Lethal Factor

by Gabrielle Lord

  Anthrax begins its assault by attacking the very immune cells that are sent out to kill it; producing three proteins that destroy human cells. One is a protective antigen (PA) that snips through cell walls, allowing lethal factor (LF) and oedema factor (OF) to get inside and start affecting the victim’s cells. Equipped with these proteins, Bacillus anthracis ambushes the macrophages that are trying to engulf it, using the invaded cell’s own systems to further its ends, replicating on a massive scale, exploding more and more cell walls until it floods into the bloodstream in huge numbers. In earlier times, it was thought to kill simply by virtue of the massive amounts of bacteria found clogging every system causing death by ‘logjam’. From the bloodstream, it’s carried to all the major systems, all the time releasing more and more of its deadly proteins. Once the level of LF in the body has reached a critical mass, even with every invading anthrax organism destroyed, and huge doses of antibiotics, it is too late. Death is the only outcome.

  As I considered the journey of the bacillus, I couldn’t help thinking that BA behaves very like a smart guerilla commando, overthrowing vastly superior forces by utilising classic strategy: use assets already in place, turn the enemy’s strength against himself. To make the spores effective as weapons, they need to be treated to make them ‘breathable’. This requires breeding up large quantities and forcing spore production. The spores then have to be ‘harvested’, freeze dried and milled to break up the clumps. So as to form a floatable, inhalable mist, they need to hitch a ride—no more than a few of them—on a floating particle, a carrier, such as silica.

  I stopped reading and stood up, walking around, thinking. I had found no trace of additives so far.

  I rang Harry Marshall again. This time, he was in.

  ‘Come over now,’ he said.

  A short while later, I leaned on the security bell and heard Harry’s distinctive growl, an odd habitual throat-clearing habit he has, as the door opened and he ushered me inside. As soon as we’d exchanged the usual pleasantries I followed him through the corridors. He pushed open the first of the doors leading to the autopsy room, finding me a white coat.

  ‘I didn’t know what to expect with a murdered nun,’ he said. ‘But I sure didn’t expect this.’

  I put the coat on and followed him through the second door into the large autopsy area and then to a table at the end of the room.

  ‘Take a look at what I found,’ he said. ‘It’s much easier to see now that I’ve cleaned her up.’ He pulled off the hospital greens that covered the body and I met Sister Gertrude again, except this time she was not covered by a black serge habit and veil and her heavy white legs pointed stiffly outwards.

  Despite my years of hanging around places like this, I still feel something like reverence towards the laid-out dead. They have a gravitas, and I feel something like humility in the presence of their humble nakedness. In a morgue, their effect on me is quite different from the business-like manner that comes naturally when I’m busy at the original crime scene.

  I glanced at her face. Gertrude’s half-closed eyes and slackened face muscles made her appear smoother, even younger than when I’d first seen her, flung on the floor of her cell, clutching her pearl-covered prayer book, surrounded by her black robes. Harry tapped on her lower left leg using a probe as a pointer and I looked closely at what he was indicating.

  ‘This is what I want you to see. Something’s been cut into the flesh,’ he said.

  I studied the ragged-looking wound and he passed me a large magnifying glass. I used this to examine the wound, now empty of the blood that had filled it when I last looked. Now I could see something like a rough star shape cut into the flesh of this woman; two savage slashes formed a crooked cross, with other smaller cuts in the right angles of the crossbars.

  ‘It’s some sort of cross,’ I said, looking even closer. ‘What do you make of it?’

  ‘I feel I’ve seen it somewhere,’ he said. ‘It might be some sort of alchemical symbol.’

  I straightened up. ‘Alchemy is not in my area of expertise,’ I said.

  ‘Go on,’ joked Harry. ‘You guys with your magic coloured potions and lights, and funny brown boxes that go ping. Of course you’re an alchemist. It’s just that you’ve got fancier equipment than Simon Magister.’ He was suddenly serious. ‘I’ve just heard that Livvy Worthington is very ill. My senior assistant has a brother in ICU at Canberra Hospital.’

