Jill Jackson - 04 - Watch the World Burn (19 page)

Jill used a face washer to remove the last of her make-up. Just as she did every night, she rinsed the cloth and used it to polish her sink before lobbing it into the laundry basket by the door. She turned back to the basin, automatically reaching for a hair band. She caught her reflection in the mirror and realised she didn’t need one now. She pushed her new fringe to the side. Scotty had never seen her hair like this.

She smiled at herself in the mirror. He’d have given her hell. Would’ve told her it made her face look fat, or something. Jill turned away from the mirror when her eyes began to brim again. He’d had a thing about wrapping her long hair in his hand, trapping her and pulling her to him gently. When he’d first tried that she’d brought him to the ground with a kick behind his knee. The second time, she’d pushed him flat on her bed and climbed aboard.

She went back into her bedroom and picked the black jacket up from the bed. She hung it in the wardrobe. When she’d bought the outfit, she’d thought she’d wear it a lot – to court, when visiting the lock-up – but it turned out she’d worn it just twice. Both times to funerals.

My Scotty. Jill grabbed his pillow and curled up with it on her bed.

The phone rang. Her mobile was in the kitchen. She dragged herself up and shuffled out there. It’d be her mum – she’d already left four messages – but Jill didn’t feel like talking; she’d call her back tomorrow. She checked the display anyway. Frowned. Hit the green button.

‘Gabriel?’ she said, and cleared her throat.

‘You want to come out?’

‘No.’ What’s wrong with you?

‘There’s been another firebomb.’

‘What? Who?’

‘House in Glebe. The local member; name’s Erin Hart. Her kids were in there.’

‘Give me the address.’

Jill muted her GPS and followed the fireys’ lights strobing through smoke in the night sky. She pulled up beside a patrol car that was blocking the street. Kids in pyjamas ran about while adults clustered together, gossiping. Two news vans were parked up on the sidewalk. Jill approached the uniformed female constable guarding the perimeter; another woman, standing with her, watched Jill approach.

‘Detective Jill Jackson,’ she said, showing her badge. ‘Maroubra.’

‘What are you doing out here, Detective?’ asked the cop. ‘Sorry to ask. It’s just I’ve been told to keep everyone out until the techies get here.’

‘That’s okay,’ said Jill, wondering about the best way to answer. No way was she going to let the listening civilian know she was linked to Scotty’s case, and that they were thinking these acts could be related. Jill could tell by the woman’s demeanour that she was a journalist. She looked over towards the house with the broken front window. Soot ringed the window like a black eye. Two suited-up fireys were standing by their truck, laughing. And then Gabriel walked out the front door of the terrace, stepping gingerly. He saw her, waved. Big smile.

‘My partner,’ said Jill.

‘You’re with the Fed?’

‘On this I am,’ said Jill. She moved past the patrol car and the civilian.

Gabriel waved her over towards the rear of his car.

‘I’ve got some new stuff,’ he said.

‘Okay, first of all, Gabriel,’ she said, ‘was anyone hurt?’

‘Nope. The living room light was on but the kids were in their rooms. It was another Molotov. Did some pretty good damage. I doubt it was petrol, though. First glance at the fire pattern makes me think it was something else. It burned out in the dining room. Erin Hart wasn’t home.’

‘Where is she now?’

‘At the copshop with the kids. We’ll interview her later.’

‘Who’s running things out here?’

‘Glebe, but they’re happy for me to take what I need.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Colby called them.’

‘You’re kidding?’ said Jill. James Colby was the AFP Deputy Commissioner in charge of National Security. ‘Why?’

‘I told him we’re dealing with a terrorist.’

Jill ran a hand through her hair, then looked back at the house. A trickle of dark water dribbled out the front door. ‘But calling Colby over a Molotov cocktail? That’s pretty big.’

‘This is all pretty big. A firebomb at a politician’s home equals domestic terrorism until we prove otherwise. But when you can possibly link it with the murder of a cop, you got two crimes against the Commonwealth and we get access all areas.’

‘You think this is definitely linked to Scotty?’

He shrugged. ‘Could be copycat – someone got all horny over the news his death got, wanted to recreate the thrill, see their work on TV. Or it could be all about Erin Hart – maybe she’s doing something that someone from her electorate doesn’t like.’

