The Enemy Within
Page 22
‘Don’t leave that there,’ Bailey said.
‘Okay, bubba.’
Taking a step inside, Bailey flicked on the light, illuminating the narrow hallway that led to the kitchen and the lounge room out back. He stopped, staring into the house, expecting to smell something that would remind him of Dexter. Her shampoo. That perfume she wore on the rare occasions she’d put it on. The scent of cigarette smoke when she’d had a bad day and stolen a puff. He couldn’t smell anything other than the musty scent of a vacant home.
Bailey’s boots clomped loudly on the floorboards as he walked down the hallway. He paused at the closed door to Dexter’s bedroom, grabbing the handle, turning it a fraction before deciding that he wouldn’t go in. Not yet.
‘What do you think Walker was doing here?’
‘Just give me a minute,’ Bailey said.
Ronnie was keeping his distance. The two men had been in London together when Dexter was killed and now they were inside her home.
Bailey moved on from Dexter’s bedroom and kept walking into the kitchen, flicking the switch for the downlights. Only two of them came on but it was bright enough to see. Dexter never needed much but the things she bought were nice. Like the matching black kettle and toaster and the trendy lamp shade that dangled above the kitchen table. Bailey had been with Dexter on the day she’d bought that lamp shade, wondering why the hell anyone would spend three hundred dollars on something like that. He remembered exactly how she’d responded when he’d questioned the purchase. How it had made him smile.
‘How much money have you wasted on Rolling Stones records over the years?’
‘I think wasted is a little harsh,’ he’d said.
‘Bailey, you own four copies of Exile on Main Street.’
He had never been much good at debating Dexter. Not that he’d cared about trying.
‘Are you okay?’
Ronnie was standing beside Bailey in the kitchen.
‘Yeah. Haven’t been here in a while,’ Bailey said. There wasn’t much point in lying.
‘Not a bad joint,’ Ronnie said.
Bailey wasn’t about to tell him that Dexter had left the house to him in her will. It didn’t feel right. So he moved on to Ronnie’s question from earlier.
‘She was looking after the place.’
‘What?’
‘Walker. She and Dexter were mates. Hat told me she’d been looking in on the place from time to time.’
‘Right.’
Ronnie walked past Bailey and found the switch for the lamp.
‘Nice light.’
Bailey laughed to himself.
‘Something funny?’
‘No.’ Bailey’s frown wiped away the memory and he changed the subject. ‘You said on the phone that Walker was here the night before she was murdered. How’d you know?’
‘I’ve got ways and –’
‘Ronnie.’
‘Okay.’ The CIA veteran smiled. ‘A guy in the feds owed me a favour. Gave me the tracking data from Walker’s phone. Mapped her last movements. Pings from cell towers, and all that.’
‘I know how it works,’ Bailey said. ‘Is that all you got?’
‘Unfortunately, yeah.’
‘Some favour.’
Ronnie ignored the slight and turned his back on Bailey, walking around the room. Touching things, picking them up, putting them down. A small clock. A picture frame of Dexter as a much younger woman in uniform with a medal pinned to her chest.
‘I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of the investigation she was working on,’ Ronnie said without looking at Bailey. ‘And my guy was very cagey about it.’
‘What do you think that means?’
‘It means I’m not entirely sure Walker’s colleagues knew much about what she was doing.’
Bailey didn’t know what to make of what Ronnie was telling him and he also didn’t like the fact that Ronnie was touching Dexter’s things.
‘Why do you think Walker was here so late the night before she was killed?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe she thought she’d find you here?’ Ronnie looked away from Bailey, still touching things. ‘Memories and all that. You told me yesterday you’d missed a meeting with her that night. Maybe she was trying to find you?’
‘Doesn’t make sense. She’d already rescheduled our meet for the following morning.’
Ronnie shrugged, dragging a chair across the floorboards, sitting down at the kitchen table. ‘No idea then.’
Bailey joined him at the table, checking the time on the old G-Shock strapped to his wrist: 10.58 pm. He leaned forward, elbows on the table, closer to the bowl of fake plastic fruit that Dexter had thoughtfully positioned below the lamp.
‘What the –’
There was something in the fruit bowl that shouldn’t have been there, nestled in beside the fake lemons, apples and oranges. A small Star Wars figurine. R2-D2. Bailey picked up the miniature robot and held it up for Ronnie to see.
‘Didn’t know Dexter was into Star Wars,’ Ronnie said.
‘She wasn’t.’
The figurine was small enough to fit in the palm of Bailey’s hand and he was holding it up to the light, inspecting it from all sides, trying to figure out what the hell it was doing in Sharon Dexter’s house.
‘Give me a look,’ Ronnie said.
Bailey tossed the figurine across the table and when it landed on the wood R2-D2’s dome head popped off and a USB stick spilled out.
‘Bingo.’ Ronnie grabbed the USB, holding it out for Bailey to see. ‘Clever girl.’
‘Shit,’ Bailey said.
‘Shit indeed, bubba.’
‘What do you think’s on there?’
‘Let’s find out.’
