by Tim Ayliffe
‘What might that be, Detective?’ Lucas was playing up to the rookies.
‘I would like the security camera tapes from Catherine Chamberlain’s apartment building in Rushcutters Bay.’
‘Why? We reviewed it. You’ve seen Anderson’s mugshot. Clear as can be at one o’clock in the morning. Open and shut, right? Just need to find him and charge him.’
Dexter perched on the edge of his desk. ‘You’re a smart guy, Rob.’ She lowered her voice and smiled, letting him know that she really didn’t think he was a smart guy. ‘And you’re probably right. But I’d like to take a look myself, unless you have any objections?’
‘Course not.’ Lucas leaned forward, opened the cabinet drawer and produced a clear plastic evidence bag with three VHS tapes inside. ‘Knock yourself out. The tape you’re after is the one with the yellow sticker on it – covers the midnight to three block.’
Dexter took the bag and walked down the corridor until she found a spare room with a tape deck. She wasn’t surprised that the apartment complex’s security surveillance system still used old VHS tapes. There were plenty that did. It actually made it easier for her to spool through the vision using an old-fashioned remote control. Trying to fast forward and rewind digital recordings was a nightmare because computers skipped entire sequences, while film spun on small cogs, like a conveyor belt, allowing you to inspect a roll frame by frame.
She thumbed open the bag and selected the right tape. Lucas may be an idiot, but knowing that Anderson had arrived at the apartment block sometime after midnight would have at least made him examine every frame of the tape that placed him at the scene of the crime. Lucas’s evidence log noted that Anderson stood outside for around ten minutes, pressing the buzzer and staggering around, suggesting that he was drunk. At one stage, he hit every button at the front entrance until, finally, someone let him in. Eleven minutes later he stumbled out of the building and left.
Dexter started watching the recording from earlier in the evening and took a sip of her coffee. She had made it too strong. She’d drink it anyway. The caffeine would help her to concentrate.
The view from the camera was fixed on the foyer. Mario Monticello, the manager of the complex, had told Lucas that it was the only way in and out. Every five or ten minutes, someone different strolled through the doors. Some were holding hands, others were drunk and swaying, and there was an old woman walking her dog. They looked like they were simply going about their business. Nothing suspicious.
At eleven o’clock white lines appeared on the screen. It looked like the recording had been hit by electrical interference. The lines turned to snow and then the picture went black. The clock in the corner of the screen kept ticking over, which meant the recording was still rolling, but somewhere along the line the feed from the camera had been corrupted.
Dexter watched the darkness for a few minutes before spooling forward until the picture came back after another crackle of white at 11.15 pm. She rewound the tape and watched it through again. Same problem. It was an old system and she wondered whether there were similar black spots on the other tapes, so she spooled through them from start to finish. Both were fine.
She called Mario Monticello to find out if he had any other copies and if he was aware of the black hole in the middle of his recording. He didn’t answer. She left a message and went back to her desk.
Kings Cross Police Station had an open plan design, with the desks lined side by side to maximise the office space. But it was in desperate need of renovation. The grey carpets were worn and stained, the venetian blinds were caked with dust, and the fake plants positioned around the room to add character just looked cheap. The only decent furnishing in the place was the leather chair that Dexter had wheeled in off the street after finding it discarded outside an apartment building around the corner. It wouldn’t have looked out of place in a boardroom. It was comfortable too.
She was leaning back in her chair, bouncing on the springs and contemplating her next move, when the idea came to her.
‘Constable Lucas!’ she called out across the room. ‘Could you please come here for a minute?’
Lucas took his time walking over to Dexter’s desk by the window. ‘What’s up, Detective?’ He made sure to emphasise her title.
‘Did you go through all three tapes when examining the evidence?’
‘No. Once we saw Anderson, we didn’t feel the need.’
‘Who’s the we?’
Lucas smiled at her. ‘Me and your boss – the police commissioner.’
