'Jackson. You still there?
'Yes, Scotty. I'm still here. You don't always win, you know.' She found herself almost whispering.
'What are you doing now? I could whip your arse with a game of squash and then we could have a swim?' He cleared his throat. 'Or, maybe we could get something to eat?'
Jill's stomach lurched a little at the sudden vulnerability in his voice.
'I, ah, I already ate. I just finished working.' Why did she feel guilty?
Right then, Gabriel called from the kitchen.
'Jill, you want some ice-cream?'
'Ice-cream,' said Scotty. 'Working hard?'
'I said I just finished.'
'Uh huh. So who was that?'
'Gabriel Delahunt. New partner.'
'Gabriel,' said Scotty. 'Girl's name.'
Jill sighed. Oh for goodness' sake. 'Look, I was just about to head home. I think I caught a cold today. I just want to get to bed.'
'Yeah, well, don't let me keep you, Jill. I'll catch you later.'
'I'll call you next week.' She closed her phone.
'I think we should go to Balmain first thing Monday morning,' Gabriel said when she joined him in the kitchen. 'Speak to Joss and Isobel before they go to work. What do you reckon?'
'Yep. Good idea,' she answered sleepily. She drained her cup.
'So, you want some dessert?'
'No thanks, Gabriel.' Her voice sounded formal to her ears, and she felt suddenly shy, then annoyed that she should feel this way. 'I'm going to head home.'
'No worries. So, we'll make it six on Monday then?'
She nodded and moved to leave, determined to get out of there, her thoughts churning. Why did she feel like she was cheating on Scotty when she didn't think of him that way? And why should she feel like she was cheating at all when she barely knew Gabriel? They'd only eaten together, for heaven's sake.
She climbed into her car and threw her bag onto the seat next to her. That's why it's easier not to get too close to people, she told herself. These confusing feelings.
She buzzed her window all the way down as she drove, the evening breeze helping to dispel some of the dullness that smudged her senses. She still could not believe she'd fallen asleep in someone else's house.
Not counting her parents' home, that was a first.
Chloe returned to the house in Cabramatta at eight-thirty that night. The black Magna had left and she could see a green late-model Falcon sitting in its place. She chewed her lip.
What was the good of knowing about this place if she didn't get some more on this guy? Investigative journalists are like detectives, she reminded herself. They've got to have a cover and they've got to take some risks.
She knew by the end of this year there'd be a hundred new journalism graduates hungry to take her spot. That was not going to happen. Chloe got out of her car and opened the gate out the front of the small fibro house.
Cutter's house.
Mrs Tu Ly Nguyen wasn't sure what she should do. Although her English was limited, she knew enough to know that this lovely young girl wanted to speak to Henry. Henry had always told her never to speak to anyone about him. And her daughter-in-law and children were out visiting this evening.
It would be best to say nothing, to close the door, and she determined to do so. She sighed. The girl was so pretty.
Mrs Nguyen worried so much about her first-born grandson. He should have had a wife, a family by now to take care of him. She had hated leaving him in that room under the stairs. He should have more friends like this one.
She looked up at the girl on the porch. So tall. So beautiful! Something told her she could trust this girl. But she worried that Henry would be angry. She sighed.
Certain now that she was doing the right thing, Cutter's grandmother turned away from the door and walked back into the house.
She returned thirty seconds later with a piece of paper and an orange.
Mrs Tu Ly Nguyen pressed the fruit and the scrap of cardboard into Chloe's hand. Upon the paper was scribbled an address. A street number in Baulkham Hills.
No one should live under the stairs, Mrs Nguyen thought, shuffling back inside to pray to her ancestors at her shrine.
27
KAREN MICEH WAS torn. Her parents had taught her to share, to treat others with respect, and she wanted to pass the same morals on to her daughters. It was Henry's first weekend living downstairs, and before she'd met him she'd always intended to invite the new tenant to Sunday lunch with her, her brother Ken and the girls. She and Ken had kept the Sunday ritual going after their parents died, although her dropkick husband had often stuffed things up by getting stoned and trying to start an argument with her brother or hitting on whichever girl Ken might have been seeing at the time. The lunches since Eddie had been gone had been lovely. She had thought that inviting the new tenant along would be a pleasant addition to their party. She loved to cook.
But then she'd met Henry. Something about him made her uneasy, although she felt guilty about that. Her grandmother had always told her not to judge people by their appearance alone, and she tried to live by that saying, finding that she'd met many beautiful people who maybe hadn't seemed respectable at first glance. When she'd seen Henry with his hair tied back for the first time, his tattoos visible, she had freaked. But it wasn't just the tattoos – even Ken had tattoos – although the beautiful tiger on Ken's deltoid was hardly the same thing as spiders on one's neck, she thought. She hoped that she wasn't a closet racist. She'd heard you could be such a thing without even knowing. Her good friend, Jamie, who was a lesbian, had told her that, saying that even members of the gay community could be closet homophobes. Ashamed of their own sexuality, even when they were out and supposedly proud! Imagine that.
That decided her at last. Karen had always prided herself on denouncing racism, and if it did turn out to be bigotry that was holding her back from giving this man a chance, then she'd face it and fix it.
Besides, she thought, twisting at the hem of her apron, it would give Ken a chance to meet Henry, to see what he thought.
Karen stood at the door a few moments before knocking. She was pretty sure he was in there – her front gate made an awful squeak when it was opened, and she hadn't heard it this morning, so she reasoned that he couldn't have gone out. She raised her hand to knock, and then lowered it again, her stomach flip-flopping.
She looked around her yard, stalling. It was a beautiful day. The sun was warm and she could hear the bees in the lemon tree. She had to get the first load out on the line soon and get on with the day, or no one was going to be eating lunch. She stepped closer to the door and knocked firmly.
'Henry,' she spoke to the door, smiling. 'I wonder, have you got a minute?'
She suddenly worried that he could be asleep, and she could have slapped herself. It hadn't occurred to her that someone could still be asleep at ten o'clock in the morning. She hadn't slept that late since she was a teenager. But it was Sunday morning, she chastised herself – not everyone is up at six o'clock like her.
'I can wait,' she sang through the door. 'I'll wait for a moment. I just wanted to invite you to lunch.'
She heard nothing from behind the thick door and thought about retreating. Maybe he was coming, though; she must've already woken him up. She remembered when she'd been painting the room that sounds from outside
