‘I only found out on my way to the hospital.’
Stevie joined in the conversation. ‘For those few moments in the apartment, before I was attacked, I was absolutely sure Sparrow was our unsub, that he’d been wanking in the cupboard, reliving the Birkby murder.’
‘Wayne told me there was no sign of seminal fluid in the cupboard or on him,’ Monty said. ‘And he’d hardly be capable of hitting himself and you over the head while he was handcuffed. You never caught a glimpse of the guys who attacked you?’
Stevie shook her head and immediately regretted it now that the cushioning effect of the drugs was wearing off. ‘I had my back to the door. I think Sparrow saw them though.’
‘A fat lot of good that is at the moment,’ Monty said.
‘I got a brief look at the documents: some of them looked like copies of police files.’
‘Could they be the pages of Reece Harper’s missing alibi?’ Monty asked. ‘They were indexed in the original notes but I couldn’t find any sign of them.’
‘I don’t know, but whatever they were I’m pretty sure they were only copies. There must have been something important in them. First the files from your flat, Mont, now these. Someone really doesn’t want us to find something.’
Monty seemed to be considering what this could mean when De Vakey said, ‘Your Inspector Baggly seems to think that Sparrow is our Poser killer, that the attack on him and Stevie was merely a crime of opportunity committed by a couple of passing criminals.’
Monty snorted. ‘A couple of passing criminals, my arse. For a start, how would they get into that place? Shimmy five storeys up the outside wall? And I can’t see what a couple of passing criminals would want with a safe full of documents. Nothing else in the apartment was touched. Baggly’s hiding something, I know it. If you ask me it’s more likely to be a couple of passing cops.’
Stevie couldn’t have agreed more. It had to be Keyes and Thrummel—but how to prove it?
De Vakey frowned, looked at his hands and hesitated for a moment before saying, ‘I can see the problems you would have with a man like Baggly.’
He looked as if he was about to say something else. They waited expectantly. When nothing further was added, Monty threw his hands into the air. ‘Funny,’ he said, ‘how this is giving me a strange feeling of déjà vu.’
***
Although he was still unconscious, Sparrow’s condition had stabilised enough for him to be moved from the open ward of the ICU to a single room. Monty gave the police guard a gruff nod, producing the desired withering effect. The young constable made no effort to stop him.
A nurse was punching numbers into a machine attached to the patient by several drip lines. When she saw Monty, she smiled and looked down at the unconscious man.
‘It seems you have another visitor, Mr Sparrow, aren’t you the popular one?’
A toilet flushed. ‘Hey, Inspector.’ Justin Baggly stepped out from the small bathroom, wiping his hands on his jeans, a shy smile on his face.
‘Justin, what the hell are you doing here?’ Monty demanded.
The smile disappeared. ‘Billy at the door said it would be okay. Martin and I are mates. I wanted to see how he was doing.’
‘Well, now you’ve seen. He’s under police guard, that means no non-police visitors, including you,’ Monty said. Justin couldn’t help being Baggly’s son, but right now he didn’t feel up to being polite to any member of the Baggly family.
‘Um, with all due respect, Inspector, neither should you.’
Well, maybe the kid was developing some guts after all. ‘You got me there.’ Monty sighed. ‘Okay, tell me about Martin Sparrow and your deep, meaningful friendship.’
Justin glanced at the young nurse then back to Monty and stammered, ‘I, I wouldn’t exactly say we were good mates but, you know I often go to Central at night to work on my assignments in the library and ... well ... um, we sometimes bump into each other and have a few words. He always wanted to join the police service but was turned down because of his albinism. Apart from his sensitive skin, his eyesight’s really bad. He reckons he’s going blind.’
‘Does he seem bitter about this?’
‘I don’t know. Our conversations have always been pretty superficial.’
‘Then I don’t think you really qualify as a mate, do you? Clear off.’
When the door had closed, the nurse looked at Monty and smiled, not at all intimidated by his brusque treatment of Justin. He squinted at her name badge. ‘Were you here when Justin came in, Ms McCarthy?’ She was a pretty young woman in her early twenties, with an hourglass figure and eyes as soft and green as moss.
