Signal Loss

by Garry Disher

  Katsoulas gave him a grudging acknowledgment. ‘Creepy. I live in a block of six flats and four of them are occupied by single women.’

  ‘His hunting ground,’ Judd said. ‘Places with easy access and suitable victims.’

  ‘His burglary experience coming in handy,’ Rykert said.

  ‘He could have been at it for some time.’

  ‘But never arrested or charged—no DNA on record.’

  ‘Luck, then,’ Katsoulas said, ‘if he’s on heroin.’

  ‘And he’s a traveller, to a limited degree,’ Judd said.

  Ellen nodded, added it to the list. ‘Explain?’

  ‘We have attacks in Tyabb, Somerville, Balnarring, Mornington. Not a huge distance apart, but it does involve some travel. Guthrie’s one of the earliest—she lives between Mornington and Mt Martha. Maybe he lives near there, and started operating further afield after that.’

  Katsoulas said, ‘So we look at early break-ins in and around there.’

  ‘Time,’ Rykert said.

  Ellen looked at him encouragingly. ‘Yes?’

  ‘He attacks mid- to late-afternoon, but he might have broken in a lot earlier than that.’

  ‘True, but psychologically speaking, can he tolerate a very long wait?’ Katsoulas said, throwing a look at Judd, expecting him to roll his eyes.

  Instead he said, ‘Maybe he works at night. Work-roughened hands, supermarket storeman or similar.’

  ‘He doesn’t wear gloves?’ Rykert said doubtfully.

  ‘He does,’ Ellen said. ‘Takes them off for the sexual attack, then bathes the victim.’

  ‘Getting back to victimology,’ Katsoulas said. ‘We need to look at gym memberships, clubs and societies, sporting activities.’ She paused. ‘Hair colour?’

  ‘So far, a blonde, two mousy browns,’ Judd said. He asked Ellen, ‘Souvenirs? Lock of hair, underwear?’

  ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  Katsoulas said, ‘Where do these women shop? Do they visit the same hairdresser, petrol station, fast-food joints, cafes…?’

  ‘Or,’ said Judd, ‘he cruises around, looking for the right location—quiet, good escape routes, easy access—and then watches and waits.’

  ‘Not a very efficient way to go about it,’ snorted Katsoulas.

  ‘Why not? Plenty of pickings.’

  ‘Look—’

  ‘Enough, both of you,’ Ellen said. ‘This is not about your ways of thinking, it’s about catching a dangerous creep, okay?’

  Katsoulas stared at the table, her jaw working. ‘Boss.’

  But Judd merely watched Ellen calmly. Presently he said, ‘Understood.’

  Ellen left it at that. ‘This is what we do now. We talk to the victims again to see if there’s any overlap in terms of movements, places and people. We look for further incidents. We see what else the evidence might show about this man’s movements and actions in the cases we know about and in cases where he might have been involved. We look again at known rapists and burglars: maybe our man is a brother, father or cousin. We look at crime-scene history: who’s visited recently and why. Friends, family, tradespeople, neighbours, cold callers.’

  Rykert threw down his pen. ‘Last year I worked on a case where we ended up with two hundred potential suspects and witnesses.’

  ‘If that’s how it is, that’s how it is,’ Ellen said flatly.

  She bent to tidy her folders, wondering what he’d take from her voice. Life’s not a holiday? Wake up to yourself?

  He was young, had a lot to learn, and she had a mentoring role. ‘Slow and steady gets the job done,’ she said, feeling like an idiot.

  20

  JANINE QUINE SAID, THAT Friday morning, as she’d said every morning this week, ‘Stay home, Jeff. No following the school bus.’

  Her husband twitched. Three weeks since his last ten-day stint at the rehab clinic and claiming he was clean, but Janine could see the vestiges in his nerve synapses, on his skin, in his ruined mouth. The traces of paranoia.

  ‘Promise?’ she said.

  ‘Promise.’

  ‘The kids are quite safe. He’s a good driver.’

  Jeff snarled, ‘He was going too fast over the speed bumps.’

  Janine pushed aside her toast and tea, went around the kitchen table to where her husband sat full of tics and demons. She pulled his shoulder against her thigh, his head into her stomach, held him like that, saying, ‘Hush now, hush now.’

