(2012) Disappear

by Iain Edward Henn

  There was no mention, however, of the other garrotte murder victim. Monique Brayson.

  At the close of the briefing session, Lachlan pushed his way through the crowd towards the podium. Razell and Rosen were leaving the room by the large double doors to their immediate right. Lachlan stuck his arm past a throng of shoulders, tapping John Rosen on the upper arm. ‘Got a minute?’

  ‘Sure.’ Rosen looked around for a quieter spot. ‘Over there.’ He pointed to a far corner. ‘We need a larger room for these things.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ They edged their way to the corner. ‘The bulletin last Friday about the Brayson girl’s murder. That was a garrotte killing. Why no mention?’

  ‘Could be a coincidence that the murder method was the same. Regardless, at this point in time it’s being treated as a separate case, by the same guys I’ve got following up on Brian Parkes, because both had been missing for such a long period. And before you ask - yes, the girl still appears youthful.’

  ‘You’ve never been one to believe in coincidence,’ Lachlan pointed out.

  ‘If it’s connected with the Van Helegen and Dawson murders, then the special unit boys will find the connection and then it will become part of this broader “jogger” investigation. My guys are assisting with the search for this jogger as well, so they’re well aware of the similarities. I don’t want every cop on the investigation in on the Parkes/Brayson thing - no need at this point.’

  ‘You still want to keep it classified because of the disappearance and the condition of the bodies?’

  Rosen’s eyes darted about, scanning the immediate surroundings.

  Lachlan got the impression Rosen didn’t want their conversation overheard.

  ‘Precisely, and I’ve already been over those reasons with you. Razell is aware of the secrecy surrounding those investigations. A follow-up circular was emailed this morning to all stations, advising that the special unit will be handling the Brayson case.’

  ‘Still buried in my Inbox,’ Lachlan supposed. ‘Just got in from Brisbane and saw the bulletin about this briefing in time to get over here.’

  ‘Razell is very edgy about these latest killings,’ Rosen explained. ‘Has a bee in his bonnet about Sydney becoming some kind of crime capital. He’s driving hard to have the city cleaned up, street violence, break-ins, underworld activities - and now he starts getting these blasted thrill killers.’

  Lachlan changed the subject back to the Parkes case. ‘Has the Brayson murder shed any new light on the Brian Parkes disappearance?’

  ‘No. And I don’t expect it will. In both cases there’s absolutely nothing to go on. I believe there have been cases like this before, Neil, cases that appear to deal with a range of … inexplicable phenomena. They’re classified top secret, investigated by special units. Eventually the files are closed. Unresolved.’

  ‘Phenomena?’

  ‘I don’t like to say it, but the only obvious fact or clue we have is one that makes no sense. Can’t officially be considered by the department. Parkes and Brayson simply appear to have slipped through time in the blink of an eye, like characters from a H.G. Wells novel.’

  Lachlan had watched episodes of the old Twilight Zone TV series, but such things had never been to his taste. A practical man, he hadn’t considered the realm of inexplicable phenomena in relation to Brian Parkes’ body.

  Movement through time. Immortality. These were ridiculous concepts, the stuff of Todd’s comic books and computer games.

  He was back at the Hurstville Police Station, sitting at his desk and immersed in paperwork. He ran his fingers through his hair, it needed trimming. He was tired. It had been a long day, a lot of travelling, the beer and the headache hadn’t helped.

  An obvious thought occurred to him. What if there were others like Parkes and Brayson? Looking for similar cases would provide a starting point. What if, despite Rosen’s comments, there was a connection between the murder of Monique Brayson and the garrotte killings of Trish Van Helegen and Bill Dawson? Lachlan decided to do some digging of his own, starting with Parkes and Brayson, without the involvement of Rosen’s special unit.

  Something about the case was nagging at him.

  This kind of digging meant delving into the archives, into files long buried in the memory banks of the police computers.

  It was a while since he’d been in touch with Teddy Vanda. If he remembered the joke correctly, then his mate at the Head Branch Data Communications division owed him a favour.

