Chapter 10
Estella never picked venues she actually liked for a meeting like this.
Once she’d conducted business somewhere, those venues were tainted forever.
Whether it was the sour tang of frightened sweat or the heavy musk of overly confident men, it seemed to hang in the air forever.
And so she was pissed off to find herself here tonight, in this gloriously decadent dark wood bar, with low-lit ambience, and the hum of the music just right.
After tonight she’d never want to come back again.
What a goddamned waste of a beautiful place.
The bartender had given her a flirtatious smirk, the way unspeakably hot men always did, believing themselves untouchable.
As if their carefully tended facial hair and large defined biceps would protect them from her worse impulses.
He’d taken her drink order then graciously gestured for her to take a seat in a private alcove half-hidden behind the bar.
She’d narrowed her eyes and refused. She never sat where anything could be hidden; she’d lived too long as a woman around this particular strain of criminal to make that kind of error twice.
Instead, Estella took a seat along the wall, facing the door. If this execrable crook wanted this meeting he could sit across from her in public and show his face along with his hand.
“Estella, you look gorgeous as always,” came the deep, wet-sounding voice as he arrived.
Estella didn’t look up from examining her manicure, spreading out her fingers to display the sharp glossy points.
Blood red tonight. A bit on the nose, but apt.
She took a sip of her frozen daiquiri and kept her eyes dull as she met his.
He was huge, hulking, barely contained by his expensive suit as he shrugged out of his jacket, his dark hair greying at the temples.
He’d never be good-looking, but he had the strange glow rich men often gave off.
Teeth-whitening and a good skin-care routine.
Botox probably. Made for fucking television.
“Jimmy Jenkins,” she said flatly. “Eat a bag of dicks.”
“Oh, don’t be like that.” Jimmy didn’t even have to ask before a glass of whisky was placed before him. Estella rolled her eyes. He was so keen to show her that his fame and power outweighed her infamy that she felt second-hand embarrassed for him.
“Tell me precisely why I shouldn’t have your throat slit and your ugly carcass fed to Steve’s pigs. He’s got himself a lovely hobby farm out in Healesville these days.”
“I bet he has.” Jimmy slung his arm over the back of his own chair, looking relaxed. “Great money in whores and methamphetamines.”
“That’s more your area than mine,” Estella said. “I’ve never had a taste for those markets.”
“Reputable business woman,” he said, putting obnoxious air quotes over the words. “I forgot.”
“You might find one day that you desperately wish that was all I am.” Estella raised her drink, before taking a long sip.
“Threats are so much nicer when they come from the lips of a beautiful woman.” Jimmy rocked his neck from side to side like he was getting rid of kinks in the muscle. “Especially now she’s single and free to ride.”
“I’m widowed, actually,” she corrected him, swallowing a taste of bile. “And not dead, which is the only way you’d ever get to touch me with those disgusting paws.”
“That’s not true though, is it?” Jenkins smiled. “I own the rights. I own the scriptwriters. And best of all I own the actresses. Just signed yours, actually. You remember her from last season. Pretty little thing. I bet she’s gagging for it.”
Estella didn’t blink. She was too adept at shit talk by now to be dumb enough to show her hand.
But Jenkins’s words, barely more than twenty-four hours since she’d been pressed up against Ellie Graham, the other woman’s chest rising and falling in alarm, her skin pale and hot to touch, registered in a way that made her feel sick.
“Does anyone even watch your shitty little shows anymore?” She changed tacks to put him off the scent. “Heard your ratings weren’t what they were. Got to be embarrassing turning to ambulance chasing just to get on TV.”
“The fact that you’re here suggests you know how big my show is. Everyone in the goddamn country wants to know all about you, Estella Grant. So tell me, darling, did you kill him? Is that what I’ll be shooting come March?”
“From anyone else this would be cute,” she said. “But from you it’s just repellent, as always. Tell me what you want, you sentient sack of shit. Go on: debase yourself.”
Jenkins laughed. He threw back his whisky in a single gulp.
He reached out toward her with a small square of notepaper gripped between his thumb and forefinger.
She refused to take it, so he slid it closer to her until, hating herself with every breath, she covered it with her hand. He laughed again and got to his feet.
“If you can do that, then you’ll get a good portrayal. Nothing too humiliating, something that will keep the public invested in your humanity, if it comes to trial. When it comes to trial.” He smirked. “God, to be the copper who gets to put handcuffs on you.”
He lumbered out. Estella flicked open the notepaper and cursed.
“What’s wrong?” Kenneth asked her, when she flung herself into the back of the car, parked immaculately outside the door to the bar.
“That motherfucker,” she spat. She told Kenneth what Jenkins had asked for and he was quiet as he slowly steered the car into the traffic out of Prahan and back to St Kilda Road. “I won’t do it,” she said aloud, as they hummed along the dark streets. “It’s not fucking worth it.”
“I think you know it might be,” Kenneth said shortly. “Public loves that show. You don’t want a villain’s edit.”
Estella spluttered out a laugh despite herself. “We are the fucking villains, Ken. There’s no edit in the world that will scrub the blood from my hands, it’s quite pointless.”
“You don’t watch nearly enough television if you believe that,” Kenneth said.
“I mean, take the Menendez brothers. Films in the nineties showed us a pair of greed-motivated psychopathic parent-killers. Now thanks to Netflix, they’re abused kids whose parents had it coming. If the taskforce ever comes for you—”
“You truly believe that Universe Below will give the viewers a thoughtful, nuanced take on me that makes the public think I’m cuddly?”
“No, but I think that Jenkins could do his worst if he chooses to and that the public are where jurors come from.”
Estella was sullen. “The police don’t have shit.”
“We don’t know that. I don’t trust that detective. Yolanda. Wogs get shit done.”
“Oh, shut the fuck up.”
“Spoken like a wog.”
Estella found herself smiling. Kenneth was Croatian, by ancestry, and she, on a mere technicality, was Italian. The detective, Yolanda, was Greek. As far as any of the white-bread Grants were concerned, that made them all wogs.
“Do you reckon you’ll make the cut this time around?” she asked him as they sped into Malvern. “Or are you still too boring for television?”
“Me? I’m just your big dumb driver, Ms. Grant,” said the person who somehow had become the closest in the world to being her right-hand man. “And I’m too fucking handsome. Couldn’t find an actor pretty enough to do me justice.”
Estella wanted to laugh, but she thought of Eloise Silver — all porcelain skin and wide eyes — and her laughter died. “Well, lucky you,” she sighed.