Disappear (28 page)

Rosen’s eyes flittered about the room, avoiding Lachlan’s and he leaned against the narrow desk. ‘Four months ago,’ he said, ‘I received a package of photos in the mail. I would never have believed in my wildest dreams, Neil, that anyone could have known about me, had me followed and taken those pictures with a tele-photo lens.’ He paused for a moment, searching for the right words to continue. ‘That same night I received a phone call. I have no idea of the caller’s identity. I was told to do as ordered or copies of the photos would be sent to Margaret, the commissioner, and the press. I practically threw up all over the phone while I was listening.’ Another pause, longer than the first.

It tore Lachlan apart to see his old friend and father figure like this - broken, beaten, shamed. He spoke gently. ‘Go on.’

Rosen sighed deeply. ‘I was told that a number of people who’d been missing for eighteen years would be found, all would be dead. I’d receive a phone call just as each body was likely to be found. They’d all be located in north-west Sydney, except one.’

‘Brian Parkes, the odd man out.’

Rosen nodded. ‘I was told to use my position to take over each case, ensure they were kept isolated so that no one made the connection between them. It was also made very clear that my investigations of these cases should go nowhere. But that’s not all, Neil. The caller assured me that after six had been found, that would be all, and I wouldn’t be contacted again.’

‘And the recent garrotte killings?’

‘I was contacted again. Told to frame someone for those murders. The caller told me there wouldn’t be any more, that something was being done about it.’

Lachlan shook his head. ‘Doesn’t make any sense.’

‘No,’ Rosen’s voice was a croak, ‘no sense at all.’ His face was longer than usual, drawn, the cheeks and jowls sagging as though weighed down by the burden of guilt. ‘So, you have the answers you came for.’

‘John, couldn’t you have found another solution-?’

Rosen didn’t let him finish. ‘We’re not talking about another woman here. The pictures would have ruined me, but then I deserve that. It’s Margaret, Neil. I couldn’t do it to her. She must never see the pictures.’

‘John …?’

‘Please don’t ask me any more. Not about that.’

‘Okay,’ Lachlan conceded. ‘About the case. Did you unearth any clues at all? Surely you have something. A theory …’

‘Very little. I pursued some matters, on my own, I was too curious not to. I spoke to the police psychologist, Hawkins, presenting it as a hypothetical case. Two interesting bits of information came out of my talk with him. He theorised that if five people vanished from the same area, then turned up eighteen years later, then there had to be something beneficial about that area to the killer. Less distance to travel maybe? Less chance of discovery? He also theorised that if a sixth victim wasn’t garrotted like the others, then it could be because the killer knew him personally. The other five were snuffed out for the thrill of it. But if the killer knew Parkes, perhaps even liked him, then he wouldn’t be able to murder him in the same vicious manner. Much less personal to run him down in a car.’

‘Hawkins didn’t suspect these talks were about a real case?’

‘I was too clever for that, Neil. I dressed the details up differently. Spoke to him about different aspects on two separate occasions.’

Lachlan realised the theories made perfect sense. And now something else gelled for the first time. He told Rosen about Parkes’ audit of Winterstone. ‘Winterstone owns a storage warehouse in Dural, smack dab in the middle of the far north-western suburbs.’

‘There’s a connection there,’ Rosen agreed. ‘And if Brian Parkes knew something then the killer would’ve wanted him out of the way. If the killer was connected in some way to the Kaplan Corporation then he most likely knew Brian, hence the difference in the mode of killing.’

‘What about the fact that the victims hadn’t aged? Did the psychologist have any theories on that?’

‘No. He suggested an intensive autopsy would confirm the actual chronological ages of the bodies, and whether drugs or surgery were involved. But we’ve already been down that road with Parkes and the others and there is no evidence of that with any of them.’

Lachlan glanced at his watch. ‘I’ll have a word with Hawkins myself. We need a full psychological profile based on the current information.’

‘I’m glad you’re on the case,’ Rosen said. ‘You’re every inch the cop I always knew you’d be.’

Lachlan offered his hand. They shook. ‘Why didn’t you tell the commissioner you were blackmailed?’

‘That means I’d have to come clean about the nature of the photos. It’s best left in the dark, Neil.’

