Clear to the Horizon

by Dave Warner

  Trying to tamp down excitement, I sat back and mused on Shane Crossland. He was the right age and he’d been on the spot the day two of the girls disappeared. It was possible he had known Caitlin. The address given was a flat in Mosman Park. I wondered how long he’d been living there. Before that, had he lived at home? I grabbed the White Pages and searched for Crossland. There was a Crossland with a Dalkeith number. I was jumping a little – okay a lot – but if he was living at home and if the house wasn’t too far from Caitlin’s, maybe they did cross one another’s paths, in the park say or on the street. That night in Autostrada, he recognises her. Maybe they have a quick chat. He leaves and waits …

  No way would that kind of thing stand up in court. For the barest moment I considered passing on this lead to Tacich. But what compelling info did I have? They shared a vet. Not enough, nowhere near enough. I clicked off the computer and made my way to bed. Natasha was out to it completely. I hugged her and tried to make my mind blank.

  I’m guessing a lot of guitar cases in a lot of dressing rooms smelled like Shane Crossland’s 1993 Holden Commodore: sweat and stale pot. Being a cop had a lot of advantages over being private: all those lab technicians you could call on, superannuation. Being private had advantages too. Like you didn’t need a search warrant to be standing in the underground garage of a block of Mosman Park flats at 3.30 am with a torch. I was gloved, of course, and wearing a non-descript cap just in case there was surveillance somewhere. Whatever I might have been expecting to find wasn’t announcing itself. There was a windcheater, turned inside out in a jumble on the back seat, a few CDs in front. Lots of old receipts, parking and shops, just scattered about. I scooped them up, you never know, might find something. I pulled the boot, nothing but a pair of flippers, no obvious blood spatter, gaffer tape, that kind of thing. I’d come prepared, a bottle of luminol acquired from an old Forensic mate. I sprayed evenly, pulled out the ultraviolet light from my bag and switched it on but there was no illumination to tell me blood had been present. Gently, I closed the boot. George Tacich wouldn’t have let me see those names if he didn’t want me checking them out. At least that’s what I told myself.

  I’d been surveilling Crossland four nights. During the day I’d checked his bin: baked beans, eggshells, bacon rind, empty beer bottles. I was angry with Shane Crossland. Thanks to him I’d missed watching a great moment in Australian sporting history: Cathy Freeman winning the 400. I’d been tempted to give Crossland a miss that evening, the Monday. I thought of the whole nation cheering, glued to their televisions. The final was on a little after 6.00, so I told myself I could catch the race and then head over to Mosman Park. Heck, I could even sit up at the Mossie Park Bowling Club and watch it there. Crossland’s place was a few streets away and I’d be in place by half-six. But then I thought of the O’Gradys and the giant hole there would have been in that room at that moment. So I made do with listening to the radio as I sat outside Crossland’s flat. He didn’t come out. Just as he hadn’t come out Sunday after heading back from drinks at the Cottesloe around 6.30. The next two nights I’d followed him from his work site to the bottle shop. He’d bought sixpacks, driven back to the flat and not been out until tonight when he’d driven off around 9.00. I’d followed him a few blocks where he’d picked up a mate and they’d cruised over to the headland south of Cottesloe Beach, parked and lit up joints over two hours, drunk a few beers. Then he’d cruised back, dropped his mate and returned to his flat in one of the smaller blocks. I’d given him about an hour to pass out. I moved back to the front of the car, and sprayed the luminol. When I clicked on the ultraviolet, I felt a jolt through my whole body. The car was lit up like a showroom.

  CHAPTER 5

  ‘You gotta be kidding me.’

  A moment earlier I’d been a kestrel hovering in anticipation. I was in my kitchen. George had rung from a public phone somewhere. I’d geared myself for what he was about to tell me, for the back slaps, the praise but his words were still stumbling in my brain, like players after Mad Monday. How was it possible?

  ‘No blood?’

  ‘None.’

  Maybe the receipts I took had tipped Crossland off and before the police arrived he’d cleaned up.

  ‘He must have bleached it.’

  ‘No, the car lit up for our guys too.’

  After my visit to Crossland’s vehicle I’d made contact with George and given him a heads up. He’d been as excited as me. Task force cops had turned up the next day at the building site Crossland was working on and asked if they could test his car. They had a warrant in train anyway but wanted to check his reaction. Fine, he’d told them. But now I was confused.

  George said, ‘You mentioned him smoking joints in his car down the beach.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did you smell them? Did he have the windows down?’

  ‘No, he’s not stupid. I’ve got these great infra-red binocs. I saw clear as day.’

  George explained patiently, ‘People smoking in a confined space like a car can give a false reading on the luminol test. It’s the tobacco or something.’

  Shit.

  He obviously picked up on my silence. ‘Mate, don’t feel bad, we’ve had a dozen of these kind of false dawns.’

