The Tower (11 page)

Sidorov closed the magazine, and Troy saw it was the
Economist
. ‘Lives in Vaucluse,' said Stone, who was standing almost over the man on the bench. ‘Done well for yourself, haven't you, Alex?' The man stared at both of them intently, as though this was personal. His cheeks and chin and nose, everything about him was big, slightly swollen. He was wearing a leisure suit in dusty pink, with white leather loafers on his feet. A smaller man might have worried about wearing such a feminine outfit, but Sidorov didn't look as though he paid much mind to what other people thought. Stone said, ‘Alex isn't talking to us—not one word since we lifted him from the family mansion last night. His lawyer will tell him to talk eventually, and then we'll be able to go man to man. But right now, Alex is hiding behind his brief.' Stone was showing more emotion now, but Troy could see it was no good: Sidorov was feeding off it. After a while Sidorov grew bored and switched his gaze to Troy, but only for a moment. It slid away and he picked up the magazine again.

Stone turned around in the small room and almost pushed Troy out of the way as he left. When they were walking back to the office he said, ‘That bloke's got the illegals terrified. I don't know what they're keeping from us.'

‘Isn't it all over for them now? They'll be deported.'

‘They'd be worrying about their families back home.'

‘Sidorov brings them out?'

‘No, someone else. Immigration are working on it. They think they have a lead on him: a Jakarta-based bloke named Jason. But that bastard back there is the reason Khan's not talking. I'm sure of it.'

Troy was having trouble following Stone. He seemed to operate in fi ts and starts. ‘Well, maybe Khan's not important. There's no GSR on him—maybe he just found the gun.'

Stone scratched his head. ‘The problem is, we don't have much else to go on. The security guards keep a record of whoever goes onto the site by foot and there's no woman on the list.' Troy thought this line of thinking was ridiculous. Given the massive security breach represented by the twenty-one illegals, there was no point in trusting anything the guards told them.

‘On the other hand,' Stone continued, ‘they only record the drivers' IDs and the numberplates of vehicles, and we've discovered there were about a dozen men working on level thirteen that night; they came in with two vans. Could have brought in a woman.'

‘You've talked to them?'

‘They say they know nothing about the woman. We're reinterviewing them later.' He stopped, and then said, ‘I suppose it's possible. But they're tradesmen who were rushing to complete a late job by the end of the weekend. Two separate companies involved.'

Troy told him about Little's theory that the victim was a prostitute, and the sergeant shook his head. ‘This stuff about whores and construction sites is an urban myth.' He seemed certain about this, more so than he'd been about anything else. ‘I think she came in separately and on foot, which puts Bazzi in the frame, and this other guard, Andrew Asaad, who was manning the front gate.'

‘What do we know about these guys?'

‘Little talked to their boss, bloke named Eman Jamal. He reckons they're clean, but you know. Fucking security guards.'

Troy knew. ‘What about Bazzi's house?'

‘We've had it under surveillance but he hasn't showed. I'm off to get a search warrant for his place and Asaad's.'

Troy thought Stone had left it too long to search the houses, but all he said was, ‘I should go see McIver.'

‘I want you to attend the autopsy on the woman. It starts in half an hour.'

‘McIver's a colleague and friend,' Troy said. ‘It'll only take a few minutes.'

‘I don't have the staff to spare you,' Stone said, rubbing his hands together.

‘Just a few minutes. It's on the way.'

‘No. You'll have to do it on your own time.'

Troy stood there, fists clenched. He didn't know how to handle this. Normally something would have come to him, but not today.

Stone said, ‘You sure you don't want to take some time off?'

Troy took a deep breath and left the room.

Nine

T
he morgue was a low building on Parramatta Road, anonymous in a line of offices and antique centres. It ought to look more impressive, Troy had sometimes thought, given the weight of what went on inside. Death should be acknowledged rather than hidden away. But Sydney was a city in love with pleasure, where death always occurred off-stage.

