STRANGE BODIES (a gripping crime thriller) (21 page)

‘And the stones … I don’t want the stones. I’ll refuse to accept them. My God, he said the computer was booby trapped. Do you think the killer tried to get in, and has inadvertently sprung the trap and initiated a meltdown, as it were?’

Nicholas was watching her and was quite convinced of the truth of her words … she had never met the man. How he knew of her and her expertise was a mystery, one they would probably solve sooner or later.

‘They took the computer to the lab, I’d better get on to them straight away and tell them not to touch it.’ He rang through and passed on the information.

‘I’ll send someone to pick it up later today, Greg. Thanks.’ He picked up the papers again.

‘There’s more,’ he said, turning to the last page. ‘He’s left all his money to the Elizabeth Langton Hospital Children’s Wing. He says details of his financial holdings are on his computer. I think that’s meant as an extra incentive for you to be careful with it. Finally he wants to be cremated and scattered in the park “outside my house”, he says … no memorials, no markers. It’s signed and properly witnessed.’

‘What about the house?’ said Verity. ‘He hasn’t mentioned the house.’

‘There’s another paper at the back of this. Right, I see. It’s a lease, a ten year lease. He doesn’t own the house. It’s leased from a company and these are the details relating to the lease conditions. Permission for the alterations, the amount to be paid annually, obligations of tenant and landlord … pretty standard. He’s only been here a bit over four years from what I can gather. The company name, Orcus Property Holdings P/L.’

Verity was racking her brains. ‘Somebody has a weird sense of humour. I think Orcus was a god of the underworld, probably equivalent to Pluto. So I’d say it is … oh God, no.’

She looked stricken. ‘What is it, Verity?’

‘Marcus … all his properties and companies have names associated with mythology, with major and minor gods and associated places, Greek, Roman, even Norse and South American. It could be one of his. Shall I ring and ask him?’

Nicholas thought for a minute. ‘Yes, do that, if you know where to find him. Oh, that’s right. He gave me this special phone. Said it would reach him wherever he was. Of course, you’ve got one too,’ he said.

She rang and a few seconds later she heard her uncle answer. Before he said anything else she asked, ‘Marcus, do you own a company called Orcus Property Holdings?’

‘Yes, P/L. … Orcus Property Holdings P/L. Don’t be clever … I know you can’t help it.’ She sighed. ‘It’s to do with a property, a house at Lavender Bay. That’s right, on the other side of Havington-Clark Park … Problem? Well, sort of. The lease holder’s dead. Just a tick.’

She said, ‘What did that mean … pointing to your ear? Oh, I’ll ask. Marcus, I’m with Nicholas Adams. He asked if it’s alright to put this call on loudspeaker this end ... Thanks.’

‘Nicholas, my boy, glad to hear you’re taking good care of my favourite girl. Now what exactly is going on?’

Nicholas gave him a concise summary of events then waited to hear his reaction.

There was a second or two of silence. ‘I’m out of Sydney at the moment. I’d like to talk to you both about a couple of things. Verity, invite Nicholas to your place for dinner tonight and I’ll talk to you then. About seven.’ He cut off before either of them could speak.

‘Well, that didn’t tell us much more. My uncle, much as I love him, can be a very frustrating and annoying person.’

‘And I was wondering where
you
got it from!’

She thumped his arm quite hard.

‘Ow. Save it for the gym, miss.’

She eyed him up and down, hands on hips. ‘Do you really think you could go a round with me? I’ll take you on this Sunday, Adelaide’s at-home. Come at eleven. One round, hand to hand, no holds barred.’

‘Oh, come on. What do you weigh, about fifty-five kilos wringing wet.’

‘A lady doesn’t usually say but I’ll make an exception for you … sixty-three and it’s all lean muscle, hard earned not machine manufactured the lazy way.’ She laughed at him.

‘I’ll take you up on that challenge Sunday, but you can tie one hand behind my back and blindfold me … and I’ll still beat you.’

Verity thought it was wiser to say nothing more at this stage.

‘I think we’ve done all we can here for now. I’ve arranged for a couple of uniforms from North Sydney to be here,’ he looked at his watch, ‘any minute now. They’ll supervise the cleanup squad, get the rest of the smell out.’

As he finished speaking there was a knock at the front door. ‘Right, there they are. Now we’d better get you over to Medea House so you can get your car.’

