by Jean Harrod
Sangster nodded.
“I’m Jim Middleton. I work here. I served Miss Chambers last night in the bar, before she was murdered.” He looked down and brushed some imaginary dirt off his trousers. “I think I may have been the last person to see her alive.” He took a step forward, then hesitated.
Sangster could see the man wanted to tell him something. “Let’s go and sit down.” He pointed at the terrace.
Jim nodded and followed him back to a table. Their chairs made loud scraping noises as they pulled them out and sat down.
“Now what is it?” Sangster tried not to sound impatient.
Jim took a deep breath. “Danny Burton was pesterin’ Miss Chambers in the bar last night. That’s why she left. That stupid idiot just can’t leave women alone. I don’t know why the hotel keep him on. He’s a bloody liability, if you ask me.”
Sangster looked at him. “Danny Burton? He found the body, didn’t he?”
Jim nodded. “Miss Chambers was having a quiet drink in the bar before that prick came in and hit on her. She gave him the brush off. Said she already had a date. The idiot had it coming if you ask me. But Danny got mad, and she left.” Jim paused. “I’m sure Miss Chambers was tellin’ the truth when she said she had a date. All the time she was in the bar, she kept lookin’ at the door as if she was waitin’ for someone.”
“Did she leave on her own?”
Jim nodded. “As it happens, I followed her out here to collect up the glasses. I saw her walkin’ down the path, towards the jetty.” He leant forward. “There was someone behind her on the path. A man, I think.”
Sangster looked up, sharply. “Can you give me a description? Height? Build? Clothes even?”
Jim shook his head. “I only wish I could. But it was pretty dark out here.”
Sangster sat back in his chair and studied Jim. Why’s he telling me this? To be helpful, or deliberately cast suspicion on Danny? “Was Danny still in the bar when she left?” he asked.
Jim nodded, reluctantly. “But he left soon after.”
There was no doubting the shock in Jim’s eyes, though. It was a strong reaction that made Sangster ask him how well he’d known Ellen Chambers.
Jim shrugged. “She was a guest. She stayed here a lot. Always had time for a chat.”
Sangster looked at his sketch again. “What was she like?”
Jim shrugged. “Nice. Friendly. Liked a gin and tonic. She always gave me a good tip.”
“What did you chat about last night?” he asked.
“Oh, I don’t know. This and that. She never talked about anythin’ personal, if that’s what you’re askin’?” Jim paused. “Except I know she had a kid sister in Brisbane. So she must have said.”
Sangster nodded. “Stay around the hotel, Jim. We’ll want to interview you again. Meanwhile, I want you to think about everyone who came in and out of the bar around that time last night, and every little thing that happened. However insignificant, I want to know about it. Okay?”
“Yes, Sir.” Jim got up. “I’ll be workin’ in the bar today. Just let me know when you want to talk again.” He went to leave.
“Oh, Jim?”
“Yes.”
“Was there anything about Ellen Chambers that seemed out of character or different last night? What I mean is, did she say or do anything unusual?”
Jim ran his fingers through his cropped hair as he tried to think. “No… No. I don’t think so… Not last night anyway.”
Sangster looked up. “On another occasion?”
Jim’s eyes brightened. “The last time she stayed here, about a month or so ago, I remember she came into the bar one evenin’ and asked for a bottle of our best champagne. Really expensive stuff. She paid in cash and took it out of the bar, along with two champagne glasses.” He smiled. “She looked happy the next mornin’ when she returned the glasses. All washed and dried they were. That’s the kind of person she was.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Christ, if only I’d known last night… if only I’d thought. I could have done somethin’.”
Sangster just nodded. He wasn’t going to tell Jim not to beat himself up about it. He was still under suspicion, like everyone else.
Shoulders hunched, Jim walked away.
Sangster sat back in the chair and rubbed his gritty eyes. He hadn’t slept through the night since Liz had left. He’d tried ringing her mobile, but she wouldn’t answer. He’d contacted her family and friends, but they said they didn’t know where she was. Not that he believed them. But what could he do?