CHAPTER 33
ANNIE
‘Not a problem, thanks guys.’ Annie was speaking to someone in a studio control room on the other side of the city. ‘Have a good night.’
She had just finished her last live cross for the evening. The midnight national news update. Jonny Abdo’s murder was the lead story and Annie and Fletch had to hang around for one last hit after already filing copy and photographs for the website, crossing into several earlier news programs and gathering interviews and footage for tomorrow night’s Inside Story. The media was a hungry beast. Thanks to Bailey’s tip-off, they had broken the news of Abdo’s death and both Annie and Fletch were keen to own the coverage, no matter how late into the night. But a live cross into a three-minute news update felt like a stretch too far.
‘I’m cooked,’ Annie said. ‘You okay, Fletch?’
‘All good, Annie,’ Fletch switched off the bright lights that had been shining on Annie for hours. ‘Studio happy?’
‘Yeah. Let’s pack up and get out of here.’
Annie never complained about working late but she was tired and couldn’t help worrying about leaving Louis at home by himself at this time of night.
‘If you need to get moving, I can sort this.’
She pulled out her earpiece as Fletch unclipped the little microphone fastened to her shirt.
‘No way, Fletch.’
Annie and Fletch had worked in the field so often during the summer that they’d developed a rapid pack-up routine. They could have tripods, stills and video cameras, light stands and sound equipment packed and stacked on Fletch’s portable stand within minutes. There wasn’t any satellite equipment to pack away because high-speed broadband had allowed them to beam into the studio via a bunch of SIM cards attached to the camera.
‘Seven minutes,’ Fletch said, smiling and looking at his watch. ‘I reckon that’s a new record.’
Beep! Beep!
‘Fake news, dickheads!’
Annie gave a sarcastic wave to a guy who was giving them the two-finger salute out the window of an old tradie’s ute.
‘Another fan, hey, Fletch?’
‘They love us round here.’
The media had been copping a bad rap in recent years and the car horns and a
buse had become an unfortunate part of working in the field.
‘Where’d you park?’
Annie pointed down the street. ‘Just around the corner. You?’
‘Other way. You right to –’
‘I’m a big girl, Fletch.’
The cameraman laughed and held out his hand for a fist-bump. ‘Good show.’
‘Story’s got legs.’ Annie tapped Fletcher’s knuckles. ‘Bill will want us chasing early tomorrow, so get some rest.’
‘Talk to ya later.’
Fletch flipped his trolley onto its wheels and headed up the street, away from the crime scene that had been established on the footpath out front of the building where Jonny Abdo had earlier plummeted to his death. Police tape had been used to cordon off the area and a forensics team was still wandering around, taking notes, measuring the distance of Abdo’s fall to support the theory that he had been thrown from a balcony on the tenth floor.
‘Any updates, Greg?’
Detective Greg Palmer was tapping away at his phone as Annie sidled up to the police tape.
‘Same as I told you earlier,’ he said, the irritation of a long night hardening his voice. ‘Looking for two suspects. We’ve got a good lead on their car. Doing our best here, Annie.’
‘Sorry, Greg. Wasn’t meaning to have a go. I’m done for the night. Thought I’d check in before I left. I’ll be on this again tomorrow.’
‘Okay.’
The look on Palmer’s face made Annie think that he was regretting being short with her.
‘Mind if I check in with you in the morning?’
‘Text me. No guarantees I’ll come back.’
‘Understood.’
‘Annie?’
She had already started walking away when Palmer stopped her.
‘Yeah?’
‘The killer or killers were inside Abdo’s apartment, we know that for sure.’
‘How?’
Palmer hesitated, like he hadn’t yet made up his mind about what he was about to say.
‘Greg?’
Annie took a few steps towards him so that he could speak without anyone listening in.
‘Background only. Okay?’
Annie nodded.
‘We found a swastika spray-painted on the wall.’
‘What the hell’s going on in this city?’
‘Fuck knows,’ Palmer said, noticing a woman in a hazmat suit staring at him. ‘I’d better get back to it.’
Annie also took the forensics lady’s goggling eyes as a cue to move on but before turning to walk away Annie looked up one more time at the building. At least a half-dozen people were hanging over balcony railings, staring down at the crime scene, probably wondering what Abdo had done to deserve to die. Annie knew something about the motive that the residents didn’t: that Jonny Abdo may not have done anything to provoke someone to want to kill him. He may have been murdered simply for the colour of his skin.
The footpath was getting darker as Annie walked up the side street where she had parked her car. She made it about one hundred metres from the corner when she became aware of the fact that she wasn’t alone. Someone was walking about twenty paces behind her.
Casually turning her head while her legs kept moving, she saw the dark silhouette of a man. She hadn’t noticed him earlier when she was walking under the bright lights of the main road, but she noticed him now. The hum of the traffic no longer disguising the scratchy sounds of rubber soles on cement. Footsteps getting closer. Gathering pace.
Quickening her stride, Annie fumbled inside her bag for her keys. Her four-wheel drive was so close that she could see the moon bouncing off the roof. She pressed the button to unlock the doors and the lights flashed on. Stepping between two parked cars, Annie walked onto the road so that she could quickly jump in the driver’s seat, lock the doors.
