She sat up fast. The movement made her head swim and for a moment she thought she was going to be sick. She leaned her head back against the chair. ‘Who else knows?’

  ‘That your father’s Huntley Adair? We do. The cops. We know.’

  ‘You’re going to spread it around?’ She hoped he wouldn’t see her panic.

  He shrugged. ‘Not unless we have to.’

  We? What did he mean? Was he talking about the bashing? Yes, of course. He hadn’t appeared by chance. Right place, right time …

  Rose read her mind, said, ‘I had nothing to do with that.’ Then he softened his tone. ‘Just keeping an eye on the meeting and all. On you.’

  ‘Me?’

  A shoulder lifted in a shrug. ‘You’re stepping on some very big toes.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  He looked around for somewhere to put his empty glass and stood it on the carpet next to the couch. He looked up and met her eyes and it was clear to both of them, the electricity.

  He hesitated, then, ‘Belle …’ Her name in his mouth gave her a jolt. ‘Belle,’ he repeated, ‘the men running this thing. They’re used to getting their own way, and if they don’t … they’re dangerous. You don’t want to get involved with them, believe me.’

  ‘That’s more or less what the guys who bashed me said. Anyway, you talking about Richter? He knows my father. He wouldn’t do anything to me.’

  ‘Your father’s not the only person Richter knows. He’s involved with other people too.’

  ‘Like who?’

  Stanton shook his head. He put his hands on his knees and pushed himself up. The light caught his wedding band. Standing, he seemed to fill the room. ‘I have to go.’

  At the door he said her name again. ‘Belle. Take care. I can’t … just look after yourself, will you? I can’t be everywhere, and you need to believe me. This is bigger than you think.’

  Then he was gone.

  ***

  It was early November before Stanton Rose came into Belle’s orbit again and, as before, it involved the developers.

  United by the action group, the residents of Catherine Street ignored their eviction notices and stayed put. For a month or so, nothing happened. They waited for Richter’s next move, the street suspended in stillness, the bricks themselves seeming to hold their breath. Meanwhile, Belle and Margie investigated options. They went to the legal centre on Oxford Street to find out if there was any official way they could challenge Richter. There wasn’t. All they could do was wait to see what would happen and fight against it.

  Everyone expected Richter to throw people and their belongings out in the street. He didn’t. He’d learned lessons from the Victoria Street siege and he wasn’t going to try to bash through like the men who’d wanted to build there. Richter was strategic.

  The first thing he did was offer money. A couple of residents, attracted by enough cash to last a few months, accepted. The rest stayed put. His next moves were surreptitious, and undertaken via the police. One resident was arrested on suspected paedophilia charges. Nothing proven; they let him go after a week, but by then everyone had heard about it and he lost first his job and then his wife. A second resident was found to have a heroin stash. Although he protested his innocence he went to jail and was evicted, and Richter chalked up another victory.

  Neither Belle nor Margie knew how to deal with this kind of warfare. Belle tried appealing to her father. He dismissed her claims, assuring her Richter could not possibly be involved – and besides, what did she expect, living as she did among druggies and perverts? She didn’t tell him about the mugging because it would have given him yet another reason to criticise the area.

  Then she had a brainwave and phoned Trevor Curran. Trevor was her on–off boyfriend. They were in an ‘off’ phase at the moment, at Belle’s insistence. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Trevor. He was presentable and clever and altogether suitable. He had a glamorous job, too, as a current affairs presenter on Channel 9. That made him a minor celebrity, and Belle had no problem hanging off the arm of someone the public recognised.

  What she liked less was Trevor’s devotion. It took away all respect she had for him and made her want to treat him badly. Catch-22: Belle could never love a man who loved her more than she loved him. She needed a bit of the bad boy to keep her interested.

  Which made her think of Stanton Rose. Definitely some bad boy there, and definitely chemistry. She was sure he’d picked it up as well. After the night of the mugging she thought she might hear from him, but he didn’t contact her. She wasn’t going to make the first move – he was a cop, after all – and now, a couple of months later, she’d stopped expecting it. Probably for the best.

