An Easeful Death (25 page)

‘Where’s he now?’ Stevie managed.

Wayne shrugged. ‘Who knows?’

‘Has anyone heard from him?’ Angus asked the gathered team.

They all shook their heads. Angus let out a string of obscenities. Stevie sank her head into her hands and said nothing.

‘Well, I for one am going back to my hotel to sleep on this.’ De Vakey pushed himself to his feet. ‘Maybe in the morning, with clearer heads, we’ll be able to work something out. Perhaps Monty will have turned up by then.’

Stevie didn’t look up from the coffee in front of her. ‘Do you want a lift?’ she asked, her voice slurred with fatigue.

‘I’ll catch a cab.’ He frowned his concern at her. ‘And I suggest you do too. You can hardly keep your eyes open.’

‘Yeah, maybe,’ she said, knowing sleep would be an impossibility until she’d heard from Monty.

When De Vakey had gone, the group lapsed into a troubled silence. At other tables, cutlery clanked and chairs scraped, people bitched, gossiped and laughed, snatching their breaks when they could on this particularly busy Saturday night.

Finally Angus said to Wayne. ‘He just can’t help himself can he?’

Wayne looked as puzzled as Stevie. ‘Who?’ he asked. ‘De Vakey?’

‘Monty. I mean why couldn’t he just leave well enough alone? He’s in enough trouble as it is.’

‘If we all played by the book, Angus, nothing would ever get done,’ Wayne replied with unmasked irritation.

The chirping of a mobile interrupted Angus’s retort. Everyone checked their phones, but the ringing continued from an unclaimed phone in the middle of the table.

‘Shit,’ Stevie said, reaching for it. ‘De Vakey’s left his mobile. I might still catch him at the front entrance.’ She pressed the answer button and headed for the canteen exit.

‘De Vakey’s phone,’ she said pushing her way through a cluster of uniforms on supper break. The swinging door closed behind them, cutting off the noise from the canteen. ‘Hello,’ a pleasant female voice replied. ‘May I speak to James, please?’

‘Hi, I’m a police officer colleague of James. I’m trying to catch him now, he’s left his phone behind.’

‘Well at least it wasn’t switched off this time,’ the voice answered.

Stevie hurried down the corridor towards the front entrance, conscious of the sound effects the woman on the other end of the phone must be hearing: thumping feet, heavy breathing, the sound of traffic as she stepped into the street. She could see the cab easing away from the curb.

‘Sorry,’ she panted into the phone. ‘Looks like I’ve lost him.’

‘Oh, that’s all right, would you mind giving him a message then?’

Stevie scrabbled in her jacket pocket for her pen and notepad as she headed back through the double doors of Central. Damn, she must have left them in the canteen. She saw Wayne standing near the lifts and beckoned him over.

‘Pen?’ she mouthed. He handed her a pen and notebook from his top pocket. ‘Go ahead,’ she said to the woman on the phone.

‘Tell him Vivienne rang...’

‘Surname?’

The woman laughed. ‘De Vakey. His wife.’

The blood drained from Stevie’s head. Her legs could no longer support her and she dropped onto a nearby bench. Wayne raised his eyebrows at her obvious discomfiture and moved closer.

‘Hello, hello, are you there?’ the woman asked.

‘Umm, yes.’ Stevie took a steadying breath and tucked the phone under her ear so she could write.

‘Tell him it looks like I’ll be able to make Monday’s flight after all.’

‘Monday’s flight?’

‘He’ll know what I’m talking about. First the seminar, then the case—this Perth trip has turned out ridiculously long. And tell him to keep his phone on a bit more often,’ she said with more than a prickle of irritation.

You bet I will
, Stevie thought after she’d said goodbye, contemplating hurling his phone into the nearest bin.

Wayne straightened from his stooped position. ‘Did I hear that right, he has a wife?’ He shrugged. ‘Didn’t seem the marrying kind to me.’

‘Nor me,’ she said, trying to appear nonchalant, all too aware that Wayne was examining her face as if she were a witness with something to hide.
Shit shit shit!
Why the hell had she assumed De Vakey wasn’t married? Her fingernails bit into the palms of her hand as she forced herself to listen to the answer ringing from somewhere in the back of her mind: because that’s what she wanted to think.

