by Vanda Symon
‘What on earth…’ murmured the woman.
‘Look, come on, now. It’s time to move along, please. I don’t want to have to start taking your names.’ Most of them moved back ten metres or so, but several, including the woman and gorilla man, stayed to see what was happening with the tent.
It didn’t take long for Cage Guy to figure out what was about to happen. He yelled at the top of his lungs, this time without the megaphone: ‘You can’t put me in that. That’s wrongful imprisonment.’ I wondered if he was in the same law class as the university students.
‘Come on, guys,’ I said to the circus men, as I gestured to them to straighten up, so they could position the tent gently over the cage. It was a perfect fit, with about a foot clearance each side. Nice and claustrophobic. Cage Man screamed the whole time the tent was being lowered. Great, now we had a talking marquee.
His ‘You can’t do this to me’ scream was echoed by the ‘You can’t do that to him’ cries from the protesters. One or two tried to shove me aside and stop the tent’s progress, but slunk back when I yelled, ‘That’s assault of a police officer,’ and Smithy struck a pose that would have intimidated Mike Tyson.
‘This is illegal detainment. You haven’t arrested me. I’ll have you for wrongful imprisonment,’ came the voice from inside the tent. It had developed a distinct whine.
I yelled loud enough to make myself heard by all concerned: ‘Well, sir. The tent is not locked. It is merely there to shelter you. We were concerned about your safety and comfort on such a sunny day.’ The sunshine certainly was in abundance; the temperature, however, did not match it. A bank of cloud rolling in from the south indicated the Dunedin weather was going to be its usual schizophrenic self. But that was by the by. I paused for effect before continuing. ‘You are not being detained,’ I said. ‘In fact, you are free to leave at any time you wish.’
Several expletives erupted from within the tent, but I could tell from the tone of his voice that Cage Man realised he’d been outmanoeuvred. The circus crew were pissing themselves, and it was all I could do not to snigger. The remaining protesters gave up and had the grace to smile as they retreated further still.
‘Nice one, Sam,’ Smithy said, a big grin plastered across his face. ‘I didn’t know about the permit and trespass thing.’
‘Neither did I,’ I whispered. ‘But it sounded good at the time.’
2
This was not how I’d envisaged spending my Saturday morning. Dunedin had abandoned yesterday’s sunshine in favour of a mantle of mist and drizzle that hung around like some sullen teenager. A fair amount had attached itself to me. The gloomy atmosphere made the vision before me all the more miserable.
She was discovered by a resident from the units on the far side of the Leith, who’d come over to the river’s edge to call her cat in for breakfast. Instead of kitty, the old dear had been shocked to see a body in the water near the other bank. She’d been so shaken, she’d needed medical treatment; the ambulance was still in attendance.
So here I was, on a riverbank, plagued by a sense of déjà vu – the body of a young woman face down in the water before me, like a piece of flotsam. This time there was no doubt as to foul play. Her hands, floating in front of her, were bound by a clear plastic tie. The silver tape covering her mouth extended around the back of her head like some warped, glitzy headband from which her long dark hair fanned out across the water.
I had to push aside my instinct to wade in and drag her out. After my initial, futile check for signs of life, my role was to stand guard and wait for the forensic experts and scene-of-crime officers, or SOCOs as we called them. It was not the role of a small-bit trainee detective to examine anything; any interference on my part would certainly not be appreciated – my boss had made that patently clear. In fact, I wouldn’t normally be allowed to be the first so near a crime scene, but someone had to keep watch and today that someone was me.
I filled the time by making a visual sweep of the scene from my appointed position, but I dared not move for fear of disturbing any potential evidence. I barely dared breathe.
I stood in a small, grassed clearing with the river before me and at my back a steep hillside clad with native bush – flaxes, kowhai and ngaio. The clearing was at the end of a narrow path that ran down from the main walkway, which itself ran around the base of the hill, following the Water of Leith from the Botanic Garden to Gore Place, before leading out on to Dundas Street. I shuddered. The Botanic Garden was one of my havens in Dunedin. Twenty-eight undulating hectares of picturesque solitude only minutes from home. Two days ago, I’d jogged along the walkway; it was a regular on my running circuits, and in all the months I’d been here, I hadn’t realised this path existed. I’d noticed the big, spidery tree at its entrance, where Smithy now stood guard with a bit more shelter than I had, but I’d never registered the path itself. The main walkway was high above and behind me, well obscured by the dense bush and trees. The clearing and the water would be invisible from up there, although voices would probably carry.
In front of me the Leith gently wended its way over rocks and past the banks. It was fairly shallow at this point and was open, unlike in other parts of the garden, where it was confined by the steep concrete walls of the flood-control channels. It would have been a pretty spot if it weren’t for the body. A large boulder jutted out into the water, preventing her from drifting away with the current, helped by what I imagined was a stack of wet books in her backpack: a badge of studenthood that now only served to weigh her down. With the modern student, though, the backpack was just as likely to hold a laptop.
