Assassin

by Tara Moss

  Makedde pushed the branches back with her boots and leaned in close. She considered it a mercy when she placed the tip of Luther’s gun in the centre of the man’s forehead and pulled the trigger.

  CHAPTER 9

  Though it was after six, the Sydney humidity had not eased off. It was hotter than usual for the time of year. The afternoon sun had heated up the streets of Surry Hills like a greenhouse, caught within a white veil of cloud, and it held even now, as the shadows grew longer.

  Agent Andy Flynn stood in the courtyard area of one of Victoria’s next-door neighbours, feeling weary, a line of sweat snaking down from his temple.

  ‘So you didn’t hear anything unusual on Wednesday evening?’ Detective Karen Mahoney pressed.

  Mahoney was grilling the professional couple who rented the place. The terrace was fashionable inside, even if the exterior was run-down, which was typical for much of the area. They’d been living there for six years and seemed genuinely disturbed by the fate of their neighbour, who they hadn’t known particularly well. Their upper rear windows looked sideways onto Victoria’s courtyard, but the scene of her murder was not visible from their home. And here, in the courtyard, the walls were too high to see over into Victoria’s space.

  Andy wanted to move on.

  ‘No. I mean, I often have the music going when I get home from work,’ the man named Blake was saying.

  ‘Or the TV. We might have been watching TV,’ his partner, Stephen, piped up. The two men held hands, distressed.

  ‘Do you recall what you were doing between five and nine?’ That was when the sister had found her.

  The older of the two, Stephen, screwed up his face. ‘Wednesday right? I think I was working a bit late. I got home around seven, maybe a little later? Then we ate some takeaway and watched Drive.’

  ‘With Ryan Gosling?’ Mahoney said.

  They nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘It was a DVD,’ Stephen said. ‘We had no idea what was happening next door. No idea.’

  It was far too early to know what information might prove crucial to the investigation, but Flynn felt eager to get moving. The day was wasting, and now that it was getting late, surely some of the residents they’d missed earlier would be returning home. There was one house in particular he was keen to get to.

  ‘Be sure to tell us if you remember anything else,’ Mahoney said and handed over her card.

  They were led to the front door and when they stepped out into the street, they found someone waiting.

  ‘Detective Flynn.’

  Pat Goodacre. You are kidding me.

  ‘Who is …?’ Harrison muttered.

  ‘Media. Don’t say anything,’ Andy warned.

  Pat Goodacre had been on his case since the Stiletto Murders. She’d got quite a few column inches out of that horror. It was years later, but she looked the same — wielding her tape recorder and flashing her pearly whites. She was too bloody good at her job. He wondered who’d tipped her off.

  ‘Detective Flynn —’

  ‘There is no Detective Flynn here,’ he said with satisfying sarcasm.

  She paused and cocked her head. ‘Federal Agent Flynn. Sorry. So, what do we have here?’

  ‘Nothing for you, Pat.’

  ‘I doubt that very much. You know what I say: the story is wherever you are. You are where the story is. And now that you are federal, well, that makes this very interesting.’

  It was not always good for information like that to get out. For the public — the killer in particular — to know who was watching. A profiler. Federal interest.

  ‘How do you hope to catch Victoria Hempsey’s killer?’ she asked.

  Voodoo, he wanted to say. I’ll get him with voodoo. If he heard that word one more time in relation to his line of work, he would go mad.

  ‘Is it true that the boyfriend is a person of interest?’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t answer your questions, Pat. You know I’d love to,’ he lied. Andy placed his hands in his pockets and put on his best professional face. He had to be careful with Goodacre, he reminded himself. Bad press for him was bad press for the SVCP unit. He couldn’t afford that. ‘We should get back to —’

  ‘Do the police have reason to believe a serial killer is at work …?’

  He didn’t answer, and she tried a different tack. ‘Do you know the whereabouts of your girlfriend, Makedde Vanderwall? Is she presumed dead?’

  Mak. Dead.

  That fragile thing squirmed in his chest.

