‘If the premier of Victoria had anything to do with your foster mother’s death, he is not going to want that to become public knowledge.’ Bunny looked me in the eyes. She had on the this-is-serious expression I imagine she used on patients who weren’t following their treatment plans. ‘I know you don’t like to talk about your past, but you were a traumatised child when Baz took you in. It seems to me that Nora’s death might have had something to do with that trauma.’

  ‘Traumatised?’

  ‘Baz told me that you hardly talked for the first two years you lived with him.’

  I picked up a dishrag and began wiping the counter. ‘Baz said that about me?’

  ‘It was after I’d had a particularly gruelling time in the Sudan. Seeing hordes of dying and damaged children day after day … it’s not great for a person’s mental health.’

  ‘You talked to Baz?’

  ‘Why not? He owns a bar. Bartenders are known to be good listeners.’

  ‘He never mentioned it, that’s all.’

  ‘Baz can be discreet. And I’m sure he only told me about what you were like as a kid because he knows how much I care about you. He worries about you, you know. He worries that you’re not reaching your full potential, that you feel obliged to stay working for him at the Phoenix.’

  It was turning out to be a week of discovery—about Baz as well as about myself. ‘I love the Phoenix. I’ve never felt that Baz was holding me back.’

  I rinsed the dishrag under the tap and pulled a thread that was coming unravelled from its edge. ‘I’ve remembered some things: things from before I lived with Baz. They started as dreams, or I thought they were dreams, but now I’m remembering more and more.’

  ‘It’s not uncommon for children to repress traumatic memories until they’re ready to deal with them.’

  I couldn’t stop unravelling the thread from the dish rag. It meant I didn’t have to see any look of pity on Bunny’s face. ‘What if I’m not ready, though? What if I can’t take the truth?’

  ‘You’re not a child any longer, Brick, you’re a grownup. Baz gave you a pretty stable life—unconventional but stable. It was probably more stable than what I had with my parents’ trainwreck divorce. We all have our traumas. That’s just life.’

  I put down the dishrag and squeezed Bunny’s hand. ‘Speaking of people avoiding their personal trauma, where’s Mitchell?’

  ‘He’s out in the caravan using one of Timmy’s computers. He’s been there for a while.’

  ‘Did you tell Timmy about getting tied up?’

  ‘No.’ Bunny frowned. ‘No sense worrying him.’ She was overly protective of her brother, but it was kind of sweet.

  ‘Fair enough.’ I sighed heavily, then continued with my hangover abatement process of another cup of tea and some Vegemite toast. Eventually I felt strong enough to go and see what Mitchell was up to.

  I staggered through the disturbingly sunny backyard and into Timmy’s caravan, only to discover the two men were sitting on Timmy’s threadbare bed playing a video game, looking like they didn’t have a care in the world.

  ‘Brick! Finally,’ said Mitchell without looking up from the screen. ‘I thought you were going to sleep all day.’

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’ I closed the caravan’s door to keep the sunlight out. ‘I was unconscious. There’s a difference.’ The difference was that I felt in no way refreshed or reinvigorated.

  Mitchell put down his game console. ‘Whatever. I’ve got some interesting information for you.’

  He was looking way too chirpy. I wanted to puke on him, and the van’s usual smell of fake cheese pasta was making projectile vomiting a real possibility. I rode out the wave of nausea. ‘What have you found out?’

  ‘We think we’ve found out who set fire to Baz’s club,’ said Timmy, who’d been bursting to get in the conversation.

  I began to feel dizzy. Mitchell grabbed my arm, opened the caravan door and steered me outside. ‘Why don’t we go back in the house and have a cup of tea? You’re looking a bit green.’

  I gulped some fresh air as we headed back to the house. Mitchell put on the kettle for more tea and we all sat around the kitchen bench. He opened Timmy’s laptop and typed for a moment without speaking. For some reason, the gesture made me think of the Gail’s PR department meetings—but in a fond way. I never thought I’d long to return to those days of unmitigated boredom, but if I still had a job, I vowed I would never complain about a meeting again.

  ‘Timmy managed to hack into some CCTV from the 7-Eleven near the Phoenix.’ Mitchell brought up a photo on the laptop, and we crowded in.

