by Rob Ashman
Bassano wasn’t phased by her unresponsiveness, and instead was engrossed by the unruly button on her blouse which kept popping open. Even if she had been talkative, he probably wouldn’t have heard a word she said. His assessment of the afternoon was, ‘Not as chatty as she could be but great buttons.’ Her assessment was, ‘He’s a dick.’
While Jo battled to keep her blouse under control, Lillian Lang posed a challenge of a different kind. It was clear that she didn’t like Bassano and couldn’t understand why she had to talk to him. After all, she had spoken to the other, much nicer, police officers only hours earlier. Bassano tried to take the lead in the discussion but it was obvious he was going to get nowhere.
Jo took over and was very skilful. She ensured that any animosity Lang felt remained focused on Bassano, while she gently probed for the information they wanted. After a period of introductory chit chat Jo cultivated an effective rapport with Lillian, despite Bassano sitting there like a sulky schoolboy.
Lillian Lang confirmed that her marriage had been in trouble at the time of the murders and she was considering leaving, but this was information they already knew. Jo persisted with her line of questioning about whether Lillian had told any of her close friends about the difficulties. She was adamant that no one close to her knew how she felt. The more Jo persevered, the more Lang was resolute with her answers. But there was something nagging at Jo and Bassano. Lillian’s answers were far too precise, she was being very careful with what she said.
Both sensed she was holding back.
‘I find it difficult to understand that a woman in your position wouldn’t share her problems with any of her close friends,’ Jo said.
‘Well perhaps you can’t, but that’s the way it was. Not one of them knew,’ Lang replied.
‘You shared it with no one? I’m struggling to believe that, Mrs Lang.’
Lillian hesitated for a moment as if she was fighting with her conscience. ‘I didn’t say that,’ she said in a whisper.
‘What?’ replied Jo.
‘I didn’t share it with any of my close friends, but I did share it with a counsellor.’
Now the words came flooding out.
Lillian explained how she’d been ashamed of using a counsellor and had been reluctant to talk about it. She considered it a social stigma and chose to shut it away and forget it. Jo’s questioning had forced it back into the open, making her very uncomfortable.
Lillian went on to describe how she used a service provided by the club where she was a member. She liked it because it was anonymous. The sessions were done over the phone. She’d never met the counsellor in person but had had regular discussions in the weeks leading up to the killings. Looking back, she was not convinced of the benefits. At the time it had given her an outlet for her grievances but in hindsight the sessions had magnified her problems and made matters worse.
Bassano’s mind was in warp drive, running through the implications of what Lillian was telling them. She was drying up fast after divulging her secret and, despite Jo pushing further, she was drawing back into her shell.
No, she couldn’t remember who the counsellor was and, no, she couldn’t remember the telephone number she used. Bassano wasn’t listening, he already knew where they needed to be, and looking at his watch he saw that they needed to be there fast. He drew the conversation with Lillian Lang to a close, thanked her for her cooperation, grabbed Jo Sells by the arm and promptly left.
Bassano gunned the engine and sped along the tree-lined driveway of Brightwood Country Club, the club frequented by Hannah McKee. In her current state it was doubtful that she would be requiring their services any time soon.
Cars passed them on the other side of the gravelled track, flashing their lights to warn him to kill his speed. ‘That’s what you get for lowering the membership fees,’ was the overwhelming conclusion of the drivers.
He slewed the car into the golf captain’s parking slot at such an angle that the vice captain’s space was also blocked. He and Jo ran from the car and up the steps to the reception. A tall man in an expensive tailored suit met them at the doorway. His face was as shiny as his shoes.
‘This is highly irregular. As I said to you on the phone, we are closed. If you would like to return in the morning we would be only too happy to meet any requests for information you may have.’
Bassano stood in front of him. ‘We must talk with you urgently about the services you provide at your club, Mr Wainwright.’ Bassano was not in the mood to be dismissed by this stuffed shirt of a man.
