Читать книгу Bleeding Hearts - Lindy Cameron - Страница 3

Count Dracula was making his move on another group of unsuspecting victims. Kit could have done something to stop it but she enjoyed watching the confusion he caused. The tourists and trendies from other parts of town always assumed he was part of the street theatre - until it was too late.

Most of them for instance hadn't realised that the slap down, drag out domestic argument on the corner earlier was fair dinkum and not a piece of performance art played out for their entertainment. Kit supposed it was hard to tell though, coming as it did between the fire-eating clowns and the trio of a cappella drag queens who were now singing The Impossible Dream.

So the group of Professional Things, dining al fresco on Brunswick Street while they debriefed each other after a hard day around the photocopier, presumed the impossibly tall cadaverous gentleman dressed in a high-collared, black velvet cloak doing the rounds of the tables was part of the show. They weren't to know he wanted something from them until he lurched into the only vacant chair at their table and skulled the contents of every glass within his reach, before reaching for the bottle of Chardonnay.

The scattergun reaction amongst his victims was nearly always the same; beginning with laughter at the audacity of this street artiste till, one by one, it ended in righteous indignation with the realisation that a roving drunk had just relieved them of most of the alcohol on the table.

When one of the Professional Things decided it was his job to be more righteous than his colleagues Kit realised a bit of stepping in had to be done.

By the time she weaved her way through the other tables the PT was doing a fine impersonation of a bantam rooster, with his chest out and using his finger as a pecker. Kit put her hand between the PT's thirteenth point and Drac's chest and tried to smile sweetly.

"At last," the Thing exclaimed, "I hope you're going to deal with this bum."

"Deal with him? What would you like me to do?" Kit asked.

"I dunno. Call the cops. Throw him out."

"We're already out. Where do you suggest I throw him?"

"I don't bloody know. He drank everything," the Thing complained, waving his arm to include every table in sight. "Just get rid of him."

"But he lives here," Kit stated.

"Lives here," the Thing snorted. "Where?"

"I'm not sure exactly. One of the doorways around here. Right Drac?" Kit said, looking down at the Count, whose eyes had been swivelling between her and the Thing as if he was watching a tennis match.

"Third one on the left, O'Malley, you know that," Drac replied, getting to his feet.

"Well," the Thing stuttered, "I trust we're going to be recompensed for this."

"Recompensed?" Kit repeated, with a raise of her eyebrows. "By whom?"

"By him. By the establishment."

"I doubt it. You let him drink with you," Kit said, trying to sound reasonable.

"Let him? We thought he was part of the entertainment around here. He's just some drunk."

"And you're not, I suppose."

"Not what?"

"Drunk," Kit replied.

"Hey! We..."

"You thought he was part of the entertainment and you all applauded when that very large woman beat the crap out of her boyfriend over there," Kit said, referring to the earlier domestic. "Did you think that was done for your edification as well?"

The Thing's companions were trying to get him to sit down and even his own left brain, judging by the confused look on his face, was trying to tell him it was the sensible thing to do. But, dammit, that old right brain beast was fairly straining the buttons of his snappy Pierre Cardin shirt.

"This situation has to be fixed," the Thing demanded.

"Justin. Sit down," two of his friends chorused.

He glared at them and then back at Kit. "Look, you work here, you have..."

"I don't work here," Kit said simply.

The Thing called Justin looked mighty confused. "You mean you're just sticking your big nose in other people's business?"

"There's no need to get personal," Drac said. "Besides, most people would call her nose petite."

"You shut up," Justin said. "And you..." His right hand was making and unmaking a fist.

"Who are you going to hit first?" Kit asked. "A unarmed woman, or a drunken vampire?"

"Justin," his chorus urged again.

"Okay, okay. I'm sitting. But if I hadn't already ordered, I'd be outta here. This place sucks."

"Look who's talking," said one of his more eloquent companions.

"I'll see if the management will throw in a serve of garlic bread for your trauma," Kit offered as she took Drac by the elbow and headed back to her table.

"Some people," Drac muttered. "He called me a bum."

"You are a bum, Drac," Kit said.

"Yeah," he acknowledged, waggling his head so he could wipe his chin with his shoulder. "But only to my friends."

"Well, do this friend a favour, will you, and have something to eat." Kit squeezed five dollars into his hand. "Go get a souvlaki from Stevie."

"Thanks O'Malley. And you really don't have a big nose."

"I know."

