An Easeful Death Felicity Young

In An Easeful Death, someone is killing beautiful young women and taking extraordinary risks to carefully pose their painted bodies in public places. The first is bronze, then silver who will be gold? Detective Sergeant Stevie Hooper, young, hard-edged and newly seconded to the Serious Crime Squad, finds herself haunted by increasingly disturbing flashbacks as the bizarre case unfolds. And, as she closes in on the killer, the carefully drawn line between her professional and personal life becomes increasingly blurred, till she doesnt know who can be trusted.

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

sunday night

Prologue

wednesday

thursday

friday

saturday

sunday

two weeks later

Acknowledgements

CITY OF LIGHT

Felicity Young was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1960 and went to boarding school in the United Kingdom while her parents were posted around the world with the British Army. When her father retired from the army in 1976 the family settled in Perth. Felicity married at nineteen while she was still doing her nursing training and on completion of training had three children in quick succession. Not surprisingly, an arts degree at the University of Western Australia took ten years to complete. In 1990 Felicity and her family moved from the city and established a Suffolk sheep stud on a small farm in Gidgegannup where she studied music, reared orphan kangaroos and started writing.

Having a brother-in-law who is a retired police superintendent, it was almost inevitable she would turn to crime writing. Her first novel, A Certain Malice, was published in Britain by Crème de la Crime in 2005.

To Mick with love

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death

John Keats

sunday night

Prologue

I sit in the unmarked, waiting for case file number 001005 to step out into the gloomy street. To pass the time, I watch the antics of a derelict accosting passers-by for money. It’s still light enough to catch the look of fear on an old woman’s face when the wino demands change for the phone. Although on a stakeout, I can’t just sit here and watch an innocent woman being scared half out of her wits.

I step out of the car just as she begins to fumble in her purse. Her hands shake. She knows she won’t stand a chance if the wino decides he wants more.

His eyes, sunk in a mat of hair and bristles, shine with a predator’s gleam. He licks his lips and thrusts out a mittened paw. The other hand clasps a bottle; a brown paper bag clings to it like a mummy’s skin.

Her voice quavers as she drops a few coins into his hand.

‘I’m sorry, that’s all I have.’

‘You got more, I saw it,’ he says. The woman recoils as the pungent breath hits her. I smell his sickly reek as I approach. He sees me and drops his hand, stepping back into the shadows. My hand edges towards my pepper spray. The last thing I need now is a bottle to my head.

‘Is that you, Cuthbert?’ I say. I’ve heard the cops talk about this old guy who hangs around Wellington Street at night. The fact that I know his name will make him think twice before trying anything stupid. It will also reassure the old woman that I have the situation under control.

He doesn’t answer my question but in an act of submission tosses the empty bottle to the ground. It rolls a few feet down the footpath before catching on a jutting brick wall.

‘Evening, Officer,’ he says, slurring his words. ‘It’s a cold night, ain’t it?’ Nature agrees; a plastic bag brushes against my foot, visits each of us in turn before it is blown from the footpath into the road by another chilly gust.

‘Time for you to get a move on,’ I say to the wino. ‘St Catherine’s should be open now. They’ll give you a warm bed for the night.’

We watch as the man shuffles off down the dirty street. The woman’s shoulders slump in relief. She looks back up at me; her expression of adoring gratitude makes me feel like a Greek god.

‘Thank you, Officer,’ she says.

‘You shouldn’t be out alone. All the weirdoes start coming out at this time of night.’

‘It’s stupid of me, I know. I was delayed and missed my usual bus. There aren’t have many to choose from on a Sunday. I was making my way down to the train station.’

The station is on the other side of the road, about a block away. I walk her to it and nod at her effusive thanks; it’s all part of the job.

When I return the street is deserted. I settle back into the car and continue my vigil. I am confident 001005 has not yet left, these kind of photographic shoots usually take several hours. I pass the time by listening to the crackling voices on the police radio.

At last, the wooden door creaks open and I see the head of 001005, and then the rest of her. She stands in the doorway for a moment, looking up and down the street before stepping onto it. The wind blows her black miniskirt against her body and she pulls her thin cardigan to her breasts. She looks up from her clacking feet when she hears the car door slam. We make eye contact; I do not waver, I speak in a kindly but authoritative tone.

‘Miss Royce? I’m Constable Dixon from Central Police.’ I tap my name badge and flash my ID wallet. A smile would not be appropriate under these circumstances.

She stares at me and her pretty love-heart mouth breaks into a smile of recognition. ‘Oh, it’s you!’

I look back at her, keeping my demeanour serious.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ she asks, worried now.

‘Your mother asked me to pick you up.’

She had mentioned at the cafe, where I spoke to her the other day, that her parents were friendly with several cops. It should be no surprise to hear that someone is pulling a favour. ‘She asked me to take you to RPH. I’m afraid your father’s had a turn. The rest of your family’s waiting for you there.’

Her hand flies to her mouth and I guide her by the elbow to the passenger side of the unmarked.

I settle into the driver’s seat. My body tingles in a way that makes me feel phosphorescent. I’ve done it by the book, and it’s all been so easy.

I always feel good when I’m about to close a case.

wednesday

The absence of sexual intercourse in a crime that is obviously sexually motivated will often indicate some form of sexual dysfunction in the offender.

James L De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil: A textbook for law enforcement officers (PUV Press, Sydney, 2004)

The telephones were supposed to be the same model, but by now Stevie could recognise each by its own unique shrill. And her sleep-deprived brain was beginning to see the tones in various colours too. With each shriek a coloured streamer seemed to shoot itself into the air and tangle with the others already hanging in the thick fug of the incident room. The one-sided conversations added further texture and tone to this multicoloured net.

‘You think it’s your neighbour...’

‘Is that a T for Tom or a P for Peter?’

‘You’ve seem him do what with the garden hose?’

‘Serious Crime Squad, DS Angus Wong speaking...’

‘If you can give me your address, Ma’am, I’ll send a uniformed officer over.’

But the net was no tighter around the offender than it had been two days ago.

Stevie’s phone had been silent for all of three minutes. She rubbed her forehead and, taking advantage of the lull, began to transcribe the scrawl of her latest interview. About to rewrite a sentence, she pressed the pencil to her notebook.

A sudden crash made the pencil point snap on the page.

Wayne Pickering rolled his eyes at Barry Snow and placed a hairy hand over his receiver. ‘Here we go again. Better call the cleaner, Barry.’

Barry pulled a frog face, his protruding ears following his mouth downwards. Stevie wondered why a man with ears like that would choose to shave off all his hair.

‘I’m surprised there’s anything left in there to break,’ Barry said.

The stream of expletives seeping through the porous office walls became a torrent. Angus Wong kicked Stevie under the desk, indicating the inspector’s office with a jerk of his blue-black head.

She set her mouth into a straight line and didn’t move.

‘Go on, make yourself useful,’ Wayne said as he put the phone down and smoothed a long feathery sideburn. Today he wore his wide-lapelled bottle-green suit and zebra-print shirt; Stevie could still see the black and white stripes when she closed her eyes. They added a crackle of static to the web of sound.

‘You have such a soothing effect on him,’ Wayne added.

She reached into her bag for her smokes, met his eyes and lit up. After a luxurious inhalation she blew out, enveloping him in a grey cloud.

‘Put it out, Stevie,’ Angus said without expression. He didn’t give a hoot about smoking in the incident room, but it was in the book, so he enforced it.

Young Barry Snow grinned a monkey grin. She ground out her cigarette and mouthed ‘fuck off’ to him.

‘Go check on Monty,’ Angus said.

Stevie swallowed her sigh of resignation, stood up and pulled at the legs of her jeans to dislodge the bunch of seams knotted at her crotch. The inspector’s door was ajar. She pushed it open and stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him.

Monty was standing with his back to her, hands on his hips, gazing out of the sixth-floor window. He was looking at the aerial acrobatics of a red leaf caught in the updraft of a wind tunnel, rising and falling like the flicker of an igniting flame.

He turned when he heard the click of the closing door. ‘Watch the glass,’ he said. He closed his eyes and let out his breath, his complexion fading from red brick to jarrah pink in the time it took to inhale again.

Stevie managed to pull her features into an expression of cool severity not lost on Monty. He slapped at his thighs, bent down and started tossing the bigger chunks of glass into the rubbish bin.

She took a leaflet from his desk and scraped the smaller shards into a tidy pile. ‘Barry’s called the cleaner. This’ll need vacuuming,’ she said at last.

Monty made an indifferent grunting sound.

After some more silent scraping she said, ‘You going to tell me what this is about?’

‘I’m surprised you need to ask.’ He tossed a piece of glass into the bin, straightened and jabbed his fingers into his rust-coloured hair.

‘The super?’ she asked.

‘He’s piked out of the press conference last minute; knows he’s in for another roasting and handed it over to me.’ Monty wagged his head from side to side, mimicking their superintendent. ‘You always handle the press so wonderfully, Monty, in the palms of your hands. Just tell them the bare essentials, tell them we have some leads, that we expect to be laying charges within the next twenty-four hours.’

‘But that’s bullshit!’

‘Of course it’s bullshit, which is exactly how the Kings Park murders were handled.’ Monty flung a hand towards the super’s office, two floors above. ‘His excuse is that he’s got that Christmas in July dinner with his politician buddies. The bottom line is he’s terrified of the press and wants me to do his dirty work for him.’

‘Let’s face it though, Monty, he is good at schmoozing the pollies.’

‘I know, he’s a natural brownnose. I guess he does have some talents.’

Stevie looked her inspector up and down, unable to hide the smile she felt tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘Well, you can’t go to the press conference looking like that,’ she said, indicating his smudged tie and the crumpled shirt he’d been wearing for two days.

Monty glanced down at his clothes; his physical appearance wasn’t one of his priorities. But one of the perks of belonging to an elite team like the SCS was the luxurious appointments of the inspector’s office: on the back of his private bathroom door Stevie found a hook laden with dry cleaning. She thrust a plastic-covered bundle into his arms and turned to leave.

‘Stevie wait, there’s something else.’ Monty put the bundle of clothes on his desk, yanked at his tie.

She knew what was coming and her heart dropped. She’d missed putting her daughter to bed for the last two nights; it was already seven—only half an hour until bedtime.

Monty knew it too. He spoke without looking at her, too busy ripping at the flimsy membrane covering his clean shirt.

‘You’re going to have to go to the airport and pick up De Vakey. His plane comes in at eight. I’ll never get there on time now with this fucking press conference.’ He stopped what he was doing and scrawled out the flight details for her.

Now it was her turn to feel wound up. ‘Jesus Monty, can’t you ask someone else? I haven’t seen Izzy for two days!’ She didn’t like the whine she heard in her voice but it was too late to take it back now.

He raised his eyebrows and held up one finger.

Don’t push it, she said to herself, you knew the hours when you took the job.

Her intentions on holding back, however, proved futile. ‘I’ve never been in favour of bringing De Vakey in. Baggly’s against it and he could make things very difficult for you. It’s a big career risk.’

‘Just let me worry about my career, okay?’ Monty’s frown suggested this was the end of the topic. He handed her the sticky yellow slip and turned away in a quaint gesture of propriety. A shiver rippled the muscles of his broad back when the crisp fabric of the shirt brushed his skin.

‘Izzy’s happy enough with your mother, isn’t she?’ He turned back to Stevie as he did up the buttons.

‘She’s taught her the ABC song.’

‘That’s great.’ The lines at the sides of his eyes crinkled like a geisha’s fan.

‘And how is Dot?’

‘Batty as ever. Driving me crazy.’

‘I think she’s coping remarkably well. It can’t be a year since your dad died.’

‘Eighteen months. I think she has TAFE tonight.’ The lie slipped out without any premeditated help. ‘She’s just enrolled in a herbalist class. I don’t know who else I can get to babysit.’

‘You’ll find someone. What about Justin Baggly? I thought he was good with her.’

Stevie let out a sigh; she could see Monty wouldn’t be budged. When he started fumbling with his belt buckle she decided it was time to leave. She opened the door just as the cleaner raised his hand to knock. His sudden appearance made her jump back a step. He was a strange-looking man, an albino who worked the night shift, sleeping during the day so he could hide from the sun.

‘C’mon in, Martin,’ Monty said, unfazed at being caught in his polka-dotted boxers.

Stevie pressed herself into the doorjamb and tried to squeeze past the cleaner without making any physical contact. She found the man repulsive, like one of those blind naked moles that live underground somewhere in Discovery Channel land. The sullen look he gave her in return suggested he was well aware of the distaste beneath her transparent smile. She shivered, ashamed of herself. Prejudice. God, she knew all about that. Sometimes she felt she’d written the department manual.

‘Hey Martin,’ Monty said. ‘Did you hear the one about the nun and the bus driver?’

‘Nope. Don’t think so.’

She stepped over the vacuum cleaner and closed the office door behind her.

***

Stevie slicked her way down the rain-washed highway where the lights flickered like coloured stars. Lost in her own thoughts, it was only when she had to slam the brakes to avoid the sudden erratic lane change of a mini-minor, that she found herself jolted back to the present. With alarm she realised she had no memory of leaving Central, of the dodgem dash across the roundabout, the Causeway, or even noticing Gustav the one-armed fisherman on the bridge. Until now she hadn’t even been aware of the press conference on the radio.

She reached for the volume button and turned up the sound. Monty began with the standard plea to the public for help. The sound of his voice was a welcome distraction from the unsettling thoughts that had been dogging her for the last few days. She pictured him standing at the podium in the conference room, reading from his official statement. In one of his better suits he would look dapper and imposing and maybe even intimidating to some.

Now it was question time and his voice boomed. She visualised him holding his hands up to silence the barrage. ‘I’ll answer what I can of your questions now, one at a time...’ The mike amplified the coughs, the whispers, the jostling. ‘Yes, you in the red coat.’

In her head Stevie saw a glowing beacon among the sea of bodies.

‘Can you tell us anything more about the victim, her family, where she lived?’ a woman’s voice asked.

‘Miss Royce lived with her family in Kensington. I’m hoping the press will have the courtesy to leave them alone for now. If they wish to give any statements, I’m sure they will in their own good time.’

‘Michelle Birkby, the West.’

A beat. ‘Yes Michelle?’

Stevie’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.

‘Inspector McGuire,’ the journalist said, ‘newspaper polls have shown a significant drop in the public’s confidence in the police service, particularly after the failure to catch the Kings Park killer who terrorised the West Perth area nearly four years ago. Have the police learned from past mistakes? Will they adopt a different approach to catching this killer?’

Neither Stevie nor Monty had been with the SCS during the KP murders. She had been stationed at a quiet outer suburban police station, busy swotting for her sergeant’s exams, and Monty had been taking a course in England. He had not returned to head the SCS until the case had been closed for some time, although he had experienced some of the aftershock and heard the rumours. One of the major problems, he’d explained to her later, was the ridiculous isolationist policy the top brass had chosen to pursue by refusing to accept the offer of interstate aid. This time, desperate to repair a damaged reputation, they’d reluctantly allowed him to call in De Vakey.

‘Because of the bizarre nature of this crime, we’re enlisting the aid of a nationally renowned criminal profiler,’ Monty said.

‘So, Inspector.’ Stevie could hear the smugness in Michelle’s voice, visualise her condescending smile. ‘You admit the Kings Park murder investigation was a bungle from start to finish?’

‘I admit no such thing, Ms Birkby. The case of the Kings Park killer is not, I believe, the subject of this press conference.’

A question from someone else: ‘Do you have the cause of Linda Royce’s death yet, Inspector McGuire?’

Monty’s sigh of relief was audible. ‘We’re still waiting for the last of the autopsy test results to come through.’

‘Do you have any suspects?’

‘Several people are helping us with our enquiries, but no charges have been laid yet.’

‘Had the victim been sexually assaulted?’

‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on that at the moment.’

‘Apparently, the Kings Park murder victims were sexually assaulted. Is there any chance that this latest death could be the work of the same killer?’ It was Michelle Birkby again.

‘The chief KP murder suspect was killed in a car accident.’

‘The suspect?’

‘Yes.’

‘So we can assume...?’

‘It would be naive to assume anything at this stage in the investigation, Ms Birkby.’

For a moment Stevie forgot her own troubles. She laughed aloud as she turned off the highway and onto the airport road.

***

Tottering through the car park in her skirt suit and high heels, Stevie used her umbrella for balance as well as shelter. After lecturing Monty on his appearance, she could hardly go dressed in jeans and a bomber jacket to pick up a dignitary such as De Vakey.

The press conference had been an amusing diversion, but the icy sting of rain on her calves quickly brought her back to the here and now. She should be at home now, tucking Izzy into bed. Then, once her daughter was asleep, she should be curling up in front of a favourite DVD. Most of her movies were oldies, but there was a special section of recent romantic comedies devoted to George Clooney. She kept them in a banana box on top of the wardrobe, away from prying eyes, like a teenage boy with his hidden collection of porn.

But there would be no movies tonight and it would be Nanna reading the bedtime story. They’d be sitting in the double bed cuddled together under the heirloom patchwork, the warm air tinged with baby powder and strawberry shampoo. After three nights in her grandmother’s bed, how was Izzy ever going to settle back into her own?

And this was the least of her problems. What if Tye called, or worse, went around? Would her mother be able to handle the scumbag? How would Izzy react? The unpredictable appearance of Izzy’s father always upset the child.

Stevie’s wet ankles chafed against her leather shoes as she walked, her high heels slamming into the concrete as if they might crack it. Muscles and tendons tightened, her heart raced, and she found herself glancing around to make sure she wasn’t being followed. She hated having to get tarted up, she hated the shoes; she couldn’t move fast enough in them.

She couldn’t run.

A car reversed from a parking bay and behind her a car boot slammed. She passed a line of people queuing at the ticket machine and no one gave her a second glance. She forced herself to take slow, deep breaths until the feeling of panic began to subside.

Inside the terminal doors she shook out her umbrella and tucked it under her arm, grateful to be out of the weather and the sickening smell of jet fuel. She looked at the overhead monitor. The plane hadn’t arrived yet. She had ten minutes to collect her thoughts, stop thinking about the mess she’d made of her personal life and concentrate on where she was and what she was doing now.

Looking past the crowds of travel-weary people jostling around the luggage carousels, she spotted a counter at the terminal’s far end. It would be a handy thing to lean on, she thought as she navigated her way towards it. After producing a strip of card she’d kept dry under her suit jacket, she began to search her bag for the marker pen she’d pinched from Wayne’s desk.

Her bag was a bottomless pit tonight, the pen buried beneath all the debris. She began to unpack her things to find it. Her purse went next to her ID wallet, latex gloves, handcuffs and pepper spray. Her keys, a mouse-nest of tissues and an old dummy for emergencies joined the pile, then a ragged article about George Clooney torn slyly from a hairdresser’s mag. At last she found the pen—things were looking up, it hadn’t leaked.

‘Yessss,’ she hissed under her breath and tossed the junk back into her bag. She began to write his name on the card.

‘Are you looking for me?’ The smooth voice, the sudden hand on her shoulder, made her start.

‘Sorry to startle you, but you looked as if you were about to write my name—James De Vakey.’

She turned to see a tall, slender man in a cashmere overcoat. The smug smile he offered suggested he’d delighted in catching her off guard.

‘Mr De Vakey? I’m sorry, I didn’t think your plane had arrived yet,’ she said, making a quick recovery.

‘They offered me an earlier flight. I’ve been in about half an hour. I was in the bar watching the press conference on the news.’

Stevie took his hand and introduced herself. His grip was firm and cool, the skin of his hands as soft as his wool coat. His grey eyes scanned her body with disconcerting scrutiny. Men often gave her the eye, despite her efforts to the contrary, and she found herself fighting the urge to turn away.

He said, ‘I’m sorry to have to drag you out to the airport on such a foul night. I’m sure you’d far rather be at home with your daughter.’

She gaped at him for several seconds before managing to say, ‘My daughter? How...?’

He nodded towards the pink dummy still pinched between her thumb and forefinger. ‘Just an educated guess, DS Hooper, and I can see by your reaction that I’m correct.’

Stevie managed to stop the dive her right hand made for her left, a reflexive attempt to cover her naked ring finger. Fuck him, she thought. If he wants to read me, let him. Let’s just hope he’s as accurate at reading our killer. She looked down at his fine leather brogues as she struggled to regain control. A small suitcase and a laptop bag seemed to be his only luggage.

‘If you have your things, Sir, I can take you to the hotel now. Inspector McGuire was hoping to meet us in the bar a little later on to go over the case, if you’re not too tired.’

‘The sooner I can get started the better. Lead the way.’

When she turned, she glimpsed her reflection in the darkened terminal window. She looked confused and ill at ease, quite unlike her usual self. As she led the way to the exit she hoped the shiver running up her spine was not as obvious as it felt.

The success of the manhunt will depend upon the strengths and weaknesses of the team sent out to capture him.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Monty stepped into the welcoming ambience of the hotel lobby, pausing to roll his shoulders in an attempt to untangle the knots he’d felt tightening since the beginning of the press conference. His pause also allowed the woman who’d been following him to catch up. She almost crashed into him when she stepped from the revolving door, filling the air in the lobby with an incongruous mixture of wet wool and Coco Chanel.

‘Michelle, what a pleasant surprise,’ he said, showing no pleasure at all. Tracking him through the rain and sacrificing an expensive coiffure was a sign of desperation for a woman like Michelle. He’d give her five minutes.

‘You obviously need to talk, though why you couldn’t ring for an appointment beats me.’ He took her elbow and guided her towards a cluster of potted ferns in the corner of the hotel lobby.

‘I should have known I’d find you in a hotel.’ She glanced at her image in the gilt-framed mirror on the wall and her look of scorn turned into a scowl as she attempted to fluff her hair.

Monty raised his eyebrows. ‘Haven’t I already warned you tonight about the folly of making assumptions?’

Her hand dropped. She faced him head on. ‘You made a fool of me at the press conference.’

‘I merely beat you to the punch.’

‘Someone has to speak in the public’s best interest. People are getting hysterical, Monty. Perth hasn’t been so traumatised since the Birney murders. The public want answers. They want to know that they can trust their safety to the police, that the killer will be caught.’

‘Rekindling public hysteria over the Kings Park murders isn’t going to help us catch this killer.’

With a soft smile and a hand on his arm she tried a different tack. ‘Come on, loosen up. You and I both know there’s a lot more to this than meets the eye. I’m onto something, Monty, I’m nearly there, with just a little help from you—’

‘What are you onto? I’m in no mood for game playing.’

She dropped her hand and hardened her tone. ‘What I’ve discovered will stir up an ants’ nest for the police, but given the right incentive, I might be able to carry out the necessary damage control.’

‘And what might that incentive be?’

‘To-the-minute updates on the case.’

‘You get that anyway.’

‘Don’t give me that crap!’

‘Michelle, you know we have to be careful about the information we give out. We can’t warn the killer we’re onto him.’

And that wasn’t the only reason, Monty thought. Once, in happier times and in a private moment, he’d speculated with her about the rumours he’d heard about the KP murders, only to find a distorted version of his words staring back at him from the paper the next morning. She must have waited for him to fall asleep before emailing the pressroom.

‘That old cliché?’ she said. ‘You know damn well they use it as a cover-up for their own corruption, incompetence at the very least. You hinted as much the last time.’

‘Okay, okay, maybe in the past, but with a new team...’

‘For God’s sake pull your head out of the sand, Monty. You still have the same moronic porker at the top of the pile!’

‘Things are different now.’

Her gaze fell to his feet, she gave an unladylike snort. ‘And I see you still have that same old pilot’s briefcase. I’m surprised you never threw it away, but I suppose if the catch still works, why bother—you were always a believer in function, not form.’

Michelle bent at the knees and flicked the catch. Monty watched her hand creep to the file he’d prepared for De Vakey, allowing her to get as far as caressing the edge with her fingertips.

‘What’s this about?’ she said, licking her lips like a lioness eyeing an antelope. His hand clamped around her wrist. She yelped. Heads turned in the lobby.

Michelle hissed her breath through her teeth. ‘Get your hands off me.’

A suited gentleman he presumed to be the hotel manager approached. Monty rose to his feet, pulling Michelle up with him and flicked his ID at the man. ‘Police,’ he said. ‘Please call security and have them escort this lady from the hotel. She’s a known troublemaker.’

Michelle’s eyes widened and Monty waited for the explosion. She didn’t disappoint. Whirling to face the manager she said, ‘That’s a pack of lies! You saw him, didn’t you? You saw what he did?’

The manager put a hand lightly on her arm and said something in a placatory tone before turning to Monty with a look of helplessness.

Monty shrugged and picked up his briefcase. ‘She’s your problem now, mate.’ He gave Michelle a calculated wink and turned in the direction of the hotel lounge.

***

Stevie seemed to be the only one in the lounge who noticed the ruckus coming from the lobby, and even to her it was no more than a minor rip in a tranquil sea. A woman’s agitated voice, gruff masculine tones, then Monty’s silhouette in the entrance. As he scanned the tables, the air around him was soothed by the gentle strains of Gershwin from the baby grand in the corner.

‘Inspector McGuire?’ De Vakey queried.

Stevie nodded and let out a silent sigh of relief. Waiting with the profiler had been awkward. She’d had just about enough of De Vakey’s penetrating gaze and invasive questioning for one night—now it was Monty’s turn.

Monty ordered from the bar then ambled over to join them. She made the introductions and they exchanged small talk until his drinks arrived: a beer and a tomato juice. He fumbled around in the pockets of his suit coat for a plastic bag of dried chilli and added a generous pinch to his Virgin Mary. He didn’t touch the beer.

De Vakey gave Monty a subtle nod of understanding, reinforcing Stevie’s earlier impression that there was a lot more to the man than a handsome face and a Geelong Grammar accent. Monty liked to practise his self-control—so what. But what else had De Vakey picked up on? She found her foot tapping a rhythm totally unrelated to the melody from the piano and had to force herself to stop.

‘Has DS Hooper filled you in on the details, Sir?’ Monty asked.

‘Please, call me James. I’m a civilian consultant, not a policeman. Let’s dispense with the formalities.’

‘Suits me,’ Monty said. He removed the file from his briefcase and glanced around the lounge as he did so, ready to keep it from prying eyes if necessary. ‘It’s all here,’ he said, sliding it across the table to De Vakey. ‘Bar a few test results we’re still waiting on.’

De Vakey flicked through the autopsy photographs as if looking at pictures from the Woman’s Weekly. ‘I’m going to have to keep these for a while. I’ll need time to study them.’

Monty leaned to the side and picked up a plastic bag by his seat. ‘I’d like you to look at these, too. They’re videotapes of the witness interviews. I’ve had an office at Central cleared for you and set up a TV and VCR.’

‘I plan on working in my hotel room,’ De Vakey said. ‘I’ll have the management install a VCR. I don’t want any distractions. I have to have quiet and plenty of time to think. He gestured to them both. ‘Have either of you worked with a criminal profiler before?’

Stevie said, ‘No, but I think most of our team have read your books. We know what you’re about.’

‘And we know about your research at Quantico,’ Monty added. ‘We’re going to need an accurate profile of this offender if we’re going to get him. This case is like nothing I’ve ever come across before.’ He let his hands drop in a gesture of helplessness. ‘It has me baffled.’

‘Well, I’m glad you called me in,’ De Vakey said.

Stevie wondered if De Vakey had any idea of the amount of red tape Monty had to cut through to get him here.

‘I’d imagine your more conservative colleagues would have baulked at the idea,’ De Vakey said.

He was a mind-reader too; she’d already guessed as much.

‘Criminal profiling is an art more than a science, some even see it as psychic quackery, I’m afraid.’

‘That’s not how I see it,’ Monty said. ‘I’ve lost count of the number of cases from the States that have been solved with the help of a profiler, and I know the Victorian police often use your services. I want this creep caught. I don’t care how unconventional your methods are, just so long as you help us get the bastard.’

‘I’m glad I have your confidence.’ De Vakey drained his glass and signalled the waitress for another. ‘Now,’ he rubbed his hands together, ‘I’ve heard Stevie’s account, let me hear yours.’

Monty tapped at the file with his finger. ‘It’s all here.’

‘Humour me,’ De Vakey said with the flash of a smile.

‘The body was discovered outside the bank by a security guard at six-thirty am, just as it was getting light.’

Stevie smiled to herself. Monty wouldn’t be getting away that easily.

The profiler held up his hand to prove her right. ‘I don’t want a standard police report. I want to hear it from your point of view and your point of view only. It helps me to put your account into the right perspective. Where were you when you heard the news?’

Monty shifted in his chair. ‘I was in bed.’

‘Were you sound asleep? Were you with someone or were you alone? Drinking a cup of tea, watching the early morning news?’ De Vakey asked.

Monty glanced at Stevie. Under the table she pressed the toe of her shoe into his shin. Hard. She hadn’t been able to wriggle out of it, and neither would he.

Monty sucked in a breath. ‘I was alone. I’d had a bad night. I was semi-awake when the phone rang. I was glad to have something to get out of bed for. I had no idea what the day had in store for me. All Central said was that a body had been discovered at the bank. I rang Stevie and we arrived at the same time.’

‘What did you see when you first arrived?’

‘Some uniforms were already at the scene. I was pleased to see that they’d taped off a wide area; there was already a crowd of early morning gawkers gathering around. I told the cop to call for reinforcements. I didn’t want any of the general public seeing the body, though I’m sure several already had.’ He grimaced. ‘It was hard to hide.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘The cop took us over to the body.’

‘Describe it. Tell me how you felt when you saw it,’ De Vakey coaxed, his voice soft and low, his deep grey eyes fixed steadily on Monty’s. The ability to extract information was a talent as rare and as specific as water divination. In the hands of a gifted interrogator such as De Vakey, the average witness gushed. Wise to the craft, Stevie and Monty were hardly your average witnesses, but she could see the technique working on Monty.

He took a slug of tomato juice and cooled it with a deep breath. ‘For a split second I didn’t think she was real. I thought she was a statue, kids playing a prank, maybe. When I looked at her face though, I realised that she was very real and very, very dead.’

Stevie had told De Vakey something similar, although she’d managed to hold back mentioning the dizziness, the urge to spew, then to cry—that in the flash of those first few seconds she’d seen her own dead face staring back at her.

‘More,’ De Vakey said to Monty.

‘She was sitting on the stone bench, directly outside and to the left of the bank’s front entrance. She was naked, her body was hairless and she’d been sprayed with bronze paint. She was posed in a provocative manner with her legs open, her chin resting in her hand and her elbow on the stone table in front of her. I think the intention was to make her look like she was some kind of nude supermodel or a mannequin even.’

Stevie’s foot recommenced its frenzied tapping. They were cops for God’s sake; the protective barriers they’d learned to erect were the only things that kept them on the job, and here this man was, pulling them all down. She forced herself to remain rigid in her chair. Her tights had twisted at her waist and were cutting into her thigh, but she couldn’t adjust them without squirming obscenely.

Monty wasn’t faring any better, unless it was the chilli making him sweat. He swiped his brow with a table napkin, reached for his cigarettes and offered one to Stevie. De Vakey declined.

Monty lit up, blew out smoke and leaned back in his chair until it creaked. Somewhere between the press conference and now, a greasy stain had materialised on his tie. ‘That’s about it,’ he said.

De Vakey looked from one of them to the other, deliberating, assessing, contemplating.

Stevie took a drag on her cigarette, determined to turn the conversation back to the bricks-and-mortar evidence. ‘Oh, there’s one thing we haven’t mentioned,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘There was some writing down the side of her leg.’

‘Is it detailed here?’ De Vakey tapped the notes.

‘Yes.’

‘Then I’ll read about it later. At this stage I’m more interested in your gut reactions than the concrete evidence.’ He held the champagne flute between his long sensuous fingers and took a sip. ‘I’m sorry to have to put you both through this again. You see, I not only have to understand the killer, but I have to understand the team sent out to catch him. You are understaffed, morale is low, you are already under extreme pressure from the press.’

‘You must have heard my ex in the lobby,’ Monty said, deciding to lighten the tone. ‘She writes a weekly column for our local rag called “Watching Big Brother”—meaning the police. The name says it all. She’s on a moral crusade—“To keep the bastards honest”—he drew quote marks in the air. ‘There’s nothing wrong with that of course, it’s just her timing that’s so lousy.’

‘How awkward for you,’ De Vakey said before draining his champagne with one swallow. ‘But jet lag’s catching up. I’d better get to bed and do some reading.’ He tapped at the file before pushing himself up from the table.

‘Pleasant dreams,’ Monty said, causing De Vakey to raise an ironic eyebrow.

Stevie climbed to her feet in anticipation of leaving, but flopped back down again when the men embarked on a series of extended goodnights. She reached for her phone; she’d let Dot know she’d be sleeping in her spare room, so at least Izzy would wake in the morning to find her there. She wouldn’t be able to walk her daughter to kindy because of the early briefing at Central, but maybe she’d make the special parents’ assembly later in the morning.

Monty shook the profiler’s hand. ‘I expect you’ll want to examine the scene tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Give Stevie a ring when you’re ready. She’ll pick you up and take you there.’

De Vakey nodded. ‘That’s fine, I should be ready mid morning.’

Stevie almost punched the speed dial button through the guts of her mobile. Behind the profiler’s back she glared at Monty and mouthed ‘How dare you!’

Power is the single driving force behind the serial killer. He will enforce his power through domination, manipulation and control. These traits will not only be evident in his crimes, but in his private life also.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

The Minister pounced just as Superintendent John Baggly stepped under the shelter of the hotel awning.

‘John, is it true you’re throwing your hat in for Assistant Commissioner? Doug said you’d approached him on the golf course the other day to discuss it.’

With a brick wall behind him and slanting rain ahead, Baggly felt cornered and panicky. He glanced to his left and right, dismayed to see the hovering journalists still there. He’d expected most of them to have been lured over to McGuire’s press conference.

He smoothed down his salt-and-pepper moustache and spoke in a voice that was low and controlled. ‘Minister, I think Doug took my generalised comments about the need for a home-grown West Australian assistant commissioner out of context. While it would be an honour to be considered for the post, the thought of applying hasn’t crossed my mind. The current AC is, after all, still two years away from retirement.’

His focus darted back to the street. The rain made the lights seem hazy, the cars behind them no more than indistinct blurs. At once he regretted accepting his secretary’s offer to run for the car and bring it around to him at the hotel entrance. He hadn’t anticipated that waiting under the awning with this group from the dinner would have been quite so awkward. And, if that wasn’t enough, the AC himself was pushing his way through the revolving door to stand with the group outside. If word got out that he had already started his campaign of back scratching and clandestine meetings, he’d be in trouble. With the AC still so entrenched in the job, Baggly might just as well be planning his own retirement instead of any kind of career advancement.

Thank God, here she was at last, pulling up at the curb. He hastily shook some hands. A handsome young doorman opened the door for him. Baggly smiled and pressed a gold coin into his palm before retreating into the safety of his car.

He wriggled in the seat to get comfortable, but couldn’t get the damned seatbelt to stretch far enough over his girth. Yanking did nothing; he could hardly breathe. He was about to yell in frustration when Christine stretched over and gently coaxed the belt, getting him secured in a jiffy.

‘I thought the dinner went well, Sir,’ she smiled as she pulled away from the curb and into the night. She was going to drop him home then pick him up in the morning because, after a heavy night of eating and drinking, John Baggly was not one to take foolish risks.

He touched the knot of his bow tie. ‘You think my speech was okay, then?’

‘Perfectly delivered. I don’t see how they could refuse the funding now.’

Happy with the compliment, Baggly relaxed deeper into his seat. The belch caught him by surprise, filling the car with brandy and plum pudding fumes. He put his hand over his mouth. ‘Oh, excuse me, Christine. That must have been the second brandy talking.’

Christine laughed, but kept her eyes on the road. She really is a very nice girl, Baggly thought, though not in that kind of way. His thoughts for her were nothing but paternal and he took pride in the fact that despite the temptations, he wasn’t that kind of a boss. Had he not learned, after all, the havoc these kinds of indiscretions could wreak and the leverage they could give those willing to exploit them?

He might have had no problems resisting the charms of his delightful secretary, but he wished he could say the same about the fourth brandy. The seediness, like flying particles of powdered cement, began to settle in his stomach and mix with the juices there and he knew he’d be paying for his indulgence by morning, if not before. He fumbled with the button of the passenger window as his eyelids began to droop. The night air was as cold as metal but did little to drive away the alcoholic fog that engulfed his brain.

Despite the icy blast, sweat was prickling on his forehead by the time Christine crunched the car into the driveway of his ordinary brick-and-tile house. He heaved himself from the car and waved goodbye. Overcome by a sudden dizziness, he reached for the wrought iron front fence, clutching it as he watched Christine’s tail-lights disappear down the dark street.

Christ, he hoped he wasn’t going to be sick.

Matters weren’t helped when he tilted his face to the sky to seek the refreshment of the gentle rain and caught sight of it, the leviathan silhouette dominating the skyline about three blocks east of his house.

They’d flicked the switch on the old power station at about the same time as Baggly’s divorce, leaving the historic building to a fate of crumbling decay. The first thing he’d do when he was made AC, he vowed out there in the rain, would be to use his influence to get the damned thing knocked down.

‘Bugger the proposed arts centre,’ he said aloud, still clutching at the railing. For once he would side with the Aborigines. ‘Let the Wagyl have it.’

His passion for wanting the power station gone wasn’t only because it reminded him of his failed marriage. He had altruistic reasons too. Despite increased police patrols (his doing), it remained a magnet for drug addicts, tramps and street kids. No matter how often the place was cleared and the entrances sealed, no matter how much barbed wire was erected, the undesirables always seemed to find ways of cutting or creeping their way back through the myriad of tunnels beneath it.

There was a strange clanking noise coming from it now. Baggly squinted at the giant silhouette, trying to find the source. As he stared, the sagging powerlines seemed to fade into the night sky. The fenced coal yards became pre-execution holding pens, the coal chute morphed into the ramp up which doomed animals walked with their mournful bleats and bellows. Under Baggly’s blurred stare, the less like a power station and the more like an abattoir the old building became.

He finally identified the source of the clanking; it was a piece of loose tin clinging to the edge of the roof by an invisible wire. If the wind tore it loose and tossed it his way, it would cut his throat with one swift swipe.

His hand flew to his neck to wrestle with his strangling bow tie just as his body decided to relieve his stomach of its contents. Still holding onto the railing, he sank to his knees and added a generous layer of Christmas dinner to the wet mulch of the front garden bed. Feeling a little better, he hauled himself to his feet, spat the remaining particles from his teeth and wiped his mouth on the front of his dress shirt.

With cautious winding steps he made his way to the front door. Justin’s van was in the carport, thank God. Now he wouldn’t have to spend the rest of the night worrying about what his son was up to. With a sense of relief he entered the front hall and kicked off his shoes. He shuffled in his socks across the beige ceramic tiles, along the featureless narrow passageway towards his son’s bedroom. A light was shining under the door. He knocked and waited for a response before entering.

Once inside, Baggly scanned the room. It was more like an office than a bedroom he thought, not for the first time. Extending across the length of one wall there was a long table with a fax machine, photocopier, printer and computer. The neatly made single bed was tucked into the corner, hardly noticeable. Justin’s clothes were all folded in his bedside drawers or put away in the cupboard on hangars all facing the same way. His books were arranged on the shelf above his desk in alphabetical order, all non-fiction. No posters, no sporting trophies, CDs or video collections. No dirty socks or testosterone smells, just new books and paper. It was ironic that the only object in the room to suggest the humanity of its occupant was a framed picture of Justin’s mother on the bedside locker, a picture that John Baggly himself could hardly bear to look at.

Justin was stooped over his desk, as usual. Without looking up from his books he said, ‘You’re back.’

‘Yes. Can I get you anything?’

‘No thanks.’

A pause. ‘How’s the study going?’

Justin tossed his pen onto the desk and leaned back in his chair, rubbing at his eyes with his fists like a small boy and promoting in Baggly a surge of paternal warmth.

‘I can’t make head or tail of this shit question: “The abuse of process in pre-trial.” Know anything about it?’

Without turning in his chair to face him, Justin handed the assignment sheet over his shoulder, keeping his father at a safe distance.

Baggly tried to focus on the question, but even with his glasses on, the words seemed to swim in swirling currents of confusion.

He hummed and hawed for a moment.

Justin said, ‘Never mind. I’ll ask Inspector McGuire about it, he’ll know.’

Baggly leaned over to put the paper back on the desk, forgetting the boundaries for a moment. Justin immediately elbowed him out of the way. But no sooner had Baggly stepped back to a respectful distance than Justin spun around in his desk chair, his hand flying up to cover his mouth and nose. He fixed his father with accusing eyes. ‘Jesus, what’s that disgusting smell?’

Baggly froze. ‘Smell? I can’t smell anything.’ His gaze fell to the vomit stains on his dress shirt.

The boy sprang to his feet. ‘You’re a pig! A big fat filthy slop-eating pig!’ He pushed past his father with an expression of revulsion and dashed down the passage towards the front door.

Baggly only found the words once the front door had been slammed in his face. ‘You’ve no right to speak to me like that, you ungrateful spoilt brat!’

thursday

How? Why? Where? And to whom did it happen? By seeking the answers to these questions, the lead detectives will come closer to finding the offender.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

The rain had continued all night and everyone seated around the T-shaped arrangement of desks in the incident room showed evidence of a mad dash from the car park. Damp tousled hair, rain-specked shoulders and miserable expressions came with the first sneezes of winter colds.

Monty’s mood did not seem to have been dampened by the weather or the uncomfortable meeting with the profiler the previous night. He nodded and smiled good morning to his detectives and took his seat, fanning a sheaf of papers on the table before him. Stevie was still not convinced by De Vakey’s methods, but she could see that he had his uses; there was a lot to be said for a burden shared. The loneliness of her own dilemma seemed all the more apparent. She bit hard on the lid of her pen, determined not to let her preoccupations interfere with the case in hand.

‘You first, Angus,’ Monty pointed a finger at the senior detective.

Angus scanned his notes as his hand raked through his wet hair. ‘Everything seems straight down the line with this photographer feller, Mont.’ The incongruity between Angus’s appearance and his ocker accent never ceased to amaze Stevie. ‘His story checked out. After the photo shoot, he walked Linda Royce down the stairs of his warehouse studio and unlocked the door for her. He saw her step into the street, then went inside and called his wife.’

‘They’re a one-car family,’ Stevie added. ‘She always picks him up after work. I checked his phone records, spoke to the wife, everything rings true.’

Angus nodded. ‘He said she was a nice girl, was pretty shaken up by her murder.’

‘Media, Stevie?’ Monty queried.

‘I spoke to the head of ABC productions. They said they’d organise a re-enactment whenever we’re ready.’

‘We should go for Sunday night then. Hopefully the same people will be in the area carrying out their Sunday-night routines,’ Barry said.

‘It won’t do us any good if it’s pissing down with rain, though.’ Wayne looked over his shoulder to the rain still beating against the incident room window, his facial expression sour as stomach acid.

‘Long-term forecast is for a fine day with rain developing,’ Angus answered.

‘That’s settled then, Sunday it is.’ Monty turned to Stevie. ‘Can you organise that?’

Stevie wrote herself a reminder.

‘Who’s going to play Linda Royce?’ Wayne asked.

All eyes turned to the only female on the team.

Stevie looked at Monty, smoothed her fingers down the length of her ponytail. ‘I don’t mind. I’m tall, blonde, I meet the physical description more or less.’

‘Sure,’ Barry flashed her a teasing grin. ‘A dead ringer. Fifteen years older and about ten kilos heavier—but who’s counting? And they really want to take your photo in this.’ He pulled at the sleeve of her bomber jacket.

Dickhead. She jerked her arm away and stopped the retort before it left her mouth. It was a struggle to keep her voice level. ‘Just leave my wardrobe to me, okay?’

Monty coughed, regarded his detectives. ‘Sounds fine by me. What does everyone else think?’

Murmurs of agreement filled the room.

‘That’s settled then.’ Monty took a swallow of cold coffee and pulled a face. ‘To recap, we know she was somehow abducted from the street, taken somewhere else to be murdered, then somehow transported to the bank and posed.’

‘What about a taxi?’ Barry asked. ‘She could have decided not to catch the bus and gone for a taxi instead.’

Wayne nodded, pulling thoughtfully at a long feathery sideburn. ‘That could have happened. That or someone she knew stopped and gave her a lift.’

‘Would she have got into the car of a stranger?’ Barry asked.

‘By all accounts she was a sensible girl,’ Angus said. ‘Her uncle and grandfather were cops, there’s no way she would have been unaware of the dangers.’

Angus and Stevie had been the principal detectives interviewing the friends and family. In the case of such a low-risk victim, family and close friends were always the first suspects. In this case, though, they’d felt the immediate family could be eliminated. Her twelve-year-old brother and her mother could not be considered, and her father, with his chronic heart problem, had been assessed as physically incapable of the murder.

Angus continued, ‘She wasn’t drunk, it’s not like she was desperate for a lift, the weather was fine and she had the bus money. Her mother said there was no way she would have accepted a lift from a stranger.’

‘Perhaps she was pulled into a car. Someone could have stopped to ask her directions then grabbed her. God knows it’s been done countless times before,’ Barry said.

‘Well, if that’s the case,’ Monty replied, ‘maybe someone saw some kind of a struggle.’

Stevie’s grip tightened on her pen.

She’d tried to run, but one of her heels had caught in the concrete slabs and she’d slammed head first onto the path. He was on her in an instant, ripping and tearing at her clothes.

She could see the scene as clearly in her mind’s eye as if she were watching it on TV. She screwed her eyes tight for a moment and willed herself to concentrate on Monty’s voice.

‘Maybe the re-enactment will jog a memory. Meanwhile, Angus, I want you to canvass the taxi companies. Get some uniform help and those seconded dees from Stirling. I want to know the whereabouts of every single cab between nine and eleven that Sunday night.’

Angus’s face fell. ‘That could take weeks.’

‘Which we don’t have. So make it days, preferably hours. So long as each cab has kept their required log, it’ll just be a case of slogging through each one.’

‘And speaking of slogging, Mont, I think I’ve been lucky with the trace on the bronze paint.’ Wayne leaned back in his chair, ‘Listen and weep, Angus, no more of the hard grind for me. A call came in just after the press conference last night. The owner of a hobby shop in Kensington said that his employee, a Mr Craig Thompson, mentioned selling a dozen cans of bronze fabric paint to a man last week. Not many people buy that much paint and it got him wondering.’

‘Kensington, isn’t that where the vic came from?’ Barry’s question was more of a statement and no one answered him.

‘What else did he say? Did you get a description of the man?’ Monty asked.

‘I thought this was too important for the phone,’ Wayne replied. ‘I’ve made an appointment to see Thompson early this afternoon.’

‘Good, keep me up to date.’

‘Do we know if Linda had a boyfriend?’ Barry asked Stevie.

‘Yes, about the same age as she was. According to the mother he’s been working on a farm in Meckering. They were saving up for a skiing holiday. He was in Meckering at the time of the murder. The farm manager vouched for him.’

‘Did she work?’ Wayne asked her.

‘Only part time—as a waitress at the Blue Fish, that trendy restaurant by the beach in Cottesloe. She was waiting for her big break into the modelling world. I’ve got people going through the staff statements now. I had them ask the usual questions: had she complained about any of the customers giving her a hard time, anyone following her or any of the other girls; had her demeanour changed over the days leading to the murder.’

‘And?’ Wayne queried.

Stevie looked down at her notebook. ‘One of the waitresses said a guy had eaten there several times the previous week and made sure he was served by her each time. They seemed to talk quite a bit. The waitress said Linda was flattered, told her it was nice to have a harmless flirt with an older guy, said they were just having a bit of fun.’

Wayne shook his head and closed his eyes for a moment. ‘A harmless flirt,’ he said as if to himself. ‘Description?’

‘Pretty vague. Late thirties, early forties, tall and that’s about it. I told the girl to ring me if she sees him again.’

‘We’re still trying to find out who this guy is,’ said Angus, ‘but on the whole, Mont, everything backs up what her parents and friends say. She was a popular girl with no apparent worries.’

‘And now she’s dead.’ Barry smoothed his palm across his shaved head and worried at one of his Mickey Mouse ears. ‘Why’s it always the nice girls?’ He answered his own question with a shrug. ‘Nice girls are more trusting, maybe?’

Stevie whipped up her head and balled her fists. ‘Bullshit, stop romanticising all this. Nice, nasty, it makes no difference to the killer. She didn’t ask for this, she just happened to fit his mould. The KP murder victims were prostitutes for God’s sake!’

‘I’m sure there are nice prostitutes too, Stevie,’ Barry said, unnerved by her sudden ferocity.

Monty held up his hands like a referee. ‘Stop the guesswork, people. Let’s leave the psychological stuff to the profiler and concentrate on what little physical evidence we have.’ He shot Stevie and Barry a look of warning before shuffling through his sheaves of papers and extracting one.

Stevie forced herself to unclench her fists.

‘I met up with the pathologist at the lab yesterday arvo,’ Monty said, looking over his reading glasses. ‘They found evidence of chloroform and Rohypnol in her system. Her lips were swollen and slightly blistered, which indicates that some kind of a chloroform-soaked rag or sponge was placed over her nose and mouth to knock her out. When she came to she was forced to drink a cocktail of roofies and orange juice to put her out again more heavily.’ He paused. ‘The only bright side to all this is that she would have been barely aware of what was going on.’

