Feeding the Demons

by Gabrielle Lord

  •

  When she arrived at the Strike Force room, carefully closing the door behind her, Angie was addressing the group round the table. On the wall hung a map of the southeastern suburbs, Maroubra and Coogee, with the two crime scenes circled. ‘A caller rang early this morning,’ Angie was saying, nodding at her friend as Gemma took a seat. Opposite, Bruno ignored her while Colin, Garry Copeland and Sandy Mac acknowledged her presence. ‘The caller asked for Amy,’ Angie said. ‘Mrs Perrault thought at first it was some family friend, but when she asked who it was calling, the man said she should know, he was a blood relation. It was the way he said “blood relation” that made her realise who it was.’

  Gemma felt her own run cold at the phrase. She thought of two dead women and her own slashed clothes.

  ‘That’s when she demanded to know who it was again and he hung up. The poor woman was in a terrible state. Garry thinks that this indicates not only that he’s been watching the family, but that he feels he’s somehow part of it,’ said Angie, looking over at Garry.

  He nodded to her, picked up his cue and took over. ‘This sort of contact is unusual,’ said the psychiatrist, ‘but not unheard of in this sort of crime. He’ll be taking a very lively interest in the investigation. So when you get out there, remember to brief anyone involved to keep an ear out for any person asking a lot of questions. I don’t mean the usual sort of everyday curiosity questioning that we all cop in this job. But anyone who seems overly interested.’ He looked back down at his notes again. ‘We’ve also had several helpful leads from the FACE print and these are being followed up.’

  Angie took over again. ‘We’ve organised a tap on the line and the Perrault house is under twenty-four-hour surveillance. Mrs Perrault and Amy have gone into hiding at a relative’s house and Mr Perrault is staying on at the family residence with police personnel in case there’re more calls. If he’s smart, he’ll know that we’re keeping an eye on things.’

  ‘He’s smart, all right,’ said Garry. ‘Smart, manipulative, arsey. Just because someone is a homicidal maniac, don’t think for a moment he’s stupid. A majority of the killers of this type turn out to have high IQs.’ He let that sink in and then continued. ‘The fact that he’s contacted the parents of the girl he’s murdered makes him a bit different from the norm. It indicates that part of him wants to be a member of this family. I think he admires them in some way, might even know them, might have worked for them. In his sick way, he’s longing for acceptance and love.’

  Like all of us, Gemma thought. Except we go after it in different ways.

  ‘What sort of police personnel have you got?’ she whispered to Angie.

  ‘Christine Saunders. And Peter Kozinski for the time being,’ her friend said. ‘But he’ll have to come off later. We need him to help Colin with collating all the info we’re getting.’

  Gemma nodded, satisfied. She knew the two officers involved; Christine was a trained police negotiator.

  ‘If he rings again,’ Angie said under her breath, ‘she’s going to say she’s Mrs Perrault’s sister and do what a good negotiator does.’

  ‘Remind me what a good negotiator does,’ said Gemma.

  ‘Listens very carefully, naturally,’ said Angie. ‘Restates anything the caller says to make sure she’s got it right, and sees if she can get him to reveal anything more about himself and his agenda. That way, he’s sure he’s getting a sympathetic hearing.’

  ‘That’s nice for him,’ Gemma whispered.

  ‘It’s not to be nice for him,’ added Angie. ‘It’s to encourage him into more contact because the more contact we have, the more likely we are to be able to nail the psycho bastard.’

  ‘What about the surveillance? Who’s minding Mrs Perrault and Amy?’

  ‘We are,’ said Angie. ‘This investigation is becoming political. Did you see the Commissioner on the 7:30 Report last night?’ Her voice became even lower. ‘You’ve got good operators.’

  ‘The best,’ said Gemma, thinking of sturdy Noel and nosy Spinner.

  ‘I want you to do some hours for me,’ said Angie. ‘Officially. Not just girlfriend favours. On the payroll on contract. Mates’ rates?’

  ‘I could use the business,’ Gemma said, always mindful of the overdraft. ‘Mates’ rates,’ she agreed.

