Eventually she started the engine and drove away. She found a parking spot a block from her house and walked back. As she approached she saw Kinsella sitting on the front steps, head bent over his phone. He must have heard footsteps because he looked up, stood to meet her. It made something break inside her, turned her to water.

  ‘Jackie –’ he began, but she shook her head to shut him up. She unlocked the door and ushered him in, turned to face him. He must have seen something because he opened his arms. She stepped into them, pressed her body full against his.

  ‘Take me upstairs,’ she said.

  ***

  He didn’t ask what had precipitated her need. Afterwards, he said, ‘You smell like the sea.’ And later still, ‘I’ve been wanting to do that since the first time I saw you.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘How could you not know?’ He ran a hand down her hip. ‘Not even last year, with the South African?’

  ‘I just thought you two didn’t get on.’

  ‘Some detective you are.’

  It was the word detective. Rule number one: never screw people you work with. No, that was rule number two. Rule number one was never screw your boss or your subordinates. Ah, well, the least of her worries. She burrowed into Kinsella’s chest and closed her eyes, and immediately the image of Belle Fitzgerald and her father appeared.

  ‘Hey?’ Kinsella asked, drawing back. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Oh, mate.’ Jackie sighed. ‘I wouldn’t know where to start. You first. What are you doing here? Is it the Perth thing?’

  He hesitated. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Are you going to Perth?’

  Kinsella extricated his arm from under Jackie and hoisted himself to a sitting position, adjusting pillows against the headboard. ‘Talk about that later.’

  She caught his tone, sat up next to him with the sheet around her. He made no move to hold her. He was containing himself, as she had just done.

  ‘What?’ she asked.

  ‘Harwood got hold of me. Said he’d had a call from a guy called Simon Levy.’

  For a moment she didn’t know who he was talking about. Then, ‘Oh.’

  ‘Yeah. The jeweller. Apparently you told him you hadn’t found anything in his records. He decided to check and says you took one of his receipt books without letting him know.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I told him I’d sort it. Harwood said okay, to get back to him about it when I had. He wasn’t best pleased – you know he’s looking for things to pin on you. Said to tell you he doesn’t like being blindsided and wants an explanation. So then I phoned Levy and smoothed it over. Said it must have been an admin glitch, that he should have had an email advising him the book was needed in evidence, blah, blah, blah. He wanted to know why you hadn’t mentioned taking it.’

  Kinsella paused, waiting to see if Jackie would comment, and when she didn’t, continued. ‘I bullshitted him. I said when a case attracted as much publicity as this one, sometimes we had to act in secret. I don’t think he believed me, but I calmed him down. I said he’d hear from us tomorrow.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Nearly today. Want to tell me what’s going on?’

  Again, Jackie felt the urge to tell Kinsella the whole story. But she couldn’t. If she did, he’d be duty-bound to go to Harwood. And if he decided to keep quiet, to protect her, she’d have made him as culpable as she was.

  Besides, although she didn’t know exactly what she was going to do about her father yet, she realised she definitely wasn’t going to betray him, if betray was the right word. At least not yet. So she sighed and told Kinsella part of the truth. She described her reaction on seeing the name, the instinct that had made her pocket the book, how she’d confronted Stanton with it, his explanation that he’d picked up the ring for Russell Monroe while he, Stanton, was undercover and pretending to be one of Monroe and Bensimon’s pet cops.

  ‘My father asked me to hold back the receipt,’ Jackie told Kinsella, ‘because if it gets out that there’s a connection between him and Belle Fitzgerald, people will start accusing him of –’ she found it hard to keep her voice steady ‘– of all sorts of things. Once we have a clearer idea of what happened to Belle, I can return the book and explain to Harwood.’

  ‘No, you can’t,’ said Kinsella. ‘You know that as well as I do. You’ve withheld evidence. You flash it around later, you say goodbye to being Inspector Jackie Rose. To being any sort of cop at all.’ He let the implication sit.

  If Kinsella only knew how small in the scheme of things the sin of the receipt book was. She said, ‘Question is, what are you going to do about it?’

