Rubdown by Leigh Redhead Read Free Book Online Page A

access to Tammy’s window. The ground was five metres below, covered in earth and leaves. I’d seen police check the sills for fingerprints and the dirt for any evidence of an intruder. As far as I knew they hadn’t found anything. I walked back down the hall, avoiding the bathroom. The lounge room window had the same aspect as the bedroom and I tried to recall if it had been open that night, but all I could remember was Tamara’s dead eyes staring at me as she floated on a sea of red. I shuddered.
    Morgana was straining chai from the saucepan into a mug.
    ‘When did you move in?’ I asked.
    ‘ ’Bout a week after Tamara died.’ She took her drink to the coffee table and reclined on the futon. I crunched down into the beanbag opposite. The rat was playing hide and seek in her hair.
    ‘I’m not scared of the dead, you know. They’re like you and me, only in a different state of being. Make better company than a lot of live fuckers, if you know what I mean. Didn’t tell the real estate though, instead I bargained them down twenty bucks a week.’ She picked up a packet of Port Royal tobacco and rolled a skinny cigarette. ‘Her stuff was still here when I looked at the place.’
    ‘Really?’
    ‘Yeah. A removal company was packing it up to take to her parents.’
    ‘What about the bathroom?’
    Morgana lit the cigarette and let smoke drift from her lips to her nostrils. ‘Clean. Apparently there’s this company that specialises in mopping up after violent death. Far out, hey? They did a good job, but I found a few blood spots they’d missed. I left them there.’
    Her eyes challenged me to say something so I just nodded like I would have done the same. I didn’t quite understand goths, but you had to admire their dedication to the subculture. We had them at my country high school in northern New South Wales and they’d be kitted up in greatcoats and army boots on forty degree days, pancake makeup melting in the sun.
    ‘Do you think she was murdered?’ she asked.
    ‘No,’ I said.
    ‘I think she was.’
    ‘What makes you say that?’
    ‘Her spirit told me.’
    Of course it did. ‘What did she say?’ I kept all traces of sarcasm from my voice.
    ‘It’s not like we had a conversation but I can tell the difference between a suicide and a murder victim. The soul of a suicide kind of mopes around, all depressed, but a murder victim is like, seriously pissed off. I’ve had dreams about her, did a bit of Ouija board stuff with some friends. I asked if she was angry and the pointer slid to “Yes” so fast it flew off the board. One time I was lying in bed about to fall asleep and the room got icy cold. I went paralysed, and felt this weight on my chest. She was trying to contact me, I know it.
    And now you’re here. I was right.’
    ‘I was watching the flat the night she died. No one came in or out.’
    Morgana shrugged and stubbed out her ciggie. The rat was on her shoulder again, rubbing its front paws together like an obsessive compulsive hand-washer.
    I checked my watch and struggled up from the beanbag.
    ‘Thanks for your help. I’d better go.’
    ‘Don’t you want to see the bin?’
    ‘The what?’
    ‘The removalists chucked out a fair bit of Tamara’s junk.
    I forgot to take the rubbish out last week so it’s still there.’
     

Chapter Nine
    The wheelie bin assigned to the flat lay on its side. Maggots spilled onto the concrete, wriggling like animated grains of rice.
    I tried breathing shallow but the ripe stench of rotting food crept up my nostrils as I dragged out plastic bags oozing liquid filth.
    I was glad I’d taken Tony’s advice and kept a box of latex gloves handy in the car.
    Morgana had thrown on a satin robe decorated with Chinese dragons and sat on a step watching me, occasionally picking at her black toenail polish. Aleister Crowley was upstairs in his fishtank.
    ‘That’s hers,’ she said when I’d pulled out two thick green garbage bags. I ripped open the first