The door opened. Detective Karen Mahoney entered the dark back room behind the glass and sidled up to Jimmy.

'How's he doing?'

'You mean, how's Mak doing?' Jimmy replied.

'No, I mean him. How is Matt holding up?'

Jimmy chuckled.

'Here,' Karen said and passed him a cup of coffee. 'She's pretty good, huh?'

He nodded. 'Yeah, I guess she is. She never wanted to be a cop, you think?'

'I don't know,' Karen replied. 'I don't know that she could take orders from guys like Hunt.'

Detective Parker was still struggling in the interview room. 'So tell me once more what you were doing at the Cavanagh house.'

Through the glass they watched as Mak sighed, clearly bored with the game. 'I was invited to a social gathering at the home,' she answered into the microphone mounted to the table, as if making a scripted speech. 'It was only when I happened across the lounge room with the Brett Whiteley painting on the wall that I realised that it might actually be the same painting and the same room as the one in the video that I was anonymously sent. As with the video, I contacted the police immediately about my concerns and made sure that the authorities had all that potentially important evidence.'

Parker ran a hand through his hair, obviously not buying it. But he said nothing.

Mak blinked in response to whatever look he gave her, her expression deadpan. That was her story and she was sticking to it. Smart girl, Jimmy thought.

'Hunt is going to come in here and ask me all the same questions, isn't he?' Mak asked.

'Um...probably.'

Detective Sergeant Hunt, they'd been told, was busy working on Simon Aston.

'Do you admit that the GHB found in the four-wheel drive BMW was yours?' Detective Sergeant Hunt pressed.

Hunt had been interviewing Simon Aston for nearly an hour. He wanted to interview him alone, without the assistance or prying eyes of Detectives Mahoney or Parker.

Simon was spineless. It had taken him little time to confess.

Simon's story was that his friend Damien Cavanagh had developed a preference for petite Asian girls-young ones-and for nearly a year Simon had procured girls for his friend's pleasures. Since Operation Paper Tiger in the nineties, Hunt himself had known about the racket that brought girls like the Dumpster Girl into Australia. These girls were in enough demand that they were constantly being trafficked from poorer countries like Thailand and the Philippines, where they would either be coerced into sexual slavery or would happily accept the prospect of prostitution in order to make the money they and their families desperately needed. Some of them were even sold by their own parents, such was the desperation in their villages.

As Simon told it, this particular girl was given champagne and cocaine at the party; after sex, when Damien had got up to shower, Simon believed she had drunk from a plain water bottle which contained not water but the colourless and odourless psychoactive substance GHB, or gamma-hydroxybutyrate, otherwise known as Grievous Bodily Harm, the latest drug Simon had introduced Damien to.

When Damien returned and found the girl unconscious and with no perceptible heartbeat, he called for Simon.

'The GHB in the vehicle was yours?' Hunt repeated impatiently.

'Um, yeah. But it was for Damien. He had tried Fantasy and liked it,' Simon said. Fantasy. GHB. GBH. 'He'd been having a fling with it for a couple of months, but I warned him that you can't mix it with other stuff. No alcohol or anything. He was careful. But this girl must have drunk nearly the whole bottle of the stuff. When I came downstairs she was already out cold.' Simon scratched his head, agitated. 'I got her a shot of speed. It's supposed to reverse it.'

'But it didn't, did it?'

'No,' Simon admitted. He looked ashamed.

'That's manslaughter, you know,' Hunt told him.

Hunt was disgusted. A lot of drug dealers were under the false perception that speed could counteract the effects of GHB. In fact, it only sped up the process of death. The girl's only hope of living would have been a hospital. If they had got to her in time, they could have saved her life and had her walking around again the next day, almost as if nothing had happened.

This guy was a total idiot. He'd put a lot of people in danger, and he'd embarrassed some very important members of society.

'She had no pulse. Damien was freaking out. I called Lee...the guy who brings the girls.'

Lee Lin Tan. He and his wife had recently become the unfortunate victims of yet another Vietnamese gang slaying. They'd been killed with hatchets, the trademark of the gangs.

