Читать книгу Thicker Than Water - Lindy Cameron - Страница 4

"It was so gross though, Booty."

"Yeah, Sal. But it was us who found it. We're like the key witnesses. How cool is that?"

"Not."

"Sal's right, Booty," Kit noted. "There's nothing cool about finding that dead guy. What's more you're only a witness to the finding of it - so you're not really a key anything."

"Spoil our fun, why don't you," Booty grumbled. "Just coz you've seen it all before."

"That's how she knows it's not cool," Sal pointed out. "You can stop here, thanks Kit."

Kit, who'd offered to drop Sal and Booty in Gertrude Street on her way home, pulled her car in behind a parked courier van to let them out - with silent relief. Usually intrigued by other people's response to unrelated to them real-life murder, Kit wished she'd forgone the previous ten minutes with the blow-by-blow repeat-queen of Fitzroy.

While Kit fully understood the macabre fascination embodied in finding a body, and knew it would give everyone involved at Angie's something to talk about for a long time, she was glad she recognised more of herself in Sal's reaction to the experience. Neither of them were revelling in the gruesome attention to detail that came with Booty's fifth recounting of their shared close encounter of the end kind.

But, unusual as it was, Kit wasn't going to hazard a guess as to why Sal was not as enthralled as Booty, because even her own lack of thrall had nothing to do with the latter's 'been there, done that, tick it off' diagnosis. Kit simply didn't dwell on it because she knew it wasn't good for her; but Sal only knew why Sal wasn't beside herself with interest.

Actually, Kit didn't know either woman well enough to be sure how honest their reactions were. Sal Armstrong might in truth be seething with curiosity but too polite to show it, or too worried about how she might come across; while Mary 'Booty' Jones could be in such a state of shock that all she could do was babble.

One thing Sal and Booty did have in common was that neither had arrived at the moment when the body became a person. The realisation that 'it' had been a 'him', with a life, was still to come; although, as they waved goodbye, Kit realised there was a chance that for them the two things might never connect. The dead guy they'd found might forever remain 'the body' - to keep it inanimate and away from them, to keep violent death at bay.

To Kit however, Gerry Anders - the body and the man - had to be one, and more than just a homicide victim. She could pretend, all she liked, to laugh Death right in his ugly old kisser, but if she suddenly found herself inured to the death of him, of Anders, then she'd have to question not only her reality but her purpose. Recognising the dead was the only way she could fight the consequences of the bad things in the world that kept nudging against her place in it.

Jeez, O'Malley! What's with the psychobabble? she wondered, turning left into Nicholson. Get a grip. You know that as far as you're concerned, shit just happens; and that from now on Sal and Booty's dinner-table yarns will begin 'we found him, you know, that dead gangster'.

Yeah, she argued. But that will only apply to the other Gerry Anders, the one they're about to discover through the media when the newspapers and TV run this story into a marathon.

Kit shuddered. Oh, and are they going to have a rave with this. It'll be the biggest beat-up of the year featuring intimate, gory, scandalous details of the late Gerry Anders, nephew of Queenie Riley, whose naked body - his not hers - was found in North Fitzroy's soon-to-be ultra-notorious lesbian vortex of sex, bloody rituals and other iniquitous goings-on.

And the rumours... Rife, rife, bloody-rife will be the speculation about gay-Melbourne's connection with every crook and criminal activity in town; while the triple-merde cherry at the top of every story will be the 'exposure' of the city's secret lesbian vampire cult.

"Think I'll go to New Zealand until this blows over," Kit told her dashboard, then remembered a nice distracting something she'd offered to do for Del. Instead of making a homeward left turn into the broad expanse of Victoria Parade, she continued straight on into the city centre grid, then hooked right into Lonsdale Street in an attempt to get near enough to Swanston Street for a quick walk to Slowglass Books.

This was not a simple process. It should have been simple, but it wasn't because there was never a parking space where needed in the city, all traffic everywhere was being diverted around and around the CBD for no reason whatsoever, and four-thirty in the arvo was an idiotic time to drive in Melbourne.

