Dirty Weekend

by Gabrielle Lord

  Gabrielle Lord is widely acknowledged as one of Australia’s foremost writers. Her popular psychological thrillers are informed by a detailed knowledge of forensic procedures, combined with an unrivalled gift for story-telling. She is the author of twelve novels—Death Delights, Bones, Tooth and Claw, Salt, Jumbo, The Sharp End, Feeding the Demons, Whipping Boy, Fortress, Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing, Lethal Factor and most recently, Spiking the Girl. Her stories and articles have appeared widely in the national press and been published in anthologies. Winner of the 2002 Ned Kelly award for best crime novel Death Delights and joint winner of the 2003 Davitt crime fiction prize for Baby Did a Bad Bad Thing, Gabrielle has also written for film and TV and is currently completing her next novel. She lives in Sydney.

  Other Jack McCain novels

  Death Delights

  Lethal Factor

  Dirty Weekend

  Gabrielle Lord

  Published in Australia and New Zealand in 2005

  by Hodder Australia

  (An imprint of Hachette Australia Pty Limited)

  Level 17, 207 Kent Street, Sydney NSW 2000

  Website: www.hachette.com.au

  Copyright © Gabrielle Lord 2005

  This book is copyright. Apart from any fair dealing

  for the purposes of private study, research, criticism

  or review permitted under the Copyright Act 1968,

  no part may be stored or reproduced by any process

  without prior written permission. Enquiries should

  be made to the publisher.

  National Library of Australia

  Cataloguing-in-Publication data

  Lord, Gabrielle, 1946- .

  Dirty weekend : a Jack McCain thriller.

  ISBN 978 0 7336 2100 0.

  ISBN 978 0 7336 2556 5 (ebook edition).

  1. Forensic scientists - Fiction. 2. Murder -

  Investigation - Fiction. I. Title.

  A823.3

  Cover design by Ellie Exarchos

  Cover photograph by Getty Images

  eBook by Bookhouse, Sydney

  To Ettie

  One

  I swung into the lane behind the Blackspot Nightclub, feeling almost nostalgic at the sight of crime scene tape sealing off the parking area and sections of the vacant land around it. As acting chief scientist of the Criminalistics section of the Australian Federal Police, it wasn’t the usual thing for me to be attending a crime scene. Normally, I was taken up with more routine analyses and administration. But here I was, stuffed up with a bad head cold, attending a crime scene just as in the old days when I’d been a crime scene examiner with the New South Wales police.

  Another fit of coughing interrupted my revery and I asked myself again why in hell I’d let the likes of bloody Earl Richardson talk me into getting up at sparrow fart on a frosty Canberra morning, leaving the warmth of the cottage and my bed, so much warmer these days for the presence of the woman who slept beside me. I’d planned to take a few days off work so as to spend some time with her but, instead of that, not only was I back on the job, but I was also feeling bad about disappointing Iona—and that seemed to be happening a lot lately.

  On the western side of the charcoal-grey exterior of the nightclub, I was waved down by a uniformed officer I didn’t recognise. Handing over my ID, I looked up at the running lights spelling the club’s name, now pallid in the dawn. Over the years, this building had undergone several transformations and name changes but I’d never visited it in any of its guises. Then again, I could say that about most clubs in the area. Since putting down the booze twelve years ago, I found I had little interest in places like nightclubs. I’d never liked them much even when I was a drinking man. Unless you were pissed, the noise was atrocious, the prices criminal and they didn’t do a decent cup of tea.

  The uniform logged my details and passed back my ID.

  ‘Thanks, Dr McCain.’

  I was right about not recognising him. No one who knew me ever called me by my honorific. He stepped back and waved me past the club, with its side wall plastered with layers of peeling posters of visiting rock bands, a hypnotist and an American evangelist.

  I pulled up beside Harry Marshall’s Riley, still angry with myself, yanking the handbrake harder than I’d intended. I didn’t even like Earl Richardson—never had—he’d always been completely up himself in the days when we’d been colleagues in the New South Wales police; he was the sort of man who’d always got on my nerves with his pushiness and arrogance. I recalled the last time I’d talked to him, years ago, how we’d ended up blueing, and how he’d stormed off, me yelling after him. Not long after that, I heard he’d left the job, moved to Canberra and started his own security business. I’d never bothered to look him up and heard that he’d moved to Sydney last year.

