Ishtar Read online

  Nina snorts. “We can’t all be upstanding detectives of the police force. You’re missing an earring, by the way. Makes you look lopsided.”

  Adrienne reaches up to pull on her earlobes. “Shit!”

  The earrings aren’t valuable; they’re just the only ones she has.

  The waitress brings over a coffee and Nina spins the cup slowly, eyeing the beads of froth on top of the black liquid. Then she looks at Adrienne, her face composed. “Goddess Cult, hey? You know, my money’s on them. Waiting for their goddess, or whatever.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Nina picks a piece of tobacco off her tongue with thumb and third finger. “I got a hunch the bitch is early.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Did Nina say why she thought we should go for the cult?” Steve asks.

  Steve is the only other member of the newly-instituted Gender Crimes section. Amazing; you kill a dozen or so female prostitutes, no one sets up a special police division. Not since Scotland Yard. You kill a handful of male prostitutes, suddenly there’s a new division, and she’s the lead. Adrienne figures she’s being set up for a fall.

  “She said it’s a hunch,” she replies.

  Steve looks out the car window at the site of the last discovered body. St. Peter Julian’s is one of the ugliest Catholic churches in existence. The design must have been based on a war bunker, but then they’d gone and put the whole damn thing above ground. Thick, uneven cement and pale white struts are set evenly into the walls. It looks like a concrete piano. The front features a crucified Jesus with crown of thorns that hangs three storeys above ground, old-copper-green with exposure. He’s frightening. A god with a serious ‘don’t fuck with me’ attitude.

  “Pretty big hunch,” Steve mutters.

  “She’s going to put me onto a guy. A prostitute friend of hers; might know more about the victims.”

  “Tight-knit community, is it?” Steve asks.

  Steve’s a young man, but hefty. Loves his junk food, been on a diet since she met him eight months ago. He’s not what you’d call jolly. His humour is a callous, bitter expression part way between funny and despairing. Adrienne likes him.

  They’re parked on George Street, the city’s main thoroughfare. Buses intermittently obscure their view and pedestrian traffic presses close to Adrienne’s window. The smell of sweat and city pervades the car.

  “Cults are weird,” Steve says.

  Adrienne shrugs. “My sister joined a cult.”

  She’s forgotten temporarily that Steve went to school with her younger sister, so when he says, “Who, Grace?” she’s taken aback.

  “Yeah, Grace.” She shifts in her seat.

  “What kind?”

  “The kind that takes your money and your mind and gives you a shinto-load of crazy in return.”

  Steve is quiet.

  Adrienne wracks her brain for the name. “Allatu, it was called.”

  “Allatu? What’s that mean?” Steve asks.

  “Some religious thing, I guess. The guy leading it suicided after a string of sexual abuse claims. Then...I think it fell apart.”

  “Where’s Grace now?”

  “No idea,” Adrienne admits.

  Steve is about to respond when a car pulls up beside them. It waits for the traffic to ease, then it turns right into the church carpark and rounds the building, hypothetically coming to a stop in back.

  “That’s gotta be him,” Adrienne says.

  ****

  Inside the church is nicer than outside. It’s a large, square shape with white polished floors and a scattering of wooden pews. The altar is set at floor-level, not raised, with a red tablecloth and two vases of flowers.

  Father Thomas is mid-forties, neither fat nor thin, and just tall enough not to be considered short. Given his surroundings, he’s surprisingly — almost disappointingly — normal-looking.

  “We’re looking for Candice Angers,” says Steve.

  “Yes?” Thomas’s voice is mellifluous, well-trained, incongruent to his plain looks. “And you’re looking for her here?”

  “She hasn’t been seen in three days. Not since her police interview the day they found the body,” Adrienne says. “Seems she never made it home. Can you tell me about her?”

  The priest takes a breath. He isn’t wearing priestly garb. His clothes are faded from wear and washing, and his arms are crossed over the beginnings of a convincing pot belly. “She’s one of mine.”

  “One of your what?” Steve asks.

  Thomas gives him a bemused smile. “Flock.”

