‘This Sunday? It’s already Thursday. What do you think we’re going to find between now and then?’

  ‘I always said it was unlikely we’d find anything new. All you have to do is choose a theory, firm it up and take them through the steps. Okay?’ Harwood strode to the office door, opened it to let her out.

  Jackie felt stunned. Commissioner Liddell must be truly desperate to get into this without maintaining control. The chances of it turning into a massive clusterfuck were beyond computing.

  Bennie Wang looked up enquiringly as she walked back to her desk. ‘Briefing time?’

  ‘Briefing time.’

  Kinsella appeared, coffee in hand. Sharna, who wasn’t obliged to join them, saw them gathering and undulated over. ‘That Bensimon guy,’ she said. ‘My father used to talk about him, what a crook he was.’

  ‘You should have seen him yesterday,’ Kinsella replied. ‘Not much of the crook left.’

  Jackie said, ‘Bensimon’s death brings more media, but it doesn’t really affect the case. He was too far gone to help us much, so let’s get on with what we can.’ She turned to Bennie. ‘Those notebooks I gave you the other day. Anything useful?’

  Bennie shook his head. ‘Nothing I could see. I didn’t know what to look for, though, so I could’ve missed something.’

  ‘What’s interesting,’ offered Kinsella, ‘is how that bent cop, Penney, sidelined Wardle from the investigation. Another thing pointing to organised crime, but there’s still the secret boyfriend.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Jackie said. ‘Heard you the first time. I spoke to my father, by the way, Kinsella. I’ve set up a meeting with him tonight. He doesn’t think we need both of us and perhaps that’s better. He’ll be more open with me.’

  Kinsella raised eyebrows, didn’t comment.

  Jackie said, ‘Off to see Margie Solon, then. Kinsella, give me a couple of minutes. Got to make a call.’ She took up her phone and before dialling, added, ‘Meet you at the lifts.’ For reasons she couldn’t articulate, she didn’t want Kinsella to know she was meeting Trevor Curran without him.

  ***

  Margie Solon had stuck to the Cross. Her flat, in quiet Brougham Street, was around the corner from where Belle had lived, and Jackie wondered if Margie had had the same address for the past forty years. The street itself radiated serenity. Lace-fronted terraces rubbed shoulders with small, genteel apartment blocks. The trees lining the pavement in front of them were starting to show green. Jackie got out of the car, stretched, breathed in deeply. The air was still and the sky clear with the particular Sydney blue she loved, but over the rooftops she could see clouds massing.

  Margie’s flat was top right in a block of four in an art-deco building. The building was beautiful. The flat was not, though it could have been. The ceilings, yellow with cigarette smoke, were high and patterned, the smeared sash windows graceful and tall. The walls and all the surfaces bore a patina of dirt, and the smell, cigarettes and grease and op-shop mustiness, was strong enough to supply another level of murk. The place had a Miss Havisham feel, as if the clock had stopped long ago and the rooms left to decay.

  Margie, who must by now be around seventy, contributed. She wore her grey hair in a long, meagre plait. Her face was sallow and there were black shadows under her eyes. Despite the weather the flat was cold, and she’d dressed herself in sagging layers of greys and browns, tights and a knit skirt, a jumper under a pilled and hairy cardigan. She pulled the cardigan across her body, held it tight with folded arms.

  She acknowledged Jackie and Kinsella with a truculent nod and led them through to a living room, the walls covered with framed political posters from the seventies. Angela Davis, People Power, It’s Time, Vietnam. All the famous ones. Over the couch, in pride of place, hung two framed A4-sized flyers. Both advertised meetings of the Catherine Street Action Group.

  Margie followed Jackie’s gaze. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘we tried our best.’ She sighed hard, something of the actor in it. She pointed to the couch, covered in an unhealthy-looking throw, meaning them to sit on it. She took an armchair opposite, crossed one knee over the other and lit a cigarette without offering.

  Jackie lifted the throw, revealing cleanish upholstery. She and Kinsella sat side by side. Margie watched. ‘Been expecting you coppers,’ she said, squinting through smoke. ‘Surprised it took you so long. Verbal me? Search the place for drugs? Arrest me for killing that crim Bensimon?’ She gave a gravelly, phlegmy chuckle.

