Lethal Factor

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘Just routine stuff according to his boss. Sexual assaults, break and enters, the usual. The odd homicide case.’

  ‘What about past cases?’ I asked, thinking of the nastiness of red hearts and chocolate. I knew police were sometimes involved in death threats from the crims they’d aggrieved, but I’d never heard of a scientist being the victim of a revenge killing. ‘Dr Bonning might have delivered the expert evidence that’s locked someone up.’

  Tomlins was already there before me. ‘We’re checking all his back cases,’ she said. ‘He’d worked on a couple of biggies over the years.’ We’ve all worked on a couple of biggies, I thought.

  ‘And we’re still trying to trace the package,’ Tomlins was saying. ‘The postie thinks he remembered it came from interstate. We’re trying to track down any interstate connections in his life but hell, it’s hardly a refined search at this stage. Someone like him is bound to have a lot of contacts.’

  Tomlins was a chatty woman. Sometimes trying to get information from an out-of-area colleague, or even someone in the next command region, can develop into a full-on turf war and is as hard as pulling teeth.

  The idea of a toxic gift was triggering a memory for me of a case I’d worked on several years ago.

  ‘Do you remember an extortion case a few years ago?’ I asked her. ‘Poisoned confectionery or smallgoods of some sort?’

  ‘The Delmonte Deli food extortioner?’

  That was it. Delmonte Deli, a fair-sized manufacturer of snack foods and sandwich spreads almost put out of business by some malicious person who added poison to the goods and put them back, neatly repackaged, on the supermarket shelves. Millions of dollars of products had to be dumped.

  ‘We put someone away for that,’ she said. ‘Don’t you remember? And that was strychnine, not bloody anthrax.’

  Tomlins left and I took the samples she delivered, entering them in the records, taking them down to one of the bio-hazard refrigerators. Although the hospital in Sydney was equipped with its own Polymerase Chain Reaction facilities to copy and examine the DNA of the pathogen that had killed the Sydney scientist, it was not their brief to carry out the sort of tests that might determine the origin of this particular bacteria. When a person is infected with something like anthrax, a series of protocols swings immediately into place with the authorities being notified an infection is suspected or confirmed. The health network and the police had been involved as soon as Bacillus anthracis was identified on the glassware at the hospital where Tony Bonning died. But without further investigation, we didn’t know exactly what we might be dealing with. Whereas once we knew the type and effects of the bacteria identified by microbiologists, there was now the unpleasant possibility that we could be faced with a genetically enhanced monstrosity that defied the usual protective measures. My brief was to discover all I could about the make-up and likely provenance of the strain of Bacillus anthracis that had killed Bonning.

  I glanced at my watch, deciding it was time to call it a day. I was feeling weary already; it had been an early start and I’d covered a lot of territory.

  The folded newspaper on my desk had a small piece on Natalie Haynes, the postal worker. Mrs Haynes had developed the inhalational form of the anthrax disease which acts more quickly than the gastrointestinal form. The deadly spores are just the right size to be delivered to the airways, settling in the sensitive folds of the alveoli lining the lungs, hatching and moving out to invade every major system.

  Bacillus anthracis—shortened to BA by scientists—has a long and even famous history. It was the first bacterium shown to be the cause of a disease and Robert Koch, whose famous postulates set the first standards for experimentation, grew the organism and demonstrated its capacity to form spores and cause infection in lab animals in the nineteenth century.

  Despite the fear surrounding it, especially since the anthrax letters in the States, BA is not usually dangerous to humans because the spores lie dormant in the soil in areas known to pastoralists and cattle and sheep farmers, where they occasionally infect grazing animals. It is not contagious person to person. A cutaneous form of the disease results in a very nasty black skin infection—hence its coal-like name: anthracis—that can become dangerous if the sufferer gets a systemic infection, but is cured fairly easily by modern antibiotics.

  I tidied up a bit, and locked Digby’s office, switching off a few lights in empty offices as I walked down the corridor. After dark this place is full of strange shadows and dark recesses. Not many people were left in the building but I noticed Vic Agnew back at his desk, head down, writing up notes.