‘And as I told you not twenty minutes ago, we have a presentation evening tonight and we are not open for business.’ He peered past Bassano’s shoulder and his face flushed red. His anger was compounded by the fact that Jo and Bassano had committed at least three club parking violations.
‘Mr Wainwright, you have two choices. Me and my colleague can talk to you now in a closed office of your choice, or I will call this into the station and have half a dozen cop cars here in full party mode. Then I’ll get a warrant, but not until your honoured guests have their faces pressed against the windows wondering what the blue flashing lights are all about. So what will it be?’
‘It’s I.’ Wainwright said.
‘What?’ Bassano was confused.
‘It’s my colleague and I, not–’ Wainwright was a stickler for correct grammar.
‘So I’ll take that as a yes then.’ Bassano and Jo brushed past the immaculately dressed Mr Wainwright and walked up the steps.
‘Where do you want us?’ asked Jo.
‘In my office. Follow me.’ Wainwright crossed the reception area and entered a wood-panelled office which smelled of furniture polish and aftershave. They all decided to stand.
Bassano spoke first. ‘We have an ongoing investigation, Mr Wainwright, and your club could be implicated. I need to know if you offer counselling sessions as part of your portfolio of services.’
‘Officer, we are a premium sports facility not a welfare club. We provide top quality activities for those who want to improve their physical wellbeing and social contacts. We are also active in the local business community and host events like the one we have this evening. We do not offer counselling services to our members.’
‘Do you offer anything that could be construed as counselling? Maybe life coaching or self-improvement classes?’ Jo asked.
‘We do not.’ Wainwright was exhibiting all the signs of acute boredom for the benefit of his unwanted guests.
‘Do you offer meditation or—’ Jo continued.
‘I cannot stress this enough, officers,’ he interrupted. ‘We do not offer services of that sort. I don’t know what line of investigation you are pursuing but I can assure you that if it entails Brightwood providing counselling, you are barking up the wrong tree. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a room of three hundred distinguished guests I need to return to. Melody will see you off the premises. Goodnight.’ He walked out of his office and was gone.
Bassano and Jo looked at each other, feeling as if they had just been dismissed by the headmaster. Melody walked in.
‘I guess I should show you both out,’ she said politely. Bassano and Sells followed her out of the office and into the grand reception area.
Melody was in her early forties, she wore a well-cut navy suit, her only jewellery a pair of pearl earrings. She seemed bright and fiercely capable. ‘I hope you don’t mind but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation with Mr Wainwright.’ She spoke confidently and removed her glasses. ‘He is of course correct to say that we don’t officially have anything like counselling taking place here, but last month I found these.’ Melody opened a desk drawer and retrieved several pieces of printed paper.
‘Mr Wainwright likes everything to be done by the book and gets a little irritable when that doesn’t happen. So when I found these I just removed them. I didn’t mention it at the time because he doesn’t respond well to anything out of the ordinary.’ She handed the sheets
of paper to Jo. ‘I’m not sure if they’ll help but you are welcome to take them with you. I’m sure Mr Wainwright wouldn’t mind.’
Bassano and Jo stood with their mouths open. Jo was the first to talk.
‘That’s very kind of you, Melody. Maybe, don’t mention this to Mr Wainwright for now. I agree with you, he strikes me as a man who likes to play by the rules.’
‘You got it.’ Melody was pleased her new visitors could also see that her boss was a total asshole.
‘Can I use your phone?’ asked Bassano.
‘Of course.’
Bassano punched in a series of numbers.
‘Sir, I know it’s late but we need to talk back at the station.’ He paused to listen to Lucas’s predictable reply. ‘No, it can’t wait till the morning, boss. We need to move fast. Depending on what you think, we might be looking at an all-nighter.’ There were further protestations from the other end of the line.
Bassano decided it was time to curtail the conversation. He turned away from the other two, cupped his hand over the mouthpiece and whispered, ‘Sir, we might have located Mechanic.’
