by John Byron
‘You all right?’ her brother asked.
She nodded, unable to tear her eyes from her first in situ murder victim. She turned at last to the forensic scientist, finding a gentle compassion within his professional demeanour.
‘Morning, Mack,’ she said in a wavering voice. She let go of the woodwork and pushed off, walking stoically towards the table and its obscene burden. ‘So tell me: how does the trochlear nerve dissection look?’
Friday 28 September – afternoon
Jo was still deeply shaken when they arrived back at Surry Hills. She walked in behind Murphy on autopilot, but Amy came across to intercept her before she could follow her brother into his office.
Jo sat for a while in Amy’s chair, staring vacantly at a photograph of a pensive American detective with the caption What would Lester Freamon do? Eventually she looked up.
‘Fucking hell, Amy.’
The cop gave Jo’s shoulder a light squeeze. ‘I know. I still remember my first. Everybody does.’ They sat like that for a minute, then Amy looked at her watch, scooped up her keys and her bag and said, ‘Come with me.’
They swung by Jo’s desk to collect her bag and headed for the lift. Amy hit the lowest button, marked SB. Jo had thought they were heading for the carpark, but that was the button above. She asked where they were going.
‘We’re going to shoot some villains,’ said Amy.
Jo pondered what this could mean while they descended to the sub-basement. They stepped into a concrete corridor and walked towards an irregular banging noise. Eventually she realised Amy had been speaking to her.
‘… have it all to yourself some days,’ she was saying. ‘I don’t know why, because it’s the best damn stress relief known to humanity. Well, second-best, anyway.’
Jo surprised herself with an abrupt laugh and looked up at Amy, who briefly met her eyes before turning ahead. Jo noticed a slight flush to Amy’s neck.
They reached a heavy metal door. ‘It’s going to be a bit loud,’ said Amy with a wide smile. She swiped her pass and the door swung open, and the distant jazz percussion became the Battle of Stalingrad. This was the Sydney Indoor Light Arms Training Range. ‘Come on.’ Jo hesitated, until Amy said, ‘Trust me, this’ll help.’
They approached the armourer’s desk. Jo wasn’t cleared for this floor, so the duty constable admitted her as a visitor after she read through the safety rules in front of him.
‘Are you sure we should be doing this?’ asked Jo as she signed in.
‘Yeah, don’t worry about it. Best keep it to ourselves, though.’
‘You won’t get in any trouble?’
‘No, it’s allowed, but Spud wouldn’t like it. He disapproves of civilians coming in, but they do it all the time. Study tours. Politicians.’
‘Politicians?’
‘We had a prime minister down here once. Couldn’t decide whether he was Arnold Schwarzenegger or John Wayne. A pretty good shot, though, I must admit.’
The armourer leered at Amy. ‘So, Detective Chartier, you ready to try something with a bit of heft?’
Amy scoffed. ‘It isn’t the calibre, Constable Vanderlaan, it’s how you use it. Just a couple of 22s, please.’ He went to collect their weapons.
‘You use 22s?’ asked Jo, surprised. ‘Aren’t they kind of lightweight?’ All she knew about guns she’d learned from the movies – Hollywood University, as her brother put it – but it wasn’t exactly an authoritative source.
‘No, that’s point-two-two calibre. This is the Glock twenty-two pistol. It’s actually a .40 calibre.’
‘I’m confused.’
‘So the .22 you’re talking about refers to the calibre. It means the barrel bore is twenty-two hundredths of an inch. And you’re right, not a lot of stopping power. The 22 in the Glock is just a model number, like a Boeing 747. It takes the .40 calibre Smith & Wesson round.’
‘Okay, so calibre is just a fraction of an inch?’
‘It can be metric.’
‘Oh, like James Bond’s 9-millimetre Beretta?’
‘Right.’
‘What’s that in inches?’
‘Well, that’s where it gets confusing. It’s equivalent to both the .357 and .38 rounds in the American money.’
‘As in three-fifty-seven Magnum and thirty-eight Special?’
Amy laughed. ‘Spud’s right, you do watch too many movies.’
‘Is that what he says?’