‘I’ll go talk to Robbery,’ Barry said, ‘get a list of recent pharmacy break-ins, enquire about missing chloroform.’

‘Didn’t Gull’s pharmacy in Hay Street get broken into recently?’ Wayne asked.

Barry nodded. ‘You’re right. I’ll follow through.’

‘The roofies will be almost impossible to trace. They’re as easy to get as ecstasy in the clubs at the moment—date rape’s almost endemic these days,’ Wayne said.

‘And chloroform is fairly available if you know where to look. Not just pharmacies stock it—vets, science labs and the like,’ Barry added.

‘Was she raped?’ asked Wayne.

Monty shook his head.

Stevie whispered a silent prayer of thanks.

‘Not even an object rape?’ Barry sounded surprised.

‘No, nothing inserted and no seminal fluid on or around her. But if you ask me, the crime still has sexual overtones: stripped naked, the shaving, the spraying with the bronze paint, the roofies. I’m hoping our profiler will shed some light upon this strange set of contradictions.’ Monty leaned back in his chair, clearly relieved at their newly acquired expert help.

‘Wait a minute,’ Wayne said. ‘The paint would be a perfect medium to collect fibres, hairs and other traces. Don’t tell me they haven’t found anything?’

‘Apparently there was some contamination with dust, but they’ve been having trouble separating it from the paint to get an idea of its origins. They seem to think the chemicals in the paint would destroy most trace evidence anyway.’ Monty replied. ‘They spent hours removing the paint and found nothing. They think he shaved himself too, or else...’ he tapped a tattoo on the tabletop with his pen, flicking his tongue against his lower lip as he re-read the lab notes in front of him.

Wayne said, ‘C’mon Mont, spill it. The suspense is killing us.’

‘Minute traces of neoprene were found under the victim’s fingernails.’ Monty read the pertinent part of the lab report aloud to his team.

‘Neoprene?’ Barry queried.

Monty shifted his gaze to Stevie. She’d have the answer to that.

‘Neoprene as in wetsuit material?’ she asked him.

Monty dashed her a smile.

‘So, if he’d covered her in paint while in a wetsuit, he’d be doubly certain not to leave any part of himself behind. He could have been wearing one of those diver’s hoods too,’ she added.

‘And I thought we were going to be looking for a hairless man.’ Barry sounded disappointed.

‘An old wetty splattered with bronze paint would be a lot more incriminating than a hairless body,’ Angus said.

Nods all round as this was digested.

Stevie said, ‘She was supposed to be drugged, but the evidence of neoprene under her fingernails would suggest a struggle.’

Monty shrugged. ‘Maybe she woke up in the middle of the painting?’

Something inside her tightened again. Keep your distance from the victim, she said to herself, don’t personalise this.

‘There’s something else, and it’s a lot more concrete than the wetsuit possibility,’ Monty continued. ‘A single grey hair was found on her left buttock.’

Murmurs of excitement rippled through the group gathered around.

‘Was there a clean skin tag? Has it been matched?’ Stevie asked.

‘Yes, but the lab hasn’t finished running through the DNA comparisons. There’s nothing in the standard database so I’ve asked them to widen the search. I’m expecting a call any minute now.’

‘All that painting must have caused one hell of a mess. It must have been done in a very secluded spot, a garage, warehouse...’ Stevie turned to Wayne. ‘What about the photographer’s place?’

‘I supervised the search myself. Nothing.’

‘Or,’ Angus said, ‘one of those self-lock storage sheds perhaps.’ He sighed and rubbed his thin face. ‘We’d get a lot further ahead with this if we could find the location.’

Monty gestured to Wayne. ‘Well, maybe Wayne’s hobby shop employee will point us in the right direction.’ He returned to his notes. ‘The lab guy said she was covered in three coats of paint, and around the throat area there were four. Her actual cause of death was strangulation. They reckon the hand pressure on the throat might have smudged the drying paint so he applied another coat to tidy the area up.’

Barry said, ‘But he must have left something else of himself behind other than that single hair. When he shifted her he wouldn’t have been wearing the wetsuit, surely.’

Angus shrugged. ‘Maybe he was? It was dark. A dark wetsuit would be good camouflage.’

Everyone was thinking about this when Angus added, ‘I’ve got something on the slogan, too.’ He was referring to the words ‘Easeful Death’ printed down the victim’s right thigh, a detail they’d been able to keep from the press. It gave them leverage should someone confess, or a comparison should they have a copycat.

‘I think it’s an allusion to Keats, part of a line from his poem, “Ode to a Nightingale”. I mean it’s not the kind of phrase that gets tossed around on a regular basis; I reckon it has to be from that poem. The whole line reads, Half in love with easeful Death. I should have twigged it straightaway. Keats is one of my favourite poets.’

Barry slapped his head with his hand. ‘Damn. I must have slept through all those poetry appreciation classes at the academy.’

Angus tossed down his pen and let out a long-suffering sigh.

‘Okay, so what the hell’s it supposed to mean?’ Barry persisted.

Angus answered, patient as ever, ‘Keats was dying from consumption. He was musing that an easeful death might be preferable to what he was going through.’

‘There was nothing easeful about what Linda Royce went through,’ Wayne said quietly, his gaze fixed on the notes in front of him.

Barry shrugged. ‘Yeah, but maybe it could’ve been even worse.’

Monty must have sensed Stevie’s suppressed shiver. He said, ‘Okay, that’s enough. For now let’s just concentrate on the message itself. Evenly spaced capitals in black marker pen, written after the paint had dried. I talked to the experts in Documents about the writing. Unlike ordinary writing, carefully hand-printed capitals are very hard to match to a particular individual, so the writing itself is a dead end.’

‘But why kill her after the paint and not before?’ Barry asked.

Stevie looked at Monty. ‘So he could pose her? Rigor mortis can start as early as two hours after death.’

Monty nodded. ‘That’s what the lab boys think, that he wanted to pose her before rigor set in. A lot of care was taken over the paint; it would’ve taken a while. Killing her after the paint job would have given him a bit more time to transport her, put the props in and pose her before she stiffened up. They surmise that he came back later and took the props away when she’d stiffened into the required position. There was a slight indentation on each forearm containing minute splinters of wood. They think she was propped up with wooden dowels.’

A sombre silence followed this macabre theory.

Barry shook his head. ‘Boy, are we dealing with one sick individual here. Have we any idea what he used to transport the body?’

‘A van would make sense; more room than a car,’ Wayne suggested.

‘Whatever he used, there has to be some kind of paint evidence left behind. Even dry paint will leave traces,’ Angus mused.

‘We’re jumping the gun here, folks,’ Monty said. ‘We haven’t even found the vehicle yet. For the moment everything rests on Wayne’s hobby shop man.’

Wayne pushed his chair back and climbed to his feet. ‘If that’s it, Mont, I’d like to get cracking now.’

Monty stood and began to scoop up his mess of papers. ‘All of you have plenty to keep you busy. Let me know any developments. I’ll pass on the news of the hair when I hear back from the lab.’ He turned to Stevie who was gathering her own gear together.

‘Have you heard from De Vakey yet?’ he asked her.

She looked at her oversized watch, the only jewellery she wore. ‘Yeah, I suppose it’s time I picked him up and took him to the scene,’ she said without enthusiasm. The kids would soon be filing into the assembly hall, Izzy and the other little ones waiting behind the curtains, ready to go on stage. She wondered if Dot had scored a seat in the front row. The last time Izzy had waved at her in the middle of the performance and made the audience laugh.

‘Before you go, I want a word,’ Monty said.

Stevie followed him into his office and closed the door. He didn’t mince his words. ‘Stevie, what’s got into you lately? You’ve been looking like a fart that can’t get out. Barry was only thinking aloud; it’s called brainstorming, we do it all the time. You didn’t need to snap his head off like that.’

‘That was the last straw, he asked for it, you know he did.’

Monty said nothing but rubbed his face as if to say warring detectives were the last thing he needed right now.

She wanted to tell him that Tye was back in town, that he was seeking custody of Izzy, that the case was affecting her personally, more than any other she’d been involved with. He was her best mate; she should be able to tell him. But he was also her boss and he would take her off the case if he knew. This was another thing he didn’t need to hear right now.

Instead she said, ‘I’m sorry, Mont, I’m just tired,’

He gave her a sympathetic look. ‘It’s an ugly case.’

She prickled, realising how close she’d come to giving herself away. ‘I don’t think my sensibilities are affected any more than anyone else’s; I’m sure the guys are just as disturbed by this as I am.’

‘Yes they are, but I don’t want the battle of the sexes brought into this, okay?’ His face softened. ‘Look, I know it’s been a hard grind, but it’s over now, Stevie, you’ve arrived. Just try and loosen up and cut the guys some slack.’

She nodded and remained silent. Anything more from her and he was likely to launch into one of his every-member-of-his-team-was-chosen-on-merit speeches.

‘I want you to knock off early today. Be home for Izzy when she comes in from kindy.’

She was about to object, but he held up a hand before she could start.

‘No, this isn’t preferential treatment. I’ll bring over Chinese tonight. You can fill me in on De Vakey’s progress and I’ll tell you how the rest of us have gone. I’ll just bring the work to you instead of you staying at Central for it—how does that sound?’

She felt herself relax. ‘Nothing too spicy.’

He grinned back at her, shaking his head. Just then, the phone rang. He mouthed a silent stream of curses as he listened to the voice on the other end.

An individual from a neglected, deprived or abused background may find comfort in the newly dead; the dead are no threat, they are his to control.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Monty usually enjoyed passing the time with the super’s attractive secretary, but this morning not even Christine’s subtle flirtation could get his mind off what he was going to have to tell his superior.

‘Coffee, Monty?’ she asked in a last-ditch effort at amicability.

‘No thank you,’ he said and began to riffle through one of the police union mags from the coffee table in an effort to avoid any more of the one-sided conversation.

The sound of muffled voices had been filtering through the closed office door during Monty’s long wait. Now a sudden crescendo got the better of his curiosity. He caught Christine’s eye and jabbed his thumb at the closed door. ‘Who’s the hapless victim?’

She laughed. ‘I think the superintendent might be the victim this time. It’s Justin.’

Monty had always got on well with Baggly’s son. The kid was studying criminal justice in the hope that it would give him an edge when applying to the increasingly competitive police academy. Monty had no doubt he’d make the grades academically, but could only hope that with time and maybe some encouragement, he’d lose some of his reserve. There was no such thing as a shy cop. As things were, he had trouble imagining how a distraught victim of crime would glean any kind of reassurance from the young man he knew, with his lonely eyes and shuffling feet.

Baggly’s door burst open and Monty found himself face to face with the subject of his musings. Justin did a double take when he saw Monty and flushed.

‘How’s it going, Inspector?’ he said between breaths, flipping his head to clear a strand of dark brown hair from his eyes. He wore shiny black shoes, pressed jeans and a starched white shirt.

Monty smiled. ‘Better than you by the sound of it. How’s the course?’

‘Good. I got an A for that last assignment you helped me with.’

Monty clapped the boy on the back. ‘Let’s make the next one an A plus then. Come see me again when this murder’s been cleared up.’

Justin frowned. ‘Sure, but look, Dad’s told me all about it. If there’s anything I can do to help...’

‘Get that uniform and you’ll be the first I ask.’

‘I know you’re all stretched pretty tight over this. Tell Stevie I’m happy to babysit again.’

Monty suspected the relationship was mutually agreeable, with Justin glad of an excuse to get away from his overbearing father.

‘I think she might take you up on that. I’ll tell her to call if she’s stuck.’

Justin replied with a strained smile, nodded goodbye to Christine and headed towards the lifts.

Monty caught a flicker of movement in the doorjamb. He winked at Christine before calling out to the superintendent, ‘It’s all right, Sir, he’s gone, you can come out now.’ Christine hid a smile behind her hand. The super appeared, pulling at the sleeves of his jacket as if he’d just sorted out a major altercation. His moon face and flabby body could have belonged to a stand-up comic, features that seemed incongruous in an unhappy man in a job that stretched him beyond his capabilities. His brownnosing talents were the only things Monty could find to explain his rise through the ranks.

‘Sorry about all that noise, Christine,’ Baggly said.

‘That’s all right, Sir, it’s nothing I haven’t heard before.’

Baggly rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Kids. You’re lucky you never had them, Monty.’

‘I don’t see it like that, Sir.’

‘No, well, it’s the luck of the draw I suppose. I mean, I buy the boy everything for God’s sake and he just wants more. His mother spoiled him rotten, I’m afraid.’

Monty said, ‘Sir, something’s come up in the Poser case. We need to talk.’

‘Of course, I shouldn’t be inflicting my personal problems on you. Come on in and sit down.’

He ushered Monty into his office and gestured him to the leather Chesterfield. While the super fussed around making coffee, Monty took in the framed photos on the wall. John Baggly beaming with the East Perth Under-Fourteen footy team, John Baggly opening the district’s latest blue light disco, John Baggly receiving an award from the Catholic Women’s Auxiliary for his advocacy of the family unit. The only picture on the wall that wasn’t about work was a framed photo of a younger Justin, posed in the backyard with the family dog.

He took the proffered coffee. ‘We’ve got the results back from the hair that was found on Royce’s body. It was in the police personal file, the one we use to exclude our DNA from crime scenes...’

‘Get on with it, man.’ The super ladled sugar into his coffee and didn’t look up. Monty took a deep breath. Here goes nothing. ‘It belongs to the police commissioner.’

The silver sugar bowl fell from Baggly’s hand with a clatter and crystals sprinkled the antique sideboard like a sudden coating of frost. He looked at Monty with the expression of a man who couldn’t believe his ears.

The door flew open and Christine rushed into the room. ‘Is everything all right, Sir?’

‘Everything’s fine. For God’s sake, Christine, go away,’ Baggly said.

She tiptoed out of the office, looking disappointed. The superintendent waited for the door to close before saying, ‘There has to be some kind of a mistake.’

‘I’ve triple checked. It’s no mistake.’

‘But the commissioner’s been on leave for the last two weeks.’ He swiped at the sugar crystals on his shirt and zeroed his small, angry eyes on Monty. ‘On his honeymoon in Fiji for Christ’s sake!’

‘I don’t suspect the commissioner for a moment: I believe the hair was planted, it was the only one we found. I was suspicious about it before I even had it matched. Someone obviously wanted us to find it. It was carefully stuck to the paint with the skin tag left clear and undamaged.’

‘Someone’s playing games with us?’

Monty nodded. Baggly sank his bulk into the squeaking desk chair. ‘It would be easy to obtain one of the commissioner’s hairs; all it needs is access to his hairbrush—he probably keeps one in his car and his office. But that also means it could be an inside job.’

‘Not necessarily, it could be anyone.’ The super chewed his moustache for a moment. ‘If the press get hold of this, it’ll be a disaster.’

‘My people will be discreet, but someone will have to talk to the commissioner. I know he’s honeymooning, but he’ll still have to be approached. We have to make his alibi official.’

‘Yes, yes, of course, leave that to me.’ Baggly took a sip of coffee and regarded Monty with scepticism. ‘This case seems to be lurching from bad to worse. How’s your witch doctor going? Has he finished consulting his crystal ball yet?’

Monty stared right back at him. ‘I don’t think witch doctors use crystal balls, Sir.’

‘Don’t be a smart arse. You know what I mean.’

‘He’s at the scene with DS Hooper now. He hasn’t given us anything yet, but these things take time. The less we pressure him, the more likely he is to give us an accurate profile.’

‘It’s a waste of our resources if you ask me, especially for a single murder. They’re always on about spending cuts and then they foist this on me. The only reason I didn’t kick up a fuss was to get you off my back.’

‘Yes, you made that perfectly clear, Sir, but I still say it’s worth a try.’

‘He could be just sending us off on a wild goose chase.’

‘Well, we’re not chasing anything at the moment, we have nothing to lose.’ Monty paused for a moment, trying to choose the right words for what he had to say next. But there were none, so he cut to the chase. ‘I’d like your authorisation to reopen the KP murder cases.’

Baggly thumped the desk. ‘Did your ex-wife put you up to this?’

Monty didn’t flinch. ‘Michelle has nothing to do with it, though I do agree with her that there are similarities in the cases that should not be overlooked.’

‘Well, thank God you didn’t mention that to the press.’ Baggly’s voice dripped sarcasm like a cut lemon. He never seemed to tire of reminding Monty of his former indiscretion, though it never stopped him delegating press conferences when it suited.

‘You didn’t even work the KP murders, weren’t even in the country. What makes you think they might be linked?’

‘The posing of the bodies for one, but I’m not familiar with all the details.’ He decided not to mention Michelle’s allegations of a police cover-up. ‘I’ve only had a quick check of the archived files. I plan on signing them out and taking them home tonight so I can give them a thorough going over.’

Baggly fixed his gaze to the ceiling, almost speaking to himself. ‘We were lucky. We got egg over our faces on that one, but most of it fell away with the death of the chief suspect.’

‘Yes, that was very convenient, wasn’t it?’

‘I don’t like your tone, Inspector. Mistakes were made, heads rolled and now it’s over. The suspect died in a car accident.’

Monty fought to keep his voice even. ‘You can stop me from reopening the case, but you can’t stop me from accessing the files.’

The super ran a hand across his comb-over and looked back at Monty with a hard glint in his eye. ‘No, I suppose I can’t, but watch your step.’ He raised a pudgy finger, ‘If so much as a squeak gets out to the press you’ll find yourself walking on very thin ice.’ He paused. ‘Just remember what happened to Inspector Sbresni.’

Monty felt his face redden. The vacuous lump of whale blubber was threatening him. He clenched his jaw to stop himself from biting back. The super began to busy himself with papers on his desk. The meeting was over.

The killer’s hunting ground will most likely be located within his own comfort zone, either near where he lives or in another area he is familiar with.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

A tinny bell sounded as Wayne and Barry stepped over the threshold of Sherman the German’s Hobbies and Collectables.

Barry spoke through the side of his mouth to Wayne. ‘You’d think our guy would have chosen one of the bigger chain stores for his purchase, somewhere he’d be more anonymous.’

‘Nah. You have to be registered and show ID to buy spray paint in the bigger outlets these days. It hampers the graffiti artists.’

They lapsed into silence as they took in their surroundings. Shelves bulging with untidy contents seemed to undulate up from the floor. A carefully placed electric fan made the model aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling rock languidly. On the walls, ocean liners and battleships sailed side by side on glassy seas. Whichever way you looked the effect was one of rippling movement. Wayne loosened his collar and closed his eyes for a moment, battling against a rising tide of motion sickness.

Barry seemed to have no such problem. He pointed to a display of sci-fi figures. ‘Hey, look! An original Star Wars Admiral Akbar!’ In two strides he was bending over the display and steaming up the glass of the cabinet with his breath.

‘Jesus Christ.’ Wayne looked to the heavens and wiped his sweaty palms over the thighs of his polyester bellbottoms. He turned when a man with unkempt shoulder-length hair and a beard clacked through a back entrance of glass beads.

The man pushed a pair of thick-rimmed glasses up the greasy bridge of his nose. His face fell when he realised who they were.

‘You must be the cops. Sherman said you might be coming round.’ His voice had the same watery grey tone as his T-shirt.

Wayne put out his hand, ‘Mr Thompson? I’m DS Wayne Pickering and this is DS Barry Snow.’ He tilted his head in Barry’s direction. Still absorbed in the Star Wars figures, Barry waved a greeting without looking up.

‘I spoke with Mr Sherman on the phone last night. Apparently you sold a large quantity of spray-on bronze fabric paint last Friday.’

Thompson responded with a nod and a grunt, giving Wayne the impression that if it hadn’t been for the conscientious Tom Sherman, they would never have got this lead in the first place.

Thompson hefted a cardboard box onto a space he’d cleared on the counter top and began sorting through boxes of model aeroplanes. Another blasé witness who watched too many TV cop shows, Wayne thought. If you had to talk to the cops at all, you had to be cool and impassive, and if possible carry on with your business while you were being questioned.

Wayne said, ‘Can you describe the man you sold the paint to?’

‘Tallish.’

‘Fat, thin?’

‘Kinda medium to tall build.’

‘Old, young?’

‘Middling, twenty to forty.’

‘Eyes?’

‘Sunglasses.’

‘Hair colour?’

‘Dunno. He was wearing a baseball cap.’

‘What colour hat? Did it have a logo?’

Thompson gave a shrug.

Jeez, this was like speaking to a pile of bricks. Wayne took a deep breath. Thompson turned around and began arranging the boxes on the shelf behind the counter. Wayne raised his voice, trying to penetrate the man’s back.

‘Can you describe what he was wearing?’

Thompson shrugged and looked back over his shoulder. ‘Jeans, I guess.’

Barry ambled over from the display cabinet to join them at the counter. He pointed to one of the aeroplane kits in Sherman’s hand. ‘I made that very Lancaster when I was a kid. You could hardly see it for glue, the props wouldn’t even turn.’

Thompson turned from the shelves and said to Wayne, ‘A yellow Eagles windcheater.’ Then to Barry he said, ‘It’s a difficult model for a young kid. You should have got your dad to help.’

‘Didn’t have one.’ Barry never ceased to surprise Wayne. Only the other day he was complaining about his miserly arsehole of a father.

‘That’s too bad,’ Thompson said.

‘Maybe I’ll have another go at it.’ Barry took out his wallet and handed over a twenty.

Thompson gave him the box and some change. ‘There’s glue in the box. Come back when you’re done and I’ll fix you up with some paint,’ he said.

Barry beamed back; it was the kind of smile a twelve-year-old would use to wangle money from his unsuspecting grandmother.

When they began to discuss the differences between the old Airfix models and the newer equivalent, Wayne wandered off to inspect a model train set.

On a structure that looked like four joined ping-pong tables, a complicated system of rails carved their way through alpine scenery and bucolic European farmland. This is more like it, Wayne thought. Three red buttons he assumed were there to be pressed, controlled the model railway. He tried to work out which one would send the old steam loco across the bridge spanning the thick painted river. Lured by the middle button, his hand reached for it, only to be beaten to it by a cane held in the hand of an old man of eighty, if he was a day.

He watched as the model train nipped around the track like a zip fastener and he grew dizzy: so much for trying to keep his interests on terra firma. He nodded to the old man and swayed his way back to the counter just as Thompson was handing Barry a can of bronze spray paint.

‘Take this, too. It’s from the same batch I sold to the guy. And this is the kind of wooden dowel I sell.’ Thompson gave Barry a dowel and an affable grin; the change in the man was amazing. Wayne could only look at his younger partner and marvel.

‘Hey, you didn’t see what kind of car the bloke drove off in did you?’ Barry asked.

‘Yeah, I did. A new-looking blue Commodore. He parked it right outside the shop. Sorry but I didn’t get a look at the plate,’ Thompson said.

Barry handed him his card, said it was okay, that he was being a big help anyway. ‘If you think of anything else you can reach me on this number.’

Thompson called out as they were heading for the door.

‘Hey, I don’t know if it helps, but he bought a dozen each of gold and silver paint, too.’

***

The killer was going to strike again. Wayne broke the news to Monty from the car. There was no need for him to hold the phone out for Barry to hear the explosive reaction. When Monty had calmed down, he gave him the details of the Thompson interview and received, in turn, a list of further instructions. Wayne pocketed his phone and wiped his brow with a mustard-yellow handkerchief. ‘It’s going to be a long day,’ he said, ‘we’ll need inner strength to get through this.’

Soon they were pushing their way through the lunchtime crowd of their favourite watering hole. The pub in James Street was a popular soaking spot for a heavy cop clientele. Barry went to get their drinks and was still getting them by the time Wayne had completed two more phone calls. Given Barry’s propensity to stop and banter with every person at every table in passing, Wayne wondered just how cold the beer would be when it finally arrived.

Rule of thumb: a dead body will cool to the surrounding temperature at approximately one degree per hour. It stands to reason, therefore, that a cold beer will warm to its environment at the same rate. To kill time, Wayne reached for his pen and notebook and began scratching calculations.

‘Have you organised the artist for the composite sketch?’ Barry asked, interrupting Wayne’s train of thought. He sat down at the table and pushed a glass of beer towards his partner. Some of it slopped over the side and a pattern of foaming threads trickled onto the plastic table.

‘Yeah.’ Wayne slicked his fingers through the drips and made a point of rubbing them on his sleeve. ‘No wedges?’

‘They’re coming.’

Wayne took a gulp of beer and gazed around the room, checking out the patrons with the mug shots he’d lined up in his mind. This habit used to annoy the hell out of his wife, though her complaints about him never being off duty were usually accompanied by an understanding smile. The woman had put up with a lot.

Oh shit. A familiar face he did not wish to see. He slid further down his seat.

Noticing his reaction, Barry followed his gaze, squinting through the smoke haze. ‘Who’s that then?’

‘Tyrone Davis,’ Wayne said. ‘Before your time, probably. Stop staring. If he sees you he’ll see me, and be over here in a flash.’

‘What’s the problem?’

Wayne spoke from the side of his mouth. ‘Nothing, except the man’s a crystal-dicked fuckwit with about as much conscience as a box jellyfish.’

A pause. ‘You don’t like him?’

Wayne snorted.

‘Crossed swords, did you?’ Barry persisted.

‘No, not exactly, I just don’t like hanging out with bent coppers.’

‘Tye Davis, Tye Davis,’ Barry repeated. ‘The name’s familiar.’

‘He’s the guy who knocked Stevie up. They were shacked up for a while until she threw him out. She blew the whistle on him for taking bribes when he was in Vice. There was an enquiry, he was dismissed.’

Barry blew out his cheeks. ‘That would’ve taken guts.’

‘She’s a tough chick.’

‘Then how come you’re always stirring her pot?’ Barry took a long draught of beer, his Adam’s apple bobbing with each swallow.

Wayne sighed. ‘I stir the pot because she expects me to stir the pot. I don’t like to disappoint.’ He wagged a disapproving finger at Barry. ‘And you got too carried away today. Subtlety, son, you got to learn subtlety.’

‘You self-righteous prick.’

Wayne’s mouth twitched into his first smile in hours. ‘She’s a good cop, but she’d be even better if she’d let go of some of the energy she uses to hold that chip on her shoulder and put it into her work.’

A kick in the shin from Barry alerted him to Tye’s approach. Wayne’s first instinct was to leave, then his curiosity got the better of him; he’d hang around for a moment, see what Tye wanted.

Tye slopped a jug of beer onto their table. ‘I thought you boys looked thirsty,’ he said, even though Wayne and Barry’s glasses were still half full. He pulled up a chair and sat down. He was a cocky bastard, with looks that could have graced the cover of a romance novel—or so Wayne had been told. He wouldn’t know a romance novel if it bit him on the backside. People also said that Tye and Stevie had been a good-looking couple. Wayne had never put that much faith in appearances.

A barmaid placed a bowl of wedges in front of them. Tye gave her an appraising glance before turning back to Wayne. ‘So, how’re you doing? I thought you might’ve retired by now.’ He popped a steaming wedge into his mouth.

Barry winked at Tye. ‘He’s younger than he looks.’

Wayne took Tye’s hand without smiling and introduced Barry. Tye’s gaze returned to Wayne. He scanned the older man’s torso before making a big deal of looking under the table at his legs. ‘Still fashionably retro I see.’

‘Fashionable?’ Barry snorted. ‘He just hasn’t bothered to buy any new clothes since the seventies.’

Wayne gave Tye a blank look. ‘Happy days,’ he said.

Tye was not to be put off. ‘You know who you remind me of, Wayne? That pommy secret agent, the one who says “Shagadelick baby” and all that shit.’

‘More like Eeyore if you ask me,’ Barry said, pushing the basket of wedges across the table. Wayne didn’t touch them, he’d suddenly lost his appetite.

Tye slammed his fist on the table and grinned. ‘Fuckin’ oath.’

Wayne’s patience was wearing thin. He knew Tye was playing the redneck for Barry’s benefit, making himself out to be one of the boys, a talent that had gained him a fair degree of support from his colleagues at the time of his dismissal. While Stevie was proved technically to be the ‘good guy,’ it was Tye who had won the sympathy vote.

Tye shifted in his seat. Maybe he’d got the message and was thinking about leaving. But then Barry blew it; sometimes the kid just couldn’t help himself.

‘So, what’s your story then?’

‘Working on the mines, Baz, three weeks on and one off. Haven’t been down to the big smoke for a couple of months, only arrived yesterday. Figured I’d catch up with a few mates, visit my kid.’

‘I suppose the restraining order’s well past its use-by date now.’ Wayne couldn’t resist the jab.

Tye’s face reddened and Wayne caught a glimpse of the violence that simmered just under the handsome surface. ‘It was a temporary order, only for a couple of months. Just a misunderstanding.’ He took a slug of beer then turned to Barry, clearly the more malleable member of the partnership. ‘I hear Stevie’s joined you blokes at the SCS. I can’t see it being a wise move, but here’s to her anyway.’ He lifted his glass for a toast and scanned their faces, leaving the bait dangling.

Barry took a nibble. ‘What’s the problem with Stevie joining the SCS?’

‘I would have thought that was obvious. Frankly I’m surprised her application was taken seriously,’ Tye said.

Wayne sighed. ‘C’mon, Barry, drink up. We’ve got places to go and people to see.’

‘What with the history between her and Monty, I can’t see how his being her boss could lead to anything but a conflict of interest,’ Tye continued.

Barry was hooked. He put his hand out to stop Wayne from leaving the table. ‘Wait a tick, let me just hear this out.’

Tye ignored Wayne’s impatient huffing. ‘Monty’s an old pal of the Hooper family, at school with her big brother...’

‘I’ll be in the car,’ Wayne said.

And he left them to it, along with the beer Tye had bought him, untouched on the table. He might have a moral obligation to stir Stevie’s pot, but gossiping about her behind her back was not a part of his agenda.

The investigating officer has to be able to think like the killer in order to pre-empt him. It is an unpalatable talent that few are able to master and still fewer able to adjust to without some form of adverse physical or behavioural effect.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

The sun was a distant pearl in the leaden sky, the city streets still black and slick with rain. Stevie sat in the parked car and watched the profiler retrace Royce’s last walk down Wellington Street. In order to put himself into the mindset of the murderer, De Vakey had explained, he needed to be alone. That suited Stevie; the man was still having an unnerving effect on her and she was glad of the break.

She rubbed a clear patch in the mist on the car window with the sleeve of her jacket and took advantage of the opportunity to sit back and think.

Her role in the investigation had broadened to include liaising between De Vakey and the primary investigating officers. At first she was pleased; it meant Monty thought she had sufficient grasp of the case to relay information accurately between both parties. Upon further reflection though, she could see how the others might read it as a sign of Monty’s favouritism, and could only hope the team would remember the shit jobs he usually allocated to her.

She’d had several triumphant moments collaring criminals in her career, top grades in her sergeant’s exams, near-perfect scores in her firearm proficiency tests—but nothing notable since joining the SCS six months ago. Maybe this would be the case in which she could prove herself; show pricks like Wayne she was as capable as any of them. In order to succeed though, she would have to keep her personal feelings in check.

It didn’t help that communication with De Vakey was proving to be more difficult than she’d imagined. He might consider his skill an art, but he handled the evidence with the empiricism of a scientist, reluctant to formulate any theories without proof. He had been studying the case notes and watching the videos all night: she felt he must have reached some conclusions by now. But when she asked him questions he dodged like a politician. When she put forward her own ideas, he shot down her theories with the flamboyance of a TV prosecutor. One minute he seemed eager to make a connection with her, the next minute he would cut himself off and withdraw, his sparkling eyes becoming nothing but empty grey holes.

Stevie was a detective; she was paid to be curious. She spent most of her days and many of her nights seeking answers and solving puzzles. With a strange sense of unease she realised she was being drawn into the mystery of the profiler as much as the mystery of the case itself.

She watched as he pulled at his billowing overcoat, doing up the buttons as he walked from the photographer’s studio towards the bus stop. He came to a sudden stop and pivoted to his right, peering at something that looked like a bottle lying in a wall alcove. He produced a miniature cassette recorder from his coat pocket and started to speak into it. What was he saying? He put the recorder away and stooped. With his pen inserted into the neck he picked up the bottle, still clad in the brown paper bag in which it was sold. What was its significance? Could the killer have been standing in the alcove drinking, then grabbed Linda as she passed by?

De Vakey acknowledged Stevie with a heavy wave and approached the car with the bottle still on the end of his pen. He was pale and seemed sapped of energy. Despite the cold, a light sheen of sweat glimmered on his forehead.

‘What day’s rubbish collection here?’ he asked as she buzzed the car window down.

‘Tuesday.’

‘Street sweeping?’

‘Tuesday evening.’

‘Did SOCO search the scene?’

‘Of course.’

De Vakey nodded to the bottle. ‘This was in the wall alcove, tucked to the side. It could easily have been missed by SOCO, and the garbos.’

‘You’re a detective too?’

Undeterred, he continued to hold the bottle out to her.

It was her turn to play devil’s advocate. ‘Then again it could have been missed by the garbos for weeks in a row, or it could have been left there yesterday.’

‘True, but the light coating of dust and the absence of any insect life suggest it’s only been here a few days. Humour me?’ he said, raising an eyebrow.

She shrugged. ‘I guess there’s no harm examining it for prints.’

‘My feelings exactly.’

Stevie extracted an evidence bag from the glovebox and De Vakey dropped the bottle into it. She twisted around to place it in the back while he got into the passenger seat. He stretched the seatbelt across him then leaned forward and rested his head in his hands.

‘Are you okay, would you like some water?’ she asked him.

He sighed. ‘I’m fine, drive on.’

This sudden show of vulnerability surprised her and she paused before putting the key in the ignition. Bugger me, she thought. Perhaps he is human, after all.

***

Again Stevie was left in the car to observe as De Vakey walked the pristine courtyard fronting the bank where Linda’s body had been discovered. The stone tables and benches with their trendy conical umbrellas made this a lunchtime magnet for office staff in summertime, but now it was almost deserted. An old woman pushed a shopping trolley past De Vakey, head bent against the wind, her limbs struggling as if walking through mud. Behind the woman a silent curtain of water shimmered down from a ledge in the decorative wall without even making a splash. A group of straw-haired surfer youths entered the bank through the revolving doors, laughing. Monday’s horror was already forgotten.

Stevie watched as De Vakey craned his neck to look up the length of the tall building. Then he took the crime scene photos from the file he’d been clasping. They flapped in his hand as the wind threatened to tear them away. She resisted her instinct to rush out and help; again he’d made it quite clear that she wasn’t wanted.

He squatted and rested the photos on his knee, tapping at the top one with a finger. After identifying the bench on which the body had been posed, he straightened and walked towards it, stopped and stared at it for a moment, his lips moving in silent monologue as he stood where the killer had stood.

She shivered, not only from the cold that cut at her through the open window. As he made his way back from the bank and into the street where she was parked, he surveyed the parking bays and clearways.

‘What now?’ Stevie asked, noticing his returning pallor.

He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hands as if he trying to erase unpleasant images. ‘Now, we go and get some lunch,’ he said.

She waited for more. When he remained silent, she shrugged and turned the key in the ignition.

***

They sat in a faux English pub, at a table close to a roaring wood fire. He’d slid off his coat and hung it on the back of his chair. He was dressed less formally than yesterday, but his grey cord trousers and fine-knit turtleneck still spoke of understated elegance. Stevie regretted removing her bomber jacket, even though she was wearing her favourite blouse. She liked the casual look, but this was so casual it could qualify as comatose. Izzy had a habit of sitting on her knee and picking away at the bright appliqué designs and one was now peeling like old wallpaper.

She saw De Vakey looking at it and folded her arms, diverting his attention with a barrage of questions about the case, all of which he skilfully circumnavigated. It soon became evident that he would impart his information when, and only when, he was ready.

‘You’ve got a pretty small team working on such a high-profile case,’ he said. It seemed as if he was keener to discuss the team sent to catch the killer than the killer himself.

‘The people whose notes you read are just the primaries. We have access to other detectives and uniforms when the need arises.’

‘An elite team, no one under the rank of detective sergeant.’

She nodded, not sure where he was going with this.

‘I notice that you are often partnered with Angus Wong. What’s he like?’

‘Angus is a great guy and an excellent investigator. He told me once that his mother always wanted him to be a concert pianist—he’s very good, I’ve heard him play. She didn’t speak to him for years when he joined the force.’ She smiled; she liked Angus. There seemed no end to his patience, to his kindness, to his ability to accept people for what they were without prejudice. He never seemed to feel the need to prove himself to those who sought to find fault with him.

‘He’s a musician,’ De Vakey said. ‘That might explain his intuition. His character profile of the victim has been most helpful. The other two, Wayne Pickering and Barry Snow, also strike me as being very thorough. Pickering is obviously the dominant member of the partnership, not that Snow is a toady, he can clearly think for himself. I thought they were a bit heavy handed with their interview of the photographer, though.’

Funny, that came as no surprise. ‘You watched the video tape?’

‘Correct.’

‘What do you think? Could the photographer have done it? His wife backed him up, but in my experience you can never trust spouses.’

James De Vakey shook his head. ‘Too timid; we’re dealing with someone who is supremely confident, someone who is intelligent, who enjoys playing games and someone who, above, all needs to be in control.’

She felt herself flush, as if something in her subconscious had been pricked. She picked up her glass of water and took several gulps, seeing De Vakey’s wavy image through the water.

‘Is something bothering you, Stevie?’ he asked softly.

She put down her glass and bit at her bottom lip. Knowing her lies would be as transparent as the water she’d been looking through, she settled for the truth; some of it.

‘I find this case disturbing. I’ve never handled a murder like this before.’ There, she’d said it, and it had been surprisingly easy.

He looked back at her with an understanding that provoked in her a sudden urge to pour it all out. She clamped her jaw to stop herself.

‘Can that be because you see yourself as the victim?’ he asked.

Shit shit shit, she’d gone too far. This meeting was supposed to be about the case, not her. She scanned the table looking for a distraction, but the waiter hadn’t even left a menu for her to peruse. She cleared her throat, wishing she could erase that moment of honesty. ‘I’m sure any woman would. Hell, I’ve seen male detectives double up at the sight of assault victims with their balls kicked into their throats.’

He winced, but not without humour. Touché.

‘You were talking about the photographer,’ she reminded him.

Serious again, he hesitated before he answered, his intense grey eyes fixed on her face as if still dwelling upon what she’d said earlier. He’d let it drop this time, but she knew he’d stored it away for future use.

He said, ‘The fact that the photographer has to rely on his wife to pick him up from work is enough to eliminate him as a suspect, not to mention his nervous disposition.’

Stevie forced herself to think back to the small, grey photographer and his nervous twitch. ‘That makes sense.’ And then, ‘Did you watch the interviews with the bank security guards? What do you think of them?’

De Vakey thought for a moment. ‘I take it the surveillance footage has been analysed?’

‘The AV guys say that the cameras in the bank’s front lobby didn’t show anything unusual. Cameras are positioned at all the exits. If the guards had left the bank that night it would have been on tape. The camera on the outside is a different story. It doesn’t cover the bench where the body was found, but someone approaching it would have been caught on screen. It appears to have been covered up with something. There’s about five minutes of blank footage, where they think a cloth was thrown over the camera. Then there’s another glitch a couple of hours later. We think that must be when he came back to remove the props from her stiffened body.’

‘Have you considered polygraphing the guards?’

‘Should we still be regarding them as suspects?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Explain, please.’

‘Before you leave, I’ll give you a rough list of what I have so far, but I want to point out that nothing is canon, my profiling is still only at its most preliminary stage. I’d like you to discuss my list with Monty and maybe it will give you something to get started with.’ He paused and turned towards the fire, looking pensive.

Stevie braced herself, hoping this wasn’t leading back to her again. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m not usually called in this early in an investigation. My specialty is serial killers. The police tend to call me in after a series of similar crimes.’ He looked back at her. ‘Is there something about this case I haven’t been told?’

She felt flustered, more for Monty than herself this time. ‘Well, it’s really not my place...’

‘Monty feels that this killer has struck before, doesn’t he? At the press conference I heard mention of the Kings Park murders. I followed them closely at the time, was surprised not to be called in. I’d like to know what’s going on.’

Stevie let out a breath. ‘Politics, I’m afraid.’

‘I see,’ he nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’ll arrange a meeting with Monty tomorrow. It’s important I’m told everything.’

She agreed, glad to pass the buck. ‘It’s something you really need to hear from him.’ She climbed to her feet. ‘What’ll you have to drink?’

‘Very convenient, I was just getting on to you and Monty.’ The tease that had been absent for most of the morning was back in his voice.

‘You have to get your drinks from the bar here. I’m getting an orange juice. What can I get for you?’

De Vakey smiled. ‘I’ll have champagne, but allow me.’ He moved for his wallet. Stevie stopped him with a raised hand. ‘I like to buy my share of the drinks, thanks all the same.’

She returned to find the lunch they’d ordered had arrived. De Vakey said he didn’t wish to discuss the case when he was eating, it interfered with his digestion.

Shit, they were going to be here all day.

She watched him prepare his meal for eating. First he put the napkin on his knee, then helped himself to salt and pepper after offering it to her first. Then he turned his plate until the meal was balanced to its aesthetic, symmetrical best. Each bite was slowly savoured and alternated with sips of iced champagne.

She shovelled down a mouthful of local snapper and salad, risking a glance at her watch as she chewed.

‘I’m sorry, am I keeping you?’ he said.

‘Oh no, I still have plenty of time. I promised my daughter I’d be home early today, that’s all.’

‘And what time does her father get home?’ he said, carving off a piece of bleu steak.

Now she was trapped. The rare meat quivered on his fork as if its synapses were still firing. Deciding that the truth would give him less to work with than a hedge, she said, ‘Actually, her father and I split up not long after I discovered I was pregnant.’

‘I’m sorry. It must be hard for you.’

She shrugged off the unwanted sympathy. ‘My mother lives down the road. She’s a big help and has a lot of time on her hands since my dad died.’

‘And, of course, you have Monty.’

The warmth spread from her neck and heated up her words. ‘If you’re trying to imply that Monty and I are anything other than old friends, you obviously aren’t as good at reading people as you like to think.’

De Vakey raised his hands in surrender, but the butterflies in her stomach told her it was she who’d lost the battle.

It is of vital importance that the investigating officers have some form of emotional release. Those without supportive families must have a life outside their work through which they can relax. An officer with no outside interests is well on the way to burn out.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie and De Vakey headed back to his hotel in the unmarked Commodore. They were passing through the Polly Pipe when he said, ‘Continue on the freeway past the old power station, it’ll probably be quickest.’

She shot him an irritated glance. The orange tunnel lights flicked across his face, striping it with light and shadow. ‘Know Perth well, do you?’

‘I grew up here. Still come over whenever I can for private consults. I’d live here if I had the choice, but unfortunately most of my work’s in the eastern states.’

Stevie masked her surprise; it was hard to imagine such a smooth, urbane man as this being at home anywhere but in a large cosmopolitan city. ‘Would you rather drive?’

‘No.’ And then, ‘Sorry, I’ve been back-seat driving haven’t I?’

She pulled a face. ‘I wouldn’t have let you drive even if you’d said yes.’

‘Ah, but you would have liked me to say yes. It would have given you the opportunity to put me in my place.’

‘Got it in one,’ she said, smiling at last. ‘So, what kind of private work do you do when you’re over here?’

He turned away from her to look through the side window. ‘Seminars mainly.’

Out of the tunnel, they saw the river, its surface under the gloomy sky grey as wrinkled as elephant’s skin. The dilapidated power station loomed amidst a tangle of wires. ‘I see they still haven’t made up their minds about what to do with that old place,’ he said.

‘It’s stirring up quite a controversy.’

‘And how do you feel about it?’

‘I don’t feel anything.’

‘Is that because you’re not originally from here?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ After a pause her curiosity got the better of her. ‘How do you know I’m not from Perth?’

‘Your accent for a start. You’re a country girl.’

Any minute now she expected him to comment on how out of place she seemed, that she was like a hayseed blown to the city on a warm wind.

For his sake, she was glad he didn’t.

She dropped him off at his hotel and wound her way through the afternoon traffic to her home in Maylands, one of the older suburbs. Hers was the most ramshackle house in the street—the price she’d paid was more or less block value only. Her father had insisted upon the purchase and given her the money for it—they’d done well from the sale of the family station. He’d said he wanted to see her settled before he died, said she’d get a lot of satisfaction doing the place up. And perhaps she would have if her circumstances had been different, if the challenge of day-to-day survival hadn’t proved so hard. Several years later the roof still leaked, the stumps were still supported by jacks and a recent storm had left one rusty gutter dangling like a withered vine.

She opened her front door to be almost knocked flat by her whirlwind of a daughter.

‘Mummy, Mummy you’re just in time for Playschool ! It’s on now, come on!’ A sticky little hand grabbed hers before she’d even had a chance to kick off her shoes.

At the same time her mother appeared from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a chocolate-splattered apron, and launched into the day’s news as if any delay might cause her to forget something.

‘The teacher sent a permission slip home today for the zoo excursion next week. It’s all signed. I also put my name down to help with the busy bee on Saturday. They’ve started work on the new playground. We were hoping to get the cubbyhouse painted...’

‘Great...’

‘And I bought Izzy a new lunchbox, the one you bought her was ridiculously small.’

‘I thought it was fine. How was the parents’ assembly?’

‘It couldn’t even hold two pieces of fruit.’

‘But she never eats two pieces of fruit.’

‘She was very disappointed you couldn’t make it.’

‘C’mon Mummy, it’s starting!’ Izzy yelled from the lounge room.

Tied by each arm to galloping horses was not an unreasonable comparison. Just as Stevie felt herself begin to split, Dot said, ‘Izzy, let Mummy have a cup of tea with me in the kitchen first, then she’ll sit with you and watch Saddle Club.’

Izzy looked from Stevie to the firm expression on her nanna’s face, a look that used to have the most hardened jackeroos jumping for cover. The chocolate-covered mouth turned down with a synchronised whine of protest and Izzy stomped back into the living room.

Stevie swiped her hair from her eyes, secured her ponytail. ‘Thanks Mum, it’s been quite a day.’

Dot Hooper regarded her daughter’s bomber jacket. ‘Well, I’m just glad you got rid of that old bike. I wouldn’t have wanted you riding in this weather.’

‘I’m not stupid; I would never have ridden in this. I don’t think I’d have had the energy to start it, let alone stay on it.’

The whistle of the kettle lured them into what the real estate agent had called the ‘Magnificent potential of the authentic 1950s kitchen,’ where they made tea and sat down at the table.

With the first mouthful of homemade brownie, Stevie tasted childhood: afternoon tea in the hayshed with her brothers and sometimes Monty, School of the Air, bare feet, red dirt, spinifex and bull ants.

Her mother had drifted into a similar train of thought. ‘Do you remember how much your father loved my chocolate brownies? Once, when he was expecting them for afternoon tea, I ran out of cocoa and had to make Anzacs instead. I think I can honestly say that was one of the few times he’d ever shown unjustifiable anger.’

‘That wasn’t long after he got the diagnosis, Mum. That was probably the real reason for his anger,’ Stevie said softly.

A sombre silence ensued. This had to stop, their memories were dragging them both down.

She often resented her mother’s intrusions into her life, but now she was grateful to have a change of subject at her fingertips. ‘Did I tell you I was spending the day with that profiler guy?’

Dot looked up, smiled, well aware of Stevie’s tactics. ‘Go on.’

Stevie looked across the kitchen table at her mother and ran a thoughtful hand across her chin. ‘Perhaps I’d better not. It’s confidential.’

‘I know what you’re trying to do. I’m not going to beg, I have plenty of my own business to keep me occupied.’

‘Okay, you want to know what De Vakey’s like? He’s an arrogant prick, but I think Monty did the right thing bringing him in after all. He’s going to be a big help.’

‘They’re all arrogant pricks, according to you. What does he look like?’

Stevie took a sip of tea. ‘Late forties, tall, slim, rich, sophisticated: George Clooney’s older brother with a dash of Mr Darcy.’

Her mother raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps you should introduce us? He sounds too old for you.’

‘And lose my babysitter? No way.’

‘Seriously Stevie, I don’t think I could cope with any more grandchildren just now. Please be careful.’

‘Just because I said the man is good looking doesn’t mean I’m going to go leaping into bed with him—you’re too much sometimes, you know that? And even if I did find him attractive, it wouldn’t be ethical. We’re working a case together, for God’s sake.’

‘Are you back on the pill? It wouldn’t surprise me, you’ve been so moody.’

‘No, I’m not back on the pill.’ No one to be on the pill for, she thought.

Unable to meet her mother’s eyes, her attention strayed to the kitchen dresser. On it rested a framed photo of herself at seventeen, no more than a hazy blur through a dust cloud, clinging to the back of the notorious rodeo bull Kung Moo Fighting. The whole glorious event had lasted 3.7 seconds.

‘The pill sends your hormones all over the place,’ Dot continued in the knowing tone she always used when discussing medical issues. When she was little, Stevie’s dad would refer to her as Doctor Mum. He said she’d obtained her medical degree from the Reader’s Digest Book of Medicine.

