The Long Game

by Simon Rowell

‘What was the address in Noble Park?’

  Marko gave it to her before adding, ‘The house is gone now. Was bulldozed for townhouses.’

  ‘What did Ivan do for work?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘He worked with Dad at my family’s fruit shop once he left school. Ran it with Mum after Dad died. When Mum got sick, she decided to sell it. She didn’t want Ivan to be shackled to it. Got a good price in the end. After Mum died, Ivan had half the money from selling the fruit shop, but that wasn’t going to last forever. I don’t think he worked for a while. As I said, he’d been picking fruit up near the Murray River somewhere. Other than that, I’m not sure.’

  ‘Your parents have any other kids?’

  ‘No, just Ivan and me.’

  ‘Tell us about your childhood.’

  ‘It was good. We arrived in Australia when I was six, Ivan was about eight. Dad worked construction jobs all over the place while he saved money to buy his fruit shop. We were a close family.’

  ‘Did you move around a lot with your Dad’s work?’ asked Charlie.

  Marko raised an eyebrow. ‘Yeah, we did. How’d you know that?’

  ‘Where did you live?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Dad looked for long-term construction jobs so we could all stay together. Building schools, roads, that sort of thing. We lived up at Bright in the high country, in Hastings, Frankston, Rosebud, and finally in Noble Park. That’s where my parents ended up buying a fruit shop. Big Serbian community there then. Helped them feel more at home.’

  ‘When you were moving around, what was life like?’

  ‘It was okay. Bit unsettling having to make new friends and change schools all the time, but we saw a lot of places.’

  ‘What about for Ivan? How’d he find it?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘I guess he found it tougher. He was older and the other kids were less open to newcomers. Especially back then. We were different and our English wasn’t good for the first few years. Plus, he was smaller than the other kids—our mum said it was because food was a bit tight back before we came to Australia. I ended up taller than him by the time I was sixteen, even though he had two years on me. Anyway, we just got on with things, and our English improved. Once we moved to Noble Park, Ivan left school to work with Dad in the shop.’

  ‘Did Ivan have any problems with specific kids at school?’

  ‘What? No, I don’t think so. What’s this all about?’ Marko shifted in his seat.

  ‘Ivan’s name has come up in an investigation. That’s all I can say right now. Where do you think your brother is?’

  Marko’s eyes hardened. He crossed his arms. ‘I don’t know. I would have told you first up if I knew.’

  Zoe held up a hand. ‘Okay, okay, I understand.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, calming slightly, ‘this has been a bit of a shock. It’s been a long time since I’ve heard from Ivan. It’s thrown me a bit, that’s all.’

  ‘I understand. One more question. Did Ivan ever have any issues with drugs?’

  Marko grimaced. ‘To be honest, I’m not sure. I often wondered about that. Even asked him once, but he denied it. He’s got a lot of pride, my brother, and he can be hard to read, but deep down he’s sensitive. Gets easily upset by things, you know.’

  Zoe pulled out her card. ‘If you remember anything or think of anywhere we could find him, please give me a call.’

  ‘Will do,’ Marko said. ‘He’s a good person. Just never found his place in the world, I suppose. When you find him, can you get him to call me? Please.’ He gave his card to Zoe. She tucked it into her folder.

  3.30 PM, WEDNESDAY 12 FEBRUARY

  ‘Ivan Raddich?’ Carol Simmons was leaning against her front door, nose screwed up. ‘Nah, can’t remember him, sorry.’

  Behind her, two children were chasing each other in the hallway, yelling.

  ‘He’d just immigrated from Yugoslavia,’ said Zoe, her voice raised above the noise. ‘He was only at Frankston High for a year.’

  One of the children, a boy of about five, came up beside his mother, and stared at Harry. He looked up at Zoe. ‘Are you blind? Is that why you’ve got a blind dog?’

  Carol pointed at Harry’s vest. ‘Gareth, that’s a service dog. He’s not a guide dog. Now, don’t be rude to the lady. Go and watch your brother.’ The boy ran back into the house.

  Carol looked at Zoe. ‘Sorry, what were you saying?’

  ‘Ivan. Spent a year at Frankston High.’

  ‘Oh wow,’ she said. ‘Now I remember. Ivan the Yugo, we called him. Strange kid. Crap at English. What’s he done?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s a missing persons case.’