‘Tell him, John. And tell Margaret. Give them the chance to show they can forgive. Margaret deserves that.’

Rosen cleared his throat, gave an almost imperceptible nod. ‘Maybe …’

Lachlan was heading across the Harbour Bridge when he received the message from HQ on the police car radiophone. Call Jennifer Parkes urgently, the dispatcher told him. He pulled over to the side of the road to make the call on his cell.

He felt a stab of anticipation as Jennifer came on the line and said, ‘Neil. I know what was different about Brian’s belongings when I saw them at the morgue …’

It could have been any one of a thousand warehouses on any one of a thousand industrial estates around Sydney. A squat, lengthy red brick building with a few small windows on each side. It had a loading dock area and a long, wide driveway at the rear.

The interior had seen little use. A vast expanse of smooth concrete floor, multi-level rows of industrial shelving, dust and cobwebs and a thick, musty air which hung like an invisible veil - a shroud to the long years of secrecy. In the front of the building stood a glass cubicle-cum-office with a desk and an old-style telephone. The phone was disconnected and the dust covering everything made Lachlan sneeze several times.

Lachlan had the feeling it was a long, long time since anyone had been in this part of the building. To the administration section of Kaplan Corp this was a forgotten relic, buried among the files of the clerical archives.

He walked the length and breadth of the warehouse. Without the interior lights being switched on it was a dark, seedy, subterranean place. Lit up, the phosphorescent glow bounced off the brick walls, and cast shadows behind the willowy cobwebs.

The loading dock was the usual recessed area of floor into which trucks could back up to unload materials. More dust, more cobwebs. Lachlan glanced around the dock, then turned to leave. A flash of colour glinted in the corner of his vision. He turned back, focusing on a spot at the far end of the curved concrete mini-wall, around the recessed floor.

The object was dotted with thick, sooty specks of dust and partly obscured by the curvature of the wall. Lachlan stepped down into the recessed area and walked towards the object. With each advancing step he heard Jennifer’s words replay in his mind. ‘Neil … I know what was different … something missing …’

The night Brian Parkes had left his home he’d borrowed his wife’s small yellow umbrella, a token shell against the rain. And here it was, lying in the corner of a disused warehouse owned by a company that was a forgotten entity among the dozens of firms owned by the Kaplan Corporation.

Lachlan knelt before the umbrella. It was clearly in near-new condition. He looked back at the scattered pattern in the dust where he’d walked across the floor of the dock. A similar pattern appeared on another section of the floor, stopping in front of the large double panel doors of the building’s rear exit.

Lachlan’s earlier impression had been wrong. Someone else had been in the warehouse recently. Had Brian Parkes been there? Or the men from Kaplan Corp who’d known Brian? Had one of them been to this lonely place?

Lachlan used police gloves to place the umbrella in his car. He’d take it to the forensic lab for analysis. As he drove back towards the city another sensation crept over him. The distinct feeling that there was something else about the Winterstone warehouse that he’d missed.

The moment he’d freed himself from one of the long, drawn out meetings with the Becker people, Harold Masterton stormed into Roger’s office. His nostrils flared like those of an angry bull, his face as red as his thatch of rust coloured hair. ‘What the hell is this about Winterstone?’ he demanded.

Roger looked up from the papers on his desk. ‘What do you mean? You know as much as I do.’

‘I seem to remember signing papers concerning Winterstone. It’s starting to come back to me. Did you ask me to handle the paperwork for you? A straightforward shelf company purchase. I’ve barely given it a moment’s thought since.’

Roger shook his head. ‘That’s strange. I don’t recall that. I’ve always thought it was one of your little projects, supervised through the admin section.’

‘The last thing we need right now is some cockamamie cop trying to link one of our buildings with a murder investigation. Think, Roger. Has anyone else been involved with this damn warehouse?’

‘Maybe Carter in admin can shed some light on it. Hell, it was a long time ago, Harold. You certain you don’t remember any more about it?’

Masterton paced. ‘Well, there is something …’

‘Go on.’

‘I’ve checked our records and verified this. It was during the same twelve month period Winterstone was set up that your father first employed Hans Falkstog as a management consultant.’

