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  I’m twelve. My crack-head mom is burned to a crisp in the London project I grew up in. Poor little orphan Craig is shipped out to Sydney and Uncle Ben. Within a week, I go from a mildewed tenement in winter to a four-bedroomed house in Narrabeen and sunshine.

  The Talbot family meet me at the airport and there’s my cousin, Mark, giving me the sort of hostile look he’s never lost. He obviously hates me straight off the bat.

  Four years later, I’m alone doing my homework. Mark bursts into my room with a couple of mates. They’ve been drinking. They stink. I go to get up and Mark slams a fist in my face. One of his friends kicks me in the balls. I spit blood onto the carpet. They hear my uncle turn the key in the front door, run. I spend the next day under the covers pretending I have flu so Ben doesn’t see my face until I can come up with an excuse.

  Then sweet release. I’m eighteen and go to university to study Law. In my second year I join an exchange program with UCLA, spend a year in the States. It turns out to be the best year of my life. I return home to Oz at Easter – it’s the last thing I want.

  Ben picks me up at the airport. We jump in the car.

  “Mark’s engaged,” he says.

  I look stunned.

  “Why so surprised?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing … just. I didn’t know he was even seeing anyone …”

  “All been a bit quick, I admit. Becky’s a babe though. There’s a party tonight.”

  Mark has changed, almost friendly. Amazing what love can do, I think. Then I see Becky and I understand. Love at first sight.

  I still don’t know how the fight started. I was chatting to Becky in the kitchen and Mark must have thought I was flirting with her – which maybe I was. He was drunk and abusive. He took a swing at me, and that was it. We crashed into the lounge, parting stunned guests like a knife through an engagement party cake. Would have killed each other if it hadn’t been for Ben and three other guys pulling Mark and me apart.

  When I’d recovered enough to see straight, I realized Becky had slipped away unnoticed.

  The next day she called Mark to call off the engagement. It was to be five years before I saw her again.

  Chapter 7

  DARLENE’S LAB STOOD along the corridor from where Private’s launch party had been. It was her fiefdom. In here, she felt relaxed, isolated from the troubles of the outside world. Which was a little ironic, considering what was in the case she dumped on the counter.

  She had designed the lab herself and been given carte blanche to install the best equipment available. Better still, through her contacts, she had some technology no one beyond Private would see for years to come. She was very proud of that.

  Police forensics had worked through the night and catalogued everything before passing on the samples to Darlene an hour ago. A courier had delivered a case of test tubes and a USB at 6 am. She’d already been at Private for an hour.

  She opened the clasps of the sample box and looked inside. Each test tube was labeled and itemized by date, location and type. They contained samples of the corpse’s blood, scrapings from under his fingernails, individual hairs from his jacket. She had a collection of her own photographs and a file from the police photographer.

  There was no ID on the body. The victim was male, Asian, between eighteen and twenty-one years old. Both eyes removed with a sharp instrument. Wasn’t a professional job. By the condition of the wound, it was done at least thirty-six hours before death. Sockets were infected. He was a mess, his clothes badly soiled. They stank of sweat, urine and excrement. He’d probably been in them for days, held captive some place. But the jacket he’d worn was expensive – Emporio Armani – and his hair had been well cut, maybe two weeks ago. He was obviously from a wealthy family.

  So it seemed likely they were looking at kidnap, Darlene mused. Maybe the kid had escaped his captors. Maybe he’d stopped being useful. No way of knowing … yet.

  She removed a selection of test tubes from the case and walked over to a row of machines on an adjacent bench, each device glistening new. She slotted the test tubes into a metal rack, pulled up a stool, switched on the machines and listened to the ascending whir of computers booting up and electron microscopes coming on-line.

  The first test tube was labeled: “Nail Scraping. Left digitus secundus manus.” With the tweezers, she slid out the piece of material. It was a couple of millimeters square, a blob of blue and pink. She placed it on a slide, lowered a second rectangular piece of glass over it and positioned the arrangement in the cross-hairs of the microscope.

