The Tattooed Man (31 page)

‘Were they shot at the table?’ Harrigan asked.

‘I think it worked like this. The killer walks in, maybe Natalie Edwards meets him—’

‘Him.’ Harrigan interrupted again. ‘But the person who rang the caterers was a woman.’

‘And she could have been the killer, no mistaking that. Whoever they were, they made everyone lie down on the lounge room floor and they restrained them. Everyone had restraint marks. Because of where the blood was, we know the meal must have been set out beforehand, presumably by the killer. Then I think they took the victims out to the patio one by one.’

‘All of them?’

‘All of them, including Julian Edwards.’ Her voice broke a little over this. ‘Then they unloaded the Ice Cream Man, took this photograph and went home. Then they released it on the net under the subject line:
They gather for the feast.
It’s the food that’s important here. That’s the imagery they’re projecting.’

Briefly, people were silent.

‘Why kill the boy?’ Parkin asked. ‘Could he identify them?’

‘That’s a motive. But there’s also a question of leverage,’ Harrigan said. ‘Shooting that boy was a terrible crime. His father was a government minister. We know they made sure Edwards saw his son dead because they sent him the combination to the gate by SMS. That combination of circumstances means there was no way this investigation was going to be swept under the carpet. They wanted us to dig.’

‘That is so cold-blooded,’ Ralph said.

‘Does that assume they knew Edwards?’ Frankie asked.

‘Maybe they did,’ Harrigan replied.

‘They wanted us to dig, you said, Commander.’ Parkin got to his feet. ‘That seems to assume they wanted this murder solved. That is, we have the means to catch them. I’ve never come across that scenario before in this type of context. It’s true that people who do this kind of thing often want to claim responsibility and give a motive. But there’s been no statement put out to that effect. Am I right?’

‘Not so far,’ Harrigan said. ‘But it hasn’t been that long.’

‘Long enough, unless they’re planning something else. Also, while people like this may want to draw attention to what they’ve done, they don’t want to be apprehended. If your theory is going to fly, you need to give us a reason for it.’

‘I didn’t say they wanted to be apprehended. I said they wanted us to dig,’ Harrigan replied in his detached voice. ‘My theory does fit with one undeniable point: the possibility that the killer or killers were expecting resistance to this investigation. That’s proven to be true. Someone has gone to great lengths to sabotage it.’

‘Again you’re implying we have two parties involved,’ Parkin said. ‘Do you have any evidence for that?’

‘It’s like I said before. We work through what we know, then we make a judgement. Jackie, is that it?’

‘There’s more. It’s to do with Beck.’

‘Let’s hear it,’ Harrigan said.

Parkin sat down again.

‘We checked his movements and telephone records. We know he got to Pittwater about ten to eight. Just before he arrived, he made a call on his mobile. He spoke for about fifty seconds. I think he probably left a message. It was the last call he ever made. At about 1 a.m. he got a call back from that same number but obviously he didn’t answer it. It went through to his voicemail where the call was disconnected without anyone leaving a message. That number called Beck another three times over the next eleven hours and then stopped.’

‘Someone was checking up on him,’ Ralph said.

‘I’d guess they wanted to know whether the contract had been signed,’ Harrigan said. ‘Could you trace the number?’

‘We rang but the number was discontinued. We’re tracing its history now.’

‘Anything else?’

‘One final thing. When we checked Beck’s wallet, we found this.’

Another image appeared on the screen, a black and white photograph showing a man with a woman carrying a baby, both standing in the midst of a ruined city.

‘It was the original and it wasn’t in good condition. On the back, it says in pencil
Dresden 1946.
We know that’s when Beck was born. I think that’s him with his mother and father. But if that is
his father, then he either walked out on them or he died, because the dossier says father unknown. There was only his mother and she died in 1997.’

‘Do we have any names?’ Harrigan asked.

‘None for the father. His mother was married during her life but not until after Beck had left East Germany. There were no children from that marriage and the husband is still alive. There’s no record of any earlier marriage.’

‘If she knew who her son’s father was—and from this picture it looks like she did—she would have told her son, surely. When she died, if not earlier,’ Harrigan said. ‘Beck had that picture on him when he died.’