  ‘Shit. Sorry.’

  ‘Was he ever picked on at school?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘You kidding?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Immigrant kid back in those days—in our school. It was dog eat dog back then. Sorry, no offence,’ she added, looking down at Harry.

  ‘Any examples?’ asked Zoe.

  ‘There were a few in our year who gave him a hard time. Guy called Ben Jennings used to bash him a couple of times a week, just for the fun of it. Ben got stabbed a year or two back. Read about it in the paper. He was a prick back then, so that was no big surprise.’

  ‘Anyone else,’ asked Zoe.

  ‘Hold on,’ Carol said. ‘Let me get my yearbook.’ She walked back into the house. ‘Shut it, you two,’ she barked.

  She came back out, book in hand. The fading type on the front said Frankston High School. She flicked through it before reaching a page of photographs. She studied the faces, row by row. ‘Okay, yeah, that’s right. There were two other guys who hassled him. Greg Spanno and Aaron Smyth. Greg is dead. Took on a power pole with his car when he was about nineteen and lost. Aaron is locked up for killing Ben. So, I don’t reckon they’re involved in this bloke going missing.’

  ‘Was Ivan in that class too?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Nah, don’t reckon he was,’ said Carol, her eyes skimming over the rows of students. ‘Hold on,’ she said, flicking through a few pages. ‘There he is. Same year as us, but in a different class.’ Carol put her finger against the chest of a small boy at the end of the second row. ‘Ivan Raddich.’

  The face peered forlornly out at them, a look of almost pleading despair in his dark eyes. The boy seemed smaller than the others, his face more a child’s than a teenager’s.

  ‘Did Ivan have issues with anyone else in the school?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Don’t think so. Ben, Aaron and Greg were the thugs in our year. Ivan was their personal punching bag for a while.’

  ‘You mind if I take a photo of Ivan’s face?’ asked Zoe, getting her phone out.

  ‘Be my guest,’ said Carol. ‘You reckon that Ivan going missing has something to do with high school?’

  Zoe focused and clicked. ‘No, we don’t, but in missing persons cases we look from every angle. We’re all the sum of many parts,’ she said, almost wistfully.

  ‘I guess. There a reward or anything?’ asked Carol.

  ‘No,’ said Zoe, smiling, trying to dampen her expectations. ‘We are still in the process of working out if he’s actually missing or has just gone on holiday without telling anyone.’

  ‘Right, fair enough.’

  Zoe and Charlie were in the conference room with Hannah and Angus. Anjali sat at the head of the table, her laptop open.

  Angus flipped through his folder. ‘Immigrant kid, victimised by schoolmates for being different. I interviewed four old school friends from Hastings who all told the same story. Eric Drum and Trevor Hill were troublemakers and they bullied the hell out of Ivan Raddich so much that Ivan wouldn’t leave the classroom at recess or lunch. Teachers didn’t do much to stop it.’ He walked to the whiteboard and stuck a blown-up photo of the young Ivan on it.

  ‘Same story at Frankston,’ said Zoe, adding her photo of Ivan to the board. ‘Saw five of the old schoolmates. Everyone gave a similar account, depending on how much they liked o
r disliked the bullies.’

  ‘Almost identical story from the old students of Rosebud Secondary College,’ said Hannah, pulling her photo of the high school-aged Ivan from her folder and sticking it on the board. His face was marred with acne and he was looking down. They stared at the photos of the maturing boy. ‘Ivan was apparently up for fighting back by that stage, but it didn’t seem to help. His life sounds like it was torture, with Ray Carlson and Dwayne Harley in charge of the bullying. They’d pick fights with him, give him royal flushes, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I hate to even ask,’ said Zoe.

  ‘A royal flush is when someone picks you up, turns you upside down and sticks your head in the toilet while someone else flushes it,’ said Hannah. ‘Charming, eh?’

  ‘Like water-boarding for high schoolers.’ Zoe looked at the sad photos of the teenage Ivan on the board.

  ‘I think we have answered the motive question,’ said Angus.

  ‘Yeah, but why wait twenty years to get revenge?’ said Charlie. ‘You’d think he’d have acted earlier or got over it. One or the other.’

  ‘Something is driving him,’ said Zoe. ‘We’ll find out what once we catch him.’

