Assassin (30 page)

‘I’m so sorry,’ he whispered and kissed her forehead.

No. No …

Jimmy had had close calls before and somehow he’d always made it through. He’d smoked and drunk and eaten to excess at every opportunity. He’d been reckless. He’d been selfless and selfish and a cheat and an honest, loyal fool. Was this it, here in this hospital — the end? It seemed impossible.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ he asked, to the top of Angie’s hair.

She pulled back, and he saw the anger in her pain. ‘You can get the — excuse me — but
bitch
who shot him.’

He cringed. Now Jimmy was dead and Mak, of all people, the woman he’d just seen, the woman who might be pregnant with his child, was wanted as Jimmy’s killer. A cop killer. Cops looked after their own. Every police officer in the country would want to see her go down. If convicted of his murder, she would get mandatory life imprisonment. He wondered what Angie had been told, and by whom.

‘We’ll get whoever is responsible for this, I promise you,’ he said, holding her gaze. ‘I’ll see to it that Jimmy gets his justice.’ He kissed her gently again on the forehead. ‘We don’t know who did this or why, but we will. We’ll get his killer, I promise you.’

He left his ex-partner’s grieving family in the presence of hospital staff and went in search of a doctor who could give him answers. That was the only way forwards. Answers.
Action. After fifteen frustrating minutes he was put onto the right person — Dr Richard Hutton, a short, tidy man with greying hair and the scent of disinfectant about him.

‘I’d like to speak to you for a moment about your patient Mr Cassimatis,’ Andy told him.

‘Are you family?’ He was a bit cagey.
A dead cop. Questions
.

Andy showed his ID. ‘Agent Andrew Flynn, Australian Federal Police. And a close friend of the deceased.’

Dr Hutton hesitated, then shook Andy’s hand. He had the cleanest, most elegant hands Andy had seen on a man. He could have been a pianist. ‘All right. Come with me. I have a few minutes before I’m needed,’ the doctor told him.

Andy followed him down the corridor and into a small office. He closed the door behind them and the blinds across the office window rattled. The doctor sat on the edge of a small desk, arms folded. ‘I assure you we did everything we could. He came in with a chest wound. He’d lost a lot of blood —’

‘He was on blood thinners,’ Andy cut in, standing against the closed door. ‘He had AF.’
Atrial fibrillation.

‘Correct. When the atrium,’ the doctor gestured to the left-hand side of his chest, ‘the top two chambers of the heart — fibrillate, they do not expel all the blood into the ventricles with each beat. Unfortunately, blood-thinning medication, like the Warfarin your friend was on, is not good when there is an injury like he had. They got him here fast, but he had already lost a lot of blood. We used FFP — um, fresh frozen plasma — and Vitamin K to reverse the effects of the Warfarin. The initial surgery was successful. Unfortunately, he developed a haemothorax, post-op. We performed a thoracotomy this morning, to drain the haematoma and find the source of the bleeding, but he suffered a myocardial infarction.’

Andy grimly took all of it in. Myocardial infarction. Jimmy had suffered a heart attack. It wasn’t his first.

‘Unfortunately, anticoagulants are contraindicated under the circumstances,’ Dr Hutton explained. ‘Giving them might have saved his heart from ongoing damage, but he risked bleeding to death in the process. We tried to open the heart artery with a stent, but the damage to the heart, along with the strain from the gunshot wound and the ongoing bleeding, were too much. We did everything we could.’

‘Thank you, doctor.’ Andy took a breath. ‘Can I ask about Jimmy’s initial wounds?’

‘The gunshot wound?’

‘Yes.’

‘It missed his heart and major organs. The police have all that information already.’

Andy shifted from foot to foot. ‘Was there an exit wound?’

‘I think so. I did not perform the initial surgery,’ Dr Hutton explained.

‘Where is he now?’

‘He was brought to the hospital mortuary. I think he’s being transferred to Glebe now.’ The Department of Forensic Medicine. ‘Perhaps they will be able to help you with any further questions you have.’

Andy thanked the doctor for his time and set out for the city morgue.

Mak dismounted her Speed Triple in the residential cul-de-sac, propped it onto its kickstand, flipped her tinted visor up and looked around.

