by Ron Elliott
When Iris requested the toilet again the woman constable took her a different way, around the corridors. They passed a glass-walled office where officers gathered round a television set.
The constable said, ‘Just a minute.’ She went into an office, leaving Iris at the corridor window.
Iris saw Hill Church on a television screen through the window. Police and detectives were watching the news. The old church sat atop the highest ground of the city. Bouquets of flowers were piled at its iron gates. They ran an interview with a grieving wife who cried proudly. Two children and a man who would have been her father stood behind her, his arm resolute around her shoulder. They showed photographs of the dead when they were alive, smiling, their names superimposed, dissolving from soft-edged photograph to photograph. A media tribute. They returned to a wide shot of the church, seen from above, supered the details of the public funeral which had been scheduled for Monday. Tomorrow. Monday, already.
The next story featured the zoo, using a lot of helicopter shots of the burnt-out shell that had once been the butterfly enclosure. Dazed victims sat around on the grass. Two appliances stood by, a respectful distance from the extinguished fire. Ambulances were being loaded. Iris strained to see the television set past the police in the room. There were a lot of trucks. Cattle and circus trucks. They were evacuating the animals from the zoo.
Iris became aware of people nearby. The psychologist John and the psychologist Clara’s faces came into focus. They were standing in another office inside the television room watching Iris through the window, gauging her reactions to the television material. It was another test.
Chapter eighteen
They brought her some new detectives. Scanlon and Minchin had peeled off. One was a woman of about Iris’s age. She was tall. Not quite an amazon. He was older, very straight. He sat straight, he stood straight. Iris watched him plant his feet, at ease. They were soldiers in spite of their nicely cut suits. Iris had lost the capacity to remember names.
‘Could you let Detective Pavlovic know I remember what I was doing last Monday morning? I had an early morning counselling session with a girl suffering from anorexia. Her mother was present, as were other witnesses. Superintendent Richards sent a police sergeant to get me. I was picked up and taken to the school after the first fire started.’
They were having none of it, of course, because now they thought Iris worked with a partner or gang. Iris could be in two places at once because of her accomplice or accomplices. Once they were on this track there could be no alibis – only networks.
Iris said to the soldier, ‘Have you got my telephone?’
He blinked. They did.
‘You’ll see I haven’t been communicating with anyone.’
The amazon said, ‘Where is your laptop?’ She had a country accent, from the east coast.
Iris said, ‘At home, locked in the top drawer of my desk.’
‘It’s not.’
‘I sent a report to Frank. Um, yesterday evening. I would have locked it away. It has confidential files. People’s secrets.’
‘No.’
‘You’ve been to my house? In my locked desk?’
The soldier said, ‘Everyone you’ve ever emailed. Every call you’ve ever made. We will find it all. We will know. Do you have other telephones?’
‘One is already too much for me.’
‘Are you saying no?’ he said.
‘Yes, it means no. One phone.’
Amazon said, ‘You are very close to a man who is about to become a Supreme Court judge.’
‘Yes, I’ve managed to position myself well.’ Iris she felt a cold shudder pass through her, making her shoulder ache where the metal had struck her. She felt like she’d passed through Alice’s portal, only the land she’d entered was of Bourne Identity or Mission Impossible. Her potential lives were multiplying and layering too quickly for Iris to even imagine. ‘He’s my husband. Of many years.’
‘This could completely jeopardise his promotion.’
Iris stood. ‘Stop this now! Stop it. I did not do this. You have no right, no possible lawful reason to intimidate me or blackmail me as if I’m the third fucking wife of the fucking village mayor in Afghanistan. I am not part of a cell. I am not part of a conspiracy. I am a psychologist who used to work for the fire service. I’m a narrative therapist. Not a good one, I grant. I consult for the cops. And you people. I’m an Australian citizen. Get me a lawyer and get the fuck out of here.’
The soldier went steely, said, ‘We need you to answer our questions.’