  Belle and Trevor met at Bar Coluzzi and she asked him to help with the action group. She wanted publicity and this was a good story. Yes, he said, of course he would. He’d find out what he could. She asked him to keep her family’s name out of it. He’d try, he said, but the story came first. Would she have dinner with him soon? She had to agree. She needed to keep him on side.

  Trevor was good company and dinner was pleasant. He took her to one of their favourite places, Diethnes in Pitt Street. The food was good and between them they polished off nearly two carafes of the house red. By the time they left, Belle felt happily woozy. Although it was almost summer, the nights were still chilly and she shivered. Trevor put his arm around her shoulders and drew her tight, and together they walked back to Catherine Street. He wanted to come in, but she shook her head and shut the door on him.

  The knock came a few minutes later and, thinking it was Trevor, she opened it with a laughing, ‘What part of no don’t you understand?’

  It wasn’t Trevor, though. It was Stanton Rose, one hand on the door frame.

  ‘Were you lurking?’ she asked, still smiling, opening the door and gesturing for him to come in.

  He smiled back at her as he passed. ‘I was. Waiting for you to come home.’ Then, casually, ‘That your boyfriend?’

  The wine had made her careless. ‘Why do you want to know?’ She pointed at his left hand. ‘While we’re at it, what does the wedding ring mean?’

  He sat on the couch, in the same place as before. He fingered the ring with his right hand, thought about it, said with finality, ‘It means I’m married.’

  ‘Want a drink?’

  ‘Sure.’

  She brought him the whisky, a bottle of Johnny Walker Red she’d stolen from home. He poured himself a solid measure, offered the bottle.

  She held up a palm. ‘I’ve had a bit already.’

  A half-smile. God, he was sexy, she thought, taking in the jeans and crew-neck jumper. She made a conscious effort to pull herself together. ‘What do you want?’

  He got serious. ‘You have to stop this anti-development stuff.’

  ‘Oh, hell. You cops. You going to find smack here tonight?’ She gestured towards the stairs. ‘Go on, go up and plant it. You might as well. You’re in their pay, aren’t you, the bad guys?’

  ‘You finished?’ He bent forward, elbows on knees, cupping the whisky glass in both hands. His voice was low and urgent. ‘Belle, listen to me. I’m here to warn you.’

  ‘Warn me?’ She wiggled her fingers in mock horror. ‘Oooh, spooky. You’re so serious. I’m scared!’ When he didn’t react she said, ‘Want a cigarette?’ She took the pack and her lighter out of her handbag and came over to sit on the couch next to him. It was a small couch and they were thigh to thigh.

  He refused the smoke. She looked at the pack but decided against. She said, ‘Like, what do you mean warn me?’

  ‘Belle, the action group is going to meet next Friday night. Right?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Okay. The cops will raid that meeting. They’ll claim they’re breaking up a terrorist cell.’

  ‘What? That’s bullshit, that’s –’

  ‘They’ll come in hard. People will get hurt. You’ve got to stop it.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘How do you think? Enough that I know.’ He turned to face her, bringing himself close to emphasise he meant what he said. ‘Belle, listen. I’m taking a hell of a risk letting you know this. You have to promise me you won’t tell anyone I was here tonight.’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I need your promise.’ He emptied his glass and put it on the floor next to him. He turned to face her, put a hand on her shoulder.

  She covered his hand with her own. ‘Promise.’

  There was a long silence. Then he reached for her.

  5.

  No chance of a swim this morning. No chance even for coffee. Jackie, determined to get on top of things from the start, had set an early alarm.

  She edged her car into Bridge Road, thinking about what to do next. Too early for even the diligent Bennie Wang to be at work, so she phoned his mobile number. Bennie, young and wheelchair-bound, had been taken on as a casual admin support officer, but his exceptional research skills soon got him made permanent and Jackie, recognising his strengths, lobbied to have him moved to intelligence gathering. He was the bridge between Homicide and Intel, and as far as Jackie was concerned, an integral member of her team.

  Bennie’s mother answered. ‘Inspector Rose!’ she chirped. ‘Benjamin tells me you’re an important person now. Wait, I’ll get him.’