Kit slumped back into her chair just as Adrienne, the owner of the never-a-dull-moment Doolally Cafe, materialised with a glass of red and set it down in front of her.

"You handled that well," she said.

"No I didn't. I was being a smartarse. And he was drunker than I realised."

"Who, Drac?"

"No, the dreaded-customer-who's-always-right."

"Well, you got him to sit and he didn't leave without paying."

"I'd much rather have strangled him," Kit said, "therefore I think my incredible powers of self-restraint deserve some, let me think, salmon risotto."

"Now?" Adrienne asked.

"No. I'm actually waiting for a prospective client to turn up."

"That would be me," said the voice belonging to the mosaic of bad dress sense that stood behind Adrienne. "That's if you are Kit O'Malley."

"She is," Adrienne said, stepping aside. "Ah, would you like a drink and a menu?"

"A Scotch, with a splash of dry, please," she said. "And I'll try your anti pasto, if Ms O'Malley is ready to eat."

Sally Shaw, she'd called herself when she phoned to arrange this meeting. She'd been brief and enigmatic, as so many of Kit's potential clients tended to be, either through nerves or because they thought they were supposed to be.

But if she's Sally Shaw, then I'm Skippy the kangaroo, Kit thought.

"I'll just get your drink then," Adrienne was saying as she rolled her eyes, which was only marginally more polite than Kit's open-mouthed reaction to the true identity of her new client and the bizarre disguise that 'Rebecca Jones' had chosen to wear. It was already too late to try and cover her surprise, and way too hard anyway - the woman looked ridiculous.

"Oh dear," Rebecca said with a resigned sigh as she sat down and tugged on the multi-coloured jacket she was wearing over a black singlet above purple satin harem pants. "I've obviously overdone things, but I thought I might blend in like this."

"Oh you blend in all right," Kit managed to say, "it's just the hair that's overdone."

Rebecca patted the purple-streaked mass of moussed-out black hair, adjusted her oversize sunglasses and flashed Kit a Macleans smile.

"But as a disguise it's a failure, right? I mean you obviously know who I am."

"No and yes. It was your voice I recognised first. I doubt anyone out of earshot would have a clue," Kit said reassuringly. "Which means it wasn't you who rang to make this appointment."

"No. And as you can see there's not a lot I can do about my voice, so I'll just keep it down."

"Did you dress like this because of your business with me or is Sally Shaw an alter ego to help you avoid your fans?" Kit asked.

"I assure you, this is a first," Rebecca said, giving herself something else to do by lighting a cigarette and taking a melodramatic drag on it.

The Sally Shaw persona before Kit was so far removed from the exquisitely dressed, though always with a touch of understatement, blonde-bobbed presenter of the year's highest rating 'cultural lifestyle' program that her own mother probably wouldn't recognise her - until she spoke, that is. The voice was a dead give-away: deep and sexy; conspiratorial yet carrying a hint that all would be revealed; thoughtful, seemingly intelligent and, above all, perfectly punctuated - as if she was reading life from a cue card. Under the disguise, Rebecca Jones also had the sort of face about which her television director no doubt raved: 'the camera just loves her'.

Adrienne reappeared with the Scotch then hovered behind Rebecca, pretending not to investigate the wig that Kit's potential new client was wearing by pretending not to eavesdrop.

"I promised that table over there a complimentary garlic bread," Kit said, to distract her.

"Yeah? Oh, fine. Okay," Adrienne said, heading back inside.

"I was watching you deal with the trouble at that table," Rebecca stated. "You certainly have an original style of diplomacy, but why did you do it?"

"Why? Because Drac would have let that jumped-up junior executive abuse or even hit him and he wouldn't have lifted a finger to defend himself, because he wouldn't want to cause a scene."

"But he started the scene," Rebecca stated.

"There are scenes and there are scenes," Kit shrugged. "He wasn't hurting anyone, was he?"

"No, I guess not."

"Besides, it's sort of my job to keep the peace around here at the moment."

"Yes, I know. You've been organising security to help the Traders' Association deal with a local standover merchant," Rebecca whispered dramatically. "It just didn't occur to me that that would involve stopping street fights as well."

Kit must have looked surprised because Rebecca lowered her sunglasses just enough to project one of her famous insightful looks - a momentary widening of her perfect blue eyes and just a hint of one raised eyebrow. Then the shades were up again and she sat back with a smile.

"Do you practice that?" Kit asked.

