'Did you break anything? Any gravel rash?'

'No breaks. I don't feel so hot but...'

Jimmy thought he'd seen everything, but this he couldn't believe. 'You slid under an eighteen-wheel Mac truck. Ironic,' he said. 'Mak goes under a Mac.'

'You have no idea how lucky I am, Jimmy. There was someone at the house. He tried to stab me, and then he chased me down. Those leathers saved me twice tonight,' Mak said.

'I've seen some of those guys come in here,' Jimmy warned her. 'The ambulance looks clean but their insides look like a milkshake.'

Mak raised an eyebrow.

Can't you ever say the right thing, he berated himself.

To his relief, she smiled. 'No milkshakes here. I think...'

'You'll be fine, you'll be fine,' he tried to reassure her after his gaffe.

Andy is going to completely go out of his head.

She put her pad of paper down. 'Jimmy, have you seen that video I handed in to Hunt?'

'What video?'

Her face went even paler. 'What video! The one of the murdered girl. I gave it to Karen and she passed it on to Hunt.'

'Are you sure?'

'Yes, I'm sure,' she protested. 'Why would she lie to me?'

No one had told Jimmy about a video.

'You were with Andy at the autopsy, weren't you? The Dumpster Girl? Well, I think the video shows her death.'

Ah.

Since Hunt had taken on the case, and Andy had left to pursue his career break, Jimmy had been feeling out of the loop. It was as if Hunt didn't even want him around.

'Jimmy, I don't think I'm nuts, but I believe this is all related. Someone stole my handbag. Someone went through my employer's office and now there's someone at the house,' Mak told him. 'It is about this case. I know it. All that can't be coincidence. Maybe this guy who came after me is the same guy who killed Meaghan?'

From everything Jimmy knew, the case against Tobias Murphy was a strong one. Andy had told him about Mak's theory, but he was doubtful that her feelings about his innocence were warranted. He didn't want to encourage her thinking, but perhaps now was not the time to talk about all that, or how everyone knew that she'd been pulled up snooping around some guy's house in Tamarama.

He held his tongue.

'They sent a unit over to check for signs of forced entry.'

'He was wearing gloves,' she said, her eyes faraway. 'Damn. They probably won't get prints.'

'It's okay, they'll get him. Tell me what happened,' he prompted her.

'I've been writing down a description of the car and the man, and everything else I remember, so that I don't forget anything. I didn't get a full licence plate but it was a black sedan with plate FST something.'

'Okay,' he said, and jotted the information in his notebook. He was proud of her. Not many would remember important details like that after an accident. She was all right, for a girl.

'I came home late after dinner with Karen-'

'Mahoney?'

'Yeah. And when I arrived at the terrace I just felt that something was wrong,' she explained. 'This guy was in the house. He sprang at me. He was huge. He must have been several inches taller than me. Six foot six maybe?'

'So you saw him?'

'Oh yeah,' she said with a flicker in her eye. 'I saw him, but the bastard had a mask on. I didn't see his face. I think I gave him a broken nose, though.'

Amazing, she is. Andy doesn't know what he has in this girl.

'He came at me with a knife and it nicked my leathers but didn't penetrate. Like I said, they saved me twice tonight. I took off...I just got right back on my bike and rode off, thinking he would stay in the house and get what he wanted, and would probably be gone by the time the cavalry arrived. But the bastard followed. He followed. He not only followed me but he practically tried to run me off the road. I'm sure that was what he was trying to do.'

Jimmy was perplexed. Why would a burglar follow their victim? Why, if everything he wanted to steal was in the house?

'I was speeding. He was going to bump me off my bike. I don't remember much else except that a truck came up and I couldn't stop in time. I braked and started sliding. That was it.'

'Well, let's get a doctor in here to see if you are okay.'

'They are waiting on X-rays, I think.'

She reached a hand out and he approached her, awkwardly. They had never been on the best terms, he knew.

Mak squeezed his hand. She looked at him with bloodshot eyes. 'Jimmy, I need your help.'

CHAPTER 55.

