by Alex Palmer
‘I can think of no reason why you would have anything personal or confidential to discuss with me.’
‘I thought you’d like to know we’ve found my son and he’s alive.’
‘I’m very pleased to hear it on your behalf, but it has nothing to do with me.’
‘I think it does. I’ll get straight to the point. I think you should make some time to see me, Dr Calvo. Because how long do you think it’s going to take us to find du Plessis?’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about,’ she said.
‘Whatever you do, whatever strings you pull, whatever money you throw at it, we’re going to get to him sooner or later,’ Harrigan continued. ‘Do you want to know how many people are out there looking for him right now? He can’t leave the country. All the exits are blocked. Do you think he’s going to keep his mouth shut when we do get him? We can send him back to South Africa any time we want to. He’s looking at a lifetime in gaol over there. He’s probably got a lot of enemies waiting to get their hands on him back home. I don’t think they’ll be very gentle when they do get hold of him. Those are prospects that might make him very talkative.’
‘I don’t understand why you’re saying such things to me,’ she replied. ‘I asked you a number of days ago if you wanted us to undertake scientific research into your son’s physical condition. You said you needed time to make up your mind. I can see you in relation to that. That would make sense to me.’
‘Then let’s get together. I’m busy most of the day. I can see you later on this afternoon. You can come to me this time.’
‘We can compromise,’ she said, almost with sarcasm. ‘We have a city office in the Australia Square building. I’ll be here until this evening. You can find the address in the phone book. Come to the entrance to the car park. Someone will meet you.’
They hung up on each other almost simultaneously. Harrigan felt detached; it was a relief. Revenge was not part of the strategy he and Trevor had put together last night but it was still in his mind. He had never had so much desire to exact it as he did now.
When Harrigan drove into the police headquarters car park for his meeting, Chloe was waiting for him.
‘Does the commissioner want to see me?’ he asked.
‘No, no,’ she said. ‘I’ve got something for you.’
She handed him a cassette tape. He looked it over.
‘Sharon gave that to me yesterday evening. Apparently, the special assistant commissioner requested it go to the commissioner in the event of anything happening to him. It’s a recording of a recent phone conversation between the two of you.’
‘Did she listen to it?’ he asked.
‘She says no. I haven’t listened to it either. I’m not quite sure why the commissioner would need to be concerned with it. I thought you’d be the best person to decide whether he does or not.’
‘Thanks,’ Harrigan said.
‘You’re welcome. They’re waiting for you upstairs,’ she said, raising her carefully waxed eyebrows at him before walking away.
Harrigan locked the tape in his briefcase and made his way to the briefing room feeling like a liar and a thief. He accepted people’s congratulations for his son’s safety like the hypocrite he was, barely able to thank them in return. His people put his mood down to relief and exhaustion. They were generous; it galled him.
Officers from the federal police arrived. Two men and a woman, dressed in what seemed almost identical grey suits. They sat together at the back of the room. Their boss, Kevin Parkin, was a thin-faced man in his early fifties, his hair slicked forward to hide a bald spot. They carried nothing other than their notepads and, in the hand of the woman, an audio recording device. Supposedly they were part of a cooperative investigation, but even in his meeting with them last night, Harrigan had felt them drawing a fence around themselves.
The second guest was an inspector from the task force set up to investigate Marvin’s assassination. Meredith O’Connor arrived in what looked like full dress uniform, her hair and make-up immaculate. Approaching retirement, she’d been around for more than thirty years, a biography that suggested impressive survival skills. Experience had taught Harrigan she was a dogged worker and a rigid thinker.
Trevor did the introductions to a group of weary people in a room that smelt of takeaway food and coffee. Harrigan stood to the side, leaving it to his 2IC to run the show.
‘Meredith doesn’t have a great deal of time,’ Trevor said. ‘I’m going to ask her to quickly go through what we know about Marvin’s shooting and then let her go. But before we start, some news.’
