The Shadow Maker

by Robert Sims

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He’s planning something nasty. And he doesn’t want us getting in the way.’

  Rita stood in the Xanthus storage area with the security guard and two squad car detectives, in front of them a black Falcon ute with blood and bullet holes in it. Lockers had been broken open, petrol cans removed, and the guard told them a white van was missing. A discarded shirt lay where it had been tossed, the stains showing where he’d bled down the front. A packet of medical dressings lay open in the washroom.

  ‘You scored a direct hit,’ said one of the detectives.

  ‘Superficial,’ said Rita, distracted.

  ‘How’d you know he was here?’ he asked.

  ‘Guesswork.’

  ‘Based on what?’

  ‘On hints he dropped,’ she said, glancing at the shattered windows of the car. ‘And because he’s on a mission.’

  She turned abruptly and walked towards her car, punching in Loftus’s mobile number. Busy again. She tried his direct line but that was busy too, as was the switchboard. She gave up and sat in her car thinking it through.

  When her phone rang it was Dale Quinn on the line.

  ‘Thank God I’ve got hold of you,’ he said. ‘I can’t raise anyone at police headquarters. The system’s crashed.’

  ‘That figures,’ Rita groaned. ‘We’re up against the best in the field.’

  ‘But I’ve got to tell them!’ Quinn shouted. ‘They’re completely wrong!’

  ‘You did what I asked?’

  ‘Yes, I went back to Flynn’s apartment to double-check like you wanted me to. I dusted the DVD pack he threw down when he bolted, and you were right - the prints aren’t a match. Flynn is definitely not the Hacker!’

  ‘That means it can only be one person and he wrong-footed all of us,’ said Rita, her heart pounding. ‘He’s the brightest of the lot

  - and genuinely insane. I’ve got to stop him.’

  She knew where to go because he’d told her - you end up back at the starting point. It had to be the casino, the location of his kerbside pick-up, the spot where Emma Schultz was collected on her way to becoming the first victim.

  Rita turned the key in the ignition and sped towards the casino complex. Arriving, she left her car in the tower forecourt and ran towards the riverbank promenade, dodging crowds of people as she did. Again she tried to phone Loftus. Again she couldn’t get him.

  Then, at last, her mobile rang.

  ‘Jack?’ she breathed into the phone.

  ‘No, it’s Martin Barbie.’ His voice was unfriendly. ‘I’m calling you because I can’t reach anyone at police headquarters.’

  ‘The lines are jammed,’ she said, scanning passers-by while she spoke. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘My suite. The one you visited.’

  ‘I tried to get hold of you earlier.’

  ‘I was otherwise engaged - with private business.’

  ‘Spare me the details.’ She didn’t have time to waste. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘To report a threatening phone call. From Josh Barrett.’

  She stopped abruptly. ‘When did he call?’

  ‘Five minutes ago.’

  ‘Tell me what he said.’ She kept looking around. ‘Exactly.’

  ‘He told me I’m about to get publicity for my new game. That I can see it for myself if I look out the window and watch the next flame show along the river.’ Barbie grunted. ‘It’s the way he said it.

  As if I’m about to get a cruise missile up my arse.’

  ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Called me the Great Satan and rang off,’ he huffed. ‘I don’t know what he’s up to but the next show is due in a few minutes.

  So if there’s anything you can do -‘

  ‘Shit!’ Rita exclaimed, breaking into a sprint as she spotted a white van parked on the bridge by the casino. A lone figure stood beside it, apparently with a gun in his hand.

  She tried to call for backup. No luck. Lines still out. Streaking forward, she reached the bridge. Light traffic sped in either direction.

  Below, on the river walkway, people spilled in and out of the casino.

  As she neared the van she splashed into some liquid. At the same time there was a strong smell of petrol.

  Her .38 was in her hand, the safety catch off. And there he was, directly in front of her, standing by the parapet, a black rifle resting on his shoulder, the bronze latex mask covering his face.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, turning to look at her. ‘Now both my opponents are here for the finale.’ Then he shook his head. ‘But don’t bother pointing your gun at me.’

  Her hand held steady as she looked down nervously.