26
The clock on the wall in the station told Lucas it was a quarter past nine when he marched past the desk sergeant. He nodded a ‘Good evening’ and took the stairs to his office two at a time. He was late. He’d realized after Bassano’s call that he couldn’t drive, due to the deliciously expensive, damn awful whisky he’d consumed, and was forced to call the traffic boys to pick him up.
He got to his office to find Jo Sells already sitting at the conference table. It must have been a tough day because there were sugar twists everywhere. Bassano was on the phone.
‘I don’t give a fuck what time it is, I need that address and I need it now,’ he yelled.
‘Problem?’ Lucas asked.
‘It will be in the next ten minutes if he doesn’t get his ass in gear.’ Bassano came from behind the desk and joined the other two at the table.
‘Okay, where’s Mechanic?’ Lucas asked.
‘Listen to what we have first. We’ve spoken to Lillian Lang,’ said Bassano.
Jo took over, ‘We thought it best not to go back to Julie Tate because we’d already been with her this afternoon and she is way too unstable at the moment. Lillian confirmed that she was having marital difficulties and having a miserable time just before the murders. She talked for most of the interview about how she felt and how the killings had robbed her of any way to put matters right between her and her family. My thoughts are that she is suffering from the same guilt complex as Tate.’
‘Good, so now we have a consistent picture. What about Mechanic?’ Lucas asked again.
‘I’ll get to that,’ Jo continued. ‘I questioned Lillian on why she hadn’t shared any of this with close friends. She said she was too embarrassed about the way she felt and was reluctant to talk with anyone in case it became public. She was so screwed up and didn’t want to involve any of her friends or family—’
Lucas interrupted. ‘What about Mechanic?’
‘However,’ Jo emphasized the word, putting her hands up to stop Lucas, ‘it turns out she did share it with someone, she spoke to a counsellor.’
‘A counsellor?’
‘Yes,’ Jo continued. ‘Some sort of anonymous counselling service conducted over the phone. I’ve never heard of this technique before, but she said she got the number from the country club where she was a member. She couldn’t remember the details but she could recall it was a service provided by the club.’
Bassano finished the story. ‘We went to the club where Hannah McKee was a member. At first they denied they provided those kinds of services and were indignant at our suggestion that they would. A lady who worked at the reception desk overheard our conversation and gave us these.’ He spread out the pieces of paper on the table. They read:
Taken for granted?
Unappreciated?
Feel there’s got to be more to life than this?
We can help.
We run a confidential counselling service.
Talk it through with someone who’s been there.
We understand.
It’s completely free, you have nothing to lose.
You can make things better.
Call 407-863-7124
‘She found them at the club and removed them. She didn’t report it to the management,’ said Bassano.
‘It looks like Mechanic doesn’t go hunting for victims, they come to him. He put the flier out as bait and waited to hook someone in,’ Jo said.
‘He uses the term “we”. Why would he do that?’ Lucas asked.
‘To give the impression the counselling is being delivered by an organization. Remember that anyone responding to this is going to be in a vulnerable state. If he said “I can help” or “I understand” it could sound threatening.’
‘Have you rung the number?’ Lucas asked.
‘No. If we call him he could get spooked. I’ve asked our tech guys to trace his address from the number. I thought it would be better to pay him a visit instead.’
‘Get everything in place. We’ll move tonight.’
27
Mechanic’s head rested on the arm of the long leather sofa. Clouds of warm, hazy dreams swept by as Pachelbel’s Canon in D played for the eighteenth time that evening. There was something about it that facilitated fantasies. It was definitely Mechanic’s music of choice when visualizing the step-by-step slaughter of the Barrock family.
Then the voices began.
The distinct and terrifying whisper started deep within the tangle of Mechanic’s mind. Inside Mechanic’s head was a labyrinth of rooms, corridors and hallways which had been constructed piece by piece during years of sexual abuse. Mechanic used to hide away in this maze to detach from reality until the pain receded. Sometimes for minutes, sometimes for hours, Mechanic would walk along the hallways deciding which room to enter, escaping from the sickening acts being committed in the real world.
