Dirty Weekend (15 page)

‘Did she say what she’d done?’

‘She said she’d done exactly what she always did, but that Dr Dimitriou implied she’d done something terrible—used the wrong thing.’

‘What wrong thing?’

She frowned, trying to remember. ‘She didn’t say.’ She spread her hands. ‘Sorry.’

Could be a lot of things, I thought. Glassware of some sort, the wrong assay plate, the wrong reagent.

Wendy wandered over to the young girl’s sculpted head, eyeing it critically from the side. ‘And it wasn’t just the mistake, Jerri said. What really upset her was the way Dr Dimitriou behaved afterwards, the way she’d questioned her. Jerri said she felt she was being interrogated by the secret police!’

I couldn’t imagine a journeyman mistake creating the need for close questioning. But I already knew Claire Dimitriou had been under a great deal of stress—a woman straining under the weight of a huge decision, a burden she couldn’t deal with. A burden that was making her act out of control. A burden she felt she had to
do
something about.

‘Did Jerri ever talk about anything between Dr Dimitriou and her colleague Peter Yu?’

‘Like what?’

‘Something that would indicate they were more than just workmates?’

Wendy considered. ‘I can’t really say. I’m not even sure Jerri would have told me if she’d seen anything interesting like that! She’s a quiet type. Doesn’t gossip. Bit like me, really. We’re happiest when we’re just working quietly by ourselves. That’s why we’re such successful flatmates.’ She paused and the smile left her face. ‘But, boy was she upset. I’d never seen her cry before. She said Dr Dimitriou attacked her as if she’d done something absolutely dreadful—unforgiveable!’

Wendy sat back on her heels. ‘And Jerri didn’t deal with it at all well. It’s the sort of thing you need to take up with your supervisor when things calm down. But Jerri didn’t go back to the university or the Ag Station after that. I was worried about her. And then she up and left. She’s been really hurt by this.’

‘Do you have the address where she’s staying?’

Wendy came back with her address book and gave me the details of Jerri’s parents in Lane Cove. I finished my coffee, stood up and made my farewells, taking one last look at the young, half-completed anonymous girl.

‘She’s shaping up to be such a lovely creature,’ Wendy said. ‘Hard to believe that no one loved her.’

We walked together towards the door and Wendy passed me her card. ‘Give Jerri my love,’ she said, opening the door for me. ‘And if you ever need a facial reconstruction done .
 
.
 
.’

‘I think it’s too late for that,’ I said.

On the way to the Cat and Castle, I rang the Quills at Lane Cove only to discover that Jerri had gone bushwalking with a girlfriend and wasn’t expected back for a couple of days. Her mother promised to leave a message with my details on her daughter’s voicemail. But she couldn’t promise Jerri would use her mobile.

The Calvinist barman wasn’t working at the Cat and Castle that afternoon. In his place was a golden girl with wide grey eyes, whose accent revealed her as a visitor from England. I introduced myself, showed her my ID, ordered a lemon, lime and bitters and we chatted a while. She worked there most weekends, I learned, as part of a six-month savings stint to get enough money together to move west to Adelaide and then on to Broome and Perth.

‘Sounds great,’ I said. ‘But no hitchhiking.’

I pulled out the photograph of the mystery man and showed it to her.

‘That was taken here!’ she said. ‘You can see the timber fittings. Are these your friends?’

‘Not exactly. In fact, I was wondering if
you
knew who they were, and him in particular,’ I said, pointing to the mystery man.

‘You should know him,’ she said. ‘I thought all you coppers knew each other.’

‘I’m not police,’ I said. ‘I work with the police. You say he’s in the job?’

‘I’ve seen his warrant card,’ she said. ‘He was trying to get free drinks.’

‘You sure about that?’ I wondered why Brian hadn’t recognised him.

‘He’s been in here a couple of times. He always gives me a dirty look now. Knows he can’t get around me.’

‘Can you tell me anything about him?’

