Disappear (22 page)

The police were adamant there was a rational explanation to all this, despite their inability to produce one, and despite the coroner sidestepping the issue. If that was the case then these youth-enhancing alternative lifestyles were a logical line of enquiry.

When she contacted Gleitzman overseas, Jennifer would ask for a list of all the youth preservation groups or societies operating around the world. Then she would have Stuart James follow up by sending a photo of Brian to every one of those groups to ascertain whether he’d ever belonged to one.

In Jennifer’s view, the practices of these immortalists didn’t explain Brian’s totally unchanged appearance. Certainly, it didn’t touch on the fact that he’d been wearing the same clothes, the condition of the clothing still the same, as though no time had passed.

Jennifer clung to Meg’s earlier observation that Brian would never have vanished of his own accord.

She felt the chill rising up her spine.

Dear Mother,

There is a moment when the wire snaps in to place around the throat of the one I’ve chosen, and it feels good because I know I have the control - for once I have real control.

There’s an enormous adrenalin rush, like a drug, and once you’ve had the high you need it again and again. I know it’s hard for you, but please try and understand. This is the kind of power I need.

The victim struggles but the grip is too tight, the wire cuts deep, the air is closed off. There is a moment, I can sense it, when they know they’re going to die. They know they’re powerless – they know that the power lies with me.

Me.

That’s the moment of ultimate control.

I could release them, and then walk away. The choice is mine. The choice over life and death. Who lives. Who dies.

History in the making.

I remember, when I was very young, they taunted me at school. I wish I’d known about the power then. It wasn’t until later, with Vinnie, that I discovered how to take control. I found I could be the one in charge, have things the way I wanted them.

I used to keep a collection of newspaper clippings on murders. All sorts. I recall wishing I was the one doing those killings and being the one the police were trying to find. It would have been my secret identity. The mysterious killer sought nationally by the police but anonymous in any crowd, possessing the dark power while at the same time knowing it couldn’t be seen. No one who knew or met me could possibly suspect.

I wondered how it would feel to harbour that kind of hidden notoriety.

Now it’s happened. More by accident than design.

The coppers know that the young woman and the old man were killed by the same method, the same person. They know an enemy’s out there, somewhere amongst several million people.

I can walk up to any copper in the street, ask directions. He can look me in the eye, talk to me, without knowing.

It’s happened because I’ve been set free for the first time in so long. I’m like an alcoholic turned loose in a grog shop. I killed twice in the same week - and left the bodies to be found. I’m no longer concerned with the secrecy the way I once was.

There’s a fear out there in the community now and it’s like a living thing. I can feel it. I can feed from it.

The phone rang. The jogger, hunched over his desk, writing feverishly in long hand, rolled his eyes and threw down his pen. Was there no peace? So much was happening in his life. He rose from his desk, giddy with excitement and the anticipation of it all, picked up the receiver, placed it to his ear.

It wasn’t a call he expected. The voice on the other end of the line was distant, muffled, but nonetheless threatening. It was the one call he’d hoped he would never receive.

‘You’re to stop what you’re doing,’ the voice on the phone said, ‘or the police will be told all about you.’

The jogger said nothing at first. The sound of his heart, an inner thunder, crashed against his eardrums. He felt the terror of discovery well up from within.

‘Do you understand?’ The menace in the voice was unmistakable.

The jogger found a resolve he hadn’t known he possessed. He was desperate to retain his freedom and there was a fighter inside who wasn’t prepared to give up that freedom easily. ‘What are you going to tell the police? You have nothing on me. No evidence,’ he said, buoyed by the determination in his own voice.

Something occurred to him. The owner of the voice on the phone was part of the surveillance of so many years. Whoever they were, they were still out there. They knew he’d killed again. Yet the shadows hadn’t returned to stop him.

Just this warning over the phone. Why?

‘The police will investigate you. They’ll find you have no alibi for the time of the murders this past week.’

‘That isn’t evidence. It’s nothing and you know it.’

‘They’ll watch you, wait for you to make a move.’