  My first instinct that morning, when I finally realised who was behind the hysterical voice, was to flick him off, fast, and right now I was wishing I’d done just that.

  ‘Please, Jack,’ he’d said, as I’d gathered myself, lurching awake, blinking and trying to clear my head, the luminescent green figures on the bedside clock showing 5.15. I hadn’t been on call for years, but I still sprang awake, heart racing, at the first sound of the phone and it had taken me a moment to register the speaker. Red-eyed and still dopey with flu tablets, I tried to focus on what Richardson was saying.

  ‘You’ve got to go out there! Tianna and me—just lately, I thought there was a real chance for us to get back together . . . Now I’m just the estranged husband and you know what the Homicide guys are going to think!’

  ‘Calm down,’ I’d said. ‘Just slow down and tell me again what’s going on.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Jack. I can’t believe this is happening! Some female detective from Sydney crime scene has just left with my DNA in her kit! You’ve got to go out there and check it out.’

  ‘Go where? Check what out?’ I paused. ‘Slow down and start from the beginning.’

  I heard him take a deep breath. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘I was woken up not long ago by a couple of youngsters in uniform.’ His voice faltered before he continued. ‘They said Tianna’s been found dead in a car park somewhere down there—in Canberra.’

  I stayed silent, thinking, as he paused to collect himself.

  ‘Jack,’ he whispered. ‘Just when I was trying to reconcile with her—she’s been murdered.’

  That really took me aback. The few times I’d met Tianna—at conferences attended by both New South Wales police and Australian Federal Officers, or agents as they now term themselves—I’d warmed to the well-endowed brunette with a ready smile and a penchant for low-cut singlet tops.

  ‘What happened?’ I asked, then kicked myself for not sounding more compassionate.

  ‘I don’t know! That’s why I want you to go out there and check things out. She was just left lying in the car park of some nightclub.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ His voice broke completely then.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Earl,’ I said, and waited until he composed himself.

  ‘Then this kid from the forensic unit wanted a buccal scrape from me!’

  ‘You know it’s standard practice to get a DNA sample,’ I said, trying to calm him down. ‘It’s for elimination purposes too.’

  ‘Yeah, so they said. But you know what that means. They’ll be matching it against crime scene samples. Shit! I was only down there a week ago, trying to sort things out with her. And she was listening to me. My DNA is all through the bloody house. Please don’t let them draw the wrong conclusions!’ His distress was distorting his voice, mak
ing it hard for me to hear him.

  ‘There’s a big difference in the deposition of historical DNA compared with the amount deposited on the body during violent physical contact. Scientists can read the difference; that’s our job. Surely you realise that,’ I said, though I wasn’t as confident as I sounded. This sort of case could make things very hard for investigators, unless there has been a violent struggle with the offender shedding a lot. But despite my feelings about Earl Richardson, his plight had touched me. How would I feel, I asked myself, if the cops had come knocking on my door with the same news about Genevieve? Wouldn’t I be shit-scared too?

  ‘I’ve been to hell and back over the last couple of years,’ Earl was saying. ‘I just don’t think I can take any more stress. Just when I thought we might make it . . . You’ve gotta make sure things are done right. I was here alone! I’ve got no alibi! You’ve got to help me!’

  ‘Earl, there are very competent crime scene crews here in Canberra. Besides, it’s just not part of my brief. I’m a bench analyst in a lab. Not a crime scene examiner.’

  ‘You tell him, Jack,’ Iona whispered, snuggling up to me. ‘Don’t you dare go out at this hour!’

  I kissed the top of her head, glancing at my watch as I pulled her closer. It wasn’t even five thirty.

  ‘I know the best people here, I’ll talk to them and—’

  ‘Please, Jack,’ he cut in. ‘I’m begging you. I remember what they used to say about you in Sydney. You were the best.’