  Three weeks clean and he wasn’t roaming at night. In the bad old days she sometimes woke at midnight or 2 a.m. to find herself alone, his side of the bed cold. She’d call him, text him, no reply. Then, around breakfast time when she was trying to get the kids ready for school, he’d return.

  ‘Just driving around,’ he’d say. ‘Helps to clear my head.’

  Except one morning he confessed: he’d gone to meet his dealer. So she confiscated his keys, told him she was leaving, taking the kids with her, if he didn’t get straight. Off he went to rehab again. Came out full of confidence, eyes clear, only to bust again. She’d wake to find the bed cold, again, but neither car missing. So the idiot was walking to meet his dealer.

  Weeks of mounting violence and paranoia followed, Jeff increasingly fucked up in mind and body, the police knocking on the door, called by the neighbours. She contacted a lawyer to find out about restraining orders, custody of the children: meanwhile Jeff had used her credit card to get cash, and one of the dear, sweet, gorgeous, infinitely understanding banks had pre-approved him for a twenty-thousand-dollar personal loan. She managed to put a stop to that, but Jeff continued to apply for credit, for cards, for an extension on existing credit limits.

  He raided the kids’ savings accounts.

  Then, miraculously, he entered rehab—again—and came out determined to keep her and the kids, keep whatever job came his way.

  That job was IT for Raymond Loeb. Janine had known Ray at school, Mornington Secondary College; watched him enter and eventually inherit his father’s auctioneering, property maintenance and conveyancing firm. She’d stayed in touch, even used him to handle a clearing sale when her grandfather died on his asparagus farm near Longwarry.

  Fat, slow-moving Ray Loeb had always seemed keen on her, and she’d seen no harm in flirting a little, even though he was married with kids, knowing she might need him one day. So with Jeff announcing that he’d turned his life around, Janine went to Ray, asking if he had any work for her husband.

  ‘He’s good with figures, computers.’

  ‘I’ve got an accountant, Jan,’ Loeb said. ‘My secretary does all the computing I need.’

  ‘I know, but maybe he could drive you around, help out at auctions, sweep floors…’

  After an agonising half-minute, Ray said curtly, ‘I can give him some menial data entry work, very part time,’ not appearing quite so fat, slow and amiable when it came to business.

  ‘Done,’ Janine said.

  WORST MISTAKE OF HER LIFE—after marrying Jeff Quine.

  At least marrying Jeff had led to two beautiful children, but Jeff working for Raymond Loeb had led to anger, fear and panic.

  ‘Jeff said you sacked him.’

  Loeb had almost screamed at her. ‘Sacked him? I’ll say I fucking sacked him. He stole from me.’

  Janine closed her eyes. Jeff was using again, buying drugs again. ‘I’ll make it up to you, Ray, I swear. I’ll pay back every cent.’

  ‘Pay back twenty thousand dollars? When? How?’

  She’d wondered where the money for their new TV had come from. ‘Please let me make it up to you.’

  ‘If I press charges, he could go to jail, Jan.’

  ‘Please, can I just pay you back in stages?’

  YES, SHE COULD PAY HIM BACK, but not in the way she’d hoped.

  ‘You work in the Waterloo cop shop, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, her heart sinking.

  ‘Filing stuff, filling out forms, clerical duties?’

  ‘Yes.’


  ‘You’d have access to files.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said miserably.

  ‘I need you to be my eyes and ears.’

  ‘Why? How?’

  He ignored the questions. ‘For example, people going away on holiday or overseas, they can register their properties with you, right? The police keep an eye on their houses while they’re away?’

  ‘Yes,’ she whispered.

  What he wanted her to do was feed him that kind of information. Names, dates, addresses. Plus intel regarding ongoing police operations that targeted burglaries and vehicle theft.

  ‘If you break into any of these places, they’ll eventually trace it to me!’ she told him, scared out of her mind.

  ‘No they won’t. I’ll be selective. Not every property, not even most of them.’

