Jill Jackson - 04 - Watch the World Burn (23 page)

‘A lot of people drink juice.’

‘Okay, and maybe what we found in the false floor in Caine’s bedroom is really nothing as well.’

Jill held her breath. He waited.

‘Gabe! What?’ she said.

‘Defence-issue assault rifle, with five loaded magazines and thirty charger clips; a Browning semi-auto nine-millimetre, with twenty boxes of fifty rounds of ammo; and four M-67 hand grenades.’

‘Get fucked!’

‘I’m busy.’

‘Have you got him?’

‘He’s in the wind, Jackson. He didn’t show up at work. Meet me at AFP. He’s escalating. We gotta get him fast.’

Jill had been inside the Australian Federal Police building on a couple of occasions, but never in Gabriel’s office.

‘I didn’t even know you have an office,’ she said, sticking her head through his open door.

‘Yeah, well,’ he said, not turning from his computer screen.

Files and paperwork occupied all the surfaces that Gabriel’s computer terminals and keyboards did not. Jill moved a stack of books from the only other chair in the room and wheeled it over next to him. The view from his window was the hallway outside the office.

‘You had anything to eat?’ she asked.

He looked at her for the first time and shook his head.

‘Chicken and chips,’ she said, plonking a plastic bag on a file.

He dipped into the bag and removed the foil package, then ripped it open. ‘Anything to drink?’ he asked.

She pulled a bottle from her pocket. ‘Spring Valley,’ she said, balancing the bottle of orange juice next to the chicken. ‘Good job, Gabe.’

He stuffed chips into his mouth. Jill reached for the bag and took out some serviettes.

‘Where are we up to?’ she asked.

‘Caine’s now a Level One priority,’ he said. ‘Everyone’s out there looking. The weapons were stolen from an ADF site. We recovered a similar assault rifle in a bikie raid last month.’

‘How many firearms were stolen?’

‘Dozens.’

‘You’re shitting me!’

Gabriel tore half the meat off a drumstick in one bite.

‘So, he could have more?’ asked Jill.

‘He could have an RPG as well. The missing military weapons included assault rifles, munitions, grenades and disposable rocket-launchers.’

‘How the hell did someone get all that off a defence force site?’

‘Insider,’ said Gabriel. ‘A lot of the weapons and ammo were past their use-by date. They were going to be destroyed. We got the fucker who took the shit, but not before he’d offloaded pretty much everything.’

‘I remember now,’ said Jill. ‘Wasn’t that a couple of years ago? Are these some of the same weapons that were captured during that Lebanese street war?’

‘The same. Over the past two years, thousands of casings have been recovered in several shootings across Sydney, and eleven live grenades were recovered in four drug raids in the south-west. We got back a live M72 rocket-launcher after a plea-bargain in a drug conviction, and we think another six of them are with that particular offender’s associates.’

‘Is Caine connected to them?’

‘Not as far as we can tell. And no bikie connections that we can find, either. I told you, he’s a loner,’ said Gabriel. ‘He could have bought them from the original squirrel, he could have bought them from an on-seller – he could even have stolen them from someone else. He’s a resourceful bastard.’

‘What do you think he’s going to do with them?’ asked Jill.

‘Well, he was probably saving them for something big,’ said Gabriel. ‘But now he knows we’re onto him, anything could happen.’

‘How do you know he knows we’re onto him?’

‘Why didn’t he show up at work?’ said Gabriel. ‘You told me about his employment pattern – he’s the perfect employee.’

‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I wonder how he found out.’

‘We’re tearing his house apart. He could have rigged up some kind of warning system, like an alarm. Or a neighbour could have called him. Hell, maybe he just forgot something after leaving for work, spotted us and kept driving. Either way,’ he said, ‘the clock is ticking.’

‘What if he just takes off, goes into hiding again?’ asked Jill.

‘That’s another possible scenario. He could do that. He’s evaded detection for a long time.’

‘But what about his daughter?’

‘The school told us she’s there, hanging with her new bestie.’

‘Lucy Berrigan?’

‘Yep. Troy Berrigan’s little sister.’

‘This whole thing’s getting pretty incestuous, isn’t it?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘Anyway, I’ve arranged for someone to pick her up because, one way or another, her father’s not coming back.’

‘What are you working on in here?’ asked Jill.

‘Just trying to put the whole thing together. I got some more info back from the lab. You want the run-down?’

‘Go,’ she said.

‘Exactly the same accelerant mix was used in the firebombs thrown at Erin Hart’s house and into Scotty’s car – a bastardised napalm, just like I thought. The fire techs at the Incendie scene still don’t know for sure what was used on Miriam Caine’s face – there wasn’t enough skin left. But whatever it was, it was one of the two accelerants Caine used. Methyl alcohol had been squirted onto her blouse, and this shit was there by the box-full in Caine’s shed. We also found sulphuric acid. Remember I said he would have added that to the mix to ignite the sugar-chlorate package taped to the bottle?’

‘Yep,’ she said.

‘And that red substance we found in Erin Hart’s home,’ said Gabriel. ‘Remember?’

‘Uh huh. Some kind of rubber.’

‘A balloon,’ he said. ‘What I figure is that instead of putting the lid back on the juice bottle, he’d fitted a balloon over the top, like a condom. One of the problems with Molotovs is that sometimes they don’t connect with something hard enough to break the bottle. That’s not going to be a problem if you’re using a wick, but we know our boy didn’t play that way. So, using his condom, even if the bottle didn’t break, the shit inside would corrode through the balloon and react with the sugar-chlorate.’

‘How scary is this guy?’ Jill asked.

‘Scary,’ said Gabriel. ‘Know what else I found in the shed today?’

‘I don’t know if I want to know.’

‘Nitric acid.’

