Maria is dead. Gone, on the dark side of the moon.
26
…institutional corruption…
Not long after dawn, Detective Constable Philippoussis drove through my gate in a sporty convertible. I poured about half a packet of Italian espresso into the plunger and put on the kettle, thinking how fortunate it was that Chandra did not stay overnight. That would have placed me in the difficult role of double agent. Here I was playing footsy with the Crank's 'strong belief in intelligence-based policing' which relies on informers, spies and moles. Cops turning up at my house when they know I'll be home, like in bed, in their personal vehicles, for a chat over breakfast coffee would not have impressed Chandra one little bit.
He had with him a laptop computer, and the ease with which he balanced it on his knee and accessed files and cruised cyberspace made me doubt any other cop in the region had as a good a facility with it as he. I wondered what kind of advantage it actually gave him. On screen he showed me the results of the analysis of the kettle's contents. What I guessed turned out true: poisoned water; remains of cane toad; unfortunately boiled, occasioning death. A rudimentary forensic test of Maria's stomach contents proved a match. Accidental death. Police surgeon and her regular doctor agreed: no suspicious circumstances. General condition of the immune system pretty low. High cholesterol; a heart attack waiting to happen. They weren't interested in taking it further.
'That was fast,' I said.
'Expedient,' he replied, plainly trading swift shifty work for whatever I was going to get him on the boys. He knew exactly what he was doing, and quoted a statistic, 'In this tolerant country homosexual men and women are about four times more likely to be assaulted and about as twice as likely to be murdered as Australians in general.'
'But not in this case,' I affirmed our understanding.
'No.' He looked at me, letting me know he knew I was a lesbian, out and in his face. 'I could, of course, add this file to the others I have. See if there are any parallels.'
He zoomed in on a page labelled Chemist's Report, obliterating the identifying details at the top. His fingers slid on the touch pad. The words 'unknown drug' came up in a different colour. Philippoussis scratched his dark stubble with a long forefinger. I glanced away frowning, my eye catching the Nadir Mining Services cap, sitting in a box near the phone. When my attention returned, another chemical report, again the words 'drug unknown' underlined: Neil Waughan.
'And a third,' Phil said, as he indicated Hugh Gilmore's chart.
'Same unknown drug?' I asked. 'All three were around Spiders' barbecue night.'
'Amphetamines, pain-killers, flu tablets. Looks like a mix to me,' the police detective deduced. 'Heroin, only in Gilmore's. My hunch is some new pill. But this, of course, is a superficial, not to say cheap, analysis. Small traces of strychnine.'
'Rat poison?' I exclaimed, and asked, 'In all three?'
'Not that much. And most in the big woman. LSD has strychnic effects. Hallucination, stiff jaw.'
'Ecstasy was there,' I dobbed Tiger Cat in, without proof, on the strength of personal animosity and hearsay. He tapped out the relevant details as I spoke.
'Well, with those party pills, only some of the constituents would stay in the blood. Insulin, for instance, would be used by the body. They're a combination, anyway, analysis would only isolate partial contents.'
'Was Neil diabetic?' I asked, wondering whether he had managed to get hold of the general practitioner.
'Dr Neville is on leave, overseas. But no, not according to his mother.' The Detective Constable shut down his machine, and pulled the extension out of my telecom jack. 'All that,' he said, 'was off the record. My boss is freezing me on the question of the boys.'
'Why?' Whatever my dubious moral position in relation to the abstract concerns of hypocrisy and practising what you believe, which I was sure mattered deeply to the woman I wanted to love, I was going to do a good job for Penny Waughan. And helping Philippoussis was invaluable. Especially, as there was a rift in CID.
Phil shrugged 'Commander Crankshaw is a great hero in the war against drugs!'
'Exactly my point.'
'His background in narcotics means he is all about drugs in this area. Like any war it has frontline troops who are no more than cannon fodder, in this case, the users. By their very using they are suffering a self-fulfilling punishment. He needs to go for the big guns. Governments turn their expensive cannon on the addicts. As well as being pointless, it's cruel, mean and greedy.' Phillip sighed as he clipped his electronic notebook into a passable brief-case.
'Mean and greedy individuals through all strata of society stick together like shit in a blanket,' I agreed, wondering where the pharmaceutical reports we had just read had been, actually. The virtual world has the substantiality of holograms, a shimmering consistency. I would be happier reading the lab results on solid paper and checking the authenticity of the signature. And, if necessary, checking out his qualifications.
The little brown jar of nux vomica rested in the cave of the grimy cap. The Neil Waughan folder and my spiral notebook were beneath them. All tossed in the carton in the lounge waiting to be dealt with properly.
'Where's the long-wheelbase LandCruiser with its bold red, white and blue statement of police presence?' I asked to bring attention to the clandestine nature of this meeting.
'Let's go the toilet block,' Phil suggested. That was a good idea.
'Give me twenty minutes,' I begged as I needed to brush my teeth and put some decent clothes on.