  He turns his gaze back to Adrienne. They’ve been playing tag-team, she and Steve, but when it’s clear Thomas considers her the boss, Adrienne takes over the questioning. “She attended mass here?”

  “Every week, usually twice.”

  “She was quite religious?”

  “That’s the funny thing about people who are regular church-goers,” says Thomas, “they’re often quite religious.”

  Adrienne ignores the comment. “So you knew her pretty well?”

  “We talked.”

  “About?”

  “Her, largely,” Thomas uncrosses his arms, spreads his hands. “And god. And her relationship with god—”

  “Is her prostitution a problem for that relationship?”

  “Well, it isn’t an enhancement,” he admits. “She told me she wanted to quit. But, much in the same way anyone unhappy talks about quitting. It was a ‘one day’ kind of thing. One day I’ll quit, but not today. You know the type?”

  “Like St. Augustine?” Adrienne asks.

  Thomas laughs. “Give me chastity and moderation, but don’t give it to me yet? I see you have a little religion yourself, Detective.”

  Adrienne neither confirms nor denies. “What’s Candice’s mood like lately? Any changes?”

  Thomas shakes his head. “She’s spooked. She was the one to find the body.”

  “And what about relationships? Partners, friends, anyone we can contact?”

  “She doesn’t talk about relationships much.”

  “Because she’s a lesbian?”

  Thomas presses his lips together. His eyes flick to a particularly imposing statue of Jesus, like he thinks it might be listening. “As a representative of my Church, I cannot condone relationships that are not deemed holy...”

  He lets the silence lengthen long enough that Adrienne realises there’s another answer he’s itching to give.

  “And as a man of principle?”

  “I find,” says Thomas, “I cannot not condone a relationship between two loving, consenting adults. Of any persuasion.”

  Adrienne nods. “If you see her, get her to call me.” She hands him a card.

  Thomas takes it and turns it over a couple times in his hand.

  “One last question, Father,” says Adrienne, “and you may find it impertinent.”

  “The answer is no,” he says.

  Adrienne starts.

  “You were going to ask if I’d had a sexual relationship with Candice.” Thomas eyes her levelly. “Weren’t you?”

  “Good guess,” she admits.

  “Sex is always considered an impertinence when discussed with a priest. Though whether you meant impertinent to me or to Candice, I’m not sure.” Father Thomas stands, the wooden pew creaking at the shift in weight. “Because she was a prostitute, you also assume she’s promiscuous. Isn’t that right?”

  Adrienne hesitates. She’s thinking that surely anyone who has sex for money is promiscuous, but maybe that oversimplifies it. Maybe promiscuity for the financial gain is different from promiscuity for sexual gain. But she’s not sure. She feels she’s blundering into a world she doesn’t understand. She hasn’t had a sexual relationship in years. She resists counting how many.

  “You must know,” says Thomas, “that Catholic priests are still celibate, even in this age.”

  “You follow the Church’s ruling on that, too, Father? Your conscience doesn’t smart at foll
owing out-of-date rules intended to suppress natural humanity? Still,” says Adrienne, “it’s probably not your conscience that’s the problem with a deal like that.”

  Thomas stares blankly at her for a second. Then he smiles. “You have a lot of anger.” But he doesn’t offer to address it, and Adrienne respects him for that.

  They walk towards the square of daylight that marks the outside world. Steve is ahead of them, heading for the door like a man with purpose. Adrienne figures he doesn’t like churches. She can’t blame him.

  “Could be worse,” she says to Thomas. “You could be a nun. Celibacy and poverty, I understand.”

  “They make great sacrifices to serve God, yes.” But Thomas won’t be drawn into any more discussions on morals.

  As they leave, they pass a corkboard full of photos, some faded with age, many curled around the pins that hold them. “More of your flock?” Adrienne asks.

  Thomas nods. The photos show a mishmash of faces, from a group of grinning hikers to the room of a nursing home, residents ensconced in wide chairs. They’re clapping and smiling toothlessly.

  “What did Candice tell you,” Thomas asks, “about the man she found?”