  And that’s when I knew the man was really desperate. No way in the world would someone like Earl Richardson say something like that about me, about anyone.

  ‘Look,’ I said reluctantly, ‘I’ll go out there and check it out but I’m not promising anything.’

  ‘God bless you, Jack.’

  ‘You must be despairing,’ I said, ‘God blessing me like that.’

  He sounded hurt. ‘I’m a Catholic now, Jack,’ he said. ‘In fact, I’m a daily communicant.’

  God preserve me from converts.

  ‘You were my second call, after Father Basil. I need your prayers, Jack.’

  ‘Give me a break,’ I muttered, as I put the phone down. I’d forgotten what a daily communicant was.

  ‘Jack, you’re not going?’ Iona rolled closer to me, a warm hand on my bare shoulder, and I cursed Earl Richardson afresh.

  ‘I won’t be away long,’ I said. ‘Promise.’

  She sat up in bed, pulling the doona close, watching me as I dressed in the dark, finally tucking my shirt in and clipping my Black Commandos bikies’ buckle on the belt to my denim jeans. A skull with a dagger through the eye socket over the Harley insignia, it had been given to me by my son Greg last Christmas and was a sure-fire conversation starter.

  ‘Who was it?’ Iona leaned over and switched on the bedside lamp.

  I groped around for a jumper, feeling the autumnal chill in the air.

  ‘You look real good in my bed,’ I said, admiring her tousled early morning languor, her skin warmly pale in the lamplight. ‘I’d like to paint you stretched over like that. I’d call it Iona, early Canberra morning.’

  But she wasn’t playing. ‘Who was it?’ she repeated.

  ‘A bloke I used to work with in the police,’ I said, still trying to recall what Earl Richardson and I had argued about that last day I saw him.

  ‘Jack, you have to start saying no to people like him. You’re not supposed to be on call like this.’

  I watched a frown darkening her fine brows and shadowed eyes and I saw her go to say something, then change her mind.

  Before we’d moved in together, we’d laid our cards on the table—we were grown-ups, we each had strong, independent lives, and now we were living what Charlie sometimes referred to as ‘the Great Experiment’, a relationship of equals built on mutual respect, honesty and self-awareness. Well, that was the theory at least. The reality was that I was in love with this woman—a true equal in every way—and I hadn’t felt such powerful feelings since I’d been a young man. Sometimes it scared me stiff.

  ‘Sweetheart, you know how busy I’ve been. You know we’re understaffed. You know what my workload is like,’ I said, sitting on the edge of the bed, taking her hand.

  She didn’t pull away but she didn’t respond either. ‘But we’d made plans for today,’ she said, disappointment shadowing her eyes. ‘To have the picnic we were supposed to have last week except you had to go haring off somewhere else instead.’

  ‘I’ll be back in plenty of time for lunch,’ I said, glancing at my watch. ‘Why don’t you go out there whenever you want and I’ll join you later in the day.’

  We had a favourite spot not far from here, where the river curved around the roots of a huge willow tree whose green shade covered a perfect spot for rugs and cushions, books, magazines, cold chicken and salad and Iona’s chilled crème caramels. So far, I think we’d managed to get out there once since Iona came to live with me.

  ‘Last time you said that, you were away until dark,’ she said, climbing out of bed, pushing hair away from her face, throwing her dressing-gown around her so that her strong body and her breasts with the terrible scar above them were hidden.

  ‘You’re beautiful,’ I said, unable to take my eyes off her. I never tired of watching her.

  ‘You’re impossible.’

  ‘It’s cold. Get back into bed and I’ll bring you a cup of coffee before I go,’ I said.

  But she didn’t stop so I followed her down the hall and through the living room, still warm from last night’s open fire, and into the kitchen. On the way, I crouched down in front of the fireplace and kick-started the fire with kindling, stirring the glowing coals, enjoying the scent of eucalypt and the snap and crackle as the bits of bark and twigs flamed up.

