Lethal Factor

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘Listen,’ I said, turning to Colin. ‘When we’re ready to do this, you tell Cash that Jack McCain is running scared and is about to take his daughter and bolt off interstate. Tell him that this is the last chance or he could lose them forever. Tell him you’re watching the house and that Jacinta is alone.’ I shivered at these words, even though they were only hypothetical.

  Colin looked from Bob to me. ‘Okay. When we’re ready I’ll install a few muscleheads under the beds and be good and ready for the prick.’

  I paused, letting my heart rate and breathing come down again. I leaned forward, keeping my voice low. ‘I don’t want information about this operation to go past the people here,’ I added. ‘Marty Cash has mates everywhere. All it would take is a whisper of this to get out and we lose the mongrel.’

  I knew that Bob would face a firing squad before he’d betray me, and seeing him again I was becoming more confident about young Colin.

  All around us the bar was hotting up, people shouting, laughing, yelling for more drinks and our table was a small circle of silence and attention at its centre.

  ‘When you pick the guys to be under the beds,’ I said to Colin, ‘just tell them the hours they’ll be needed and the area. No names. No info whatsoever. Not even the street or the house number until the very last minute.’

  Colin agreed. ‘The stupid prick has already booked his flight to Thailand. Thinks he’s going to buy a bar over there.’

  The only bars he’s going to be involved with, I thought with grim satisfaction, will be the ones surrounding him at Long Bay.

  Bob took out a manilla file and passed it to me under the table. ‘Thought you’d be interested in this,’ he said as I fished it up and opened it. ‘Jeremiah Dokic,’ I read the print-out. ‘AKA Jeremiah Docic, or Jeremiah Dokie.’ I glanced over his date of birth and found an intermittent record of minor assaults and breaches of AVOs taken out by a woman in Canberra. This looked more like it. Our Jeremiah might be able to see the shafts of God’s energy falling from the heavens these days, but there’d been a time when he hadn’t been at all averse to a bit of biffo.

  ‘As well as working for the nuns,’ said Bob, ‘he worked casually at a club as a general dogsbody from time to time. One of the guys in Licensing told me that they closed it down for a while for operating as an unlicensed brothel. They’ve cleaned up their act since then, changed their name, got a licence and they’re in business again. The AVO was taken out by his girlfriend. She worked at the same club.’ He passed me a colour print and I studied it. She struck me as familiar and it didn’t take me long to remember where I’d seen her before. It was the spoofed-up woman I’d seen in the picture beside Jeremiah’s unmade bed, the woman I’d thought looked like someone in drag.

  •

  When Bob and I got back to Charlie’s, Jacinta was already there, watching a DVD with Andy. Books and folders littered the coffee table and floor, together with the wrappings of strange organic takeaway foods. My daughter steered me out of the room, leaving Andy engrossed in intergalactic warfare.

  ‘I’ve talked to the cops about Mum’s bloody nonsense,’ she said. ‘I met them at home.’

  ‘You went home by yourself?’ I felt fear course through me.

  ‘It was okay. Andy was there. I told him about all this mess.’ She paused, looking back at him through the doorways. ‘I don’t know what he makes of it.’

  ‘How did you go with the cops?’

  ‘Fine. I told them it was all bullshit. I said I remembered you coming in sometimes when you were drunk—and how I hated that—to say goodnight but you were too pissed to walk, so a couple of times you fell on the bed and passed out.’

  I couldn’t speak for a moment or two. ‘I’m sorry, Jass,’ I finally said.

  ‘I remember sitting up crying while you fell off onto the floor.’

  I could see that her eyes were filling and put my hand on her shoulder. ‘I wish things had been different,’ I said.

  She shrugged. ‘Me too.’ She sighed. ‘Anyway, I said that Mum was quite correct to say that she’d found me crying with you on my bed, or on the floor. And I told them why. I used to cry because I hated to see you like that. I wanted a proper father like Amelia Foster across the road, one who didn’t come home drunk in the middle of the night. One of those proper men in suits, who mowed the lawn and went to church and stuff like that. You know.’ She glanced around the door. Andy was now engaged in animated discussion with my brother.