  ‘Someone called the fire brigade at 2am. But look at 1.35am—this car drove past the 7-Eleven. Recognise it?’

  ‘It looks very much like the Mercedes. The same one you nearly ended up in.’

  ‘I reckon Mullett had his goons set the fire. Maybe he was trying to smoke your uncle out, literally.’

  There was a ping and an email notification popped up on the screen. Its subject line caught my eye: For Brick Brown.

  Mitchell looked over his shoulder at me. ‘Are you expecting anything? Did you give out my email address?’

  ‘No.’ My nausea returned, but I couldn’t help but watch as Mitchell opened it.

  ‘It looks like more security footage.’

  The picture was grainier than the 7-Eleven footage and shot from a high angle. It showed a small room lined with shelves. There was no audio.

  ‘I think it’s the stationery cupboard at work,’ I said.

  A man walked into the footage.

  ‘That’s Dickie Ruffhead,’ I said. ‘I recognise the hair. You don’t see a bouffant combover like that much anymore. What’s he doing?’

  ‘He doesn’t look interested in the stationery,’ said Bunny. ‘I’d say he’s waiting for someone.’

  I held my breath.

  ‘So far it’s about as exciting as watching reality TV,’ said Bunny.

  ‘Someone’s coming in,’ Mitchell said as the door to the stationery cupboard opened.

  A woman entered the room and Dickie grasped her in a passionate clinch.

  ‘Okay, too much reality now,’ said Bunny.

  Mitchell leaned in to scrutinise the screen. ‘That doesn’t look like you, Brick.’

  ‘Of course it’s not bloody me!’

  ‘It pays to be sceptical in my line of work,’ said Mitchell. ‘Do you recognise her?’

  It was hard to say with Dickie Ruffhead all over her—and I mean all over. ‘I can’t see her properly, if he’d only move her around a bit.’

  As if on cue, Ruffhead turned the woman around, bent her over some boxes of photocopy paper, hitched up her skirt and started undoing his pants. If this wasn’t revolting enough, I could now see clearly who the woman was. It was Gail. My uptight, pain-in-the-arse boss was having a quickie with the mayor in the stationery cupboard.

  ‘Okay, seen enough now,’ I said, running for the safety of the bathroom. ‘I may want to have sex again myself one day and I don’t need images like that in my head.’

  ‘I think I’ll stick with being a lesbian,’ said Bunny.

  ‘Okay, the deed’s over,’ Mitchell called. ‘Didn’t last long. She’s leaving the cupboard. He’s fixing himself up … Oh, that’s interesting. He’s taking out a little box. It looks like he’s taking a pill. He’s fixing up his hair and he’s out the door.’

  ‘Well, now we know what he was doing without his pants in the archive room. Maybe he got wise to fact that there was CCTV in the stationery cupboard and decided the archive was more private. I hope they never did it in the photocopier room.’ I’d spent a lot of time using that photocopier.

  ‘He obviously had a pre-existing heart condition and was taking medication,’ commented Bunny.

  ‘Bugger,’ said Mitchell. ‘He probably did die of a heart attack then. That’s no help to us. I was hoping he might have been murdered.’

  ‘Well, it does at least prove that I wasn’t having an affair with Ruffhead,’ I said, annoyed that Mitchell had such a one-track mind.

  Mitchell raised an eyebrow. ‘Well, it doesn’t completely prove it, but I think this footage will be enough to get Selena off your case.’

  ‘Who sent it to you?’

  ‘It’s a Yahoo account, and I suspect pjsc97sdk5 is not their real name. It must be from someone who doesn’t like your boss.’

  ‘That could be a number of the people I work with. But how would they have gotten this footage?’

  ‘The same way Timmy got the 7-Eleven footage. People often choose really stupid passwords for things. It’s a hacker’s paradise out there.’

  I couldn’t imagine that any of my colleagues were smart enough to hack, unless it was Brucie—and he’d be unlikely to send me anything anonymously. He loved taking credit.

  Mitchell interrupted my thinking. ‘I really hate to do Selena any favours, but I think we have to email her this footage. As long as you don’t mind your boss being in the hot seat instead of you.’

