An hour later, after a thorough examination of the boots, I had no doubts. The bootprint we’d found at the crime scene was a faithful reproduction of the left boot of the pair we’d found at Tianna’s place. Again I went over the details, the fine cracks and scrape marks on the rubberised sole and their counterparts pressed into the soil in the photographic enlargements. In court I could say on oath that this print came from the sole of that boot, and I’d demonstrate my certainty with dozens of matching points.
But what really clinched it for me, and was highly likely to do the same for a jury, was what I found in the grooves of the soles of both boots. I dug this out carefully and bagged it. I’d give them to one of the other analysts for comparison with the other samples, and that way we’d have independent findings to present to a court. But I had no doubt at all what the results would be.
Then I cleaned up again, wrote up my findings so far, made a few phone calls—including one to Kevin Waites, confirming today would be suitable to meet at the Ag Station—then called Brian.
I picked up Brian from the station and we dropped round to the address where Damien Henshaw had said he was working. No one was there so we drove to his place and walked through long grass to knock on the door. In my right hand I held a large carry bag. A young woman in jeans and tank-top opened the door and let us in like a lamb, introducing herself as Kylie. I found myself wondering if Damien’s fiancée had a Brazilian.
‘Hey, Damo!’ she yelled as I took in the room. ‘Someone to see you.’
Immediately, I recognised her for a cleanskin; she hadn’t picked up on who we might be, nor Brian’s profession.
A collection of beer cans and liquor bottles were displayed around the old-fashioned picture rail, posters of polished popular singers hung on the wall and cushions were piled around the floor in front of a still warm open fireplace. Several ashtrays, whose contents I felt sure could prove interesting, completed the decor. A small kitchenette was attached, piled with unwashed dishes and pots. A cold breeze came through the louvres that formed its window.
Moments later, Damien walked in, hair sticking up all over his head, tousled from sleep. As soon as he saw us, he was immediately alert and hostile, shooting a look at Kylie, who hovered in the doorway of the hall leading towards the bedrooms before disappearing.
She reappeared a few minutes later with her mobile phone and her gleaming brown hair tied back in black velvet ribbon. ‘Got some shopping to do,’ she said cheerfully and, waving to us all, she left the house.
Damien Henshaw’s wary eyes panned between me and Brian.
‘Dr McCain wants a word with you, Damien,’ said Brian, eyebrows high, manner mild. ‘He’s found something that he thinks you might be able to help him with.’
Although what I was about to do wasn’t strictly by the book, I’d always believed that good drama shouldn’t only happen in the courtroom. On several occasions back in the state police, I’d seen confessions happen after some particularly interesting theatre.
I lifted up the carry bag and put it on a low coffee table, pushing aside several unwashed glasses. Then, drawing out his bagged boots, I said, ‘Damien, these are the work boots we found at Mrs Richardson’s place—your boots, the ones you wanted to pick up when Detective Kruger and I were at Kincaid Street.’
‘Can I have them now?’ His question seemed guileless enough.
‘Unfortunately, no,’ said Brian. ‘Dr McCain will need them for some time yet.’
‘How long?’
I pulled out the photographic impressions of the left sole, which I’d printed off slightly enlarged for better visibility.
‘Damien,’ I said, ‘that’s what the bottom of the left sole of your work boot looks like.’
He knew something bad was in the offing but didn’t know yet how bad. He seemed to diminish, to pull himself back as if waiting behind his defences to see what might happen next.
‘So?’ But his manner was no longer the careless, take-it-or-leave-it of our last encounter.
‘If you look closely, you’ll see where I’ve drawn little white arrows—lots of them—to demonstrate all the areas of abrasion and individual scrape marks.’ I paused, watching his face carefully as I drew out my second photographic impression. ‘And this is the photograph of a footprint—a bootprint rather—that Detective Kruger and I found a couple of metres from the body of Tianna Richardson. In the car park of the Blackspot Nightclub.’
