Felicity Young - Take Out

But if her error was grave, Fowler’s was even worse; he hadn’t bothered to have the area near the window searched at all. Stevie saw his white shirted shoulders stiffen; he knew this was another black mark for his file and she felt almost sorry for him.

Angus took the floor again and explained how a gun using the same or very similar ammunition to that found in the gap had been used to inflict the wound to Delia’s head.

A young female officer put up her hand. ‘A shotgun’s a bloody noisy weapon. Didn’t anyone hear the blast?’

‘During the second round of questioning,’ Wayne’s tone emphasised the fact that this was missed the first time around, ‘some of the neighbours reported hearing a car backfiring that night.’ He paused and looked directly at Fowler. ‘But I guess a shotgun blast is the last thing anyone expects to hear in Peppy Grove.’

‘A backfiring car’s not likely to be heard in that area either,’ Barry said. Someone sniggered. Angus silenced the offender with a look. He asked Fowler to tell them about his recent findings. Stevie saw Barry’s elbow dig into Wayne’s side. Other members of the team shifted in their chairs, squirming for the man from Peppermint Grove.

Fowler’s back moved as if he was taking a breath to bolster his courage. He rose from his chair. Stevie felt a tightening in her stomach. Fowler looked at the crowd, his gaze travelling over every face in the room except Stevie’s.

‘The old lady next door who raised the alarm has speech difficulties and seems to know a lot more than she can tell,’ he explained in a level voice. ‘I arranged to interview her with a Silver Chain nurse present who I hoped might be able to help interpret. Sadly, the young nurse was killed in a traffic accident before she could attend the meeting.’

At this, Wayne turned his head to the back of the room and raised his eyebrows at Stevie, drawing a ripple of attention from the others, including Angus. Stevie felt herself colour. Just bugger off why don’t you, Wayne?

Fowler cut to the chase as if hoping to redirect everyone’s attention. ‘But recent events have led me to believe that the nurse’s death might not have been accidental.’ He moved over to the board and added Skye’s name. He explained how he and his nameless colleague—at which Wayne turned around again—visited the Vertex nightclub to reinterview staff, and then he filled the team in on the attempt on their lives in the alley.

Angus told the group that the staff at the club were being requestioned, with the manager, Marius, and barmaid, Rodika, waiting downstairs to be formally interviewed. The barmaid’s prints were being compared with those in the baby’s room. Both Marius and Rodika’s prints were also being run through the National Database to see if they could be linked to any other crimes.

A detective Stevie didn’t know asked if the audit results had come through from the club, restaurants and fresh-produce shops.

‘I spoke to the money boys first thing,’ Angus said. ‘They hadn’t finished the audit, but the books are hot, with several anomalies detected so far. It seems the lifestyles of Pavel and Hardegan don’t match the bottom line of their legitimate incomes.’

Angus turned back to the team. ‘I want the door knocking to be continued, and anyone with anything interesting to say the first time around is to be reinterviewed. We want to jog memories. We have vague reports of a woman sighted around the house at the time the parents were missing—I want this pursued further. The baby is thirteen months old. Tests reveal that he was given canned baby food as well as milk formula. The woman in question must have been carrying a bag, bulky with feeding equipment, food and clean nappies. The image of a bulky bag might just be the memory jogger we need.’

Angus indicated for Wayne to take over and Stevie assumed they’d discussed the information Angus had received from Fowler earlier. Wayne mentioned their suspicions about Pavel and Hardegan being involved in a people-trafficking operation. He said he was waiting for Interpol to get back to him on anything they might be able to scratch up about Jon Pavel. The AFP had also been notified. This meant that if they didn’t play it right they could lose the case altogether. The news was not well received; no one wanted the Feds on their patch.

Angus stood for a moment like an actor playing for the right dramatic timing. When Wayne had returned to his seat, Angus reached into his jacket pocket for a typed report and stopped the murmuring of his audience with a raised hand.

He read directly from the police report: ‘Last night, at approximately ten p.m., fishermen discovered the body of a naked man face down in the Swan River at Bassendean. The back part of his skull was missing.’

Jon Pavel? Stevie’s mind latched hold of the idea and ran with it. The body was found further west than Delia’s, but that would make sense given the pull of the current. And he was naked, which must mean no identifying jewellery. She wondered if the hand tattoo was still visible.

Angus Wong put an end to the direction of Stevie’s racing thoughts. ‘The pathologist did the autopsy first thing this morning,’ he said, ‘and found the COD to be a shotgun wound to the head, inflicted by a similar, if not the same weapon as killed Delia Pavel. The body has been in the water for about two days, and though it’s not been formally identified, it seems to match the description of missing businessman, Ralph Hardegan. Someone from one of his shops is coming in this afternoon to identify the body—that’s something I don’t want his elderly mother to have to do.’

Stevie closed her eyes for a moment. Mrs Hardegan’s neighbour, Skye, and now her son: just how much could one old woman take? (Image 17.1)

Image 17.1

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The official part of the briefing came to an end with Angus answering individual questions while other officers added notes to their files. Barry and Wayne were busy delegating jobs to the various members of the task force and making sure procedures were in place for all the necessary gathering of information. Fowler was assigned the joyless task of breaking the bad news about her son to Mrs Hardegan and re-questioning her if possible. Stevie overheard a uniformed officer remind Angus that he was due for a press conference downstairs.

Wanting to avoid Angus for as long as she could, she was the first to slip from the room. She caught the lift downstairs hoping to wangle her way into the observation room to watch the Marius and Rodika interviews. She sensed that Pavel and Hardegan had been the victims of some kind of internal power struggle, but between whom? Marius had been uptight over something, and while Rodika had appeared ignorant of the circumstances behind Jon Pavel’s disappearance and his wife’s murder, there was no hiding her fear. But was it fear of the known or fear of the unknown? Stevie was anxious to find out.

On her way to the interview rooms, she called into the ladies off the central foyer. In it she found a middle-aged woman wearing a colourless skirt and thin grey cardigan, bent over the sink scrubbing at her face. She looked up and Stevie caught the spark of recognition in her puffy red eyes. The woman tried to hide her grief by reaching for the paper towels and pressing a wad into her face.

‘Mrs Williams?’ Stevie placed her hand upon the woman’s arm.

Skye’s mother gave her face a last dab, sniffed and threw the towels into the bin. ‘I know you, don’t I? Sorry, I’m no good with names.’