavanagh, he says he wants to speak to you
about Damien.
’ She paused. ‘I wonder what you would like me to do?’

Jack sat forwards in his leather chair, brow furrowed.
What in God’s name has my son done now?
A jet drifted through the blue sky outside his window, the city bustling on the streets far below. He shifted, contemplating what to do.

‘That’s okay, Joy,’ he finally replied. ‘Put him through.’

‘Yes, Mr Cavanagh,’ she said.

Jack braced himself for some unpleasantness.
He picked up the receiver and pressed the flashing line button. ‘This is Jack Cavanagh.’

‘We have some business to discuss,’ came a muffled voice down the line.

‘To whom am I speaking?’

‘I’m the man who is doing a favour for your son,’ came the response.

‘Is that so?’

‘The favour is that I am coming to you first. I am giving you a chance to make me happy before I go to the press.’

Jack tensed and sat up in his chair.
Go to the press with what?

‘Your son has some rather unsavoury private activities. I think you will want these activities of his to
remain
private.’

Blackmail. This arsehole thinks he’s going to blackmail me.

Jack’s eyes narrowed. It wasn’t the first time he had been threatened. Men like this made him furious—men who wanted something for nothing because they were too damned lazy to do the work for themselves.

‘And what activities should I be discussing with a man too cowardly to even tell me his name?’ Jack demanded angrily. Though he was listening carefully, he did not recognise the man’s voice. However, he thought he detected a very slight Irish accent mixed with his typical Australian sounds.

There was no response.

Jack waited through a few seconds of silence. ‘I am hanging up the phone now—’

‘I don’t think you should do that,
Jack
,’ came the voice on the line.

Jack didn’t much care for the tone, or the address. Apart from family, very few people called Cavanagh senior ‘Jack’. In fact, every single person who worked for him called him ‘Mr Cavanagh’. Even Joy, who had worked for him for thirty-one years, did not presume to call him by his first name.

‘I’m waiting,’ Jack said.

‘I’ll cut to the chase. I have an incriminating video of your son with an underaged girl who is now in the morgue. You won’t want anyone else seeing this footage. All it will take is two million dollars to make me happy and I will forget all about it. Me and this problem will go away,’ the stranger said. ‘Two million dollars is cheap as chips for a man of your means.’

Jack took in the information with a mixture of scepticism and concern. His son was a disappointment, but this might be beneath even Damien’s capabilities.

‘Why should I believe you?’ Jack asked the man coolly.

‘Ask your son if he has anything to hide,’ was the ominous response. ‘I’ll give you until this time tomorrow to think about it. If you don’t meet the price, I know I will get plenty from the media for it. They will like this story, I think.’

‘That’s enough,’ said the older man. ‘How will I contact you?’

‘You won’t.’

He hung up in Jack Cavanagh’s ear.

Jack held the phone out from his head, then placed it slowly back in its cradle. He pulled open the top drawer of his desk and extracted a rolled Cuban cigar from a small box, cut the tip and lit it. The cigar had been intended for celebrating the transportation contract, but now he needed it to think. For ten minutes Jack sat in his leather chair with his arms crossed, intermittently puffing on the Cuban and watching the clouds outside his high window. When he was done collecting his thoughts, he pulled his private phone over and dialled.

‘Hello, Bob? It’s Jack. I was wondering if you might swing by my office…’

‘It’s the only time I feel
alive
…’

At four forty-nine on Friday afternoon, Makedde Vanderwall sat in her living room across from Loulou’s friend Brenda Bale, listening to the complicated, flame-haired woman wrestle with psychological self-examination. Mak shifted on the sofa, wearing the plain black pantsuit she used on such occasions—a kind of psychologist’s uniform, she thought. Her thoughts drifted a little: Andy’s trip; his new job; her dad’s new life in Canada with his girlfriend, Ann; Loulou’s crazy infatuation with yet another muso.