He stood up, thrust his hands deep into his trouser pockets, and stepped off the back terrace. The gravel on the path crunched under his feet; it was a sound he found somehow reassuring. Then something made him look over at the thick bushes bordering the path that led to the jetty. He went over. Curious, he slipped through them and found himself in dense foliage. Accustoming his eyes to the dark, he noticed a track of beaten earth running through the bushes like a trail. He didn’t want to traipse along it before forensics had done their examination, but it looked like it went all the way to the jetty. He glanced back at the terrace where Dalton now stood looking around for him. But the bushes were too thick for him to be seen. So, Sangster thought, just about anybody could have made their way down to the jetty on this track last night and murdered Ellen Chambers.
He stepped out of the bushes and walked over to Dalton. He knew this case wasn’t going to be easy, especially with the heat he’d get from Canberra and the media. But he’d have to distance himself from all that, and start in the same place as any other murder investigation. He needed to find out everything he could about Ellen Chambers. In particular why Canberra had a red flag file on her. That was his first priority. Then he would talk to her sister Susan Chambers; and to her work colleagues in Western Energy.
But first, he’d find that Danny Burton.
6
He hated sunlight. It made him feel exposed, as if his true personality was stripped away the moment the sun appeared. Even when young, he used to wait until everyone on the farm was asleep at night, then he would creep out onto the porch and sleep in the cool air, under the stars. That’s where he could breathe. And it was the only time he knew any peace.
Squinting in the sharp morning sunlight, he looked over at the house. Set in an exclusive Brisbane suburb and hidden behind a high wall and impressive steel gates, everything about it screamed old money. It was just the kind of place he expected that bastard to live in.
All he could see above the wall were two dormer attic windows jutting out of the sloping roof like sentinels. He picked his binoculars up from the passenger seat and trained them on both windows. But there was no twitching curtain or movement inside.
He looked up and down the street. No one about. Not that he expected to see anyone; rich people didn’t walk anywhere. Reversing his jeep to the edge of the property, he cast a professional eye along the southern perimeter wall. Despite the obvious security, he knew there had to be an easy way in. There always was. Then he spotted it. At the back of the garden, the wall petered out into a high hedge. He pulled the peak of his cap down over his eyes and drew his knife from its sheath. He got out of the jeep, unconcerned about any CCTV cameras guarding this posh mansion. The jeep would soon be ditched; and no one would ever know he’d been there. He was truly invisible.
He could feel the blood pumping hard through his veins again, making him feel powerful. Killing was easy if you have the right tools and the expertise.
And he was just so ready.
Looking both ways along the street again, he slipped along the side wall until he reached the hedge. He chopped some branches away with his knife and pushed them under the hedge so no-one would see them from the road. Stepping through the small hole into the tropical foliage of the garden, his face hardened when he saw the manicured lawn, the tennis court and swimming pool. That greedy bastard definitely has it coming!
A distant crunch of leaves sounded…
He froz
e. Sensing it even before he heard heavy panting, he tightened his grip on the knife. A black dog lolloped out of the bushes to block his way. He could tell by its black hair it was a cattle dog, and by its rheumy eyes that it was almost blind. As it stood awkward and stiff on arthritic legs, anger rose deep inside him. This old working dog should be roaming free on a farm somewhere, not locked up in a suburban garden. But indignation soon gave way to resignation when a growl rumbled deep in the animal’s throat as it curled back its lip. Cattle dogs were well known for being protective of their owners; and there was no way he could allow that.
With lightning speed, he lunged forward, gripped the dog’s snout and plunged the knife expertly into its heart. The animal was gone before it even knew what had happened.
Closing his eyes, he felt the joy of the kill well up inside him. He stood shuddering. It had been so long…
A voice? He dropped to the ground. Someone was singing… inside the house. A woman. Respectfully, he laid the old dog behind a bush and covered it with leaves. At least it was out of its misery now.
