Surrender Read Free Page B

you any reason? He just killed Niki for the hell of it — because he could?’
    Gemma put a cup on the table in front of me, pushed a pile of books on to the floor and sat on a chair opposite. For the first time I saw the faint sketching of fine lines around her eyes. The signs of ageing in friends always bring out the best in me but that’s probably just me making some kind of unholy pact with the future.
    Gem nodded at my mug as if daring me to drink. ‘How are you these days, babe?’ she asked, and peered at me through her coffee steam.
    ‘Great,’ I lied. ‘Really great in fact,’ I elaborated. I took a sip of the coffee, giving Gem time. I knew she was watching me, checking me out. For the first three months after Niki died I’d totally lost the plot, then three months after that I’d lost Sean, though in a very different way. Actually, I thought, maybe not so different. Separation is a kind of death, as any dog watching itsowner leave the house would tell you if they could. Since Niki’s death my behaviour had been pretty ropey and Gemma knew it. Plus she’d witnessed my uncontrolled showdown with McFay that had lost me my police work.
    It wasn’t that I’d now come to terms with Niki’s death or anything as mature as that, but I’d learnt how to keep my reactions hidden from everyone. Even my friends. I made a point of taking another casual sip of the ghastly coffee. Real nonchalant. It’s unlikely I fooled Gem but she let me play it out.
    Gemma flicked through some CDs in a drawer beneath the stereo and then slid one across the table to me. I looked at the label: Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass . My heart was thumping and not because I have a liking for ’50s swing. In fact I hate it. That girl from Ipanema could just keep walking as far as I was concerned.
    ‘You made a copy?’
    Gemma looked away and shrugged. ‘No way. McFay would hound me off the job for good if I’d done that.’
    I grinned at her as I dropped the disc into my jacket pocket. ‘I’ll borrow old Herb if you don’t mind.’
    ‘Be my guest. I hate swing,’ she said, dropping one eyelid in what I hoped was a wink. Or else she’d just had a little stroke. Either way, it would be bad mannered of me to draw attention to it.
    We chatted about inconsequential things while we finished our coffee but neither of us is good at small talk and we were drying up long before the coffee did. The CD was burning a hole in my pocket, and there were the unspoken thanks I owed her for risking her job to get a confession out of Snow. Risking her life too.
    I tried a hug and murmured thanks as I was leaving, but Gemgave me a pat on the arm that I’m likely to carry the bruise of for some time to come, and assured me she didn’t need to be thanked. We stood companionably shuffling and avoiding eye contact for some time until I finally made the move and headed back to the car. Christ — and they say men aren’t good at showing emotions. Still, I hoped she knew how grateful I felt. I owed her big time.
    I drove the remaining fifty metres up Pirie and parked beside the Mt Victoria bowling club. From the shrieks of laughter I could hear coming from the green it was obvious the old silverbacks were having themselves a whale of a time. I let Wolf out and whistled him quickly through the kids’ playground, ignoring the glares from protective mothers who wanted so badly to lecture me about dog leads and the use of them on the dog rather than looped over my own neck. Wolf zigzagged ahead of me up into the first set of pines. I filled my lungs with the balmy, pollen-filled, late-afternoon northerly, and followed Wolf who, head up into the breeze, was being reeled in by an invisible line of scents.
    I kept my hands deep in my pockets as I walked. My left hand scratched at the fluff accumulated in the seam; my right tapped at the casing of the CD — not the Tijuana Brass as the label warned, but a recording of Snow telling Gemma how he killed my