by Neil Cossins
He drove across the old steel truss Clyde River bridge that once marked the northern entrance to the town and noticed that although the town appeared to have changed considerably since he was last there, the Clyde River remained unchanged and still looked clean, dark, cold and deep. Despite its size, the ebbing current moved swiftly towards the sea and was more than a match for all but the strongest swimmer or the most determined soul. Nelson marvelled at the beauty of the river and vaguely promised himself he would take some leave soon and come down for a week, maybe hire a boat and do some fishing for flathead and bream. However, deep down he knew he’d never get around to doing it.
Nelson had phoned ahead and spoken to Sergeant John Soward’s wife, who told him the now-retired Sergeant Soward would be spending most of the day at the local bowls club where he was a member and also worked a few shifts a week behind the bar. Casting his memory back he recalled his memories of the man from all those years ago. Although they had been stationed in towns close in proximity to each other, their paths had only crossed a few times. Nelson, being straight out of the Academy had been sentenced to work almost exclusively night shifts, whereas Soward’s seniority ensured he worked almost exclusively days unless an emergency dragged him out. Occasionally the Narooma and Batemans Bay police joined forces when their limited numbers were insufficient to deal with a particular problem and it was from these occasions that Nelson remembered him.
A few minutes later Nelson entered the bowls club. Despite being only ten a.m. it was already filling with senior citizens, playing bowls and pokies, chatting with friends, drinking two dollar pots of beer and reminiscing about how good things were back in their day.
Nelson surveyed the club, scanning the male patrons for Soward, idly thinking they all looked alike with their white clothes, grey hair and wrinkled brown faces. Nelson’s wondered if he was losing his touch as he struggled to find a face that even vaguely matched his memory. He then remembered what Soward’s wife had told him in that he sometimes worked behind the bar and spotted him serving with a cheery smile. Nelson studied the man and had to concede that the years had been good to him as he still had a full head of hair, albeit completely grey now, had dropped a good fifteen kilograms off Nelson’s memory of him and looked fit and strong for his age.
He had considered speaking with Soward over the phone about the vehicular manslaughter case that Craig Thoms had been a suspect in some years previously, but decided to take the time to drive down to see him and show him a few photographs to help jog his memory. He hoped he wasn’t wasting half a day of his precious time and a full tank of LPG, but either way, he felt a desire to lay it to rest before moving in any other direction with the case. It was a thin and possibly meaningless lead, yet it still nagged at him sufficiently for him to want to chase it to ground. Leave no stone unturned, he reminded himself. It was one of Detective Mark Neale’s commandments that he had adopted as his own and he considered it to be one of the reasons for his high clearance rate of cases.
Nelson made his way to the bar and waited for a bunch of octogenarians to shuffle back to the bowling green with their cheap beer. Soward noted his presence immediately as being out of place and stared at him. He recognised a fellow police officer when he saw one but was unable to forge any connections with his past on this occasion. Nelson smiled in amusement. In contrast to Nelson’s excellent memory for faces was the fact that few people seemed to remember him. His soft, plain features and generally quiet demeanour – except when he was riled - seemed to give him a natural anonymity from people he didn’t regularly deal with. He often wondered if he’d missed his calling in life and should be working for ASIO as a spy of some sort. To be fair, Nelson hadn’t expected Soward to remember him. To Soward he was probably just one of many probationary constables who had done their brief stint at a country station before heading back to the city, never to be seen or heard of again.
”Can I help you?” asked Soward, his rich, gravelly voice still slightly inflected by his English heritage despite having lived in Australia for nearly forty years.
Nelson introduced himself, explained their mutual history and waited while Soward again studied his face and tried to match it to his memories. Soward’s mind slowly clicked into gear and eventually a vague recognition began to dawn.
“It’s been a while, but I think I remember you. You were just a kid then. I’d heard you were a decent officer. A shame you went back to the city. Anyway, what can I do for you?”
“I’d like to talk to you about a case I’m working on Sergeant. There might be a connection with a case you worked a few years ago.”
“It’s just John now. I don’t know if I’ll be able to help. I’ve worked a lot of cases in my time, but I’ll listen to what you’ve got to say.”
Soward organised to take a break from the bar and ushered Nelson to a nearby table. He seemed happy to see him now and relished the prospect of rehashing old times.
Nelson told Soward about the case he was working on and as promised, Soward listened attentively. He had read about it in the newspaper and was curious to find out how it might be linked to his past. Nelson explained that he was chasing down a possible connection between the case and a car accident near Batemans Bay fifteen years ago that Soward had worked on.
He showed Soward a printout of a story from a newspaper from 1997, which he had pulled off the internet the previous evening. It described an accident where a car had run off the road and plunged into the Clyde River at Nelligen, about ten minutes drive west of Batemans Bay. Both parents had died, but a teenage daughter had miraculously escaped a similar fate. Soward nodded and grunted in recollection as he read the article.
“You remember it,” said Nelson.