  ‘She’s not my —’ He caught himself. The blood was pumping so hard in his ears he thought he’d go deaf. Mak. He took a breath. ‘I have nothing for you. Sorry. If you want something, you’ll have to try the media unit.’

  Andy turned and strode away from the journalist while she continued to pummel him with questions he would not answer. Harrison kept quiet and followed him while Mahoney reiterated that Goodacre needed to see the media unit for any information.

  Who the hell tipped her off?

  On narrow Davoren Lane the still air felt stifling. Having thrown Goodacre off, Andy stepped up to the door of the fourth house the three of them had visited in this twisting Surry Hills back street. His suit jacket was slung over one arm. He swallowed.

  ‘You okay?’ Harrison asked him quietly. He only nodded.

  Before them was a small, plain semi, the brickwork painted cream and peeling in places. Weeds crept up the step.

  Mahoney arrived without a word, not mentioning the exchange with Goodacre. The questions about Mak would have rattled her, too. For a moment the three of them stood and looked at each other wordlessly, sensing this was the stop they’d been building up to — the home directly behind that of the murder victim, Victoria Hempsey.

  Mahoney knocked.

  They waited, listening to the inner-city soundtrack. At the end of the lane they could see the long-weekend traffic crawling past on nearby Albion Street, where crowds of pedestrians slunk past in low-rise jeans and spiky hair, holding vintage handbags and takeaway coffees. Next door, where they had interviewed a couple for nearly an hour earlier in the day, someone shut a window on the unseasonable heat and pulled the blinds closed.

  There was movement inside the small semi and after several long minutes a man opened the door. He was pale and thin, dressed in denim jeans and a tatty T-shirt with a logo too worn to read. He wore a red baseball cap low over his eyes. Though it was already late afternoon, he looked as if he had been sleeping.

  ‘Officers Mahoney, Flynn and Harrison.’ They flashed their IDs. ‘You live here?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Mr John Dayle?’

  Beneath the red cap, the eyes went from face to face, taking them in. ‘Uh, that’s me,’ he said.

  ‘We’re just canvassing the area and we were wondering if we could ask you some questions about Victoria Hempsey. She lived behind you,’ Detective Karen Mahoney said.

  The thin man scratched his nose and nodded his consent. ‘I saw you today, coming round to the neighbours.’ He nodded again. ‘So, do the cops have anything? Any leads?’

  Andy watched him.

  ‘I’m afraid we can’t tell you that, but rest assured we are doing our best,’ Mahoney said smoothly and gave him a pleasant, closed-mouth smile.

  ‘That’s good. I mean, she was a nice lady. Not that I knew her really, but she seemed nice,’ he said and pulled the edge of his baseball cap. He was nervous, Andy thought, but so were the other neighbours they’d spoken to. No one liked talking about murder. Not when it was so close to home.

  ‘May we come in?’ Andy asked.

  ‘Um, sure, yeah.’ The man lifted his cap on one side and scratched his head underneath.

  They stepped inside and Andy closed the door behind them, not quite letting the latch shut all the way. He instinctively slid his hand over his Glock, unclipping the holster. The blinds were closed in the dimly lit, narrow house. The air felt damp. Dishes were piled haphazardly in the sink. Light glo
wed in the kitchen, and from a bare bulb hanging over the steep staircase, which they climbed in single file. Discarded clothes were strewn about the lounge/office setup at the top of the stairs. There was a couch along one wall and a computer desk in a corner, heaped with opened mail and magazines, and a bowl of half-eaten cereal.

  ‘The cops were here yesterday, asking questions,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry to bother you again. We do need to speak to all the neighbours as a matter of routine,’ Harrison said.

  It wasn’t routine. Mahoney had taken them through the notes from the first round of interviews. There was nothing out of the ordinary. But Andy wanted to eyeball the neighbours. Especially the one in this house.

  ‘I’m just getting ready for work,’ Dayle explained.

  ‘This won’t take long.’

  ‘How well did you know Victoria Hempsey?’ Andy asked, feeling a creeping tension. He found himself standing on alert, listening for every sound, watching for every movement.