  ‘At times like this we have to be self-sacrificing. No wonder Gail didn’t come to the mayor’s memorial service. It all makes sense now.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Mitchell, hitting the computer keys with a flourish. ‘It’s done! Your honour is saved!’

  ‘Hooray!’ said Bunny, patting me on the back.

  ‘Hooray!’ I echoed, with less enthusiasm.

  ‘Now, I’ve got some information to give you guys,’ said Bunny, looking smug. ‘I’ve also been making a few calls. I remembered what you said about Mullett’s adopted children. When I was doing my internship, Mullett came into the hospital for a bone marrow transplant. It was a big deal and no one was allowed near him except the top specialists. It was a big secret who the donor was—but a friend of mine assisted on the surgery. I just rang him. I had to promise him a very expensive bottle of alcohol, but he told me that the donor was one of Mullett’s sons and it was a particularly good match—the kind that’s usually only possible between blood relatives.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ asked Mitchell.

  ‘I’m saying that Mullett must be related to his adopted children. In fact, I’d say that they’re probably his actual biological children.’

  ‘It’s like the Hollywood stars in the 1930s,’ I said. ‘Some of them adopted their own illegitimate children to keep their reputations untarnished.’

  ‘Mullett probably did it for the same reasons,’ said Mitchell. ‘Strict Catholic wife and father-in-law to whom he owed his business. They wouldn’t take kindly to some illegitimate children turning up, particularly when he and his wife had been unable to produce any offspring.’

  ‘So he adopted them,’ I said. ‘But what happened to their mother?’

  It was like a dozen pieces of the puzzle suddenly slotted together in my head.

  ‘Oh my God. Baz went to see Sister Margaret for information about Betty, and then he started searching the Phoenix cellar with a sonogram machine! Didn’t you say Mullett used to hang out at the Phoenix? Maybe Baz thought she was buried in the cellar for some reason.’

  ‘It’s my fault.’

  I spun around. I’d completely forgotten about Gene, who was still there on the couch, albeit slightly obscured by cats. ‘I told Baz how my family used to store bodies in a tunnel that ran between the Phoenix cellar and the cellar next door.’

  ‘What are you talking about, Gene?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean your family used to store bodies in a cellar?’

  ‘You know me as Gene, but I changed my name in the 1970s to sound like Gene Simmons from Kiss. My real name’s Gino. My family owns the building where I have my shop—or they did own it until Uncle Nino went senile and sold it to Mullett.

  ‘When I told Baz about it, he remembered that, back in the late 1960s, around the same time Betty Jones went missing, Dave Mullett had done some building work for the old fella, Pascoe, who owned the Phoenix. He thought that maybe Mullett had stashed her body in the cellar there.’

  ‘I think we need to check this tunnel story out ASAP,’ said Mitchell. ‘Before Mullett can get a demolition order.’

  ‘Baz and me, we couldn’t find the tunnel though,’ said Gene. ‘I even got my hands on a ground scanner, but we couldn’t find anything. Maybe my uncles were bullshitting. If we could get our hands on some actual blueprint-type plans it might help. But I looked through Uncle Nino’s papers and couldn’t find anything.’

  ‘I have the blueprints for the Phoenix,’ I said, suddenly remembering. ‘They’re under my desk at work. I nicked them out of the archive department. But then Mitchell got zapped and I forgot in the excitement.’

  I rang Brucie and asked if he could bring the box over before Eve had a chance to clear out my desk. He arrived within minutes of me hanging up the phone.

  ‘What’s going on, Brick? I’ve heard these awful rumours about you!’ he said, as I felt my head begin to throb again. ‘Of course, I know they’re not true. Unless he drugged you. Disgusting old man—did he drug you?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ushering Brucie inside and closing the door behind him. ‘Wash your mind out for even thinking it!’ I grabbed the laptop and showed Brucie the footage. ‘Someone sent this to Mitchell. Was it you?’

  ‘Oh my God, no! Why would I do that? That is the most repulsive thing I have ever seen,’ said Brucie, visibly shaken. ‘Poor Gail.’

  ‘Poor Gail?’ I was stunned at his reaction. ‘Poor Gail?’

  ‘She’s obviously more desperate and lonely than any of us had imagined,’ said Brucie. ‘I feel kind of sorry for her. She really hates her job.’

  ‘Why doesn’t she quit then?’

