The Dark Series

by Catherine Lee

  “Oh. Fuck.” Cooper dug around in his salad, not coming up with anything that looked worth eating. Didn’t matter, he’d just lost his appetite. Des Saunders was an arsehole of the highest order, and he’d had it in for Stocky for years. Cooper wasn’t aware he’d moved to Professional Standards, but it didn’t surprise him. Policing other cops was right up his alley. “They interviewed Davis yet?”

  “He’s in with them now. We were never apart, not that I remember. Neither one of us was ever alone with Cadogan, from when we got to the house to when backup arrived. There’s no case. I doubt this ten grand ever existed.”

  “Yeah, right. Well presumably Davis will tell them the same thing, and that’ll be the end of it. Don’t you think?”

  “If it was anyone else, sure. But Davis and Saunders? I don’t know, Coop. I get the feeling something stinks in all this. Worse than that shirt you’re wearing. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  11

  “How do you want to handle this?” Cooper asked, smoothing the sleeves of his shirt. It might be clean, but being folded up in a bag in the boot of his car for a week hadn’t done much for it in the wrinkle department.

  “Let’s talk to her supervisor first, then we’ll ask to interview a few colleagues.” Stocky opened the door to the main building in the city that housed the Australian Taxation Office, or ATO as most of the country referred to them. Rebecca had worked in the call centre here, one of the representatives you speak to when you call to ask about all things tax related.

  They were greeted by a very young-looking receptionist, and Cooper subconsciously sucked in his stomach a centimetre or two while he was speaking to her. They waited a few minutes until Rebecca’s supervisor could join them in a private meeting room.

  “Hello, Detectives,” said the young man as he came in and closed the door behind him. “I’m Alvin, Rebecca worked in my team. We’ve all been so shocked by this, you can’t imagine.” Alvin pulled out a chair for himself before realising who he was talking to. “What am I saying, of course you can imagine. You’re Homicide Detectives, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, we are.” It was Stocky’s habit in situations like these to let their subject talk, only interjecting once they’d gotten whatever they wanted to out of their system. After years of interviewing people with Stocky, Cooper could see a lot of merit in the approach. It was surprising what you could learn when you just listened.

  “I saw it on the news over the weekend, of course. Couldn’t believe it was our Rebecca. But a few of the team members don’t watch much news, so they had no idea coming in this morning. I’ve had to arrange for a counsellor. I’m sorry, have you been offered drinks? Coffee, tea?”

  “We’re fine, thank you,” said Cooper.

  “Right. Okay, then, how can I help you?”

  “In situations like these,” Stocky began, “it’s helpful for us to visit a victim’s place of work to get a feel for their day-to-day life. We’d like to see her work station, if we may, and also get an idea from you what her tasks were. What did she fill her days with?”

  Alvin pursed his lips as if he was thinking quite hard about what he’d just heard. “I can’t really show you a work station, as such. Rebecca worked in the call centre, and part time employees don’t have a regular desk. We use hot desks, so on the days she worked she would have just set up at any of the available stations. And as for what she filled her days with, well, she answered calls from our hotline number.”

  “What sort of calls did she take?” Cooper asked. “I mean, did she specialise in any particular area?”

  “Individual tax and small business. We have a separate section for corporate enquiries. She handled enquiries regarding tax returns, ABNs, stuff like that.”

  “I see,” said Cooper, making a note. “And as her supervisor, were you happy with her work?”

  Alvin made that face again, and Cooper got the feeling the young man wanted to tell them something.

  “Anything you can tell us will be helpful,” Cooper added. “Whether you think it’s important or not.”

  “Well, there is one thing.” Alvin glanced toward the door, as if to make sure it was closed. “There was some suspicion that Rebecca had been gaining unauthorised access to some sensitive data.”

  “What sort of suspicion?” asked Stocky.

  “A co-worker had noticed she was logged into confidential customer files while she wasn’t on a call. This happened a couple of times.”

