Kit sat on the corner of an absent police person's desk, swinging her legs, and waiting for Marek to get off the phone. She'd waved at him through the window, so he knew she was there, but waiting for everything seemed to be her lot for this particular Friday.
Kit had also spent longer than she'd intended with Rebecca and Sally because it was obvious that the latest threat had finally dented RJ's protective armour. The cutout hearts did indeed appear to be smeared with blood, and the note while offering no threat, gave the first insight into the toxic mind of the writer, rather how the writer felt about what Rebecca was doing. Whatever that was.
Kit had finally convinced RJ and Sally that they were just as safe (she hadn't added 'or not') as they'd been yesterday and had arranged to meet them at the theatre an hour before the show started.
"O'Malley," Marek bellowed, startling Kit right off the desk and onto her feet.
"Have you scared all your team back into the woodwork?" she asked, strolling into his office. "Is that why there's no one out there?" Kit pointed to the empty squad room.
"There's no one out there, because they're all out there," Marek waved at the outside world, "looking for a scumbag psychopath." Marek dropped his shoulders. "This is a really ugly case."
"You want to 'debrief' as they say?" Kit offered.
"No, but thanks. And believe me, you don't want to know more about this than you already do."
"I take it you are referring to the bubble-wrapped bodies," Kit said, nodding at pile of photos on his desk and resisting the urge, raised by automatic curiosity, to take a closer look. The glimpse of a bruised and bloody leg, half covered by plastic was enough.
Marek frowned, dumped a blue folder on the photos and then dismissed the topic. "Now, what can I do for you? I assume that's why you're here, so that I can do you a favour."
"Well, I was wondering if you could run something through the labs for me?"
"Sure, why not?" Marek shrugged. "It's not like I've got anything else to do."
At four o'clock Kit pulled up outside the electoral offices of AusFirst - 'the party with the honour of the past for a nation of the future' - and contemplated tossing a coin to decide whether she really needed to go inside. If Mercury was making dung deliveries to Carter Walsh or any of his cronies Kit had to admit she'd be more than happy to help shovel the shit.
What the hell did that slogan mean anyway? she wondered. That the alleged 'good old days' will see us through the wicked present into the murky future? Or, the tried and true family values of the 1950s will do us proud in the new millennium? Or, we don't have a clue or a policy or a shred of political anything, let alone correctness, so we'll bandy around a dippy slogan and preach against gays and jobless ratbags and single or working mothers and Aborigines and Asians. While we're at it we'll put the blame for the social inadequacies of disenfranchised Aussie battlers (whoever the hell they are), squarely where it belongs, at the feet of the artists, writers, Uni students, opera singers, and other smarty-pants intellectuals.
Hang on, Kit thought, don't you be too quick to judge something new. AusFirst do have some stated policies. They intend to cut funding to the Arts and to Aboriginals and for any non-English-speaking immigration. They also plan to shove all those useless street kids into the army, where they'll learn a trade, or at least how to shoot straight, and maybe develop a collective backbone.
The really truly frightening thing was that people were joining up in droves. They were saying, 'At last, someone who thinks like we do. And who are we? We're racist, homophobic, classist, anti-cultural, right wing, ultra-conservative, neo-Nazi, all-in-favour-of-guns Wankers. And it's Mr and Mrs Wanker, to you - you bunch of over-educated, poofter-lezzo, slantey-eyed-Abo socialists. We can be it, and we can say it, loud and proud now, thanks to Carter Walsh, because we're paid-up, card-carrying AusFirst-ers. We belong to 'the party with the honour of the past...'
Kit really didn't want to set foot in that office.
She put off the moment for a bit longer by ringing Angie to invite her and Julia, at Alex's request, to the new improved wedding reception at the Sofitel on Saturday night. She'd already invited Del, Brigit, Hector and her mother, also at her inamorata's request. That tactic didn't delay the inevitable at all, as only the answering machine at The Terpsichore was talking to callers.
