'Are you okay?'
She looked up into his face and quickly down again. She felt short and frumpy next to her colleague; his hair was slightly greying, but his face nevertheless shone with health, tanned from weekly triathlon training in the sun.
Mercy now wondered what it was she'd previously found so irresistible about him. When he'd first asked her out some years ago she'd been ecstatic, certain they were destined to be together. But after two of the best evenings out that she could remember, they'd booked a harbourfront room at the Hyatt Hotel in Sydney. Mercy had been lighter then, her curves dangerous. She'd spent the day before the rendezvous in the city, having a massage and splurging three hundred dollars on black La Perla underwear. Squeezing her scented body into the teddy in the change room, she knew she looked hot.
Dinner in the suite had been exquisite. The harbour was magical; they'd shared a bottle of French champagne. Perfect. Everything. And then he couldn't. Nothing. Not even the hope of an erection. Mercy lied and told him it had happened to lots of guys she'd been with.
Maybe her feelings for him wouldn't have changed had he not become so strangely silent. He would not speak; his body seemed to almost vibrate with rage. While offering more reassurance to his closed, expressionless form, she had a sudden image of him striking her and she recoiled.
The affair had died then and there.
Atypically, Mercy had managed to remain cordial with a former lover, and they'd continued and then developed their professional relationship without ever again mentioning the Hyatt.
'Yeah, I'm fine, Noah.' She pulled her jacket over her open waistband and tried to keep her voice neutral. 'I just don't want to spend my whole life at work, that's all. I'll see you tomorrow.'
'Remember that we have an individual session in the afternoon.'
How could she forget? She avoided eye contact and left the room. She went to the hospital's nearest exit and lit a cigarette as soon as she hit the outside air. It was critical that she keep people out of her head, especially him.
19
Jill was unable to arrange a visit to Bobby Anglia until the next afternoon.
Great, she thought, driving to the correctional facility, he's in the MSPC. The Malabar Special Programs Centre of Long Bay Gaol catered for inmates with problems so severe that they were considered unsafe to themselves or others in the main gaol. A maximum-security facility, the MSPC was broken up into five sections, including a sex-offenders unit, a psych hospital and a unit for inmates considered acutely suicidal or at high risk of self-harm. Inside the walls of the MSPC was also a unit for those offenders requiring twenty-four hour monitoring – the Acute Crisis Management Unit (ACMU) – the most secure unit of its type in New South Wales Corrections. She'd been out there before, and wasn't looking forward to the revisit.
Jill sighed. Of course Anglia had to be in ACMU.
She had spent the morning on case notes and Department meetings. Scotty had a compulsory training session all day today, and she'd decided to make the trip to visit Anglia without him.
She'd had a swim at Clovelly at lunchtime; she was still feeling delicate, and a sheltered section of Clovelly beach ensured she could swim without being buffeted by waves. Problem was, she'd come straight from the beach without thinking to change her clothing for her trip to the gaol. Her first female supervisor had taught her never to wear anything the inmates could see through, down or up. She pulled the neckline of her T-shirt higher as she steered her work Commodore towards Malabar.
Jill turned the car stereo down as she drove up to the first security gates of Long Bay Gaol. She needn't have bothered – the prison officers saw her badge from their office, waved, and raised the gates. It was an unseasonable 38 degrees in the city today, and the guards would leave their glassed-in office as infrequently as possible. She drove past the main car park and up to the top section of the compound, parking in the area closest to the MSPC.
The MSPC was a gaol within a gaol; a walled compound located deep inside the already secure outer prison. Jill approached the entrance – a towering wall of stone inset with a blank-faced iron door big enough to admit a semi-trailer. A metal intercom box greeted visitors. She buzzed the guards, gave her details, and leaned against the wall to wait. She forced herself to slow everything down, adjusted her need to keep moving and get things done. Nothing in gaol was rushed – it was like combat duty: hurry up and wait. Fortunately, her impatience was tempered today by the after-effects of last night's painkillers. Her tongue was stuck to the roof of her mouth and it felt like cotton wool blocked her dull headache.