"I do actually," she laughed. "It seems to have a quite disconcerting effect on some of the people I interview."

"I'm not surprised," Kit said. "So, it's obvious you've done some background research on me. Am I being interviewed for this job?"

"No, not at all. I've already decided to hire you Ms O'Malley, that is if you can take me on. It looks like you're still busy here," Rebecca said, "so maybe you don't have the time."

"Oh, I have time," Kit said. "I've finished here; I just like the food. But enough about me; oh, except to say that my mother has claimed dibs on the Ms, so you'll have to call me Kit or O'Malley. Now, you said on the phone you had a problem. Or rather Sally Shaw said she had a problem."

"Actually Sally told you about my problem." Rebecca took a swig of her drink. It seemed now the grand entrance and small talk was out of the way that she was actually nervous about something.

"I swear, she didn't tell me a thing," Kit denied, raising her palms to show they were empty.

Rebecca smiled. "You'll probably think I'm silly..."

"I doubt it," Kit said reassuringly. "I've heard some pretty silly things in my time, but rarely from someone who's taken the step of coming to me for help. Anyway the silliest thing about you right now is your wig, so things can only get more sensible."

Rebecca laughed. "Tori Bennet was right about you. You do have the gift of making someone feel better in the middle of a crisis."

Ah ha. Victoria Bennet. Two time client: first to catch a cheating spouse, second to organise the security gig for the Traders. Kit couldn't imagine how she'd made Tori feel better by filming her husband doing the gamahuche with his secretary on the boardroom table, but people take solace in all sorts of weird things. And Kit certainly wasn't going to tell Rebecca Jones that she usually made light of tense situations to make herself feel comfortable. There was nothing worse than getting nervous, involved or emotional in the middle of someone else's crisis.

Get them to laugh O'Malley, and you won't have to deal with the tears, Kit thought.

"You came all the way from Sydney to hire me on Tori's recommendation?" she asked.

"Oh no. I didn't have this problem until I got to Melbourne. I've been in town for nearly three weeks doing some background research and setting up interviews with a host of artists, writers and musicians for a series of programs we're doing on the Melbourne scene. Tori and I had been spending a bit of time together catching up on the old days, we went to school together, when the letters started turning up. She recommended I talk to you."

"Letters?"

"Death threats actually."

"Not your usual run-of-the-mill fan mail then," Kit observed. "Did you bring them with you?"

"I brought today's little missive," Rebecca said, opening her clutch purse and placing an envelope on the table in front of her. "This one is so tacky I thought it would be enough for you to decide whether or not you could help. I disregarded the first two I got but I have another six in my hotel suite. If you take me on I thought we could meet tomorrow and work out what to do from there."

"Have you spoken to the police?"

"Yes, for all the good it did me. 'You're a celebrity Miz Jones, you have to expect a little attention', quote unquote."

"I'm assuming you threw the first ones out. Why?"

"Because I do get my share of hate mail, Kit, despite my sparkling and lovable personality," Rebecca said with a smile.

"Why would you get hate mail? It's not like you're a current affairs journo who shoves her camera in some charlatan's face demanding to know why you're not getting a civil answer. You do the arts for heaven's sake."

"Kit, darling," Rebecca said mockingly, "you obviously have no idea how many charlatans there are in the arts world. Admittedly most of them are administrators, which usually means they don't have an artistic bone in their bodies, but..." Rebecca wound her hands around in circles, implying she'd have a few tales to tell if there wasn't something more important on the table. She pushed the something over to Kit who picked up the envelope, pulled out the single sheet of paper covered in the standard letters cut from three different copies of probably the TV Week, and read:

Sluts like you give hores a bad name

Putting all loyal women to shame, to shame

Stand back, stay away, keep your pussy well hid

Or Dr Death will visit you and do what I bid.

"Oh my god, that is awful," Kit exclaimed.

"It's okay, I recognise the need to laugh when I see it," Rebecca smiled.

"Good," Kit snorted. "Because it really is the worst poem I have ever read," she laughed.

"So, what?" Rebecca shrugged. "You think I should ignore it?"

"No. I wouldn't disregard this at all," Kit stressed. "I assume this person is not talking about your cat," she added.

"I don't think so," Rebecca said, "but who would know?"

"Sluts, whores, loyalty," Kit mused under her breath. "Did the other notes say the same sort of thing?"

"No. They were a little more, I don't know, polite. And this is the first poem - such as it is. The other notes told me to stay away or die, without any mention of sluts or cats."