  “Can we speak to this co-worker?”

  “Um, sure, I guess it doesn’t matter now.” Alvin looked down at his hands, then back up at Stocky. “There was going to be an investigation, it was going to start today.”

  “Can that investigation still go ahead?”

  “Well there’s no need now, is there?”

  “It probably doesn’t matter, but there’s a chance it might have a bearing on the case. We’d like you to still investigate, as much as you can, and let us know the results.”

  Alvin straightened in his chair. “Of course. How will I get in touch with you?”

  Stocky stood and handed him a card, before opening the meeting room door. “If we could see the area she worked in, and speak to some co-workers now?”

  “Of course. This way.” Alvin shoved the card in his pocket and led the way down a series of hallways, each connected by security doors where a pin number had to be entered before you could proceed. Cooper was glad to see his tax information was well protected, but dismayed that a worker like Rebecca could access it illegally. He’d be interested in the results of that investigation.

  They entered a large open plan office area, which reminded Cooper of the setup in City Central, the police headquarters in the city where they set up at times when their crime scenes were closer to the city than Parramatta.

  “Rebecca usually sat at one of these desks here,” said Alvin, indicating a cluster of six desks by a window. Three of the desks were currently in use, and all the occupants looked up from their phone calls and acknowledged the detectives without breaking stride in their conversations. Serious call centre professionals, thought Cooper.

  “The person you want to speak to is Miguel,” Alvin added, nodding towards the guy closest to the window. “I’ll let him know.” He pointed to a button on Miguel’s phone, indicating that Miguel should take himself out of the call loop once he’d finished on his current call. It wasn’t long before Miguel was free, and Alvin made the introductions.

  “They’re investigating Rebecca’s murder, Miguel,” said Alvin, suddenly seeming all father figure to his workers, even though he looked younger than most of them. “They need you to tell them what you told me last week. It’s all right, you can’t hurt Rebecca now. But if it helps them find out who did this to her, well, just tell them what you know.” Alvin took a step back and nodded, as if giving Miguel permission to speak.

  Cooper wondered what the team thought of their boss. He came across as someone who tried to be their friend and look out for them, but he wasn’t afraid of letting them know he was in charge, either.

  “I saw that Rebecca had a screen open with a customer’s details, but she wasn’t actually on a call. When I asked her about it, she said she just forgot to close it down as she ended the call. We’re supposed to exit the person’s records before the call is ended, or at least at the same time, for security reasons.” He lifted one shoulder in a half-hearted shrug. “But it happens, you know, some people hang up straight away when they’ve got what they want from you. It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “But it happened again?” asked Stocky.

  “Yes. A couple of days later, the same thing. This time I thought I saw her looking closely at the screen after the call was finished, as if she was trying to memorise a number or something.”

  “Did you ask her about it this time?”

  “No, I kept it to myself. But when I saw her do it a third time, that’s when I told Alvin.” He looked toward his boss, who gave him a reassuring nod.<
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  “Okay. Is there anything else you can tell me about Rebecca? How was she, in the last week or so? Did she seem different at all?”

  Miguel’s mouth straightened into a line as he thought about it. “No, not…” His brows knitted together. “Come to think of it, she may have been a little bit nervous.”

  “Nervous?”

  “Yeah, I mean, more so than usual. Rebecca is… was the nervous type, you know. She didn’t get it when people were having a laugh with her, she always thought people were laughing at her. I got her to lighten up, we all did. But the last couple of weeks it was hard to get a laugh out of her. And she was quite jumpy, too.”

  “Did you talk to her about it?” asked Alvin, who from the looks of him was unaware of this recent change in Rebecca’s demeanour.

  “Yeah, but she just said it was nothing. One time when she jumped after I asked her something, she said she’d been thinking about her son, worried about the kids he was hanging around with. That seemed fair enough to me, so I didn’t think anything more of it. Until now, of course.”

