Fallen Angel

by Angus McLean

  ‘Why?’

  She gave me disbelieving. ‘Because every time I let you out of my sight you get yourself in trouble, why d’you think?’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Besides,’ she said, coming over to scoop the car keys off my desk, ‘I’ve been dealing with Liam Flynn, not you. I think he’d appreciate someone a bit more empathetic when he goes to his daughter’s apartment.’

  ‘I’m empathetic.’ I caught her look of disbelief. ‘I am.’

  ‘Don’t argue.’ She went to the door and jangled the keys at me. ‘Are you coming or what?’

  I sighed and stood. Marriage. Sometimes you just gotta roll with it.

  Chapter 21

  The afternoon briefing was held in the Major Crime office, where Kennedy and Vance held centre stage and all the investigators working the case got communally updated on progress.

  The investigation was proceeding rapidly, with the area canvas completed, both scenes completed and released, the post-mortem done and the suspect interviewed.

  Being one of the senior detectives, Andy Powell sat near the front of the long table where they usually ate their lunch, an unofficial buffer between the bosses and the workers. He was listening intently to the update on the PM. The young trainee detective that was talking was on her first role as OC Body, and it showed in her disjointed but enthusiastic update.

  Powell had scribbled a few notes in his notebook. Blunt force trauma-two. Left rear skull, centre rear skull. Upward angle. Contusion forehead/nose. Heavy bruising sternum. No defensive.

  That last point was important – no defensive wounds meant the killer had taken Sarah by surprise, overpowering her before she had the chance to fight back.

  As they moved on to an update from the uniformed sergeant in charge of the area canvas – the door knocks to see if any neighbours had seen or heard anything – Powell looked back to his notes. Something was nagging at him but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.

  He felt eyes on him and looked up quickly, catching Gardner as she looked away. She was seated to Vance’s left, and didn’t seem to have ventured far from his side since the investigation began.

  Powell waited for her to look back but she steadfastly ignored him. Powell didn’t like her, despite being on the same team. Moreover, since the arrest of Crowley in the Botanical Gardens, he didn’t trust her. The way she had jumped in and lied to justify their actions was nothing short of a stitch up. In fifteen years of policing Powell had arrested many people and he’d made more than a few mistakes along the way, but never had he lied to cover up one of those mistakes.

  There had been an air of tension between them since then, and he made a point of avoiding her. Not that it had been hard, with her being surgically-attached to Vance anyway.

  The sergeant finished talking and DI Kennedy took the lead again, staring at the table while he outlined their priorities for the next day.

  Two strikes. Two. Upward angle.

  The penny dropped in Powell’s brain and he sat upright. Vance noticed and gave him a quizzical look. Kennedy finished talking and Vance looked around the assembled team.

  ‘Anything from the floor?’ he asked.

  ‘One thing,’ Powell said before anyone else had the chance to jump in. ‘The pathologist said two strikes to the skull, right?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘To the centre and left rear?’

  ‘Yes?’ Vance’s tone was bored. Gardener was giving Powell a hurry up and shut up stare.

  Powell ignored them. ‘Would that not indicate a left handed offender?’ he said.

  There was silence for a moment as the assembled investigators chewed that over. Vance didn’t need to think.

  ‘Depends on the angle he was standing at,’ he said.

  ‘True,’ he conceded, kicking himself for not thinking of that. ‘But what about the two strikes?’

  ‘What about them?’ Vance’s tone had shifted from bored to suspicious, and Gardner was giving him daggers now. Powell felt his face getting hot.

  ‘Well, Manning’s a big strong guy, isn’t he? A muscle-head?’

  ‘Is there a point to this?’ Kennedy interrupted. ‘People would like to get home.’

  ‘Yes sir,’ Powell fumbled, ‘ahh, my ahh…what I’m wondering is, is why a big strong guy like him would need to hit her twice from behind with a weapon to take her down. I’ve seen him. He could take down the average person with a single strike from behind. He wouldn’t need two.’

  ‘I don’t think we need to worry about why he hit her twice,’ Vance said curtly. ‘That’s for a jury, not us. Doesn’t matter anyway how many times he hit her; he still hit her and killed her.’

