Private Oz

by James Patterson

  Chapter 102

  JULIE SMILED. “SOMETIMES,” she thought, “I can’t believe how easy all this has been.” She switched on a lamp with a pink shade she’d bought for two dollars from a charity shop, swung back round and saw Bruce on the TV screen.

  She felt a shiver pass through her and quickly ramped up the sound.

  “… the body has been identified as Bruce Frimmel,” the newsreader said, and the camera held the image of the dead man. “He is thought to have disappeared in November and was probably killed soon after …”

  Julie jumped up at the sound of tires screeching outside. She dashed to the small window of her first-floor apartment and saw a white car pull up hard on the other side of a small scruffy courtyard.

  She snatched up the scrapbook, ran into the bedroom, tossed it on the bed, scrambled in the bottom of her wardrobe for her backpack already prepared with the things she knew she would need sometime soon. In the kitchen she found a box of matches, darted back to the bedroom, struck a match and flicked the flame over the end of the scrapbook.

  The paper resisted. It felt to Julie that seconds were passing as minutes. She had to quell the rising panic. The match expired without the flame catching properly. She’d just singed the edge of the flimsy cardboard cover. She struck another match and steadied her fingers by gripping her wrist with the other hand, blowing gently on the flame.

  It caught. She couldn’t wait a second longer, dashed out of the room and into the hallway, leaving the door ajar. She could hear footsteps on the stairs, a woman’s voice. She sped up to the second level, round the bend and onto the next flight taking her to the top floor.

  She leaned over the railings and saw two people, a man and a woman, approach the door to her apartment. As they slid along the wall and disappeared inside, Julie turned on her heel, pushed the exit door onto the roof.

  She’d moved here after splitting with Bruce, it was cheaper. Within a week she’d explored every nook and cranny of the block and had quickly found the caretaker’s shed on the roof. He was always careful enough to keep it locked, but she knew where he hid a spare key.

  The roof was eerily quiet, just the hum of traffic on the main road, the occasional squawk of a lorikeet. Julie crouched beside a utility pipe running along the edge of the roof, felt around for the brick she knew was there, found it, shifted it, plucked up the key.

  She ran back to the shed, slotted the key into the lock, pulled open the door. After the glare of the midday sun the inside of the shed seemed almost black, but her eyes adjusted quickly. She scanned the shelves of jam jars filled with nails and screws, tins of paint, rolls of wire, bits of plastic tubing and a bench scattered with tools. On the floor stood a five-gallon plastic drum, “FLAMMABLE” written in large black letters around the middle. She locked the door from the inside and crouched down, keeping her breathing shallow and listening for approaching feet.

  Chapter 103

  SANDSVILLE IS PROBABLY the worst part of Sydney. Happen to be there at the wrong time, in the wrong gang in the wrong street and your life expectancy would make a mayfly proud.

  Realizing that driving my Ferrari into Sandsville would be about as clever as vomiting over the Queen, Mary and I had taken a detour back to Private and switched to her sensible and unassuming white Toyota.

  The apartment blocks of Neptune Court looked as though they would collapse any moment. I guessed they were mid-’80s vintage. There were three buildings clustered around a scrap of land, the grass worn to nothing.

  The three buildings had six-foot-high digits written on their south-facing walls. Nos. 1-20, 21-40 and 41-60. We headed for the first.

  We could hear a horrible clash of sounds. Kids screaming, a baby’s cry, several different TV shows, a rap track. From my right came a bass drum throb and the growl of some God-awful death metal band.

  The door into Julie O’Connor’s block was closed, but the steel-reinforced glass had been smashed in. I climbed through the hole, Mary half a second behind me.

  Number 6 was on the first floor, but I smelled the smoke before I’d reached halfway up the flight of stairs. Mary went ahead, leaned on the wall next to the door, then swung inside. I was right behind her. She turned into the living space, swept the room, proceeded to the only other part of the apartment, a tiny bedroom.

  Yellow flames swirled up from blackened sheets. The fire was small – a pile of papers, but smoke had filled the room. We grabbed a pillow each and smacked at the fire, then I found a quilt on the floor, threw it over the small blaze and snuffed it out.

