Private Oz Read online

  “Looks like the kid was a vagrant … evidence someone had slept in the front room last night.”

  “Obviously wasn’t here long. Probably nothing to do with the crime. Needs checking out though.”

  The body lay no more than a couple of feet beneath the surface. Three men in blue forensics suits lifted the dead woman out of the opening and laid her on plastic sheeting.

  Talbot and his sergeant took two paces toward the body.

  One of the forensics officers leaned in and brushed away some soil.

  Most of the woman’s clothes had rotted away. Her flesh barely clung to her bones.

  “Dead for weeks,” the forensics guy muttered, his voice muffled by his mask.

  “Clear the soil from her pubic region,” Talbot said.

  The officer moved the brush down the dead body, swept away the sand and grains of soil. Some skin and flesh came away with it. A roll of fifty-dollar bills had been wedged into her vagina.

  “You want me to call Private?” the sergeant asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Talbot responded without looking round. “Not this time.”

  Chapter 66

  COLETTE POKED HER head around the door into the Private lab.

  “What’s up?” Darlene asked. She saw a tall, skinny guy with hair like a giant bird’s nest standing just outside the room trying to peek inside.

  “Er … this is … What did you say your name was again?” Colette asked, turning and deliberately obstructing the doorway.

  “I-I-I’m, S-S-Sam,” the man stammered.

  Darlene looked at him blankly for a second and then the name registered. “Software Sam? Micky’s friend?”

  “The very s-s-same.”

  Colette glanced at Darlene, then at the tall guy and stepped aside.

  “Micky reckons you’re a whiz with computers,” Darlene said leading Sam into the room.

  He was gazing around, taking it all in approvingly. “Yeah … I-I-I am. So, w-w-what’s your problem?”

  “Look, I don’t mean to be rude, but this equipment … Well, it’s all pretty new. Most of it’s one-off stuff, custom-made. I wouldn’t expect you to be able to help with it.”

  “I could g-g-give it a go.”

  Darlene studied him. “You look ridiculous,” she thought. “But then so did Einstein!”

  “Okay. I’m having a problem with my image-enhancing software.” She led him across the room. “I’m working on some blurred images from a security camera.” She pointed to a large Mac screen, sat and tapped at the keyboard. Sam stood beside her chair.

  A pair of indistinct faces came up.

  “Th-th-they’re the o-o-originals, r-r-right?”

  Darlene looked up. “No, Sam. They are the best I can get.”

  He whistled. “Wh-wh-what software package you using?”

  “It’s a custom-made one from a friend of mine in LA. He calls it FOCUS.”

  “Yeah, well it’s c-c-rap, isn’t it?”

  Darlene produced a pained laugh.

  “C-c-can you open up the p-p-program for me?”

  Darlene shrugged. “Okay.” She brought up the appropriate screen, then offered her chair to Sam.

  The screen filled with symbols and lines of computer code.

  “I’ll c-c-clone this first,” Sam said. “As a b-b-backup.” He tapped at the keyboard with lightning speed. Darlene watched as the algorithms and rows of letters and numbers shifted subtly. Sam paused for a second, peered at the screen, then his staccato key-stabbing started up again.

  Two minutes of concentrated effort and the visitor pushed back Darlene’s chair. “Th-th-that sh-sh-should do it,” he declared.

  “What’ve you done?”

  “B-b-boosted the r-r-response parameters, r-r-realigned the enhancement s-s-software to concentrate on th-th-the contrast and the w-w-warmth c-c-components.”

  Darlene returned to her chair and clicked the mouse a couple of times to bring back the main screen. She opened the FOCUS software package, clicked on the image from the security camera and pressed “import”. A new screen opened showing a crisp, sharp image of two Asian men, the picture so clear you could almost make out individual pores.

  “That’s incredible!”

  “I-i-it is pretty c-c-cool, i-i-isn’t it?”

  Darlene stood up. “I’m so sorry I ever doubted you.”