She picked at the skin around her nails, thinking about dinner at her mum's this weekend, pretending her ribs weren't killing her and that she didn't wish she was at home in bed. The sound of footsteps on the gravel path caused her to look up.
'Hello.' A grey, tired-looking woman smiled at her. 'Bit slow on the gates this afternoon, are they?'
'So what's new?' Jill smiled back. 'I've buzzed them. Shouldn't be long.'
'I've brought you luck,' the woman said as the gates were opened by a male guard in mirrored glasses. He glanced at Jill, nodded at her companion.
Jill followed the woman around to a small alcove on the right. She signed her name in the visitors' book, checked in her firearm and jotted down that she was visiting Bobby Anglia in the Acute Crisis Management Unit.
'I'm on my way there too,' the woman said, looking over Jill's shoulder. 'Claire Walker, visiting chaplain.' She held her hand out.
Jill adjusted her shoulder bag and put her pen down. She shook Claire's hand. 'Jill Jackson. I'm a detective over at Maroubra. Got an interview with an inmate.'
'Yes I saw, Robert Anglia. A very troubled soul.'
Jill looked down rather than respond, and pinned her temporary visitor's badge to her T-shirt.
Claire clipped on her chaplain's badge. They walked over to another set of gates and waited again. By then, another couple of people were also waiting to walk across the yard that led to yet another set of gates. A guard accompanied them all across the hot concrete courtyard and let them into the next area. Jill and Claire walked straight ahead, as the others veered left.
Claire used her own set of keys to open still another gate that led into the small compound that was the ACMU. Jill walked in behind her. Claire had a smile and a word for the two men in prison greens sweeping the path near the gate. Jill kept her face impassive as they surreptitiously checked her out. Blah. She already felt she needed a bath. They walked up the path to the officers' room and into its cool interior.
Ordinarily when cops had to interview a prisoner, the inmate would be brought over to an interview room in another section of the gaol. Jill knew the senior officer at ACMU, however, and he'd told her just to come over to the unit. The gaol was often short-staffed, and Jill knew having even one officer off the unit to transport an inmate could mean the entire unit had to be locked down. Jill had been there during lockdown several times. The inmates were sent to their single cells, each monitored on CCTV. Their every move was on camera. The first thing that one noted in the small strongbox that was the officers' quarters was the bank of CCTV screens on the left when you walked in. The second thing you saw was the riot gear lining the walls. Jill knew there was another locker full of the vests, helmets, restraints and stun guns just outside the unit.
There wasn't much for the inmates to do in their rooms during lockdown. Since her first visit, when she'd caught a man masturbating for the camera, Jill tried not to look at the screens.
Claire greeted the two taciturn guards on duty and Jill introduced herself; she hadn't met these officers before.
'Anglia's in the yard.' The female officer nodded at the bank of video screens on the wall. 'Closest to the wall there. You ready to go now? Boss said to use his office.'
'Yeah. Thanks.' Jill followed the heavy-set woman from the room, giving Claire a nod on the way out.
ACMU housed a maximum of fourteen inmates. As usual, the unit was full, and the major
ity of its occupants were out in the small, dusty courtyard of the compound. Four men kicked a tennis ball against a wall, while others watched the game from the partial shade of a covered walkway. Two or three men talked to themselves, making listless hand gestures to the air. Although obviously heavily medicated, their hallucinations were evidently breaking though. This unit wasn't designed to house the mentally ill, but with the majority of the gaol's population suffering some form of mental illness, all units had to share. These men would be especially vulnerable, unable to survive in the main gaol.
'Did ya hear Finker's in here?'
The officer spoke without looking at Jill, nodding towards a heavily bearded man sitting alone near one of the guards.
Jill thought a moment before the name registered.
'You're kidding,' she said, unable to keep the disgust from her voice and face as she stared at the man.
Larry Finker was one of the state's most hated. When his wife had left him, he'd kidnapped their two children; a boy aged four, and a girl, six. He'd strangled his son the first day, but kept the little girl alive for 24 hours, raping her repeatedly before strangling her as well. Jill had heard he was trying for forensic status, appealing to the court on the grounds that he was mentally ill in an effort to keep himself out of gaol. Although there was no evidence that he was insane, it looked like his attempt would be successful – he'd be murdered within a week if not afforded protection.