‘Yes. I think it meant something to him,’ Jacquie said. ‘That’s it.’

‘Good work.’

She smiled and sat down.

‘All right,’ Harrigan said. ‘It’s time to talk about Beck. Trev?’

‘First off, we searched his house. Frankie. Do you want to take us through what you found?’

‘The first thing is that someone got there before us,’ Frankie said. ‘Whatever they were looking for, they found it in a drawer in the lounge room because they didn’t even bother to close the drawer. They stopped right there and left.’

‘Did you find an LPS badge?’ Harrigan asked.

‘Not a whisker. Maybe that was what they took away.’

‘What do you mean, LPS badge?’ Parkin asked. ‘We know the minister was involved with that corporation. Was Beck?’

‘According to the CEO, Dr Calvo, he was briefly employed by them earlier this year,’ Harrigan replied. ‘The badges are security passes that get you in and out
of their facility at Campbelltown. I was given one when I visited there a few days ago. It’s a sophisticated tracking device. You get to keep it as a memento, but once you leave it’s deactivated. If Beck was an employee, he would have had one. We know from other sources that he was, so what happened to his?’

‘Couldn’t he have lost it easily enough?’ Parkin asked.

‘Not if it was his key to the door. I think we should question whether he really was sacked as Elena Calvo says he was. Frankie, anything else?’

‘No, boss, we found zip,’ Frankie said. ‘Beck had a nice house with a lovely view of the harbour but there was nothing personal in there. We did find out a few things about him. He suffered from high blood pressure and liver disease, he had the meds to prove it. He liked the best. The clothes, the booze—there was a lot of booze, he obviously drank very heavily—it was all nothing but the best. There was money in the house and a lot of money in his various bank accounts as well. We’re tracking his financials now. There was a lot more information about him in the dossier.’

‘Ralph, do you want to talk to that?’ Trevor said.

‘Yeah, the dossier.’ Ralph moved to the head of the table. The image of the dossier’s front page reappeared on the screen. ‘We don’t know the name of the agency that owns this document, but now it’s out there in cyberspace, I’m sure they’ll find us soon enough.’

‘Stop there, Ralph,’ Harrigan said.

‘What is it, boss?’

‘What you just said. Now it’s out there in cyberspace, its owners will find us. Given what’s been put out on the net already, why wasn’t this document online as well?’

‘I’ll tell you,’ Parkin called. ‘Because it could identify them.’

‘That’s right. I think this will signal to someone out there who these people are. Okay, Ralph. What can you tell us?’

‘Mainly that this is a very long-standing document. It incorporates information from the various agencies who’ve been watching Beck since 1970. He had a long career as an illegal arms dealer dating from the late 1960s right through to the 1990s. He’s involved himself in theatres of war from South East Asia to Africa. He met du Plessis in the 1980s when he was working for the South African apartheid government. In 1990 he went back to Europe. The apartheid regime was on its last legs and he’d made too many enemies over there. By now the Berlin Wall is down. He became involved with the Russian mafia, wisely not for too long. His mother died in Berlin in 1997 and, like a dutiful son, he was there with her.’

‘You’re breaking my heart,’ Frankie murmured.

Ralph grinned. ‘That’s just one side of the story. In fact, Beck was a double agent, a very useful source of intelligence for the agencies who were watching him. He did business for himself and provided information to the British government at the same time. In exchange for which they left him alone and paid him. It’s a common enough arrangement. After his mother died, he went to London. And here the first part of the dossier is ruled off. The final note is:
Minister’s direction is discontinue and hands off.
It was a thirty-year connection. They closed it down without a murmur. There’s no indication they even debriefed Beck.’

‘No reasons given? Nothing?’ Harrigan asked.

‘Nothing that’s on this file,’ Ralph said.

‘Why would it go to the minister? Was Beck that important?’

‘He wouldn’t be,’ Parkin said. ‘Ministers don’t deal directly with operatives at that level. Somehow he must have drawn attention to himself.’