‘Don’t look so horrified, Stephanie,’ Dot said. ‘I’m your mother. My role in life is to say things to you that no one else would dare. Of course there’s always St John’s wort, we had a lecture on it the other day at TAFE. It has all sorts of benefits for hormonal anxiety; doctors in Germany prescribe it as an alternative to Prozac. I’m not sure if you should take it with the pill, though...’

‘You know damn well I can’t take it with the pill. You gave it to me before, remember, and look what happened, it buggered up everything!’

‘Even so, some things are meant to be. There hasn’t been one moment, I know, when you’ve regretted having Izzy.’

Stevie had to agree with her there, but while Dot continued on her tangent of herbal remedies, her mind drifted. She’d been meaning to tell her about the phone call from Tye yesterday, how he wanted a meeting to discuss custody issues, but decided to leave it for the moment. She didn’t want to upset Dot’s mood when she’d only just managed to lift it, or her own for that matter.

The crystal sphere on her mother’s ring caught the light from the kitchen window, casting multicoloured spots on the table. When she gesticulated to add emphasis to a particular snippet of wisdom, the spots slid across the rough pine table as if it had been tilted. Stevie couldn’t take her eyes off them and fell into an almost meditative state, her mother’s speech falling away until it was no more than background interference.

Dot raised her voice. ‘I made a shepherd’s pie for your tea.’

Stevie blinked and somehow pulled herself back. ‘That’s great, thanks. Izzy can have some and I’ll freeze the rest. Monty’s coming over later so we can go over some notes, he’s bringing takeaway with him.’ She swallowed the last of her tea and climbed to her feet, helping carry the tea things to the sink.

Dot turned on the tap. ‘Oh, give him my love,’ she said, loud above the sound of the rattling water pipes. ‘I haven’t seen him for ages. Is he all right?’

‘He’s pretty stressed. I think all the office politics are getting to him.’

‘He handled the press conference well, put Michelle in her place.’

Stevie’s smile hid her concern. She knew Monty believed some of his ex-wife’s allegations, but how he would handle them without wrecking his career remained to be seen.

Dot washed the last cup. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, then. You make sure you get an early night, you look exhausted.’

***

Stevie awoke to the tickle of little starfish fingers across her face and sweet breath on her cheek. She’d been having a dreamless sleep, the most solid she’d had since the discovery of Royce’s body.

‘Mummy? Wake up, it’s time,’ Izzy whispered.

Stevie pulled herself into a sitting position on the couch. ‘Oh my, what time is it?’ she said, rubbing her eyes and looking at her watch.

‘It’s thirteen o’clock.’

‘Shh ... ugar. Uncle Monty will be here any minute.’

Her daughter’s face crumpled.

‘What’s the matter?’ Stevie asked.

‘You said I could stay up and see Uncle Monty if I was ready for bed when he got here.’

‘Well, let’s get you in the bath and into your jammies, spit spot. Maybe he’ll read your bedtime story when he arrives.’

In the bath, out of the bath, and the doorbell rang just as she’d finished yanking the pyjama pants over Izzy’s damp legs.

‘Uncle Silly, Uncle Silly!’ Izzy splashed through the sudsy puddles of the bathroom floor, whirling down the jarrah passage to the front door.

Monty shoved the takeaway bags at Stevie before scooping Izzy into his arms and swinging her low. ‘I’m not your Uncle Silly, I’m your Uncle Smarty Pants!’ he said, hauling her back up and holding her high towards the chipped ceiling rose.

‘No you’re not. You’re Uncle Silly. Even Mummy says that’s your name!’

‘Oh she does, does she? I think we’ll have to start calling her Mrs Fusspot—what do you think?’

Izzy began to twist vigorously in Monty’s outstretched arms until Stevie worried he might drop her. ‘Okay now, that’s enough. Calm down before it ends in tears,’ she said.

‘Yes Mummy,’ Monty said in a falsetto voice. Izzy jiggled harder, kicking out at his chest.

Stevie spoke to him through gritted teeth. ‘You stir her up and you can put her to bed. I’ll go and reheat the Chinese.’

Monty reappeared half an hour later, looking the worse for wear. ‘Have you ever heard of the Three Bears triggering posttraumatic stress syndrome?’ he said.

‘I think I’m hearing about it now.’

‘I’m cold and clammy, my heart is racing and I want to run away.’ He sniffed the air. ‘But I think I’ll stay and eat first.’

Stevie began to unload the Chinese from the oven while Monty laid the table and filled her in on Wayne’s meeting with the hobby shop man. Stevie almost dropped the food when he mentioned the purchase of the extra paint, splashing her hand with scalding sauce.

‘Shit.’ She slammed the foil container onto the table and sucked her hand.

‘Here, put it under the cold tap,’ Monty said, turning it on for her.

‘He’s going to kill again.’

‘No he’s not, we’re going to stop him.’

The cold water soothed her burning skin and she regained her composure. ‘Not without help we’re not,’ she said. ‘How was your meeting with Baggly?’

They sat down at the table. Monty pushed a dish of food towards her and handed her a spoon. ‘About as enjoyable as a nosebleed; he won’t let me reopen the KP case, says the budget won’t take it.’

Stevie had just taken a mouthful from the serving spoon and couldn’t speak. She held up her hand. Monty smiled and waited for her to swallow. Finally she said, ‘De Vakey thinks this guy has killed before. He said the whole operation’s far too slick for a novice. He asked me about the KP murders but I said it was sensitive, that he’d have to discuss the cases with you.’

Monty clicked his fingers. ‘I knew it. This deserves a celebratory drink.’ He went to the fridge, took out beer and tomato juice.

They clinked glasses. Monty said, ‘I’ve got the files in my car. I’ll be going through them with a fine toothcomb when I get home.’ He rubbed his hands together and grinned, his tongue darting towards his lower lip. It was a quaint habit he reserved for deep contemplation or excitement. ‘Now, tell me what else De Vakey said.’

‘At first it was like getting blood from a stone. He was reluctant to make anything canon, especially when he had nothing else to compare it to.’

‘We’ll soon change that.’ Monty dipped his spring roll into the sauce and took a bite.

Stevie reached into her back pocket for De Vakey’s list. ‘He’s pretty confident about certain facts though, and wrote me out a rough list to give you.’

‘My glasses are in my case. You read it to me.’

She washed some chicken and almonds down with another swallow of beer. ‘Okay, feel free to interrupt if you don’t understand anything.’

Monty nodded. ‘Go on.’

‘First, the perpetrator has killed before. Next, De Vakey says our guy has a high IQ and is supremely confident. The planting of the commissioner’s hair can be seen as a direct challenge to the police, the gauntlet has been thrown. The Easeful Death message is meant to confuse and may mean nothing at all. The thrill for him is the game he has set up with the police more than the actual crime itself. James...’

Monty looked at her across a mountain of rice. ‘James?’

‘Yes, James—he said first names, remember? James says he’s never known a serial killer who’s not suffered from some kind of serious sexual maladjustment and is puzzled about the absence of rape in this case. He thinks maybe the killer is on some kind of control trip and sees holding himself back until later as part of the challenge.

‘The crime itself is all about domination, manipulation and control, more so of the police than the victim herself. The posing of the body is this guy’s signature. James is sure he’s committed crimes of a similar nature before, though perhaps not as sophisticated as this.’

Monty opened his mouth as if to speak, but seemed to think better of it. She knew his mind was on the KP files, but he wouldn’t pass further comment until he had verified certain facts for himself.

‘We’re looking for a man with an average to large build,’ she continued. ‘Strangulation requires upper-body strength, especially the kind capable of cracking the hyoid bone as indicated by the Royce autopsy.’

‘Possible age?’

‘Twenty to forty.’

‘The super’s going to love that.’

‘He can’t narrow it down until we have proof of his other crimes. A young man with a lot of experience can have the same level of sophistication as an older, less experienced killer.’

‘Fair enough. Anything else?’

‘The homicidal triad.’

‘Bed-wetting, arson, cruelty to animals?’

‘Cruelty to animals and/or smaller children; he may also have been a bully at school.’

‘Want any more rice?’

Stevie shook her head.

Monty piled a second helping onto his plate and mashed it in with the remaining sauce.

‘He’s cold, controlled and calculating,’ Stevie continued, ‘and above all he has a tremendous grudge against the police. He also has a great deal of insider knowledge. Could be an excop, a wannabe cop whose application was turned down, or even a serving cop. Anyone who has a close association with the police, really.’

Stevie began to scrape the leftovers into a single bowl.

‘Weren’t the security guards ex-cops?’ Monty asked after some thought.

‘Yes, but James is sure that a single individual committed this murder. Besides, the guards confirm each other’s stories.’

‘But that doesn’t mean one hasn’t paid the other off. I still want you to have another look at them. Go into their personal histories this time.’

‘James suggested polygraphing them.’

‘Arrange it, then.’

‘Okay, I’ll set it up.’

‘Does De Vakey think this guy’s only targeting women?’

‘He says women are definitely part of the equation. If not he probably wouldn’t have taken such care with the provocative posing. This man probably had a domineering mother who made him feel inferior.’

‘So this is a double whammy: grudge against the police and a grudge against women?’

‘Yes,’ she said, scrutinising the list further. ‘Oh and here are some more gems for you to take as you will. He drives a dark van that he keeps meticulously clean, and he might own a German shepherd.’

Monty looked incredulous. ‘You’re pulling my leg.’

‘It makes sense when you think about it. Apparently compulsive individuals are attracted to dark cars. This was a compulsively neat crime. The van would be clean and tidy, so would his home. If you remember, we did discuss the van at this morning’s brainstorming session. It would be a sensible way to transport the body.’

‘The dog?’

‘Many of these guys are wannabe cops,’ Stevie shrugged. ‘A German shepherd is a classic police dog.’

Monty rinsed their plates at the kitchen sink. ‘So what’s next?’

‘James is going back to the crime scenes tonight. He wants to be alone, to feel the vibes, listen to the spirits talking.’

Monty’s face fell. ‘I thought he had you convinced? He’s certainly given us something to work on, you have to admit that.’

‘I’m just stirring. I think bringing him in now was the right thing to do. He’s just a little...’ she shrugged, ‘I don’t really know, odd I guess. One minute he’s cold and unfeeling, the next he’s quite personable. I have no idea how he’s going to behave from one moment to the next.’

‘If he couldn’t detach, he’d probably go mad,’ Monty said, wiping his hands on a tea towel.

‘Or be lured to the dark side,’ Stevie let out an evil laugh.

Monty flicked the tea towel at her. ‘I’d better be going.’

‘Thanks for bringing dinner.’

He bent down and offered his cheek for a chaste kiss. ‘Security guards tomorrow?’

Stevie gave him the thumbs up. ‘Got it.’

‘Good.’

She heard Monty’s car leave the curb, the headlights a soft glow through the fabric of the Bambi curtains as she pulled the covers over Izzy’s shoulders. Toys thrown back in the toy basket, Izzy’s favourite pink and mauve tracksuit ready on the chair for tomorrow and now some time for herself. She moved into her own bedroom, climbed onto a chair and heaved a box from the top of the wardrobe and placed it on the bed. Undoing her ponytail she shook her hair loose. There had been moments during the day when she had been almost torn apart by her own anxieties, but the food and the company tonight had worked, and it had ended well. With a small sigh of satisfaction, she ran her fingers through her hair and contemplated her DVD collection.

The victims will share common characteristics. The killer needs to choose a type that will help him re-enact his own unique fantasies.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

With a stack of lever arch files in his arms, Monty took the concrete steps up to his flat two at a time. At his front door he discovered a note jammed in the flyscreen and juggled with files and keys to extract it. It was from Mrs Nash, his neighbour. In her italic script she explained how she’d used his spare key to open his flat for a plumber who needed access to work on an emergency in the flat below, but there was nothing to worry about now, all was fixed.

His cop’s antenna was twitching. On entering he made a cursory inspection of his Spartan accommodation, relieved to see that nothing appeared to have been touched: the TV was still there, the sofa and his books—what more did a bloke need?

He dumped the files on the coffee table and rubbed his hands. A heater might be a good addition, he thought as he filled the kettle, the place was like an igloo. But at least it was clean, thanks to his cleaning lady.

While waiting for the kettle to boil he fed Mulder and Scully, the goldfish the squad had given him for his birthday in May. He made smacking noises with his mouth as he watched them dart and splash their way to the food through green-tinged water, promising to clean them out as soon as he’d finished with the load of files.

Coffee made, he settled onto the sofa to refresh his memory of the Park Killer murders. He flicked open the file of the first victim, nineteen-year-old prostitute Kitty Bonilla. Her body had been discovered at first light by a gardener. She was posed on a park bench, naked from the waist down with an empty beer bottle rammed into her vagina. The cause of death was strangulation, the violation occurring after her death. Toxicology tests showed high levels of Rohypnol in her system. Scuffmarks in the dirt around the bench suggested that the murder could have occurred nearby, but no footprints could be isolated because of the sandy texture of the dirt. Her long dark hair had been hacked off and it was assumed the killer took it with him for a trophy.

Monty knew about the posing, but the hacked hair was news to him. Perhaps it was something the investigating officers had wanted to keep from the media. Linda Royce’s head had also been shaved. The similarities were close enough to indicate a link. His pulse quickened.

He turned to the index at the front of the file and traced a finger down the alphabetical listings until he came to the material evidence section. Some strands of long dark hair that matched the victim’s were found at the scene. A shorter hair that did not belong to the victim had also been indexed, along with the bottle and clothing.

Monty checked through it again to make sure he hadn’t misread the notes and then riffled through the pages until he found the lab report. A DNA test had been carried out on the foreign hair’s skin tag, but the results had not been tabled. A side note said, ‘It is to be concluded that the second, unidentified hair sample was a contaminant from the previous occupant of the used body bag, present due to insufficient cleaning by the coronial staff. Disciplinary action has been taken.’

Inspector Peter Sbresni, the lead detective in the investigation, had signed the note.

Monty remembered the gossip about the sacking of the lead detective. The grapevine had suggested it involved missing evidence, though Monty couldn’t recall hearing anything about hair contamination. His eyes drifted over to the fishbowl on the breakfast bar. Mulder was sticking his nose against the glass, gazing out at him with googly eyes.

‘What do you reckon, Mulder, mate? Is the truth still out there?’

Monty stared at the list again, lingering over the clothing and personal effects heading. Red and black lace panties found beside body, black stockings and suspenders found near body, denim miniskirt found near body, red and black bra on victim, white silk blouse on victim.

After staring at the list for several moments he realised what was missing. Jewellery. He’d never known a working girl to go out with less ornamentation than a Christmas tree, but none was listed here. How could any experienced dee not notice this anomaly? Christ, he hadn’t worked Vice for years and even he’d noticed. Could the jewellery as well as the victim’s hair have been taken for trophies? Was this just another of the investigating officers’ negligent omissions?

His finger traced the list of officers’ names. A combined task force of Vice and SCS officers had been involved in the interviews. The names of the two detectives who’d conducted the initial interviews weren’t familiar and he wrote them in his notebook to follow up. He wondered if Tye Davis had also been involved, but found no mention of his name. This must have been about the time Stevie had blown the whistle on him; perhaps he had already been dismissed.

Monty tapped his teeth with his pen and contemplated calling Michelle. She’d feasted on the details of Tye’s sacking and written a scathing report for the local paper, demanding that he be jailed. But the evidence against him had proved too slim for a conviction and after his dismissal he’d escaped up north to work on the mines.

His mind flew to the scene at the Excalibur yesterday. Michelle had hinted she knew a lot more about the KP murders than she chose to reveal—what the hell did she know that he didn’t?

Thinking he might give her a ring he looked at his wrist only to remember that he’d left his watch on his desk at Central. The glowing green of the VCR clock said it was ten already. Damn, Michelle would be asleep. She was an early riser, so many exercise regimes to get through before work; he could almost hear her martyr’s sigh.

Ah, Michelle, fastidious to a fault, how it pained you to live with me—

Monty you drink too much.

Monty you smell like an ashtray.

You’re putting on weight.

You can’t wear that shirt again; you’ve already worn it twice this week.

He hadn’t cared about all that so much, but he’d drawn the line at mandatory condoms on clean sheet nights.

He scowled and headed towards the fridge , ripped off a can from the six-pack of beer and selected a crystal pilsner glass from his cupboard of mostly recycled honey jars. The expensive glass was one of the few souvenirs he’d kept from his marriage, one of a set of six. He’d only taken the one, knowing how a set of five would irritate Michelle. She’d probably tossed the others; she tended to do that with things that weren’t symmetrical, things that didn’t match or fit into her perfectly ordered life.

He poured the beer slowly, lost for the moment in the rising bubbles and the soft fizz, breathing in the scent of hops until he had to tear himself away. It was good to know he could still resist it, but maybe he was taking the control exercise too far. He put the glass down and reached into the fridge for a carton of tomato juice, poured some into an empty honey jar and sprinkled it with ground chillies.

Back on the sofa he lit up, inhaled and tried to blow his bitterness away with the grey cloud. Close eyes, count to ten, open. After a while he was able to turn his attention back to the files on the coffee table.

Kitty Bonilla’s face stared back at him with the complexion of a freshly pulled beetroot—even the tufts of hacked hair resembled wispy roots. He checked her small ears and saw the peppering of empty holes.

He looked carefully at the anterior, posterior and lateral shots of the body, unable to see evidence of anything written on the victim. No Easeful Death on this body.

Turning to the witness section, the gardener’s statement told him little. There was slightly more in the statements of a young couple who’d parked at a lookout near the bench on the night of the murder. They’d claimed that a late model, dark-coloured Commodore had driven past them several times while they were busy finding romance on the back seat of their car. Thinking it was a peeping tom, they’d relocated their horizontal acrobatics to the other side of the park. The police, it seemed, had been unable to go further with this lead.

Two other people had come forward, co-workers of Kitty Bonilla. The women said they had seen Bonilla arguing with a man on a Northbridge street corner on the night of her death and that he’d driven off angrily in an old VW beetle.

Monty paused and rubbed his chin. Easing out of his sofa, he went over to his bookshelf and removed a copy of one of De Vakey’s paperbacks. It didn’t take long to find the index entry he was after and soon his eyes were scanning the print until they locked onto the letters VW.

He read aloud. ‘Statistics recorded in the seventies and eighties show the VW to be the preferred vehicle of the serial killer.’ I’ll bet Volkswagen weren’t too pleased with that news, he thought. He shook his head at the absurdity and settled back onto his sofa to continue his reading.

The girls had wondered why their friend would turn down a customer and when they’d asked, Kitty told them that the man had a badly managed colostomy bag. She’d serviced him before and found him repulsive, didn’t think she could cope again.

Monty wrinkled his nose. Poor guy.

The man was identified as Reece Harper, owner of a VW beetle, later the prime suspect in both murders.

Wondering about Harper’s alibi, Monty turned to the section where it should have been and found two pages missing. Must have been put in the wrong place, he thought, working his way from one file to the other.

The search proved fruitless. He became aware of a cold feeling in his chest. Contaminated evidence was bad enough, but deliberately removed documents? That was something else. Michelle’s allegations of a cover-up were looking more likely by the minute. All he could do now was hope to find the relevant information on the computer database. Once information had been transferred from hard copy to the computer it was almost impossible to erase. The only way it wouldn’t be there was if it had never been entered in the first place.

He pushed aside his glasses for a moment and rubbed his eyes, aware of how tired he’d become. He resolved to go back to the Bonilla file in the morning with fresh eyes.

Unable to call it a night though, he turned to the file of the second victim, twenty-one year old prostitute Lorna Dunn. She was found near the Pioneer Women’s memorial by an old man out for an early morning stroll. She’d been stripped naked and posed provocatively under a tree. She too had been violated post mortem by a bottle and had a large amount of Rohypnol in her system. Her hair had also been hacked. Some hair was found at the site, but no fibres, no prints and no foreign DNA. There was no documented evidence of anything written on her body and no jewellery listed among her personal effects.

Her estranged father was serving ten years in prison for armed robbery and had not been interviewed by police at all. Her alcoholic mother had known very little about her daughter’s lifestyle, but an unnamed streetwalker friend had told police that Lorna Dunn had turned a client down earlier that evening.

Monty paused and sucked his pen. Why wasn’t the friend named? Was this another blunder or a deliberate omission?

He shook his head in exasperation when he saw that the nameless woman had identified Lorna’s rejected client as Reece Harper.

Not having enough evidence to charge Harper, police had instigated round-the-clock surveillance. Reece Harper died in a car accident three months later and the case was officially closed.

The ringing phone broke into his reading and he hauled himself to his feet, swaying with exhaustion. He really should be calling it a night.

‘Monty.’ It was Wayne. ‘Sorry to call so late, but I thought you’d want to know the latest.’

‘Go for it.’

‘I ran a background check on the hobby shop guy, Thompson, like you said. I also spoke to his boss and it looks like we can rely on him.’ Wayne’s voice on the end of the phone was obscured by background noise.

‘Wayne, I can hardly hear you,’ Monty said. ‘Where are you and what the hell’s that racket?’

‘I’m back at Central, sorry, the cleaner’s vacuuming the incident room. Wait a minute, he’s in your office now.’ Monty heard a bang as the door was kicked closed. ‘Is that better?’

‘Much. So I suppose it’s too much to hope that the man paid for the paint with his credit card.’

‘Jeez, aren’t you the optimist.’

‘The guy’s smart, but even the smart ones slip up sometimes,’ Monty said.

‘True. The hobby shop man, Thompson, ended up being very helpful, we went through it again with him, but he hasn’t remembered anything new. I organised a session with the artist and we now have a composite sketch. Problem is, the guy was wearing a baseball cap and dark glasses. Thompson said it was the glasses that made him memorable—it wasn’t exactly sunglass weather.’

‘What about the paint?’

‘He gave me a sample of bronze from the batch he sold to our mystery man. I’ve dropped it to the lab but it’ll be a few days before they can tell us if it’s the same stuff on Linda Royce.’

‘I’ve a hunch it’ll match. I’ve been looking at the KP files; I’m convinced we’re looking at the same perpetrator.’

There was a beat of silence from the other end of the phone. ‘We’ve been told to drop that—you after an early retirement?’

‘If that’s what it takes.’ Monty decided to keep his discovery of the missing documents from Wayne for the moment. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions until he’d checked the computer records for himself.

Wayne’s sigh came through the line as a hiss. ‘I don’t understand Baggly’s attitude at all. If it’s the press he’s worried about, he’s just going to get himself into deeper shit.’

‘I’m hoping De Vakey will help me show Baggly the light. If not I’ll have to go higher up the food chain. There are just too many similarities between the Royce murder and the KP killings to ignore a connection.’

‘I’m glad to be able to leave the politics to you.’

‘Thanks.’ Monty sighed and rubbed his forehead. ‘How about Angus and the taxis?’

‘Nothing yet. No trace on the roofies and no chloroform listed as stolen.’

‘I want someone on the police personnel records. De Vakey seems to think a disgruntled ex-cop might be behind this. Check out all the dismissals over, say, the last five years.’

‘Well, I suppose there’s no harm giving it a go. See you in the morning, yeah?’ But Wayne didn’t put the phone down; there was something else on his mind. ‘Umm, Mont.’

‘Mm?’

A beat. ‘Did you know Tye Davis is in town?’

Monty said nothing. A pulse began to throb in his temple. He put his fingers to it and tried to soothe it away. So what if Tye Davis was back in town? There was no reason why he wouldn’t return to the city. But it was strange how Tye’s name had sprung to mind when he was reading about the KP murders, and stranger still how Wayne should bring him up at this stage in their conversation.

‘I think he might be out to make trouble for Stevie. He mentioned something about the kid. After custody, I reckon,’ Wayne said.

Monty felt the blood drain from his face. Almost overwhelmed with dizziness he slumped against the wall. ‘That can’t happen,’ he said to himself. Or thought he had.

‘What was that? Are you okay?’ Wayne asked.

‘Yeah, I’m just tired.’ Monty rubbed his face. ‘I want Tye on top of your list of disgruntled cops. Check him out, find out where he was when Linda Royce was murdered.’

‘Surely you don’t think—’

‘Just do it.’

When Monty replaced the receiver his head was swimming.

Back on the sofa he took a large slug of juice. He had to put his feelings aside, be objective about this, look at nothing but the facts of the case and not let his judgement be tainted with the odour of Tye Davis.

Rohypnol and chloroform had been found in Linda Royce’s system, but only Rohypnol had been found in the prostitutes, most likely dissolved in an alcoholic drink. This made sense. The prostitutes were willing participants, to a degree. The offender would have had no problem getting them to share a drink with him—maybe it was while they were sitting on the bench in the park. The date rape drug wasn’t as common then as it was now and the girls may not have been so wary.

Linda Royce, though, had not been picking up tricks in a park; she had not been such an easy target. He must have knocked her out with chloroform in the street first before taking her away to his secluded spot and making her drink the drugged cocktail.

He opened his notebook and began to jot down the similarities between the two old cases. Once he had these listed, he would compare them to the Linda Royce case. His finger traced a snake through the condensation on the beer glass as he organised his thoughts. Under the heading ‘similarities’ he wrote:

Bodies found in same location

Same profession of victims

Same drugs in their systems

Violation and posing of victims after death

All had long hair, hacked off

No jewellery

No DNA evidence except for questionable hairs on first victim

No evidence of sexual intercourse

Under ‘differences’ he listed:

Kitty Bonilla semi naked

Lorna Dunn totally naked

Kitty Bonilla small, dark hair, part Aboriginal

Lorna Dunn tall, red hair, Caucasian

He needed another cigarette, but the thought of having to reach for one and light up was suddenly too much of an effort. Concentrate. Physically the women were at opposite ends of the colour spectrum. Adding the blond Linda Royce to the pot only increased his confusion. Was this the killer’s intent? Was it all part of the game De Vakey had explained to Stevie?

He wrote: Blue Commodore seen at the first crime site. Didn’t Wayne just mention a blue Commodore in the Royce case? He would return to that tomorrow. For the moment he wanted to keep the old and the new cases separate.

Back to the KP murders: No sign of a VW at either site.

He looked back at the beer. His tongue flicked at his bottom lip. Back to his notebook, things to follow up:

Peter Sbresni

Unnamed prostitute

Check database for missing documents

Monty’s hand grazed the cool of the beer glass once more. He ran his finger around its edge, straining to hear the answers it might sing.

friday

A scene that is staged for the police or for any other unfortunate person who might come across the body is often the result of the killer’s perverse desire to entertain.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie was asleep when she got the phone call. She didn’t have time to drop Izzy at her mother’s, nor did Dot have time to change. Three minutes after Stevie’s frantic plea, Dot was on the doorstep in her dressing-gown and slippers and Stevie was hurrying out to the Commodore, no more than a blurry outline in the grey dawn light.

She picked Angus up on the way and they raced in the unmarked to the latest crime scene, their flashing blue light scorching through the early morning commuters like an oxy-torch through steel plate. Taking her eyes off the road for a moment, she risked a glance at Angus, his string of expletives indicating he still hadn’t got through to Monty. She felt herself tense, her knuckles becoming white marbles on the steering wheel.

‘Last try,’ Angus said, punching at the phone’s redial button.

About to express her concern, he held up his hand to silence her and drawled into the phone, ‘Monty, another body’s been found. It’s in the bedding department of Hartley-Mac’s. We’re on our way, meet you there.’ He replaced his phone in his jacket pocket and sucked in his cheeks, making his thin face almost skeletal. ‘Sounds like he had a hard night.’

Stevie frowned, looked left and right, then sped through a red light causing pedestrians to jump back as if the car was shooting sparks. Soon they were at the Hay Street Mall, their senses assaulted by chaotic images. Yellow crime-scene tape sealed off the entrance and police cars were parked askew, lights flashing. Delivery vans honked, irate shopkeepers argued with uniformed police. A news van excreted cable. Lights were mounted, microphones plugged. An early morning news anchorwoman began to preen in the van’s side mirror. More journos arrived.

Stevie and Angus stepped into the fray to their siren’s dying wheeze.

‘Keep them well back,’ she said to a young constable they hurried past.

‘Any sign of a break in?’ Angus asked the cop guarding the double shop doors as they both flicked ID.

‘None so far, Sir.’

‘Who was first on the scene?’ Stevie spoke over her shoulder as she headed for the lift.

‘Constables Radcliff and Jones, they’re upstairs, third floor,’ the cop called back.

They rode the lift in silence. Stevie concentrated on her breathing and prepared herself for the worst. Angus had his eyes closed and was jingling the loose change in his pocket.

The lift doors opened to castles of glassware and mountains of white crockery. They skirted piles of fluffy towels and stacks of coloured sheets and headed towards a collection of display beds made up with fashionable linens.

There was no death scent, no buzzing flies to warn them of the body’s proximity, only the sweet smell of scented candles and the crackling of a police radio.

They introduced themselves to Constables Radcliff and Jones and took tentative steps towards a bed decorated with a brocade canopy and a silver woman. She lay on her back with her legs bent. She could have been an obscene advertising ploy, one more gimmick to entice the gullible buyer. Buy this bed and you too could look like this. Stevie felt the bile begin to rise. She turned her head to be almost blinded by the spotlight erected by the police photographer, further adding to the staged artificiality of the scene.

The woman’s face was an expressionless mask; she might have been a mannequin from Ladies Wear. Easeful Death was printed down the length of her right thigh in black marker pen.

‘Not again.’ Angus’s voice was soft. His attitude to the dead was always reverential, unlike some members of the squad who popped into her mind.

Wayne Pickering appeared, making the final adjustments to an oversized paisley bow tie. ‘Silver Finger,’ he said in his usual deadpan.

Speak of the devil.

‘It was Bronze Finger last time. Doesn’t sound quite right, does it?’

And his disciple.

Barry Snow turned to Stevie. With the light shining from the spotlight behind him, she could barely see his face, but his large ears stuck out like wing nuts. ‘That was an inaccuracy you know,’ he said. ‘People don’t die just from being painted.’ He leaned towards the body and pointed to the neck area. ‘I’m guessing this one was also strangled.’

‘Let’s leave that to the pathologist to determine, okay?’ Stevie ran her eyes up and down the body, absorbing every detail. The woman’s left hand seemed to be locked into a fist around a small strip of something brown. Peering closer, she tried to identify the protruding object. It looked like a piece of fabric—a piece of the killer’s clothing perhaps? Hard to believe that she had reached out to the killer while she was dying and grabbed this without his knowledge.

Stevie straightened and looked at Wayne Pickering who was finishing his own visual examination of the body. She pointed to the woman’s fist.

‘Yes, wonder what the hell that is? I guess we’ll have to wait for the pathologist to prise it out.’ Wayne pivoted on his heel and scanned the shop floor. ‘And where’s our illustrious leader?’

‘On his way.’ Angus said. He was next in seniority after Monty. ‘I’m going to talk to the woman who found the body. Stevie, come with me. Wayne and Barry, you guys comb the whole shop for ways the killer could have broken in. SOCO will be here soon, work with them. Also, get one of the uniforms to stop anyone else using the lifts. That’s the only way he could have got the body up here, they’ll have to be carefully examined.’

‘Unlike Linda Royce, this one wouldn’t have needed props to keep her posed,’ Stevie said to Angus as they walked towards the shop and floor manager who’d discovered the body.

‘True,’ Angus said. ‘And I’d like to know how he got the body up here without triggering any of the alarms. I favour the lift, though I guess he could have used the stairs. But the body would have been heavy and awkward to carry up three flights. We’ll get SOCO to check them anyway.’

A middle-aged man and an older woman, the shop and floor managers respectively, stood tense and anxious next to shelves of bathroom ornaments.

‘When can we open up for business, detective?’ the shop manager asked. The man looked like he’d dressed in a hurry. The shirt under his suit jacket was buttoned wrong and his face was furred with brindle stubble. His mouth, still gaping with shock, looked like that of the blue porcelain fish staring at Stevie from the shelf behind.

‘I’m afraid you’ll probably be closed for the rest of the week, Sir.’

The man sighed heavily and looked at his floor manager. Her face was pale under a thick layer of foundation, her voice a tremolo of barely contained hysteria. ‘I just don’t understand how anyone could have got up here without triggering the motion detectors. I set the alarms myself last night.’

‘You don’t have security guards?’ Angus asked, looking from one to the other of them.

The man said, ‘Only roving patrols to check up on things if the alarm is triggered, that’s all most department stores have these days. Burglaries are rare in our type of store, most of the criminals seem to content themselves with shoplifting.’

A constable approached the group. ‘Excuse me, Sir.’ His eyes darted to the managers, unsure if he should be speaking in front of them. Angus gave him a nod and he said, ‘We know how the alarm was deactivated. The external phone line that goes to the control room of the security company was cut. The alarm would have rung, but wouldn’t have gone through their monitoring system.’

‘You still rely on that old system?’ Stevie asked incredulously.

The shop manager became flustered, defensive. ‘We haven’t been in this building long. We inherited the security system from the previous owners. We were going to update next year.’

‘Surely someone must have heard the racket?’ Stevie questioned the constable.

‘We’re asking around, Ma’am. But you know what it’s like in the city on weeknights. Quiet as the grave.’

She would have preferred a different choice of simile, but had to agree with him. The manager turned his head to follow the progress of a group of overall-clad forensic officers. Stevie caught Angus’s eye, telling him with a look that this was not the place for any further interviews.

He said to the managers, ‘I’m going to ask one of our officers to accompany you to Central. I’d like the next round of questions to be conducted in an interview room. We need to get details from you about the closing up routine of the shop, the alarms etc.’

‘Taking us down to the station? Is that necessary?’ The woman’s age-spotted hand reached to the chain at her neck. ‘We’re not under arrest are we?’

Stevie swallowed down her impatience. ‘No, you’re not under arrest, but we need to talk to you away from these distractions.’

When they had gone, Stevie said to Angus, ‘I keep flashing back to Linda Royce’s body at the bank. James De Vakey said we needed to check the security guards again. I was going to have them polygraphed today. I was hoping there might’ve been security guards here too—they would have provided us with a handy commonality, but it seems there were none near the place.’

‘Okay, you go back to the bank guards, though the chances of their involvement are looking slimmer. I’ll interview the two managers back at Central.’ Angus smoothed down his hair as he looked around the shop floor, which was now bustling with police activity. ‘Two hot cases needing a separate team on each, and where the hell is Monty? He’s the only one with the authority to enlist the help of more suburban dees. We can’t cope with all this alone.’

‘De Vakey might be able to help us with a thing or two, I’ll give him a call.’ Stevie reached into her bag for her phone. But before she had time to dial the lift pinged, announcing an arrival.

Angus swore. ‘I told them to secure the lifts.’

The doors opened revealing Monty looking very much the worse for wear in the clothes he’d been wearing the day before. His butter-coloured shirt had turned rancid and his pants were concertinaed with crease marks. His skin was pale against his auburn hair, making the stubble on his face shine. Stevie’s heart sank with the departing lift, recognising that self-loathing, morning-after look. She lowered her voice. ‘Jeez, you look like shit,’ she murmured.

He regarded her through eyes the colour of single malt. ‘Thanks. I must look better than I feel. Where is she?’

She pointed towards the body with her thumb and watched Monty as he wove his way through the bedroom and bathroom accessories. She met Angus’s look of disappointed concern with one of her own.

Angus let out his breath. ‘I’m going to check on SOCO, then head back to Central. You’d better go fill Monty in on what little we know.’

She joined Monty as he leaned over the body. He was silently taking in the shaved head and the strange serenity of the painted face.

‘We’ve sent the shop and floor managers back to Central for further questioning. So far we haven’t a clue how our guy got in with the body. He disabled the monitored alarm by cutting the external telephone wire. Anyone could have located it if they’d known what they were looking for, then again I guess there’s always the chance it was an inside job...’

Monty’s hand flew to his mouth and he recoiled from the body with a look of anguish.

‘What’s wrong?’ Stevie asked as he began to lurch his way towards the toilets at the other end of the floor. The ladies’ room was closest; there was no time for etiquette. She followed him in as he staggered into the nearest stall.

She waited on the other side of the stall door, trying to block out the sound of his retching and became aware of an incongruous odour. The typical public washroom smells of soap and disinfectant were overlaid by the rising lead of the early morning commute and the tang of coffee from a nearby cafe. A cool breeze on her cheek made her turn her head to its source and it was then that she saw the gaping rectangular hole where the windowpane should have been. The glass itself was leaning against the wall as if carefully placed there by a glazier. She hurried over to the window ledge and peered into the alleyway below. Startled, she did a double take. Only a short distance above the ground, attached to a system of ropes and pulleys that ran the length of the building, dangled a window cleaner’s trolley.

The retching sounds from the stall had stopped and she yelled to Monty to come and look. Getting no answer she turned to find him sitting against the wall with his knees drawn up to his chest and his head bowed. When he made no response she put a hand on his shoulder and squatted to his level.

‘I think you should go home, you’re not well,’ she said, returning to earth after the brief high of her discovery. He drew a breath then let it out with a shudder, keeping his big hands clenched into tight fists at his side.

‘Can’t work this,’ he whispered. ‘Don’t you know who it is?’

Stevie was astonished. Shaved and covered in paint, the woman’s own mother could be excused for not recognising her.

Stevie frowned. ‘Who?’

Monty’s voice was barely audible. ‘Michelle.’

Increased activity is a sign of the unsub’s steadily deteriorating mental state.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Monty headed through the incident room to his office. On the last count, twenty suburban detectives had been seconded to help the SCS with their enquiries. A woman he didn’t know was writing extra notes on a whiteboard with a squeaking marker pen. On the pin-up board next to her a new set of grisly crime scene photographs had been added. Unable to face them he turned away and met the eyes of another stranger. This was going to be one helluva day.

Monty had hoped to slip into his office unnoticed, but Barry Snow raised his head from some notes he’d been examining with two of the new detectives. ‘Kettle’s just boiled, Mont. Do you want a cuppa?’

The offer of a cup of tea: the same futile attempt at comfort he’d employed himself only a short time ago at the house of Michelle’s parents.

‘No thanks, Barry.’ He could make coffee and tea in his office, but he appreciated the gesture all the same. ‘I’ve got some things to sort out. I’m not to be disturbed unless it’s an emergency.’

Monty closed his door against the din, took his phone off the hook and went into his small bathroom. After splashing his face with water he helped himself to a couple of Panadol from the bathroom cupboard. It seemed that the freight train running through the middle of his head had derailed, landing in a mangled heap of screaming metal and hissing steam. The pills hit his stomach with a sickening burn and he prayed they would stay put long enough to work their magic.

Sitting at his desk with his head resting in his hands he tried to reassemble the events of last night. He remembered dinner with Stevie then coming home, excited to finally have the KP notes in his possession. He remembered going through the files, noting the similarities and incongruities of the investigation, the missing pages of Harper’s alibi, the nameless prostitute. And then there was the phone call from Wayne. He saw himself looking at the beer in the glass. Next was the incessant ring of Angus’s early morning call.

He’d awoken to papers and beer cans strewn all over the floor, the crystal pilsner glass lying empty on its side. The place smelled like a brewery, yet he could not even recall the guilty satisfaction of that first sip. Dammit all—why did it have to be now that his willpower failed him? But it could have been worse, he supposed, he’d only counted six tins on the floor. Hell, six tins and he felt like this? In his day he could have drunk a carton and only been mildly affected the next morning.

Then a sickening thought hit. In his haste to leave he hadn’t had time to clear up the mess. Not only had he left the beer cans all over the place, but the KP murder notes too—and his cleaning lady was due in today—shit!

He grabbed his keys and phone and made a mad dash through the incident room.

Barry held up his hand to stop his progress. ‘Hang on, Monty. I’ve just got a call from upstairs. Super wants to see you.’

The super was the last thing Monty felt he could deal with right now. ‘Tell him you just missed me. I won’t be long. I’ve just got to go home for a sec.’

The ten-minute drive to his flat seemed to last a lifetime; if his cleaner caught a glimpse of those autopsy photos she’d have a coronary, to say nothing of her reaction to his fall from grace.

He was fumbling for his key at the top of his steps when a man’s voice called out from the parking area, ‘Inspector McGuire?’

Monty looked down from the threshold of his flat. Two men were heading for the concrete steps. He waved down to them.

‘Wait where you are please, Sir,’ one of the men called up.

They had cop stamped all over them. The older man was in a cheap suit, probably off the same rack as most of Monty’s; the younger man wore jeans and a leather jacket.

‘We tried to catch you at Central. They said you’d gone home.’ Older cop was puffing up the stairs. He had an unhealthy pallor and small eyes, the kind of face you’d expect to see on the wrong side of the bars. There wasn’t much room for the three of them on the front porch, less when both men stepped forward. Monty got the distinct impression they were trying to edge him away from his front door.

He didn’t budge. ‘And you are?’ he asked.

‘I’m DS Keyes and this is DC Thrummel, Sir,’ the older cop said, unsmiling.

Monty squinted at their ID. He recognised their names but not their faces and his brain refused to clarify the association. ‘Claremont?’ he read from their IDs.

‘That’s right, Sir,’ Keyes said. ‘We were hoping you’d accompany us back to Central. Superintendent Baggly asked us to escort you personally. There are some things he’d like to talk to you about.’

‘I’m not working the Birkby case. I suggest you call up DS Wong.’ Monty pushed his way to his door and reached for his key. Thrummel grabbed his arm.

‘What the hell do you think you’re doing? Get your hands off me, Constable.’

Thrummel must have caught the pre-explosive set to Monty’s jaw. He dropped his arm and glanced at Keyes who gave him an imperceptible nod. Both detectives took a step forward and pinned him against the door. Monty was still feeling queasy, muddle-headed. This isn’t happening, he thought, he was being paranoid; it must be the aftermath of last night’s drinking binge. Then Thrummel, with a disturbing look in his eyes, put his heel on the bridge of Monty’s foot and began to lean. Sensitive nerve endings shot sparks of pain up his leg, which even the most rabid of paranoiacs could not have imagined. The pressure increased when he tried to extract himself.

Movement from the door of the next flat caught his eye. He saw his neighbour peering out of her door on their shared front porch.

‘Is everything all right, Montgomery?’ Mrs Nash asked. She was a perceptive old bird, always knew what everyone in the complex was up to.

The weight on Monty’s foot eased and the cessation of pain brought with it the ugly reality of his situation.

Keyes gave her a smile. ‘We’re old friends of Monty’s, Ma’am, just fooling around. I hope we haven’t disturbed you.’

Mrs Nash raised her eyebrows and shook her head. ‘Then I suggest you go and expend some of your energy at the oval. Some of the people in these flats work nights. I’m sure they don’t appreciate the disturbance.’

Mrs Nash was a retired schoolteacher. If Monty hadn’t already known he would have picked it from the inflection in her voice. There was no point getting her involved in his troubles.

He gave Keyes a cheesy smile. ‘I’ve got a footy in my car. C’mon me old pal, me old mate, me old codger. Let’s go have a kick.’ He placed his arm around the older detective’s shoulder and squeezed the bull neck with mock affection. The sergeant gave a small but satisfying gasp.

***

In the interview room, Monty felt the uneasy stares of several pairs of eyes. Seated on plastic chairs around the table were Superintendent Baggly, Angus Wong and a thin man with receding hair whom Monty had never met before. Baggly introduced him as Ian Stern from the Police Union. They weren’t mucking around. Whatever this was about it was serious.

Angus indicated the seat opposite him. He sat down, and Keyes and Thrummel took the seats on either side of him. Angus caught his eye and opened his palms as if to say that things were beyond his control.

Baggly cleared his throat. ‘I’d like to point out, Monty, that this is an unofficial meeting, off the record, no tape or video.’ He nodded to the dormant machines on the shelf to illustrate his point.

Monty found himself having trouble focusing on what Baggly was saying.

‘We merely need to get the ball rolling for the pending enquiry,’ Baggly said. ‘You will have ample time to organise representation. Mr Stern is here as a matter of protocol. We feel his presence from the very start of the investigation will be in your best interest.’

‘The union is willing to contribute a sizeable sum should a lawyer be required,’ Stern said.

Baggly gave Monty a benevolent smile.

Monty opened his mouth to speak, but was cut off by Baggly’s raised hand. ‘You are going to be asked some questions Monty, which, for the sake of your career, you are urged to answer truthfully. Your answers at this stage will not be admissible in a court of law. If and when these proceedings are advanced, you need only answer under legal advice.’

Baggly turned to Stern, seeking verification. Stern’s nod implied that he felt everything so far was above board.

Monty’s mouth felt dry and gritty. ‘Can someone tell me what this is all about?’ He tried to keep his tone devoid of any hostility, but it was hard given that the methods and means of his summons were still sitting on either side of him.

Baggly, bless him, sensed his discomfort. ‘You two know what you have to do. Off you go now,’ he said.

The detectives rose. Keyes said to Monty. ‘We’d like to search your flat, Sir. Is it necessary for us to get a warrant?’

‘No, go ahead,’ Monty said. He’d speculated that these disciplinary measures had something to do with his tardiness at the morning’s crime scene. Now he realised it was much worse. He threw Thrummel his keys and tried to sound nonchalant. ‘There are some files there, I was reading them last night. I don’t want them left around for my cleaner to see. You may as well bring them back with you.’

Thrummel nodded.

‘Get the ball rolling, Sergeant Wong,’ Baggly said.

Angus waited for Keyes and Thrummel to leave the room before reaching into his jacket pocket. His tone was as gentle as ever when he asked, ‘Do you recognise this?’ He slid a plastic evidence bag across the table.

Monty’s tongue seemed to have stitched itself to the roof of his mouth. Cold pricks of perspiration started to bead on his forehead and he swiped at them with the back of his sleeve. Picking up the plastic bag he turned it around in his fingers and met Angus’s concerned gaze.

‘It’s my watch. Where did you find it? I left it on my desk at Central.’

‘It was clasped in Michelle Birkby’s hand,’ said Angus. ‘Your name’s engraved on the back.’

‘My watch,’ Monty said again to no one in particular. Different scenarios swirled through his head in ragged spirals. ‘It’s a plant,’ he said at last, ‘like the commissioner’s hair on Linda Royce.’

Baggly said, ‘Of course it is, but...’

Monty’s confusion turned to anger. He thumped the table with his fists and leapt to his feet. ‘What do you mean, “but”?’

Baggly said, ‘Sit down please, Inspector.’

‘Fuck you!’

‘Inspector McGuire!’

‘Monty,’ Angus spoke with the soft voice of reason. ‘This isn’t helping you at all. Sit down. You know as well as I do that these questions have to be asked. You’re upset about Michelle, we all are. Now let’s get down to the questioning so we can all get out of here as soon as possible.’

Baggly sniffed, ‘I’m putting that outburst down to grief. I won’t be so understanding next time.’

Monty sat down and folded his arms like a petulant child.

‘When did you last see Michelle?’ Angus asked.

‘Thursday, after the press conference. We met in the lobby of the Excalibur.’

‘You were seen having a heated argument.’

Arms still folded, Monty leant back in his chair and looked at Angus. ‘Jeez, you haven’t wasted any time.’

‘Sarcasm is not necessary, Inspector,’ Baggly said.

‘Okay, we had an argument. She wanted more information about the Royce case and I wouldn’t give it to her.’

‘Good. That’s commendable. We all know how much pressure she’s had you under.’ Baggly was trying to be kind, but didn’t quite carry it off. It was the placating tones of a politician with a particularly obnoxious constituent.

Monty said, ‘I haven’t seen her since then.’

‘You mean since this morning, when you saw her dead,’ Baggly said.

Monty swallowed down the lump in his throat and nodded. He turned to Angus. ‘I suppose you want to know where I was last night?’

Angus seemed relieved that the question hadn’t had to come from him.

‘I was passed out in my flat. I haven’t got an alibi.’

Ian Stern cleared his throat and put a finger to his lips. Monty ignored the warning. This wasn’t an official investigation, damn it. He would say what he damn well pleased. How ironic that it just happened to be the truth.

‘You’d been drinking?’ Angus asked.

‘I guess so, I can’t remember any of it.’

Angus sighed. Baggly shook his head and said, ‘You have to understand my—our—position, Inspector. Given that the commissioner’s hair was found on the previous body and proved to be a plant, it follows that your watch is most probably a plant also.’

Monty found himself holding his breath.

‘However,’ Baggly continued, ‘unlike the case of the commissioner, you have the method, means and motive for this murder. And you have no alibi. For the sake of the reputation of the Police Service, should further investigations prove your guilt, I have no choice but to suspend you with pay until your innocence is proven absolutely. You will have no further contact with the investigating officers of the Poser case unless it is an instigated interview with Thrummel or Keyes present, to ensure impartiality from your team. Contact with any investigating officer outside the official channels stipulated by myself will result in severe disciplinary action.’

Monty had still not drawn a breath. His ear lobes and fingertips were beginning to tingle, he felt dizzy. Angus noticed his pallor, poured some water into a glass and slid it across the table to him. Monty finally let out his breath to take a sip, conscious of the wary glances from the other men in the room. When he’d emptied the glass, Angus leaned across the table and eased it from his hand as if concerned he might throw it at Baggly.

But Monty didn’t have it in him any more. The alcohol reaction, the shock of Michelle’s death, her parents’ grief and now this—he shook his head. He reached into his pocket for his ID wallet and put it on the table as he climbed to his feet.

‘Will that be all, Sir?’