  ‘Night, Vic,’ I said, pausing.

  He turned, the receding hairline above his intelligent face making him appear older than his thirty-odd years.

  ‘Night, Jack,’ he said. ‘I suppose I should say “boss” now, shouldn’t I?’

  I shrugged. ‘Don’t work too hard,’ I said. ‘It’ll all be there in the morning.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how I’ll ever get through all these jobs.’

  He noticed me staring at the optical illusion of the young woman or old hag, depending on the viewer’s perception, and leaned back in his chair. ‘You know Jane just can’t get that,’ he said, indicating the drawing. ‘She stares and stares at it whenever she walks past the door. All she can see is the old hag.’

  ‘Pity,’ I said. ‘It’s a clever drawing, both ways.’

  ‘Once you’ve got it,’ he said, ‘you can’t imagine how you didn’t see it before.’

  I walked outside, looking up at the brilliant stars—a dark cold night and everyone eager to be home by the fire. The wind had me hurrying to my car, shivering.

  As I drove back to town, it occurred to me that despite all the malicious hoaxes and time wasters of the last six months, today I’d finally worked on suspected anthrax samples. And in spite of my tiredness, I was already planning ahead. I was keen to start the process of obtaining the profile of whatever strain of BA it was that had killed our New South Wales colleague and made a Sydney postal worker gravely ill. Once I had results from cultures grown from Tony Bonning’s bedroom, I intended to do the same with the bacteria from Natalie Haynes. That way, I could work on determining the origin of the killer pathogen. The Institute for Genomic Research in the USA had recently mapped out the BA genome and discovered that various forms of the bacteria from different sources differ very slightly in their DNA structure, and some are more virulent than others. My plan was to send samples there, where I hoped they could discover the source of this strain. Once we knew the where, we might find ourselves closer to the who.

  By doing exactly this with samples from the series of anthrax letter attacks, the American authorities had been embarrassed to discover that the source of all the anthrax organisms used in 2001 traced directly back to a virulent strain isolated and weaponised by the US bio-warfare program. My thoughts kept wandering to the Petri dish in the incubator and what might even now be starting to hatch on it.

  My mobile rang and I cursed but it was Bob. ‘Thought you’d like to know,’ he said, ‘that Harry Marshall gives the cause of Sister Gertrude’s death as trauma to the back of the skull and occipital area caused by a heavy-bladed weapon, an axe or hatchet. I’ve just been talking to him. I told him I’d ring you.’

  An axe or hatchet certainly made sense of the two deep lacerating wounds I’d seen when I lifted the veil. ‘What about those knife wounds on her ankle?’ I asked, fitting the earpiece in more comfortably.

  ‘Seems a sharp instrument like a scalpel made them,’ said Bob. ‘Doc Marshall wants you to go down and have a look at the injuries now that he’s cleaned them up a bit.’

  ‘I’ll go over in the morning,’ I said.

  ‘It was an odd set-up,’ Bob continued. ‘The whole thing. It looked like rage, but it was somehow cold.’

&nb
sp; ‘Cold rage’ seemed almost a contradiction in terms to me. But I always respect Bob’s contributions to things like this. In the old days, we worked closely together on several difficult homicides, and I knew that in this area things are often ambiguous. Even contradictory.

  ‘Her clothing and the bits and pieces we collected from the crime scene were supposed to be couriered over to you this arvo,’ he said.

  ‘I’m still waiting on them,’ I told him. ‘I’ll let you know the minute I get them.’

  ‘Doc Marshall says there was no sign of any recent sexual activity,’ Bob was saying, ‘or sexual interference of any sort.’ He paused. ‘I wonder if there’s a connection with this murder to those assaults at the university.’

  ‘They feel very different to me,’ I said.

  ‘I’m thinking of the attack from behind,’ said Bob. ‘The offender comes up behind them, gets an arm around their necks and down they go.’

  I considered Bob’s words, thinking of the savage injuries at the side and back of the dead woman’s head. ‘It’s possible,’ I said, changing lanes prior to entering Canberra’s CBD. ‘Very different crimes.’

