Jill Jackson - 04 - Watch the World Burn (10 page)

‘Good morning, darling.’ Jill’s mother was next to her on the train seat, smoothing her hair. Jill sat forward. Remembered. A fat tear overflowed, sliding down her face and into her mouth.

‘I’m so sorry, Mum,’ Jill whispered.

Frances Jackson wiped the tear with her palm. ‘Don’t be silly, honey. There’s nothing to be sorry about.’

‘Do I have to go?’ Jill asked.

‘We’re nearly there now. It’s supposed to be the best ... place to recover in Victoria. And no one there will know you. Gabriel said it would help, you remember?’

‘What time is it?’

‘It’s just past six. You slept through the whole night.’ Frances tried straightening Jill’s collar. Jill scowled. Her mother smiled. ‘You look so much better.’

Jill realised that the noise in her head had stopped. ‘Did you get any sleep?’ she asked.

‘Oh, bits and pieces. You know I don’t sleep as much as I used to anyway, darling.’

Well, two fuck-up daughters will do that to you, I guess, thought Jill. She straightened in the seat, pulled the blanket off and began to fold it.

‘I’ll do that, darling.’

‘I’m okay now.’ Jill stood, stumbling a little, then her feet found the rhythm of the carriage. She took the blanket over to the suitcase.

‘I’ll stay as long as I can handle it, Mum,’ she said, squatting by the bag. She looked back over her shoulder at her mother. ‘But I’m not promising anything.’

‘Give it a week, Jill. You need it. Please.’

‘We’ll see.’

She took a walk through the hallway of the train, stretching her neck from side to side. Everything felt bruised, especially her chest, as though a horse had stood on it for a couple of days. The meeting at the station was a blur. She didn’t really remember much after she’d backed into Andreessen before the briefing had even started. But she recalled the last of the conversation with Gabe yesterday.

‘I’ve got to find who did this to him,’ Jill had said.

‘You can help when you get back,’ Gabe had told her. ‘If I haven’t caught the cunt first.’

Her mum had walked away when he’d said that bit. She remembered now.

‘You’re no good to me like this,’ he’d said.

‘It’s a fucking loony bin,’ she’d pleaded.

‘I went there,’ he told her. ‘When Abi died.’

Abi, Gabriel’s wife, had been killed by a drunk driver when they were on the job together in Canberra. The fact that Gabriel had been through this too had melted some of Jill’s resistance.

‘Well, I’ll go only if you promise me one thing.’

‘What?’

‘You have to call me every single night and brief me on the case.’

‘No.’

‘Then I’m not going.’ Jill had stood up. ‘And you can get out.’

‘You need some time away from all this.’

She pointed at the door.

‘Okay,’ said Gabriel. ‘I’ll call you every day.’

Jill remembered that when Gabe had left, she’d tried to help her mother pack, but she’d found a sock of Scotty’s under her pillow and the raining in her head had become a hurricane.

Now, she made her way back down the train towards their cabin. The other occupants of the train seemed to be waking too. Most of the shutters in the individual cabins were up as she walked past. She felt people staring at her but kept her eyes dead ahead.

‘Mum,’ she said, sliding open their door. Frances Jackson looked like she’d just had a shower and dressed nicely for the day, instead of having sat on a train seat all night watching over her lunatic daughter. Jill noticed that only the skin of her face was rumpled. More so than ever.

‘Yes, honey?’ Frances smiled, but worry crouched in her eyes.

‘Mum, I want you to take a cab to the airport when we get to Melbourne.’

‘No, Jill–’

‘Listen to me, please. You’ve got to get home. I’ll catch the train to Bendigo, and I’m fine to catch a taxi out to the hospital. I want you to get back to Dad and Cass.’ She threw her sister’s name in to ramp up the guilt factor. Cassie had only just been released from court-ordered rehab. ‘You can call Dad from the airport and get him to pick you up. You can be back in Camden in a few hours.’

‘No, Jill. I’ve got to see you get there okay.’

‘Mum, I’m a cop. I’m thirty-four years old. I’ll be fine.’

Frances frowned.

‘To be honest,’ Jill said, ‘I don’t want to show up at this mental hospital with my mummy. And where are you going to sleep, anyway? This place costs a grand a night.’

‘It’s a specialist health retreat, Jill, not a mental hospital.’

‘So you’ll go home?’

‘You’ll go straight to the retreat?’

