Disappear (15 page)

‘Well, it’s not something I could tell from glimpsing him in the casket, not with all that make-up. But I believe in what you saw the morning after his death. I’m going to do everything I can to help you get to the bottom of it.’

Sleep wouldn’t come. Jennifer’s mind was too active, awash with thoughts of the day. She’d hoped for a long, pleasant talk with her daughter. Perhaps it could’ve been a chance for her and Carly to get close again.

It wasn’t easy for Jennifer: accepting that Carly had left school and moved in with Rory. But she determined to accept it, for the time being, and to work at improving their relationship. She’d been disappointed at the funeral. Carly was very curt - polite but distant, with a questioning look in her eyes. She said she had questions to ask, but it wasn’t the time or the place.

Rory, on the other hand, had been more pleasant than usual. Jennifer had always found him insolent - a ridiculous trait, she believed, for a man in his thirties. A sign of immaturity. Today, however, he’d been relaxed, courteous, and far more talkative than Carly. Why? What was he up to?

Jennifer gritted her teeth. There I go again, suspicious, thinking the worst of him. There’s probably nothing all that wrong with him.

She’d been warmed by Roger’s attentiveness and his offer of help. He seemed changed from his younger days. Perhaps it was just that maturity suited him. The idea of seeking input from an independent medical source appealed to Jennifer. Could there have been some aspect to Brian’s pathology the coroner had missed? Perhaps a more imaginative approach was required?

She tossed and turned. Finally, despairing of ever getting to sleep, she slipped on her robe and sat in the closed-in balcony with a cup of cocoa, watching the moonlight touch the trees in the garden.

It was far from over. She knew that deep inside. Brian wouldn’t truly be at rest until the mystery of his disappearance and death had been solved. Someone was responsible for what had happened to him. Justice had not been done. Until it was, there could be no rest for her either.

She recalled the reverend’s reading of the psalm: ‘ … though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil,’ and found that the words filled her with an inner strength. Today, surrounded by so many caring people in that church, feeling their combined love as she had, she felt empowered by something special.

She remembered something her mother had said to her many years ago: love and strength come to us in many different ways, through many different people. Jennifer smiled inwardly at the gentle thought of her late mother. She felt a longing to see her again, to talk, and that old desire, from when she’d been growing up, to have spent more time with her.

It took her a long time to get to sleep.

The constable breezed by Lachlan’s office, placing the inter-departmental memo on the desk. ‘Another garrotte victim,’ he said just before he rushed away along the corridor. ‘The northern boys’ll be busy …’

Lachlan, already immersed in paperwork, glanced over the bulletin. A teenage girl, strangled by something that left a shallow cut around her neck. This could get nasty, he speculated, recalling the bulletin, only days before, regarding another garrotte victim. Trish Van Helegen. Also northside.

Lachlan scanned the details. The victim, Monique Brayson, had been reported missing eighteen years ago. This was now being checked further, pending the report from the coroner’s office, although the girl’s body had been identified by her father.

Missing almost two decades? Lachlan felt a lump in his throat. He picked the memo up, read it again. Initial findings suggested that the style of strangulation matched that which killed Trish Van Helegen. There was no other apparent connection. Van Helegen had not been reported missing years before. Her disappearance had been on the morning of her murder; her body found within twenty-four hours. Lachlan read on further over the report on the Monique Brayson murder. He read and re-read the details of the girl’s personal effects. The bracelet with the inscription. A purse, which contained her library card, still in mint condition. A tube of lipstick identified as a brand that had long since ceased manufacture.

Monique Brayson should have been thirty six-years old. The body in the morgue was that of a teenager.

Could it be coincidence that two people, missing for eighteen years, had turned up this week, both murdered?

Brian Parkes hadn’t been strangled by wire, whereas Monique Brayson and Trish Van Helegen had. Parkes and Brayson were long term missing persons, Van Helegen was not.

The pieces of the puzzle didn’t fit.