After circling several blocks herself, Kit finally gave up and parked at the north end of Swanston and jumped on a tram that took her back down past the green-domed State Library. Moments later she vented justifiable getting-off-a-tram rage towards the taxi-bastard who didn't think the huge green vehicle's STOP indicator applied to him and, as a consequence, scared her f/f-hormone into wailing fright by screeching to a halt one inch from her knees.

After regrouping - and vaguely wondering how, given there was only one of her - Kit ducked into the sf-fantasy shop as fast as humanly possible. She took just enough time to pick up the fifth novel in a trilogy for Del, but not nearly enough to be seduced into spending all her money on everything they had, that she didn't yet, but really wanted.

Kit took a tram back to her car and then swore at the traffic all the way home to Richmond; in between singing along badly to Roy, then Dusty, then the Pretenders, then the Doors - no, yuk, change the station. She finally turned off Swan and into her side street, pressed the button on her new garage door opener and felt ridiculously pleased at the perfectly timed door-up car-in manoeuvre. Parking at the bottom of the outside stairs to her apartment she noted, for the thirteenth time since its installation, that the thing her remote control opened was a misnomer incarnate, because there was no actual garage - just a door.

Small things and small minds, O'Malley! she observed, and then noticed the time.

"Bloody hell! Twenty minutes to drive 4.2 kilometres! What a serious waste of a lot of important things like...like time, oxygen, brain cells, petrol, life, Wednesday."

No, that was yesterday, O'Malley, she thought. Today be Thursday.

Kit glared at the challenge offered by the back stairs to her first-floor habitat and then, for the usual vertiginous reasons, turned her back on them in defeat. She had no choice. It would be so uncool for a grown woman, a professional woman, a private investigator no less, to freeze half-way up or down those evil planks, convinced that she could fall through - not off - but down through the gaps in the stairs.

That's so illogical and, like, impossible, she reminded herself. Again.

Katherine Frances O'Malley escorted herself out into the street, closed her not-garage door behind her, then shook her head as she was forced to concede: Okay, one person can regroup.

And, having done so, she strolled into Swan Street then stomped in through the front door of Aurora Press and just stood there, arms akimbo, as if she had a dramatic announcement.

"Whoa," remarked the ever-observant Brigit. "A trés-serious individual has arrived."

"Ah," Del mused, "but will this be a typical O'Malley gross-exaggeration of a minor event, or is the sky really falling in?"

"You have no idea, Del Fielding," Kit exclaimed, holding up her friend's book, "how close I came to cactus, by running this wee errand for you. I was an inch and a nanosecond away from being taxied-flat in Swanston Street."

"Oh darling, I'm sorry," Del mocked. "Do you have bruises?"

"No," Kit grinned. "But I do have the lowdown on a late-breaking scandal, ah, in exchange for a cuppa and one of those cakes I see over there."

Del's partner in love and business leapt to her feet with such agility that Kit imagined her ample body was made entirely of flummery. Brigie's rep as a gossip junkie meant that, given the right incentive, she was capable of motion lighter-than-air and faster-than-light.

"Speak," Brigit demanded, placing a mug of coffee and a pastry on a plate on the corner of Del's desk in the same moment that Kit took a seat in the arm chair next to it.

Kit obliged. "I have spent most of the afternoon at Angie's overseeing the consequences of our dear friend finding a naked, blood-drained bloke and ex-crook posed in a huge tray like," she flung her right arm up to demonstrate, "like ET on a feverish Saturday night."

Del was shaking her head to indicate something like...

"What, who? Where did she find what?"

...ah, confusion.

"Angie found a dead man." Brigit was so helpful. "Where, Kit?"

"In The Red," Kit replied. "In a very big baking dish."

"Why?" Del asked.

"Buggered if I know," Kit shrugged.

"Who, then?" Del asked.

"Gerry Anders: late of the notorious Riley family; nephew of matriarch Marj herself; estranged husband of Poppy Barton-Anders, one-time Saturday Show dancer now weight-loss guru; father of three or four Gerry juniors; owner - woops, past tense - of the very hip Moshun Club; suspected killer of drug dealers Mike and Julie Sherwood; and, what else, oh yeah, currently under investigation for arson, kidnapping and a lot of parking fines."