‘I thought you went to the airport the other night to pick him up off the plane from Melbourne?’

‘I did,’ she said, grateful to Wayne for bringing her back to the objective reality of the situation. She attempted to remember the sequence of events of that night.

‘And didn’t she just say he hadn’t been home for weeks?’ Wayne queried.

‘She implied it. He was already at the airport when I arrived. He said he’d caught an earlier plane.’

‘Bullshit he did. What the hell’s his game then?’

‘I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.’ She sprang up from the bench and slapped the notebook and phone into Wayne’s hand. ‘You can pass on the message and give him back his phone. Tell him he’ll have to hire a car, I won’t be seeing him tomorrow.’
Because if I do
, she thought to herself,
I won’t be responsible for my actions
.

***

There were only a couple of seconded dees answering the phones in the incident room, the others having called it a night and gone home. Stevie slumped into one of the booths and booted up the computer. Numbed by fatigue she knew sleep wouldn’t come until she could put a stop to Wayne’s words still spinning around in her head. But at least this was taking her mind off Monty.

‘What the hell is De Vakey’s game?’

Whatever it was, she had been sucked in to becoming a part of it; so busy searching for something in De Vakey that had never been there, she’d missed the obvious. She’d been blinded by his physical charms in much the same way that she’d been blinded by Sparrow’s lack of them. The realisation left her with a cold, empty feeling.

Privacy laws meant a warrant was needed to check airplane passenger lists, but a warrant was something Stevie doubted she’d get under the circumstances.

She thought of De Vakey’s show of vulnerability, his apparent sickness at the abduction site, realising it was at about this time that she’d started taking more than a professional interest in him. Had this been a classic con, or a genuine reaction to a horrifying job? It was a good lesson, either way: Manipulation 101. You don’t have to be a serial killer to be good at manipulating people.

And she was a good student. With a stab of guilt, she reached for the phone.

Malcolm Funston of the Australian Federal Police answered his mobile after the fourth ring.

‘Malcolm, it’s Stevie Hooper. I hope I didn’t get you out of bed.’

‘Stevie? Hi baby, great to hear from you. No, I wasn’t in bed. I’m on nights. You’ve reconsidered dinner with me?’

Night shift at the airport; perfect. ‘As a matter of fact...’

‘I have next Saturday night off. Is it a date?’

‘Listen Malcolm, there’s something I need to ask you to do first.’

‘For you doll, anything.’

Stevie took a breath. ‘I need you to fax me the passenger lists for all the Melbourne to Perth flights over the last three weeks.’

After a long uncomfortable silence she heard him whistle between his teeth. ‘Shit. Nothing’s easy about you, is it?’

‘C’mon Mal, I thought you liked a challenge.’

‘I’ll call you back.’

Stevie paced the floor. The call never came, but after about half an hour, the fax machine lurched into life.

Before long her eyes were tracing down interminable lists of passengers. Seventeen days back, she found De Vakey’s name. He’d been in Perth two weeks when she’d come to the airport to collect him. After a phone call to De Vakey’s hotel, she punched the off button and the monitor faded to black. The reason for De Vakey’s earlier clandestine arrival was now as clear in Stevie’s head as the chalked outline of a body on the road.

He is a person with a low self-esteem whose feats of infamy help to elevate him in his own eyes. He is proud of his accomplishments and wants recognition for them. His vanity, though, will often lead to his capture.

De Vakey,
The Pursuit of Evil

Early Saturday night, and the club district was already pumped and ready for action. Most of the car parks were full and the restaurants thronging with affluent older people and their families. At the other end of the demographic spectrum the queues at the clubs were growing with younger folk. Their budgets didn’t stretch to cover a good meal plus the boutique beers, creamy cocktails and designer drugs they craved—but what the hell? Why spend money on food when you can drink until you pass out, throw up, end up in the bed of someone you barely remember meeting, or spend the night on a psychedelic high? It’s Saturday night, party night.