'He's been here since Monday. We fought to keep him out for three weeks, but in the end we had to take him.' The officer's voice was flat.
'Looks like someone's got to him already,' said Jill, noticing the man's left eye was blackened.
'Yeah. We broke up the fight as soon as we could,' the officer said, sounding unconvincing. 'What're you gonna do?'
Jill laughed, and the officer half-smiled for the first time.
'I'll unlock the office for you and bring Anglia over,' she said.
'Thanks, Kellie,' Jill responded, reading the woman's name from her badge.
Kellie unlocked a door just inside the covered walkway, and began to walk back towards the yard. She stopped, and turned back to Jill.
'You know who that is, don't you?' Kellie pointed her chin at a relatively small, dark-skinned man pacing near the wall in the hot sun.
'Um…'
'That's Teddy, serial rapist. Attacked a female officer at Goulburn.'
'Nice place you got here, Kellie.'
The officer gave another small smile and left.
Jill put her shoulder bag on the desk in the tiny office, and stretched the kinks in her neck. She looked up at the camera staring down at her. Every room, every corner of this compound was monitored by a camera. While this should have been reassuring, Jill couldn't shift the heavy blanket of dread that settled over her shoulders every time she visited this place.
Sensing movement, Jill looked up to see Kellie approaching the doorway. A pair of thin legs in green shorts was visible behind her.
'Robert Anglia,' announced the officer, stepping aside. 'Buzz when you're done.' She pointed to a button at the door.
'Thanks, boss,' Anglia said, as Jill motioned the small, thin man to the only other seat in the room. She sat in the seat nearest the door. First rule in these places. The windowless room was painted the same dirty green as the inmates' uniforms. A bench secured to one concrete wall served as a desk. The phone and PC were both outdated and box-like. Only the omnipresent security camera in the corner seemed to have been made this century.
'My name is Sergeant Jackson,' said Jill, taking control of the interview. 'I'm investigating the death of a couple of mates of yours – David Carter and George Manzi or Marks.' She held her pen ready and looked at him expectantly.
Jill already knew that Anglia knew Rocla. She wanted to know whether he also knew Carter and Manzi. The small man shifted in his seat.
'It's not like they were mates of mine. I hardly knew them,' Anglia said, scratching unconsciously at a bandage taped across his forehead.
'Really. That's not what we heard.' She decided to change tack for a little while. She was already ahead with his easy admission that he knew the other dead men. 'So how did you end up in this unit anyway?' she asked.
Anglia looked down at his shoes. Gave her nothing.
'Not hard to find out, is it, Bobby?' Jill said turning slightly in her chair, typing purposefully on the keyboard of the ageing computer. It was a bluff – she didn't have access at the moment to the prison's record system, although she could get it if she needed to.
'Who gives a fuck who knows?' Anglia muttered. 'Took a header off the shithouse.' He kept his face angled at the floor.
'Whoah!' Jill gave a disparaging laugh. 'And that's all you got, that cut on your head? Doesn't look too bad to me.'
Self-harm and suicide attempts were one way to get into this unit. Spearing oneself headfirst into the concrete floor from a height, like a bed, or in this case the toilet, could cause serious head injuries or death. Given the small bandage on his forehead, it looked like Anglia was more interested in getting out of the main gaol than out of life altogether. 'What do you fuckin' know?' Anglia was sullen now. 'Sounds like you needed to get out of the main pretty bad.' Anglia said nothing; his eyes darted towards the door.
'Come on, Bobby. You can tell me. Who's after you? You're an endangered species, you lot.' She gave a short laugh. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
'Yeah you do. Someone's killing off members of the club. We've heard you're next.'
'What? I'm not even in their fuckin' club.' Anglia was on his feet. 'Sit. Down.' Jill stood too. Anglia sat quickly. So there was a club.