She shook her head. ‘Just that he’s a New South Wales copper,’ she said, sounding like an extra from
The Bill
and revealing why Brian hadn’t known the man.

‘It’s men like him who give the police a bad name,’ she said, turning to lift a tray of washed glasses up onto the counter behind her.

I took the photograph back with me to Forensic Services and rang Bob Edwards, telling him I was about to fax a photograph of a man thought to be a police officer. ‘He flashed a New South Wales warrant card to a bar attendant,’ I said.

‘If it was genuine, we could have a name for you in twenty-four hours,’ said Bob.

On the way back to the office, I dropped in on Heronvale Police Station and found Brian on the verge of leaving. He looked exhausted.

My mobile rang and when I heard Sofia Verstoek’s voice I signalled Brian to hang on a moment, in case she had something he should know about.

‘I’ve just completed a long series of pollen assemblages and soil profiles,’ she said. ‘From both the Kincaid Street address and the Ginnindera Road house. Then I went on to that house at Kingston where your suspect has been working. I’ve got a negative result from all three places. None of them reveal any of the large grey particles you gave me as reference samples. Those particles look to me like some sort of granite and the soil around the other three properties has a completely different composition. I then took the analysis a step further and had another look at the samples taken from Tianna Richardson’s head wounds. I 
did
find something unusual there. A rare native orchid pollen.’

The phrase ‘rare native orchid pollen’ found a hit somewhere in my memory, but failed to surface.

‘Thanks, Sofia. That could be very helpful if and when we ever locate the primary scene.’

‘Just doing my job,’ she said. ‘Pity about some people. And as for your mate Brian Kruger—’ she started but I cut her off.

‘He’s right here with me,’ I said. ‘Do you want to talk to him?’

‘No way! I’m not overly impressed with the samples he sent. I’ve told him I should be given priority. He didn’t let me know about the Ginnindera Road scene until his lot had tramped all over it.’

‘Sofia, you just wouldn’t know what it’s like working crime scene, night and day on call, reports backing up behind you, new work coming in every few hours and—’

The line clicked. The little bugger had hung up on me.

‘What’s she on about?’ Brian asked.

‘She’s done some soil profiles and hasn’t found any trace of those grey particles anywhere at either Kincaid Street, the Ginnindera Road crime scene or Damien Henshaw’s place of work,’ I said. ‘Almost certainly they’ve been brought in from somewhere else. And so has some rare native orchid pollen. That’s the main news.’

‘That’s not news. It’s fucking heartbreak,’ cursed Brian. ‘It reminds me all over again of the time and energy we’ve wasted.’

‘Not entirely,’ I said, trying to cheer him up. ‘If we find a site with the grey particles and the rare orchid, we could have the place Tianna met her death. Or at least a link via the killer to the primary scene. That’s got to be very helpful. Could be our killer’s backyard.’

The phrase ‘rare native orchid pollen’ was still worrying at my memory. I frowned, trying to remember. Was it just that I’d seen orchids recently at Vera Hasting’s place, I asked myself. I didn’t think so. I remembered a conversation at the Sydney morgue and someone remarking about pollen evidence. I racked my brains trying to remember which case it was but could not dislodge the memory. Bob had been there too.

‘It’s puzzling that the same coarse sandy particles showed up in the head wounds of Albert Vaughan,’ said Brian, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Could be the same killer.’

‘It’s a connection,’ I said. ‘I’ve also discovered there’s a Blue in the partner-sharing group.’

‘That’s it. I’m going to have to move on that lot,’ said Brian.

‘Just give me a couple of days,’ I begged. ‘I’m working on a way in. I’m hopeful I can get what you want without you blowing the whistle on the group. This is a far more intelligent way to do it,’ I argued.

‘I’ll give you till midday tomorrow. Then it becomes a police matter,’ he said. ‘Maybe,’ he went on, taking his car keys out of his pocket and thinking aloud, ‘some woman who’s not in the group, sees
her
man, Sixteen Blue, at a place he shouldn’t be. Or the other way round—a man sees his woman somewhere she shouldn’t be. How would you feel if you saw your woman coming out of a motel room with some strange man?’

