Lethal Factor

by Gabrielle Lord

  ‘Just go,’ said Jeremiah. ‘Just leave me in peace. You don’t know what he’s like. Him and his mates.’ He moved lower in the bed and turned his face away from us. The interview was over. I walked away, with Bob behind me, attending to a call on his mobile.

  ‘He’s too scared,’ I said. ‘This bloke must have a fearsome reputation.’

  ‘Jeremiah is right to be scared,’ said Bob, rehooking his phone. ‘That was Ryan Holbrook. Miriam Furlough just rang him with the initial findings on Ksenia Jelacic.’

  ‘Surprise me,’ I said.

  ‘There’s every indication she was dead before she was strung up in her doorway. The scientists at the Divison of Analytic Laboratories are going flat strap with the physical evidence collected at her place. But so far they’ve got nothing.’

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘even if they find his DNA at Ksenia’s place, so what? He’s got a good reason for it being there. He was her boyfriend. Something’s not right, Bob.’ Florence’s words about the best hiding place being right under your nose kept circling round my mind. There was something I was failing to see and it was something obvious.

  ‘Keep working at it,’ said Bob. ‘You’ll sort it out. You always do.’ His mobile rang. He didn’t say anything, but I saw his face change.

  ‘Good news,’ he said. ‘That was Sydney. They’ve got Marko Gavrilovic.’

  •

  I went to Sydney with Bob. I wanted to see Marko again. ‘We’ve found he had an interstate record,’ said Bob. ‘I’ve got one of the young blokes getting details for me.’

  When I saw him sitting in the interview room, I knew it was the same man I’d seen briefly in the car outside Ksenia’s house. At closer quarters, I saw how the pale face and good-looking features expressed habitual vigilance.

  Everything about him made my fists clench and I had to remind myself that I was a man of science, not violence. After the formalities, Ryan Holbrook started the questions. No, said Gavrilovic, when he left Ksenia’s house that morning, she’d been alive. She’d been upset though, he said. Crying.

  ‘Why was that?’ asked Ryan.

  ‘I had told her it was finished between us,’ he said. ‘Maybe she hanged herself because of that?’

  The carelessness with which he spoke made me hate him. He told Ryan he had never been on the premises of the Convent of the Assumption. He had no idea why he’d been arrested.

  A young man entered the room and passed a fax to Bob. Bob glanced at it and passed it to me. I took a few moments to read it. It was helpful.

  ‘Tell me about the job you were working on in Brisbane, Marko,’ I said.

  ‘Brisbane?’ The facade slipped a fraction but was almost immediately back in place.

  ‘You were working as a bodyguard, weren’t you?’ I said, waving the fax at him. ‘For Herbie Groom. Big Brisbane crim.’

  ‘So?’ he said. ‘How was I to know he was a crim?’

  ‘You make a habit of working for crims,’ I said, holding my card till last. ‘Before Herbie Groom, you worked for another crim. A big international crim. He’s being tried right now in the International Court at the Hague.’

  Now he was rattled. It was clear he hadn’t known that we would know this.

  ‘You worked as a bodyguard to Slobodan Milosevic,’ said Bob, who had taken the fax from me and read further.

  Gavrilovic pulled himself together and visibly straightened up. ‘I’m proud I served my country. I love my country. I served my president and that makes me proud too. I am a true patriot.’

  God preserve us all from such true patriots, I thought. I left the interview room in search of a DNA screening kit. My mobile rang. It was Toby Speed.

  ‘I’ve been trying to get on to you,’ he said. ‘I didn’t tell you everything when we met.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ I said. ‘But I can bet I know why you’re ringing me now.’

  There was a silence.

  ‘You’ve heard we’ve arrested Marko Gavrilovic,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘It’s my job to know things like that,’ said Speed.

  ‘Used to be,’ I said, wondering which Australian Croat or Serb had rung him to inform him, in just the same way Josip Babic’s daughter had rung him.

  ‘I’d like my name left right out of this,’ said Speed. ‘If it comes to anything.’

  ‘Is that so,’ I said, wondering what the deal was.