  ‘He must have had a growth spurt,’ mused Charlie. ‘He was in the second to front row in all these pics, one of the shorter boys. The guy we met as Greg Enders was taller.’

  ‘And we met with Ivan’s brother, Marko,’ said Zoe. ‘He told us he doesn’t know where Ivan is, and hasn’t seen him in years.’

  ‘You believe him?’ asked Hannah.

  ‘Yeah, I reckon,’ said Zoe. ‘What do you think, Charlie?’

  ‘He came across as truthful to me,’ Charlie said. ‘We told him Ivan could be a witness in a case and Marko offered to help in any way he could. He said he was keen to reconnect with him.’

  ‘Let’s get his alibi checked,’ said Zoe, ‘to make sure he isn’t involved in helping his brother. Just in case. Anjali, can you get a data dump for the phone tower closest to Mount Baw Baw? Marko told us he went hiking there. He said he left here on Saturday morning, the second of February, and returned last Sunday. Map it out, it’s probably about three hours by car.’

  Zoe pulled Marko’s card out of her folder and slid it over to Anjali. ‘The mobile number on there should be in the metadata from the tower.’

  ‘Will do,’ said Anjali.

  8.45 AM, THURSDAY 13 FEBRUARY

  Harry walked underneath Zoe’s desk and sat on his dog bed. The office was busy. A new case had come in overnight.

  Zoe saw Rob enter the office. He looked across at her and she cocked her head towards the conference room.

  ‘Update time,’ she said to Charlie.

  A few minutes later, Zoe stood at the whiteboard. Rob, Charlie, Angus and Hannah were on the other side of the table. Anjali sat at the end, eyes sparkling.

  ‘Okay, Zoe,’ said the DI, ‘what’s our theory?’

  Zoe pointed at the blown-up driver’s licence in Eddie Nicholas’s name, stuck to the whiteboard. ‘What we know: Ivan Raddich, born April Fool’s Day, 1982, in the former Yugoslavia, arrives in Australia in 1990. Father works on big construction projects and the family moves around a lot. Ivan gets badly bullied in three high schools: Frankston High, Western Port Secondary College in Hastings and Rosebud Secondary College. Years eight, nine and ten. Ivan leaves school after that and works in his parents’ fruit shop until his dad dies and his mum sells the shop. He goes through a period of heavy depression, living with his mum until she passes away. His brother, Marko, decides to sell the family house as Ivan seems to be going downhill living there on his own. From there, we don’t know much else. He has a fair bit of cash from the sale of his parents’ assets, enough for a few years. Marko isn’t sure, but it’s possible Ivan was on drugs, which may explain why he ended up living at the Grover in St Kilda.’

  ‘Does he have any form for drug crimes?’ asked Rob.

  ‘No,’ said Anjali. ‘No charges at all, in fact. Not even a speeding ticket. At least under the names we think he’s been using.’

  ‘Right, and then?’ asked Rob.

  ‘Something triggers him. Maybe he met someone from his high school days, maybe he saw a shrink, who knows? He decides that he is going to get revenge. Take them all out.’

  ‘Wouldn’t someone recognise him from high school?’ asked Rob.

  ‘His face has changed a lot,’ said Zoe. ‘He was short and baby-faced early on, and by the time he hit year ten he had severe acne. He shot up after leaving school. Plus, the kid they all knew back then couldn’t speak English very well and had a heavy accent. The Ivan they met later on would’ve sounded and looked different.’

  ‘Okay, then what?’

  ‘He decides he’ll kill them in order—first, his tormentors from year eight. He creates a fake identity and rents a nearby house, stakes out his victims, learns their habits and ways, finds out everything he can about them, becomes their friend. He works out who he will kill and who he’ll set up for the murder. He manages to get some clothing from the fall guy’s house, a pullover or a hoodie, full of DNA. Probably taken from a laundry basket when he was visiting. Then he waits for a perfect day, when he has access to the victim, and when he knows the fall guy will not have a solid alibi. He wants to be looking into their eyes when he takes revenge, probably telling them while they’re dying who he is and why he’s doing it. Once they are dead, he gloves up and pulls out the hoodie, soaking the front of it in the victim’s blood. Then he scrunches it up and puts it back inside the bag it came in. Now he has the victim’s blood all over the outside of the clothing and the fall guy’s DNA on the inside. Once it’s done, Ivan cleans up, probably changes clothes and exits.’

