Chapter 2

“Like what?” Mylene looked at me, “don’t you have wire taps?”

“We do but he keeps finding them, we bugged his place just recently but the only conversations we overheard were staged.”

“He almost never talks business at home,” she replied, “but his solicitor has an office where they talk business.”

“His solicitor,” I frowned, “Eric Barnes?”

“No, he’s the official one but there’s a lady solicitor, Toni McLean. He’s been fucking her or so I heard, she handles the cash side of the business. If he wants to launder money she finds ways to do it,” her eyes shifted, “but that’s about all I can tell you.”

It wasn’t much although she did offer up a few little titbits like his holiday home in Sorrento that served as his home away from home and his obsession with changing cars every month.

“He’s paranoid the cops will bug him.”

That we already knew but I played dumb and then she dropped a juicy piece of information.

“He’s got this woman he sees from Clifton Hill, I don’t know her last name but she’s called Danni and she’s a cop.”

That was news to me because it explained why he had prior warning whenever we raided him, but she wasn’t giving up much more than that and so I let her finish the sandwich. We saw her back to the taxi I’d called for her and afterwards Lamara stood tapping her phone against the palm of her hand.

“A penny for your thoughts.”

“I think someone from the department is involved with Toni, I just don’t know if it’s the same Toni,” she frowned.

“Lucy,” she replied, “she’s one of your type, just let me make a call,” she thumbed the screen and took a few steps away from me.

She came back a minute or so later.

“Well they say lightning never strikes twice but she was seeing a lawyer called Toni McLean, which means you might want to speak to Lucy, I’m not sure if they’re still an item though so you might want to make some inquiries.”

“That could be difficult if we’re trying hard to keep things under wraps, we need to be discreet and just calling her in for an informal chat might set off alarm bells.”

“Here,” she touched her screen again, “let me send you my number, call me out of hours if you like and in the meantime I’ll make my own inquiries.”

“Okay but it’s a police matter so all we really need is confirmation she’s seeing her. If that’s the case then my boss has to make the call and you have to back off.”

“No worries, although it’s also a staff matter, we try to keep our noses clean and if she’s in any way involved with the criminal underworld then we still need more information. It might just be she’s unaware of what’s going on, it wouldn’t be the first time.”

“Okay, make some inquiries but for Christ’s sake be discreet. She might be innocent but if she thinks we’re looking at her girlfriend then she might say something.”

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing, all right, you take care and you will hear from me soon,” she smiled and nodded at me.

I had doubts about where this was all going to be honest, but I was happy to let her make some discreet inquiries in the hopes we’d find something. It took three days for Lamara to get back to me and as fate would have it I was sitting in the bath listening to my latest playlist when she called. I took one look at the number and half contemplated letting it go through to the message bank but then I swiped the screen.

“G’day, how’s it going?”

“Detective Constable Anderson? You sound like you’re on speaker.”

“You’ll make a fine detective,” I grinned, “and I’m off duty so it’s Lisa, I’m in the bath right now.”

“Don’t be sorry, just don’t ask me to switch to video.”

There was a pause and I thought she’d hung up but then she spoke again.

“I’ve found something out about our friend.”

“Lucy’s not as keen on Toni as we thought, it was one of those pie in the sky relationships that turned sour when she realised her love interest likes playing the field but I did find out the pub she frequents. It’s in Clifton Hill.”

“Whereabouts in Clifton Hill?”

When she told me I straightened up slowly.

“Wow, that’s intriguing, considering who has a major stake in the pub.”

“The one and lonely,” I replied, “this could turn into something concrete. I’ll pass that information onto my colleagues and see what comes of it.”

“Okay, listen, I was wondering.”

I waited for her to finish.

“I’ve got a wedding to attend next Saturday arvo, it’s one of my old friends, she’s getting hitched to her girlfriend and I was wondering if um, if you’d like to be my plus one.”

I’ve been taken by surprise more than once in the past but that one came completely out of the blue and for a few seconds I had a mental blank.

“So, you want to ask me out on a date?”

“Not exactly,” she replied, “it’s a plus one but I suppose you might call it that, it’s just that Janine and I go back quite a while and because there will be quite a few gay women in attendance I was firstly trying to blend in and secondly keeping the others at bay,” she paused.

“You don’t sound convinced, maybe I shouldn’t have asked.”

“Au contraire,” I replied, “but now I’m curious. You want a dyed in the wool lesbian to keep other lesbians from putting the hard word onto you.”

“Yeah, it is weird, look, I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t say no,” I stared at a picture on the wall of two Chinese women reclining together, “it did take me by surprise but if you need a plus one then maybe I can put in an appearance but it comes with a caveat.”

“Don’t expect me to act like your girlfriend, I’m your plus one, nothing else.”

“Okay, that sounds good and sure, it’s only for a couple of hours. I’ve got to go see an old friend afterwards anyway.”

“So, how’s about we talk some more tomorrow then? I need a time and place, I’ve got to let my boss know in advance in case I get lumped with a shift.”

“No worries and if it comes down to it and you’ve got a choice of earning money or going to a wedding, take the money and run, I’ll find an alternative, trust me.”

Which made me all the more determined to reserve that particular time for what sounded like a relaxing afternoon. Admittedly I did have some reservations about going through with it because everything seemed too cut and dried. I’ve interviewed hundreds of people over the years and I can usually tell when someone is reciting from a script, it’s just a bit harder when you’re talking over the phone but this still felt somewhat rehearsed.

That feeling only increased when I sent out a Facebook invitation the following day and less than five minutes later it was accepted. When I explored her page I found that her relationship status was It’s Complicated and most of her friends were women, indeed most of the pictures on her page were of Lamara in the company of women. One picture certainly got my attention because Helena was one of my ex girlfriends, as to how she’d become friends with Lamara was a mystery because she was very much a butch lesbian, right down to the high powered motorcycle. I could well imagine Helena approaching Lamara but I couldn’t see her reciprocating.