So, she took a deep breath, girded her loins, fortified her mental defences, climbed into her prejudice-repelling armour and got out of the car. It was time to enter the enemy encampment.
The cavernous headquarters of AusFirst was bristling and bustling with the energy and industry of about fifty hard-working and determined-looking bigots. They looked like ordinary people but their minds and their hands were employed in the work of the devil himself. They didn't know that. They believed they were on the path to a future where everyone had the right to speak freely about their desire to be against anyone who was different from them.
Kit unscowled her face and tried to look benign, as she waited and waited for any one of the minions of hell to notice her.
Now, you steady on there O'Malley! she admonished herself, as she wondered whether her intense disapproval of everything these people stood for was any worse than their stand against everything she was and stood for. Pah! She reminded herself that she was on the side against hate and dissension. She had right on her side because she didn't curse them for who or what they were, only for what they believed. Ooh, touchy. Okay - she disagreed with the extension of their belief that they had the right to espouse hatred by dressing it up as a political strategy.
Don't you go thinking you're perfect, Katherine O'Malley, Kit thought as one of Beelzebub's maids approached. It simply means that you're a reasonable human being - and they're not.
Hello, are you listening O'Malley? That means you can be polite!
"Can I help you, dear?" Mrs Very-Normal-on-the-Outside asked.
"Oh yes please," Kit smiled. "I rang earlier and was told that Mr Walsh would be here about now. I was wondering if I might speak to him."
"My dear, Carter's a very busy man," she clucked, just like a fussy old chook. "If you..."
"It is very important," Kit said in a gravely serious tone. She took out her wallet and flashed her PI licence, hoping the woman would assume it held more authority than it did.
Mrs Way-Too-Cheerful paid it only scant attention and didn't actually stop talking. "...had an appointment it would be different. You may have to wait a while."
"My name is Katherine O'Malley," Kit said, in a commanding-type tone, hoping that the gist of what she was saying would distract from what she was actually saying; in much the same way as most politician-speak did.
"I'm a detective, investigating threats to some of the candidates and I really need to speak with Mr Walsh about the possible danger."
"Danger, you say?"
"Possible danger," Kit stressed.
"Yes of course - possible danger. They're in the room, but I'll go tell them, Detective. I'm sure they'll put their agenda on hold to speak to the police," Mrs-Jump-to-Conclusions said.
"They?" Kit queried, wondering what was special about the room.
"Carter, Adam and Mrs Walsh. Please wait here one second."
That second stretched and stretched, so Kit perused the AusFirst propaganda leaflets. She found out how much it cost to join, in time and money; how she'd have to rethink her attitudes to love, life and reason, in order to 'qualify'; and how the organisation was organised. The whole deal, while camouflaged in patriotic humbug, was clearly modelled on the pyramid-marketing concept.
Kit sat down on a decrepit overstuffed couch as the waiting game sucked another fifteen minutes of Friday into the space time continuum, never to be seen again. Sandra Fallon's Tantric-narcolepsy might be quite useful right about now, she thought, although Brigit's kachoonk fighting mantra was much more to her liking.
Meditation was a knack that Kit had never been able to master on any level, let alone as a way of using the time that other people or mechanical devices insisted on taking from her. Besides she had enough trouble keeping her mind on the issue, any issue, at hand when it was supposed to be occupied; so forget ever emptying it completely. Like now for instance. Waiting, for Mrs Rush-Off-Madly to bring back a political candidate she didn't want to meet was making Kit think of spiders.
She shrugged. There was a certain logic in that connection. Politics, politicians and political promises lived in Kit's official Nightmare Box, along with such things as religious doorknockers, her fear of heights and her arachnophobia.