  ‘I saw Digby at the hospital earlier,’ I said. ‘And it wasn’t looking good, Harry.’

  Harry nodded, gazing off into the middle distance. ‘They said it was just a matter of time before she’s down here with me.’

  We looked at each other. ‘Poor Digby,’ he said. ‘He’ll be lost without her.’

  More research, I thought. More time for his ants.

  I saw Harry take a few moments and then refocus himself back to the body lying beneath him. ‘These cuts in her leg,’ he said. ‘They bled very freely. They’re not postmortem.’

  ‘He carved her leg while she was still alive?’ I asked.

  ‘He did,’ said Harry. ‘Although I doubt that she was conscious at that stage. Not with those whacks on the back of the skull.’

  ‘We’re saying “he” all the time,’ I said.

  ‘Doesn’t feel like a “she” to me,’ said Harry.

  I leaned over, studying the wounds again. ‘It’s a bit like something I’ve seen before,’ I said. ‘In some representations of the crucifixion in religious symbolism, I think I’ve seen this—the cross with three smaller intersecting lines in front of it. Representing the nails.’

  ‘You Catholics have all the fun,’ said Harry.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that,’ I said.

  ‘If you look closely,’ Harry pointed, ‘there are four of these cuts around the crossbars, not three.’

  ‘There were break-ins at the convent last year,’ I said. ‘Desecration of the chapel and precious vessels stolen. The nuns didn’t want to talk about it, but mention was made of Satanism.’

  ‘Satanism indeed. More human beings have been destroyed in the names of God, Allah and Yahweh than old Nick ever harmed,’ he snorted, voicing an opinion I’d heard from veteran investigators over the years.

  I shrugged. ‘You know how it is. We have to follow every lead, Harry.’

  ‘Young Brian Kruger was round here taking photographs of the injuries,’ said Harry, referring to the body on the metal table. ‘And they show the marks fairly well. But I think you’ll find a good clear sketch might be better. And I know how good your drawing skills are. Done anything decent lately?’ Harry Marshall was one of the few collectors of my works, owning a watercolour I’d done out at Seven Oaks a couple of years ago, of the creek and a couple of witchy old willows, which hung in his living room.

  ‘I haven’t even unpacked my gear properly yet,’ I confessed, pulling out my notebook and a soft-leaded pencil. I made a copy of the cuts on the dead woman’s leg, drawing the cross, then the four little ‘L-shaped’ right angles that surrounded it. I completed my sketch and showed him before putting it back in my pocket. ‘I’ll get copies of this around,’ I said. ‘Someone might have an idea what it’s all about.’

  Henry flicked the covers back over the body and we both walked to the first of the double doors. ‘He must have had two weapons with him,’ said Harry. ‘The axe or hatchet that he used to kill her with, and a knife as well. This guy was determined and prepared.’ Harry pulled his gloves off and threw them in a lidded bin, took off his coat and washed his hands. I followed and we retraced our footsteps, returning to his office.

  ‘What did you make of those little specks of white substance on the fabric of the clothing?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m still looking into that,’ I said, declining the offer of a chair. ‘I’ll keep moving, Harry,’ I said. ‘I’ll work with my little s
ketch first, and if I need extra, I’ll contact the local police for the photographs they took. My brother Charlie knows a lot about symbols. He might know what that cross is all about.’

  ‘Whatever it’s about,’ said Harry, ‘it’s very important to our killer.’

  ‘Sister Gertrude had her finger marking a place in her prayer book,’ I recalled. ‘Did you see what page it was?’

  Harry sifted through the papers on the top of his desk. ‘I did, actually,’ he said. ‘And made a note of it. It was here a minute ago.’ He found a sheet of paper and pulled it out. ‘Here it is.’ He passed it to me. ‘Her finger was marking the place in one of the gospels.’

  ‘And what was it all about?’ I asked.

  ‘Hard to say,’ he replied. ‘Two pages of dense print on bible paper.’

  I took the prayer book and started reading. It was Matthew’s gospel. The Crucifixion.