'I stepped away for two minutes and when I came back this bloody chick is in the hallway watching them. Watching them and the dead girl! She had her phone in her hand and I was afraid she was recording it, so I got the phone off her and drove her home.'

'That was it? You just took her phone away and drove her home?'

'Yeah,' Simon said, but Hunt knew he was lying.

'I gave her a little something to help her relax,' Simon admitted.

'You gave her the GHB.'

'Yeah. Just a little something to help her sleep.'

'And then what?' Hunt asked.

'That should have been it. But then she couldn't forget it. She started making waves.'

'That is when you hired Warwick O'Connor to kill the girl.'

Simon nodded sheepishly. 'It wasn't all my idea or anything.'

'I understand,' Hunt lied. 'Thank you for your cooperation, Mr Aston.' Hunt stood up. 'We will have further questions for you. In the meantime, you are free to go. Just don't leave the state.'

'Really? I'm free to go?' He seemed surprised.

Simon Aston failed to notice that the red light of the video recorder had not been on. His statements did not exist, and Sergeant Hunt had made sure no one else heard what he had to say about Damien Cavanagh's involvement.

As far as he was concerned, Simon had killed the girl and covered it up. And he had acted alone.

CHAPTER 68.

Simon Aston drove home to the Tamarama house in a state of numb shock. His senses were overwhelmed, his life turned upside down.

He had cooperated with Detective Hunt. Simon had told him everything he knew, and he had hardly believed his good fortune when he was allowed to go. He would cooperate all the way, and they would see that it wasn't his fault. He'd had to do the things that he did. He was not the guilty one.

Anyone else would have done the same.

Simon expected that he might not hear from Damien again for a little while. Damien had told Simon that he was being sent away to join his fiancee in Paris for an indefinite amount of time, and that his father had cut him off from his allowance and personal accounts. No money to party with. No money for his vices. Jack Cavanagh would control Damien's spending and activities, and had threatened to make him work to earn every dollar. For a time, at least. Simon hoped that Damien's punishment didn't last long. Perhaps he would get a call-maybe in two weeks, maybe in two months-and then things would return to normal. Simon didn't know how long he could survive without Damien in his life-without those important connections and his money, he had nothing.

When the heat is off, Damien will call me. We'll be friends again...

Simon rubbed his eyes; he was tired. He hadn't slept a wink since the big party, and barely a few hours since he'd hired Warwick and everything had gone wrong. It had been such a stressful time. So stressful. He walked up the staircase and drifted into his kitchen. He looked through the pantry. Kahlua. He cracked the bottle open and had a drink, straight up. It would take the edge off. He desperately needed it.

I need to sleep now.

He took another drink, this time bigger. A rush of alcohol went to his brain. He desperately needed to relax.

What?

There was a noise from the other room. A thump, and the tinkle of crystal. Puzzled, Simon put down the Kahlua and walked out of the kitchen.

He didn't see it coming.

Luther Hand was quick and quiet.

He had looped the rope around the crystal chandelier, and now in a flash he slipped the noose around the neck of Simon Aston and pulled the knot tight.

'What?' Simon choked in bewilderment just before he was wrenched straight off his feet by Luther's mighty strength.

Simon was pulled violently forwards, and as the rope went slack for a moment, he fell to his knees at the top of the stairs, spluttering and gasping for air. Luther moved forwards and looped the rope around the banister for better leverage. The next pull dragged Simon off the edge of the carpet and out over the two-storey staircase. He struggled in the air, thrashing this way and that, his hands grasping feebly at his neck to loosen the noose. Luther tied the rope off on the banister railing at just the right length, and waited.

Thump.

Thump.

Simon's legs kicked out at the walls, desperately searching for a foothold.

He didn't struggle for long.

Soon, his head slumped forwards, his tongue protruding.

This hit gave Luther Hand a certain bittersweet satisfaction. He had killed a large number of people in his career, many of whom he had no opinion about whatsoever, and some of whom he had even liked. But this man was a parasite. An irritation. Luther had been very pleased to get the call from his American-accented client to say that Simon Aston was now on the list. He'd been hoping that would happen.

Luther cocked his head to one side and watched Simon swing from the rope on the chandelier.