The god-pedlars she dealt with by claiming she was either the President of Dykes Against Patriarchy or God Herself; and the height thing she just avoided, whenever possible. Her completely irrational arachnid-fear mostly only applied to the large hairy Huntsman variety - oh, and the big ugly Funnelwebs and Trapdoors, who were seriously poisonous (that's not why she was scared of them) but not often found in Victoria. In order to deal with the Huntsbastards, Kit had initiated the Special Spider-Friend Team who could be relied to rush to her place should one of the eight-legged hairy-scaries intrude into her domain. A phone call to Del or Hector would result in the creature's safe, intact and rapid removal to elsewhere.
Pollies and their lies, on the other hand, could only be dealt with by trying to ignore them completely until it came time to vote for the party which least offended her. This was virtually impossible and some things about them did intrude, most rudely, into her politics-free-zone. Things like a prime minister who couldn't say sorry; or the frightening anti anti-discrimination ravings of a fledgling party of lunatics.
One of the impinging facts about the latter group, was the rumour that Carter Walsh, an expert in manipulating the cult of personality and hailed as the founder, leader and driving force of AusFirst was, in fact, merely the public and very charismatic face of an unholy trinity.
Adam Goddard (ex-public servant, ex-political analyst, ex-bankrupt) and Mrs Virginia Walsh (ex-TV game show sidekick, ex-accountant) were the outside prongs of Walsh's political trident.
"Miss O'Malley?"
"Yeah, sorry," Kit said, realising Mrs Finally-Back-From-Beyond was repeating herself.
"They'd like to see you now. Please follow me, and I'll take you to the room."
Oh no, not the room, Kit thought as she followed her escort to the back of the hall. They passed this way and that, between and around the desks staffed by the new believers who were personning the phones and passing on the good word about AusFirst to all who called. And those phones were running hot, so Kit caught lots of fun facts on her way through.
"Absolutely! Welfare scum will be dealt with. Yes, of course you can come down and help."
"Oh yes madam, we believe most strongly in our tax policy. We do have money people on our team too you know. Well they would be saying that. They've been robbing us all blind for years."
"You can't expect to get voting rights straight away Mr Fisher, you have to earn the honour. You pay your membership, work as a volunteer, then you get an honorary position, and eventually..."
"I'm sorry, only Mr Walsh and the committee have say in that area at the moment."
Oh dear, Kit thought as they meandered towards the inner sanctum or the back room or wherever it was they were going. How many people are falling for this shit?
Mrs Now-Completely-Hushed-and-Reverent finally ushered Kit into the serpent's lair and then left her there, undefended, to face a tall, angular, well-preserved, red-ish-head, who strode forward purposefully. "Detective Mallory was it?" she said, shaking Kit's hand vigorously. "I am Virginia Walsh. This is my husband Carter," she waved, "and Adam will be back in two shakes."
"O'Malley, and it's nice to meet you," Kit lied, as she turned in the direction of the wave.
The personification of every concept she despised - the antithesis of civilised attitudes, the opposite of reasoned opinion, the proponent of the always-unjustifiable prejudice - was pacing the room like a regular human being, wrapped up in a body that was hale, hearty and strapping.
With that much hate festering inside him, Kit felt that Carter Walsh should look like a shrivelled, snarling hobgoblin. But he didn't - not at all.
That was the other problem with this offensive snake-oil salesman - he was handsome. And for some strange reason a lot of people automatically believed what good-looking people told them. Especially when it was the kind of 'good looking' about which envious types say, "Look! He or she can act, sing, dance, write or understand E=MC2 - and they're good looking. It's not fair."
Carter Walsh was endowed with a 'trust me, would I lie to you?' demeanour; a smooth soulful voice, with just enough of the ocker; and a remarkably innocent expression in his eyes. He was, most definitely, the Antichrist. He was also, as it turned out, not terribly smart.
Kit explained why she was there, claiming she was representing two of the other candidates in the matter of certain threats that had been made against them.
"I thought you were the police," Virginia said, implying she really did not like being misled.
"No, Virginia," Kit said sweetly. "I'm a private detective. I did tell your whatever she was."