Nevertheless, Lachlan’s gut told him there was a connection. He phoned Sydney LAC in Goulburn Street, asked for John Rosen. The receptionist informed him that the superintendent was out, due back late. Lachlan left a message he’d called. Although the Parkes case was no longer his, he wanted to stay close to it, discuss the similarities with Rosen.

It was a day for catching up with paperwork, of endless calls from court officers about upcoming trial dates. Mostly, though, he concentrated on Todd. He’d already decided to take his son to a movie on Saturday night, after the boy’s soccer game, and into the city to Luna Park on Sunday. He’d fly up to Brisbane Monday morning with Todd, then straight back and be in the office late Monday.

Jennifer’s weekend would have been quiet, if it hadn’t been for two Saturday afternoon calls. The first came from Henry Kaplan, insisting she join him and his lady friend for lunch on Sunday at a seafood restaurant overlooking the harbour in the eastern suburb of Double Bay.

‘You’re spoiling me,’ Jennifer said, ‘just like you did when Brian first vanished. You don’t have to do it all over again, you know.’

‘It’s a role I slip into easily,’ Kaplan chuckled, ‘I’m only sorry I haven’t been more consistent at it over the years. You’ll join us?’

‘Love to.’ She hung up, and wished she could return some of the favours to Kaplan, especially now that he faced such enormous financial difficulty. No chance of that, though. By comparison, Jennifer was a small businesswoman. Her company a mere insect alongside the lumbering giant of the Kaplan Corporation.

She thought of Roger. How must he be feeling? The Kaplan Corporation had been there all his life - his only employer. Now it was disintegrating. Despite that, he’d stayed behind at her house after the service, lending a supportive ear, offering his help in contacting his old uni friend. Jennifer hadn’t thought to ask him how he was coping with the tumultuous events in his life.

Now, after her conversation with Henry Kaplan, she felt like cursing herself out loud. Immersed in her own problems, as usual, she’d been no comfort to either Henry or Roger at the one time they were at their lowest ebb. They had been the ones consoling her.

What is it with me?
It was an angry, lonely, frustrated thought.
I’m always focusing entirely on my own concerns - Wishing Pool Fashions, the awards. Never on my daughter, my friends, my relationships. Am I really that shallow, that self-centred?

She’d only had one serious relationship since Brian - she didn’t consider her friendship with Roger a “relationship” in that sense - and that was in the early to mid 2000’s, an on-off affair with a photographer she’d liked very much. It had been an uneasy romance. Mark Russo complained endlessly that she always put her work before him; that she never made the concessions he did. They argued, more and more frequently, until she’d ended the relationship.

I have to change. Somewhere along the way I went from soft and naive to too self- reliant and inflexible. Good God I’m thirty- nine, old enough to wake up to myself.

The second phone call, from Rory McConnell, surprised her. Once again the warm and solicitous Rory, not the insolent one.

‘I’ve a favour to ask, Jennifer. I’m working on an article for People Power about the way the capitalist system can turn on its own, as it has with Henry Kaplan. It would be a great help if I could talk with the man himself, have access to his organisation. And, as you’re a friend of -’

‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘No. Please don’t misunderstand. This is no exposé on Kaplan, just the opposite. The positive side of these high profile entrepreneurs. I want to focus on the good things Kaplan has done, things that don’t get publicity. Such as his donations to charities, which have been substantial, right?’

Jennifer hesitated. ‘Yes.’

‘And the employment he’s generated through his various enterprises.’

‘I’m not getting the point of this, Rory.’

‘The point is, the man, and Kaplan, the corporation, have done a lot of good. It’s not his fault it’s all going down the toilet. It’s the recessed market, skyrocketing bank rates, all that economic fallout stuff that the average man doesn’t really understand. Our system shouldn’t be tearing someone like that apart. I want Kaplan and his people to suggest how that could change, with Government intervention, new trade regulations, a supportive economic structure rather than a dog eat dog one.’

‘This doesn’t sound like the usual People Power rant and rave stuff.’

‘You obviously haven’t read us for a while. We haven’t been like that for ages. The old greenie bring-down-the-establishment-at-any-cost days are long gone. These days we’re about changing the system from within. The modern day radical knows that rebellion can only work systematically by introducing change from within, through strategic planning, organisation, and “selling” of the ideas.’