"Good god!" Del exclaimed.

"No such thing," Kit noted.

"Rewind," Brigit requested.

Kit licked custard off her fingers. "Which bit?"

"To the bit about the bloke being naked and drained of blood. In fact, start from the start."

Kit filled them in on every little detail, suddenly feeling just like Booty the Crime Scene Queen but without her nose-studs and cowboy boot tattoo.

"Oh," Del sighed, "this is going to be a brutal QPRD."

"A what?" Kit asked.

"A queer public relations disaster," Brigit explained.

Kit laughed. "Also awkward for our Angie, who might be in a spot of bother with the law."

"Why? Angie didn't kill him." Del pronounced.

Kit shrugged.

"Don't be ridiculous Kit," Del reprimanded. "You can't possibly think it's a possibility."

"Didn't say I did, Del. But Detective Senior Sergeant Parker already has his own unique take on this bizarre little crime."

"But you said the Cathy detective was in charge," Brigit reminded her.

"Yeah, but Chucky's in charge of her and, ultimately, everything."

"Except Marek," Del pronounced.

"Except Marek. Thank um," Kit hesitated. Who? "Thank the Police Commissioner; may she reign forever more."

"Is she one of us?" Brigit asked.

"Who? The Police Commissioner?"

"No, Kit," Brigit frowned. "The Cathy in charge."

"I've no idea Brigie. She only gave her name, rank and that's it. She didn't offer any other credentials and I didn't ask."

"And you couldn't tell?" Brigit was astonished. "Kit, I do hope that being in love is not affecting your gaydar."

"Brigie honey, a woman in uniform is a woman in uniform - a fine sight to behold whichever direction she may head after work," Kit smiled.

"Yeah, of course," Brigit agreed, "unless she's got a face like a twisted old boot or the back end of a bus. Then even a uniform isn't going to help."

"Bite your tongue Brigit Wells."

"I won't," Brigit declared. "Del, I don't care what you think, I refuse to kowtow to the kind of political correctness that denies me my aesthetic sense. Not to mention..."

"But you're going to anyway," Del interrupted.

Brigit gave her woman a snarly look. "Sooner or later we have to face a simple fact of nature that some women are just plain ugly. And accepting that, doesn't mean they can't be our best friends, unless they're ugly on the inside too in which case we don't have to like them at all. But, damn it, if I can admit that I'm fat, then Barbara bloody Juniper can admit she's really fucking ugly."

"Who is Barbara Juniper?" Kit queried

"Don't ask, Kit," Del sighed. "And don't go there, Brigit. I do not want to hear it again."

Brigit pouted but gave Kit an 'I'll tell you later' nod. "So, what can we do to help Angie?"

Kit shrugged. "The cops shooed us all out and told Angie to go home. She'll ring if she needs us, but Julia is due back from her Dad's tonight so I think Angie will be fine, for now."

"Good," Del said. "And what about you?"

"Me?" Kit was puzzled. "I'm okay."

Her friend's head shake was supremely patronising. "Your coffee's having its own private breakdown then, is it?"

Kit looked at the mug in her right hand and discovered, to her surprise, that it was vibrating. Must be post tram and traffic rage, she thought. "Curious," she said.

"Curious my arse," Brigit noted. "You're in shock."

"From what?" Kit was genuinely clueless.

"You are hopeless, Katherine O'Malley," Del laughed. "The things you've been through lately would do a normal person's head in. And now you've just spent the arvo with another violently murdered person and you don't know why you have the shakes."

Kit held her empty hand out in front of her. Ooh, it was shaking.

"I spent the afternoon with Angie, Marek and the Scooter gang, minus Scooter, not the dead guy."

"That's not the point and you know it," Del said, standing so that all six-foot of her loomed over Kit. "Come on, you're coming home with us tonight. At least for dinner."

"Good plan," Brigit agreed.

"It's a lovely plan - both of you," Kit agreed, "but I can't. I'm meeting Enzo for dinner."

"What? Just Enzo?"

"Yes, Brigie, just Enzo. Alex is still in Sydney."