The terrace house Mak and Andy shared was old—built in the early 1900s—and it sometimes had a faint musty smell that Mak couldn’t escape. She watched the sunlight that came through the old bay window. The sun’s rays moved subtly, striking objects and casting shadows; everything changing, the world in flux.

‘…like I wouldn’t even exist without it.’

Mak nodded and waited for Brenda to continue.

This was their ninth session, but Mak was not at all confident that their hours together had been effective. The main problem was that Mak was a forensic psychologist—and not even a practising one—and she did not specialise in this sort of work. The kind of therapy-based sessions that Brenda required were more suited to a clinical psychologist like her father’s girlfriend, Dr Ann Morgan, or perhaps even the famed sex therapist Dr Ruth.

‘You exist right now, Brenda. You are here. You are alive,’ Mak responded, stating the all-important obvious.

‘I know, I know. You’re right,’ Brenda said. She bit her lip, giving her canines a vampire-like look as she stained them with bright red lipstick.

‘You feel empowered in the role-play scenario,’ Mak said.

‘Yes,’ Brenda conceded.

That was no surprise. Brenda Bale, as it had turned out, worked several evenings a week as a highly paid bondage mistress. She arrived at Mak’s house each Friday afternoon smartly dressed: suit, heels and matching handbag, hair slicked back in a ponytail, the very picture of corporate style. The only hint as to Brenda’s clandestine work activities was her unnaturally bright red dyed hair and scarlet lips—hence the name she used for work, Mistress Scarlet. It had taken Mak until their second session to clue into this pertinent information, which appeared to be quite relevant to Brenda’s concerns.
Loulou had not informed Mak of this, but, knowing her mohawked friend, Mak was hardly surprised that Brenda Bale had an unconventional career. Everyone Loulou knew seemed to be unconventional.

‘But there are other ways you can feel empowered outside of your work. We have spoken before about this,’ Mak reminded her.

Brenda Bale was a youthful and sexual forty-two, intelligent and successful in her trade. She had previously worked in a well-known bondage–dominance house called The Tower, but now operated from home, where she had the necessary accoutrements and a dedicated ‘slave’ named Julio who guarded her safety. But Brenda had grown increasingly concerned that she was becoming ‘less Brenda and more Mistress Scarlet’ with each passing day. Makedde now suggested that taking her work home might have caused this psychological shift, blurring the lines between Brenda Bale and Mistress Scarlet until the more dominant of the two was taking over.

Brenda shook her head at Mak’s comment, seemingly frustrated with herself, her bright red ponytail flipping back and forth. ‘I tried joining one of those rock-climbing classes you suggested and I just felt so out of place,’ she said, exasperated.

‘That’s okay. It may take a while for you to find activities that connect with you outside of the role you play in your work life. The more dedication you give to developing activities and
friendships in your personal life, the more fulfilling your personal life is likely to become. It’s like anything else: the more you put in, the more you get back.’

‘I know…you’re right…’

‘Give some more thought to what we’ve discussed,’ Mak said, wrapping up.

‘Oh yes, thank you. I will,’ the red lips responded.

It was now ten to five and the fifty-minute hour of the psychologist was up.

‘I hope you have found our sessions helpful. You know, this is not my area of expertise. I still suggest that if this issue remains unresolved, you would really benefit from speaking to a specialist in the area. I would be able to get the name of someone for you.’

‘I know, I know,’ Brenda responded. ‘I really do appreciate our talks, though.’ Brenda stood and straightened her suit. She looked to Mak, and the arched eyebrows lifted in a sincere expression. ‘You’ve helped me so much. You’re really good.’ She leaned in to give a hearty handshake.

I am?

‘I won’t impose on you much longer, I promise. But I really feel we are getting somewhere. I feel I’m close to a breakthrough,’ Brenda continued, bringing her smooth pale hands to her sides and making determined fists.

Mak hoped she was right. She couldn’t afford to keep doing this for free for ever.

‘If there is ever anything I can do for you, let me know,’ Brenda continued. ‘And I mean
anything.
I have all kinds of friends who owe me favours,’ she said.