  ‘Yes and no,’ said Bob, in the level way he has. ‘The campus stalker takes bags. We both reckon something’s been taken from the nun’s room.’

  It didn’t feel like enough similarity to me. But we were at that early stage where conjecture is all we had and I knew from past experience that by following up some of our suppositions, Bob and I had made arrests in the past.

  ‘The psychologist I spoke to here reckons it could be a sexual thing, with the handbag robbery taking the place of sexual violation.’

  Although I couldn’t see it myself, it was an interesting idea, one that I’d talk over with Charlie when we next sat down to a brotherly feed together. ‘It’s also a practical way of hobbling his victims,’ I suggested. ‘Hard to run away with your duds round your ankles.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Bob drily. ‘I remember.’

  I recalled the days of walking through dark university grounds while cramming for exams in my science degree years, studying in the library late at night, dragging myself to work next day while I was a serving NSW police officer.

  ‘One of my colleagues is running the samples from those assaults,’ I said, thinking of thorough and hardworking Florence Horsefall. ‘We should have the results very soon.’

  ‘Nearly forgot,’ said Bob. ‘That young policeman, Colin someone—’

  ‘Reeves,’ I added, remembering the young police officer I’d sponsored years ago when he was first getting sober.

  ‘He’s been trying to contact you,’ said Bob. ‘He wants your new phone number. Don’t know what it’s about. He’s been working undercover in Sydney the last few months. Only comes in to get his pay cheque. I nearly arrested him last time at the Police Centre. Thought he was an intruder.’

  I laughed again. It was true that the undercover cops often looked far worse than the dealers and druggies they hung out with—filthy jeans, matted hair, beards and the smell of dope and patchouli a cloud around them.

  ‘I said I’d pass on his mobile number to you,’ continued Bob.

  I jotted it down, wondering what problem young Colin might want to talk over with me. Woman trouble, most likely. I wasn’t exactly a shining light to follow in that area. ‘I’ll call him,’ I said.

  ‘Wish me luck,’ said Bob. ‘I’m about to walk up to the lecture podium.’

  I rang off and looked around for somewhere to get a meal. I didn’t feel like going back to the bistro or restaurant at University House—home for me in Canberra these days. The generous sized rooms, solid fifties and sixties furniture and big desk-space suits me very well. My quarters—now almost on a permanent basis—are downstairs in B block, with windows overlooking the quadrangle and long waterlily pond. A separate bedroom, living room, a cupboard-sized balcony and bathroom, with the bistro and the library down the walkway nearby provided me with all I needed.

  It had been almost seven o’clock by the time I’d left work and I was hungry because I’d skipped lunch, too. There was an Italian place that I’d eaten at before and I shouted myself a decent dinner there, smiling at how crestfallen the waiter seemed when I handed him back the wine list with a shake of my head. It was a long time now since I’d had a wine and these days I couldn’t believe how important alcohol had once been in my life. In the old days, I never went anywhere—lunch, dinner, picnic, or after work get-together—without alcohol. I felt a sense of gratitude that the dimensions of my life had become immeasurably wider and deeper without it and tucked into a hearty osso bucco followed by a fruit concoction and a short black. While I was finishing the last of the coffee, I rang Colin Reeves.

  ‘Yes?’ a male voice answered.

  I was careful what I said, in case Colin’s phone had been picked up by someone else. ‘It’s Jack from Lane Cove,’ I said, identifying myself with the anonymous handle I used in AA.

  ‘Jack!’ Colin sounded relieved. ‘Hang on.’ I waited while muffled events were concluded wherever Colin was and then he was back on the line.

  ‘Listen, mate,’ he said. ‘Give us your number. There’s something you should know about. I’ll call you back from a public phone.’

  I gave him my mobile number and rang off.

  •

  It was nearly nine by the time I turned my key in door number 131. The minute I stepped inside, and before I’d felt for the light switch, I froze. A light was already on. A thousand fears swirled around. When someone has been in policing as long as I have, there are always enemies, and not only among the crims. In my wilder moments, I imagined Genevieve taking out a contract on me. But would an intruder switch on the light in the bedroom? I couldn’t see the small room itself from the doorway, only the light shed by one of the bedside lamps.