Iris sat down hard, hurting her shoulder on the back of the chair. She gasped, trying not to show them.
‘It’s our job to protect this country,’ said the Amazon.
‘I have a right to silence.’
‘We have the power to hold you for quite some time, if we think we need to.’
Iris folded her arms, looking to the mirror. She thought she appeared particularly small and puny sitting before the army folk. She always considered herself to be bigger than she actually was.
The door opened and Pavlovic stepped in, saying, ‘Iris, it’s okay.’ He’d changed his shirt, this one black with tiny silver stripes.
Iris said, ‘Stuart, you’re a prick.’
‘Shall we take a short break?’ Pavlovic asked the army questioners. They exchanged information, silently. An order from beyond the looking glass. The Amazon gave Iris one last look promising future combat possibly in the nearest laneway.
Iris glared at Pavlovic. ‘They’ve been in my house.’
Pavlovic said, ‘Of course we’ve been in your house. Firstly we checked to see if he was there. Then we gathered evidence. We’ve left a uniformed officer to watch over things.’
‘Now I’m a terrorist?’
‘I’m the maître de, Iris, not the chef.’
‘In that shirt you’re more like the Greek waiter.’
‘Are you trying to insult me with a racist put-down?’
Iris said, ‘I shouldn’t have singled out the Greeks. They have enough problems.’
‘My father came from Croatia where the sticks and stones were real.’ Pavlovic came forward from beside the door, sat in one of the interrogator’s chairs. ‘Everyone we interview gets put past the different investigations. Everyone wants a turn at you.’
‘Like a pack rape.’
He looked wounded but not very. ‘You’re pissed at me.’
She didn’t answer.
He said, ‘This thing, it’s like a machine. It has moving parts which interlock when it works, although mostly they don’t fit very well. Each moving part is also made of lots of other parts. You were a small part of the machine but you have moved to the middle of it and now I’m a bit connected to you, maybe all the way to the end or maybe for just a while. So, I thought we should work together … better.’
‘Is that an apology?’
‘It’s how I make sense of the big cases. And this is the biggest thing I’ve ever been part of. The psychs say you’re very perceptive and sane. Coherent and ordered thinking. Which is bad news really if you’ve done this – you won’t evade the consequences. They say you use minor rebellion, humour and ground shifting to control situations. You like to take control. You think you’re superior.’
‘They got the last one wrong. Do they think I’m a bomber?’
He paused for the longest time before he finally conceded, ‘No, they don’t.’
‘You still do.’
‘We’ve seen the CCTV footage at the zoo. The consensus is you didn’t know he was there.’
‘You’ve seen him?’
‘Your car is clean.’
‘You have my car!’
‘We’ve checked your phone. You made two calls at the zoo, received none. They were to your husband and your daughter. The intelligence officers,’ he indicated the empty seat behind him, ‘say suicide bombers say goodbye to their loved ones before they …’
‘So even if I didn’t say
this is my last goodbye, any declaration of love could be seen as a veiled goodbye.’
‘Apparently.’
‘You did psychology at uni.’
‘Yes. Undergraduate. Not in your league, I know.’
‘A double major.’
He nodded.
She said, ‘Psych and … business?’
‘I did psych and forensics.’
‘Ha. You always wanted to do this, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. You?’
‘I didn’t want to become the Fire Lady. But it’s all I’m good at.’
‘Do you only do things you excel at?’
‘I didn’t say excel. I’m an average gardener, promising cook, under-appreciated wife, poor mother, terrible sister, selfish citizen. I’m not good at most of the things I do.’ Iris realised she felt tired, maudlin. Sympathy would probably completely undo her.
Pavlovic was watching.
Iris said, ‘The funeral is tomorrow.’
‘Yes.’
‘I’d like to go.’
‘We’ll see. Yes, probably.’
‘I’d like to go home.’
‘I don’t think so. If he’s after you, you wouldn’t be safe. We can’t find James. We can’t identify Zorro.’