  Because of my job in Canberra, I’d taken over a colleague’s weekender, situated about nine kilometres out of town along the Woden Road. Very much a work in progress, the old-fashioned cottage had some modern areas—like the flash new kitchen, which delighted my brother—but the bathroom was still pretty dismal, with an old iron tub and ancient toilet with a noisy overhead cistern. Despite a bad leak in the ceiling, which I’d been meaning to fix for months during this dry spell, the lounge room was very comfortable and as there hadn’t been any rain for ages, we hadn’t been troubled by drips. Already, the cottage was reflecting the woman who now graced it. Like me, Iona was an amateur painter and her Blue Monkey a strange work that had once hung on the staircase of her Annandale house, now hung on our lounge room wall. She’d brought cushions and woollen rugs to throw over the old club lounge and chairs and she always managed to find something in the garden so that the rooms were brightened with fresh flowers. Often, I’d catch myself looking round with a silly smile, noting the beauty she’d brought into my life and, even now, after six months together, I still couldn’t quite believe it. Iona was a woman full of grace and I swore to myself I’d make time for her—somehow.

  After toast and coffee, I pulled on my old leather jacket and prepared to leave, checking that I had everything I needed packed in the back of my wagon, my breath steaming in the early morning chill, my footsteps crunching through one of the first frosts. Even the birds weren’t saying too much just yet.

  When I came back inside, Iona was already dressed and sitting near the fire, her long legs in brown corduroy slacks and my favourite soft fawn jumper with the sleeves rolled back, marking her students’ music theory books. She’d dusted off her Australian Music Examination Board qualifications to teach keyboard practice and theory and walked into a full term’s teaching at a leading girls’ college in Braddon while the permanent teacher was off on maternity leave.

  ‘You look like you mean business,’ I said.

  ‘I do, Jack,’ she said, looking up at me with her deep-set eyes, putting her pen down. ‘We really
need to talk about this.’

  Whenever a woman said that, I got worried.

  ‘We seem to be having this conversation too often lately,’ said Iona, frowning. ‘What do I have to do to convince you that if you want a relationship with me—with anyone—you have to put time into it? It’s important to spend time with the person.’ She pointed at me. ‘You, me, together. Doing things. Talking, laughing. Making love. Time to let ideas and thoughts arise and be discussed. Above all, letting me in to you. Not shutting me out.’

  ‘I don’t shut you out,’ I said.

  ‘You do,’ she countered. ‘You’re always in a hurry. Our relating has become—well—superficial over the last few months.’

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, coming over and kissing her. ‘I have been hard to catch lately. Always running from one thing to the next.’

  ‘Jacinta rang me yesterday because she couldn’t even reach you on the mobile,’ she said.

  ‘Did she say what she wanted?’ I asked. My daughter would sometimes ring to grizzle when her boyfriend Andy was being—according to her—‘a total dickhead’.

  ‘That’s not the point I’m trying to make,’ she said.

  ‘We’ve had all that extra work—lots of people away,’ I said, trying to explain. ‘Samples from the Indonesian police. I’ve had to pitch in with everyone else and manage the administration side of it as well. If I didn’t switch the mobile off occasionally, I’d never get anything done—and with some assays, it’s critical to work without interruption.’

  I could see she wasn’t convinced.

  ‘What did Jacinta want?’ I repeated after a pause.

  ‘She’s worried about Shaz. Said she turned up to yesterday’s lectures with a black eye.’

  One of Jacinta’s friends from rehab days was involved with a violent man and Jacinta had spoken to me already of her concern.

  In the firelight, I could see the love and concern in Iona’s eyes and I put my arms around her. I didn’t want to stuff up with this woman. My life span was reducing every day; I didn’t want to go to my grave without experiencing real love and, with Iona, this was possible. It had taken both of us so long to find the other and I’d lived long enough to know that a woman like her was a rare gem. We were financially independent of each other and had no small children, so the usual grounds for conflict were not in place. Neither of us viewed the other as a means to an end, nor wished to derive any benefit from the other apart from mutual happiness and growth. My marriage—ill-judged and hormone-driven—had quite quickly turned into a war zone and I was determined to do things differently this time, and was very hopeful that I could.