‘Then I won’t make a move. I’ll lay low for a while. After all, I managed it for eighteen years, didn’t I?’ The jogger chuckled to himself. He thought: I’m handling this well. This time I’m the one calling the shots.

‘You can’t help yourself.’ There was anger in the mysterious voice. ‘You’ll do something to give yourself away.’

‘It isn’t going to work. Tell the cops what you want. I’ll be a real good boy. And when they give up on me I’ll be back, but I’ll change my methods.’

‘Bastard.’

‘Of course, you could always start up the round the clock vigil again. But you can’t, can you? Something is different. What? Did I outlive all your people?’ He laughed aloud at the thought. ‘So tell me, who are you? Who the fuck are you?’

‘The police will be told,’ the voice said, calmer now, the anger subsiding. ‘We’ll make sure they stop you. That’s a promise. The choice is yours - stop, or we’ll make sure you’re caught.’

The frustration in the jogger’s breast exploded. ‘How many of you are there?’ he shouted down the line. ‘Why have you been doing this all this time?’ The line went dead. The jogger hurled the phone into the air. It fell with a resounding crash.

His worst fear had been realised. His faceless nemesis was back, only not as he expected. No shadowy sentinels this time. A threat of exposure to the police instead, the one thing they had not done before.

How could he fight an enemy he couldn’t see, couldn’t find? They knew him though.

They know everything about me.

The jogger had to control his rage. He knew that. He sat down in the darkness. No lights. It was quiet. A good time to think. The minutes ticked towards midnight. Even when he’d travelled overseas, they’d known. The eyes had been out there, watching, waiting. Angels with all the time and resources of the heavens themselves. Was that it? Were they something otherworldly?

No. There was a very mortal element to the whole surveillance operation. And now they were no longer there to physically overpower him. He sensed they wouldn’t do that again. Therefore, he was free to fight back. The first step, he decided, was to trap his enemy into revealing who they were.

They know all about me. They must be close enough to observe me.

Once he discovered who they were he would set out to eliminate them.

Someone close.

All of a sudden he was struck by an extraordinary idea. Could it be?

Surely not. And yet …

He was amazed he hadn’t considered the possibility before. The idea sickened him. This time the nausea tore through his insides like the sharp edge of a weapon. He raced to the bathroom, dry retching as he flung his head over the toilet bowl. He knelt there for some time, trembling.

The thought stuck in his mind, an ugly intrusion, and with each passing moment it seemed to gain credence. Could it be?

For the past twenty-four hours, eighty-six police on the beat, working in pairs, stopped and questioned twenty-seven male joggers of varying ages. They discreetly watched and followed another twenty. Most of this activity occurred in the early morning or the evening.

None of the twenty who were watched were considered worth pursuing further. The names and addresses of the other twenty-seven were taken down - routine matter, the police said, asking, ‘have you seen anything suspicious?’ All were thoroughly checked out. None were suspicious. There were no likely contenders.

The senior men on the force had seen this sort of thing before. A line of enquiry that had to be followed, a watch that needed to be kept. They didn’t expect anything to come of it, though. Too much of a longshot, unless they got very, very lucky.

All police had been instructed not to let on they were specifically looking for a male jogger acting suspiciously. Not even over police radio. Razell and Rosen were adamant that they wanted no chance of leaks.

In this respect, the investigation was successful. The reporters didn’t get wind of it. They could only surmise that the police were following leads. There was no mention of the eyewitness, Dianne Adamson, who had seen Bill Dawson’s death. The commissioner was pleased. That meant the killer didn’t know his pursuers were looking for a jogger in sports gear. There was no reason, therefore, that he wouldn’t continue to adopt that role when he went out to kill.

It was becoming increasingly apparent to Razell that this one piece of knowledge was their only hope of finding the murderer.

It was unusual for a senior detective-sergeant to arrive at Sydney HQ, demanding to see the deputy commissioner. Lachlan had been persistent, making an issue of the fact that he had highly sensitive material in his possession. It may have seemed unusual for Razell to agree to see Neil Lachlan at such short notice, but in fact it wasn’t. He’d made a point to make himself available to all the men on the force, regardless of rank. Something like this allowed him to prove it.

