Chapter 28

While I waited for Lena's fax to arrive, I thought about the email from Sophie. Mum had obediently forwarded it to me. Andy had left his computer on, so I logged on to see it for myself. It said just what mum had told me, and the email address was almost the same as the one she had used in London. I read through it a few times, and wondered how on earth she knew I was searching for the people who were after her? It just didn't make sense. I was about to give up, when something at the bottom of the email caught my eye. She had signed the message. Unlike the coded email this one said 'Soph' at the bottom. That was odd. Mum hadn't mentioned that when she read it out, but surely she would have noticed the same thing I did. Sophie never got called Soph. She hated the name Soph. If anyone ever called her that she would correct them straight away, saying 'my name is Sophie'. Was it possible this had changed in the last seven years? It didn't seem likely. Sophie was about as stubborn as it gets. And no Beatles reference either. I supposed she didn't always need to talk in code to us, but something just seemed out of place.

As I sat staring at the email, with the word Soph stuck in my mind, I heard Andy's fax machine whirr into life. The beeping of the phone ringing made me jump up and run towards his study. I had wondered, since it was the middle of the night there, whether Lena would have to wait until the convenience store opened in the morning to send the fax. But London must be the city that never sleeps.

The first page scrolled slowly into my hands. So desperate was I to see if there was anything useful on it that I felt like dragging it from the teeth of the machine. I even tried to read the text upside down as the machine gave me one line at a time. The first thing I noticed was who the fax was addressed to. It didn’t look business like; just a hand written scrawl ‘Bill, the schedule as we discussed’. There was a heading above the smaller text saying ‘Special Productions’. Underneath this, there was a table made of straight rows and columns, which seemed to be some sort of calendar or chart. This had typed text, neat and evenly spaced. The first column listed times, the second had dates, and the third had the names of hotels with their addresses, none of which were familiar to me. The last column had names in it. It looked like it was some sort of roster. As the page finally fell from the clutches of the machine, I read it more closely, the right way up.

The first line showed that ‘Jim and Keith’ were due to be at the Millennium Hotel at 12:30 pm on 18^th June 2008. So it was an old list. The other dates were every month or so for the last six months of 2008. The names hardly varied; there was either ‘Jim and Keith’ or ‘Lance and Ian’. I stared at the list, wondering if it was a work roster, and if so, what kind of work? Then I noticed something else scrawled on the side of the schedule, which might have been a clue to why Lena assumed it was a filming schedule. The writing had an arrow pointing to a row that listed ‘Jim and Keith’ at an address in October 2008, and said ‘camera and lights supplied by Santo, Hillman double booked’. Camera and lights. It looked like Lena was right. This was a schedule of filming for a movie. But why film only one day a month?

As I stared at the page, images of the faceless Bill Holland hanging out with women at the bar of his nightclub flashed into my mind. Was it possible I had in my hands his schedule for filming porn films? Ever since Liam had revealed Sophie’s occupation to me, I felt like nothing could shock me about her world anymore. I was the sister of a prostitute who blackmailed her clients. My point of reference had completely changed. So why wouldn’t a nightclub owner who occasionally hired a prostitute not dabble in pornographic movie production? Were Jim, Keith, Lance and Ian porn actors? It all suddenly made sense.

And then something else struck me. Did this give Bill a real motive for trying to keep his liaisons with Sophie and Katie a secret? Maybe the blackmail had something to do with porn films? Now I was more confused than ever. Maybe the pairs of men were cameramen? That was also possible. Maybe Sophie and Katie weren’t just acquainted with Bill as escorts, maybe they were porn actresses. My stomach flipped in protest. But I had to consider that I could be right. Was this another way they made extra cash, on top of the prostitution and the blackmail? Sophie had always wanted to be an actress. Had she finally become one, whatever path it took?

I took the fax page into the living room, and opened Liam’s laptop. As long as I had clues, I was going forward, and this made me feel better than sitting around sulking. Who knew what Liam was doing now? Probably still trying to control his anger at missing Sophie this morning. It was hard to see what, if any, information was useful to me. I did a search for the name of the first hotel: Millennium Hotel, 17-25 Sloane Street, Knightsbridge. Not surprisingly it was in London, but apart from that, there was nothing else about its website that gave me any ideas. The second hotel was also in London: the Grosvenor Kensington, 2-10 Harrington Road, Kensington. Also nothing of interest on its site. And the same for the other four in the list. The only other information I had was the names ‘Santo’ and ‘Hillman’ who appeared to be camera and lights suppliers. So I tried ‘Hillman Camera and Lights London’. The only result that came up was a single listing with a phone number on a UK directory called ‘www.rentequipment.co.uk’. The listing named the business as ‘Hillman Audio Visuals’, and then had a phone number. Since Hillman was obviously supplying to Bill Holland for whatever he was filming, maybe I'd learn something from speaking to them? I glanced at the clock on the laptop screen, showing the time in the UK. It was the middle of the night. There was no point ringing now. I sat back in my chair, phone in hand, ready to act but with no direction to act in.