  Seven

  I climbed back into my car, pulling out the sketch I’d done, glancing again at the cross with the four smaller angle joints. Everything at a crime scene tells me something about the crime, but something like this tells me more about the killer. Now I was getting more of a picture of the man. He knew the building or at least where his intended victim would be on the night he entered the premises. And by carving this symbol on the leg of his victim, he was branding her in some way, marking her, telling the world something, revealing who he was, if only I could read it.

  I found myself addressing him. I know you are sadistic, possessive and brutal. I know that you have local knowledge. I suspect you are ambitious and egoistic and determined to make your mark. My mobile rang and I snatched it up.

  ‘Jack, it’s Colin from Lane Cove,’ said my caller, using his AA tag. ‘I’m ringing from a public phone and I’ll make it quick. One of my gigs passed something on to me that you should know about. Pigrooter is looking for someone to do a job for him.’

  ‘Marty Cash?’ I said. ‘But he’s in a coma.’

  ‘I hate to be the one to tell you, mate. But the bastard’s made some sort of spontaneous recovery. Just a while back.’

  ‘Shit,’ I said, thinking of the two hundred and thirty thousand dollars that had mostly gone into my new house.

  ‘Exactly,’ said my young colleague. ‘We were all hoping he’d stay down.’

  ‘You didn’t ring me to tell me Pigrooter’s good news,’ I said, already getting a very bad feeling about this conversation.

  ‘I always knew,’ Colin was saying, ‘that he was a deadset scumbag, but I never thought he’d go this low.’

  The bad feeling got worse.

  ‘Jack,’ Colin continued, ‘he’s looking for someone to kidnap your daughter—’

  I didn’t hear the rest of what he said. Red-black rage roared in my ears. ‘I’ll kill the bastard,’ I said.

  The rest of Colin’s words eventually sank in. ‘Kidnap your daughter, give her a bashing and lock her up in one of his brothels. Reckons you’ve got something of his you should return.’

  I couldn’t speak for a moment.

  ‘Hey, Jack. You okay?’

  ‘I’ll kill him,’ I said again and I meant it. I hadn’t felt such a black rage since my son Greg was threatened by a dealer. When something like this happens, when me and mine are threatened, the civil liberties of someone like Marty Cash tend to take a back seat. I knew better than most about the sorry statistics of crime and criminals. For every thousand crimes, we lock up one offender. Nine hundred and ninety-nine are laughing. The crims have got it all their way these days and they know it. I wanted Cash hurt. Badly.

  ‘Tell me where he is and I’ll deal with him,’ I said, and swapped the mobile to the other side of my head, wiping my sweaty hand, fumbling around for my little black book. ‘I still know a couple of the old hard men. We’ll drop in on him. Have a serious chat.’

  ‘Jack,’ said Colin. ‘Calm down. You’ve got to stay right out of the picture. We don’t want him sussing that you’ve got wind of this.’

  I took a deep breath, making an effort to detach from the anger. Right now, I needed to be clear and alert.

  ‘It’s not all bad news, mate,’ said Colin. ‘I applied for the position of official kidnapper, through the informant. This might be just the thing to get Marty Cash off the streets for a good stretch.’

  Colin was right. This was a gift, I thought, as my racing heart slowed a little. This could turn Pigrooter into bacon rind. ‘If we work it smart,’ said Colin voicing my thoughts, ‘we could set something up, a nice reception committee.’

  ‘Men like him deserve to pass the rest of their days in the slammer,’ I said, ‘for even thinking of harming Jacinta.’

  ‘We’ll get him,’ said Colin.

  ‘But he’s got to come into my house. He’s got to get caught in a situation that the defence can’t claim later was really something else. Don’t let him delegate the job,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to end up arresting you. I want Marty Cash charged with conspiracy to kidnap, attempted kidnap, abduction, deprivation of liberty, assault, intent to commit, everything short of homicide.’