  “No probs.” Software Sam looked a little embarrassed. “Oh! Almost forgot. M-M-Micky gave me these.” He held out a bunch of invitations. “H-h-half a dozen p-p-passes to his b-b-birthday bash tomorrow night at The V-V-Venue.”

  Darlene was stunned. “Fantastic!” she said.

  Chapter 67

  I WAS STARING at the monitor on the desk in front of Darlene.

  “That’s just amazing!” I exclaimed as the image of the two men who’d killed Ho Chang came up.

  “I’d like to take credit for it,” Darlene said, “but it was Micky Stevens’ buddy, the guy they call Software Sam.”

  “Yeah, Colette told me he’d been here – some sort of weirdo.”

  “A genius more like. So what do we do now? We going to share this with the cops?”

  I contemplated the image. “Oh, I don’t think so … not yet, anyway.”

  Darlene gave me a quizzical look.

  “If we do that,” I went on, “someone will blab, and these bastards …” I waved a hand at the monitor, “will vanish into thin air. No, this is ours, Darlene. At least for the moment. You been able to do anything with it?”

  “I’ve tried. Spent all afternoon attempting to match up facial characteristics with databases all over the world. Not getting very far. Same old problem. The Triads bribe the authorities in Hong Kong so nothing’s on record. If there’s nothing on the two men, then the CIA, MI6, the Australian Intelligence Agency can’t get a handle on them. These guys have no DNA records, no fingerprint or photo presence at all. As far as the investigative agencies are concerned, they don’t exist.”

  Chapter 68

  I DIDN’T HAVE a problem with brothels, per se, but this one bothered me. They all stank of deceit and hypocrisy, but this one was smack bang in the middle of a wealthy suburb bordering Neutral Bay, where the Hewes lived. It seemed to me the locals at Loretto’s brothel might actually get off on the idea they were shitting on their own doorstep.

  I’d made a booking through a website called “Kinkies” and chosen a girl, Ruthie.

  The house stood in Chester Street off Military Road, the main highway running through the Lower North Shore. It was a totally nondescript building. I rang the bell and a woman in a business suit opened the door. I gave her the password I’d been sent online.

  “Okay, sweetheart,” she said and I followed her up a narrow staircase.

  Ruthie was a petite girl with long black hair and a plain face, wearing a see-through camisole and a lot of make-up. I guessed she was no more than twenty.

  I was experienced with surveillance, so I knew right off where to look, spotted the camera in five seconds.

  Ruthie got up from the end of the bed. “Pop your clothes off, honey,” she said, her voice bored, flat. “Back in a sec.”

  She stepped behind a curtain and I saw a red light come on over the lens of the camcorder, pulled up a chair with my back to the machine and when Ruthie returned she looked a bit surprised to see me still fully dressed. Her expression changed. “Oh, a talker, are we?”

  “Sorry?”

  “Just wanna cosy chat … Bitch about the wife, the job, life in general? Still costs the same.”

  “S’pose I am. Just feel lonely. I’m a bus driver. Need some company.”

  She gave me a blank look, stood up again and tottered back to the curtained area. The red light went off.

  Ruthie sat on the bed again, cross-legged.

  I glanced over toward a small stereo on a low table. “Can you put on some music?”

  The girl obliged, bending over provocatively as she pushed “Play”. When she turned back, sh
e saw I had a roll of fifty-dollar bills clenched in my right hand. I peeled two from the top of the wad. “Need some info,” I said very quietly.

  Ruthie looked confused for a moment, then frightened. “What … sort of … information?”

  “About the set-up here.”

  Blood drained from her face. “I don’t know …”

  “Of course you do.” I separated a third fifty and held out the notes.

  Ruthie eyed them. “You’re not a cop, are you?”

  “No. I’m a private investigator.”

  She snatched at the bills but I pulled them back. Her fingers grasped air.

  “Ah, ah,” I tutted. “What’re the cameras for?”

  She looked at her feet, black high heels with fluffy balls over her toes. “We record everything important. We’re told to turn on the machine before the client … you know …”

  “Who’ve you filmed?”