"She said you said there was danger," Carter stated.
"Possible danger, yes."
"What do you mean danger?" Virginia demanded. "You're a private detective."
"Ah, yeah," Kit acknowledged. "The possible danger is there, Virginia, whether I'm a private detective, a homicide cop or an astronaut. I am not the perpetrator, I am simply the messenger or, more specifically the inquirer. As in, I have questions."
"Homicide? Has one of the candidates died?" Carter Walsh asked in alarm.
"You mean been murdered," Kit corrected, allowing just enough time for Carter to sit, heavily, before continuing. "Not unless it happened in the last half hour, while I've been waiting to see you."
Kit could tell by the amount of oxygen that Virginia Walsh sucked out of the room that she was about to give a lecture on how busy they were so they couldn't just drop everything when any old person dropped by to warn them of imminent danger. The possible tirade was aborted when everyone's attention was snatched towards the door on the far side of the room, which swung open dramatically. In stalked the troll that Kit had been expecting to encounter in Carter Walsh.
"Adam," Virginia snapped at him. "She's a private detective not a police officer."
"Really? Then we'll be asking her to leave, won't we?"
"Why?" Kit asked.
"You may have finagled your way in here, but if you don't leave now, I will call the police."
What a peculiar overreaction, Kit thought as she gave the man the once-over.
Okay, so Adam Goddard, really only resembled a troll when his face and form were compared with the extremely handsome visage and fit physique of his boss. Granted, he was much shorter than Carter Walsh, had a bigger nose than Carter Walsh and a lot less hair than CW, but that didn't make him ugly - just unfortunate looking. He also had a whiny voice and hardly any lips but still - to be fair - he was only grotesque when compared with Carter Walsh. His personality, however, was obviously that of your classic shrivelled and snarling hobgoblin.
"The police?" Kit smiled in surprise, waving towards the bank of telephones on the table behind them. "Be my guest, Mr Goddard. But you may be surprised when they laugh at your request. You obviously have no idea who am I, or you wouldn't have made such a pointless threat. Mind you, that is understandable as you did walk into the room rather late in our conversation and therefore you can't be expected to have a clue as to what's going on here.
"But, if you would like me to leave before I explain the threat that your friend and colleague here may be under, that is your prerogative. Quite frankly, it may also be your mistake."
Having laid her own manure on thick and slick, Kit shrugged and turned to leave. She was half way back to the door before Carter and Virginia muttered to Adam to 'stop her'.
"Please, Detective O'Malley," Virginia finally urged.
Kit turned and met the flinty gaze of Adam Goddard instead. He rolled his head a little, then gestured towards the large meeting table. "I apologise. Please have a seat and explain the reason for your visit and tell us how we can help."
You can help by disappearing back under your rocks, Kit thought as they all sat down to face each other around the table. "To be honest I don't know whether you can," she admitted. "Some of the other candidates in the forthcoming election have been receiving threats of a quite specific nature.
"Now, I am aware that as the newest party in the political stakes you have been generating great interest, that you have been inundated with positive support and, shall I say, negative publicity."
"Publicity?" Carter snorted. "I don't think I'd call a hundred rotten eggs 'publicity'. I'd call them a physical assault."
"Be that as it may," Kit smiled, "but what I need to know is whether you have received, either here or at your private residences, any unexpected deliveries. Particularly if they were accompanied by a courier-delivered note with a threatening tone."
A triangular consultation, involving serious squinting and possible psychic communication, resulted in the unanimous decision that Virginia would answer that question.
"We assume you're talking about manure," she said.
"Good assumption," Kit stated. "When and where?"
"Our house. The weekend before last, and yesterday morning."
"Was there a note?"
"Yesterday there was. It makes no sense, though," she glanced at Adam, who nodded. "I have it in my bag." Virginia reached over to the desk behind her and dragged a briefcase onto her lap. She opened it, and then removed a small handbag from which she pulled a piece of yellow paper.