‘Falkstog? His company’s been on retainer for years and years. But he’s never been involved in running any of our-’

Masterton cut in. ‘Not now. But for a short while back then he consulted on some special projects. I never liked him, thought he was an arrogant, manipulative dickhead-’

‘You think Falkstog might’ve had something to do with Winterstone?’

‘I signed a hell of a lot of documents in those days that you and your father shoved in front of me. But I seem to remember Falkstog being involved in one or two that the rest of us didn’t pay much attention to.’

‘Have you asked Dad about this?’

‘No. That’s next on my list. For Chrissakes, Roger, we’ve got to put a lid on this before it gets out of hand.’

‘I’m still not convinced there’s a connection, Harold,’ Roger said. ‘Lachlan could be barking up the wrong tree. Winterstone is nothing: a shelf title that owns a warehouse. Someone would’ve noticed if funds were being diverted to it. If not you or I, then certainly Dad. And he had private detectives hunting for any lead as to what happened to Brian.’

‘But think about it, Roger. If Brian Parkes discovered something amiss in his audit, he would’ve come to you or your father. He vanished before he got the chance. Lachlan’s theory makes sense.’

‘Christ,’ Roger muttered. He watched Masterton leave the office.

It struck him that he’d never seen Masterton on edge like this. The finance director was showing a desperate side, one that Roger hadn’t seen before. But Harold was right: the timing couldn’t be worse with Conrad Becker in town and the sale of Southern Star looming.

Was it just that? Or was Harold Masterton particularly sensitive to the fact that his signature was on the Winterstone papers?

When Carly entered the apartment she heard the running water of the shower.

Rory’s home, she thought. The lazy bugger. She was glad she hadn’t seen much of him the past few days. She’d come to realise she needed a breather from the intensity of the relationship. It had begun to concern her the way Rory pushed her into the modelling assignments she detested more and more, and that he was continually borrowing large sums from her.

She wanted to be
involved,
but not just as some capitalist clotheshorse who contributed her earnings to ragtag organisations she never saw. It hadn’t gone unnoticed, either, that since she’d been staying with her mother she’d received no phone calls from Rory to see how she was, despite the fact that he knew she’d been upset about the discovery of her father’s body.

Nevertheless she was feeling horny. She decided to surprise Rory by joining him in the shower. She stripped out of her skirt, blouse and stockings, draping them over the back of the three-seat lounge, then tip-toed into the bathroom.

Through the frosted glass of the shower screen she saw two figures, limbs entwined as the needlepoint spray danced across them. Carly forgot her nakedness, her lust frozen away by the shock.

Rory’s back was to her. Even through the frosted pattern of the glass Carly could distinguish the features of the woman embracing Rory. Their eyes met, and a smirk broke out across Helen Shawcross’ face, a smirk distorted and made hideous by the dual effect of the patterned screen and the steam from the hot water.

‘Want to join us, sweetie?’

Rory looked around, and as his face registered his surprise, Carly turned and ran. She slammed the door behind her with such force that the impact made the bottle of aftershave on the corner of the vanity unit crash to the tiled floor.

Rory slid the screen door open and stepped from the shower recess to give chase. He stopped and groaned aloud when his foot came down on a sliver of broken glass. By the time he pulled the splinter from his foot and hobbled from the bathroom, Carly - and her clothes - were gone.

Robert Dreydon was a weedy, wiry man with dark, slicked back hair and even darker, hawk-like eyes. Not physically strong, he didn’t project an air of authority and spoke softly. Anyone who had ever met him, though, knew instinctively not to get on the wrong side of him - they knew, somehow, that he was dangerous.

Dreydon sat in the small, cluttered office across the desk from Fred Hargreaves. Hargreaves, large, beefy, round cheeked, always wearing a smile or the hint of one. He reminded Dreydon of a travelling salesman, or of a kid’s favourite uncle at a backyard barbecue.

Hargreaves was, in fact, one of the best known, underworld middle-men in the Kings Cross district. The Cross, which occupied the eastern sector of the city, looked at a glance like any other city region during the day with its endless line of shops and high-rises - but on closer inspection the high number of bars, nightclubs, sex aid shops and street walking women in raunchy outfits revealed its other identity. At night, gaudy neon signs and throngs of party people brought it to life as the city’s major meeting place for a myriad of sub-cultures.