‘Or it could be the person that killed Scotty. It could be David Caine.’

‘That’s why we’re here,’ said Gabriel. He popped the boot of his car.

Jill stared. ‘What is all that?’ she asked.

‘Told you, I got some new stuff. This here–’

‘Hang on a sec, Gabe. Maybe you and I should just leave this to the techies. They’ll be here soon. I’m really worried that we’re wasting time here – I think you and I should at least go and talk to Caine; bring him in for an interview. If he’s done this firebomb too, he’ll be hyped right now – we can have a crack at him while he’s emotional.’

‘Jill, you’ve got to trust me,’ said Gabriel, leaning into the boot of his car. He looked back at her from under the rim of his cap. ‘Caine won’t interview. We’ll get nothing. This is not the kind of guy you, me or anyone else is going to crack. You could torture this prick and he wouldn’t crack. We’d bring him in and let him go because of lack of evidence, and he’d cut and run. The only reason he’s still taking his arse to bed in Rosebery every night is because he thinks we’re stupid. We can’t disabuse him of that opinion.’

She sighed.

‘We’ll get him on evidence,’ said Gabriel.

‘Show me your new stuff,’ said Jill.

‘First, suit up.’ He handed her paper overalls and booties.

In the entryway of the politician’s house, Jill wondered if her life could ever have turned out like this. Spread out ahead of her was a home. Photographs of children growing, playing, Christmassing with cousins; schoolbooks on a coffee table; lamps, throw rugs and cushions. A busy calendar in the kitchen, a schoolbag in the hall. Intellectually, Jill knew that at thirty-four she still could have all this, but right then and there, she saw her future stretched ahead of her, and it was alone. Her sunny Maroubra unit seemed suddenly sterile, barren.

She covered her mouth to block some of the burning stench in the house and moved towards Gabriel in the dining room. He was videotaping the scene. Maybe her apartment figuratively had a blackened, blistered heart, but this house had the real thing. She stepped carefully through the crime scene. It was obvious that the firebomb had been hurled through the front window of the home, evidently smashing against the dining table and exploding. The fireball had deeply scorched most of the polished wood table, but it was still standing. A hairlike curl of smoke rose from the remains of a rug underneath the table, the mirror-shine of the floorboards around it now charred. The innards of two of the dining suite’s leather upholstered chairs protruded white and exposed through split skin.

‘It could have been worse, I guess,’ she said. ‘The whole house could have been set alight.’

Gabriel was squatting next to blackened, broken glass. ‘That doesn’t happen very often with a Molotov,’ he said. ‘Usually they’re out within ten seconds or so, especially if it was ordinary petrol. But I’m pretty sure we’re going to find that this device contained a napalm mixture.’

‘Napalm! What? Isn’t that used in war?’

‘And by terrorists,’ said Gabriel. ‘I think the lab will find it was also in the bottle thrown at Scotty. It’s easy to make,’ he continued. ‘You just mix your accelerant with styrofoam, soap flakes or paraffin wax. It keeps the burn going longer, and it’s stringy and gluey so it’ll stick to your target.’

Jill felt rage swell within her throat. She had to open her mouth to breathe.

‘My guess is that the perp wanted this shit to hit a human. He threw it towards the light. It’s rare to survive if a napalm bomb hits you. The thing is,’ said Gabriel, seeming not to notice that Jill had reached out a hand to lean against a chair, ‘when they explode, they deoxygenate the air and the vic usually passes out because they can’t breathe.’

Jill leaned her head down to meet the hand on the chair.

‘Shit, sorry, Jill,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t be here. It’s too soon.’

‘Tell you what, Gabriel,’ said Jill, pale but now standing straight again. ‘I won’t tell you what to do if you keep your opinions about me being able to cope to yourself. You said we were going to get some evidence to nail this prick. What can I do?’

Gabriel squatted next to the huge toolbox he’d lugged in from the boot of his car. He unfolded another tier of shelving from inside the box and handed her a specimen jar. ‘I need a soil sample from under the house, from right underneath where we’re standing. I’ll rest my torch against the floorboards so you can see what you’re doing.’

