Outside, it’s stopped raining, a small mercy. In the portico, he nudges the detritus aside with his boot, reaches the power box, opens it and flicks on the hot-water circuit.
‘Oi! What do you want?’
A grizzled man is coming up through the gate, stooped, with a grey beard, water dripping from a large green poncho fashioned from garbage bags.
Martin sighs. ‘I live here. Upstairs.’
‘Oh, right,’ says the man, aggression leaving his voice. ‘You Scarsden?’
‘That’s me.’
‘Mrs Jones said I could shelter here.’
Martin nods. His downstairs neighbour, a real Samaritan. Lost her husband in the pandemic. Martin wonders where she might be, if she’s all right.
‘You’ve got mail.’
‘Right. Anything important?’
‘Doesn’t look like it.’
‘I’ll get it later, then.’ And Martin walks past the man, down the three exterior steps, through the gate and onto the street. He’s making his way up to Crown Street when a slow drizzle starts. He shelters under an awning, deciding he doesn’t want to get soaked a second time. His phone rings. The screen says Morris Montifore.
‘Morris? Any news?’
‘We’ve got her. She’s safe.’
And the city lights glow with joy, and the rain dances from the pavement.
chapter six
Mandy is feeling better by the minute, her ordeal beginning to recede. Morris Montifore is treating her with respect and hard-faced tenderness, hovering, more like a concerned parent than a veteran detective, making sure she can shower, insisting she gets clean clothes and, best of all, lending her his own mobile phone. She rings Martin, who doesn’t answer, and Winifred, who does. She rings Vern and Liam, the sound of her son’s voice a digital balm, enough to set the world to rights. He’s safe, she’s free, normalcy beckons. A doctor declares her unharmed, taking blood and urine samples, hoping to establish the substance used to drug her.
And then, instead of an interview room or an office, the detective takes her to eat: Chinese on Sussex Street, a small place, upstairs, warm and quiet and out of the rain on this Monday night. He orders stir-fried noodles and honeyed prawns; she gets a long soup and steamed vegetables. Only when she has made her way through most of her meal does he begin gently to question her, starting with her abduction.
She tells him she remembers only fragments of what happened. She recalls a policeman called Claus knocking at the front door, recalls leading him into the lounge room, but little else. A hazy memory of being in a van, waking briefly to find herself bound and blindfolded, then regaining consciousness in the storeroom. And she remembers Zelda Forshaw.
‘Tell me about her,’ Montifore prompts.
‘She said Tarquin Molloy is dead.’
The policeman inclines his head, as if in sympathy. ‘That’s correct; he is. They found his body on Friday. That’s why I’m involved. I want to find out who killed him.’
‘He died here? In Australia? I thought he was long gone. Living the high life somewhere overseas.’
‘That’s what everyone thought. Until his body was found.’
Mandy looks down at her bowl, the vegetables floating in the thin brown liquid. ‘Zelda said he was shot.’
‘That’s right.’
‘How did she know that?’
‘I told her. She was the first person I interviewed, Saturday afternoon, as soon as I got the case.’
‘Of course. His accomplice.’ Mandy looks up at the detective. ‘Why was he still here? If he had all that money, why stay? Does it mean he didn’t steal it after all?’
Montifore says nothing for a moment, watching her, as if considering what to say next. ‘The theft was real; Zelda Forshaw went to prison as an accessory. Convicted in a court of law. You must remember that. But it looks like he may have died before he could get away. Before he could spend it.’
Mandy blinks, assimilating the implication of the detective’s statement. ‘So it’s not recent? He died back then?’
Montifore squints, as if trying to improve his focus. ‘His body was sealed into the foundations of an apartment block in western Sydney. We’ve been through the building records. Most likely he was cemented in within days of you last seeing him.’
Mandy’s eyes drift away. A waitress is hovering by the bar, flirting with the barman. ‘I see. Poor Tarquin.’ The waitress does a little wiggle, as if miming, or imitating someone, and the bartender laughs as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. ‘I always imagined him off on the Riviera, awash with bimbos.’
Montifore gives her a few seconds before continuing. ‘So Zelda Forshaw thinks you know where the money is.’
‘So she said. You don’t think that, do you?’
‘No, I don’t. We got a warrant. I’ve been through your accounts. You’re wealthy now, but we can see where it’s all come from, and how recently. Every cent is legitimate.’
Mandy squirms. She knows the policeman is doing his job, realises the audit of her affairs is in her own interest, but she feels uneasy, as if he’s been sifting through her underwear drawer. ‘So what happened to the money Tarquin stole?’
‘We don’t know,’ says Montifore. He pokes at a honeyed prawn with his chopsticks, chasing it round the plate, before picking it up and popping it into his mouth, chewing without apparent enjoyment. ‘What was Zelda Forshaw to Tarquin Molloy?’ It’s a brutal question; not even Montifore’s gentle manner can disguise that.
Mandy looks him in the eye. ‘She was his lover. And maybe his dupe. Like me.’
‘So you knew her back then?’
‘Not that well. We both worked for the bank, for Mollisons. But she was in a different department and more senior. I was just a clerk, a dogsbody. She was an accountant. But yes, I knew her.’
‘Right. Did you interact with her at work?’
‘No, not at work. A bit socially. Parties, after-work drinks. We were both young. I was
