Grinning, she sauntered over to the 1990 Magna sedan; once red, the paintwork had washed out to an almost salmon pink, blasted by close to two decades of Australian sun and wind. She hooked an elbow over the driver's side door, facing the occupant, and kicked the hubcap-free front tyre. 'Sweet ride, boss,' she said.

Lawrence Last stooped over the steering wheel, his expression more morose than ever.

'Detective Jackson,' he greeted her. 'Should you not get in, Jill? I don't think I'd be recognised in this vehicle, but nevertheless . . .'

She strolled around to the pa.s.senger side, trailing a fingertip over the bonnet, eyes full of mock admiration, as though she surveyed a Ferrari. She yanked the door open and took a seat. As distinctive as the new car smell, the Magna reeked like a taxi close to retirement cigarette-ash, sweat, farts and unwashed a.r.s.es.

'Perhaps you will not be as amused, Jill,' said Last, 'when you learn that this is your new company car.' The corners of his mouth rose a little when Jill's face fell. 'Yes, as you can see, you have been richly rewarded for your service with the New South Wales police.'

'You're serious,' she said.

Last produced an A4-sized, yellow envelope, handed it over. 'Always,' he said.

Jill sniffed and grimaced. First thing she'd do would be empty a can of Glen 20 into this thing. She opened the envelope and flicked through its contents. Last had run the names and provided her with A4 photos of Aga.s.si and Urgill, their sheets, names of known a.s.sociates and last known addresses.

'So what's with the car?' she said. 'Why am I so lucky?'

'You told me that these men frequent a hotel in this neighbourhood. Now that your area of operation is expanding, I would prefer that you have some form of transportation other than trains and taxis,' he said. 'You may also find it useful for surveillance.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Jill. 'I promise I will ensure that no harm comes to it. You will get it back in the same pristine condition.' She glanced over at the back seat, its yellow rubber innards bursting forth in places, pushing through several splits in its velour skin.

'So what now?' she asked. 'Can I drop you somewhere, sir?'

'No need.' He peered through the windscreen and nodded his head. She followed the direction of his gaze and spotted a vehicle parked in a side street close by, recognising an unmarked police car. 'I'll just make my way over there.' He paused, and then searched her face. 'Is there anything else you need, Jill?'

'No thanks, Commander,' she said. 'This is great.'

'And you will call me at any time if you need anything at all.'

'Yes, sir.'

'You are doing a great job, Jill. But it's far more important to me that you are safe and you're coping emotionally.'

'Thank you, sir. I'm fine.' Well, she believed his words were true, anyway.

The engine turned over perfectly. That was the thing with a Department car. It might look like a junker, but mechanically the car would be sound. She knew that the Department would consider this car a 'paddock basher', at their disposal from the impound lot. When you had Lawrence Last's rank, the impound lot was a supermarket, although it did have its limitations. Full of confiscated goods that were the proceeds of crime, there was not always a use for much of the merchandise. There wasn't, for instance, a lot that a serving officer could do with a jet ski or a speedboat, undercover operative or not. Jill would have preferred one of the beamers she'd seen impounded, but 'Krystal Peters' couldn't exactly roll around Fairfield in a BMW.

She steered the car carefully out of the car park. As she drove down the side street adjacent to the restaurant, she noticed that Superintendent Last had waited to make sure she got away okay. Pa.s.sing his vehicle, she shook her head and laughed. Adam Clarkson, the uniformed cop who'd 'arrested' her the other night in Fairfield, was Last's driver. He grinned at her through his windscreen, his thumb and forefinger forming a circle, indicating that her car was spot-on, perfect. Jill felt inclined to offer him a different finger gesture, but didn't consider it appropriate to direct that kind of message to a car containing her commanding officer.

She pulled out into the traffic on Church Street, and made her way to the other side of the suburb. I am definitely going to have to get this car detailed, she thought, when she pulled over adjacent to the Station Hotel. She cracked open the window. There was no way she was going to sit in this thing for hours on end when it smelled this way.

