The woman’s eyes, fixed on Jackie, widened. Then she smiled a one-sided smile. The left side of her face wasn’t working, and as she opened the door Jackie saw how that side of her body sagged against the frame. ‘Rose? Jackie? I don’t believe it. Come in, come in.’

  She shuffled back to let them pass, closed the door and swivelled around on the spot. She addressed Jackie. ‘I’m Pauline,’ she said, as if it meant something.

  Jackie was about to introduce herself and Kinsella when a voice from somewhere inside called, ‘Bring them through, love.’

  Pauline sang back. ‘You’ll never guess who it is, love.’ She used her good hand to wave them in, trailing her recalcitrant side through a small cork-floored entry area and into a carpeted living room. It was dominated by a huge TV screen, in front of which sat a puffy grey leather couch, a reclining chair and an array of plastic boxes full of toys.

  On the TV, talking heads discussed the upcoming cricket season. A man, near horizontal in the reclining chair, used a remote to turn it off. He scrabbled for a lever on the side of the chair and brought himself first to sitting and then out of the chair and up to standing. He pushed out his chest and hoicked up his waistband. ‘What’ve we got here, then? Detective Inspector Jackie Rose, hey?’

  Dick Wardle was tall, as tall as Jackie’s father, with a head of curly white hair and a short white beard. He might have been in shape once upon a time, but now his mass had sunk to his belly, hips and buttocks. He wore a short-sleeved shirt tucked into trousers belted nearly under his armpits, giving him a cartoonish Harry Highpants air.

  Again, Jackie introduced Kinsella. They shook, but like his wife’s, Wardle’s attention was on Jackie. He thrust out a meaty hand. ‘Jackie Rose,’ he said, ‘all grown up. I would never have recognised you. Remember me?’

  Jackie searched her mind and out of nowhere called up a vague image of blond curls and bulk, a package. Uncle Dick. Slowly she said, ‘I think I do remember you. Did you maybe bring me a present when I was a kid?’

  Pauline, coming up behind them, said, ‘We got you a book for your birthday. Playing Beatie Bow, I think it was.’

  Jackie remembered. She must have been twelve or thirteen. It was a miserable birthday. Mother long gone and nothing to show she’d ever existed except a couple of photos hidden in Jackie’s bedside drawer. Stanton and Uncle Dick and Auntie Pauline sitting around the table watching Jackie blow out candles. The latest nanny hovering in the kitchen. No friends. Jackie had given up inviting them to the dank and gloomy house.

  ‘I loved that book,’ Jackie said, hoping this would end discussion about her father. The ring and its receipt loomed in her mind.

  Wardle, however, wasn’t finished. He motioned to Jackie and Kinsella to sit. ‘Well. Stanton’s girl. And with Homicide now, I see. Going up the ranks like your father, hey.’

  Pauline said, ‘Anyone for tea?’

  ‘Please,’ said Kinsella. He’d stayed quiet, listening, the sign of a good cop. The more relaxed the atmosphere, the better the interview.

  Pauline said, ‘I’ll let the three of you get on with it.’

  Dick Wardle watched her limp away. ‘Stroke. Last year. Lucky to have her. Mind’s as good as ever, thank the Lord.’ He cocked his head and raised his eyes. Then he sat back heavily, dropping sack-like into the cushioned recliner, which complained with a long sigh.

  Jackie began. ‘You’ve heard about Belle Fitzgerald’s remains being found?’

  Wardle nodded. ‘TV’s full of it.’

  ‘We’re revisiting the case and need your help. You were in charge.’

  ‘Sure.’ Wardle shrugged to show willingness. ‘At the beginning. But in charge doesn’t really describe it. What do you want to know?’

  ‘Maybe some background?’

  ‘Okay. I was stationed at Dubbo, moved to the Cross in April – no, May – ’88. I actually asked for the transfer, if you can believe it.’ He shook his head at his own stupidity. ‘Soon as I got there I realised I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t the corruption, I didn’t know about that then. It was just – I was used to men being rude, all boys together, you get me? But the cops at the Cross were a whole new level. I was thrown into a world of – of vice.’ Wardle elongated the word, extending its sibilance, savouring it. ‘I landed in a sea of iniquity.’