"Stay away from what?" Kit queried.

"I've no idea," Rebecca shrugged. "I'm more accustomed to fan mail that says I should be boiled in oil for giving Joe Bloggs a bad review. And that usually comes from Joe's mum or Aunty Gladys. It would be nice if these whackos could be more specific."

"Nah, it's their job," Kit said. "It is the duty of all whackos to be obscure and misleading. If they came right out and said, 'stay away from my Pekingese' then we'd be able to narrow the field of suspects in no time. And where's the fun in that?"

"This isn't much fun," Rebecca stated glumly.

"It's not meant to be fun for you," Kit said. "Okay, first things first. Given the tone of this note, I have to ask, are you having an affair with a married man?"

"Definitely not," Rebecca asserted. "I am in a perfectly stable and loving relationship."

"Good. I take it that means you're also not cheating on your own someone with someone else who isn't married."

Rebecca pressed a finger to her lips while she sorted that out. "No. Yes," she replied. "I'm not."

"Good," Kit said, slipping the note back into the envelope.

"Oh yeah, it's great," Rebecca said, waving her arm to attract Adrienne's attention. "It means I'm getting death threats from an unknown lunatic instead of a mad someone I might know."

"Your dinner is on its way, " Adrienne announced, appearing at Kit's side.

"Bugger the food," Rebecca declared. "I'll have another drink. A double this time."

Kit waited for Adrienne to leave again before continuing. "It still may be someone you know. We can't discount that. Any ideas?"

"Well, I did consider my ex-husband, for a brief moment, but it's not really his style. Besides I checked and Steven is on a romantic cruise of the Caribbean with betrothed number seven."

"Colleagues?" Kit asked.

"I suppose it's possible, anything is possible, but I doubt it. I mean why wait till I'm here in Melbourne?"

"That's a good point. How many people came with you from Sydney?"

"Everybody. Heart and Soul is produced by an independent company. We sell a finished program to the TV network. So we've quite literally brought everyone to Melbourne for six weeks."

"How many is everyone?"

"Seven, including me. We are using a few technical people from the studios here though."

"OK. I'll need details on the other seven - their names, what they do and how long they've been working with you," Kit requested. "Plus, the names of the tech staff and everyone you've seen socially or interviewed since you've been in Melbourne, especially anyone who might be pissed off with you for any reason."

"That's a tall order," Rebecca sneered.

"We have to start somewhere."

"That's everywhere."

"That's a good place too," Kit said. "What's on your agenda for tomorrow?"

"I'm redoing an interview with Darian Renault at 10 am and then..."

"Is that the writer who isn't what he claimed to be?" Kit interrupted.

Rebecca pursed her lips and tried not to grin. "Allegedly, his autobiography is fiction."

"Why do you have to redo it?" Kit asked. "And when did you do what needs redoing?"

"Two weeks ago. Darian had to rush his girlfriend to hospital, just as we were getting to the interesting bit. A false labour, as it turns out. So we're going again tomorrow."

"Two weeks? Was that before or after the first note?" Kit asked.

"Um, before - I think. I'm not really sure though. But why would Darian...?"

"Do you know him? I mean had you met before this interview?"

"No."

Kit shrugged. "There's a posse of reporter types trying to get the juice on whether or not this guy's for real. Do you know anything they don't?"

"I don't think so."

"Did you let him think you did?"

Rebecca shifted uncomfortably in her chair.

"And you don't think that might be a motive for a bit of extracurricular creative writing?" Kit suggested, pushing the envelope back across the table.

"It's a bit of an overreaction to threaten my pussy with Dr Death," Rebecca protested.

"Yeah, well a degree in overreacting is also listed on the CV of every garden variety whacko," Kit observed. "I think Mr Renault deserves some attention. Can I come with you?"

"Ah, yes of course. I'm not asking for a bodyguard though."

"I'm aware of that. But I need to know what you know and the best way to do that is follow you around for a couple of days so that I can see who you see, or rather see who sees you, especially if you're revisiting people."

"Okay. Who will you be?" Rebecca asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Who shall I say you are? I can't tell the truth, obviously."

"Oh. We can work that out in the morning. How about I meet you in the Café in your hotel. I'll bring my contract for you to sign, while I look at the other letters and the list which you will have prepared for me by then," Kit proposed.