  Henry Kaplan welcomed Conrad Becker with a firm handshake and a wide grin, beaming with the air of a world-beater - not a bankrupt staving off the final blow.

  ‘How was the flight?’

  ‘Too long,’ said Becker with a conservative smile that suited his cautious nature. His smooth and suave style was evident from the cut of his tailored suit to the controlled, bass tone of his voice. Everything about Conrad Becker was perfectly balanced. He was physically attractive because nothing about him was too large or too small. His nose and chin were prominent with a rugged manliness, but not overpowering to the smooth, firm flesh of his cheeks or the expressive green eyes flecked with hazel. ‘Long plane trips can be a waste of vital business time.’

  ‘Not if used to do homework on potential purchases.’

  ‘We’ve already done our homework,’ Becker assured him. He introduced Wilfred Carlyle, his associate, to Kaplan and Roger.

  There were two other men with Becker - minders, Kaplan assumed. Becker didn’t introduce them. Kaplan acknowledged their presence with a nod, but offered nothing further.

  ‘Come through to the board room,’ Kaplan said. ‘We’ve light refreshments and Roger is set up to talk us through the screening of a short video on Southern Star. It’s a good, capsuled history of the project.’

  They took their seats. One of Kaplan’s aides poured the coffee. Lights were dimmed for effect and the video flickered onto the wall mounted television screen. ‘Our corporate communications division compiled this video especially for your visit,’ Roger informed them, ‘using existing footage together with new material filmed just a few weeks ago.’ He enjoyed being the focal point. Earlier that morning, his father had strode into his office, wearing a determined expression.

  ‘You and I have to project a united front from now until the sale is made,’ Kaplan had said. ‘You, Harold and I are going to be solid, persuasive, organised. I don’t want either of you out of my sight for any longer than necessary.’

  ‘I hardly think that’s necessary.’

  ‘If I say it’s necessary, Roger, then it’s necessary. The three of us, when we’re with Becker, will be a show of strength. It’s essential we’re in complete unison every step of the way, and if that means living in each other’s pockets, then that’s exactly what we do. This is one deal we have to close quickly. It’s our salvation. And when we’re not with the Canadian, we’ll have our heads together, analysing his responses, drawing up contingencies for any aspect of the sale that’s not looking good.’

  As always Kaplan was convincing, even to the son who’d heard it all before. He’d always been able to instill motivation and enthusiasm in Roger, if only for a short while.

  ‘I don’t want this whole thing hinging on me,’ Kaplan continued. ‘You and Harold are to play vital roles in the talks.’

  ‘You don’t want them to think that Kaplan Corporation is a one man affair.’

  ‘There’s that. And something else. I don’t want it to come down to just Becker and myself. The more players on both sides, the better. We need to get all Becker’s “yes” men on side, as well.’

  Roger relaxed as the video began. Like his father, he would be sorry to see their stake in Southern Star Mining relinquished. But the sale was worth four hundred million, enough to pay the required installments to creditors, stop the bankruptcy proceedings, and cast their other divisions in a stronger light. The corporation would be a shadow of its former self - but that was better than having no financial f
uture at all.

  The video’s opening shot was an aerial view of the mining operation.

  ‘It is only twenty-four years old,’ the commentary began, a familiar voice over the montage of pictures, one heard dozens of times over television commercials and corporate films, ‘but in that time Southern Star Mining has become listed in the top five hundred companies on the Australian stock exchange. It is one of the South Pacific region’s largest coal producers. Amongst other things it has caused the founding of an outback town with a population of five thousand people.

  ‘Most of Southern Star’s output is for export, and even with the rise of new, green energy initiatives locally, the international market for coal is strong.’

