43.

Friday 12 April, 10 pm.

Jill smeared at the mascara with a cottonwool ball. She looked like a panda. Kasem wouldn't be so keen to take her out again if he saw her like this. Then again, remembering the intensity in his eyes as he'd leaned into her to say goodbye, her spine pressed hard against his car, she figured he wouldn't notice a bit of smudged make-up. She wondered what would have happened if Jelly hadn't chosen that moment to lose it, shouting at them that he wanted to go home. Actually, she knew what would have happened, and it freaked her out. Intimate contact with any man could panic her, send her nervous system scuttling back down memory lane to when such a touch meant terrible pain. How would she react if Kasem Nader tried to kiss her?

She brushed her teeth and stared into the bathroom mirror, beyond her reflection. It was strange, but pinned against the car she hadn't felt distressed at all. She thought back to the moment. The street and all its sounds had seemed to disappear, and she'd felt coc.o.o.ned with him in a trancelike state. When he'd inclined further towards her, she'd felt her hips tilt up to meet his.

Oh f.u.c.k, Jill thought now. That wasn't good. She turned on the cold tap and doused her hot cheeks. It was the Krystal Peters thing, she decided. It had started this morning, putting on the costume, becoming another woman with another life, another history, who had different predilections and attractions. Who hadn't been defiled by two men in a bas.e.m.e.nt.

Or maybe it was the wine. She shouldn't have had anything to drink.

She turned from the mirror. What the h.e.l.l. What's done is done, she thought. She'd better call it in.

She took her mobile into the centre of the apartment, furthest away from the insubstantial walls, and dialled Superintendent Last's number.

'Jill, I'm pleased you called,' he said. 'Did you pick up a mobile phone to take Damien's calls?'

'Yes sir. I'll be meeting him at Sydney Uni tomorrow. Gabriel will be there.'

'Excellent. You're okay with working with Delahunt again, I trust.'

'Yep.'

'Good. Good. Now, I want to let you know what we're doing on our end,' he said. 'As you know, we can't afford to leave a drug lab in operation in the suburbs for too long. They're okaying it for the time being, but it's going to be a day by day thing, and we could be told to shut it all down at any time.'

'I understand,' she said, 'but it would be a pity if that meant losing the networks a.s.sociated with it. We could take down the whole web.'

'I know. I'm keen to do that too, and if Gabriel is correct in his hunch that this Kasem Nader is importing precursor chemicals, it would be a particularly important takedown.'

Jill paused a moment. She should tell her commander what she'd been doing today. Before she could, he spoke again.

'The commissioner wants a listening device in there, Jill. We're going in tomorrow.'

'What about Damien's accomplices?'

'We'd like you to ask him to do something about that. We'll need twenty minutes to install the LD. Half an hour would be good. We want to do it tomorrow after nine pm. Damien will have to think of a way to get them out of there for at least that amount of time. But the problem is Nader,' he said. 'Damien has no control over him.'

'Well, actually,' said Jill, 'I went out to lunch today with Kasem Nader.'

'To lunch.'

'Yes,' she said. 'To Bondi. He told me he had to pick something up. He left me for around fifteen minutes, so I couldn't determine what that was. He took and made around ten to twelve calls. Very brief conversations, often just yes or no. Sounded maybe like deals being made.'

'That's good work,' said Last. 'And you felt safe enough with him?'

How do I answer that? she thought. 'It was fine.'

'You went to lunch as Krystal Peters, of course?'

'Of course.'

'Okay. Well, that's a new development,' said Last.

Here we go, she thought, no backing out now. 'I can keep him away from the house tomorrow night,' she said.

'You can?'

'He's asked me to dinner. I'll accept, and make sure we don't go anywhere near Merrylands.'

Last was silent for a few seconds. 'You haven't had a situation like this come up while you've been undercover, Jill,' he said finally.

'A situation like what?'

'Well,' he cleared his throat, 'a potential love interest for Krystal.'

'I'll be right,' she said.

'And if Nader wants to . . . develop the relationship?'

'I'll handle it,' said Jill.

44.

Sat.u.r.day 13 April, 10 am.

'What do you even need me for, then?' asked Damien.

Jill smiled at the young man in front of her. He had a scattering of pimples across his chin, and his cheeks still had that adolescent chubbiness. 'What are you, nineteen?' she asked.

'Twenty,' he said.

'What'd you get mixed up in this s.h.i.t for?' she wanted to know.

'I was cursed,' he said.

'What?'

