People in Season (15 page)

‘Give me the agent’s number. I want to drop by the crime scene first, snoop around the neighbourhood. I’ll meet the guy after lunch.’ Just as he speaks, Dylan realises he has no intention of doing so and will dodge the social agent as much as possible.

‘He’s already at ChatterFive!’ the chief cries. ‘You’re slow today. I need you on your game. And please, do things by the book.’

‘Bloody hell.’

‘Get down there now, let him know you’re in charge, and don’t make us look bad.’

So, the social agent is there ahead of him, dashing every lead in the place. If there were finger prints and foot trails he can see the man now, rubbing them out of existence in a good natured attempt to clean up the place. It’s all set in motion, the people and evidence, bouncing about like a crate of balls dropped on a flight of stairs. Right now, whoever murdered that man is in that building and an investigator who Dylan Wong doesn’t know has probably tipped them off to the fact that they’re on the case.

By way of wishing his detective goodbye and good luck, the chief warns, ‘If anything goes wrong, you’re the one that’s going to get the blame.’

Left with the distinct impression that he’ll be lucky to get a desk job when all of this is over, Dylan scratches his balls. That table, with its laptop and security, is fast disappearing over a distant horizon.

Waiting for him are his wife and son.

‘I have to go.’

In the kitchen, through a framing arch he sees half her form, tactful as she expects him to leave. His son is looking to him concerned. Dylan gives the boy a smile and steps over a set of Lego bricks to reach his wife. Hugging her from behind, he doesn’t let go until he feels her thaw a little in his arms.

‘There’s a clean jumper in the sitting room. It’s not ironed but you can at least smell respectable.’ It’s meant as a playful jab, some begrudging sign of acceptance from her, but given the state of things it doesn’t cut him any less.

‘Sorry champ,’ Dylan rubs his child’s head. ‘And stop messing with my phone. We’re not all teddy bear picnic fans.’

When he’s leaving the house his wife insists that he puts the car on automatic, contending that he’s too tired to be driving.

‘I will,’ Dylan assures her.

But when he’s around the corner of their model estate, he switches back to manual, feeling the cold steering wheel on his hands. ‘Francis Mullen,’ he says the name of the murdered social agent aloud. The day was taken from Dylan, by who or why he doesn’t yet know. Francis Mullen’s life was taken too. These things just happen. So much of existence is out of a person’s control. This is the smallest thing Dylan can do, he thinks as he changes gears. Today, he feels like driving.

It’s a tumultuous scene. Dylan has arrived at the newsroom halfway through the film, not knowing the characters or why they’re screaming. At the end of the office a cinemascope window overlooking the conference room is playing the ongoing argument. The glass is unfrosted, the door open, and soundproofing set to unproven. In the picture, two women, a dark haired young lady and an older one, blonde, as well as two men, one a scarecrow and the other a handsome clean-cut type, are going at it. They’re shouting over one another, their voices tumbling to come out on top in a competition of who will run out of breath first. Though the blonde woman’s indignant howl effortlessly rises above them, the others manage to find gaps between her sentences where they can wedge their thoughts in. For what little fear they have of her, it would appear she doesn’t have much sway in the office. If he had to guess, he would say that the dark haired girl is a manager of some kind and on further observation, the clean-cut man, who attempts now and again to the defuse the squabble, also seems to maintain some detached influence in the matter. The newsroom drones, who are hanging on every word, set back to work as the detective walks by, not knowing who he is but sensing his authority. Like a teacher who has returned to a classroom just as the children were about to launch into a nervous knife fight, a blade, quickly passed from hand to hand before being dropped to the floor, has been kicked into hiding. Everyone knows where it is, but nobody is going to say it and he’s waiting for that first telltale tic to give it away. Dylan finds himself wading through the tension.

‘Can I help you?’ A girl whispers.

‘I need to go in there,’ Dylan informs her.

‘I wouldn’t if I were you.’

The blonde woman on the other side of the glass notices the two tentatively stood outside, and at the dark haired one’s instigation, frosts the window and slams the door. Her voice returns to hollering among the others.

‘I’m going in anyway,’ he waves his badge. ‘Is the social agent from UPD services around?’

Understanding who this man is, she forgets his question and comments instead,  ‘It’s terrible what happened. Agent Mullen, he seemed so nice.’

Dylan Wong, policeman disposition firmly set, remains unmoved. When she blinks, he leaves her, opening the door to the conference room to face the barrage of voices head on. The clean-cut man is half smiling, holding his hands up to calm the other three. When he notices the new figure, he removes himself from the bustle to let them go at it, reaching out to Dylan in greeting.

‘You must be the detective,’ gripping his hand, ‘I’m Agent Myers.’

‘Dylan Wong,’ he shakes back. ‘What’s going on?’