  Ruthie stared at the money. I handed her two of the fifties, peeled off a fourth and held out the two notes.

  “Shit! I dunno. Dozens of blokes.”

  “Anyone you recognized? Anyone you’ve seen on TV, for example?”

  I handed her a fifty. Kept the other. “Okay, so what happens to the tapes?”

  “How should I know?”

  I nodded and stood up pocketing the rest of the money. “Alright, Ruthie. If you do manage to recall anything useful, ring this number.” I handed her a slip of paper. “It’s a secure line.”

  Chapter 69

  WHEN THE DOOR opened, Geoff Hewes had no idea how long he’d been in Al Loretto’s basement.

  They’d given him water and some bread. They left a bucket in the corner for him. It stank. He’d slept, on and off.

  The big guy who’d smashed in his face came for him. Hewes heard a series of strange sounds, then suddenly felt water blasting his face and chest. He panicked for a second then realized the big guy was hosing him down, like a dog.

  The force of the water pinned him to the wall. He struggled to get away but he couldn’t.

  “Strip off you idiot!” the big guy bellowed and Hewes felt something hit him in the guts. He looked down and saw a bar of soap on the concrete floor.

  He took off his filthy clothes, used the soap, and a couple of minutes later the water stopped. He was flung a towel and some old clothes, jeans and a tee.

  “Get those on and get out of my house, Hewes.”

  Geoff followed the sound and saw Loretto at the top of the stairs into the basement. “I’m only having you washed because I don’t want you messing up my carpets. Show your face again and I’ll have it blown off.”

  Chapter 70

  I WAS IN the NSW Police Path Lab with Darlene. She was leaning over the dreadful remains of the dead woman discovered in the old house in Bondi. I watched her work methodically, felt a growing anger we hadn’t learned about the corpse for at least five hours after it was found. Even then it was only because Darlene heard about it third-hand from a friendly cop at Police HQ. In the time since then she’d caught up pretty fast.

  The victim was Jennifer Granger, thirty-eight, of Newmore Avenue, a street perpendicular to Wentworth Avenue in Bellevue Hill where Elspeth Lampard had been found. It was within spitting distance of the other victims’ homes.

  “I spoke to one of the sergeants at the station in the CBD,” I said. “Jennifer Granger was reported missing three weeks ago, December 15.”

  Darlene didn’t look up. “Who reported it?”

  “Her husband. She was supposed to be on a girls’ weekend in Melbourne, but didn’t show. Her girlfriends didn’t tell her husband, a gynecologist called Dr. Cameron Granger, until the Sunday morning.”

  Darlene lifted her head at that.

  “Two of them knew Jennifer was having an affair. They concluded she had used the weekend as a cover without telling them. The same two women tried to SMS her. When they got no reply, they phoned her cell. No response. Straight to voicemail. We’ve followed up on the calls, their story holds up.”

  “Probably dead at least twenty-four hours by then.”

  I stared at the mess of rancid flesh that stank of newly applied chemicals. I tried and failed to imagine her as a beautiful wealthy woman engaged in an affair.

  “What’s the husband been doing all this time?” Darlene asked.

  “The sergeant at the station told me that Dr. Granger called them at least once a day,” I said. “Went to the station half a dozen times, offered a reward of ten grand for any info. That was all in the first week after she vanished. One of Jennifer Granger’s friends finally enlightened her husband about the affair. But he still kept up the pressure on the cops. In fact, he doubled the reward.”

  Darlene raised an eyebrow. “I reckon this poor woman is the first victim.”

  “Is that based on anything empirical? Apart from the fact that she died three weeks ago?”

  “No, just a hunch. The murder is a bit different to the others … done with less confidence.”

  I tilted my head.

  “The murderer got the woman to come to him … in a derelict house, away from Bellevue Hill. Now though, he’s literally on the victims’ doorstep.”

  “He was you mean … What about Yasmin Trent?”

  “I’m convinced she was snatched. Probably close to where she lived. The cops found her car fifty yards from her body.”

