curiosity and her concern. Price wouldn’t have too many roughnecks like me calling on him.
‘I hope Mr Price’s not in trouble,’ she said.
‘Who isn’t?’
‘Well, I suppose… yes, all right. Thank you, Mr Hardy.’
And that told me something new. Junie had the hots for Marty. But Marty had Sammy and Danni to worry about. I rode down in the mirrored lift and didn’t once look at my reflection. I was afraid I’d think of how my anti- godson, Clifford Parker, had tried to call me Cliffy until I’d paid him enough money not to.
I had lunch in a Bankstown cafe — gnocchi and a salad and a glass of red — and deliberated whether to go back to Strathfield and tackle the woman who’d got away from Tom Bolitho or try to locate Danni Price and see what manner of young woman she was. So far I’d divided the day pretty evenly between the paid and unpaid work. Time to go for the money. I drove to Lugarno and parked outside the Price gates. The button I pressed got me a muzzy female voice.
‘Yes? Who is it?’
I don’t know what made me do it, but on an impulse I ventured an imitation of Jason Jorgensen’s voice. ‘It’s Jason.’
‘Oh, Jason. Thank God. Come in. Please hurry.’
She sounded desperate and I pushed open the gate and sprinted up the path to the house. She came staggering through the door to meet me and shrieked when she saw me. Her face and skin were colourless and I could see a good deal of skin because she wore only a sleeveless white lace blouse hanging open and a pair of knickers to match. Her left arm was bloody from the elbow to the wrist and blood had run down her blouse to her legs. Both of her hands were dripping blood and there was more on her face and in her hair. When she saw me she tried to turn back into the house but sagged at the knees and I stepped forward and caught her.
Her beautifully sculpted face was like a death mask as she looked up at me. ‘You’re not…’
‘No, but I’m here, Mrs Price. What’s happened to you?’
Then I saw the deep cut in her arm below a fresh puncture mark in the spot where injecting drug users probe for a vein. It looked as if she’d hit the vein for her shot and then somehow gashed her arm. Blood was rushing from the wound and she was fighting the fatigue and helplessness that comes with blood loss. I lowered her onto a padded bench seat on the porch, pulled off her blouse and made as tight a tourniquet as I could around her lower arm. The blood seeped, then stopped. She lay back with her head turned to one side and one arm up behind her. I placed the wounded arm across her body just below her breasts.
I stood up and swore as the bruised stomach pinched me.
She opened her eyes. ‘Who’re you?’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m calling an ambulance.’
‘No!’ The ferocity of her delivery stopped me dead.
‘Your life’s in danger, Mrs Price. You’ve lost a lot of blood.’
She had guts or enough desperation to amount to the same thing. ‘Not so much. Mostly shock. Call Dr Cross. I was trying to call him when you… but the blood made the phone slippery. The number’s by the phone. Please, please…’
I felt her pulse and found it was quite strong. With the bleeding stopped some colour was returning to her face and she struggled to sit up. I eased her down.
‘I’ll be all right. Please, call the doctor and get me a cigarette.’
Strong voice now, in control and searching for normality. Good signs. I pulled a pillow from the bottom of the bench and propped her up. I went into the house and negotiated a trail of blood down a long, polished wood passageway, past an alcove where the phone and fax machine sat, to the kitchen where I filled a glass with water. I brought it back to her and she took a sip while I held it.
‘Cigarette.’
‘Where are they?’
She hesitated but the need was too great. ‘In the bathroom. Have you called the doctor?’
‘Next thing.’
I went back to the phone in the alcove off the main passage. A teledex was open with Dr Cross’s name showing. Both the teledex and the phone were covered in blood and there was more in heavy drips on the floor before the trail leading to the door. My hands were bloodstained already so what the hell. I picked up the phone and punched in the mobile numbers.
‘Cross.’
‘I’m calling for Mrs Price in Lugarno, doctor. There’s been an accident and she’s cut her arm severely. She asked me to call you. She needs attention.’
‘And you are…?’
‘Never mind. Are you coming or not?’
He didn’t like it. A lot of doctors become unused to being spoken to as if they’re just other members of the human race and at a guess he was one of them, but he confined himself to being abrupt. ‘Ten minutes,’ he said and cut the connection.
I found the blood trail to the bathroom and took in the scene without any trouble. The uncapped syringe was there, along with two squares of silver foil and a small silver dish about the size of a fifty cent piece and a centimetre deep. There were a pair of brass tongs, a cigarette lighter and a packet of cigarettes. So far, just a fancy shooting spot. But there was also a long champagne flute lying on the tiled floor with shards of glass all around it. The room was awash with blood.
I picked up the cigarettes and lighter and went back to the porch. She was sitting propped up and had drunk some more of the water. Her eyes were open and she grabbed at the cigarettes. ‘You took long enough.’
I helped her get one to her mouth and she wasn’t going to object to the damp blood from handling the slick packet. I lit it for her and she dragged in the smoke.
‘How’d it happen?’
‘What?’
I realised then that Samantha Price was as tough as they come. The vacant look I’d seen in the passport photo was misleading, something she did for the camera, any camera. She was very beautiful and any photographer would have had a field day with her bone structure and the balance of her features — wide mouth, big eyes, straight nose. But up close, with at least some of her defences down, she showed character and intelligence as well. Those big blue eyes had seen a lot and recorded it all, and that luscious mouth was poised for cynicism. The realisation took me back a bit and I was suddenly aware of her naked breasts and my reaction.
‘I’ll get you something to wear.’
Her high, lilting laugh followed me into the house. I stepped carefully, trying to keep clear of the blood although I’d already trodden in a fair bit of it, and went into the kitchen for a glass of water for myself. I washed my hands at the marble, twin-bowl sink and dried them on a linen tea towel. I had blood on my shirt, trousers and shoes — Price was up for a hefty dry cleaning bill.
I went off in search of clothes. The house had three operational bedrooms as well as a dining room, sitting room and a study cum den. Sammy’s room was the one with the pale blue decor, queen size bed, ensuite and French windows out to the pool. More polished boards and a couple of deep pile rugs. I stayed on the boards and took a linen shirt from a hanger in her closet, wet a hand towel in her bathroom and went back to the porch. She’d smoked one cigarette, left the butt burning a mark into the white tile border of the porch and was working on another.
‘Sniff my panties?’
I retrieved the butt, snuffed it out and tossed it into a flower bed. Then I helped her shrug into the shirt and handed her the wet towel. ‘You’re working too hard at it, Mrs Price. I know you’re tough.’
‘You can go now, whoever you are. And thanks. I’m sure Marty’ll see you right, just like all the others.’
‘I don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I’m looking forward to meeting the doctor.’
9