Dexter knew that rumours about her affair with David Davis had spread around the station but she wasn’t going to let a weasel like Rob Lucas get to her. ‘So did anyone go through all three tapes? And by anyone – I obviously mean you.’
‘Obviously.’
‘So?’
‘Again, that would be a negative,’ he said. ‘Maybe you should take it up with the commissioner?’
‘Thank you, Rob, I might just do that. You can go now.’
Dexter was flabbergasted. They were preparing to charge a man with murder and key pieces of evidence had not been properly analysed.
Davis had made it clear that he’d wanted this case dealt with quickly, which explained why he’d signed off on the arrest warrant for Michael Anderson. But Dexter was unnerved by his involvement. She was the lead detective and the one who had issued the warrant that morning without, it now seemed, considering all of the available evidence. She did things by the book. Slicing off corners left a bad taste in her mouth. It was bad practice from another era. She needed to speak to Davis.
She called his mobile, hoping that he’d see it was her and pick up. It worked. ‘Commissioner, it’s Detective Dexter.’
‘Sharon, why so formal?’
‘You know why.’
‘Okay, okay. Let’s not go back there.’ Davis was smug, but he wasn’t stupid. He would never cross his former mistress while trying to – apparently – repair his marriage. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘Something’s puzzling me about the Catherine Chamberlain murder and the case we’re building against Michael Anderson. I think we may be moving a little too fast.’
‘Why?’ He sounded irritated. ‘Seems open and shut to me.’
‘Could be. Probably is, to be truthful.’ Dexter was careful not to contradict her boss. No matter how many nights she’d spent at his Maroubra apartment, he was still the police commissioner.
‘Well, what’s the problem?’
Davis was also a renowned bully.
‘It’s just that I’ve been through all the security vision from the apartment complex and there’s a black hole in one of the tapes from earlier in the evening.’
‘That’s strange. Constable Lucas said he went through those tapes and that Anderson was the only suspicious thing on them. Are you telling me he’s wrong?’
‘Well . . .’ Dexter stumbled, contemplating words that might prove costly later. ‘Constable Lucas told me you and he discussed the tapes yesterday. He said you were satisfied.’
‘Aaaahhh, yes. We did have a discussion about your investigation. I think you were off having lunch with that reporter from The Journal. What’s his name? Bailey?’
‘I was and . . .’ Dexter was thrown offguard, not sure what Davis was trying to suggest. ‘Bailey is an old friend, and –’
‘I’m sorry, Sharon, we’re done here. I need to get to a meeting.’
‘Okay. But, Commissioner, I think we may need to dig a little deeper on this, just to be sure.’
‘I don’t. We have our man at the scene and inside the building. He’s been missing ever since Ruby Chambers was murdered. Tell me – if he’s innocent, why didn’t he come in?’
Ruby Chambers.
The call girl name sounded like an alarm bell in Dexter’s head. It was the second time Davis had referred to Chamberlain in this way.
‘I don’t know.’ She pretended to ignore it.
‘Answer that question for me, then
I’ll be all for your plan to dig a little deeper. Goodbye, Sharon.’
He hung up.
Dexter stared at her phone, wondering what had just happened.
‘Spoke to the commissioner then, I take it?’ Lucas was standing over her desk.
‘Yeah, I did.’
‘And how’d that go for you?’
‘A few questions – a few questions we still need answered.’ Dexter’s heart was pounding, her mind was racing. She needed to calm down.
‘Well, the boss wants me to stick with you on this one. Told me last night after he signed off on the warrant.’
The commissioner’s errand boy.
Dexter stared at her blank computer screen.
‘Detective? Are you even listening?’
‘Sure, Rob. Do as I say and we’ll get along fine.’ She was back. ‘And I’m not interested in your little crime-fighting stories like the one you were telling the kids this morning. Got it?’
‘No wonder no one wants to work with you, Sharon – sorry, Detective Dexter.’
‘And why is that, Constable?’
