A Time to Run (9 page)

‘OK, get onto the footage. See if someone can view it today, even if they can't burn us a copy,' Bill asked.

Janine looked across to Jake. He was leaning in to the computer screen in what appeared to be a ploy to get closer to Vanessa. ‘There's a job for you, Jake,' she said.

Saturday 10:53 am

Sammi's legs were on autopilot, tapping out a steady jog, but her mind was in overdrive. This was not the way it would end for her, alone in the forest with some pasty-faced city-slicker barman. She must outsmart him; there had to be a way to get out of this.

Was there something she could say to make him spare her? Clearly pleading for mercy would be a waste of breath.

What was his motivation?

Power?

Hatred?

What could she offer him that met those needs and overrode his desire to kill her?

Sammi turned the concepts over in her head, but wasn't sure there was an answer. She once heard a story of two men who had abducted two teenage boys. As the first boy was being killed, the second boy pretended to side with the killers against his friend. The killers spared him, believing his instant conversion from victim to partner in crime.

How could she put herself on his side, convince him she was evil too? Should she offer him sex, say she found this game exciting and titillating? Pretend she wanted to do it again, that she wanted to become his girlfriend so she could play sadistic games with him on a regular basis? Would he want to believe this, that there was a woman who found his domination sexy?

Sammi didn't think sex was his chief motivator. It was more about power and control. Could she offer to help trap someone more prestigious or exciting than herself? Could she say she knew someone famous and would deliver that woman to him in exchange for her own life? Had she slipped that low, to try to bargain with a psychopath?

Everything seemed futile. Sammi felt certain when the barman was close enough, she would be so terrified that the powers of speech and logic would probably desert her.

Sammi knew from her training how the mind and body could react in extreme situations and she'd experienced firsthand some of the more mild symptoms. The first time she had encountered a man armed with a knife she had stammered so badly while calling to him to put it down, that he had called back ‘What?'. One time after a violent arrest, her hands had been shaking so badly that she'd kept dropping the tiny handcuff key even after they'd reached the watchhouse.

So there was likely to be a loss of fine motor skills, then there might be auditory exclusion, where she wouldn't register what was said to her. She may have memory lapse, confusion, detachment or withdrawal from the situation. On the other hand, she may also have superhuman strength, or experience everything in slow motion, her brain running double time to process all her options. She had to consider all eventualities.

One thing was certain. Her life depended on her playing it right.

Saturday 11:08 am

Janine's phone rang. It was Pam from Intel on the other end.

‘I've got the results for Sammi's phone,' she said. ‘The last outgoing call was 4:22 pm on Friday. I checked the number. That call was to a number registered to a Candy Curtis in Brisbane. Incoming, there's three from Gavin Porter's phone between about 7:45 pm and 7:55 pm yesterday that went to message bank, and the fourth call at 7:58 pm was answered. Then there's one text message from Porter's phone at 10:14 pm. It said, “Sorry we fought. Miss you. Have fun tonight. See you in the morning. Love you. Xx”.

‘The phone was on all night until 4:21 this morning. Then it was either turned off or it ran out of batteries. We can't triangulate the phone because no calls were made or received. But because the phone was on, we can see which phone tower the mobile was bouncing off. The first call to Candy came from the Angel's Crossing area and you can basically trace the phone from there to Forest Lake. Then it went into the city and came back out to Inala. But the last tower the phone was bouncing off was Bald Hills. Nowhere near the Lion's Head, but very close to your suspect's house.'

‘Shit,' Janine said.

‘I also ran the suspect's number, the one his work gave you. It was bouncing off the Inala tower all night while he was at work. Then by about 4:20 am he's at Bald Hills, and it's still bouncing off the same tower now. So you can read between the lines. He has the phone with him at work, takes the phone home. It is still at his house, turned on but no one's answering. No calls in, no calls out. It's likely that he has two phones. One is his legit phone, the other would be a prepaid, probably under a fake name if he's got anything to hide. Very difficult to find the phone number for. But I am working on it,' Pam said.

‘Thanks for that. Very useful,' said Janine.