  I stood there, ancient instincts in overdrive. I could feel the presence of another human being; something or someone, breathing, waiting in that bedroom. I had nothing I could use as a weapon, just my fists, and it had been a while since I’d been tested in hand-to-hand combat.

  For a second I almost closed the door and walked away. But I didn’t. Instead, I counselled myself, advising myself not to be so damned paranoid, that I wasn’t entering unsecured premises as in the old days. I walked in anyway, keeping myself clear of the exit behind me so that whoever was inside wouldn’t feel trapped, believing I remembered most of what I’d been taught in the old days about self-defence. So charged with adrenaline was I that I nearly hit the roof when a voice called my name.

  ‘Jack? Is that you?’

  I couldn’t believe my ears. A momentary relief that it wasn’t someone out to do me harm, then an immediate brace, because of how we’d parted. Some time ago, on the grounds of outrageous behaviour, I’d sent her away, spitting. Yet now her voice, soft and sweet, was coming from the bedroom. I walked over and paused at the doorway. There she was, gloriously naked, her long body spread out like a banquet, hair flowing over her breasts, hip flagrantly raised as she lay like some odalisque posing for Titian. Gold-flecked oil shimmered from shoulders, nipple and hip and her lips smiled my name again as I stood stunned in the doorway, her perfume filling my nostrils.

  ‘What on earth are you doing here?’ I asked, reminding myself that a woman in my bed was no reason to relax my vigilance.

  ‘What do you think?’ she teased. ‘Waiting for you.’

  I was about to ask her to get dressed and leave and God knows that’s what I should’ve done, but she got in before me.

  ‘Please, Jack. Don’t send me away. I know I behaved badly before. What I did was very wrong.’

  You can say that again, I thought. Stalking me, sending me anonymous letters. ‘But what you said to me that day really hit home,’ she continued.

  I’d forgotten what I’d said. I only remembere
d being furious with her. I looked around the flat.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Through the window,’ she said.

  I’d always thought the ground-floor rooms of University House should have bars on them and this was proof.

  ‘The flyscreen practically fell off in my hands and I just pushed the window up and hopped in. You know how athletic I am.’

  I remembered, and I saw from her expression that she knew I was remembering.

  ‘How did you know where to find me?’ As I questioned her, a small part of my mind was saying: tell her to get dressed and get out.

  ‘I’ve taken a year off work to do fulltime studies. Then I want to do postgrad work. Somewhere in immunotoxins.’ That still didn’t explain it, I thought.

  ‘Then I saw the advertisement about your lecture on the Biochemistry noticeboard,’ she continued, ‘and I just asked around a bit. Your boss told me you were staying here, actually. During rehearsal. I’ve joined the Drama Society.’

  I maintained my silence, while my mind worked on dialogue suitable for throwing a naked woman out of a man’s bed.

  ‘Look,’ she said, wriggling up higher, revealing gold-dusted pubic hair. ‘I know it was naughty of me, sort of breaking in. But there was no one around and I just couldn’t resist.’ She looked contrite and even though she was twice my daughter’s age, at the moment she looked about sixteen. If I only looked at her face which I was finding increasingly hard to do. She patted the covers.

  ‘Why don’t you hop in here with me and catch up?’

  I stood there staring at her, confused and undecided. It seemed an age since I’d experienced any intimate time with a woman. I’d gone out a few times with a pleasant divorcee I’d met when Jacinta was in rehab but my heart hadn’t been in it and the whole thing had fizzled out.

  I realised my heart was pounding and in spite of myself, my body was extremely interested. I also realised I’d missed my chance for indignation. I put my briefcase down and threw my keys on top of the cupboard near the door. Alix had turned the little clock radio on and the soft sound of a Spanish guitar mixed with her glittering body oil. As I stood near the door, still undecided, she slipped out of bed, walked right up to me and put her arms around my neck. I did not respond.