He opened the door and greeted the two policemen, letting them into the hallway. The senior of the two said, ‘Morning, sir, Sergeant Innes. I’ll be looking after things here for today, my specialty. Cleaners should be here in about ten minutes, robots not much use with this sort of thing. Anything in particular we need to know?’ He wrinkled his nose. ‘Still a bit of a pong here though I’ve smelt worse. Right, leave it to us. I’ve got keys so we can lock up later. Oh, and Mr Greene would like a word when you get back.’ He grinned. ‘Good news, he said to tell you.’

‘I’ll be heading to the lab with this lot. Here’s my card. Call me if necessary, thanks, both of you.’

Adams collected his gear and Verity from the kitchen. He ignored the quizzical looks from both policeman as he ushered Verity out ahead of him then into the car.

She protested. ‘I can walk across the park from here.’

‘And what if our bomber is waiting to have another go. No fear. I’m taking you right to the door. Are you going to stay at the office or go home again?’

‘I’ll go up to my office for a while and work on the story I’m writing about the professor’s experiences with the terrorist bombs in Canberra. I’ll probably leave about four.’

Nicholas took her to the covered main entrance and waited till the security guard Max appeared. He showed Max his ID then said, ‘Take Ms Burne up to her office please. She’s had another threat. And I don’t want it broadcast.’

Verity said crossly, ‘This isn’t necessary, Nick. I’ll be perfectly alright now.’

He merely said firmly, ‘Don’t pout, Verity. I’ll call you later. Don’t forget I’m coming for dinner.’ He took her hand before she could get out of the car and squeezed it gently.

‘Goodbye until tonight.’

She flounced off, there was no other word for it, her every movement radiating annoyance at what she regarded as his high-handed treatment of her. Max flashed him a grin then hurried to keep her in sight as she stalked to the elevators.

Chapter 30

Adams retrieved his messages, the dozen or so that had piled up overnight and this morning. As usual, the press was screaming for information … those went straight to the Press office. Word on Levinsky’s murder had leaked out; a couple of lab reports from earlier cases had finally arrived; there was a list of court dates from the Public Attorney’s office and a call from Chief Superintendent George Greene which he returned first.

‘Nick Adams here, George. You wanted to speak to me?’

‘Yes, I wanted to bring you up to date about Mostyn. When he left Levinsky’s house he went raging back to the station. Long story short, when he tried to enter his pass wouldn’t work. He went berserk, attacked the door then two officer who’d gone out to detain him, on my orders.

‘Mostyn got away, but being the great brain of the century made straight for home,’ said CI Green sarcastically. ‘I’d anticipated that and by the time he got there we had the search warrant in hand, and some very large coppers who restrained him.’

‘Did you find anything in his house or his locker to justify the warrant?

‘Oh, my goodness, yes! A veritable treasure trove. Everything from guns to drugs, cash, and jewellery, rings and watches mostly. Best of all he kept records, records of the payments he received, who from and even better who was on
his
payroll. Unfortunately, we’ll be a couple of officers down in North Sydney, though looking on the bright side, you could say it’s fortunate we can clean out this rotten little nest.’ said Greene.

Congratulations, that’s excellent news. Tell me, did the missing scrimshaw turn up?’

‘Yes, it was on his desk at his home. It’s now on
my
desk. See.’ He turned the phone so Adams could see the lovely little globe, protected by an upturned glass. ‘It should be in the evidence locker but I must confess I’ve fallen in love with it and it’s safe enough here. I don’t suppose you came across his will anywhere?’

‘Yes, we … I did. The scrimshaw items are to go to the Maritime Museum, but you never know, they may be willing to sell it to you. Do you have any idea what it’s worth?’

‘Not really, but it’ll be too much for me,’ he sighed. ‘But getting back to Mostyn. He’s been suspended, of course. We charged him with receiving stolen goods for now. The other charges are being worked out but there’ll be a number of them. He’s sitting in an isolation cell feeling very sorry for himself at the moment. Typical bully … he dropped the bucket on half a dozen others, so we’ve rounded up most of his cronies.’

‘That’s great news, George. About Mostyn, I mean. You giving a press conference?’

Greene said gloomily, ‘I suppose I’ll have to. By rights you should be there too, Nick, being as you were the one to twig to the murder. They’ll bloody eat us alive over this. New evidence has come to light, blah, blah, blah … the usual. Now, I’d better go and get my lines straight. Thanks for returning my call.’

‘Sorry I can’t front the ravening beasts with you … orders from above to keep a low profile for now. And thanks for letting me know about Mostyn. Good luck and keep in touch.’ Adams turned his attention to the other messages and made a few more calls.