‘I’m locked up?’
‘Protective custody.’
‘It’s a bet each way, isn’t it? You still don’t think I’m innocent.’
He didn’t answer her question. Instead he asked, ‘Why do you keep pushing to see the CCTV footage?’
‘I want to see if I recognise him. I want to observe his body language; you can tell things, as you know. He tried to kill me. Maybe it’s personal. Maybe I know him.’
Pavlovic stood. ‘Okay. Not great footage. It’s all pretty wide and high, where they put CCTV cameras. It’s not like … they zoom in.’
Iris followed him. A policewoman lurked in the corridor. Iris recognised her. ‘Hello Lorraine Johnston. High rotation.’
Johnston replied, ‘Yes,’ with the hint of a smile.
Iris said, ‘Can I see Dr Silverberg?’
‘I’ll ask. It won’t be soon. He’s pretty busy explaining and reappraising. James the Martian fooled everyone, but it’s on Silverberg. In the end it was his call.’
Iris had fed Frank’s report. Iris’s actions complicated Frank’s processes and his reporting. Frank was in the shit.
‘He is adamant you are not Zorro.’
Iris met Pavlovic’s gaze. He was studying her again.
Iris said, ‘I have one fan.’
‘You have more than one. Superintendent Richards is anxious to get you back to work.’ Pavlovic led them into a post-production suite of multiple television screens and computers. A young man in a blue t-shirt sat at the console. Detective Scanlon and Chinese John stood at the back.
The young man said, ‘I’ve done an edit on them both. I’ve followed him back from the surgery to pick him up here. So, this is my guesstimate – not for court. Watch both screens.’
He pushed buttons, Iris saw herself enter the zoo. Her yellow blouse managed to stand out in the faintly blue low-resolution wide shots. She lined up to buy coffee, just another office worker at lunch, meandering and dreaming.
The other screen showed a service gate somewhere else in the zoo. Green-clad keepers came to a utility, taking bags. An office worker went out.
Iris bought her coffee, went to the otters. She stood for some time before she telephoned. She was only in the corner of the shot. It was hard to make out the phone.
‘This is him, I think,’ said the media man.
A man in a coat and wide-brimmed hat marched in through the gateway, hunched over, his head twisted away from the camera. He passed through quickly, as a worker went the other way.
‘I’ve re-run the street, can’t see anyone like this scoping it out.’
Pavlovic said, ‘It’s enough time to walk from the front entrance of the zoo to here. They don’t have cameras outside. We’ve interviewed the worker who passed him. Didn’t remember anything and yes, he could have pushed through the security gate before it closed after him.’
‘Here,’ said the young man.
The camera angle switched to a different view, a different camera. A zookeeper emerged from the rear of a shed, dressed in green, wearing a wide-brimmed hat with fly netting draped over. Close-ups would not have helped, as his face was hidden.
Iris said, ‘It doesn’t look like James.’
‘Why?’
‘Looks fatter. He’s heavier on his feet.’
‘He could be wearing street clothes under his zookeeper stuff? We think he wears disguises.’
He moved with purpose. She checked her screen. She’d drifted to the birds, was on the phone again.
The other monitor showed a series of shots from various cameras, merely glimpses of the worker seen past trees or the edge of buildings. He was rarely centred in the frame. He’d been found later, his journey built from all the camera views. The screen cut to an interior shot. A hospital room.
Iris said, ‘This is the zoo surgery?’
‘Yes. They have cameras inside. Sometimes the patients wake up and bite so they have to assess when it’s safe to go back in.’
The zoo worker ensured the surgery was empty before picking up an oxygen cylinder from near an empty surgery table, leaving with it.
‘He’s very confident. Knows what he’s looking for.’
He returned, disconnected another cylinder, left.
Iris walked towards the butterfly enclosure. She could see the three children she’d met, already at the entrance door. They were talking with their grandmother.
‘Here.’