"There is a high level of weirdness in your current relationship, Kit," Brigit noted.

"Tell me about it," Kit nodded, getting up to take her mug and plate over to the sink to rinse them. Having a couple of Immigration Agents tailing your new girlfriend's new husband and therefore, quite often the girlfriend as well, was bad enough. But trying to carry on some semblance of a courtship with the new girlfriend, while accommodating her new husband's predicament was confusing and frustrating. None of which had anything to do with why she was meeting Enzo for dinner tonight, but would no doubt - for a change - confuse Bill and Ben the Feral Feds who didn't seem to want to give up their suspicions about the divine Lorenzo McAllister not being a genuine husband to the gorgeous Alexis Cazenove.

"Yo, Kit!" The name calling was obviously a repeat performance.

"Sorry, Brigie. What?"

"Why are you dining with Enzo, if Alex is not even in town?"

"Why not?" Kit asked. "Also, he might have a job for me." Kit raised a finger. "And, before you ask, no I don't know what it is yet."

Brigit closed her mouth.

Enzo McAllister, a picture of sartorial splendour in a Sean Connery-in-a-tuxedo kind of way, sat elegantly in a Windsor Hotel armchair deep in conversation with a spindly, skinny-nosed woman who was wearing too much jewellery and not enough lipstick.

Enzo's slightly receding, dark with flashes of grey collar-length hair, his soft brown eyes and lilting Scottish-from-Lincoln accent gave him an air of distinguished trustworthiness. A historian and genealogist by occupation, he was also a concert pianist who preferred playing Broadway tunes and cool jazz - which he did, four nights a week at Dorothy's Caviar Bar. A Scottish-Italian, wannabe-Australian, recently married gay man, Enzo was also one of the most warm-hearted and honourable blokes Kit had met in a long time - in fact, ever.

She watched from a distance as he schmoozed his latest client by oh-so-respectfully charming her into feeling like his favourite aunty. Having never seen Enzo in action before, Kit was enviously fascinated by his technique. Actually she'd never considered there'd be this kind of in-action aspect to being a genealogist, but now that she knew better she wondered whether he'd give her lessons in the genteel art of sucking-up.

Not that she couldn't be all grace and politeness if she had to, she just couldn't maintain the charade if her heart wasn't in it. Any client who entered her world on their own pedestal of self-importance, because of wealth or power or other related misconceptions of worth, would discover pretty bloody quickly that any kind of attitude would be ignored. After they'd signed her contract, of course. She'd give any rich bastard a chance, but expectations of more for less would be given short shrift; they'd get no more time or effort than she ever gave Joan Pinter, the pensioner next door, who regularly hired Kit to track down her no-good son.

All that being thought, she was prepared to behave herself for Enzo's benefit. She looked down at her bottle-green silk shirt, black trousers and sensible leather shoes, and was therefore rather glad she'd decided not to challenge the old-fashioned sensibilities of the regular Windsor patrons - this client-one in particular - by wearing her purple leather pants and runners.

"Ah, Kit," Enzo said, standing as she approached. He took her hand in his, kissed each cheek and then turned back to Mrs Skinny-Nose to make the introductions. "Sarah Boyes-Lang this is my dear friend and," he lowered his voice, "private investigator, Kit O'Malley."

Sarah Boyes-Lang, who didn't stand for the hand shake, stretched her mouth into something that looked a little less like a cat's bum and said: "This is quite something. I've never met a private eye before."

Kit smiled politely. At least Mrs Beaky - behave O'Malley - hadn't added the dreaded gender-specific adjective, she thought.

"There can't be many of you in town," Mrs B-L continued. "Women, I mean."

Oh-kay! Kit raised her eyebrows. "You'd be surprised," she said. "I actually know quite a few women in town."

Shut up, O'Malley!

Too late. Sometimes knowing stuff about someone before you meet them is really not a good thing. Especially because Kit knew she was just as prone as anyone to forming opinions based on cliché, rumour and her own prejudices which, like it or not, she did have despite several DYI exorcisms.