  He raised his head as if to survey the ceiling, scratched his neck. ‘What am I going to do about it?’ He shrugged. ‘Let’s see how the case pans out. Is that what’s been worrying you these past few days?’

  ‘Yeah,’ Jackie lied. ‘I suppose.’

  He smiled down at her. ‘Well, I’ll keep quiet for the time being.’

  She felt a stab of conscience, because of what he was prepared to do for her and how she was deceiving him. ‘I can’t involve you in suppressing evidence, Kinsella. You’ll end up in the shit with me. The receipt, the signature, we can’t keep it secret forever, and –’

  ‘Not if we find who did kill Belle Fitzgerald,’ he said, ‘or at least come up with a strong case. We do that, all will be forgiven.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘I reckon.’ He pulled her down and drew her to him, spooning. ‘Get a couple of hours sleep. We’ve got work to do tomorrow.’

  14.

  Whatever the future might hold for her and Stanton, Belle wasn’t keeping the baby. So two weeks after her birthday Margie Solon drove them to Preterm in her aged Honda. Belle was willing to go alone, but Margie, showing unexpected motherly tendencies, insisted on accompanying her.

  Margie shepherded Belle through the Helpers of God milling around the clinic’s entrance. death house and abortion is murder, screamed their placards. Inside, everything was orderly and professional. After a counselling interview – was she sure? Had she thought this through? What were her circumstances? – a uniformed nurse took Belle to a consulting room, and minutes later the procedure was over. Belle admitted to feeling washed out, and when they got home Margie sat her down and made her tea.

  Belle had read stories about women who desperately regretted terminating their pregnancies, but all she felt now was a sense of having done what was necessary. She didn’t look forward to breaking the news to Stanton. Too bad. It was her body and she could do what she liked with it. She didn’t need his permission.

  ***

  A month went by and May morphed into June. Belle, defensive, told Stanton about the termination. He sighed as if he’d expected it, grew quiet, held her close. He didn’t say anything else, either about that or the conversation they’d had about his wanting to be with her. She didn’t push it. She felt tenuous, unhitched, as if extracting the foetus had at the same time severed a connection between the two of them.

  Besides, she had things on her mind. It had been months now and she still didn’t know what to do about Richter. He’d gone quiet, and her father must have heard about her continuing activism because when she asked him what was happening he grew evasive. Here, too, she felt rootless, as though she was waiting for something to happen, a sign or some sort of direction, but she didn’t know what.

  Now that Nelson wasn’t visiting, Belle spent more time with Margie and her fellow teachers. She and Margie went to the Film Festival. It was the Queen’s Birthday weekend and the weather had turned icy. ‘It’s always like this,’ said Margie, who’d brought a thermos of soup. ‘You know it’s winter when the festival starts.’ Sitting with a roomful of rugged-up enthusiasts in the ornately beautiful State Theatre, Belle felt she was finally in the right place. This was where she belonged, in the heart of intellectual Sydney. She tried to imagine Stanton sitting next to her, but couldn’t make the picture work. If she were honest, she told herself, he wouldn’t fit into her life. Would she fit into his? Not likely, and that was without the daughter, the messy divorce. In her plush seat in the darkened auditorium she twisted the ring he’d bought her around and around her finger.

  ***

  It was after midnight by the time Belle got home, and as she unlocked her front door her phone began to ring. She ran to answer it, but there was nobody there. She swore. This had happened a couple of times in the past weeks. In her hurry to get to the phone she’d left the door open and as she turned to close it she saw with a shock a figure standing hunched in the open frame. It resolved itself into Nelson, bent over, clutching his right arm against his body. Slowly and with a moan he slid down the doorjamb. She ran to him, helped him up, half-carried him to the armchair. He smelled of wine and sweat and fear. He was barefoot and his face and shirt were daubed with blood, which she saw came from his nose. He was trembling. She laid a blanket over his lap and turned on the two-bar heater, edged it closer to him.

  He was still supporting his arm, which hung at an unnatural angle from his shoulder. ‘We’ve got to get you to hospital,’ Belle said. ‘Your arm looks bad. You need X-rays for broken ribs, who knows –’

  ‘No!’ Nelson grabbed at her with his good hand, yelped in pain, fell back. ‘Please, no. You can’t. It’s nothing.’