‘We’ll be in touch, Inspector,’ Baggly said.

Angus’s sigh of relief was the last thing he heard as he left the room.

The killer appears to be normal because he is able to separate himself from his actions.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie couldn’t keep still. Waiting in the corridor with the others she bounced from one bubble-soled foot to the other. With his head bowed, Monty finally emerged from the interview room, with no acknowledgement to her or any of the other members of the team. Angus followed him out, caught Stevie’s eye and gave her the thumbs down.

Wayne broke away from the group and caught up with Monty further down the corridor. He clamped a hairy hand on Monty’s sleeve and Stevie caught the urgency of his whisper.

She made a move to join them, but found herself held back. ‘Leave him, Stevie, now’s not the time.’ In a lower voice De Vakey added, ‘We’ll go and see him later,’

She searched his face, his eyes, surprised at the empathy she saw there. When his hand lingered on her arm, the thrill set an alarm bell ringing in her brain.

She stepped away from him.

Satisfied that their boss had left the building, Angus turned to the congregated members of the SCS, his glum expression mirroring their mood. ‘Well I suppose now’s as good a time as any to talk this over,’ he said.

Justin Baggly chose that moment to hurry round the corner, skidding to a startled halt in front of them. Breathless and grim faced he twisted a crumpled ball of paper in his hands. ‘Have you seen Dad?’

Probably a speeding ticket for Daddy to wangle him out of, Stevie thought. There had to be some perks to compensate for having John Baggly for a father.

‘I think he went back upstairs,’ Angus said.

The boy muttered his thanks. Despite her own worries, Stevie seized the chance to lighten him up. ‘Justin, have you met James De Vakey?’

She made the introductions, explaining to De Vakey how Justin was doing a criminal profiling unit at uni, then planning to join the police service.

Justin took De Vakey’s outstretched hand. ‘Good to meet you Sir, I’ve read all your books.’ His eyes darted to Stevie who gave him a nod of encouragement. He gave her a tight smile before returning to De Vakey.

‘Umm, I know you must be busy, but do you have the time to sign this?’ He produced a dog-eared copy of The Pursuit of Evil from his backpack. Although originally published as a police training manual, this edition had been tailored to the general public and had recently shot onto the bestseller list.

‘Certainly, I’d be glad to,’ De Vakey said. He reached into his jacket pocket for his gold pen and signed his name with a flourish on the inside cover.

Justin twitched him a smile. ‘Umm, I have some more at home. Would it be okay if I brought them over sometime for you to sign too?’

De Vakey said he’d be delighted.

‘Great.’ Justin gave him a nervous smile. ‘I’d better go now. I need to see Dad,’ he stammered, obviously overwhelmed at having met his hero in the flesh.

Stevie stepped away from the others and caught up with Justin as he headed towards the lifts. ‘Justin, are you free for any babysitting this week?’

Justin looked to the ceiling as if there was a calendar stuck to it. ‘Yeah, I think I’m okay.’ He shrugged his shoulders and smiled. ‘I guess it’ll be a good opportunity to get some study done.’

‘Thanks, I’ll call you later.’ Stevie patted his shoulder, wondering yet again if she was right to encourage him—she didn’t think he had a snowball’s chance of getting into the academy, he just wasn’t cop material. When the inevitable rejection letter came she knew she would feel his disappointment acutely.

She rejoined the group as everyone was taking their seats around the conference table in the room just off the incident room.

When the introductions to De Vakey were done, Angus explained the outcome of the meeting with Baggly and the reason for Monty’s suspension.

‘But we will be pursuing Monty’s plotted course in the investigation, despite his absence,’ he said. ‘Stevie will continue to liaise between James De Vakey and the SCS. We now, of course, have two related murders to investigate...’

‘Four, if you include the KP murders,’ Wayne interrupted,

‘Mate, you know that’s a closed case.’ Angus passed a hand over his forehead and closed his eyes for a moment.

Wayne was not to be put off. ‘Monty’s sure they’re related.’

Angus let out a sigh. ‘And Monty’s in a heap of trouble. This is one path he’s carved that we can’t follow.’

Stevie could hold back no longer. ‘Oh come on, Angus, get real. James is sure this guy has killed before, which backs up Monty’s theory. Monty was going through the KP files last night and was planning on discussing his findings with us today.’

Wayne said, ‘Yeah, I spoke to him on the phone last night. He sounded pretty excited about something he’d found in the files.’

‘Superintendent Baggly made it clear that Monty was out of bounds, he’s not to be approached,’ Angus said, a slight stiffness to his jaw.

‘For God’s sake, Angus, this stinks, you know it does! We have to talk to Monty and find out what he knows. There’s no way the killer could have left Monty’s watch in Michelle’s hand by mistake, it’s as plain as dogs’ balls he wanted it found. I can’t believe Baggly’s been taken in over this. If you ask me, there’s something else going on—’

Angus thumped the table in an uncharacteristic burst of temper. ‘Just shut the hell up and do as you’re told for a change!’

Stevie was stunned, she’d never heard Angus yell before. Then again, he’d never been this close to being officer in charge of the SCS before. Had Angus decided it was time to start playing politics? Up until now he’d never shown anything but unwavering loyalty to Monty.

There was a moment of awkward silence. De Vakey cleared his throat, looked from one face to the other and said in a neutral tone, ‘I don’t wish to disturb the status quo here, but I believe the superintendent said that Monty wasn’t to be contacted by the investigating officers. I’m a civilian consultant, not an investigating officer.’ He met Stevie’s eye and gave her a faint smile. ‘I can see Monty whenever I need to.’

Stevie could have hugged him. ‘And I’m not officially on the case either, I’m only an intermediary. There’s nothing Baggly can do to stop either of us from contacting Monty.’

Angus reined in his temper. ‘Now, you know that’s not strictly so.’

Barry flicked her a wink. It would have annoyed her yesterday, but not today. ‘You go, girl,’ he said.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, Angus said, ‘I’m just going to pretend we never had this conversation.’

A tap at the door interrupted their discussion and a man with a nose the colour of a ripe plum entered the room. Stevie recognised him as one of the cops who’d brought Monty in and then left to search his flat.

‘Thought you might like to know we found nothing at your boss’s flat, though he’d made it pretty hard for us—he’s not much of a housekeeper is he? The place was like a pigsty. I’m just going upstairs to report to the super. I’ll be around all afternoon so call me if you want to bring him in for any more questioning,’ Keyes said.

Angus nodded and thanked him.

As the big man turned to leave the room, Barry called out, ‘Hey! What happened to your nose?’

Keyes’ hand gingerly crept to the injured appendage. ‘I walked into a door.’

Everyone in the room exchanged glances when Keyes made his hurried exit. Barry’s laugh lifted some of the tension in the room.

Wayne said, ‘I won’t even say that was a relief, because we all know Monty didn’t kill Michelle, that they wouldn’t find anything in his flat.’

‘Yeah,’ Barry said, ‘this is nothing but a steaming pile of bureaucratic bullshit.’

Angus sighed. ‘It’s the system. Baggly has no choice; he’s merely following procedure. Now, we need to organise a search of Michelle’s apartment, talk to her neighbours, parents and friends, find out who was last to see her alive.’ He looked at Wayne. ‘I want you and Barry to spearhead that side of the investigation.’

‘Right,’ Wayne said.

‘Angus, did you find out anything else from the shop managers?’ Stevie asked, trying to put her frustration with him aside.

Angus shook his head. ‘Not much, the woman is adamant she set the alarm before she left. A guy who was putting in an all nighter in a nearby office later verified hearing it. He said he didn’t even think to report the alarm, said if he reported every alarm he heard he’d never get any work done.

Stevie said, ‘So to recap, our unsub cut the external phone line and got in through the window via the window-cleaning hoist, regardless of the jangling alarm which he knew no one would do anything about.’

‘Wait a minute. What’s this unsub caper?’ Wayne asked.

‘Sorry,’ Stevie shot De Vakey a smile. ‘That’s FBI talk, short for unnamed subject. Some of James’s lingo is rubbing off.’

Her smile faded when she caught Wayne’s smirk. She bit her lip. They might be on the same side where Monty was concerned, but nothing else seemed to have changed.

‘The shop manager said they have a permanent window cleaning facility on the building,’ Angus said. ‘A metal support that runs around the whole of the outside at the top. It’s just a question of knowing how to attach the contraption. The actual hoist that you found, Stevie, was from an equipment hire company. Our guy paid them to drop it off in the street for him. It sat there all afternoon and no one thought twice about it. He must have set it up after dark. I still have officers checking to see if anyone saw him, but so far no luck. I also have someone interviewing the people at the equipment hire company for a description.’

‘He’s really sticking it to us, isn’t he?’ Barry said, ‘Cocky bloody bastard. Has SOCO finished their examination of the hoist?’

‘Nothing definite yet, but they did find traces of silver paint.’

Addressing the whole team, Angus said, ‘You know the routine. I’m going to the hospital to get the latest from the pathologist. I’d like to schedule another meeting with Wayne, Barry and all other available detectives working both cases at...’ he looked at his watch, ‘five o’clock. Off you go then.’

A personality disorder is not to be confused with a mental illness. Someone with a mental illness will not take long to catch. The unsub who is technically sane will pose the greatest challenge to the investigators.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Wayne and Barry crawled through the constipated Beaufort Street traffic on their way to Michelle’s gym. They’d learned from her parents that she worked out every morning except Sunday. Finding out if she was there yesterday morning would help start to trace her last movements.

‘At least we haven’t had to muck around with victim identification, but jeez...’ Barry thumped the steering wheel. ‘I’ve never seen Monty so shook up. I mean, it’s not like they were even still married!’

‘C’mon, I’m shocked and I only met her once. You wouldn’t wish this on your worst enemy,’ Wayne said.

Barry’s eyes slid from the road to his passenger. ‘Quite the sensitive-old-age-dickhead, aren’t you, Wayne?’

Wayne smirked. Sensitivity was something he’d never been accused of.

‘And the way old man Birkby spoke about him,’ Barry continued, ‘you’d have thought he was holding Monty personally responsible. He could barely say his name without rupturing a blood vessel.’

‘Well, you know what grieving families are like, they always need someone to blame. Maybe he thinks this would never have happened if they’d still been happily married.’

‘I just hope no one lets on that Monty’s watch was found in her hand. When the shock wears off Birkby’s going to start asking questions.’

‘We’ll have Mont in the clear by then.’

After several beats of agitated tapping on the steering wheel, Barry said, ‘But it’s gotta be someone in Central who took the watch, hasn’t it?’

‘Or someone else with a legitimate excuse for being there, but a cop most likely.’

Wayne had investigated where Tye Davis was at the time of Linda Royce’s murder. It seemed he had a solid alibi: the shift supervisor at Paraburdoo to whom Wayne had spoken on the phone said Tye had definitely been working that day, he’d seen him himself. With one gone, but about fifteen other suspect cops to go, this was going to be a slow process of elimination. He sighed, staring vacantly at a passing group of schoolgirls wearing soup-bowl hats. He would have preferred a face-to-face interview with the supervisor and wondered if it was worth contacting a cop mate in the Pilbara to do it for him.

The chirp of his mobile interrupted his musings. Devoid of expression, he listened to Angus for a few minutes before punching off. ‘It seems the man who hired the window-cleaning hoist paid for it with a stolen credit card,’ he said to Barry.

‘Description?’

‘The bloke who organised the hire has just gone on two weeks leave. He flew to Bali this morning.’

Barry pulled a frog face. ‘That’d be right.’

They parked outside the gym. As Barry climbed out of the car he gave a yawn and a stretch, eyeing off some lycra-clad nubiles descending the front steps as he did so.

Wayne took a cursory glance around the car park for Michelle’s Alfa. They should be so lucky.

Barry said, ‘You ever belong to a gym, Wayne?’

‘What do you think?’

Wayne locked the unmarked and followed Barry up the steps to the front entrance. The air was fusty with the smell of mould and old trainers, and provoked an irritating tickle deep in his chest. In front of them, a young girl with pillow lips sat behind a reception desk, stabbing at a computer with red-taloned fingers. Above her head a noticeboard enticed potential members with discount packages. To Wayne, gym membership was about as alluring as a round with Mike Tyson.

Barry sidled up to the desk and produced his ID.

‘Hello, Miss...’ his eyes lingered on her name tag longer than necessary. ‘Sophie Preston.’ He pronounced the name slowly as if savouring every syllable. She appraised Barry under sickle-thin eyebrows and smiled back.

Wayne began to cough.

‘I’m DS Snow and this is DS Pickering. We’d like to ask you some questions,’ Barry said, doing his best to ignore Wayne’s hacking.

Sophie Preston regarded Wayne with a look of distaste. ‘Is your friend okay?’ she asked Barry.

‘He’s allergic to exercise. Even the thought of it sends him off.’

‘It’s never too late to start,’ she said with a slight curl to her lip.

Wayne managed to control himself, sucked in his stomach and approached the desk, conscious of how out of time his steps were with the thumps and music coming from the floor above.

‘Do you recognise this woman, Miss Preston?’ he said, producing a computer printout of Michelle’s photo. She examined the picture. ‘Yes, that’s Michelle Birkby, one of our regular clients.’ She frowned. ‘Is she all right?’

‘We’re trying to trace her movements yesterday. We believe she came here yesterday morning.’

Sophie’s eyes shot to Barry. She shrugged. ‘Yeah, she came in about six. I’m not sure about today though. I wasn’t on this morning, I’ll have to look it up.’ She reached for the register and slid it across the counter towards her, running a finger down the names on the page.

Barry put his hand out to stop her. ‘This morning isn’t necessary, but I’d like to see yesterday’s list of clients, please.’

She leafed the page back and Wayne examined the scrawled signatures. ‘They sign in each time they come, do they?’

Barry gave Wayne a look that said of course it was obvious they had to sign in. If he’d ever been to a gym he’d have known.

Only ten signatures were listed between six and seven, the first hour after the gym opened. Apart from Michelle’s, none of the other names was familiar. Barry jotted them down in his notebook for checking later.

Wayne said, ‘Was there anything different about her yesterday? Did she leave with someone? Did she seem anxious, worried?’

Sophie examined her nails while she considered the questions. ‘I think she was in a bit of a hurry, actually. She rushed towards the door looking at her watch without even saying goodbye to me. And she usually weighs herself before she leaves,’ she tilted her chin towards a set of digital scales in the corner of the foyer, ‘but yesterday she didn’t. Look, what’s all this about?’

‘So what time was this?’ Barry asked.

‘About seven.’

Wayne said, ‘Did anyone leave with her?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Do you have any idea why she was in such a hurry?’

Sophie shrugged. ‘She’s a journalist, isn’t she? She’s always going to meetings and stuff. She sometimes has breakfast appointments. Quite a few of the members go to Cinder’s Pumpkin after a workout. It’s just across the road, so they can leave their cars in our car park and walk. It’s about the only place around here that’s open early. She could’ve gone there.’

Barry gave her a smile and added the name of the cafe to the list in his notebook. ‘Is there anywhere else for members to park other than the spaces outside the front of the gym?’ he asked.

‘There are a few spots behind the building. They’re supposed to be for staff but some of the regulars park there.’

‘One last thing, Miss Preston...’ Wayne was interrupted as a man elbowed him out of the way and signed in, muscles bulging under his smooth tanned skin.

Wayne scowled at the man’s back before turning back to Sophie. ‘I’d like a list of current gym members, please.’

She hesitated. ‘I’m not sure I’m allowed to do that.’

The interview had been going well and Wayne didn’t have the patience to cope with such petty pitfalls this close to the finish. Unable to hide his impatience, he said, ‘We’re cops. We’re not going to sell the list to internet spammers or charitable organisations.’

Barry leaned towards the receptionist on his elbows and lifted two fingers in the ‘Scouts honour’ sign.

‘We could easily get a search warrant,’ Wayne added.

She looked from one to the other of them, raised her eyebrows and shrugged. ‘Whatever,’ she said, and stabbed the print button of the keyboard.

***

Wayne and Barry identified Michelle’s red Alfa Romeo in the gym’s rear car park. After contacting a forensic team to photograph it and tow it back to the station, they made their way across the road to the cafe. There they spoke to the moustached man at the front counter, ordered coffee and cake and were shown to a table on the verandah, sheltered from the winter wind by quivering plastic walls.

They sat for a while in silence until Barry said, ‘You okay? Thinking about the dead girls?’

Wayne paused before answering. ‘Yeah.’

Barry nodded. ‘Me too.’

A few minutes later a young man with floppy blond hair and unnaturally blue eyes weaved his way through the tables towards them with their coffees. Wayne introduced himself. One glance at the detective’s IDs and the waiter’s eyes darted to the man at the counter.

Wayne said, ‘It’s okay, son. We’ve had a word with your boss, he said for you to take five and sit with us. We have some questions we’d like to ask you.’

‘Look, if it’s about the joint he caught me with the other day, I hardly ever use the stuff. I—’

Wayne put his hand on the young man’s arm. ‘Relax mate, we’re not the drug squad. Sit down. We want to ask you some questions about one of your customers.’

The waiter licked his lips and nodded. His expression, no longer one of fear, was now a mixture of relief and curiosity.

Barry produced the photo of Michelle. ‘Seen her before?’

‘Um ... yes, don’t know her name, but,’ the waiter said.

‘The bloke at the counter said she was here yesterday morning, that you served her.’

‘That’s right. She comes in most mornings after gym and has the soy latte.’

Wayne raised his eyebrows and glanced at Barry.

‘It’s a healthy kind of coffee,’ Barry told him.

Wayne snorted, took a sip of his Vienna and reached for a napkin to wipe the tickling cream from his upper lip. ‘Was she alone?’ he asked.

‘No. There was a bloke with her.’

Barry put his elbows on the table and leaned closer. ‘Tell us about this bloke.’

‘What did he look like?’ Wayne added.

‘He was kind of creepy looking. He was wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses.’

He must have noticed the disappointed sag of the detective’s shoulders. His voice sped up. ‘But he took them off after a while.’

Wayne gave him an encouraging nod to go on.

‘Like I said, he was creepy looking. Quite tall and very pale in the face, as pale as a Goth only his hair was practically white. It was thin and kind of feathery, almost like duck down. You could hardly tell where his skin ended and his hair began.’

Wayne kicked Barry under the table. Barry nodded; there couldn’t be too many albinos about.

The boy was revving up now, revealing an eye for detail that was rare in most witnesses. ‘They seemed to be having some kind of an argument. At one stage Whitey slammed his fist onto the table like this.’ He demonstrated with his own fist, making the cups and saucers on the table rattle.

‘How did she take this angry outburst? Did she seem scared?’ Barry asked.

‘It didn’t seem to faze her. She put her hand over his, like this.’ The waiter reached out for Wayne’s hand, covering it with his own. Wayne snatched his hand away as if it had been burned.

Barry smirked.

‘After that, they settled down and just seemed to be having a normal conversation,’ the boy said.

Wayne said, ‘Did they leave together?’

‘No, Whitey left first.’

‘Did he still seem angry?’

‘No, I don’t think so. He smiled when he left. She stayed for another coffee then paid the bill.’

Barry said, ‘Thanks, you’ve been a big help. We may need to contact you again.’

When the boy stood to go, Wayne held up a finger. ‘Wait on. Was there any one else in the cafe at the time?’

The waiter searched his mind for a moment. ‘Two or three others maybe; we’re never busy that early.’

‘Can you remember anything about them?’ Wayne asked.

He scratched his head. ‘Not really. I think there was a couple on one table, a single man on the other.’

‘Where was the single man sitting?’

‘All three groups were at nearby tables. It’s easier for us wait staff to have them all grouped together.’

‘Can you remember anything about this single man?’

The waiter rubbed his chin and looked at the ceiling through narrowed eyes. Wayne hoped he wasn’t dreaming up embellishment to try to impress them. Hell, they were already impressed.

‘Look, the only reason I remember the gym woman and Whitey was because of his weird colour and the fight. Can I go now? We’re flat out and Mario’s getting his knickers in a knot.’

The cafe was filling up, there were customers waiting to be served, and the man at the counter was shooting them dark looks and pulling at his moustache as he bustled.

Wayne said, ‘Would you have any record of the time this man paid his bill?’

‘There might be a copy of the receipt.’

Barry said, ‘Good. See if you can find the woman’s too.’

‘Well?’ Barry raised his eyebrows and took a sip of his cappuccino as the waiter scurried toward the kitchen.

‘Seems like a reliable witness, the best yet. Did you get that description?’

Barry nodded at his notebook, then reached into his pocket for the list of gym members they’d got from the receptionist. Wayne switched chairs to sit next to him so they could peruse the list together.

After a while, Wayne grunted and said. ‘Jeez, there’s a lot of familiar names on this list, looks like half the cops from Central are on a health kick.’

His gaze continued to slide down the list until he came to an abrupt halt. ‘Shit.’ He tapped his finger against Monty’s name, whistling air through his teeth.

Barry was quick to react with a shake of his head. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

‘Yesterday it didn’t mean anything, but with the crap Monty’s in today, it could mean deep shit.’

Wayne sighed and drew his lips into a bloodless line as he continued to scan the list. It was Barry who nearly choked on the next name.

‘Linda Royce!’ he said, almost losing the mouthful of éclair he was swallowing. ‘Jesus, Wayne.’ He looked up from the list, ‘Linda, Michelle and Monty were all members of the same gym.’ His usual cocky tone had sunk into a worried whisper, ‘What are we going to do?’

Wayne said nothing for a moment, trying to sort out his own jumbled thoughts. ‘Give me your notebook.’

Barry handed it over and Wayne checked the list of the ten members who were at the gym at the same time as Michelle on Thursday morning.

Wayne read aloud, ‘Caroline Spencer, Frank Dixon, Colin Pierce, Guy Flannigan, Abbey Winchester, etcetera.’ He wiped his brow with the napkin. ‘No Monty McGuire.’

The detectives let out a collective sigh.

‘We’ve been pretty quick to assume that the single man at the cafe must have followed her from the gym,’ Barry said. ‘Alternatively he may have known she would come here and been waiting for her. Her morning routine was very predictable.’

Wayne nodded. ‘True.’

Barry swallowed and said, ‘So it could have been Monty, he just didn’t go to the gym that morning.’

‘It could have been anyone. A single man at a table in a cafe does not a stalker or a murderer make. Monty or no Monty, my money’s on the creepy white bloke who, we both agree, sounds very like the cleaner from Central.’

The waiter reappeared with the receipts. He pointed out the table numbers and the times marked by the cash register when each client paid. The single man had paid two minutes after Michelle.

After glancing at his partner, Wayne said, ‘This single man—was he tall with reddish hair, looked like he could’ve played fullback for the Wallabies?’ Sorry Mont, he said to himself.

‘I barely noticed him, mate.’

Barry reached into his pocket for the sketch the police artist had drawn from Thompson’s description of the man in the hobby shop.

‘What about this guy?’

The waiter shrugged. ‘That could be anyone.’

When the waiter had gone, Barry said, ‘Well that wasn’t much help. The single man left two minutes after her—that’s quick enough to have followed her.’

Wayne agreed, but his money was still on the albino. Even though he left earlier he could have waited for her. ‘And after that, Michelle wasn’t seen again. Ten hours later her parents rang the police when they were notified about her absence from work. Work said she missed some important deadlines she would never normally have missed. She was not seen again until the shop floor manager of Hartley-Mac’s found her body at seven this morning.’

‘Wait on. Monty was at work with us yesterday morning. He couldn’t have grabbed her.’

‘Of course he didn’t grab her,’ Wayne said, ashamed the idea had even crossed his mind. ‘But we can assume she was abducted soon after leaving this place, and probably from the gym car park.’

Barry’s phone rang. His face lit up as he listened for a moment. He closed his phone after a succinct reply and waggled his eyebrows. ‘That was Sophie Preston. She’s just remembered something and says she needs to speak with me.’

***

Wayne sat in the unmarked, waiting for Barry’s return. He busied himself reading his notes and making a summary of what they’d learned so far about Michelle Birkby’s last movements. Michelle was seen having breakfast with a creepy looking white-haired bloke who sounded like the albino cleaner from Central. On top of that, Wayne had seen him in Monty’s office the night before—who would be in a better position to steal the watch?

But Michelle didn’t leave the cafe with the albino—another man had followed her out. The murderer could have been either man or someone else entirely who’d been waiting by her car to abduct her.

SOCO had towed the car back to Central while he and Barry had been at the cafe. Wayne spoke briefly on the phone to the officer in charge and was told that the car was found locked. They were conducting tests on it now, but would probably not have any results until the morning.

He phoned Angus with their latest findings. Officers were dispatched to haul in the cleaner, Martin Sparrow, for questioning.

Barry announced his return with a blast of cold air. He was panting as if he’d just run a four-minute mile.

‘So? What took you?’ Wayne said, refusing to react to Barry’s obvious excitement.

Barry grinned and buffed his nails on his jacket sleeve. ‘She invited me clubbing.’

‘Christ, is that what all this was about?’

‘No, almost as good, though. She suddenly remembered seeing a guy leaving the gym at about the same time as Michelle, and it wasn’t our albino mate.’ He clapped his hands. ‘This is a hot one, yes sirree.’

‘Does this mystery man have a name?’

Barry put his hand into his pocket for his notebook and pointed to their list of yesterday’s early morning clients. He tapped at a name. ‘Frank Dixon.’

Wayne’s heart skipped a beat. ‘Do we have a photo ID?’

‘No. It’s a bummer, most gyms insist on photo IDs these days, but not this one. He’s youngish, tallish and has dark hair. That’s all she can remember about him. He doesn’t come in very often. We do have an address though: 35 Atwell Gardens.’

Wayne started the car. ‘Occupation?’

‘Police officer.’

The MO is the dynamic feature of the crime and can change from case to case. The signature on the other hand is static and driven by uncontrollable compulsions.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie and De Vakey found Monty in his flat, trying without success to put the back on his elderly TV, spitting out a different swearword with each ineffectual turn of the screwdriver. But the TV was the least of his problems, Stevie thought as she and De Vakey gazed around the trashed flat, speechless. It would take more than a few screws to fix this mess up.

Every kitchen door hung open, the contents of the cupboards scattered by clumsy searching hands. Food from the fridge had been spread over the kitchen bench. The eggs had smashed on the floor to join a pool of milk and a creeping tide of water from the open freezer. Still unable to speak, Stevie moved to shut the freezer door before pushing some of the packaged food away from the flood. Picking up an empty cereal box she reached for the bin to discover it missing from its alcove. She found it in the bathroom, the stinking contents tipped into the bath.

‘Who the hell did this?’ She said as she returned to the men in the lounge room, stepping across Monty’s slashed mattress that was lying on the floor where it had been dumped.

Among the jumbled books from the shelves, a patch of carpet glistened with shattered glass and waterweed. She stooped to examine the inert goldfish.

‘DOA,’ Monty said without looking up, apparently still intent on fixing the TV. ‘Keyes and Thrummel said the flat was like this when they arrived. They accused me of doing it to destroy evidence. That Thrummel’s bloody crazy—wired as a bloody time bomb. Keyes was practically holding him back by a chain.’

Stevie rose with the fish cradled in her hand. Her eyes met De Vakey’s in silent communication. She felt hollow and empty. When she did speak, her words rattled in the heavy silence.

‘Those thugs can’t be allowed to get away with this. Did you report them?’

Monty put down the screwdriver and rocked back on his heels. ‘I’ve had a gutful of red tape, the correct fucking procedure—what’s the point of reporting them? I can’t prove they trashed the flat and even if I did Baggly would probably just sweep it under the carpet to avoid an enquiry. I’ll handle this my own way. I broke Keyes’ nose, that’s a start.’ He shook his head before saying, almost to himself, ‘I suppose I should be grateful he didn’t plant anything to link me to Michelle’s death.’ Then in a louder voice he said, ‘I asked them to collect the KP files for me, but they said they couldn’t find them.’

Stevie drew a sharp breath, coming to a standstill on her way to the bathroom with the fish.

Monty continued, ‘I arrived when they were finishing up. When I ever so politely asked about them, they said they’d never seen them. Apparently I am now being accused of negligent loss.’

‘What about your cleaning lady? Could she have tidied them away?’

Monty waved his arms around the room. ‘Yeah, sure looks like she’s been, doesn’t it?’ He dropped the sarcasm. ‘There was a message from her on my answering machine, calling to cancel because she’s got the flu.’

Stevie turned to gauge De Vakey’s reaction. He shrugged. ‘Monty’s read the files, he can give us the relevant information.’ He put a hand to each temple as if he was in pain. ‘But let’s just clear this mess up first. I can’t think straight in chaos.’

Stevie flushed the fish down the toilet and De Vakey picked up Monty’s Italian apron and tied it on. After righting the sofa he began to gather up the scattered cushions, apparently unaware of the life-size ‘David’ clinging to his middle. Too despondent to comment, Stevie grabbed a mop and bucket and hit the bathroom.

Monty’s kitchen phone rang after they’d been cleaning for about ten minutes and Wayne filled Stevie in on the latest developments: Michelle’s car in the gym’s car park and her sighting in the cafe. The promising lead from the receptionist at the gym had turned into a dead end, though interesting in another way. Wayne and Barry had traced the address on Frank Dixon’s membership card to a video store in a street just off the highway. After that it came as no surprise to hear there was no record of a Frank Dixon on police personnel files. On another tack, a couple of officers had called at Martin Sparrow’s house and been told by his mother that he was out for the day. One of the cops had parked in the street outside and was now waiting for him to return.

Stevie relayed the information to Monty in his bedroom. He’d flipped the mattress cut side down and was remaking his bed.

‘Frank Dixon,’ Monty repeated the name. ‘Another of his games.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘You remember, Dixon of Dock Green —that TV show about the London bobby?’

‘Oh yes, “Evenin’ all”.’

Monty almost smiled. He went on to say that the notion of Martin Sparrow as a serial killer was ridiculous, but conceded that the cleaner’s meeting with Michelle did need investigating. When Stevie pointed out he could have been the one who stole Monty’s watch, he reluctantly agreed it was a possibility.

As for his gym membership, he told Stevie he’d stopped going to the gym several months previously after literally bumping into Michelle on the stairs. As his visits had to be on record somewhere, there was no way that Monty’s gym membership could be used as evidence against him.

Stevie breathed out a sigh of relief and dropped the subject.

***

After a couple of hours’ work, the flat was, once again, fit for habitation. The three of them sat at Monty’s kitchen table eating a take-away pizza. Monty pushed the box away, his share barely touched.

‘Still feeling sorry for yourself?’ Stevie asked, hoping for a rise; anything to jolt him out of his current apathy.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I am. It’s not every day I fall off the wagon, turn up at work to stare in the face of my dead ex, get accused of her murder, suspended and then have my flat ransacked. Sorry if I’m not ideal company.’

With a nerve-jangling scrape he pushed his chair away from the table.

‘I’m going for a shower.’

Stevie let out her breath when the bathroom door closed and looked at De Vakey.

‘His attitude is quite understandable, Stevie,’ De Vakey moved towards the kettle. ‘How about a coffee?’

She nodded, appreciating the stabilising influence De Vakey had brought to this harrowing situation. She watched as he made the coffee, as at home in a kitchen as he would be in a boardroom. He was probably an excellent cook too, although he did look absurd in that apron. The time was finally right to give him a serve, but he spoke before the words could leave her mouth.

‘Do you really believe he was drinking last night?’

She looked into his unreadable grey eyes. ‘Why, don’t you?’

‘He has no memory of it.’

‘Is that so strange?’ She left the table and settled herself on the nearby sofa.

De Vakey handed her the coffee, then sat down in the armchair opposite. ‘How long has he been on the wagon?’ he asked.

‘Monty was never an alcoholic, if that’s what you’re thinking. He was a social drinker, that’s all.’

‘Okay, I’ll rephrase the question. When did he stop drinking?’

‘About four years ago.’

‘No hesitation, you seem very sure.’

Stevie looked at the back of her hands and noticed a sticky smudge on the face of her diver’s watch. ‘He’d been in England on a course and came back temporarily for the Christmas break to see Michelle. They’d been separated for a while and he was hoping for some kind of reconciliation. I saw him at the work Christmas party, the reconciliation didn’t seem to be working and he’d been drowning his sorrows.’

The smudge looked like honey. Izzy must have been playing with her watch again; small fingerprints covered the face. After breathing on the glass she rubbed it in circular motions on the leg of her jeans. ‘I don’t know for sure, but I think he did something he felt ashamed of. He hasn’t drunk alcohol since.’

‘He must have a very strong image of whatever it was that made him so ashamed. For it to trigger instant abstinence, the image must have been very painful.’

Out of the corner of her eye she saw De Vakey studying her. Leave your watch alone, she told herself, folding her hands in her lap and tucking her legs underneath her on the sofa.

But she couldn’t stop her mind from flying back to the event she and Monty never discussed. It was as if by never mentioning that night, they could pretend it had never happened. His shame could fade with time and she could stop yearning for something she could never have. Now, here was this stranger dredging it all back up again. She threw him a sharp look.

‘So you think that he really can remember what happened last night and is just conveniently blaming the alcohol? You’re way out of line, mate.’ She flung her hand in his direction. ‘And for God’s sake take that fucking apron off!’

De Vakey looked down at his torso and chuckled, making the down-turned corners of Stevie’s mouth lift slightly. After removing the apron he sat back down and returned to business. ‘I appreciate your loyalty to Monty,’ he said, ‘but it’s time to think outside the square. Maybe he hadn’t been drinking last night, but maybe someone wanted it to seem as if he had.’

Stevie stared at him for a moment. She didn’t need to hear another word. She sprang from the sofa and rushed to the bathroom, pounding on the door.

‘Monty! Get your arse out of there!’

Monty appeared dressed in nothing but a sulphur-yellow towel and a thick blanket of steam. He stood and gaped as Stevie hauled the bag of rubbish from the bathroom, wet hair sticking up on his head like exclamation marks.

De Vakey spread newspaper over a portion of the carpet. He seemed to know what Stevie was doing, although Monty had no idea.

‘James got me thinking about your presumed fall from grace,’ she said as she hefted the garbage bag and tipped out the contents. Empty jars, cans and cartons clattered onto the newspaper. De Vakey reacted quickly with more newspaper to protect the carpet. Monty pushed a beer can back with a bare foot then knelt down to examine it, holding the towel around his waist secure with one hand.

He shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe I did this.’

‘Maybe you didn’t,’ Stevie said, sniffing at another empty can.

Monty followed suit. ‘Sour beer, what are we supposed to be looking for?’

De Vakey handed him an empty carton of tomato juice, its corner cut for pouring. Most of the juice had leaked onto the floor, but a few drops still remained in the bottom of the carton.

Monty put it to his nose and shrugged. ‘I don’t know, has it gone off? I can’t tell.’

‘Considering the amount of chilli you use, I’m amazed you can taste anything.’ Monty was usually sharper than this. Stevie was surprised to have to spell it out for him. ‘Jeez, Monty, don’t you see? You were probably drugged!’

Monty stared open mouthed from one of them to the other.

‘Was this a new carton last night?’ De Vakey asked.

Monty squinted at it as he tried to remember. ‘No, I’m pretty sure it was already open. I took it from the fridge.’

De Vakey ran his finger around the carton’s cut corner, ‘I’m no connoisseur but this juice looks a bit darker than it should.’

Monty looked into the carton and shrugged. ‘Yeah, maybe it is, I was busy with other things last night, I didn’t notice.’

‘These days, because of date rape, an additive is put into Rohypnol tablets to make the liquid they’re put in turn blue in order to alert the drinker,’ Stevie said, examining the dregs in the carton for herself. ‘It doesn’t show in dark drinks though, so I’m not sure if it would dramatically alter the appearance of tomato juice.’ She thought for a moment. ‘But if it was drugged, it would have to be by someone who knows your drinking habits, right?’

‘They’re no secret, it’s common knowledge I’m on the wagon.’

‘Keyes and Thrummel?’

‘I never met them before today, but I suppose word gets around.’ He sighed. ‘But let’s just get me in the clear first before we start pointing any fingers.’

Stevie put the carton on the coffee table. ‘I’ll bag this up and send it to the lab for tests. I think this’ll go a long way to getting you off the hook. Has anyone been in your flat recently?’

Monty collapsed onto the sofa with his head in his hands. ‘No. Yes. I can’t remember.’

‘What about a spare key?’

‘My neighbour to feed the fish when I’m away.’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Wait on—there was a plumber. Mrs Nash opened the flat up to a plumber yesterday. She left me a note about it.’

Without moving from the sofa, he made a futile scan of the flat as if he might come across the note. Stevie could see it was a delaying tactic, as if his foggy mind needed time to grapple with the implications.

When his eyes drifted back to hers his voice was hoarse. ‘Of course, that has to be it, but why would someone want to drug me?’

‘It has to be linked to the watch, to putting you in the frame,’ Stevie said.

Monty shook his head and sighed. ‘There was a moment when even I thought, maybe...’ He paused, cleared his throat and shrugged off his self-doubt. ‘Never mind, this explains a lot. Thanks guys.’

‘I’ll speak to Mrs Nash in the morning,’ Stevie said. ‘Hopefully she’ll be able to give us a description of this so-called plumber. Meanwhile you need to get dressed. I’m taking you to the hospital for a blood test.’

Often the killer will have his own bizarre language of symbols. For example a hair fixation, as interpreted by Freud, can be seen to represent a fear of the adult female’s sexuality.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

After the blood test, Stevie and Monty returned to the flat to find that De Vakey had had a lot more success fixing the TV than Monty had. Jeez, Stevie thought, was there anything the man couldn’t do?

‘Before I saw those files,’ Monty said, settling deeper into the sofa next to Stevie, ‘I thought it was the posing that linked the four crimes. Now I see the link as the cut hair or shaved heads.’ A different perspective on the previous night’s events had strengthened his voice. His colour had improved too, Stevie noted.

‘You’re right, the missing hair is much more of a concrete commonality than the posing alone,’ De Vakey said. He rose from his seat and turned off the TV.

‘The hair could easily be our unsub’s fetish,’ he continued, ‘something that triggers memories he has a compulsion to destroy, something to do with his mother most likely. It’s the timing that has me confused, though. I would expect him to escalate as his compulsions grew, but this pattern is hard to understand. There were three weeks between the deaths of the prostitutes, a jump of several years to Royce, then only a matter of days between Royce and Birkby.’ He gestured to Monty. ‘Have there been any other reports of these kinds of staged murders over the last few years?’

‘No, not unless he’s been overseas or inside.’ Monty said.

‘I’ll put someone on an Interpol search tomorrow, also check out recently released sex offenders,’ Stevie said.

De Vakey was deep in thought. ‘Unless Michelle Birkby wasn’t part of the original equation. Unless she needed to be killed.’

‘She was up to something, she as good as told me she was. She’s been like a dog with a bone over those KP murders,’ Monty said.

His slip into the present tense made Stevie’s heart ache for him; she knew his marriage to Michelle had not always been a loveless one.

‘The pattern’s asymmetrical in other ways, too.’ She leaned towards De Vakey. ‘The prostitutes weren’t gym members, but the last two vics were. We’ve got prostitutes to ordinary women, none of them bearing any physical resemblance to each other: black-haired, red, blonde and now brunette. Object rape to no penetration at all, unpainted victims to painted victims magnificently staged with a Keats’ quotation—I mean so much of it just doesn’t make sense.’

Monty pressed both palms into his eyes before focusing a bleary gaze on Stevie. ‘My notebook has gone along with the case files. There are hazy spots in my memory, but one thing I do remember thinking is how the victims were total opposites. Could his selection be a deliberate attempt to throw us off track, to go against the norm? With all due respect, De Vakey, you profilers base your suppositions on research and statistics. There’s not room for much flexibility there.’

De Vakey shrugged, ‘Nothing can be carved in stone. A profile is about a type of person, not a specific one. But when you’ve studied patterns of aberrant behaviour for as long as I have, you can’t help but notice certain persistent constants.’

‘I know what Monty means, though,’ Stevie said. ‘Look at the Linda Royce case. It’s as if he deliberately tried to make her different from the others: the paint, the elaborate posing, the quotation on her thigh.’

De Vakey looked from one of them to the other. ‘Yes, but fundamentally it’s still the same crime. You’re correct, Monty, when you see the hair as the common link. The man is out to depersonalise the victims, and what better way to do it, especially with a woman, than to cut off her hair? This is the one thing he cannot help doing because it is rooted in his deepest fantasies. It is something he cannot change, no matter how clever he thinks he is. As for the Easeful Death quote, perhaps in his own warped way he thinks that by killing them he’s doing them a kindness.’

‘But it wasn’t written on the prostitutes at all,’ Monty said.

‘Four years have passed, the line might have come to his notice in the meantime,’ De Vakey replied. ‘Who knows what he’s been up to since then. Maybe he’s pursued further education in an attempt to curb his impulses, and maybe it did for a while, until something sparked him off again. The KP murders were a crude attempt to shock; these later murders smack of a much higher level of sophistication.’

De Vakey’s tone was almost one of admiration. Did he regard this murdering animal as a worthy opponent? Stevie shivered and drew her legs tight under her body.

‘Whatever it was, he’s had a huge increase in confidence since the KP murders,’ De Vakey continued. ‘Prostitutes are low-risk victims. They put themselves in harm’s way each time they take on a client. Linda Royce and Michelle Birkby, on the other hand, were high risk; they would have been reluctant to put themselves in any kind of dangerous situation. They have family, friends and loved ones who would miss them immediately. This fact would increase the buzz for our unsub and give him an even greater high when he got away with it. The next victim will probably be even more of a risk to him, and I predict that she will turn up sooner rather than later.’

Stevie met Monty’s worried glance.

‘This man will only stop when he’s caught,’ De Vakey answered their silent question. ‘Think of the worst case of drug addiction you’ve ever known and multiply it by ten. The whole of his psyche has been taken over by these urges. When he’s not physically committing these crimes he’s fantasising about them or preparing for the next one.’

‘Have you any idea when that might be?’ Stevie asked.

De Vakey shrugged. ‘I predict the next murder could be within days.’

Stevie stiffened and looked at Monty who stared back at her, speechless.

‘When is the re-enactment of the Linda Royce walk?’ De Vakey asked, forcing an end to the shocked silence.

‘Sunday,’ Stevie said.

De Vakey rubbed his hands together. He seemed animated, his face flushed with excitement. ‘Not only will this reenactment serve as a memory jogger for the general public, it may even lure our killer out. His toying with the police is as important to him as the murdering of his victims. The toying, in fact, has escalated to another plane with the murder of a police officer’s ex-wife. He won’t be satisfied with anything less now.

‘This re-enactment will be hard for him to resist. We need a press release which will list his characteristics, something like...’ he drew quote marks in the air and spoke rapidly, ‘Fit white male twenty to forty years old, intelligent, compulsively neat and tidy. May drive a dark van and own a German shepherd dog. He probably comes from a dysfunctional family and suffered childhood abuse. A history of lighting fires, bedwetting or cruelty to animals and/or younger children.’ He paused. ‘Has anything been mentioned to the press about the absence of sexual assault?’

‘Nothing one way or the other, no comment,’ Monty said.

‘All the better then, we’ll say he’s impotent or gay.’ De Vakey looked at Stevie as he explained his rationale. ‘This may hit a nerve and could quite possibly be correct. It may goad him into wanting to prove us wrong. If we get him angry, he’s more likely to slip up.’

Stevie felt the sofa move as Monty shifted his weight. ‘You think he might target Stevie?’

De Vakey appeared not to have heard Monty’s question. He leaned towards Stevie with his elbows on his knees, as if they were the only people in the room.

‘We can go on to say that the killer feels inadequate with women, could be a closet homosexual or impotent for some reason, the victims are merely an outlet for his rage. My assessment regarding this re-enactment is that our unsub would love to be there, though maybe not in an obvious way, maybe not with the rest of the crowd. It would be a private moment for him. I’ve walked the area, I’ve studied the maps. If I were in his shoes, I’d hide in the alleyway just down from the bus stop. While in hiding I would fantasise about the female police officer. I would imagine her continuing her walk down to where I was and I would see myself grabbing her, from right under the cops’ noses. Now, if this was only in his head, how would he feel if it really happened, if she really did come down the alleyway? He would see it as something that was meant to be and he’d throw caution to the wind. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.’

Stevie glanced at Monty. The knuckles of the hand that gripped the sofa’s armrest were white. She sensed what was coming.

Monty spoke before the De Vakey could continue. ‘I don’t like your plan. We’re talking about life and death here, not a day trip to Rottnest Island.’ The challenge in his tone was unmistakable.

Stevie wondered how De Vakey would respond.

His animation faded, he was back to his usual sea of calm. ‘The chances of his coming to the alley are slim, Monty, but it’s worth a try. I’m merely trying to predict his actions.’

‘No, you’re not getting me,’ Monty said, ‘I’m all for the reenactment, but this ending in the alley, this newspaper advert is ludicrous. She’ll be far too vulnerable—they can hardly position the TRG behind the dustbins.’

‘Maybe not behind the bins, but you’d be surprised at how well these kind of plans can work. Angus and I will consult with the TRG leader and we’ll work out their placement together.’

‘Okay, but if he is there, there’d still be a risky delay between his grabbing her and back-up arriving.’

‘This is just supposition, Monty, a long shot. I’m just trying to think objectively.’ De Vakey passed a tongue over his lips and looked Monty in the eye.

Monty sprang to his feet. ‘And I’m not?’ he bellowed. ‘You’re not being objective, you’re being callous. You want us to use Stevie as bait, for God’s sake. This is a re-enactment we’re talking about, something that is supposed to be shown on television as a memory jogger—not a bloody entrapment! You’ve said yourself that you don’t do individuals, only types. Who knows how this creep will respond to your goading through the press? He could do anything.’ Monty kicked out at a beer can they’d missed and it clattered into the wall.

Stevie squirmed on the sofa. Monty was supposed to be one of De Vakey’s most staunch supporters, but here he was going against the first proactive suggestion the profiler had made. And besides, she wanted to do it.

She tried to keep her voice cool and steady. ‘But it could work, Monty. Why not try to kill two birds with one stone?’

‘Three birds, more like,’ he said. ‘I won’t have it. I will not endanger you in this way. The only thing I’m sure De Vakey is right about is the fact that this creep is building up to something bigger and better. The timing of this re-enactment is wrong. I’ll have it cancelled.’

He stormed towards his phone.

Stevie rose from the sofa and put her hand on his arm. ‘Monty, you’re off the case, remember? This is between Angus, James and me. I want to do it, I’ll have protection and I’ll be wired. You’re just going to have to trust me.’

Monty glared at her and raised a corner of his lip. ‘Just what is it you’re always trying to prove?’

Stevie froze. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’ Her eyes darted to De Vakey, catching the deepening furrow between his brows. This wouldn’t do. Making a scene in front of De Vakey, showing how easily Monty’s words could hurt her would not bloody do at all.

She took a deep breath, let it out slowly and settled back into the sofa. ‘It’s not about me, it’s about catching this killer before he kills again.’ Her voice sounded a lot calmer than she felt and she was pleased to see that her hand was steady as ever as she reached for her smokes.

Monty had turned his back on her, feigning an interest in something outside the window. His broad shoulders began to sag.

‘I’m still not happy about this,’ he said finally, dragging his feet back to the sofa.

Stevie dismissed him with a wave of her hand. ‘So you’ve said, but there’s nothing you can do about it, is there?’ She turned to De Vakey. ‘Moving on. You said before that our killer had some kind of police involvement. This reinforces Monty’s theory that someone with police access must have tampered with the files. Keyes and Thrummel are the obvious candidates for taking them from Monty’s flat, but someone else is clearly involved too.’

‘Yes, the missing notes are disturbing. Clearly the albino cleaner also needs checking out. In fact, all your male colleagues at Central can loosely be considered suspects or accessories.’ De Vakey gave Monty a look he thankfully missed.

‘The thin blue line is getting thinner,’ Monty said to his toes. ‘I had Wayne check the database for Harper’s missing alibi. It wasn’t there, so it must never have been entered in the first place. Nor was the name of the prostitute interviewed about the Lorna Dunn murder. It’s common knowledge that the case was bungled, but experienced officers couldn’t cock things up to this extent.’

He looked at Stevie, hesitated for a moment, running his tongue over dry lips. ‘I also asked Wayne to check out Tye Davis. Wayne talked to his supervisor at the mine and was told Davis was working the day Royce was murdered. He’s sending Wayne down his timesheets.’

Stevie felt the blood rise to her head. ‘What? Couldn’t you have said something to me first?’

‘We know a disgruntled cop might be involved—after everything you went through with Davis, surely he crossed your mind?’ Monty said.

De Vakey raised an eyebrow at Stevie’s reddening face. ‘Is there something I haven’t been told?’

Stevie forced herself to breathe. ‘Later,’ she said to De Vakey. He would have to know, but not now, and not with Monty present. She pulled her legs onto the sofa and hugged her knees. ‘Is there any chance there’s a second party involved in the actual murders?’ she asked.

‘In my experience this kind of killer works alone. He would consider the murders to be private, personal moments that he would have no wish to share. But it needn’t stop him from manipulating other people to serve his purpose...’ De Vakey’s sentence tapered off, as if he’d become lost on another train of thought.