‘Because you’re a bitch – and you don’t know how to have a laugh.’
Dexter glared at him. ‘Don’t pretend you know me.’
‘It’s like that, is it?’
‘Yeah, it’s like that,’ she said. ‘But we still have work to do, so get your shit together – we’re going out.’
‘Where?’
‘Back to Rushcutters Bay. There’s a fifteen-minute black hole in one of those tapes from earlier in the night and I want to know why.’
‘Bullshit!’
She could see that he was regretting calling her a bitch now.
‘No bullshit.’ Dexter stood up. ‘And you know what else’s bothering me, Constable Lucas?’
‘What’s that?’
‘For some reason those missing minutes don’t appear to concern anyone but me.’
‘I actually did mean to look at all of the tapes but –’
‘The commissioner told you not to worry about it, right?’ Lucas was on the back foot and Dexter wanted to keep it that way.
‘He never actually gave me an instruction. He just, he just said that –’
‘We had identified our man?’
‘Yeah. And, he . . . I guess –’
‘Surely you’re not suggesting the police commissioner thought it’d be okay to ignore the other tapes when they could hold vital evidence in a murder investigation?’
Dexter had Lucas exactly where she wanted him.
‘Yeah, well . . . no . . . I may have misunderstood something along the way, and –’
‘Forget about it.’ She slapped his shoulder, patronising, like she was one of the boys. ‘No need for me to be a bitch about this. Let’s move on, shall we? Gather your things. Let’s see if we can find Mario Monticello.’
CHAPTER 11
Bailey inspected the outside of his car to see if Ronnie had been telling the truth about removing the tracking device. He got down on his knees, rolled onto his back and slid his head underneath the tailgate to get a good view of the chassis. He figured this was where a little magnetic square would ride if Ronnie had been lying. But, really, he had no idea.
Remembering he was in Bondi Beach, where binge-drinking backpackers routinely pissed on the street, he abandoned the inspection. He wriggled out from underneath the car and stood up, brushing the dirt and sand from his shoulders, and taking a precautionary whiff of his clothes. If the CIA wanted to track his movements there was nothing that he could do about it.
Bailey started the engine and the stereo came on. Mick Jagger was singing a story about a woman lying in a hotel room with a smiling face and a tear in her eye. Bailey hummed along, his mind wandering down into the basement of Villa Nellcôte, imagining Mick and Keith arguing, singing, strumming and writing their finest album while living as tax exiles in the south of France. Bailey had never tired of the Rolling Stones and Exile on Main St, with its songs and stories about a place and a time, was his pick. He could see the celebrities and hangers-on mingling upstairs, the band huddled inside the sandstone hollows below, where the music bounced around and landed in an imperfect jumble that would be dismissed by the same critics who later lined up to embrace the words and the sounds of a band at its mighty and decadent best.
He stopped at a red light and closed his eyes when the song kicked up and the perfect chemistry of the gospel blues backing singers, Mick’s unmistakeable voice and Keith’s guitar sent a rush through his veins like a shot of morphine. It was moments like these that Bailey loved, where he escaped in sounds and forgot about life for a while.
A car horn interrupted the moment and his eyes jolted open. The light had turned green. It was too early for Exile and hearing those songs made him want to head back home and nestle a whisky. He switched off the CD player and his AM radio blurted alive to the sound of Keith Roberts proselytising to the world.
As if on cue, Roberts was railing against the Chinese menace.
‘You mightn’t have heard of the Uighur peoples, my dear listeners. They’re Muslims who have, for as long as time remembers, lived in Northern China. Now, just like with Taiwan, just like with Hong Kong, the Chinese Government does not like people holding different views, they don’t like them having different customs.’
Bailey was surprised. Roberts actually sounded like he knew what he was talking about today.
‘They don’t like anything about these Uighurs – and quite frankly, my dear listeners, neither do I.’
Bailey was mistaken.