  ‘Shh. Quiet, now.’ Belle raised the blanket higher. She knelt next to the chair, stroked Nelson’s hair. ‘It’s okay. You’re safe here.’

  He shook his head wildly. ‘No, I’m not. He’ll come after me and this is the first place he’ll look. I’ve got to get out of here!’

  ‘Can you tell me what happened?’ she asked. ‘Russell Monroe did this to you?’

  ‘Yes. But Belle, please, if he finds me here he’ll kill both of us.’

  Belle understood the danger. Monroe’s capacity for violence was famous. He’d shot a man dead because of a joking remark. Nelson was right; she had to move him, and fast. ‘Give me a minute,’ she said, standing.

  ‘You going to dob me in?’ Nelson sounded hysterical.

  ‘Of course not. What do you think? We made a pact, remember? We’re there for each other.’

  Belle did the only thing she could think of. She went next door and woke her neighbour, Narelle Docherty, and asked for help. ‘I’ve got to get someone out of here,’ Belle said, ‘I don’t know what to do. He’s hurt and Russell Monroe is after him.’

  That was enough for Narelle. She lit a cigarette and thought about it, absentmindedly picking strands of tobacco from the tip of her tongue. Then she said, ‘Okay. Wait here.’ Cigarette in hand, she crossed the road and banged on the door belonging to their neighbour, stumpy, choleric Ivan Kapela. He opened it a crack, then wider, and Belle could see Narelle, in her chenille dressing gown, explaining. She returned to Belle. ‘Ivan says to give him fifteen. Has to organise the car.’

  Belle told Nelson help was on its way. She fetched socks, put them on him, wrapped him in a shawl. Knelt again at the chair, took his good hand in hers, and said, ‘Can you tell me what happened?’

  ‘It was my fault. I made him do it.’ Nelson groaned, then the words tumbled out. ‘It’s just – it’s so boring in the flat all day by myself. I’ve got nothing to do, and Russ won’t let me see any of my friends. Not even you, and I really used to look forward to that. I read stuff and watch TV and he’s bought me weights to work out with and I make the place nice for him but honestly sometimes I feel like I’m in prison. I love him, but –’ Agitated, he tightened his grasp on Belle’s hand. ‘I didn’t mean to … he came last night and I cooked him something really special and made the table pretty and we were just about to eat when he got a phone call. He grabbed his keys and went and the flat was empty again.

  ‘I had to sit there and wait for him. I felt like a fool, and then I started to think about how he can come and go any time he likes and I just have to stay there and wait. As if I’m a … like a fuck machine, that’s all I am to him, something to use. I cracked open a bottle of red and got into it, walking in circles, getting madder and madder. I worked myself into a state. Then I saw he’d left his briefcase and, fuck it, I thought, he never tells me anything.’

  Nelson drew a ragged breath. ‘I tried to open it but it was locked. Those combination locks, you know? I sat on the floor and played with them, trying different ones. I got it open. And I saw what was inside.’ Nelson stopped, eyes wide. ‘You wouldn’t believe it. Then I looked up and he was standing over me. He pulled me up, like hard, and sort of swung me around in the air, and that’s …’ Nelson pointed his chin at his injured arm.

  ‘He just dropped me back on the floor and said, like, really quietly, “Give me the case.” He stood there watching while I got everything back in and closed it and handed it to him. Then he said, “Got a job to do. We’ll discuss this later, when I get back. Here’s a taste.” Then he smacked me across the face and he left. My keys were in the door. He took them and locked me inside.’

  ‘How did you get out?’

  Nelson grimaced. ‘He doesn’t know, but I’ve got a spare set of keys. I saw his car drive off from the window and then I just …’ He began to cry. ‘He’ll kill me, I know he will.’

  ‘I’ll look after you.’

  ‘You can’t! I told you, he’ll send people to find me. And he knows I’d come to you.’ He fell back, groaning.

  They heard a car pull up outside, then a knock at the door. Nelson gave a frightened cry, but it was only Ivan Kapela from across the road. He was driving, of all things, a taxi. He helped Belle deposit Nelson on the back seat and together the three of them headed north. Ivan asked no questions. He knew someone, he told Belle, who lived in Thornleigh, up near Hornsby. After that, they drove in silence.

