Tropic of Death (14 page)

Freddy jumped up, throwing off his gloves and helmet, and stood unsteadily in his warehouse loft, looking around frantically as Audrey’s face stared back at him from the stack of computer screens.

‘I told you, Freddy. Stand back from your decks.’

He could see the blue wisps of smoke rising from a spread of keyboards, and smell the sharp tang of electrical burning as circuits began to ignite.

He scrambled backwards, shouting, ‘You crazy bitch!’ and watched as smoke and flames flickered around the equipment lining his loft.

The first terminal exploded with a loud bang and Audrey’s face vanished from it in a shower of glass, plastic and silicon. Her face still mooned out at him from the remaining screens as he grabbed for an extinguisher. The tubes were exploding one after another in a cannonade, bombarding him with splintered components, as he pointed the nozzle and sprayed wildly at the flames.

Within a few minutes he’d doused them. He stood there, trembling, gazing at the blackened, burnt-out wreckage. He tossed down the empty fire extinguisher. It hit the floor with a hollow clank. In that moment he was speechless. Such a display of electronic power was mind-blowing, though the thought that Audrey had spared him for future use made him shudder. But the smouldering, ebombed debris around him also left him with another feeling - a grudging admiration.

20
‘So how’d your first day go?’ asked Jarrett.

‘It just went,’ answered Rita.

She wasn’t in a good mood. It was nine a.m., her sleep had been fitful and she’d skipped breakfast. Jarrett had intercepted her in the police car park.

‘Let me take you for a coffee,’ he said, an earnest look on his face. ‘You don’t need to cross paths with Bryce this morning.’

‘Right,’ she said slowly. ‘What’s he saying?’

‘He’s harping on one of his favourite themes. The more he tries to avoid Whitley Sands, the more he gets involved.’

‘And what’s he saying about me?’

‘Well, if I can put it diplomatically, he thinks you’ve got an attitude problem - just like me. Want to tell me about it?’

‘First, coffee.’

Jarrett ushered her towards his car and they drove to a cafe overlooking the marina. They sat at a table in the shade of a beach umbrella and ordered lattes. The morning sun glared beyond a line of palm trees that marked the border of the marina village with its blocks of high-rise holiday apartments. Lines of yachts rode gently at their berths.

‘So what happened?’ asked Jarrett.

‘I’ve had my own introduction to Captain Roy Maddox,’ said Rita. ‘And his team of paramilitary apes.’

‘You paid a visit to the base?’

‘Yes. And they did a background check with Bryce.’

‘No wonder he’s cranky. Did you come up with anything?’

‘Nothing solid,’ said Rita. ‘But I’m convinced that base security has a direct bearing on the investigation.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know. And it’s been made brutally clear to me that we’re supposed to rule it out as a line of inquiry. National security and all that.’

‘Ah.’ Jarrett sat back, rubbing his chin. ‘Play ball or else.’

‘That’s about it. I’ve been ordered to accept the bigger picture -

that we’re all on the same side of law and order - and back off.’

A waitress delivered the coffees.

‘So where’s that leave our investigation?’ asked Jarrett, perplexed.

‘And what does it mean for your profiling?’

‘Both good questions,’ answered Rita. ‘Whatever the political or military implications, there’s still a killer out there.’

‘So we focus on the evidence we’ve got.’ Jarrett nodded. ‘And each new bit that floats our way.’

‘We’ve got no other choice. Have any more body parts turned up?’

‘A human tibia was found among rocks south of the estuary yesterday evening. Picked clean by the crabs. I’ve sent it to the lab, but assuming it’s from victim number one, I doubt it’ll add anything to what we’ve got.’

‘Probably not.’

Jarrett watched Rita shaking her head.

‘What are you thinking?’ he asked.

‘It’s going to be hard to play it straight as a profiler.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Our killer isn’t playing straight with us.’

‘You’ve lost me,’ he admitted.

‘Okay, hiccup number one: crime signature,’ she said. ‘On the basis that the dismembered sections were washed up because of the killer’s miscalculation, we’ve got a big inconsistency.’

‘Which is?’

‘The first victim wasn’t meant to be found, while the second most certainly was.’ She took a sip of coffee. ‘Another obvious thing is the difference in sex of the two victims. Somehow it doesn’t fit.