  ‘It also indicates how removed from reality our man is because of the way he goes about trying to get this, Garry continued. That’s why we’re going through everyone who might have come into contact with the family and the girls. People who might have done odd jobs at the house; tradesmen, gardeners, that sort of thing. Mr Perrault has given us a list of names and you’ll all be getting a copy of that and the breakdown of who’s going out to talk to who. Plus I’ve printed out the profile description just to remind you all.’ He tapped a pile of stapled sheets of paper. ‘Please take one and read it carefully. For those who can’t read we’re looking for a male in his late twenties to early thirties. Possibly briefly and unsuccessfully married. More usually single. Lives either alone or with his parents. Can’t get on with people. He’ll have the sort of criminal record oriented toward sex and violence. Obscene phone calls, possibly rapes and other assaults. He’ll have a great interest in killing things. Hunting, shooting. That sort of thing. A gun collection. Knives. He’s a local to the southeastern suburbs or has lived there for some period of his life. If you turn up anyone like that who’s also done some work around the place for the Perraults, we’ll be extremely interested in having a serious chat with him. We’re keeping an eye on one of the respondents to the first Scan questionnaire. Some of his answers were interestingly ambiguous.’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  Garry consulted his notes. ‘I don’t have it here,’ he said. ‘I’ll get back to you with it.’

  ‘What about the ritual with the clothing? Where does that fit in?’ Gemma asked.

  Garry sighed. ‘That’s the bit I’m not too sure about. I can only imagine it as part of his private psychopathology. When we catch him, I’m looking forward to hearing about that. He’s the sort of bloke who seems harmless and a bit pathetic on the surface. It’s likely that he’s overweight or unattractive. Because of the way he pounces. He’s got no confidence about picking up women in bars or social settings. He could be drinking heavily now. Maybe neglecting to shave. Might have done a geographical and moved house. But he probably won’t go too far while this investigation is on because he wants to keep an eye on that. He’ll keep newspaper clippings, and any other references to the killings. This is his fifteen minutes of fame. He’ll have a collection of sadistic pornography and he’ll be talking about the killings and theorising about them to anyone who’ll listen.’

  ‘Great,’ joked Colin. ‘What’s his phone number?’

  The tension in the room was broken by the laughter.

  ‘Okay,’ said Angie. ‘Do you all know what you’re doing?’

  ‘I’m still working through recent releases from prisons and psych hospitals,’ said blond, blue-eyed Ian, whose movie star good looks were only slightly marred by the barest hint of a lazy eye.

  ‘Right,’ said Angie. ‘When you’re finished, come and see me.’ She looked around. ‘I’ll break up this list Mr Perrault has given us by suburbs and get the local uniforms involved in the initial inquiry. Bruno, you and Sandy Mac door-knock the whole street. I want you to describe the sort of person we’re interested in. I want every householder in the area thinking. Anything out of the ordinary, no matter how small, I want reported. I want this information, no matter how wild or irrelevant it might seem to be, to get into your notebooks with a name and address attached to it and back into this room. Then I want every name that comes up to be contacted and interviewed. We’ve got a very bad man out there and a lot of frightened women.’ She stood up, smoothing her red hair back behind a clip, and gestured to Gemma to follow her out of th
e room. ‘We don’t want all the details getting into the press yet,’ she said as they walked towards her office. ‘But there’s something I want to tell you.’

  They passed the group from the Strike Force waiting near the lifts. ‘He’s really something, this guy,’ Gemma heard Ian say. ‘He’s gone through a personality change.’

  ‘This profiling is all bullshit,’ said Bruno pointedly as Angie neared. ‘Just a wank from the academics. And the people who are trying to crawl up their arses.’

  ‘On your bike, Bruno,’ Angie said as the lift doors opened. When they’d closed again she turned to Gemma. ‘The caller wanted to know about Amy’s pyjamas.’

  ‘Pyjamas?’ Gemma stopped in her tracks. ‘Whether they had teddy bears on them, too,’ Angie was saying. The two women stared at each other, remembering tartan teddy bears on blue satin stuck together with Bianca’s blood and the buzzing of flies.

  •

  On the drive home, Gemma’s thoughts about Bianca and satin pyjamas were interrupted as her mobile rang beside her.