  ‘And he’s right handed,’ Powell persisted.

  Vance scowled now. ‘I thought I’d just covered that.’

  ‘How tall is Manning?’ Powell knew he had something now, but it felt like he was the only person who wanted to hear it.

  ‘Look, you’re getting lost in the weeds here, Andy,’ Kennedy said. ‘It’s time to wrap this up so we can get going.’

  Vance and Gardner were nodding their agreement, and the window was about to close. Powell gave it one last push.

  ‘Why would a six foot two man hit a five foot six woman across the back of the skull at an upward angle?’

  The room went deathly silent and all eyes were on him. His heart pounded so hard in his chest that it hurt.

  ‘He’d have to be sitting down, or she’s somehow above him, right?’ Powell looked around at his colleagues, hoping for some support. He could see he had some of them sniffing the bait, but nobody dared to speak. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Kennedy snapped. ‘My office. Now.’

  As Powell followed the DI from the main office he had two overriding feelings. One was that he was right. The second was that it was going to cost him dearly.

  ***

  The air in Sarah’s apartment was still and stale.

  Liam Flynn had met us outside and Mike took us all into the complex. There was no sign of Alf, which was probably a good thing. Mike let us into the apartment using his key, and we let Flynn have a few moments alone before we all traipsed in. Mike hung back awkwardly. He and Flynn had shook hands out in the car park but they hadn’t spoken. I wasn’t sure how that would go when they did.

  Flynn stood in the lounge, looking around. He picked up a framed photo of Sarah from the TV cabinet and held it in both hands, staring at it dumbly. I saw his shoulders tense and waited for the tears to come. Molly squeezed my hand, waiting for the same thing. He was silent a long minute before he put the picture back where it belonged and turned to us.

  No tears. He was a stronger man than me.

  ‘Thank you,’ he rasped, his jaw tight. ‘For letting me come and see.’

  ‘Anything you need,’ I told him sincerely. ‘You know where to find us.’

  He nodded sombrely, then turned to Mike. He put out his hand. Mike clasped it, and Flynn pulled him in, catching Mike off guard. I took half step forward, unsure what was going on.

  ‘Mike,’ Flynn said, ‘I’m sorry you had to go through that, son. It’s not fair.’

  Mike seemed at a loss for words, but the anguish in his face was clear.

  ‘I know Sarah thought a lot of you.’ He finally let Mike’s hand go and there was an awkward silence between the two men.

  Like an angel swooping down from the heavens, Molly stepped in and took Flynn by the arm, gently guiding him towards the door. ‘Here, I’ll walk out with you Liam.’

  She took him outside and Mike looked at me. ‘That was weird,’ he said.

  I shrugged. ‘Poor guy. I’d hate to be in his shoes right now.’

  We sifted about while we waited, noting the fingerprint powder around the door and obvious surfaces in the apartment.

  ‘Isn’t that unnecessary?’ Mike asked. ‘What’s the point in fingerprinting the place if they think they already know the bad guy
?’

  ‘Standard procedure,’ I said, pausing to look at the photo Flynn had been staring at. ‘Many things in the police are standard procedure, mate. They don’t always make sense, but they’re done regardless.’

  The photo was of Sarah at a beachside bar, somewhere exotic, with a bunch of other pretty girls and a couple of pretty boys. I picked them for a flight crew on a stopover. They were all smiling and raising colourful cocktails in a collective cheer.

  Sarah looked as happy and carefree as young people at exotic beachside bars tend to be. Her long blonde hair was messed up and she was wearing a gold bikini top. She looked tanned and beachy and pretty.

  I put the photo down and realised Mike was looking over my shoulder. ‘Bali,’ he said. ‘Last year. One of the girls’ hen’s do.’

  ‘A hen’s do?’ I said. ‘In Bali?’

  Mike shrugged.

  ‘Whatever happened to a tacky outfit and a night on the town?’

  ‘Maybe husbands aren’t so tight these days,’ Molly said, walking in with Patrick in tow.

  I grunted. No point pursuing that one any further. ‘Did you remind him to pay his deposit?’

  Molly gave me a despairing look. ‘Really, at this time?’