'Look, whether I like it or not, Bobby, I'm getting paid to stop the next death, so it's in your interests to tell me more about the club. You can't expect me to catch whoever's taking you guys out if I don't know where to look.' Jill had her pen poised. 'Let's start with the members you know.' 'I don't know what you're fucking talking about.' Anglia's eyes were back on the ground. 'I got nothing to say about no club. I don't even know of any club.'
Jill closed her notebook; put the lid on her pen. 'You know, Bobby, you should be a little more polite, swear a little less. I am a cop, and I can make a note in your file about your attitude. If you're in here for protection, doesn't your attitude have to maintain a certain standard?'
He raised his eyes, all compliance now. 'No problems here, boss. Sorry, boss.'
''Cause I can call Kellie back now if you really want to go. Tell the other guards you didn't feel up to cooperating today.'
'Nah, it's all sweet. I'm cooperating, boss. What did you want to know?' Anglia's feet had started to tap under his chair.
'Well, if you're sure now.' Jill paused a little, as if she was considering whether to go on or not. Finally, she took her notepad out again, tapped her pen on the paper. 'I just want to talk a little more about your friends. How long did you know Dennis Rocla?'
'He used to go out with my sister. I'd sorta see him around at times, you know. Then when he split up with his missus he stayed at the same pub I was staying at for a while.'
'Which pub was that?' 'Great Southern.' Jill wrote it down. 'And then you moved in together, is that right?'
'Yeah.'
'What was that address?' She copied his answer into her notes. 'And how did you know George Manzi?'
'I didn't really know him. He was a mate of Dennis's. Him and that Carter came over once.'
'And when was that?'
'I don't know, a year ago? Something like that. I don't remember stuff too good. I got assaulted by police a few years ago, and since then I can't remembershit.'
'How did they know each other?'
'How the fuck would I know?' Suddenly Anglia's little attitude was back.
'You're going to watch your mouth, Anglia, or I'm gonna walk out of here right now and make a note in your file.'
Jill knew the officers on this unit tolerated no insubordination and came down very har
d on anyone who tried it on. There had been several investigations into excessive use of force. Anglia had to know that too.
'Let's talk about the club.'
Anglia squirmed. 'Honestly, I don't know about any club.'
'But you know they were all into kids, don't you? You had to know that. What are you in for this time, Bobby?' Jill read from her notes. 'Says right here, "indecent sexual assault of a child under ten".'
'It was all bullshit.'
'Now, Bobby, come on. You pleaded guilty to this one.'
'I had to. They reckon I could've got ten years if I didn't. My ex-wife made it all up to get custody of my kids. All the dykes at DoCS stick together. Fathers have no rights. You don't see me in no sex offenders' unit do you?'
'Well you first have to admit that you're a sick fuck to get in there, don't you? So how did you get to know about the club?'
'I told you I don't know about no club.' 'No, you said you weren't in the club.' 'Whatever.' 'Well, tell me how long you've known Jamaal Mahmoud.'
Pause. 'Never heard of him.' Eyes up and to the left. Lying. Jill's first supervisor had taught her about visual accessing cues. When thinking about an answer, if someone rolls their eyes to the right, they're searching for a fact, accessing information they remember. When they move their eyes up and to the left, they're using their creativity, imagining an answer. Lying.
'Uh-huh, sure you have, Bobby. You know Mahmoud. Hired ape for Alejandro Sebastian?'
'Look, I don't know these people.' Anglia's eyes were a little wild now. 'Can I go? I'm gonna miss afternoon smoko.'
Scared. Jill figured he had shut down and she'd get little more from him.
'Yeah. Right. Go.' She stood and walked with him to the corridor outside. 'Stay safe, Bobby,' she said as he stood waiting at the gate for a guard to come and let him back into the yard. He didn't look at her.
Jill turned around and walked back into the office. She sat down and made a couple of quick notes. She stretched her neck again, kneading at the bunched muscles in her shoulders. Everything hurt. And this place did not help. The walls were oppressive, the air replete with pain rather than oxygen. The pain medication made everything feel muffled, the air stale.
Vodka doesn't freeze jj-1 Page 10