  ‘That’s right,’ he said. ‘We’re standing in a large pool of petrol.’

  It was still seeping from a collection of cans in the rear of the van.

  ‘One spark from the muzzle will ignite it.’

  Rita controlled her instinct to flee and took a deep breath.

  ‘Let’s take it easy for a moment,’ she said. ‘We can discuss it rationally, Josh.’

  ‘Your ploys won’t work. Josh isn’t here anymore. There’s no way out - for you, me or the devil in the tower.’

  ‘Okay, okay. So tell me something. Why is he the Great Satan?’

  ‘Because that’s exactly the role he plays in all our lives. That includes the drooling fans who don’t even realise they’re being sucked in and brainwashed.’ His voice was growing increasingly shrill. ‘Right now he’s up there in his tower feasting his lust and gloating over his stockpile of corrupted souls.’

  ‘And what about me?’ she asked. ‘Who am I?’

  He stared at her through the mask. ‘You know very well who you are. The yin to my yang . Under the pretty blonde exterior you’ve got a mind like a scalpel. That’s why we’re so simpatico . Shadow Makers in a duel to the death.’

  Petrol flowed around them, pooling onto the road surface. Cars were driving through it. All it needed was a spark and it would all go up.

  ‘That’s not who we are,’ she said. ‘Remember what I told you earlier tonight, how the effect of the game is psychosis - a schizophrenic crack-up. Listen to me, Josh, I can help you. Take off the mask, put down the gun and step out of the game.’

  That made him laugh. ‘But surrender was never in the program so there’s only one course open - the destiny of the warrior. Kill and be killed.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Go out in a blaze of glory.’

  ‘Josh, the way you’re looking at things - it’s not real. It’s a delusion.’

  ‘If that’s what you think, just watch. You’ll soon feel how real it is.’

  He checked the time again, lined up the rifle and took aim through the sights. It was trained on an upper suite of the tower.

  She raised her gun higher, pointing it at his upper torso, holding it in both hands.

  ‘Put it down,’ she told him. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’

  ‘Just like Josh Barrett did in the country,’ he grunted. ‘Shooting vermin.’

  Rita tried to swallow but her throat was dry.

  ‘And there he is at his window - Hades in all his glory,’ he said.

  ‘Lord of the Underworld.’

  She couldn’t let him shoot - but if she opened fire she could incinerate them both. ‘Josh!’ she pleaded.

  But it was too late.

  ‘Bye-bye, Barbie.’

  As his finger tightened on the trigger she shot him in the shoulder, her body turning as she did so. She was sprinting for her life as he swung around groaning, the rifle discharging and falling from his grasp, the bullet firing into the petrol and igniting it. The loud crack of the gunshots distracted a driver. His car skidded and swerved wildly as he braked and slammed into an oncoming taxi. The screech of tyres and the crunch of buckling metal added to the chaos.

  Then the Shadow Maker’s moment arrived.

  The spectacular flame show burst into action, lighting up the city
skyline. As the furnace-like flares shot up from the pillars lining the riverbank, Josh’s body was engulfed in fire that rippled in rapid waves across the surface of the road. Van Hassel ushered the dazed motorists to the far side of the bridge just in time to escape the blaze and get them away from the burning vehicles. Then all she could do was watch.

  Josh’s insanity had found its ultimate expression - a synchronised vision of hell. The giant flames belching from the pillars formed a thematic backdrop as he turned into a fireball, his screams echoed by horrified onlookers. He got as far as the parapet but his clothes, skin, hair, mask and face were gone. He crumpled and fell, spinning like a catherine-wheel, into the river. Then the van exploded, followed by the car and taxi in quick succession. As Rita turned and shielded herself she saw her shadow, and those of the rescued motorists, cast in black silhouettes against the structure of the casino complex. The sight was stark and lurid. Somehow it captured - in a stilted instant - the meaning of the night. Fire glow, contorted shapes, shadows on the wall. Plato was right. It was an image of unreality and madness.

  And then it was over.

  The flame show stopped. The fire on the bridge was dying down.