Jill opened the map book next to her; she would use it to cover her face if she was too closely observed. She'd parked just outside the cemetery, with a clear view of the entrance of the pub. This place was working cla.s.s all the way. She didn't imagine the owners would bother spending anything on it to turn it into a yuppie establishment. She couldn't see the c.o.c.ktail-set dining alfresco on a warm summer evening with this view over the graveyard.

If Aga.s.si and Urgill were only mid-level crooks, they wouldn't advance a lot further with Skye and CK as friends, she thought. All she'd had to do the night before was mention that her ex was interested in buying five grand's worth of ice and they'd been so impressed that they'd even offered phone numbers. They'd told her all about these good friends: where they met them, their going rate. She'd learned that Mondays and Wednesdays were their business nights, out here at this hotel.

Ingrid had been more interested in her mentioning her supposed ex-partner. 'I thought you said he'd bashed you,' she'd commented.

'Well, not bashed, exactly . . .'

Ingrid was drinking wine from a lime-green coffee mug that could also have doubled as a soup bowl. Micro-fine spider veins rambled across her nose and chin; the rosacea of the alcoholic. The veins engorged when she had something to drink. Last night her whole face had glowed crimson.

'Krystal!' she began. 'That's denial talking, that is. And that s.h.i.t can get you killed. I see it all the time around here. Girls leave their bloke because he flogs 'em and two weeks later he's been forgiven and it's all lovey-dovey again.'

'Well, he was good to me a lot of the time,' Jill had tried.

'Oh, you've got it bad, Krystal,' Ingrid had said. 'He'll be back on the scene soon,' she turned to Skye, 'you mark my words.'

'Enough of this bulls.h.i.t,' said CK. 'Are we going to have another drink, or what?'

Jill had held up the empty cask bladder, a flaccid, silver sack.

'Time we was goin' anyway, love,' said Skye. 'People to see, places to go.' She had stood and swayed, held onto the back of the chair.

Now, out the front of the Station Hotel, in her salmon-coloured Magna, Jill thought about Ingrid's comments about boyfriends. 'Oh s.h.i.t!' she suddenly exclaimed aloud. 'Scotty!'

She grabbed her mobile from the pa.s.senger's seat. She had told him she'd give him a call after she'd had lunch with Ca.s.sie, proposing that they meet up to work out. After the fight with her sister she had completely forgotten him. She opened the phone and scrolled for his number. She groaned in frustration and slammed her hand against the wheel. She hated these calls. The I'm Sorry call. The guilty feeling made her angry. Maybe she could just put it off. She was at work right now, after all. She felt a brief flash of relief at the thought of avoiding the call.

But she knew from experience that the longer she put this off, the bigger the problem would become for her. She had completely lost contact with almost all of her friends this way. She owed them a call, meant to call back, but had put it off, and then felt guilty. She couldn't bear it when people tried to rub in the fact that she'd been slack. The very few people she was close to never tried to guilt her when she contacted them unexpectedly after an absence of months or even years.

She couldn't lose touch with Scotty.

She hit the call b.u.t.ton.

'Sorry,' she said, as soon as he answered. Got that out of the way.

'Yo, J,' he said. 'What? You didn't want to be humiliated again?' He thought he could beat her in every sport; they'd yet to find one where that wasn't the case, but she wasn't done trying.

'Lunch was horrible,' she said.

'Yeah?'

Jill leaned her head back into the headrest. 'Are you busy right now, Scott?'

'Good to go,' he said. 'So it wasn't the sister bonding session you'd hoped for?'

She groaned. 'I was awful. I pretty much called her a crack-head. Said her friends were all drug-f.u.c.ked.'

'Whoa. What got into you?'

'Almost a bottle of wine.'

'For lunch?'

'It was Ca.s.sie's house, Scotty, what can I say?'

'Yeah, I get that with her, but that's not like you.'

'It's something I'm having to learn at the moment,' she said. 'When in Rome . . .'

'That's a worry, given the way you're earning a living at the moment, the people you're hanging around.'