There was a laptop computer on the table. Trevor hit a key and the first page of the dossier appeared on the screen behind him.
‘This hit the net at seven this morning. It’s Edwards’ copy of the dossier. He left instructions that if anything happened to him, this was to be posted on the net as soon as possible. His staff did just that and there’s no taking it back. Anyone can download it whenever they want to and I’m sure they already have. I’m waiting for the agency who owns it to come pounding on our door. At least Edwards was responsible: his staff blacked out any names that might identify any innocent parties.’
‘There wasn’t much information of that nature in there, Trev,’ Ralph called. ‘There were no agents’ names.’
‘He also had this put online,’ Trevor went on. ‘Most of you have read it already. It’s a digital copy of an affidavit he swore that says he was bribed to get Beck into the country. He accuses one person in particular, a very well-known entrepreneur. If we weren’t all so cynical to start with, the name might surprise us. Apparently there are already enraged denials out there in cyberspace. Lucky you can’t sue the dead. Now, Meredith. Can you tell us what you know about Marvin’s shooting?’
‘I’d like to ask the commander a question about Marvin Tooth first,’ Parkin called from the back of the room. ‘You’ve stated that he called you back to confess to you that he had been under duress to sabotage this investigation. He did this because he was shocked by the deaths caused by yesterday’s bombings and now wanted to help identify who was responsible. Is that correct?’
‘So he said,’ Harrigan replied.
‘That’s quite a confession given what had just happened. Implicating himself in the murders of a government minister and his adviser is no small thing.’
‘I don’t believe that was his motive at all, whatever he may have told the commander here.’ Meredith interrupted with her usual brusqueness. ‘My own judgement is that he realised his position was becoming untenable. He must have known it was only a matter of time and was seeking to justify himself.’
Thank you, Meredith, Harrigan thought. She had moved forward, taking over the laptop and projecting a map of the streets surrounding police headquarters onto the screen.
‘The initial findings are that the special assistant commissioner was shot by a high-powered rifle from vacant office space on the fourth floor of this building here, on the eastern side of the street that our building backs on to,’ she said. ‘We have no sightings of the killer and obviously no descriptions.’
‘How could they know their target was going to be there?’ Parkin asked.
‘They couldn’t. Our consensus is, this was an opportunistic shooting. That building has a public gymnasium on the top floor. Anyone in a tracksuit, either in the elevator or on the fire stairs, carrying a sports bag perhaps, would attract no attention at all. One of our team has argued, convincingly, I think, that the special assistant commissioner was possibly being cased for assassination. His controllers may have considered he was becoming a danger to them, as indeed he was. That building overlooks the entrance to our building’s garage where his entrance and exit could be watched. There’s also a line of coffee shops at street level that everyone here uses. But then, all of a sudden yesterday, the special assistant commissioner is out there on the street and he’s the perfect target. They took their chance when they could.’
‘Bye, bye, Fang,’ Ralph muttered.
‘I think this also solves the question of how vital evidence—a contract, I believe—was stolen from the evidence room,’ Meredith said. ‘It seems almost certain that the special assistant commissioner was responsible.’
‘Can you tell us anything about how they blackmailed him?’ Trevor asked.
‘We won’t be able to answer that question until we’ve finished searching his office and house. Those searches are happening now. If that’s all you need me for, I’ll leave it there in case some information does come through.’
‘That’s fine, Meredith. Thanks for being here.’
She left the room. There was a stir among those remaining. A sense of distaste and betrayal was written on people’s faces. Harrigan wondered what they would think of him if they knew that he’d handed over evidence in a way no different from Marvin. They’d see its uselessness; he could have said no to Toby’s kidnapper and still got his son back. Either way he would lose their respect.
‘Kevin,’ Trevor was saying. ‘What can you tell us about the minister’s death?’
