CHAPTER 59.

Simon checked his watch. It was time.

It was nearly two hours after the last of the main guests had arrived, and it was the moment for the grand arrival of the birthday boy himself.

Simon prompted the DJ to put on the theme to the James Bond film Live and Let Die, played so loud that no one could miss it. The crowd, enchanted by the fireworks, stopped what they were doing and turned towards the harbour, anticipating whatever was about to happen. As the bursts of fireworks halted above, a spotlight from the shore fixed itself on an old Chinese junk approaching just beyond the pier. A grinning Damien Cavanagh stood on the deck, bathed in the spotlight. He wore a blue silk smoking jacket emblazoned with gold dragons, and held a cigar between his lips. Reminiscent of a self-conscious young Hugh Hefner, or a wannabe Bond, he was surrounded by a bevy of scantily clad Chinese beauties who helped him down the ladder on the side of the small vessel to board the jet ski that came to fetch him. A round of cheers rose up from his mates in the waiting crowd, as others clapped politely.

Damien would be delighted with his entrance, Simon knew. Though many would find this flashy arrival unbearably gauche, the truth was, they would never say so. And one man who wouldn't be commenting was Damien's father, Jack Cavanagh. He and Bev had greeted a number of the guests and made a low-key departure shortly before eleven, to be driven to their sprawling Palm Beach abode, leaving Damien for the remainder of the weekend to enjoy his extravagant thirtieth birthday party with the younger crowd. Nor was Damien's boring fiancee around to ruin things. Carolyn had spent Friday night out with Damien at a swanky restaurant, and had afterwards flown to Paris to shop, with Simon's encouragement-'It will just be a boring party. Corporate types sucking up to Jack...' The last thing Simon wanted was either Carolyn or Jack hanging around complicating things after everything that had gone on.

Now that Damien had arrived, the party would really get into full swing. The chosen guests, fuelled by rounds of free-flowing Moet and vodka Red Bull cocktails, cheered their young host's birthday as if it was the most important night of their life.

And, for some, it would be.

CHAPTER 60.

Wow.

Mak had rarely seen a private home of this size.

Walking through the Cavanagh home with a glass of champagne in her hand, moving past the smattering of guests not already outside watching the spectacle on the shore, Mak found the size of the sprawling urban residence almost obscene. How many people actually lived here, in these fifteen bedrooms? Maybe three, including the son? Within every room could be found another space decorated flawlessly with expensive furnishings and art. If one measured success purely in material wealth, Mak imagined that the owner of this home must be deeply unhappy by now, as there could be little left to purchase.

She made her way into a living room where empty cocktail glasses sat on a sleek coffee table. A handbag sat on a settee; a jacket was thrown over a chair. Their owners were pressed up against the balcony railing, their backs to her, oblivious to her presence. Mak moved through the room and spotted a doorway at the back that had been deliberately and uninvitingly closed to the partygoers. She tried the handle-it wasn't locked. She took advantage of the distraction of the celebrations outside to go quietly through it into the hallway beyond, shutting it behind her carefully, even though the noise outside meant that she was unlikely to be heard.

Mak put her glass down for a moment and slipped her stilettos off. She bent over painfully and picked up her shoes, holding them in one hand, the straps slipping through her fingers. She grabbed her cool champagne glass again-a prop to help her blend in if she was seen.

Mak took a small sip and stretched her sore legs, circling her stiff ankles.

Ahhhh. That's better.

Okay. To the bedrooms.

This side of the house was quiet and dark. It seemed that everyone, including the Cavanagh family, was outside watching the fireworks. But there was a possibility that security would patrol these areas of the house, particularly if she was right in her suspicions and the Cavanaghs were worried about covering their tracks.

Please, God, let me be right about this, or I don't know if I'll ever live it down.

The long, dark hallway was lit only with a couple of large glowing candelabras. She admired statues and paintings in gilded frames as she made her way past them barefoot. The paintings were impressive: original Jeffrey Smarts and Arthur Boyds, but no Brett Whiteley that she could see. Yet. She reached a staircase that extended both upwards and down, and decided to start at the top, where she felt the bedrooms were most likely to be.

She began her ascent.

Only three stairs up, Mak heard a noise from above and froze in place. It sounded like a door closing, and footsteps. A guest using a toilet back here? A family member? Was it Jack Cavanagh himself? Or one of his security crew?