‘Deal.’

Erin switched the alarm off before the radio had a chance to play. She didn’t care how great the song was – she hated any sound coming out of that thing. She didn’t have a good relationship with anyone or anything that woke her up. This was not a problem this morning, though. She’d been awake since five.

She sat up and glared balefully at the Concept2 rowing machine by the window. Who, in God’s name, had devised such a tortuous device? It was the most efficient piece of exercise equipment available. And it wasn’t just the musclebound salesman with a neck as thick as her thigh who’d told her this – she’d researched it. But, oh my God, half an hour on that thing rendered her almost demented. It was the boredom – the repetition, sliding backwards and forwards, ripping her arms from their sockets and the breath from her lungs. She’d spent thirty minutes on it yesterday, constantly willing the clock to go faster; every five minutes felt like fifteen.

Erin decided she’d put the morning to better use. Lying in bed this past hour, she’d been thinking of what to tell the PR agent about the CCTV committee plans. The committee had agreed that she would attempt to garner some public favour – each of them had recently copped flack about their involvement. She pulled her laptop out from under the bed, propped some pillows up behind her, and prepared a brief for the agent.

The Committee wants the benefits of this system to be clearly explained to the public. These benefits include:

Erin saved and closed the document. She really couldn’t see why anybody except offenders would have a problem with this plan. It made perfect sense to her, and she had no doubt that all the other councils would follow suit when they saw the reduction of crime in her district. The PR consultant had promised to distribute the information quickly, which she needed in order for people to be better informed before the first town meeting at the end of the week. She imagined there would be a lot of questions, but she really felt that the privacy people would come on board when they saw that access to the footage would be subject to the same regulations as all other information held by the police. All access to the system would be monitored.

Erin opened her email and sent a copy of the document to her office, then scanned through her new mail. Five minutes later she pushed the computer from her lap. The privacy people were one thing, but no amount of spin was going to tame the crazies. She had four new emails from people believing that the cameras were going to monitor their brainwaves or broadcast their thoughts around the world.

She wondered whether she could get the committee to approve a budget for the increase of antipsychotic medication in her district.

In the front seat of the cab, Jill remembered the last time she’d driven along the winding driveway of a rural psychiatric hospital. Richmond, New South Wales. The Sisters of Charity. On her way to interview the shrink, Mercy Mellas.

Scotty had been driving.

Jill forced herself to focus on the scenery, when the memory of him next to her stabbed a knitting needle through her heart. This time there was bush around her, instead of the ambling cows and river at the hospital in Richmond. She heard a lyrebird’s whistle-crack, then saw something fat and furry scramble through scrub at the side of the dirt road.

‘Was that a wombat?’ she wondered aloud.

‘Probably,’ said the driver. ‘You see one squashed every day when you go up the road to the top of the mountain.’ It was the first exchange they’d had since Jill had stepped into the cab at Bendigo Station, when she’d told him where she was going.

‘You visiting someone out here?’ he asked now.

He knew she wasn’t. He’d helped with the bag.

‘Nope,’ she said.

‘Supposed to be a nice place,’ he said.

‘Looks pretty so far,’ she said. The road continued to snake through overgrown tree ferns, the thick forest pressing up behind them.

‘God, it’s a long way in, isn’t it?’ she said. The gates had been a couple of kilometres back.

‘Another click to go,’ he said.

Jill swallowed. What the fuck am I doing here? What the hell has happened to my life? A week ago she’d been taking notes in Gamble’s psychology class, and now here she was, a psych patient herself.

The taxi rolled along, crunching over stones and negotiating deep ditches.

As soon as he opened the door, his toothbrush still in his hand, a tic began above Troy Berrigan’s right eye. He stepped aside to allow Detective Eddie Calabrese and Federal Agent Gabriel Delahunt into his three-bedroom unit in Waterloo. He hadn’t been able to sleep for hours last night, thinking about Hutchinson and reliving his last moments with both Jonno and Miriam Caine, and he’d again not woken in time to help Lucy and Chris get ready for school.

The officers walked into the unit and Troy held up his toothbrush. ‘Gimme a minute,’ he said. ‘Go through to the kitchen.’

On his way back to the kitchen, Troy kept close to the wall, taking the opportunity to observe his visitors. The floor plan of the unit was odd, with bathroom and laundry off the hallway by the front door. The hall continued past the three bedrooms and opened into a lounge, kitchen and another living area.