The front doors of the Terpsichore, Melbourne's longest running full-time women's venue and Kit's home away from home, burst open as the entire Spangles baseball team and their hangers-on spilled out on to the street. Kit stood aside to let them pass, agreeing that 'yes they were, without a doubt, the greatest.'

Kit paused for a few seconds, just in case there were some straggling Spanglettes bringing up the rear, and then pushed open the door of the piano bar-restaurant-disco more commonly known as Angie's. She stopped dead, hoping that it had in fact been Angie or her partner Julia's idea to apply purple and gold paint to the faces of the four goddess statues in the foyer pond or - greatest or not - the Spangles would be banned for life.

Kit pushed on through into the bar and surveyed the crowd. A woman she'd never seen before was playing the piano, half the booths were occupied, about 15 women were crowded around the main pool table and two of her best mates were deep in conversation across the bar.

Kit slid onto the bar stool beside Del Fielding, leant her head on her friend's shoulder to say hello and nodded to Angie, who was showing off a lovely two-months-in-the-South-Pacific tan and a rainbow-coloured T-shirt that read: I love with gay abandon.

"Well, if it isn't the dyke dick," Angie remarked. "Have you been out sleuthing?"

"That's charming," Kit said. "I am not now, nor have I ever been, a dick."

"She's right Angie, that's not very nice. Don't call her names."

Kit sat up and stared at Del. Yes, it was her. The same tall, handsome, grey-haired woman she'd had coffee with that morning. "What's with you? Since when do you stick up for me, in this company?"

"I'm not sticking up for you, but there is someone here who might not like to hear things like that about you," Del said, raising her eyebrows suggestively.

"I don't like to hear things like that about me. Who the hell else would care? And why would you worry that they did?" Kit asked suspiciously.

"There's someone playing pool, now, who's been waiting for hours to see you," Del said.

"Who?" Kit queried swivelling on her stool so she could see the pool room. "What? Rabbit wants to see me?"

"Don't be silly, why would Rabbit want to see you?" Angie laughed.

"Well who?" Kit asked, and then caught sight of the who that Rabbit MacArthur was playing with. "Oh, my, God! What is she doing here?" she demanded. "Del?"

"Hey, it's not my fault. Besides she's having a great time."

"I bet she is!" Kit exclaimed. She slid off her stool and, with her hands on her hips, approached the woman who for some strange reason was wearing a huge but official Spangles T-shirt over her green twinset, pearls and tartan trousers.

The crowd around the table took a collective step back as the 58-year-old mother of two very grown-up children, used her pool cue to wave hello and exclaim, at the top of her voice, "at last!"

"Mum, what are you doing here?" Kit asked.

"Playing pool darling. And call me Lil."

"Why?"

"I don't want everyone to know I'm your mother," Lillian replied, as if she was stating the very-bloody-obvious.

I don't either, Kit thought. "Why not?" she asked.

"Sometimes I like to be myself."

"But you've never been Lil," Kit laughed.

"Well I am tonight. Rabbit, Booty and Sal have been teaching me how to play pool. Your father never taught me how to play. You never taught me how to play. So I'm making the most of what started out as a very traumatic evening."

"Traumatic? Why, what? Tell me again why you're here."

"She crashed her car," Rabbit volunteered.

"Mum?"

"Well it's true. Don't go panicking now Katherine, three hours after the event. Obviously I am fine. The car is a wreck, but I am fine. I just need a lift home, that's all."

"What were you doing in this part of town?" Kit asked.

"God, you ask a lot of questions O'Malley," Rabbit commented.

"She's a private eye, Rabbit," Lillian said, instructively. "That's what she does, she asks questions. And to answer the last one, I wasn't in this part of town until after the accident. A tram driver ran me into the pub wall on that corner in Richmond. So after all the usual business with police and tow truck drivers and such, I walked to your place. You weren't there, Delbridge was, and here we all are." Lillian finished with another flourish of her pool cue.

Kit raked her hands through her hair and peered at her mother closely. "A tram driver ran you into the wall of a hotel? Were you in his way or was the tram derailed at the time?"

"Neither, Katherine. There was no tram, just a tram driver - in a blue Commodore. He was on his way home from work."

"Right, of course he was," Kit acknowledged. "But you're okay?"

"Yes, as you can see." Lillian waggled her hips.

"Fine. Good. Um, I've just finished work, so I might go and have a drink at the bar with Del, while you finish your game. Unless you want me to take you home now."

"No, not yet darling. Rabbit's about to teach me how to sight my stick to sink the eight thing," Lillian said.