“She’s the reason I asked you to come along,” Lamara explained that night, “I just didn’t know that you and her had been an item. Look, if you’d rather back out I’ll completely understand.”

“I’m not backing out,” I flicked through the dresses on the rack, “I just thought it was a small world indeed.”

“Where are you? I can hear music.”

“Forest Hill shopping centre,” I replied, “I dropped in after work to see what they’ve got in the way of dresses, I’ve got plenty at home but nothing that would suit a wedding.”

“See anything you like?”

“Plenty of prom style dresses but they’re a bit too jazzy, lots of white, cream and a hideous baby shit green colour.”

“What’re you doing tomorrow arvo?”

“Well I can take breaks, we do get meal breaks.”

“Can you meet me out at Camberwell market? There are a few op shops there, and they have some really nice dresses, and considering you’re going to be my plus one maybe I could help choose the dress,” she chuckled, “sorry, that was a bit too forward even for me.”

I hesitated before agreeing.

“Okay, I’ll send you a text when I’m about to take a break.”

I know it was because I was meeting Lamara that I chose the outfit I did that next day, a dark grey trouser suit and chocolate-coloured blouse. To make it clear, I wasn’t trying to out dress her, it was just that I wanted to fit into her world even if it was just on the surface.

Camberwell is an old suburb not far from the city and famed for its terrace style houses and cosy front yards. My parents remember back when they were kids and middle class families would sit on the front porch with their beer and up market cigarettes. These days it’s become decidedly more expensive, you’d have to be earning a pretty penny to buy a house here. I met Lamara in a café on Burke Road. It must have been her day off because she wasn’t wearing office attire judging by the red, designer overalls over a short-sleeved white blouse, the overalls were actually shorts and she’d accessorised with a gold-weave belt.

“How’s my new girlfriend?” Lamara reached out and fingered the collar of my blouse, now that’s an improvement.”

“It is?” I glanced down at her hand, “to be honest I wasn’t thinking about it.”

“Never bullshit a bullshitter,” she chuckled, “so, how long have I got you for?”

“About forty five minutes,” I replied, “I’ve got to see a potential witness.”

“Is it about that case or a different one?”

“The same case,” I replied, “I still haven’t heard back from the boss about helping Mylene out, I’m not even sure they’re going to use her testimony in court but she’s certainly helped out.”

“It’s all right, I understand,” Lamara eyed the board behind the counter.

“To be honest I wasn’t even sure about how much help she’d be and God knows she tends to be her own worst enemy.”

“How is she?” I asked.

“So so,” she glanced at me, “all right, executive decision, we get takeaway coffees and walk and talk, what’re you having?”

“Latte,” I put my hand into my handbag.

“I’ll be you can’t say that in French,” she slapped my wrist, “sorry, bad joke and get your hand out of there, it’s my shout.”

Some ten minutes later we were wandering into the shopping centre with our coffees, I was feeling a little embarrassed that I hadn’t been able to help Mylene but Lamara’s attitude had taken some of the sting out of it. She seemed quite lackadaisical as we headed for a store I knew would be selling more expensive dresses but I was too much under her spell to argue and I tried on all the dresses she selected. It occurred to me that I was doing something that felt unnatural, don’t get me wrong I had a sense of style but I was not a girlie girl.

“I like this one,” I finally plucked a beige off the shoulder number with a sash belt, “but it almost seems too,” I paused.

“Feminine?” Lamara nudged me.

“That’s the word I always stumble over.”

“It’s a word that is often misunderstood,” she pursed her lips, “even Helena has a feminine side, I only met her a couple of times because she was best friends with the woman who’s getting married in a week but I noticed she modified her outfit every time she saw me. It’s like she was trying to fit into my world by buying similar clothes and it’s so not me, be you not me.”

I took that throwaway line home with me, along with the dress. It was the clearest sign yet that she was questioning something, I just didn’t know how far she wanted to go and to be honest I was quite willing to let it remain in the fantasy world. I had amassed quite a few fantasies about her and they were vivid enough. Slowly but surely I was being drawn deeper into her world and as a result I was beginning to undergo my own changes.

The week before the wedding was quite busy. The case we’d been building against Barrows was becoming stronger. Acting on information from Mylene, we’d put one of our own under covert observation and it had produced results when we filmed Danni meeting Barrows at the pub he was part owner of and it was obvious they were intimately involved. Acting on that we set up a fake telephone survey about banking and finance to ‘gift’ her with a new smartphone that had software installed on it that would allow us to monitor her movements more closely. The Friday afternoon was especially fruitful when she called Barrows to tell him she had some information that might help him avoid prosecution. I had a minor anxiety attack when we learned that because she was set to meet him the next day but thankfully my boss decided to let me attend the wedding.

“But be ready to move if we call you,” Byres told me.

That meant taking a change of clothes along with me and Lamara offered to let me keep them at her place because I’d have to take her home first anyway. Her offer took me by surprise because it came from out of the blue after I’d called her on the way to her house to explain the situation.

“So, leave your stuff at my joint, unless of course there’s some reason you can’t.”

“Well no, I mean I’d have to drop you off anyway and I’m not drinking anyway.”

“Okay then, how far away are you?”

“Just about fifteen or so, just coming up to the end of Whitehorse Road.”

“Cool, see you soon, babe.”

Lamara’s choice of outfit was quite nice, a spaghetti strap dress in red silk with an angora wrap and white heels. She examined my outfit with a degree of interest as I stood there with my work clothes dangling over my arm and a Cocker Spaniel sniffing my feet.