Calabrese was a walking advertisement for reducing one’s beer intake. He’d seen this bloke before – he used to drink with Herd and Singo over at Redfern. He’d stacked on the weight since then. His gut overhung his chinos like he had a breadbin down his shirt, and he had a good glow going on across his cheeks and nose. Troy promised himself an extra two kays on his run this morning. He upped it to five when his attention turned to Delahunt.

This guy he’d never seen before. In a trucker cap, black boots and combat pants, Delahunt was squatting in the kitchen. Shrek, his tail at ninety degrees, bashed repeatedly into Delahunt’s knees to take maximum benefit of the pats he was offering. Troy was pretty sure if he was in a squat that deep, he’d have been on his arse with that truck of a cat bowling into him. Delahunt just smiled at the cat, his back straight, his black T-shirt loose where Calabrese’s strained for mercy, but snug across the chest, biceps and delts. This is fucking yin and yang in my flat, Troy thought.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said, as he emerged from the hallway.

‘No problem, Mr Berrigan,’ said Calabrese. ‘Thanks for inviting us in.’

Delahunt remained in the squat, really working Shrek’s cheeks and ears now. A string of drool connected the cat’s chin to the kitchen floor. He mewled like a budgie on steroids.

‘Call me Troy,’ he said. ‘You want a seat?’

‘Troy. Righto, we’ll get right to it, then,’ said Calabrese, scraping back a chair at the kitchen table and falling into it. ‘We’re investigating the death of Detective Scott Hutchinson, and we believe it could be connected to the murder at your restaurant.’

‘It’s fucked,’ said Troy. ‘I can’t believe it. I saw it last night on the news. I thought they might have been connected.’

‘And why’s that?’ asked Calabrese.

‘Well, fuck, two people burned to death in a week? That just doesn’t happen.’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ said Calabrese. ‘Not to mention the fact that there were certain substances in common at each crime scene. Federal Agent Delahunt and I are here as part of a joint investigative taskforce which has been established to investigate both matters. We’ve got your statement here about the events at Incendie last Thursday, and we’d like to go through it in more detail with you.’

‘No problem,’ said Troy. ‘Of course.’ He picked at a little loose skin on his lip. The mismatched double-team were ramping up the tempo on his eye tic. Calabrese had a shiny sweat going that smelled faintly metallic; Troy recognised it from the drunk cells. The liver gets overburdened, tries to excrete toxins through the skin. Meanwhile, Delahunt showed no intention of standing. Troy’s thighs would have been screaming by now. Shrek had collapsed in ecstasy at his feet, a giant orange puddle. Troy pressed his right forefinger into his eyebrow, trying to stop the tic. Shit, wrong hand.

Calabrese stared.

‘I remember responding when your partner was shot, Troy,’ said Calabrese, pointing his chin towards the place Troy’s fingers should have been. ‘They called in all units, but we were out Leichhardt way, and by the time we got there you were in the ambulance and we weren’t needed. That was a good head-shot you made there, son.’

Troy said nothing. What do you say to that, anyway?

‘You must be pretty pissed off about losing your fingers that way,’ said Calabrese.

‘Well, I’m not thrilled about it,’ said Troy. ‘But I still have my head.’ Troy thought Delahunt might have laughed, but the sound could have come from Shrek, who had an open-mouthed purr thing going that Troy had never seen before.

‘Can I get you a drink?’ asked Troy. A change in activity might change the subject.

‘I’ll take a coffee,’ said Calabrese. ‘White with three, if that’s okay. We could be here a while.’

Troy looked down at Delahunt expectantly.

‘You’ve got a nice cat,’ said Delahunt.

‘I think he likes you,’ said Troy. ‘Drink?’

‘Cats pretty much always like me,’ said Delahunt.

Okay. Troy walked over to the bench and put the kettle on.

When he came back with the coffee, Calabrese launched in, putting his notepad next to his coffee cup, his pen in one hand and Troy’s police statement in the other. ‘So, you say in here, Troy, that you heard a scream–’

‘I think I’d like juice,’ said Delahunt.

Calabrese stared at the Fed as though he’d just stripped naked and done a lap around the kitchen.

‘Ah, I’ll see what we’ve got,’ said Troy. From the open fridge door, he called, ‘We’re out. I’ve got Coke, water or milk.’ No answer. ‘Or tea, coffee...’