And something else. A head on a pole in a public place - what does that say to you?’

Jarrett shrugged. ‘A very sick bastard on the loose.’

‘Yes, but another idea came to me yesterday when I was checking out the displays in the exhibit room. They made me think
execution
.’

He thought about it. ‘Like the heads of traitors on London Bridge. Shit, why didn’t I think of that?’

‘Well, I’m in the habit of seeing pathological imagery where other cops see dead bodies. Next big question mark - where are the hands?’

‘You think the killer might have kept them?’ asked Jarrett.

‘From both victims?’

‘Maybe. And if so, why? For what purpose? Souvenirs? It bothers me.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The nail gun.’

‘It’s an odd choice of weapon,’ he agreed. ‘Like you said: up close and personal. Or even opportunistic.’

Rita looked out to sea as she drank her coffee. ‘Or neither of those.’

‘You’ve lost me again.’

‘There’s another possibility,’ she said quietly. ‘And this is just speculation. What if the killings were professional?’

Jarrett gave her a hard look. ‘Professional?’ He put down his cup. ‘What are you getting at?’

‘I’m saying we can’t afford to make false assumptions.’

‘We
are
still talking about a serial killer, aren’t we?’

‘Let’s not get hung up on terminology.’

‘Okay. And, if I get your drift, you don’t want us to rule out a connection with Whitley Sands. So, correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying two people might have been taken out because of a link to the base?’

‘Yes.’

‘By some sort of vigilante?’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘Or this terrorist cell we’re being warned about?’

‘I was thinking more along the lines of sanctioned hits.’

‘A criminal connection?’

‘No.’

Jarrett paused to take in what she was implying.

‘If you’re suggesting what I think you’re suggesting,’ he said,

‘you’d better keep it between the two of us.’

‘Absolutely,’ she agreed. ‘
Entre nous
. It’s just a thought.’

They finished their coffees in silence.

‘So where do we go from here?’ asked Jarrett at last. ‘Or am I stuffed no matter which way I turn?’

‘You’re doing fine,’ she told him. ‘I’ve gone through your files and case notes. Everything you’ve put together is excellent work, very thorough. What I’m going to do is retrace some of it. I want to talk to those closest to Rachel Macarthur.’

‘Work up the victimology?’

‘Yes. I’ll need to talk to her campaign deputy.’

‘Eve Jaggamarra, bit of a babe,’ said Jarrett before he could stop himself. ‘Sorry. You’ll find her at the campaign headquarters.’

‘And Rachel’s boyfriend, the hacker.’

‘Edge Freddy. Your best bet is the Diamond, but I’ll try to track him down for you.’

‘The Diamond?’ said Rita. ‘The nightclub at the crime scene?’

‘Yeah, the Rough Diamond Club - rough being the operative word.’

‘I’ll need to check that out too.’

‘Well, don’t turn your back on anyone. Apart from attracting e-freaks, it’s a watering hole for seafront hookers and muggers.

Make sure nobody spikes your drink.’

21
The protest campaign office was located in a concrete shopping centre that served the southern residential spread on the edge of the industrial area. Rita found a parking space and walked along a pedestrian precinct between rows of concrete pillars, cheap supermarkets and discount outlets. It was one of those functional developments from the late 1960s that showed its age badly.

Overhead metal walkways were the colour of rust. The civic garden beds were overgrown. There was a lot of graffiti about.

The place she was looking for was next to a cyber cafe and upstairs from a grocery selling environmentally friendly items. She climbed the stairs to find a nest of rooms cluttered with posters, placards, stacks of papers and intense women in unfashionable clothing.

‘I’m looking for Eve Jaggamarra,’ she said.

‘Out the back,’ she was told. ‘Doing her mug shots.’

Baffled by the answer, Rita went back down the stairs and through the rear of the shop to a back garden. It was obviously used as a receptacle for the overflow of clutter from the office. A pebbled path was hemmed in by paint tins, brushes, more posters and piles of magazines under plastic covers among ferns and cactus tubs. The woman she’d arranged to meet was posing against the back wall, brandishing a placard with the words: radiation kills.

Squatting a couple of metres in front of her was a photographer, camera flashing.

‘Eve?’ asked Rita.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘I’ll be with you in a tick.’