  The image was a pitted off-white. Set to a magnification of x1000, human flesh looked like a blanched moonscape. She tracked the microscope to the right and refocused. It looked almost the same, only the details were different. She set the tracking going again, back left, past the starting position. Refocused. Paused. Sat back for a second, then peered into the eyepiece once more. “Now that is weird,” she said.

  Chapter 8

  I WAS PULLING into the parking lot below Private when my cell rang.

  “Hey Darlene. So what’d you find out?” I wiped away a trickle of sweat running down my cheek. My car’s thermometer read ninety-two degrees.

  “The police have ID’ed the victim. His name’s Ho Chang, nineteen, left Shore School last year. His father is Ho Meng, a well-known and very wealthy importer/exporter. The boy was reported missing two days ago.”

  “Well that’s something.”

  “I found out some other stuff too.”

  “Great … What?”

  “I’d rather show you – in the lab.”

  “See you in a minute.”

  Mary and Johnny were in reception before me. I was surprised. It was only 8 am. I was even more surprised to see a tall man in a finely tailored suit getting out of one of the chairs across the coffee table. Beside him stood a guy in a gray suit. A bodyguard, I guessed. He had that boneheaded look about him.

  Johnny retreated and Mary led me over. “This is Mr Ho Meng … My boss, Craig Gisto.”

  We shook hands.

  “I just heard,” I said. “Please accept my …”

  He raised a hand, shaking his head slowly.

  I was lost for words for a moment, then put out a hand to indicate we should walk along to my office.

  Mary and Ho sat at opposite ends of my sofa and I pulled round a chair. The bonehead stood by the door, arms folded.

  “Mr. Ho and I have met before,” Mary began. She was wearing cargo pants and a tight, short-sleeved tee that accentuated the girth of her arms. “Mr. Ho was a Commissioner in the Hong Kong Police Force. I met him when he delivered a special lecture at the Military Police College a few years back.”

  “I would like you to find my son’s killer,” Ho responded. His voice was remarkably refined. I guessed Oxford or Cambridge.

  “I assume the police are …”

  “I do not trust the Australian police, Mr. Gisto.”

  I watched him. He’d drifted off into grief for a second, but then his expression hardened, a carefully constructed shield against the world.

  “Well, of course, Mr. Ho. That’s what we do.”

  “My son was reported missing more than two days ago. His death was preventable. The police did nothing.”

  “I’m sure they tried.”

  “Don’t make excuses for them, Mr. Gisto.” He had his imperious hand up again. “They’re either incompetent, lazy or lack resources. Whatever it is I won’t work with them.”

  “Mr. Ho, what can you tell us about your son? Any clues how he got into trouble?” Mary asked.

  He sighed. “Chang was a wonderful boy. Headstrong, for sure. He was profoundly deaf, but struggled for independence. He was a brilliant lip-reader. Insisted he have his own apartment as soon as he left school.”

  “He was deaf?” I said, surprised.

  Ho nodded. “From the age of four.” He glanced at Mary. “I would be the first to admit that this is partly my fault. I’ve not exactly been
a model father. Chang’s mother died twelve years ago. I’ve been obsessed with my business. I could never find the time. I shouldn’t have let him leave home so young.”

  “When did you last see your son?” I asked.

  “Thursday night. A family dinner … rare.” Ho stopped speaking and looked away.

  “So that would be three days ago?”

  “Yes. I went to his apartment on Friday morning. He wasn’t there. I tried to SMS him, emailed him. Nothing. I reported him missing by late afternoon.”

  “The police called me just after midnight when they’d identified Chang’s body. I went to the morgue at six this morning.” His voice was brittle. “I saw what they did to him.” He looked at Mary and then at me, his face like a mannequin’s. “You have to find the killer Mr. Gisto. I am a very wealthy man. I don’t care what it costs.”

