Death Delights (6 page)

The T-shirt and shorts had been used on a mannequin with Rosie’s colouring, placed in the Mall some days after she’d disappeared. Accompanying it was a brief outline of the incident and the question: ‘Have you seen this girl?’ together with the Springbrook police phone number. I repacked the book and the clothes. My sister had been driven away to some vanishing point, and neither she, nor the car used in her abduction, had ever been seen again.

I took the rubbish out to the wheelie bins at the front of the place. All was very quiet and still and I could hear the sound of the sea, soft and distant, like a shell held up to the ear. Beyond that was the drone of aircraft approaching the airport. There was an odd salty haze around the streetlights, pollution rather than condensation, reminding me that somewhere in this city was a killer who operated in darkness, slashing and killing lone men. The thoughts made me quicken my steps, and I hastily walked past next door’s cypresses and around to my back door. I was just stepping inside when an odd sound made me stop. It was an eerie metallic squeal. I stood there, straining to pick up every sound. All I could hear was the distant sound of traffic and the occasional car driving past. Then I heard it again. This time, I wondered if it might be an injured bird or animal. My imagination played tricks, and for a second created a crouching, bestial figure in the darkness near the fence, Staro’s murderous wolf-man. I looked again and saw it was the shadow from a mock-orange bush. The sound teased me and I racked my brains trying to work out what it was. I hurried inside and made sure the place was securely locked before I went to bed.

I dreamed about a beautiful blue monkey swinging from a tree that grew just below me, sprouting out of the side of the cliff I was standing on. As I watched in horror, some monstrous dark predator swept past me, swooped on the monkey and bit his fingers off so that he fell, shrieking, into the abyss below. I woke up and looked at the time. It was two fifty-one.

Next morning, outside the Sydney Police Centre in Surry Hills I boldly parked in an Authorised Police Parking zone and, after being given my visitor’s badge and walking through the scanner, I made my way up to Bob’s office. His printer was humming away when I knocked on his office door and he turned to welcome me.

‘Take a look at this,’ he said, passing me the print-out records of Ernest Nesbitt. ‘And here’s Mr Gumley for you. Want a coffee?’

I nodded and he went to make it while I busied myself reading Nesbitt’s record. His sheet started with offences against minors.

The man who’d died last month, Gumley, had been charged with three violent rapes and on three occasions he’d walked. Finally, they’d got him on rape and manslaughter. I went through the folder put together by the investigating police, the little packets that had gone off to the experts for analysis and returned with their accompanying certificates for the courts, the original records of interviews made by the fellow who’d found the body and some other witness statements.

Bob returned with another envelope and I opened it. ‘That’s the young girl he killed,’ Bob said. Tiffany Jo Bentley had died of asphyxiation from the attentions of Cecil Gumley.

I flicked through the crime scene photographs, then turned to Gumley’s folder again. I read the date of his conviction and sentence, noting with satisfaction that he’d gone to Goulburn Gaol, the hardest prison in the State. I did some mental arithmetic and frowned.

‘He should still be inside,’ I said to Bob. ‘Did he get early release?’

Bob looked over at me. ‘I checked with Corrective Services,’ he said. ‘Gumley only served five years of a nine year sentence. He was released on November 10th after the parole board recommended it.’

I met Bob’s eyes and wondered if he was thinking like I was. I’ve never been able to understand why it is that if a homicidal criminal is a good boy in gaol and gives the right answers to the parole board’s questions, this in some way proves that locking a person up for years in a brutal institution brings about some deep character transformation. Ten years of good behaviour in a narrow prison cell doesn’t tell me anything about how this person is going to be in the real world. In fact, we already know all too well how he is in the real world. It’s why he ended up doing ten years in the first place. And yet the passage of time is somehow thought to produce change. It’s like a modern scientist still believing that graveyard air causes disease. Or that mice spontaneously generate in rag heaps.

‘That’s only a few weeks ago,’ I said to Bob. ‘When was he killed?’

Bob checked his notes. ‘The fourteenth of November.’ The rush of adrenalin again as that date came up. A man is murdered on a day of the year that has special significance for me. Big deal. Other things can happen on the fourteenth of November, I heard some inner voice say. Relax.

‘And when was Nesbitt released?’ I asked quickly.

Again, Bob consulted his notes. ‘He was released the day after Gumley’s death. Then he’s killed a week later,’ We looked at each other for a second and then Bob shuffled through his notes. I knew what he was thinking. You get a feel about this sort of thing.

‘It’s looking more and more like someone was waiting for them, Bob,’ I said.

My friend considered. ‘Could they have offended someone very powerful inside?’ Bob suggested.

I shook my head. ‘If that had been the case, they’d have been dealt with inside. Much easier to arrange.’ Only a few years ago, a man was murdered in the yard at Goulburn in broad daylight with dozens of witnesses who weren’t saying anything. Why complicate things by letting the person you want dead get away out into the big world when you can do it with ease and simplicity in a controlled environment? Something else occurred to me and I picked up the Nesbitt folder again. I looked through it more carefully. He’d been sentenced to twelve years for the brutal bashing and rape of a thirteen-year-old girl he’d left for dead. I read her statement and the hot rage boiled inside me. He had subjected her to things no living creature should be forced to endure, let alone a young girl. My hackles rose and in that minute I hated him and was glad that he’d died so horribly.