Soward looked up at Nelson and now he looked all of his sixty-four years of age as small tight lines circled his opaque eyes and his brow furrowed into deep valleys.
“Yes I do. I always hated car accidents you know. It was the worst part of the job. People who haven’t seen one up close have no idea what they’re like.”
“Do you know what happened to the girl?”
Soward laughed ironically.
“Kylie Faulkner was her name. I remember her.”
“Do you remember what happened to her?” repeated Nelson hopefully.
“Some. After losing her parents and spending a couple of weeks in hospital with a few broken bones, she was bundled off to her only living relatives, an aunt and her boyfriend who lived up at Cooma. The aunt was paid by the family trust to take her in.”
“Your memory is still good after all these years,” said Nelson, impressed by the old man’s recall of events.
“Maybe, but some things are hard to forget. Part of being a copper I guess. We were never able to identify the other car involved in the accident. I mean I couldn’t give her back her parents, but I was hoping we could find out who was responsible. We never did.” Soward’s voice grew thick with emotion as he spoke. “Or should I say we were never able to prove anything.”
“You had your suspicions? Suspects?”
“Yeah, but nothing ever came of it. We only had the skidmarks as hard evidence. There were no witnesses, and at the time the girl barely remembered anything of the accident, probably because of her head injury. We questioned several people about it but the trail went cold.”
“I know how that feels.”
“Yeah I’ll say.”
Nelson noted that the number of patrons in the club had continued to grow. Soward’s five minute break had turned into fifteen, but he didn’t seem to care. It was just a job to keep him occupied in his retirement and add a little extra cash to his pension.
“Just a couple more questions Sarge if you don’t mind. When I was looking at the case summary on the database I noticed you’d placed a file note which was dated only two years ago, thirteen years after the accident. What was that about?”
“Yeah, it was only a few months before I retired. A woman walked into the station asking for m
e. I didn’t recognise her all grown up, but blow me down if it wasn’t the same girl from the accident, Kylie Faulkner, all grown up. She’d turned out real nice too let me tell you. Anyway she spoke to me about her parents’ car crash. She wanted me to re-open the investigation.”
“Why? Did she know who was responsible?”
“No, I don’t think she did. From what I remember, she said she’d been having dreams about the accident and she remembered more about it, but she didn’t have anything substantial to go on. I told her that unless she had something real good for us then I wasn’t interested in reopening such an old case. We just didn’t have the resources for that sorta stuff. And at the time of the accident we’d spent a lot of time and energy investigating the case. We couldn’t nail anyone for it then, so I doubted we could do any better after all that time.”
“Did she mention any names? Did she mention the name Craig Thoms?” said Nelson, trying his best to contain the flutter that was growing in his stomach.
Soward thought for a while as he rubbed his chin.
“No, I don’t think she named anyone. As I said, I don’t think she had anything substantial to go on. I do seem to vaguely remember that name though. He may have been one of the suspects. It’ll be in the file.”
Nelson stared thoughtfully out the window and briefly watched the bowls matches being played out on the flat green rinks outside.
“How did she take it? I mean, what was her reaction to you not wanting to reopen the case?”
“She wasn’t happy of course. She bent my ear about natural justice for a while but eventually gave up and left. I think she gave herself a headache or something. That was the last time I saw her. At the time I remember wondering if she had a kangaroo loose in the top paddock if you know what I mean. Anyway, I didn’t think there was much to it. As you probably understand we get plenty of requests to re-open old cold cases, but I slipped a note into the case file just in case. You never can tell when these things’ll come up again. You visiting me here and now is a testament to that. So does that help with the case you are working on at all?”
Nelson sat back in his chair contemplating Soward’s words.
“I’m not sure, but it’s something I’m going to find out.”
Chapter 35
After his visit with Soward, Nelson felt re-energised. His drive back up the coast was at a much faster pace than the drive down had been and his Cobra growled angrily along the highway and ate the kilometres up. He turned his phone on and within seconds it was beeping furiously, indicating the presence of several messages. He put in a call to Robards who was at Headquarters.
“Where the hell have you been? Inspector VanMerle has been looking for you and he’s about to shit out a kidney,” said a clearly agitated Robards.
Nelson almost drove off the road from laughing.
“Well it’s lucky that he’s got two of them then. Look, I’ve just been chasing something up. I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. How’d you go tracking down Harvey Petersham?”
“Good. Great in fact. I found him, but I don’t think he had anything to do with this. He’s got an ironclad alibi for last Friday night. Actually for most of last week he was up at Newcastle, plus he’s small time and as dumb as dogshit. There’s no way he has the brain power to set Thoms up, if that’s what you were thinking.”
“Ok. Anything else to report?”
“Yeah, VanMerle says he wants you to wrap up the Fogliani case because he’s got something else he wants us to look at.”
“What? We’ve only been on it two days. Jeezus. Just tell him I’m still tying up some loose ends and I’ll be in soon to talk to him.”
“Gee thanks for letting me do the dirty work. I’m sure that will go down real well.”