It was early evening, the building still a hive of activity.

Razell listened patiently as Lachlan explained the situation. He leaned forward across his desk and cast his eye over the computer printouts. He felt some irritation to Lachlan’s maverick approach, but showed it only in the trace of rebuke in his voice. ‘Sit down, Lachlan, let me explain a few things to you.’

As Lachlan sat, Razell rose and strolled to the window, hands clasped behind him. ‘Back in 2004, I sat down with all the division heads, including John Rosen, and we decided to form a special unit to handle cases that simply couldn’t be successfully assigned to the normal channels.’

He returned to his seat and leaned back in the large, leatherback chair. ‘There are similar units in Britain, the US, some of the European countries. We often consult with those units, seeking information or documentation.’

‘I’m well aware of the unit, sir.’

‘Of course you are. It’s no secret. But it’s also given a very low profile on the force. Let me level with you, it’s the intention of the unit to kill public focus on certain issues. For that reason it’s possible to get the idea that someone in the unit, Rosen for example, is up to no good when it simply isn’t the case. There are two types of cases the unit specialises in. Firstly, politically-sensitive hot potatoes that are investigated quietly. A recent example was the investigation into a number of senior police and public servants involved in a computer fraud.’

Lachlan nodded, recalling the outcome of that case. The deputy commissioner had paused for effect, something he was known for, stroking his chin and jowls with thumb and forefinger. He grunted, cleared his throat. ‘God, I feel like a cigarette.’

‘I didn’t know you smoked, sir.’

‘I don’t. Gave it up, finally, three years ago after many attempts.’

‘You still get the urge?’

‘Every day of my life. But I won’t turn back now, I’ve come too far.’ He cleared his throat again, signalling a return to business. ‘The second type of case the unit handles, Lachlan, is the one with a bizarre element to it. We may not get results on such cases. Nothing unusual about Rosen keeping these particular cases under wraps if he feels there will be wild media speculation about people who don’t age or some such nonsense.’

‘But you’re kept fully informed of the unit’s work?’

‘Of course.’

‘There’s a connection between these recent garrotte killings and the six missing persons cases taken on by Rosen. He hadn’t acted on that connection and when I queried him I got the impression I was being stonewalled.’

Razell cast his eyes over the printouts again. A lengthy pause ensued before he spoke again. ‘I hadn’t been made aware these particular missing persons cases involved garrotting.’ His irritation subsided. He recognised that Lachlan’s concerns were well founded.

‘Five had been,’ Lachlan corrected him. ‘The sixth, Brian Parkes, was run down. Isn’t this connection something you’d expect John Rosen to bring to you?’

‘Absolutely.’ Razell continued to read through the information on the sheets of paper. ‘Simply doesn’t make sense,’ he said presently. ‘But Rosen is a good man. And you and John go back a long way.’

‘Yes, we do.’

‘ I’ve no doubt he knows exactly what he’s doing and has good reason.’

‘How are you going to handle it, sir?’

‘I’m going to look into the matter myself. Immediately. In the meantime your suspicions don’t go beyond these four walls. I don’t want rumours. I don’t like unnecessary and unfounded speculation. When I came to this position, Lachlan, I promised to purge the force of corrupt officers, malcontents and bunglers. A passion I share with the Chief Commissioner. We’ve come a long way down the path towards that. And the community is reacting favourably.’

‘You don’t want that blown away.’

‘You’re damn right we don’t want it blown away. I appreciate you bringing your concern to me, and I’m going to let you know my findings as soon as possible.’

‘Sir, I’d like permission to continue my own investigation into the missing people and their possible connection with the current wave of garrotte killings.’

‘I thought you’d get round to that. Very well, you clearly have a handle on the case. I expect you’ll need some back up. I’ll advise the men in Rosen’s unit that you’ll be handling the Parkes case and that they’re to assist where required.’