  Bennie, too, sounded wide awake. ‘Morning, chief!’

  She told him about finding Belle Fitzgerald, and that she’d been given the case. ‘Wow!’ he said, and then, ‘Are they sure it’s her?’

  ‘Yeah. Ninety-nine per cent sure. ID in her handbag. I need you to get hold of all the files on her disappearance. Hard copy and soft, because it’s possible the early ones won’t have been digitised. Not sure where they’ll be – try Unsolved. Be careful. They may have their knickers in a twist because they’ve lost the case to us. Play nice.’

  ‘Will do, chief. I’ve got a mate in Unsolved.’

  ‘Good. Start on that when you get in. I’ll see what I can do about finding someone to help you. Oh, and while you’re at it, get hold of a copy of a book called Five Belles. It’s about Belle Fitzgerald’s disappearance. I couldn’t get it online. Okay?’

  ‘Okely-dokely.’ Bennie was a gamer and a TV addict and a Simpsons fan.

  ***

  The car inched along. The A4 was slow, even going against the tide of citybound commuters. Jackie turned on the radio, turned it off again. No matter where you went in Sydney you could count on at least one traffic jam. Still, a small price to pay for living in Glebe. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t tried to make life easier for herself. Two years ago she’d rented a townhouse in Parramatta, reasoning it would be close to work. It hadn’t turned out well. The townhouse was fine, and a short walk from the office, but that was the problem. All she did was work, walk home and walk back again. Plus she missed the Sydney Uni pool. While there was nothing wrong with Parramatta, she’d felt out of place there. She was better off in her natural element, the narrow old terrace in Campbell Street, Glebe.

  Her thoughts turned to her father. She had to find out why he’d reacted so strangely when she told him about Belle. It was more than just interest, obviously. He’d been in the Cross when Belle went missing. Did he know something? She’d ring him when she got to work. With luck his girlfriend Rae would have left by then. She’d make a time to meet so she could pick his brains about the case.

  She tried to imagine what it would have been like for him, back in the Cross in the eighties. He’d been in his thirties then, married with a small daughter and gearing himself up every day to work in the toughest, wildest part of the city. And every second of the day keeping up the pretence of being a bent cop, one of the men who underpinned corruption not just in the Cross but throughout the state. Men who, if they found a rat in their ranks, wouldn’t hesitate to kill it and make it suffer first. One false move and Stanton would have ended up buried under concrete or, like Belle, sharing a grave with someone else. Jackie had always wondered how he’d coped with the stress, and if that had contributed to her mother leaving them. Whatever. Her mother should have seen it through. Not that her father was perfect, Jackie knew that. She’d heard the whispers that Stanton Rose had played both sides, as bent as the men he was exposing. She’d asked him about them. He’d explained how, yes, he’d gone along with some of what the corrupt cops did, just to make them trust him. Had even, with the blessing of the Feds, profited a little. He’d had to do it, he said, a means to an end. And he’d made it to the end. He’d won. Her father.

  As if she’d conjured it, her phone rang and she saw his name on the screen. ‘Just thinking of you,’ she said. ‘What happened last night? What was that all about?’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘On my way to work. Can I come around tonight?’

  ‘What did they find? Tell me exactly.’

  In the background Jackie could hear a woman’s voice. ‘Stannie? Stannie?’ Then a sliding noise, a click. Jackie pictured Stanton stepping out onto the back deck, shutting the door behind him so Rae couldn’t hear.

  ‘What did they find?’ he asked again.

  ‘Not much,’ Jackie said. ‘Did you hear what I said last night? You’re going to be called in as a consultant. They’ll ring you this morning, most probably Chief Inspector Harwood. He’s –’

  ‘Any personal effects?’

  ‘Just a few rags, and a handbag. It’s at forensics. I’ll get a look at it today.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Ah, you know, anything that could help you get a handle on the case.’

  Jackie said, ‘One strange thing. The way we found her. The body was laid out carefully, as if it was in a coffin. Hands crossed over chest, feet together. We’re not broadcasting that. Only people working the case know about it. Since you’re a consultant …’

  She was talking into silence. ‘You there, Dad? I was thinking, you were in the Cross when she was alive. Did you meet her?’ Still no answer, but Jackie had reached Parramatta and was turning into Charles Street. ‘I’m nearly at work now. Can we talk tonight? I’ll come over.’