‘But this was only six years ago,’ I said, noticing the date of the trial. ‘He’s got out early, too.’ Two violent rapists, one also a killer, and both murdered only days out of gaol. My instinct was buzzing. ‘Men like this are being released all the time,’ I said. ‘Not droves of them, but several a year. Why
these
two?’ Profiling the victims is as important as profiling the killers.

Bob shrugged as he replied. ‘Could be someone was waiting for them. Or it’s also possible that these two nasty bits of work fit the
profile
this particular killer targets. Lonely men, wandering round late at night looking for whatever it is they look for. High risk victims.’ He paused then added, ‘Remember Dr Strachan said it felt homosexual to him.’

I’m a scientist, not a psychologist, but some time ago, Charlie had given a very interesting paper to the Forensic Society about several cases of what is termed ‘homosexual homicide’. The gist of it was that in some cases, a certain sort of homophobic man, homosexual himself but not aware of it, and drawn to flirt with other men in his unconscious way, acts outraged and disgusted when they respond to him. And on some occasions, the situation can turn homicidal. It’s still used as a defence on occasions, although as social attitudes about homosexuality relax, juries are less inclined to think that it’s legitimate for a man to be murdered for merely making a pass. However, it was possible that Gumley and Nesbitt had both fallen foul of someone like that. But there was nothing in the case notes of either man to indicate that the two sex offenders were homosexual, conscious or otherwise. ‘Surely a killer with that sort of profile would go to gay bars,’ I said, ‘and not just wander around late at night in dark and deserted places hoping that he’d bump into a flirting partner who also might just happen to be there.’

But then I remembered some of the beats I’d sat off, and recalled that it was like a highway in those dark places, when honest citizens are tucked up in their beds. Bob and I sat looking at each other unseeingly, each focused on our own thoughts. Our discussion was mere conjecture, but after many years of working with Bob, I knew that it was conversations like these as much as the leads that might develop elsewhere that often shaped an investigation. And because of how things were with me, the awful business with Genevieve, the enigmatic tip-off about our missing daughter and the spite in the mailbox, it seemed essential that I keep myself as busy as possible. I didn’t want any spare moments, no spaces in my mind, no gaps in my time through which a little ghost from twenty-five years ago could slip.

‘I’m going to check Goulburn,’ I said. ‘See if there’s something in common there.’ I felt suddenly more alive. A big new job loomed before me. These two murders and the constant alertness about anything concerning Jacinta would fill my days and nights. And I would definitely take a sleeping pill tonight to crush REM sleep. I didn’t want any more dreams like last night’s.

I remembered the tapes Chris Hayden had made for me. ‘There’s something I want you to listen to,’ I said to Bob. ‘I’ll need a cassette player.’ I pulled the tapes out of my pocket and Bob produced a small stereo radio and cassette player.

‘Tell me what you think of this,’ I said, shoving the first tape in and starting the player. Again, that strained, husky voice. ‘I want to talk to someone in charge of the investigation,’ the voice said, ‘dealing with those two .
 
.
 
. I want to talk to someone in charge about the fact that .
 
.
 
.’ I stopped it and just played that section several times. Bob leaned over, rewound and played it one more time himself.

‘It’s a very distinctive voice,’ he said.

I nodded, feeling oddly irritated that her voice had touched him, too.
Maybe it was all a reaction to the messiness of my life right at this minute, but for some reason, I found the voice of the unknown informer almost irresistible. So many women of my acquaintance have sharp-edged voices, honed over years of disappointment and resentment. To hear a voice like this caller’s, soft even under strain, went straight to what was left of my heart. The anonymity was exciting as well. I couldn’t help building a woman around that rich, trembling voice. Dark hair, thick, longish, pale skin, a medieval look. Dark red jacket. A black skirt, high heels. A cream silk blouse. Deep red lips. A full-bodied pinot noir woman. Somewhere, I’d seen a painting like her. A Renoir, I wondered. No, a Goya. In my mind’s eye, I mixed the colour on my palette, crimson lake, rose madder, a hint of vermillion and black.

‘What do you think about her voice?’ I asked, getting myself back on track. ‘Particularly that first message.’

Bob rewound and played the few sentences one more time then leaned back in his chair, came forward again and put his elbows on the desk. He was thoughtful a moment. ‘I reckon she changes tack,’ he said finally. ‘Halfway through, she seems to change her mind.’

‘That’s what I thought, too. It’s like she’s going to say one thing and then she swerves away from it and says something else instead.’

‘What did she go on to say?’

‘She said that my daughter was working at the House of Bondage.’

‘Jesus!’ said Bob.