When he reached the desk, he found Stone had got the time wrong and Fundis had already done the cut. He was told the professor was talking to some people and directed to wait outside his office. Eventually a weeping man and a stony-faced woman were shown out and led away by an assistant, and the secretary told Troy he could go in. Fundis, normally a cheerful man, was closing a file and looking sombre. He pushed it aside and greeted Troy, getting his smile underway again.

‘You went ahead without an investigator present?' said Troy.

Fundis threw up his hands. ‘I'm told it's a big priority, I'm ready to go, call this guy . . .' He looked around his desk and picked up a note. ‘Stone, right? He doesn't answer his mobile, I leave a message. Call again, same result. I'm in court this afternoon, reckoned you needed it before then.'

Troy nodded. ‘Sorry.'

‘You okay?' said Fundis, leaning back in his chair and studying Troy with more attention than usual.

‘I'm fine.'

‘You're probably not. Lots of walks along the beach will help.'

‘I run there,' said Troy.

‘You should try walking sometime.'

Troy said nothing and Fundis looked at a piece of paper on his desk.

‘Jane Doe, our twenty-third unknown for the year.'

‘That's a lot.'

‘They're not unknown for long,' said Fundis. ‘Usually you people have a name by the time you get here.' He raised his eyebrows.

Troy shook his head, and asked how far the woman had fallen.

Fundis spread his hands. ‘From descriptions in the literature I'd say a hundred metres. Twenty to thirty storeys, give or take.'

‘That's quite a range.'

‘It's not a precise science, especially where cars are involved. Someone survived a jump off the Eiffel Tower once because they landed on a car with windows that were just slightly open.' He smiled as though telling a good joke. ‘The roof caved in at just the right rate to absorb enough of the impact.' Opening a folder, he slid a photo across the table, said, ‘But not in this case.'

‘Jesus,' Troy whispered. He could tell from the hair it was the woman's face, just a mashed and bloody pulp. ‘Can you give us her dental history?'

‘A bit.'

Fundis summarised the extensive damage to the woman's bones and internal organs, and then went through a list of other details: a healthy person in her late twenties; no food for at least eight hours before death; no sign of alcohol or drugs.

‘Spermicide from a condom,' said Fundis. ‘She'd had sex within eight hours before death.'

‘Forced?'

‘Vaginal bruising, so it was rough. There are flakes of skin beneath some of her fingernails, two broken fingernails.'

‘Sounds like she was attacked.'

Fundis shook his head sadly, acknowledging Troy's hunger for information. ‘Don't know. I can't say more than that, because of the state of her. The skin could have come from scratching someone at the height of ecstasy, if you know what I mean.' Troy nodded: he had his memories. ‘And the nails could have been broken by the fall.'

Apart from that, her body told them nothing.

‘Her clothes were classy,' Fundis said. ‘Collette Dinnigan dress, expensive French underwear.' Troy took notes. The professor looked around then opened one of the drawers and removed a small plastic bag and pushed it across the desk. Troy picked it up, and saw it contained the chunky bracelet the woman had been wearing. Set into it were about twenty pieces of glass, each at least the size of a two-carat diamond. He put it in his pocket.

‘You're not interested in that?' Fundis said.

‘Isn't it a fake?'

‘What if it's not?'

‘Is Susie here?' Troy asked, recalling that one of the analysts here had some knowledge of jewellery.

‘Conference in Edinburgh, then on holiday in Europe for two weeks. It's definitely worth an expert's opinion.'

Troy grunted. ‘Anything else?'

‘I think I might have a present for you.' The professor took another large colour photograph from the folder and gave it to Troy. It showed a picture of a dolphin jumping above a thin line of waves. Troy realised it was a tattoo on light brown skin, and there was the beginning of an undulation in the flesh where the waves were.

‘Lower back?'

‘More like upper buttocks,' Fundis said.

It might come in handy for identification. But there were lots of tattoos of dolphins out there.

Fundis was looked at his watch.

‘Can I see the other one?' Troy said.

