The Grotesques (10 page)

“You’ve met Genord. What do you think?”

His evasion was beginning to nettle her. At first, she had put it down to his not wanting to appear crazy, but now that she had seen what he had, she wondered if he were being completely honest with her. “I think whatever we saw down there was quite capable of killing.”

“Maybe, but Cecily ran in the opposite direction. She didn’t scream either. She would have screamed if she’d been attacked by an animal.”

Ella turned at the car and studied the gravel on the driveway. “But why the church?” Although they had potentially uncovered two links that had eluded police, the area was as suspect as the building. If a wild animal was prowling around the canal, then anyone in the vicinity was in danger. The only question would be whether Genord knew about it. Or worse, if he had released it there.

Adam shook his head. “There had to have been someone in there. There was light from below, and yet the police found the building locked from the outside and the light out. I mean, where else could she have gone?”

Ella dropped the subject, sure that mention of an abduction would alienate him.

THE NEWSPAPER WAS
a flurry of activity. Phones were ringing, journalists diving for pens. A cadet wound his way around desks clutching hard copy that occasionally fluttered out of his hands and wafted onto a desk, where journalists irately brushed it away. Ella wove around desk corners and coffee-carrying colleagues wondering, as always, how the
Informer
ever managed to get a daily paper into circulation.

Debbie Esperto glanced up from her desk. “Should’ve known you’d be in today, being payday and all.” She immediately returned to the sketch of a fanged shark that took up considerably more room on her page than the text did. “Waterman’s been looking for you,” she added as an afterthought, a smirk on her lips. She held up her hand and examined her blue nail polish for imperfections, frowning when the fluorescent lights dimmed overhead.

Ella dropped her bag on the desk next to Debbie’s, took out her packet of Rolos and tore the wrapper to access the next button. “I expect he’s waiting for inside information on Melanie Denham’s disappearance.” She popped a chocolate into her mouth and strode straight for the editor’s office, leaving Debbie gaping at her back. The self-styled journalist frequently penned the
Informer
’s lead articles. They were rubbish down to the last word, but it didn’t stop her from lording it over Ella. The fact Ella had been assigned a parking space on her first day at work when Debbie, who commuted by bus and saw no advantage to having a car at work, had not, had sealed her animosity. Her bitter and constant complaints had not moved their editor.

“She’s an investigative journalist. She needs to travel for Pete’s sake,” Phil had said.

“So am I,” Debbie had replied, to which Phil had merely raised his eyes to the ceiling.

Ella smiled at the memory. Their editor was not a complete jerk.

“Get in here!” Phil ordered as soon as Ella appeared at the door. She noticed Debbie, eyes narrowed, leaning forward as she closed the door.

“Well?” Phil asked, from behind his cluttered desk. He was casually eyeing a relic of a monitor. “What you got?”

“How did you find out about the body before the press release?” Ella noticed a squashed cardboard box of the kind that held a dozen doughnuts on top of a jumbled pile of papers at one end of the desk.

“My job, Jerome. Now, you want to tell me what you’ve been doing since eleven yesterday or will I assume it’s not work and dock your pay?”

“I haven’t got enough for a story.” The fluorescent lights buzzed on and off.

He leant forward, placing fists on the battered wood as though he meant business. “Word has it you visited the morgue.”

“Are you following me?” She shook her head. “Stupid question.” Phil knew she always investigated thoroughly before penning an article. He would have sent another journalist to get an interim write-up. Debbie was his usual choice, and she would have had no qualms about following Ella around. She sighed. “I can’t go to press with what I know at the moment, I gave my word. But there’s a story here, and it looks like it could fit right up with everything the
Informer
stands for.”

“What do you need?”

“Are you serious?”

He thumped the thick monitor. Apparently satisfied the glitch was rectified, he turned his attention back to her. “I took a chance on you. Now it’s payday.” He blinked and added, “Figuratively,” not about to forget she had absconded from the office. “Look, when I started this rag, I was aiming to probe the murky depths of crime in this city. I thought if I could get even half the credibility of the defunct
Truth
, I’d be happy. Instead, I end up with a sci-fi journal. Now, I’m not complaining coz it’s earning all of us a decent living, but when I leave this creative invention, I want to think, in different circumstances, it might have been possible. Just get me that one story, Ella. You get your second chance.

“So, what do you need?”

Ella blinked, a little stunned. She’d never figured Phil to be serious about the industry. “Time,” she said, “to dig into Genord’s past and the history of the Church of the Resurrection.”

The lights died. Phil swore. “What is it with the electrics today?”

A complete overhaul of the ancient building and equipment in it would not, in Ella’s opinion, be an overinvestment.

“We get one bat in the ceiling and everything goes haywire,” Phil said, rising. He didn’t notice her bewildered silence as he opened the door. “Esperto! Quit that doodling. Your ass is on research. Get all the information you can about the Church of the Resurrection and its caretaker Genord. Then give it to Jerome here.”

Debbie’s jaw dropped. “I’m still on tomorrow’s cover, Mr Waterman.”

“You’re on whatever I say you’re on if you want to remain on staff. Who the hell is that?”

Ella prised her eyes away from Debbie, who had dropped into a glowering sulk. She blinked when she saw Brendan Rhymes, and intercepted him, relieved to have something tangible to deal with.

“What are you doing here?”

“We’ve got to talk.” He was glancing nervously all over the place. To her left, Debbie was leaning back in her chair studying them, her pencil twirling between two fingers. “Not here.”

“That goes without saying.” Ella grabbed her bag.

