Frantic (10 page)

At the lift she got out her mobile and the business card the female detective had given her.

The detective answered on the first ring. ‘Ella Marconi.’

‘It’s Sophie. Is there any news?’

‘Nothing yet, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘How’s Chris?’

Sophie told her what the doctor had said. ‘Hopefully he’ll wake up in the morning.’

Ella said, ‘Have you thought of anyone else who might have a grudge against you or Chris? And can you tell me more about that bashing?’

‘It was a couple of months ago, when he was working with Dean Rigby. There’ve been no threats or anything made since, though. Well, not that he’s told me.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

Despairing, Sophie hit the lift button with her fist. ‘What did Sawyer have to say?’

‘We’re having some trouble locating him, actually,’ Ella said. ‘But I’ll let you know the second we find anything out.’

The lift was empty. Sophie stood in the centre and sobbed.

12.10 am

The team of thirty-four detectives crowded into Gladesville Station’s Incident Room. Most had been called in from home, some no doubt from bed, but Ella saw no bleary eyes and no barely hidden yawns. A missing kid, his cop dad shot: this was a case to be wide awake for.

The possibility that Chris might die, plus the high-profile nature of the case, meant Homicide was running the show. Dennis was in charge, and he looked up from the desk at the front of the room where he was shuffling papers and gave Ella a wink. She squeezed her hands into fists behind her back, hoping her excitement didn’t show too clearly on her face. It was not right to be so thrilled when tragedy was unfolding, but there you had it. It was a lining up of the stars: Dennis being assigned the case
and
given the option to choose his number two, and whoever the bigwig signing the paperwork was, he’d miraculously agreed. Perhaps not everyone liked Shakespeare after all.

On a table in the corner stood three boxes full of A4 colour flyers. Lachlan’s details were across the top of his photo, and a list of police phone numbers was on the bottom. Fergus Patrick’s son ran a print shop and he had had them ready before Ella and Dennis had left the old man’s house.

Behind Dennis was a TV on a stand. A digital camcorder was connected to the TV. Along the other walls stood blank whiteboards and desks with phones. A computer hummed in a corner, its screen showing the investigation coordination program desktop.

‘Okay, folks,’ Dennis said. He introduced himself and Ella. ‘We’re going to make this briefing short but thorough so we can get out there and find who did this.’

People had notebooks and pens ready.

‘Around 2200 hours Senior Constable Chris Phillips was shot in the face by an unknown assailant in the doorway of his home in Easton Street, Gladesville,’ Dennis said. ‘His ten-month-old son is missing, believed taken by that same person. Phillips was found by a neighbour at 2215, unconscious. He’s had surgery and the bullet’s on its way for examination, but of course it will be some time before we know anything definitive there. The doctors believe he’ll remain unconscious for some hours yet. We’re hoping when he does wake up he’ll remember something.’

Dennis passed some flyers around. ‘The baby’s name is Lachlan. There’s no sign in his room or elsewhere in the house that he’s been injured. Crime Scene found a lot of fingerprints and hair and fibres they have to compare. We also have this note.’

Ella handed out copies.

‘We don’t know what this is about,’ Dennis said. ‘Phillips’s wife, Sophie, says that he’s been upset by the gang robberies and the bad press we’ve received over them.’

‘Any chance Phillips was the person who called the TV stations yesterday?’ a detective asked.

‘Makes sense,’ another detective said. ‘The caller promised to tell more. “Keep your mouth shut” could be a warning to zip it.’

‘That’s a possibility we’re going to look into,’ Dennis said. ‘Also, Chris was assaulted while on duty two months ago. We’re not aware of any threats since.

‘Now,’ he went on, ‘Lachlan’s mother Sophie’s whereabouts for the evening have been confirmed – she’s a paramedic and was working. The only other family is Chris’s mother, Gloria, and she looks to be in the clear too.’

‘Chris or the wife not having an affair?’