  “This was just started,” Mary said.

  “Must’ve missed her by seconds. You search the place. I’ll be back in a minute.”

  I ran onto the landing. No one around. I noticed half the doors were boarded up. There were two more floors above this one. I ran up, saw no one, reached the top floor. There was a ROOF EXIT sticker on a door. The door had been pushed outward.

  I approached it cautiously, eased out onto the roof. It was deserted. I spotted a workman’s shed in one corner, paced over to it slowly, carefully. I tried the handle. It was locked.

  I did a three-sixty, saw the black metal railings of a ladder descending from one corner. Walking across the roof, I peered over the edge. The ladder dropped three floors to the ground. No one in sight.

  Chapter 104

  I FOUND MARY sitting at a kitchen table that was shoved up against the wall between the stove and an ancient fridge. She’d pulled on latex gloves and was leafing through a clutch of charred papers.

  “Something I picked up from Darlene. Always handy … if you’ll pardon the pun,” she wiggled her fingers at me. “Here.” She fished out a second pair from her cargo pants. Tossed them over. The place still stank really bad.

  “Tried to open a window,” Mary said. “Sealed tight.” She flicked a glance toward a small window along the wall near the bedroom. “Checked every cupboard. No one in any hidey-holes. Looks like Julie O’Connor left in a hurry, but there’s no sign of a handbag or purse. Found this on the floor over there,” Mary added, picking up a five-dollar bill.

  “Probably dropped it after snatching notes from this,” I replied, indicating a jar lying on its side on top of the fridge. A few coins had been left inside.

  “So what’d she set alight?”

  “It’s hard to tell.” Mary nodded at the crispy papers. “Some of it’s just burned to nothing.” She pointed to a pile of black, fire-ravaged paper, then carefully shifted through a few pages of what looked like some sort of a scrapbook. “Don’t want to damage it more, Darlene’ll kill me!” she commented. Prising it open about halfway through, she glanced at the pages.

  I walked round and peered over her shoulder. There was a scorch mark running across the paper. “Personal info, descriptions,” I said. “That set of numbers halfway down the left side.” I hovered a finger over the damaged papers. “List of credit card numbers … always sixteen digits, batches of four.”

  Mary nodded, turned a page carefully. “She’s headed each double page with a woman’s name.”

  I felt a tingle pass up my spine as I saw the name at the top of the first pair of pages. Elspeth Lampard. “Alright,” I said. “Let’s bag this stuff. Get it to Darlene.” I glanced round to search for a plastic container. That’s when we both heard, from the hallway, the sound of smashing glass.

  Then a loud “whoosh”.

  Chapter 105

  THE FIRE SHOT along the short, narrow hallway like the jet from a flame-thrower. “A Molotov!” I yelled above the roar of the blaze.

  Mary was up in a flash, her chair flying across the kitchen floor as she ran for the bedroom. I scanned the room desperately and spotted a plastic trash bag scrunched up beside a garbage bin. I plucked it up. Moving as fast as I could, I scooped the material on the table into the bag, then tucked it inside my jacket.

  Before I’d finished, Mary was back in the living-room clutching a pair of blankets. The flames from the hall had spread, tendrils
reaching toward the ceiling of the main room. A tatty sofa close to the hall end had caught fire, the cheap foam adding to the stench as it melted.

  Mary ran over to the sink, pulled on both taps, twisting them to “max”. “Got to wet the blankets!” she hollered and threw them under the running water. I caught a sodden blanket. Following Mary’s lead, I ducked my head under the stream of tap water. Then I wrapped the wet blanket about my shoulders, across my front, letting the bottom edge knock against my shins.

  “Go!” I bellowed, and without wasting another second, I ran straight for the flames and the hallway.

  The fire had engulfed half the living-room. I could sense Mary a foot behind me as we stumbled into the hallway.

  The heat from the fire hit me like flames from hell. I knew I had to keep running. The floor was alight, scorching my shoes.

  Gripping the blanket, I reached for the latch and twisted. It was locked.