'I've got it covered, Scotty,' she said. 'Anyway, I'm really sorry. I completely forgot I was going to call you. I just felt shocking, and I went straight home.'

'That's okay,' he said. 'What about a game of squash and a swim on Wednesday night?'

She'd be right here at the pub on Wednesday night.

'No good,' she said, 'working. Thursday?'

'I'm off to Goulburn Thursday morning,' he said. 'Gonna do some training down there for the recruits.'

'This is new,' she said.

'Gotta do something exciting,' he said. 'It's boring around here without you.'

'Should be fun,' she said. 'How long will you be gone?'

'Andreessen wouldn't let us stay the whole semester, so we're just doing a two-week course. Ethics in Practice. Can you believe it?'

Jill had a sudden premonition. 'Us?' she said.

'Yeah, me and Emma Gibson.'

'Well, isn't she industrious?'

Emma Gibson. Long raven hair, clear grey eyes. A man killer. And she'd wanted this man for as long as Jill had known him.

'Are you jealous?' he said.

'Are you crazy?' she replied.

'It's going to be like camp down there, you know.'

'And?'

'Well, you know, you get really close to your bunk buddies, that sort of thing.'

'Well, you have fun with your bunk buddy, Hutchinson. I've gotta go.'

'Wait! Jill. Don't hang up. I'm just teasing. I like it when you worry about other girls.'

'Emma Gibson is not another girl, Scotty. She's . . . oh, don't worry.' Jill felt stupid; she didn't know what she wanted to say.

'Don't you worry, Jackson. I'm gonna come home and we're going back to that beach.'

The beach where she'd tried to kiss him a couple of months ago. He'd stopped her, worried she would freeze him out the next day, blame her actions on the two gla.s.ses of wine she'd had that night.

'We'll see,' she said, 'and now I really do have to go.' She'd spotted the targets walking into the pub. She rang off.

Well, well. Jill pulled the map book up to her face and peered over the top. There, shaking hands with her suspects, was a new contestant in tonight's festivities.

Kasem Nader.

28.

Monday 8 April, 9 pm.

'Hey baby,' a whisper, 'got any blow?'

Seren had gone over a thousand possible ways to approach Christian and finally she'd gone with this. She figured that an addict like Christian would know that anything could be forgiven when you have to score. It was the only opening he would understand. He'd figure she was desperate, that she'd picked up some bad habits in gaol. He'd have control.

It worked beautifully.

Well, it was either that or the shirt.

'Close your mouth, sweetie.' She touched his face. 'People are staring.'

He drew her close and nuzzled her neck. 'Now, when are you going to get used to people staring at you, Seren?' he said, his lips barely touching her ear.

'I really thought you'd never talk to me again,' said Christian, an hour later.

The music was more mellow in the dining area of the club. Deep, velvet armchairs and retro lamps suspended just above the low tables aimed for the illusion that you were eating in a friend's lounge room. The table was spread with tapas, and a silver ice bucket at the side held a bottle of Veuve Clicquot.

'Well, you know that I do despise you, darling, and if I were you, I wouldn't turn my back while I'm holding any cutlery,' Seren said, 'but I figure, how long is a girl supposed to hold a grudge?'

'I'm so sorry, Seren. I just panicked at the last minute. The advice I got is that if I represented you and got caught, I would have lost my job. I wouldn't have been able to practise law again.'

'And it's not as if you could have got me off the hook, anyway, Christian. There's a mandatory sentence for that much ice.'

'Exactly, so we would both have gone down.'

'And what would have been the point of that?' she said. Fluttered her eyelids.

'I'm so pleased you're being reasonable about this, darling.' Christian covered her hand with his own. He turned on his megawatt smile.

She gave him hers. 'Oh, I'll be reasonable, darling,' she said, 'but we'll be taking up where we left off. Starting with dinner, at Alt.i.tude I think it was.'

He leaned back into the cushions and laughed.

'And next time, sweetie,' she continued, 'when you have a little gift like that for me,' she leaned forwards across the table, giving him something to think about when she left him tonight, 'do make certain that you tell me first.'