  Dayle shook his head in response. ‘Uh, I didn’t know her at all really, like I told the cops yesterday.’

  ‘But she seemed nice?’ Harrison pressed.

  ‘Yeah, I mean, from the look of her. She wasn’t, uh, loud or anything.’

  ‘You never met?’

  He hesitated. ‘Nah, I don’t think so. I was aware of her, ’course.’

  ‘Did you see or hear anything out of the ordinary on Wednesday evening?’ Andy asked him. ‘Any sounds? Shouting? Any unusual activity?’

  ‘Uh, the police spoke to me already about that. Like I said before, I’ve been working a lot. And when I’m not working I’m sleeping. I take pills so I sleep heavy. So yeah, I didn’t see or hear nothing unusual. Sorry I can’t be of more help.’ Dayle took a couple of steps backwards and looked around, his eyes searching for something.

  ‘You suffer from insomnia?’

  ‘Yeah, sometimes. They gave me pills for it.’

  Andy nodded to Harrison, giving her a significant look, and she picked up the conversation, asking Dayle about his work while Andy walked to the window by his cluttered computer desk and pulled the blinds up. The semi was positioned directly behind Victoria Hempsey’s terrace. From the window Andy could see right down into the courtyard where they’d stood earlier, and into the glass window and about a third of the living area beyond: the floorboards where Victoria had been slaughtered.

  You staged her.

  For yourself.

  So you could see her there.

  He dropped the blinds and turned. ‘Been here long?’ Andy asked when Dayle had finished responding to Harrison’s general questions, which he’d answered with almost exactly the same phrases he’d given the officers who’d first interviewed him the day before.

  ‘Uh, four years or so,’ he answered.

  ‘Do you like it? Nice neighbourhood?’ Harrison said, working to take the increasing tension out of the room.

  Dayle nodded, seeming to relax a touch. ‘Yeah. I like it here.’

  ‘We’ve heard reports of a vagrant with a long beard who might have been hanging around Ms Hempsey’s home in the week or so before her murder. Did you see anyone like that, Mr Dayle?’ Andy asked.

  Dayle paused and then nodded. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I seen someone like that.’ He brought a finger to his chin.

  ‘With a blue jacket? That zips up?’ Andy asked, motioning to an imaginary zipper at his neck.

  Dayle nodded again. ‘Exactly. That’s it. I remember him. He was hanging around a bit. Looked kind of suspicious.’

  ‘Do you remember anything else about the man?’ Detective Mahoney piped in. ‘Anything at all? Any detail could be important.’

  Dayle crossed his arms and looked down. ‘No. No, that’s all I remember — he had a beard and a blue jacket. I didn’t think anything of it until … you know. I mean, now you mention it, maybe I should have called it in?’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Dayle, you’ve been very helpful,’ Andy said. ‘We won’t take any more of your time. Do let us know if you see the man in the blue jacket again, day or night. We’re very keen to speak to him.’ They all trooped back down the stairs and Andy took a few steps towards the front door. ‘Do you know if your neighbour might be in? We’re trying to speak to everyone we can.’

  ‘Uh, I don’t really know them. A Chinese couple, I think. They might be in.’ He shrugged.

  Harrison closed her notepad, clearly realising that Andy had what he wanted. If she was keen to ask more questions, she didn’t let on.

  ‘Thanks again for your time,’ Mahoney said. ‘If you think of anything else, please don’t hesitate to call.’ She followed Andy and Harrison to the front door and they stepped outside. Dayle closed the door behind them and they walked up the lane, not looking back. They didn’t speak until they reached Andy’s car, parked on Foveaux Street.

  ‘The guy in the blue jacket was bullshit. You wanted us out of there,’ Mahoney said, standing on the footpath outside his Honda.

  Andy nodded.

  ‘You figure it’s him, don’t you?’ she said.

  Andy nodded again and leaned against his car, jaw tight. He got out his phone and called Inspector Kelley.