Nelson ignored his partner’s protestations. He felt a moment of guilt about putting Robards in the firing line but it soon passed. He decided to continue to chase down his lead while it was hot, or at least lukewarm.
“Look I need you to do something urgently for me. It’s important Pete. I want you to dig up everything you can find on a woman named Kylie Faulkner. She’s about thirty to thirty-two years of age and initially lived in Canberra. Her parents were killed in a car accident in June of 1997 and then she moved to Cooma to live with an aunt. See if you can track down a current address.”
“What’s she got to do with anything?” replied Robards sullenly, yet showing a flicker of interest in Nelson’s request.
“Don’t worry about that right now, just get the address and I’ll fill you in. Just trust me ok?”
“Whatever you say boss.”
Within half an hour Robards phoned Nelson back. He told Nelson that tracking down a current address for Kylie Faulkner hadn’t been easy. She had no criminal history, hadn’t lodged a tax return in three years and didn’t appear on any current databases that the New South Wales Police Force had access to. Robards had managed to speak to her aunt in Cooma who Kylie had been warded to in her youth, but her aunt said she hadn’t seen or heard from her since the day she left twelve or so years previously. Fortunately Robards had a contact in the Roads Traffic Authority and had managed to get an address on Kylie Faulkner’s licence.
“It may not be her current address though as the licence expired two years ago and hasn’t been renewed.”
“I see. Nothing else then?”
Robards sensed Nelson’s disappointment.
“No, it was all I could come up with at such short notice. It seems like she just dropped off the face of the earth about three years ago. Maybe she’s dead?”
“Maybe, check with Births, Deaths and Marriages or whatever they’re called now while you’re at it,” replied Nelson.
“I will. Do you want me to come out there with you and check it out?”
“No. I can handle this. It’ll probably just lead to another dead end and anyway, I need you to keep VanMerle and Crighton off my back for a while.”
“That’s not going to be easy.”
“I know and thanks in advance. I appreciate it.” Nelson hung up. He wasn’t overly hopeful that a two year old address would yield anything useful but was still excited at the possibility of tracking down Kylie Faulkner. He wasn’t sure where she fitted into the scheme of things, or if she fitted at all, but he felt compelled to find out one way or another, especially seeing that the drug angle appeared to come to nothing. Nelson had thought it an unlikely connection anyway. He reasoned that if Harvey Petersham or his connections were unhappy with Craig Thoms wanting to pull out of supplying them with their hospital drugs then they were more likely to have found a more simplistic way to exact retribution, like beating the crap out him or something. However, sending Robards out to follow the drugs lead at Manly had afforded Nelson the time and space to chase down the lead in Batemans Bay.
Nelson plugged the Woollahra address that Robards had given him into his GPS unit and followed the verbal directions through the early afternoon traffic. He parked his Cobra in the street, just south of where the arrow on the screen was indicating and noticed that his car’s patched paintwork looked out of place amongst the Beemers and Hondas that seemed par for the course there. He double checked the street number against what he’d written on the scrap of paper. The address belonged to an impressive looking group of eighteen units that had been squeezed onto what was once three residential blocks. Nelson briefly admired their sharp architecturally designed lines and neatly manicured minimalist gardens and guessed correctly that some reasonably serious money would be required to buy there, especially seeing that the third floor units were high enough to afford their occupants a view of the harbour and beyond.
He took the stairs to the third floor and knocked on the door of apartment number seventeen. Almost immediately he heard quick footsteps move across the floor inside the apartment. He held his breath and felt for the Glock twenty-two in its holster on his belt, just in case. The door was quickly flung back and he was faced with a slim young woman with dark
shoulder length hair, blue eyes and pale skin. He wondered if the search for Kylie Faulkner was over.
“Can I help you?” she asked, her voice melodic and low.
“I hope so. I’m Detective Sergeant Nelson from the Homicide Squad.” He showed her his New South Wales Police Force badge. “I’m looking for a Kylie Faulkner, is that you?” He watched her face closely and noticed it blanch to an even whiter shade of pale.
“I…I don’t know anyone by that name Detective. What’s wrong? I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
“Are you Kylie Faulkner?” Nelson asked again, a little more firmly. He judged the age of the woman in front of him as being about thirty, which was the same age as Kylie Faulkner would be now. “I’ve been given this address.”
“I just told you that I’ve never heard of that name before,” she said becoming increasingly defensive. A woman moved into view behind the girl. Nelson craned his head to the side to get a look at her but his view was shielded by a large potted rubber plant just inside the door.
“Is everything alright Jen?”
“It’s ok Simone, I can handle it. Look Detective, I already gave my statement yesterday. I had nothing to do with this Emilio Fogliani thing.”
Nelson turned his head and furrowed his brow as a seed of doubt began to grow in the pit of his stomach. Something about her answers didn’t sound right. He got the sinking feeling that he was missing something but he didn’t know what it was. “What do you mean, you’ve already given your statement?”