‘I wouldn’t like it,’ I said.

‘Hey, Jack, I’ve got it,’ he said, his voice becoming animated. ‘Claire Dimitriou has been somewhere having sex with Blue whoever he is, and the two of them are spotted coming from somewhere they shouldn’t. And whichever woman it is who sprung them, she goes home, gets the Browning she’s put away for a special occasion, buzzes Claire out at the lab that night, goes down to the lab with her and shoots her.’

‘Then does a huge steam-clean of the whole lab,’ I said, ‘and gets rid of the laptop, the mobile and the lab book? Why do all that?’

My mind turned to the earlier researcher. ‘Any news on Cheryl Tobin?’ I asked.

‘Nothing so far,’ said Brian.

There was a silence. Then Brian’s voice, angry and frustrated: ‘What else have we got?’

I passed on the contact information for Jerri Quill and Brian said he’d talk to her as soon as he could get a few hours free to drive to Sydney. I told him she’d been so upset by the fight with her supervisor in the Faithful Bunnies lab that she was thinking of leaving university. We conjectured what the dispute in the lab might have been about. We didn’t get very far.

‘She could have been the party who saw Blue,’ Brian said. ‘Maybe she’s in love with Blue and pissed off that her boss is rooting him. That’s why she’s left town.’

I thought about that. There were just too many possibilities, too many ways to stack the deck. We needed more evidence.

‘Maybe we’ll have a better chance to work it out once we know who Blue is,’ I said. ‘I’m trying to track down Ellis Smith. And I’ll be sending him samples of the coarse grey sand as soon as I can. If anyone can discover where that comes from, it’s him.’

‘What about that rare orchid?’ Brian asked. ‘If it’s that rare, it might suggest some places to start looking.’

‘I believe the palynologist is on the job,’ I said, voice deliberately neutral. ‘Do you remember a case involving a native orchid?’ I asked him. ‘Unidentified skeletal remains found some years back?’

‘It’s ringing a bell,’ he said. ‘But I’ve got a feeling it was New South Wales jurisdiction anyway. Why?’

‘I’m curious, that’s all.’

‘You think there might be a connection with one of these murders?’

‘Doesn’t seem likely,’ I said. ‘The case I’m thinking about had been dead about twenty years.’

‘I’ve spent most of the day trying to find a murder weapon out at Ginnindera Road,’ said Brian. ‘No luck.’

I glanced at my watch. It was getting late. I reminded myself that I was on a promise—and I’d better deliver. All I had to do was catch up with my notes and I could go home and cook dinner for Iona—and my family.

Back at Forensic Services, I secured the trace evidence Harry had given me from the wounds of Albert Vaughan, wondering how long it might take to track down Ellis Smith. I’d certainly take a look myself as well.

Then, while the information I’d gathered recently from Harry, Kevin Waites and Jerri Quill’s flatmate Wendy was still fresh in my mind, I hurried to my office and started writing up fuller notes from the jottings in my notebook.

I drew up a list of the prime movers in the murder of Dr Claire Dimitriou. I conjectured all sorts of possibilities trying to link the flight of Jerri Quill with the Blue Sixteen incident. This code could cover any amount of people, male or female. Was Blue Claire’s lover? Like Brian, I tried out a variety of different ways to fit the jigsaw pieces together. Cheryl Tobin, the rage she’d contained for over two years finally exploding, making her way to the laboratory, killing the woman who’d replaced her and the man who had betrayed her then using her skill as a scientist to make sure no trace evidence of her presence would ever be found. But how did she dispose of Peter Yu’s body? And where? Maybe the killing was carried out by a twosome and not an individual?