  Chapter 9

  DEPUTY COMMISSIONER THOROGOOD was coming through the main doors just as Ho Meng was leaving. I met him in reception and we walked along the corridor.

  “That was the father of the murdered kid,” I said as we sat down. “He’s mighty pissed with your people.”

  Thorogood’s face creased into a frown.

  “He can’t understand why you didn’t save his boy.”

  “So, he’s come to you?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, you know our agreement, Craig. We share Intel.”

  “He doesn’t want to talk to the police.”

  The Deputy Commissioner blanched, anger building in his eyes. “Well it’s not up to him, is it?” he snapped. “If he’s withholding evidence …”

  I let it go, went to change the subject. There was a knock on the door. Darlene poked her head round. “Bad time? You said you’d …”

  “Sorry, Darlene,” I said quickly. “Come in.”

  “Deputy Commissioner, you’ve met Darlene Cooper, haven’t you?”

  He stood up, extended a hand. “We … ah … met last night at the …”

  Darlene gave the man a brief smile. The girl was a cool paradox, beautiful and brilliant – the only nerd who could grace the centerfold of Playboy. She’d done the whole modeling shtick for a year after finishing her degree in Forensics at Monash, became a disciple of Sci, Jack Morgan’s resident lab genius at Private LA. Then she’d come back to Oz and our Private.

  “You wanted to know the latest,” she began before flashing her baby blues at the Deputy Commissioner.

  “Absolutely,” I said.

  She handed me a couple of sheets of paper. They were covered with graphs and numbers. I turned them sideways, then back again.

  “Analysis of skin samples, and DNA,” she explained.

  “Oh, great.”

  “That was bloody quick!” Thorogood said.

  “So what’re your conclusions?” I asked.

  “I took a range of samples from the body. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get any prints, but I found three distinct DNA profiles. One of these is certainly the victim’s.”

  “Any luck finding a match for the other two?”

  Darlene shook her head. “Nothing close on any database.”

  “Anything else?” I asked.

  “Well yeah, actually. I took a sample of material from under Ho Chang’s fingernails.” She handed me a photograph. I stared at it for several moments, passed it to Thorogood. He sat back, held the photo up to the light.

  “It’s human skin. I suspect there was a serious struggle. Ho must have taken a chunk out of the other guy.”

  “But what’s the blue?” Thorogood asked, studying the image. It showed a highly magnified ragged rectangle of skin. One corner was dark blue.

  “Stumped me,” Darlene replied, “… for a few seconds. Then I realized it was probably a bit of a tattoo.”

  Thorogood looked at Darlene, back at the picture.

  “Very clever,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m even cleverer than that.”

  I flicked a glance at Thorogood who was now giving Darlene a skeptical look.

  “I took a sample and ran it through a gas chromatograph that separates out the constituents of a blend. Tattoo ink is a cocktail of many different ingredients. The gas chromatograph pulls these away from each other and gives a readout to show everything that makes up the blend. This is what I got.”

  I took another sheet of paper from my science whiz. It showed a graph with different colored bars lined up across the paper.

  “There were forty-seven different compounds or elements in the ink – vegetable dyes, traces of solvent, zinc, copper. But one thing stood out.”

  I handed the sheet to Thorogood.

  “An unusual level of Antimony.”

  We both looked at Darlene blankly.

  “Only Chinese tattooists use that type of ink. It’s most commonly found in the tattoos of Triad gang members.”

  Chapter 10

  Three Years Ago.

  IT WAS ONE of those perfect Sydney mornings. Pristine blue sky, not a cloud in sight, a crispness to the air that made you kid yourself everything was right with the world. Even the traffic was light for 7 am and I had the roof down on the old Porsche convertible I’d bought fifth-hand ten years before.

  We were en route to the airport. Becky, my wife of nine years, our three-year-old son, Cal, and me. Becky looked amazing. She was wearing a diaphanous dress and a thick rope of fake pearls. She was tanned from the spring sunshine. When she moved her hands, the collection of bangles at her wrists jangled. She’d put on a bit of weight and looked better for it. We’d made love that morning while Cal was asleep and I could still visualize her.