‘Yes I was,’ she said, smiling as her gaze drifted from his shoes to the top of his head. He didn’t know whether to be flattered or alarmed by the fact that a girl almost young enough to be his daughter was eyeing him off.
‘He was only here for about ten minutes. Between you and me, I think it was me he’d come to see, not poor Mr Sparrow.’
Monty frowned. ‘You know Justin?’
‘From uni. Sometimes we go out.’
‘He’s your boyfriend?’
‘Well, not exactly.’ The way she stretched out the syllables suggested a relationship that Justin might be working towards but one that she had not yet made her mind up about.
‘I asked him in. The policeman at the door didn’t seem to mind. I hope I haven’t got either of them into trouble.’
That was a good enough explanation for Justin’s presence, Monty supposed, but what was the boy doing in the hospital in the first place? He’d have to get Wayne to make some discreet enquiries.
Monty turned his attention to the reason for his own visit. Martin Sparrow looked like something Mary Shelley might have dreamed up. Like a cocktail onion on a toothpick, his head seemed too large for his skinny neck. Even if he had been conscious, Monty doubted he would have had the strength to lift it from the pillow. No longer pale, his skin was a palette of blues, purples and reds, divided by lines of stitches. Dried blood had spiked his sparse hair into a thorny crown and his thin arms were extended with the palms facing outwards, as if to show stigmata.
The nurse broke into his thoughts. ‘I don’t suppose you could tell me why he dropped out, could you?’
Monty tore his eyes away from the unconscious man. Nurse McCarthy must have seen by his expression that he had no idea what she was talking about. She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh, I think I might have let the cat out of the bag,’ she said with a self-conscious giggle. ‘Justin hasn’t told you about dropping out of uni?’
Nor his father, Monty thought. ‘When was this?’ he asked.
‘A few weeks ago. He failed the psych test for the academy apparently.’
Then the last assignment Justin was working on must have been a sham. Why, he wondered. Too ashamed to tell his father? He stored the question away for further musings and nodded to Sparrow on the bed. ‘Do they have any idea when or if he might wake up?’
‘So far the intra-cranial pressure hasn’t been bad enough to operate. They think the extra fluid might get re-absorbed naturally by the body. Hopefully he’ll be waking up in a couple of days.’
He gave the nurse his card. ‘If his condition changes, please call me.’
On his way out he spoke in a low voice to the constable guarding the door. ‘Don’t let anyone in who isn’t police or family. Not even Justin Baggly.’ He took a few steps down the corridor then backtracked. ‘Especially not Justin Baggly.’
18
The ability of the serial killer to manipulate friends, family and associates must never be underestimated.
De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil
With a strange feeling of liberation, Monty shed his best jeans and button-down shirt, exchanging them for some old clothes he’d not worn since Dot moved from the station.
He pulled himself into the torn, faded Levis and sucked in his stomach, pleased to see he could still do the button up, and even more pleased when
it didn’t pop off when he breathed out. His polo shirt had faded to the same Kimberley red as his hair and the old army jacket could easily have belonged to a man down on his luck. But he shouldn’t have shaved this morning, he thought, as he rubbed his chin and stared into the full-length mirror. It had been a long time since he’d worked undercover and as he turned away from the mirror his heart thrummed in his chest, powered by the adrenaline rush that in the past had always accompanied the thrill of sanctioned deception.
Only this time, the deception wasn’t sanctioned.
He took the Great Eastern Highway out of the city, a right turn and then a left. Soon car dealerships and fancy offices gave way to small leafy holdings fortified with brick walls to muffle the traffic noise. The traffic thinned as the road wound its way into the blue eucalyptus haze he’d so often stared at with longing from the carbon-coated windows of Perth Central.
At last he found himself on the road he wanted. He slowed down so he could read the signs on the gates of the passing properties until he reached Pete and Gloria’s ‘Roses By Any Name’ nursery. Open seven days a week 9 to 5.