Mak didn’t venture to think what kind of favours might be returned.

She saw Brenda out, bade her farewell for another week and closed the door behind her. She locked it.

Mak walked back and looked around the living room. It was furnished with a plush sofa-and-chair set she didn’t particularly like, and a handsome oak table she had covered in photo frames and books. She had ushered out a bouquet of dead flowers just prior to Brenda’s arrival and now she noticed that a stem of pollen had fallen on the carpet, making a small bright yellow stain.

‘Oops.’

Makedde hurried to the kitchen and returned with a damp soapy cloth to try to fix the carpet. She got on her knees and scrubbed away at the stubborn mark. Slowly, the pollen’s colour faded. Hunched down like that, Mak’s eyes were level to the low table, and her focus rested on a small framed photo she liked of her widowed father, Les, and his girlfriend, backdropped by the familiar doorstep of the Canadian west coast home of her youth. At the sight of it her mouth curved upwards in the sad, sentimental smile of those who have strayed far from home.

Dad.

She blinked.

She frowned.

This wasn’t how she had imagined things would be when she left Canada. It had been eighteen months since Mak had finished her PhD and postgraduate studies, one of only a handful of PhD grads that year who were already in their late twenties. A slew of personal and family crises had at one point made her feel like she would never get there. However, despite all the obstacles put in her way, she’d made it this far. But this wasn’t a practice: this was chatting with an identity-conflicted bondage mistress for an hour a week.

So Mak’s existence in Sydney wasn’t quite what she had planned—and her being with a cop was not what her father had wanted.

You warned me he’d never be home.

The yellow pollen stain was now more faint, but it wouldn’t come out completely. Mak didn’t know what else she could do. These little household spills and stains were the kind of things mums automatically knew how to fix, but Mak was clueless in these areas, and she didn’t have a mum to call.

Mak wisely sensed that her thoughts were spiralling into unproductive territory. As she often did in such circumstances, she abandoned them in favour of work activity.

Meaghan Wallace.

She made for her laptop, which was plugged in and ready for her on the dining-room table, a spot she often used as an impromptu office. Mak sat down and unbuttoned her suit jacket. She threw it over the chair, unsnapped her bra with one hand and pulled it off from underneath her black singlet. Now comfortable, she got to work.

One of the first things Mak had learned about investigation work was that a valuable part of the inquiry into a person’s background could be done online. Some good cyber-sleuthing often saved a lot of field work down the track.

She had three names to check up on: Meaghan Wallace, Simon Aston and Tobias Murphy. And while she was at it, she might just spend a minute or two finding out a few things about her secretive client, Robert Groobelaar, and his company. It wasn’t part of her job, but it couldn’t hurt to get a better idea of where he was coming from.

These days the vast majority of people under fifty—university students, board members, people in every imaginable type of interest group, bloggers, photo-mad personal website posters and anyone with a passing moment in the public eye—left their mark on the internet. A simple Google search could bring up all kinds of gems.

Mak began with the murder victim, Meaghan.

MEAGHAN WALLACE
.
SEARCH
.

Mak frowned. Google showed remarkably little on ‘Meaghan Wallace’.

MEAGAN WALLACE
.
SEARCH
.

The change of spelling showed many entries on various Meagan Wallaces that were sadly nothing near Meaghan’s match.

Damn.

She tried again.

MEG WALLACE
.
SEARCH
.

There were a lot of hits. Millions. And most of them looked useless. Mak checked the option for Australian pages only, and that narrowed down the listings, but there were still too many. Mak tried the image search instead. It came up with brunettes, redheads, the wrong blondes, some men, and even a labrador retriever.

On the third page of Meg Wallace image results, the search brought up a single photo of the same Meg Mak was after. She felt a small rush of excitement when her eyes fixed on the familiar face.

Bingo.

The image source was a website for a Sydney nightclub called The Rocking Horse. Mak clicked on it.