"Good," Kit headed back to Del. "Why did you bring my mother here?" she asked sweetly.

"Because she was mildly shaken, extremely stirred up and could not be left to her own devices. Brigit said you were coming here, so here we are."

"And where is Brigit, or shouldn't I ask?" Kit said.

Del put her hands around her own throat and pretended to strangle herself. "Brigie is either going through early change of life, the longest case of PMT in history, or she is losing her mind. She hasn't decided which - yet. And she may well scare my mind into a very small cupboard before she figures it out. In the meantime she's..." Del hesitated, as if she didn't quite know how to break the news, then she called out to Angie who was at the other end of the bar: "Kit is really going to need that drink soon."

"Del? In the meantime she's... what?"

"She's gone to have a workout at the gym."

Kit just stared at Del.

Del shook her head slowly. "It's truly scary, I know."

"To which gym has she, ah, gone?" Kit queried politely.

"I don't think I should tell you," Del stated seriously. "It's taken me nearly two hours to get over the shock."

"Oh Del, she hasn't gone to Lulu's Powder Puff?" Kit asked, pressing her hand dramatically to her forehead. "She'll be struck off the Seriously Feminist List. We have to go get her."

"It's too late. Besides it's not Lulu's," Del said, trying to keep a straight face. "She put a pair of boxer shorts on over her track pants and went down to... um, she went to ask Mangle to sign her up for 'the works', including that karate boxing stuff. She wants to learn how to, and I quote: 'kick some serious butt'."

"Oh my god!" Kit exclaimed. "Mangle's building is held together by jockstraps and testosterone. The gym is a known haunt for sweaty men, she'll hate it."

"In her state, I doubt she'll notice," Del stated. "Perhaps we should go and get her though."

"Yeah," Kit agreed. "After a drink or six."

"What are you going to do after sex?" Angie asked, placing Kit's bourbon on the bar.

"Nothing. Who said anything about sex?" Kit asked.

"I did, just then," Angie grinned. "And I do, quite often. What about you, now that you've won the heart of the gorgeous Alex Cazenove?"

Kit sighed deeply. "Angie, could we get this straight, once and for all? I have wooed Alex. I still have no idea whether I've won or not. Subject change, please."

"Granted," Del stated obligingly. "If Brigie's mind and body is still in turmoil tomorrow, would you like to take her place and come to the airport with me to pick up my Aunt Sylvie?" When Kit looked puzzled by the request, Del shrugged and added, "Well, it's a different topic and it beats sitting around the office all day."

"Thank you. And I'd love to Del, but I actually have to see my new client in the morning."

"God, another one? They seem to be coming out of the woodwork," Del commented.

"Yeah, it's great," Kit enthused. "The income, of course, is lovely and having a couple of jobs at a time keeps my mind off..." Kit sculled her drink, while her expression recovered from the mental kick she'd given herself. God, O'Malley, she thought. You can't even keep your mind off keeping your mind off it. "It keeps me occupied," she finished.

"You'll have to take on a sidekick at the rate you're going," Del said. "Oh dear. No matter how busy you get, you must not mention that idea to Brigit. She may think one session with Mangle qualifies her to be your muscle girl."

"Oh, I don't know," Kit grinned. "Brigie could always give the bad guys a good tongue lashing."

"Keeps your mind off what?" Angie asked.

"Aaggh!" Kit exclaimed putting her head down on the bar.

"Well, that was your fault," Del said, stroking Kit's head. "I tried to keep the subject changed."

"What, what?" Angie demanded.

"The gorgeous Alex Cazenove. What else would she be trying to keep her mind off?" Del said.

"But?" Angie began.

Kit, head still down on the bar, waved her hand at Del. "Go on, tell her."

"After the shootout on the docks," Del explained, in a mock-dramatic voice, "Alex checked herself out of hospital and caught a plane to Adelaide from where she rang Kit to apologise for leaving so abruptly. Her grandmother, it seems, had taken ill."

"But the docks thing was weeks ago," Angie said. Kit held up nine fingers.

"Nine weeks ago," Del verified. "From Adelaide she went to Perth to 'sort stuff out'."

"What stuff?"

Kit sat up. "Stuff stuff. Ex-relationship stuff."

"Must be complicated," Angie noted. "But then, Alex never was noted for a lack of complexity. You didn't do anything to scare her off, did you Kit? I mean she's not hiding from you is she?"

Kit rapped her empty glass on the bar and scowled at Angie. "I don't think so."