A golf cart drove slowly down the back lanes behind the animal cages passing curious monkeys then the empty swings at the top of an orang-utan enclosure.
‘He’s working very fast,’ said Iris.
Scanlon said, ‘Yes. We don’t think he entirely made this up on the spot.’
Iris was at the entrance of the butterfly enclosure, taking her time on entering. She passed the children who still negotiated with their grandmother.
The golf cart was parked near a shed. He came back to it carrying a huge cylinder.
‘He’s strong,’ said Iris.
‘The LPG.’
The children entered the butterfly enclosure.
The golf cart disappeared behind the enclosure, didn’t re-emerge. The man with the baseball cap entered the enclosure.
Iris said, ‘He was inside, trying to break open a side door during the fire.’
‘Yes, he’s being interviewed.’
‘Here comes the fire.’
It was hard to see, in the beginning. A gaseous gossamer rising up above the back of the entrance wall like a heat shimmer.
‘Here, he parks the buggy. You can see the edge of it.’
A white square jutted from the other end of the enclosure. The fire gave off dark smoke. The yellow flame spread slowly like spilled olive oil. You could see people run up to it and away, gesticulating.
‘Here he goes.’ They were back at the rear gate. A worker leaving, still in his work clothes, still in his hat and fly net.
‘He didn’t stay,’ said Iris.
‘He’s getting away,’ said Scanlon.
Iris said, ‘He’s not staying to enjoy his show.’ She turned to John who she’d decided was a federal profiler of some kind. ‘We were thinking he enjoys the … results of his work.’
John said, ‘That fits.’
They returned to the screen.
The fire continued to spread. The silent vision was haunting, unreal. The fire spread up over one third of the roof like moss growing, like a tide coming in. It consumed the plastic netting, lapped at the wooden section.
Someone came up to a far wall and sprayed a fire extinguisher. Someone else waved a hose. At the other end zookeepers were pulling at the golf buggy. A white puff of smoke. The LPG cylinder rose up above the roof before falling into the e
nclosure, a hint of flame behind. The firefighting staff fell back. A whoosh of white, which the cameras or recording material couldn’t handle, filled the screen for a couple of seconds. When they came back to the wide shot a third of the building was gone, the edge of the rest was smoking. The man with the extinguisher climbed up off the grass.
Iris said, ‘The fire just stopped.’
‘It was snuffed out. The easy fuel load was about gone, the explosion starved the fire of oxygen for enough time to kill it. The rest doesn’t have enough heat to combust the heavier fuel.’
Charles Koch leaned on the doorjamb as if it were a saloon doorway and he’d just ridden into town. He was in jeans and boots, his fireman’s belt buckle gleaming over a purple Rivers shirt. ‘How ya doin’, Doc?’
‘Pretty good, Sheriff.’
Pavlovic said, ‘I thought you were working out of the Fire and Rescue op centre.’
‘I heard you were interrogating the doc.’
‘She’s not a doctor,’ said Scanlon.
Chuck sneered at Scanlon like he was a dried dog turd, then turned back to Pavlovic. ‘Maybe you should stop investigating your investigators so’s we can catch this scumbag for you.’
Pavlovic said nothing.
Chuck said, ‘Yeah, I still got one or two friends.’ He grinned at Iris. ‘The few I haven’t taken a swing at.’ Charles was happy, invigorated to be inside a big operation. Or he’d had a few glasses of scotch during the afternoon.
Iris said, ‘I didn’t know he was there. I didn’t know I was going to the butterflies until I went. Which means he’s been watching me. He got his stuff, was ready by the time I got to the butterfly enclosure.’
‘What’d he use?’ said Charles.
Pavlovic calculated before sharing.
Iris said, ‘Two oxygen cylinders and an LPG cylinder.’
‘He knew where everything was and how to get it,’ said Scanlon. ‘Mapped out before he went in. This is a man who plans, he’s very methodical and cool. Attracts no attention.’
‘Any signatures?’ asked Chuck.
Pavlovic shook his head.