There was a late-model Mercedes parked down the road and a family wagon in the driveway of the house across the
street, but otherwise the area was empty on this weekday afternoon. Through the mesh of family homes along the shore, boats bobbed up and down on the blue waters of Pittwater. Beyond a low picket fence, a child’s tricycle lay on its side, resting on green, neatly mowed lawn. A row of bare roses was lined up along the fence, the heads clipped off, thorns sitting up like tiny knives. Next door, though, the lawn was slightly overgrown, the fence broken in one spot. A little less cared for. No high-maintenance rose garden. A holiday rental, perhaps? This was as good a place as any. She pulled her helmet off and slung the canvas bag and purse off her shoulder. It felt good to get her motorcycle jacket off. She left it slumped over her helmet on the kerb for a moment, the stiff leather arms slowly deflating in the sun.

Mak stood in her tank top and leather pants, a line of sweat snaking down from her temple. She put her aviators on.

This is the day.

She gave another swift glance over her shoulder, paused for a second of contemplation, then hopped the picket fence and crouched behind a tall, unkempt shrub to strip off her pants. She put on a pair of new khaki shorts and simple white sneakers, and stuffed her motorcycle leathers, helmet and wig into the canvas bag, zipped it up and shoved it under the bush where it could not be easily seen. She stood and ran her fingers through her freshly shorn, spiky hair. A breeze tingled against her legs, and she could feel herself begin to cool. Patting herself down, she found a swing tag on the back pocket of her shorts and a price tag on the bottom of her sneakers. She pulled them off. Satisfied, she threw her leather handbag over her bare shoulder and set out on the walk towards the nearby strip mall, back up on the main road.

Twenty minutes later Makedde had reached her destination, and she watched, strangely wide-eyed, as two mums with strollers walked past, caught up in conversation, bags of groceries hanging off every available surface and children sleeping soundly with their tiny, floppy legs hanging out into the sun. For a moment Mak tried unsuccessfully to imagine their roles reversed.
Her
with the pram.
Them
with this plan.

She couldn’t quite imagine it.

Mak had never been very domestic, but then, not all mothers were. Mothers were criminals, too. Killers even.

She crossed the road and headed towards the entrance of Sanctum Spa, a one-level building at the end of the small strip mall, next to a half-empty car park. The glass display front was decorated with hanging white baubles and crystals, along with ads for a line of French beauty products, each featuring the same beautiful young model stretched across white sand and covered only with pearl-like white stones.
Discover a New You
, the ads invited.

Mak stepped inside the spa and was immediately hit with cool, air-conditioned air, dreamy instrumental music and the scent of jasmine coming from an aromatherapy oil burner. The shift was jarring.

‘Welcome to Sanctum Spa. How may I help you?’ the receptionist said primly, looking Mak up and down and taking in her appearance. The austere woman had the prescribed ponytail and neat white uniform of the modern spa. Thankfully, nothing in her demeanour indicated that she recognised in the brunette before her the blonde socialite cop shooter from the front of the paper.

‘What kind of treatments do you have available?’ Mak asked. She took in the small water fountain and plush white lounges.
Treatment rooms stretched down a hallway, each labelled with a different name on the door —
Calm
,
Relax
,
Refresh …

‘We have a variety of masseuses available for relaxation, deep-tissue, Swedish, Hawaiian and hot-stone massage. We also do facials, manicures and pedicures.’

Mak picked up a brochure and flipped through it idly, aware that with her bare nails, tomboyish attire and DIY haircut, she might seem an unlikely patron. ‘I’d like to book in for a massage next week. Would that be possible? Something deep tissue. The masseuse has to be really good. Really strong. And do you do oxygen facials?’

‘Absolutely,’ the receptionist said earnestly. ‘I’ll just see who is available.’

‘May I use your ladies’ room?’ Mak asked.

‘Of course. It’s just that way.’ She pointed down the hallway distractedly. ‘Fifth door on the right.’

‘Thanks.’ Mak walked off in the direction the receptionist had indicated.

She passed the doors of the treatment rooms and the bathroom and stopped. She looked both ways, saw the security camera in the corner of the ceiling and decided she didn’t care. A lot of shops now had security cameras, yet no one checked the tapes unless there was an incident, and shops commonly used the same tape over and over, recording over one day with footage of the next. By the time anyone thought to look, it would likely be too late.

Mak tried an unmarked cupboard, found that it was open and scanned the shelves.

Perfect.

She swiftly stuffed what she needed into her handbag — a uniform cap, vest and polo shirt — and walked back to the
front, her bag a touch overfilled. Mak leaned on the counter, smiling. The receptionist was still checking her computer.

‘I can give you Penelope on Thursday, two p.m. for the massage.’ She stared at the screen for another minute. ‘Emily can do your facial afterwards,’ she concluded.

‘That’s great. Thank you.’

‘We need a deposit to secure the booking,’ the woman said, smiling and giving no sign that she knew what Mak had just done.