  I went to my briefcase, took out my cheque book and unhooked my pen from my top pocket. ‘This is for your birthday,’ I said. ‘I’m giving you ten for a car. Go and buy yourself something at my old mate Kev’s car yard.’

  She threw her arms around me as I wrote a cheque for twelve. ‘I’d much rather have you than one of those proper men in suits,’ she said.

  ‘Get Charlie to go with you when you buy it,’ I told her. As well as being a very smart psychologist, my little brother is a whizz with cars.

  Jass whooped and danced all the way back to the lounge room. She jumped on top of Andy.

  ‘You can trade in that disgusting little blue thing,’ she said. ‘Charlie’s going to take us car shopping.’

  •

  Less than two hours later, the three of them were back and Jacinta had bought a car.

  While Andy and Charlie waved us off, Jacinta took me for a spin around the coast in the little white Honda.

  ‘It feels good doing this with a licence,’ she laughed.

  ‘I don’t want to hear any more,’ I said.

  ‘Just teasing.’

  God knows what she did in those days she lived on the streets. Some of it I know. Some I don’t and that’s fine with me. As she drove, I told her about our plan to get Marty Cash. I watched her out of the corner of my eye. The joy in her new vehicle had gone and in its place was the sadness I’d seen such a lot of in the old days.

  ‘I’m sorry about all this,’ she said. ‘This horrible Pigrooter thing. It’s all my fault.’

  ‘You haven’t done anything,’ I said. ‘This is Marty Cash one hundred per cent.’

  ‘You know what I mean. He’s a hangover from the old days. It takes such a long time to clear up the wreckage of the past.’

  ‘It does,’ I said, thinking of Genevieve’s allegations. If I hadn’t been a drunk, she wouldn’t be saying these things about me.

  Suddenly Jacinta started laughing. ‘Listen to us. We sound like some American telemovie. The family in recovery.’ She stopped laughing. ‘Most of the family,’ she qualified. ‘I despair of Mum.’ She glanced my way then focused on her driving.

  ‘I wish—’ Jacinta started to say.

  I patted her knee because I was right there with her. ‘I know you do,’ I said. ‘I wish too. I wish it all the time.’

  She shot me a grateful look. She knew I understood.

  ‘Why,’ she asked as she negotiated a roundabout too fast, ‘does life have to be so muddled and messy?’ We passed the sandstone walls of the huge gaol.

  ‘Let’s do that coast walk on Thursday,’ I said. Jacinta gave me a sideways smile.

  ‘Deal!’ she said.

  Fifteen

  Next morning, I drove south, turning off at Goulburn to visit the gaol. I parked my car near the wintering rose bushes and was finally let in through the little door cut out of the huge Victorian portals, signed the book, and was taken to an interview room.

  Gerald Bertoli awaited me, accompanied by a prison officer. Bertoli had the gaunt, tense look of a long-term prisoner, his shaven head contrasting with the stubble cultivated on his chin. As soon as I came in, he turned to the prison officer behind him, pointedly ignoring me.

  I introduced myself and sat down opposite him. ‘You’ve probably heard,’ I said, ‘that there’s someone out there sending anthrax thro
ugh the mail. The link between the two people killed by the disease is that they both worked on your case.’

  Bertoli’s face showed mock surprise. ‘A lot of people worked on my case,’ he said. ‘So you think I’m sending anthrax now? According to the police charges, which I’ve always denied—’ Bertoli grinned, ‘strychnine was allegedly my poison of choice. Is that the best lead you can get?’

  ‘We don’t have any leads, Mr Bertoli, at the moment,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Bertoli? You must be desperate.’ He leaned back in his chair. This was his world, not mine, and he looked quite comfortable in it. ‘And why the fuck should I help you?’

  ‘The Super is a mate of mine,’ I said. ‘He’s told me that if you help me, he’ll help you. You know how it is.’

  ‘What these bastards say and what they do are two different things. Just like the fucking coppers. Told me one thing, then went and did something else.’

  ‘It seems strange,’ I said, ‘that of all the scientists in this country, the two who were sent anthrax in the mail just happened to be the same ones who provided the certification regarding the strychnine you used in the contaminated Delmonte products.’ I watched him carefully as I spoke.

