The Simple Death (29 page)

Fifty-three

T
roy got home and Anna was there. No warning, no phone call or message. The lights were on and when he opened the front door he smelled cooking and heard the gentle sound of his wife talking to his son.

He took a deep breath, called, ‘I'm home,' and walked slowly towards the kitchen, wishing absurdly that he'd brought flowers, as she came around a corner in the hall, smiling and wiping her hands on her apron. He kissed her and she lingered in his embrace; he moved his hands down her back, stopping just below the waist.

‘Later,' she said, giving him another kiss.

Matt was playing on the floor of the dining room; when Troy came in and crouched down he stood up uncertainly. Seeing him in the familiar room, Troy was struck by how much he'd grown. And he could move: he was off, he ran across the room to his mother and grabbed her legs, buried his face then looked up at her. Checking to see it was okay. Troy saw how much he'd missed in four months, how quickly you could lose a young child. He stayed there for a moment, on his haunches, gathering himself, then got up.

After dinner, he and Anna made love. His emotions were so strong the physical aspect was somewhere off to the side, there but barely noticed. When it was finally over she wrapped her limbs around him again, their bodies still slippery. It was a hot night but gradually they cooled down, things returned to a sort of normal. The two of them talked, and he ran his fingers through her long black hair, taking part in the conversation but when they fell quiet he could remember nothing of what had been said.

Later, when they were in the kitchen with a few clothes on, Anna asked him about work. This must be her new policy, talking about his job, and he knew she'd pursue it with determination. It was the way she was and he went over and hugged her. She was wearing a pair of her own pyjama shorts and one of his T-shirts. It had been years since she'd worn anything of his.

‘We can talk about it tomorrow,' he said, not wanting to break the mood.

‘No. Tell me now.'

With an effort he moved his thoughts out of the house, into the wide world. There was plenty of subject matter. He sat down while she made tea, told her about Carl Burns. She asked what would happen next.

‘We don't know if he was involved,' Troy said. ‘That's the big question, but there's no evidence. He called a lawyer as soon as it got really interesting.'

‘That doesn't mean he's guilty of anything.'

‘No.'

‘What if he's innocent?' she said. ‘What he's going through, it must be dreadful.'

Troy hadn't thought about it like that, and he wasn't going to start now. There was no point to it.

She brought the tea to the table and said, ‘This whole thing is pretty morbid, killers in hospitals.'

He agreed. With most investigations you just got on with it, but Furnace was different. Usually murder was horrible but at least it was separate from normal life. Here it had crossed right over into a place of refuge and comfort. He'd seen that afternoon how the other detectives were affected by this too.

‘The girls talk about assisted suicide,' said Anna. ‘In nursing homes people like this Julie Cornish get called ‘angels of death'. Patients are more likely to die on their shifts.'

Troy was surprised. ‘Wouldn't someone say something to the management?'

‘It's not that black and white. People die all the time in hospital. Staff get to know patients' families really well. They have to make decisions when patients get really sick, when they're suffering. A lot of the time good doctors and nurses let people die, it happens everywhere.'

‘But it's wrong.'

She smiled and ran her fingers down the side of his face. ‘It's like noble corruption, when cops frame someone they know did it but they don't have the proof. Illegal, but well-intentioned.'

‘We don't do that now. Much.'

‘One girl I worked with said our job is like a war. Civilians don't know what it's really like on the front line.'

He frowned. ‘Not all nurses let people die.'

‘You have to watch out for the Catholics,' she said. ‘When I did my geriatric training, that's what they told me: “Watch out for the Catholics.'' '

Troy stared at her. It was a long time since they'd had a conversation like this. He had to ask her. ‘What about you?'

‘I've never been in that situation. But if someone asked me, I'd seriously consider it. If they were in great pain that couldn't be relieved and I thought they were fit to make the decision.'

He'd had no idea. Anna was more religious than he was, he'd assumed she'd be more conservative on this.

‘But it's illegal.'

She shrugged and he saw she'd thought this through, had probably thought about his own reaction too.

‘So what would you do, a big dose of morphine?'

‘That's not such a good way to die. But I'd say it's pretty common.'

‘There are other ways?'

She nodded, and then frowned. ‘Let's not talk about it anymore.'

In this war, I'm a civilian, he thought, and hugged her tight again, tried to dismiss what she'd just told him until tomorrow. But it would not go away. It was an insight into a world he'd no experience of, a place of pain and smells and anguish and death that most people didn't want to know about, let alone speak of. Exactly the kind of situation, he saw, when dark things could happen unnoticed.

They turned off the light in the kitchen and went and stood next to the cot in Matt's room, watching the rise and fall of the little bloke's chest. His asthma seemed to have gone.

‘He's fat,' Troy murmured.

‘My parents spoiled him.'

‘He'll have to start jogging,' Troy said, resisting the urge to pick the boy up and hug him tight too.

‘I'm fat too.'

‘Well . . .'

