Текст книги "An Easeful Death"
Автор книги: Felicity Young
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9
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
10
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.
