Unknown Diners

Chapter Sixty-Four

The discussion during lunch was less dramatic as they sat and examined the current situation, then worked back through the information Catherine and Lorne had uncovered. The officers related this new information to their awareness of the backlog of unanswered questions and unsolved crimes. They made plausible links between organised crime and the explosion, the restaurant scams, the unsolved murders and the missing body parts. Robotham was prominent in all of these.

After lunch, Lorne and Catherine spent three and a quarter hours in meetings with available senior staff of four departments. While Lorne briefed and supplied data and links for continued searching, Catherine was brought deeper into the complexity. She added observations and insights from her brief experience, but mostly she observed and absorbed.

It was seventeen ten when they returned to their suite and stood in a hug for a long while just inside the room. "Exhausting. More emotionally than anything." He squeezed her tighter. "I feel a huge weight's been lifted from me. Feel strange. Odd, disoriented."

"You should." She kissed his neck and gazed up into his eyes. "You now have a dozen and a half senior police officers trying to figure out how to pick up and continue with the load you've been carrying. You need to let go of it now. Relax. It's not your burden anymore."

He bent to kiss her. "Yeah, I do need to. It's tough after carrying it all these years. But it's time to leave them to do the digging through the crap piles. Their job, anyway."

She slid her hands down to his butt and gave it a little shake. "Come, lie down and cuddle. Kick-off our shoes and unwind."

They were entwined, and he was still asleep when Catherine heard the knock on the door. She gently unfolded and went to the peephole, then unlocked and opened the door. She held her finger to her lips in a shhh motion as she beckoned Denise in. "He's exhausted," she whispered.

"God, he should be from all that information he presented to us in the briefing and the file walk-through."

"Your department was the mildest one."

"So I've been hearing. Everyone is talking about how placid he is with the whole thing."

"Fifteen years of practice with..."

"What are you girls whispering about?" He leaned up on his elbows.

"We were talking about my graceful swan sweeping across the waters with barely a ripple." Catherine smiled at him. "Did you manage to get a bit of a nap?"

"Until all the noise." He laughed and sat up. "Hi, Denise."

Denise stood staring at him and slowly shaking her head. "So much stuff. So much. Why didn't you approach us earlier?"

"I became tired of playing Whack-a-Mole. This time, I wanted to assemble enough for you to tear out the entire garden." He stood from the bed and joined them.

Denise checked her watch. "I'm off at twenty hundred, ten minutes. We could do dinner together."

"Yeah, we'd like that." Catherine saw Lorne's nod, then looked around the small suite. "Seems to be no options except ordering in or dining out. What's good around here?"

Denise shook her head. "You have no idea how silly this is. You're the two most famous foodies on the planet at the moment, and you're asking me for dining recommendations."

"By far the best way to find out. Local knowledge." Lorne smiled at her and winked. "Unbiased personal recommendations are most often the best."

She shrugged and returned the smile. "There's a marvellous Italian place across on King George, Vita Toscana. We won't need reservations; they're not very busy anymore. I still love the place despite the poor comments online."

They all looked at each other and nodded. "That has to be one of their targeted ones, doesn't it?" Denise nodded more vigorously and lifted her upper lip toward her wrinkling nose. "Amazing. Insidious."

"Yeah, isn't it?" Catherine nodded. "Give us a few minutes to refresh."

"I need to change into street, anyway. Inspector Raadsveld would like to join us if you..."

"Helma, yeah... Feisty. Straight to the point." Lorne smiled and nodded to Catherine. "We enjoyed her energy this afternoon."

"This'll be fun." Catherine hugged Denise and led her to the door. "In fifteen minutes at the reception desk?"

"Make it twenty. I need to swing by the inspector's office, then we have a long walk to the locker room and back."

Forty minutes later, they were shown to a table in the sparsely populated restaurant. "About a third full." Denise glanced at her watch. "Twenty thirty-five. Three months ago there'd be a line-up at this hour. We'd always reserve. Prime location and very popular."

"I began reading through their reviews on Tripadvisor before we left the room." Lorne smiled at the three. "I must be crazy, surrounded by beautiful women and I continue thinking about the scam."

"So what did you find?" Helma asked.

"There are still glowing reviews, but many others talk about slow service, cold food and low quality for the price."

Catherine nodded. "I saw the same on Yelp. Nothing specific. No details, but all mentioning the three major things diners don't want."

"Too obvious when you stop to think about it." Lorne nodded slowly as he opened his menu. "Let's concentrate on enjoying each other, the evening and the dinner. Tomorrow we'll untangle their web."