  I felt panic rise up in my chest. It was getting hard to breathe. I turned to Mary. I’d never seen her scared before. Then we both reached the same decision at the same moment and charged forward, slamming into the door together.

  I heard the wood splinter and managed to stagger back. My chest was screaming at me. My feet felt like I was walking barefoot on hot coals, but I knew that if I didn’t keep going we would both die.

  Mary obviously thought the same thing. We ran for the door again. A pain shot across my shoulders and up my neck. The door gave, but only opened a fraction. We charged a third time, the sense of desperation growing. The door fell outwards, and I collided with Mary as we crashed onto the concrete landing.

  We pulled ourselves up but I tripped on the blanket, falling heavily against a door on the other side of the landing. Shrugging off the pain, I tossed the blanket aside and felt something hit me hard across the face and chest. I looked up and saw Mary leaning over me beating out a line of fire with her blanket, yellow flames searing across the front of my shirt.

  Chapter 106

  WE STAGGERED OUT onto the smudge of ground between the buildings. I was leaning forward, hands on my knees, gasping for air. A couple of teenagers saw us and ran over. Mary was coughing from her gut and then she spun round and vomited. I saw the first guy approach as I straightened and felt a terrible pain in my jaw. I stumbled back and caught a glimpse of the other kid as he jumped on Mary’s back.

  Before I could take in that the bastard had hit me, he swung his fist again. I dodged it, lashed out and caught him on the side of his face.

  I heard a crash from behind and saw the kitchen window of Julie O’Connor’s apartment shatter outwards, a great sheet of flame spewing out. The teenagers were distracted and Mary had recovered amazingly quickly. She whirled round, a string of vomit running down her vest top, threw the teenager clinging to her back straight over her head. He crashed to the ground, face first. I landed a second punch to the side of the other kid’s face and Mary connected her right boot with his balls. He doubled up, moaning.

  I noticed the bandage around Mary’s hand was bloodied. “You alright?” I gasped almost inaudibly.

  “Felt better, Craig. You?”

  I started coughing and couldn’t stop for at least ten seconds, then groaned. Fire alarms in the apartments began to wail.

  Mary had plucked her cell from her pocket. She nodded toward the car as she called 000. We ran over, leaving the two thugs groaning in the dirt.

  From the corner of my eye I saw a group of people run out of the building.

  Mary was giving instructions into the receiver as we crossed the patch of ground. I was limping like an injured footballer leaving the field and totally in awe of how incredibly fit and powerful Mary was. She was recovering so fast.

  It was only as we got fifteen feet from the Toyota we realized all four tires had been slashed.

  Chapter 107

  JULIE O’CONNOR CAUGHT the train from Sandsville, headed for the CBD. She had close to two hundred bucks in her pocket and a stolen credit card. She had formulated a plan.

  She thought about the apartment she’d destroyed. There was nothing there of value. She had nothing, nothing but her notebook, the bag she had with her, the two hundred bucks and a credit card. She still felt the buzz, the thrill she had experienced – making the petrol bomb from the materials in the shed, tossing it into the apartment, descending from the roof of her block using the metal ladder and slipping away in the commotion.

  Ten minutes into the journey she left her seat, walked calmly past a family in the next aisle and into a corridor. Pulled open the door to the washroom.

  Yanking her backpack from her right shoulder, she let it drop to the floor. Leaning down, steadying herself as the train swayed, she found the plastic bag she’d put in the bag earlier. She placed it on the small sink.

  Pulling out a dark wig, a fake moustache and a baseball cap, she arranged them on the side. Tugging on the wig, she tucked a few loose strands of bleached blonde hair beneath the edge, found the tube of glue she’d purchased, ran a line of it along the back of the moustache and put it in place. Then she tugged on the cap. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she had to smile.

  She was wearing jeans, boots and her lumberjack shirt. She turned to her handbag, pulled out the roll of banknotes – real ones – three fifties plus a twenty, a ten and a few coins. There was a second roll wrapped in an elastic band – ten fifties, photo copied money … ready for later.