Amy let that go through to the ’keeper. ‘Anyway, the Glock 22 is the standard issue sidearm for uniformed police and most plain-clothes. They’re easy to use, safe, accurate …’
‘… weak as piss and made of plastic,’ said Vanderlaan as he returned with their gear. He pushed the weapons across the counter, along with a handful of red magazines full of bullets and two pairs of bright-orange earmuffs.
‘Why so threatened by plastic?’ asked Amy. ‘Scared you’ll be made redundant?’
‘Not me,’ he said with a cocky smile. ‘Ain’t nothing like the real thing.’
Amy grimaced and shook her head. ‘Not for me, Constable.’
‘Don’t know what you’re missing.’ He sighed regretfully. ‘Stall four.’
‘Come on, Jo, I’ll show you what I mean.’
They each picked up a pistol, and Amy collected the training magazines while Jo grabbed the ear protection. Jo couldn’t believe how light the gun was.
‘Yeah, it’s amazing,’ said Amy as they entered the gallery. ‘I mean it’s unloaded, but still. It’s a real godsend in uniform – you have to carry so much crap, and the pistol is the heaviest item by far. Makes it easier to use too, especially for women, which is forty per cent of the force now. And no doubt for unfit fat old blokes, which is probably another forty per cent.’
They reached their stall and Amy gave Jo the safety run-through over the racket around them. Then she showed her how to check the chamber was empty, load it with one of the red training magazines and rack the slide. ‘Now there’s a round in the chamber, ready to fire.’ Amy quickly performed the safety check on the other Glock, then handed it to Jo. ‘Now you have a go.’
Jo took up the pistol and repeated Amy’s actions. She hefted the gun, noticing the extra weight. ‘It’s a lot heavier with the magazine.’
‘Yeah, it’s an even kilo, loaded,’ said Amy. ‘About a third of that’s bullets.’ She noticed Jo gripping the gun with her left hand. ‘Ah, you’re a lefty. I hadn’t noticed.’
‘Is there a difference?’
‘Nothing that matters. It’s good, actually: you can mirror me. Stay there.’ Amy put her gun on the shelf and moved around behind Jo before picking up her pistol again. ‘You want to stand comfortably. Some people like a side-on stance, others prefer straight on. I’m kind of in-between. You want your feet shoulder-width apart and your knees slightly bent. Keep your back straight …’
‘… abs in, shoulders back and down,’ continued Jo. Amy gave her a quizzical look. ‘You sound exactly like my trainer, Amanda.’
Amy laughed. ‘It’s the same principle: you want to be braced and strong, but relaxed and flexible.’ She moved one foot diagonally behind her then lifted her pistol. ‘Always use a two-handed grip. Leave the gunfighter bullshit to the glory boys. It just isn’t stable enough. Cup your palm and cradle the firing hand, like so.’
In mirror-image, Jo took her stance and copied the shape of Amy’s hands around the pistol. It was completely different to the one-handed cops-and-robbers stance, but it felt highly stable. And kind of deadly.
‘Okay,’ said Amy. ‘Any questions?’
‘Yeah, where’s the safety, and what’s with the split trigger?’
Amy smiled. Good girl: you’re paying attention. ‘That is the safety,’ she said, pointing to the component Jo had noticed, sitting in a groove in the front part of the trigger itself. ‘You have to pull it in first before the trigger will move.’ Amy put her earmuffs on. ‘You ready?’
Jo nodded and followed suit. The detective
picked up her pistol and took her stance again, sighted along the top of the barrel and fired. Even though Jo was expecting it, she still jumped at the noise. Amy fired three more times in quick succession, without resighting between shots. She repositioned once more and fired another salvo, this time four or five bullets: Jo lost count. Amy placed her pistol on the shelf and flicked a toggle switch on the wall, bringing the paper target forward on a runner. There was a cluster of shots on the chest, while several shots surrounded the head.
They pushed back their earmuffs. ‘Always, always, go for the chest,’ said Amy. ‘You’re much more likely to hit something.’ She pointed at the halo of holes around the head. ‘Head shots are for heroes, usually dead heroes. A bullet to the chest will give him plenty to think about.’
