‘How the mighty have fallen.’

‘Have you always been such a jerk, or has it taken a lifetime of cultivation?’

He gave a small grunt of what might have been amusement.

They turned from Thomas Street onto Stirling Highway. The university’s clock tower glowed brighter than the moon. Stevie’s thoughts jumped from Jon Pavel to Skye as the car idled at a red light. Perhaps now was finally the right time to ask Fowler what had happened between them. People tended to find it easier to talk in a car, especially when it was dark.

She voiced the question. He turned his head away from her toward a garrulous group of students near a bus stop, playing soccer with an empty beer can. His shoulders moved as he took a breath to speak, stopped, as if changing his mind and thinking better of it.

‘Go on,’ Stevie prompted gently.

‘I suppose you have a right to know, she was your friend after all.’ He let out a resigned sigh. Stevie took off from the lights and proceeded down the highway just under the speed limit. Mrs Hardegan’s was only a few kays from here and she knew he’d need time for this.

‘We’d been going out for a few months,’ he said at last. ‘I thought we were getting on well. I liked being with her; it was more than the sex, you know? She made me laugh, I always felt, well, lighter when I was with her. I think she liked me too. I helped her with things, boring things she couldn’t be bothered with like finance for her first car, tax forms, that kind of thing. Her landlord was giving her some hassles so I had a word with him and got her out of the shit. Even took her to Bali for a short break.’

You were being used, mate, Stevie thought. That was the contradiction that was Skye—kind, considerate and compassionate to everything and everyone except the men in her life.

‘She also took me home to the family farm to meet her folks. I mean, that’s a good sign isn’t it?’

Stevie kept her eyes on the road, nodded.

‘One night I called round to her place on spec and caught her at it with a guy in her flat.’ He returned to the view from the passenger window. ‘I tried not to yell, asked her calmly who he was. She said she didn’t know and then she smiled. The smile triggered something in me that I couldn’t help. I lost it, grabbed the guy, was going to beat his brains out, but he pulled a knife from the bedside table before I could get the first punch in.’

Stevie frowned and indicated to the scar on the right side of his cheek. ‘Is that how you got that?’

He turned back to her, brushed the scar with the tips of his fingers, seemed surprised by her question. ‘That? Oh, no—a dodgy mole. I think the surgeon must’ve been drunk.’

She hoped the darkness of the car’s interior would hide her smile—some Action Man.

‘No, I didn’t do anything once I saw the knife,’ he continued. ‘Turned my back on the pair of them and walked out. Skye laughed, I’ll never forget that sound, it followed me all the way down the stairwell...’

Stevie bit her lip and concentrated on her driving.

‘But that’s no excuse for me ignoring her assault complaint,’ he added.

‘No, it’s not.’

They turned into Mrs Hardegan’s long street. Federation mansions, modern reproductions and concrete houses with flat roofs cast shadows over the remaining stunted originals. An architectural survival of the fittest, Stevie decided as she regarded the quiet street. The buildings in it were as competitive for space as trees in a rainforest.

Fowler filled Stevie in on the details of the Marius and Rodika interviews. ‘After a bit of prompting they both admitted to suspecting that Pavel and Hardegan were in the skin trade, although both denied any involvement with that side of the business. Legitimately, they were on a pretty good wicket anyway, didn’t need to break the law. Rodika was apparently Delia’s cousin and an old employee of Pavel’s from their Romanian days.’

‘No surprises there, an old tart if ever I saw one—I wonder why she didn’t speak up and claim the baby: she is his only next of kin.’

‘Because she knew she’d be questioned, I guess. She wasn’t involved in Pavel’s people trafficking, but she was still here illegally. If the immigration authorities found out she’d got into the country on false papers, she’d have been deported. She probably will be now, anyway.’

‘If Rodika is Delia’s cousin,’ Stevie said after she’d driven another block, ‘she must know something about the baby’s origins. Surely Delia confided in her? The poor woman had no other friends or family in this country.’

‘I asked Rodika that, but all she said was that as far as she knew he was legally adopted from Thailand.’

‘Are the results back on her prints?’

‘Yes, but they don’t match those found in the baby’s room.’

‘Bugger, but it was worth a try. And Marius,’ she asked. ‘How involved is he?’

‘He knew what they were up to all right, but won’t admit it, probably just turned a blind eye. He’s very keen on the restaurant and club. I get the feeling he’ll be approaching his bank for a loan provided he’s cleared of any involvement with the traffickers. Reckon he’s secretly delighted about all this.’

Stevie tapped her fingers against the steering wheel and thought for a moment. ‘Do they have any idea who else is behind the trafficking operation?’

‘Only that they are very powerful, unscrupulous operators.’

She told Fowler what she had learned from Col Zimmel about The Crow and Mamasan. He listened with interest. ‘So you think Pavel and Hardegan had been doing the dirty on the Mamasan, ripping her off?’

‘At first I thought they’d both been singled out for some kind of retribution. Now I’m wondering if Pavel escaped before they got to him, and left Hardegan to carry the can.’ She continued to dwell on the matter. ‘Did anyone check further into that house fire from last year?’

‘Don’t think so.’

‘Then find out as much as you can, contact the arson squad. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Mamasan was behind that too. If Pavel was as valuable to her as Col thinks he was, she might have thought she could just pull him into line with a warning. There’s a chance she even let him go this time, just killing his wife instead.’

Fowler paused. ‘You always this bossy, Hooper?’

His earlier humility seemed to have disappeared, she noticed. She ignored him, busy concentrating on another thought tugging at her mind, one that hadn’t left since the whole business had started. ‘And the baby—has anyone found out how they managed to acquire him?’

‘Not sure.’

‘Then find that out too.’

‘Yes, ma’am,’ he saluted—still the same old dickhead.

‘But what about the book-cooking?’ she asked.

‘Marius is feigning ignorance, blaming Pavel.’

‘He’ll probably get away with it too.’ Stevie drew up outside Mrs Hardegan’s. Someone nearby had been burning leaves in their backyard, filling the air with a smoky tang. She found her gaze drawn to the empty shell of the Pavel’s house and thought of The Crow. Her mouth dried. ‘I guess there’s a lot worse people in the world than Dominic Marius,’ she said. (Image 21.1)

Image 21.1

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

To save Mrs Hardegan the effort of walking to open the front door, Stevie and Fowler approached the house through the neat back garden, down a crazy paving pathway bordered with terracotta pots of blooming geraniums.

Mrs Hardegan appeared to be asleep in her chair, but sat bolt upright at the sound of Stevie’s tap upon the glass. Stevie called from the other side of the window and asked if they could come in. The old lady heaved herself up and opened the back door, white hair awry, skin paper-pale.

They apologised for waking her.

‘We weren’t sleeping,’ Mrs Hardegan said, ‘We were writing a letter.’