  Jackie had a sudden insight. Margie, playing the anti-police activist of her younger days, was delighted to have company. She was a lonely old woman.

  Kinsella must have divined the same thing, because when he spoke his voice was warm, masculine. ‘Tell us about Belle Fitzgerald.’

  Margie preened, an unhappy sight. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘all the rubbish that’s been written about Belle, and I can count on my fingers the number of people who wanted to hear from me, her best friend, the one who actually knows something. There was that cop, of course, the one who got shot. He interviewed me. After him I didn’t hear from the cops at all. Oh, and I spoke to the guy who wrote the book, that Curran. The others? Not so much as a phone call. Not that I would have told them anything, of course.’

  ‘Understandable,’ said Kinsella, who had her measure. ‘Maybe we can straighten things out at last.’

  Margie blew smoke, narrowed her eyes. ‘I assume there’s reward money going. The family offered millions at one stage.’

  Get Bennie to check if Margie Solon tried to claim any of it. Jackie didn’t want to break the flow by making a note.

  Kinsella shook his head. ‘No reward as far as I’m aware. Belle’s parents are dead. She was an only child and I don’t think there’s any family left.’ Margie shrugged, threw up an arm in a well, that’s it gesture. Kinsella went on, ‘But there’s a lot of public interest in this case. The media will want to speak to someone who knows and we can suggest they contact you. As her best friend.’

  He’d hit a sweet spot. Margie stubbed out her smoke and leaned forward. ‘Think so?’

  ‘Yes,’ Jackie said. ‘We’ve already been signed to do a show with The Week on Sunday this Sunday night.’

  Margie found her cigarette packet, shook it, took out another smoke, held it unlit. She was undecided, Jackie thought, whether to continue her I hate all cops routine or to cooperate.

  ‘Well,’ said Kinsella half-rising. ‘At least we can say we tried. The TV guys will have to find someone else.’

  That hit home. Margie said, ‘No, wait. The truth should come out. What do you want to know?’

  Kinsella sat down again, said, ‘Tell us about Belle Fitzgerald.’

  Margie lit up, blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘We met at the tech. Belle came in as a new teacher and I was her mentor. She had no idea, really, not a clue.’

  ‘What was she like?’ asked Jackie.

  ‘Attractive, I’ll give her that.’ Margie pursed her lips. ‘Quite sexy in a way. Lively. Of course, I had no idea who she was – the Adair family and so on. She kept that to herself. She’d been married, you know. That’s where the Fitzgerald came from. As far as we were concerned she was one of us. Then she asked me for help in going up against Oliver Richter, the developer. She’d heard Richter wanted to wreck Catherine Street. I couldn’t let that happen so I organised the Catherine Street Action Group.’ Margie gestured to the flyers behind Jackie and Kinsella. ‘Belle tagged along, but I was the mover and shaker. Tried to get the unions to come to the party, but they had troubles of their own and were in no position to do anything. We were left stranded, and in the end the development petered out so we shut the action group down.’

  ‘I’ve read articles on Belle and seen the documentary,’ Jackie said. ‘They claim Belle kept up her fight and that could have been why she died.’

  Margie, who had drawn on her cigarette, choked. She coughed, fighting for breath. ‘Bullshit!’ she wheezed. ‘If they were going to kill anyone over the development it would have been me. Bensimon and his boys didn’t like me at all. In fact, they tried to raid a meeting, or rather his pet cops did. No, that’s not it. If you want to know about Belle, look at her love-life.’

  Jackie had been expecting this, but still she felt her skin prickle. ‘Her love-life?’

  ‘Well,’ said Margie, settling back into happy gossip, ‘Belle confided in me. There are things I didn’t tell any of the others.’

  ‘Such as?’ Kinsella asked.

  Margie shrugged, enjoying herself.

  ‘Ah, all smoke, no fire,’ Kinsella said, warmth in his voice. ‘I wouldn’t have picked it. We’ll have to find other sources for the TV people.’

  ‘I bet,’ Margie said, leaning forward again, ‘I bet other sources don’t know Belle had a lover. He could have murdered her.’

  ‘How do you know it was a he?’ Kinsella still, flirting still. ‘Could have been a she?’

  ‘Because a she couldn’t have got Belle pregnant, that’s why.’