  It was my turn to look surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

  “They checked the odometer. The last journey in the car was thirty-one miles. Precisely the distance from Bellevue Hill to where Yasmin Trent’s corpse was discovered in Sandsville. I reckon our killer is beginning to feel the heat in Bellevue Hill and mixing it up to keep us off his scent.”

  I was about to reply when the door opened and Mark Talbot walked in.

  “Just passing,” my cousin smirked.

  “We need to talk,” I said through gritted teeth.

  Chapter 71

  “WHY THE HELL didn’t you tell us about this woman?” We were in a deserted storage area at the back of the building.

  “One of my officers caught a pickpocket in Darling Harbour this morning, Craig,” Talbot said. “Should I have told you about that?” He took a step toward me, intruding into my personal space. “Oh, and that pesky graffiti artist who keeps daubing a wall just off George Street in the CBD? Got him too. Sorry … forgot to mention …”

  “You may think you’re being very clever, Mark,” I said with robotic calm, “but we have a deal with the police, don’t we?”

  “You have a ‘deal’ with the Deputy Commissioner.”

  “And you have to abide by it.”

  Talbot came even closer. He was about my height. We were eye-to-eye.

  “This morning I used my professional discretion.”

  “No you didn’t. You did this deliberately to screw me over. And you just showed up here to gloat.”

  He shrugged. “Well, yeah, maybe I did.”

  “Thanks to you, we lost five hours of precious investigation time.”

  He laughed in my face. I could feel his breath. “Just listen to you … You fucking smart-ass … ‘Precious investigation time!’ Who the hell do you think you are? You’re a PI, dear cousin! You can fool the Deputy Commissioner, but you don’t pull the wool over my eyes.”

  “I’m very disappointed.”

  “You what?”

  “I’m disappointed.”

  He leaned in, his eyes narrow. “Disappointed! You cocksucker! Who do you think you’re talking to?”

  I went to gently push him back. And that’s when he took a swing at me.

  I blocked his fist and he stumbled back a step, went for me again, his right arm swinging round.

  But he wasn’t in the best of shape. I dodged his fist so easily it was embarrassing … which enraged him more. His left fist came up, slower, but at an oblique angle. It grazed my shoulder. I grabbed his wrist and bent his hand back.

  “Don’t, Mark!” I said in his ear.
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  His breath was on me again, hot, his mouth close to my left cheek. I bent his hand a little more and sensed him shift position, his right knee moving up toward my groin. I turned my body away and his knee hit me in the hip. It stung. Still gripping my cousin with my left hand, I swung round, sending a right hook to his face.

  He fell back and landed heavily on the floor, blood streaming from a cut just below his left eye. He made to get up.

  “Stop!” I hollered, but he wouldn’t listen.

  “Asshole! You always have been …!” He growled, got to his feet with surprising speed and rushed me. I whirled round, elbow out, and he ran straight into it, nose first. I heard the cartilage crunch. He spun, hit the floor again, lay still for a few moments, face down. I heard him groan, crouched beside him, keeping my guard up. He glared at me with a look of pure hatred, blood streaming from his nostrils. His left eye was already puffed up.

  I offered him a hand but he spat at it. His saliva landing on the floor between us.

  “Suit yourself,” I said and walked away.

  Chapter 72

  I TRIED MY best to look composed as I returned to the morgue.

  “You alright?” Darlene asked, concerned.

  “Yeah, fine.”

  “You don’t look fine.” She dusted my shoulder.

  “You found anything?”

  She pointed to Jennifer Granger’s corpse. “It’s very similar to all the others,” Darlene said gravely. “Face burned and cut, stabbed in the back repeatedly. The same money dump … fake money dump. No sign of sexual assault. No DNA.”

  “But?”

  “But what?”

  “You’ve found something, haven’t you?”

  She smiled. “You should be a detective! I’ve found a partial print on one of the photocopies.”

  “Oh.”

  “Which convinces me even more that Jennifer Granger was the first victim. The killer was less practiced. He made a mistake.”