  The vehicles were burning less fiercely. People crowded the path outside the casino, craning their necks for a glimpse of the human torch. But Josh was gone, in his place the flashing lights of patrol cars converging on the bridge and emergency vehicles with their sirens blaring. Rita got out her phone and put a call into headquarters.

  The lines were clear now. Things were back to normal.

  Up in his private suite, Barbie turned away from the window, his face expressionless. The self-immolation, though inconvenient, would have to be used to advantage in whatever way he could devise.

  Josh had promised him publicity for the game. Now he would have to deal with it.

  The hours that followed saw the story played out in the media. From the first snaps on the wires and flashes on radio, the news pushed aside everything else on the agenda. By the time the newspapers published their early-morning editions the headlines were jubilant: hacker deletes himself! And with a pastel sunrise colouring the sky in the background, crime reporter Mike Cassidy walked across breakfast television screens, retracing the death scene on the bridge: Behind me are the charred remains of three vehicles caught up in the spectacular suicide stage-managed by the serial killer dubbed ‘the Hacker’. Police have confirmed the identity of Josh Barrett, described as a brilliant software designer in the computer games industry. It seems that Barrett also designed his own endgame by flooding the bridge surface here with petrol and igniting it with a gunshot, timed to coincide with the riverside flame show. The result was witnessed by hundreds of people pouring from the casino. They watched in horror as the maniac responsible for a series of mutilations and murders walked to the edge of the bridge, wreathed in flames, before plunging into the river below, a victim this time of self-immolation …

  Detective Inspector Barry Mace called a mid-morning press conference to provide details about the successful outcome of Taskforce Nightwatch. He outlined how painstaking detective work had narrowed the list of suspects to a group of software engineers, and told reporters that as the net closed in on Barrett, the killer felt cornered, panicked and chose the easy way out. While Mace himself would have preferred the case to have concluded with an arrest and prosecution, at least the public could now feel safer.

  As the facts emerged, Martin Barbie called his own press conference to express his personal shock, and fan the flames of publicity for Plato’s Cave. He described Josh Barrett as un-Australian and announced he was shutting down Xanthus Software out of respect for the Hacker’s victims.

  By lunchtime Lola was suitably dressed and groomed in her hospital bed, her arm in a sling, smiling for the cameras. She’d signed a deal with a national magazine that would keep her in expensive shoes for the next couple of years. She hoped the publication of her exclusive would help with the recovery process. But while the effects of the trauma would gradually recede, she knew she would wake up crying from nightmares for years to come.

  At police headquarters, Rita walked from the taskforce room where the crime scene photos were being peeled from the walls, and the accumulated material from the investigation was being packed away into boxes. Tired from a lack of sleep but still riding an adrenalin surge, she at last filed her completed reports on the night’s events and took her leave of Loftus.

  ‘In the end you were the only one who was right,’ he admitted.

  ‘I could have had Josh at Flynn’s apartment,’ she said. ‘But he was very clever.’

  ‘How did he pull that off, the switch?’

  ‘He used the smartcard’s VPN access to download his own program onto Flynn’s computer. And he did it right under our eyes.’

  ‘How cool can you get?’

  ‘No, he was far from cool,’ said Rita, shaking her head. ‘It was the final stressor for him. When the effect kicked in, I think he was irretrievably insane.’

  ‘You feel sorry for him?’

  ‘It’s tragic all round.’

  ‘By the way, we’ve just got word from the cops in Gippsland and they’ve nabbed Flynn,’ added Loftus. ‘It marks the end of another career paedophile.’

  ‘No wonder he ran.’

  ‘Well, it’s all over now.’

  ‘Don’t be too sure, Jack.’

  She left him with a puzzled look on his face, took the elevator down to the lobby, nodded to the desk sergeant and walked out to a waiting Range Rover. The door opened and she climbed inside to the waiting arms of Byron Huxley.

  She gave him a bleary-eyed smile as he kissed her cheek and stroked her hair.

  ‘I’m so sorry I never made the connection,’ he told her.

  ‘You weren’t to know.’

  ‘I feel it’s my fault you were so much at risk. And last night I nearly lost you. It doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  ‘Don’t worry, no one’s breaking us up,’ Rita reassured him. ‘So just drive me back to Huxley’s haven in the gum trees. I feel I could sleep for a week.’