Parkin got to his feet but didn’t walk to the front of the room, forcing those present to turn and look at him. ‘We know where the bomb was,’ he said. ‘In his adviser’s laptop. It was detonated when the adviser and Edwards were talking together at the front entrance. They were both killed instantly. The driver survived but he’s critical. As we all know, the blast also killed one of the guards at the door.’
‘When was the bomb planted?’ Harrigan asked.
‘We haven’t narrowed down any times as yet. According to Edwards’ PA, the senator’s adviser always took the laptop home with him. He rents a house in Summer Hill and he’s frequently out in the evenings. Our bomber would have had the fairly simple task of breaking into a not very secure house and doing a fairly straightforward job. In my opinion, the adviser was careless. He should have kept the laptop in more secure storage.’
‘In other words, Edwards could have been singled out for assassination some days ago?’
‘It’s possible.’
‘How was the bomb detonated?’
‘It was almost certainly a timing device triggered by a mobile telephone call. I would speculate that the bomber was watching Edwards and his adviser leave his electorate office, which is at Ashfield, for police headquarters. That way he could be sure they were travelling together. He would have followed them for some distance and then started the countdown. The bomb must have been intended to explode where it did. There was ample opportunity beforehand to detonate it almost anywhere else.’
‘Marvin didn’t want you to go down to that front door by yourself, boss,’ Trevor said. ‘He asked you to take me along as well.’
‘Could he have known?’ Parkin asked sharply.
‘Of course he fucking knew!’ Frankie retorted softly, looking away.
Again there was a stir of anger throughout the room. ‘Pity they didn’t shoot him earlier,’ Harrigan heard someone mutter. ‘Dog!’ someone else said. With a nod to Trevor, Harrigan moved forward to shut down the mood as quickly as possible.
‘Okay, let’s stand back from what we know,’ he said. ‘In my opinion, there’s no chance that having detonated a bomb at our front door, the bomber would wait around to watch what happened next. Whoever the bomber is, he didn’t kill Marvin. He wouldn’t have had the time. Also, Meredith’s scenario means that someone was already in position, spying out the land.’
‘What are you suggesting?’ Parkin asked. ‘Two dirty tricks men?’
‘Before I make any judgements on that, I want to hear what the task force has turned over in relation to what happened at Pittwater. Okay, thanks for that, Kevin. Trevor. Where are you taking us from here?’
‘Jacquie, you’re on,’ Trevor said. ‘Dazzle us.’
Parkin sat down. Jacquie, young, new to the squad and ambitious, was proving herself. She began by projecting a photograph of the murder scene onto the screen. The dead sat at the table, waiting for nothing. Harrigan glanced quickly at his federal counterparts. They were poker-faced.
‘We were asked to reconstruct the murder scene,’ Jacquie said. ‘Okay, so what’s the key to this picture? They’re at dinner. How did that meal get there? One of the neighbours told us that a van from Sweet Delights Catering at Mona Vale drove up to the gates at about 8.10 the night of the murders. No one got out so we have no descriptions. The gates are automatic. They were opened for the van, it drove in and then the gates were closed again. Our neighbour didn’t see the van leave, but a man walking his dog saw it on its way down the hill just after nine. So the killings took up to fifty minutes maximum.’
‘Could this man see into the van?’ Harrigan asked.
‘No. The windscreen was reflective. He could see his own face but not who was inside. He didn’t look at the number plate. We went to Sweet Delights. It turns out that someone claiming to be Natalie Edwards’ private secretary—she does have one—’
‘Was it a woman or man?’ Harrigan asked.
‘A woman.’
‘What did her voice sound like? Any accents, anything unusual?’
‘Nothing they noticed. She rang and cancelled the arrangements Natalie Edwards had made two hours before they were due to deliver the meal. They did what they always do when that happens: they put the charge through on her credit card. The van the neighbour saw arrived exactly when it was supposed to. She’d asked for an evening supper. Our murderers not only knew about Natalie Edwards’ arrangements; they impersonated the caterers to get into the house and went to some trouble to do it. But taking you back to this picture. What’s on the table? A meal. The killer, or killers, whichever, must have brought this food with them. Our murderers catered a meal they knew their victims were never going to eat. Why?’