  ‘I’m at the depot,’ said Noel. ‘We got that driver cold.’ Gemma almost smiled at the excitement in his voice. ‘The bust went down just a little while ago. Right now, the driver’s putting his hand up for about forty thousand dollars’ worth.’

  ‘You did good, Noel,’ she said. ‘Take a break.’ She pulled in at the kerbside, parking outside her apartment.

  ‘Take a break?’ he said. ‘I’m waiting on you. You’re supposed to be meeting me for the fit-out for Cross Weld.’

  ‘Oh shit,’ said Gemma, locking the car windows. ‘I can’t, Noel. I’ve got too much happening here. Can you do it alone?’ She got out of the car, checked the mail box, took out a letter with unfamiliar handwriting and walked down the steps, unlocking her front door one-handedly.

  There was silence at the other end of the mobile. Noel wasn’t pleased about this. ‘Take Spinner,’ she suggested, hearing the other phone start to ring in her office. ‘It’s only a few cameras to install. And lights with sensors.’

  ‘It’ll take us all afternoon. Spinner wouldn’t be able to join me till later.’

  ‘Listen,’ she said. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She rang off, walked into her office and put the letter on the desk. ‘Mercator Business Services,’ she answered the caller. Speak of the devil, she almost said. It was Richard Cross.

  ‘I’ve been waiting,’ he said. ‘For a phone call from you.’

  ‘A phone call?’ Gemma blinked, wondering what he meant.

  ‘A phone call,’ Richard repeated. ‘When a gentleman sends flowers to a lady, he hopes it’ll induce her to ring him and—’

  ‘It was you!’ Gemma said. She thought of the beautiful arrangement she’d turned out of the house, the blue and white and gold and a whole area of worry and suspicion cleared itself up in her mind as she laughed with relief.

  ‘I’m sure you have lots of men sending you flowers,’ Richard was saying.

  ‘No, no,’ she laughed. ‘That’s not what I meant.’ She stopped explaining herself. ‘Thank you,’ she said simply. ‘They were beautiful.’

  ‘You said “were”. Didn’t they last?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. Maybe she should go and knock on Mrs Ratbag’s door. ‘They’re still beautiful.’ She remembered the short message on the card and felt herself blush.

  ‘I’m teasing,’ he said. ‘I didn’t put my name on the card so I could ring up and confess. I realised you couldn’t possibly know it was me.’

  Gemma tried to think of something brilliant and scintillating but nothing came to mind.

  ‘Can you make dinner tomorrow night?’ he was saying. ‘I know it’s short notice.’

  She didn’t even bother with the charade of checking her diary. You bet, she thought to herself. An affair with a nice solid rich businessman with political ambitions is just what the doctor ordered. No more bloody cops. ‘I’m sure I can,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll pick you up at seven.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. The pain around Steve suddenly receded. She rang off, momentarily light-hearted. It is almost indecent, she thought to herself, my romance attention span. Something Kit had said to her came suddenly into Gemma’s mind and she found herself thinking of it. Whatever it is that ails a woman, Kit said, the answer is never a man. ‘Fiddlesticks, Miss Kitty,’ Gemma said out loud, going into the kitchen, suddenly ravenous. She grabbed a shiny red apple and bit into it. Juice squirted onto the table. She remembered Richard Cross’s sturdy good looks and his broad shoulders, and she imagined weekends in boutique hotels, lazy afternoon lovemaking in rooms overlooking the harbour and the sun shining onto their naked bodies, champagne chilling in silver buckets. Or dawdling down to The Rocks for dinner, walking along Circular Quay and leaning over the wrought-iron rails to look at the oily bottle green water lapping mossy pylons then the ferries reversing engines and churning the water into jade and aqua clouds.

  But the empty space on the end of the old lounge where Taxi liked to curl up and pretend to be a big ginger cushion brought her back to earth. She pulled a photo of him out of its frame, glued it to a piece of paper, wrote ‘Missing: desexed male ginger cat’ in big black texta colour print with his name and her phone number under it, looked at it, added ‘Reward’ in even bigger letters and made ten photocopies. It took her nearly an hour in the car to drive around, taping them to telegraph poles at intervals, and sticking one in each of the bus shelters near the beach and one at the shops. When she got back, her street was parked out and she had to leave the car in an adjoining lane.