  ‘It’s Flynn. I want to know everything about John Dayle.’

  CHAPTER 10

  ‘John Allan Dayle, thirty-three years old.’

  Detective Inspector Kelley pushed a driver’s licence image across the table towards Agents Flynn and Harrison. HQ was quiet, most of the officers having left to enjoy what little was left of Good Friday. But Kelley had not budged. There was no rest for the wicked, or those who sought to catch them.

  Andy looked at the image. It was the man they’d met — Victoria Hempsey’s neighbour. ‘He works as a dish pig at one of the restaurants in Surry Hills,’ he said, looking at the face, the eyes, and remembering the feeling he’d had in the narrow house. ‘His place is directly behind Victoria Hempsey’s terrace. He said he’s been living there for four years.’

  ‘You think they crossed paths,’ Kelley said.

  ‘I think he could see everything Victoria Hempsey did,’ Andy replied. ‘His windows look right into hers. And her courtyard.’

  Kelley nodded and drummed his fingers on the desk top, thinking. He took a breath. ‘Deller remembers him.’

  Andy sat forwards. This was getting interesting.

  ‘I caught him on the phone after you called,’ Kelley explained. ‘Three years ago he interviewed a John Dayle about the Graney rape. Same guy. He was the key suspect.’

  Dana’s eyes widened. Andy nodded for his old boss to continue.

  ‘He had been working as a kitchen hand that evening, and was later spotted at a bar, the White Cockatoo, the same bar where Graney was drinking.’

  Andy knew the one. It was one of the few pubs along the popular Crown Street strip that hadn’t been revamped in recent years. And it was close to Hempsey’s terrace. ‘Did the victim give a description? Could she ID him?’

  ‘She described a thin, Caucasian male in his late twenties or early thirties as the man who attacked her.’

  ‘Dayle fits that description,’ Dana noted. So did half of Surry Hills, but the coincidence of his being interviewed for the earlier rape was too much to dismiss.

  ‘The guy claimed he hadn’t noticed Graney at the bar, despite the fact that they were there at the same time. He said that he went home solo after having a beer. He was living alone at the time and there were no witnesses to corroborate his story.’ Kelley sat back in his chair and folded his arms. ‘This is where we have a problem …’ he said. ‘Dayle agreed to a line-up. Graney picked someone different, a filler, so he was released.’

  Identity parades could be key in breaking cases, and quite accurate if correct procedures were followed, but still, victims of violent attacks were sometimes too traumatised to make good eyewitnesses, particularly if the attack took place at night. The reliability of eyewitness testimony had been the subject of Mak’s PhD thesis, Andy recalled suddenly, and he f
elt his throat tighten.

  ‘The next day, Graney thought she’d made a mistake, but by then it was too late,’ Kelley went on. ‘Obviously the credibility of any subsequent ID she made would get shot down in court. And Dayle had a good alibi for the attack on Kim Plotsky. A friend from overseas — a Pom, I think — said he’d spent the night with him in his flat, on the couch. Said he couldn’t have left without him knowing. You’ll find the statement is in the file. When the DNA came up as a match between the two rape cases, and he had a strong alibi, that was it. He was cleared as a suspect. End of story. Deller will be able to tell you more.’

  Friends can lie. And friends from overseas quickly become hard to track down, Andy thought. If Dayle was guilty and he was cleared of two violent rapes because of a flawed alibi and a failed identity parade, it was James Reason’s ‘Swiss cheese’ model of error gone wrong. Human systems — in this case, investigative processes — were like Swiss cheese, with the holes in the cheese representing potential flaws. More than one layer is often enough to catch the error — a perp falls through one hole but is caught with the next piece — but if the hole in the next piece happens to line up, there is an error once more, and the perp walks. Dayle is accused by one person, but the identity parade fails. DNA links the crime to another, for which he has an alibi, and that’s it, there is no way to pin him down for either. He’s free to attack again, and in this case, perhaps escalate to murder.

  Andy wasn’t sure what to think. ‘If it was him, he was pretty cocky to agree to a line-up.’