For her part Makedde smiled in return, wondering fleetingly if that was always the policy, or if there was something about her that seemed suspicious. ‘I can pay with cash if you like.’ How ironic that this woman might be worried Mak would flake on a spa appointment.

Mak was given a receipt and appointment card. She thanked the woman and walked undisturbed onto the sunny sidewalk, pleased with her haul and knowing she would never be back. She made her way to the beach shop a few stores down to buy some white towels, then turned left and made for the car park, balancing her bags of purchases. She spotted the vehicle she wanted and approached it, checking casually to see if anyone was watching her. Unobserved, she took out a mangled coat hanger, twisted it around into a wire hook and lowered it down between the window and the car door, manoeuvring it until it caught the lock.

There.

She pulled the locking mechanism up and the door obediently unlocked for her. She threw her bags in the back and got in.

Andy parked on Arundel Street directly outside the Mortuary Office of the Department of Forensic Medicine in Glebe, the biggest mortuary in the southern hemisphere, his heart thudding with urgency. He’d sped there, and now he pushed his way inside and pressed his badge against the wall of glass at reception. It, too, was bulletproof, he knew. Not everyone was happy with autopsy results. Some relatives got quite tetchy, in fact.

‘Agent Andrew Flynn, Federal Police,’ he declared.

He was buzzed through the security door with little hesitation.

Andy had frequently come here in his capacity as an investigating officer, required to view autopsies for major homicide cases, and now he stood in the small, familiar police area where the beige Eaglenet phone and two desktop police computers sat waiting below a bulletin board decorated with notices about SIDS procedures, drownings in private pools and instructions for P79A forms. The mortuary office was just beyond a waist-high divide, cluttered with papers and visitor logs.

‘How’s it going?’ the woman at reception asked him. Behind her, a round, white clock ticked loudly. She had a black fringe and a nose ring and he realised that he recognised her.

He leaned over the divide. ‘Good. I need to see Jimmy Cassimatis. Detective Jimmy Cassimatis. He just came in here.’

There was a short hesitation and then a flicker of recognition as she noted he was talking about a deceased detective, not one wandering through the morgue. ‘Well, he’s just being checked in, I think.’ She sat at her computer to look at the database nicknamed ‘The Deadbase’. She pushed a few keys.

‘Thanks, that’ll do,’ Andy said and pushed on the swinging doors to the morgue.

‘Hey, wait. You’ve gotta sign in!’ she insisted and he sloppily signed the blue visitors book and headed for the doors again before she could stop him.

The peculiar smell of the morgue hit him like a slap. Andy never quite got used to it. The wet tiled floors, like a fish market, only with human bodies gutted on the rows of stainless-steel trays. Organs weighed and bodies disassembled. The low, nervous jokes of staff and the long, heavy silences — coping mechanisms in the dominion of the dead. There was no denying death here, where the dead so outnumbered the living. Andy stood next to the collection of wellie boots shelved after a day of use, some plain, some hot pink or decorated with skulls. A small wicker baby basket fitted with pretty blankets sat atop a neat stack of clean white gowns, a reminder that death cared little for age and nothing for promises.

All was quiet. Jimmy had obviously already passed through. He could see the loading dock was empty.

The swinging doors of the fridge opened and the mortuary clerk walked through in her black pants and a white collared
shirt, security tag swinging. She’d been working there for years. Her first name was something like Phyllis, he thought. Yes, that was it. Phyllis. Behind her, Andy caught a brief glimpse of the rows of blue plastic body bags on their trolleys, stored two shelves deep.

And a trolley that hadn’t been put away yet. One arm hung out of the side of the body bag. Curly black hair. Hospital wristband.

Jimmy.

She recognised Andy and he managed a smile. ‘How are you, Phyllis?’ he said.

‘Good. You?’ She waited.

‘I need to take a look at Detective Cassimatis. I can see him right there.’

She turned around and looked where he was indicating. ‘You want to … go to the viewing room?’ she asked after a pause.

If Andy was here as a friend of Jimmy’s, Phyllis would have to get him an appointment with an on-call counsellor and he’d have to wait in that grim room out front, breathing the air of a thousand weeping relatives and that stifling plug-in aromatherapy perfume which tried unsuccessfully to mask the odour of death. And when the allotted time came he’d witness Jimmy, dead, in that same horrible viewing room they’d both stood in a thousand times together for homicide cases, with the bouquet of plastic flowers and the boxes of tissues, only this time some social worker would be outside the door, keeping watch, waiting for
Andy
, waiting to offer him the same words, designed for comfort, that he’d offered a hundred times before, the silent orange lights spinning round and round throughout the mortuary, telling everyone not to be too loud, not to shout, not to laugh amongst themselves because a loved one was in the viewing room in the throes of their grief.