He made his way towards the house, ducking behind trees and bushes for cover as he went. The singing became louder and louder. He crept up the back steps and along the veranda towards the voice. Reaching an open window, he peered through the slats of the wooden plantation blinds.
Naked, she stood at the kitchen sink with her back to him. Droplets of water trickled down her sun-burnished back from her dip in the pool. His eyes moved hungrily over her body, from the curve of her neck, down to her firm, bronzed buttocks. Mesmerised, he watched her gather her tumbling hair together with both hands, and lean over the sink to squeeze out water. His throat tightened, as the heat spread inside…
“Put some clothes on, Belinda!”
Startled by the voice, he ducked down under the window.
“Sorry, Dad,” he heard her say. “Thought you’d gone to work.”
“Well I haven’t.” There was a pause. “Get dressed and I’ll drop you at Uni.”
“No worries, Dad. I’m studying at home today.”
His eyes gleamed at the sweet sound of her voice.
A sudden clanging noise rang out. The electronic gates! Staying low, he moved to the front of the house and peered round the wall. He ducked back as a black limousine drove in and tooted its horn. He heard the front door open and close, a car door slam and tyres move off on gravel. Peering round the wall again, he was just in time to see the limousine sweep out of the front gates with that bastard in the back.
Shit! His face twisted as he turned to run back to his jeep to go after him. Then he stopped. He could still feel the intoxicating power of the kill coursing through him, like an awakening.
His hand tightened on the knife as he looked back at the house and thought about the curves of her luscious body.
7
“Are you saying she was murdered while under police surveillance?” Sangster stood in the hotel car park, his mobile pressed to his ear.
“Technical surveillance, Tom,” the Deputy Commissioner replied. “Canberra were monitoring her phone calls and emails. She wasn’t being physically watched or followed.”
“Still…”
“Yeah.” The DC’s controlled voice had risen a notch, a sure sign he was stressed. “Two Federal Agents are on their way from Canberra to brief us on the background. They don’t want to talk on the phone. Too sensitive.”
Sangster caught the sarcasm. The DC was in charge of the murder investigation because it had been committed within the State of Queensland’s jurisdiction. And with the Queensland Police Commissioner out of the country on a goodwill visit to Indonesia, the DC didn’t want Canberra overshadowing in his moment in the spotlight. But Sangster didn’t care about protocol, or about putting anyone’s nose out of joint, he knew they’d have to work with the Federal Police since they were already investigating the victim. “Sir, I really need to know why Canberra had Ellen Chambers under surveillance.”
There was a pause. “Corruption allegations.”
“Corruption? What, connected to that big LNG deal with the Chinese?”
“Yes. We’ll have to wait for those Agents to arrive to get the full story.”
Wait for them to arrive? Sangster couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He needed to know now. “If they’ve been monitoring her communications,” he said, sharply, “they can give us a read-out of her phone calls and emails since we haven’t found a mobile or laptop in her hotel room.”
“You can always ask.”
Sangster nodded to himself. “What time are they arriving?”
“Around four o’clock.”
“Can’t they get here any sooner?”
“Apparently not.”
“Right, well I’m going to stay out here for a while.” Sangster was in no hurry to get back to Police HQ. He wanted to stay close to the crime scene. “There’s a lot to cover. But I’ll be back in time for that briefing.”
“Make sure you are, Tom.” And the DC hung up.
Sangster pocketed his mobile. Grabbing the spiral rings of his sketchpad, he pulled it out and flicked to his drawing of Ellen Chambers. Corruption, eh? It was as good a motive for murder as any, he thought, except this killing hadn’t looked planned, or in any way professional. If anything, the frenzied attack seemed more opportunistic, an act of madness even. Rage and panic blew up quickly, but they were over with quickly too.
Was this over, he wondered?
The toot of a horn made him turn. He looked at his watch as a taxi pulled in the drive: 10.30am – hotel checkout time.