Monty also seemed to grow distant. ‘I’m going for a little drive tomorrow, visit an old mate.’ His flat tone gave nothing away. For the first time during this discussion Stevie felt as if the two men might be on the same wavelength. She stubbed out her smoke and waited for Monty to continue. When nothing else seemed forthcoming she prompted, ‘Who?’

‘Peter Sbresni.’

‘The lead of the KP killings? Monty, he’s not a mate, you’ve never even met him! He was sacked before you got here for Christ’s sake!’

Monty shrugged. ‘We shared the same barber for a while.’

‘You’re still suspended; it could take days to get the results of your blood test and get you officially off the hook. You’re on a razor’s edge as it is, you can’t jeopardise yourself any further.’

‘There’s nothing wrong with looking up an old mate. I may be suspended but I can still socialise.’

‘I’ll come with you, then,’ Stevie said, concerned about what Monty might get up to once he was outside the system.

‘I don’t want you involved. You need to stay with De Vakey and help Angus and the others.’

‘You want to keep me out of the loop to get back at me for this re-enactment thing, is that it?’

‘For God’s sake, Stevie, you’re being petty now. You’re far more in the loop working with the team than you are with me at the moment.’

She was being petty, she knew it, but couldn’t seem to help it. She was still angry about his overprotective attitude, smarting that he chose to show it in front of De Vakey.

De Vakey held up his hands like an exasperated father trying to calm down warring siblings. ‘It’s been a long day. I think we should all get some sleep and rethink our course of action in the morning.’

They all went to the door. As De Vakey descended the steps, Monty held Stevie back with a hand on her arm. Out of De Vakey’s earshot he said, ‘I’m sorry if I came on too strong, I suppose I overreacted. It’s just, I...’

Stevie took his hand and squeezed it. She knew what he was going to say and tried to make it easier for him. ‘I know. You promised Dot you’d look after me. She should never have asked you to do that.’ She let out a breath. ‘It just makes everything so complicated, doesn’t it?’

His eyes met hers and held them for a moment. He set his jaw, dropped her hand and walked back into his flat.

***

De Vakey’s hotel room told Stevie little about the profiler she didn’t already know: that he was a neat freak with expensive tastes was as obvious here as anywhere else. A small suitcase rested on the luggage rack, a folded handkerchief on the nightstand next to one of his books, his laptop closed on the table.

After flinging her jacket over one of the chairs, she used the excuse to wash her hands to check out his bathroom. An old-fashioned badger bristle shaving brush rested near the sink. She picked it up and brushed it across her cheek imagining the feel of an unshaved man against her skin, breathed his scent from an expensive bottle of cologne. The silver hairbrush next to the cologne was the kind her grandfather had used.

They were from different worlds, she reflected, and he was definitely not her type. In fact, other than the idealised men in her DVD collection she didn’t think she had a type anymore. Why then, did she feel tingles of excitement when he sat close or put a hand on her arm? Why, when he’d asked her up to his room, did she even have a moment’s thought that it might not be to discuss the case? His physical attraction, compounded by his enigmatic qualities had obviously stirred up dormant hormones. But the awareness gave her power; she’d identified the problem now and could be on her guard.

But did she want to be?

She watched as he busied himself at the bar fridge, selecting a bottle of champagne, brows creased, as if it was the most difficult decision he’d had to make all week. Choice made, he popped the cork with practiced ease and held a full glass out to her.

‘I don’t drink champagne,’ she said, standing in the middle of the room.

‘Would you prefer a beer?’

‘I thought we were here to talk about the case.’

‘We are, but I don’t see why we can’t make our unpleasant business as pleasant as possible.’

He held the champagne glass out again. Noticing her slight sway of hesitation, he was at her side in an instant.

She reluctantly took the offered glass and sat down on a chair near the small circular table, as far away from the king-size bed as she could get.

He leaned against the wall near the bathroom door. ‘You were going to tell me about this Tye Davis character.’

She bit at her bottom lip. Should she, shouldn’t she? Tye had been occupying her thoughts to an unreasonable extent over these last few days. Despite his tight alibi, there was still something about the Linda Royce case that struck an uneasy, personal chord. In her head she saw Tye reach for the camera in the bedside drawer, heard his voice, smooth and cajoling. ‘Come on, Stevie, pose for me baby, you know you’ll like it.’

She shook her head to dispel the image. The memory alone made her feel uncomfortable. Perhaps sharing her story, getting some reassurance from a professional like De Vakey, would put an end to her illogical suspicions. But sharing intimate details of her former sex life was easier said than done. She took several gulps of champagne: she needed Dutch courage to get through this. Bubbles invaded her sinus cavities. She should have gone for beer.

‘Take as long as you like,’ he prompted with a smile, eyes crinkling in a way that was hard to resist.

With another slurp her courage grew.

‘I was in love with him,’ she said. ‘I feel stupid about it now, but I fell for a classic con. He was clever, witty, charming and romantic when he wanted to be. He wooed me with flowers and expensive dinners. I never saw his other side. When we met he was the youngest senior sergeant in Australia, people said he was going far, would probably end up as commissioner one day. I was only a constable and I guess I was overawed. My father was dying from MS and Tye bent over backwards to help Mum and me out. We began to rely on his support more and more.’ She paused for another sip of champagne; this was getting easier by the moment.

‘My folks made a small fortune from the sale of the family station and Dad gave me the money for my house. When Tye and I decided to move in together, Dad was adamant he should sign some kind of tenancy agreement, just in case. I felt awkward about it, but it was Dad’s money after all, he had a right to insist. Tye signed, but once we set up house things hit the fan. He started to get moody and secretive, having irrational bursts of temper which I put down to pressures of the job—he was working Vice at the time. And then he started spending money. Jeez, did he spend up big. I questioned him about it once and he lashed out and knocked me to the ground. I was stunned. I didn’t know how to deal with it.’

The quaver in her voice betrayed her and she didn’t care. It was such a relief to finally be able to tell someone how it really was. Most of it.

‘Because you still loved him.’ De Vakey moved to her side and squatted down to her level. ‘Because he apologised and said he’d make it all up to you.’

She nodded. Boy, did Tye know how to make up. Sex with him had been terrific; she’d never understood why he needed to use the camera.

‘But the money still bothered me,’ she continued. ‘And I suppose there was no small amount of revenge involved in my motives, too, I mean how dare he hit me? I didn’t do anything rash, but I made some discreet enquiries, began to check up on him, and my suspicions grew. I eventually told a senior officer in Vice who had some doubts of his own, and he had Tye followed. He was caught red-handed receiving protection money from a pimp in Northbridge. There was an investigation. He denied the charges, as did the pimp, and there wasn’t enough evidence for prosecution. Tye was dismissed and left town—and I was carrying his baby.’

De Vakey refilled her glass. ‘A disgruntled cop, certainly. You’ve read my profile of the unsub. Could any of it apply to Davis?’

Stevie looked at her glass. The bubbles rose like strings of pearls. She said softly, ‘Well, he didn’t have any sexual hangups, although he did sometimes want me to pose for his camera.’ Bubbles caught in her throat. ‘I never did, of course.’ She made herself look directly at De Vakey. ‘The posing of the victims, you don’t think...’

He gave her a reassuring smile. ‘No, I don’t think so.’

Relief washed over her as the load lifted. ‘And he came from a stable family background. Never once owned a German shepherd.’

The absurdity made her smile. Surely that nervous giggle wasn’t hers? It must have been—he smiled that irresistible crinkling smile again.

She tried to pull herself together. ‘The only thing that fits is the cop bit. Greed was the motive behind his shonky dealings. Looking back on it, I think that’s why he was interested in me. We’d just come into some family money.’

‘Don’t underestimate yourself, Stevie. You’re a beautiful woman, despite your efforts to hide it.’

It wasn’t the words, it was the way he said them. A wave of heat surged through her, from her toes to the lobes of her ears, a feeling she hadn’t had for a very long time.

It was time to go.

She rose to her feet, pretending she hadn’t heard him. Keeping her tone businesslike and her hand on the table for support, she said, ‘Just one more thing before I go. In the car you said you needed to say something you couldn’t say in front of Monty. Are you suspicious about someone in Central? I reckon Monty is, but he won’t say. Tell me, what’s on your mind?’

He paused to consider his answer and she took a swallow from her glass.

‘You,’ he said.

She nearly choked; bubbles came out of her nose, forcing her to lunge for the handkerchief on the bedside table. From the corner of her watering eye she saw his face light up with a grin. For God’s sake, he was laughing at her.

A small tide of champagne snowballed over the edge of the glass as she slammed it down. ‘You got me here under false pretences—I’m going,’ she said, storming over to the chair where she’d left her jacket and bag.

‘Stevie, please, listen to me.’ De Vakey stopped her with a touch on her arm.

When she shook off his grip, his hand moved to her other arm. She whirled around to meet his eyes, sure she’d see their familiar irritating gleam, his patronising way of telling her to lighten up and take herself less seriously. Instead she saw loneliness and need, another hint of the vulnerability she’d glimpsed in him at the abduction site—or was it merely the reflection of her own weakness?

She saw her failed relationships falling like rose petals at her feet.

The pressure of his fingers increased. ‘Stay. Please,’ he said in a voice soft as cotton. He sought the band holding her ponytail and released her hair, running his fingers through the silky smoothness as it cascaded around her shoulders like water.

She continued to cling to her jacket and bag, a half-hearted signal that this fleeting moment would soon be ending. Emotionally he meant nothing to her. Christ, she barely even liked him. But if that was the case, why did her body refuse to respond to her brain’s command to leave?

She took a breath. ‘You are a master at seduction, Mr De Vakey.’

‘I’m a master of everything I do.’

‘Humble, too,’ she smiled. ‘Arrogant bloody prick.’

When he laughed, her decision was made.

She allowed him to take her by the hand to the bed. As he leaned over to cover her mouth with his, the mattress sighed underneath them.

Right or wrong, she began to lose herself in him, to savour the almost forgotten thrill of her own arousal. She deserved this, didn’t she? God, it had been such a long time.

But fate decreed it hadn’t been long enough.

What the hell was that noise? It took a few seconds of confusion before she realised the nightmarish rhythm was coming from her bag at the side of the bed. De Vakey said to leave it, but she couldn’t.

She dived for her phone, shutting off the thumping beat of AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’. For Christ’s sake, Barry had sabotaged her ring tone again.

‘Hooper.’ Breathless, she was all too aware of the hand creeping up her leg, kneading her inner thigh like a cat.

‘Stevie, I’ve just had a thought.’ Monty, oh God. She pushed De Vakey’s hand away and edged further down the bed.

‘Do you know if anything of significance was discovered at Michelle’s apartment?’ Monty asked.

‘I don’t think so. They dusted it for prints and only found Michelle’s and her cleaning lady’s. No sign that anyone else had been there in a long time.’

The silence stretched from Monty’s end of the phone. He said, ‘Are you okay? You sound out of breath.’

‘I’ve just been wrestling with Izzy.’ The lie scraped her throat like dry toast.

‘And you always telling me not to stir her up before bedtime.’

‘Yes, well...’

‘Shall I say goodnight to her?’

‘She’s just run off to the bathroom.’

After a beat Monty said, ‘I gather they didn’t find the safe.’

She stood up and turned her back on De Vakey. ‘Safe, what safe?’

‘It’s in the cavity of the dividing wall between the front entrance and the living area,’ Monty said.

‘That’s the first I’ve heard of any safe.’

‘I’d be interested to know what’s in it. Could you go and have a look? The combination’s 270568.’

Her eyes scanned the room in a panic. ‘Pen?’ she mouthed to De Vakey, wincing at the sound as he climbed off the bed.

‘The combination’s her birthday. I put the safe in for her myself a few years ago.’ She took the pen from De Vakey and repeated the number as she wrote it on her hand, then read the address back to him to make sure she’d got it right.

‘Is Dot staying over?’ Monty asked.

She hesitated, glanced at De Vakey. ‘Yes.’

‘Good. You could check on that safe now, then. You’ll have to call in at Central for the key and security doo-hickeys. The place is like Fort Knox. Ring me back even if you don’t find anything important, I don’t mind if you wake me. And give Izzy a hug from me, okay?’

She said she would, then clicked the off button.

‘I have to go,’ she said.

She couldn’t look at De Vakey as she scraped her hair back into its ponytail and rearranged her clothes. When she’d finished he took his phone from his pocket, showing her that it had been switched off.

‘Turn yours off next time,’ he said with a glint in his eye.

If only it was that simple.

Research has shown that serial killers have a tendency towards low arousal levels, meaning that they need more stimulation than the average person to obtain any degree of satisfaction. This leads to impulsive and thrill-seeking behaviour that is further exacerbated by an inhibition of the moral voice of reason.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie’s mind was still churning as she turned the key in Michelle’s apartment door. What would have happened if the phone hadn’t interrupted them? Would she have had the strength to pull back? She smiled to herself—who was she kidding? Her body was already growing warm with the thought of what might have been.

But what she saw next put an end to that train of thought and left her standing in Michelle’s small marbled entrance, blinking and stunned.

The lights were on and a pair of men’s trainers stood to attention at the side of the door.

Had someone been here since the search? Was he here now?

She contemplated phoning for assistance, but hesitated. She could think of no explanation for her presence in Michelle’s apartment that wouldn’t get Monty into even deeper trouble.

She dropped the phone back into her bag and took a step forward. The light must have been left on after the morning’s search, she reasoned; there couldn’t possibly be anyone here now. And the trainers—hell, what was the point in speculating? She was going in.

The entrance was separated from the living area by a wall with a lighted alcove, just as Monty had said. In the alcove, on a white painted shelf above the hidden safe there rested a heavy vase of blown glass. Despite the fungal coating of fingerprint powder the vase burst with colourful prisms of light, patterning the pale walls with rainbow dots much like the ones cast by her mother’s crystal ring.

Although she had convinced herself there was no one in the apartment, she still rued the fact that Central dees didn’t carry guns without due cause. If they did, she would have drawn hers now, just as a precaution. As it was, she took the can of pepper spray from her bag and held it in front of herself like an actor in an insect spray commercial.

Her footsteps across the honey-coloured floorboards were silent in her air-soles, but her heart beat like a tom-tom in her chest. For someone who wasn’t nervous, she was doing a fair imitation.

A tinted chandelier bathed the apartment in an eerie yellow radiance. At the other end of the living room, French doors led to the balcony and a panoramic view of the City of Lights. Outside, car lights rippled like a creeping black tide up the dark windows of the surrounding skyscrapers. Other apartment blocks loomed towards her like ships in the night.

She called out loudly, ‘Armed police! Come out slowly with your hands away from your body!’

Silence.

She tiptoed into a tiny bedroom, looked under the bed, then into a wardrobe large enough to conceal a midget. She did the same in the larger spare room, knowing before she started there would be no one there, knowing she was only delaying the inevitable.

In the main bedroom she stood rigid before the mirrored robe. If someone was in there, she reasoned, he’d probably be more terrified than she was. She imagined a pair of darting eyes staring back at her through a chink in the door.

She grabbed a blood-red throw rug from the foot of the bed, counted to ten in her head and yanked open the sliding door.

Her breath tangled with the panicked cry of the shadowy figure as she hurled the rug at him. He was caught off guard and blinded and she had no trouble dragging him out of the cupboard along with half-a-dozen entangled coat hangers. With an expert kick, she had him face down on the floor with an arm up behind his back.

She breathed easier once she’d snapped on the handcuffs and patted him down, finding nothing except a wallet and some lock-picking tools. She ripped the rug off his head and ordered him to roll over.

Stevie stared down at the man for a moment, knowing the pale frightened face and the magnified blinking eyes instantly. He was Martin Sparrow, the albino cleaner from Central. Their prime suspect, the last person they knew to have seen Michelle alive.

Killers often returned to the scene of the crime, but the earlier search had ascertained that this was not the crime scene. Perhaps he wanted to get close to Michelle’s things, to savour the atmosphere and relive the experience. They had surmised that the killer might have controlled himself at the scene, saving his release for a later time. The thought of what he might have been doing in Michelle’s apartment made her skin crawl.

Sparrow turned his face away. She hauled him to his feet and shoved him onto the sofa in the living room. Ripping the bottle-thick glasses from his face she held the pepper spray to his skittering eyes.

‘You know what this is?’ she said evenly, congratulating herself for not giving away the tingling bursts of fear still coursing through her body.

The large fish-like eyes stopped moving and focused on Stevie’s.

‘It means if you give me any trouble, I squirt this in your face. It hurts like hell and you’ll be temporarily blinded.’

Now the eyes creased around the edges as if she’d made some kind of an in-house joke. This show of humour was unsettling. She spoke through clenched jaws. ‘I’m arresting you for breaking and entering. You have the right to remain silent—something that you are obviously aware of—and anything you say may be used in evidence against you in court at a later date. Got that?’

He nodded. She made him lie across the sofa. ‘Stay where you are or I spray you.’

With his hands cuffed behind his back she didn’t expect trouble, but still she kept her eyes fixed on him as she edged backwards to the entrance of the apartment.

‘Did you touch this?’ she said, for the first time noticing the smudged patches on the glass ornament’s surface and the daubing of black fingerprints on the glossy white paintwork of the shelf.

He lifted his head from the armrest of the sofa, not answering. No longer empty, his pale eyes gleamed with hatred.

She kept him in sight as she phoned Central for a paddy wagon, trying to keep her excuses straight in her head for the inevitable questions about her presence in Michelle’s flat.

But before anyone arrived, she had to check the safe.

She took the ornament from the alcove and placed it on the floor behind her. Turning back to the shelf she slid it aside to reach the slender metal box. She repeated the combination to herself as she balanced the box across the wall cavity and twirled the dial. The lid snapped open. She saw immediately that it was full to the brim with documents and photographs. With her heart pounding, she lowered her hand and pulled out a fistful.

A gasp from her prisoner made her look up.

She saw his expression of shocked surprise turn to one of cold terror.

***

She must have died and gone to hell. Why else would she be lying in Tye’s arms, looking up at him? No, wait, that wasn’t Tye; it was Wayne.

Shit, she really was in hell.

The light pierced her slitted eyes, setting her head on fire. There was activity all around her, she heard the clack of equipment, voices, puffs and gasps. She scowled at Wayne, but could tell from his look of concern that it had come out as a grimace.

‘She’s waking up.’ Wayne stated the obvious to one of the lurking, shadowy figures at the edge of her vision.

Angus came into focus and bent down by her side.

‘What the hell,’ was all she could manage as she tried to shake herself out of Wayne’s hold and pull herself up through the gauzy levels of consciousness.

‘Hold still, Stevie,’ he said. ‘You’ve got a nasty gash on the back of your head.’

Her hand crept to her head and came away sticky with blood.

And then a thought hit her with almost as much force as the blow that had knocked her out. In a panic she twisted herself around to look in the direction of the sofa where most of the noise and activity was coming from. She saw an ambulance crew, a gurney, oxygen canisters and various other pieces of lifesaving equipment.

‘Sparrow...’

‘He’s in a bad way, Stevie,’ Wayne said. ‘You were lucky. They’re not sure if he’ll make it.’

Sparrow’s limp form was being eased onto the gurney as Wayne spoke. Someone was pumping air into an oxygen mask on his face. Blood seeped through the bandage on his head. Pools of blood on the floor were coagulating into the consistency of treacle, filling the air with a sickening metallic odour. Stevie noticed a pattern of smeared bloody footprints trailing and skidding their way across the honey-coloured floorboards. She pointed to them and cried out, ‘For God’s sake, stop them! They’re messing everything up!’

Wayne would have had to be a mind-reader to understand what she was trying to say.

It appeared he was.

‘Calm down, what’s done is done. Just let the medics do their job.’

Jesus, how long had she been out of it?

‘Sparrow was here when I came,’ she said. ‘I came to check out Michelle’s safe. He was hiding in the wardrobe. What happened?’ Despite her determination to stay strong she heard her voice unravelling.

‘You and Sparrow both seemed to get yourselves on the receiving end of a glass ornament.’ Angus pointed to the bright shards of glass strewn across the floor like scattered jewels.

She tried to keep calm as her stomach churned, and fought the feeling of sudden nausea.

‘Sparrow was cuffed, he didn’t stand a chance.’ She looked at Angus desperately. ‘The files, did he take the files?’

‘If that’s what was in the safe, yes,’ Angus said.

Her nod sent her brain lurching from the back of her skull to the front. ‘I didn’t get a chance to look at them.’

‘What about him?’ Wayne twitched his head towards Sparrow who was now being wheeled out.

‘He must have broken in after our guys searched the place. But he hadn’t opened the safe, I did that.’

Another gurney squeaked over to her side. She found herself eased onto it before she could find the words to protest.

‘Shit, Wayne, I’m not going on this.’

‘Stop your bellyaching and do as you’re told,’ he said.

‘Does Monty know?’

‘He rang us when he didn’t hear back from you,’ Angus said. ‘We got here at the same time as the paddy wagon. Baggly’s not going to be too happy when he hears Monty’s been interfering with the investigation.’

‘I need to speak to Monty. And De Vakey.’

‘You can see De Vakey in the morning,’ Angus said in soothing tones, ‘but you have to keep Monty at arm’s length.’

‘Jeez, can’t you just put the book aside this once, Angus?’

Angus raised his eyebrows. Fortunately he didn’t seem to have understood a word she’d said.

‘De Vakey, then.’

‘In the morning, like Angus said. You have to be checked out at the hospital now. You need to rest,’ Wayne told her.

His gentle pat on her hand was such a surprise she forgot to recoil.

saturday

Often some sort of a negative trigger starts off the murder spree: a death in the family, a relationship break-up, the loss of a job.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

The doctors had refused to give Stevie anything for the pain in her head in case it masked the symptoms of a serious head injury. She’d spent an uncomfortable night pricked by stitches and punctured by IVs, her eyes pierced by probing torch beams every fifteen minutes. When the X-rays and neural observations had finally ruled out brain damage, she’d been allowed a couple of small white tablets and a light breakfast. The effect of the tablets was almost instantaneous. Now, trying to focus on her visitors, it was a fight to stop her eyeballs from rolling back in her head. Monty was angry with her. Exactly why, she couldn’t remember.

He was standing in the middle of the hospital room, his large hands clamped around a tangle of greenery.

‘Monty,’ Dot said, interrupting his ranting, eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘Where did you get those from? The Geraldton wax is exactly the same shade as the one in my garden. And those ferns ...

He looked down at the bunch of assorted vegetation. ‘My local florist, if you must know.’ He avoided eye contact with Dot, turned his glare back to Stevie. She moved her head to the side in an attempt to cool the heat. The tactic worked; one look at the shaved patch of hair and the neat row of stitches had the anger leaching from his face.

‘You’re lucky I’m off the case. I’d have you busted for this,’ he said, although his tone lacked conviction, as if the reprimand was only for appearance’s sake.

Now she remembered what it was all about. ‘You asked me to go, remember?’

‘Yes, but as soon as you realised there was someone there, you should have called for back-up.’

‘I wasn’t sure if someone was there or not.’ She pulled herself into a sitting position and leaned back on the pillows with her arms folded. ‘I have a headache. I don’t want to talk about this.’ Her head didn’t hurt all that much, but the conversation was reminding her of another one, years before, and she felt a sudden, urgent need to withdraw.

‘I can see that. You’ve always been good at avoiding the pertinent issues.’

She knew he was alluding to the other time in her life she’d had concussion and he’d visited her in hospital. It was after the event she hadn’t even been able to tell De Vakey about. She closed her eyes, hoping to be swept away by the drugs, only to be visited by an action replay of that last night with Tye printed on her brain.

She was standing in her hallway after an unpleasant night of put-downs and petty arguments. It was the wrong time and the wrong place to confront him, but the booze had clouded her judgement and the accusation of corruption had spilled without enough thought as to the possible consequences.

As soon as the words had left her mouth she knew she was in for a lot more than a smack around the head. One glance at Tye’s murderous expression and she bolted out the front door into the night. But as she flew down the front path her foot twisted in her high-heeled shoe and she tumbled on the uneven paving slabs, falling and hitting her head hard. He was on her in an instant, ripping at her blouse, tearing at her tights and skirt, raping her on the front path of her suburban house. She’d hardly fought, she didn’t scream; the neighbours were all around them, oblivious, watching TV in their cosy lounge rooms behind their weatherboard walls.

Stevie opened her eyes to find Monty staring at her. She was certain he’d guessed the truth back then, that there was more to her injuries than a fall down the front steps, but she’d refused to talk about it, knowing that if she started she would never have stopped. Such a revelation would have invited intimacy and intimacy meant vulnerability. The damage would be irreparable to both of them and it just wasn’t worth the risk. What better proof than the Christmas party, only a week after the rape—she’d been vulnerable, almost sick with alcohol, and he’d felt sorry for her. His sympathy was not what she wanted.

Even now she couldn’t meet his gaze. She looked at the blank TV screen above her head and began to finger the neck of her gown. Go with the drugs, she told herself. Relax and forget, it’s the only way.

Conscious of the moods of the adults around her, Izzy’s mouth fell in a downward curve. In a small, miserable voice she said, ‘Nanna?’

Monty reached for his wallet and handed Dot a ten-dollar note. ‘Here, buy her one of those cyanotic blue teddy bears they have in the gift shop. Or one of the pink ones that look like they have carbon-monoxide poisoning.’

Stevie shot him an exasperated look, but the bribe did the trick; Izzy was keen to go.

Dot said, ‘What a good idea. Let’s go and look at the toys downstairs, Izzy. Leave the grown-ups to their silly bickering.’

When they’d gone, Monty filled the awkward silence by going over to the sink. He took an empty vase and began to stuff the stolen flora into it. After some fiddling he turned from his task. ‘You’re shutting me out again.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss. I got whacked over the head following your instructions. Full stop.’

‘There’s something about this case that’s getting to you, I know there is, but you won’t tell me.’ Monty hesitated. ‘We used to be able to talk.’

She shrugged, felt the stitches tug at her tight skin. ‘We still do.’ She wondered if they would give her more pain-killers.

Monty plonked the top-heavy vase on the windowsill then sat on the edge of the bed. He drew a breath and his hand inched towards hers, stopping when she asked him about Martin Sparrow.

‘He’s still unconscious and still considered to be a murder suspect. Barry showed his photo to the waiter who verifies he’s the man he saw Michelle arguing with in the cafe. I thought I’d wander up to ICU after I’d seen you and see how he’s doing.’

Stevie nodded. ‘What about the description of the plumber from your neighbour? Could that have been Keyes or Thrummel?’

Monty shook his head. ‘Wayne spoke to her, didn’t sound like either of them. He didn’t get much other than tall, wellbuilt, wearing overalls with a woolly beanie on his head. The plumbing contractor who usually services the flats says no problems were reported that day.’

‘That’s one in your favour then. That has to be the guy who drugged your tomato juice. He obviously knows your drinking habits—Keyes and Thrummel could easily have found that out about you and told him. Then there’s the police files taken from your flat, the documents from Michelle’s safe—’

‘I know, the cop angle again,’ Monty interrupted. ‘But whatever we might speculate at the moment, I’m still not in the clear until they have the stuff analysed. The lab’s backlogged as usual.’

‘And I guess me being in Michelle’s apartment has got you into even deeper shit now.’

He shrugged. ‘Baggly wants to see me this afternoon. I think I might be busy cleaning my tennis shoes.’

Stevie rolled her eyes.

‘Oh, I’ve bought you a present,’ he said, reaching into his pocket. He handed her a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. ‘You might just fit one in before Dot gets back.’

Stevie’s hands shook as she attempted to remove the cellophane.

‘Here, let me do it,’ Monty said, extracting a cigarette and lighting it for her. He grinned when she blew out a luxurious stream.

She smiled back. ‘Thanks, Mont, I feel better already.’

‘I knew you’d be hanging out.’

Monty went over to the window and tried to work out how to break the seal. While his back was turned, the door opened and the stink of cigarette smoke was replaced by a sweeter fragrance.

Stevie’s spirits rose at the sight of the man behind the enormous bouquet of roses.

Monty turned from the window. ‘I thought you were in a meeting at Central?’

James De Vakey was already bending over Stevie’s bedside and didn’t look up. ‘I’ve seen Baggly. The others weren’t ready for me so I decided to check in here while I was waiting.’

He was distracted, and so was she, by the warmth of his minty breath on her cheek. Peering closely at the back of her head he said, ‘I’m surprised you haven’t got a couple of black eyes from that. It was a nasty blow.’

Stevie pushed her hand against his shoulder, enjoying the feel of his soft jumper under her fingers. ‘Stop fussing, James, I only needed ten stitches. Jeez, you and Monty are worse than my mother. Thanks for the flowers, they’re beautiful.’

De Vakey put his flowers on the windowsill where they dwarfed Monty’s, then took out a handkerchief and wiped the cigarette ash from her tray table. Glancing at the oxygen outlet above her head, he said, ‘You really shouldn’t be smoking in here.’

She took a final drag and handed the butt to Monty to flush down the ensuite toilet.

De Vakey settled into a chair and crossed his long legs. ‘I’m so glad you’re all right,’ he said softly.

She felt the heat rise to her face.

‘So, what’s your opinion about last night?’ Monty asked brusquely.

De Vakey thought for a moment and looked at Monty. ‘I don’t think the person who murdered Birkby and Royce attacked Stevie and Sparrow.’

‘What makes you say that?’

‘The method for one: our serial killer is meticulous and he doesn’t like blood and gore. The MO in the Birkby flat couldn’t be more different—the place looked like a slaughterhouse. That Sparrow came out alive after such savagery is nothing short of a miracle. There was real hatred in this attack. Our Poser, on the other hand, kills with an almost warped reverence for the victim, taking his time and savouring the moment.’

‘Wayne said the evidence suggested the assailant tried to clean up,’ Monty said.

‘A towel was taken from the bathroom and used to wipe away bloody footprints, yes.’

‘Was he successful?’

‘You mean were they successful.’

‘What? There were two of them?’ Monty exclaimed.

‘SOCO found two different tread patterns. They were hazy and smudged, not good enough to make reliable comparisons, but clear enough to see that they were from two different pairs of shoes.’

Monty leaned back in his chair. ‘Wayne didn’t mention that. Well I’ll be...’

‘I only found out on my way to the hospital.’

Stevie joined in the conversation. ‘For those few moments in the apartment, before I was attacked, I was absolutely sure Sparrow was our unsub, that he’d been wanking in the cupboard, reliving the Birkby murder.’

‘Wayne told me there was no sign of seminal fluid in the cupboard or on him,’ Monty said. ‘And he’d hardly be capable of hitting himself and you over the head while he was handcuffed. You never caught a glimpse of the guys who attacked you?’

Stevie shook her head and immediately regretted it now that the cushioning effect of the drugs was wearing off. ‘I had my back to the door. I think Sparrow saw them though.’

‘A fat lot of good that is at the moment,’ Monty said.

‘I got a brief look at the documents: some of them looked like copies of police files.’

‘Could they be the pages of Reece Harper’s missing alibi?’ Monty asked. ‘They were indexed in the original notes but I couldn’t find any sign of them.’

‘I don’t know, but whatever they were I’m pretty sure they were only copies. There must have been something important in them. First the files from your flat, Mont, now these. Someone really doesn’t want us to find something.’

Monty seemed to be considering what this could mean when De Vakey said, ‘Your Inspector Baggly seems to think that Sparrow is our Poser killer, that the attack on him and Stevie was merely a crime of opportunity committed by a couple of passing criminals.’

Monty snorted. ‘A couple of passing criminals, my arse. For a start, how would they get into that place? Shimmy five storeys up the outside wall? And I can’t see what a couple of passing criminals would want with a safe full of documents. Nothing else in the apartment was touched. Baggly’s hiding something, I know it. If you ask me it’s more likely to be a couple of passing cops.’

Stevie couldn’t have agreed more. It had to be Keyes and Thrummel—but how to prove it?

De Vakey frowned, looked at his hands and hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘I can see the problems you would have with a man like Baggly.’

He looked as if he was about to say something else. They waited expectantly. When nothing further was added, Monty threw his hands into the air. ‘Funny,’ he said, ‘how this is giving me a strange feeling of déjà vu.’

***

Although he was still unconscious, Sparrow’s condition had stabilised enough for him to be moved from the open ward of the ICU to a single room. Monty gave the police guard a gruff nod, producing the desired withering effect. The young constable made no effort to stop him.

A nurse was punching numbers into a machine attached to the patient by several drip lines. When she saw Monty, she smiled and looked down at the unconscious man.

‘It seems you have another visitor, Mr Sparrow, aren’t you the popular one?’

A toilet flushed. ‘Hey, Inspector.’ Justin Baggly stepped out from the small bathroom, wiping his hands on his jeans, a shy smile on his face.

‘Justin, what the hell are you doing here?’ Monty demanded.

The smile disappeared. ‘Billy at the door said it would be okay. Martin and I are mates. I wanted to see how he was doing.’

‘Well, now you’ve seen. He’s under police guard, that means no non-police visitors, including you,’ Monty said. Justin couldn’t help being Baggly’s son, but right now he didn’t feel up to being polite to any member of the Baggly family.

‘Um, with all due respect, Inspector, neither should you.’

Well, maybe the kid was developing some guts after all. ‘You got me there.’ Monty sighed. ‘Okay, tell me about Martin Sparrow and your deep, meaningful friendship.’

Justin glanced at the young nurse then back to Monty and stammered, ‘I, I wouldn’t exactly say we were good mates but, you know I often go to Central at night to work on my assignments in the library and ... well ... um, we sometimes bump into each other and have a few words. He always wanted to join the police service but was turned down because of his albinism. Apart from his sensitive skin, his eyesight’s really bad. He reckons he’s going blind.’

‘Does he seem bitter about this?’

‘I don’t know. Our conversations have always been pretty superficial.’

‘Then I don’t think you really qualify as a mate, do you? Clear off.’

When the door had closed, the nurse looked at Monty and smiled, not at all intimidated by his brusque treatment of Justin. He squinted at her name badge. ‘Were you here when Justin came in, Ms McCarthy?’ She was a pretty young woman in her early twenties, with an hourglass figure and eyes as soft and green as moss.

‘Yes I was,’ she said, smiling as her gaze drifted from his shoes to the top of his head. He didn’t know whether to be flattered or alarmed by the fact that a girl almost young enough to be his daughter was eyeing him off.

‘He was only here for about ten minutes. Between you and me, I think it was me he’d come to see, not poor Mr Sparrow.’

Monty frowned. ‘You know Justin?’

‘From uni. Sometimes we go out.’

‘He’s your boyfriend?’

‘Well, not exactly.’ The way she stretched out the syllables suggested a relationship that Justin might be working towards but one that she had not yet made her mind up about.

‘I asked him in. The policeman at the door didn’t seem to mind. I hope I haven’t got either of them into trouble.’

That was a good enough explanation for Justin’s presence, Monty supposed, but what was the boy doing in the hospital in the first place? He’d have to get Wayne to make some discreet enquiries.

Monty turned his attention to the reason for his own visit. Martin Sparrow looked like something Mary Shelley might have dreamed up. Like a cocktail onion on a toothpick, his head seemed too large for his skinny neck. Even if he had been conscious, Monty doubted he would have had the strength to lift it from the pillow. No longer pale, his skin was a palette of blues, purples and reds, divided by lines of stitches. Dried blood had spiked his sparse hair into a thorny crown and his thin arms were extended with the palms facing outwards, as if to show stigmata.

The nurse broke into his thoughts. ‘I don’t suppose you could tell me why he dropped out, could you?’

Monty tore his eyes away from the unconscious man. Nurse McCarthy must have seen by his expression that he had no idea what she was talking about. She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I think I might have let the cat out of the bag,’ she said with a self-conscious giggle. ‘Justin hasn’t told you about dropping out of uni?’

Nor his father, Monty thought. ‘When was this?’ he asked.

‘A few weeks ago. He failed the psych test for the academy apparently.’

Then the last assignment Justin was working on must have been a sham. Why, he wondered. Too ashamed to tell his father? He stored the question away for further musings and nodded to Sparrow on the bed. ‘Do they have any idea when or if he might wake up?’

‘So far the intra-cranial pressure hasn’t been bad enough to operate. They think the extra fluid might get re-absorbed naturally by the body. Hopefully he’ll be waking up in a couple of days.’

He gave the nurse his card. ‘If his condition changes, please call me.’

On his way out he spoke in a low voice to the constable guarding the door. ‘Don’t let anyone in who isn’t police or family. Not even Justin Baggly.’ He took a few steps down the corridor then backtracked. ‘Especially not Justin Baggly.’

The ability of the serial killer to manipulate friends, family and associates must never be underestimated.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

With a strange feeling of liberation, Monty shed his best jeans and button-down shirt, exchanging them for some old clothes he’d not worn since Dot moved from the station.

He pulled himself into the torn, faded Levis and sucked in his stomach, pleased to see he could still do the button up, and even more pleased when it didn’t pop off when he breathed out. His polo shirt had faded to the same Kimberley red as his hair and the old army jacket could easily have belonged to a man down on his luck. But he shouldn’t have shaved this morning, he thought, as he rubbed his chin and stared into the full-length mirror. It had been a long time since he’d worked undercover and as he turned away from the mirror his heart thrummed in his chest, powered by the adrenaline rush that in the past had always accompanied the thrill of sanctioned deception.

Only this time, the deception wasn’t sanctioned.

He took the Great Eastern Highway out of the city, a right turn and then a left. Soon car dealerships and fancy offices gave way to small leafy holdings fortified with brick walls to muffle the traffic noise. The traffic thinned as the road wound its way into the blue eucalyptus haze he’d so often stared at with longing from the carbon-coated windows of Perth Central.

At last he found himself on the road he wanted. He slowed down so he could read the signs on the gates of the passing properties until he reached Pete and Gloria’s ‘Roses By Any Name’ nursery. Open seven days a week 9 to 5.

He drove through the open gateway and down the gentle gradient of a contoured valley. The road followed the path of a landscaped stream until it passed over a humpback bridge with wooden railings and an artificial pond where orange koi lolled.

Monty parked in the almost deserted car park beyond the pond, inhaling the damp earthy smells as he climbed out of his Land Rover. Above his head a cloud of black cockatoos whirled, squawking out the bushman’s herald of rain. He saw no sign of it in the azure sky, although the clouds looked as though they’d been whipped into frenzied slashes and streaks by a giant egg whisk. A cold wind made the sides of his army jacket flap and bit through the worn fabric of his jeans. He zipped up his jacket, plunged his hands into the pockets and began to explore.

Up ahead was a narrow rammed-earth building and a variety of squeaking advertising signs on frames, one of them saying ‘open.’ The verandah was crowded with terracotta pots and hanging baskets of early-blooming bulbs. A blackboard declaring today’s special of scones, jam and cream was nailed to one side of the front door. The lights were on inside, but Monty decided to try his luck at the nursery first.

Slippery wooden planks divided the strips of rose beds, each spiked with an identifying label. Soon he heard the sound of digging. He followed it, leaving the garden beds behind until he found himself standing among a collection of long tables holding pots of small roses with shivering price tags.

‘Can I help you, mate?’

Monty pivoted, looking for the person behind the voice. His gaze settled on a hole in the ground and the protruding head and shoulders of a man who appeared to be covered with mud.

‘I’ve been looking for the damned solenoid,’ the man in the hole said by way of explanation. ‘The reticulation plan of this place is cactus; it’s just as well we don’t need to water at the moment.’ His tone was friendly enough, but the lines that cut through his muddy face like erosion cracks suggested it wouldn’t take much for him to turn.

‘Um, I’m looking for a rose to take to a friend who’s in hospital. I can’t find any with flowers on ’em.’

The man chuckled and hauled himself out of his hole.

A fit-looking fifty, he was of average height and build, wearing a muddied windcheater, shorts and work boots. With his greying goatee beard and a receding V-shaped hairline, he looked as if he was emerging from the underworld.

‘This is the wrong time of the year to be buying roses in bloom, mate, though we do sell cut flowers in the gift shop. Maybe you should look there.’

Monty ran his tongue around the edge of his lip. ‘Yes, sure, thanks,’ but he didn’t move. His gaze dropped to his trainers. He’d taken the laces out before he’d left home and without socks they were beginning to feel scratchy and uncomfortable.

‘Is there anything else you need, then?’ the man asked.

Monty drew a breath, as if trying to summon up his courage. ‘I need to see a bloke called Peter Sbresni.’

He felt himself being looked up and down. After a beat the man said, ‘You after work, mate?’

Monty shuffled his feet from side to side on the wooden plank. ‘No. It’s personal stuff.’

The man hesitated before wiping his hand on his windcheater and putting it out to Monty. ‘I’m Sbresni. What can I do you for?’

Monty said, ‘My name’s Steven Dunn.’

Sbresni switched his gaze from Monty to a young couple heading towards a shade house. If he recognised the name, he showed no sign of it.

Monty moistened his lips and continued. ‘I’ve been inside, see. Just got out.’

Sbresni turned back to Monty, shrugged and said nothing as he waited for more. A gust of wind blew an empty plastic pot off the table and it turned like a tumbleweed down the path.

‘Lorna’s mum and me haven’t been in touch for years,’ Monty said, pushing the emotion through a crack in his voice. ‘The only thing I know about my little girl’s murder is what I read in the papers and heard on the news. I remember hearing how you was the lead copper on the case.’

‘The second Park Killer victim?’ Sbresni said, as if to himself; then, in a louder voice, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mr Dunn.’ His hand dropped to his side in a convincing show of sympathy. ‘But I really don’t think I can help you. You see I’ve been retired for several years. I might be able to give you some names in Central who could help with your queries, although it’s now a closed case. As you probably know, the killer died in a car accident.’

‘Don’t get me wrong, Mr Sbresni, I’m not wanting to ask questions about the investigation, or out to get anyone over it. My daughter’s gone and so’s the prick who killed her. I just want to find some stuff out about my little girl, Lorna, that’s all. See, I never knew her. All I want to do is look up some of her old friends, find out what kind of a person she’d grown up into, what she liked, what she didn’t like. Hell, I don’t even know what her favourite flowers were. If I knew, then I could put them on her grave, couldn’t I?’

Sbresni rubbed his goatee and tried for a gentle tone. ‘It’s been several years now. I’m not sure if I can tell you much that would be of help.’

Monty drew a breath. ‘They said she worked on the streets. Is that true?’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Sbresni paused for a moment. ‘I take it you didn’t know?’

‘Not till I read about the murder. I haven’t seen or heard of Lorna since she was five years old.’ Monty managed a disheartened shrug and fixed his gaze on the horizon. ‘I reckon she had good reason to be where she was, they always do. Maybe she needed the money for uni, an operation or something—there’s all sorts of reasons for a girl to take to the streets, aren’t there? I mean, who’s to judge?’

Sbresni shook his head and clucked his tongue. ‘Why don’t you try her mother? I’m sure she’ll know all the details.’

‘She won’t talk to me. Blames me for everything that went wrong.’

‘I see.’ Sbresni went thoughtful for a moment. Then as if deciding that it could do no harm, he said, ‘She and her friends used to walk the pubs and clubs district of Northbridge. My wife and I went out to a restaurant there the other night. There still seems to be a bunch of girls who walk that same patch. I recognised one who was interviewed over the murder. It surprised me to see a familiar face. Girls don’t tend to last too long in the job, if you know what I’m saying.’

‘Name?’

Sbresni’s eyebrows shot up at the abrupt question. Monty reminded himself this was not a police interview and did some hasty backtracking.

‘A name would be really handy if it’s not too much trouble. Then I’ll let you get back to work. Hell, I’ll help if you like. I know something about reticulation.’

A muscle leaping around in Sbresni’s jaw suggested Monty was beginning to outstay his welcome.

‘Charmaine Carol’s her name, but she goes by the name of Champagne Charlie. Now, Mr Dunn, I really should be getting back to work. Why don’t you stop off at our tea and gift shop and pick up some long-stemmed roses? I’m sure your sick friend would really appreciate them.’

Inside, Monty was elated. He had a name, something with which to get his investigative ball rolling.

On the outside he twitched Sbresni a grateful smile and murmured some stumbling words of thanks. When he turned to leave he saw a woman with the figure of a butternut pumpkin coming down the planks towards them. In her hand she clutched a steaming mug. ‘I brought you some tea, Peter,’ she called out in a high singsong voice.

That voice.

Sbresni put his hand out for the tea and gave the woman a smile. Her bright eyes darted from Sbresni to Monty, waiting for an introduction. A nervous quiver ran through Monty’s stomach, along with a feeling that he should know this woman. But like an itch that moves out of reach when you try to scratch it, the memory shifted each time he came close to grasping it.

Unfortunately her memory was excellent. When he saw the light of recognition in her face he turned from her and nodded a curt goodbye to Sbresni. With his head down so she couldn’t catch his eye, he sidestepped through the mud to walk around her. Just as he thought he was getting away with it, she called out, ‘I knew it! Inspector McGuire, what a lovely surprise!’

Monty had no choice but to turn. He feigned a look of puzzlement, hoping she might think she was mistaken.

No such luck.

‘Long time no see. How’s everything at Central these days?’

Monty nodded and tried to smile but his cheeks felt as if they were being held down by weights. ‘Fine.’

She looked him up and down, an air of mischief about her. ‘You don’t remember me do you, Inspector?’

Monty glanced at Sbresni. He was standing with his mouth open, his eyes flitting between Monty and his wife. Monty mentally redrew the woman’s face, making it thinner and more careworn, taking about twenty kilos off her chubby frame.

Shit. It was the commissioner’s former wife, Gloria Summerfield. He remembered the wild rumours he’d heard about Sbresni having an affair with her. It must have been around the time of the Kings Park murders. The cases had come to a convenient close, evidence was manhandled, notes went missing. He’d decided earlier that the cock-ups were too grave to be bungles, and now, standing here before him was the proof he needed: Sbresni had been blackmailed. Well, what do you know?

Sbresni managed to pull himself together. Whatever his reasons, he was keeping quiet about Monty’s deception. Perhaps he didn’t want to make a scene in front of his wife. Monty was grateful for that.

‘You’d be the McGuire that took over the SCS after I left?’ The rapid clenching and unclenching of both his fists contradicted Sbresni’s expression of pleasant surprise.

‘That’s right. Good to meet you at last, Peter, and to see you again, Gloria. Now I really should be off.’

‘I forget to mention,’ Gloria said to her husband before Monty could turn away. ‘Monty’s ex-wife, Michelle, was here last week looking for you. I said you’d gone to the garden exhibition in town. She said she’d call back another time.’

Sbresni didn’t take his eyes off Monty when he said to his wife, ‘My my, what a coincidence.’

Monty matched his look of surprise with one of his own.

Sbresni continued, ‘I was shocked to read about her death in the papers this morning.’

Gloria’s hand flew to her mouth. ‘Michelle? Dead? How awful. Monty, I’m so sorry.’ She looked to her husband, an unspoken ‘how’ on her lips.

‘I’ll show you the article later, love, I’m sure Monty doesn’t want to discuss it now.’ He put an unduly heavy hand on Monty’s shoulder. ‘I’ll come with you to the gift shop and show you those roses I was talking about. Gloria, I saw a young couple heading towards the shade house just a moment ago. Why don’t you go and see if they need a hand?’

Gloria gave Monty a sympathetic smile and said something about getting together sometime to talk about the old days, before heading towards a large covered structure. But when Monty turned to leave, Sbresni slammed his hand back on his shoulder, forcing him to turn. One of Monty’s feet missed the wooden plank and landed with a squelch in a muddy puddle.

The tea slopped over the mug in Sbresni’s hand as he jabbed it at Monty’s chest. ‘Just what kind of game do you think you’re playing at, Mister? Coming here with a cock-and-bull tear-jerking story, trying to wheedle names out of me?’

‘I got a lot more than a name, Sbresni.’ Monty jerked his chin in the direction Gloria Sbresni had taken. ‘I’ve suddenly got a plausible answer to some of the questions I’ve been asking myself about your very dodgy Park Killer investigation.’

‘You’re full of shit, McGuire.’

Monty now knew who it was who stayed silent about Sbresni’s affair with the commissioner’s wife in exchange for some favours—the conveniently contaminated body bag, Harper’s missing alibi, the missing details about the prostitute’s interview. But how to prove Baggly was behind all this?

‘Did you get paid cash, too?’ Monty gestured to the valuable property surrounding them. ‘I imagine this would have cost a bomb to set up. Hardly within the realms of an inspector’s retirement package.’

‘Get off my property.’

‘Here’s my card if you decide you need to get a few things off your conscience. It’s old news now. The commissioner’s remarried; you’re off the job. It’ll go no further than me. Your wife need never know how low you sank.’

Sbresni swiped the proffered card from Monty’s hand and ground it into the mud with the heel of his boot.

‘Anything you got from me today was obtained through deception. You’ve got nothing on me that’ll stand up in court.’

Monty prodded the man in the chest. ‘I don’t give a shit about what’s legal and what’s not right now. I just want the truth. The ends justify the means as far as I’m concerned.’

And with that, Monty pivoted on his heel and headed back to his car, his shoes spraying water, the mud squelching between his toes.

Often the killer will not harm the person who frightens or intimidates him the most, using substitute victims instead. He even give his biggest tormentor souvenirs from his victims in the guise of gifts. This will increase his sense of power and make him revel in the knowledge that the joke, if you will, is on them.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

When De Vakey returned to the hospital later that afternoon, Stevie was in the middle of trying to persuade the doctor to discharge her. He smiled at the fight she was putting up, taking it upon himself to assure the flustered young registrar that he would keep a personal eye on the patient.