Then I considered the idea of Jerri Quill stumbling onto something she shouldn’t have seen—Claire Dimitriou and Dr Peter Yu, clothing in disorder, writhing in passion, going hell for leather on the easy-clean vinyl of the old Level Four lab. But it didn’t work. Surely, these days, anyone walking in on something like that would just discreetly back out again. It was inconceivable, then, that Jerri would tell Anthony Dimitriou. In my experience of suburban adultery, the partner is the
last
person to be told by anyone. And if all of the players were involved in the colour-coded sex group, a discovery like that shouldn’t have been an issue anyway. Consensus infidelity. And then there was the husband. Was it only grief that made Anthony Dimitrou OD? I stood up, restlessly walking around the office. I had no reason to link the flight of Jerri Quill with the Blue Sixteen incident. She may not have been the ‘she’ who ‘saw’ at all. Had Cheryl visited after hours and seen something she shouldn’t have?

My mind juggled different reasons for Peter Yu’s desperate pleas and Claire Dimitriou’s passionate insistence. Had she been saying that because Blue Sixteen had been seen they
had
to go public? Was she wanting to leave Anthony? Had Peter Yu, whose pattern of serial girlfriends reminded me of my brother Charlie’s, finally met the woman he really wanted only to find her thoroughly married?

Whatever the disagreement had been about, Dr Claire Dimitriou was now dead and I would have to talk to Anthony Dimitriou soon. I wanted to get a sense of the man myself. Was he the sort of man who might ask around for a contract killer and then make sure he was obviously attending an overseas conference? Discovering that your woman wanted to leave you, that she loved someone else—that could gut a man.

Dallas Baxter’s fears of casual sex becoming something else were well-grounded. A fling was one thing, a marriage bust-up quite another. Safe sex, said the billboard. There was no such thing.

I made diagrammatic notes of my various dramas—Claire saying of Peter’s current girlfriend, ‘We
have
to tell her we’re in love’, the urgency in their argument suggesting that a secret could no longer be contained by the two of them. Then I drew up a new triangle. In this one, Peter Yu walked in on Jerri Quill and Claire Dimitriou doing the writhing on the easy-wipe surface. But I wasn’t sure that walking in on your woman with another woman triggered quite the same homicidal place in the male brain. Finally, I wrote ‘Cheryl’ in large letters and drew a line and a question mark beside my love triangle. Science had never been like this when I was a student.

‘Come in,’ I called as someone knocked. Gavin Samways, who’d taken some leave to go to New Zealand, peered around the door then came in.

‘Welcome back, Sammy. How was the conference?’

Gavin ambled over to a chair, pulled it close and sat on it back to front, eyes smiling behind rimless glasses that, combined with his grey moustache and small beard, gave him a Victorian gravitas.

‘Not bad. There were some good speakers. I was mostly interested in the computer programs, especially the improved facial reconstructions. But the guy from Quantico did a great job on drug-assisted sexual assault.’

‘Can’t beat the Yanks,’ I said.

‘I don’t know about that,’ said Sammy. ‘The presentation on DVI by Guy Cavanough from Sydney police was just as good. The first team to hit the ground in Thailand after the tsunami was Team Australia.’

Disaster Victim Identification, often a problem in multiple violent death, required expertise as well as patience—and often a sense of mission, which helped make the difficult work more bearable. Currently, we had around eighty of our Federal people in Banda Aceh alone.

After we’d chatted a little more, I asked Sammy the question I had been building towards. ‘Anthony Dimitriou from the university was at the conference, I believe?’

‘I heard about his wife. Terrible. He must feel even worse being away like that when it happened.’

‘So he was there all the time?’ I queried, pulling my notebook out and finding his name.

‘He attended every session,’ said Sammy.

We talked a little more about a new technique that had impressed him—the chronological sequencing of indented impressions on questioned documents—until he glanced at his watch and decided it was time to go home.

Now that Anthony Dimitriou’s alibi had been checked, I ticked his name on my notes, then, to give myself a break from the contingencies circling my mind, I switched on the small radio. Peggy Lee came breathing her classic number through the speakers.
Fever,
she sang. Her voice reminded me of Iona’s pinot noir voice and my cock stirred. I felt a smile move my lips as I thought of tonight.