  ‘It could still be him. He could have used another vehicle.’

  ‘He won’t be off the radar any time soon.’ He added, ‘I got the chop last night. I’m off the case.’

  ‘Because of Crossland?’

  ‘No. I told you it was already in train.’

  I felt hollow. I’d let him down. ‘I can’t have helped.’

  ‘It made no difference at all. They’re giving me three weeks break then I’m off to Kalgoorlie.’

  ‘Who’s taking over?’

  ‘Dean Tregilgas. He’s the wonder boy out of Fraudy. He’s cracked some big cases. He’s smart but thinks he knows it all. If you’re ever in Kal …’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it.’

  I hung up, flatter than a farmer’s vowel. I was sorry for George and for myself too. He’d been my conduit into the case. I didn’t want to let go of Crossland. Okay, it would have been hard for him to get Jessica but not impossible. He could have left Freo in his own car, had another standing by in Claremont. He could have had an accomplice. Could have, might have, might not have: not a place that was going to prove productive.

  Tacich’s removal as task force head was announced two days later. There was talk of ‘fresh eyes’ and the investigation moving into a ‘new phase’. He was perfunctorily thanked by the Pommy Commissioner who was keen to put a positive spin on Inspector Tregilgas and his ‘elite crime solving capability’. The next day Gerry O’Grady called me to inform me that Tregilgas had made an introductory phone call to him and Michelle O’Grady in which he suggested they might be wasting good money on a private detective.

  ‘Look, I have no problem if you think I’m not achieving anything here.’

  ‘No, we want you to keep going.’

  I had to be honest with him. I explained the police cooperation I got from here on might be much more limited.

  ‘That doesn’t matter. We want you to keep looking. That’s what we told Tregilgas.’

  I thanked him for the vote of confidence but in truth I had a queasiness in my stomach that I was wasting everybody’s time. Much as I might not wish to, I figured I had better try and make contact with Tregilgas. I dug out the number of the spin doctor, Unwin.

  ‘Yes, Lane.’ As pompous as ever.

  I explained that I did not want Tacich’s leaving to alter the relationship between the police and my investigation.

  ‘There is no relationship. We were merely offering a courtesy to you on the instructions of the task force commander.’ The past tense had crept in like an intruder with a tomahawk. I asked if he might pass on my wish to meet with Tregilgas.

  ‘He’s a very busy man. But I will pass on your request.’

  He must not have been that busy because my phone rang about f
orty minutes later.

  ‘Inspector Dean Tregilgas. You wanted to speak with me?’

  I thanked him for his prompt call knowing how busy he was.

  ‘Exactly, I am busy, so I’ll be blunt. Your help is not needed by this task force. You wasted time and resources on the Crossland business and I have suspicions as to how you obtained that information. We will continue to pass information direct to the O’Gradys as we see fit and proper. What they do with it is up to them.’

  ‘So if I were to find anything …’

  ‘You’re not going to. The world has moved on. Is that all?’

  ‘Good luck, Inspector.’

  It could have gone better. Question was, could it have gone worse? I was on my own from here on in. That much was clear.

  By Grace’s second birthday I’d achieved bugger all. Nor did I have any instinct that it might be about to change. After the Tregilgas call I’d determined to take a look at the two prime persons of interest: the teacher, Bontillo, and the roadie, Party Pig. They were about as different as you could get. If Bontillo, the self-confessed gay teacher, was responsible he would have used very different tactics to the roadie. He would have engaged the girls in conversation, acted solicitous of their welfare, offered a lift. In the case of Jessica, alerted to a predator, he might have been insistent: you can’t wait around here, I’m safe, I bat for the other team. Party Pig Partigan on the other hand would have relied on being part of the furniture: a guy loading the band truck, you walk past him without looking. The police report said Partigan had called the information line around a week after Emily had disappeared. They had paid a visit to Rock Solid, the sound company that owned the PA and truck and employed Partigan. Party Pig claimed he simply didn’t hear anything about Emily’s disappearance until the next gig at The Sheaf. He thought about what he’d seen and told the police right away.

  But the truck had not been tested until the Wednesday after Caitlin went missing. No blood, no DNA matching the girls but by then various crew had been traipsing through loading and unloading. The police found it suspicious Partigan had cleaned his car on the Sunday afternoon after Caitlin went missing. The car had been parked at the Osborne Park factory where Rock Solid was located and Partigan used it to get to and from work. The roadie claimed he had been thinking of selling the car and had vacuumed it and cleaned it for that purpose. He said he had not seen Caitlin at all on the night she had disappeared, and did not even recognise her by sight. When asked by the police why he had not gone ahead and put the car up for sale, Partigan replied he changed his mind.