  He sat forward, elbows on the arms of the recliner, hands patting the leather to emphasise points. ‘I’d found the Lord by then. People are scared to say it today, but I believe Jesus saved me, not just physically from when they shot me, but my soul, my spirit, so I survived the temptations of Gomorrah. You think I’m exaggerating? I’m not.’ He passed a hand across his face. ‘I’m not.’

  Wardle turned to Jackie. ‘That’s why I was shocked to see your father there, behaving like that, like one of them. We’d been friends since our training days, our wives were friends. I thought I knew him and here he was, whoring and gambling with those lost souls. He was a good cop, your dad. I couldn’t understand why he didn’t take a promotion and become an inspector somewhere else. But when I heard he’d been working for the Feds all along, finally it made sense. I’d left by then, but I went to see him and apologised for thinking badly of him.’

  Pauline dragged herself in, pushing a trolley with a tray of cups and saucers and a plate of homemade shortbread. Kinsella jumped up to help her, carried the tray to the coffee table, and between them they poured tea and offered biscuits. Pauline smiled encouragingly and dragged herself out again.

  When everyone had settled, Jackie said to Wardle, ‘Tell me about the investigation.’

  Wardle smiled and the boy he’d once been shone through. ‘I know, I know. Pauline says the older I get the more I ramble on. Stop me if I get out of hand. Okay. The investigation. They put me on the case with Lance Penney. I thought I was the bee’s knees because I was a new chum and here I was working such an important investigation. Later I realised they chose me because I was clueless and because Penney – a bad penny if there ever was one –’ Wardle chuckled at his joke, though he must have told it a thousand times ‘– because Penney knew he could steer the investigation any which way he wanted. In fact it wasn’t long before I realised there were things he wasn’t letting me in on. Belle had set up a protest group, I don’t know if you know that, to fight development in her street, Catherine Street. I was trying to find out if the developer, bloke called Richter, had links to organised crime. When I mentioned it to Penney he told me to leave that side of the investigation to him.’

  Wardle heaved himself forward and lifted a biscuit from the plate on the coffee table. Gestured to Kinsella and Jackie to help themselves. Jackie declined but Kinsella took a biscuit, cupping his other hand under it to catch crumbs.

  When Wardle had made himself comfortable again he continued. ‘I didn’t know what to do. My eyes were opened by then and I knew the cops at the station had it in for me. They got rid of me too, booted me to the CIB.’ He sighed, took a bite. ‘That’s a whole other story.’ He finished the biscuit, swallowed. ‘I realised Penney was protecting the big bosses, Bensimon and Monroe, but I couldn’t tell anyone. I had nobody to talk to. Remember, Jackie, I thought your father had turned bad.’ Wardle shook his head firmly. ‘I was determined to keep going. I reasoned I could work backwards, and so I focused on the other people in the case, Belle’s friends and people she worked with.’

  ‘Who did you speak to?’ Kinsella asked.

  ‘Coming to that,’ said Wardle, not liking the interruption. ‘Belle’s main friend was a woman called … ah, the name’s gone … she was called Maggie?’

  ‘Margie?’ volunteered Jackie.

  ‘Yes. Good girl. Margie. Margie Solon. Mizz Solon. One of those feminists, full of nonsense about the government and so on. She didn’t like the cops one bit and she was convinced if she talked to us she’d be in some sort of danger. She said she’d helped set up the protest group, the Catherine Street something or other, but it had folded months before.

  ‘So then I was stuck. I decided to concentrate on Belle’s last day, who’d seen her and so on, but I couldn’t find anyone who knew what she was up to. It was a Monday and the tech was on holiday so Belle didn’t have classes. She was home alone. She told her neighbour, an older woman, she was off to meet someone but the neighbour didn’t know who that was, only that Belle wasn’t keen to go. The neighbour, name of Docherty, described her – Belle, I mean. Docherty told me what she was wearing and what they talked about. Nobody spoke to Belle after that, as far as we know. A couple of locals caught sight of her heading in the direction of Darlinghurst Road and nobody saw her afterwards.’