  Stanton cleared his throat. ‘Okay. You do that. Let me know when you leave. See you later.’

  ‘See you later.’

  ***

  Jackie turned her mind to her meeting with Harwood and the upcoming media conference. She was as prepared as she could be at this stage. She’d spent hours mining the internet, skimming articles and clips on Belle and her disappearance. There would be more research to come, about other players as well as Belle. Maurie Bensimon, for example, and Russell Monroe. And the developer, Oliver Richter. The difficulty in this case wasn’t so much finding out what had happened to Belle as working through the many suppositions out there. Complicated, of course, by time. Some of the players – Richter, for example – were dead now; others, like Bensimon, just old. Memories would be faulty, evidence gone. Still, she thought, feeling a stab of excitement, I’m up for it. I’ll show them what I can do.

  Kinsella was already at work, drinking coffee from a takeaway cup and leaning over Bennie Wang’s computer. They were refining their joint project, compiling the ideal AFL team. They broke apart when they saw Jackie.

  ‘News?’ asked Kinsella, retrieving another cup from his desk and handing it to her. She thanked him with a heavenward raising of eyes. Then she took in what Kinsella was wearing. Jeans, a slightly crumpled white shirt.

  ‘Harwood will bar you from the press conference.’

  ‘That’s the idea,’ replied Kinsella, grinning.

  Harwood was in his office, suited up and ready for the press. He gave Jackie’s navy pants suit an approving nod but frowned when he saw Kinsella’s outfit. ‘Stay at the back of the room,’ he told Kinsella, who shot Jackie a sideways glance of triumph.

  Harwood was too edgy to be a good listener, and he shuffled and sniffled while Jackie outlined her strategy for the investigation. ‘We need to get on top of the files first, so we don’t go anywhere half-cocked,’ she said. ‘It’ll take a couple of days. If that pans out, we’ll start with Dick Wardle. He was the first cop in charge of the case, the one they tried to kill. If he’s still alive. Bennie can check.’

  ‘And after that?’ Harwood was tapping his Apple Watch.

  ‘Depending how all that goes, I thought we’d get onto Trevor Curran, the journalist. He followed the case for years and even wrote a book about the disappearance. I know it’s a bit left-field, but he got involved early on and he’ll have insights. Then of course there’s Bensimon himself.’

  ‘Bensimon? I checked him out last night,’ said Kinsella. ‘Apparently he’s in an old-age home now. Probably off with the pixies.’

  Harwood looked irritated.

  ‘I’d like to leave Bensimon until we’ve done some digging first,’ said Jackie. ‘As I said, I want to have my ducks in a row.’

  ‘We’ll be lucky to get anything out of him,’ said Kinsella.

  Harwood ignored Kinsella, gathered papers, announced, ‘The commissioner considers this so important she’s managing it personally. She’s created a direct line between herself and me. She wants daily briefings and so do I.’ He referred to his wrist. ‘Time to go.’

  ***

  Any doubts about the level of interest in Belle Fitzgerald’s reappearance would have been blown away by the reporters, presenters, technicians and cameras squeezed into the largest conference room in the building. Commissioner Liddell herself presided, positioned in front of a blue corflute featuring the NSW Police shield, Crime Stoppers phone numbers and online links. Jackie and Harwood took seats at a table to her left. Kinsella was positioned against a far wall, next to Barry Bartos, imported for the occasion. They stood with legs wide and arms folded, a pair of bouncers.

  Liddell, uniform impeccable, hands curled tight around the sides of the wooden lectern, looked worried. She was a spare woman in her fifties, flat-faced, everything about her whipped into shape. Her brown hair was short and combed ruthlessly back from her forehead. She always, always wore make-up: tinted foundation ending at her jawline, black eyeliner, mascara, dark red lipstick emphasising thin lips. According to the grapevine she didn’t drink or smoke and had no private life to speak of, something Jackie could relate to.