  That part of his response to her doubts was delivered with a buoyant smile. The next part wasn’t. He grabbed a swatch of her hair, jerked her face close to his and snarled, his breath reeking. Cigarettes, some intestinal rottenness. ‘If you cross me, Jan, your kids die, understand? If you want me off your back, if you want to repay your useless husband’s debts, you’ll get me the information I need when I need it, as I need it. Understood?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He shoved her away, no longer a joke figure, and straightened his lapels, brushed his hands through his carefully barbered hair.

  ‘Good. Settled, then.’

  AT FIRST, THEY COMMUNICATED via cryptic text messages on stolen mobile phones, a new phone every week. Then, for a while, e-mails on stolen phones. But Janine knew how the police worked, how they traced and intercepted texts and e-mails, and was worried sick.

  Until she thought of Annette Tranh’s phone. Annette, the office manager, was away sick, and Janine was the one who dealt with all her calls. No one would question it if she made and answered calls in Annette’s office.

  But then Colin Hauser was found murdered, and the next morning Loeb demanded information on every step of the police investigation. Shoulders hunched in Annette Tranh’s office, as if the clerks in the main room could hear her, Janine whispered, ‘It’s too dangerous! It’s a murder!’

  His voice crackled sharply in her ear. ‘In particular, I need copies of any paperwork from Hauser’s study.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Bullshit you can’t. Letters, desk diary, invoices. Anything.’

  ‘Was it you who shot him?’

  He was genuinely astounded. ‘What? No.’

  ‘But you had something going with him?’

  ‘Not your concern. I need information, I need documents, and I need them now.’

  ‘Haven’t I paid you back enough?’

  ‘Not even close, Jan. Haven’t you heard of compound interest?’

  She could visualise him, a solid, smirking, dampish and dangerous shape in the drivers seat of his Lexus.

  ‘You think Mr Hauser left something incriminating,’ she said, feeling she had a slight upper hand here.

  A pause while he gauged that. He said, ‘Look, if you do this one thing for me, I’ll consider clearing the debt, okay? So, is there much paperwork?’

  ‘I’ve collated most of it. Invoices, letters, contracts…’

  ‘What about on his desk? Diary? Calendar? Address book?’

  ‘Are you asking me to destroy evidence? It’s been entered on the computer.’

  ‘Well, un-enter it, get me copies, destroy the originals.’

  ‘Then we’re even, Ray. If I take a fall, you’ll take a much harder one.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Raymond Loeb said.

  Janine had tried to believe him. Truth be told, she didn’t love Jeff anymore, he was pathetic. Big changes were needed. This one last thing for Loeb and then she was leaving with the kids.

  NO OPPORTUNITY PRESENTED itself at any time on Thursday, but now, Friday at noon, Janine headed out of the station and down High Street as though to buy lunch, the Colin Hauser desk diary and other material in a Kmart shopping bag. Past Blockbuster, the post office, Telstra, a discount chemist, the Port Authority, a pub, then across the road and down to the library. She paused on the steps. Out across the mangrove flats and the waters of the bay a pair of smokestacks shimmered, strong orange flames licking the sky.

  She went in, asked to use the photocopier. She’d used it before.

  The librarian smiled at her from behind the front desk. ‘Don’t tell me, the police force is broke again.’

  Janine shrugged. ‘What can I say?’

  With the approval of the senior sergeant in charge of the station, Janine had used the library’s photocopier on police business once last month and twice the month before. The station’s monthly budget didn’t extend very far. Officers were forever supplying their own torch batteries, envelopes and postage stamps, even their own vehicles. Whenever the station’s photocopiers ran out of paper or toner, it was down to the library for Janine.

  She waited a few minutes for the machine to be free. A passing parade as usual: young mothers with little kids, retirees piling books into wire baskets, students tapping into the free wi-fi, battlers using the computers, a reading circle discussing a novel in the far corner. Janine had seen them before, had even lingered for a brief while, wanting to join in, but had anyone, anywhere, at any time in her life, asked for or welcomed her opinion on anything? No.

  She waited, chatting to the librarian. An old man elbowed in, reciting the plot of a novel he wanted to borrow but couldn’t remember the title of. Someone else had a genealogy inquiry. Another person wanted to dispute a two-dollar fine. Meanwhile the young woman using the copier was reproducing pages from a nursing mothers magazine one by one, at an agonising pace. Read a page, frown. Align it carefully on the scanning glass, close the lid, press the button, gaze into space…

  A woman from one of the estates, thought Janine sourly. Narrow, hunted-looking; and she’d been stupid enough to let someone impregnate her.