  Wardle thought about it, continued. ‘That’s as far as I got. It was a few weeks later by now, you understand, and what you need to remember about Belle Fitzgerald is she wasn’t some little prostitute nobody cared about. Her family owned half of Wahroonga and her father was connected to all the right people. So when she disappeared, the people that mattered, politicians, the press, they wanted results. They took the case away from us and called in the CIB. The CIB, the Criminal Investigation Branch, was more or less the old version of Homicide.’ Wardle stopped himself. ‘But you know all that. They didn’t get much further with the case. Not long after, Penney and his mates arranged to have me transferred to the CIB. I thought I was out of that cesspit at last and I could finally get justice. Then I found out the CIB cops were as bad, worse, than the local cops. So I went to the commissioner and that’s when they took a pot shot at me.’

  He turned his eyes heavenward. ‘The Lord. The good Lord saved me. I realised I couldn’t do God’s work in the police force and I left.’ He raised his shoulders. ‘That’s all there is.’

  ‘Did Belle have any other friends you know of?’ Jackie asked. ‘Boyfriends and so on?’

  ‘Good question,’ said Wardle. ‘Good question. I asked Margie Solon who Belle’s other friends were and if there was anyone special I should know about. Of course she wouldn’t tell me anything, me being the enemy, but she acted like she knew plenty. Still, I got the feeling – I remember it like yesterday – I got the feeling she didn’t know as much as she pretended. I think Belle kept her private life to herself and I think our Mizz Solon was sniffy because she wanted to be Belle’s best friend and Belle wasn’t telling her anything that really mattered. So I played on that. I was a very good interviewer, you know. Never had the chance to use those skills afterwards. Ah, well.’

  Wardle reached for another biscuit, inserted it whole into his mouth, chewed for a while. ‘I played on that. I stood up, said I could see she wasn’t as close a friend as she thought and thank you very much.’

  He brushed crumbs from his shirt front. ‘It worked. She let out that Belle had a boyfriend but she didn’t know who he was. She said Belle sometimes asked her, Margie, to cover for her at work while she took a few hours off, presumably to meet him. But that’s as far as I got. I had the feeling Margie really didn’t know who this bloke was or even if there was one. And when I told Penney, he ordered me to forget it.’

  Wardle stopped for a second, smiled at a memory, said, ‘I didn’t, though. Forget it. Blow that for a joke, I thought to myself, and I kept going.’

  Jackie felt again the unease of the night before, after her conversation with Stanton. Don’t be silly, she told herself. The boyfriend had to be Russell Monroe. The facts point to it, it makes sense. Still, she found her mouth dry, ran her tongue over her lips to moisten them. She made an effort to keep her body relaxed.

  Wardle said, ‘I asked a couple of the other teachers she socialised with and they couldn’t tell me anything about this mysterious boyfriend. So I had to drop it. And then of course Penney took me off the case.’

  He’d come to the end of his story. Jackie and Kinsella rose and so did Wardle, lunging forward for more handshakes. He wrapped his meaty hands around Jackie’s. ‘You take care, now. Remember there’s no problem so big the Lord can’t solve it.’ Then, still clasping Jackie’s hand, he said, ‘Notebooks.’ He squeezed, let go. ‘I’ve still got my original notebooks.’

  She was astonished. ‘All these years, nobody’s asked for them?’

  He shrugged. ‘Nope. Never got around to handing them in. Later, people came to talk to me, television people and so on. And the bloke who wrote that book. He wanted everything I had, but the notebooks are police property so I kept them to myself. Didn’t make a difference, he told me. He said he’d spoken to Belle Fitzgerald’s neighbour, the Docherty woman, and she told him exactly what she told me. He said he was off to talk to Margie Solon.’ Wardle lifted a finger. ‘Wait a minute.’ He lumbered out of the room, leaving Jackie and Kinsella standing.

  Pauline Wardle reappeared. Jackie thought she’d been eavesdropping. She was about to say something when her husband returned, carrying a square biscuit tin, red tartan with a picture of a castle on the lid. ‘Dunno why I kept these,’ he said. ‘Probably nothing in them, but you’re police, so better you than me. Should clear out a lot of my stuff. My kids’ll have a hard enough time when I cark it.’ He handed the tin to Kinsella and dusted his hands, though the tin was clean. He shrugged, a signal there was nothing more he could tell them.

  Jackie thanked him, endured another handshake.

  ‘I’ll show our visitors out, love,’ said Pauline.

