Felicity Young - Take Out

And then, as if from a blow to the stomach, she couldn’t seem to find her breath. With difficulty she tried to concentrate on drawing a steady stream of air into her lungs, but it seemed to slam against an invisible, impenetrable barrier.

Is this how it was for Skye during the last moments of her life?

Stevie panicked as she fought for air. Slipping off the bed, she bent at the waist, one hand on Monty’s mattress, and struggled to breathe. A paper bag, she needed a paper bag. She found one on the tray table, grabbed it with shaking hands and tipped the grapes from it. Several rolled to the floor. After a couple of inhalations the relief was almost instantaneous.

‘Are you all right, Mrs McGuire?’ A nurse carrying a clipboard strode to the end of Monty’s bed and inspected his chart. Stevie didn’t care about the incorrect title, said she was fine despite feeling like a popped balloon.

‘I sometimes think this is harder for the loved ones than it is for the patients,’ the nurse said as she checked Monty’s vital signs on the monitor, glancing down as a grape popped under her foot.

‘Sorry, I’ll clear those up,’ Stevie said, dropping to her knees to pick up the grapes and bumping the side of the bed as she did so. Monty woke up with a startled grunt. The nurse smiled and placed the thermometer in his ear. Stevie would have liked a longer delay, wanted the nurse to stay longer, but the thing didn’t take long to cook, beeping after only a couple of seconds. Monty’s eyes met hers, his searching expression telling her he’d not forgotten their earlier conversation.

When the nurse left the room, he said, ‘So, what you going to do about it?’

Stevie feigned ignorance. She sat on the side of the bed and gave him a puzzled shrug.

‘Skye’s death. Tell me what the hell’s going on and stop treating me like a piece of cut crystal.’

As it happened, talking to Monty provided as much relief as breathing through the paper bag. She told him she thought Skye’s death was connected to the death of Delia Pavel and the disappearance of Jon and Ralph. In trying to protect Monty from this, she reflected, she’d been damaging herself. The more she spoke the more objective she became. The spark of interest she saw in his eyes jumped into her own, re-kindling the old investigative feelings on which she thrived: the flutter of nerves through the stomach, the thrill of the chase.

She explained what she’d discovered from the MCI officer, Tony Pruitt, and the streak of green paint on Skye’s car. ‘With Pruitt otherwise occupied and Fowler in the office, I went back to Skye’s smashed car and took a paint scraping and dropped it off at the lab on the way over here.’

‘That’ll cost money.’

‘I’ll pay from my own pocket. Even if it can’t be used as evidence in court, it’ll help guide me in the right direction. The guy in the lab reckons he should be able to get the make and maybe even the model of the car.’

Monty paused. ‘That guy at the lab—that wouldn’t be Mark Douglas would it?’

Stevie looked away. ‘Maybe.’

‘Jesus, Stevie, despite evidence to the contrary, you’re not above using your feminine wiles, are you?’

‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’

‘And then what?’

‘I’ll do my best to help out.’

‘You mean you’ll go round treading on people’s toes, pissing them off and carrying out your own investigation. Angus won’t go with it. You know how he plays by the book.’

‘Me? Tread on people’s toes?’

Stevie slid from the bed and kissed his cheek. ‘I’ve got to go, have a date.’

Some of the sleepiness left Monty’s eyes; he straightened in the bed as much as he was able. ‘What, where, who?’

‘Clubbing.’ She turned from the door and shot him a Marilyn Monroe wink. He was muttering about feminine wiles when she left the room.

Fowler opened his door wearing a torn rag of a T-shirt and faded, baggy board shorts. For a moment Stevie thought she’d stumbled upon the wrong apartment.

‘Hi there,’ she said, masking her surprise at his more than casual attire. ‘Can I come in?’ His eyes widened. If the startled look was anything to go on, he was as surprised at her change in image as she was of his.

She loomed above him in her seldom worn, thigh-high boots. She’d had to lie on the floor to do up her straight-legged jeans. A hip-hugging broad white belt and a see-through flimsy shirt and diamante camisole completed the outfit. This wasn’t her usual style of comfortable grunge, but it had been appreciated by the various men she’d come across on her journey across the city: the overly attentive cashier, the leering man in the queue at the counter, and the guy in the flash wheels who’d crawled the kerb to get a better look when she alighted from her car.

She heard the roar of laughter from a TV in the room behind, eased her way past him and turned the sound down. The apartment was clean with minimal furniture, mostly white and mostly Ikea. An ironing board with a white shirt draped across it stood next to a basket of more crumpled white shirts. The iron clicked, it was on and the air was tinged with the fresh odour of spray-on starch.

‘What do you want?’ Fowler said with more puzzlement than hostility.

‘How about grabbing something groovy from your wardrobe and hitting the town with me?’

He looked from the pile of ironing to Stevie. ‘Groovy? But I only have these white shirts.’

He was joking; he had to be. She looked at his mask-like face and tried to search for some humour in it. About to give up, she noticed the corners of his mouth rise with the flicker of a smile.

‘Where are we going?’ he asked as he headed to a closed door off the main room.

‘You mentioned you were going to reinterview the staff at Pavel’s restaurants and club,’ Stevie said. ‘I thought now would be a good time to do it, when the staff are preoccupied and not concentrating so much on their answers.’

He thought for a moment, agreed, then disappeared into his room for about five minutes. He re-emerged in suit pants and a cream shirt with no tie.

When he saw Stevie’s barely concealed amusement he said, ‘I didn’t think they’d let me in wearing jeans.’

Shit, he hadn’t been joking. (Image 14.1)

Image 14.1

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Like many inner city venues on a weeknight, the two Pavel restaurants, one Thai and the other French, were less than half full. ‘You can see why this town gets called Dullsville,’ Fowler said. An interesting comment from Mr Dullsville himself, Stevie thought.

They spoke to the managers in each restaurant, receiving no new information, just repetitions of what the previous investigating officers had been told: that Jon Pavel rarely put in an appearance at these establishments, his interests were more focused on his Fremantle nightclub. Both managers stressed that highly respected certified accountants managed their books. Fowler told them not to worry, that the confiscated books would soon be speaking for themselves. At the mention of an audit, the male and female managers had respectively squirmed inside their business suits.

‘Come on, let’s go find some action. We might have more luck at the hip-hop club in Fremantle,’ Fowler said as they crammed themselves back into his highly polished white WRX. ‘Pavel runs his businesses from an office in the same complex and spends most of his time there.’

‘Has the office been searched?’ Stevie asked.

‘Yeah, some papers and a computer were confiscated, but I’m not sure what they’re about yet. There’s a team briefing tomorrow at Central.’ Fowler hesitated before taking off from the curb and turned to her. ‘Why don’t you come? With your contacts you should be able to wangle yourself in.’