  She then removed the stolen credit card, a packet of mints and her favorite baby picture, one she had salvaged from her scrapbook. It showed a real cute kid – about nine months old – a girl wearing a nappy. She had an adorable fat tummy and was crawling toward the camera, a big smile on her face.

  Julie stuffed all these items into the pockets of her jeans, opened the window of the washroom and tossed out her handbag. Then she checked herself in the mirror again and brushed a stray bit of wig under the cap. Taking a deep breath, she leaned into the mirror, real close, her face filling her view. She bared her teeth. “You can do this, Julie O’Connor,” she hissed. “You can do this … baby!”

  Chapter 108

  “JUST IN FROM one of our cars out in the Western suburbs, sir,” said Sergeant Tim Frost. He handed a sheet of paper to Inspector Mark Talbot. “Thought you might find it interesting.”

  Talbot scanned the report and grinned, touched the Steri-strip across his nose. Craig Gisto had almost been barbecued, then beaten up by a couple of teenagers in Sandsville.

  “He’s not in the Serious Burns Unit of the Royal North Shore by any chance?”

  “Not this time, sir,” the sergeant replied.

  “Shame,” Talbot remarked under his breath. Glanced at his watch. “Hell. I’m late.” Turning, he strode down the hallway.

  He crept into the conference room just as Brett Thorogood was about to start talking, found a seat and manned out Thorogood’s glare.

  There was a buzz of excitement in the room. Even Talbot could sense it. This is why he’d joined the force – a man-hunt, well, a woman-hunt in this case. He felt his heart beat faster.

  “This is the suspect,” Thorogood announced pointing to a large photo of Julie on the smart-board. “A snap taken when she started work at SupaMart.”

  “Hideous bitch,” Talbot thought.

  “Don’t have much on her,” The Deputy Commissioner went on. “Name: Julie Ann O’Connor. Age: 26. Current address: 6 Neptune Court, Impala Road, Sandsville. No record. So far, so ordinary. Her father was a cop, Jim O’Connor … killed in the line of duty in 1996. She disappeared in 2000, off the radar until 2004. Cropped up in State records as a cleaner for a small engineering firm, Maxim Products, Campbelltown. Our friends at Private have come up with some useful stuff.”

  Talbot felt a knot in his gut. He couldn’t bear even hearing the word “Private”.

  The DC clicked a remote and footage from the copy shop came on screen.

  “Appears the woman is underprivileged, lives in a slum, works in one of
Sydney’s most affluent areas. Some sort of motive for her killings we suppose. She copies the banknotes using a couple of different copy shops near Bellevue Hill.”

  “Underprivileged?” Talbot said and looked around at the five other officers in the room.

  “Yes,” Thorogood replied. “Your point?”

  He had none, just hated the term. The stupid bitch was a complete klutz. Didn’t she know you could photocopy at home on a printer? But she probably didn’t have a computer, big satellite TV dish, for sure, but no computer. She’d probably never touched one, had no clue. Douche bag.

  Thorogood was talking again. “Private have confirmed a positive DNA match to place this woman at two of the murder scenes for sure. She was also in a long-term relationship with the male victim, Bruce Frimmel, whose DNA was found at the same murder scene as Jennifer Granger. Both bodies were found in the yard of the house on Ernest Street, Bondi.”

  Talbot wanted to retch. That word again. Private. Thank God it had been one of his boys who’d put the pieces of the puzzle together, matching the photos of the O’Connor bitch.

  “Where is this Julie O’Connor now, sir?” It was Chief Inspector Mulligan, Talbot’s immediate superior. He was leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest.

  “Good question. We don’t know. But we will. I’ve just heard that about an hour ago Craig Gisto and Mary Clarke from Private almost caught O’Connor at her apartment in Sandsville. They were lucky to escape with their lives though, the bloody woman fire-bombed the place with them inside.”

  Mark exhaled loudly. Thorogood gave him an odd look.

  “I’m pulling out all the stops,” the Deputy Commissioner went on. “Closing the airports, putting up roadblocks ringing the city, every spare man out on the streets. We’ll get her, and when we do, she’ll live out her days in a ten-foot square cell.”