I held them up together.
‘Snap!’ Brian called.
Damien Henshaw’s eyes darted from one photo to the other. ‘But there are thousands of boots like that!’ he said. ‘All my mates wear these work boots. It could be anybody’s bloody boot!’
I shook my head, as if in disappointment. ‘Damien,’ I said, deciding to help him a bit, ‘you don’t get it. There are tens of thousands of this sort of work boot in circulation. But only you have worn these particular boots in a certain way. With this sort of evidence, it’s not the soleprint—as you say, they’re almost identical with thousands of others. I say “almost” because there are always tiny irregularities that show up at high magnification. But as well as those microscopic differences, only you have scraped them on this or that sharp object and left a little mark in just that place.’ I pointed to the first photograph and its enlargement of one small jagged tear on the sole of the boot. ‘Which in turn,’ here I pointed to the second photograph, ‘leaves a perfect negative imprint of itself, just like the stamps your teacher used to give you in kindergarten.’
I paused to let it sink in, then said, ‘Your boot,’ and, pointing from the first photo to the second, ‘your bootprint.’
I watched his face closely, reading puzzlement, then frowning disbelief.
‘Every sole is an individual,’ Brian was saying. ‘It’s like a fingerprint.’
‘You’re lying! You’re just making it up to frighten me!’
‘We don’t have to make anything up, Damien. And neither Detective Kruger nor myself have to lie.’ I tapped on the two photographs. ‘This bootprint is a silent witness. Evidence that cannot lie. That cannot perjure itself.’ Locard had added a caveat after these words, but I didn’t quote it just then. Instead I placed the two photographs down beside the bag on the coffee table.
‘Well?’ Brian asked. ‘You’ve heard what Dr McCain’s just told you. Have you anything to say to us?’
‘What we need to know, Damien, is how come your bootprint got to be there? Just a little distance from the murdered body of a woman you’ve been screwing?’ I added, in a very matter-of-fact tone.
Damien Henshaw had been rendered speechless. I’d seen this a couple of times before and a couple of times it has happened to me. I knew from my own experience in moments of shock how the brain scrambled to make sense of incomprehensible data. But I couldn’t speak for him. This could be the shock of the innocent person when confronted with some appalling accusation. But, equally, he could have been rendered speechless at how we’d tracked him back to his crime. I knew I needed to keep an open mind. Many years ago, when a young detective, I’d confronted a suspect with footprint evidence, telling him we’d found his bootprint outside the victim’s bedroom window. The man had hanged himself in prison that night. A clear admission of guilt, everyone said. I wasn’t so sure. Because I hadn’t yet scrutinised his boots. That case still haunted me and now it was being brought to life again by the similarities with some of the evidence we were building up against Damien Henshaw. Later, when I had examined the hanged man’s boots . . .
I stopped myself in my tracks with that one and swung my attention back to the moment. I looked hard at Damien Henshaw. Right now, was he running through a series of plausible lies? Lies that might get him out of this? Or was he completely devastated by evidence he had no way of disputing? I didn’t know, but I was determined to keep up the pressure.
<
br /> ‘How did you do it, Damien?’ Brian said. ‘And why did you kill her?’
I saw the colour rush back into his face. ‘You can’t do this! Just rock round to my place like this and start accusing me of murdering people!’
‘You haven’t heard the worst of it yet,’ Brian said.
Damien Henshaw’s panic-stricken eyes darted from me to Brian, from the photographs back to us.
‘How is it that in the grooves of those boots,’ I said, tapping the first photograph, ‘I found coarse grey sand particles? How do you explain that the only other place I’ve found that coarse grey sand is deep in the wounds of two murdered people?’
‘Two people?’ he shouted. ‘What are you talking about? You can’t accuse me like this!’
‘We’re not accusing you of murder—yet,’ Brian said. ‘We want to know if you have some sort of explanation. We want to hear your side of things. This is your chance.’ Brian made it sound as if Damien was in the running for some sort of prize.