‘You got any green tea?’ asked Delahunt.

‘Um ... No, no green tea. I’ve got English Breakfast.’

‘What about Milo?’

‘Are you fucking kidding me?’ said Calabrese. ‘Milo? What the fuck?’

‘No Milo,’ said Troy.

‘Chocolate topping?’ asked Delahunt.

Calabrese made a sound like air shooting out of a stabbed tyre.

Troy opened a cupboard, rummaged around, right to the back. ‘We’ve got chocolate topping,’ he said, turning around with the bottle in his hand, a bemused smile on his face.

Delahunt grinned widely, then walked over to the fridge and grabbed the milk. ‘You having one too?’ he said to Troy.

‘Yeah, why not?’ said Troy.

Delahunt cracked the freezer. ‘You want ice-cream in yours?’ he said.

‘Okay,’ said Troy, giving a laugh.

Calabrese scraped back his chair, muttering, ‘Chocolate fucking milk.’ Then, ‘Bathroom down here?’ he called, already pretty much there.

‘On your left,’ said Troy.

Delahunt pulled open a couple of cupboards.

‘What are you after?’ asked Troy.

‘Stick-blender.’

Troy pulled a hand whisk from the third drawer. ‘This do?’ he asked.

Delahunt frowned. ‘You don’t have a lot of foodie shit for a restaurateur,’ he said.

‘I’m not a cook,’ said Troy. ‘But I’m a great manager.’

‘They’re gonna get all up on you for the Incendie murder,’ said Delahunt.

‘What?’

‘Elvis has a hard-on for you.’

‘Elvis?’

‘Yeah. Calabrese, using your shitter in there.’

‘What the fuck? That’s fucking stupid,’ said Troy. ‘Why me? What have I got to do with murder?’

‘The arson profile,’ said Delahunt. ‘Come on, you’d have studied this at some point. Arsonists are often emergency services, or they once were. Check. They worm their way into an investigation. Check.’

‘Hang on a fucking minute,’ said Troy. ‘I didn’t worm my way anywhere.’

‘Scotty and Gibson should have got you off the crime scene immediately,’ said Delahunt. ‘What’re you gonna do? Anyway, back to the list. Arsonists are usually socially isolated. You’re not exactly flush with friends, Troy.’

‘Hey! You try looking after two kids and working. See how much time–’

‘Back to the list. Arsonists are disgruntled with authority and might feel inadequate.’ Delahunt reached out and grabbed Troy’s right hand, holding it up.

‘Check.’ Troy ripped his hand away.

Delahunt started scooping vanilla ice-cream into a big plastic jug. Kept talking. ‘Oh, and active arsonists have usually been busted for arson in the past. Check.’ Delahunt glugged chocolate syrup into the jug. ‘We pulled your juvie files. And this is to say nothing of the fact that you were the closest to the vic when she went up.’

‘That’s ridiculous!’ said Troy. ‘I was a kid! And you’re not just talking about arson. This is murder here.’ Troy started to pace. ‘This is a fucking joke. You people are so wrong.’

‘I know. You only fit the profile on the very surface. There’s a lot more to murder than checking boxes, especially with this case,’ said Delahunt. ‘Word to the wise. Elvis will be back here in just a sec.’ The toilet flushed. ‘He wants you jammed up for this, and he’ll try to cram your arse into the Scotty thing too. But in the end, that shit’s never going to fly. You know it, I know it. But you can’t overreact here, get yourself arrested. He’s going to draw this out, go through details. He won’t accuse you of anything. Not now. But you’ve got to stay cool, not get offended. You’ve got your brother situation going on, your sister’s got exams. You’ve got your job to keep.’

‘What don’t you know about me?’

‘Not a lot.’

Troy stared, eyes hot, fists clenched by his side.

‘Play the game, Troy,’ said Delahunt. ‘You know the game. This fat fuck’s going to go nowhere with this shit, but it’s gotta play out. Right now there’s a dead cop and people out there pissing blood to crack this, to make it their career case. But Elvis and Co. aren’t the only ones out there hunting.’

The bathroom door closed. ‘Play smart,’ said Delahunt, whisking.

Elvis shuffled back to the kitchen table. ‘You done making cupcakes, girls?’ he said, eyeing Delahunt with the whisk.

‘Chocolate milkshake, Elvis?’ asked Delahunt.