"Sorry," Angie stated, raising her hands in surrender before reaching for the Bourbon. "Well when is she coming back?"

"Sometime this week," Kit replied. "She has to because she's getting married on Saturday."

"Married?" Angie said reflectively. "I see." She reached for Kit's glass and sculled the contents. "No I don't. You are going to have to explain. I thought you were joking about that."

"It was very nice indeed of Elizabeth to give you this jeep, Katherine," Lillian commented as she slammed the passenger door and waited on the footpath.

"It's not actually a jeep Mum, and 'nice' is kind of an understatement," Kit said, as she remote-locked her still almost brand-spanking-new dark blue RAV4. "I refused it of course, but Quinn had already registered it in my name. She said if I didn't drive it she'd leave it in the street to gather parking tickets, which I would have to pay. What could I do?"

"Accept it graciously," Lillian nodded. "You know you could have taken me home. I'm perfectly okay," she added as she followed Kit around the corner into Swan Street.

"I'm sure you are, Mum. But you wrote your car off, and you haven't been alone since it happened. It probably hasn't even sunk in yet. And what if you've got concussion or something?"

"But I didn't hit my head, Katherine. How could I have concussion?"

"I don't know, Mum," Kit said desperately. "Humour me, okay?"

"All right darling, if you insist. Oh isn't that nice."

"What?" Kit asked unlocking the street door that opened into the foyer that led to her office and those of Aurora Press, Del and Brigit's little publishing empire.

"Your name on the front door."

"Yeah," Kit laughed. "Del had it done for my birthday. She figured O'Malley Investigations had been going long enough to prove I was really serious, and that I therefore needed more than a little shingle on my own door."

"She is a very sensible woman, that Delbridge," Lillian observed leading the way up the stairs to Kit's apartment. "Although I'm not sure about Brigit at the moment. She seems to be seriously out of sorts. You two had better keep an eye on her. You wouldn't want her to go completely off her trolley and run off to join a cult, like Valerie."

Kit stood next to her mother with her key half way to the door. She didn't want to ask, but not doing so now might make as many as seventeen future conversations completely unfathomable. She unlocked the door, ushered her mother inside and took a deep breath. "Who is Valerie?"

"You know Valerie, from the golf club. Constance and I went to Yarrawonga with her and Marguerite last year."

"Of course you did," Kit said, none the wiser. "What cult has she joined?"

"Oh that new thing on the Peninsula," Lillian said, heading into the galley kitchen.

"There's a cult on the Mornington Peninsula?" Kit queried.

"Yes, the Cult of the Loony Bins or something," Lillian stated. "Valerie has gone quite silly with the whole thing. She's sitting in lotus positions, sporting the guru's head on a necklace, chanting in mantises. It's beyond me!" Lillian threw up her hands and then turned the kettle on.

"I think it's a mantra, Mum," Kit offered, not wanting to explore the notion of Valerie, whoever she was, wearing a guru's head around her neck.

"Mantra, mantis who cares? There's way too much weird stuff going on these days. I think the government is putting something experimental in our water."

"What? To make us join cults?"

"No. To see if we have the strength of mind and intestinal fortitude to reject their influence."

"Are you sure you didn't hit your head, Mum?" Kit asked.

"Don't be rude darling and please don't tell me you think the government is there to serve our best interests. I was sure I'd raised you to be more questioning than that," Lillian said, her eyes shifting focus as if she was casting her mind back to Kit's childhood and the serious political lessons which basically boiled down to: 'when you're old enough, you can vote for anyone you like but don't ever expect them to be better than the fools who are already running things, whoever they are'.

"It's okay Mum, I know they're all self-serving bastards," Kit smiled, sitting sideways on a breakfast-bar stool so she could lean her back against the wall. "But that doesn't mean they're experimenting on us."

"It doesn't mean they're not either. I've seen The X Files, so I know what conspiracies are out there," Lillian stated as she passed Kit's coffee across the bench to her.

"You are aware of the fictional nature of that show, aren't you Mum?"

Lillian gave Kit a withering look. "Just as you are aware of the rotational theory of life imitating art imitating life. There is always an element of truth in fiction."

"Yeah, right," Kit nodded. "And that would be the truth that visiting aliens only ever abduct Americans; and only ever to carry out bizarre gynaecological or rectal experiments. Think about it, Mum. If you were an alien who'd travelled thousands of light years to get here, where would you touch down? In America, where the locals are likely to shoot you on sight; or Australia, where we'd probably invite you down to the pub for a beer?"

