Bleeding Hearts. Lindy Cameron
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pulled a sheet of paper from her jacket pocket and unfolded it. "I'm going to start at the top of this very long list you gave me this morning. I should have enough time to visit Peter Wendle, Sylvie Asher and Rekon5 this afternoon. Does he really answer to that name?"
"Rekon5 was his graffiti tag."
"But now he's a sculptor," Kit said. "And a grown-up?"
"Yep. Well, almost grown-up, but he is a very talented sculptor," Rebecca replied.
"You're not doing anything else today, are you?" Kit verified.
"No. I'm going to have a bath and a nice lie down."
"Good. If you change your mind or get invited anywhere, let me know. Especially..."
"...if I've already been there or seen them since I've been in Melbourne," Rebecca finished.
"Spot on," Kit nodded. "And, given the drink you and Sally had in the bar with... Donk was it?"
"Donker," Rebecca laughed. "Or John."
"Right, Donker John," Kit shook her head. "I want you to think back and make a new list of people like him you may have forgotten to put on this one. You know, any other exes of old friends or their nephews, mothers, dogs or..."
Rebecca pulled an 'uh-oh, I've just remembered fifty-three people' kind of face.
"What?" Kit asked.
"Jack."
"Jack who?"
"Jack my ex-brother-in-law Jack. And, oh dear, you're right, I'd better think about this."
Kit sighed and smiled. "Also, to speed up my process of elimination, if would be great if you could organise another get-together with Tori Bennet and the old school mates you dined with the week before last. A few people in one place makes my job easier. Sometimes."
"Lunch tomorrow, at Tori's," Rebecca announced. "Already happening."
"Splendid. We'll think up a cover for me, but ask Tori not to let anyone know who I am."
Kit closed the front door and crept up the five steps from the inside landing, pressing herself against the wall. The black commando had started her raids again but still hadn't figured out that flicking her tail against the begonia leaves was a dead giveaway. Kit reached in and gave it a gentle tug.
Thistle leapt three feet in the air and then ran half way across the landing before skidding around to a stop near the island bench. Regaining her composure, by pretending once again that nothing she ever did no matter how ridiculous was unintentional, The Cat then strolled purposefully into the kitchen and sat by her empty food bowl.
"It's not dinner time Thistle," Kit laughed. "It's not even five o'clock yet." She grabbed a carton from the fridge and poured herself a glass of milk.
"Broonk," Thistle remarked.
"Oh really? And then what happened?" Kit asked wondering, as she poured milk into The Cat's bowl, whether she'd been living on her own for too long.
But things are going to change. Very, very soon, she sang to herself.
"Only two more sleeps before Alex comes back, Thistle. I hope for your sake she likes cats."
Kit placed her glass on the bench and watched it carefully for a moment, just in case it was something in the milk that had made her say that.
God O'Malley, what are you doing? You're starting to think like your mother. What's even worse is you're thinking about setting up house with someone you don't even know well enough to know whether she likes cats or not. Or whether she wants to set up house. Or whether she really wants to see you again for any longer than it takes to tell you she doesn't. No wonder the woman has stayed in Perth so long. You probably did scare her off.
"Do something normal, for heaven's sake," she said aloud. "Go write your report."
Kit wandered obediently into her office, turned on the computer and opened the file that she'd started on her new client before going to bed the night before.
Well, this distraction won't take long, she thought, flipping open her notebook and unfolding Rebecca's list. She keyed in the names and contact numbers of the twenty-seven people on the list, and the reasons for their inclusion - school friend, colleague, Heart and Soul guest. Then she added her impressions of the four she'd met so far, including the unlikelihood that any of them were responsible for the poetic threats against Rebecca's continued well-being.
Although Kit surmised the letter-writer was probably someone that Rebecca knew, she still had to run down every avenue of possibility. Sticking to her cover, that she was researching a book called Women in Television, Kit had had no problem in getting her 'suspects' to open up about their opinion of Rebecca and her show. And none so far had betrayed even a hint of animosity towards her. Even Darian Renault's evasive rudeness during and after the taping of his interview had been defensive rather than offensive, and aimed at the media in general and not Rebecca in particular.
The other three she'd visited today were even less suspicious. Peter Wendle, manager of The Funny Club, a bar-cafe venue for stand-up comedians was himself a very funny bloke who was over the moon about being featured on Heart and Soul; Sylvie Asher, an agoraphobic who hadn't left her house for seven years, was an otherwise cheerful writer of best-selling fantasy fiction who loved having visitors and thought Rebecca was an absolute delight; and Rekon5, who was still known as 'Bruce' to his afternoon-tea-serving mum Marjie, was only arguably a sculptor but he did think it was 'ace' that the Rebecca Jones was interested in his junkyard art.
Kit saved the file and closed it, then picked up the phone and hit Hector's speed-dial button.
"Yo! Graffico Game Design and Cyber Investigators; Hector Chase can't talk to you right now. You know what to do."
"I know exactly what to do," Kit said, after the beep. "What's this cyber investigators nonsense? I'll just have to do this job myself now, as you are obviously suffering detective delusions."
She hung up and headed into the kitchen, smiling to herself as she took a beer from the fridge. She still couldn't reconcile the snappy-dressing twenty-two-year-old Hector she knew now, with the punk teenager she'd had to arrest several times for joy-riding and burglary. The completely-together version was such a far cry from that angry and unhappy kid, who'd run away from several foster homes so he could care for his junkie mother, that Kit sometimes had to remind herself he was the same person. Despite his shitty life he'd barely missed a day of high school and had then put himself through TAFE college and started his own business as a freelance computer whiz.
Kit had used Hector's Internet skills a few times in the last two months and was contemplating making the deal official, if she could get him to stop referring to himself as a freelance cyberdick.
Kit was about to return to her computer, when something made her change direction. She jogged down the three stairs to her sunken lounge and dropped into her armchair instead.
It is so spooky, she smiled, how your own mind, can change your mind.
'News time', was all that her procrastinating bits of grey matter had to think in order to override the semi-subconscious suggestion that, as she had no other plans for the night, she could do some writing. Kit grabbed the remote control and, just in case the world had ended since Rebecca's rundown of world news that morning, closed her eyes until she heard advertising-kiddies singing "We're happy little Vegemites".
Phew! Proof positive that Planet Earth was A-OK.
Hang on a sec, she thought, sitting forward in puzzlement as she watched the 'in the news tonight' prelude that followed the ad break. Something dire had happened: today, Monday, had definitely been the day the Earth stood still.
Edward Bonney, the partly-mummified newsreader with 'decades of experience' (meaning he had a great voice but no journalistic background) had cast a patronising smile at his pert and young, blonde and female co-anchor (who'd just done a stint