‘So this developer killed her? Or had her killed?’

  ‘Wait, will you? Let me finish. The developer, I think his name was Ritter or – Richter, that was it, Richter – Richter had friends in high places. Politicians, organised crime.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ They were on the move again, Kinsella trying to overtake a laden ute.

  ‘Everybody knows. Surprised you don’t. Bloody iconic. There’s books, documentaries. In any case, the lovely Belle made other enemies as well. Richter, the developer, was in bed with Maurie Bensimon and Russell Monroe. Massive mistake to get the two of them offside.’

  Kinsella whistled. Everyone knew those names. Maurie Bensimon, one-time King of the Cross, the spider at the heart of the web that stretched over the Golden Mile. Owner of nightclubs, at the apex of a pyramid of prostitution, drugs, money laundering, bribery, corruption, murder. Russell Monroe was his chief of staff. Bensimon gave the orders, Monroe carried them out. Bensimon was old now, still living in Sydney. Monroe was dead, his decaying body found alone in a bed in Bali. He’d turned informer against Bensimon and with the reward, embarked on a taxpayer-funded life overseas.

  ‘So Bensimon and Monroe had her killed,’ Kinsella said.

  ‘Or the local cops. Most of them were in Bensimon’s pay.’

  Kinsella glanced over at Jackie. ‘That’s when your father came into the picture. That’s why they want him in on this case now.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Jackie’s eyes were fixed on the road.

  Kinsella shut up.

  Her father again. Jackie felt her hackles rise. She couldn’t help herself. She loved her father very much; for one thing, he’d brought her up all by himself. Stanton and Jackie Rose, the two of them against the world. And she admired him, enough to become a cop just like him. That’s when she’d discovered being his daughter wasn’t easy. Inevitably, people made the connection. Rose? they’d ask. As in Rosie Rose? Any relation? Then they made her work twice as hard to prove she wasn’t hanging on to her father’s coat tails. She did prove it, again and again, but his influence persisted, permeating and disrupting everything she achieved. Like now.

  Still, there was no point punishing Kinsella for her own hangups. Jackie gave herself a small shake, piped up, ‘Are we there yet?’

  He shot her a look, chuckled.

  ***

  The airport site was fenced and restricted. At the entrance the guard on duty held up a palm in greeting, gave them directions to the cemetery. The pathologist’s van pulled up a minute after they did and Kinsella opened its passenger door to help the pathologist, Doris Kalageris, struggle down the steps.

  Doris’s weight made her slow. Her bulk was low to the ground, like one of those dolls that bounce back when pushed over. A shock of frizzy white hair exploded electrically around her sallow face. Put her in a long black dress and you’d take her for a Mediterranean grandmother. You’d be wrong. Doris was a thorough and dedicated pathologist with a tongue like a whip, as people who underestimated her discovered.

  Les Murphy, Doris’s offsider, was out of the van now, already kitted out in his blue forensic overalls. As tall and thin as Doris was short and fat, Les was a paid-up nerd with oversized spectacles, who tried to hide his social ineptitude with painful jokes. He and Doris were inseparable, the source of some spectacular rumours. Now he gave Kinsella a dirty look, probably for helping Doris from the van, something he considered his job.

  Suited crime-scene officers had set up a shade cover and were crawling around the grave. Beyond them, a cop lounged against what was left of the cemetery wall, his bulk immediately recognisable. Senior Sergeant Barry Bartos. Bartos had been Jackie’s sergeant long ago, when she was a rookie cop in Chinatown. They kept in touch. He had recently transferred to Campbelltown, a station closer to home.

  ‘Bazza!’ Jackie threw up an arm in greeting. ‘Enjoying retirement?’

  Bartos ignored the jibe, saluted Kinsella with a forefinger to the temple. Jackie was reminded of the last time the three of them had met. It was at a crime scene, a young woman found dead in a food court. Which inevitably made Jackie think of Schalk Lourens again. He’d got involved with the case and with her as well. She gave herself a mental shake. Schalk was the last thing she wanted to think about. He’d given her enough grief as it was. He’d gone back to South Africa, leaving her high and dry. He’d made promises, of course. He’d come back, he said, and meanwhile they’d see each other every day on WhatsApp. When he did call, however, it was to say he’d decided he belonged in Cape Town and would she think of coming there instead? Could they talk about it?