Monty had been incommunicado since his early morning visit and Stevie was relieved he wasn’t here now. Having Monty and De Vakey together in her hospital room had been nothing less than awkward. It had been clear from the look on Monty’s face when he saw De Vakey’s bouquet that he knew something had happened between them. She silently reaffirmed her resolution to resist any further advances from De Vakey until the case was over.

He pulled up at the curb outside her house and turned the engine off. The sky had turned grey and gloomy. The wind buffeted the car in the ensuing silence and leaked through the window seals, tickling her cheek with fingers of cold. She knew the only way she could continue working with this man in any kind of professional capacity was to be up front and honest. ‘James, about last night.’

Her phone rang. Shit. Even Barry’s phone-tampering skills can’t have got this good.

‘Stevie? It’s Malcolm,’ a voice chirped.

Stevie mouthed a stream of obscenities. What the hell was this guy’s problem? She thought he’d got the message weeks ago.

‘Heard you had a bit of bother. How’s the head?’ Malcolm said.

‘Much better, Mal. But look, I can’t talk, I’m working.’

‘Back on the job already? I figured you’d still be in hospital.’

‘No, I’m out, but I can’t talk now.’

‘Have you given my dinner invitation any more thought? I want to try this Italian joint in Collins Street—’

‘I’ll ring you back.’ She shut the phone and leaned her head back on the headrest, closing her eyes for a moment.

She opened them when she felt De Vakey’s hand on her cheek.

‘One of your admirers?’ he asked.

She pushed his hand away, endeavouring to keep him in the same faraway place she’d stored the memory of his kisses. ‘Listen, about last night,’ she said. ‘That was a one-off. The champagne made me reckless. I don’t usually let myself go with strange men quite so easily, especially with strange men I have to work with. Can we just forget it happened? I have to maintain my focus. It’s not fair to the victims or their families if I don’t give these cases one hundred percent.’

‘A few sips of champagne? No wonder you don’t drink it much,’ he teased.

She opened her mouth, trying to think up another excuse and failed.

His smile softened. ‘I understand; I feel the same. Although I have no wish to forget last night, I can put it to the back of my mind until the case is over, or my involvement in it anyway. Perhaps then you will consider having dinner with me and we can start again. You may not find me so strange then.’

He raised an eyebrow. God, he was sexy when he did that.

She nodded, feeling a load lift from her mind.

For reasons she knew she shouldn’t have, she didn’t want the profiler to see the inside of her shabby house and asked him to wait in the car. The wind tore at her clothing as she battled up the garden path. It whipped at the trees and made the window frames of her old house rattle, the loose gutter flap.

Angus had given Stevie and De Vakey the go-ahead for a thorough background check on Martin Sparrow. She would touch base with her mother and Izzy, warn them she wouldn’t be around much for the next few days, throw on some clean clothes, then head to Central with De Vakey.

She found her mother at the kitchen table with her rune stones spread out in front of her.

Dot looked up. The skin around her eyes was tight and drawn, the brackets on each side of her mouth having given up their supportive task, letting her mouth softly droop. For the first time Stevie could remember, her mother looked every one of her sixty-five years.

‘How’s the head? I wasn’t expecting you home so soon. I thought they wanted to keep you in for another night.’ Dot’s tone was as colourless as the grey stones she shuffled and clicked across the table’s surface.

Stevie’s hand went to her head in a reflex action, barely feeling the stitches under her ponytail. ‘My head’s fine.’ A beat. ‘Mum, what are you doing?’ She hadn’t seen her mother with the runes since her father was diagnosed with MS.

‘Three times; I drew Hagalaz three times,’ Dot said.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘The rune of elemental power, disruption and hail; it signifies events beyond our control.’

‘Has something happened to Izzy?’ Stevie asked in sudden panic.

‘No, she’s in her room.’

Needing to see for herself, she found Izzy curled up on top of her bed, sound asleep, a toy pony Stevie hadn’t seen before clutched to her chest. She gently pulled a corkscrew of blond hair from her daughter’s mouth and noticed with dismay the tarnish of tearstains on her cheeks.

When she returned to the kitchen and asked about the tears, Dot said, ‘We got home from kindy after the busy bee to find an unwelcome visitor on the front doorstep.’

Stevie knew the identity of the visitor before her mother came out with it and silently berated herself for not warning Dot. She was good at this, burying herself in her work in the hope that her personal problems would go away. Her hand crept to her neck where she felt her pulse flutter. She found herself bouncing from one foot to the other.

‘Stevie, it was Tye,’ Dot said, her voice sharp with accusation. ‘You must have known he was back in town. You should have warned me. I nearly had a coronary when I saw him there.’ The stones were swept from the table with one swift movement and fell into the pouch with a sharp crack.

Stevie turned to the task of tea making. The ticking of the kitchen clock sounded extra loud. She’d assembled it in high-school woodwork classes and for some inexplicable reason the second hand had always lagged behind the minute hand, making each tick sound like a heartbeat. She wrestled with the pros and cons of telling her mother. Best to get it over with she decided at last.

‘Tye’s seeking custody of Izzy.’

‘What? That’s absurd!’

‘He’s got legal advice. His lawyer rang me up the other day. He says Tye has a right to see her.’

‘Crikey Moses,’ Dot whispered. The angry line of her mouth slipped into worry. ‘I suppose I’d have to agree if he’d ever shown the slightest bit of interest in her. How many times has he seen her since she was born?’

‘Half a dozen, maybe, certainly not enough to have earned the right to be called Dad. I’ve never asked for a cent in child support and she carries my name. This is his way of getting back at me for ruining his career.’

‘Why now?’

‘I don’t know, I suppose he’s had time to brood.’

Dot clasped her hands into a tight knot. ‘What are you going to do?’

Stevie strengthened her voice. ‘I’m going to fight him, of course. I’ve enlisted the help of a Family Court lawyer who owes me big time.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’

‘I’m sorry. I’ve been so busy with the Poser case and I needed some time to think. I wanted to work out how I felt about it before I shared the news with you. I guess I wanted to wait until I could tell you that everything would be all right.’ She reached into the cupboard for the good cups and saucers.

Dot bit at her bottom lip. ‘Does Monty know about this custody business?’ The question was voiced so softly Stevie had to stop clattering the crockery to hear it.

‘No.’

Dot gave her a strange look, opened her mouth to speak then seemed to think better of it. When Stevie sat down she had to consciously stop herself from squirming on her chair. She was twelve again. Her mother was going to tell her father about the stash of smokes she’d found in the cistern of the outside dunny.

‘What are you going to do?’ Dot asked again.

‘I’m not letting Tye have her alone, that’s for sure.’

‘What if the judge orders it?’

Stevie didn’t answer. What could she do? She turned the teapot three times on the table then lifted the lid. Watching the tea leaves swirl, she fought against the feelings of helplessness Tye always managed to stir up in her. ‘He doesn’t want his daughter. He’s only interested in getting at me.’

Dot leaned across the table and patted her hand, regarding her through worried eyes Stevie could not meet. ‘No one’s going to take Izzy away from us.’

Stevie waved Dot’s concern away with a toss of her hand. ‘I’m more prepared now. I can handle him.’

‘Of course you can.’ Dot paused. ‘He brought Izzy an armful of presents, charmed her, ignored me and left. She became quite hysterical.’

For the first time Stevie noticed the pile of empty boxes and shopping bags in the corner of the kitchen; the rubble of a ruined Lego castle, an unopened Monopoly game. The discarded Barbie doll, stiff and stripped, made her flinch.

‘She’s too young for these toys,’ she said.

‘She cried herself to sleep, wanting him to stay. Yes, she’s too young for these toys and she’s too young to cope with the yoyo of emotions he puts her through. For months he doesn’t ring her, forgets her birthday then suddenly turns up wanting to be her dad again.’

‘I thought he’d forgotten all about her, imagined he’d settled down into a new life, I hadn’t heard from him for so long.’ Stevie massaged her temples, her head pounding. ‘My lawyer thinks I should have no problems getting sole custody. Tye hasn’t got a chance and he knows it, but he’s going to make it an uphill battle for me all the same.’

The line between her mother’s eyebrows deepened. ‘And expensive.’

Stevie nodded. The wind rattled the windowpanes and it crossed her mind that the old leadlight wouldn’t take much more. She pressed her fists into her eyes. ‘I really don’t know what to do,’ she admitted.

Dot took a breath. ‘It wouldn’t be the case if...’ She hesitated, then started again. ‘About Monty. Are you sure...’

‘Am I sure what?’ Stevie snapped.

Dot shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

Stevie stared at her and took a sip of tea. After a moment she decided she didn’t want to know what was on her mother’s mind.

The silence lasted longer than was comfortable. Stevie lifted her gaze to the ceiling and saw a patch of damp she hadn’t noticed before.

‘As soon as the weather improves I’ll get a ladder and check out the roof. It looks like we’re about to spring a leak.’

‘Why you won’t let me pay for someone to do it, I don’t...’

They were interrupted by a knock at the door. Shit, she’d forgotten De Vakey. She hadn’t wanted him inside but after Dot’s revelations about Tye, she welcomed the sight of him. As in Monty’s flat, she found his unflappable presence calming. She tapped on the window and beckoned him in.

‘I’m going to check on Izzy,’ Dot said the moment De Vakey stepped into the kitchen. When they’d met in the hospital, she had kept her opinions to herself for a change. Her silence on the subject was more disquieting to Stevie than any expression of outright hostility.

‘Before you go, Mum, I’m going to be flat out for the next few days. Do you mind moving in for a while?’ It should have been no trouble. Her mother stayed over so often they had converted the spare bedroom into a home away from home for her.

For once, Dot hesitated. Her eyes flitted over to De Vakey and back to Stevie. ‘I was thinking about joining the new bingo group at the church hall. They have their first session tomorrow night.’

Stevie’s heart sank. As far as she knew, Dot had never shown any interest in bingo. Was this some ploy to keep her away from De Vakey?

‘I suppose I can see if Justin Baggly’s free tomorrow night,’ Stevie said.

At the mention of Justin’s name, De Vakey, who’d been trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible, straightened. He frowned when Dot said, ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to show you. You might change your mind when you see this.’

Dot disappeared into the lounge room just long enough for Stevie and De Vakey to exchange puzzled looks, and returned with an unlabelled video cassette.

‘What’s this?’ Stevie asked

‘I found it in the VCR. I think Justin must have left it the last time he babysat. I turned it on to see what it was.’ Dot shuddered. ‘It’s disgusting.’

Stevie knew that her mother’s definition of disgusting and her own were a generation apart, but still, she was not happy with the idea of Justin Baggly watching porn movies, no matter how soft, when he babysat her daughter.

‘Imagine if Izzy had switched this on,’ Dot said.

‘It’s just as well she knows she’s not to touch the VCR.’

De Vakey’s slender hand reached for the cassette, his expression thoughtful. ‘I had a brief chat with Justin Baggly this morning. He wants me to sign some more books for him, but I have a feeling there’s more to it than that. I think something’s troubling him. I may be able to broach the topic of this video then—do you mind if I take it?’

Dot’s eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth. Stevie preempted whatever scathing remark her mother was going to come out with before she could begin it. ‘This is James’s area of expertise, Mum. He’ll let us know if the video is cause for concern. In the meantime, I’d better try to find someone for tomorrow night. I’ll ring the girl over the road.’

Stevie moved to the phone and picked up her telephone book.

Dot let out a martyr’s sigh. ‘Julie’s too young to cope with Tye if he comes back. I suppose I’ll just have to miss bingo this week.’

Stevie kissed her mother’s cheek. ‘Thanks, Mum.’

The term ‘going postal’ came about in reference to a series of incidents involving the US Postal Service in which employees opened fire and killed colleagues after a build-up of frustrations. The last of these frustrations, or the last straw, if you will, is commonly referred to as the ‘trigger’.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie and De Vakey met up with the cleaning foreman in Central’s fourth-floor janitor’s room. Bob Carmody leaned on the doorframe and watched with a smirk on his face as Stevie conducted a methodical search of Martin Sparrow’s domain. She wasn’t quite sure what she was looking for and wasn’t surprised when she found nothing other than what might be expected in a janitor’s room. No disturbing photographs, clumps of hair or other grisly trophies to connect Sparrow to the Birkby and Royce murders. Just rows of cleaning products and equipment, a kettle, some chipped cups and an unpleasant ammonia smell from somewhere under the sink.

Her head spun when she crouched to reach a lidless bottle of brown liquid, forcing her to make a grab for the counter to retain her balance. De Vakey reached for her arm to steady her. She shook him off, annoyed that he should draw the attention of the cleaning foreman with his lecherous sneer, his grey prickled face and eyes she was sure had been focused on her arse for the entire length of the search.

The contents of the bottle made her gag. She handed it to De Vakey and turned away for some deep breaths. After a cautious sniff he raised an eyebrow and addressed the foreman.

‘Can you explain why there would be a container of urine under the sink?’

Carmody chuckled. ‘Oh, that, yes, I think I know what that’s all about. Martin’s been having some trouble with Stan, the afternoon guy. Our Martin doesn’t have much of a sense of humour and I’m afraid Stan’s been yanking his chain a bit lately.’

‘Sparrow complained to you about it, did he?’ Stevie asked.

‘Oh yeah, all the time.’

De Vakey frowned. ‘And what did you do about this bullying?’

Carmody shrugged. ‘Well, I would never have actually called it bullying, more like just fooling around. What could I do? I told Stan to leave off and he obviously didn’t. Milky was getting on my nerves anyway, always writing me formal letters, always complaining about something or other. Reckoned he was going to report us all to the board for workplace discrimination. I was hoping he’d save everyone some grief by resigning. That’s why I didn’t do all that much about the little gifts Stan had been leaving him.’

‘I’d like to see a sample of one of Mr Sparrow’s letters, if I may,’ De Vakey said to Carmody.

‘No worries, mate, I’ve got the latest in my pocket. They’re always good for a laugh.’

He reached into his shirt pocket. In profile his round, stubbled cheek looked like the magnified abdomen of an insect.

‘Writes fluently, reasonably educated.’ De Vakey said after a quick glance at the handwritten letter. He cleared his throat and read aloud.

Dear Mr Carmody,

Seeing as you have done nothing about my last letter, I am presuming that you lost it. I would like to state again how unhappy I am at the work conditions I have been experiencing at Central since you took over as foreman. I have made a list of complaints that I hope you will act upon:

1) Intimidation and stirring, especially by Stan Donaldson on afternoons. Examples of such stirring are urine in the cleaning dispenser, laxative in the coffee and itching powder in the vacuum bag.

De Vakey was interrupted at this point by a guffaw from Carmody. ‘That’s a new one, in the vacuum bag.’

Stevie pressed her lips into a tight line, refusing the obnoxious man the benefit of a response.

As De Vakey continued to read, his face betrayed little expression, though Stevie knew him well enough now to detect the anger building in his cool tone.

2) I am always last to get re-stocked and am sometimes missing vital products when I do my rounds.

3) I have had to work the last six Wednesdays despite my requests to sometimes have that night off for church youth service.

4) The under-supply of toilet paper in the staff toilets near the canteen.

5) The frequent lack of parking space for cleaning staff—

‘As if I can do anything about that,’ Carmody interrupted.

I hope this time you will take note of my complaints, otherwise I will have to go to the union and then you will be very inconvenienced.

Yours sincerely,

Martin Sparrow.

De Vakey folded the letter and put it in his pocket, let out his breath and fixed Carmody with a cold stare.

Uncomfortable now, Carmody looked to Stevie for support. When he saw none was forthcoming he looked from one to the other and rolled his eyes. ‘Well, what was I supposed to have done? You’re looking at me as if this is all my fault.’

‘How long have you been the cleaning foreman?’ Stevie asked.

‘About a year.’

De Vakey asked, ‘Was Sparrow writing angry letters like this to your predecessor?’

Carmody scratched his chin. ‘I don’t know.’

‘How long has he worked at Central?’ De Vakey asked

‘Since Noah was a boy. It’s all here. I brought his employment record with me like you asked.’

Carmody removed a computer printout from his pocket and smoothed it out on the benchtop. Stevie and De Vakey moved to stand alongside him. She jotted down the name and address of Sparrow’s next of kin, his mother, in her notebook. As she looked up she noticed a work roster taped to the wall above the benchtop. She traced the dates and matched the names, noticing that Sparrow had worked on Thursday night—the night Michelle’s body had been left in the department store.

She tapped at it with her finger. ‘I see he was at work Thursday night.’

‘Actually, no. Not long after he arrived he got a personal phone call. His mother had had a bad turn and he went home. Took the rest of the night off.’

Interesting.

‘Tell me what you know about this man Sparrow,’ De Vakey asked the foreman.

‘It might be easier if you tell me what he’s supposed to have done.’

‘He was caught breaking and entering an apartment block,’ Stevie said. ‘Right now he’s in a coma and can’t be interviewed. We’re hoping you can help us find out what he’s been up to.’

The man puffed with self-importance. ‘Of course, I’d be happy to help,’ he said, tucking the printout back in his pocket. ‘He was quiet, except when he was complaining about something. Kept to himself, didn’t mix with the others.’

‘Was he a good honest worker?’ De Vakey asked.

‘Yes, I suppose so. Never heard any complaints about his work. He was never caught stealing or anything.’

‘Did you try talking to him when he first started sending his angry letters?’ De Vakey asked.

‘Well, I kinda told him, very polite an’ all, that he was making mountains out of molehills.’

‘So you never asked him how he was or if there was anything going on at home or about his health that might have been upsetting him? He’s an albino, people like that can have all kinds of health problems. The man has suddenly become very angry, he might have snapped and we need to find out what triggered that snap.’

‘For frigg’s sake, I’m not a shrink. He comes to work, does his job and then goes home. That’s what’s important to me.’

De Vakey said nothing and fixed the foreman with a penetrating gaze. Carmody began to transfer his weight from one foot to another.

Stevie said, ‘Thanks for your help, Mr Carmody. If we need to ask you any more questions, we’ll give you a buzz.’

‘So I take it Sparrow won’t be coming back to work,’ Carmody said.

‘No. Even if he makes a full recovery he won’t be working as a cleaner again.’

‘Bugger me. I suppose I’m going to have to find a replacement then, aren’t I?’

***

As they walked down the corridor towards the lifts, De Vakey said to Stevie, ‘Sparrow certainly fits the profile: someone who’s been bullied, probably all of his life, wanting to get back at society.’

‘Yes, and we all agree it’s someone with some kind of police involvement. He works closely with us and he’s unhappy with his working conditions. Maybe Stan’s bullying was the trigger.’

De Vakey shook his head and sighed. ‘It’s too easy.’

Stevie shrugged. ‘It’s been confirmed he was seen having coffee with Michelle. They were arguing just before she disappeared. He could have nabbed her then, kept her prisoner somewhere, then returned when he left work early that night to kill and pose her in the shop. The next night I catch him in her flat. Surely this evidence, plus his profile adds up to something.’

‘It’s all circumstantial, and still doesn’t explain the attack on you and the theft of Michelle’s papers.’

Stevie jabbed at the lift button. ‘You’ve told us how manipulative these kinds of killers are. Maybe a couple of guys he’d been messing with suddenly realised what he was up to and tried to knock him off.’ They entered the lift and began their descent. ‘You didn’t see the look on his face just before the attack,’ Stevie added. ‘I did. I’m sure he knew them.’

She stepped out before the doors had fully opened, almost crashing into Angus, who was waiting to go up.

‘Just who I wanted to catch up with,’ Angus said. He pulled Stevie away from the lift doors towards the front reception desk, beckoning De Vakey to follow.

The lobby was as chaotic as usual, an assorted bunch of people milling around the front desk representative of every walk of life, the full gamut of human emotion. Stevie would never forget her time at the front desk and could only feel sorry for the uniforms manning it now. The atmosphere here always made her think of a jar of volatile chemicals. Mixed the wrong way or clumsily handled, the place was a bomb waiting to go off.

Angus frowned when a drunk began his rendition of ‘C’mon Aussie C’mon’. It was evident they would not be able to talk here. A cats’ chorus of wails broke out from the cell area, where a young constable hurried with a mop and bucket. Angus rolled his eyes and indicated a nearby interview room with a tilt of his head.

‘Peace at last.’ He closed the door on the noise and gave Stevie a hurried smile. ‘First of all, Stevie, how’s the head? I wasn’t expecting you to be out of hospital so soon.’

‘It’s fine, thanks.’ She was already sick of people asking her how her head was.

‘Good, a couple of things, then. You’ll be interested to know the bottle you and De Vakey picked up in Wellington Street had a beauty of a print on the neck.’

‘Yesssss.’ She drove a fist into her hand and beamed at De Vakey.

‘It belongs to that old dero, Joshua Cuthbert.’

Stevie looked at Angus, puzzled. ‘Wasn’t he questioned already? He’s there every night, rain, hail or shine. Everyone knows that part of Wellington Street is his patch.’

‘Yes, of course he was questioned. Initially he said he wasn’t there, probably just didn’t want to get involved. He changed his tune when we told him about the prints. So far we haven’t got much else out of him, but for a free feed he’s agreed to come and watch the re-enactment tomorrow night to see if anything jogs his memory.’ Angus looked at Stevie and frowned. ‘Come to think of it, you shouldn’t be out and about with stitches in your head. Perhaps I should see if I can get someone else?’

‘Angus, there isn’t another female officer in Central who’s as well acquainted with the Poser case as I am. And jeez, it’s not like I’m an invalid. I’ll be okay.’

Angus didn’t need much persuading. ‘Good. James, I handed your article over to the newspaper, it’ll be in tomorrow’s edition. That should get our Poser good and riled.’ He looked back at Stevie. ‘All the more reason for you to be fit and healthy, it’s hard to predict the outcome of this.’

‘It could also be one big anticlimax.’ She looked at De Vakey with a humorous glint. ‘If nothing happens, I’d say it’s because our poser is still laid up in a hospital bed.’

De Vakey shook his head, smiling at her tenacity.

Angus asked, ‘How did the meeting with the foreman go?’

Stevie filled him in.

‘Right, you may as well continue with the Sparrow angle, go and have a word with the mother. I’ve already had people at the house. They didn’t find much except some books that might be of interest to you, James. I told them to leave them where they found them on the dining room table.’

De Vakey said, ‘I’ll be happy to go along. I’m also very interested in speaking to the mother.’

‘Fine by me, we need all the help we can get.’ They were about to leave the waiting room when Angus added, ‘One more thing. The uniforms door knocking in Michelle’s apartment block learned something useful from the woman next door. It seems this neighbour spent most of yesterday moving her things out. She identified Sparrow from the photo the uniform showed her. Apparently he was hanging around the bins during the afternoon, cleaning up rubbish and sweeping the paths. At one stage when she was laden down with stuff, he helped her get out of the gate. Later she noticed her security wand was gone. She reported it missing, but didn’t think of him at the time. She’s not one hundred percent certain he took it but thinks, in retrospect, it’s possible. She was surprised, said he seemed like a really nice man.’

Stevie reflected on Sparrow’s treatment by his work colleagues. ‘Being nice never got him very far, did it? Any news from the lab about the drug in Monty’s tomato juice?’

‘Possible drug,’ Angus corrected. ‘No, I’m afraid not. The lab’s up to its eyeballs with these murders, they haven’t got to it yet.’

‘Damn,’ Stevie said under her breath. ‘Have you heard from him at all?’

‘No. Have you?’

She shook her head, not wishing to speculate with Angus. Whatever Monty was up to, she didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to it.

Violent film, TV and literature will no doubt influence a person who has already established tendencies towards violence, with non-fiction media proving especially interesting to such a person.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

A middle-aged woman opened the door of the Sparrow house before Stevie had a chance to knock. ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ the woman said. ‘I’m Jane Cunningham, the social worker. Come in.’

Stevie and De Vakey followed her into the hall. The severe effect of the twin-set and French twist was diminished by Jane Cunningham’s lack of footwear. Her stockinged toes curled when she saw Stevie checking them out with a grin.

‘I don’t see what’s so funny,’ Jane Cunningham said, ‘Mrs Sparrow likes people to take their shoes off before they come inside.’

Stevie thought back to the trainers she’d seen standing to attention in Michelle’s front entrance. Martin Sparrow was obviously a creature of habit.

Stifling her smile, Stevie made the introductions and toed off her own trainers. De Vakey bent down and undid his shoelaces, placing his polished brogues side by side. She noticed his eyes drop to the hole in her sock and acknowledged his humorous glint with a wriggle of her exposed toe.

But the well-dressed middle-aged woman wasn’t interested in Stevie’s toe. She locked her eyes on De Vakey and held them there for several seconds. Stevie almost expected to see her clutch her breast and say, ‘Be still my beating heart.’

Still grinning, she padded in the wake of the social worker’s cloying perfume, through the small black-and-white tiled entrance and into the compact two-storey town house.

Jane Cunningham said over her shoulder, ‘Mrs Sparrow is upstairs resting. I’m waiting for an ambulance to transport her to the extended care hospital. She suffers from severe rheumatoid arthritis and chest problems. I don’t want her left unattended, especially with your colleagues hanging around and upsetting her.’ She gestured to the innocuous constable at the front door with a flick of her head.

De Vakey ignored the hostility and rested his soft grey gaze on her. ‘Were you with her when the police told her the news about her son?’

Jane Cunningham turned to him and patted at the fold of her ash-blond hair. The prickly tone she’d levelled at Stevie turned at once into one of breathy concern. ‘Yes, she was very upset.’

‘I’m sure she was—is she upstairs?’ Stevie said, losing patience. Without waiting for the others she headed for the narrow stairway, until she was stopped in her tracks by De Vakey’s hand on her arm. He gestured to a glass dining table, stacked with books on the lounge room side of the breakfast bar. She raised her eyebrows when she noticed his latest on the top of the pile. ‘Okay,’ she said, drawing out the second syllable with satisfaction.

After snapping on some latex gloves, Stevie handed De Vakey a spare pair from her bag. Another of De Vakey’s books was underneath the first, then another.

‘Looks like another fan of yours.’

De Vakey frowned.

Stevie turned the pages until she came to a double-page photo of a blood-splattered murder scene. The social worker saw it and paled, making no objection when Stevie asked her to put the kettle on.

De Vakey flicked through one of the books. Stevie looked over his shoulder, noticing how some of the pages had been marked with yellow post-it notes, some with underlined paragraphs. He tapped at the first of these.

‘For some reason he’s marked the introduction. This is where I explain some common characteristics in the backgrounds of serial killers.’

Stevie pointed to an underlined phrase. ‘Unhappy childhood.’ There was a question mark pencilled into the margin next to it and some spidery handwriting. ‘ All serial killers were abused children, but not all abused children become abusers or serial killers,’ she read aloud.

De Vakey shrugged.

‘All sorts of ideas here—you know, this could be considered a primer on how to do it.’

He responded to her flippancy with a stern look. ‘This is a textbook for law enforcement agencies.’

‘What about the new edition? It’s geared to the general public. It could give all sorts of ideas to the unstable.’

‘No more than many TV shows and films.’

‘These books need to be taken in as evidence.’

Stevie saw a muscle jumping in the profiler’s jaw. ‘Of course they should, but you should be cautious about jumping to conclusions so soon,’ he said.

‘But look at all this, James. So many of these underlined paragraphs are pertinent to our cases.’

As she flicked through the book, she read snippets aloud: ‘S exual motivations, domination and control.’ She thumped at the page now open in front of her. ‘And look, here’s Linda Royce’s name in the margin, next to this: A scene that is staged for the police and for any other unfortunate person who stumbles across the body is often the result of the killer’s perverse desire to entertain.’ Stevie turned to the next page. ‘And this: The ability to manipulate friends and associates. Something’s written in the margin, but I can’t read it, it’s too smudged.’

De Vakey took the book from her and squinted at the blur of pencil marks. ‘Names, maybe?’

‘Documents might be able to decipher. It looks like several names have been written then rubbed out.’

De Vakey looked thoughtful. ‘These annotations are certainly interesting but they don’t mean he’s our serial killer.’

Jane Cunningham reappeared with the tea. Stevie snapped the book shut and spoke to De Vakey out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Okay, so he’s not necessarily our killer, but I get the feeling that you know more than you’re letting on. Is there something about the case that you’re not telling me, James? If not Martin Sparrow, who else is it at Central that you and Monty are suspicious about?’

‘All in good time.’ De Vakey turned to the social worker. ‘We’re ready to talk to Mrs Sparrow now. Will you please introduce us?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Stevie muttered to herself. She clenched her fists in frustration and followed them up the stairs. The tea was left untouched on the glass table.

The curtains in Mrs Sparrow’s room were drawn, the only light a pink glow from a small bedside lamp. When the social worker switched on the main light, the old woman blinked at them from above a mound of pink crochet. With a powdery pink complexion her skin seemed as delicate as the smell of rosewater in the air.

‘What have you done with my son?’ she asked in a tremolo after the social worker had introduced them.

Stevie walked across the vacuum-streaked raspberry-coloured carpet, sat on the bed and took the small, soft hand. Useless fingers flopped against hers like creatures without spines.

Stevie said, ‘Your son’s in hospital, Mrs Sparrow, I thought they’d explained that to you.’

Mrs Sparrow made a sound like a collapsing accordion. ‘They said he’d done some bad things.’

De Vakey said, ‘We’re not sure yet. As you know, he’s unconscious and we haven’t been able to talk to him.’

‘My Martin’s a good boy.’

‘I’m sure he is,’ De Vakey said, gently.

‘But he was caught breaking into an apartment,’ Stevie said.

‘Then he must have had his reasons. My Martin’s a thinker. He never does nothing without good reason.’

De Vakey said, ‘Please tell us about your son, Mrs Sparrow.’

After some initial hesitation, Mrs Sparrow warmed to De Vakey’s persuasive tone. She told them about Martin’s albinism, the bullying he’d received at school, his father’s abuse.

‘He was always a clever boy; could’ve gone to university ’cept for his nerves. I failed him, couldn’t keep him safe.’ She looked down at her crippled hands as if realising for the first time that she was as ineffective now as she had ever been. ‘Things got better for a while, his dad died and we bought this house. But then, after all that trouble with Reece, Martin seemed to just go into himself again.’

‘Who was Reece, Mrs Sparrow?’ De Vakey asked.

She drew a breath, a stereophonic rattle of her chest. ‘His mate, Reece Harper.’

Stevie’s eyes shot to De Vakey. He too had recognised the name.

‘They met at church group.’ Mrs Sparrow continued, ‘Reece was a bit slow, had something wrong with his innards, needed one of them bag things. Not many people wanted anything to do with him, but my Martin knew what it was to be the odd man out, and looked after him, like. But then Reece was accused of murdering them girls in the park and the police hounded him day and night. When he’d finally had enough of it he drove head on into a power pole, on purpose Martin said. He’s never forgiven you lot for that. You see Martin tried to tell the police all along that Reece were with him on the night of that first murder, but no one paid him no mind.’

This must be the alibi that Monty had been unable to find, Stevie thought. Someone in Central had tampered with the files and De Vakey seemed to have a good idea who that was. But he was in no hurry to let her in on it. ‘Who?’ she mouthed, digging him in the arm with her elbow.

‘So you noticed a change in Martin’s behaviour after Reece’s death?’ De Vakey asked Mrs Sparrow.

Stevie swore under her breath.

‘Oh yes, he went secretive, was always off somewhere for his flippin’ meetings, least that’s what he called ’em. When I asked him what he was up to he said it was a surprise, he wanted it to be just right before he showed me.’

‘And this has been going on ever since Reece’s death?’

Mrs Sparrow nodded. ‘In fits and starts.’

‘Do you know where Martin was on Thursday night?’

The old woman seemed to be thinking.

‘That was the night before last,’ Stevie added.

‘I was having a bad night. I needed my pain pills but I’d knocked ’em onto the ground and couldn’t get ’em. I called Martin and he came home from work to help me. Because I was feeling so poorly he decided to take the rest of the night off and stay with me.’

‘And he was here all night?’

‘He was lying next to me on the bed. I sleep badly, would’ve known if he’d left.’

‘Highway to Hell’ chose that moment to blast its way into the conversation. Stevie got up from the bed and moved over to the window, mouthing ‘Angus’ to De Vakey. After a few words, she returned to the bed and took the old woman’s hand once more. ‘I’ve got some good news, Mrs Sparrow,’ Stevie smiled. ‘Your son’s woken up.’

***

Twenty minutes into the hospital bed interview, Martin Sparrow still had the demeanour of a glass of milk teetering on a table’s edge. He passed a hand across his sweat-beaded forehead before dropping it onto his lap where it twisted and twined with its partner.

‘I wish I’d never woken up,’ he said. ‘You think I killed those girls in the park and Michelle too.’

His writhing hands looked like mating cuttlefish. Stevie had to force herself to tear her eyes away from them. ‘Then it’s up to you to tell us otherwise. You were one of the last people to see Michelle alive. You were seen arguing with her in a coffee shop.’

Stevie tried not to flinch when Martin blew out a stream of sour breath. ‘She wanted more money for expenses. I agreed eventually, even though it would’ve been a stretch to get it.’

‘Expenses?’

‘Oh God, this is not right, it’s not supposed to be like this.’ He screwed his eyes shut, a movement that must have exacerbated the pain of his swollen face.

She winced in sympathy.

‘What was it supposed to be like?’ Angus said, his tone as patient as ever.

Sparrow swallowed with difficulty. ‘We were writing a book to clear Reece Harper of the park murders. Michelle was talking to people and doing the investigations and I was researching the theory behind the crimes, trying to show up the inconsistencies. I wanted to prove that the murders weren’t committed by the kind of man the police seemed to think they were looking for, and certainly not by anyone like Reece Harper.’

‘Is that why you had all those psychology books in your house?’ Stevie asked.

‘Yes, I was using them as part of my research. I wanted to prove how easy it would be for someone in the know to fool the police, to send mixed and confusing signals. We were going to be famous, make lots of money, that’s what Michelle said, anyway. We were getting so close and then ... and then Michelle was killed. God this is such a mess.’ Sparrow leaned back against the headboard. The glitter of a tear edged its way from beneath one puffy eyelid and spilled down his cheek.

‘I can understand why you were so interested in the park murders, but what about Linda Royce? You’d written her name in one of the books, too.’

‘Because they’re connected. It’s obvious.’

‘How so?’

Sparrow ignored Angus’s question.

‘I didn’t care about the fame anyway,’ he said. ‘All I wanted was to clear Reece’s name and get back at the filth that set him up.’

‘Who set him up, Martin?’ Stevie asked.

Sparrow’s eyes shot open and seared her with the same malevolence she’d seen in Michelle’s apartment.

‘You think I’d tell you, you of all people? I repulse you—I’ve seen how you look at me—but at least I don’t sleep with the devil!’

Stevie and Angus exchanged mystified glances

‘Would you like Sergeant Hooper to leave the room?’ Angus said.

‘I don’t trust you, either. I don’t trust any of you!’ Sparrow’s voice rose as he neared hysteria, one hand reached to his face and began to pick at the stitches near his eye.

Stevie moved to pull it away.

‘Don’t touch me, filth!’

Any moment Stevie expected a nurse to come bursting through the door and demand their immediate departure.

Angus made placating gestures with his hands. ‘All right, Martin, please calm down. Now, tell us who you want to talk to—a lawyer perhaps?’

‘I don’t trust lawyers.’

The detectives let out a collective sigh of exasperation.

‘You have to tell someone what you know, before another girl gets killed.’

Sparrow mulled over the logic of Stevie’s words. After what seemed to be a long battle with his conscience, he said, ‘Okay, I’ll tell Inspector McGuire. Bring him here and I’ll tell him what I know.’

***

‘Damn, damn, damn! Just where the hell is Monty?’ Stevie slammed her mobile phone onto the canteen table.

Angus shook his head and joined her next to De Vakey. He ran his hand over his shiny black hair and rubbed his eyes, the burden of command showing through the new lines on his gaunt face. He looked on with disgust as Barry speared an egg yolk with a chip, stuffing it into his mouth as if he hadn’t eaten for a week.

‘Funny that Sparrow won’t speak to anyone else,’ Barry mused as he ate. His neglected scalp was fuzzed with dark stubble, giving him the appearance of a battle-weary marine.

Stevie shrugged. ‘I guess he trusts him. I know Mont often went out of his way to talk to the guy, thanked him for cleaning his office and the like.’

‘Maybe we should all be brushing up on our manners,’ Barry said through another mouthful of chips.

Stevie was too preoccupied with her own frustrations to rise to the bait. After swallowing his mouthful Barry took a loud slurp of tea. ‘Did Sparrow say how he got into the apartment?’

Angus said, ‘It’s like the woman next door said earlier, he stole her security wand. He also mentioned that he used to work in a locksmith’s, that picking Michelle’s lock was a piece of cake.’

‘So he went there to retrieve the documents that he and Michelle had been working on.’ Barry turned to De Vakey. ‘Is there still a chance that Sparrow’s the man we’re after, that he’s bullshitting about the book?’

De Vakey shook his head, glancing at Stevie as he spoke. ‘He’s not our man. True, he has a disturbing history. His albinism and poor eyesight resulted in relentless bullying at school. His father was an abusive drunk, his mother an ineffective protector. Those are all problems that could lead to a maladjusted adult with a grudge against the world, but a man with those problems would commit a different kind of crime, not so hands on, if you will. Hit and runs, arson or industrial sabotage would be more common for Sparrow’s type. Our killer and this man are at opposite ends of the personality spectrum. Because of his appearance, Sparrow would stick out like...’ he searched for the words.

‘A snowflake down a coal mine?’ Barry supplied.

De Vakey gave him a tired smile. ‘I wouldn’t have said it quite like that, but yes, that’s the gist of it. Our serial killer will probably blend into the scenery as an average, seemingly respectable guy. And that’s what makes it all the more frightening.’

Barry said, ‘The hobby shop guy, Monty’s neighbour, the waiter. These people all saw him but weren’t able to give us one distinguishing feature to make him stand out from the crowd—our composite sketch has been next to useless.’

‘My point,’ De Vakey said.

‘So our killer’s still out there?’ Barry asked.

‘Most definitely.’

‘Sparrow seems to think the killer’s using your books to cause confusion,’ Stevie said.

De Vakey cleared his throat and adjusted his position on his chair. ‘And if so, that does undermine my profile of him somewhat, but the bottom line is that we’re still looking for a murdering sociopath. Whether he is using my books or not is irrelevant. Whether he’s a textbook serial killer or not is also irrelevant, the end results are the same.’

‘Is Sparrow still under police guard?’ Barry asked Angus.

‘Stringent.’

Wayne appeared as if from nowhere with a glass of milk. He pulled up a chair with a jarring scrape.

If the strain of the case showed in Angus and Barry’s faces, it had all but eaten away at Wayne’s. His skin had turned malarial yellow and his feathery hair was sticking up in tufts.

‘I’ve just heard word. Earlier this evening an APB was put out on Monty,’ he said.

Stevie froze.

‘What the hell they want an all points bulletin on Monty for?’ Barry voiced the question she was too shocked to ask.

‘Seems he’s been doing some unauthorised police work while on suspension. He resisted arrest and injured two dees. Baggly’s farting sparks over it.’

‘Where’s he now?’ Stevie managed.

Wayne shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘Has anyone heard from him?’ Angus asked the gathered team.

They all shook their heads. Angus let out a string of obscenities. Stevie sank her head into her hands and said nothing.

‘Well, I for one am going back to my hotel to sleep on this.’ De Vakey pushed himself to his feet. ‘Maybe in the morning, with clearer heads, we’ll be able to work something out. Perhaps Monty will have turned up by then.’

Stevie didn’t look up from the coffee in front of her. ‘Do you want a lift?’ she asked, her voice slurred with fatigue.

‘I’ll catch a cab.’ He frowned his concern at her. ‘And I suggest you do too. You can hardly keep your eyes open.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ she said, knowing sleep would be an impossibility until she’d heard from Monty.

When De Vakey had gone, the group lapsed into a troubled silence. At other tables, cutlery clanked and chairs scraped, people bitched, gossiped and laughed, snatching their breaks when they could on this particularly busy Saturday night.

Finally Angus said to Wayne. ‘He just can’t help himself can he?’

Wayne looked as puzzled as Stevie. ‘Who?’ he asked. ‘De Vakey?’

‘Monty. I mean why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone? He’s in enough trouble as it is.’

‘If we all played by the book, Angus, nothing would ever get done,’ Wayne replied with unmasked irritation.

The chirping of a mobile interrupted Angus’s retort. Everyone checked their phones, but the ringing continued from an unclaimed phone in the middle of the table.

‘Shit,’ Stevie said, reaching for it. ‘De Vakey’s left his mobile. I might still catch him at the front entrance.’ She pressed the answer button and headed for the canteen exit.

‘De Vakey’s phone,’ she said pushing her way through a cluster of uniforms on supper break. The swinging door closed behind them, cutting off the noise from the canteen. ‘Hello,’ a pleasant female voice replied. ‘May I speak to James, please?’

‘Hi, I’m a police officer colleague of James. I’m trying to catch him now, he’s left his phone behind.’

‘Well at least it wasn’t switched off this time,’ the voice answered.

Stevie hurried down the corridor towards the front entrance, conscious of the sound effects the woman on the other end of the phone must be hearing: thumping feet, heavy breathing, the sound of traffic as she stepped into the street. She could see the cab easing away from the curb.

‘Sorry,’ she panted into the phone. ‘Looks like I’ve lost him.’

‘Oh, that’s all right, would you mind giving him a message then?’

Stevie scrabbled in her jacket pocket for her pen and notepad as she headed back through the double doors of Central. Damn, she must have left them in the canteen. She saw Wayne standing near the lifts and beckoned him over.

‘Pen?’ she mouthed. He handed her a pen and notebook from his top pocket. ‘Go ahead,’ she said to the woman on the phone.

‘Tell him Vivienne rang...’

‘Surname?’

The woman laughed. ‘De Vakey. His wife.’

The blood drained from Stevie’s head. Her legs could no longer support her and she dropped onto a nearby bench. Wayne raised his eyebrows at her obvious discomfiture and moved closer.

‘Hello, hello, are you there?’ the woman asked.

‘Umm, yes.’ Stevie took a steadying breath and tucked the phone under her ear so she could write.

‘Tell him it looks like I’ll be able to make Monday’s flight after all.’

‘Monday’s flight?’

‘He’ll know what I’m talking about. First the seminar, then the case—this Perth trip has turned out ridiculously long. And tell him to keep his phone on a bit more often,’ she said with more than a prickle of irritation.

You bet I will, Stevie thought after she’d said goodbye, contemplating hurling his phone into the nearest bin.

Wayne straightened from his stooped position. ‘Did I hear that right, he has a wife?’ He shrugged. ‘Didn’t seem the marrying kind to me.’

‘Nor me,’ she said, trying to appear nonchalant, all too aware that Wayne was examining her face as if she were a witness with something to hide. Shit shit shit! Why the hell had she assumed De Vakey wasn’t married? Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hand as she forced herself to listen to the answer ringing from somewhere in the back of her mind: because that’s what she wanted to think.

‘I thought you went to the airport the other night to pick him up off the plane from Melbourne?’

‘I did,’ she said, grateful to Wayne for bringing her back to the objective reality of the situation. She attempted to remember the sequence of events of that night.

‘And didn’t she just say he hadn’t been home for weeks?’ Wayne queried.

‘She implied it. He was already at the airport when I arrived. He said he’d caught an earlier plane.’

‘Bullshit he did. What the hell’s his game then?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.’ She sprang up from the bench and slapped the notebook and phone into Wayne’s hand. ‘You can pass on the message and give him back his phone. Tell him he’ll have to hire a car, I won’t be seeing him tomorrow.’ Because if I do, she thought to herself, I won’t be responsible for my actions.

***

There were only a couple of seconded dees answering the phones in the incident room, the others having called it a night and gone home. Stevie slumped into one of the booths and booted up the computer. Numbed by fatigue she knew sleep wouldn’t come until she could put a stop to Wayne’s words still spinning around in her head. But at least this was taking her mind off Monty.

‘What the hell is De Vakey’s game?’

Whatever it was, she had been sucked in to becoming a part of it; so busy searching for something in De Vakey that had never been there, she’d missed the obvious. She’d been blinded by his physical charms in much the same way that she’d been blinded by Sparrow’s lack of them. The realisation left her with a cold, empty feeling.

Privacy laws meant a warrant was needed to check airplane passenger lists, but a warrant was something Stevie doubted she’d get under the circumstances.

She thought of De Vakey’s show of vulnerability, his apparent sickness at the abduction site, realising it was at about this time that she’d started taking more than a professional interest in him. Had this been a classic con, or a genuine reaction to a horrifying job? It was a good lesson, either way: Manipulation 101. You don’t have to be a serial killer to be good at manipulating people.

And she was a good student. With a stab of guilt, she reached for the phone.

Malcolm Funston of the Australian Federal Police answered his mobile after the fourth ring.

‘Malcolm, it’s Stevie Hooper. I hope I didn’t get you out of bed.’

‘Stevie? Hi baby, great to hear from you. No, I wasn’t in bed. I’m on nights. You’ve reconsidered dinner with me?’

Night shift at the airport; perfect. ‘As a matter of fact...’

‘I have next Saturday night off. Is it a date?’

‘Listen Malcolm, there’s something I need to ask you to do first.’

‘For you doll, anything.’

Stevie took a breath. ‘I need you to fax me the passenger lists for all the Melbourne to Perth flights over the last three weeks.’

After a long uncomfortable silence she heard him whistle between his teeth. ‘Shit. Nothing’s easy about you, is it?’

‘C’mon Mal, I thought you liked a challenge.’

‘I’ll call you back.’

Stevie paced the floor. The call never came, but after about half an hour, the fax machine lurched into life.

Before long her eyes were tracing down interminable lists of passengers. Seventeen days back, she found De Vakey’s name. He’d been in Perth two weeks when she’d come to the airport to collect him. After a phone call to De Vakey’s hotel, she punched the off button and the monitor faded to black. The reason for De Vakey’s earlier clandestine arrival was now as clear in Stevie’s head as the chalked outline of a body on the road.

He is a person with a low self-esteem whose feats of infamy help to elevate him in his own eyes. He is proud of his accomplishments and wants recognition for them. His vanity, though, will often lead to his capture.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Early Saturday night, and the club district was already pumped and ready for action. Most of the car parks were full and the restaurants thronging with affluent older people and their families. At the other end of the demographic spectrum the queues at the clubs were growing with younger folk. Their budgets didn’t stretch to cover a good meal plus the boutique beers, creamy cocktails and designer drugs they craved—but what the hell? Why spend money on food when you can drink until you pass out, throw up, end up in the bed of someone you barely remember meeting, or spend the night on a psychedelic high? It’s Saturday night, party night.

As he shuffled past the restaurants and adult shops, Monty didn’t fit in with either group. He was still in the scruffy gear he had worn to the rose nursery, and the blisters on his sockless feet compounded his image by giving him a genuine down-and-out limp. And he was tired, more mentally than physically. His conversation with Sbresni had fed his suspicions into a strangling vine that twisted and curled around a variety of scenarios. And the common root went back to one of the few men still left in Central who had been involved in the KP investigations: John Baggly.

Although the idea of John Baggly as a serial killer was ludicrous, Monty couldn’t ignore the possibility that someone had been pulling his strings, just as he’d been pulling Sbresni’s. Perhaps Michelle had also reached this conclusion and that was why she’d gone to see Sbresni last week. Whatever she had dug up was more than likely the reason for her death.

The sooner he confronted Baggly, the better. But first there was another matter to take care of.

He stood in a queue waiting to be served by a Lebanese street vendor, conscious of being looked up and down by a man in an expensive suit. The girl by his side loosened her grip on her handbag when she saw the fifty-dollar note Monty handed to the vendor for his kebab and ginger beer. He had more money in his pocket. A prostitute’s basic fee might be low, but the ante was considerably upped when the service included information.

He spied a bevy of girls with large bags standing at the intersection. They didn’t move when the little green man told them they could walk. Only one of the four was dressed for the cold in a warm coat, the others exposing an abundance of flesh for such a chill night. The tops of their short skirts failed to reach the hems of their slinky tops and their jewelled belly buttons flashed with every turn. Years ago, when he’d worked Vice, this would have been a clear indication that the girls were on the game, but fashions now made it hard to tell the real from the counterfeit.

Monty washed down his last bite of kebab with the ginger beer and settled at an empty table of a street cafe. After a wary waiter had taken his cappuccino order, he rocked back on his chair to observe the pantomime of the street.

There was much amicable chattering and giggling going on among the women. Perhaps they were office girls on a night out—a bevy of beauties or a fishnet of prostitutes? He smiled as he pondered the appropriate collective.

Still no one moved to cross when the lights changed again. A group of scruffy young men in uniform baggy jeans and baseball caps pushed past the girls with a surprising absence of comment. One was wobbling on his feet, supported by another. The knee-length crutch of his sagging jeans forced him to affect a penguin waddle, further hampering his efforts at walking. Monty caught the whiff of cheap bourbon as they staggered by, but the girls didn’t seem to be interested, they were after fatter fish.