  My heart rate eased and I unclenched my fists and worked my fingers, stiff in the cold. No sooner had Pigrooter come out of his coma than he’d set about collecting his debts. His usual business was the trade in information and the networking of favour-seekers and favour-doers that passes as mateship in those circles. He was a godfather whose domain was the shadows where worlds overlap, crime and the law, crims and cops. He had no history of this sort of crime and there was no way of knowing how enthusiastic he’d be in its commission.

  ‘Where is she now?’ Colin asked.

  I imagined my daughter as I’d last seen her, shuffling around the little house at Malabar, draped in a yellow doona, cranky because she wasn’t getting her own way quickly enough.

  ‘She’s snug at home,’ I said. ‘But she’s going to stay with someone while I’m down here.’

  ‘Give me your address. I can keep an eye on it for you,’ Colin offered. ‘Maybe have a chat with her, make a plan. Then I can talk to a few of the muscleheads. Set something up.’

  It sounded perfect and I don’t know why I hesitated. Maybe it was because I hadn’t seen Colin Reeves for a couple of years and a lot can happen in that time. I knew it was paranoid—it goes with the territory—but while ever there was the slightest chance that Colin Reeves might be suborned I couldn’t bring myself to give him my address, even though any half-hearted attempt to track me down would swiftly deliver the information. I hoped by now, Jacinta was either safe at Charlie’s or one of hundreds of students at her tech. But how long would it take, I wondered, for someone with Pigrooter’s network of informers to discover Jacinta’s daily movements? Getting that sort of info is as easy as pissing.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘But I’ll get onto it myself.’ I thought about what would need to be done. ‘You need to set things up pretty smartly.’

  ‘I’ll talk to my boss,’ said Colin. ‘Convince him that Marty Cash is top of the list of the people he wants to convict.’

  As soon as we said goodbye, I rang Bob.

  ‘You’ve heard already?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That bastard Cash.’

  There was a slight pause. Bob had a buffer zone of silence which he used to good effect. It was a habit of his I’d noticed from the old days when we’d been partners.

  ‘What’s happened?’ he asked.

  I told him.

  ‘I can go round and pick her up right now,’ he said. ‘She can stay with me till you get back and we sort this out.’

  I could just imagine Jacinta’s response to this idea. She thought Bob was a decent enough fellow but she also thought he was the most boring man in the world. Like too many addicts and their children, Jacinta is drawn to the glittering and the dangerou
s rather than the safe and the steady. ‘She’s staying at Charlie’s while I’m away,’ I said. ‘She can stay there till we get this bastard. But I’d appreciate it if you’d keep an eye on her for me.’

  ‘No probs,’ said Bob, taking down the address and phone number.

  ‘Colin Reeves,’ I said. ‘He’s ridgy-didge, is he?’

  ‘Yeah, young Reeves is solid,’ Bob said. ‘Straight up and down. Although you’d never know it from the way he looks these days . . .’

  ‘Thanks, Bob,’ I said. ‘You know how it is.’

  ‘I do,’ said my friend. ‘Relax. You know this is just what we want. If we can get the bastard for abduction and kidnap we won’t even need to help the charge sheet a bit. And don’t worry. Jacinta will be safe.’

  Again, I picked up on his hesitation. I remembered what he’d said when I first rang him.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked. ‘There’s something you’re not telling me.’

  ‘I’ve heard something,’ he said. ‘Something else you’re not going to like. I thought that’s what you were ringing me about.’

  My heart rate started mounting again.

  ‘Your wife,’ Bob said. ‘Ex-wife, I mean. She’s been talking to the detectives up here.’

  I felt my heart freeze. Somehow, Genevieve’s got wind of that bloody money. Jacinta had mentioned a fight. She must have told her mother the whole story. And given my ex-wife the fuel to burn me at the stake. Genevieve would want her share of that. So would the tax man. I saw my career go down the gurgler. I rallied. It would boil down to oath against oath. Then I saw my daughter in the witness box. If Jacinta were roped in by the prosecution—and she would be—could I ask her to perjure herself on my account? Despite the odd practical adjustment to my moral boundaries, I knew I could not.