'Hmm.'
Gabriel led her to a tiny cafeteria just off the entrance. 'You want something to drink?' he asked her, gesturing to a half-finished milkshake and hamburger at a table. He'd obviously started before she got there.
She walked to a fridge at the back of the cafe, selected a glass bottle of orange juice and pressed it, cold, against her cheeks. At the counter, she paid for it and a six-capsule box of Panadol, and walked back to join Gabriel, popping two of the tablets and draining half the juice before she reached the table.
He watched her, eyebrows lifted, as he ate his hamburger. It smelled pretty good.
'Joss was arrested, age twelve, in company with Nguyen, a couple of other juveniles and a nineteen-year- old,' she told him. 'The North Sydney cops caught them stealing petrol from a caryard. The yard had a single fuel pump for its own use and the kids decided to stock up. They filled their car and a couple of containers in the boot. The North Sydney boys released Joss and Henry and the other kids, but the adult copped a charge.'
Gabriel slurped his shake.
'So all these years later, Henry and Joss meet again,' she said. 'Or had they been hanging out all along? Joss has no adult sheet, but maybe he's been in touch with this gang since he was a kid. What if he knew all about the thing at Andy Wu's? What if that's what he and his wife are hiding?'
Gabriel raised one dark eyebrow.
'I know,' she said. 'Just brainstorming. They're not the type. And if it was the case that Nguyen and Joss are still mates, why would Joss and Isobel tip us off about Nguyen?'
He nodded.
'So, what: they're just at this dinner party and it all goes down just as they said? But then somehow Joss recognises Cutter and tells his wife, and she tells us?'
Gabriel shrugged.
'What, are we playing charades here or something?' Jill rubbed at her eyes in irritation. They felt hot and itchy. She took another sip of juice. She thought she didn't have a lot of words to say to others. Gabriel was so odd sometimes. She sighed and continued. 'Why didn't they just tell all this to Tran and Reid when they interviewed them the first time? Why did they keep Nguyen's name from us when we interviewed them?'
'Scared.'
'Yeah, I get that. But they're gonna be better off with him locked up, aren't they? Wouldn't it be better for them to help us catch him?'
Gabriel shrugged again. Jill finished her juice.
'Are you ready?' She looked down at her watch. Already three p.m., and they hadn't even begun the interview with Donna Moser. She wanted to be at home in a bath.
Maryana Miceh held her finger to her lips, motioning Eva to be quiet. Two-year-olds are so dumb, thought Maryana, as Eva giggled and twirled around and around on the balcony above her. At six, Maryana felt she should be the boss of her little sister, but Eva never listened to her. She knelt down in the grass near the wall under the veranda and crawled carefully forward. When she drew close to the spot with the crack, she held her breath. Mummy had told her five times already not to go near the new tenant, but that just made her want to see him more. At recess, Jasmine Hardcastle had said that maybe he was a murderer and he would kill her family in their sleep. Maryana had squealed and laughed with everyone else, but since then, the idea made her feel kind of like she had worms in her tummy. Standing up slowly in the grass near the wall, her tummy felt fluttery, like the worms had hatched into moths. She heard Eva singing 'Jingle Bells' above her.
Ooh! He's got tattoos, was the first thing that Maryana thought. She pressed her eye closer to the crack in the wall. She wasn't sure what he was doing, but it looked like it had to hurt. Maybe he was sick? He was lying on his bed with his hands on his stomach and it was all bloody!
'Maryana!'
At her mother's voice, the squeal slipped out before she could stop it, and Maryana ran as fast as she could. She felt as though a dragon were chasing her, and when she arrived, flushed and panting in the kitchen, her mother asked her what was wrong.
'Nothing,' she said, mouth turned down, shifting from foot to foot.
Karen Miceh looked twice at her little girl, then bent to pick up Eva, still singing. She put her arm on Maryana's shoulder and led them to the front door.
'Girls,' she said, 'Kylie and James are here from next door. They want to know if we've seen Buffy. He's gone missing.'
'I've never done this before,' said Chloe, propped up in the bed, Andrew's white quilt clutched to her chest.
'Well, you seemed to know what you were doing.'
Andrew ducked when she threw a pillow at his head. He had a towel slung low around his flat stomach.
'Not that, stupid!' she said. 'I mean I've never gone to bed with someone when I've known them less than a week.'
'Actually,' Andrew looked at his watch, 'we met almost exactly seventy-two hours ago.'
Chloe groaned. 'Don't rub it in,' she said, but she felt kind of pleased that he'd memorised the time of their first meeting.
'What are you gonna do while I'm at work today?' he asked, opening a cupboard and pulling out an ironed shirt.
The uniform. Chloe smiled widely and leaned back against the bed head to watch.
'You'd better stop looking at me like that,' he said. 'I can't be late to work today.'
'Anything happen with that name that came through on Thursday?' she asked, wondering if he'd tell her anything else about the anonymous call.
'Yep,' he said, buttoning his shirt. 'They think it's one of them.'
'The home invasion gang? You're shitting me! How do you know?'
He grinned at her. She'd leaned forward, all attention, forgetting about the quilt. She clutched it to her chest again, red-faced.
'A few of us got a memo,' he said. 'There's a rotating shift to watch this guy's last known address. We got instructions not to approach; it's just surveillance right now. At least this nutjob's good for something – me and Hendo pulled tonight's watch. Should be some good overtime.'
'What's his name?'
He looked at her sideways.
'Henry,' he said.
'Go on! Henry what?'
'Yeah, good try, beautiful. That, I'm not gonna tell you. Now come over here and give me a hand. I've got a bit of a problem with this towel.'
At four o'clock, Donna Moser's godparents arrived at the hospital and, seeing her distress, asked Jill and Gabriel to leave. They had arranged for Donna to be moved from Liverpool Hospital to this private psychiatric clinic. They were now the only family that she had – an only child, her mother had died of breast cancer when Donna was in her first year of high school.
Donna had told Jill and Gabriel that her godparents, Eugene Moser's business partner and his wife, had asked her to live with them and their sons in Strathfield. She wasn't yet sure what she was going to do. She and her father had only just moved into the house in Capitol Hill, working together with an architect and designer to incorporate the features they wanted in their home, but right now, she didn't want anything to do with the property.
It's good that she has some choices at least, thought Jill – Donna Moser had just inherited fifty per cent of a multimillion-dollar metal fabrication business.
As they left the room, Jill could see a male nurse gently try to encourage the pale, hollow-eyed girl to take some medication. Donna stared into space, tears coursing unchecked. Jill knew she and Gabe had pressed play on the animation reel of her father's murder. She imagined that the soundtrack was the worst part.
'Do you want to come over to my house?' Gabriel asked Jill as they stood in the carpark.
'What? No. Why?'