Damn.

Whoever it was, Mak couldn't afford to be seen. She retreated back down the stairs, weighed her options and decided to continue down to the ground floor to wait. Fortunately the stairway carpet made for a near-silent descent. Quickly and quietly she descended the stairs, legs burning again, until she stood at the bottom of the staircase, holding the banister and listening...

Makedde had hoped to find an 'at home' piece in some stylish magazine in the library archives that might have helped her to find her way around the Cavanagh house; or even a photo spread that pictured the Cavanagh family with the Whiteley itself in the background-but there had been nothing. Despite the notorious beauty and size of the place, and the press surrounding the Cavanaghs' major business deals, the family seemed to be very private. They did not invite the press into their homes. Mak was left to roam the impressive residence with little information to go on except the grainy, disturbing images of a mysteriously sent video.

Footsteps.

The slam of a door.

Mak gripped the railing in the dark and hoped that whoever was upstairs would not come her way.

CHAPTER 61.

'Are you sure?' Simon Aston demanded. 'But how?'

'I'm telling you, I saw her. She walked right past me.'

'Vanderwall, the investigator?' he asked again, disbelieving. This girl had been caught poking around his house, and now this. The American had warned Simon about her in case she approached him.

'Yes. Only she looks more like Elle Macpherson than a PI, and what she's wearing doesn't leave much to the imagination. She has legs like a gazelle. I've seen her picture in the papers...'

'Are you absolutely sure?' Simon stood out on the lawn, out of earshot of Damien, listening with horror to what his friend Jason was saying over the phone. He shook his head. 'Well, why the fuck is she here? This is just what I bloody need, some nosy bitch snooping around.'

'She was wearing some black dress slit up the wazoo. I wouldn't kick her out of bed, I tell ya.'

'Thanks, Jason, I'll be sure to fuck her before I ask her why she is trying to ruin my life,' he spat. 'Keep an eye out and find her for me. If you see her again, corner her and call me straightaway. I'll be looking.'

Simon ended the call and gripped his mobile tensely. What the fuck? How can that investigator be here at the party? An investigator snooping around the house could be a major disaster. He hoped to God that Jason was wrong. Surely it was some other blonde who had walked in?

Simon looked over to Damien, who was oblivious to the conversation. After his grand entrance, the birthday boy was standing near the garden steps only a few feet away, still in his robes, having the ashes of his cigar tapped by some young Asian babe the model agency had organised. Simon had to admit that she was a good-looking chick, even if she wasn't his type.

You've got no idea, my friend, no idea the things I do for you...

Damien looked over and gave Simon the thumbs up. Simon smiled in return and returned the sign. He pretended to answer another call, then laughed and signalled to Damien to say he would take the call elsewhere. Damien didn't seem to notice that his friend was heading inside. He just took another drag of his Cuban and told lame jokes to the hired women who hung on his every word, while Simon disappeared to look through the crowd for a meddlesome blonde investigator named Makedde Vanderwall.

If the girl was here, he'd take care of her.

CHAPTER 62.

Mak opened a door on the lower floor and was hit with a cold rush of air.

There'll be no Whiteleys in here.

It wasn't a bedroom, but a garage. And what a garage it was, containing not one or two but half-a-dozen magnificent luxury vehicles. Mak spotted a Jag, a four-wheel-drive BMW and even a low-slung red Ferrari among the cars. This was where models like the Enzo Ferrari ended up, apparently. Two millions dollars' worth of car, and it could not even be driven on the streets. These were boys' toys-very rich boys' toys. Mak stopped gawking and closed the door again quickly, not wanting to be identified in case there was a video surveillance system or alarm protecting the glinting cars.

The rest of the ground floor of the Cavanagh house contained bedrooms and sitting rooms, each dark and unoccupied. One by one Mak investigated the rooms, listening first for noise, trying the doorknob, flicking on the light and taking a quick tour. She was mindful of the time. She had been away from the party for twenty minutes so far and counting. She had to assume that her entry had worked-no one seemed on the lookout for a limping girl with big hair in a black dress who had pretended to be Claudia Schiffer. She'd made it. But Mak also assumed that the security staff might do a round of the house every thirty minutes or so.