  ‘She’s afraid to. Although if Evil Eve gets any weirder, I think that could be the thing to push her.’

  ‘Well, this footage is going to get out. Maybe that’ll spur her on.’

  ‘Oh God. What if Selena does one of her doorstep ambushes and then puts it on national TV? Gail will kill herself! I have to warn her.’

  I was still amazed at Brucie’s compassion for our boss. ‘Do what you like, Brucie.’

  He gave my shoulder a squeeze. ‘I’m sorry I even thought for a second you’d let that troll into your vagina. But as that footage shows, heterosexual women are completely beyond understanding when it comes to sexual partners.’

  With that, Brucie presented me with the box, safely retrieved from my workstation, and left again, saying that he didn’t think Gail should be alone when news broke of her tryst with the mayor.

  ‘Underneath that bitchy exterior lies a heart of gold,’ I told Bunny as I lugged the box back to the lounge room and we all grabbed a handful of papers to peruse.

  Immediately something strange caught my eye.

  ‘Hey, this is weird. It says here that Baz inherited the club from a Mrs Pascoe. He always tells people that he bought it.’

  ‘Why would she leave it to him?’ Bunny asked. ‘Was she a relative?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  Mitchell took the papers from Bunny. ‘Daphne Pascoe. She’d co-owned the club with her husband Ron Pascoe and was the sole owner after her husband died. Maybe she and Baz had something going on.’

  ‘Wait. Did you say Daphne?’ I went to snatch the paper, but Mitchell held it out of reach. ‘Does it have her maiden name in there anywhere?’

  ‘Previously known as Daphne Russell.’

  I recognised the name from the birth certificate for Delilah Russell in Baz’s safe. Had Baz fathered a child to this woman, Daphne Russell? Was that why she left him the club? I took the club’s title deeds from Mitchell and hid them in the pantry, behind the flour tins. I’d worry about that later.

  ‘Okay, here’s the cellar schematic,’ said Bunny. ‘You can take this and compare it to the real cellar.’

  ‘The power might be turned off after the fire, so we’ll need some torches,’ Mitchell said.

  ‘I’ve got some gear you can borrow,’ said Gene. ‘I’ve got all kinds of gear that I’ve been storing for … some people. I can’t say too much about who.’

  ‘We don’t want to know.’ Mitch and I spoke in unison.

  Gene and Mitchell disappeared and thirty minutes later, Mitchell returned in a windowless white van.

  ‘It’s a loaner from Gene,’ he said. ‘But I didn’t bring him with me. He was looking a bit ragged.’

  ‘Good move,’ I said. ‘I feel worried enough about Baz without worrying about Gene too.’

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’ asked Bunny.

  ‘No,’ said Mitchell. ‘I think you’d better stay behind. We’ll drop you somewhere safe.’

  Much to my surprise, she didn’t argue. ‘Timmy’s got a shift at the Black Possum,’ she said. ‘I’ll go there with him and we’ll stay there after he closes up for the night. But if you don’t contact us by 2am, I’m calling the police. I mean it.’ She looked at me. ‘I’d tell you to come with me to the Black Possum, but I know I’d be wasting my breath.’

  I hugged her. ‘Thanks for understanding. And if worst comes to worst—take care of the cats.’

  ‘I don’t think it will come to that,’ said Mitchell. ‘But we might find something unexpected. Are you sure you wouldn’t rather stay with Bunny?’

  I knew what he was alluding to. We might find Baz’s body. I was touched by his last-minute sensitivity.

  ‘I’d like nothing more than to stay with Bunny. But I’m coming. I owe it to Baz.’

  ‘Okay then,’ he said, squeezing my hand.

  We set off like soldiers heading out of the trenches—soldiers who knew they were pushing their luck.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mitchell and I got into Gene’s van and set off for Baz’s club. Neither of us spoke for at least five minutes, then I reached out to touch his hand. ‘Thanks for helping me look for Baz.’

  A light rain made the roads gleam like black silk. The street outside the Phoenix had returned to normality after the previous night’s excitement. The only reminder was some orange tape across the doors. I yanked it off and unlocked the side door. Mitchell shone a torch through the doorway. The interior smelled smoky even though the firemen said they’d caught the fire early.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27