This was all academic to Jo, who had no intention of shooting anybody, but she could see the logic of it. ‘So the idea is to put them down rather than kill them.’
‘No, not at all,’ said Amy, suddenly serious. ‘You never shoot at someone unless you’re willing to kill them. The point of the chest shot isn’t to minimise harm, it’s to maximise your chances of putting a round in them.’
‘Oh. Okay.’ Suitably sobered, Jo looked at the pistol on the shelf in front of her while Amy removed the riddled target from its clip.
‘Your turn,’ said Amy. Jo hesitated, and Amy laughed at her expression. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only paper.’ They slid their earmuffs back over their ears.
Jo picked up the pistol, took her stance, wrapped both hands around the pistol butt and took her aim at the fresh target. But before she could shoot, Amy touched her wrist and pushed gently down.
‘Your right thumb’s around the butt: it’s going to get hit by the slide when you fire. Just support your left hand; it’s not a tennis grip.’
Amy stepped behind Jo, circling her with both arms to raise the weapon again, and guided her hands into the correct position. Amy was all around her for a moment. On a sudden impulse, Jo pressed back against her ever so slightly. Then Amy stepped away, and Jo sighted onto the target’s chest area. She pulled the trigger and the pistol came alive in her hand, kicking up and back with a great boom. She’d fired wide of the chest, and a bit below.
‘That’s okay, you blew his mate’s nuts off,’ shouted Amy. ‘Try again.’
Jo reset herself and fired, putting the round into the target zone. Not in the middle, but still on the body.
‘Got ’im!’ Amy whooped. ‘Try a few in a row.’
Jo aimed again and fired four times in quick succession, getting used to the recoil. She put all four inside the outline, one right in the middle.
‘He’s totally fucked!’ Amy cheered.
Jo laughed. For a lifetime pacifist, she was enjoying this far too much.
‘Want to keep going?’ asked Amy with a grin.
‘Shit, yeah!’
They spent another half-hour taking turns. Amy fired consistently into the target zone, a good proportion in the centre, except when she went for the head, where she managed a hit less than half the time. The point was not lost on Jo, who stayed mostly on the torso, missing her few head shots completely. Jo reloaded each time for both of them, until she was working the mechanism like a pro.
By the time they’d burned through the training magazines, Jo’s arms ached, her ears rang, her heart thumped and her brain buzzed. Her traumatic afternoon was forgotten. They checked the chambers of both weapons, gathered the empty magazines and earmuffs, and took the whole lot back to the armourer.
‘How was that, Dr King?’
‘Oh, brilliant!’ replied Jo. ‘Thanks heaps!’
‘Next time you should try the Smith & Wesson 686.’ Vanderlaan lifted up a gigantic revolver with a six-inch barrel.
‘Still with the metaphors, Constable?’ Amy said.
‘Hey, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.’
Amy just shook her head and signed them out. ‘There’s your .357 Magnum,’ she told Jo as they entered the corridor. ‘That’s Spud’s weapon of choice.’
‘His barrel’s even longer, I reckon.’
‘Yeah, it’s eight and a half inches or something. The full Callahan.’
‘What does he even need a cannon like that for, rhinos?’
‘Don’t ask me. A Glock has enough firepower for anyone.’ They stepped into the lift and Amy pushed the button for the carpark above them. ‘So, feeling better?’
‘Oh, yeah. Thanks, you were so right.’
The lift door slid closed, and it suddenly went very quiet. Jo caught Amy’s eye. ‘Second-best stress relief known to humanity, eh?’
Amy blushed and looked down. ‘Yeah, well.’
Jo moved towards her. ‘What’s number one?’ she asked, low and husky. Waiting.
Amy lifted her face and caught Jo’s gaze, a tiny smile playing at the corner of her mouth. ‘You know,’ she whispered. Amy’s eyes glanced down to Jo’s mouth, then back up. Her smile widened.
Jo closed in and kissed Amy lightly on the mouth, and moved to stroke her short dark hair. But just then the lift stopped, and they parted self-consciously as the door opened. The two of them looked out at the carpark, like cat burglars caught in a sudden pool of light.
Empty.
They exchanged a glance and laughed, then walked towards Amy’s car.