The waiter brought Monty his cappuccino. He took small sips to make it last, having no idea how long it would take to find out if they were on the game. He leaned back in his seat and watched.

It didn’t take long. A shiny black Mercedes pulled up at the lights and a visible ripple of anticipation shivered through the girls. The tinted window glided down. One of the girls stepped forward and words were exchanged. She turned back to her companions who responded with nods of encouragement. By the time the lights turned green again she was settled in the front seat.

The remaining three stepped back from the intersection and regrouped under the awning of Monty’s cafe, standing just out of earshot from the other customers, no doubt discussing the next stage of the night’s operations.

Now was as good a time as any.

Monty got up from the table and limped towards the threesome. ‘Hi,’ he said, his smile showing just the right amount of discomfort.

The girls assessed him with distaste. One in particular, a girl with hair as colourful as an exotic parrot, looked at him as if he was something on the bottom of the birdcage.

‘Well, what do you want?’ Polly asked, the slight hook of her crinkling nose adding to the avian effect.

‘I’d say it was kinda obvious what he wants,’ her peroxided companion said with a giggle.

Just then the waiter passed. ‘Hang on, mate,’ Monty said to him, ‘I’ll pay for my coffee now, thanks.’ He produced a hundred-dollar note from his pocket. ‘Sorry, haven’t got anything smaller.’

The waiter turned away with the money and Polly nudged the girl in the coat. It was as if a heater had been turned on in a cold room.

Feeling the sudden warmth, the girl parted her coat, flashing Monty with her pointy pink nipples and a neatly waxed landing strip. He swallowed and looked away.

Polly whispered to her companion.

The coat squeezed his upper arm and gave him a salacious smile. ‘You’re supposed to ask how much. I say, what do you want, mister? You tell me your requirements and I give you my price.’

The waiter reappeared with Monty’s change and scowled at the girls. ‘You girls clear off. I don’t want you hanging around my cafe.’

‘Tosser.’

‘Who put the hair up your arse, then?’

Monty decided to jump in before the fireworks started. With a nervous swipe at his mouth with his jacket sleeve, he said, ‘How about we talk some more over there?’ He pointed to a dark service lane between the cafe and the boutique next door.

Clacking heels followed him, whispers and a high-pitched laugh. When they were congregated at the mouth of the alley, Monty said, ‘I’m looking for a girl.’

‘Oh duh,’ Peroxide said, failing to hold back a giggle.

‘So which one of us do you want?’ The coat’s smug expression suggested she’d figured her earlier performance had clinched the deal.

Monty looked from one to the other of them and hesitated. ‘You’re all gorgeous. I’ll come back for you some other time, but tonight I’m in the mood for Champagne Charlie.’

He reached into his pocket and produced a fistful of notes. As he did so, a sachet of chilli powder fluttered to the pavement. Polly eagerly picked it up. Her face fell when she sniffed the innocent contents, then she exploded into a squawk of a sneezes.

Monty said, ‘Bless you,’ and put the sachet back into his pocket. He started to shuffle the notes in his hands into numerical order.

‘No offence, mister,’ Peroxide said, her eyes not wavering from the money, ‘but you’d be in much better hands with one of us than with Charlie. She’s been around the block a few times if you know what I mean.’

Coat added, ‘Past her use-by date by a few years I reckon.’

Polly sneezed again.

Monty dealt a ten-dollar note to each of them. ‘Where can I find her?’

Peroxide shoved the note into her cleavage. ‘I don’t know if she’s even working tonight.’

The woman in the coat eyed the remaining notes in Monty’s hand then glanced at her companions. ‘Saturday night? Course she’s working.’ She put her hand out to Monty. ‘She hangs around outside the train station in Wellington Street.’

He slipped her another ten. ‘She work alone?’

As if not wishing her professional sister to come away any richer, Peroxide added, ‘She’s a bit wacky, no one wants to stick with her, though sometimes her pimp hangs around. You need to watch him. Don’t try any funny business, he doesn’t miss much.’

Monty handed her another note.

Polly sneezed again. He handed her one, too. ‘Bless you.’

***

He found her in a bus shelter, just down from the railway station. A nervous-looking middle-aged couple hovered just beyond the shelter, not wishing to get too close to the feral-looking woman curled up on the bench. They clasped matching green grocery bags, his with milk and orange juice; toilet paper peeked over the top of hers. Monty glanced from one to the other of them.

‘She was like this when we got here. I think she’s just asleep. She’s not sick or anything.’ The man sounded as if he was expecting to be accused of leaving the woman to die.

Monty moved over to the bench, brushed back strands of knotted hair and felt for her carotid. ‘She’s okay.’

The whoosh of a bus’s air brakes masked any sigh of relief the couple might have uttered.

‘This is ours,’ the woman said, waving a hurry-up to her partner and diving for the opening door of the bus. The driver shrugged his question at Monty. He shook his head and the bus took off from the curb, leaving him alone with the woman on the bench.

He shook her shoulder. ‘Champagne Charlie?’

She moaned. Without opening her eyes she said, ‘Whadayawant?’

‘I want to buy you a coffee, have a chat.’

‘Piss off.’

‘Just a chat, Charlie.’

‘Fifty will get you a blow job.’ She was on automatic, still hadn’t opened her eyes.

‘That’s not what I want. I want to talk to you. It’s about my daughter, Lorna Dunn. I’ve been told she was a mate of yours.’

At the mention of Lorna’s name, a pair of bleary brown eyes opened. Charlie pulled herself into a sitting position, filling the air with an unpleasant musky odour as she attempted to focus on Monty.

‘You look like her, it’s the...’ She pointed to her own hair and made pinching gestures with her fingers, as if trying to pluck lost words from the air.

‘That’s right, red hair’s a family trait.’

Monty tried to assess Charlie’s physical and mental condition. Stick-like legs were curled under her body in a position unique to the female sex. Above her legs, concealing little, she wore a strip of red micro skirt. There was no doubt in his mind the sleeves of her black vinyl jacket hid a highway of track marks. Under the streetlight the pupils of her sunken brown eyes were as big and round as eight balls. He was beginning to wonder if she was worth the effort when she finally spoke again. ‘I’m hungry.’

‘There’s a McDonald’s over the road,’ he nodded towards the golden arches. ‘I’ll buy you dinner.’

She unfurled her legs and made as if to stand, then seemed to think better of it. Bringing her arm to her mouth she started to suck on the skin of her wrist, leaning forward on the bench to view each side of the bus shelter as she did so.

‘Maybe I’d better not,’ she mumbled through her sucking. ‘If Pedro catches me slacking on the job, I’m history.’

Monty handed her a twenty. As she reached and took it he saw how the top of her wrist was raw from sucking. ‘Tell your pimp this was for services provided. I’ll give you more after you’ve had your feed and you can put it in one of the station lockers so he can’t take it from you.’

The streetlight caught the nicotine-tarnish of her smile.

***

Champagne Charlie took a bite of her second Big Mac, running a weary hand through her tangle of dyed black hair as she chewed. Aware that she wasn’t getting something for nothing, she regarded him through eyes dark with suspicion.

‘Well?’

In between sips of a milkshake Monty gave a similar story to the one he had spun Peter Sbresni, only in this version the pathos fell like tears from each sentence.

Despite his Academy-Award-winning performance, his words seemed to have little effect. She picked up an empty burger wrapper and began to lick the juices with a long, studded tongue. Monty ignored the pathetic attempt at sensuality and started to reminisce on Lorna’s upbringing, striving to touch the right emotional chord. Before he knew it he was recounting one of Izzy’s antics.

‘I’ll never forget catching her in the kitchen with an empty bag of flour. She was about three years old, it was just before her mother and me split. When we walked into the room it was like suddenly being caught in the middle of a blizzard. She’d said she wanted to make it pretty like in her Hansel and Gretel book.’

Charlie put her burger wrapper down and scratched at her arm through the vinyl jacket. ‘I never knew my parents, brought up in foster care.’ Her words were vacant and empty of expression, as if she was too far gone even for bitterness.

But then she surprised him. ‘She was always talking about you. Said you’d promised to take her to Disneyland when she was a kid. The silly cow thought that’s why you robbed the liquor store.’ She giggled and folded one of her fries in half before popping it into her mouth.

Monty stopped sucking on his shake as a wave of shame crashed over him. How easily he had slipped into the stereotype of the ex-con, never even contemplating that the real Dunn, still locked away in prison, might have genuinely cared for his daughter.

Monty tried to meet Charlie’s eye, but she looked at everything except him. She licked at the specks of salt on her lips as she stared around the place, a creamy strand of mayonnaise glistening on her chin.

‘The cops said Reece Harper killed her,’ he said.

‘Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit!’ she sang to the restaurant as if it were the chorus of a song. A bit wacky was clearly an understatement. He made a placating motion with his hands. ‘Shhhh ... do you want us to be thrown out before you’ve finished your burger?’

She laughed, high and sharp. ‘I have finished.’ She burped to prove it and sat down again. Monty handed her a cigarette and they both lit up. There was a No Smoking sign over the door but he doubted anyone would be brave enough to challenge them. He pushed a paper napkin towards her, hoping she’d wipe the mayonnaise off with it. She didn’t.

He returned to his question. ‘So, why not Harper?’

Charlie stared at him through the curling smoke of her cigarette, trying to remember. For a girl like this, four years must seem like a lifetime.

‘I sometimes gave him a turn, felt kinda sorry for him. He was a bit slow, but always a gentleman. He would never have hurt no one.’

‘Some of the other girls said he was pissed off that night because Lorna turned him down.’

‘Lorna was more choosy, she wasn’t so good at closing her eyes and thinking of England.’ She giggled at the tired joke.

Monty pulled his face into an expression of fatherly concern.

‘Reece stank like a fart and was ugly as a sack of smashed crabs, but I gave him a mercy fuck all the same. We talked for a while after, then he calmed down and went home.’

‘So, you mean after the fight with Lorna he...’

‘Reece was no murderer, that’s what I told the cops then and that’s what I still say now.’

‘Remember which pigs you spoke to?’

She said nothing. Her eyes narrowed as she jetted a stream of smoke into Monty’s face. He knew he was onto something; it was as if she was trying to think things through, trying to balance the reward with the risk.

Finally she said, ‘You said you’d give me some dosh for the railway locker.’

Monty dug into his pocket and produced a crumpled fifty. He unfolded the note and laid it on the table just out of Charlie’s reach, then repeated his question.

‘I can’t remember their names.’

He softened his voice. ‘They frightened you?’

She hesitated and placed a skinny hand over her mouth, nodded without looking at him.

‘There was a pig working Vice at about this time, his name was Tye Davis,’ he said, noting her gleam of recognition. ‘He was accused of taking bribes from a pimp, to look the other way when you and your mates were picking up tricks.’

‘Yeah, he used to get freebies from us girls. I never had much to do with him. I don’t mix with cops. There was talk, but.’

‘What kind of talk?’

‘That him and some other cops were setting up business, planning on running some girls of their own. Kitty and Lorna were recruiting for them. They were going to be the managers or some such shit.’

‘Kitty Bonilla?’

‘Yeah.’

The first KP murder victim. Monty’s mind began to whirl. Perhaps taking bribes had been the very least of Tye’s misdemeanours.

Aloud he said, ‘I have a cop mate in Central. He looked at the records and said part of your interview was missing. There’s no mention that you saw Reece Harper after his fight with Lorna. They reckoned Reece followed Lorna after she turned him down and killed her in the park.’

Charlie sprang to her feet. ‘Why should I give a fuck?’ Heads in the fast food restaurant turned. ‘If the cops want to pin it on the wrong bloke, who’s now dead, what do I care? It’s not going to get Lorna back.’

Twitchy and anxious now, Charlie lifted her wrist to her mouth and sucked, staring out of the window into the city night.

Then something or someone in the street caught her attention. She drew breath with a gasp and whipped her head back to Monty, lunging for the fifty on the table. The speed at which she moved took him by surprise. Before he knew it she was on her feet and out of the door.

He reached the pavement outside McDonald’s just in time to see Champagne Charlie running across the road, dodging traffic. A taxi missed her by inches, its honking horn almost drowned in the sound of squealing brakes. On the other side of the road now, he could see her heading for the steps leading down to the station.

He had to catch her.

About to step onto the road he was forced to leap back when a souped-up VL swerved by him. He heard adolescent male laughter and flipped them the obligatory bird. When there was a break in the traffic at last, he flapped across the road as fast as his loose trainers would allow, down the steps to platform one. He stood for a moment under the vaulted glass roof, his eyes taking in the echoing vastness of the near-empty railway station as he searched for Charlie. Few silhouettes darkened the window of a train as it slid from the platform with barely a pneumatic hush. A man was buying a ticket from the automatic machine. A group of tired soccer fans stood around a boarded up newsstand, spitting, smoking and talking.

The clanging of a locker door and the sound of hurried footsteps ahead drew his attention and he saw Charlie’s sticklike figure heading towards the exit stairs. He ran to follow and soon found himself on the street again. With her head hunched and her stride brisk, Champagne Charlie strode under the green tubular footbridge that stretched like a caterpillar above the road, up the pavement and towards the quieter end of the street.

Several minutes later Monty found himself in the same stretch of road where Linda Royce had been abducted. The absence of pedestrians was eerie compared to the hustle and bustle of the club district only a few streets away.

Ahead, a vacant plot of rain-washed weeds marked by a developer’s sign stretched alongside the railway track. Here Charlie stopped and leaned against a light pole, breathless after the exertion of her walk.

Monty caught up with her as she was adjusting the plastic strap of her high red sandal.

‘Hey, I still need you to talk to you about my girl Lorna.’

She opened her mouth, no doubt to tell him to do something physically impossible to himself, but her sentence petered out before it started. Her eyes widened as she tried to focus on something over Monty’s shoulder. He turned to see two men walking up the pavement towards them. In the flicker of the faulty streetlight their movements looked jerky, like computer graphics. He had to squint to make them out. Both were wearing long coats, one man was tall and beefy, the other smaller and wiry.

Champagne Charlie echoed his own thoughts when she said, ‘Oh fuck!’

He glanced back to see her toeing off her shoes. In an instant she’d stepped out of them and was thumping away bare-footed up the pavement.

One of the men has to be her pimp, Monty thought. As he was the one who’d got her into trouble, the very least he could do was prevent them taking off after her and giving her a beating.

He turned to face them and braced his legs like a sailor on a heaving deck, making it obvious that he was not going to let them pass. But when they stopped in a shadow about two metres away from him, it became clear that they had no intention of chasing after Champagne Charlie.

‘Well, well, well, what have we here?’

At the sound of the voice Monty didn’t need to see the face to identify the speaker. It was Keyes, one of the cops who’d trashed his flat.

The instant the larger man stepped under the light, a hazy memory that had been stuck somewhere in the dark recesses of Monty’s subconscious flashed into awareness. Now he remembered where he’d seen their names before—in the case notes he’d been reading the night he was drugged. In his mind’s eye he saw his notebook, and in his own handwriting the names of the Vice cops who’d worked the KP murders: William Keyes and Duncan Thrummel.

Now he knew exactly what they were doing here.

Shit.

Thrummel moved to stand next to his older colleague, his gait rigid, his arm pinned to his side.

Keyes said, ‘We’ve got to bring you in, McGuire. You’ve been interrogating witnesses while on suspension. You have the right to remain silent...’

‘Blah blah blah,’ Thrummel finished, taking a step forward.

Monty saw Keyes take the handcuffs from his coat pocket. He gestured to Thrummel’s stiff right arm. ‘Since when has making an arrest involved a baseball bat?’

‘Shut it, McGuire. Put out your hands,’ Keyes told him.

Monty made to put out his hands, but before the cuffs could be snapped, he jerked his knee into the soft flesh of the older man’s groin.

He ran.

He hadn’t been aware of the street’s gradient until his calves started to burn and his lungs laboured for air. No time for a backward glance, he could hear the thud of feet chasing after him. He sensed it was the younger man, Thrummel, matching every stride of his and more. The clatter of wood on concrete indicated the baseball bat had been dropped. Less encumbered, the distance between them narrowed until Monty could hear his pursuer’s breath.

Ahead he saw the white railings of a new footbridge across the railway track. It connected Wellington Street to a series of building sites that were slowly changing into a complex of classy boutiques, restaurants and arcades. If he couldn’t shake off his pursuers in this maze of construction, there was a good chance he could still lose himself in the Saturday night crowds in the clubbing district on the other side.

Hope of escape brought with it a final rush of adrenaline. With a surge of speed, he pumped a last burst of energy into his aching muscles.

He failed to see the taped-off patch of pavement until he’d tripped over it. With a flurry of flailing limbs, tangled orange tape, witch’s hats and flying trainers, he tumbled through the air over the exposed manhole. The breath escaped from his lungs with a painful whoosh as he landed face first on the pavement. The phone in his pocket crunched against his hip.

But time did not give him the luxury of catching his breath. He was already on his hands and knees when Thrummel’s boot caught him in the side, knocking him onto his back. The wiry younger man was on him in an instant, sitting on his chest and stifling any further attempt to draw air into his starving lungs. He grabbed a hunk of Monty’s hair in his fist and slammed his head into the pavement with a splintering crack that vibrated through to his teeth.

The stars were still dancing in his head when he felt an invisible band around his chest tightening and relaxing, tightening and relaxing. Thrummel was bouncing around on top of him, fumbling under the back flaps of his coat in an attempt to extract the handcuffs from his belt.

‘I’ve got you now, cocksucker,’ Thrummel said through huffing breaths.

Head splitting, starved of oxygen, the best Monty could do was bat out at the hands that attempted to cuff his own. But while his left hand parried, his right hand crept towards his coat pocket and the plastic bag of chilli powder. He brought his hand out with a jerk, letting fly in the direction of the man’s eyes, at the same time closing his own to protect them from the cloud of red powder.

Thrummel toppled off Monty’s chest, yelling as he fell backwards into the manhole. ‘Acid, the fucker’s put acid in my eyes!’

Monty didn’t hang around long enough to hear Keyes’ bellowing reply.

sunday

A worrying aspect about the organised serial killer is that he learns from his mistakes and tends to get better each time.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie had chosen an East Perth cafe for her meeting with Tye. She’d arrived early and queued for a table with the crowd of casually dressed couples salivating for their traditional Sunday breakfast. Finally she’d been given a table for two by the window.

She watched him manoeuvre his car into the disabled parking bay just outside the cafe. His battered Falcon station wagon had seen better days. Patched with rust, sporting a cracked windscreen and a precariously balanced muffler, the old bomb would have won a yellow sticker if Stevie had still been in uniform.

Not wanting to spend any longer than necessary with him, she’d already ordered their coffees and his sat steaming across the table from her.

He smiled as he slid into his seat. ‘Hiya, babe.’ He’d aged since she’d last seen him. The environment in which he worked was reflected in his face; skin cracked as a clay pan, hair spiked as spinifex, a rugged look that could probably still drive women wild. But not her, she wasn’t even sure if she could meet the challenge of sitting with him at the same table. Her armpits prickled with the sweat of her unease and she hated herself for it.

After a sip of coffee he broke into a beaming smile.

‘Black, two sugars, you remembered. Maybe there’s hope for us after all.’ He gestured at her old bomber jacket and shot her an ironic wink. ‘That Suzi Quatro-does-grunge look is a turn on, but I still kinda wish you’d dressed yourself up like you used to. Heads turned when I walked with you on my arm, made me feel proud.’

Yeah, tarted up made me all the more easy to catch and pin down, you bastard.

She took a deep breath. Stay calm, she told herself, don’t provoke him, and above all don’t show him how shit scared you really are. ‘We need to talk about my daughter,’ she said, reassured by the steady sound of her voice.

‘But you’ll always look hot to me, babe, no matter what you wear. Do you still blub every night over those old movies? Me Bogey, you Bacall—remember?’

She gritted her teeth. ‘Tye...’

In a soft low voice he began to hum. Stevie’s stomach tightened at the familiar tune. She’d tossed Casablanca out of her collection the day she’d booted him from her home.

‘ You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh ...’

‘Wrong woman.’

He stopped. ‘What?’

‘It was Bergman in Casablanca, not Bacall.’

A cloud passed across his face, he’d always hated being contradicted. He made a quick recovery. ‘Gee I miss those nights. But you’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you? A sergeant in the SCS, I’m proud of you Stevie, I really am.’

Nestling into the director’s chair, the wooden joists squeaking under his solid bulk, he smiled again, not taking his eyes off her.

The chain of events ran through her head again. She couldn’t stop it. It was her corruption allegations that had pushed him over the edge, but the tension had been building since the news of her promotion several weeks before. At first his unenthusiastic response had been a puzzle; later she couldn’t for the life of her understand how she’d misread the signs.

What was it he’d said as he’d grabbed her by the hair, just before he’d raped her? You think you’re better than me, bitch? Well I’m going to show you just how bloody wrong you are.

She suppressed her shiver, keeping her own expression blank as she stared straight into his smiling eyes, the same beguiling smile he’d fooled her with five years ago. She realised then, with an inner shudder, how very much like De Vakey’s it was.

The heat rose in her face. ‘Izzy,’ she said.

‘I bought her something. Here.’ His teeth flashed as he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a small velvet box. When she wouldn’t take it, he flicked the lid to expose a gold nugget on a fine chain.

‘This is what I spend most of my time at these days, digging these things out of the ground. It’s a filthy job, but it pays well. Izzy was asking me what I did the other day—’

‘You had no right to turn up like that,’ Stevie interrupted.

‘Give her this from me, will you?’ he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Then she’ll understand. When I told her about the nuggets, she thought I worked for KFC.’ He laughed. To a casual listener it might have seemed a joyful sound, but Stevie had heard it too many times before and it chilled her blood. ‘She’s a smart one,’ he went on. ‘I’m looking forward to getting to know her better. There’s something about the innocence of a child, isn’t there?’

She wrapped both of her hands around her coffee cup as if she were cold. The heat burned through her palms but she hardly noticed. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’ she whispered.

‘It doesn’t have to be like this,’ he said, his voice equally soft. He reached across the table and loosened her grip on the cup. ‘Don’t do that, you’ll burn yourself.’ His touch seared her skin more than the hot cup. She moved her hands away and stored them safely in her lap.

‘I agreed to this meeting to give you a way out, to save you grief, work out a compromise. I’ve got money now, Stevie, enough to get the best lawyer in the state on my side.’

He’d agreed to this meeting? He’d bloody asked for it! Under the table she twisted at a paper serviette, spearing it with her fingers, shredding it.

As he talked she listened for the telltale inflection in his voice, the precursor to one of his violent mood swings, but his tone continued in an easy calm. ‘My lawyer rang me this morning and drew my attention to the Sunday paper.’ There was a paper lying on the vacant table next to them. He reached for it and turned to page three. ‘I could almost hear him rubbing his hands together with glee on the other end of the phone. “I mean, really,” he said, “a dangerous, demanding job like she’s got, what hope has she of being granted full custody.” Then when I mentioned your loopy mother, who’d also be caring for Izzy, he almost came in his pants. I mean gee, your poor old mum. When I told him to leave her out of this, he told me to back off. If I wanted my daughter back I had to leave this side of things to him.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m really sorry about this.’

‘Yeah, you sound it.’ Stevie snatched the paper from him and read the headline. ‘Police re-enactment hopes to jog memories and catch impotent killer.’

‘We took the nameless female detective mentioned to be you—were we right?’

‘Don’t go there, Tye. None of your business.’

‘Monty needs his head examined. Advertising the reenactment in the paper like this will attract every sicko in Perth—or did this come after his suspension?’ Tye paused. He briefly broke eye contact. ‘And how is the old red-headed son-of-a-gun anyway?’

Tye’s jealousy of her friendship with Monty had always been a touchy point in their relationship, even when things were going well. She wondered how he knew about the suspension.

‘Was drinking with some old cop pals yesterday,’ Tye said as if she’d voiced her question aloud. Perhaps he’d seen the suspicion in her face. ‘They said he’d got into a bit of trouble: his watch by the body, off the wagon again, losing files. Doesn’t look good for Mont, does it? Though I can hardly blame him for doing the little cow in, she didn’t half give him grief.’

Stevie took the teaspoon and stabbed at the froth of her cappuccino. ‘Your friends talk too much. Who are you still mixing with, anyway?’

He ignored her question. ‘And I also hear James De Vakey’s been called in. Seems like everyone’s onto this psychological bullshit bandwagon.’ He looked into his coffee as if trying to suppress a smile, but she knew the expression was as calculated as everything else he’d ever done. ‘If you ask me, these profilers are sicker than the poor bastards they write about. You’d have to be, wouldn’t you think, to do a job like that? Guess they must really get their rocks off on it. Maybe it takes one to know one, have you thought about that? I’m glad it’s you not me. Hanging around with a bloke like that would really give me the creeps.’ He gave a mock shudder.

‘It’s you who’s sick,’ Stevie said, scraping back her chair. This meeting was going nowhere. ‘Let me know when you’re ready to talk about Izzy.’

Sliding the cafe door behind her with a thunk, she made the mistake of looking back at him through the glass. He smiled and mouthed, ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ and blew her a kiss.

When she got back home, nauseated, heart hammering, fingers still trembling, she found a message from Monty on the answering machine.

‘Stevie, I’m onto something, but for obvious reasons can’t leave a message. Sorry I couldn’t call last night, I had a bit of an accident and was laid up. My phone’s stuffed and I’m ringing from a public phone. I’ve got to go now. I’ll ring again later when I can hopefully give you some answers. Meanwhile, don’t trust anyone.’

She hurled abuse at the answering machine and slammed her fist onto the kitchen table.

***

With her mother and Izzy out together for the day, the house was quiet and the hours leading up to the re-enactment bled by. On any other day Stevie would have been glad of the precious time, but now she found herself at a loss. In the kitchen she turned up the oldies radio station as far as it would go and tackled the housework, anything to block the disturbing thoughts swirling in her head. Jeez, was there anything she wasn’t worrying about? Izzy, Tye, De Vakey, the re-enactment. What was happening to her? How could she have let her life get so out of control? And Monty. Oh God, Monty, she said to the kitchen sink. You seem to have got yourself into as much of a mess as I have. What a pair we are.

She scrubbed the bath and the toilet, changed the sheets and even made cupcakes for next week’s play lunches. She snapped the radio off when Jim Morrison began to sing about killers on the road with brains squirming like toads. The silence almost swallowed her.

***

She’d still not heard from Monty when she arrived that evening at the ops van with only just enough time to scramble into her Linda Royce outfit. The denim miniskirt was tight and restricting, the shoes cut into her feet and forced her to walk with a painful wobble. After loosening her hair to let it flare around her shoulders, she trowelled on the make-up, coating her lips with layer after layer of lipstick and gloss.

A technician wired her with the mike and they did a test run. Satisfied that she had effective communication, she buttoned up the figure-hugging cardigan and stepped out from the van into the street.

Someone whistled. Startled, she turned to see Barry giving her the thumbs up. When he approached, he was all business.

‘Now don’t worry about a thing Stevie, everything’s under control. We have cameras on the crowd and armed cops out of sight watching your every move.’

She’d never realised how reassuring Barry’s voice could sound.

‘You do just what Royce did. Step out from the photographer’s place and start heading to the bus stop. See that old guy standing with Wayne?’

Stevie squinted into the floodlit crowd of onlookers lining the temporary barricades. Wayne was standing with a dishevelled old man with a long white beard and a tasselled red hat that gave him the look of a malnourished Father Christmas.

‘That’s Joshua Cuthbert, the dero whose prints were on the bottle. Wayne’s about to move him into position. We think he saw something that night but his mind’s so pickled it’s going to need a good jolt.’

‘What happens when I reach the bus stop?’

‘Pause for a moment or two, relax, then start walking again; be yourself, as if the re-enactment is over and you just want to stretch your legs. Keep walking till you get to the alleyway about thirty metres down the street then duck into it. If De Vakey’s right, our guy will be watching. If he is, and he sees you disappear like that, he won’t be able to help himself. Don’t worry, we’ve installed surveillance cameras and the TRG are close by. Oh, and before I forget, here, take this.’ The dead weight of the Glock dropped into her open bag.

‘Ready then?’ Angus moved over to them.

Barry nodded. ‘Yep. Good luck, Stevie,’ he called as Angus took her by the arm to the door of the photographic studio.

‘When the guy with the clapperboard says action, step out of the door and begin your walk.’ Angus stood in the doorway with her. ‘Don’t look at the camera or any of the onlookers, okay? They want this edited and ready for tomorrow’s early news, so try not to stuff up.’

She was still focusing her glare on Angus’s retreating back when another figure sidled up next to her. ‘Hello, I just wanted to wish you good luck.’

Stevie raised her chin, folded her arms and fixed her eyes on the man with the clapperboard.

‘Don’t I even get an acknowledgement?’ De Vakey said.

‘Unfaithful bastard,’ she said through the corner of her mouth. ‘Did Wayne give you Vivienne’s message?’

‘He did.’ He hesitated. ‘You don’t need a wedding ring to be unfaithful, Stevie. My wife and I—’

‘I know, I know, she never understood you.’ She allowed a bitter pause. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence, De Vakey.’

‘Lights, camera, talent, action!’ The man with the clapperboard shouted.

Through sheer strength of will, Stevie put De Vakey to the back of her mind and stepped into the street as Linda Royce.

How had the murdered girl seen it? An eighteen-year-old would surely feel wary about being alone in the dark at this time, or was she now complacent? She might not have been jumping at shadows as she walked, or hugging the brick wall to keep out of the wind and the roar of traffic as Stevie was now. Her thoughts were probably miles away from danger, thinking about the shoot. Had the photographer been pleased with her, had her make-up been okay? Maybe she’d been preoccupied with thoughts of her boyfriend, their skiing holiday and the money they’d saved.

Wispy fingers of fog tickled at Stevie’s face as she walked. Last Sunday had been clear, but now it was like seeing everything through gauze. Even the orange of the streetlights seemed muffled. Linda wouldn’t have had to take such careful footsteps. The lumps and bumps of the footpath would have been more obvious, the city buildings more defined, the lights of the passing traffic not so blurred.

God but her shoes were killing her. She stooped to loosen one of the faux leopard-skin straps. As she straightened, she shivered and pulled her cardigan closer to her body. Was he watching her now?

She smelled Joshua Cuthbert before she saw him. He was leaning into the arch in the wall where De Vakey had discovered the discarded bottle. After a moment she heard his footsteps shuffling behind her and risked a glance back. He stopped walking when he came to a rubbish skip, squatted on his haunches and began to roll a cigarette. This must have been his vantage point the previous Sunday: the killer would never have known he was there.

Stevie reached the bus stop without incident and lingered there for some minutes as per instructions. Then, exchanging thumbs up with the film crew as if it was a wrap, she took off her shoes and replaced them with the trainers she’d left on the bus stop bench.

It was comforting to be herself again; the re-enactment stage was over, let the games begin. She held her breath and walked to the mouth of the alleyway. Was he here? Had he already separated himself from the crowd to wait for her here in the shadows? De Vakey’s voice echoed unwelcome in her head. A female police officer, this could be just the challenge he’s after. She remembered the flush of animation as he spoke and then Tye’s words, worse because they were the verbalisation of her own irrational suspicions. Maybe it takes one to know one, have you thought about that? A shiver scampered up her backbone.

She turned into the alley. It was long, narrow and dark, with little illumination filtering in from the main street. With visibility so poor her ears strained for any incongruous sound. Even her muted footsteps sounded loud as they bounced back at her from the walls. The putrid smell of garbage mingled with the fog and the smoke of her breath. Her pace slowed as she tried to see past the shadows of empty crates and garbage bins.

A noise, the clanking of tin.

A rat scampered for safety into the shadows. ‘Shit,’ she exhaled into her collar mike.

She skirted an overflowing drain, only to slap into another puddle; oily water sloshed around her feet and splashed a riffling newspaper. The end of the alley was in sight now. The lights were getting brighter and she could see the street ahead clearly now.

Almost safe.

She wasn’t sure what came first, the hand on her arm or the click of the spotlight. Whatever, she reacted on sheer instinct, slamming her elbow into her assailant’s side then pivoting around to smack him on the side of his face with her weighted handbag. At the same time something resembling a dead animal was loosed from his head and sent flying across the breadth of the alleyway.

In the blur of confusion and bright lights, police in tactical response gear stepped out from the shadows. Angus appeared, talking on a radio, calling an end to the procedure.

Stevie’s cry of surprise rapidly turned into a night-shattering cackle, part relief and part sheer delight. She doubled over, consumed by howling gulps of laughter, not even trying to stifle what everyone would think was an overreaction to the stress of the re-enactment. Then Barry saw it and joined her with his own guffaws. Even Angus couldn’t suppress a smile as he scooped the dislodged toupee from a puddle of water.

Stevie’s gaze turned to her ‘assailant’. James De Vakey was rubbing his jaw. He gingerly reached for his head, his expression of shock turning into one of embarrassed horror.

She was gripped by another fit of laughter. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see printed in her mind the meagre fringe of hair and the gleam of the spotlight on the extensive bald patch.

‘That was a foolish thing to do,’ Angus said, hauling him to his feet and handing him his dripping accessory. De Vakey snatched the hairpiece from his hand and quickly pocketed it. ‘You of all people should have known how tense she would be in this situation.’

De Vakey rubbed the side of his head, keeping his eyes focused on the ground. ‘I thought it was over. I wanted to make sure she was okay.’

Stevie had never expected to hear De Vakey so rebuked or sound so embarrassed. She turned on her heel. They might not have caught the killer tonight but at least she’d accomplished something. The thought filled her with a satisfying warmth. Who was it that said that revenge was best served cold?

As she made her way back up Wellington Street with Angus, De Vakey called out, ‘Be careful, Stevie, he could still try, and it’ll be when you least expect it.’

Stevie made no reply. Only when she was sure she’d left her laughing fit in the alley did she trust herself to ask Angus how it all went.

‘The ABC director thinks the footage will be good. They’ll start showing it on TV tomorrow. Cuthbert doesn’t seem to have remembered anything, but someone else might. And as for the stake-out in the alley, well, it was worth a try, wasn’t it?’

Angus’s professional demeanour and his refrain from comment about the toupee almost started her off again. She grinned and nudged him in the ribs. ‘In more ways than one, eh?’

They’d just reached the tramp’s position by the skip when a blue Commodore pulled up alongside them. Baggly’s beady gaze slid down Stevie’s body in sync with his electronic side window.

‘Any luck?’ he asked.

Angus repeated what he’d told Stevie.

‘Good, it sounds as if the footage has come out well. We’ll need to scan the crowd shots carefully. Well done, Hooper.’ With an easy acceleration, his top-of-the-range Commodore purred away up the street.

At the same moment a mittened paw clawed at Angus’s coat sleeve. Angus looked at the derelict with uncharacteristic impatience; so far all he’d given them was a fast food bill.

‘That car, that car,’ Joshua Cuthbert said, pointing to Baggly’s disappearing taillights.

‘Well, what about it?’ Angus said.

‘Same car, different driver.’

Angus folded his arms and sighed.

The old man ignored Angus and said to Stevie, ‘I don’t know much love, but I know me cars.’

The investigator must examine the killer’s life within the context of cause and effect. Psychologists call this ‘Psychological determinism’.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

The van headlights swept across Baggly’s driveway through a mist of rain. Monty shrank behind the hibiscus bush to avoid the sliding beams, grateful for the camouflage his army jacket provided. After his altercation with Keyes and Thrummel, he’d spent the night under the freeway bridge near the river, barefoot and semiconscious. The first thing he’d done on waking was to find a public phone and ring Stevie. Then he’d called Wayne, who told him about the APB. He’d hung up immediately, realising that for the moment he’d have to give his friends, including Stevie, a wide berth. Until he could prove his suspicions correct, anyone found helping him would be putting their careers on the line.

Next he’d made his way to Dot’s where he explained only enough to convince her to tell no one of his visit. She let him use her shower and gave him a set of her husband’s clothes.

The borrowed boots pinched and Monty was stiff and sore from waiting for Baggly to come home. His muscles screamed in protest as he struggled to maintain his crouch, anxious to discover the identity of the van’s driver.

At last the lights clicked off, the van door opened, and Justin stepped into the carport. Monty unfolded his stiffening limbs and stood up as Justin was putting his key to the front door. Then the crunch of gravel in the driveway alerted him to the arrival of another car. He ducked back behind the bush and watched as Justin tentatively approached the visitor. Despite the uncharacteristically dishevelled hairstyle, there was no mistaking the angles of the face and the long, lean figure of James De Vakey illuminated by the front porch light.

Monty heard Justin say, ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr De Vakey. I’m afraid Dad’s not home yet, he’s still busy with the reenactment.’ ‘It’s all right, Justin, it’s you I wanted to see.’ De Vakey’s shadow loomed over the younger man.

‘Me?’ Justin’s voice cracked.

De Vakey patted him on the shoulder. ‘I got the impression from you the other day that there was something you wanted to discuss with me, something more important than just signing your books.’

‘Oh, that, yes, maybe. But now isn’t really a good time. Dad could be home any minute.’

‘Well, I think this problem you wanted to discuss might involve him anyway, am I right? Let’s go inside, out of the rain. We need to talk.’

Monty decided to hover in the darkness a while longer. De Vakey’s psychic antennae must have picked up on a problem with Justin that might provide Monty with some of the answers he needed. And Justin would probably find De Vakey easier to spill to than himself. The man was a pro, after all.

He waited for the front door to close before extracting himself once more. A light came on in the front room and he glimpsed them behind the net curtains before Justin drew the heavier drapes. Moving towards the window Monty pressed his ear against the glass, but could hear only the occasional word. This was getting him nowhere. He had to find a way to get in.

Baggly’s security system proved to be almost non-existent. Within seconds Monty had crept around the house, tripped the back door lock with his credit card and tiptoed through the kitchen to the front hallway.

He’d never been in the superintendent’s home before and was surprised at the contrast between this and his office. Here were no cabinets of fine china, leather Chesterfields and antique furniture. The furnishings were old and faded, a collection of odds and ends that could have come from an op-shop. The house had an unlived-in feel, the slight chemical tang in the air reminiscent more of an institution than a home. He’d suspected earlier that the fruits of Baggly’s corruption were not those of material gain and now he saw it for himself.

The voices of the men in the living room were clear now. He hugged the wall near the half-open door and listened.

De Vakey was saying, ‘It’s always encouraging for an author to get such positive feedback, but I feel your interest in my books is not just professional, maybe it involves something more personal. Am I correct?’

Monty could feel the magnetic pull of De Vakey’s voice even from where he stood.

The boy shifted in the stiff-backed chair. ‘You’re a psychologist. What people say to you is confidential?’

‘In therapy, yes.’

‘Well,’ the boy hesitated. ‘There’s something I need to talk to you about, but you have to give me your word that you won’t tell anyone else.’

‘I think I can manage that.’

‘In your books you’re always talking about family backgrounds, the huge part they have to play in shaping the minds of killers. Well sometimes I worry about myself. I failed the aptitude tests for the academy, you see; they said I wasn’t psychologically suited for the police. They reckoned I had some ... er ... problems.’

‘A lot of people would find themselves unsuited to the police, Justin,’ De Vakey said gently.

‘But there’s other things too. I’ve been reading your latest book, it’s kept me awake. I see myself in so many of those cases you describe, and the more I read about them the more I feel like I’m cracking up. Since I was a kid I’ve wanted to be a cop, but now that chance has gone and I don’t know what to do any more, I feel lost...’

Monty peeped through the gap in the door. Mouth turned down, eyes fixed on twisting hands, the boy looked to be on the verge of tears. Shit, Justin was in more of a mess than he’d imagined. The kid was going to need some understanding and help from his friends, and Monty would make sure that he got it—but first he needed to see if the boy had any of the answers he was looking for.

Ask him about his father, ask him about his father, he endeavoured to transmit his subliminal message to De Vakey.

‘Do you ever have the urge to kill or torture anyone?’ De Vakey asked.

The boy shuddered. ‘Oh, God no, nothing like that. I hate violence.’

De Vakey smiled reassuringly. ‘Then I’m sure you have nothing to worry about.’ De Vakey’s allowed a long pause. ‘But I think you know that too, deep down, don’t you?’

Justin nodded.

‘I think you really just need someone to talk to, am I right?’

‘Mmmm.’ Justin stared at the floor.

De Vakey let the silence settle for a moment. ‘Justin, tell me about your family life, your father.’

At bloody last.

The kid gulped in a breath. ‘I hate him.’ He pressed his palms to his eyes. ‘He repulses me, but he’s still my father.’

‘Now, why would that be I wonder? Can you relate these feelings to any particular events or has it always been this way?’

De Vakey’s tone was soothing and calm, could have been lifted from a self-hypnosis tape. If I wasn’t feeling so bloody uptight, Monty thought, I might be fighting the urge to nod off myself.

After a moment’s hesitation Justin took a deep breath. ‘My mother left my father when I was about twelve for reasons I couldn’t understand at the time. I blamed her; she’d been cheating on him. She tried to get me to go and live down south with her but I refused—the new boyfriend was a creep.

‘Then about a year later I came home from school early one afternoon and found Dad in bed with a boy not much older than me.’

Monty saw a shudder pass through the kid’s body.

‘No wonder she left him,’ Justin said. ‘I was out of here; I went to live with Mum after that. I only came back here to go to uni. I thought Dad seemed a little better—at least I haven’t caught him with any more boys. But over the last few weeks he’s been acting really weird. Something’s going on, he’s edgy and frightened, he’s up to something illegal, I’m sure, but I don’t know what and I don’t know what I should do about it.’

Monty decided it was time to step into the lounge room. ‘It’s okay, son,’ he said. ‘I thought it might have been something like this. You haven’t given your father away, he’s given himself away.’

Justin looked at him with amazement. De Vakey jumped to his feet, taking in Monty’s appearance with a look of disgust, as if a tramp had just burst into one of his therapy sessions. In a way, one had.

‘Good God, what are you doing here?’

Monty shrugged. ‘Just needed a few more answers. I think I have them now.’

He sat on the sofa next to Justin and used the uncomfortable silence to regard De Vakey. He didn’t much like the man, but they were on the same side and for the sake of the case it was important to cooperate. ‘An ideal tool for blackmail, wouldn’t you agree, De Vakey?’

De Vakey tented his long fingers and nodded.

Monty turned to Justin. ‘I think the person responsible for the KP murders found out about your father’s weakness and blackmailed him into hindering the investigation.’

Justin shook his head and glanced at De Vakey whose eyes had perceptibly widened. ‘This is about the KP murders?’ Justin asked.

‘There were some bent cops working Vice at the time of the murders,’ Monty answered him. ‘I reckon they somehow picked up on this snippet of information about your father and coerced him into covering up for them. They were setting up their own prostitution racket, and when other cops started getting too close for comfort, they killed the prostitutes for fear of being grassed up.

‘I think your father coerced Inspector Sbresni into cooperating in the cover-up, using similar tactics as those being used on him. In Sbresni’s case, it was the affair he was conducting with the commissioner’s wife.’

Monty rubbed his chin and mused aloud to De Vakey, ‘But what I’d really like to know is how Martin Sparrow fits into all this—have you any idea?’

By the time De Vakey had finished recounting the Sparrow interview, it looked like all Monty’s speculations were on the money—the KP killings and the Poser murders were indubitably connected.

‘Well the book writing explains a lot,’ Monty said, ‘and it also explains why Michelle was killed—she knew things and wasn’t exactly being careful about it. I think she was about to expose the KP murderer.’ Monty reached for Baggly’s phone. ‘I need to call Stevie.’

***

Stevie dragged her feet into the kitchen, mind still whirling from the tension of the re-enactment. Her mother was asleep, thank God, in the lounge with the TV blaring. She couldn’t face talking to anyone at the moment, let alone Dot.

Sliding out of her jacket and flinging it on the chair, she glanced at the answering machine. No flashing light, no message from Monty. Everything’s all right, she said to herself as she put her mobile on the kitchen table near her bag. If something was wrong, I’d have heard about it by now—wouldn’t I?

Leftovers of last night’s fettuccine provided an easy meal and a stubbie of Swan finally put a stop to the shaking of her hands.

She was in Izzy’s room a little while later, tucking the quilt around her sleeping daughter’s shoulders, when she heard the jangle of her mobile phone. Monty! She spun on her heels to make a dash for the kitchen.

But the bedroom door seemed to have moved and she found herself slamming into a solid object as rough and hard as a brick wall. Before she could register what was happening, strong arms engulfed her and something soft and sickly sweet was pushed into her face. Waves of nausea and weakness swept over her. ‘Highway to Hell’ pulsed in her head, then petered into nothing.

***

The intensity of the rain had muffled the sound of Baggly’s car and his sudden burst into the room caught them all by surprise.

‘What are you doing in my house, McGuire?’ Baggly barked, then turned to his son. ‘Justin, what the hell’s going on?’

Justin leapt up from the sofa and stood there frozen, staring at his father in white-faced shock. De Vakey squeezed his arm.

Baggly pointed a stubby finger at Monty. ‘You, mister, are in a shit-load of trouble.’ But as Baggly reached into his jacket pocket for his phone, Justin’s horrified look finally registered on his father’s face. Baggly’s hand stopped. He stared at his son.

Then he lunged, hurling Justin onto the hard carpet squares, taking them all by surprise. Grabbing him by the hair, Baggly was about to slam the boy’s head into the floor when Monty’s kick sent him sprawling. He was on the superintendent in an instant, pinning him to the floor with an arm behind his back and a knee on his spine.

‘What’s he been saying? I’ll kill him! I’ll kill the weaselly little bastard, I’ll—’ Baggly’s words were choked off as Monty pushed his bulbous face into the carpet.

De Vakey touched the knot of his tie and took a breath. ‘Now calm down, John. Let’s be rational about this.’ He moved to help the shaken Justin from the floor and guided him back to the sofa.

Monty released some of the pressure from Baggly’s head. It was like opening a steam vent. ‘Rational? How do you expect me to be bloody rational with this gorilla sitting on top of me!’

Monty spoke through clenched teeth. ‘If you behave I’ll let you up and you can have a drink and talk. If you don’t, I’ll call for back-up and have you dragged out of here so fast you’ll have carpet burns on your arse.’

Baggly struggled for a breath. ‘You’re enjoying this, aren’t you, McGuire? You always did have your eye on my job. Reckon you’ve got it now, do you?’

His words sounded as if they were being pushed through a bicycle pump. Monty knew how he felt, having been in a similar position himself the previous night. His other knee joined the one already on Baggly’s back and he adjusted his weight.

‘Okay, okay! Just get the hell off me and I’ll cooperate,’ Baggly gasped.

Monty pulled him to his feet and shoved him into one of the armchairs.

De Vakey looked from Baggly to Monty as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The profiler’s skin was pale, his lips parted. It dawned on Monty that the analysis of violent acts must be quite different from witnessing them live.

He pointed to Baggly’s cheap whisky on the plastic drinks trolley. ‘Top yourself up, De Vakey, them too.’

Despite his more comfortable position in the chair, Baggly’s face was still an unhealthy puce. He pointed an accusing finger at his son. ‘You’ve ruined me, haven’t you? How does it feel to ruin your father? Are you satisfied now?’

Justin shrank back into the sofa, his fingers gripping his refilled glass as if he might break it.

‘Don’t take it out on the kid, Baggly, you’ve ruined yourself. Justin’s only confirmed what I already suspected, that you were being blackmailed.’ Monty paced the floor. ‘They threatened to reveal your penchant for boys and forced you into helping them cover up the KP murders. And now two more women have been murdered, and you were involved in those, too, as well as my frame-up. It was you who took the watch from my desk, wasn’t it? And were Keyes and Thrummel acting on your orders when they stole the files from my flat or are you all taking orders from someone else?’

‘I didn’t murder anyone.’

‘No, you didn’t, but you were an accessory after the fact. I want you to go to Central and make a statement.’

Baggly drained his glass in one swallow then fixed Monty with gimlet eyes. ‘And if I refuse?’

‘Depends if you want this news let out officially or through the tabloids. It’s your choice. You and I both know the tabloids will make this even worse than it already is. You’ll have boys’ bodies in your cellar by the time they’ve finished with you. True or not, the other inmates won’t care. In prison you’ll be dubbed the murdering cop paedophile. Could be interesting.’

Baggly nervously smoothed down his moustache. The light caught the shimmer of sweat on his forehead as he looked desperately from Monty to De Vakey. ‘I’m no paedophile. They were never under age.’

‘The rags won’t give a shit: fifteen, sixteen, not much in it, is there?’

De Vakey stepped over to refill Baggly’s glass. Monty allowed Baggly to toss down another gulp before going to the phone on the side table. He lifted the receiver and started punching in the numbers.

‘Wait,’ Baggly said in panic. ‘You’ve no evidence! This is all conjecture!’

Monty put his hand over the receiver. ‘The press don’t need evidence, it’s just another juicy scandal for them. I’m ringing one of Michelle’s old journalist friends, telling her my suspicions. She can do what she likes with them.’

‘No!’ Baggly cried, putting his head in his hands and rocking from side to side in his chair.

‘Is that you, Sherrie?’ Monty said into the phone.

‘Wait, put it down, I’ll tell you what I know. Please, no press,’ Baggly begged.