  I shrugged. ‘We’re a business, not a charity.’

  Patrick put his bags down and looked around. ‘Any particular place?’ he asked.

  ‘Everywhere,’ I said.

  ‘Right you are then,’ he said. For a man with troublesome arches, or whatever he was suffering from, he was unreasonably chirpy. Maybe the cream was helping.

  ‘We’ll leave you to it.’

  I shooed the others out, and closed the door behind us. Patrick needed to be undisturbed to do his sweep; the longer he took, the more money it would cost me.

  ‘You confident?’ Mike asked, leading the way down the stairs.

  ‘Yep. Someone had to have overheard that conversation, and it had to be from inside.’ We reached the bottom and headed for the gate. ‘Unless someone’s been in already, I’m picking Patrick’ll find a device of some sort in there.’

  ‘But why would someone do that?’ Molly wondered. ‘What’s the point in bugging just a normal person? It’s not like they’d learn any trade secrets or anything, is it?’

  ‘No.’ I stopped at the gate. ‘That’s why I’m picking it’s not a listening device, or at least not just that.’

  ‘A camera?’

  ‘Yep. The missing underwear, the unknown resident hitting on her; to me that spells stalker.’

  Molly gave an involuntary shudder. She’d had experience of that first hand.

  ‘Greed and lust,’ I said, ‘two of the biggest motivators in the world.’

  Mike pushed the gate open and held it for us.

  ‘You not coming?’ I said, standing aside to let Molly through.

  ‘Nah.’ He shook his head. ‘I want to go have a look at my place.’

  ‘Want me to come?’

  He shook his head again. ‘Nah, it’s all good. I’ll just grab some stuff and come over later.’

  He shut the gate behind us.

  ***

  ‘You think he has a point?’ Kennedy asked.

  Vance gave a scoff. ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘The guy’s a lightweight. We should ditch him off the inquiry.’

  ‘He has a good reputation.’

  ‘I haven’t seen anything to justify it,’ Vance persisted. ‘I hope you gave him a good serve.’

  ‘He understands that he was out of line in questioning his superiors like that,’ Kennedy said. ‘I don’t think there’ll be a repeat.’

  ‘Well there won’t be if he’s not on the team. We’re making good headway; we don’t need morons like that causing problems.’ Vance eyed him shrewdly across the desk. ‘Or don’t you think this is nice and tidy, Hugh?’

  Kennedy bristled inwardly at Vance’s challenging tone. His eyes flittered across the desk before settling on Vance’s chest. ‘Not, not at all,’ he said. ‘It’s all good. It’s just that…I don’t like being questioned like that.’

  ‘You don’t appreciate insubordination.’

  ‘No.’

  A smirk danced across Vance’s lips. ‘What’s the beef with you and Dan Crowley?’

  Kennedy stiffened and he looked away. ‘Why? What’s the relevance of that?’

  ‘Oh, just I heard a whisper, that’s all. You know how it is, stories go around.’

  ‘Well I suggest you keep any stories to yourself, Karl. I don’t appreciate people spreading stories about me.’

  Vance smirked some more. He knew the rumours, and he wanted Kennedy to know that he knew. You never knew when some leverage might come in handy.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said with a grin, pushing up from the chair. ‘I’m off. See you in the morning.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  As Vance left the office, he paused in the doorway and glanced back. Kennedy was staring at the wall, his face pinched, picking aggressively at a thumbnail.

  Vance grinned to himself and shut the door.

  Chapter 22

  The three of us were sitting on the back deck, scraping the last of the dessert from our bowls when Buck turned up. The lawn was mowed tidily and the garden was freshly weeded. I needed to replace a fence paling that was warped from the sun.

  It takes a lot to tear me away from homemade meringues with fresh strawberries from our garden and topped with cream. Buck in his sweaty gear, fresh from a game of touch rugby, didn’t quite cut the mustard.

  He helped himself to a leftover pork chop from the plate on the table and took a seat beside me.

  ‘Make yourself comfortable,’ I said, licking my spoon.

  The chop dribbled juices down his chin and onto his sweat-stained T-shirt. He carried on slobbering at it. ‘Don’t mind if I do.’

