Текст книги "An Easeful Death"
Автор книги: Felicity Young
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Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 17 страниц)
2
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!’
3
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!’