Mrs Halifax stuck her head around the door saying, ‘It’s nearly ten, sir. Shall I send everyone to the conference room?’

‘Yes, thanks. See if you can get hold of Blanchard from CECI. If Fraser is here I’ll have a word with him first.’

‘I’ll send him in.’

Adams brought him up to date on the morning’s findings at the house and Mostyn then concluded, ‘The lab won’t be able to interpret those little disks; Verity tells me they’re from an old system, called a
PeeWee
. The labs haven’t been able to track one down and the disks can only be read by that machine then fed into a computer with the right program.’

‘I don’t think I ever saw one, but I heard of them. They were spook stuff, weren’t they?’

‘Yes, but pretty much amateur spy, rather than MI5. I suspect whoever used these had them concealed in a lapel badge or tie pin but until we find out what’s on them we won’t know what they’re about.

‘I’ll discuss this in more detail with everyone. But I really wanted your opinion on something else. How do you think everyone would react if I bring Verity in on this … officially?’

Fraser grinned, then pulled an exaggeratedly sober face, ‘No problem, sir. I’m sure the men would enjoy having another pretty face to look at.’

‘Don’t be an idiot, Fraser,’ he said coldly. ‘Ms Burne was instrumental in bringing this murder to our notice. She is probably the only person in Sydney, maybe Australia, who has access to a
PeeWee
, so I’m going to ask her to see if she can get those disks working. In fact she even found the concealed safe, and to cap it all she’s named in his will.’

Fraser’s jaw dropped. ‘What? You found a will and she’s a beneficiary.’ He looked stunned. ‘Did she know him?’

‘No, she didn’t. And she’s not really a beneficiary. She’s been asked to do something with his booby-trapped computer, I mean electronically booby-trapped. Now you see why I wanted a quiet word before the meeting. You know Verity, you know the team … how do you think they’ll react if I bring her in? Oh, and by the way, not a word about the will, please. I’ve sent it over to his lawyer and I’m waiting to get the go-ahead from him.’

‘I don’t see a problem, sir. Expert consult, usual fee. So this is definitely ours?’

‘Greene is delighted to be shot of it. It’s tainted for him because of Mostyn. He has to front a press conference today and head off to New Canberra to see the Commissioner tomorrow, poor bastard.’

‘Poor bastard,’ echoed Fraser

‘Right, get another murder board up. I’ll make some more calls and be right there.’

A call to the lab gave the answer he was expecting … they didn’t have a
PeeWee
and a quick check around Australia hadn’t turned one up either.

Verity wasn’t answering her phone so he left a message. His next call to Levinsky’s law firm was more successful.

By now others had wandered in and were standing around discussing this latest case while Fraser set up a board with hard copy and photos of some of the evidence from the Levinsky case. Adams liked to have the pictures of murder victims permanently in front of the team for the duration of a case, a constant reminder of what they were investigating. They now had three live cases and three boards. Adams brought them all up to date about Levinsky.

‘As you can see,’ he concluded, ‘we may get an idea about motive if, or rather when, we can find out what’s on those disks. There doesn’t appear to be a
PeeWee
in any of our labs but I know where I can get hold of one privately. As you know it was two civilians, Professor Morgenstein and Dr Verity Burne, who were instrumental in bringing this particular murder to our attention. She was also the one to find the concealed safe that contained the disks. And she has access to a
PeeWee
.’

‘Does this mean she’s a suspect, sir?’ asked DI Price.

‘Hardly. We have a good idea of how this murder was carried out. Dr Norris, would you do the honours?’

Norris sent the images generated by the separation technique to one of the wall screens. ‘The technical stuff you’ll find on your comps but this is the visual. We separate the layers and look at, in effect, a timeline in this three dimensional display. There’s only one bare footprint, see, it’s been coloured tan, but there are a number of the high heeled ones in red. These were all made at the same time. I suggest that the woman, and she’d have to be quite strong, rested the body briefly just inside the door. The other prints, in blue are those of the first officers on the scene, and the smooth featureless ones are in green. I can fairly safely assume those were the body snatchers.’ Someone sniggered at the term, commonly used for the corpse retrieval orderlies from the morgue. Norris ignored that and asked, ‘Do we have a simulation yet, Sergeant Fraser?’

‘Yes, Dr Norris. CECI sent one through. Here we are.’ He sent the computer generated simulation to another wall screen.

‘This is excellent animation ... see how this unfolds. Levinsky opens the front door, woman enters, follows him upstairs.’ He frowned at the simulated woman. Some wag had given her enormous breasts, short skirt, mesh stockings and long blonde hair.