  As they reached the front door, Kinsella’s phone rang. ‘Got to take this, sorry,’ he said, looking at the screen. He tucked the biscuit tin under an arm and, phone to his ear, began to walk down the steps to the road.

  Pauline touched Jackie’s hand. ‘I’m in touch with Frankie, you know. She misses you.’

  Jackie heard herself make a small noise. Decades of keeping her mother out of her head and now she seemed determined to force her way back in. What she’d done was unforgivable. Unforgivable. What the fuck? She misses you?

  ‘I have to leave,’ she told Pauline, taking a sharp step away.

  She didn’t look back, imagined Pauline leaning against the frame, watching her descend the concrete steps and losing sight of her behind the gum trees.

  ***

  As soon as they were clear of the house, Kinsella said, ‘That call, it was Shannon. Something’s up. I need to get there.’

  Shannon was Kinsella’s ex. Although Tess, their daughter, was on the spectrum, she went to a mainstream school. Mostly she coped, but from time to time there were problems.

  ‘Of course,’ Jackie said. ‘How about I drop you at Chatswood and you take the metro? Quicker that way.’

  ‘Good idea. Thanks.’ For a while they drove in silence.

  Then Kinsella said, ‘Okay, spill.’

  ‘What do you mean, spill?’

  ‘I mean tell me what’s eating you. Like a cat on a hot brick in there.’

  He was good, she had to give him that. She hadn’t realised how much the episode with the ring had affected her. She dodged. ‘I … dunno, they knew me when I was a kid. I felt uncomfortable, you know?’

  That seemed to do it. Kinsella nodded. ‘I feel sorry for Wardle. Obviously didn’t stand a chance with that mob, Jesus or no Jesus. And Penney. He’s dead now, you know? Died in jail. When I started out I had a sergeant who knew him. Claimed there was nothing Penney wouldn’t do for money. So perhaps he offed the Fitzgerald girl or got one of his mates to do it for him. Your father was there. Maybe he remembers something? We should talk to him about it.’

  Jackie murmured ‘Yeah, sure,’ in response. To change the subject, she said, ‘Time to see Maurie Bensimon, I think. We’ll go tomorrow. I’ll get Bennie to find out where he is.’

  ‘Hope he’s got enough marbles left to talk to us,’ Kinsella said.

  ‘Yeah. Fingers crossed he confesses all.’

  Kinsella snorted. They drove on in friendly silence until they got to the drop-off point on Pacific Highway, a short distance from Chatswood Station. Kinsella climbed out, stuck his head back in the window. ‘Seven tonight, remember? Thai Potong? Text if we’re going to be late.’

  ‘Got it,’ said Jackie, indicating to rejoin the traffic flow. Kinsella rapped his knuckles on the car roof to say goodbye and walked off.

  Further on, the Singapore-like high-rises of Chatswood to one side, she joined a line of stationary cars. The four-lane road had become a car park. Probably an accident, nobody going anywhere in a hurry. A few minutes later she heard sirens, and ambulances weaved their way through oncoming traffic. Police in hi-vis jackets appeared.

  Jackie’s phone pinged, a text from Luke. You free tonight? She was about to reply yes, remembered the dinner with Kinsella. No. Tomorrow? The answer came at once. Tomorrow. Flying Fajita Sisters 6.30? She replied Sure. You OK? A thumbs-up emoji, then Talk tomorrow.

  Talk about what? An irrational wave of anxiety washed over Jackie. Once a mother you stayed a mother, no matter how old your children were. Another niggle to add to those about her father and the consequences of taking that bloody receipt book. Just stop it! she told herself. You’re forever thinking the worst.

  Her thoughts went to Schalk Lourens, the South African cop. She wished she could run those worries by him, discuss the case with him. With his background, his history, he wouldn’t judge. In any case, she could predict what he’d say. He’d tell her to do her job, get on with the investigation.

  He’d be right. She needed to act. And at that moment, as if she’d arranged it, a lane opened and the long line of waiting cars edged slowly past the carnage.

  ***

  She arrived at work eager to get moving. Bennie was still deeply involved in the Fitzgerald files, but lifted his head to wave a copy of Five Belles, which he’d found in his local library. He announced this as if he’d found the lost city of Troy. It wasn’t available as an e-book, he said, did she know that? Jackie rolled her eyes at him and told him there were things happening outside his computer screen, did he know that?