‘So now you know our dirty little secret,’ said Amy.
‘What’s that?’
‘Shooting makes you horny.’
Jo laughed. ‘It’s not just me, then.’
‘Not at all.’
They were at the car now, standing in shadow by the driver’s door. Nothing was said for a while. Even when she came up for air, all Amy could manage was, ‘Mmm.’
‘Oh, no,’ said Jo, lightly biting Amy’s lower lip. ‘My bike has a flat tyre.’
‘You can’t even see it from here,’ said Amy, nipping back.
‘It’s one of my superpowers.’
‘I suppose you’ll be needing a lift home?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Do you have any other superpowers?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ said Jo, soft and sultry. ‘Yes, I do.’
Wednesday 3 October – afternoon
Jo was giving a presentation to the squad on Damien Henley’s post-mortem, which she and Mack had observed that morning. She paused about halfway through to take a sip of water and to collect herself. Beyond the brutal images that she could not put out of her mind, it was the cold, relentless progression of the dissections that really disturbed her. Immersing herself in the technicalities helped, but the horror never went away. She couldn’t understand how the detectives could sit through it with such apparent sangfroid. Experience, perhaps. Or maybe they just lived with it. Buried it. She rolled her shoulders to loosen her neck muscles and took a sip from her glass. ‘Any questions so far?’
‘Why did you ask Mack about the cochlear nerve at the scene?’ Murphy asked.
‘Trochlear nerve. I was just coming to that. It’s the fourth cranial nerve.’
‘What’s a cranial nerve?’ asked Nguyễn.
‘Most of the nerves in the body come off the spinal cord, but cranial nerves come straight out of the brain itself.’
‘What are they for?’
‘Mainly motor and sensory supply for the head and neck – sight, smell, taste, muscles of the face and tongue, speech and so on. Although the vagus also operates lots of stuff in the chest and abdomen – heart, lungs, most of the gut.’
‘And how many cranial nerves are there?’ asked Harris.
‘Depends who you ask. Galen described seven pairs, and Vesalius had a slightly different seven. Sömmerring established the modern twelve-pair list in 1778, and that’s still the pub trivia answer today.’ Jo turned to her brother. ‘Mack’s mnemonic is a twelve-pair list.’
‘Do you know it?’ asked Murphy.
‘Yes, but I’m not repeating it,’ she said. ‘It’s sexist and puerile.’
Murphy rolled his eyes. ‘So w
hat’s the point of all this, Jo?’
‘The point of looking at the trochlear is that it was Vesalius’s big contribution to the cranial nerves. It was isolated for the first time in the Fabrica, although he called it the “slender posterior root” of the third cranial nerve.’
‘And what does it do?’ asked Nguyễn.
‘It operates the superior oblique muscle. Makes the eyeball look down and in.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yep. It’s exceptionally specialised.’
‘And what did you find?’ Chartier asked.
‘The trochlear was extraordinarily well-dissected, even relative to the very high standard overall.’ Jo turned to Murphy and Janssen. ‘You saw the brachial plexus dissection in the arm, right?’
‘Mack told us it’s the best he’s ever seen,’ said Janssen.
‘He said this was even more impressive. Our killer treated it like a holy relic.’
‘So maybe he’s more into the book itself than anatomy as such,’ suggested Nikolaidis.
‘That’s right, but it gets better,’ continued Jo. ‘The pathologists reckon he first dissected the cranials the way Vesalius described them, very carefully. Then he went back over them and separated them out in the modern arrangement, as twelve separate nerves.’
‘And what do you make of that, Jo?’ asked Chartier.
‘I think it shows he’s primarily interested in the Fabrica, as Angelo says, but he’s also a committed empiricist, which is Vesalius’s overarching project. So after following the Fabrica roadmap, he then completes the dissection with more modern knowledge.’
I guess that’s what Vesalius would do if he were here now,’ mused Janssen.
‘Exactly,’ said Jo. ‘And then our boy went after the thirteenth.’
‘I thought you said there were twelve?’ asked Harris.
‘That’s the standard model, but there’s also the terminal nerve, which has been known in humans for over a century. It’s in position zero, anterior to the other twelve.’