  News footage filled the screen, taken twenty years before. Tractors roaming a large site, turning rugged earth into a quarry buzzing with men and machines. Interspersed were shots of men in wide brimmed hats, even wider grins, captured during light-hearted moments. ‘Coal deposits at Mount Ginger in north-western Queensland were discovered in 1970 by the prospecting team of a small mining exploration company, Western Allies. They formed a syndicate with three other local mining operators, and with large amounts of capital invested by Japanese and American interests, the Southern Star Mining Group was launched …’

  In the space of a few minutes the video drew its small audience through more than forty years of development and growth. ‘By 1974 there were haulage roads and preparatory earthworks for the crushing plants. A small, thriving community of workers and their families had sprung up on the level ground to the east of the mines, at the foot of the mountain’s western slopes …’

  ‘… the first contract shipment of coal, an encouraging 30,000 tons, was transported by freight train to the coast in 1976 …’

  At the end of the film, Roger explained that in 1995 the Kaplan Corporation had acquired controlling shares in Southern Star. Those shares had risen steeply in value in the years since, and were now being offered at a bargain price.

  Kaplan took his cue then, bringing in the senior accounts people. They were armed with documents and presented the financial structure of the share arrangement.

  There were many times when Henry Kaplan had purchased a company at a premium price because the buyer was being forced to sell. On every occasion he felt like an avenging hawk, swooping in for the kill. The urge to take advantage of his opponent’s situation was irresistible. He knew the Canadian entrepreneur would feel exactly the same. Kaplan had made certain that everything presented to Becker underlined the desperate need of the Kaplan Corporation to sell under market value in order to survive. Kaplan expected this ploy to make the sale a certainty.

  After all, Becker was just another greedy scavenger, brimming with blood lust for his prey, anxious to move in for the final feed.

  SIXTEEN

  Lachlan strode through the swinging glass doors of the data communications room - a large, oval space with a dozen workstations, each with its own partially closed-off area. Every time he came here Lachlan was struck by the thought that this was the quietest, cleanest part of Central Crime Command at the Parramatta HQ.

  The rest of the building he perceived as being in a state of organised chaos. If there was organised chaos in here, he reflected, then it was inside the collective memory of the desktop computer units, deep within the intricate bowels of the mainframes.

  Lachlan stuck his head around the third cubicle to the left of the swinging doors. ‘Hi Teddy.’

  Edward ‘Teddy’ Vanda looked up from his screen, swinging round in his swivel chair as he did so. ‘Lacho! Long time no see, no hear. No evil. No way!’

  ‘No time is more like it.’

  Teddy laughed. For a computer whizz, Teddy didn’t fit the stereotype of the scrawny, bespectacled nerd. He was a big, broad shouldered twenty-eight year old with a wide, toothy grin, an irreverent gleam in his eye, and a thick brush of dark hair, razor short. He spoke in the lingo that had become prevalent in the male youth of recent years - part urban dude, part old time ocker. A curious and infectious blend that had always amused Lachlan.

  ‘Any chance of a favour?’ Lachlan asked.

  ‘For you. Always.’

  ‘I need some info on missing persons.’

  ‘We have info on missing dudes and dudettes you wouldn’t believe. What are you after?’

  ‘People who’ve been listed as missing who’ve subsequently been found murdered.’

  ‘Man, are you kidding? I could run you a printout that’s a mile long. It would take you a month of Sundays to read it and you still wouldn’t be any the wiser.’

  ‘We’re going to be more specific than that. Anyone reported missing seventeen to nineteen years ago, nationally, who’s been found murdered in the past twelve months.’

  ‘Now we’re cookin’. I’ll run a search program first thing this afternoon. Sorry, but the mainframe’s chock’a’block until then.’

  ‘That’s fine. And Teddy?’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘The favour part. Keep it just between us. Okay?’

  ‘Uh-oh. One of those. Internal politics or something equally as smelly.’

  ‘Equally as smelly,’ Lachlan replied.

  ‘No problem,’ Teddy assured him. ‘After all, I owe you.’

  ‘Big time. Make sure I return the favour sometime.’

  ‘Already in my diary, Sherlock.’

