Constable Jack’s hair was still wet when he picked me up in the morning, but mine was swinging clean and poufy. Eye make-up? Check. Matching bra and knickers and no holes in my socks? Check. That beauty routine was really going to take some getting used to, but I’m sure I saw a fleeting look of appreciation from Jack as I walked over to the car.
A Strike Force had been formed overnight and we had to sit through two hours of strategy and organisation and arguments over who was going to do what, with a caution from the heavens to tread carefully. Jimbo had strong political connections and I was astounded to learn that the Police Commissioner himself had made the “death knock” visit to Jacqueline.
The Jimbo Jameson death threat file had been dusted off and was being taken seriously. Again. There was a fatwah which was being viewed as a possible angle, but I don’t think that anyone knew where to start investigating that one and I was relieved that someone else would be assigned that nightmare. Then there were three bookies, a really pissed off trainer and two jockeys representing the racing industry in the list of suspects. A veteran television journalist had a possible revenge motive. He’d been beaten to a pulp years ago and Jimbo had been a suspect with an unbreakable alibi. A mining heiress had already referred us to her usual legal firm and if she ran true to form I knew it would be years before she even answered a single question. And, of course, there were the women. There were a lot of women with a motive to kill him.
I’d been assigned the wives. Which meant that I had a long list of people to talk to. There was Bethany, who was Wife Number One. She lived in Bowral and I figured she must be the dog lady. Next on the list was Lynnette, who married him more than once or twice and we weren’t sure where she was. Then there was Olivia, who’d been living in America for years, but we could Skype that one. She was a paraplegic.
Victoria Roberts was married to him for about five minutes, but she was on the list too. Then there was Tessa Martyn, a doctor; DFAT was checking her whereabouts because she was climbing a mountain somewhere in Bhutan.
Of course, Anna Jameson was a well-known socialite and she had three kids with him. I couldn’t wait to talk to her.
Although she wasn’t strictly a wife, Vanessa was Jimbo’s last mistress so she was included in the list. We thought that she must have been the skinny pole-dancer who Jacqueline wanted fired. We were also aware of a French woman who had a brief relationship with him and there was a daughter in France. I tried volunteering to fly to Paris to interview them, but that didn’t work. Hot damn. That would have been fun.
We were working on the identity of the Ghost Bat that Jacqueline had mentioned, and still had to find the actress with a lisp. The West Australian slapper who couldn’t land her fish had turned out to be the daughter of a really big shot, so her interview was being handled by Perth. Yet again, I cursed Marco for not being here. He could charm the truth out of women, whereas I want to wring it out.
Despite Constable Jack being such a pretty boy, I wasn’t sure how much help he was going to be. On the other hand, my working environment was certainly going to look better until Marco returned.
Marco is no oil painting, but he’d taught me all I know. He knows everyone. Knows everything. He’s done it all, too. Twice. And now he was in Rome with his latest girlfriend, who didn’t deserve him. I mean it. No-one could possibly deserve Marco. He smokes. He drinks. He follows the ponies. He plays hard and he likes his women young. Very young. This one had just taken the “P” plates off her car, which made her about twenty. He was two years older than her father, which explains why Marco took extra care crossing the road sometimes at night. Daddy was not happy.