‘Were they shot at the table?’ Harrigan asked.
‘I think it worked like this. The killer walks in, maybe Natalie Edwards meets him—’
‘Him.’ Harrigan interrupted again. ‘But the person who rang the caterers was a woman.’
‘And she could have been the killer, no mistaking that. Whoever they were, they made everyone lie down on the lounge room floor and they restrained them. Everyone had restraint marks. Because of where the blood was, we know the meal must have been set out beforehand, presumably by the killer. Then I think they took the victims out to the patio one by one.’
‘All of them?’
‘All of them, including Julian Edwards.’ Her voice broke a little over this. ‘Then they unloaded the Ice Cream Man, took this photograph and went home. Then they released it on the net under the subject line: They gather for the feast. It’s the food that’s important here. That’s the imagery they’re projecting.’
Briefly, people were silent.
‘Why kill the boy?’ Parkin asked. ‘Could he identify them?’
‘That’s a motive. But there’s also a question of leverage,’ Harrigan said. ‘Shooting that boy was a terrible crime. His father was a government minister. We know they made sure Edwards saw his son dead because they sent him the combination to the gate by SMS. That combination of circumstances means there was no way this investigation was going to be swept under the carpet. They wanted us to dig.’
‘That is so cold-blooded,’ Ralph said.
‘Does that assume they knew Edwards?’ Frankie asked.
‘Maybe they did,’ Harrigan replied.
‘They wanted us to dig, you said, Commander.’ Parkin got to his feet. ‘That seems to assume they wanted this murder solved. That is, we have the means to catch them. I’ve never come across that scenario before in this type of context. It’s true that people who do this kind of thing often want to claim responsibility and give a motive. But there’s been no statement put out to that effect. Am I right?’
‘Not so far,’ Harrigan said. ‘But it hasn’t been that long.’
‘Long enough, unless they’re planning something else. Also, while people like
this may want to draw attention to what they’ve done, they don’t want to be apprehended. If your theory is going to fly, you need to give us a reason for it.’
‘I didn’t say they wanted to be apprehended. I said they wanted us to dig,’ Harrigan replied in his detached voice. ‘My theory does fit with one undeniable point: the possibility that the killer or killers were expecting resistance to this investigation. That’s proven to be true. Someone has gone to great lengths to sabotage it.’
‘Again you’re implying we have two parties involved,’ Parkin said. ‘Do you have any evidence for that?’
‘It’s like I said before. We work through what we know, then we make a judgement. Jackie, is that it?’
‘There’s more. It’s to do with Beck.’
‘Let’s hear it,’ Harrigan said.
Parkin sat down again.
‘We checked his movements and telephone records. We know he got to Pittwater about ten to eight. Just before he arrived, he made a call on his mobile. He spoke for about fifty seconds. I think he probably left a message. It was the last call he ever made. At about 1 a.m. he got a call back from that same number but obviously he didn’t answer it. It went through to his voicemail where the call was disconnected without anyone leaving a message. That number called Beck another three times over the next eleven hours and then stopped.’
‘Someone was checking up on him,’ Ralph said.
‘I’d guess they wanted to know whether the contract had been signed,’ Harrigan said. ‘Could you trace the number?’
‘We rang but the number was discontinued. We’re tracing its history now.’
‘Anything else?’
‘One final thing. When we checked Beck’s wallet, we found this.’
Another image appeared on the screen, a black and white photograph showing a man with a woman carrying a baby, both standing in the midst of a ruined city.
‘It was the original and it wasn’t in good condition. On the back, it says in pencil Dresden 1946. We know that’s when Beck was born. I think that’s him with his mother and father. But if that is his father, then he either walked out on them or he died, because the dossier says father unknown. There was only his mother and she died in 1997.’