‘There’s no indication on file as to what he might have done,’ Ralph said. ‘Then five years ago, the dossier was reopened. Not because of Beck but because of du Plessis. Du Plessis was in London. At the time, he was wanted for murder in South Africa but the government there agreed to the agency keeping him under surveillance rather than arresting him. That warrant is still out against him. At the time, he was known to be involved in illegal diamond trading. The agency’s main concern was with the kind of activities financed by that trade, such as illegal arms dealing. The surveillance operation caught du Plessis meeting with Beck. It was the first time Beck had been on the radar for years. They met often enough for the agency to conclude they were in business together and they needed to watch Beck as well as du Plessis.

‘After this, they traced Beck to a scientific research facility in north London. At the time he’d been employed there for several years. The investigation identifies him as a manager of some kind. From this point on, the agency put an operative into that research facility to watch him. This operative is referred to by a number only. This is where Elena Calvo turns up, boss. You said she was a player. She was the CEO there, and while she was there, she had an encounter with Beck. That brings us to this series of photographs. The time and date stamp says 22:38 one night in June four-and-a-half years ago. They must have both been working late.’

Up on the screen, there flashed in succession pictures of Elena Calvo standing beside her car in an underground car park, talking to Jerome Beck. The body language made it clear there was a fierce argument going on. Towards the end he was pushing his wallet at her. She refused to look at it. The last photographs in the series showed her slamming her car door and driving away.

‘That argument went on for eighteen minutes,’ Ralph continued. ‘Pity we can’t know what was being said. Or shouted.’

‘That’s where Beck kept his photograph,’ Jacquie said. ‘It was in his wallet like that. At the front, behind a window.’

‘Did he have it with him then?’ Ralph asked.

‘If he got it from his dying mother, why not?’ Harrigan said. ‘What do we know about this research institute?’

‘So far we’ve only checked its website. There’s nothing to indicate it’s anything but legitimate. There is one significant fact. Although this is hidden behind various companies, it’s owned by Jean Calvo. The dossier traces that ownership in detail.’

‘Did Senator Edwards see those photographs of Beck arguing with Calvo? Did he know they had this previous connection?’ Harrigan asked.

‘He must have done,’ Ralph said. ‘I spoke with his adviser any number of times this last week. He told me they’d both been through the dossier in detail. Now the poor bastards are dead.’

‘Did the minister mention this to her?’ Parkin asked. ‘Did she know this dossier existed?’

‘She’s the only one who can answer those questions now,’ Trevor said. ‘Edwards told us no one besides his staff knew about it and he could trust his staff. We’ve also kept its existence
confidential. Maybe the boss can add something to this. He’s spoken to Calvo.’

‘Why did you do that?’

‘Her connections to the minister make her significant in this. She told me about this same incident while I was there,’ Harrigan said. ‘She was explaining it away. Beck was a drunken bum who harassed her. She hired him over here because she needed someone, then fired him almost immediately because he was a drunk. He started making abusive phone calls and she got one of her security people to watch him for her. I don’t think she would have told me any of that unless she expected me to know it from another source.’

‘Why couldn’t she be being truthful?’ Parkin asked.

‘She’s not someone who tells you things unless it’s in her interests. In my opinion, the connections here are too close to ignore. Also, Marvin had his own copy of this dossier. Which means he would have told du Plessis about its existence. Did Calvo know about it because du Plessis was working for her and he told her this information was out there? Maybe she even got her own copy that way. That’s another line of possible communication we can’t ignore.’

‘Something else for you to prove, Commander,’ Parkin replied.

‘I think it’s something anyone involved in this job has to consider,’ Harrigan said.

There was a brief silence.

‘Why would you waste eighteen minutes talking to a drunken bum late one night in a car park?’ Frankie asked, spiking the tension. ‘If he harassed you, why would you go ahead and hire him again? Only if you had to.’

‘What happened after those pictures were taken?’ Harrigan asked.

‘They kept a watching operation on Beck,’ Ralph said. ‘We get a series of weekly reports from their operative. Whoever this person was, they weren’t able to gain access to the research projects Beck was involved in. Access to the laboratories was tightly controlled and there was no public information available concerning the projects themselves. Instead the operative formed a personal connection to Beck, close enough to get a good view of his lifestyle. Whatever Beck was doing, it paid well. He liked to gamble; not always successfully, but he never seemed to have any trouble paying his debts.’