The Long Game

by Simon Rowell

  Zoe picked up the eraser. Then her eyes widened. She turned to her laptop and punched the keys, bringing up the cases on her screen. She noted the date of birth of each of the victims. Fuck.

  She rushed to the door, swung it open and looked for Charlie. He was walking towards his desk, morning coffee in hand. She waved him over.

  ‘Hey Zoe—what’s up?’

  ‘Can you grab Anjali and meet me in here? And quietly, okay?’

  ‘Sure.’

  A minute later, the three of them were in the conference room. ‘What’ve you got?’ asked Charlie.

  Zoe pointed at the board. ‘I didn’t see it at first because we just had their ages listed, but when you look at them in order of death, it all lines up. All three victims were born in 1982. The guys we have locked up were all born in 1982 as well. That’s the key to this.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘I’m guessing they were all at school together,’ said Zoe. ‘Anjali, can you do a search of Education Department records?’ asked Zoe. ‘We’re looking for someone who was at school at some point with all three victims. Just keep it quiet around here for now.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Anjali said, already halfway to the door.

  4.45 PM, TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY

  The musty air was making Zoe nauseated. She and Anjali had been searching in the state Education Department’s archives all day for records from schools on the Mornington Peninsula from the 1990s. The cavernous room was a large rectangular shape. Rows of shelves reached towards the high ceiling, crammed with archive boxes. The dust they had thrown up moving boxes around filled the ribbons of afternoon sunlight streaming into the room. Zoe doubted anyone had even entered the place since records went digital years ago. They had gone through box after box of dusty files, starting with the high school records. If they couldn’t find a connection there, they would move on to the primary schools.

  Once they finally located the correct archive boxes, they found a mixture of bound paper files as well as old-style floppy disks. Anjali held the discs up to the light like some sort of ancient treasure. ‘I saw a photo of one of these once,’ she said.

  Luckily, the archives still owned a floppy disk reader, just in case the old files ever needed to be read. Zoe was relieved—getting a warrant to take the records out of the archive would have raised all sorts of questions.

  Harry lay asleep on the floor. Occasionally his eyes would open slightly to check that Zoe was still there before he dozed off again.

  They worked on the Frankston case first, pulling the data of Ben Jennings’ years at Frankston High School from one of the floppy disks. Finding all the classes that Ben and Aaron had attended took time, as the records weren’t in order, but once they did Anjali copied the data quickly into a spreadsheet. They could see that the boys were in the same class together in years eight, nine and ten. By year eleven, only Aaron’s name remained.

  It took longer to find the school records for the Hastings case. The relevant floppy disk for Hastings Secondary College was corrupted and they had to ferret through boxes of files to get the information they needed. Anjali typed the names in as they went.

  ‘There’s Eric Drum,’ said Anjali. ‘And Trevor Hill.’

  ‘That’s year nine, yes?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Yep. But there is no sign of Trevor Hill in Eric’s year eight class.’

  Anjali kept typing but then stopped. ‘Hold on. I think—oh my god,’ she trailed off.

  Zoe saw the same name. ‘Ivan Raddich,’ said Zoe. ‘He is on both lists, in year eight with Ben Jennings and Aaron Smyth at Frankston, and in year nine with Eric Drum and Trevor Hill at Hastings.’

  Anjali was gaping at the screen.

  ‘You did it, Anjali,’ yelled Zoe. She scooped up a box of records from Rosebud Secondary College, where Ray and Dwayne had gone to school. ‘We’re looking for Ray Carlson’s class for year ten,’ said Zoe.

  Anjali loaded one of the floppy disks, while Zoe flicked through the folders in the archive box.

  ‘Got it,’ said Anjali. She pointed at the screen. ‘And there he is.’

  Ivan Raddich.

  Zoe pulled out her phone and called Charlie. ‘We’ve struck gold.’

  8.45 PM, TUESDAY 11 FEBRUARY

  The cleaner made his way through the office, the vacuum strapped to his back, the power cord snaking its way behind him.