His team had interviewed all the departing guests and taken their contact details. Now he was scanning their faces as they climbed into the vehicles. Faces had always fascinated him. The guests all looked anxious to get away, particularly the lady with the platinum hair. She’d told him earlier she was here with her daughter and two grandchildren for a break. Now, she couldn’t leave fast enough. But the tender smile she gave her grandchildren as she helped them into a taxi struck a chord.
His mother used to smile at him like that. From the age of five, when he first started to draw people, he always gave his mother a smiley face. To his child’s eye, she was always happy. How wrong he’d been. Back then, it had never occurred to him to draw his father, because he was never at home. He was always away working, or that’s what his parents had told him. It was years later, and only after he’d joined the police, that he found out the truth.
His father had another family.
It happened by chance one evening, when he drove a woman home who’d been mugged in the street. When he pulled up outside her house, she jumped out of his patrol car and ran weeping into the arms of a man on the doorstep.
His Dad!
Instinctively, he’d leant his elbow against the driver’s window and hid his face with his hand. Stomach turning, he sat watching their tender embrace through his open fingers. He was torn between marching up to the front door and having it out with his father, or just driving away. In the end, he drove away. But he couldn’t let it lie; he had to find out the truth. So he went back the next day and talked to the woman’s neighbours, then to employees of the bank they told him she worked for. That’s when he discovered his dad had been in a relationship with the woman for over 20 years. He couldn’t believe it. How could he not have known? Impossible, yet true. It played on his mind for weeks and months after. He wanted to confront his father, but he could never quite bring himself to do it. Then, as time slipped by, the moment never seemed right.
Months later, he tried to broach the subject with his mother, wondering if she knew and would talk about it. He led in with little clues, but she never took the bait. And he certainly didn’t want to be the one to tell her, if she didn’t know. Eventually, he decided to leave well alone. Their marriage was their own affair.
But a week before she died, his mother told him about his father’s other family, breaking the news he had a step-sister. Sangster had wanted to ask so ma
ny questions, but her face just seemed to close down, as though she was either numb or she didn’t care. Maybe she didn’t care? Or maybe she’d learnt to shut down her emotions to cope with the hurt?
When clearing out the family house after she died, he’d found his early drawings of her in a box on top of her wardrobe. Now that box sat on a shelf in his study. He often looked at those drawings. That’s the way he liked to remember his mother, as happy and smiling. But to him, his parents’ union was nothing but a passionless deception that had put him off marriage for life. And that’s exactly what he’d told Liz on the one occasion she mentioned marriage. Liz didn’t say anything at the time. But she must have been thinking about it because after dinner, when they were washing up, she suddenly said: “If you love someone enough, Tom, you don’t think twice about marrying them.” Now, those words were swirling around in his head. Is that why she left? Did she think he didn’t love her because he didn’t want to get married? Was that it? Of course he loved her. She knew he loved her. Didn’t she?
He ran his fingers through his hair. He knew he wasn’t a good communicator. Perhaps it was because he’d grown up as an only child. He liked his own company; it was easier somehow. And he’d always found people a bit of a mystery, even back then. He would study their faces, then draw them. It was his way of trying to work them out, investigate them even. Now, he could read faces like an expert, which he found useful in his job. Any tilt of the head, or twitch of a cheek or lip, or even a long stare, would tell him everything. He could capture the essence of someone’s character in a single drawing.
Pursuing that talent, he’d qualified in contemporary fine art and design and began work, taking commissions for illustrations. Then he progressed on to portraits, his true calling. But that work alone wouldn’t pay the bills. Forced to cast around, he got some work as a court artist, which sparked his interest in the law and policing. Later, at a school reunion, he met a mate who was so enthusiastic about his career in the police, Sangster thought he’d give it a go too. And, while it hadn’t been his first career choice, it had become his vocation. Now, 20 years on, he was surprised at how well he’d done. He wasn’t motivated by a desire to get to the top, although he’d take that in his stride when it came his way. To him, every crime was an all-consuming puzzle that burned in his brain like a fever; and he couldn’t rest or relax until he’d solved it.