Another nearby boulder had traces of blood and tissue on it, which pretty much confirmed this as the site of the murder, as did the skid or drag marks in the grass. The blood traces were another reason why I felt so wet and miserable. The drizzle had threatened to wash the remaining blood away, so in desperation I’d covered it with my jacket rather than risk losing valuable evidence. I figured potential contamination from one easily identifiable person was preferable to nature erasing any clues. I still hoped they wouldn’t rap me over the knuckles for it, though.
It was a risky site to stage a murder. Whereas this side of the river was well obscured, several flats and houses backed on to the other bank – including Mrs Franklin’s, the old lady who I could now see being stretchered off to the ambulance. So the killer or killers must have felt certain they wouldn’t have an audience when they murdered this young woman. And the only real chance of that happening would have been under cover of darkness. But how would you get someone down here in the dark without physically dragging them? There was no visible evidence of that. The only place the grass was disturbed was near the bloodied rock. I shuddered again.
They must have coerced her somehow. Either that, or they knew her, and she came down here with them willingly, perhaps for a smoke, a chat or a snog. The murder had to be premeditated, though, that much I was sure of. Most people didn’t walk around with long plastic cable ties and duct tape in their pockets. Well, the people I knew didn’t.
However the killer managed to get her down here, the end result was dumped before me. God, what a waste. Even in this condition, I could tell she was pretty. Sometime soon her parents and loved ones would receive the call that would wrench their world apart. I bit my lip to try and force back the tears that sprang into my eyes. Sometimes, I really did wonder if I was cut out for this job.
Man, I wanted to be out of here. I wasn’t exactly comfortable around dead people – especially young, violently killed, female dead people: they were too similar to what happened in Mataura. But that wasn’t the only reason I wanted to leave: all of this cold, damp air and running water had left me desperate for the loo. I jiggled from foot to foot in an attempt to find a position that was almost comfortable.
Failed.
I badly needed to be relieved.
3
Warmth and dry clothes were what I was looking for after the bone-numbing chill c
aused by standing in the rain and having to look at that bedraggled body. I had planned a quick dash home to change before going back to work, but it didn’t quite pan out that way. First I’d had to park half a mile away from home, at Roslyn Village, as some dick-head had their car parked outside our gate and left it marooned there for the last two weeks, selfish bastard. Then, when I headed back to work and when I got to my usual parking area down behind the old railway station, someone else had nabbed my spot and the rest of the place was chocka, courtesy of the Saturday morning farmers’ market. It had taken me two drives around the block and another ten flaming minutes before I finally found a place to park, somewhere near Christchurch. By the time I’d walked to the police station I was wet and cold again, so what with that and the morning’s events, I was about ready to rip the throat out of the next person to annoy me.
‘Grumpy alert: be nice,’ I said to Smithy as he sat down next to me at the back of the briefing room.
‘You didn’t need to warn me – you’re radiating nasty vibes. Why do you think no one else is sitting here?’
He had a point.
‘I thought you’d gone home to get dry,’ he said. My fingers twitched for his jugular.
The room was filling up with police and CIB. Many had been on duty at the rugby the previous night and had been called in from home for the murder enquiry. The Otago Highlanders had done the unthinkable and won the match, which resulted in a fair amount of carousing by the fans, so it had been a busy night and there were several hung-over bodies warming the cells downstairs. There was an awful lot of yawning and eye-rubbing going on upstairs, too. It was only eleven o’clock in the morning and, considering the victim had been discovered at a quarter past eight, the police behemoth had proved it could move pretty quickly when it needed to.
Some initial murder-scene photographs had been stuck with magnets to the whiteboard at the front of the room. I was too far back to distinguish any detail, but I didn’t need photos – the vision was burned into my brain. At this moment, the SOCOs were down at the Leith, doing their thing, and the forensic experts from Environmental Science & Research were on their way from Christchurch. Courtesy of her student ID card, we knew the identity of our young victim, so it was game on.
This was the first murder investigation here since I’d been accepted for detective training and quit the bright lights of Mataura for the great metropolis of Dunedin. This said something about the serious-crime rate in the city, as I’d already been here for half a year.
I was one of those in-between creatures – not a detective, nor a constable; a hybrid adrift in this esteemed institution. I had just come out of my six-month trial and was officially a detective constable. This had all happened rather more quickly than expected – people could wait years before becoming a trainee detective – but the powers that be had smiled upon me and here I was. Others were not so thrilled about my promotion through the ranks. So right now I was wondering what sort of a role I’d get in this investigation – not only because I was a newbie, but also because the officer in charge of the investigation was Detective Inspector Greg Johns. I hadn’t exactly endeared myself to him during my Mataura days. It was probably when I told him he could go rot in hell that did it. Or was it when I informed him he was a hack with a paper degree who couldn’t solve a mystery if the answer was tattooed across his forehead? I’d also insulted his favourite poncy briefcase. That was most likely the clincher. The fact I’d solved the murder of Gaby Knowes didn’t seem to make a jot of difference to him. I always got the crap jobs.
The Saturday-morning buzz simmered down as DI Johns took centre stage for the day’s briefing. His body language told me he was entirely comfortable with – no, make that relishing his role as the focus of attention. Some people were just like that.