"Did you call the police?" Kit asked, unfolding the page on which was scrawled:
There be blood on the stone from your glasshouse.
"No, we did not," Virginia stated hurriedly.
"I wanted to," Carter declared, despite his wife's apparent attempt to get in before he said anything.
"So why didn't you?" Kit asked, noting Mercury had not signed his name to this note.
"As you implied earlier," Adam volunteered, "we have had our share, more than our share, of adverse publicity. The police have been, on occasion, less than helpful."
"I find that hard to believe," Kit said.
"Oh they turn up for all the public stoushes," Carter said. "The ones covered by the media, where they have to be seen keeping those feral protestors away from our meetings. But..."
"Darling."
"I'm talking, Ginny," Carter pointed out. "Where was I? But they've been completely unhelpful when it comes..."
"Carter," Virginia urged softly.
"...when it comes to cowardly attacks like the rainbow nonsense those pansy-arsed sodomites painted on our front window last week."
"Really?" Kit raised her eyebrows and sent a hoo-bloody-ray out to all the pansy-mites in town.
"Carter," Virginia snapped.
"Stop interrupting me Ginny. I can speak for myself, sometimes."
"Yes Carter, but the detective does not need to hear about those homos. Okay?"
Oh please Athena, Scathach, Xena - anyone, Kit begged. Smite them now! Smite them good! I really don't want to be arrested for murder.
"I suppose not," Carter agreed.
"Who else has been subject to this treatment?" Adam asked.
"I'm sure you'll understand," Kit smiled, "that I can't divulge the names of my clients."
"What do you mean?" Adam demanded.
"I mean I can't tell you who they are Mr Goddard," Kit shrugged. "But rest assured neither will I be talking to them about you - specifically I mean."
"There's only five of us," Adam declared, as if he personally was one of the candidates. "It shouldn't take much to figure who they are."
"Figure away Mr Goddard; be my guest. I am simply trying to ascertain how widespread the attacks are; to inform you that you are not alone in this; and to warn you that in my experience - which is considerable - these situations quite often get much worse before they go away.
"I will say, to aid you in your figuring, that your case does take the tally to three candidates definitely under siege," Kit said dramatically. "Oh, there's also a local councillor, who is strangely unconnected to your by-election, who has already received considerable media coverage about his dung problem."
"You mean the fellow in the local rag? Is that connected to us, I mean Carter?" Adam queried.
"Yeah, and possibly, and do you know him?" Kit replied and asked. She was looking at Carter who opened his mouth, then closed it again as Virginia and Adam took turns to speak - for him.
"No, we don't."
"Not personally, no."
"Fine, good. That's all I need then," Kit said, as she stood up. "Thank you for your time."
The AusFirst triumvirate got to their cloven hooves in surprise.
"Wait," Virginia requested. "What can we...? I mean is there anything we should or can do about this person or people?"
"I suggest you do inform the police if there are any further incidents," Kit smiled. "They may not help you deal with the shit, but at least the attack will be on record." Kit reached into her jacket pocket, pulled out a business card and placed it on the table, in the reach of no one in particular.
"Feel free to inform me of any other suspicious happenings if you wish. It would give me a more complete overview of the problem. Alternatively, and you'll no doubt want to talk this over, you could retain my services to investigate this on your behalf as well."
What are you doing, O'Malley?
"I assure you I have no political alliances," she continued, regardless of her own objection. "My clients take precedence over all personal considerations."
You complete liar, Katherine O'Malley.
"As you suggest, we will talk that one over," Adam said smarmily.
Yeah right, Kit thought. As she approached the door out of the room, she executed a standard three point Columbo-turn and said, "Oh, there was one other thing. I don't suppose the name 'Mercury' means anything to you?"
Adam made a peculiar movement with his non-lips, then shook his head.
Virginia rolled her eyes around thoughtfully, but possibly to hide a reaction. "Should we?"