“Do you realise you’ve probably blown your cover?” she asked as they stepped into fresh air.

He turned to the left and walked briskly down leafy Halifax Street. The direction upset Ella. She went to great lengths to avoid the eastern end of the street, where the heritage-listed sandstone building which housed the
Nationwide Daily
soared above the surrounding offices, even driving down parallel Carrington Street in the morning and backtracking once she had ringed Hurtle Square. The structure itself she could possibly deal with, even though the pit of her stomach swirled every time she saw it. It was her former colleagues who brought on such intense feelings of inadequacy that she wanted to hide herself away for another year. She manoeuvred herself to Brendan’s left and kept her gaze on her side of the street.

“I’m here because of an inconsistency in your statement this morning.”

“Great. That’ll wash until Debbie Esperto pokes her head into whichever café we’re going to. Now why are you here?”

“Someone wants to meet you.” Unexpectedly, he opened the passenger door of an unmarked car, checking the street for plants as he did.

As far as Ella could tell, the al fresco lunchtime crowd milling around Cibo appeared ordinary, but she had to admit she wasn’t exactly trained in surveillance. She got in, not at all surprised to see Debbie staring after them in the side mirror as they drove off and out of the city. Her probing didn’t produce much more information.

They pulled up at a sixties’ style cream brick home on the top of a hill, a weedy drive leading to a carport, a gleaming gold Jaguar announcing the owner was home. Brendan’s knock was answered by a tall, broad-shouldered man in a leather jacket. He admitted them into the fully refurbished house. The latest ergonomically designed furniture, in red, black, and white, rested on polished floorboards in spacious rooms with spectacular views over the city. Despite the unkempt front garden, this house was grand.

The man waved them into ball chairs opposite the giant plasma television. He remained standing, his thumbs hooked through the belt that circled his ample waist.

“This is a pleasant surprise, Ella. You don’t mind if I call you that, Ella?”

“Hardly, since it is my name.” She doubted he was about to give her a choice or that this meeting was anything but orchestrated, but Brendan had no right to divulge information about her without her permission. “May I ask yours?”

“You can call me Doer.”

“What is it that you do?”

“Probably better that you don’t know.”

“Understood. So why am I here?” They both completely ignored Brendan. It was clear Doer was calling the shots and Ella was the one he wanted to speak to. She grappled with her cloak of bravado to hide her growing discomfort.

“Because I reckon I can trust you.”

Ella hesitated. “I don’t reveal my sources, if that’s what you mean.”

He grinned. “I know, and I owe you for it. That’s the second reason.”

She turned her head slightly, her lips parted, but her eyes never left his face. She had a feeling this meeting would bring trouble rather than information. She wasn’t about to invite the former by clarifying her suspicions.

Doer crossed his arms. “So, Ella, do you want me to pay you back for your little stint in jail?”

“Look, Doer, it wasn’t my intention to help you out.” Brendan shifted in his chair. Ella didn’t break eye-contact with their host. “I’d sooner give the police information to help them make a drug bust than score an interview with an underworld boss.”

“I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that.”

She rose. A glance in Brendan’s direction showed sweat glistening on his forehead. The snitch was probably taking bribes for police information. Her estimation of him plummeted. She wondered if she would have taken the rap for him if she had known of the extent of his duplicity back then.

“I’m already on a story. I’m sorry, Mr Doer, but I don’t have time for anything else right now.” She slung her bag over her shoulder and thought about addressing Rhymes as Detective. Common sense prevailed. “I think we should go.” She didn’t wait for Brendan.

Doer timed his comment so she was just leaving the room. “Judge Alden is firmly in Genord’s pocket. Interested?”

Ella turned. Brendan was perched on the very edge of his chair.

“I want to pay my debt, Ella, if you’ll let me.” Doer sat. “Not to mention, there’s serious crime going on in this city that I don’t know anything about.”

Ella considered his remark, nodded, and returned to her chair. This was not what she had expected. “What do you know about Genord?”

“That church of his got approved at state level, not council, despite a petition with over five hundred signatures from angry locals.”

“It’s nothing unusual for the government to ignore the populace.”

“A great deal of money changed hands, not all of it above board.”

“How did you come by this information?”

“Trade secret.”

“I might have your trust, but you have to earn mine. I can hardly print second-hand gossip.”

“Let’s just say my form of employment cuts across every position in society. My company had that land targeted for our own little development scheme.”

“Nothing the locals would have approved of, I’m sure.”

“You’re too frank, Ella.”

“It’s the best quality in a journalist.”

“Not in my line of work.” He relaxed into the chair. “Judge Alden has been known to take kickbacks once in a while, but it would take some doing to match that billionaire’s.” Ella gasped. Doer clicked his tongue. “When you next see your ex—”

Taken aback, Ella coughed.

“. . . let him know Judge Alden is on the take from Genord. Judge Radcliff would be more sympathetic to the police and less likely to tip that frog off.”

“What you mean is Radcliff’s never taken one of your bribes.”

Doer winked. “Alden’s not the only one. You might remember a couple of workers died during construction of the church.”

Ella nodded. “The coroner returned a verdict of heart attack in both cases, if I remember rightly.” The details were blurry. It had happened right around the time she’d been sitting in jail for contempt of court.

“Morton was my man. I used a great number of resources to place him covertly. He died one hour before he was due to pass on intelligence. That kind of timing is never coincidental. Take it from a professional.”

Ella slid to the edge of her seat. “Do you have any idea what he’d found out?”