  Thornleigh called itself a suburb, but it had a feral edge. The houses were untidier, the gardens wilder. Streetlights shone on weedy hedges and uncertain fences. Eventually they pulled into a rutted driveway and Ivan got out and banged on a door. After a while the porch light came on and a young man appeared. He was blond, barefoot, in jeans but shirtless, his body clean and straight. Under the light he looked like an ancient statue.

  He shivered and became a real human being. ‘Ivan!’ he exclaimed. ‘What the fuck?’

  ‘Gimme a hand, mate,’ Ivan said. ‘Come.’ Then, gesturing to Belle, he added, ‘Friend of mine. Belle.’ Nodded at the man, said, ‘Gary Rowley.’ He returned to the car and opened the back door. ‘Help us get him in.’

  The two men carried Nelson into the living room and sat him on a couch covered with dog-haired blankets. Gary Rowley examined Nelson’s arm. ‘Dislocated shoulder,’ he said. ‘Needs to go to hospital.’

  Ivan said, ‘Nah. Not possible. Nobody knows he’s here. Look after him for a few days?’

  Rowley took this in his stride. ‘Okay. Hold it while I put some clothes on. Fucking freezing.’ He disappeared into another room, came back wearing Ugg boots and an oversized, fraying, hand-knitted sweater. He carried a straight-backed wooden chair and had a large scarf draped over one shoulder.

  ‘Okay, mate,’ he said to Nelson. ‘Sit down.’

  Nelson looked at Belle with stricken eyes. ‘What’s he going to do to me?’

  ‘Gaz is a nurse,’ said Ivan.

  ‘Was,’ said Rowley. ‘Now I make jewellery.’ He turned his head to show Belle a pierced ear and dangling from it, a small spiral periwinkle shell wound with gold wire. ‘Come on,’ he said to Nelson. ‘This won’t hurt.’

  Nelson sat in the kitchen chair. Rowley bent over him, his body between Nelson and Belle. He did something to Nelson, something hard. Nelson screamed, then pitched forward and vomited on the floor.

  Rowley stood back. ‘I lied. Hurts like hell, but only for a second. Back in its socket now.’ He made a sling of the scarf and settled Nelson’s arm inside it. ‘Don’t use the arm for a day or two. And hang on a minute.’ Once again he vanished and returned carrying a glass of water and a blister pack of tablets. He fed two to Nelson.

  Belle said, ‘Where’s the kitchen? I’ll clean this up.’

  ‘That way. Meanwhile I’ll make a fire. Ivan, mate, beer?’

  ‘Got any tea?’

  They sat at the fireplace, drinking tea and passing a joint around. Nelson, swathed in blankets, was pale and quiet. Ivan said, ‘Time to go.’

  Nelson said, ‘I have to talk to Belle, if you don’t mind. Alone.’

  Rowley shrugged. ‘We’ll check out the studio.’ He took a last long toke and guided Ivan from the room.

  Nelson whispered, ‘He’s hot. Plus I think he likes you.’ Then he got serious. They were sitting side by side on the lumpy old couch and now Nelson rested his head against her shoulder. Belle put her arm around him, avoiding the injury. Nelson said, ‘You know I can’t come back.’

  ‘What will you do? Have you got somewhere to go?’

  ‘Yeah, maybe.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Better if I don’t say.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He didn’t answer. Suddenly she understood. ‘You think I’ll tell him. Stanton. You know about him.’

  Nelson nodded. He said, ‘Not just Stanton. I know you wouldn’t do it on purpose, okay? But if Russ comes looking and I’ve told you where I am, he’ll get it out of you one way or another.’

  ‘How long have you known? About Stanton?’

  He looked shamefaced. ‘Since the beginning. Since the time I saw you and you had that silly look on your face. I came back to my place and Russ was in a hell of a good mood and he told me, “We’ve got that silly bitch teacher of yours right where we want her. Fucked stupid by Rosie Rose.” That’s what he called him, Rosie Rose.’