The caption read:
JAG LESLIE
,
MEG WALLACE AND AMY CAMILLERI ENJOY THE ROCKING HORSE NYE CELEBRATIONS
.

It was definitely Meaghan. She and her friends were sexily dressed in the photo, wearing lycra crop tops and mini-dresses. Meg’s tiny shirt had
the word ‘
TRINITY
’ printed across the chest. It was a photo clearly taken after dark—all three of them had red-eye from the flash. The club was near black behind them, but the camera had picked up a glinting disco ball, some reflecting lights and the backs of various clubbers dancing away, oblivious to the camera.

Jag Leslie and Amy Camilleri.
They could be close friends of Meaghan’s. Mak would track them down. She had a thought about the T-shirt, too. Maybe it was a company or a club Meaghan had worked for?

TRINITY
.
SEARCH
.

Mak’s computer came up with millions of Holy Trinity biblical sites and fan sites for Carrie-Anne Moss’s character in the
Matrix
series.

It’s probably nothing.

Mak didn’t have access to Marian’s professional directories or contacts from home, so she went to her simple dog-eared phone book and looked up Jag Leslie first. Surely there couldn’t be that many Jags out there who weren’t automobiles. If Jag had been a good friend of Meaghan’s, she might know something about who the girl had been seeing and what she had been up to before her murder. Perhaps even more than Meaghan’s parents would know, if and when Mak could get them to talk to her.

L…Leslie…Leslie, J…

It was amazing how many people overlooked the simple, uncomplicated effectiveness of the
common phone directory when looking for someone. In fact, a startling number of investigation cases that came into Marian’s office were solved by a simple flick through the phone book and a knock on the door. Employers wanted to hunt down rogue employees, mothers wanted to hunt down exes who failed to pay child support, and much of it could be done simply by the phone book and its old slogan, ‘let your fingers do the walking’. True to form, in only a few minutes Mak had come up with a number of Leslies: a slew of Jane Leslies and John Leslies, and the ones that looked like her best bet, J Leslies.

Mak phoned the first J Leslie listing, dialling #1 first to ensure that the number she was calling from was safely blocked. She dialled a J Leslie of Rose Bay, whose phone rang out until an answering machine picked up. Disappointed, Mak didn’t leave a message. She couldn’t leave a return number for this ring-around. She moved on to J Leslie number two.

The phone rang three times.

‘Hello?’

‘May I speak to Jag Leslie please?’ Mak asked politely.

‘Jade?’

‘Sorry—I’m looking for Jag. Perhaps I have the wrong number?’

There was a dial tone.

Thank you for hanging up. That’s very nice.

Mak had been hung up on many times in her work, so she wasn’t offended by it—she just wished they’d warn her first. Sometimes a phone slamming down hurt her ears. Undeterred, she lifted the receiver again and called the number of J Leslie of Newtown, New South Wales. If this wasn’t her, she would check through the database Marian had access to.

Someone picked up. ‘Yeah?’ came the answer.

‘Hello, is this Jag Leslie?’ Makedde asked.

‘Speaking.’

Mak smiled. ‘I’m calling from The Rocking Horse Nightclub. You’ve just been nominated for a Gold VIP pass.’

‘Really? I haven’t been there in like…months.’ The woman sounded genuinely surprised, and not as excited as Mak had hoped.

‘Well, you must have an admirer. Your nomination has been accepted.’ Mak concocted the details as she went along, trying to make the deal sound as exciting as humanly possible. She’d heard enough telephone sales lines to slip into the jargon. ‘Your
exclusive
Gold VIP pass allows you free entry and two free drinks for the next twelve months, including free entry to our next New Year’s Eve party.’

‘But it’s February.’

Come on, a little more enthusiasm, please. I’m trying here…

‘Yes. You will get to use the pass all year,’ Mak replied patiently. ‘Right through to January first.
We need to send the pass out to you. What is the best mailing address for you?’

Jag paused. ‘Um, this isn’t going to cost anything, is it?’