‘I’m impressed,’ Jennifer conceded.

‘Then you’ll help?’

‘I’ll help. Actually, I’m having lunch with Henry and his lady tomorrow. Why don’t you and Carly join us? It’s a chance for me to get together with Carly, and Henry would love to see her again. Anyway, you could meet him, discuss your idea.’

‘We’ll be there with bells on. Thanks, Jennifer.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She hung up the phone, wondering whether she’d done the right thing.

Look for someone with a routine. A routine at a quiet time, in a quiet place.

The jogger was on a high; thirsty for the kill. His common sense told him it was too soon after the Van Helegen woman, but like a starving man who has tasted a morsel of food he’d become ravenous for the feast.

Saturday night. 9.15 p.m. For the second night in a row he jogged the suburban streets of East Gosford, in the Central Coast region, north of Sydney.

A beautiful place in which to run, with wide open streets, lots of trees, maples, willows, great sturdy redwood oaks and cypresses that flourished in the clean air of this satellite city. Sea breezes from nearby Avoca Beach and Green Point gave the air a refreshing tang.

This part of the suburb was old, established. The jogger had identified three potential targets, each of whom he’d sighted the night before, and now, again this evening. A young woman, early twenties, also a jogger, both nights at around six. A regular, before-dinner run. Unfortunate. Even in a quiet area like this, there was still activity at this early hour. Cars in and out of driveways. Other walkers.

A little later, at around 8.30 p.m. a middle aged woman walked her dog. Second night, same time. Routine. It was not a large dog, though, a terrier with a peaceful, docile expression. The jogger knew that these dogs could become vicious when excited - especially if their owner got into trouble.

No. The third creature of routine seemed the most likely. At 10 p.m., a man of around sixty, tall, slightly overweight, thick grey hair, also walked his dog. It was late to be out walking a dog, the killer thought, but then some people are night owls.

The dog was small, weedy looking, more like a child’s plaything than an elderly man’s companion. It was harmless, that was the main thing, and it would be fun to let the animal live, let it run around whimpering while its master had the life snuffed out of him.

The timing was just right. On both evenings the jogger observed no one else on the street, no cars coming or going. Most of the household lights were out. Perfect. All he needed was for this man to keep to his routine.

The jogger would be back Sunday night, primed and ready. He felt the anticipation rise from within like an electric current, throwing off sparks.

This feeling of freedom was extraordinary, and it kept getting better. He had one deep fear, though, which returned to haunt him as he jogged back to the place where he’d left his car. What if the surveillance on him began again? What if the shadows returned to watch, to restrain him? Was there a chance they’d been alerted by Trish Van Helegen’s murder?

Perhaps he shouldn’t have garrotted the girl. They, whoever
they
were, would know it as his trademark. He liked garrotting best because it gave him a thrilling closeness to his victim. It allowed him to feel the dark power flowing from his fingertips, totally controlled by the strength in his arms.

No, it really didn’t matter. However he killed, the shadows were bound to find out - if they were going to find out at all. If he’d ever been able to find out who they were, he might have been able to stop them, or devise a way to avoid them. It was the most frustrating and damning thing of all - being powerless to stop them.

He only hoped and prayed to whatever devils drove him that his freedom was here to stay, that the mysterious sentinels were gone forever.

‘We’re doing what?’ Carly Parkes’ tone was hostile. Her pearly blue eyes were wide open, angry, the penetrating gaze demanding an explanation.

Rory armed himself with his ready smile, confident and reckless at the same time. The carefree charm had always come easy to him. ‘Temper, temper. No need to sound off the sirens.’ He was in the kitchen, fixing a late night snack. Crackers and cheese. Irish coffee. He chuckled to himself. This was the best time to break the news to Carly. He glanced at the clock. 12.45 a.m.

She’d been out all evening with a gaggle of girlfriends, fellow models. Now she lounged in front of the television, a glass of white wine in hand, chatting and half watching an old Hitchcock movie.