  ‘It could be embarrassing,’ he said. ‘Not just to me.’

  ‘You’re spot on with that,’ I said. ‘Terrorism is not exactly the flavour of the month right now, Speed.’ I almost felt gleeful. ‘What’ve you got that’s worth me going to the trouble of losing your contact details?’

  ‘I’ll tell you something about Marko Gavrilovic,’ said Speed. ‘His mother was raped and mutilated and left to die by Croatian irregulars some time in the ’70s after a raid on a Serbian village.’

  I thought of the murdered nun, the wound on her ankle. I remembered the precision of the cuts that had hacked through the figure on the miraculous crucifix. In my mind, details that had seemed puzzling started to come together. ‘They cut her hands and feet off and she bled to death,’ I said.

  Toby Speed sounded surprised. ‘How did you know that?’

  ‘He did it to the crucifix,’ I said, ringing off.

  I was starting to make sense of the crime scene in Sister Gertrude’s room. I longed for a clean piece of paper on which to draw the sequence, like a story board. I hoped I had most of it now. But there was just one problem: and it was a big one. So far, we had absolutely no evidence to put this killer back at the crime scene. Nothing convincing for the jury. I couldn’t even see us getting to the committal stage with this one.

  As I re-entered the room with the DNA kit, Bob looked up. ‘Doctor McCain here will take a DNA sample,’ he said. ‘He’ll fix you up with a mouth swab.’ Gavrilovic glared at me as I took my cue, pulled on the disposable gloves and took a swabstick out of the kit Bob had ready and waiting. I passed the cotton bud to Gavrilovic and explained what he needed to do. He looked at it for a while, and I thought I saw the beginning of a smile at the corners of his tight mouth. Then he rubbed it around his gums. I took it from him and pressed it against the treated paper that seals the sample, fixing it at room temperature. I snapped it into a small sterile container and wrote the necessary details on it. Now we had Gavrilovic in a little plastic house.

  I cursed inwardly that we had no DNA profile against which to match this man. But the best Florence had been able to get was the NR—Not Reportable—result which had given us no details apart from the sex marker.

  Gavrilovic was sitting back in his seat, looking as if he owned the joint, wearing his cockiness like a badge. It seemed as if he couldn’t care less. Bob and I left him to the Sydney blokes and walked down the hall together.

  ‘We’ve got nothing on the prick,’ said Bob.

  ‘I know,’ I said.

  We parted and I drove to Malabar. I was tired and only just remembered in time that it was Jacinta’s birthday. I bought some roses on the way.

  Twenty

  I was surprised when I walked in, to find Jacinta there, lying on the lounge, reading.

  ‘Dad!’ said my daughter with her rare, huge smile. ‘How cool!’

  She jumped up and threw her arms around me when I handed her the bunch of pink roses.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘I live here. Remember?’

  ‘I thought you were staying at Charlie’s,’ I said. ‘What’s happened to the Bondi flat?’

  ‘We just got back from the bushwalking thing and I needed to get more clothes and do some washing.’

  She found a big jug in the kitchen and shoved the roses in it, then went back to the lounge and flun
g herself down, legs stuck up the wall. ‘I needed some space. It’s hard being with someone twenty-four hours a day.’ She pulled a face.

  ‘So how was the camping trip?’ I asked.

  ‘The bushwalk was great. I saw a huge goanna and two black snakes.’ She paused. ‘We’re just too different,’ she said. ‘And he’s got lots of weird, old-fashioned ideas.’

  I didn’t tell her I’d noticed these already.

  ‘He wants me to move in,’ she said. ‘But I don’t want to go through all the hassle of packing up and moving to North Bondi only to have to move again in a few months if we can’t get along together.’

  I heard her swing onto the floor. And suddenly she was there, in the doorway, watching as I made a coffee.

  My mobile rang. It was Colin Reeves.

  ‘Where are you?’ he asked me.

  ‘In Sydney,’ I said. ‘At my place.’

  ‘That’s a good start, mate,’ he said. ‘Because we’re moving on Jacinta tonight.’

  ‘Shit,’ I said. ‘Tonight? Are we ready for this?’