  By the time Josh Barrett’s inquest was formally opened and adjourned the media interest was dying away. Rita went on to write a report for the coroner as well as compiling a double case study on the Scalper and Hacker. She’d just finished putting it all together and submitting it to Loftus when she got an unexpected call on her mobile.

  ‘Are you at police headquarters?’ a woman’s voice asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Rita answered. ‘Who is this?’

  ‘Kelly Grattan. I’m just passing and called on the off-chance.’

  ‘If you want to talk, come up,’ said Rita.

  ‘No, I’ll meet you over in the park - by the Shrine,’ said Kelly, before ringing off.

  Rita found her standing by the eternal flame.

  ‘I read the news while I was in Singapore, which is where I’m based now.’

  The women exchanged a look that said everything.

  ‘I owe you an apology,’ Kelly continued uncomfortably. ‘But more than that - I want to thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For getting the man who tried to rape me. I’m glad he’s dead.’

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘It was just as I got home from work. In the basement car park.’

  Kelly took a sharp breath. ‘He tore my clothes and got me down on the concrete. It was terrifying with those chains and that bloody mask he was wearing, but I still recognised him.’

  ‘But you fought him off ?’

  ‘I kicked and punched like crazy and got away from him.’

  ‘How did he react?’

  ‘I saw him running off to his car, stuffing the mask in his pocket.’

  ‘You were lucky,’ said Rita. ‘A few hours later he picked up Emma Schultz and raped and blinded her.’

  ‘I didn’t know that when I saw you in hospital.’

  ‘He went on to carry out his series of
attacks. You could have stopped that.’

  ‘Maybe,’ said Kelly with a sigh. ‘Maybe not.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘He was protected. By Martin Barbie.’ Kelly took off her sunglasses and leant on the metal rail surrounding the flame. ‘I phoned him before I admitted myself to hospital. I told him I wanted Josh handed over to the police for what he’d done to me. Barbie wouldn’t hear of it. Told me to calm down. Josh was too important because of the game. Without him, Barbie would run out of time. The deal would fall through. He stood to lose hundreds of millions.’

  ‘So you blackmailed him?’

  Kelly bowed her head. ‘If he wanted my silence, he could com-pensate me.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two million. I think I earned it.’

  ‘And five other women paid the price. That makes it blood money,’ said Rita. ‘Do you think he was aware Josh was attacking prostitutes?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Kelly, shaking her head. ‘I don’t know how far his lack of scruples goes.’

  ‘You could help bring a case against him.’

  Kelly gave a brittle laugh. ‘I’ve had my revenge,’ she said, looking at her watch. ‘And I’ve got another plane to catch.’

  ‘Before you go,’ said Rita, ‘I want to ask you about someone else you worked with at Xanthus. Ormond Keppel - was there ever a problem with him?’

  ‘The other project manager? No. Mostly pleasant and witty, not always comfortable with women. Terrible what happened to him, drowning like that. We were all shocked.’ Kelly pulled a slim mobile out of her handbag and phoned for a cab. ‘It’s a funny thing,’ she went on. ‘Part of me hates Barbie. Yet in a sick sort of way he’s interesting. Not like other men. But get on the wrong side of him and you see his true nature. It’s as if his whole personality - and he’s got loads of it - is just a front, and deep inside something’s missing.’

  ‘What exactly?’

  ‘Emotion,’ she said, and put her glasses back on. ‘He’s as cold as hell.’

  Down below, a taxi pulled over and waited. Rita watched Kelly walk down the slope, get in and wave briefly as the car drew away from the kerb. The cab crossed to the centre lane and did a U-turn, before joining the flow of traffic towards the city and the airport beyond. Kelly could fly away to her new life, bought with hush money, and leave behind her qualms of conscience. That’s why she’d wanted to meet. Not just to say sorry, but to ease her complicity in Barbie’s corruption and pass on the unfinished business of his evasion from justice. That burden now sat on Rita’s shoulders as she pressed against the rail and watched the shifting tongue of the eternal flame.