‘It’s been checked out,’ I said. ‘And I went round there in person yesterday. It seems to be a false alarm. The woman who runs it appeared to be telling the truth.’

‘Glad to hear it,’ said Bob. Then he stood up, seeing that I was ready to leave. ‘Here,’ he said, turning to pick up two sealed packages. ‘I’ve retrieved the clothing belonging to the two dead men,’ he said, handing them to me. They were both bagged and sealed with the blue and white tape of Forensic Services Division as well as the red serrated security tape. ‘What they were wearing the nights they died. Bradley wondered if you might want to go over them again.’

I looked at the signature on the tape: F.E. Horsefall. I shook my head and handed back the bag. ‘Lidcombe must’ve sent the samples to Florence for double-checking,’ I said, ‘and Florence is the best. She would have found everything and anything.’ Dr Florence Horsefall had been with Forensic Services longer than anyone else, yet seemed arrested forever aged about forty. She drank carrot juice and practised tai chi. I remembered once catching her smoking behind a tree and her massive embarrassment had seemed out of all proportion to the infringement of her self-imposed health regime. It was an odd incident and that’s why I’d never forgotten. It was as if I’d caught her with her hand in the till, or up someone’s dress.

Bob was indicating a couple of envelopes. ‘I’ve also given you copies of the analysts’ reports to read. You might find something helpful there.’ I took the reports from him, thinking I’d read Florence’s reports later.

‘Marty Cash,’ I said, changing the subject. ‘Where does he hang out these days?’

Bob raised an eyebrow. ‘What would you want with old Pigrooter?’

‘Information,’ I said, picking up my things. Bob made a face and frowned with his increasingly bushy eyebrows. Over the years, Bob’s got more and more eyebrows above his grey eyes and less and less hair on top. ‘He drinks at the Collins Club,’ he said. ‘Or used to.’ The Collins Club is a gentlemens’ club, stuffy with leather and dark colours, that pretends to gentility, yet has walls of poker machines and carpet that looks like a tapestry based on the pattern of the technicoloured yawn.

•

I went home with Dr Florence Horsefall’s reports. I made coffee and glanced through the results my colleague had written up regarding her examination of the clothing of the two dead men. My work is mostly in and around the various chemistry labs, wet labs, analysis rooms or search room. Anything biological is transferred through a double hatch into the Biological Division. We don’t usually examine the blood stains of the victim: there’s no need to. We know who he or she is and we know how they died. What we don’t know is who did it and that’s where trace and particle analysis can be helpful. In both cases, Florence had taken further samples from the upper arm area of the shirt each man had been wearing, because if there’d been a struggle and some grappling, enough DNA material from the killer might have transferred itself from his hands onto the clothing of his victim. In Gumley’s case, there were several foreign hairs and these had been stored—it was possible that our investigation would turn up a person whose hair matched. The follicle needs to be still attached to the hair for DNA processing. In Nesbitt’s case, there was even less. I put the reports aside. They were disappointing but not unexpected. It’s only in the movies that the lab gets a result that matches some old warb on the database, let out for weekend release. And our database is only just getting up now.

I glanced through the local newspaper and noticed that the council was running an art competition, and today was the last day for entries. I went to the big carton marked with my initials and opened it, pulling out the large folder. Underneath this were several paintings that I’d liked enough to have framed and over the years, I’d collected half a dozen. My favourite was a misty view of several cottages on the ridge at Blackheath, called
Morning Mist
—my tribute to Turner in acrylics. I looked at it again, still pleased by the way I’d captured the bluish mist that settled around the lower reaches of the ridge and the way the eastern light edged trees, buildings and rocks. There was one murky corner on the lower left-hand side that I’d abandoned because it was already overpainted, but taken altogether, I thought the whole thing worked passably. And I’d never exhibited this one before. I put the other paintings away and shoved the box back in a corner. I clipped and filled out the entry coupon, noting the address to deliver my work.

Later in the afternoon, I was on the road, having delivered
Morning Mist
to the council only hours before the competition closed, and at Goulburn Gaol by four o’clock. Just for a moment, when I’d handed over my painting and glanced at the other entries stacked along the wall, sniffing the odour of fresh oil paint, I’d felt a surge of something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Life, enthusiasm, reality. Even coming back to life after all the drinking years hadn’t had this quality to it. And it was something completely different from the mechanical misery of the last few years. Whatever it was that had made me want to paint in the first place. The loss of Rosie, although it had caused immense grief, hadn’t dulled me. After the initial shock, there was a terrible realness about everything, a starkness that pierced and stabbed. I’d done a painting then, not long after she went, of her room and her belongings thrown on the floor, the book she’d been reading still open, face-down on the bed next to Mrs Gumby, her chewed bear, the little silk bag that had housed the blue and yellow enamel necklet lying empty beside the bed, the view to the trees outside her window. It had been some sort of comfort to sit in her room and paint. By that time, my father was almost never in the house, and my mother stayed in her room. Charlie and I had a few months of feral living until our mother’s sister came to see how things were in the house and installed a live-in housekeeper, Mrs Moss.