But Damien, hunched forward, head in his hands, kept slowly shaking his head. ‘I can’t believe this,’ he said, over and over.
‘How come?’ Brian said, keeping the pressure up. ‘How come your bootprint turns up in dust at the Blackspot? And how come Dr McCain finds the same grey sand in your boots that the pathologist found on the bodies of two murder victims?’
‘Two murder victims! What are you talking about? It’s not possible! I wasn’t there! I was at the pub. I told you. You can ask Kylie and the others.’
‘Maybe you were,’ said Brian. ‘But you weren’t there all night. That pub shuts at midnight.’
I was aware of the front door opening and Kylie suddenly arrived back in the room, carrying some groceries. Her smile faded. She didn’t know exactly what was going on, but she knew it wasn’t good.
‘What’s happening?
‘Tell them, Kylie,’ said Damien. ‘Tell them that I was at the pub the night that woman was killed. And then I went to your place.’
Kylie stood frozen. After a few moments she lowered the shopping to the floor and straightened up again, finally taking in the situation.
‘Are you the police?’
Brian flashed his badge. She barely glanced at it.
‘Tell them, Kylie,’ Damien repeated. ‘Tell them how I was with you that night.’
‘Yes!’ she shouted, matching his emotion. ‘He was! He was at the pub with us all and then later he came back to my place—’ Her speech faltered, the aspect of her face subtly altered as she raised her hand then dropped it.
‘Tell them!’ Damien’s voice was desperate.
Brian and I watched as a silent subterranean drama played out between the two young people. ‘He was with me that night,’ she said, repeating Damien’s words in a flat voice. Then she turned and, almost tripping over the bags of groceries, went to the front door. She wrenched it open.
‘Kylie?’ Brian’s voice halted her mid-step. ‘Has Damien told you about Karen Fleiss?’
In the small living room, the atmosphere almost crackled. I shot a look at my colleague. Who the hell was Karen Fleiss and why hadn’t he told me about her?
‘Who?’ asked Kylie, giving words to my own question, looking from her boyfriend to us, then back again. All the while Damien stayed slumped in his seat, slowly shaking his head.
‘Why don’t you tell her, Damien?’ Brian persisted. ‘She’s your girlfriend, sorry, fiancée. She has a right to know what you did. Karen was your girlfriend too, once, wasn’t she?’
‘What are they talking about, Damien?’ Kylie’s voice was a whisper as she went over to her boyfriend. ‘Tell me. Who are they talking about?’ she said, voice rising.
‘I think you should tell her,’ Brian continued, glancing my way.
‘It’s none of your fucking business!’ Damien shouted, agitated. ‘It’s none of anyone’s bloody business. I was acquitted!’
‘Acquitted?’ Kylie was standing in front of him, hands on her hips. ‘What did you do?’
‘I didn’t do anything! This stupid bitch reckoned I’d raped her. The police charged me. I had to go to court. And it was thrown out. That’s all there is.’
‘Seems like Damien’s not going to tell you the whole story. So I will,’ said Brian, looking from Kylie to me and then back to Damien. ‘Some time back, a girl called Karen Fleiss was found wandering naked and hysterical on the roadway near where she lived. She said Damien Henshaw, who was then sixteen, had offered her a drink and smoked some dope with her in a disused house on the building estate where they lived. When he put the hard word on her, she said no. She was fifteen. He raped her.’
‘She said!’ Damien yelled. ‘It wasn’t rape. She was too scared to go home when it got late. She said her father would belt her. So she made up this fucking lie about some rape or something.’
‘Did you do it, Damien?’ Kylie said. ‘Did you rape that girl?’
‘I swear, Kyles, I didn’t. She came with me. She wanted it.’
‘He used her bra to tie her hands up,’ said Brian. ‘She tried to get away and he tackled her down. She was bruised all over.’
‘She liked it rough! She said so! I was only giving her what she wanted!’