‘Not as far as we know,’ Dennis said. ‘Two days ago when Sophie was at work she had a mother and baby die in an emergency birth. The father, a man by the name of Boyd Sawyer, later threatened and assaulted her and her work partner. We’re looking for Sawyer now.’

‘Why abduct the baby?’ a detective asked with a frown. ‘If you wanted to wipe out her family in revenge for the loss of your own, why not just kill the child there?’

‘We have to hope the baby is still alive somewhere,’ Dennis said. ‘If it was Sawyer, he might have dumped the child or passed him on to somebody. Same applies, of course, if the abductor is someone else. Babies are easy to hide but can be tricky to disguise. One possibility is that they cut all his hair off, or perhaps dress him as a girl. Keep these points in mind when you’re out there.’ He looked around. ‘Questions so far?’

They shook their heads.

Dennis turned on the TV and started the video. ‘Okay. Here we have the front of the Phillips house.’ The screen showed an open front door. In the hall beyond it a flight of stairs was on the right side, a passageway leading to the kitchen on the left. The light in the hall shone down on the bloodstained carpet. ‘There’s no sign of damage to the door so we believe that Senior Constable Phillips opened it in response to a knock. You can see there is a peephole, so he may have known the person, or he may simply have been unconcerned about whether the person posed a risk.’

The camera moved up the stairs and across a landing to the baby’s room and rumpled sheets in a cot. ‘We believe a blanket was taken along with the baby,’ Dennis said. ‘Possibly to muffle any crying.’ The camera went closer. In the corner of the cot lay a small, soft toy duck.

‘The rest shows the layout of the house.’ The camera moved through the main bedroom, a spare room with a made-up bed, a tiny study, and the bathroom, then went back downstairs and briefly showed a living room, dining area and kitchen. The screen turned to snow and Dennis turned it off. ‘Okay. We have a lot to do, a lot of people to talk to. It’s the middle of the night, so some might not be too happy about being disturbed, but just remind them of the urgency of the case.

‘Tasks,’ he said, looking at a list in his hand. ‘Kemsley and De Weese, I want you to look into that assault on Chris, and check out his work generally, see if anyone’s been released recently who held a grudge against him, what cases he’s done lately.’

The men nodded.

‘Eliopoulos and Lunney, get in touch with the Strike Force Gold people, find out if Chris’s name has ever come up in any of their investigations into the robberies, and whether they’ve found out anything about the caller to the TV stations. Eddington, Rossi, Tranter, Clark and Curtis, back to the scene and the canvass of neighbours. McAlpine, you go with them but first check out the neighbour, Fergus Patrick. Ex-Victorian copper, apparently. He found Chris and raised the alarm… Just in case, you never know.’

The detective nodded.

Dennis continued. ‘Sugden, get in touch with Telstra and set up a trap and trace on the Phillips phone. If you have any trouble, call me. If someone rings with a ransom demand, we need to know. Kim and Herbert, check for known sex offenders in the area. Fenwick, you’re on the computer. I want every last detail logged in.’

There was a knock at the door and a uniformed officer opened it and looked in. Dennis motioned for Ella to go.

In the corridor she pulled the door to. ‘What is it?’

‘They’ve found that doctor.’

‘Sawyer? Where is he?’

‘He was overdosed in his car near the Meadowbank Wharf. Paramedics revived him then took him to Ryde Hospital. Ryde general duties officers attended and realised who he was. He wants to make a complaint about someone drugging him.’

Ella thought quickly. ‘His car’s still at Meadowbank?’

The officer nodded.

‘Send Crime Scene,’ Ella said. ‘Tell them we’ll be down shortly. Call the uniformed officers and ask them to keep him at the hospital until we get in touch. We don’t know yet if he’s involved in this but we’ve got to play it safe.’

Back in the room Dennis was saying to a pair of detectives, ‘–for recent baby deaths, especially any possibly unbalanced parents.’ He looked around. ‘Okay, is everyone clear on what they’re to do? Take a wad of these flyers as you go. We want this city plastered.’ He looked at his watch. ‘Call in with developments, otherwise we’ll meet back here at five am. Let’s get to work.’