On the way back to the cottage in time to cook dinner, I made another unsuccessful attempt to call Jacinta. I hoped she was okay and that the lemurs were snuggled up nicely together in a furry cuddle. I wondered what it was that she wanted to talk about and made a mental note to buy plenty of the nut and chocolate bars she loved when I next went back to Sydney.

I was delighted as I pulled up at the cottage, to see Jacinta’s car parked on the brown grass where Charlie’s had been. Now we could all be together for dinner. I knew Iona would be late this evening, so decided to greet my daughter and then take off again to the nearest supermarket for supplies.

I hurried inside. As I approached the kitchen, I could hear low voices.

‘Jass?’ I called out.

Walking through the living room, I noticed the lemurs had come along on the trip and lay tightly curled together on one of the big club armchairs in front of the fire. Maybe Andy had come too. Not wanting to walk in on a tender moment, I called out again as I approached.

‘We’re in the kitchen,’ answered Jacinta.

But the person sitting at the kitchen table wasn’t Andy Kelly. It was Jacinta’s friend Shaz, her face swollen from crying, with Jacinta hunched forwards on the kitchen chair beside her.

I kissed Jacinta on the top of her head. ‘Hullo, Shaz. What’s going on?’

Shaz lifted her head to nod to me in response and that’s when I saw that the swelling on her face wasn’t only from weeping.

‘Shaz, what’s happened to your mouth?’ I said.

‘He hit her, Dad,’ said Jacinta. ‘The bastard punched her. I’m trying to talk some sense into her.’ She smoothed her friend’s hair back from her flushed face. ‘You’ve got to piss him off, Shaz. You must.’

Shaz leaned forward, pulling a handful of tissues out of her pocket, blew her nose. ‘I’m scared of what he’ll do. He says if I leave him, he’ll kill himself.’

‘Perfect!’ said Jacinta. ‘One less bully.’

‘But, before he does that, he says he’ll kill me first,’ added Shaz.

‘I’ve been leaving messages for you,’ said Jacinta, turning her mother’s eyes on me. ‘And then I keep missing your calls when you do ring. Then I thought it would be nice just to kidnap Shaz and bring her down here for a day or two of fresh air anyway.’

She must have seen the look on my face. ‘We’re only missing one lecture, Dad. Shaz needs a break.’

‘You’re very welcome for a day or two, Shaz,’ I said, patting her on the shoulder. ‘But Jacinta’s right. You’re going to have to get rid of a man who behaves violently towards you.’ But even as I said the words, sounding a bit like a police lecture, I knew the potential realities of the situation—staying or going. Either way, Shaz could be in real strife. Her violent lover had threatened this already.

‘Let’s talk about this later, Shaz,’ I said. ‘You might need a plan of action to deal with him. Right now, I’m nipping back to town to do a bit of basic shopping. If Iona arrives before I get back, will you tell her I’m on my way?’

‘I’m sorry for intruding, Dr McCain,’ said Shaz.

‘You’re not intruding at all,’ I said. ‘You’re very welcome. Especially if you call me Jack. You girls can sort out sleeping arrangements?’

‘Sure can,’ said my daughter, throwing me a look of gratitude.

I leaned down and kissed the top of her head again before turning to Shaz. ‘And we’ll talk further about this,’ I added. ‘Okay, Shaz?’

Shaz stared up at me with wide, frightened eyes. If I’d been her father, I’d have hugged her tight.

I drove to the nearest supermarket, where I bought good quantities of the basics, the frozen mango yoghurt and the nut and chocolate bars that I knew Jacinta loved, plus a Greek-style takeaway chicken. That was cheating a bit, but it’d been a helluva day.

It was almost an hour later when I got back to the cottage, lugging shopping bags, my heart lifting at the sight of Iona’s car. I was fumbling with keys and shopping at the front door when it was suddenly opened and there she was, a wide smile on her face.

‘You’re actually here! And it’s not even eight o’clock yet. Or is this a hologram?’