  Zoe watched his feet travel past the glass of the conference room. Rob stifled a yawn.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got nothing recent on Ivan Raddich,’ said Anjali. ‘He isn’t in the database and his licence expired five years ago. It was issued almost ten years before that and his address at the time was the Grover Private Hotel in St Kilda.’

  Rob, Zoe and Charlie knew all about the Grover. It had been the scene of multiple murders over the years.

  ‘That bad?’ asked Anjali.

  ‘Yeah, boarding house,’ said Rob. ‘Druggies mainly. Almost everyone who’s ever stayed there has arrived fresh from prison.’

  ‘Almost, but not all, it seems,’ said Anjali. ‘Ivan Raddich has no record with Corrections. I’ve checked with the Grover and they had no forwarding address for him. The lady there can’t remember him. She says she keeps a log of all troublemakers and his name’s not on it.’

  ‘What about welfare payments, child support, taxes?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘I’m checking all that now. I’ll know more in the morning,’ said Anjali.

  Zoe nodded. ‘I had a look and he has zero social media presence, at least under his own name.’

  ‘How does a bloke who is living in the worst boarding house in the country, full of druggies and crims, start paying six months’ rent in cash on houses all over the place?’ asked Charlie. ‘Even all these years later, it’s a long way to drag yourself up. Dealing drugs?’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Zoe. ‘I rang our friends in the Drug Squad and asked whether they knew of Ivan Raddich or any of his aliases. They have no record of him, but it doesn’t mean he wasn’t dealing under another name.’

  ‘Okay, we need to add some resources to this,’ said Rob.

  Zoe let out a groan. After the last couple of days, the thought of getting help from the rest of Homicide didn’t sit well with her.

  Rob ignored her. ‘Hannah and Angus have capacity.’

  ‘But they were in charge of the Ben Jennings murder,’ protested Zoe.

  ‘And you and Charlie worked the Carlson case, so by that logic you should be taken off the investigation as well,’ countered Rob. ‘Plus, I really want this squad back working together. This will help, trust me.’

  Zoe gave her reluctant agreement. ‘Okay, let’s work out a plan of attack and then we’ll brief Hannah and Angus in the morning. Anjali, can you look for other family members as well?

  ‘We need,’ continued Zoe, ‘to find some of these classmates and see what they remember about Ivan. Anyone who was spoken to as part of the murder investigations should be put to one side for the moment, but there should still be plenty of ex-classmates left to speak to.’

  ‘And what reason are we giving for wanting to speak to them about Ivan?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘We’ll say he’s a missing person. That’s nice and neutral. Plus, it’s true—we don’t know where he is.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Anjali. ‘I’ll find the people we haven’t yet spoken to. I’ll have a list ready for the briefing tomorrow,’ said Anjali.

  ‘Well done, everyone,’ said Rob, standing up and making for the door. ‘Get a good night’s sleep.’

  Charlie was on his feet too. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  ‘No worries, see you then,’ said Zoe.

  Anjali rubbed her face.

  ‘Have you eaten?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Come on, let’s grab a quick bite.’

  Anjali, Zoe and Harry headed down Lonsdale Street towards the restaurants and cafes in Hardware Lane. The sun had set and a southerly breeze was cooling the cit
y.

  ‘Fresh air at last,’ said Zoe. ‘I don’t want to see another room of archive boxes for a long time.’

  Anjali said nothing.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Sorry, I was miles away. Thinking about Ivan Raddich. Just hoping we can find him.’

  ‘You and me both,’ said Zoe.

  They had just crossed King Street, on the edge of Melbourne’s legal district, when Anjali said, ‘Don’t look now, but your one-woman fan club is sitting across the road.’

  Through the traffic, Zoe saw Sally Johnstone, smiling broadly, as she sat outside a bluestone pub. She reached over and touched the arm of the person across the table from her. Zoe stopped dead in her tracks. It was Tom.

  8.30 AM, WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY

  Zoe walked through the car park below the City West Police Complex. Harry trotted alongside, looking up at her with concern. She had spent a restless night, obsessing about seeing Tom and Sally out together. He had texted her late to check in, but she’d replied saying she was busy working. Her instinct had been to ring and confront him, but she knew she was too worked up. She needed to get her thoughts in order. Get perspective. Breathe.