  Cooper and Stocky thanked him for his time, and, with Alvin’s ever-present help, questioned a few of the other staff members. No-one had anything of any real interest to say, except a couple who backed up Miguel’s claim of Rebecca being ‘a bit jumpy’ lately. They thanked Alvin, who walked them out of the maze of hallways and offices, and promised to let them know as soon as he’d finished the investigation into Rebecca’s alleged activity.

  * * *

  “What do you make of all that then?” Stocky asked Cooper when they were back in the car.

  “Could be something, don’t you think? I mean, if she’s been acting weird at work, perhaps accessing sensitive information that she’s not supposed to…”

  “What would she be doing with it, though?”

  “Selling it, maybe? Think about it, she’d have access to everything you needed for identity theft, wouldn’t she? Name, address, tax file number, bank account details.”

  “Bank account details?”

  “Yeah. You give the ATO your bank account so they can deposit your tax return, don’t you?”

  “I don’t. They still send me a cheque.”

  Cooper laughed. “You’re one of the few remaining, then. Most people get it direct deposited.”

  “Right. So you’re thinking some sort of identity theft scam.”

  “Could be. But it’s a big leap, though, from a few screens left open and a call centre operator who’s a bit more jumpy than usual.”

  “A call centre operator who’s now dead.”

  “Yes, there’s that. Did Alvin say how long the investigation would take?”

  “No. Just said he’d be as quick as he could, and get back to me as soon as he finds something.”

  Cooper turned right and headed up Parramatta Road towards headquarters. “So you think they’ve finished interviewing Davis yet?”

  Stocky shrugged. “Maybe. Don’t know whether it’ll matter what he says anyway. Not the way Saunders has it in for me.”

  “Why is that, anyway? What did you ever do to him?”

  “Nothing, but that’s not what he thinks. Shit, Coop. I don’t really want to get into this right now.”

  “Fair enough.” Cooper concentrated on the road. “You change your mind, though, I was thinking of a quiet one down at my local tonight.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind.” Stocky’s phone pinged with a text message, and he checked it. “Shit. Better step on it, Coop. It looks like young Josh Gilmore hasn’t been entirely truthful with us.”

  12

  “What have we got?” Stocky asked as soon as they were in the main open plan office area of Homicide headquarters back in Parramatta. There were four detectives standing around a large screen, including Sammy Saulwick, Davis’s partner.

  “Josh Gilmore’s car’s been picked up on street cameras not far from the crime scene within hours of his mother’s time of death,” said Saulwick.

  “He said he was out with mates that night. They could have just been driving around, you know what kids that age are like.”

  “Yeah, but there was no-one in the car with him.” Saulwick pointed to the screen. “Freeze it there,” he said to the technician controlling the pictures. “See? Passenger seat’s empty.”

  Stocky and Cooper exchanged glances, and Cooper could see a whole world of pain in young Josh’s immediate future. Stocky did not like being lied to.

  “We going to head out there now?”

  “Yep. Don’t take your coat off.”

  Cooper checked the time on his mobile phone, noticed he had a missed call from his wife. Shit, was there something he’d forgotten to do again? Somewhere he was supposed to be?

  “Just let me make a call first.” Cooper heard Stocky instructing the technician to print some still shots from the footage as he walked away to call Liz. He hadn’t forgotten anything, as it turned out, but that didn’t stop him from disappointing her anyway. She’d called to see if he’d be home for dinner, wanted to make something nice for the two of them.

  “It feels like weeks since we sat down and ate together, Coop.” She always called him Coop, had done since before they were high-school sweethearts.

  “I know, Liz. I’m so sorry, but I’m in the middle of a case. We’ve got a lead on a suspect, and we have to follow it up tonight. You know how it is.” He hated these conversations, and it felt like they were having more and more of them lately.

  “You’re always in the middle of a case. You’ve been in the middle of the same fucking case for ten fucking years.”