‘I heard this is about a police officer. Is that true?' Pam asked.

‘Yep. But we're trying to keep it low-key at the moment,' Janine said. ‘We're still piecing it all together.'

‘If there's anything else we can help with, just let us know. There'll be someone in this office till ten tonight.'

Janine thanked her before hanging up and reporting back to Bill.

Bill shook his head sadly. ‘God, I hope it's not what it looks like.'

‘Even if Sammi turns up, we need to keep a serious eye on this guy,' Janine said.

Bill nodded. ‘OK, so it looks like she went to the barman's house. Voluntarily or involuntarily?'

‘Either way, it's probably time to look at putting a warrant through there. Why would she turn her phone off when she got there?' Janine said.

‘I'm a bit worried that so much of the grounds for the warrant is going to be speculation. It looks like this might have happened, but it's possible that it's something completely different. Like she decides to leave her boyfriend because of the fight, and she already knows this barman and goes home with him. She knows there's going to be a fuss so she turns off her phone and lays low. Not probable, but definitely possible,' Bill replied.

‘I disagree. She didn't choose the pub they went to and it was a random chat she had with the barman. There's absolutely no suggestion that she knew him. Even if she intended to go with him, she would have waited till the end of his shift rather than have him leave in a hurry with a fake excuse. He rushed out of work because he knew she was alone and wanted to intercept her before she got into a taxi,' Janine said.

Bill nodded. ‘That makes more sense but I'm playing devil's advocate here. I want you to consider everything.'

‘Look, if he has actually taken her, then every second is going to count. For Sammi's sake. I think we've got enough for a warrant,' Janine replied. ‘Do you think we need SERT to turn him over?'

The Special Emergency Response Team were the men in black. They went in with balaclavas and heavy arms when it was too dangerous for the general crews.

Bill half shrugged. ‘I don't know if it's really a job for SERT. It's still early days for a missing person.'

‘I don't agree,' Janine said. ‘If this is the real deal, we have to act quickly and we have to go in hard. This guy is a piece of shit. Even if he's got nothing to do with Sammi, it doesn't matter anyway. He deserves to have his door kicked in any day of the week.'

‘You follow your instinct. It's your investigation,' Bill said. ‘Start typing up that warrant. We're going to need it sometime soon. I bet by the time you finish it, we'll have more to go on.'

Saturday 11:12 am

Sammi jogged doggedly on. She was focused inwards, trying to make plans, and didn't notice a tree root jutting upwards. She tripped and fell. Again. She had lost track of how many times she had fallen. It wasn't important. As she pulled herself to her feet, something caught her eye. There was a medium-sized rock on the ground in front of her. It was almost smooth and round, about the size of a tennis ball. She picked it up. It fit snugly in the palm of her hand, her fingers nearly closing around it. It wasn't too heavy, but had the potential to injure if thrown with force. Sammi didn't rate herself as an accurate thrower, but at close range, even if her aim was off, it may distract or confuse. It also gave her an idea.

She jogged on, scanning the ground till she found what she was looking for – a long, fairly straight stick. She put it against her knee and snapped off a piece about the length of a walking stick. She tested its strength, leaning on it, satisfied it wouldn't easily snap further. It hadn't broken cleanly, and one end was jagged. Sammi squatted in the dirt and rubbed the jagged end with the rock, quickly honing the end into a crude spike. She was armed now. It was better than nothing.

Saturday 11:22 am

It was a half-hour drive into the city for Jake to follow up the pub footage at their head office. A grumpy middle-aged man met Jake at the door and ushered him in. He was wearing a stained T-shirt that claimed he was a tripod. This made Jake smile a little and he started to think how he might chip through the other man's cranky exterior. By his demeanour and dress, Jake guessed he didn't usually work on Saturday mornings.

‘They didn't get you out of bed for this, did they?' he asked.

The other man grunted.

‘So,' Jake said, ‘why do women rub their eyes when they wake up in the morning?'

The man looked perplexed. ‘Huh?' he said.

‘Because they don't have balls to scratch,' Jake replied with the punchline.

The man stared at him for a second, his brow knitted in puzzlement. Then he burst out laughing.