He drove through the open gateway and down the gentle gradient of a contoured valley. The road followed the path of a landscaped stream until it passed over a humpback bridge with wooden railings and an artificial pond where orange koi lolled.
Monty parked in the almost deserted car park beyond the pond, inhaling the damp earthy smells as he climbed out of his Land Rover. Above his head a cloud of black cockatoos whirled, squawking out the bushman’s herald of rain. He saw no sign of it in the azure sky, although the clouds looked as though they’d been whipped into frenzied slashes and streaks by a giant egg whisk. A cold wind made the sides of his army jacket flap and bit through the worn fabric of his jeans. He zipped up his jacket, plunged his hands into the pockets and began to explore.
Up ahead was a narrow rammed-earth building and a variety of squeaking advertising signs on frames, one of them saying ‘open.’ The verandah was crowded with terracotta pots and hanging baskets of early-blooming bulbs. A blackboard declaring today’s special of scones, jam and cream was nailed to one side of the front door. The lights were on inside, but Monty decided to try his luck at the nursery first.
Slippery wooden planks divided the strips of rose beds, each spiked with an identifying label. Soon he heard the sound of digging. He followed it, leaving the garden beds behind until he found himself standing among a collection of long tables holding pots of small roses with shivering price tags.
‘Can I help you, mate?’
Monty pivoted, looking for the person behind the voice. His gaze settled on a hole in the ground and the protruding head and shoulders of a man who appeared to be covered with mud.
‘I’ve been looking for the damned solenoid,’ the man in the hole said by way of explanation. ‘The reticulation plan of this place is cactus; it’s just as well we don’t need to water at the moment.’ His tone was friendly enough, but the lines that cut through his muddy face like erosion cracks suggested it wouldn’t take much for him to turn.
‘Um, I’m looking for a rose to take to a friend who’s in hospital. I can’t find any with flowers on ’em.’
The man chuckled and hauled himself out of his hole.
A fit-looking fifty, he was of average height and build, wearing a muddied windcheater, shorts and work boots. With his greying goatee beard and a receding V-shaped hairline, he looked as if he was emerging from the underworld.
‘This is the wrong time of the year to be buying roses in bloom, mate, though we do sell cut flowers in the gift shop. Maybe you should look there.’
Monty ran his tongue around the edge of his lip. ‘Yes, sure, thanks,’ but he didn’t move. His gaze dropped to his trainers. He’d taken the laces out before he’d left home and without socks they were beginning to feel scratchy and uncomfortable.
‘Is there anything else you need, then?’ the man asked.
Monty drew a breath, as if trying to summon up his courage. ‘I need to see a bloke called Peter Sbresni.’
He felt himself being looked up and down. After a beat the man said, ‘You after work, mate?’
Monty shuffled his feet from side to side on the wooden plank. ‘No. It’s personal stuff.’
The man hesitated before wiping his hand on his windcheater and putting it out to Monty. ‘I’m Sbresni. What can I do you for?’
Monty said, ‘My name’s Steven Dunn.’
Sbresni switched his gaze from Monty to a young couple heading towards a shade house. If he recognised the name, he showed no sign of it.
Monty moistened his lips and continued. ‘I’ve been inside, see. Just got out.’
Sbresni turned back to Monty, shrugged and said nothing as he waited for more. A gust of wind blew an empty plastic pot off the table and it turned like a tumbleweed down the path.
‘Lorna’s mum and me haven’t been in touch for years,’ Monty said, pushing the emotion through a crack in his voice. ‘The only thing I know about my little girl’s murder is what I read in the papers and heard on the news. I remember hearing how you was the lead copper on the case.’
‘The second Park Killer victim?’ Sbresni said, as if to himself; then, in a louder voice, ‘I’m sorry for your loss, Mr Dunn.’ His hand dropped to his side in a convincing show of sympathy. ‘But I really don’t think I can help you. You see I’ve been retired for several years. I might be able to give you some names in Central who could help with your queries, although it’s now a closed case. As you probably know, the killer died in a car accident.’