She altered her grip on her keys, sliding a single key through her fingers, making a fist so the little piece of metal was pointing like a knife. The closest thing she could muster to a weapon.
The footsteps followed. Closer. Louder. Almost running.
‘Excuse me?’
Annie wrenched open the door but it was too late. The man was beside her.
‘I think you dropped this.’
A young guy in a tracksuit was holding Annie’s notebook out to her, a polite smile on his face.
‘Oh, thanks, thank you.’
Annie didn’t realise that she had been holding her breath and her words came out fast, startling the man. She loosened her grip on her keys, relieved that she hadn’t just punched a stranger in the eye with her makeshift weapon.
‘You okay, lady?’
Annie took the notebook, offering an awkward smile. ‘Yeah, yeah. Sorry. It’s just late and you… you gave me a fright.’
‘No worries,’ he said, walking away. ‘Have a good one.’
Annie climbed in the car and threw her notebook and bag on the passenger seat, locking the doors. All she wanted to do was get home, check on her son and climb into bed.
It was too late to call Louis but Annie had exchanged messages with him about half an hour earlier when he’d said he was going to sleep. With school not being back, she’d been worried that he may have snuck out to meet some of his more troublesome friends, rather than stay home to play computer games like he’d said he would. In around half an hour she’d know.
There wasn’t much traffic on the road so the drive back to Paddington was relatively painless. The air conditioning in the car felt cool against Annie’s armpits and neck, making her uncomfortably aware of how much the humidity had made her sweat during the walk to her four-wheel drive. She had a mild headache which she put down to the long day, drinking from the bottle of water that she kept in the door of her four-wheel drive.
By the time she turned into her street it was almost 1 am. Most other people were already tucked up for the night and she couldn’t find a car spot out front of her house. She eventually found one big enough for her four-wheel drive a couple of hundred metres up the street. She killed the engine, taking a moment to see whether there was anyone else around. Grabbing her notebook and bag, she climbed out, locking the doors. Even though she was the only person on the footpath, Annie’s newfound paranoia made her jog the short distance to her house. By the time she arrived out front she was feeling quite stupid, shaking her head and laughing.
She pushed open her front gate, triggering the sensor lamp on her porch, igniting the path to her door in a dim yellow light. She only made it two steps along the path before something forced her to stop. Something that shouldn’t have been there. Something frightening.
Words.
Three words.
Sprayed in red paint across the front of her house. So big they stretched from the eaves, across rendered bricks, the window, all the way to the door.
LYING
JEW
BITCH
‘Oh my god.’
Annie fumbled with her keys as she sprinted up her front steps, almost falling against the door, struggling to stop shaking long enough to get the key in the lock.
‘Louis!’
She yelled her son’s name the second she opened the door, running up the stairs to his bedroom.
‘Louis!’
She pushed open his door and her son was sitting upright in the darkness.
‘What the fuck, Mum?’
He was rubbing his eyes, staring blankly at the crazed woman who had just flicked on the light and landed on his bed.
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’m fine,’ he said. ‘What’s happened?’
She reached forward and put an arm around her son, pulling him close, kissing the top of his head.
‘Did you hear anyone outside? Has anyone been here?’
‘No. Why?’ He was wide awake now and sounding annoyed. ‘What’s the time?’
‘One o’clock. Get up, Louis. We’re not staying here tonight. Get up!’
‘What’s happened?’
‘Why? Is it Dad?’
The mention of her ex-husband made Annie suddenly aware of the fact that she needed to hit pause and explain to her son what was happening. He couldn’t think that this had anything to do with his father. The man who had beaten her. Barron had been released from prison not so long ago and he wasn’t permitted anywhere near Annie or their son.
‘I’m sorry, Louis. I’m sorry. This has nothing to do with your father. I don’t even know where he is. Queensland, I think. Away from here.’
She was rambling.
‘Then what is it? Why do we have to go?’
‘Someone has vandalised the front of our house. Graffiti. It’s got something to do with the story I’ve been covering. We just shouldn’t stay here tonight. It may not be safe.’
Louis and his mother were tight. As tight as a mother and a teenage boy could be.
‘Okay, Mum. But where are we going?’
‘Somewhere close.’
Annie picked up her bag from the floor, rummaging around until she found her phone, searching for the name of someone she knew she could trust.
He answered after two rings.
‘Annie?’
Bailey sounded wide awake, like he was up working.
‘Something’s happened. Can Louis and I stay with you tonight?’
‘Are you okay?’
‘I’ll explain when I see you.’
‘Want me to come get you?’
‘No. See you in five.’
CHAPTER 34
Bailey was waiting on his front porch when Annie and Louis walked through the gate.
‘Give me that.’
He took her bag, catching her eyes, eager to know what had happened. Not wanting to ask the question in front of her son.
‘Sorry about this,’ Annie said.
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah.’
‘G’day, Louis.’
Bailey held out his hand to the teenager he had seen before but had never properly met.
‘Hi, Mr Bailey.’
‘Just call me Bailey,’ he said, winking at Louis, shaking hands. ‘The mister makes me feel like a school teacher.’