  Lachlan gave his young friend a harmless punch on the shoulder, then left. Over the past few years he’d asked Teddy for more favours than he could remember. He’d never been asked to repay one of them. Teddy always said he owed him, but in fact he’d never owed him anything at all. It had started out as a joke, now it was part of the repartee between two colleagues who had a healthy respect for each other.

  Two men who knew that politics and bureaucracy sometimes got in the way of a man doing the job he was meant to do.

  Jennifer made half a dozen calls to contacts within the fashion industry, and two of those she called mentioned Stuart James. He was a registered private investigator who had undertaken assignments for both those contacts.

  ‘Always good to get referrals,’ James said, ‘not that I get much work from the fashion business. Most of the work I do is on missing persons.’

  ‘That makes you ideal for this brief,’ Jennifer commented.

  James flipped through the notes he’d taken while quizzing Jennifer on the case. ‘Most PIs get a lot of missing persons work,’ he commented, ‘and most of that work entails teenagers from wealthy homes who’ve left home without a word. Your husband … quite a different kettle of fish.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I can’t make any promises, you understand, but I’ll dig around, see what I can come up with. I gather that’s more than you’re expecting from the coppers.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  ‘Not unusual. That’s why PIs pick up so much missing persons work. The coppers don’t have the time or manpower. And in the case of your husband’s murder after so many years missing … well, this is both a cold case and a new case all rolled into one.’

  ‘I have a feeling there’s more to it. That man, Rosen, was … evasive.’

  James smiled and held up his hands in a mock gesture to hold back further comment. ‘Please. I hear a hundred and one conspiracy stories a day as it is. No more.’

  Jennifer half grinned, conceding the point. ‘Understood.’

  She liked Stuart James. He was a charming, articulate, effusive character, not at all what she expected when she had phoned for an appointment. He’d agreed to see her almost straight away.

  ‘I’m just around the corner from you, Australia Tower, seventeenth floor. If you come by in twenty minutes you can take the place of a cancelled appointment. I don’t have long, though - fifteen minutes, so we’ll have to talk fast.’

  That presented no problem to James, who spoke in fast motion, spitting out words in an endless stream and constantly flashing looks at his Rolex. He was of solid
build, with warm, round features, mid-forties, impeccably well dressed. He could have been a real estate salesman for one of the elite suburbs; there was nothing dark or moody or mysterious about him. His offices were modern, relaxing, designer-style, but functional, not overly expensive looking.

  ‘You’re certain about your husband’s appearance,’ James asked, ‘ he hadn’t aged at all?’

  ‘Not a line on his face,’ Jennifer said. Once again the vision of the body on the slab crashed uninvited into her mind.

  ‘There are certain possibilities, Ms Parkes - for instance, plastic surgery might allow a fortyish man to pass for mid-twenties, it’s just that not too many Aussie men go in for it, at least not yet.’

  ‘The coroner’s autopsy showed there’d been no plastic surgery.’ Jennifer filled him in on her talks with Lachlan and Rosen.

  ‘I see. Well, I’ll check the autopsy result as a matter of procedure. But in the meantime, tell me, was there any indication from the coroner of other surgery, anything at all?’

  Jennifer told him about the unexplained post mortem incision to the throat.

  James nodded as he listened, but he made no comment. When she had finished, he leaned forward, adopting his down-to-business face. ‘I charge a retainer of $150 an hour, plus expenses, minimum start up fee of $500. But, I won’t keep taking your money if I don’t think I can help you.’

  ‘That’s fine.’

  ‘My focus will be to find out where Brian was during those missing years. Answer that and I know we’ll find the solutions to the other questions. You know, Ms. Parkes, you may have heard the expression, from the police world, that the dead can talk to us from beyond the grave.’

  ‘Yes…I have.’

  ‘What it means, exactly, is that the circumstances of a victim’s body - where it’s found, how the person died - can yield clues that ultimately lead to the person’s killer. I want you to think of Brian’s reappearance in a similar way, perhaps not speaking to us from beyond the grave but crying out to us from the limbo of those missing years. And that something about his reappearance is going to lead us to the answers.’