‘A lot of finger pointing,’ Agent Myers quips.

Not appreciating the humour, Dylan observes the contenders. The blonde woman has collapsed into a chair and is hiding behind a hand, and the lanky man with the English accent is laughing at the trim dark haired woman who is insisting that she’s not the first journalist in the world to exaggerate something and that he is in fact doing just that right now.

‘Ava O’Dwyer,’ Agent Myers says, ‘Barry Danger. The lady sitting down is the editor. They haven’t been taking Agent Mullen’s death very well.’

As Barry launches into a rebuttal against Ava, she peels away, having spotted Dylan.

‘I suppose you want to arrest me,’ she says, harsh.

‘Oh yeah, ever the victim, aren’t we, Ava?’ Barry rolls his eyes.

‘I don’t know what this is about,’ Dylan shouts to shut them up, then repeats quietly, ‘I don’t know what all of this is about. But I’m not here to arrest anybody,’ yet, ‘I need to talk to Agent Myers in private, so if you three don’t mind waiting here, sit down and stay quiet. I don’t want to hear a peep. Keep the glass unfrosted and leave the door open.’

Just as he’s about to step out with the social agent, he hears the editor ask him, ‘What happens if we don’t?’

His attention stalling on the woman, Dylan shakes his head and follows the agent into the office. He’s not five steps away when the three are screaming again, their bickering voices jabbing at each other. Face to face with this agent, Myers, he feels the offices attention fall on them and takes a step closer to talk softly. The flat he’d been in days ago held a corpse, but this room, here and now, with its affected indifference, has the stench of a murder scene – a conspiracy of silence.

‘What is wrong with these people?’

‘A little professional competitiveness I suppose.’

‘Did you tell them Mullen’s death is being investigated as a murder?’

‘I didn’t even know about that until this morning,’ Agent Myers dodges the question. ‘And I’ve been in the office for days. When Mullen didn’t show up for work I was here within the hour. Murder didn’t enter my head until my boss called twenty minutes ago. Them, they’ve been paranoid about it since his body was found. This tiff they’re having has been brewing a long time.’

‘What are they fighting about?’

‘Well,’ Agent Myers scratches the back of his head, reluctant to say what he’s about to. ‘The pretty one, Ava, she’d written up a story about a riot experience she had, only, Barry is saying that she made it up. He says he told Mullen about it the night he died. He hasn’t accused anyone of anything else but the implication is loud enough. The editor, she says she wasn’t aware that the story was a lie, but Ava is accusing her of knowing full well that it isn’t a lie at all, that it’s one-hundred percent true.’

The information, a web of accusations and denials, is dexterously untangled by Dylan Wong. ‘What about Mullen? Did that English guy really tell him all of this? Is it in any of his reports?’

‘Mullen hadn’t filed a report for days,’ Agent Myers allows a gap in his explanation to highlight the matter’s seriousness. ‘That is beyond a breach of protocol, it’s a suspendable offense. It puts him on the dark side of the moon when this happened. We have no idea what the circumstances leading up to his death were. Unless he was writing up reports and not sending them on. There might be something in his apartment but your people aren’t letting us in.’

Thank god we didn’t, Dylan consoles himself, blood boiling at the thought of the mess this social agent has made by even being in the office.

‘Was this guy your friend?’

Understanding that the detective is referring to Francis Mullen, the social agent sums up the relationship. ‘I worked with him. He was well liked. I wouldn’t say we were mates.’

‘I get that your department has a personal stake in this, I get it, really. I mean, besides the shock of losing one of your people. I know there’s going to be political consequences. But you need to understand you have already made my job more difficult than needs to be. Can we agree that the best thing you can do to help me here is keep out of my way?’

Nodding imperceptibly, Agent Myers isn’t quite sure what he’s agreeing to.

‘I’m no cop. I’m just with you to, eh, appease the big shots.’

Dylan groans at the not incorrect assumption. That they’re in this together.

‘So they know he was killed,’ he thinks aloud.

‘And that everyone in the newsroom will now be subjected to the electric scan.’

‘Bollocks.’ Only from the immediate stillness of those around the office does Dylan realise that he shouted. ‘Why would you tell them that?’

The social agent seems to be much more aware of the audience they have than the detective. Covering his irritation at being chastised by a stranger, he says, ‘It was going to happen even if it had turned out Mullen wasn’t murdered. Maybe even if he hadn’t died. He wasn’t sending in reports. Something suss was up. UPD services have to be seen as harsh, especially in situations like this. A compromised social agent, we couldn’t let that go by without repercussions.’

Dylan is automatically memorising the layout of the room. He is picturing Agent Mullen stood here, pursuing a potential criminal, an untouched personality, that with his death, has become a committed one. Not for the first time does the detective wonder if there would have been a criminal here at all if nobody had been searching.