"No. Just wondering," Kit said, noticing that Carter looked like a stunned mullet. A handsome stunned mullet but a fish face nonetheless. Kit had no way of knowing whether it was his official 'I don't know' look; or the expression he wore when there was something in his mind that he knew he shouldn't say.
"Thanks again," Kit said cheerily and shut the door. She headed back through the phone people, and gleefully did not scream out to tell them they were part of the biggest con since the one that made the Sex Pistols famous.
Carter Walsh was a cardboard cutout; a face with a voice, who obviously learned his 'public stuff' by rote. She could see now why he never did an interview alone. He was leader in name only; a frontman with no substance; the product of a pair of backroom Svengalis. It was blatantly obvious, to the unblinkered at least, that the true power of AusFirst lay with the Machiavellian double-act of Mr Adam Goddard and Mrs Virginia Walsh.
Kit had entered the enemy's stronghold in trepidation, worried about facing the demons of hate made manifest. Now she just wanted to laugh a lot - in their faces. In relief.
AusFirst was top heavy with a greedy, self-interested, power-hungry, fascist troika masquerading as the 'deliverers' of a true people's party - one with absolutely no communist or socialist tendencies, of course.
But the rank and file would discover they'd been conned, and that the three-cornered party hat worn by their masters shaded a nasty animal in a malignant propaganda coat, and trousers filled with secrets and lies. And when they found out they'd been used, and that they had no say at all in their own party - they would turn. And the turn would be vicious.
Kit sang I Am, What I Am, joyfully and badly, all the way through the shitty late afternoon peak hour traffic on her way, uninvited and appointmentless, to North Caulfield and the home of Mr Sadler - pig-photographer extraordinaire.
"And what I am, needs no excuses. I'll bang my own drum, sometimes in space, and talk to gooses," she sang. "It's my life and...oh, shut up O'Malley. Time to get sensible."
She clambered out of her car and sashayed up the driveway to Mr Sadler's front door, where she didn't even get to press the buzzer button before the interior door opened. Kit's olfactory bulb was then seriously assaulted by a billow of old smells comprised of approximately 3123 grilled chops, lamb and pork, and at least 564 roast chickens.
"Yes?"
"Mr Sadler," Kit smiled, trying not to chunder all over him through the screen door. "I don't know whether you remember me, but..."
"You were here with the journalist, Ms Carmody, yesterday."
"Yeah, I was. Good memory."
"I pride myself on it," Sadler stated. "How may I help you?"
"Well," Kit said, looking over her shoulder as if she was worried that 'you-know-who' would see her, "it's about Cr Higgins. My name is O'Malley, I'm a private detective and I'm trying to find out..."
"Ah, please you must come in," Sadler urged. "If you want the dirt on that man, on him, I can give it to you. I can give you everything."
Kit did not want to get stuck inside with this strange man and his personal vendetta, especially if it meant inhaling too much of the internal air.
"This is just a preliminary visit, Mr Sadler," she said. "I merely wanted to touch base, introduce myself and hopefully arrange a more convenient time to return and get the complete lowdown."
"Of course, yes," Sadler nodded. "Though I am free at the moment."
"Sadly I am not," Kit sighed. "I was merely passing, en route to another meeting, and took a punt on you being home.
"Perhaps though, if it's not too much trouble," she said, "I could take a very quick look at some of the photos you took yesterday. I don't want to take them away, until we've had a good chat, but I'd love to get an idea of whether there's any that would be worth purchasing."
"I am sure you'll find them all interesting and very useful," Sadler declared. "Please, come in and take a look. I promise I won't keep you from your next appointment."
Twenty minutes later Kit had exchanged one single note for one single photo and was on her way home. It was definitely the best value she'd gotten for her client's money so far. A photo of a truck, complete with pigs, rego and business-name-on-door (der!) was worth every one of the fifty bucks it had cost her.