  Zoe waited for a rebuttal or question.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Angus, his mouth falling open.

  ‘But he could’ve easily left DNA at the scene, despite all that preparation,’ said Rob.

  ‘Yes, but it would only be a small amount. He could’ve explained that away as he was friends with the people he was targeting. He was in regular contact with them and he’d been in their houses plenty of times.’

  ‘Keep going,’ said Rob.

  ‘Then he waits. Someone discovers the body. Maybe the police speak to him, maybe they don’t. He doesn’t really care. That’s not his main game. He waits a day or two and then calls Crime Stoppers with a tip-off about the fall guy. A little while after that, he plants the pullover somewhere and then makes another call to Crime Stoppers, telling us about the evidence. We arrest the fall guy and he waits for charges to be laid. After the funeral, he disappears. With everything that has gone on, no one pays much attention. Then he starts to plan his next victim.’

  ‘So, if he’s done this three times, is he finished? Are there more victims to come?’

  ‘According to his brother, Ivan left school after they lived in Rosebud and started working in the family fruit shop in Noble Park. So unless he was bullied later, he might be done.’

  ‘Okay, that all makes sense as a theory, but how do we catch him?’ asked Rob.

  ‘I was lying awake this morning and I remembered Ben Jennings’ widow telling me that Alex Verdi, Ivan’s alias in that case, turned up on the first day of the trial and then at the sentencing. I suppose he wanted to gloat at his success. I hope Ivan will be at Trevor Hill’s trial when it starts on Monday.’

  ‘Unless he hears we’re searching for him,’ Charlie said.

  ‘True,’ said Zoe, ‘but the only person we’re aware of who knows the real Ivan is his brother, Marko. He seemed to be in the dark when we spoke with him. Anjali, did you check the phone tower data from near Mount Baw Baw on the days Marko said he was travelling?’

  Anjali sat up. ‘Yes, his phone was pinging off the tower there from 10.30 am on Saturday the first of February until Sunday the ninth at 4.35 pm. It’s around a three-hour drive from Melbourne, so that all lines up. He was at Mount Baw Baw when Ray Carlson was murdered and the entire week following tha
t, nowhere near the crime scene.’

  ‘Okay, Marko’s in the clear,’ said Zoe. ‘So, unless Marko happens to run into his brother by chance, Ivan won’t know we’re after him.’

  ‘I really would have preferred to get Ivan into custody this week,’ said Rob. ‘Waiting until the start of the trial will complicate everything.’

  ‘If we can arrest Ivan on the courthouse steps,’ said Zoe, ‘we should be able to get the trial postponed by twenty-four hours to give us time to interview him.’

  ‘You know who’s prosecuting the case, don’t you?’ said Rob. ‘Sally Johnstone isn’t our biggest fan right now.’

  Zoe bristled. ‘Yeah, I know.’ She felt her phone vibrate. It was a text from a number she didn’t recognise: Have you got five minutes? There’s something you should know—Sarah Westbrook.

  Zoe and Harry walked out the front of the City West Police Complex on Spencer Street. She spotted Sarah near the side of the road, waving to catch her attention, and made her way through the pedestrian traffic to where she was standing.

  ‘Thanks for coming down,’ said Sarah. ‘I know you’re busy.’

  ‘No worries. Harry is overdue for a walk,’ said Zoe. Zoe felt her phone buzzing. It was Anjali.

  ‘Sorry, I need to get this. Should be quick.’

  Zoe shuffled to the kerb as people rushed by. Sarah followed her. Zoe shortened Harry’s leash by winding it around her hand.

  ‘Hi Anjali, what’s up?’

  The roar stunned her. She saw a flash of the driver as the car surged onto the footpath. Harry barked and jerked on his lead, pulling Zoe away from the road. Spun by the force of her dog, she tripped, dropping her phone. The side of the car glanced off her left leg. All around her, people were screaming and running. Zoe lay dazed on her back, staring up at the seagulls circling high above the city in the blue sky.

  Harry was close by, whimpering. She could hear different voices calling for an ambulance or police. Her hair felt damp and warm.

  A minute later, the pedestrians had been cleared away by a swarm of uniformed officers. She shut her eyes. When she opened them again, half of Homicide stood around her. Anjali was on the phone when it happened. They must have looked down and seen me.