"Well, here naturally - if I was an explorer alien," Lillian said. "But darling, you're quite wrong about the other aliens only taking Americans, although you can be forgiven for succumbing to that popular misconception."

Explorer alien? Kit thought. "I can?" she asked, wondering whether it was too late to have her mother admitted to hospital for observation - just in case.

"Yes of course," Lillian verified, her gaze suddenly shifting again, this time as if she'd noticed a couple of Men in Black standing behind Kit. "They abduct specimens from everywhere. Your thing is blinking."

"They do? What thing?" Kit asked, refusing to give in to confusion.

"Your answering thing. Of course they do. The rectal-probing aliens land all over the planet," Lillian stated, completely straight-faced. Which was a worry. "You think about it, Katherine. Why on earth," she continued, chuckling at her unintentional pun, "would the aliens only want Americans? That is part of the rotational theory in a nutshell. Art imitating life: the Yanks just love to be the centre of attention, even if that centre is in the middle of something grotesquely unpleasant."

Kit peered at her mother, trying to work out if her pupils were dilated. "How do you know this?"

"Mimi Burrage, from my theatre group," Lillian stated, "she's an abductee. She was taken on the road to Ballarat one night last winter."

"That explains a lot," Kit remarked, recalling that Mimi Burrage always looked startled, as if she'd just stuck her finger in a power socket and had quite enjoyed the sensation.

Kit slid off her stool, carried her coffee into her office space and sat down at her desk. She was tempted to ask why these particular rectal-probing aliens had bothered to bring Mimi back, but decided this was not a good time to be discussing someone else's delusion with her mother. Besides, knowing Lillian and her 'facts' it was far more likely that Mimi Burrage had been taken to Ballarat last winter by a retail promoter called Eileen.

"I'm going to the loo," Lillian announced, as she headed up the hall.

"I'll call The Age, perhaps they can put it in the Odd Spot," Kit said, in response to her mother's habit of informing people exactly where she was going when she left a room, to save them the trouble of asking or wondering.

The answering machine counter registered six calls. Kit hit the play button.

Del: "Um, don't panic. She's fine, but your Mum's had an accident. I'm taking her to Angie's."

Kit wondered whether it would have been better or worse knowing before she got there that her mother was going to try and outsparkle the Spangles.

Marek: "I need a favour. Can you give me a call?"

Curious. Since when does Jon Marek actually ask a favour? From me?

Lillian: "There's no need to rush. I'm learning how to crack em up. What? Oh, rack em up."

Worse, Kit thought. Much worse.

Alex: "O'Malley, hi. It looks like I've missed you again."

"Stop ringing when I'm out then," Kit begged the answering machine, as the sound of Alex's voice flooded her body with a rush of Cazenove-induced endorphins. She crossed her legs.

Brigit: "Far out Kit! This is the bees-fucking-knees. You don't have to be thin, you just have to have balance. Who'd have thought I had balance. Well me actually, but that was more of a spiritual thing. Bloody hell - I feel marvellous. Oh. Do you know about your Mum yet? You should see the front wall of the pub!"

Just as well I have a clue what you're on about Brigie, Kit thought. Or I'd be checking your pockets for drugs.

Alex: "I'll be back in Melbourne on Wednesday. Do you want to have lunch? Perhaps you could meet me at my office at noon."

"Oh yes! Oh yes!" Kit chanted.

Hang on a sec... just lunch? Shit! What does that mean?

It's OK. It's OK, she said to herself. Alex probably just wants to talk things over.

Over? What do you mean over? herself asked.

Jeez, O'Malley. Don't be such a pessimist! I suppose you think she's come to her senses and doesn't want you any more? Is that it?

Yes, herself replied petulantly.

You idiot. This is the beginning not the end. She wants to talk first and make mad passionate love after.

Oh. Good.

Having sorted that out with herself, Kit smiled and lay her head down on the answering machine. She'd just realised how truly ridiculous she probably looked when she heard her mother re-entering the room.

"You can't sleep there, Katherine. For goodness sake, go to bed."

"Yes Mum," Kit agreed, opening one eye. Lillian was either smiling fondly at her or looking bemused, it was hard to tell which. She was also cradling The Cat in her arms.

"I'm taking Thistle in to sleep with me. I think she'd be quite disturbed by you right now."

"OK, Mum. I love you too. Sleep well."