  They’d had these conversations before, yes, but this level of animosity was new. “What’s wrong? Has something happened?”

  “No, nothing’s happened. That’s precisely the point, Coop. Nothing’s happening. I want my husband back.”

  Cooper paced a few short steps as he tried to figure out what to say. Where was this coming from? In the end he figured it wasn’t going to be resolved over the phone.

  “We obviously need to talk. Will you wait up for me? Liz?”

  “Yes, all right. But we need to do something, Coop. I feel like a single parent. This isn’t what I had in mind when we started a family.”

  He nodded, realising she couldn’t see him but not really knowing what to say. He eventually came up with “I’ll be home as soon as I can,” and hung up. Stocky was standing right behind him.

  “Trouble?”

  “I think so. How do you do it, Stock? This job, I mean, and still stay happily married.”

  “Who said I was happily married?”

  “You are, aren’t you?”

  Stocky pulled up a chair that was nearby, and Cooper leaned on a desk. “I thought I was, Coop. But you have to be careful. These things creep up on you when you’re not looking. Anthea and I, we’ve had our share of problems. Once the kids left home I thought things would get easier, not harder.”

  “How’d they get harder? Anthea still works, doesn’t she?”

  “Couple of days a week, yes. But she’s been on at me to retire for a while now. Says this job’s not doing me any good, and she wants to do some travelling before we’re too old to enjoy it.”

  “Retire? Are you serious? You’re only, what, fifty-something?”

  “Fifty-five next month. Anthea wants to get a caravan, do the grey nomad thing. We had the kids early, Coop. Never really got any time for ourselves when we were younger. She’s got a point, we’ve both worked hard and we deserve to enjoy life for a change.”

  “Yeah, but retirement? At fifty-five? You ready for that?”

  “I wasn’t, I’ll be honest. But after this morning, maybe I’ve had enough. Maybe I’m sick of working my arse off only to get shit on all the time.”

  Cooper was stunned. How did the day go from working the case and following leads to Liz being angry with him and talk of retirement? He realised Stocky was quite a bit older than he was himself. But his fortieth was just around the corner, and h
e had no plans for the next phase of his life. Isn’t that what people talk about? The next phase? Forty was middle-age, wasn’t it? Should he be looking at his future and making plans? Or at least paying more attention to his family?

  Stocky interrupted his sudden life confusion. “Come on, we need to go and find Josh Gilmore.”

  * * *

  At the Gilmore house, it was immediately obvious Josh was in trouble. Cooper pulled into the driveway and exited quickly, Stocky jumping out of the passenger seat and coming around to the driver’s side where the action was. A tattooed youth, bigger in stature than Josh and much more physically imposing, had the lad in a headlock and was trying to get him to the ground. A couple more kids, these ones both tall and lanky, watched on. The youth seemed to have underestimated Josh’s anger, though, so it was turning out to be a surprisingly even match up. Cooper and Stocky flashed their badges as they each grabbed a fighter and held them on opposite sides of the small front yard.

  “What’s this about?” Cooper heard Stocky ask Josh, but he didn’t stick around to hear the answer. He moved the tattooed youth as far away as possible, down the driveway and out onto the footpath, while Stocky took Josh in the other direction.

  “What’s your name, mate?”

  The youth shrugged himself out of Cooper’s grip and looked the detective up and down before finally giving an answer. “Luke.”

  “Luke what?”

  “Luke Veager. Who are you?”

  “Detective Sergeant Cooper. You want to tell me what’s going on here, Luke?”

  “Not really.” The staring competition lasted almost a minute. Cooper held his own, and Luke finally gave in. “Just a disagreement between mates, that’s all. Nothin’ for you lot to be worried about.”

  “Right.” Cooper turned and caught sight of a car parked on the median strip, a Subaru Impreza that had obviously been lowered, numberplate starting with LV. “You know it’s illegal to park there, don’t you? You can’t block the footpath like that.”