'Oh my God. I'm so glad she's okay,' Detective Karen Mahoney marvelled.

Karen had thought the worst when she was told what had happened. When she'd seen Mak leave for home, she had no idea she'd see her again so soon, and in such terrible circumstances.

'Yeah, she doesn't look bad for someone who went under a truck,' Jimmy quipped with his usual blokey sensitivity.

'She'll be feeling it tomorrow, I'm sure.'

They had left Mak to rest for a while, and Karen took the elevator with Jimmy down from Mak's floor to the hospital cafeteria on the ground floor. It was a sterile and unwelcoming place, most of the tables empty. They got two Styrofoam cups of drip coffee, and she watched in awe as Jimmy drowned his in milk and sugar.

They took a seat in the corner with their backs to the wall.

Jimmy wasn't his usual affable self. He was probably shaken by what had happened to Mak, too.

'Tell me about this video,' he said. 'No one told me nothin' 'bout it.'

Karen was shocked. 'Really?'

'Yeah. What is it?'

He really doesn't know.

Karen explained the video, what was on it, who it appeared to show and how Mak had handed it over. They'd done a CCR check and confirmed that it was from the mobile phone of Amy Camilleri, just as Mak had suspected. That was two days ago, and now the word from Melbourne was that Amy Camilleri was nowhere to be found.

'She's missing?'

Karen nodded solemnly.

'Hunt hasn't brought Mak in for questioning about it?'

Karen nodded again.

'Skata,' he swore in his native Greek.

'Exactly.'

'Look, I'm no good at this political bullshit. I don't pay no attention, but I gotta say that since Andy left for the US, things have gone weird, don't you think?' he said.

Weird was one way of putting it. 'How do you mean, exactly?'

'I say someone's trying to discredit his girlfriend, you know, with the kinda work she does, the modelling, her history...'

'What? What do you mean, her history?' Karen asked, offended at the idea.

Did he mean the newspaper article, or was there more?

'You know...' Jimmy seemed uncomfortable with what he had to say. 'Her tendency to always be on the radar of some psycho.'

Karen felt her anger boil. 'I'm not going to defend my friend when she hasn't done anything wrong. She handed in that video because it was the right thing to do. Fuck Hunt if he hasn't seen fit to follow it up properly. I don't know what his problem is. And it's not a crime to be a victim of crime. It took a lot of courage for her to get on the stand and convict Ed Brown. Her testimony was half the case.'

Without her, the Stiletto Murderer might never have been brought to trial.

'I know, I know. Don't go lookin' at me,' Jimmy shrugged. 'I'm not sayin' I agree or nothin'. I just gotta tell you some stuff I been hearing. I told ya, since Andy left it ain't the same in there.'

He looked really uncomfortable-downright sheepish. Karen wondered what the hell was going on.

'You know she got busted tryin' to break into the house of some guy named Simon Aston?'

'What?' Karen was shocked.

'I know. Apparently she was trying to break in. They just let her off.'

'Who let her off?'

'A couple of connies in the area.'

Oh, really?...

CHAPTER 56.

'The item has been leaked,' The American said.

Luther gripped the phone and gritted his teeth with displeasure.

This was not the news he wanted. The video his client had asked him to obtain was in the hands of the police. He felt his rage bubbling up-self-directed rage.

He had failed.

'She made it?' He had to know.

'Yes.'

So Makedde Vanderwall survived the motorcycle crash. Dying in a crash would have been perfect for his client, but somehow he felt strangely relieved that she'd survived. Perhaps because that meant he could get up close and personal with her one more time. He had another chance to do it right.

'We have to be cautious now,' the American voice said. 'I'm doing what I can with the police, but the focus has shifted our way.'

Luther nodded. He understood that they were now under suspicion. It had become riskier.

'She is the girlfriend of a cop, you understand. We need to be very careful.'

Luther listened.

'Top priority, we need her silenced, but carefully. It can't look deliberate. This one is tricky. We can't screw this up.'

'Okay,' Luther said.

He would get started right away on a new plan.