‘I don’t like the fact that they’re Muslims because we all know what old Islam has done to the Middle East and what some Muslims – and I say some, I’m not a bigoted man, I don’t say all – are trying to do here too. But I’ve got to say it like it is – between the Uighurs and the Chinese – I can’t say I feel very comfortable about a battle raging on our doorstep.’
Not really a battle, thought Bailey. Certainly not on our doorstep.
‘Now, my point here, my dear listeners, is that if the Chinese keep monstering these Uighurs and they need a new home, guess where they’re coming?’
Click.
That was enough for Bailey. Silence was often the best antidote.
The mid-morning traffic was moving slowly on Oxford Street. Bailey was less than a kilometre from his house, but he couldn’t go home. He was like a pinball bouncing around the eastern suburbs, from one destination to the next. And the next stop was one he would much rather have avoided, only he couldn’t. It was part of his deal with Gerald.
He reached into the glovebox and rummaged around until he found the bottle with the inch of brown in it – for emergencies, like now. He unscrewed the lid and emptied the bottle. By the time he got out of the car the warm sensation in the back of his throat had spread to his head and the task ahead suddenly felt less daunting.
‘How’re you feeling, John?’
The sessions always started with the same question, and Bailey was ready with his standard response.
‘Pretty shit thanks, Doctor Jane.’
And he looked like shit too. He could tell by the expression on her face. Or maybe she could smell the whisky he’d just thrown back in the car.
‘C’mon, John, do we have to go through this every time? You know the deal.’
‘Yeah – doesn’t mean I have to like it.’
‘No, you don’t, but it’s only half an hour.’ Jane pointed to the brown leather couch, palm open. ‘Have a seat, talk to me. You know I’m a good listener.’
‘We’re talking, aren’t we? What do you want to know?’
‘How ’bout we start again?’
‘You can do what you like.’
‘Okay, okay. I hear you’re back at work?’
He tossed his keys and phone on the couch and sat down. ‘News travels fast.’
She smiled at him. ‘You know I talk to Gerald.’
‘Inquisitive fellow, that one.’
/> ‘Seriously, how’re you doing?’
Bailey avoided her calm, welcoming eyes. They’d trapped him before and he wasn’t up for the deep dive into his brain today.
‘I’m fine.’
Jane picked up her notepad from the coffee table and clicked her pen.
‘Tell me about this story you’re working on.’
‘Can’t do that, I’m afraid.’
Jane scribbled something in her notepad. ‘Why not?’
‘It’s confidential.’
‘Everything we talk about in this room is confidential. That’s the idea.’
‘I’m not talking to you about the story.’
After a long pause she tried again. ‘How’re you sleeping?’
‘Good,’ he lied. ‘Whisky helps. Amazing how it makes you nod off.’
‘Funny.’
It went on like this for the next fifteen minutes, with Bailey deflecting each question like he was swatting away flies. Jane kept writing, always taking notes.
He leaned forward and tapped the paper. ‘You must have enough for a bestseller by now?’
‘Depressing read – so far.’
Bailey laughed. ‘Good one.’
‘Why don’t you get yourself a hobby? Something to take your mind off things.’
‘I have a hobby.’
‘I don’t think you can count drinking at the pub as a hobby.’
‘What about drinking at home?’
‘C’mon, John. Tell me about something you like doing. You once told me you like listening to seventies music. What else do you do?’
The sessions in Jane’s tiny office always went for thirty minutes. He had to tell her something, if only to keep the clock ticking.
‘I watch rugby.’
‘Really?’ She looked up from her notes. ‘What kind?’
‘The only kind – union.’ Bailey hated rugby league – it was a thug’s game.
‘Watch the Wallabies?’
‘Used to. Not much at the moment.’
‘Why not?’
Bailey wasn’t sure that he could be bothered answering the question. But he didn’t want to go back to the sessions where he would just sit and stare, without saying a word. He looked at the clock on the wall – fourteen minutes left.
