Leah Giarratano - Voodoo Doll

'Anyway, I might as well tell you everything now,' he said. His wife looked at him, surprised. 'I've been back to where we used to hang out,' he continued, as Isobel drew in a sharp breath, 'and tried to find out more about him, like where he lives now, so I could pass that on to you.'

'Joss!' Isobel looked angry.

'Anyway, I can tell you he's still hanging out with Simon Esterhase.'

'We're going to want to know everything you discovered out there, Joss,' Gabriel spoke to him for the first time. 'But I'd like you to come out to Liverpool today so that we can record your statement. I don't want to miss a thing you've got to say next. It might be exactly what we need to get the lot of them.'

Jill and Gabriel left Joss and Isobel, arranging for the couple to meet them out at Liverpool at two p.m.

Joss lingered at the doorway as they were leaving.

'Just so we're clear,' he said to them, eyeballing each in turn, voice low, 'you guys had better get this fucker fast. I told you I'd do whatever I had to do to protect them,' he angled his head back towards the interior of his house. 'And you need to understand that I will.'

Lawrence Last was not in his office when they got back to Liverpool; an urgent meeting with the police commissioner, his assistant told them. Jill shared a sympathetic expression with the uniformed man behind the desk. The taskforce meeting was delayed until Last's return.

Jill and Gabriel spent the next half-hour working on a report to summarise their movements since the last meeting.

They were just wrapping it up when Jill sensed someone behind her, heading their way. She kept her eyes on the computer screen and tried to detect the identity of the visitor from his movements. Derek Reid, she guessed, just before he spoke.

'Don't you two make a cute couple?'

Jill kept typing. Gabriel grunted.

'Come on! Just shit-stirring,' Reid said. 'Got anything new?'

'Not really,' said Gabriel.

'Not that you'd share leads anyway, hey, Delahunt?' said Reid.

'We're just finishing up a report, but we won't have anything hard until later this arvo,' said Gabriel. 'We'll fill you in on everything in the next meeting. We've got a couple of vics coming in later today.'

Reid seemed annoyed by Gabriel's neutral tone. He took a step closer to Jill, and because she was still seated, his crotch was now in her face. She stood and glared at him. He laughed at her.

'You wanna get some lunch, Jill?' said Gabriel.

She grabbed her bag from under the desk.

'Aw, how sweet,' grinned Reid. 'Can I come too? Since you've broken your rules about dating cops, Jackson, maybe you should give me a go. I'll make you forget all about Super Spy here.'

'I don't really know what you're talking about, Derek,' said Jill, smiling sweetly, 'but you're going to have to get over anything happening between you and me.' She swung her handbag over her shoulder. 'I don't date body builders. It's a little problem I have,' she stared pointedly at his groin, 'with the steroids.'

'Whoa!' Gabriel laughed, and turned to follow Jill as she walked towards the door.

'What's funny, Delahunt?' said Reid, smiling menacingly. 'Why don't you stay here and we can talk about it?'

Gabriel kept walking. 'Forget it, Derek. I don't do cock fights,' he said.

Jill and Gabriel left the room with Reid's parting words: 'Fucking freaks.'

Facing one another across the moulded plastic table, Jill felt an awkward silence between her and Gabriel for the first time since the initial taskforce meeting. The other patrons of the food hall also seemed low on conversation. Overweight kids in school uniform scoffed burgers or pizza for lunch. A young mum seated close to Jill fed her toddler hot chips, the child cawing for them like a hungry seagull. Pairs of people – a mother and daughter, perhaps, on the left, sisters or friends straight ahead – munched listlessly, exchanging grunts now and then.

Jill felt the muteness stealing over her. When that mode kicked in, she sometimes wondered whether she'd ever speak again. Why did she feel this way now? It couldn't have been Reid's comments – God knows she was used to crap like that. She looked down at the table and noticed that she'd used her milkshake as a barrier between them. This was ridiculous. She forced herself to speak.

'So how did you get posted to this case?' she asked. They'd discussed his past briefly before, but never in any detail.

'Lawrence Last asked for my help,' he said. 'I worked with him a year or so ago on an organised crime thing. I've been attached to police units on a few major cases now.'

'So, why this one?'

'My specialty's interrogation. Because they were coming up with so little trace evidence at the crime scenes, they figured they had to get more out of the witnesses and suspects. Anything to get these fuckers.'

'Makes sense,' she said. 'We're an odd group, this taskforce, don't you think? I mean David Tran – what's going on between him and Reid? And I wonder how he got injured – has he said anything to you?'

'Yeah. I'm surprised you haven't been told by someone yet. Everyone out here seems to have an opinion.'

Jill leaned back in her chair while Gabriel continued.

'He's the community liaison officer in the area,' he said. 'First contact for the Vietnamese community. Some of them trust him. Most of them don't. Culturally, it's taboo to speak outside the family about problems. He's seen as a traitor by many of his people because he's operating outside of their rules of silence.'

'Wow. That would be hard.'

'Yep, but it's a double dilemma for David, because he's never been fully accepted by some of the cops either. What did I hear Reid say the other day?' Gabriel took a sip of his drink while he thought. 'Oh yeah, that's it – Tran was called to the desk to speak to someone about some information that could've helped with the case. Reid went with him, so I took a walk over there too. David spoke Vietnamese to this bloke. Reid was like – You wouldn't think we were in Australia, would you mate? – some shit like that. Then he had a laugh with the girl behind the desk, um, what was it – Why don't they save their bloody Chinese for China or wherever they're from?'

'MENSA candidate, Reid. He's wasted in the cops,' said Jill. 'So what happened to David's leg?'

'Oh yeah, that. Heroin dealers from Cabra. Smashed his thighbone with a hammer.'

'Oh my God!' Jill raised a hand to her mouth.

'Yep. He was off duty. They got him in the toilets in Westfield. He'd sent up a few of their best re-sellers.'

'Wow. But David said he was off work HOD.'

'Yeah, Last made sure it was written up as Hurt on Duty. And Last got the fuckers too. Tran I.D.'d the cousin of one of the perps he locked up. So, now they want to kill him.'

'Shit.'

'Yup. For real. That's another reason Last wanted me over here. The organised gang shit is his next big target, once they get on top of the home invasions.'

'So what about you then, Gabe? Are there any deep dark secrets I should know?' Where the hell did that come from? Jill felt her cheeks grow hot. She never asked questions like that.

Gabriel sat there, head on an angle, watching her from under the brim of his cap.

'Sorry,' she said. 'I was just stuffing around. You don't have to answer that.'

'No, it's okay,' he said. 'It's just that I'm not usually great at speaking about my past. Specially at this time of year.'

'This is a rough time?'

Gabriel looked at her again, closed his eyes briefly. Finally, he sighed and pushed his food away.

'I joined the Feds with my wife,' he said.

Jill hoped the shock didn't show on her face.

'We met in a psych lecture at uni. We got married and joined the AFP together four years later. Started work on the Monday after the wedding, actually.' He smiled. 'I started the job in organised crime and Abi was assigned to major fraud. Between jobs, we worked our way together through the MOSC program.'