He shook his head. 'I don't know why. Because I'm a d.i.c.khead, that's why. Because I thought just because I can, then maybe I should. I really was going to get out of all of this, concentrate on my studies, and then Nader showed up. And now you guys.'

'That's right,' said Gabriel, his boots up on the seat in front of him, his hands in the pockets of his black cargoes. 'Now us. And to answer your question, the reason we need you is to cover all our bases.'

Jill couldn't see Gabriel's eyes as he spoke; his trucker cap sat low on his brow. He didn't look like one of the other students around here, but he didn't look like a cop either. She realised that he seemed to blend in wherever he went; no one seemed to pay him a lot of attention, but she was pretty certain she'd have noticed him in a crowd, even if they'd never met.

'Like we said,' Gabriel continued, 'we are going to put a listening device in your house, and we'll also have one on your landline and your mobile, but you could be in the street when Nader tells you something important. You could be in a pub; you could be in a car. Our line could go down. Whatever. So you need to call in twice a day and tell Detective Jackson what you know.'

Gabriel reached across for a handful of chips from a packet on the table in front of them. Three soft drink cans shared the s.p.a.ce, and Damien had ordered a vegetarian burger he hadn't even unwrapped.

'You're going to report anything Nader tells you about deals coming up,' Gabriel said, 'about how much he wants you to cook, how quickly he can get you the base ingredients.' He paused. 'You could be even more helpful, if you like. You could ask Nader where he gets the chemicals; act interested, you know, you're a chemist, you would be interested in that sort of thing.'

Damien sat there, his face sour. 'If I want to be helpful?' he said. 'Do you think it's fair to ask me to interrogate a gangster? You're using me as bait! Why should I go out of my way for you people?'

'Well,' said Gabriel, popping chips into his mouth and then licking his fingers, 'you should go out of your way for us because you're jammed up, that's why. We can lock you up now, today, and you'll get five to eight years. We'll shut down your lab and get Nader another way. If you do like we say, though, Damo, we can get you off.' Gabriel continued to stare straight ahead. 'But if you snake us, Damien, we'll get you an extra ten years on top for being an a.r.s.ehole.'

Jill noticed that the couple of pimples on Damien's chin stood out livid red against his ashy pallor. She hoped he wasn't going to throw up.

'Anything else?' Damien asked.

'Yeah,' said Gabriel, raising his face. Jill was always a little distracted by Gabriel's eyelashes when he wore that hat; they were so long, and the brim seemed to frame them. She mentally shook herself, refocused. 'If you happen to see Detective Jackson here when Kasem Nader is around, you will act like you don't know her.'

'Well, obviously,' said Damien. 'You think I want to get killed?'

'If you do see Detective Jackson outside of this university campus,' Gabriel continued as though Damien hadn't spoken, 'she will be presenting as someone named Krystal Peters. Is that clear?'

'Yes.'

'And if you think Nader is someone to worry about,' said Gabriel, 'you have no idea what'll happen to you if you blow this operation. Not only will we lock you up, Damien, you need to understand that you won't make it out again. Gaol's a very unsafe place for rats.'

'I get it. I f.u.c.king get it, all right. I'm f.u.c.ked, every which way, sideways and up against the wall. I get it, okay?'

'There's another thing,' said Jill.

'Of course there is,' said Damien.

'We need you to get your friends out of there tonight,' she said. 'You're to be out by eight-thirty at the latest and you can't return until ten at the earliest.'

'Is that when you're going to bug the place? Whitey won't just let me go out and leave the place unlocked for someone to walk in.'

'We won't be worried about the locks,' said Jill.

'Lock it up,' said Gabriel.

'Can I go now?' said Damien.

'One last thing.' Gabriel took his feet from the chair and leaned forwards.

Damien made an are-you-serious face, but he waited.

'You should relax a bit,' said Gabriel. 'Have you tried yoga?'

'Yoga,' said Damien, his voice fracturing around the word. 'Did you say yoga? I have been literally s.h.i.tting myself for three days straight, and you think I should do yoga?'

Gabriel grinned and clapped the boy on the shoulder.

45.

Sat.u.r.day 13 April, 11 am.

Westfields shopping centre; a theme park for the poor. Seren finally lured Marco from home with the promise that she'd watch him play his favourite arcade game at least twice, and that he could choose what they ate, no matter how greasy or sodden with sugar.