  I had a few gay male friends, some I’d made way back on the Gruesome case. I asked those I was closest to for help, told them I needed information on Ian Bontillo: people who knew him, ex-lovers, whatever. Was he bi? Did he like rough trade? One of my contacts, a PR guy, came good with ‘Simon’, a guy who had spent some time with Bontillo and was prepared to sit down. We met at a café in Subiaco, a suburb one grade down from Dalkeith with its company directors and old money. There were plenty of BMWs to be found in Subi but it tended to be the domicile of realtors, accountants, successful small-business people, with more than a few doctors from the nearby hospitals. Simon was younger than me and wore an open-neck white shirt better than I could. He lay back in his chair with his legs casually crossed in a manner that suggested tanning and powerboats. His loafers were elegant and at home in the aroma of fresh coffee. We made a little small talk. I knew he was in the IT business and was originally from Sydney. This was a big advantage for me. Perth was a village and those who had grown up here never wanted to get the elders and witchdoctors offside. He knew I was a private detective but I’d promised a hundred dollars for his time.

  ‘You were Ian Bontillo’s boyfriend, is that right?’

  ‘Not exactly boyfriend.’

  ‘You were intimate for a time?’

  ‘Yes. Is this about those girls? Are you working for a newspaper or something?’ Far from being concerned, his eyes twinkled.

  ‘Which girls?’

  ‘Those three girls that are missing. Ian taught them all. The police spent ages interviewing him. I thought that’s what this was about.’

  ‘It might be. I can’t tell you who my client is but I absolutely guarantee you anonymity.’

  He waved that away.

  ‘How long have you known Ian for?’ I asked.

  Simon had seen him at clubs going back eighteen months. They’d hooked up between the previous November and carried on casually till around April.

  ‘Does he have any attraction to women that you are aware of?’

  Simon smiled and sipped his coffee. ‘He likes dresses but his tastes are strictly left fork.’

  ‘Did he ever mention the girls to you?’

  ‘He could hardly avoid it. The cops came to see him after the second girl disappeared.’

  ‘How would you characterise his reaction?’

  ‘He was upset. He remembered the girls, like, not that well but a bit. He wanted to help however he could. Ian’s a nice guy. Can be a bit of a nanna but he hasn’t got a malicious bone in his body.’

  ‘Not misogynistic in any way?’

  A pause. ‘Well, a couple of times the kids got to him. Fooling around, you know. He said, “I could strangle those little bitches” – but it was just a teacher blowing off steam, seriously. He wouldn’t hurt a fly: I know. I’ve seen him shoo them out windows.’

  ‘What’s his relationship with his family, any idea?’

  ‘He didn’t talk about them much. I got the impression there was some problem between him and his mum over him being a poof. He wouldn’t be the first. They live in Melbourne somewhere.’

  ‘Did you ever engage in, or did he ever suggest anything … bondage ..?’

  ‘Who hasn’t?’

  A cheeky grin. Then he rocked forward, looked me in the eye.

  ‘I don’t know your sexual history but let’s put it this way: nothing we did or he suggested was that far off the path that it made me think he’d hurt those girls. If you’re trying to paint him as a psycho-killer, forget it.’

  Simon was prepared to give me some details of their sex games. The most extreme involved bondage, candle wax, pinching. No cutting, slapping, threatening, nothing that made Simon feel Bontillo had changed when in the moment.

  ‘Play acting, games really, that’s all.’

  I pushed on for another forty minutes but wasn’t getting any more juice. ‘When the third girl disappeared –’

  He cut me off. ‘We’d run our course by then. I mean we weren’t boyfriends anyway. But I haven’t seen him around. I’m guessing it would have really knocked Ian hard.’

  ‘You didn’t call him?’

  He shifted uneasily. ‘I didn’t want him to try and start anything up again. I broke it up between us, whatever there was. I mean, I didn’t feel anything for Ian, to me it was casual. He, I think, wanted something more but to be honest he’s a bit … boring for me, and I don’t want to run him down, because he’s a perfectly nice guy. He’s not your guy.’

  ‘Please, come in.’

  Ian Bontillo was shorter than me, around five-nine, fair and slim, though his hips were like a luncheon drinks bill – larger than you expected when you took a close look. He ushered me into his flat, a large art-deco number in a Swanbourne side street south of the railway line. Simon had spoken in his favour but I wanted to meet the man myself. I called him, explained who I was and how I was working for the O’Gradys. When I asked if I might visit him he’d suggested a Saturday afternoon. So here I was, sinking into a ’50s armchair replete with a rest where civilised folk would perch a martini on a coaster while listening to big band albums. He sat on the sofa opposite. Light spread in under the blind, highlighted his hair, traces of red. Behind him the lower half of a bronze female nude balanced balls on the mantelpiece. Given the recent Olympics, my mind went that way and suggested she came into being around the time Jesse Owens was tormenting Hitler. No coffee on offer. Nonet
heless, I thanked him for seeing me.