‘Listen, you don’t do anything without my say so. From here on out, you’re just my shadow,’ he says. ‘How were they acting when they erupted like this?’

Struggling to find something useful to offer, Agent Myers only comes up with, ‘The editor, Joanne Victoria, she’s looked like death since I got here.’

‘What about the other one? Ava?’

Agent Myers laughs, then, like it’s an obscene thought he doesn’t want to reveal, rubs the smile off his face. ‘That’s Ava O’Dwyer. She’s the assistant editor, and fashion columnist, I believe. Your wife would know her.’

Correcting the assumption that she was the boss, the detective now glowers at the social agent until the man knows that any kind of personal talk is out of bounds – especially that to do with his wife and child – and tries to figure out what kind of person he’s to be working with is. Myers guessed that he’s married. Perhaps his wedding band had been spotted, but his fingers have been in his pockets since they moved outside. He must have registered it when they shook hands. Agent Myers, Dylan decides with some cautious satisfaction, is a man with a keen sense for detail. Hopefully it will come in useful.

As the men return to the conference room, the three journalists shut their mouths at their arrival. Agent Myers hangs behind Dylan, now an obedient servant. The detective’s attention is compelled to Ava, his eyes unconsciously flicking up and down her pert body. She stands with hands on hips to grant him the privilege.

‘I take it you all know why I’m here?’

‘I can guarantee everyone on staff will be available for scanning,’ Joanne blurts. ‘We have nothing to hide. I certainly don’t.’

Ava, at her side, places a hand on her shoulder.

‘Right well, testing isn’t my area,’ Dylan says, mustering all the patience he can. ‘I’ll be investigating a murder. So far as I’m concerned the possibility of a UPD in the office is incidental. Do you understand that? Regular folk kill regular folk everyday and do just as good a job of it, believe me. I hope that my presence won’t interfere with you or your staff’s work. Let them know I’ll be floating about. I’ll be pursuing leads elsewhere as well, but I’d appreciate full access to your employees along with a list of their work histories and contact details.’

Joanne is about to assure him that she’ll do all she can to help, but finds that the words leave Ava’s mouth first.

‘I’m sure we can accommodate your needs.’

Glancing at Ava, and back at Joanne, Dylan taps the desk to make sure the editor is listening. ‘We’ll be as delicate as possible. I expect we can trust your staff not to leak any details to other media outlets. It’s more efficient to operate these investigations under the radar. I can’t order you to keep quiet, but your discretion is best for all involved.’

Joanne, Barry and Ava follow his sight to the muddled room of journalists.

‘I want to talk with everybody separately, starting with you,’ he nods at Barry Danger, who had seemed to be the more rational of the group in the short segment he’d witnessed.

‘Him?’ Ava asks, offended. ‘Don’t believe anything he says.’

‘Ha!’ Barry crows. ‘Sorry pet, you can tell him what you need to from inside of a cell. Might as well call your lawyer now, save yourself some time.’

‘Outside,’ Dylan commands Barry.

‘Wait,’ Joanne stands abruptly.

At first, the detective gets the impression that she wants to leave with him. She seems afraid. Of what though? Something Barry will say? Something she wants to say herself? Ava is perched on the desk next to her, gently easing her back into the seat. Is that who she’s afraid of? Dylan directs Agent Myers to stay with them, hoping this will appease her. In any event, she sits down to remain with the two and clams up altogether.

‘She’s gone off the deep end,’ mumbles Barry.

‘What about you? How are you taking all of this?’

‘I was already off the deep end, mate.’

Outside the conference room, Dylan withdraws a pad from his pocket and opens a file to note what’s being said. Seeing the device, Barry curses, ‘Another one of those things.’

‘I think it’s best there’s a record of what we talk about.’

‘I’ll try not to incriminate myself then.’

Another correction. The man’s cool head seems to be more from a sneering detachment rather than a sense of order. He should have guessed from the tattered jacket, though the detective does try to keep people’s choice in clothing from defining his view of them, he can’t for example, arrest every kid in a hoody and trainers. If it were relevant to the case, Dylan’s first note would be his adamant belief that this English journalist is a complete prick. As it is, he starts his questioning with, ‘You said that Ava falsified a story. Does that happen a lot?’

‘Yes and no,’ Barry squints an eye, measuring the detective. ‘Truth is more subjective than a newsroom can admit. Sometimes it gets so you can’t see the people for the trees. Wong, is it? Was she at that riot? No. I can say that much.’

‘How did you know?’

‘I found a photo she used in our digital archives and I linked it to Mullen.’

‘Can you forward it on to me?’

Barry whimpers a laugh, ‘It’s gone mate.’