  Rows of dark-coloured, unmarked criminal investigation vehicles were lined up, mainly late-model BMW, VW, Hyundai, Ford and Toyota sedans and wagons. Her Ford Escape was the least obvious CI car there, she thought. Probably made her look like a soccer mum. She was about twenty metres away when the elevator doors opened.

  Iain Gillies and Garry Burns strode out, with Garry in mid-sentence. ‘And we’ve been going out a few months and I start noticing this dark regrowth, you know, on her pussy, and I’m like “what’s going on?” and she’s like “my waxer is away”. I thought she was a natural blonde, but apparently not. Then yesterday her eyes were hazel, not blue. So apparently she’s been wearing coloured contacts this whole time. I thought I had a blue-eyed blonde, but I have a hazel-eyed brunette. I’m feeling fucking ripped off.’

  Imagine, Zoe thought, how she’ll feel if she ever meets the real you.

  ‘Hey,’ said Iain, ‘Here comes DD, the Detective for the Defence.’

  Zoe walked past them into the elevator. ‘Always a pleasure to see you too, Runner,’ she shot back.

  ‘You fucking b—’ she heard, the closing doors cutting Iain off.

  Charlie spun his pen on his notepad as Zoe finished her briefing. Across from him, Hannah Nguyen and Angus Batch had scribbled pages of notes. Over the last half hour she had watched their curiosity grow and their doubts fall away.

  Angus was staring at the whiteboard, which displayed enlarged photographs from the driver’s licences of Alex Verdi, Eddie Nicholas and Greg Enders.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘He’s a clever one,’ said Angus. ‘He’s styled his hair so it obscures his ears. There are things you can do to change the appearance of a face. Gain or lose weight. Puff out your cheeks or suck them in, drop your chin down, that sort of thing, but you can’t change the shape of your ears without surgery. If he had a crew cut in all three photos, you’d easily be able to tell if it was the same person.’

  Zoe looked up at the photographs. In only one of them did his ears fully show.

  The door swung open and Anjali rushed in. ‘Sorry. Took a while to get everything printed.’ She dropped a pile of stapled papers on the table. Her hair, usually neat, was unkempt and her eyes were puffy. Although she was wearing a jacket, Zoe could see that Anjali had the same shirt on that she was wearing the night before.

  Zoe gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Any joy?’

  ‘Yes and no. Unsurprisingly, Ivan Raddich was on unemployment benefits around the time he was staying at the Grover. After that, he disappears. Checked with the ATO. No tax returns submitted since that time. No record of him anywhere else either. I’m about to start calling the banks, but my gut says we won’t find him there either.’

  ‘What about overseas? He may have gone abroad.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s the good news. No record of him leaving the country. The Immigration Department have a record of Ivan Raddich arriving in Australia with his family in 1990. Came from what was then Yugoslavia, now Serbia. Born in Belgrade. Ivan was eight when he arrived. I also checked the other names—Alex Verdi, Eddie Nicholas and Greg Enders—and they don’t come up on the immigration records at all. Or any government records, in fact, apart from the driver’s licences.’

  ‘And his family?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘His parents are dead, but he has a brother, Marko, who’s two years younger. Marko is alive, living in Melbourne. He works as an IT consultant…works a lot with the state government. He is in the middle of a major project with the Department of Justice right now.’

  Zoe smiled. ‘Fantastic. He’s our next stop. Let me know about the banks.’

  ‘Will do. Also, I’ve gone through the list of classmates from the three schools Ivan shared with the murder victims. There are quite a few still around Hastings and Rosebud. Less in Frankston, but still enough, I think. The women were harder to find because of married names, so the lists are skewed towards men. There are at least six people for each school.’ She pushed the papers into the middle of the table as she stifled a yawn.

  ‘Thanks, Anjali. Great work,’ said Zoe.

  Anjali half slumped back in her chair, and grinned with relief.

  ‘Okay,’ said Zoe. ‘Charlie and I will go and see Marko at the Department of Justice. Then we’ll go to Frankston. Hannah and Angus, can you do Portsea and Hastings?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Angus. ‘What do you need us to find out?’