  Bertoli shook his head and laughed.

  ‘They’re entitled to their opinion,’ he said. ‘It’s a free country.’

  ‘Their opinions got you locked up,’ I said.

  ‘If the coppers want you locked up, they just get their scientific mates to do it for them,’ he said.

  ‘That’s bullshit,’ I snapped. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  The way a crim like Bertoli told it, you’d think he was just a nice bloke, quietly going about a friendly and harmless life of crime and all these bastards, for no other reason than pure spite, were intent on gathering the physical evidence he left behind in his multiple murder efforts, determined to lock him up when he himself had done absolutely nothing whatsoever to warrant this.

  ‘And now,’ Bertoli was saying, ‘you reckon I’m cooking up germ warfare in my cell.’ The laughter became a growl. ‘That’s bullshit.’

  It did seem unlikely that he could have orchestrated the anthrax mail-outs from here.

  Before I could say anything, Bertoli indicated to the prison officer that he was ready to leave. But there was something else I wanted to discuss with him.

  ‘There was a million dollars that went missing,’ I said, switching the subject back to his crime. ‘It was never recovered.’

  ‘Never recovered,’ he snarled, ‘because it was never there in the first place. I never did it. So how could I have the bloody money?’

  I recalled the watertight case against him, the physical evidence taken from the extortion letters and some of the poisoned stock that locked Gerald John Bertoli in without any shadow of a doubt. ‘See, Mr Bertoli,’ I said, scratching my head, ‘I know who the investigating officer was in your case. I know what he was like. I reckon he found that million dollars.’

  Bertoli was red in the face, about to explode. ‘That mongrel,’ he said. ‘I should’ve had him put down.’

  ‘You want to tell me what happened?’ I asked. I didn’t think Bertoli had anything to do with the anthrax letters, I never really had. But his manner confirmed the suspicion that I’d had ever since I’d noted Detective Sergeant Marty Cash as officer in charge of the Delmonte Deli extortion case. And I wanted every piece of dirt I could lay my hands on about Marty Cash.

  ‘You know,’ I said, ‘you could make a statement about this. You could make a confession. Tell us what really happened.’ I looked around the room, the nineteenth-century grilled window up at ceiling level, the plastered stone walls. ‘The jury didn’t believe you anyway. You’ve got nothing to lose,’ I said. ‘Because Cash should be in here with you, I reckon.’

  ‘The cunt wouldn’t last a day in here,’ said Bertoli. ‘You know how we deal with mongrel dog coppers.’

  I stood up, wanting to be out of there, away from the hatred and hopelessness that hung in the close air.

  ‘Suit yourself, Mr Bertoli,’ I said.

  ‘No one would believe me,’ he added, as I walked to the door. ‘Even if I did make a statement.’

  ‘Put it on paper and they’d have to look into it,’ I said. ‘Who knows where that might lead?’

  I didn’t really care whether he made a formal statement or not. As far as I was concerned, I’d just been told everything I needed to know. It didn’t seem likely that this man would track back through his trial, find out the names of the scientists involved in one small part of a toxicology report and then organise for them to be sent BA. The tenacity and patience to carry out refined investigation and the discipline needed for persistent follow-up are not the character traits that I associate with standover men like Bertoli. His idea of revenge was more in the line of breaking legs with a crowbar.

  I was pleased to be out of the gaol and I continued the drive to Canberra.

  The moment I walked up the stairs and turned into my corridor, I heard Jane call from her office. ‘Phil Havelock was looking for you,’ she said, coming to the door.

  ‘How did you know it was me?’ I asked, surprised.

  ‘I know your clodhopping step,’ she said.

  ‘What does Phil Havelock want with me?’ I asked as we walked along the corridor together.

  ‘You’re the only one he hasn’t attacked yet with his horrible anthrax vaccination,’ Jane said. Her fair hair swung between two combs, pulled back from her face, showing her high forehead. ‘It’s finally arrived. We all have to take a course. Anyone who might be frontline in the near future. Smallpox too, soon. And that includes you.’ She stood at the door of my office as I threw my briefcase on the desk and dropped the overnight bag. ‘Everyone’s after you, Jack. I’ve been running up and down the corridor answering your phone.’