Jill took the jar, cocking her head to the side. ‘You don’t just want to get me out of here?’ she asked.

‘Look,’ said Gabriel. ‘All the residue from the accelerant is gone from here. It combusted or was washed away, but accelerants will run quickly to the lowest level. So when the bottle smashed, some of the liquid could have run through the floorboards before the rest of it ignited. It’s definitely a long shot – if this was a napalm cook, it would have been a thicker mixture and it probably all combusted, but you never know; soil has great retention properties for flammable liquids.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘I’ll go in a sec. I want to watch for a bit. What else you got?’

Still squatting, Gabriel scraped with a small spatula at a red blob on a blackened floorboard.

‘What is it?’ Jill asked.

‘Not sure,’ he said, holding it to his nose and sniffing. ‘Some sort of rubber.’ He smeared the mess onto a glass slide, topped it with another and dropped it into a plastic bag.

‘Aren’t the techies going to be mad that you’re fucking around with this stuff?’ she asked.

‘Probably,’ he said. ‘But I videoed it all first, and I’m only taking small samples. I’ll get all this to the lab when I’m done with it, but even with the hurry-up they’ve put on this, you know things can take time. Some of this stuff I can process myself.’

He then used a pair of rubber-tipped tongs to pick up a thick, circle-shaped piece of glass. He held it up to Jill and then dropped it into another plastic bag. ‘Base of the bottle he used to make the bomb,’ he said. He carefully picked through the rest of the glass and selected another rounded piece.

‘You’re not going to get any prints from that,’ said Jill.

‘You’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘We can lift latents that haven’t been completely dissolved by fuel. They can even survive the flames.’ He put the bag into his box. ‘But if this was Caine, he won’t have left prints. No way in the world. If I’m right – and I’m right – Caine has been committing acts of terror for maybe twenty years, and he hasn’t even got a sheet.’

‘So what’s the glass for?’

‘Well, two things. The techies said the bottle thrown into Scotty’s car didn’t have a wick.’

‘But doesn’t a Molotov cocktail need a wick to work?’

‘Well, that’s the way the pissants do it,’ said Gabriel. ‘But I think we’re going to find evidence on this piece of glass–’ he held up the bag and pointed to the flatter shard, ‘of a chemical trigger.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Jill.

‘They add sulphuric acid to the accelerant inside the bottle and tape a package containing sugar and potassium chlorate to the outside. When the bottle breaks, the acid reacts with the sugar-chlorate, causing a super-high temperature flame which ignites the fuel.’

‘Why not just do it the old way? Seems like a blowarse way to go about things.’

‘Unless you want to avoid detection,’ said Gabriel. ‘There’s no flame needed for this method. You don’t have to stand outside, light a wick, make sure it catches and then throw. You’re gonna attract a lot of attention doing it that way. You’re gonna get eyewitnesses. With a chemical trigger, you can be jogging by, lob it in and keep running.’

‘How do you know all this shit?’ asked Jill.

‘It’s what I do.’

Jill’s mouth twisted. ‘Good,’ she said. Knowing she had the Feds – well, Gabe in particular – hunting this arsehole gave her a vicious thrill. ‘You said two things,’ she continued, needing to know. ‘You’re collecting the glass for two reasons.’

‘Oh yeah, cast-in production data.’

‘What?’

‘You know, the stamp they put on bottles – date, place of production, and production batch. We might be able to link it to other bottles at his house.’

‘We’re going to his house?’

‘Probably. AFP is preparing a warrant for us now. We just need to process some of this shit. If we find any connection whatsoever to Incendie, or to what happened to Scotty, we can use it to get in. Then this evidence here can be checked against anything we find in his house, car, clothes, shoes, boat, arsehole and whatever else we want to stick our dicks into.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ she said. ‘Does Elvis know about this yet?’

Gabriel gave her a now-what-do-you-think look. ‘Elvis needs to keep his waddling arse away from Caine. When we get there, we’re going in heavy. It’ll be AFP all the way.’

Seating a party of five, Troy tried to stay smiling when one of the garrulous men in suits stumbled into another diner. Before the group had arrived, he’d had a call from the hotel’s clubroom to warn him that the group was on its way up. They were already hammered, and the loudest of them – an executive from Perth – stayed at the hotel five times a year, tipped well, and always paid the full fee for a suite. Important customer. The important customer asked for the wine menu before he even sat down. Troy signalled to Dominique and then caught James’s eye.