As he shuffled past the restaurants and adult shops, Monty didn’t fit in with either group. He was still in the scruffy gear he had worn to the rose nursery, and the blisters on his sockless feet compounded his image by giving him a genuine down-and-out limp. And he was tired, more mentally than physically. His conversation with Sbresni had fed his suspicions into a strangling vine that twisted and curled around a variety of scenarios. And the common root went back to one of the few men still left in Central who had been involved in the KP investigations: John Baggly.

Although the idea of John Baggly as a serial killer was ludicrous, Monty couldn’t ignore the possibility that someone had been pulling his strings, just as he’d been pulling Sbresni’s. Perhaps Michelle had also reached this conclusion and that was why she’d gone to see Sbresni last week. Whatever she had dug up was more than likely the reason for her death.

The sooner he confronted Baggly, the better. But first there was another matter to take care of.

He stood in a queue waiting to be served by a Lebanese street vendor, conscious of being looked up and down by a man in an expensive suit. The girl by his side loosened her grip on her handbag when she saw the fifty-dollar note Monty handed to the vendor for his kebab and ginger beer. He had more money in his pocket. A prostitute’s basic fee might be low, but the ante was considerably upped when the service included information.

He spied a bevy of girls with large bags standing at the intersection. They didn’t move when the little green man told them they could walk. Only one of the four was dressed for the cold in a warm coat, the others exposing an abundance of flesh for such a chill night. The tops of their short skirts failed to reach the hems of their slinky tops and their jewelled belly buttons flashed with every turn. Years ago, when he’d worked Vice, this would have been a clear indication that the girls were on the game, but fashions now made it hard to tell the real from the counterfeit.

Monty washed down his last bite of kebab with the ginger beer and settled at an empty table of a street cafe. After a wary waiter had taken his cappuccino order, he rocked back on his chair to observe the pantomime of the street.

There was much amicable chattering and giggling going on among the women. Perhaps they were office girls on a night out—a bevy of beauties or a fishnet of prostitutes? He smiled as he pondered the appropriate collective.

Still no one moved to cross when the lights changed again. A group of scruffy young men in uniform baggy jeans and baseball caps pushed past the girls with a surprising absence of comment. One was wobbling on his feet, supported by another. The knee-length crutch of his sagging jeans forced him to affect a penguin waddle, further hampering his efforts at walking. Monty caught the whiff of cheap bourbon as they staggered by, but the girls didn’t seem to be interested, they were after fatter fish.

The waiter brought Monty his cappuccino. He took small sips to make it last, having no idea how long it would take to find out if they were on the game. He leaned back in his seat and watched.

It didn’t take long. A shiny black Mercedes pulled up at the lights and a visible ripple of anticipation shivered through the girls. The tinted window glided down. One of the girls stepped forward and words were exchanged. She turned back to her companions who responded with nods of encouragement. By the time the lights turned green again she was settled in the front seat.

The remaining three stepped back from the intersection and regrouped under the awning of Monty’s cafe, standing just out of earshot from the other customers, no doubt discussing the next stage of the night’s operations.

Now was as good a time as any.

Monty got up from the table and limped towards the threesome. ‘Hi,’ he said, his smile showing just the right amount of discomfort.

The girls assessed him with distaste. One in particular, a girl with hair as colourful as an exotic parrot, looked at him as if he was something on the bottom of the birdcage.

‘Well, what do you want?’ Polly asked, the slight hook of her crinkling nose adding to the avian effect.

‘I’d say it was kinda obvious what he wants,’ her peroxided companion said with a giggle.

Just then the waiter passed. ‘Hang on, mate,’ Monty said to him, ‘I’ll pay for my coffee now, thanks.’ He produced a hundred-dollar note from his pocket. ‘Sorry, haven’t got anything smaller.’

The waiter turned away with the money and Polly nudged the girl in the coat. It was as if a heater had been turned on in a cold room.

Feeling the sudden warmth, the girl parted her coat, flashing Monty with her pointy pink nipples and a neatly waxed landing strip. He swallowed and looked away.

Polly whispered to her companion.

The coat squeezed his upper arm and gave him a salacious smile. ‘You’re supposed to ask how much. I say, what do you want, mister? You tell me your requirements and I give you my price.’

The waiter reappeared with Monty’s change and scowled at the girls. ‘You girls clear off. I don’t want you hanging around my cafe.’