A surfers' panel van and a fisher-person's vehicle were under the shade of banksias on the picnic area side. My man's MGB Roadster was very well-kept, light blue with white upholstery, 1969. Obviously garaged, it was pretty special. No doubt he loved it. I parked beside the sports car. Then I hesitated, leaning my elbows on the steering wheel, trying to assess the situation: what was he up to? The botched investigation into the Leigh Leigh murder was in everybody's mind lately due to media coverage. Officers in that instance were even accused of sexual harassment of witnesses. Could Philippoussis suspect similar slack standards in this division? He came jogging up the slatted path, adidas socks and head-band, and, as I had on the fateful evening, he stretched his hammies on the limed pine foot-high fence. He splashed water on his face and thirstily slurped a palmful of water from the tank. Was he recreating my aspect on events? If so, how was I going to respond? When in doubt, Margot, I told myself, tell the truth. I had already decided to give up the solid evidence, hence lose a bit of credibility so far as my own honesty went. But the devilish influence of the mining cap wasn't infusing my file with fiery inspiration. In fact, it was spreading a dank pall over my papers, depressing my intuition. So, with bravado I gambled on the whole kit and caboodle of revelation, because I was working for Penny Waughan, didn't want to cut off my nose to spite my face and, fair's fair, I expected the same from him. The homoeopathic remedy still on the seat, I got out of my car, carrying the offensive headgear, and apologised, 'I didn't give this to you because, mate, I am guilty of lack of trust.'
'Okay,' he sighed, still breathing gustily from his exertions. 'Where was it?'
We reinvented the scene. I put the cap in the L-shaped corner. He balanced a few SOC photos on the tap and along the walls. I told him my exact movements and he walked them through. We came outside, and I went into the detail of Judith Sloane passing me and getting into her four-wheel-drive.
'You know this woman?' He caught my tone and fired the question at me so quickly I nodded, 'Of her, not really. Can follow it up though.'
'What about the others?' I nodded again. We agreed on a few names, then he went back inside. The photos were a sad exhibition, both in matter and style; ill-lit, grainy, ugly. The block itself looked better in the morning, lively with proximate bird sounds and crisp sunlight. He picked up a photo and knocked his forefinger on a smudgy impression near the foot of the body. Then he kicked around the sandy floor.
'A footprint?' I as
ked.
'That's what I think,' he said. 'You said you didn't go near the corpse?'
'That's right.'
'Well someone did.'
I studied the photo more closely. Something had made Philippoussis sure this foot had been placed in the frame after the boy died. Slight indication, but, like those three-D puzzle pictures, it popped only when you saw it.
'Was there anything else shown up by the scene-of-crime chaps? I assume they were male. Any objects, you know?' I rubbed my smooth chin. I seemed to remember a hankie or something in the young transvestite's hand, and now that I was thinking as an investigator, that was pretty strange. I examined a relevant snapshot. Cloth was clasped in a fist. Death, thus, some sort of spasm.
'Yes,' he said. 'The deceased was on top of a used syringe. But,' he continued, 'prints suggest that this was not handled by the victim.'
Slowly it was coming together for me. I speculated, 'Whoever was wearing the cap was near Neil before, possibly, after he died?'
'Well, I didn't know about the hat, did I?' he said peevishly.
'Have you measured the size of the footprint? It looks bare to me. Not large.' The grainy shot had stopped popping for me. 'The boy had shoes on.'
'Yeah,' said the detective, 'a kid's or a woman's.'
'Have you talked to the family? The ones cooking onions?' I reminded him of my story.
'Yep, no joy.' The tall man suddenly grinned down at me, 'You are not going to believe this.'
'What?' I was intrigued.
'The family,' he said slowly, 'was that of a colleague of mine.'
'A cop?'
'And some.'
'You're pulling my leg.' I played up the incredulity.
'They weren't on duty. Some fishing. Then a barbecue with the mates, wives and juniors.' He laughed. 'Hadn't got a clue what was happening until the following day. And,' he was sharply serious, 'I wasn't informed until some time later than that!'
When we were about to go, standing at the door of the conveniences, he thanked me for my co-operation. I, however, wanted to know why he turned up at this hour, what was he doing in shorts et cetera driving his own car. 'Are you working or not?'
'I have a squash date,' he glanced at his watch. 'At eight. As for the rest. Put it down to mischief. I may be new to the area but I'm not going to play in any cover-up games. This death is crying out for an inquest. I am going by the book.'
'What about the cloth? What was it?' Instead of watching his eyes as I asked this I registered the progress of the surfer, an older bloke than you would expect. Beyond him was the path I took. I frowned. 'A handkerchief?'
'That's just it,' Pip hinted sibilantly. If he weren't so fresh and keen, it would have been a bitter spit. 'Evidence has unaccountably gone missing.'
'Incompetence or corruption?' I wondered.