‘The man you shot?'

Troy nodded.

‘I'm just about to do him. You don't want to wait for your friends from Internal Affairs?'

‘I'd like to see him now.'

‘Is that a good idea?'

‘It's not a bad idea,' Troy said.

He felt uncomfortable about not looking at the man's face last night. It was unfinished business. Fundis shrugged and called someone on his phone. They talked about number twenty-four and then began to chat about something else. Fundis nodded to Troy, who stood up. He knew where to go.

Downstairs, the attendant pulled out the long steel drawer and Troy looked into the face of a man who'd been in his mid-twenties. He had a light beard and thin features. He wore a grey jacket over a thin jumper and shirt, brown synthetic trousers. The clothes were clean, unlike those of the men they'd found down in the car park.

There were two bullet holes in the man's chest: one off to the side, the other almost in the middle. You were taught to fire twice, the idea being you corrected on the second shot. Troy wondered if this was what he'd done; he had no memory of seeing where the first shot had gone before firing the second.

The man looked intelligent, and Troy wondered why he'd wanted to kill them last night. How his life had reached that point. He straightened up, and became aware all his muscles were clenched. Stretching his shoulders, he stood aside and nodded to the attendant.

Back in his car, he called City Central and got on to Ruth. He asked her to check [email protected], to see if there was any reference to scratch marks on Nawaz Khan. She said there was no indication he'd even been examined. Troy banged the steering wheel gently and told her about the flakes of skin that had been found under the dead woman's fingernails.

‘Is Stone there?' he said.

‘He's at The Tower, talking to tradesmen.'

‘Tradesmen?' He swore softly. ‘Is everything okay in there?'

‘It's chaos. I've got to go back to Parramatta to get more stuff. The sarge hasn't talked to anyone here about our requirements.'

Resisting the urge to discuss Stone, he commiserated and finished the call. He called Vella but got his voicemail; the inspector was probably on a plane.

He unwrapped a piece of gum and thought about the way things were going. The whole thing was a mess. For a moment he considered the possibility that he was overreacting, that he was still on edge from last night and wasn't thinking clearly. But it wasn't that. The investigation was out of control, and someone needed to be told. He called Homicide and asked to be put through to Kelly's mobile. He'd never called her like this before; he was too junior. And, there'd never been a need.

‘What's the story with Stone?' he said.

‘I saw the commissioner this morning,' she said. ‘That stuff in the papers was good.'

‘Stone doesn't know homicide, he—'

She was speaking quickly, her voice low as though afraid of being overheard. ‘He still hasn't made his decision. There's a big push to blame McIver for what happened last night. The government's very concerned about The Tower.'

Troy didn't care about the politics anymore. He'd done his best last night. He had no more to give. ‘Our analyst doesn't know what she's doing. There's been no autopsy of the guy I shot. Stone hasn't even searched the houses of the guards who let the woman into the building.'

He stopped. Normally he didn't complain, but these things had to be said. It was important the investigation function well, no matter who was in charge. They had to catch the man who'd killed the woman, it was what the job was about.

Kelly sounded surprised by his outburst, and not happy. ‘Stone was presented to me this morning, out of the blue. Taking him and agreeing to make do with the resources we have was part of getting Rogers on side.'

‘You mean a homicide investigation is being compromised—'

‘Nick, pay attention. Your career is on the line here.'

He paused, thinking about where to go with this. ‘I don't care. We just need to do good work.'

‘You don't care?'

‘Look—'

‘No. Stop,' she said. ‘You're not stupid, are you? You know how things work. We can't always have what we want.'

‘But—'

‘Just listen. This is a job, like any other job. Finish it as quickly as you can, do good work, and you can have a break. Has Vella told you about the conference?' Troy had no idea what she was talking about. ‘I want you to go to a conference on DNA technology in Florida next April. It's being organised by the FBI, very important for us.'

He couldn't believe she was doing this. It was so blatant.

‘That doesn't change anything with Stone,' he said.