‘Don’t get me wrong, Mr Sbresni, I’m not wanting to ask questions about the investigation, or out to get anyone over it. My daughter’s gone and so’s the prick who killed her. I just want to find some stuff out about my little girl, Lorna, that’s all. See, I never knew her. All I want to do is look up some of her old friends, find out what kind of a person she’d grown up into, what she liked, what she didn’t like. Hell, I don’t even know what her favourite flowers were. If I knew, then I could put them on her grave, couldn’t I?’
Sbresni rubbed his goatee and tried for a gentle tone. ‘It’s been several years now. I’m not sure if I can tell you much that would be of help.’
Monty drew a breath. ‘They said she worked on the streets. Is that true?’
‘I’m afraid so.’ Sbresni paused for a moment. ‘I take it you didn’t know?’
‘Not till I read about the murder. I haven’t seen or heard of Lorna since she was five years old.’ Monty managed a disheartened shrug and fixed his gaze on the horizon. ‘I reckon she had good reason to be where she was, they always do. Maybe she needed the money for uni, an operation or something—there’s all sorts of reasons for a girl to take to the streets, aren’t there? I mean, who’s to judge?’
Sbresni shook his head and clucked his tongue. ‘Why don’t you try her mother? I’m sure she’ll know all the details.’
‘She won’t talk to me. Blames me for everything that went wrong.’
‘I see.’ Sbresni went thoughtful for a moment. Then as if deciding that it could do no harm, he said, ‘She and her friends used to walk the pubs and clubs district of Northbridge. My wife and I went out to a restaurant there the other night. There still seems to be a bunch of girls who walk that same patch. I recognised one who was interviewed over the murder. It surprised me to see a familiar face. Girls don’t tend to last too long in the job, if you know what I’m saying.’
‘Name?’
Sbresni’s eyebrows shot up at the abrupt question. Monty reminded himself this was not a police interview and did some hasty backtracking.
‘A name would be really handy if it’s not too much trouble. Then I’ll let you get back to work. Hell, I’ll help if you like. I know something about reticulation.’
A muscle leaping around in Sbresni’s jaw suggested Monty was beginning to outstay his welcome.
‘Charmaine Carol’s her name, but she goes by the name of
Champagne Charlie. Now, Mr Dunn, I really should be getting back to work. Why don’t you stop off at our tea and gift shop and pick up some long-stemmed roses? I’m sure your sick friend would really appreciate them.’
Inside, Monty was elated. He had a name, something with which to get his investigative ball rolling.
On the outside he twitched Sbresni a grateful smile and murmured some stumbling words of thanks. When he turned to leave he saw a woman with the figure of a butternut pumpkin coming down the planks towards them. In her hand she clutched a steaming mug. ‘I brought you some tea, Peter,’ she called out in a high singsong voice.
That voice.
Sbresni put his hand out for the tea and gave the woman a smile. Her bright eyes darted from Sbresni to Monty, waiting for an introduction. A nervous quiver ran through Monty’s stomach, along with a feeling that he should know this woman. But like an itch that moves out of reach when you try to scratch it, the memory shifted each time he came close to grasping it.
Unfortunately her memory was excellent. When he saw the light of recognition in her face he turned from her and nodded a curt goodbye to Sbresni. With his head down so she couldn’t catch his eye, he sidestepped through the mud to walk around her. Just as he thought he was getting away with it, she called out, ‘I knew it! Inspector McGuire, what a lovely surprise!’
Monty had no choice but to turn. He feigned a look of puzzlement, hoping she might think she was mistaken.
No such luck.
‘Long time no see. How’s everything at Central these days?’
Monty nodded and tried to smile but his cheeks felt as if they were being held down by weights. ‘Fine.’
She looked him up and down, an air of mischief about her. ‘You don’t remember me do you, Inspector?’
Monty glanced at Sbresni. He was standing with his mouth open, his eyes flitting between Monty and his wife. Monty mentally redrew the woman’s face, making it thinner and more careworn, taking about twenty kilos off her chubby frame.
SH01 - An Easeful Death Page 16