But, honestly! Sarah Boyes-Lang could be mounted and exhibited as the cliché of affluent clichés. She was obscenely wealthy, without having done a day's work in her life; had disinherited her son for becoming an actor instead of a lawyer; had divorced three husbands because she was bored with them; had been a highly-financial member of the political disaster known as the TrueBlue Party; was a founder of the Diana Club, a bunch of tally-ho women who routinely chased foxes to death; and belonged to the Wilma Foundation - a group of nutty, filthy rich women whose idea of 'community work' included thousand-dollar-a-plate dinners to raise money for the foundation's own spa and health resort in Daylesford.

The head of the Boyes-Lang family was only fifty-six-years-old which, in this century, was way too young to be dressing, as she did, like a stitched-up vicar's wife. Mind you there was the pig's ear and silk purse thing to consider because, to paraphrase dear Brigit, this woman was singularly unattractive and, oh, talking to her...

"What would you like to drink, Miss O'Malley?

A slippery nipple, Kit thought. "A single malt would be lovely," she said taking a seat. "And please, Sarah, call me Katherine."

Kit smiled. She always kept a smidgen of politeness in reserve; mostly so as not to embarrass other people like the now relieved-looking Enzo McAllister, but only friends and humans got to call her Kit. She shrugged, grinned at Enzo and waited patiently to be filled in. After a lot of very-small talk while they waited for the drinks, Sarah Boyes-Lang finally switched from her superficially-chatty face to her serious business face, seemingly just by stretching her neck and squinting, whereon Enzo sat forward and clasped his hands between his knees.

"Sarah would like to hire your services Kit, Katherine," he began, "if you think they are appropriate for a rather delicate issue."

Sarah nodded.

"If I think they're appropriate?" Kit repeated.

Sarah nodded again. "If you think you can help."

"Oh. Okay," Kit smiled. Get on with it, she thought.

"Sarah's daughter, Vanessa, has been seeing an American who claims he's a descendant of the Russian royal family," Enzo explained.

Kit raised her eyebrows. "Do you mean seeing as in he's imaginary?"

"No dear, he's quite real," Sarah said. "We're just not sure about his lineage."

"Who's we?" Kit asked, somehow knowing it didn't include Vanessa.

"Lorenzo is checking his background for me."

Ah, the royal we, Kit thought. "Oh, Enzo, he's not saying he's related to Anastasia."

"No," Enzo laughed. "Says he's the great-nephew of a minor Russian duchess, who emigrated to America in 1917."

"Good timing. So this guy is, what, American of Russian descent with possible blue-blood? I don't understand why you need me."

"Vanessa met Gregor while in Greece on her way to England two months ago," Sarah explained. "He was, he said, travelling the world before returning to New York to finish the studies he'd begun in Moscow, where he'd been living for six years. Nessa brought him home to Melbourne and they've been partying like there's no tomorrow ever since."

"Is that bad?" Kit asked.

"Good or bad is not the issue," Sarah stated, waggling her head until she stopped suddenly, as if a thought had entered it. "Oh my! Unless they're doing recreational drugs or..." She threw up her hands. "Oh, but that's not the issue either. What I want to know is what a thirty-seven-year-old foreigner would see in my twenty-four year-old daughter."

Kit laughed. She couldn't help herself. "You mean apart from the obvious?"

"Ah! You mean my money," Sarah agreed, pleased that Kit understood.

You selfish old tart, Kit thought. "I meant that Vanessa is an exceptionally good-looking young woman," she smiled. And she wasn't just being polite. Nor was she guessing that even a fifty per cent improvement on Mother B-L, had to at least put daughter on the plain side of good-looking. Kit had, in fact, seen a photo of Vanessa Boyes-Lang at Enzo and Alex's place on the weekend, before any mention of this possible job had come up.

"Well, yes, she is pretty, but..."

"But you're worried about her nonetheless," Kit said, catching sight of the frown that was controlling Enzo's amusement.

"I am. There's the age difference, the fact that he is foreigner and, yes, I don't mind admitting there is also the gold-digger aspect to their whirlwind romance."

"Maybe it will blow over. Holiday romances quite often do," Kit said, giving a passing thought to Genevieve and Firenze and the rain and Genevieve and the passion and...