‘Come on,' she said, taking his arm. ‘Let's go to bed.'

WEDNESDAY

Fifty-four

O
n his way back from the beach in the morning, Troy took a piece of paper from his pocket and stopped to read it again. Latimer, the uniform from Hornsby Hospital, had called him late last night. She'd taken part in the search of the Scott house on Monday, come across some words on paper in the bedside table.

‘Because of where it was, I thought they might be important to Leila Scott,' she said.

‘You sure it was in her writing?'

‘Yes.'

‘Why didn't you tell me Monday?'

‘The sarge said it was just a poem or something. He told me not to bother you. But I wrote it down, and it's been bothering me.'

‘What is it?'

Latimer read: ‘
The daily life into which people are born, and into which they are absorbed before they are well aware, forms chains which only one in a hundred has moral strength enough to despise, and to break when the right time comes—when an inward necessity for independent individual action arises, which is superior to all outward conventionalities
.'

Troy said, ‘That's a very long sentence.' But reading
The Fatal Shore
had increased his tolerance of such things. ‘Read it again.'

When she stopped, he reached for his pen. ‘Sir?'

‘Don't call me sir,' he said. ‘Once more, this time slowly.'

When he'd written down the words, Latimer said, ‘Do you think it's important?'

‘I have no idea. Thanks for calling me.'

‘Shall I mention this to Sergeant Bidwell?'

‘I wouldn't.'

Watch out for the Catholics.

He began to walk again. Latimer had said she'd Googled the words, and they came from a female Victorian novelist. The sentiment didn't sound very Victorian, from what Troy knew. But he didn't know much about this sort of thing. He thought about the words, then about what Carl Burns had told him about Leila Scott going to Mexico. He hadn't seen she was lying when he'd interviewed her, wondered why this was. Thought some more about Burns.

At home he showered and had breakfast, keen to get to work and find out if Evans had learned anything in Brisbane. Conti had spoken to Cornish's parents again, learned nothing useful except that no one else in the family had died of SADS. They were in Sydney, having flown down from Rockhampton. They hadn't seen much of their daughter in recent years, and as far as they knew she'd been happy. They'd met Burns half a dozen times and had no complaints. Mrs Cornish said she was glad her daughter had found someone to be with. Growing up, she'd been a bit of a loner. But that was all: she said Julie had never seen a psychologist, never run away from home or broken the law.

Anna was watching him across the table. He wondered how long she'd been there. Matt must be sleeping in.

‘You okay?' she said.

He made an effort. ‘Wonderful. What about you?'

Last night they'd talked about what it would be like for her to fit back into the life she'd walked out of four months ago. She didn't seem to think there'd be a problem.

‘We're going to the beach,' she said, ‘meeting Sally and some of the girls.'

She looked fine, Troy thought, just fine. She looked beautiful. He went around and kissed the top of her head, breathed deep. She put a hand up on top of his for a moment.

‘You've got to go,' she said.

They were meeting with Peters at Parramatta. Mac and Rostov were already there when Troy arrived, and the inspector came in a few minutes later. McIver summarised the report he'd just received from Evans. Late last night, the Bridley Hospice had informed Brisbane police it seemed to have had a lot of deaths in the period Burns and Cornish were there.

‘Christ,' said Rostov.

‘
Seemed
?' said Troy.

‘They've only started looking at these stats closely in the last year, and they're still not sure what to compare them with.'

‘Other hospices in Australia?' How hard could this be?

‘A lot of these places run community palliative care services, and the stats cover that too, which is a whole different thing,' said McIver. ‘It's not apples and apples.' Troy didn't swear a lot, but he swore now. ‘Another problem, they can't relate the deaths in the stats to the shifts when our two people were on duty; they weren't collecting at that level of detail.'

‘Great.'

‘Queensland Homicide are talking about going in there, they'll check work rosters and talk to the staff.'

‘That will take time,' Peters said.

McIver didn't seem bothered. He said, ‘There's something else. Evans has talked to the manager of the Wilton nursing home where Burns worked when he was a trainee. It's a private place under new management and she struck gold. They had a death spike at the time Burns was employed. About five deaths a year more than average over two years.'

He spoke slowly, glancing at Troy. Who said, ‘Cornish didn't work at Wilton.'

McIver nodded, smiled fleetingly. Troy swore again.

Peters said, ‘The new managers never told anyone?'

‘They say there were so many problems with the place when they took over they had no reason to. Bad food, hygiene, problems with staff, you name it. There were lots of reasons for people there to die. Apparently it was a notorious hellhole, the department had pretty much forced the previous owner to sell.'

Troy thought about old people living in such conditions and shook his head. ‘So we don't know for sure if that was Burns either?'

‘No,' said McIver slowly. ‘But it's not looking good. Between ourselves, Burns could be a serial killer.'

‘Christ,' Peters said, as though he'd just tasted a piece of shit.