  In her office she picked up the envelope containing the material from Philip Hawker and her father’s statement. She flipped through the retired police officer’s notes again and the name ‘Arik Kreutzvalt’ jumped off the page at her. She booted up and ran the Ozondisc program, punching the name in. The little hourglass icon came on the screen, advising her to wait. Three possibles appeared on the screen, two interstate, one at North Ryde. She scribbled down the number and address and closed the program. It was a long time ago, she realised, since her father had made that house call the day of his wife’s murder. But Kreutzvalt might have something to tell her. Her mind was agitated and she knew she’d have to take a sleeping pill later on. Then she remembered the letter that had come in the mail and tore open the envelope, frowned, recognising the name at the bottom with a start of shock. It was the signature of a dead woman. The letter ran:

  Dear Miss Lincoln. Thank you for your phone messages which I collected before I left. I’d like to meet you again but I’m leaving to live with my brother in Queensland, hence this letter. I have had very bad dreams lately and I think the change of scenery will do me good.

  We’ve already talked about the noise at the back of your house about half an hour before Dr Chisholm arrived home. But there was another incident which didn’t even get into the courtroom and I want to tell you about it.

  Three days before your mother’s death (may she rest in peace) a very agitated man came to the front door. After some discussion, which I couldn’t hear apart from the raised voices, your father let him in. I had the impression that this man was a patient. I told the police all this at the time, but although it was noted down in some constable’s little notebook, it was obviously never taken into account. I have often wondered who that man was and if he came back to the house three nights later, knowing that your father would be out. Your parents had a remarkable collection of silver and it was always displayed on the sideboard in the dining room. Finally, even though you may think less of me for mentioning it, I want to say that I saw a very jagged dark red-black and brown aura around that man, something I’ve only seen once before in a hopelessly psychotic patient when I was a young nurse. There are angry ghosts around you. I pray for your well-being and that of your sister and hope that the dark karma that links us will unfold eventually i
n a perfect way. May God bless you. Imelda Moresby.

  PS This will sound very odd and please don’t be frightened, but I see you involved with an extremely dangerous man—a murderous man in fact. Deliverance comes in a most extraordinary way. Something small, white and lethal. And once again, it all goes in twos. I will pray for you.

  There were two scribbled initials under the postscript. Gemma put the letter down. Her head was spinning. It was eerie, this letter from the dead. She poured herself a brandy. It made her angry, all this oogie-boogie stuff. What all goes in twos? Why did the woman even write it in the first place? Who was the murderous man? Did she poison him with a white pill? This is crazy, she thought. Sorry, Imelda, she said to the dead woman. I just can’t deal with you at the moment. I need to make contact with someone who’s real. And who’s alive. Even though she still felt angry with her father, she needed to talk to him. She picked up the phone and dialled.

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes?’ His voice hesitant, frail.

  ‘It’s me, Gemma. I’ve just had a letter from Mrs Moresby, who used to live next door to us.’

  ‘Yes?’ he said. ‘What did she want?’

  ‘Do you know that she’s dead?’ She continued quickly. ‘She died in a motor vehicle accident on Tuesday.’

  ‘Is that so?’ he said rather awkwardly.

  Gemma had the feeling that he really didn’t remember who she was talking about. ‘In her letter Mrs Moresby says she remembers an incident three days before our mother was killed.’ She was surprised that her voice cracked a little on the last four words. It is still unhealed, she thought, despite thirty years. That night still has power to hurt me all the way down to this present year. ‘And that’s what I’m ringing about.’

  ‘Oh?’ he said. ‘And what was that?’ Gemma read the relevant lines to him over the phone and waited. There was a long pause. ‘I don’t remember that,’ he said finally. ‘I don’t remember who that might have been. I don’t really remember much about that time at all really.’ He paused. ‘I don’t see that it matters now.’ His voice sounded depressed. Something had happened to him, Gemma was sure. Kit said she’d seen fear in his eyes. There was another long silence. ‘How are you getting on?’ she asked, filling in the silence.