I put the shopping down, grabbed and kissed her.

‘Not
a hologram,’ she said. ‘But just to make sure, do it again.’

‘I’ve missed you,’ I said.

‘Liar,’ she replied.

‘Where are the girls? And Charlie? And Greg?’ I asked, picking up the shopping bags and taking them out to the kitchen, Iona following.

‘The girls are in the spare bedroom having a heart to heart, I think. Charlie’s in town using the library. And Greg is somewhere,’ she said, putting groceries away.

‘That smells good, Dad,’ said Jacinta, appearing at the doorway and noticing the Greek chicken in its foil bag. ‘Yum. I’ll do some olive oil and oregano potatoes and anything else I can find.’

Anticipating my next question, she said, ‘Shaz has crashed out on the sleeping bag. Iona made her this herbal tea. Smelled pretty drastic but it really calmed her down.’

‘Camomile and skullcap,’ Iona said.

‘Sounds like something the Medicis might use,’ Jacinta called as she went outside to pick oregano from the straggly herb garden.

‘Go and put your feet up,’ I ordered Iona. ‘Jass and I’ll do dinner.’

‘I’m really pleased now that I bought the largest lemon meringue pie from the patisserie,’ said Iona, coming over to me. ‘I must have known we’d have a full house.’

One of the best things about Iona was her height so that our eyes were almost level. When she was close, I could see into the deep world behind her eyes and I held her a moment, kissing her full lips, filled with love and gratitude. ‘Tonight,’ I whispered, ‘you’d better watch out.’

I felt her shiver at my words and press herself closer, before breaking away to look at me with her shadowed eyes. I couldn’t quite read their expression but it was hard to let her go.

‘Doesn’t Shaz want to get away from this guy?’ I asked Jacinta a little while later, as we chopped vegetables together.

‘It’s not as straightforward as that, Dad. She reckons she loves him.’

‘
Loves
him? He bashes her!’

‘Dad, you don’t get it.’

‘Too right I don’t!’

My daughter turned her hands outwards, a graceful gesture of helplessness. ‘Talk to Charlie when he comes back. He’ll explain.’ Sometimes my daughter sounds like a wise old grandmother. ‘And ask Shaz to tell you about her father sometime. She doesn’t know what love
feels
like. She believes in the words people
say.
She
doesn’t seem to be aware of what people
do.
Her father is a basher, too. So for Shaz, that sort of behaviour is normal and familiar. Probably feels like home.’

‘You’re starting to sound like Charlie,’ I said.

‘What’s the matter with that? Charlie would understand straightaway.’

‘He would, would he? Well, if he doesn’t get here soon, he’s going to miss out on a great dinner,’ I said. ‘What’s the name of the boyfriend?’

‘Karl. Karl Docker. He works at the university. He’s one of the security blokes.’

I’ll remember that name, I thought, as I asked, ‘Is Greg around?’

‘He saw how things were with Shaz and kindly retired to the back bedroom to give us some privacy. Said he was going to study. Most likely he’s napping. Or talking to Ellie.’ She paused. ‘That reminds me, I’ve brought some of my work to show you. But I’ll leave it till later,’ she added, pushing the trays of potatoes and other vegetables into the oven.

‘No. Wash your hands and get it now. I’d love to see it,’ I said. ‘Those potatoes aren’t going anywhere for a while.’

I watched as Jacinta returned to the kitchen, placed a science assignment on the table in front of me, then smiled and signalled for me to open it. Turning the cover page of the assignment I saw her mark: 89 per cent, High Distinction, and felt something sting my eyes. This was the girl who’d run away at fifteen, lived on the streets of Sydney, developed a heroin habit and nearly died out there. I’d always felt so guilty that the conflicted relationship I’d had with her mother had been part of the mess Jacinta had fled. But now, after rehab and matriculating through tech, my daughter was doing first-class academic work. I flicked through the pages. ‘Congratulations, Jass,’ I said, leaning over and kissing her. ‘You really are something.’