  ‘We’ve gotta be,’ said Colin.

  ‘Who are you talking to?’ Jacinta asked and I hushed her with a hand signal.

  ‘Everyone’s ready to go. I’ll tell them the address on the way.’ I gave it to him.

  ‘But Colin—’ I started, about to protest that it was her birthday.

  ‘I’ll call you back when we’re on the way.’ And he was gone.

  I felt my legs trembling but it wasn’t fear. It was a combination of anticipation and anger. And also a wild feeling of satisfied vengeance. I put the phone down. Jacinta stood in the doorway, frowning, wanting to know.

  ‘Tonight,’ I said to her. ‘Cash thinks he’s going to grab you tonight.’ I saw her go for her mobile. ‘No,’ I said, putting my hand over it. ‘Don’t ring anyone. Don’t say anything to anyone. You can tell them all about it in the morning. When we’ve got that bastard locked up.’

  ‘What do we do now?’ Jacinta asked.

  ‘Just act normal,’ I said. ‘Me and Charlie are going to cook you a birthday meal.’

  ‘But I wanted us to go to the bistro at the pub with Andy.’

  ‘You’d better ring and cancel,’ I said.

  ‘Ja wohl, mein Kommandant,’ Jacinta said.

  I rang my brother and told him what was going on, but still felt jumpy when I heard a noise at the front as he arrived a bit late.

  I got my car out of the way, so that only Jacinta’s was parked on the rise in front of the house. And we kept our voices down, just in case. It was hard to forget that we were part of a stake-out. In fact, it wasn’t possible at all.

  We had dinner and a cream-filled sponge cake that Jacinta had ordered, with pink and blue roses around the rim.

  It was difficult to feel normal when all the time I was acutely aware that someone called Brett and his huge companion, Darren, tooled up and fit as buggery, had settled down in the small back bedroom I used as a study. They had my portable television set. But they refused to eat anything and all I could hear from the back room was the occasional muted sound of canned laughter. My heart was racing and I wondered if my daughter’s was doing the same. We didn’t say much. To cover any noises, I asked Jacinta to put on some of her music, which she did with relish. I’d made sure the blinds and curtains were well and truly drawn and checked the locks. I knew there was no lock on earth that could keep out a determined intruder, and I knew that tonight, if we were to put this bastard away, my house had to be breached, but that didn’t make it easy on me. It meant staying alert even though I felt as tired as a drover’s dog.

  Another noise, this time at the back door, unsettled me. It was Bob, who’d walked the last several hundred yards, having left his car near a look-out. He ate both slices of sponge cake that the big boys had declined and I took up my position in the front living room, near the curtained window that overlooks the road outside, sitting in the dark like a dickhead. If I turned my head I was just able to discern Bob comfortably seated on the lounge behind me, arms folded, ankles neatly crossed, dozing peacefully. Once I’d found him dozing, waiting for me, beside a naked woman, half-sitting on a couch, the woman dead as a doornail, strangled by a jealous lover.

  At about eleven, Charlie went home and Jacinta went to bed, and in the back bedroom, the two State Protection Group officers either dozed or watched the television with the sound turned off. Outside, the wash of the sea was a soft and continuous constant, except for the sound of the occasional passing car, and as the night grew later, these became infrequent.

  At about twelve-eighteen, the sound of a powerful car approaching startled me and I was suddenly wide awake. There is a current that flows between the watcher and the watched, and I had experienced its power on other occasions. I leaned forward to see a vehicle without headlights pulling over to a halt on the grassy verge opposite my place. Only a few lights showed in the houses along the street and the street lighting was meagre. I waited, trying to recognise the man who got out of the car. Bob was beside me just like in the old days and, together, we strained to see what was going on in the street below. It was Colin, greasy, leather-jacketed, jeans and boots, the perfect picture of a small-time crim. Come on, I was saying to the other party in the car, get out too. But only Colin was visible, standing near the now closed driver’s door, fiddling with his jacket. Where are you, you bastard? I willed Marty Cash to move: Get out of the car and come in here. But all I could hear was the crunch of Colin’s boots as he started across the road.