‘Well, you tell me why women have sex with their eyes closed?' the man countered, the scowl now replaced by a broad smile.

Jake had heard this one but played along. ‘Dunno.'

‘They can't bear to see a bloke having a good time!'

The man laughed again. Jake hoped this man would be a little more obliging now about locating the footage.

‘Come on through, mate,' he said, leading Jake into the small security room. ‘I'm the only one who can drive this god-awful system properly. We always try to keep you guys on side. Works both ways, hey,' he answered.

Jake nodded his agreement. ‘Really appreciate it. This one's important.'

‘OK, so what time are we looking at?' the man asked.

‘Between three and four this morning. One chick, blonde, wearing black pants and a white top, walking out by herself from the Lion's Head.'

The man hit some buttons and a camera showed a wide shot of the front entrance to the Lion's Head. He spun a dial and fast-forwarded the footage, making the figures in the screen race in and out of the door. The footage was grainy, but enough to make out main facial features. The minutes ticked by on the counter and as they neared the 4 am mark, Jake started to worry he had missed her. All of a sudden there was a flash of white on the screen.

‘There,' Jake said, pointing.

The man stopped the footage and wound it back, frame by frame. There were a couple of bouncers scuffling with a young man. A woman slipped past them and Jake recognised Sammi from the photo he had been shown.

Sure enough, she was alone. The time stamp on the footage said 3:54 am.

‘Is that time correct?' Jake asked.

‘Yep,' answered the man. ‘Do you want me to track back on her?'

‘What do you mean?' Jake asked.

‘Well, we know what time she left,' the man said. ‘We'll be able to pick her up on the cameras in the pub as well, see what she was doing while she was inside.'

Jake smiled as the man hit a button and a view from the pub's dance floor came up on screen. He rewound and there was Sammi walking backwards into the frame, kissing a girl on the dance floor who was tangled up between two men. Jake knew instantly this was Candy, and instinctively noted she was hot. Still on rewind, Sammi walked backwards to the bar.

Then he saw him. The chief suspect. He had a dark cropped goatee and was wearing a black polo shirt with the bar's logo. Sammi was talking with the barman. Jake watched it in reverse. When Sammi walked backwards away from the bar and out of shot, he asked the man to play it in real time.

Jake watched closely, paying attention to the barman. He was the one leaning over the bar. He was the one who offered Sammi his hand over the bar. She stood against the bar, showing the barman first her back, then turning just enough to be polite, talking to him over her shoulder. She wasn't interested in him. She was answering just enough to not be rude. He might have been trying, but it didn't work. Jake knew exactly what a successful pick-up looked like. What he was watching was a cold shoulder.

Then the man rewound the footage some more, chose another angle and there was Sammi talking to another man.

‘Who's that now?' he wondered out loud.

‘Dunno,' the other man answered but then tracked them back to the front door, when the four of them came in. Jake saw the guy touching Sammi, saw her turn away and the guy joined Candy and her man on the dance floor. Frame by frame, they pieced Sammi's time in the pub together.

‘Can you please burn all this to disc for us?' Jake asked the man.

‘Yep. Easy now that I know who we're looking at.'

‘Will it take long?'

‘Give me ten minutes,' the man answered.

‘Great,' said Jake. ‘I've got one more joke for you. What's the difference between a hooker and a drug dealer?'

The man shook his head, smiling already.

‘A hooker can wash her crack and sell it again. I'll be back in ten,' Jake said. He walked outside to the sound of the man's chuckles.

Janine answered his call on the first ring.

Jake launched straight into a description of what he had seen on the footage. ‘So, she comes in with her friend, and there's two guys with them. They couple up, but Sammi gives the guy she's with the cold shoulder. He goes and makes a threesome with the friend and the other bloke. Sammi goes to the bar for a drink. It looks like Coke in a big glass, not a small spirits glass. The barman – yes, The Barman – starts talking to her but she's not interested. She pretty much keeps her back to him. She's just answering him to be polite, but he's leaning right across at her, trying to get her talking. Then she leaves by herself at 3:54 am. There's no footage past the front door.'