Fuck that.

‘No need. I can do it here. I need to ID him,’ Andy lied.

Phyllis looked uncertain. ‘Is there a problem?’

‘Let’s find out,’ he said, pulling a white gown on over his jacket and blue disposable shoe covers over his leather shoes. He pushed his way inside, striding across the wet tiles as she trailed behind. He wondered if she would call someone, the general manager perhaps, or if she’d let Andy do what he had to. The fridge was damned cold inside and he walked along the sets of trays inhabited by silent blue plastic body bags, some sagging where they ought not, others suspiciously bloated, each telling a different, dark story. A few bags were yellow. The infectious bodies. He walked up to that stray arm hanging out of the blue bag and he stopped. It was the same hand that had made rude gestures behind Inspector Hunt, the same hand that had offered him another drink after dinner.

The blue plastic bag was open on the stainless-steel trolley. She hadn’t locked it with the plastic ID tag yet.

Andy pulled back the flap.

‘… thought you were with the feds now?’ Phyllis was saying as Andy’s head swam dangerously, filled with a shouting that only he could hear. ‘… was sure he had been identified already,’ he heard her continue after a moment, when the shouting became lower.

He nodded absently, staring.

‘The autopsy won’t be performed until tomorrow,’ Phyllis said.

He nodded again.

‘And you want to …?’

Phyllis trailed off and Andy stared at his dead friend, not knowing what to say, what to feel, what to do. He’d wanted
to see the trajectory of the bullet for himself, to see if Mak’s story was right. He’d wanted to see where the exit wound was in Jimmy’s back — if it was below the level of the entry wound because he’d been shot from a mezzanine, or if it was dead straight like she’d said it would be, because she didn’t shoot him at all. That’s what he’d told himself when he’d rushed here, but now he realised how absurd that was, how futile. He was no pathologist and in truth he did not doubt Makedde in the slightest. This was not the place for Andy to be. This was not the way. His friend Detective Jimmy Cassimatis lay naked on a cold, stainless-steel tray before him, filled with stitches and tubes and stents, his back already discolouring with the deep purplish bruises of post-mortem lividity. The hospital had patched up the original bullet wound as best they could, but the internal injuries had been catastrophic. They’d left everything in place as it was in theatre when his heart had given up. His eyelids were closed with the sleep of anaesthesia and his face was slack, tubes hanging out of his nose and from between his lips. His chest was open in a terrible red yawn, arteries clamped, organs visible.

‘Andy?’

Death cares nothing for promises.

‘Are you okay?’

He nodded.

‘Is this the man? Detective Jimmy Cassimatis?’

He nodded again. ‘It is.’ Andy snapped himself out of his trancelike stare. ‘When is the autopsy scheduled?’

‘He’s only just come in. The duty pathologist will assign him a senior specialist in the morning. He’ll get the best possible care,’ Phyllis added, obviously by now sensing this was more than a professional visit. She quietly pulled the plastic
flap of the body bag shut and led Andy towards the arrival bay, her fingers at his elbow.

He pulled off his shoe covers and gown and threw them in the bins. He washed his hands. Once. Twice. Three times.

‘Andy …’ Phyllis said, but he was gone.

Andy Flynn sat in his car at the kerb, numb with grief and impotence. Now that his tears had finally started he worried they wouldn’t stop. The steering wheel was wet. His hands were wet.
Goddammit, Jimmy. Goddammit. Goddammit …
With all his physical strength he slammed his open palms hard against the wheel for the second time, and he shouted a madman’s cry — the angry wail of the bereaved, one he’d heard before from others — as his palms stung from the force. It was a brief and terrible sound and when it stopped so did the shouting in his head. So did the tears.

He fell silent, slumped in the driver’s seat.

‘Fuck!’ he yelled as another spasm of grief hit him, and he struck the wheel with a closed fist, opening his knuckles in a red line.

Hunt.

If Inspector Hunt was responsible for this, he would pay. Andy would
make him
pay.

He swiped his bloodstained hand on his dark pants and felt something in the suit pocket, the edge of something in there. He shifted in his seat and pulled it out.

A folded piece of paper.

Andy stared at it and blinked. He wiped his eyes and then turned the piece of paper over in his hands, mystified. He unfolded it to find handwriting. Mak’s handwriting.

Dear Andy
, the note began …