As with many homes of people of great wealth, the rooms in the grand Cavanagh home were stylish and yet somehow devoid of personality or individualism, decorated as they were in the impossibly perfect style of an upmarket showroom. Everything was in its place-just that little bit too perfect-each key item no doubt worth more than Mak's entire annual income. Room after room was the same, be it a lounge or spare bedroom; not one thing out of place, and not one single item of bad taste or curious beauty to be found. She could not find any personal artefacts tucked away in a corner room, not even here on the ground floor. It left Mak with the impression that one could not glean a single piece of relevant information about the owners from the decor, except perhaps that they had an unlimited budget for a good decorator.

After taking a quick look through half-a-dozen rooms, Mak cupped her hand around the doorknob of the last doorway in the hall and listened for movement. There was no sound or vibration. Confident that the room was unoccupied, she turned the knob and flicked on the light.

Her heart skipped.

Across the room was a painting of pale flesh against white, depicting a sitting woman with generous, exaggerated curves, painting her lower abdomen with red lipstick.

The Whiteley. Bogey was right!

Momentarily forgetting herself, Mak raced towards it and read the signature on the lower left-hand corner. Whiteley. Yes. Three feet by two-and-a-half feet. An original. There was no question that this was the exact painting Bogey had showed her in his book. Unless there had been an imitation or print in the video, this was the very painting that had hung over the scene of the young girl's death.

It was here in the Cavanagh house. I was right.

Mak stood, squinting at the painting, puzzled. The remaining conundrum was that this room was not a bedroom.

She found herself in a lounge decorated with two small cream sofas, a coffee table and an entertainment unit. A huge flat-screen TV took up half of one wall and closed curtains took up another. It was different than the other rooms, less put together. While the furniture was nice, it didn't quite match so perfectly.

Mak could not afford to become sloppy and get discovered now. She sprinted back to the doorway, temporarily forgetting her soreness, and looked down the hall both ways. The corridor appeared empty. Heart beating a little too quickly, she shut the door, dropped her shoes and put her champagne glass down, then brought out her digital camera. Was this the scene of the death in that video? It had to be, didn't it? With the reputation of people like the Cavanaghs at stake, if she was wrong, her career would be well and truly over practically before it had begun.

She had to be certain.

Mak took a deep breath and walked 'the grid' across the carpet in a straight pattern, careful not to disturb anything. Think, Mak. Think. She switched on the date and time code bar on her camera to imprint the photos with their proper sequence, and began taking photos at every possible angle, scanning every minute detail of the room as she did. Yes, this was the painting Bogey had shown her, there was no doubt about that. But was this the same room? There was a window directly across the room on the other side. Mak pulled the curtains back a fraction to see a courtyard that would most probably throw sunlight into the room during the day. She moved across the room and cautiously lifted one corner of the painting. The wall was a slightly different hue underneath, the paint protected from sunlight.

Yes.

The painting had hung in that position for a long time. So unless there was a copy somewhere, this lounge room had to have been a bedroom recently. Perhaps that was why the room seemed different. No interior decorator had put his or her touch on this.

This was a rush job, to cover up a crime.

CHAPTER 63.

Huffing and irritated, Simon Aston flicked on the light in the garage.

That investigator better not be anywhere near this party...

He made straight for the four-wheel drive he always borrowed, leaned inside and opened the glove box.

He feasted his eyes on a brand-new .22 pistol.

Look at that.

His heart pounded uneasily in his chest at the sight of it, something like exhilaration and fear filling him, offsetting the mellow cocktails in his bloodstream. He'd had a few drinks, blowing off steam. Simon picked the weapon up, the feel of the cold metal in his hands giving him pause, but only momentarily. He didn't have experience with guns.

That fucking bitch had better not be here, or she'll regret it.

Simon had never shot a handgun before, but he certainly wasn't afraid to, especially feeling like he was. If this investigator bitch didn't know what was good for her, he would give her a fright. He'd give her a really good fright.

Behind the gun was a box filled with ammunition. Jason had shown him how to load the magazine, and now Simon impatiently stuffed it with rounds.

One...two...three...four.

That will do.

Armed and with the gun half-cocked, Simon blundered out of the Cavanagh garage and set off to search for the uninvited guest.

CHAPTER 64.

Mak was on her hands and knees in the hastily renovated former spare bedroom of the Cavanagh house, her face to the plush carpet, sweeping her eyes across the grain, when she thought she heard a noise.

Oh shit.