The photographer glanced over his shoulder, looked Rita up and down, then resumed, telling his subject to turn sideways a little, breathe in and raise her chin. His accent was European, maybe French.

Rita folded her arms and waited. It gave her the opportunity to observe the woman. Straightaway she could see the attraction for Jarrett - and the photographer too, by the look of it. He was making the most of her shapely figure by getting her to pose against a whitewashed background in a red, partly unbuttoned shirt and jeans, shooting her from the waist up. She was a natural beauty: dark-skinned with a smooth, flawless complexion, black hair and deep brown eyes. The pose, complete with protest slogan, conveyed a powerful image: sex and death combined. The photographer knew what he was doing.

When the photo shoot ended, Eve buttoned her shirt, came over and shook Rita’s hand.

‘You’re the profiler,’ she said.

‘Yes. And you’re the next centrefold by the look of it.’

Eve laughed. ‘Anything for the cause. The more publicity the better.’

‘And I’m her biggest fan,’ put in the photographer, packing his camera into its case. ‘She could have a career as a model.’

‘My new admirer,’ explained Eve as he walked over.

‘Julien Ronsard,’ he said with a slight bow, shaking Rita’s hand.

‘Rita Van Hassel,’ she replied. ‘Is your accent French?’

‘Yes, from Paris.’

‘You’re a long way from home.’

‘I usually am,’ said Ronsard with a doleful smile. ‘The fate of a photo-journalist. I go wherever important issues take me.’

‘Such as?’

‘Christmas in Algiers. March in Islamabad. April in Bali. I’ve been here for the past month covering the anti-war protests.’

‘Why?’

‘They are waging a battle against another excess of the war on terror. It has global importance. It deserves international attention.’

This man intrigued Rita. Something of a pin-up himself, he was slim with olive skin and dark almond-shaped eyes, and he possessed the polished charm of someone schooled in the tradition of Continental courtesy. But there was another facet too; Rita could sense a resoluteness beneath the composure. Ronsard looked like a man with the intelligence and inner strength to act on principle, cope with danger and speak his mind. It was an appealing package.

She wanted to know more.

‘Who do you work for?’ Rita asked.

‘I’m freelance. My shots appear mostly in European magazines.’

‘How many languages do you speak?’

‘Several,’ he answered with a smile. ‘But if you’re referring to my English it’s because I studied at the London School of Economics.

As well as the Sorbonne, of course. But I mustn’t interrupt you two ladies. You have important things to discuss.’

Eve reached over to a battered leather handbag and got out a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

‘Mind if we talk out here?’ she asked Rita. ‘They won’t let me smoke upstairs.’

‘That’s fine.’

As Ronsard collected his camera gear, said his goodbyes and made his way through the back of the shop, Eve lit up and puffed out a stream of smoke with a sigh.

‘I’m glad that’s over,’ she said. ‘Julien can be a bit demanding.’

Rita thought she caught a double meaning, but simply asked,

‘What aspect of the war on terror was he talking about?’

‘The military madness of the allies. It’s no secret they’re developing new battlefield technology at Whitley Sands. Weapons that spread dangerous levels of radiation. Rachel had the proof.’

‘What proof?’

‘A printout. Damning evidence - enough to shut down the base.’

‘Tell me.’

‘About fifty pages of technical stuff. Layouts, diagrams. That sort of thing.’

‘Can I see it?’

‘I wish you could,’ said Eve, flicking ash at the ground. ‘She showed it to me the day before she was killed. Next day it was gone.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It was in Rachel’s locked filing cabinet. When I got back from the demo I went through her files. I looked everywhere. Nothing.

The evidence had been lifted.’

‘Did you tell police about the printout?’

‘Yeah, three times over. They didn’t believe me or didn’t want to.’

‘Three?’

‘The local plods, the Homicide bunch, then the federal heavies.’

‘Federal? The AFP’s not involved in this investigation.’

‘Well, they wore dark suits and flashed badges and called themselves federal police. If not, who were they? Spooks?’

‘Your guess is as good as mine,’ said Rita uneasily. ‘How did they react when you mentioned the printout?’

‘Like inquisitors.
Where did it come from? How did she get it? Who
gave it to her?
They weren’t interested in who’d nicked it. When I couldn’t tell them anything they dismissed it as insignificant.