"They plan to announce their engagement next month," Enzo said, bringing her back to the Windsor and up to date.

"Oh," Kit said thoughtfully. "Why am I here?"

"I wish to ascertain whether he is genuine."

"Um," Kit shook her head, "I don't do fidelity tests."

"I wasn't expecting you to," Sarah looked confused. "I didn't know you could."

"I can't. I mean I don't," Kit stated categorically.

Sarah raised her hands. "I meant, Katherine, that I didn't know there was such a service. I simply want to know if Gregor Tereshenko is the genuine article. If he is who he says he is, then I suppose I will have to believe that he loves my daughter."

Yeah right. Kit could almost see Sarah's cogs slipping around trying to figure out how one goes about fidelity-testing a potential in-law.

"Does he have money?" Kit asked her.

"He seems to."

"Could he be royal Russian offspring?" she asked Enzo.

"Possibly. I'm still researching."

"So, again, why am I here?"

Sarah Boyes-Lang sighed a sigh that hinted it was a sad thing indeed that her world had come to this. "I'd like you to check him out, Katherine, to make sure that his own history is legitimate. Lorenzo is investigating the family tree aspect because it's part of Gregor's story, but I don't really care about his claim to royalty..."

Pig's bum, Kit thought. Sarah's lie had been delivered with the dead-give-away eye-twitch.

"...but I do care about his life. I need to have it verified that he is the independently well-off second son of New York doctors; that he was studying in Russia; and that he was on the Grand Tour en route home to America. Is that an investigation appropriate to your agency?"

"Oh yes. My agency has a high success rate with cases like this." Kit rubbed her eye.

"I feel a great sense relief knowing the two of you are on my side. Hopefully we'll be able to resolve this before any announcement is made. I do so hate being suspicious."

Kit pulled a standard contract from her briefcase. "Well, just think Sarah, if Comrade Tereshenko had come fully-equipped with proof, then Lorenzo and I would still be needed to find out why he would go about the world with that proof in his pocket."

To help Enzo maintain his straight-faced impression, Kit began quietly explaining her rates of investigation to one of the richest women in Melbourne; while wondering, abstractly, why no one had yet invented a lipstick that didn't come off all over glassware and linen serviettes. Or if they had, why no one had told Mrs Richer-than-a-Supermodel about it.

Three hours later Kit lounged against Enzo's kitchen bench watching him in his element - or rather one of them. They had dined together, sans their mutual client, at a Thai restaurant in the city and were now about to partake of coffee and exotic liqueur out on Enzo's eighth-floor balcony. Kit had agreed to venture outside only because the evening was unseasonably warm and on the condition that she was not required to approach the edge for any reason.

After Melbourne's lack of summer - or rather enough hot days in a row to designate an actual season - most of the population now took every advantage of any sign of warmth to pretend that April and autumn weren't already dragging them towards winter.

Enzo handed Kit a coffee and a glass of something sticky and ushered her outside onto...

Enzo's balcony? Kit smiled. That was not exactly the association she usually made with this piece of overhanging real estate. Oh, no. Her true and lasting, tingling memory of this tiny terrace high high above the street way way below, was that night in January; that first night; that hot, wild, sexy, trembling, breathtaking...stop-it! She shook her head.

Okay, O'Malley, she thought. Balcony, you, Alex, sex, vivid! But you can sit out here without the orgasmic flashback.

"Are you okay," Enzo asked.

"Fine," Kit squeaked as she sidled into the nearest chair.

"Tell me more about this crime family you're investigating," Enzo prompted, taking a seat against the railing and leaning his head back into the high night breeze.

"Enzo, I am not investigating the Rileys."

"But you'll have to, won't you, to find out who left the naked nephew at Angie's."

"I'm not allowed to investigate homicides. I wouldn't want to investigate this one," Kit said emphatically.

Enzo looked puzzled. "But Kit, you do, you have. It was because of a homicide that you met Alex. Not to mention that mess in Collingwood earlier this month."

Kit shrugged. "I wasn't investigating that mess in Collingwood, I just ended up in it. And, technically, I met Alex because I was checking out a philandering husband."