The surfer strapped his board, a malibu, onto the roof-rack of his van, and, with a glance our way, got in and took off. People busy in their cars, part of the landscape like the flutter of wings of birds in the trees all around; what do they see? what do they know? what do they care? If they do see and care, what power do they have? Phillip was watching me watch the anachronism, no drifter I decided but a servant of the clock who had to get to work, and apparently thought I was staring towards the picnic area. 'Come on.' He strode across the gravel, intent on finishing a trail like a hound on a scent.
We walked along the weaving path, indulging in clipped conversation, incidentally observing where the fenced-off regenerating coastal bush had been disturbed, deducing together. We found a little cubby through the bitou bush and lantana at the end of the green corps' activity. A cleared piece of earth with the litter of used condoms, cigarette butts, lolly papers, methadone vials, a bed of brown bracken and tussocky grasses beneath a big, old banksia tree had all the hall-marks of a teenagers' hang-out. A T-shirt had been there a long time, a torn rag half dug into the sandy earth.
'Cosy,' said Philippoussis. We discovered a narrow track from that leading to the beach. There had been plenty of rain and wind since Neil died, but if this had been found and analysed closer to the time, foot-marks and activity would have been evident in the sand dunes. If the Spiders crowd were aware that the straight barbecuers were police in civvies those among them shooting up would have used the conveniences that serve the beach, not the ones in the picnic area. Had the investigating detectives searched the other toilets? We went along the scrub-line until we found another path, plainly the regular access to the sea from the park. It came out near the loos and covered barbecues where the meat was being cooked. Standing in the relatively clean, newer amenities, we looked across at the site of the Spiders' bonfire, now a pile of half-burnt, blackened logs.
'Someone in that crowd,' Philippoussis nodded in the direction of the empty space gays and lesbians had occupied, 'knew the families here were cops.'
Alison saying the word 'pigs' came to mind, along with the fact that Tiger Cat was big-noting herself giving out free party drugs.
'Or,' I added, 'someone in this crowd knew what was going on over there.'
'You're not wrong, Margot,' he nodded. 'So, it might be neither incompetence nor institutional corruption, but a deliberate attempt to keep me ignorant. I wondered why so little forensic evidence was available on my request.'
'Why would that be?' I asked as we walked back to our vehicles.
'I guess I'm a pain in the arse,' said the rugged individualist.
An angry, arrogant pain in the arse, a spoilt Greek boy, who learnt his righteousness at his mother's knee while women served him moussaka, no doubt. Not a team-player. Even though I was his senior in years, he treated me with the paternalistic attitude of a brother in a culturally sexist family setup, magnanimously. I bet his sisters couldn't afford such a car. He skidded out of the parking spot spewing a fan of gravel into the air. I was a mere bystander, a witness, not a fellow detective. I didn't envy his squash opponent; that black rubber ball smashing into your thigh or back would leave quite a bruise. But, I assured myself, I didn't want his friendship, just his help.
Dr Featherstone takes an internal call in her lab. The words Meghan's assistant hears her say are, 'Ah ha, I'll be ready in no time. Have you? Yippee. Send him down.'
Her overnight bag packed, the shipment of equipment organised, the specimens locked in a cupboard, official documentation on the terminal of the mainframe, which, although firewalled, is never one hundred per cent secure, there is one thing left to do. Transfer the secret analysis from one notebook to the Inspiron. In cyberspace nothing completely disappears. While she exclaims 'Ooh ah!' to the high resolution and seems naively impressed with the extra battery time, the techie points out its faults. 'You might find it a bit heavy to carry. Heat pipe's large and fan in the back, to cope with the heat of the power.'
She begins loading the mighty gigabyte capacity with stuff from her other computer and encodes it among the multi-component bays. Before she relinquishes the portable PC, she apparently accidentally crashes its hard drive. Apologising profusely for her clumsiness, she wipes it clean. The poor boy groans, but is confident he can retrieve it. Given time. He leaves her with the opinion, 'Some people get all the perks.'
'Pays to be part of the game,' she responds. When Meghan has been driven to the airport, she inserts the axial equations she had committed to memory. Without those particular experiment descriptions, salient information when recovered, as it surely will be, won't make sense. They will not be able to follow her thought patterns, certainly not through the progress of her logic, anyhow; even if they do have the bright idea of crossover checking with the desktop in the laboratory. What they will make of the nonsense of hanging conjectures and sublimely complicated hypotheses, she is not at all sure. All she knows is that cybercops, the CIA et al., mistake the unauthorised entries achieved by hackivists, who not after their own reward, merely want to show up systems' weaknesses, as having a criminal intent such as blackmail or some other form of exploitation. Microsoft's
Explorer has an inherent unreliability, easily open to serious abuse. The laziness of programmers left debug labels on their free software such as Hotmail, keys to the secret door of Windows lying around for anyone visiting the Cult of the Dead Cow website to download. If Black Orifice is loaded without user's knowledge, it can sneak in the back unseen and literally take over; can change files, delete data, relay information; can switch off your computer, lock you out and wipe your disks. Her misinformation can slop around in the wash and wake of all this activity in the pretty safe murk of governments' and corporations' paranoia that their interests are at risk and unassailable assumption that everybody thinks like them.
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