'Men like what?'
Mercy's face coloured; her eyes narrowed.
'Well, Jill,' she said, 'if these men are connected to patients of mine, I'm assuming that they had no positive influence in their lives. You know the people I work with are mostly victims of abuse.'
Jill let it slide, but she was puzzled. She'd come out here because she thought that Mercy could have an unwitting link to the killer, might unknowingly have some information she could pass on. But the psychologist was obviously very rattled; this was not the calm woman she'd consulted two years ago, and her last comments revealed she was hiding something. Or someone.
'Yep, well, you guessed correctly,' said Jill. 'Four of your patients have made complaints against these men. Let's see…' she consulted her notepad, although she knew the names by heart. 'Hailey Carter, Travis O'Hare, Giselle Forest and Carly Kaplan.'
'Ah.'
'I thought maybe if we talked about your patients a bit,' Jill continued, 'you might think of something that could help us find some sort of connection between the deaths of these men.'
Mercy walked to the glass doors and opened them. Scented warmth wafted into the room, soon obliterated by acrid smoke when Mercy lit a slim dark-brown cigarette. Gitanes. Jill remembered her smoking the French cigarettes in the courtyard during one of their sessions.
'Jill, I did tell you on the phone that I won't be talking about my patients. In fact, I can't. Unless I believe they, or someone else, is in direct danger because of something they have told me, I am obliged to maintain confidentiality about everything we might have discussed.' She blew a long stream of smoke into the courtyard. 'I'm sure you can understand my position. I can assure you, however, that I don't know anything about the deaths of those men.
'I can say though, Jill,' she continued after a pause, turning and looking Jill in the eye, 'that I'm not particularly perturbed about them having been killed. And to be honest, I don't know why anyone else would or should be.'
Jill leaned back in the armchair and studied her hands. She looked up at Mercy, framed in the doorway, arms held close to her body, her posture reflecting both anger and anxiety. This wasn't at all the way she'd thought this interview would go. On the drive home from the hospital, Jill was quiet. She told Scotty she had a headache, and while this was true, the main reason she wasn't speaking was because of the confusing thoughts chasing each other through her mind.
She couldn't shake the ridiculous notion that Mercy Merris might have actually killed these men. But this didn't seem to make sense. First of all, female killers did not typically bash men to death. And Mercy was a wealthy professional woman. Why would she do it? It had to be something else. Maybe she knew the killer, or suspected one of her patients and was covering for them. Maybe Mercy was just burnt out, and Jill was reading culpability into her exhausted anxiety. She could relate to that feeling. She chewed on skin around a fingernail.
Mercy had articulated the question Jill had not been able to rid from her mind all week – why was she investigating these deaths at all? Why was anyone? Before the interview had ended Mercy had said that someone had done the world a big favour, and it was pretty difficult to argue with her. Wasn't someone out there doing what Jill had signed up to do as a cop? Stopping child molesters?
She shifted in her seat, faced the window.
Was the killer planning more deaths? If another paedophile were killed, how many children would that save from being raped? She'd read once that one paedophile might molest up to seventy children in their lifetime. What was the right thing to do here? Jill didn't know any more.
10
It's unusual for so many to be here, thought Wayne Crabbe, darting glances around the room. He used a mirror beside him to surreptitiously observe his peers; he knew well that people here did not like to be stared at. An eclectic mix of men were scattered in heavy leather armchairs around what had been built as the ballroom of a sprawling harbourside mansion.
A clutch of three over-fed banker types laughed conspiratorially over their clinking drinks. They sat near massive glass doors that in daylight revealed a twelve-million-dollar view. Two men in running shoes hunched together in chairs by the unlit fireplace, whispering over a book placed on the low coffee table in front of them. The rest of the guests – six or seven men – like Wayne, sat or stood alone, heads down, occasionally shooting quick looks at the huge entryway to the low-lit room, obviously waiting for The Owner. Two uniformed waiters moved quietly through the room, delivering drinks and collecting glasses.
Wayne sucked in his gut when he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror. Gotta do something about that, he thought, the ladies don't like it. He smiled, remembering Rose Deloso's flattered embarrassment when he'd shown up at her house alone. He'd counted on her assuming that he was interested in her for more than just the job. Lonely ladies are your forte, he told himself in the mirror, straightening his shoulders. And the job offer is genius.
Behind his reflection, he noticed a new arrival to the festivities. Wayne was always amused when 'The Judge' showed up; he loved watching the famous Sydney QC slide from loud and pompous to slurred stupor, having to use the wall to hold himself up. Eventually his driver would half-carry him from the room, semi-conscious and drooling. Just last month, Wayne had found him on the bathroom floor lying in his own piss. The country's finest. He'd lifted The Judge's wallet before he left the room.
Wayne sipped his strawberry milkshake. The waiters here were used to unusual requests and were hired for their discretion. He knew he too was being watched. He was relatively new here and The Owner kept a close eye on everyone who showed up. Not that Wayne had yet spoken one-to-one with The Owner, but they'd all seen some of his best work. His rape movies, in which he was always masked, were the hottest trade and hardest to get. Wayne had one prized copy, and to get it he'd had to trade 150 points, two of his Asian films, and ten mobile phone shots.
He moved over when he saw Tadpole making his way to his table. Fit, fair and forty-one, Tadpole looked more like he was thirty. With hardly any facial hair and a permanent smile, Tadpole was the most popular teacher at Carrindon College, a $4000-a-term school for boys in years five through twelve. Tadpole had got him in here. He was everyone's friend.
Wayne pasted on a smile for the smarmy bastard. Wayne had no friends.
'Hey, Crabbe. Staying alive?' asked Tadpole, sliding onto the couch, invading Wayne's space, smiling of course. 'Someone doesn't like us. Hear about Dennis the Menace?'
'Is that Rocla? I've heard people talking, but I don't know what happened,' said Wayne.
'His wife found him last week with his head caved in. The Owner's pissed. Word is Dennis had a copy of one of The Owner's rape movies on his hard drive. Yuck. Who'd want to watch that stuff, anyway? All my boys love playing with me. You just have to use a little sugar. The world needs more love.'
Wayne tuned out from Tadpole's theories, and thought about these deaths. That was three in a month or something. Everyone was talking about Carter, Rocla and Manzi getting killed. Apparently they'd been members here for years, and Dennis Rocla was a playmate of The Owner. There were rumours that the killer was a cop, but Wayne knew their biggest threat was always the discards. Kids who grew up and didn't like the games they'd played. That's why Wayne stayed away from relationships. By the time a kid talked, he was long gone. He didn't have the money a lot of these guys had to travel to Asia whenever they liked, or to pay their way out of anything. He'd waited ages to join this little club and now it looked as though the members could be targets. Screw this, he thought. I've been doing this long enough on my own. He decided this would be his last meet.
Pity, he thought, I never got a chance to bid for a live trade. Still, I'd never have the money to outbid some of these old farts anyway. Back to being alone. In and out. No harm done. He could just as easily score Rowies, his date-rape drug of choice, off the internet.