  This was news indeed. Jackie said, ‘Belle told you she was pregnant?’

  ‘Who do you think took her to Preterm for the abortion?’

  Silence. Kinsella broke it. ‘Who was this guy?’

  Margie shrugged. ‘She wouldn’t say.’

  ‘Not even to her best friend?’

  It was a misstep. Margie’s defiance returned. ‘Wouldn’t tell me his name, but of course I knew other things about him.’

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ said Kinsella. ‘What sort of things?’

  Mollified, Margie lit a third cigarette. The windows in the room were shut and the air was thick with smoke. ‘Well, at first I thought he was married, you know, and that’s why she didn’t want to say. She was quite suburban under all that with-it stuff. But she was so weird about him I began to think it had to be something else, like he was someone important. It was such a big secret. Gave me the shits, to tell you the truth. I even asked Nelson about it. Nelson said he didn’t know, but I’m sure he was lying. He laughed and waved me off, but I wasn’t convinced. If anyone knows who this guy was, Nelson would.’

  ‘Nelson?’ This from Jackie.

  ‘You don’t know about Nelson?’ Margie was happier now, scoring points. ‘Not surprised. She kept quiet about him. Even that idiot journo Curran didn’t know about Nelson. Nothing about Nelson in his famous book. Nothing about the lover either, come to think of it. You know Belle and Curran used to be an item?’

  Jackie nodded. She remembered Kinsella’s point about how strange it was that Belle, who usually had men in tow, had had no boyfriend at the time of her disappearance. Kinsella had been right. Problem was, there was now more than one boyfriend. Who’d got Belle pregnant? Curran? Or Monroe, who had to have been the secret lover?

  Jackie realised Margie and Kinsella were waiting for her. She brought herself back to the interview. ‘Tell us more about Nelson.’

  ‘Maybe I should save this for the TV,’ said Margie. ‘After all, how do I know you won’t tell them and then they won’t need me?’

  Jackie had had enough of soft-soaping this sad woman. ‘We won’t let anything go to air without knowing all the facts first. So unless you tell us everything, the deal’s off.’

  Margie gave her a dirty look, took a final drag on her current cigarette, applied her attention to Kinsella. ‘Nelson. Guthrie, I think his surname was. He was one of Belle’s students, doing his HSC. He dropped out, but they became friends. I ran into him a couple of times at Belle’s place. Of course, she never confided in him the way she did with me.’

  ‘Could Nelson have been the secret boyfriend?’

  Margie gave one of her wet chuckles. ‘Not likely. Nelson was as camp as they come. I heard he was at The Wall at one time.’

  ‘What happened to Nelson?’ Kinsella asked.

  Margie gave a how would I know lift of her shoulders.

  ‘Any idea where we could find him?’

  Another shoulder lift. ‘Maybe try TAFE? They’ll have records of past students.’

  She had nothing else to tell them, though by the time they left, her anti-police stance had well and truly crumbled. It had taken hard work, especially on Kinsella’s part, to escape her clutches. When would she hear from the TV people? Should she get herself an agent? Would Kinsella like to stay for lunch? In the end, she satisfied herself with his card, promising to phone.

  ‘You’ll never bloody get rid of her,’ observed Jackie, as they emerged into Broughton Street.

  Kinsella squinted in the sun. ‘Feel sorry for her.’

  Jackie poked his chest. ‘Soft centre. I knew it. Lunch?’

  They settled for laksa at Eat Fuh in Victoria Street, a quick eat-and-go affair. Neither of them mentioned Perth, but Jackie told Kinsella about Luke’s plan to go to London. Kinsella listened, thought about it, said, ‘Want me to have a word with him?’ Kinsella and Luke had got on well, the few times they’d met.

  ‘Please don’t. He’ll say I put you up to it. Anything I do will make him more determined to go. No, the only thing to do is to sit it out.’

  ‘Can you ask your father not to lend him money?’

  Jackie made a face. ‘Don’t think so. Sort of underhand and again, if Luke finds out, I’m stuffed.’

  Kinsella agreed. ‘Tough on you, though,’ he said, pushing his bowl away. ‘So what’s the plan for this arvo? Should we talk to Curran?’