  ‘You don’t have to, you know,’ I said. ‘There’s voice mail. Or they can get me on the mobile.’

  ‘I can’t stand the sound of it ringing,’ she said. ‘George Abernathy from the Biochemistry Department rang. Asked you to ring him. And Dr Lennie Lowenstein rang. The great man has arrived in the country. Here’s the Sydney number he left.’

  I took the number from her. ‘Oh, and don’t forget,’ she added. ‘Christmas in July dinner is combining with the Wesley Morton Memorial lecture. Budget considerations. I know you hate formal dinners, but you’ll have to go to that.’

  I groaned. Christmas in July was easily avoided, but the Wesley Morton lecture at the university was traditionally delivered to the academic staff by the most senior scientist. If Digby didn’t do it—and he’d almost definitely decide not to under the circumstances— I’d be stuck with the bloody thing.

  ‘What about Henry?’ I said desperately.

  ‘You are joking,’ she said sternly. ‘If you’d invited him to do it ages ago, it might be all right. But now he’ll know you’re just ducking it and putting it on him.’

  Jane was spot on, as usual.

  George was after me about those other lectures I’d promised him. The first one was next week and George wanted to see some sort of program. I decided on teaching the process of the BA investigation for the lectures with the advanced chemistry students. With a bit of luck, they might even be able to shed some light on the matter for me. It wouldn’t be the first time students had taught a professor something. If I had to do the Wesley Morton lecture, I’d use the same subject matter that was now frighteningly close to all of us.

  Having sorted that out for myself, I rang Phil Havelock. ‘Come over as soon as you can,’ he said. ‘The powers that be must be getting very anxious to be ordering this sort of thing.’

  ‘With good reason,’ I said. ‘It’s only a matter of time before the official cause of Livvy Worthington’s death goes public.’

&nb
sp; I made a time for later in the day and put the phone down, thinking of the postal worker, wondering if she’d be the third death. Natalie Haynes had just been a citizen going about her daily work and she’d had the bad fortune to get contaminated. I felt another rush of deep anger against this killer, the malice and resentments, brooded over in secret, that hatched into cowardly, hidden assaults via the mail.

  My mobile rang, it was Bob. ‘That person you had an interest in,’ he said, ‘you needn’t worry.’ Andy Kelly was a cleanskin.

  I went down to the loading dock and found all the wheelie bins from the Worthingtons’ town house had arrived for me to search. Forensic science can be so sexy, I thought, as I geared up for yet yet another foray through the rubbish bins. I remembered the time back in Sydney when Bob and I had been searching some bins for a suspected murder weapon in a park near Central, looking like dickheads in our detectives’ suits and ties, picking through the rubbish. The local derros, thinking we were onto something good, suddenly started streaming towards us, ordering us out of their rubbish bins. We’d had to fight them off.

  I went through the recycle bins and found lots of newspapers, old envelopes and gift wrapping paper. I put the latter aside, feeling hopeful, and then turned my attention to the messier garbage bins. I was lifting out several squashed takeaway food containers when I spotted a padded Australia Post bag. It was stained with the food scraps around it and I wondered for a minute why it hadn’t gone into the recycle bin. Then my heart started to race. There was something still inside it, something that felt like a bottle. This could be it. I prayed that it was. Carefully, I lifted it out, put it on a sheet of white paper, then bagged the whole thing. I pushed it through the hatch straight into the bio-hazard lab.

  It wasn’t long before I was opening the postal bag in a safety cabinet. My gloved hands shook slightly as I lifted out the bottle of aftershave. I put it down to one side while I examined the bag. The address had been printed by laser jet on an adhesive label. It was postmarked Sydney and dated ten days ago. I took wipe samples from it, but the precision and anonymity of the label, and the press seal of the padded bag made me suspect I wouldn’t find any clues to the killer here. However, even the cleverest ones slip up. I would send the bag down to Florence for trace analysis. Jane or Sarah could chase up the trail taken by the padded bag through the mail.