  No, she said, they couldn’t. She’d been expecting betrayal, and betrayal was what she got. She hung up and wouldn’t answer his calls. Eventually he stopped calling. That was nearly five months ago and the thought of him still burned.

  She propped herself against the wall next to Bartos to wait. It wasn’t long before Doris beckoned them over. The rule was for cops to stand back until Forensics were satisfied, but because this wasn’t a normal scene of crime, Doris allowed them under the shade cover the SOCOs had erected. She wanted to show them the grave. The skeleton, still half-covered by dirt, lay on its back. Its legs were together, arms crossed over its chest as though ready for a formal burial in an invisible coffin.

  Nobody spoke. They didn’t have to. They were all thinking the same thing – how unusual it was for gangsters to top someone and lay them out with such care. Then Doris waved them back and all they could do was watch the blue-clad SOCOs working like archaeologists, clearing away enough earth to approach the remains, using brushes to uncover what was there, taking photographs and video every step of the way.

  Slowly they revealed a dirt-encrusted orange coat, its man-made fibre tattered but resisting decomposition. Little else left now of what this person had worn. The SOCOs were retrieving scraps of fabric, a zip, a belt buckle, a curved piece of wire that Jackie recognised as coming from a bra. Slowly, slowly, they brought up the bones and laid them in a box on a trestle table under the shade tent. The skull was the last to arrive. Even from where she was standing Jackie could see the hole at the side of the head. She wasn’t a pathologist, but she’d bet money on a bashing rather than a bullet. The size of the hole, for one thing.

  She looked enquiringly at Doris. ‘Wait for the post-mortem,’ Doris snapped.

  Meanwhile, Les Murphy was looking up at them from the grave. ‘You need this like a hole in the head,’ he observed, giggling. Everyone ignored him. Then he squatted, muttered, ‘But wait! There’s more!’ A SOCO, masked and hooded, on hands and knees on a foam pad, blocked their view. ‘Handbag,’ Les announced over his shoulder.

  Another SOCO, probably the senior one, the Crime Scene Examiner, approached the grave. He and his offsider took photographs and, after what seemed like forever, brought a tray to the surface. They laid it on the end of the trestle table, away from the bones. The tray held a large black leather shoulder bag, stiff with age but intact.

  Jackie took a step forward. She didn’t recognise the senior SOCO, and said, ‘Excuse me?’

  He looked up. Above his mask, his eyes were deep brown and liquid.

  ‘Inspector Rose,’ she said. ‘I’m in charge of this case.’

  ‘Kashif Abdi.’ He knew what she wanted. Cops weren’t allowed at the evidence until Forensics had finished with it. ‘Need to do this at the lab.’

  ‘Just to see if we can identify her.’

  Kashif Abdi passed his gloved hands over the bag. It had an outside pocket covered by a flap. He lifted the flap and, reaching inside, removed a small plastic wallet, which opened to show a coin purse on one side and two transparent pockets on the other. Each of the pockets held a plastic card. The lower one was a Bankcard and the upper a Medicare card. Both were embossed with the name belle fitzgerald.

  ***

  Chief Inspector Harwood answered immediately.

  ‘It’s her,’ Jackie said. ‘Ninety-nine per cent sure. There was a handbag with ID. Forensics are sending us photos of everything in it and of course they have to check the DNA, but she had the orange coat as well, so –’

  ‘I’ll brief the commissioner,’ Harwood said briskly. ‘She’s standing by, Public Affairs too, the Media Unit. We need to get on top of this right away. Press release tonight, media conference tomorrow morning at nine. You’ll be there.’

  ‘Does she have any family left?’

  ‘No. Only child. Parents both dead.’

  Jackie looked at her watch. It was coming up to four o’clock. ‘You want to see me at work today?’

  ‘No. Talk to your father. You and Kinsella in my office at eight tomorrow morning. Before the conference.’

  Jackie keyed off the call. Kinsella and Bartos stood together, their faces greenish in the filtered light of the shade cover. Kashif Abdi was photographing the handbag.

  ‘What else is in it?’ Jackie yearned to rip it out of his hands. Abdi shook his head.