One room housed the summer holiday they’d had in Sarasota. Long sandy beaches and snorkelling in the crystal waters, chasing schools of tiny fish. Another contained the Christmas when it had snowed and Santa brought Mechanic a twelve-speed bike. It was all wrapped up in coloured paper and propped up on its stand by the tree.
There were many rooms, each one providing a defence mechanism which allowed Mechanic to function with at least the outward signs of a normal life – a home, a job and some friends. But the labyrinth of rooms gave the darker, sadistic side of Mechanic’s personality freedom to roam, waiting to seize control.
And that darker side came in the form of Daddy.
The abuse had gone on for years. It would strike at any time without warning. It happened when Daddy had a bad day, it happened when he had a good day. It happened when Daddy was happy, it happened when he was sad. The external stimulus which brought on the attacks was hard to identify. One thing was for sure. It generated a rage that could only be brought back to earth in one way, and that was where the young Mechanic came into the equation.
It was clear that, since Mom had left, Daddy was angry a lot. There was no one to talk to, no one to tell. Daddy had made it clear that if Mechanic breathed a word of this to anyone then the next step would be to be taken into foster care. Daddy also made it clear this was all Mom’s fault. The only reason he was like this was because of what she’d done. He had never acted like this before the split. It was all because of her and the way she’d abandoned them for that pot-smoking, beach bum fuckwit. Every attack reminded Mechanic of Mom’s betrayal. Every slap, every punch, every time Daddy ejaculated, only to break down afterwards and cry like a baby. This was all Mom’s doing. The bitch was to blame.
One room held a special place for Mechanic. Inside was the holiday of ’66 when they took the VIA train from Quebec City to Montreal. They crossed the St Lawrence River, enthralled by the moving cinema on the other side of the window. Factories and farms sprawled as far as the eye could see.
Trailer parks flashed into view and then were gone. The young Mechanic liked it when the train slowed down to little more than walking pace, passing along back gardens in the small towns. This house had kids, probably a girl and a boy. This one was owned by older people who loved gardening. This one had the remnants of an outdoor barbeque party which hadn’t been cleared away. It was a kaleidoscope of images for Mechanic’s fertile imagination.
All was going well until they pulled into Drummondville. A smartly dressed middle-aged man got off the train holding a briefcase and an overnight bag. He was wrestling with the strap on the bag which was twisted, crouching down to untangle it, when two youths burst out of the jostling crowd and knocked him to the floor, shouting at him to hand over his bags. He went down hard, disorientated due to the speed of the attack but still had hold of his luggage. Mechanic stared out of the window as the assault continued not eight feet away.
‘The fucking case, man,’ shouted the louder of the two. ‘Give us the fucking case.’
Mechanic was transfixed.
Briefcase man was flat on his back with his feet slightly raised. The second youth kicked him just below his ribs. Mechanic saw his face contort with pain as he doubled over to protect himself.
‘Give us the bags, motherfucker,’ yelled the loud guy. ‘The case, man. Give us the fucking case.’ The guy who’d kicked him took another swing. Briefcase man blocked the kick, and grabbed his attacker’s leg above the ankle.
Everything went into slow motion.
Briefcase man kept a firm hold of kicking guy’s leg and swept his own right foot in an arc, taking the legs clean from under the other attacker. As his legs went one way and his body the other, the assailant spun in the air like a no-handed cartwheel and his head crashed onto the platform.
Briefcase man twisted kicking guy’s foot clockwise sending him spinning sideways to the ground, and in a single motion got to his feet, still holding the ankle. He snapped the leg sideways and stomped his right foot into kicking guy’s groin. He then calmly walked three strides across the concourse to where the other youth was on his knees, looking on in disbelief as his buddy held his busted balls. This was unfortunate because he didn’t see the left-foot kick which almost detached his head from his shoulders. The force of the strike lifted him into the air and laid him flat on his back. He was unconscious before he hit the ground.