Troy took himself away from the party; he had an image of himself headbutting the clown. He’d hated leaving Lucy this afternoon. She was still so upset. He simmered, thinking about her alone in the flat when they’d barged in last night with a warrant. She’d tried to keep it together when he finally got home from the copshop, but when she saw that he didn’t have Chris with him she’d sat down on the floor and sobbed. All the way home, he’d rehearsed a story he could give Lucy about what Chris had done – another act of vandalism, maybe shoplifting. He’d crouched next to her on the floor and she’d looked up at him with her opal-green eyes. Her face wet with tears and snot, she’d asked him what Chris had done. And he’d told her. It was always that way with Lucy.

‘But a
gun?’
she’d said.

‘I know.’

‘What’s going to happen to him?’

‘It would help if he’d tell them where he got it,’ said Troy.

‘That’s why the cops were over here, huh?’ she’d asked. ‘They wouldn’t tell me anything. I thought maybe he must have stolen something and they were looking for it.’

Troy couldn’t imagine how Lucy would feel if she’d known they’d really been tossing the house to find something to pin on her other brother.

‘Well, they got nothing,’ he said.

It wasn’t until Elvis had walked into the room at the copshop last night that he’d realised that he was in more trouble than Chris. Of course, when they found nothing in his flat, they couldn’t hold him. He knew there was no evidence anywhere linking him to any of this shit.

‘When can Chris come home?’ asked Lucy.

‘I’m not sure yet, Luce,’ he’d told her. ‘I’m going to find a lawyer when I wake up. You have to get to bed now, though. It’s two o’clock in the morning.’

Now, Troy entered the Incendie kitchen. He was so tired. He’d finally fallen asleep at five and was up again at eight with a nightmare and the knowledge that he had to find a lawyer for his little brother. The Aboriginal Legal Service had referred him to a criminal lawyer in Surry Hills whose services wouldn’t require him to get a second job. She’d sounded all right on the phone and had promised to make some enquiries about Chris. Troy hadn’t been allowed to speak to him last night; he had an appointment tomorrow at ten.

He walked over to the stove, ripped a chunk of bread from a hard Italian loaf left there for this purpose, and dunked it into a huge simmering pot. He shovelled the sauce-saturated bread into his mouth. ‘Great drop,’ he said to his chef, swallowing. ‘The new group out there – they’re a bunch of fuckwits.’

‘You want me to piss in the soup?’ asked Roberto, his sous-chef.

‘Don’t be a smartarse, Robbie,’ said Troy. ‘I’m taking my tea break.’

Troy cracked the cool-room door and walked in. Immediately he felt calmer. The icy fog and silence wrapped him up. He walked a familiar path – straight to the cases at the back. He twisted the top off a Heineken, took a seat on a tub of fetta cheese and drained half the beer. Who’d have thought, two weeks ago, that tomorrow night’s function, which he’d been dreading for months, would be the least of his problems right now. Not that the new perspective made him feel any better about the party. To be honest, the function would be that much worse because of the events of the past two weeks.

Caesar had booked it himself – all eighty seats. ‘I’m on the guest list myself,’ he’d said, beaming. ‘So you’d better make it a bloody good job, Troy, my boy.’

Pressure enough, but then Caesar had added, ‘You’ll probably know half of the bastards there too. It’s Chief Superintendent Norris’s retirement party – he’s an old mate. This place is going to be wall-to-wall bacon.’

Oh, great, Troy had thought at the time. Just what I want to do – serve a bunch of fuckers who hate my guts. Now he felt like pissing blood every time he imagined it. He knew the way news spread amongst them. Someone had something good happen to them and you’d find out a year or maybe ten later. Someone had a pile of shit drop on their head and you’d smell it before it stopped steaming.

Troy knew he’d be on the menu tomorrow night for sure. He cracked the seal on a jumbo tin of mammoth olives and shovelled a couple in. There, dinner done, with another Heineken to wash it down. Maybe he could get pissed enough to trip and fall into the deep-fryer; it’d get him out of tomorrow night.