  ‘Come on,’ Jackie pleaded. ‘You know how big this is going to be.’

  ‘No can do,’ Abdi said. Then, relenting, added, ‘But I’ll see to this myself. You’ll have it tomorrow.’

  Nothing Jackie could do about that. She turned to Bartos, who was finishing a call. ‘Media and the rubberneckers will be here soon,’ she said. ‘I know the area’s restricted, but they’ll try to get in anyway.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Bartos said, holding up his phone, ‘just talking to the airport people. They want to know when they can finish getting the coffins out of here.’

  ‘Not till Forensics give the word,’ Jackie said. She asked Abdi, ‘What do you reckon?’

  He considered. ‘At least a day. Maybe two. We’ll put a tarp over the grave and go over it again tomorrow.’

  ‘Give me your number,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ He seemed surprised.

  ‘So I can find you if you don’t deliver.’

  Time to go home and work out a plan of action to present to Harwood tomorrow. And talk to her father, of course. Jackie wondered how he’d take being asked to revisit past glories. He’d probably welcome the chance to get his hands dirty again. Harwood was right, he’d been there and he’d be able to help her shape the investigation. Maybe they could have dinner together. She’d phone him from the car.

  ***

  Stanton Rose was free for dinner. Like Jackie, he lived in Glebe, though at the swanky harbour end. He suggested the Northumberland at seven, and that gave her time for a quick swim at Sydney Uni pool. She showered and changed there and at ten to seven she strolled down Glebe Point Road to meet him.

  The early warmth had brought out spring blossoms, and every now and then Jackie caught the occasional whiff of jasmine, interspersed with garlic and oil from cafés and restaurants along the way. The pavement was crowded. Students, baby boomers, backpackers, all meandering along, browsing places to eat, crystal shops, mini-marts. Glebe might be inner-city but it was, like many Sydney suburbs, a separate village, with its own bohemian personality.

  The Northumberland was halfway between Stanton’s and Jackie’s homes. It was Stanton’s local and he’d been loyal to it for decades, hanging on despite its many iterations. Right now it was going through a woke phase. Things in bowls, quinoa, craft beer. He shrugged it off. They still served steak, and he’d lived through worse.

  Jackie found her father at his usual table in the corner of the beer garden, facing the door. He hadn’t lost the cop habit of keeping his back covered. He threw up an arm in welcome and as she approached Jackie saw with irritation that he wasn’t alone. He had a woman with him. Bugger. She’d assumed it would just be the two of them. What she had to tell him was classified and now she’d have to wait. The last thing she felt like was being pleasant to the latest girlfriend.

  Stanton was attractive to women. He was a serial dater, never committing. He’d been single since Jackie was seven and she couldn’t remember any of his relationships lasting longer than a few months. There was a pattern to them: a torrid period followed by a gradual decline until the woman went away or else fronted him in a deluge of tears and abuse. Part of the pattern, too, was that a few weeks after he met someone, when the affair was still on the boil, he’d bring her to meet his daughter.

  Now he half-rose and pulled out the chair on his right. It was new, iron with wood slats, and a definite step up from the wobbly old ones. The Northumberland was getting tickets on itself.

  Stanton said, ‘Rae, this is my daughter, Jackie. Jackie, this is Rae Callanan.’

  Rae smiled broadly. She was a compact woman somewhere in her sixties, trim and expensively groomed. Her tight white pants and pink V-necked sweater showed off a still impressive figure and her hair suggested a seriously good colourist. She proffered a hand with long, fuchsia fingernails. Jackie took it with her short, naked ones. She watched Rae’s eyes rake over her jeans and sweatshirt, the Converse All Stars below, register that Jackie was not of her tribe.

  ‘Lovely to meet you, Jackie. Stanton never stops talking about you.’

  Jackie took the offered chair, kept her expression neutral. Never stops talking about you. How long have you known him, then? She gave herself a mental slap. Stop thinking like a cop, Jacks.

  ‘Hope it’s good,’ she managed. ‘What’re you drinking?’

  ‘I’m sticking to white. Less fattening, for a start. As it is, I’ll have to work tonight off in the gym.’

