or lose it’. Even masturbation was becoming a bore. I was going to have to do something about that. But where does a girl go for sex? If there was the equivalent for women, like a strip joint where women paid men to lap dance, would I use it? I doubt it, but who knows? Maybe paying for it is like ‘Sex, Jim, but not as we know it’. Separating the lips of my own sex, I spent some time not thinking about anything much at all. And it wasn’t too boring either.
I have a recurring dream. I’m in my house. Not the one from my waking life, but a special dream house. I’m always walking through it, locating new rooms that I didn’t know existed. Sometimes I wander through luxurious, well-lit, big, open rooms and I have a real sense of liking this place. Other times the dream turns nightmarish and I come across dark, dank cellars or dusty mote-filled attics that I’m afraid to enter. Someone told me once that the house was my unconscious. Yeah, well, maybe. I don’t go in for that stuff.
Whatever it is, no sooner had Wolf curled into his bed beside mine than I plummeted into a dream of the house. This time I was searching, running from room to room in a slow-mo dream run. I was looking for Niki. I started to panic. Where was she? I went through room after room, dragging my paralysed sleep legs, forcing them to move. Snow was in one room, his head in his hands. He seemed to be crying. In another room were the dancers I had seen earlier, huddled in a corner of the room like frightened chooks. But no Niki. I went on, room by room, searching. Then suddenlyI stopped. Something was behind me. Some one was behind me.
No sooner had I thought this than whoever it was jumped me and I landed hard on the floor, the weight of my assailant pinning me to the ground. I twisted my head, trying to see who it was. Fear hit me: he was going to stab me in the back the way he had stabbed Niki. I struggled. I was hot with the effort, sweating, but still I couldn’t get him off me. It was all in slow-mo, my attempts weighed down by sleep.
And then with a huge effort, I twisted hard and finally I glimpsed my assailant. It was me. The shock of it startled me awake. Wolf had crept on to my bed during the night and, not content to take Sean’s side — I mean the side formerly known as Sean’s — had spread himself across the bed, pinning my legs. So that explained my nightmare.
Almost.
CHAPTER 6
D espite my dream I woke refreshed, and while I brushed my teeth I went over what I’d figured so far. Niki wanted out of the sex business and someone had paid Snow to kill her rather than let her go. The obvious suspect was the club owner Gavin, who last night had given me a succinct lesson on his selection criteria for employing security guards. I needed to find out more about this guy but at first meeting he seemed way too pragmatic to have ordered a hit on Niki just because she’d decided to quit working for him. I figured girls must come and go in that place with inevitable regularity.
I’d just spat out my toothpaste when the phone rang.
‘Diane? It’s Inspector Frank McFay,’ he said, giving me his full title as if we didn’t already know each other. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’
McFay hadn’t spoken to me since the day he’d thrown me out of his office after our little set-to. Ringing in person to propose work was probably his version of a peace offering. I made a noise to suggest he should continue but I knew from experience that once McFay was in full flight he would keep going whether I joined in or not.
‘A body’s turned up in the Rimutakas. The local boys reckon it’s been there for a couple of decades at least. We don’t have the manpower to waste trying to find out who this joker is, so I thought of you.’
This was classic McFay. Definitely old school, was Frank.
‘Gee thanks, Frank,’ I said, confident the sarcasm would fly right past him.
‘I told the Wainuiomata boys you’ll be out there by ten this
I have a recurring dream. I’m in my house. Not the one from my waking life, but a special dream house. I’m always walking through it, locating new rooms that I didn’t know existed. Sometimes I wander through luxurious, well-lit, big, open rooms and I have a real sense of liking this place. Other times the dream turns nightmarish and I come across dark, dank cellars or dusty mote-filled attics that I’m afraid to enter. Someone told me once that the house was my unconscious. Yeah, well, maybe. I don’t go in for that stuff.
Whatever it is, no sooner had Wolf curled into his bed beside mine than I plummeted into a dream of the house. This time I was searching, running from room to room in a slow-mo dream run. I was looking for Niki. I started to panic. Where was she? I went through room after room, dragging my paralysed sleep legs, forcing them to move. Snow was in one room, his head in his hands. He seemed to be crying. In another room were the dancers I had seen earlier, huddled in a corner of the room like frightened chooks. But no Niki. I went on, room by room, searching. Then suddenlyI stopped. Something was behind me. Some one was behind me.
No sooner had I thought this than whoever it was jumped me and I landed hard on the floor, the weight of my assailant pinning me to the ground. I twisted my head, trying to see who it was. Fear hit me: he was going to stab me in the back the way he had stabbed Niki. I struggled. I was hot with the effort, sweating, but still I couldn’t get him off me. It was all in slow-mo, my attempts weighed down by sleep.
And then with a huge effort, I twisted hard and finally I glimpsed my assailant. It was me. The shock of it startled me awake. Wolf had crept on to my bed during the night and, not content to take Sean’s side — I mean the side formerly known as Sean’s — had spread himself across the bed, pinning my legs. So that explained my nightmare.
Almost.
CHAPTER 6
D espite my dream I woke refreshed, and while I brushed my teeth I went over what I’d figured so far. Niki wanted out of the sex business and someone had paid Snow to kill her rather than let her go. The obvious suspect was the club owner Gavin, who last night had given me a succinct lesson on his selection criteria for employing security guards. I needed to find out more about this guy but at first meeting he seemed way too pragmatic to have ordered a hit on Niki just because she’d decided to quit working for him. I figured girls must come and go in that place with inevitable regularity.
I’d just spat out my toothpaste when the phone rang.
‘Diane? It’s Inspector Frank McFay,’ he said, giving me his full title as if we didn’t already know each other. ‘I’ve got a job for you.’
McFay hadn’t spoken to me since the day he’d thrown me out of his office after our little set-to. Ringing in person to propose work was probably his version of a peace offering. I made a noise to suggest he should continue but I knew from experience that once McFay was in full flight he would keep going whether I joined in or not.
‘A body’s turned up in the Rimutakas. The local boys reckon it’s been there for a couple of decades at least. We don’t have the manpower to waste trying to find out who this joker is, so I thought of you.’
This was classic McFay. Definitely old school, was Frank.
‘Gee thanks, Frank,’ I said, confident the sarcasm would fly right past him.
‘I told the Wainuiomata boys you’ll be out there by ten this
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