  Adrienne shrugs. “Just that she thought she knew him.”

  “How did he die?”

  “We don’t know that yet,” Adrienne says.

  “You don’t know?” He gives her an incredulous expression. He clearly thinks she’s holding out on him.

  Truth is they know how he died. Massive internal trauma. They just don’t have a clue how so much trauma could be inflicted without breaking the skin or leaving an external mark.

  It’s like he exploded inside.

  ****

  Back in the car they’re idling at lights. Steve is asking, “Where to now?” and Adrienne is thinking that’s a Hell of a question, she’d like to know the answer herself. Her phone rings and she’s grateful for the distraction.

  “How’d you go with the priest?” Nina asks.

  “We got nothing,” says Adrienne.

  It’s the answer she has to give — Nina is a civilian, after all — but it’s also true. She’s relieved to find a friend in this landscape. Not the familiar hard-edged landscape of the city, but the landscape of weird deaths that’s been overlaid on it. The inexplicable crimes, the unnerving environment of belief and religion. Not for the first time she thinks about quitting.

  One day.

  “Well,” says Nina in that purring drawl of hers, “I got an address for you, for the Ishtar cult.”

  She gives Adrienne an address in the upmarket end of Balmain. Adrienne notes it down with a distracted, “Thanks”.

  “I’ve got something else for you, too. But you won’t like it,” Nina says.

  Adrienne likes very little about this so far, but Nina declines to explain over the phone. “Come to my place. I know someone who can explain it better than me.”

  ****

  Nina opens the apartment door wearing a long shirt and soft trousers, her feet bare on the floorboards. Her hair’s a mess and she wears no make-up. The skin on her neck is soft. She looks old and vulnerable.

  “Transference,” she says without introduction.

  “What?” Adrienne asks.

  The apartment is a one-room event, kitchen and bedroom and dining space combined. Shelves line almost every wall, books and boxes and souvenirs from a life already half-lived. A large frame dominates the space above the stovetop. It’s littered with photographs and postcards, ticket stubs and receipts. Figurines from Europe and Africa are lined up on a window frame. Scarves hang thickly from a hook by the door. It’s a visual assault. Adrienne gets lost in her own vertigo and has to ask Nina to repeat herself.

  “I said, this is Chapel. He’s a friend. He knows — knew — one of the victims.”

  Adrienne starts, finally noticing the man at the dining table. He’s tiny, almost a stick figure, with narrow wrists resting on crossed leg. His skin is pale brown, maybe Indonesian.

  “Hey, Chapel.” Adrienne remembers to introduce Steve, but Nina gives her a strange look.

  “Yeah, we covered that bit,” Steve says. He stands like a stone in the middle of the chaotic apartment. They haven’t been invited to sit down, but then, there are only two chairs. Steve and Adrienne lean over the room’s other occupants.

  “Sorry,” says Adrienne. “I think I’m caught up now. So, transference?”

  “It’s a theory,” says Chapel, “that a personality can be transferred from one body to another. Or a soul, if you like.”

  “Uh huh. And what’s that got to do with anything?” She doesn’t mean to sound harsh, but she sees Chapel exchange a look with Nina.

  Nina winks in reassurance and he continues, “Transference usually ends with the host dead. When the personality or spirit leaves, the host body can break down.”

  Adrienne is trying to hold onto her patience. She looks at Nina and reminds herself to be civil. She asked Nina for help, after all. She shouldn’t reject what’s offered. Even if it’s making the whole thing stranger.

  “How does it break down?” she asks.

  Steve gives her a pointed look, but she ignores him. She’ll cop an earful later for letting the crazies take up their time. Steve checks his watch and stares blandly out the window.

  Chapel shrugs. “Different ways, depending on the power of the transference. Some have aneurysms, where the brain basically explodes.”

  Adrienne is listening now. “Explodes?”

  “Yeah,” Chapel nods. “Sometimes there’s broken veins, broken bones.”

  “How many?”

  Chapel looks at her. “What?”

  “How many broken bones?” Adrienne asks.