Detectives grabbed handfuls of the colour flyers then hurried from the room.

Ella told Dennis about Sawyer and what she’d arranged. ‘So we can check out the scene before we talk to him.’

‘Good thinking,’ he said, taking a sheaf of flyers for himself.

‘Let’s just hope he didn’t drop that baby in the river before he took the overdose.’

12.40 am

Even though the fan in the Commodore’s heater rattled when switched to high, Sophie couldn’t stand anything less. She clung shivering to the wheel with her chin tucked inside the zipped-up leather jacket. She reached down to adjust the seat again, then up to the mirror. Nothing felt right. She’d found a bottle of water in the glovebox among a bunch of paper towels and receipts and tried a sip, but it was as if she’d forgotten how to swallow and she’d had to cough it out.

The driver’s window was halfway down in a balance between keeping warm air in the car and listening for a baby’s cries. She kept the high beams on despite oncoming cars flashing theirs because she needed to see every gloomy alcove on every building, every dark alleyway entrance and every hidden stairwell. It was illogical, irrational, to think she might find him this way, but at least she was looking.

She’d left the hospital and gone back to Gladesville to drive around the empty suburban streets, seeing only police cars on their own search. She’d then come into the city. After years spent flogging around it in ambulances she knew it better than the back of her hand. She started at The Rocks, doing the loop of Hickson Road first, then searching the smaller sloping streets on the western side of the Bridge.

In High Street she saw a man pushing a stroller. As she drew abreast of him he glanced at her with a frown. She drove past and made a U-turn then came back. He squinted in her high beams and she saw the blanketed form and the dark hair of the infant in the stroller, and in a second she yanked on the handbrake and leapt from the car. ‘Let me see that baby.’

‘What?’

‘Show me the baby.’

The man put the stroller behind him. He looked at her car then back at her jacket. ‘Are you really a cop?’

‘What’s it look like?’

‘Show me some ID then.’

Sophie stepped closer, craning her neck. She could see the shock of dark hair again. Her skin prickled and she reached out.

The man jerked the stroller further away and the baby started to cry. ‘Don’t you–’

‘Just let me see it.’

‘Get away from us.’ His eyes were wide, his face pale in the streetlight.

‘There’s been a report of a child abducted,’ Sophie said, ‘so I need to see that baby’s face.’

‘Where’s your police car and your partner?’

‘If you want me to call for back-up I will.’

The man started to run awkwardly, pushing the stroller. The baby cried out.

Sophie ran after him. ‘Stop right there.’

A couple of lights went on in nearby houses.

The baby’s cries were muffled by the blanket but Sophie was increasingly sure it was Lachlan. Why else would the man run? ‘Stop! Police!’

‘Help!’ the man cried. ‘Help!’

More house lights went on.

‘Call the police! He stole my baby!’

‘He’s my baby!’ the man cried. ‘This chick’s nuts!’ He stumbled and almost fell. Sophie caught up to him and he darted sideways to a house. He seized the screaming child from the stroller and hugged him high against his chest, his back to the front door. ‘If you come near us I’ll kick the shit out of you,’ he gasped.

Sophie stayed out of range, staring at the struggling bundle in his arms. ‘Just show me.’

‘No way.’

Back down the street her car idled on the roadway. People in dressing-gowns and pyjamas stood on the footpath looking in their direction.

Red and blue flashing lights revealed the approach of a police car before it turned into the street.

Sophie didn’t dare go to the kerb to meet the officers in case the man ran away. They came up behind her. ‘What’s the problem here?’

She recognised the voice. ‘Allan, it’s me.’

‘Sophie?’ Senior Constable Allan Denning touched her arm.

She took her eyes from the man with the baby for a split second. ‘You heard what happened? This man won’t let me see the baby and I think it might be Lachlan.’

Allan stepped over to the man. ‘Show us.’