  I glanced round and saw her long auburn hair blown back by the warm breeze. She was excited about our trip to Bali. We all were … our first holiday in two years. I’d been working hard to build up my PI agency, Solutions Inc., and I was only now able to take a week off, splash some cash on a fancy resort.

  I’d woken up that morning feeling more relaxed than I had for years. I’d had nice dreams too. I was back on our wedding day. Nine years before. It was a bitter-sweet occasion. I’d bumped into Becky by chance one morning at Darling Harbour. The old spark was there, we were both single. It just happened. We were meant for each other. Within a year we were married.

  Mark must’ve heard I was with Becky, but seeing as I hadn’t spoken to him since my second year in college, I had no idea what he’d thought about it. He would never forgive me for what happened at his party. I could hardly blame the guy. What did sting for a while was that only a few of my family turned up at the registry office in Darlinghurst. But hell, it was a long time ago and even that wasn’t going to ruin my mood.

  Cal was strapped in the back, a suitcase next to him. On top of that was the brightly colored Kung Fu Panda carry-on bag he planned to wheel to the plane and put in the overhead locker. He’d not flown before, but I’d told him all about it the previous night in lieu of a bedtime story. Cal had the same auburn hair as his mother, the same eyes. In fact, there wasn’t much immediately obvious about his looks that confirmed he was mine. But he definitely had my temperament – patient and calm, but vicious when riled.

  “So you looking forward to the trip, little man?” I called to Cal over the noise of the road and the wind and the powerful engine. “I know I am.”

  He nodded. I saw him in the rear-view mirror, a big smile across his face, baby teeth gleaming.

  “What you looking forward to most, Cal?”

  He thought for a moment, forehead wrinkled. Then hollered: “Catching fish!”

  I glanced over to Becky and we both laughed. I turned back and saw the pickup truck on the wrong side of the road coming straight for us. And I knew immediately that this was the end. I could feel Becky freeze beside me, watched as the ugly great vehicle covered the distance between us. With each vanishing yard, I felt my life … our lives together … drain away.

  Chapter 11

  I DON’T REMEMBER the impact … no one ever does, do they? The horror began
when I started to open my eyes. But at first, everything was blurred and I was stone deaf. I just saw colored shapes. Then my hearing came back … but I couldn’t make out a single human sound. Instead, a loud, shrill whine, the engine free-wheeling in neutral.

  I felt a drip, drip, drip on my face.

  My car had rolled and ended up driver’s side to the tarmac. I could see a shape close to, almost on top of me. Gradually my vision cleared enough to make it out. Becky’s face. Her dead eyes open, staring at me … droplets of her blood falling onto my cheek.

  I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I couldn’t speak, just produced animal noises in my throat. Tried to pull away, horrified, I turned my head slowly. A pain shot down my spine. I could just see Cal in the back. He’d slumped to the side, body contorted.

  I managed to twist in the seat and had the presence of mind to feel for Becky’s pulse. Then I saw the cut in her neck. She was almost decapitated.

  I felt vomit rise up and I spewed down my front. I thought I’d choke and a part of me wished I would. I could visualize the new life if I were to survive. A life alone, my family gone … just like that.

  I turned back to Cal, unbuckled my seat belt, gained enough leverage to slither into the rear of the car.

  “Cal? Cal?” My voice broke. “Aggghhh!” I screamed again. Another stream of vomit welled up and out. I started to cry.

  “Cal?” I pulled him up. His head lolled, blood trickling from the side of his mouth.

  I thought I saw his eyelids flicker. “Cal?” I shouted again. I got his wrist, pulled it up, tried to find a pulse. His arm wet with blood. My fingers wet with blood. No pulse.

  “CAL … CAL.” I shook him.

  I reached for my cell, pulled it from my jacket but it fell to pieces in my hand.