I stared at the fax, willing it to throw some inspiration at me. The list of hotels was just a blur of words and numbers. Useless addresses that meant nothing to me. I thought back to the last list of hotels I had looked at, the equally useless Formlue 1 hotels Liam and I had visited two days ago. As if answering my prayer, the fax suddenly gave me an idea. Bill Holland was obviously working on some type of film. He was hiring film equipment, and had hotel rooms booked for particular days, as well as some sort of staff, whether it be actors or other film crew. He was calling someone constantly who wasn’t his girlfriend. Could it be a work colleague or partner or boss? The phone number he had called didn’t seem to be active anymore; I had called it every hour since Andy read it out to me, but it always said it was unavailable. I knew it had been used in Australia, near Wollongong, very recently. Was it possible Bill’s contact was now working in Australia? Doing the same thing as they did in the UK, making some sort of movie in hotel rooms? It might be difficult to find out if this was the case, but what else did I have planned today? Nothing.

As a plan started to settle in my mind, I saw a way to narrow down my search, and check if my suspicions were correct, by matching up two apparently random things: a random camera and lights supplier with a random hotel booking. There would be fewer companies hiring equipment than there would be hotels, so that was the first thing to find. Google was too much of a hit and miss listing, so I did a yellow pages search for ‘audio visual equipment hire’ in Sydney. I wasn’t sure how many businesses to expect, and wasn’t too disappointed to see there were only 83. Anything less than 100, and I had a chance to speak to all of them this afternoon if need be. I soon saw there were lots of businesses I wouldn’t need to call as they hired TVs, DVD players and other equipment that didn’t include cameras and lights. Some businesses also had multiple listings, so the actual number of potentials was even fewer. Maybe only 40.

No time like the present. I called the first business. And as the phone rang, I decided I would have to do something quite illegal: impersonate a policewoman. But it was the quickest and easiest way to get to the point.

‘All Star Lights Film Equipment, Mick speaking.’

‘Hello, this is Detective Constable Little from the major fraud squad...’ the title rolled off my tongue like an old pro... ‘I’m calling about a client you may have had that we are investigating.’

‘Yes...’ Mick sounded worried. Like anyone who suddenly finds themselves talking to the police, his voice had an edge of guilt, as if he had done something wrong by just taking the call.

‘We would like to know if you have delivered film equipment to any hotels in the Sydney area in the last three months?’

Mick didn’t hesitate, responding confidently: ‘No. I’d remember that. For the last three months, all our clients have been on film sets. No hotels amongst them.’

‘Ok, if you are sure, that’s all the questions I have. Thank you for your time.’ I tried to sound as authoritative as possible.

I quickly moved on to the next business on the list. I had a lot of calls to make, and so there wasn’t time to pause too long in between. The next business manager I spoke to was less sure of his answer to my question, but after checking with some colleagues in his office, assured me they hadn’t delivered to a hotel. After ten more calls, some short and some painfully drawn out, my energy was starting to wane. But then I spoke to Chris from Ling Cho Hire. He was totally blasé when I said I was a detective, as if he got phone calls like that every day. Then I asked him about a delivery to a hotel.

‘Oh yeah,’ he said. ‘I’ve done a couple. The Four Seasons in December and the Intercontinental last month.’

I was so surprised at his answer that I almost didn’t know what to ask next. ‘Can you please give me the dates for those bookings?’

Again Chris was calm as I heard him shuffle pages in a diary, and quietly read out the bookings. He was concise, but edifying. A dream informant.

‘One day only, delivered at 11:30am to The Four Seasons on the 30^th December, picked up at 4:30pm. Another one day only, delivered at 12:00, to the Intercontinental, picked up again at 4:30’.

I jotted down what he said as I asked my next question. ‘What was it you delivered?’

‘Two cameras, two tripods, four light stands and four lights. Same both orders.’

‘And who was it that made the order and paid for the equipment?’ I tried to keep the enthusiasm from my voice, aiming to sound like a bored detective, not a desperate sister.

Chris hesitated and sounded fed up. ‘I didn’t get a name. Just a delivery address. Paid in cash.’

Shit. Not another dead end. But then Chris kept talking.

‘Same person called last week, looking to book in another delivery for today.’ And? Chris was taking far too long to continue but I refrained from prompting him in case he lost his train of thought. ‘But we were booked out. Had a film crew take most of our lights last week for the next two months.’

‘What hotel was the booking for?’ I gave up hiding my enthusiasm.

‘I can’t remember. Not sure he said.’ Chris’s laid back manner was too much for me.

‘Are you positive? Just think about it for a moment...’ I urged him.

‘He might have mentioned the Quay Grand...or maybe it was the Hyatt. I remember thinking it was a hassle to deliver to Circular Quay, so... No, it was Quay Grand. I remember now, because I’ve tried to pull up there before, and I remember feeling relieved when I worked out we couldn’t do the job because I couldn’t be bothered going there and back in one day...’

‘So you’re sure. It was the Quay Grand at Circular Quay. What time was the booking?’

‘We didn’t get that far, I couldn’t book it in, remember.’

‘Ok, you have been really helpful. Thank you.’

I hung up, and felt my head spin with what I had heard. There wasn’t time to think about whether it was a bad idea or not. I had no one to speak to about it. Mum would just tell me to stay put, and Liam was off limits today. So I grabbed my bag, and jogged out of the apartment before I had time to feel scared about the outdoors. I was going to Circular Quay.