Kylie’s face was stricken. But we had a job to do.
‘Like Tianna Richardson wanted?’ I said, remembering the rumour. ‘Except you got too rough?’
‘Jesus, Damien,’ said Kylie. ‘Is that why they’re here? Because they think you’ve got something to do with that woman’s murder?’ She swung on me. ‘What’s Damien got to do with that woman’s murder? He doesn’t even know her!’
No one said a word.
‘Do you, Damien? You don’t even know her! Why don’t you tell them?’
The silence lengthened.
‘Why don’t you say something? You didn’t know that woman. Tell them you didn’t know her!’
‘I knew her,’ Damien said, his voice almost a whisper.
For what seemed one long moment, Kylie stood, planted in front of him. I saw the struggle she had to keep her emotions from bursting out. Then, ignoring the pile of groceries on the floor, she went to the front door again.
‘Get a lawyer, Damo,’ she said from the open doorway, then slammed the door behind her.
Brian placed a restraining hand on Damien’s arm as the young man struggled to get to his feet. ‘I think we’d better do this properly at the police station, Damien.’
‘I’ve already told you—I don’t know anything about her murder,’ said Damien, but the fight had gone out of him.
Brian snapped his notebook together and gathered up his things, readying to leave. I was heading for the door when a strange sound made me look back. Damien was crying.
‘It’s not what you think,’ he said. ‘There’s something I haven’t told you.’
Nineteen
I jumped into my wagon, watching Brian and Damien disappear in the squad car Brian had called for. I sat there a while, unable to get Kylie’s stricken face out of my mind. I knew it could take the ground from under your feet when you learned something huge and shattering about the person you thought you knew better than anyone in the world. I remembered how I’d felt when I’d first found out about Genevieve’s lover.
It was looking bad for Damien Henshaw. And I was extremely curious about how the death of Albert Vaughan fitted into this. Why had Damien killed him too? Maybe he hadn’t, and the appearance of the coarse sandy particles in Albert Vaughan’s injuries were some sort of freakish synchronicity.
I was about to follow Brian down to the station to see if I could listen in on the interview when my mobile rang. It was Dallas Baxter, huffing and puffing.
‘Kevin Waites is here, saying that you organised to see him today. I wish you’d thought to include me in your gener
ous invitation.’
‘That goes without saying,’ I said, realising I’d forgotten to clear it with the boss of the Ag Station when I’d organised my meeting with Kevin earlier that morning. ‘I’m on my way.’
I sneezed and cursed. My cold was freshening again. As I opened the glove box to fish out a tissue, I noticed the keys from Peter Yu’s carton on their red and white plait. I slipped them in my pocket and blew my nose. My head felt heavy and a dull ache behind my eyes reminded me of how unpleasant head colds are.
I walked through the main entrance doors of the Ag Station just in time to see Kevin Waites disappearing into Dallas Baxter’s office. I hoped Dallas would do the right thing and give the man his job back. Too many jobs in modern Australia offered little or nothing in the way of security, despite the fall in unemployment levels, and a cleaning job in a government department was better than a lot of other jobs. Pauline was just visible through the open door in the office beyond the reception counter, wearing a tight skirt and a blouse with frills. I filled in the visitors book and took my appointed number as Pauline clicked over in her high heels to usher me in.
‘The lab book from Dr Dimitriou’s lab,’ I asked. ‘Can you think of anywhere it might be?’
‘By rights, it shouldn’t really leave the laboratory, but it might be at her place,’ Pauline said. ‘I can’t believe all the dreadful things that have been happening. This used to be such a nice place to work.’
‘Tell me, Pauline, do you have any ideas of your own as to what might have happened in the Terminator Rabbit laboratory on Monday?’
Pauline cocked her head to one side, considering. ‘I think someone came in from outside and killed Claire and somehow took Peter away. I just can’t believe that he’d do anything to harm her. He thought so much of her. He told me once how much he admired her.’
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