Most people who kill aren't natural murderers, they just do it because of circumstances. But for a few, killing is necessary to make them feel normal, at least for a while. As though without it there is some sort of aching hole, calling out to be filled with other people's misery and pain. Fortunately such people are rare. Troy had never dealt with one before. He felt fear in the room.

‘Maybe he got Julie involved later on?' said Rostov. ‘It was part of their relationship?'

McIver nodded. ‘Evans wondered that. We should know more later today. Also, the handwriting analyst called this morning, he's looked at Burns's signatures from the restaurant. I told him what Burns said about sometimes having to lean over the counter when signing the receipts, but he doesn't think that explains the variation.'

‘But the staff ID'd him.'

‘I've asked Marrickville to reinterview.'

‘Furnace should be doing that,' Peters said.

‘Conti did it already and she's good,' said McIver. ‘Thought I'd bring in local knowledge.'

Peters tugged gently at his ear, looked at Troy. ‘He lied about SADS in Julie's family?'

‘He was wrong about it.'

‘So,' said McIver. ‘Do we charge Carl Burns?'

It was the question. Peters said they should, and the two men argued about it for a few minutes. They didn't ask the others for their opinion, and Troy did not feel slighted. It was good being in a room where such a big decision was being made, but he had no idea what it should be.

The argument wasn't going anywhere, and Troy could see it was because McIver wasn't sure in his own mind what to do. Finally the inspector made a phone call, and a few minutes later they were in the office of Superintendent Helen Kelly, early fifties and with a few strands of grey in her dark hair. She shook their hands and asked them to sit. The last time Troy had been in this room, he'd been dismissed from Homicide—temporarily as it had turned out. She considered him a moment and smiled, then looked at Peters, who filled her in. It took almost ten minutes, a reminder of how complicated the investigation had become.

At the end of the narrative, Peters said, ‘I think we need to bring Burns in. I know we don't have anything firm yet, but he's close to too many deaths. I'm concerned he might kill again.'

‘At the moment we can't prove he's killed even once,' said Mac.

‘We could just ask him to talk to us again,' said Troy. ‘At least we'd know where he is.'

‘He's lawyered up,' said Peters. ‘The talking's probably over. And he might do a runner. If he has killed these people, he must be feeling pretty nervous right now. You've interviewed him twice in two days.'

‘Maybe he's waiting for the diary,' Troy said.

‘It might not even be Burns on the CCTV,' Kelly said. Peters had shown her a still photo from the post office. ‘Really, you've got no idea yet where the diary fits in. You've checked his friends and relatives?' Troy nodded: fifteen post offices had been told to call him immediately if a parcel turned up for an address in their area. She looked at the door, and then back at all of them. ‘Put him under observation,' she said. ‘We're close, but not close enough.'

‘You'll talk to the Dogs?' said Peters.

She nodded; the Surveillance Branch was usually busy. ‘What we're doing basically is waiting on Queensland; we'll review the situation at five today.'

Peters said, ‘I'd like us to talk with Leila Scott again.'

Kelly shook her head. ‘Keep Scott out of this unless you have something definite. There's a Dr Stuart Emery she's been seeing, he's very well connected.'

Peters hadn't mentioned Emery in his summary just now. Troy realised he must have been keeping Kelly informed in some detail. Or maybe she knew Scott: they were both senior public servants, and there was solidarity between some of the women at that level, at least when they worked in different agencies. She might have met Scott in all sorts of ways. It sometimes surprised him how much his superiors knew about stuff. Important information flowed upwards. Maybe he should think again about going for sergeant after all.

Kelly said, ‘I want to keep Scott and Emery completely apart from Carl Burns unless you have firm evidence linking them in some criminal enterprise. They're a distraction. Is that clear?' She looked at her watch. ‘What do we tell St Thomas'?'

‘Nothing yet,' said Peters.

Troy knew this wasn't McIver's view, but the sergeant stayed silent. The argument seemed to have gone out of him.

‘That's it?' said Kelly.

It was.

Fifteen minutes later, McIver had talked to David Saunders and learned Burns was not working today. His next scheduled shift would begin the following morning. Mac sent two detectives to Burns's flat to cover it until the Dogs arrived. After a few more calls he told Troy to drive into the city to the head office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. They needed to talk to a senior counsel about their options should Brisbane produce evidence that Burns was a killer.

‘We want to get him first,' he said.

Troy nodded. Queensland might find something so bad during their investigations they would try to charge Burns themselves, and put in an extradition request.

‘Get into the city fast,' McIver said. ‘Run through what we know, the sorts of things we're thinking Brisbane might turn up, see if there's any trigger point for us to charge him too.' As Troy stood up to go, Mac said, ‘Also, find out how much we should tell St Thomas' if we find out more about Burns, I mean before we charge him. There's a chance the bloke will be returning to work there tomorrow. I know what Kelly said, but they have some sort of duty of care. So do we.' He looked at Troy. ‘What do you think? About Burns?'

‘I don't know.'

‘That,' said McIver, ‘is really helpful.'