  Janine caught herself. What’s wrong with me?

  The Kmart bag was heavy. She set it at her feet, rolled her shoulders, hoped there was plenty of A4 paper in the machine, plenty of coins in her purse.

  It occurred to her that she was getting nothing out of her relationship with Raymond Loeb. She didn’t have to do this to help Jeff anymore. She was getting nothing out of either man; in fact they were costing her.

  21

  CARL BOWIE OF BOWIE BAKEHOUSES, outlets in Waterloo, Mt Eliza and Mornington, spent Friday lunchtime in his main office, the Mornington branch, totting up figures: wages, payments in and out, projections. True, mince pies and plum puddings were flying off the shelves in the lead-up to Christmas, but he’d had to hire more staff and buy more ingredients. So he wasn’t getting rich quickly selling baked goods.

  Just as well he had a supplementary business model.

  Business model. At the Grow Your Own Prosperity seminar on the Gold Coast last weekend (it was important that he had an alibi for the Friday) the term had been bandied about by everyone. Along with Hesitate—too late and Failing to prepare is preparing to fail and Never let good-enough be enough.

  He’d taken it all in. He’d always taken that kind of stuff in, and applied it, and his success was a consequence.

  Another one: It’s not your fault—but it is your responsibility. A way of saying be prepared. So later that afternoon he locked his office door and switched his attention to the three screens placed edge to edge on the left-hand side of his desk. They showed live CCTV feed from each of the bakeries. Meanwhile his laptop was set up to receive the feed via wi-fi, split-screen so he could follow the action at all of his bakeries if he happened to be out shopping, lunching, sitting in his car or fucking Chloe Minchin.

  The Waterloo outlet first. No customers at the moment, so that little bitch Tiffany thought she’d slip off to the toilet. Carl watched her hoist her skirt to her waist. A quick tinkle, a quick wipe, pants up, skirt smoothed down, hands washed—thank God—and back behind the cash register.
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  Where three customers were waiting.

  Carl reached for the phone.

  He watched Tiffany snatch it up, wedge it between ear and shoulder, freeing her hands to shove a baguette into a paper bag, take money, make change from the cash register, her voice in his ear saying, ‘Bowie Bakehouse, how may I help you?’

  ‘Tiffany, I never want to see you leave the shop unattended again.’

  ‘But—’

  Carl closed the call, switched to the Mt Eliza store, where Lisa was sitting on a plastic delivery crate in the corridor at the rear of the shop, drinking a Coke while Roisin served customers.

  He reached for the phone.

  ‘Bowie Bakehouse, how may I help you?’

  ‘Roisin.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bowie.’

  ‘What’s Lisa think she’s doing? Can she be seen by customers?’

  The voice was weak and thready. ‘I don’t think so, Mr Bowie.’

  ‘Either way, it’s not a good look. She can go out the back if she’s on a break.’

  Roisin shot a quick, frightened look at the CCTV camera and scurried through the archway leading to the corridor, apparently said something to Lisa, hurried back behind the counter.

  A moment later, Lisa joined her, meek as a mouse. Carl watched her serve, wipe crumbs away, sweep the floor, trying to look busy. A student, she was easily replaced, but students were a headache to employ, with their lecture and exam timetables, their meltdowns over boyfriends, the way they blithely switched shifts to attend music festivals. Carl was betting the people who ran grow-your-wealth seminars had never employed students.

  He turned his attention to Mornington.

  Metres from where he was sitting, Emily and Trina were busy, busy, busy. No customers at the moment, so they were wiping tables, sweeping, cleaning the display cabinets. It gave Carl Bowie immense satisfaction, seeing the fear, the diligence. He watched Emily for a while. Sixteen, still at school and this was the third day of her after-school trial period, 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. shift. He’d needed her to help with the general Christmas rush, but he wouldn’t be calling her back. He hadn’t paid her. He wouldn’t pay her. Her parents might get pissy but fuck them, he wasn’t a charity. She was on trial and hadn’t passed the trial; suck it up.