Good.

Luther liked him much better dead.

The witnesses were taken care of now. Simon Aston would not be telling any more tales about the Cavanagh son now that he hung from his noose, a perfect guilty suicide. The video was in police hands but nothing would be done about it. It would not be seen by any court. Simon Aston would get the blame. Dead men don't talk.

Makedde Vanderwall was no longer on the list. She was considered too well connected to the police, and too high-profile a target to do anything about. For the moment, anyway. The Sunday papers had been covered in photos of her spectacularly fleeing the Cavanagh house, running down the driveway in her gown, barefoot. Simon Aston-the out-of-control con man who had duped the innocent Cavanaghs, and had now ended his own life, suffocated by guilt-had threatened her at the party with an illegally purchased gun.

The loose ends were neatly tied up.

The assignment is complete.

EPILOGUE.

'Come on, Andy, this is a joke!'

'Mak...'

'Why is Damien Cavanagh not under arrest? Why has he been allowed to leave the country? There is video evidence of him standing over that dead girl, and her hairs were found in that bedroom in their house. I saw it with my own eyes! Anyone else in that position would be arrested by now.'

'Mak, calm down,' Andy said, his voice sounding distant on the phone. 'Sometimes these things aren't so simple. It takes time,' he said.

It's not right. It's just not right.

Simon Aston looked responsible for killing the Dumpster Girl at the Cavanagh house, possibly by accident, and later hiring a hit man to kill Meaghan Wallace for having witnessed it. Simon was being blamed for everything, and now that he had committed suicide, no one would hear his side of the story.

Amy had been so certain that Damien had been involved and now, sadly, she had turned up dead herself. Another suicide. She had been found with an overdose of drugs in her system, lying on her kitchen floor, decomposing; a puppy sat whimpering next to her, evidently a gift from a lover. And Simon had got drunk and hanged himself from a chandelier.

Now no one was alive to point the finger at the Cavanaghs. It was all very convenient. And the higher powers in the police force certainly did not seem keen to pursue any potential link between Damien Cavanagh, the overdose of the Thai girl, and the Meaghan Wallace hit. The hairs found at the Cavanagh house had perfectly matched those of the Dumpster Girl. How was that not enough to warrant further inquiry?

Through their very highly paid lawyer, the Cavanagh family had expressed 'great concern and regret that anything untoward might have taken place in their home' without their knowledge. The late Simon Aston had been a friend, but not a close friend. Certainly no one had known the extent of his activities until it was too late. The Cavanagh son, Damien, did not know of his friend's illegal activities, their lawyer claimed. Questioning anyone who may have been present at the party that night would no doubt be a long process, and probably a fruitless one. The case was dead in the water.

It's not right.

It was little wonder that Mak's client, Robert Groobelaar, had been so paranoid about his confidentiality. If the Cavanaghs found out he had started an investigation of his own, who knows what they might have done to him or his business to shut him down?

Makedde shook her head with disgust and frustration.

The one upside was that young Tobias Murphy had been cleared of the murder, thanks to Simon Aston's apparent confession to Detective Hunt that he had hired a thug named Warwick O'Connor to do the hit. O'Connor had not yet been tracked down. Tobias had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, coming to his cousin for money on that Thursday night, as he did every fortnight. Though he had been through a terrible loss and no one could replace his sympathetic cousin, his being arrested had quite possibly saved his life. He was now in a rehabilitation program, finally getting the help he needed, and just as importantly, he was back in communication with his biological father, Kevin, and was going to live with him and his new family.

'Just think of what could have happened,' Mak said, watching the quiet street outside the terrace, the phone cradled between her ear and shoulder. 'That poor kid was going to go to jail for a murder he didn't commit.'

Clearly, for reasons she could not come to terms with, Sergeant Hunt and the police were not going at Damien Cavanagh with both barrels. They'd never done more than pussyfoot around.

'Don't be so quick to blame the police, Mak,' Andy told her, defending his colleagues from afar. 'It's not always so simple, you know. No one has been able to prove that it's Damien in that video.'

Mak shook her head. Bullshit.

'Are you sure you don't want me to fly back? Just for a few days?' he asked.