  ‘Cash isn’t coming in!’ I hissed to Bob. ‘He’s too fucking smart. This is a waste of time.’

  Colin was just about to step up onto the footpath when I heard him swear, and down he went, like a fighter who’s just been kayoed. He rolled around there for a moment, grabbing his knee. He looked as if he was in intense pain. Then he started pitifully crawling across the road. Come on, Cash, I hissed again.

  Suddenly, Brett and Darren were with us, crouched under the windowsill, peering out into the street, all of us shivering with tension and excitement.

  We watched in a tense silence as Colin crawled back to the car, pulled himself up by the handle and, hunched over, made silent conversation with whoever was in the car.

  ‘Come on, come on, you prick,’ Brett whispered. ‘Get out of the car.’

  We waited. Nothing happened. I felt a sudden protective urge and crept down the corridor to check on my daughter who, in spite of everything, had gone to sleep like a baby, her bedside lamp still glowing, her book still near her curled fingers. Lying there, with her soft hair and soft breathing, she could have been my ten-year-old again. I rechecked her windows and retreated. To get to her, they’d have to get past me. And the rest of us.

  When I returned, Colin had disappeared.

  ‘He’s back in the car,’ Bob said.

  ‘Move, you bastard,’ I whispered to Cash.

  ‘He’s not going in,’ I said after a moment. ‘He’s going to call it off.’

  ‘Just wait,’ said Bob. ‘Marty Cash doesn’t rush things. He’s got to adjust to a completely different scenario. Give him time.’

  We waited. The car remained where it was, dark and unmoving. Then I heard the sound of a car door opening. And as I watched, the large bulk of Marty Cash got out and walked around the front of the car, looking around him like a feral dog, checking the road, then crossing it. I could just make out some sort of breaking tool in his hands.

  We all took up the positions we’d organised earlier, with me and Bob in the small back room that opened at the other end of the hallway, opposite the front door, and the two riot boys in the kitchen, near the back door, just by Jacinta’s bedroom. Now I could actually hear Cash’s footsteps as he crossed the road. You big fat bastard of a coward, I thought. You think you’re going to grab one small-framed adol
escent girl and you’re checking up like you were expecting Schwarzenegger. In just a few moments, I knew, he’d be in here and we’d pounce. I was pumped and charged, feeling the elation of a successful stake-out, the prey about to walk into the trap. Behind me, I sensed the others shifting into a higher gear of readiness, and the tension in the house tightened further.

  I could hear Cash creeping around the side of the house, round to the back door. It would only take a few seconds to jemmy it open. I tensed up, then remembered to relax, and just as I was expecting to hear the sound of door frame timber tearing, instead came the roaring of a car screeching to a halt in the street.

  ‘Shit!’ someone said. Then came the sound of loud voices singing, shouting. The spell was broken and I raced to the window. A pile of people were pouring out of a small car parked just behind Colin’s.

  ‘Happy Birthday!’ someone yelled.

  ‘Hey! Jacinta!’ I recognised Andy Kelly’s voice. ‘Wake up, baby! We’re here with the champagne!’

  I heard the running footsteps pound past my house and then the bulky figure of Marty Cash raced across the road, and jumped back into the car. It suddenly jumped into life and the lights came on. The revellers pouring out of the car parked in front of my house didn’t notice.

  ‘Fuck it!’ Brett swore. ‘We’ve lost him!’

  The revellers were now at the front door, banging and yelling. I saw Colin’s car speed away and vanish round the bend.

  Jacinta staggered out. ‘What’s happening?’ she cried. ‘Is he here?’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘He was, but your friends arrived and scared him off.’

  ‘Come on, Jass!’ I heard a girl’s voice call through the door. ‘We thought we’d bring the pub to you! Open up!’

  •

  After the stake-out crew went home, I took refuge in my room, with earplugs. Despite my exhaustion, I was too keyed up and too pissed off to sleep so I lay there, listening to the music coming from the lounge room, listening to the occasional bursts of laughter, remembering what it had been like when I’d done that sort of thing. It seemed lifetimes ago.