  Jackie skated around it. ‘That’ll have to wait. I’ve got a couple of things to do, then I’ll see my father. Meanwhile we need to track down this Nelson Guthrie. Maybe Bennie’s got something by now? I texted him while you were saying your long goodbyes to Mizz Solon.’

  Kinsella seemed to accept Jackie’s explanation. Margie had given them the names of a couple of Belle’s teaching colleagues, and he said he’d see if he could get hold of them. He’d take an Uber home and pick up his motorbike. He’d call or text if he found out anything interesting. They parted and Jackie drove to the Cross City Tunnel, then over the Anzac Bridge and around The Crescent to the Tramsheds, where she’d arranged to meet Trevor Curran for the talk he claimed she alone would want to hear.

  ***

  The Tramsheds in Forest Lodge was, like many other places in Sydney, a reincarnated industrial site. The old Rozelle Tram Depot had been gutted and refurbished with restaurants, cafés, artisan this and that, a massive supermarket, even a gym. The decor, which included as many of the original fittings as possible, screamed cool, but cool had never arrived and the Tramsheds remained a family haunt. Jackie wasn’t sure why some places hit the mark and others didn’t. Perhaps they tried too hard. She pondered this as she waited for Trevor Curran in a café which looked out onto the car park, regretting the impulse that had made her agree to meet him alone. It gave Curran the upper hand before they’d begun.

  She didn’t have to wait long. Through the window she saw Curran at the wheel of a car, a white Corolla. It circled the car park and scored a lucky spot. Curran parked and emerged. He wore jeans and a light blue shirt, tucked in. When he bent forwards to remove a black leather folder and a phone, Jackie saw how the jeans hung loosely off his lean body, skimming the flat buttocks of an old man. Curran straightened, spotted Jackie in the café, and strode to the door. He took the seat opposite her, placing the folder and phone on the table between them.

  ‘I hope you’re not thinking of recording this,’ said Jackie, remembering that Curran was a journalist.

  ‘What? No.’ Curran put the phone in his jacket pocket. ‘Force of habit. When I was on TV we could be called at any time.’ He looked up at Jackie expectantly, pushing his glasses up his nose with a forefinger.

  Of course. That was why he’d looked familiar at the media conference. Current affairs, she thought, though she couldn’t recall the channel. He was waiting for her to recognise him. Vanity. She filed that nugget away. ‘Yes,’ she finally said, ‘I remember you.’

  Curran hadn’t suggested ordering anything. He seemed entirely focused on their meeting. Jackie, after lunch with Kinsella, didn’t want to eat or drink. But to regain some control, and to mess with Curran a little, she hailed a waitress, a girl young enough to be on after-school duty. She took her time ordering a sparkling water and dithered over pastries, eventually deciding on an almond friand.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked Curran. With a grunt he waved the waitress away.

  When the girl was out of hearing, Jackie turned back to Curran, who looked irritated at the delay. She said, ‘Okay, Mr Curran, what was so important you needed to see me on my own?’

  ‘It’s about your father, Stanton Rose.’

  ‘So you said. What about him?’

  Curran had regained composure. He straightened his back and with the heel of a palm, brushed hair away from his forehead. ‘You know I wrote Five Belles –’

  ‘Yes,’ snapped Jackie. ‘I told you, I’m reading it.’

  ‘There were things I couldn’t say then, but that was before Maurie Bensimon died. I can say them now, and I’m going to. I’m going to write a follow-up, an exposé of what really happened at the Cross back then. It’ll rock the nation, I tell you, swipe the rug from right under everyone’s feet.’ He looked at Jackie, waiting for her reaction, an eager, almost manic light in his eyes. He was so close to her she could smell his breath. Curran was a smoker.

  Jackie said, ‘Go on. Or are you expecting a drum roll?’

  Curran smiled, victorious. He unzipped his folder, which contained a red-covered Moleskine notebook, a few pens and an inner compartment. He took from the compartment an old-fashioned envelope, much handled, with Soul Pattinson Chemist branding. From it he removed a thin stack of colour photographs, the old-fashioned pre-digital sort. Again, using a forefinger, he adjusted his glasses and, holding the photographs close, checked them. Then he slid the top photograph over to Jackie, rotating it so she could see it right side up. It was old, the colour slightly faded. Her father, young, and a woman. Jackie had seen enough images of Belle Fitzgerald to recognise her as the woman.