  ‘I suppose you want a beer as well.’

  He grinned round his mouthful. ‘Don’t mind if I do, ta.’

  ‘Oh, please, let me get it for you.’ I drained my own bottle and fetched a fresh round from the kitchen. Everybody was on Peroni tonight. I like to mix it up.

  By the time I got back, Buck had commandeered my plate and was helping himself to potato salad as well.

  ‘There’s no pudding left, sorry Buck,’ Molly said as she passed him the plate containing the leftover meat. The sausage I’d been eyeing up for supper disappeared faster than the Blues’ composure in a pressure game.

  ‘That’s alright Mol,’ he said, ‘maybe next time.’

  ‘I suppose this counts as a community visit?’ I said. I distributed the drinks and sat back down. ‘And the touch was a prevention project?’

  ‘Mock me all you like, Danno, but I come bearing news.’ He wiped his chin. ‘I know who the witness is.’

  I paused with my bottle half way to my lips. ‘Go on.’

  Buck put the plate down and looked serious. ‘This is in total confidence though, right? This cannot come back to me or I’m toast.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘I’m not joking, Dan…’

  ‘Just get to the point,’ Mike growled.

  Buck turned his attention to Mike. ‘Who’s Simon Beetham?’

  Mike sat upright. ‘Lives right next door to me.’

  ‘Are you friends?’

  ‘No. I say gidday to him but that’s about it. We don’t hang out, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘He’s the witness who says he heard you threaten Sarah.’

  I took a draught of cold Peroni while Mike let loose a bunch of curses I hadn’t heard before.

  ‘He’s the Navy joker?’ I asked. ‘The Pommy guy?’

  ‘Yep.’ Mike snorted. ‘Although I doubt he was even in the Navy.’

  ‘Why’s that?’ Buck asked.

  ‘He’s never expressly said it, but he lets you think he was in Special Forces. I know guys in that world, and he ain’t the type. Besides, if he was, he wouldn’t be telling people he was.’

  ‘What else did he have to sa
y, Buck?’ Molly asked.

  ‘I haven’t actually read the statement myself,’ he said, ‘I had a phone call from someone who has, so I’ve only got it second hand. I understand it was the usual background stuff of how he knows these guys, all that sort of stuff.’

  ‘So when he says he overheard this conversation,’ I said, ‘how did that come about? As in, how did he come to overhear it?’

  ‘Apparently he says he was walking past her apartment and heard it through the open window.’

  Mike snorted and shook his head. ‘Complete bollocks. The windows and door were closed because the air con was on. Sarah was always real finicky about that.’

  I got that. No point wasting power.

  ‘What would he be doing up there anyway, if he lives downstairs beside you?’ Buck asked. ‘Wouldn’t he have to go out of his way to be there?’

  ‘Yeah, unless he was doing a repair job for Alf.’

  Buck looked confused. ‘Say what now?’

  ‘Alf, the manager? He’s not very handy. Simon’s a sparky, so Alf always gets him to do repair jobs round the place.’ Mike hiked his shoulders. ‘I guess he could have been up there doing something like that. But if not, then he would have no reason to be there.’

  I mulled that over. Things were making sense, but in a bad way. What it added up to was a conspiracy.

  ‘We need to get hold of…’ I started to say, at the same time as my cell started to ring. ‘Patrick,’ I said. ‘Go ahead, caller.’

  Patrick was about as excited as a techo geek can get. He babbled and I listened. ‘Good work,’ I said. ‘I’m on the way.’

  I disconnected and put the phone down. All eyes were on me.

  ‘He’s found a listening device,’ I told them, and Buck let out a whistle. ‘Plus two cameras.’

  ‘In her apartment?’ Mike looked like he’d been sucker punched.

  ‘Bedroom and bathroom.’ I stood and pocketed my phone. Mike’s face was pale and tight. He caught my eye and went to stand as well. I waved him back down. ‘No mate, leave this to me.’

  ‘This is about me, Dan. You can’t leave me out of it.’

  ‘Mate, what d’you want to do when we find out who did this?’

  He scowled as if it was the stupidest question he’d ever been asked. ‘Seriously?’