They strolled together through the sprawling mall, Seren aware of the dozens of other struggling parents who spent their Sat.u.r.days here trying to keep their kids entertained. It was fine for the littlies the free kindy gym, two-dollar rides on mechanical Disney characters, lollies or chips purchased from Franklins all worked well enough to keep a smile on their faces for most of the day. But from age eight or nine, appeas.e.m.e.nt cost a lot more. Brand names called siren songs to the children, recruiting the next generation of insatiable consumers. No-name noodles from the supermarket would absolutely not do, when McDonald's, KFC and Pizza Hut stalls beamed like beacons across the food hall floor. From nine am until closing, a throng invariably queued for service at those places, like the faithful praying at shiny altars, kids with their pocket money first in line.

Seren's eyes glazed over watching the tattooed thug onscreen steal yet another car and tear screaming away from the cops. Marco sat in the driver's seat, making the stolen car race with his joystick controls, completely focused, hungry for the action. His favourite game. Great. She wondered whether boys born to a life of privilege loved the same game. Probably, she reasoned. Only their parents didn't have to worry that in five years' time their son would become the real-life role model for the latest version.

She planned her strategy for the evening ahead. First she had to find a DVD that Marco would love and that Angel could bear, and then bribery food to try to make up to him for leaving him again tonight.

She couldn't stop now. And Sat.u.r.day night was certainly not the night to kick back at home with her best friend and her little boy. Right now, just eleven o'clock in the morning, thrumming beneath the city was Sat.u.r.day night, waiting to be released. It pulsed and throbbed, biding time, emitting sub-threshold vibrations that caused apprentices to focus for once, to hurry to finish their morning shifts. Fifteen-year-old schoolgirls drilled each other on the elaborate fairytales they'd created for their parents, about who was sleeping at whose house, and what to do if the oldies actually checked. The beautiful people sipped coffees in cafes, waking slowly, apparently languidly, but Sat.u.r.day night waited beneath them and the beat started an itch they knew would not be scratched until the dark came again.

Sat.u.r.day nights in the city. A knife-edge. From the pavements outside, the clubs would seem to breathe, to writhe to the orgy within. The night's beat was like a dragon in the streets, insatiable, gorging itself on stomping partyers, blood in the alleys, f.u.c.king in the toilets and in the dark up the back of the clubs.

And to ramp it all up further, for the gluttonous who just could not get enough, there were the drugs. The drugs that made everyone beautiful, that made the world a better place, that made the boss bearable five days a week, or that faded the memories of what Daddy used to do when Mummy fell asleep. Sat.u.r.day night was the night to binge, to blow, to party, to score. And in the middle of it all was Christian. The candyman, spreading the love.

Seren felt Sat.u.r.day night breathing beneath the concrete, waiting. She waited with it.

Ca.s.sie nursed an espresso at a table on the pavement out the front of Palermo Cafe. When her mobile sounded, she nudged it deeper into her handbag, drowning the ringtone.

'Aren't you going to get that?' asked Adele, sitting opposite her in white-rimmed sungla.s.ses that completely swamped her face. The very latest release. She looked ridiculous.

'I would have thought that was obvious,' said Ca.s.sie.

'Mmm, snotty little b.i.a.t.c.h this morning, aren't we?'

Ca.s.sie gave her companion a saccharine smile.

The call would be from her mother. Wanting to know whether she'd spoken to Jill, if they were talking again. Fat chance. Her supercop sister could go stuff herself, she thought, lighting one of Adele's cigarettes and then grinding it out again almost immediately.

'Sorry,' she muttered to Adele, who'd shot her an irritated look when she wasted the cigarette.

That morning she'd woken again with The Promise uppermost in her mind: I won't go out tonight. I won't drink. I won't smoke. I definitely won't use. I'll just have fresh fruit juices all day. She stared down into her triple-shot espresso. It was hardly juice. The syrupy coffee here was so strong she felt she'd hyperventilate for a half hour after it. Why did she have that craving for her senses to be altered, heightened? she wondered. Even if it was only from coffee? She felt beaten already. Powerless. Who was she kidding? Tonight would end the way last night did not that she could remember how that was, precisely. When she woke tomorrow, it would be to the guilt again. She cradled her head into her hand, hot tears forming behind her Aviators. This was no fun anymore.

Ca.s.sie raised her eyes. Maybe I need to be around people who make me feel better, she thought. Adele was becoming a bore. She was between jobs, which pretty much meant it was Ca.s.sie's shout twenty-four-seven.

She considered her options. Sat.u.r.day night was not the night to try to be a nun. She had a much better shot at that on a Sunday. No, tonight, she'd dress up, make herself feel better, and go find someone who treated her right.