‘At the top they go into his bedroom, then she does something … pure speculation till we get another tox report but probably a drug administered by a sharp object, possibly concealed in her hand. There was a small mark on his left wrist that suggested that. Okay, he falls, she undresses him, heaves him up, semi-fireman’s lift … she’d have to be strong alright. Only a few steps to the bathroom. She pauses for a second … see that’s where his bare foot just touches the tiled floor … continues to the bath. She straddles him … high-heel prints were found right there,’ he pointed. ‘We can only speculate as to what she did then, but we see the shoeprints leave the bathroom and become fainter as she goes back to the bedroom. That’s all we can get so we assume she left the house after that.’

Adams took up the narration. ‘Now we are really into the realm of high speculation. The first autopsy report tells us nothing unusual apart from the bump on the head. Death was from drowning and a time of death is mentioned. Fortunately no one has claimed the body so we were able to order a full post-mortem. I believe that is underway now.’

He turned to his intercom. ‘Mrs Halifax, could you contact the morgue, please, and see if there is any word on Solomon Levinsky.’

They sat and looked at the video as it played again. ‘Sir, that’s a big strong woman. Do you think it could have been a man in drag?’

‘Trouble with you, Goldy, you’re not used to our big healthy Aussie womenfolk,’ said DI Trevor Warren. ‘My wife could toss you over her shoulder and run up three flights of steps.’

They all laughed at that, a relief from the inevitable gloom that had built up.

Adams continued, ‘We have Professor Morgenstein’s statement, that every Wednesday night Levinsky was visited by an escort. We now know she came from Blue Angels, a private club, of which he was a member. He rotated three girls, all very similar … the club manager had referred to them as pocket Venuses.

‘Pictures, please. Thank you. The victim is the one in the middle, quite a beauty. As you can see, all blondes, about average height but extremely voluptuous.’

A light sigh emanated from the men as they looked at the photos.

‘As I was saying, Professor Morgenstein saw a woman being admitted to Levinsky’s house about eight o’clock on Wednesday. He was quite sure it was a woman. She had …’ he referred to his notes, ‘She had womanly hips, he said, very long legs, tight skirt, high heels. He mentioned later that she seemed to be taller than the man. Oh, and she was blonde, long blonde hair. He also heard voices, his quite loud. In hindsight Levinsky was probably complaining, expecting one of his usual ladies.’

‘What about the young woman who he was expecting? Anything more on her?’

‘Sienna Starr … employed by the club as a dancer, took on occasional escort duties as well. Real name Sienna Stark, age twenty-four. Very selective and very popular. She could pick and choose her clients and charged top dollar, somewhere in the region of $3,000 for a minimum two hours.’

‘Whew, I’m obviously in the wrong profession,’ said Donna Price.

‘The manager said she saw Levinsky once every three weeks. She had two other clients on the same roster. Let me see, mmm, no, nothing more, but I got the impression that she kept to herself, had no close friends amongst the other girls. Not stand-offish, just quiet. We have the ME’s report on her. Just read it from your units. Nasty, and I think unnecessarily so...’

‘Anyway, Donna, I don’t think your husband would be too pleased if you changed careers, regardless of the money. And now I think we could all do with a break. Twenty minutes then back here.’

On that they broke off with a bit of good natured ribbing, heading for the coffee machine. Donna Price asked Goldy who was gulping coffee, ‘Why the nasty overkill, d’you think? This woman, whoever she was, was so careful to make Levinsky look like an accident but made this one, Sienna Starr, the young escort, very nasty.’

‘She must have she had a partner and it was the partner who killed Starr. I mean if she’s got herself up to meet a client, even if she was planning to kill him, she’d hardly be splattering herself with blood … and from what we’ve seen there’d be plenty of it.’

‘Of course, of course.’

Nicholas had spoken to Verity about being a consultant. She felt guilty about palming the disks and thought if she translated the rest of them she could just slip the ones she’d purloined in with them.

‘What do you want me to do?’

‘The best thing would be if you can bring your
PeeWee
to one of our secure rooms and work on them here. The department would pay you for your time, of course.’ He named the standard rate.

She snorted at that. ‘Do you know how much an hour I get as a consultant?’

‘Don’t tell me—I’d faint. Anyway, I thought you offered to help.’

‘Of course I’ll do it and no fee required. I’m on my way home now so I’ll dig it out of the storeroom and I’ll be there in about an hour.’