  ‘One—does anyone know where Ivan Raddich is? Two—what were relations like between Ivan, the victims and the guys we have locked up.’

  ‘So,’ said Hannah. ‘Friends. Enemies. Incidents. That sort of thing?’

  ‘That’s it,’ said Zoe, flipping her folder shut. ‘Let’s go and find him.’

  10.30 AM, WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY

  Zoe and Charlie stepped out of the elevator and into the foyer of the Department of Justice in Exhibition Street. Harry walked happily beside Zoe.

  The receptionist bounced up out of her seat as they approached. ‘What a beautiful dog.’

  Harry wagged his tail in response.

  ‘Hi. Detectives Mayer and Shaw. We’re here to see Marko Raddich.’

  ‘Oh yes, just a moment, sorry.’ She picked up the phone, scanned a list and punched in some numbers.

  ‘Hi Marko. I’ve got two detectives here to see you… Okay…no…Okay.’ She put down the phone. ‘He’ll be right out.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Zoe. A moment later a door at the back of the lobby swung open and a tanned man with a neat crew cut walked confidently towards them.

  Marko Raddich was leaner, three inches taller, and had blue eyes, compared to Ivan’s brown, but the similarities were there. Zoe and Charlie glanced at each other.

  ‘Hi, I’m Marko,’ he said, thrusting out his hand.

  Zoe took a step forward, and shook his hand. ‘Zoe Mayer and Charlie Shaw. Is there somewhere we can chat?’

  ‘Yes, sure, come through to the office,’ said Marko, before looking down at Harry. ‘Hey there, what’s your name?’

  ‘His name’s Harry,’ said Zoe.

  ‘Bit unusual, isn’t it? A police dog that’s not a german shepherd.’

  ‘He’s a specialist,’ Zoe said, smiling.

  They followed Marko to his large corner office. It looked both south and east, the view taking in the Yarra River bending around past the Melbourne Cricket Ground. Zoe took an extra moment looking towards the northern end of the stadium and the surrounding parkland. Around the office were a number of computer boxes, some opened, others not, and his desk was piled high with papers and reports.

  ‘Apologies for the mess. I just got back from a week’s holiday hiking up at Mount Baw Baw and I’m trying to catch up. You should see the email backlog,’ he said, smiling.

  ‘Did you only get back today?’ asked Zoe.<
br />
  Marko laughed. ‘You’d think so. No, I drove up a week ago on the Saturday and got back Sunday night. Eight days camping was more than enough. I was badly in need of a long shower and a comfy bed.’

  ‘What do you do here?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘I’ve been consulting on a major project for the past six or seven months. Updating cybersecurity protocols. Stopping hackers basically. I do a lot of government work. So, what case do you need help with?’

  ‘Sorry?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘The case you’re working on. I presume you need me to help with some cybersecurity aspect.’

  ‘No, nothing like that. We are here about your brother, Ivan.’

  Marko’s body jerked. His shoulders slumped and he closed his eyes. Zoe noticed Marko’s ears turn red.

  ‘What’s happened? Is he hurt? Is he—’

  ‘No, nothing like that. We want to speak with him in relation to an investigation. He may be a witness, that’s all. How can we find him?’

  Marko took several deep breaths as he recovered himself. ‘I wish I knew. I’ve hardly seen my brother at all in many years. Not properly since just after my mother died. The last time I saw him,’ Marko paused, looking away, ‘yes, that’s it, I ran into him by chance here in the city, in the Bourke Street Mall, about ten years ago. He said he’d been working up north, picking fruit. I gave him my number and asked him to call me to catch up, but he never did. I tried to locate him a few years ago through the government databases, but I couldn’t find anything. Zilch. I’d be happy to help you find him. He’s all the family I have left now.’

  ‘Thanks, we appreciate that. We’ll let you know,’ said Zoe. ‘What was the last address you had for him?’

  ‘It was our family home in Noble Park. Ivan was still living there when Mum died. We decided to sell it a few months later. I thought it was a good idea at the time—Ivan was depressed as hell living there without Mum. He was kind of floating about, not doing anything.’