‘Sorry, Sherrie, something’s come up, I can’t talk now.’ He put down the receiver and turned to Baggly. ‘Are you ready to talk? You’ll need to go to Central, I’ll get someone over to escort you.’

Baggly blew out a shuddering breath. ‘You’ve been plying me with booze. Nothing I say will be admissible.’

Monty found himself filled with a sudden, uncontrollable rage. He grabbed one of the bottles from the drinks trolley and hurled it at the wall. Baggly almost fell off his chair as the glass shattered behind him. Monty grabbed him by the shirt and yelled into his face, buttons popping under his fists. ‘You don’t get it, do you, you quivering lump of lard! Right at this moment I don’t give a shit what’s admissible and what’s not. I just want some fucking answers and I want them now!’

Monty felt De Vakey’s hand on his arm. He let go of Baggly and stepped back, breathing heavily, but calm again.

When Baggly found his voice he touched his gaping shirtfront. ‘I need to change.’

Monty reluctantly agreed; he didn’t want the roughing up of a suspect added to the other somewhat dodgy circumstances surrounding Baggly’s arrest. He watched Baggly haul himself unsteadily to his feet and said to De Vakey, ‘Go with him, keep a close eye on him. I have to make a phone call.’

De Vakey nodded and followed Baggly into his bedroom.

Monty used Baggly’s lounge-room phone to call Wayne. He gave him a summary of events and asked him to collect Baggly and arrange the interview at Central.

‘By the way, Mont,’ Wayne said. ‘I suppose it’s not important now, but for the record, I followed up on Justin’s hospital visit to Martin Sparrow.’

‘Shoot.’

‘It seems he has a thing going for Sparrow’s nurse—used Sparrow as an excuse for going to see her. That was the sole reason for his visit to the hospital.’

Monty glanced at Justin sitting on the sofa with his head in his hands.

‘Poor kid. It’s not been his day has it?’ Wayne added.

‘How did the re-enactment go?’

‘The dero said he recognised Baggly’s car. I thought it all seemed a bit far-fetched until now.’

‘How’s Stevie? Is she okay?’

‘I haven’t been able to reach her and I need to tell her something important. I had someone double-check Tye’s alibi and it turns out the mine supervisor was lying through his arse. Tye—’

A shot cracked out from Baggly’s room. ‘Oh God, no!’ Justin sprang from the sofa in a panic.

Monty’s stomach flipped. ‘I’ll ring you back.’ He slammed down the phone, grabbed Justin by the shoulders and pushed him towards the door. ‘Get the hell out of here. Go to the neighbour’s and wait there.’

The urgency of his tone had the desired effect; the boy bolted.

Monty found De Vakey standing in the doorway of Baggly’s bedroom, mouth open, hands outstretched as if he might still be able to stop what had already happened.

Baggly’s body lay sprawled on its back near an open chest of drawers, a pistol on the floor near his outstretched arm. It looked as if he’d already started his own autopsy, the single shot through the mouth having lifted the top of his skull like the lid of a hard-boiled egg. The frozen look of surprise on his face suggested that even he had not expected to make such a good clean job of it.

De Vakey stayed where he was, shaking his head from side to side like a man coming out of a trance. ‘The gun was in his top drawer, it happened so quickly...’

Monty felt for Baggly’s carotid pulse out of instinct and shook his head. He rocked back on his heels. The wound looked surgically neat, but the mess must have landed somewhere.

A shuddering sigh drew his attention back to De Vakey who was slowly sinking down the wall into a sitting position.

‘Oh Christ,’ Monty whispered, knowing the image of the gore-splattered profiler would stay with him for the rest of his life. He took De Vakey by the arms and pulled him to his feet. ‘You need to go to the bathroom and clean up,’ he said.

‘I should have stopped him,’ De Vakey gasped, pale with shock.

‘You couldn’t have stopped him, neither of us could. Now go and clean up. It’s obvious what happened here, we don’t need any more evidence.’

Monty turned away to find himself confronted by an equally disturbing sight. Justin was walking rigidly towards him up the hall with all the grace of a zombie.

‘Go wash up,’ Monty said to De Vakey before focusing his attention on Justin. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ He looked at the boy and softened his voice. ‘I’m sorry, your father’s dead, son.’ Taking him by the arm, he guided him back into the living room.

‘It’s my fault, it’s my fault,’ Justin repeated over and over.

Monty sat next to him on the sofa, ready to hold him back if necessary. ‘I know this is a terrible shock for you,’ he began, ‘and it’s not over yet. I need to ask you some important questions. You have to clear your mind of this mess and answer me as best you can.’

Justin dropped his head in his hands. Monty took him by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. ‘Do you hear me, Justin?’

He took the choked sigh to indicate a yes and handed Justin his handkerchief. After allowing a few seconds for nose blowing, he took from his wallet a photo he’d found at Dot’s. ‘Do you know this man?’

Justin looked at the picture of Tye Davis for a moment, closed his eyes and nodded.

‘Who is he and how do you know him?’

‘Frank Dixon, he’s a friend of Dad’s. He sometimes comes over to the house. Sometimes Dad meets him at the old power station.’

Monty frowned ‘The power station?’

‘Dad has a key. The guy’s in demolition or something and was interested in looking around the building. Dad was hoping to get the council to contract Dixon into knocking it down once all the red tape has been cut through. He hates—hated—that power station.’

‘Can you tell me anything else about this Frank Dixon?’

Justin sniffed. ‘Dad used to act kind of funny when he came over, almost like he was scared of him. He had an old bomb of a car and sometimes Dad let him borrow his. Sometimes I had to let him use my van.’

‘When did you see him last?’

Justin was interrupted by De Vakey’s reappearance. ‘Phone call for you, Stevie’s mother.’ De Vakey handed Monty the phone and took his place on the sofa next to Justin. Monty stepped into the hallway.

‘Monty, is that you? You haven’t been answering your phone. Stevie’s was on the kitchen table and I got De Vakey’s number from it. I was hoping you’d be together.’ Dot spoke rapid fire, as if wanting to get the explanation over and done with.

‘Slow down, Dot. What’s the matter? Where’s Stevie?’

‘That’s the problem, I don’t know. I was asleep, she must have come home then gone out again, but she left her bag and phone behind. Her phone was switched off and the kitchen phone was off the hook. Tye came around earlier when she was out and said he’d return tomorrow. That’s all I remember. He’s trying to get custody of Izzy. Stevie didn’t want you to know. She didn’t want you to worry.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Monty’s hand flew to his forehead. ‘Listen Dot, everything’s going to be okay.’ He pressed the phone so tight to his ear it hurt. ‘You stay with Izzy. I’ll send an officer to keep you company. I think I know where Stevie is and I’ll bring her back home.’

‘You sound awfully worried, Monty. Are you sure everything’s all right?’

‘Of course it is, but look, I’ve got to go.’

He punched the off button and rang Wayne, explained the situation and requested a team be sent to Baggly’s and another to the power station.

After finishing with Wayne, he instructed De Vakey and Justin to stay in the house and wait for the police. The whisky bottle was empty and they’d started on the gin. De Vakey was lying sprawled across the sofa, in no better shape than Justin. Monty could only hope they’d both be coherent when the police arrived.

The word psychopath was once widely used, but these days sociopath is the preferred term. All serial killers are sociopaths, but not all sociopaths are serial killers or murderers. Their common ground is a complete lack of empathy for their victims. One needs only to look at some of the world’s top businessmen to see how this is true.

James L De Vakey, (PUV Press, Sydney, 2006). ‘One man’s best-selling account of the hunt for Australia’s most notorious multiple murderer.’

Stevie was staring at a map of the old British Empire, or so she thought as she willed her eyes to focus on the shapes in front of her. But when the fog of unconsciousness began to lift and the map of the world cleared, she found herself staring at a red brick and plaster wall, lying on her side on a concrete floor with her hands and feet bound with duct tape.

Oh God, let this be a nightmare. But nightmares took place in the dark and she was surrounded by light, light so bright it made the glare of the chipped plaster wall hurt her eyes. She became aware of loud male voices talking above the chesty vibrations of a generator, felt the bite of carbon fumes in her lungs. Rolling onto her other side to find the source, she found her view of the room partially blocked by a twisted hunk of metal. Through the gaps she could see the solid legs of a wooden table and three pairs of shuffling feet.

‘I can’t believe you got away with this, you’re a fucking genius!’ The voice was familiar and deep, one of the creeps who’d tossed Monty’s flat—the older one, Keyes was it?

‘Told you you could count on me, didn’t I?’

Her flesh crawled at the sound of the second man’s voice. Smooth and controlled to a casual listener, only she could tell by the slight inflection how close Tye was to snapping.

‘Beauty, let’s have a look.’ The third voice belonged to Thrummel, the younger partner. What the hell was going on? Some kind of racket, no doubt, but how she’d ended up stuck in the middle of it she had no idea. For a moment, curiosity overcame her fear. She managed to twist herself up into a sitting position so she could peer through a higher gap.

She watched, hardly daring to breathe, and saw Thrummel dig his hands into a plastic holdall on the table, and lift them, letting the contents fall through his fingers. The generator muted the clunking of the nuggets but the light spearing from the cascading gold was unmistakable and flashed rapaciously in the eyes of all three men.

‘I’ve never seen so much gold,’ Thrummel said in awe.

‘It’s yours. Keep your mouths shut and there’ll be more in another couple of months.’

‘But how—’ Thrummel began.

Keyes cut him off, ‘Shut it, Thrummel. We don’t want to know, okay?’ Then he turned to Tye. ‘No more killings, there’s been enough killings. I hope you’ve put that Hooper chick out of your mind now, you were pushing the envelope there.’

Stevie drew a silent breath. No, this couldn’t be. Tye wasn’t behind the killings, he had an alibi, she was hearing this wrong. Tye was a lot of things, gold thief, obviously, but not a murderer. She screwed up her eyes, attempting to block the thought: the father of my child is not a murderer.

Tye smiled. ‘Laid to rest, mate. Just a temporary moment of insanity.’

‘Yeah well, it’s too bad those others had to get knocked off before you came to your senses.’

‘The Birkby woman had to be silenced, you know that, she was about to pull the carpet right from under us,’ Tye said. ‘Hell, you bitched enough about the interrogation she put you through, the non stop hassling, the phone calls day and night.’

‘Yeah, but that other one, what was that about? She was just an innocent girl. I don’t mind doing your dirty work, that’s the deal, but I draw the line at unnecessary killing.’

‘Okay, mate, what’s done is done,’ Thrummel said. ‘Let’s just take the gold, see the fence and get what’s coming to us.’

The fearful realisation dawned on Stevie that they were leaving, that she would soon be alone with Tye. She heard the chalky sound of feet shuffling on a concrete floor as the men repacked the bag, a cough, the splat of a spit gob when they’d finished. She tried to cry out to them, but the generator swallowed the feeble sounds she managed to push through the duct tape. Please don’t go, please, she silently pleaded. With at least one unwilling participant in the room there was still a glimmer of hope she would hang onto her life. Through eyes stinging with tears she saw Tye lead the two men to the heavy wooden door and unlock it for them.

‘Oh, one more thing.’ Thrummel put his hand out to Tye. ‘You haven’t forgotten have you?’

‘The perks of the job? No worries, mate, of course not.’ Tye reached into his pocket and handed Thrummel a small silver packet.

‘Jesus Christ, Tye,’ Keyes complained. ‘He’s strung like piano wire as it is, he doesn’t need any more of the stuff.’

‘Just adds to the thrill factor, eh Thrummel?’ Tye nudged a grinning Thrummel in the ribs.

Keyes muttered something Stevie couldn’t hear. Tye called him an old woman and laughed.

He was laughing when he locked the door behind them, still laughing when he grabbed her by the ankles and slid her from behind the hunk of machinery. She closed her eyes and tried to will her breathing to calm down.

‘I know you’re awake, you’re shaking.’ He gave an amused snort. ‘You playing possum on me, Stevie?’

Rough hands flipped her onto her back and pulled her into a sitting position against the wall. The tape was ripped from her face with the sting of an exfoliation she didn’t need. He clasped her shoulders and peered intently into her face for a moment.

And then he began to hum.

That song again.

He was mad, she thought, he had to be: mad or frighteningly sane.

He paused. ‘Our song, remember? Who’d have believed that rough, tough, Stevie Hooper was such an incurable romantic?’ The hum turned into words. He placed his mouth to her ear. ‘ You must remember this ...’ The warmth of his breath on her skin had once caused tingles of desire. Now all she could feel was rippling shivers of fear. He pinched her earlobe between his teeth.

She gasped.

He pulled back to assess her reaction. Determined not to give him one, she tried to keep her face blank, though she couldn’t help the skittering of her eyes as she searched for a way of escape.

He grabbed her face in one hand and squeezed her cheeks. ‘C’mon baby, you love it rough, you know you do, tell me you love it, tell me!’

She resisted the urge to bite him on the hand. Now was not the time. She had to be patient, her life depended on it.

She pushed the words through his hands, ‘Okay, I fucking love it.’

‘Hmm...’ He rocked back on his heels. ‘You’ll be saying it for real soon. You’ll be begging for me.’ He appeared to be in deep thought. Humming softly to himself, he continued to stare unnervingly at her, his mouth curving with the play of a smile.

She took in her surroundings and tried to block out the sound of his humming, to think past her fear. She was in a cavernous, windowless room with heavy double doors in the centre of one wall. Another twisted hunk of metal, similar to the one she’d been stowed behind, grew from the floor nearby. Grainy shapes of other metal objects were lost in the shadows beyond. A theatrical spotlight, powered by a lurching generator and wired to one of the roof girders, bathed them in bright light as if they were the stars of the show. Near the generator stood a table laden with cardboard boxes and bits and pieces of hardware.

At last she managed to steady her gaze and focus on the tip of Tye’s nose. ‘Where am I?’

‘In one of the basement rooms of the old power station, one of the few that still lock—it’s virtually soundproof.’

She looked again at the hunks of machinery, realising they must be the heavy cradles on which the turbines had once rested. Two silhouettes of silver and bronze misted the floor nearby. Her throat clenched, her mouth went dry. It was a struggle to speak and when she found her voice, it was high and squeaky. ‘Is this where you killed them?’

‘Clever, eh?’

You can handle this, just keep him talking, don’t get him angry; just keep him talking.

‘Why? Why murder those women?’ she asked, unable to control the tremor in her voice.

He stretched his legs out on the floor, propped his back against the wall and spoke in a tone of restrained rationality. ‘I don’t like killing, but I don’t dislike it either. It was just something that had to be done, self-preservation if you like. You blowing the whistle on me started an investigation that would’ve unveiled a lot more than a few bribes. You got me sacked, but that was preferable to being an ex-cop spending years in the slammer.’ He continued on, matter-of-factly, ‘This is your fault, you know, all of it. If not for you, everyone would still be alive. If you hadn’t threatened me that night, none of this would have happened.’

‘You killed the prostitutes?’

‘With a little help from Keyes and Thrummel behind the scenes. They had as much to lose as me. We were in business together, setting up our own stable. Once you started things rolling it became obvious that the whores were going to grass us up, they had to be silenced.’

‘And you drew the short straw, you did the silencing?’

‘They’re more squeamish than me, it took me a while to persuade them that knocking the girls off was the only alternative.’

‘So you did the dirty work and carried the can, and they went on working.’

Tye laughed. ‘Not quite true, but I can see what you’re getting at. You want me to get all hot and bothered over them. You want me to smack myself on the head and say to myself, “Duh, Tye, she’s right, it’s the boys I should be blaming, not poor little innocent Stevie.” Good try.’ He leaned forward, chucked her under the chin and winked. ‘It was all worked out very amicably. I went from one business to another and in retrospect this one is working out a lot better than the first ever could. Keyes and Thrummel owe me big time, they’re only too happy to help me out.’

‘Some kind of gold scam, you’re into gold.’

‘You’d be amazed at how lax security is in the small mines. It doesn’t take long to remove a sizeable amount when you have an understanding supervisor.’ Tye rubbed his chin, musing. ‘Not sure how long he’ll last, but; the mine’s a dangerous place to work. He might find himself knocked on the head by a falling beam if he doesn’t pull himself together. Got in quite a panic after your lot questioned him.‘

‘He’s the one who gave you an alibi. Said you were working at the time of the Royce murder.’

‘Sure. He wouldn’t want the world to know I was in Perth fencing our mutual takings, would he?’ He paused and looked pensive. ‘Maybe I should be grateful to you for blowing the whistle on me after all. I always knew you’d make me my fortune one way or another.’

Stevie didn’t know what to say next and that proved to be a mistake. The short silence gave him time to brood.

He grabbed her face again and his voice rose. ‘But have you any idea what it’s been like for me over the past few years, being sacked, seeing the one who shafted me doing the job I loved, rising meteorically up through the ranks? Didn’t you learn your lesson the last time?’

The pressure on her face increased. Gripped with panic, she tugged and twisted at the duct tape bindings. He let go of her face and clamped his hands around her shoulders, pinned her arms and buried his face into her neck, alternately sucking and nipping at her skin. She froze when she realised the effect her exertions were having on him and shrank as far back as the wall would allow. The skin of her neck continued to burn, long after he pulled away.

‘You and I have lots of catching up to do,’ he said, breathing heavily.

She flopped back against the wall, relieved to see his anger tempered again. ‘Tell me more about the murdered prostitutes.’ She had to keep the conversation away from herself.

‘I made the slappers look like the work of a sexual pervert. I even took “trophies”, like the book says, though I chucked the hair and jewellery into the river. It was touch and go for a while, my hair on that first one could have been my downfall. Just goes to show it’s not what you know. Baggly cleared that little glitch up for me and after that I used the wetsuit. The paint’s an added security, the chemical properties in it destroy just about anything else I might’ve left behind, skin cells, etcetera. I thought the commissioner’s hair on Royce’s body was a good touch too, don’t you? Keyes stole his hairbrush for me—my old partnership comes in very handy when I need things done from the inside. I’d’ve liked to have seen Baggly’s reaction to that little trick, I never told him about that, wanted to keep him on the edge of his seat, the cowardly perverted creep. He knew we had to cover up the KP murders, but he had no idea what else I was up to.’

‘So you’ve not only got Keyes and Thrummel in your pocket, you’ve got Baggly too. Clever,’ Stevie said.

Tye smiled. ‘Yeah. Then after years of thinking about you and the mess you’d got me into, I decided it was time for the so-called serial killer to make a return. There’ll be no one else after you, Stevie. What’s really funny is how easily you were all fooled, even the great De Vakey, and it was his books that gave me the idea in the first place.’

‘But why kill Royce, why Birkby?’

Stevie wondered if what she saw was a genuine shadow of regret passing over his face or just pretence. He shrugged. ‘I didn’t want to kill Linda, she was just a kid. I made sure it was quick and she didn’t suffer. I borrowed Baggly’s car, put on one of my old uniforms. Said her dad had taken a turn for the worse; that I’d been asked to pick her up and take her to the hospital to see him. She was quite a talker when she wasn’t scared shitless, her uncle was a retired cop y’know, she was very proud of him. We’d got to know each other quite well. I visited her in the cafe whenever I could, always made sure she served me. She was flattered. I flirted with her, she was an easy target: flirtatious, naive and trusting. I needed to kill her you see, to disguise the identity of my true target.’ He paused and ran his tongue over his lips. ‘You.’

The pounding of her heart seemed to come to an abrupt halt. She felt light-headed, as if her blood had already started to pool at the lowest point of gravity. She had to keep him talking. ‘Easeful Death. I never knew you were into poetry.’

‘Came across it in a poetry book when I was at school and always remembered it. Believe it or not, I hate to see things suffer, hated what your dad went through.’ He clicked his fingers. ‘Short and sharp, that’s what death should be. The girls were drugged up to their eyeballs, never knew what was going on. I did them a favour, I mean, who knows how they would’ve died when their time came.’ He paused. ‘See, there’s a lot of things you don’t know about me, Stevie, I’m a deep thinker, I’m a sensitive kinda guy. You should have given me more of a chance.’

For a moment anger overcame the fear. ‘You knocked me around, you raped me for God’s sake! What was I supposed to do?’

‘Mitigating circumstances, you were threatening me, you had to be taught a lesson. But it didn’t do much good, did it? You still didn’t learn; you still dobbed me in.’ He brushed her face with fingers rough as hessian. ‘But we had some good times didn’t we, babe?’

‘Yeah, good times till you realised you couldn’t get hold of my house, till you started your corruption racket in Vice, till you heard about my pending promotion, wanted those kinky photographic sessions—what was that all about? An attempt to get some kind of power over me?’

‘But you wanted to do those photos, deep down, I know you did. You were always so uptight, that was your problem, so busy keeping up with the boys you were afraid to let your feminine side shine. I posed Linda for you, Stevie. It was you I was thinking about. I even took the risk of coming back to take away the props, just so it would be perfect for you. Thought it might strike a chord—and it did, didn’t it? That’s exactly how I tried to get you to pose for me, remember?’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘Again, this all boils down to you.’

Stevie felt the tears well. She struggled against her bonds.

‘Then of course there was Birkby and Sparrow’s book—that fucking journalist never let up, the stupid cow. I saw her plotting and planning with the albino. I knew what they were up to. I followed her from the cafe and grabbed her in the back car park. The chloroform knocked her out before she even blinked.’

‘Oh yeah, the chloroform—where did you get it?’

‘There’s this vet I know. We did a swap, his chloroform for my ice—another little business of mine, appreciated by Thrummel too, by the way. The vet decided he needed a bit more variety in his life—you can only go so far with animal meds. What a dickhead, eh?’ Tye shook his head. ‘There’s just no accounting for taste.’

‘Why did you go to all the trouble of getting Michelle into the store? That was some kind of risk wasn’t it?’

‘Hey, why do they climb Everest? And of course there was the special bonus of putting your precious Monty in the frame for it. You gotta believe me, I didn’t get much pleasure in killing her, but I had to kill someone else, anyway. Bronze, silver, gold—get it?’ He drew in a breath and let it out slowly through thin, smiling lips. ‘Kinda fun really. I might not have enjoyed killing the others, but I know I’m going to enjoy you, long and slow. You’ll be my exception to the rule: you get the gold medal, baby.’

Stevie’s heart kick started with a jolt and she jerked her chin from his hand. ‘But Sparrow survived.’

‘So what? I learned about the safe while the bitch was begging for her life. You and Sparrow caught my boys by surprise. Bad luck the paddy wagon turned up before they could finish him off.’

‘He knows the truth.’

‘Without the documents, what can he prove? The woman was the brains behind the book. People might have believed her allegations, but who’d believe a ranting, white-faced idiot like Sparrow? Hell, even Baggly was confident enough to keep him on as a cleaner.’ He smiled. He was enjoying himself. ‘Any more questions? Any more delaying tactics? You know I have all the answers, Miz Super Cop.’

He was onto her, but still she racked her brains for more questions. Last time she’d seen Monty, he was planning on visiting Peter Sbresni. She took a punt. ‘What about Sbresni? Was he just a fall guy or is he in on it too?’

‘Sbresni knows nothing about me; he was following Baggly’s orders, and Baggly’s so fucking terrified of what I’ve got over him, he wouldn’t dare breathe a word.’

She didn’t know what else to say, she only knew that she had to keep stalling him. She grasped at one last straw. ‘You act like you have a conscience, Tye, that you didn’t really want to kill anyone. Where does Izzy come into this, how will it feel for the rest of your life to know that you’ve killed the mother of your child?’

She closed her eyes against the venom in his face. Oh God, why did she have to bring up Izzy?

‘Bitch! What do you take me for, a complete moron?’

His blow cracked her head back into the wall. She felt a slash of heat where the stitches burst open and a thick tide of blood streamed down the back of her neck.

Tye pushed himself up from the floor and paced. ‘I’ve spent the last ten minutes answering your questions. Now it’s time you answered mine.’

She stared back at him blankly. For several seconds he regarded her in angry silence. Then his face began to relax and, to her surprise, his laughter started bouncing back at her from the walls of the cavernous room.

‘You have no idea what’s so funny, do you?’ he said, recovering his breath. ‘The super fucking detective doesn’t have a bloody clue. Christ.’

Stevie swallowed and shook her head.

‘Mumps.’

He’d lost her. ‘What, what are you talking about?’

‘Shooting blanks. It probably would’ve come out eventually if you’d ever given me a chance. Now don’t tell me in your heart of hearts you never questioned your child’s paternity. Hell, your mother sure knows Izzy’s not mine; I’ve seen it in her eyes often enough—Jesus, the kid doesn’t even look like me!’

She looked at him, shocked.

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You mean she never breathed a word? Maybe she thought you deserved to be a dupe, you can be a prickly little bitch. Funny though, I never took you for the screwing around type. It was Monty, wasn’t it? It had to be. You always did have a thing for him. It made framing him all the more sweet, made the killing of Michelle that bit easier.’

No. This had to be another of his lies. She wanted it to be true though. Her throat was too dry for words.

She struggled to fathom the implications of what he was saying. When she’d discovered she was pregnant, she had no doubt it was from the rape. The violence had left an indelible impression on her mind of powerlessness and self-hatred. The encounter with Monty had been so brief, a stupid drunken impulse in response to his tenderness, a small measure of unexpected comfort at the end of that ghastly week with Tye.

Tye sighed and shook his head. ‘I never understood how you could be so blind, you were so convinced the kid was mine. Course I didn’t mind.’

‘Why? So you could keep the link with me?’ she finally managed to croak.

‘I knew you were putty in my hands so long as Izzy was in the equation.’

A sob pressed against the back of her throat, she couldn’t let it escape. No tears. But her internal battle proved pointless when she realised that for once in his life, Tye might be telling her the truth.

She’d read of cases in which extreme fear caused physical blindness. Could the same be said about mental blindness? Perhaps deep down she’d known all along that Monty was Izzy’s father. Had she suppressed the knowledge out of fear of losing him, thinking that he’d only ever regarded her as a little sister? She was convinced he’d been repulsed and ashamed of their brief intimacy. Even during their fleeting but passionate lovemaking, she’d known it was the alcohol running things, and that it was Michelle he’d had in his mind.

‘Never mind, babe, it’s over now. Time to put an end to your misery,’ Tye whispered in her ear. ‘Only I think this time our impotent killer’s going to get lucky. This’ll baffle your profiler friend, eh?’ He rubbed his bulging groin and grinned. ‘But first, precautions have to be taken.’

Stevie watched in horror as he sauntered to the other end of the room, turned his back and started to rummage among the junk on the table. The noise from the generator made it hard to interpret the sound of his movements, but she could imagine the grinding of tablets, the clinking of a glass and the trickle of liquid. When he turned once more to face her, he was holding out a glass of orange juice.

No! She knew what was coming next. She felt like she had always known.

He held the glass up for her to see the liquid turning blue. ‘You’re going to enjoy this, babe,’ he said.

With her ankles and hands bound, all she could do was roll onto her stomach and wriggle like an inchworm, anything to stop him from forcing her to drink the drugged juice. He gripped her shoulders and flipped her onto her back and she found herself cradled in his arms like a baby, like a lover.

She closed her lips and clamped her jaw, but he pinched her nostrils until her limbs tingled and her chest felt as if it would burst. The glass clunked against her teeth, her lips parted for air, and in a reflex action she gulped the mixture down.

When he let go she shrank into herself and curled like a leaf onto the gritty concrete floor. She watched him return to the table through blurred eyes.

She clenched her jaw. She couldn’t let him win.

She forced herself to think. It was Rohypnol, the dye confirmed that. It could start taking effect as early as fifteen minutes after ingestion, but might take longer to work its way through her fettuccine dinner. Her mind raced as she recalled the symptoms: impaired memory, dizziness, confusion, lack of inhibition, sexual compliance—there had to be more.

Think Stevie, think. Christ, you might only have fifteen minutes!

Tye glanced over his shoulder and smiled before turning back to the boxes on the table.

Stevie scanned the room for anything she might use to cut her bindings. Her eyes came to rest on the nearest metal cradle. If she could get closer, maybe she could use one of the edges to saw through the duct tape. But that glimmer of hope soon shattered when she realised the jagged hunk of metal was further away than it looked. She’d never be able to reach it without Tye seeing her.

He extracted the dark wetsuit from the box and laid it on the table between some cans of gold spray paint. The dull metallic gleam of a gun next to the paint cans caught her attention. It looked like the Glock Barry had given her for the re-enactment. Tye must have taken it from her bag. If she could find a way of getting to the gun ...

A pleasant floating feeling began to overtake her senses, she felt herself gently rocked, like a lilo on a calm sea. Thoughts of the gun faded into the back of her mind.

A sudden dry retch brought her back. It broke through the soporific rhythm of the drug and gave her scattered senses one last chance to regroup. Then an idea filtered through the fog of her mind; an idea that might even save her life. Nausea. That was it. Another side effect of the drug was nausea.

Drawing in a deep breath, she willed the filthy odour of the generator deep into her stomach, then begged her body to expel it. She gagged again, turned her head to the side and opened her mouth. Nothing happened. Perhaps she shouldn’t have suppressed the urge before. Tye turned to look at her and she pulled her head back with a jerk, she couldn’t let him see what she was trying to do. The sudden movement of her head caused her ponytail to flick against her face. Up floated another idea.

She jerked her head again, this time catching the ponytail between her teeth. She forced the tickling hairs to the back of her throat and gagged.

Again only a dry retch.

Tye had his back to her. He’d taken off his clothes and was busy easing himself into the wetsuit when her body finally obeyed her command. With several heaves she puked out the fettuccine and, she hoped, most of the Rohypnol. But she couldn’t let him see the mess. She wriggled as far away from it as she dared, nudging a bit of filthy tarpaulin across to hide it from sight, and prayed the stink of the generator would mask the acid smell.

Now she had to convince him the drug was still coursing through her system. She attempted to conjure up the pleasant floating sensation she’d experienced before she’d vomited. Returning to the lilo she willed back the sleepy feeling. On the verge of sleep, her limbs felt blissfully heavy. A moan escaped her lips, followed by a deep sigh.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Tye pull the diver’s hood over his head. Then he manipulated his erect penis through a hole in his wetsuit so it lay flat against his belly. Under any other circumstances the image would have been ridiculous.

Block the fear.

Lack of inhibitions, sexual compliance. She giggled. The giggle became a laugh. He smiled and moved towards her with a pair of scissors in his hand. She concentrated on making her breathing slow and even.

He cut through the bindings on her ankles and eased her legs apart. Not yet, she cautioned, not yet. She must wait.

He leaned forward, trying to press his lips to hers, but she turned her head to the side. He mustn’t taste the vomit. She attempted to distract him with a sensuous moan.

‘C’mon, babe,’ Tye said. ‘You’re going to love this. Don’t be shy.’

Another sleepy giggle.

He positioned himself at her feet and slipped off her trainers and socks. ‘I’m going to make you look real pretty.’ He picked up a can of spray paint and shook it. The ball inside the can rattled, then her toes spasmed as a chill wave washed over the top of her foot. Her nose and mouth stung with the fumes of fresh paint.

‘Just wanted you to get an idea of the final effect, seeing as you won’t be around to see it.’ He lifted her foot to show her. She smiled inanely while her heart felt ready to explode with fear. When he let her foot go it fell to the ground with a thud as if it really was weighted with gold.

‘But where to put the end product?’ he mused. ‘Monty’s car perhaps? Now there’s an idea. I’ll just give you back to him, all pretty and posed—a pretty picture for him to dwell on while he rots in jail.’

Through slit eyes she saw him pick up the scissors and move to the outer seam of her jeans.

Now!

Her double-barrelled kick caught him under the chin, knocking him onto his back. He hit the concrete hard. ‘You bitch! You fucking bitch!’

She sprang towards the table, turned her back to it and seized the gun between her bound hands. Tye was on his feet and about to lunge when the pull of the slide and the sound of the chambered bullet stopped him in his tracks.

With her back to him and twisting her neck around as far as she could go, she knew the only chance she had of getting away was to kill or disable him now. But the swaying of her body told her that despite her efforts, she’d still absorbed some of the drug. The bullet could fly anywhere.

She couldn’t think rationally.

In the middle of debating the pros and cons of recklessly letting the shot fly, she became aware of feet clanging down metal stairs. Then Monty was bellowing her name and pounding on the door.

‘In here!’ she called, the feeling of giddy relief now compounding her dizziness. ‘Open the door and let him in,’ she commanded Tye.

He was frozen on the spot several metres away from her. He looked from Stevie to the door, shook his head and smiled, in control again.

The hammering on the door stopped.

Cramping pains shot up her neck as her body reacted to its twisted position. To unbolt and unlock the door she’d have to drop the gun and she doubted her reactions would be quick enough to coordinate both movements. Keeping the gun on Tye as best she could, she edged herself closer to the door.

‘I’m in here, Mont, but I can’t open the door!’

With a heavy thump and a curse the door bowed but the lock held.

Tye dived towards her, and in the same moment a hollow banging sound from the floor made the spotlight above her shudder, the door vibrate.

Stevie fired. The bullet cracked into the far wall and ricocheted around the room like a slammed squash ball. She closed her eyes, waiting to be hit by the bullet, the impact of Tye’s body or both.

But when she opened her eyes again, he was gone.

Many sociopaths will study psychology books and become skilful imitators. One example is Australia’s notorious multiple murderer, Tye Davis, the exclusive subject of this study.

De Vakey, To Catch a Killer

Monty cut through her bindings with the discarded scissors and passed a hand across her face as if needing reassurance she was still alive. Oblivious to the blood dripping from the back of her head he attempted to draw her to him.

She held him back with straightened arms; it was all she could think of to keep them both in the here and now.

He came to his senses and sprang to his feet. ‘Where the hell’s he gone?’

‘A trapdoor, here.’ Stevie pointed to the open wooden lid in the floor in front of them.

‘For Christ’s sake.’ He began to descend the rusty metal ladder, turning when she tried to follow to scowl at her, ‘You’re not coming. Go wait out the front for back-up. They’ll be here any minute.’

Stevie’s body contradicted her expression of stubborn defiance, forcing her to turn her back on him and heave again. It was like the opening of a floodgate she could no longer control. When it was over finished she whirled back to the open trapdoor in time to hear the fading ring of Monty’s footsteps on the metal rungs, a soft thump, then silence.

She sat on the edge of the hole for a moment, glancing around the ghastly room with her legs dangling. She found her eyes drawn to the misted silhouettes on the floor and a shiver rippled up her spine.

‘Bugger this for a joke,’ she said aloud. Feeling for the top rung with her foot, she eased her way into the hole.

The fishy odour that rose to meet her as she reached river level made her stomach lurch. Holding her nausea back by willpower alone, she stepped off the last rung and crawled through a short tunnel until she came to a wooden flap not much bigger than a doggie door. Once through this she found herself on a small sandy ledge about three metres above the sloshing river. The scrabble of frantic movements from the bank above made her look up into the wet night.

The rain that had started as a misty drizzle earlier in the evening had turned into a downpour. While the cold on her face served to drive away some of her drug-induced fuzziness, the rain made for poor visibility. She narrowed her eyes and tried to see through the wind and lashing rain, but all she could make out was the looming mass of the riverbank above her. With hands outstretched, she blindly groped against its muddy face for fistfuls of grass. The damp of the earth through the knees of her jeans and the sting of rain on her face caused a sudden wave of euphoria. A surge of heart-thumping adrenaline washed away more of the fuzziness in her head and the churning of her gut. She was alive. Unbelievably alive.

At the top of the bank she caught a glimpse of Tye running across the weedy plot between the riverbank and the power station. Dressed in his black wetsuit all she could make out was the pale backward and forward motion of his pumping hands and feet. The blurred outline following some distance behind had to be Monty.

All at once, several beams of light pricked the darkness. The sound of sliding tyres on mud broke through the noise of the rain and she saw Tye veer to the right almost into the path of a braking police car. A second sharp turn and he was face to face with another. Outflanked, there was only one way left for him to go and that was ahead.

Monty was closing the gap. She wanted to follow him, but staggered first to the uniformed officers scrambling from their cars.

‘Block the exits,’ she gasped. ‘You need to surround the perimeter. You can’t let him get out of here. Inspector McGuire’s in pursuit, I’m following...’

She attempted to rejoin the chase, but found herself held back by a pair of strong arms.

‘You’re in no fit state, Stevie. Stay with me.’ It was Wayne and he pulled her close. She felt the rain on her neck, heard distant voices and the crackle of car tyres as the uniforms dispersed. She didn’t have the strength to fight any more. As she buried her head in Wayne’s shoulder, she knew he was the only thing keeping her upright.

Tye’s only chance of escape was up, and by the time Stevie lifted her head he was already on the flat roof of the power station with Monty clambering up the maintenance ladder after him. One of the cops aimed a powerful spotlight and she held her breath as she saw Monty ease his way from the ladder onto the roof, his silhouette swaying in the wind. Soon he was pounding across the roof after Tye, who was heading towards a higher level of steeply pitched tin.

Tye sprang onto the other roof with ease and began to shuffle his way along it, one foot on either side of the pitch, negotiating himself around the mushrooming ventilation ducts as he came to them. Stevie guessed he was counting on there being another ladder on the end of this roof to take him back down. As there weren’t enough cops to surround the whole fence line, they might lose him yet.

She saw Monty hesitate as he climbed to the higher level. She could tell by the violent sway of his body that the wind up there was almost cyclonic. She stopped breathing, willing him to maintain his balance as he lurched from one upright vent to the next.

Waves of nausea and dizziness rippled through her body and once more she had to lean into Wayne. She heard him gasp, felt his body tense. She wanted to look but couldn’t lift her head. A shudder passed through him and into her.

But the shuddering wasn’t coming from either them, it was coming from the ground. It gathered momentum until the sound of tearing rafters and screaming metal fractured the air around. At that moment an invisible force seemed to suck the middle section of the roof down, taking both men with it.

‘Monty!’ Stevie’s cry was carried away by the shriek of the wind.

two weeks later

A clever sociopath is often smooth and charming and can give the impression of having a highly developed social conscience.

De Vakey, To Catch a Killer

Stevie stood among a small cluster of people in the lush memorial park, listening to the priest say his final words over the descending coffin. The sky was a sacrilegious blue, dotted with a few puffy clouds, the air clear as polished glass. A fresh breeze ruffled the service program in her hand.

Wayne, Angus and Barry stood together on the other side of the grave. One of De Vakey’s arms was draped over Justin’s shoulder, the other linked to a woman Stevie presumed to be his wife Vivienne, though really, it was anyone’s guess. Justin’s nurse friend stood on his other side and held his hand. A few nameless strangers, no doubt friends of Justin’s, stood behind, ready to offer the dead man’s son their support.

There was no one else. Baggly didn’t appear to have any friends of his own. An unpleasant man, Stevie brooded, a liar and a hypocrite, he’d nevertheless been as much a victim as any of the other players in Tye’s drama of manipulation and revenge, and he had paid for his frailty with his life.

And what of her own frailty? Tye had preyed upon her weaknesses in the same way as he had preyed upon Baggly’s. During the last two weeks her mind had desperately tossed around variations on the theme. She glanced out of the corner of her eye to Monty. Head bowed, gazing at his feet, he clutched the fluttering funeral program in his bandaged hands. Was he praying or thinking? They’d hardly spoken of the night at the power station, other than what was necessary for the reports. She’d tried several times to broach the subject of Izzy’s paternity, but found she so badly wanted what Tye had said to be true, she couldn’t risk shattering the illusion, if illusion it was. Monty had been no help. Every time she’d found herself attempting to stammer out what Tye had said that night, he’d silenced her with a finger on her lip, and a gentle admonishment, ‘Later, Stevie, later,’ as if she was still too traumatised to talk about it, as if she was a piece of delicate crystal that needed protection. Fuck him.

She took a deep breath; none of it mattered now. Once the funeral was over she would take Monty to the pub and brave the topic of Izzy’s paternity with him. She wouldn’t let him silence her this time. There was a position available for a DS in Broome and she’d applied for the job, confident she’d get it. She would return to the Kimberley, start again, and provide for Izzy a childhood as precious as her own had been. From a distance of two thousand kilometres, any further contact with Monty would be his choice.

With her mind made up, she felt free to take in the rest of the funeral attendees. She glanced back at De Vakey. Now her anger with him was gone, all that remained was a sense of relief that things had progressed no further, and a somewhat cynical sadness for his wife.

Martin Sparrow stood not far from De Vakey’s group. Stevie suspected his publishers had been behind his attendance; it was a good publicity stunt. It was the same company that published De Vakey, and both men had received hefty advances for their stories. The manuscript Sparrow had been helping Michelle put together had been found in John Baggly’s house, along with the missing files from Monty’s flat, stolen by Keyes and Thrummel. With the two rogue cops, plus Baggly under his control, it was no surprise Tye thought himself invincible enough to take out Stevie too. Keyes and Thrummel had not been granted bail.

Sparrow had become a minor celebrity, his diary filling with guest speaker engagements and talk show sessions before he was even out of hospital. There was talk of a national tour for the release of his book at the end of the year.

After a silent minute of prayer, Sparrow took off his sunglasses and caught Stevie’s eye. No wonder he looked on me with such hatred, she thought, I was the lover of a vicious murderer and he knew it. But the malevolent glares he had once shot at her were gone now. In his pale face she saw a new shining confidence that gave him an almost attractive glow, despite the scars and fading bruises. Perhaps now he realised that she had been as much a pawn as any of them.

Sparrow still had to face the burglary charge and an investigation into the copying of police records. But they should be grateful he’d done the copying before Baggly removed the crucial witness statements that vindicated Reece Harper. With a good lawyer, Stevie suspected Sparrow would be beating the rap. Good luck to him.

Justin threw a bunch of early wildflowers onto the lowering coffin along with the first shovel of dirt. After some stilted farewells to Baggly, the mourners began to wind their way through the sunken plaques and the swaying eucalypts to the car park.

Monty awkwardly handed Stevie a cigarette. His bandaged hand brushed against hers, his lacerations and broken fingers the result of clinging to a sagging ventilation duct when the roof had collapsed taking Tye Davis to his death.

When they came to his car, they leaned against the bonnet to finish their smokes. Stevie was in no hurry, Izzy was happy at home with Dot. The sun peeped out from a woolly cloud, making her cheek grow warm.

They had been standing there in silence for a few minutes when Justin broke away from where he had been talking to De Vakey and Vivienne. ‘Thanks for coming,’ he said as he approached.

‘What are your plans now? Back to uni?’ Monty asked.

Justin cleared his throat. ‘I’m switching courses, seeing as I didn’t make the academy.’ He shot De Vakey a brief glance. ‘I’m doing psychology now.’

Stevie sensed an impending snort and gave Monty a warning nudge.

‘Good move,’ Monty said. ‘Oh, and did you get that video back from Mr De Vakey?’

Justin’s flush became a red-faced laugh when he registered the tease in Monty’s voice. Stevie hoped that from now he would be doing a lot more laughing.

‘I forgot to ask De Vakey what was on the video,’ Stevie said when Justin had gone.

‘ Cock-a-dial Dundee: the crazy true life adventures of a dialup gigolo. Even De Vakey couldn’t keep his face straight when he told me.’

Stevie shook her head. After everything that had happened, the normality of it was absurd. ‘As long as he doesn’t watch it at my house again.’

‘I think he’s learned his lesson.’

‘Seems like he has a new hero,’ she said after a pause.

Monty didn’t hold his snort back this time.

‘There was a moment or two when I even thought De Vakey might have been our killer.’

Monty raised his eyebrows. ‘Really?’

‘With a job like his, nothing would have surprised me. It turned out he’d already been in Perth two weeks when you sent for him. He was in town when Linda Royce was killed. His wife thought he was in Perth for a seminar, that’s why he went through the farce of having me pick him up from the airport. From the flight schedules and the phone records from his hotel I pieced together his movements. Instead of a conducting a seminar, he was conducting an affair with Ms Cassandra Yardley, proprietor of the Black Velvet gentleman’s club. Apparently it’s been going on for years.’

Monty rubbed his chin. ‘Well, I’ll be.’

Stevie’s faraway gaze rested on a convoy of slow-moving cars winding their way towards the car park. Another funeral procession, she thought, until she caught a glimpse of the Channel Nine logo. There was an increase in speed as the cars neared their destination. She looked around the car park, relieved to see that Justin had left. The unwanted publicity would be difficult enough once the books were published, he didn’t need it now while his emotions were still so raw.

The same couldn’t be said for James De Vakey. He was basking in the centre of a group of clamouring reporters.

‘Oh, God, let’s go, Mont,’ Stevie pulled at the sleeve of his dark suit jacket. Up until now, her near-death experience at the hands of Tye Davis had been kept from the press and she wanted it to stay that way.

‘No, wait,’ he said, stepping closer to the fray. ‘They’re not interested in us. Let’s hear what De Vakey has to say for himself.’

She reluctantly followed Monty to stand within earshot of the crowd.

‘Mr De Vakey, how did you manage to pin the crimes on Tye Davis?’ one of the reporters asked.

De Vakey straightened his already straight tie, smoothed down his new toupee. ‘It was really a straightforward process: a combination of academic theory coupled with a logical examination of the evidence.’

Stevie frowned and nudged Monty in the ribs. ‘What the hell’s he on about?’

‘It’s called taking all the credit,’ Monty whispered back. ‘He used his finely honed profiler’s instincts to single-handedly solve the case, got it all from Justin Baggly, whom he knew all along was hiding some deep dark secret. Didn’t you realise that?’

Unsure if the emotions she felt churning inside her were anger or relief, Stevie decided to settle for a bit of each. Arrogant bloody bastard, she thought but found herself smiling all the same.

Someone else asked De Vakey, ‘So how does it feel to have brought a man like that to justice?’

‘Rather than that, I tend to dwell on how it would feel not to have brought the man to justice. At least now I can sleep again at night with a clear conscience, knowing that I did my best, knowing that there will be no more victims.’

Stevie’s eyes strayed to Vivienne, standing on her own away from the crowd.

‘How did you manage to tie this to Sbresni and Baggly?’

‘You’ll have to read the book.’

Polite laughter all around.

‘Will you return for the trials?’

‘Absolutely. And the Royal Commission into police corruption, naturally.’

‘When’s the book coming out, Mr De Vakey?’

‘My publisher has scheduled its release early next year. I would like to take this opportunity now to add that part of the proceeds will go to the victims of violent crime.’

To Stevie’s relief, Monty had heard enough. ‘This is making my teeth wobble.’ He indicated his car with a tilt of his chin.

Leaning against the car bonnet, each was lost in their own thoughts until Monty said, out of the blue, ‘You know, pinning you against the kombi after that Christmas party was not one of my finer moments.’ He took a breath. ‘You’d had a rough time with Tye, you were drunk, vulnerable. I took advantage of you, I’m sorry.’

The regret she heard in his voice made her own words dry up. She stared back at him with incomprehension. Surely he’d realised she was a willing participant? The alcohol may have spurred them on, but it hadn’t affected her judgement in the least.

Then a thought crossed her mind, so sudden and so startling that the carefully rehearsed words she’d planned for the pub were immediately forgotten.

Did he know? Did he know everything?

‘I never meant it to be like that,’ Monty continued, his gaze fixed on a nearby memorial fountain or maybe the old gum beyond. ‘I’ve been an idiot. Kept things to myself that I shouldn’t have.’ He paused, took her hand and turned to her. ‘I know you’ve applied for that job in Broome and I don’t blame you for wanting to get away, to start again. But I want you to know that I’ve loved you for years and always will. I should have told you earlier, I know, it might have saved a lot of grief all round, but I had no idea if you felt the same. I guess I couldn’t take the risk of rejection.’

Stevie became conscious of her rapidly beating heart. She should be hushing him up, but found she couldn’t deny herself the flush of pleasure his words were bringing.

‘And then after that night in the car park,’ he continued, ‘the way you never said a word to me about it. I felt ashamed, thought I’d ruined my chances.’

She put her hand on his arm. ‘That night in the car park— did you hear me complain?’

He shook his head and gazed at her for a moment, flabbergasted. ‘What? You mean...?

She met his eyes with her own, slid her hand behind his head and pulled him towards her.

Monty finally broke the kiss. He gazed at her with a widening smile then took her in his arms again and engulfed her in a breath-stopping hug. ‘C’mon,’ he whispered into her ear. ‘Let’s go collect our daughter. Take her home.’

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the following for their help and support: Chris Nagel, Carole Sutton, Larry Votava, Trish O’Neill, John Harman, Leone Baxter, Janet Blagg, Leone Dyer, Margaret Johnson, John Robertson, Sergeant Ann Winton (Western Australian Police) and Superintendent Simon Young (Northern Territory Police, retired). And of course my family for putting up with all the vacant looks and the gruesome dinner-time conversations.

CITY OF LIGHT

Image I

the city rocks while heads roll

DAVE WARNER

‘Jesus Christ. I found one.’

Snowy Lane, preoccupied with a ham sandwich and the odds of making the football team on Saturday, takes the terrible phone call that signals the beginning of a series of events which are to reverberate in his life and shake the city to its foundations ... ‘Gruesome’ has taken another victim and the whole population is rivetted by the emergence of the dark side of the city of light.

...full of surprises and contradictions, wit and suspense ... Another little classic to carry down your own mean streets...

Graeme Blundell, Weekend Australian

Lively, funny, with enough plot for three novels...

Susan Geason, Sun-Herald