  ‘That’s where we met,’ said Stanton. ‘I’m on the treadmill, minding my own business, when this little package of heaven comes up to me, says, “How about it, big boy?”’

  ‘I didn’t!’ squealed Rae. ‘Don’t listen to a word he says, Jackie. I’d been seeing your father on and off in the gym and one day we got talking.’

  ‘My version makes a better story, though.’

  They laughed, and things got easier. Jackie felt her body loosen. She wouldn’t be able to talk to her father about Belle Fitzgerald over dinner so she might as well relax. Sitting back, she looked at Rae and Stanton together. They made a handsome couple. Stanton might be getting on – God, he was seventy-four now – but he was straight-backed and silver-haired, and kept himself in shape. That and the glow of fame would be irresistible, Jackie thought, watching Rae place her small hand possessively over her father’s larger one.

  The rest of the meal was comfortable. Jackie enjoyed her salt and pepper squid. Rae ate slowly, picking at her grilled barramundi. Eventually she laid her knife and fork side by side on her plate and turned to Jackie. ‘Your father tells me you’re a police officer like he was, a homicide detective.’

  ‘I am.’ Jackie steeled herself. People couldn’t handle what she did for a living. Some were titillated, others squeamish. They all wanted to know what it was like to work with the worst of human behaviour day after day. Now, when someone new asked Jackie what she did for a living, she lied. ‘Human resources,’ she told them. It was true in its way and would do until she got to know them better. If she got to know them better.

  Rae was no different. Her eyes grew large. ‘Sounds exciting,’ she said. ‘Do you ever get over seeing dead people? What’s the worst you’ve ever come across?’

  Stanton came to the rescue. ‘Give the girl a break, baby. She’s off duty.’

  If only he knew, thought Jackie.

  Rae had the grace to look ashamed. She waved her wineglass. ‘Sorry. Jackie. It’s just …’ she fumbled for a way out. ‘And of course you’re following the best example a girl could have.’ She patted Stanton’s arm. ‘I knew who he was straight away. A hero, this one.’

  Jackie, still wishing she could break the news about today’s find, tried for a smile, said, ‘Yes. My dad was one hell of a cop.’

  They’d reached the end of that subject. Stanton picked up the conversation. ‘How’s the boy?’ he asked. He meant Luke, Jackie’s son. Luke was nineteen now, sharing a house in Newtown, juggling Commerce at uni, part-time work and Danni, the girl he’d met on his gap year in Europe. Luke was the result of a one-night stand in Jackie’s early days on the force. For some crazy reason she kept the baby, and despite the tightrope of being a cop and a single mother at the same time, there hadn’t been a day when she’d regretted her decision. Luke had grown into a terrific young man. Jackie was proud of him and he was the apple of Stanton Rose’s eye. Stanton, notoriously close with money, had paid for Luke’s expensive private school and had part-funded his gap year.

  Now Jackie said, ‘Luke’s fine. Doing his thing. Busy. Sends his love and said to tell you he’d see you soon.’

  ‘Got any pics?’ Rae was still trying to build bridges.

  ‘I’ll go settle the bill,’ Stanton said, heading towards the bar.

  As Jackie scrolled through her photos, Rae shifted her chair close, leaned in confidentially. She’d had a few and her words slurred slightly. ‘Jackie, darl, I hope you won’t mind me being personal, but can I say something?’

  ‘Sure. Go ahead.’

  ‘You and me, I’d like us to be friends.’

  Jackie made a noncommittal sound. Sooner or later all Stanton’s women made this speech, though normally not this early. The next thing they said was how they could never take a mother’s place and blah, blah, blah …

  Rae surprised her. ‘Your father, he’s a keeper, you know that?’ She tapped a fingernail on the table, added, ‘And I’m bloody well going to keep him.’ She gave a surprisingly dirty chuckle. ‘Boy, am I going to keep him! So I hope we get on, because he thinks the world of you. I can see why.’ Rae gestured at Jackie. ‘You’re a very … handsome woman.’

  Was that even a compliment? Jackie opened her mouth to deflect, but Rae hadn’t finished. ‘While I’ve got you, tell me something?’ A beat, then, ‘Stanton won’t say anything about his ex. About Frances, your mother. He clams up. What happened? Why’d they break up?’