"Oh, I see," Enzo smiled, "it depends how you word it."

"No. Private investigators are not supposed to get involved in murder investigations. Apart from which they usually have no reason to. Me? I just keep turning up in the wrong bloody place at the most inopportune times."

"What if this cop starts hassling Angie because he has no other leads?" Enzo asked.

"Then Angie could hire me for any number of things, such as: to act as her bodyguard; to check the security of her premises to ascertain how an unauthorised person managed to gain access; to find out - very quietly - whether a recently-deceased member of a prominent local family had any connections to any of the Terpsichore's patrons; or, perhaps, whether the now-departed had any designs - legitimate or ill - on the business, unlikely, or the site it occupies."

Enzo looked worried. "If the latter were the case, then Angie would have to know about it; and that scenario could prove incriminating for her."

"True," Kit acknowledged. "And that would also mean sussing out the Rileys, something no sane person would do without the backing of the entire Victorian police force."

"Or another crime family," Enzo suggested.

"Yeah," Kit said, as if that was a good idea. "Except it was probably another crime family that killed Gerry." She pursed her lips. "I could go undercover, forever, to find someone willing to cross the Rileys. But they pull so many strings in this town that it wouldn't even pay for their rivals or enemies to shop them, let alone their cohorts who'd know more.

"The best way to help Angie, should Chucky Parker get lazy and try blaming everything on her, would be to work out why the body was left at the Terpsichore."

"Was he killed there, or just deposited?" Enzo asked.

"Ruth Hudson, the forensic pathologist, reckons he was killed elsewhere. There were blood slops near the emergency exit inside and a couple of little puddles in the lane out the back."

"Blood slops," Enzo repeated, pulling a disgusted face.

"The guy had very little left inside him, Enzo. It had to go somewhere."

Enzo wiggled his shoulders as if to cast off a nasty feeling. "Well my dear, it seems like you've given this murder case you're not investigating quite a bit of thought."

"Hey, I was there," Kit threw her palms up and grinned. "And I can't help myself, Enzo. That, and that fact that I'm really pissed off that someone trespassed in our space; that they left a dead naked male in our space; and that the Terpsichore seems to have been chosen specifically to draw maximum attention to... to I don't know what. And that pisses me off too.

"But, as I have no client and no facts other than a dead man in a place no man should be, dead or alive, then anything I might be mulling is half-baked and borderline ridiculous."

"Ooh, you're scowling my precious," Enzo declared. "It's bad for the complexion. We need to change the subject. And we need more caffeine." Enzo sauntered inside and returned with the coffee pot. "Now, can young Hector really trace Gregor Tereshenko's movements?"

"Sure," Kit smiled. "It took Hector a couple of days last month to find the actual bloke in Adelaide that someone else was impersonating in Victoria, so I he'd have trouble tracing the movements of a travelling Russian-American. Unless Tereshenko is a complete phoney."

"To be perfectly honest Kit, I found him to be quite charming. He appears to be smitten with Vanessa and she... What? Why are you looking like you've just had a thought worth voicing but haven't finished translating it yet?" he asked. He finished pouring the coffee.

"Because Enzo," Kit beamed, "I was thinking we should ask those feral feds of yours to check on Gregor for us. They could be productive while they're watching you and Alex - when she's here - get on with your ordinary every day married life."

Enzo groaned. "I just wish those silly bastards would get their own lives and leave us alone. They've been loitering in our affairs for months now; it's way too long."

"Yeah well, our affairs are probably the problem, Enzo," Kit laughed.

"You've got that right Honey, but how long are we going to have to hide them?"

"Don't know. I've never before been party to what amounts to a fraud perpetrated against the government of this great nation. So I don't know how long we'll be surveilled."

"God Kit, I do hope we're not involving you in crisis of conscience, or a moral dilemma from which you may never recover your...your morals."

Kit blew a raspberry. "When any of our politicians can say 'I'm sorry' and explain the difference between a promise, a core promise and an oath that isn't just bad language, then I'll start to worry about whether my actions conflict with what he says my morals should be."

"Katherine O'Malley," Enzo laughed, "You are without question one of my most favourite people."