  “How many you got?” Chapel asks.

  Good answer. She asks, “What’s your job, Chapel?”

  He purses his lips, gauging her. “I’m an entertainer.”

  “Prostitute?”

  Nina cuts in. “Let’s just say we’ve worked together.”

  “Vice isn’t my department,” Adrienne says. “So let’s assume it’s all perfectly legal.”

  Chapel chuckles. “Not in some countries.”

  When he smiles, his narrow face becomes unrecognisable. His teeth are wide-spaced and lopsided, and a vein in his forehead pops. He goes from distinguished to clownish in a second. But then his hilarity dissolves and the subdued expression returns.

  Adrienne gestures for the folder Steve’s holding and pulls out the photos. “Do you recognise any of these guys?”

  Chapel pushes the photos around on the table with thin fingers. He looks at each one, apparently hunting for something familiar, something that can be translated from the cold light of the lab overheads to the flattering half-light of the street after dark.

  “Yeah, these guys I know.” He indicates three of the photos. “My God. Are they all dead?”

  “Afraid so,” Adrienne confirms.

  He’s chosen the dead guy from the church and two other unnamed men. Mick Spencer, he tells Adrienne, pointing at the first photo. But the other he refers to only as Teddy.

  “Never needed to know his name,” Chapel shrugs.

  “You work with them?” Adrienne asks.

  “Mick, yeah, I worked with him. Teddy wasn’t a working girl. He was a john.”

  “A customer? Any of them have enemies, that you know of?”

  Chapel is shaking his head slowly. “I can’t believe they’re dead. These guys, they had broken bones?”

  “Right.”

  “How many?”

  Adrienne shrugs. “All of them.”

  Chapel gives her a look. “And you’re wondering if it’s not an aggressive spirit?”

  Adrienne doesn’t answer.

  “Detective,” Chapel pushes the photos back towards her, “forget looking for their enemies. Face it; you’re in over your head.”

  “You seem pretty sure of that.” Adrienne tries not to sound defensive.

  “You didn’t e
ven know their names until now. I’d say you’re desperate,” Chapel returns. “The point is, if you’ve come this far, you may as well go all the way. Start accepting the stuff you think is crazy. And then leave it the hell alone.”

  Adrienne feels her face heat up. She doesn’t spend her days pursuing justice for nameless corpses, just to have her efforts denigrated by some pissant skinny little lollypop with bad teeth who makes his living screwing strangers.

  “Thanks for your time.” She marches to the door, Steve following.

  Halfway down the first flight of stairs Nina catches up with them. “Hey. You asked me for help, right? This is what I got.”

  “You found a witch doctor with a doomsday obsession and you thought you’d give me a call?”

  “I knew you wouldn’t get it,” Nina says.

  “Oh, I get it,” Adrienne says. “I sure as shit don’t believe it, though.”

  “Well,” Nina moves back up the staircase, talking over her shoulder, “if it turns out to have a simpler explanation, it’s still something you should think twice about messing with. Unless you like flour for bones.”

  Adrienne waves a mock ‘thank-you’ and keeps walking.

  ****

  They get to the car and Adrienne’s phone rings. It’s Nina.

  “What?” Adrienne fights to keep her tone neutral.

  “One more thing,” Nina says. “Chapel says at least two of those dead guys had something else in common. Apart from prostitution.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They exclusively worked women.”

  Adrienne stops. Steve is unlocking the car door and giving her a quizzical look. He mimes a ‘What is it?’.

  “Are you sure?” she asks.

  “He’s sure. He says they didn’t do gay.”

  Adrienne pauses. “Good to know.”

  When she repeats the conversation to Steve, he raises his eyebrows. “How’d they make a living?”

  “You think there’s not enough women to keep those guys employed?”

  “No,” Steve doesn’t hesitate, “I don’t. I mean, sex aside, even with straight escorting, I don’t get how they could survive.”

  “Maybe they had other jobs. Maybe they got into the drug trade,” Adrienne theorises. “Maybe one wealthy woman is all you need.”