‘Right people, let’s get things under way.’ The DI clapped his hands like we were a bunch of errant schoolchildren. ‘This meeting is going to be short. We’re not going to waste time in here. I want everyone out there, on the streets. The officers in charge are on the board. Everyone else: Detective Sergeant Gibbs will give you your brief and tell you where you’ll be assigned.’ The DI moved over to the board with the photos. ‘The victim is Rose-Marie Bateman. She’s twenty-three; a student at the university. Her body was discovered in the Water of Leith, near the walkway from Gore Place to the Botanic Garden, at eight-fifteen this morning by a resident in the area. SOCOs are at the site now and ESR on the way.’ Bang. Bang. Bang. A bullet-point presentation. He wasn’t one for superfluous detail.
‘The investigation will be called Operation Sparrow.’
I cringed. One thing that irked me was the police’s little habit of naming operations after birds. I supposed it made it easier than having to talk about the investigation into the murder of so-and-so – but birds? And ‘Sparrow’? Sparrows were boring – drab, brown, puny things. Rose-Marie was young and pretty. Surely they could have come up with something a little more appropriate?
‘The body is still in situ and we won’t be able to confirm anything until a post-mortem is carried out, but indications are the murder took place last night. The victim’s hands were restrained with a plastic cable tie and her mouth was taped. She suffered blunt-force trauma to the head, most likely from being banged against a rock, but she probably died by drowning. Her clothing was intact and there doesn’t appear to have been any sexual assault.’
I studied the faces around me. Put like that, in shopping-list fashion, it didn’t seem to make much impression on them. But I had seen it. I had seen her in the cold, waxen flesh, murdered and discarded, bedraggled and pitiful. The chill settled back into my bones, and I couldn’t stop a shudder. The only face that mirrored my own distaste was Smithy’s. He’d borne witness too. He felt my stare and gave me a gentle thump on the leg. It induced a small smile. I returned my attention to the DI.
‘As the attack happened so close to the university, we will start our investigations there. She appears to have been walking home from the university to her flat in Opoho Road. There doesn’t seem to have been much of a struggle, so it is likely she knew her attacker. She’ll have had hundreds of classmates and university associates for us to work through. Of course, we’ll be looking at her boyfriend, flatmates and friends too. Her family are from out of town – Napier. So altogether there are a hell of a lot of people to talk to and eliminate. Also, the Botanic Garden is a busy place. Someone must have seen something. We need to talk to every person who walked through there last night. Let’s get busy, people.’
The room jumped into movement. Voices buzzed, papers rustled, people got busy, as ordered. Everyone else seemed to know their place, whereas I felt a bit like a spare nut rattling around loose in the engine. When I was in Mataura, I was it: sole-charge police officer. So I got to talk to everyone – do the interviews, analyse the information. I was the thin blue line. I only hoped I’d get a chance here.
How would I handle this investigation? If I was calling the shots I’d start with the boyfriend, then work my way through the flatmates. As stereotypical as it seemed, statistics told it was, as often as not, the boyfriend. Maybe they had problems, couldn’t talk through them, so he decided to take other measures. Then there were the flatmates. They could’ve fallen out over burnt dinners or the electricity bill. Perhaps she’d borrowed someone’s hairdryer and accidentally blown it up; eaten someone else’s yoghurt. Stranger things had happened.
We were at the back of the room and Alan Gibbs, one of the senior officers, only now worked his way along the row. He handed me a piece of paper, and said, ‘For you. From the boss.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, as he moved on to talk to someone else. Please let it be something front-line. Please. I unfolded the page.
‘Oh crap,’ I murmured to myself. It was a bit too loud, though, as Smithy leaned over to look at the note.
‘Lucky you,’ he said, with a grin.
‘Well, I wouldn’t get too cocky if I were you,’ I said. ‘You kno
w who you always end up with – me.’
‘Not this time, sunshine, I’m with suspects. Looks like you’re flying solo today. You must have really pissed that man off.’
‘Don’t I know it?’
There would have to be hundreds of places in Dunedin you could buy a plastic tie, and it was my job to find where the one used in the murder was purchased. That’s assuming it was even bought in Dunedin. A mass-produced, bog-standard, come-in-a-pack-of-a-hundred, non-identifiable, indistinguishable plastic bloody tie. Normally, ESR did this kind of leg work, not CIB. They had all the flash databases and extensive files to compare things, from brands of carpets to tyres. This was their territory. It wasn’t a very subtle backhand. To add further insult to injury, I was directly answerable to the DI.
No intermediary, no buffer.
Bloody marvellous.
4
The man standing behind the counter looked at me like I was wearing a Crunchy the Clown outfit or had something nasty stuck to my face. Having made five similar requests at five similar stores, it was a look I’d become familiar with and was well and truly over.
‘You want to know if we can identify everyone who has bought plastic cable ties in the last week?’ He was a little more forthright than the others and laughed openly. ‘What do you think we do all day?’
Eat donuts, I thought, from the look of him.
‘No, of course not. Don’t be silly. We know you can’t identify each individual.’ I tried to diffuse the situation. Difficult, when I was sick of it and felt I was pushing shit uphill with a rake. ‘But you are computerised, so you’d be able to let us know the dates of sales and how they were paid for.’