‘What does that do?’

‘It’s an extremely potent solvent.’

‘Meaning it could be used for cleaning?’ Jill said, hoping but not really believing that some of these chemicals could just be for Caine’s legitimate employment.

‘Yes. And for making bombs,’ he said. ‘Nitroglycerine.’

Jill rubbed her forehead.

‘But you remember that email, Jill, the one that Erin Hart told us about this morning?’

‘The acid attack on those kids? Someone threatening her daughter. Are you saying the attacker used–’

‘Yep. Nitric acid.’

Erin threw the mid-length sensible skirt and black ruffled blouse onto her bed. Yuck, she thought. Maybe the only thing that could make her feel worse about going to this thing tonight was going dressed in that. It screamed ‘mother of the bride’ or maybe even ‘nanna out for the night’. It would render her immediately invisible. Not that she especially wanted to stand out, but she still felt a pang in her heart every time a man’s glance slid over her as though she weren’t there. Their eyes used to pause, question, flirt. Would she never get to flirt again? How much did it suck to get older?

And fat. She turned back to her wardrobe and flipped through the hangers. Stopped at the red dress. The red dress. She’d worn it only once. She’d paid more than she ever had or ever would again for the most amazing shoes to match it. She slid the fabric through her fingers. It’ll never fit.

Why had she asked Hamish to come to this party? She had the perfect excuse to get out of the excruciating embarrassment of explaining, to those who didn’t know, why she wasn’t accompanied by Shane; of thanking those who did know for their kind words of support; and of pretending she couldn’t hear the whispers about the affair he’d been carrying on behind her back. It had been the same at every function since he’d walked out on her.

Having one’s home firebombed the night before definitely counted as an excuse not to attend a dinner. But Hamish had looked up at her so hopefully this afternoon when she’d started to tell him she wouldn’t be going. Instead, she’d smiled at him and thought, What the hell!

Erin spun at a sudden sound downstairs, her breath catching. She exhaled when she realised it was just the fridge kicking in again. She definitely didn’t want to spend the night here alone, jumping at every noise. Gabriel Delahunt had told her that people who threw firebombs generally didn’t attempt more personal assaults, but Erin could tell that he and Detective Jackson had told her a lot less than they suspected about what had happened here last night. And despite Ron Kennedy’s assurances that the local cops would patrol every hour, it was just too quiet without the kids.

Erin gave the red dress one last caress, and it slipped from its hanger into a blood puddle on the floor. She picked it up and held it to her chest. The skirt flicked out full and swirly under the fitted bodice. Maybe she could get away with it with the super-sucker-inerer underwear she’d bought when she was in the US last year. Damn it, she thought. I can at least try it on.

Twenty minutes later, Erin waved at the waiting taxi driver and locked her front door. Vaguely, she realised that she never could have walked out of the house in this dress if she hadn’t had the shot of whisky. Maybe she was going to regret it tomorrow. In the mirror, her cleavage had been so ... well, so
there;
the streamlining underwear had squeezed and hugged very effectively, and all those lumps had to go somewhere. But when she’d twirled, the skirt had done its thing and she’d fallen for the dress all over again. She’d told herself she needed a drink, and then she’d have one last look. By the time she’d gone back upstairs, slipped into her shoes and spritzed her neck with her favourite scent, Erin had decided that not only would she wear this fabulous dress, but that she was going to enjoy herself tonight too.

‘Maybe you should go home now, Jill,’ said Gabriel. ‘I’m going to be here a while.’ He scrunched the remains of his chicken into the plastic carry bag, wiped his hands, then swivelled back to his computer.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

‘I want to go back over the crime-scene footage from last night. Something is snagged in my brain and it’s driving me crazy.’

‘What is it?’

He gave her a look. ‘Well, I don’t know what it is. That’s why it’s driving me crazy.’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Can I help?’

‘You don’t know what you’re looking for,’ he said.

‘You just said that you don’t either.’

‘Well, there’s that,’ he said. ‘Okay. I’ll load up the video I took before we began investigating the scene. I’ve already dumped it into this terminal – hold on, I’ll send it over to yours.’

‘What am I looking for?’ asked Jill, when Erin Hart’s ruined dining room appeared on the screen in front of her.

‘Do we have to do that whole conversation again?’

‘So, just anything that strikes me,’ she said.

‘Bingo,’ he said, lowering his ball cap.

Gabriel had loaded the crime-scene footage into a program that allowed the user three-hundred-and-sixty-degree rotation by manoeuvring the mouse. Jill was experienced with the application. She moved carefully through the dining room, panning, slowing and zooming over every inch. Next to her, she saw that Gabriel was doing the same.

Jill studied the black scar across the beautiful polished table, the ruined rug and floorboards, which at that stage were still slightly smouldering. But the decor the fire hadn’t blemished was truly lovely. In the past, Jill would never have imagined that she could live in a home with so many colours. With so much to try to still in her mind, she did not want a riot around her when she was trying to relax at home.

But Erin Hart had combined the colours so skilfully. Deep emerald, ruby and sapphire harmonised in the heavy drapes; the jewels held back with a golden rope. Thank God they hadn’t been burned – that would have been such a shame. A mirror-polished redwood side cabinet sat against the front wall of the dining room, and atop it were happy photographs in mismatched frames. But the mismatching seemed perfect. Whenever Jill bought an ornament, she always bought an exact match to create a balanced pair. She zoomed in close on the photos. A raven-haired, serious little boy, each of his eyes a universe. And that must be Callie, here captured chubby-kneed and enchanted by an Easter egg, her immaculate toddler skin smeared in chocolate. Wow. Jill took a deep breath and let it go slowly.

The video had somehow managed to capture the glitter of the lighting reflected off each facet of a cut-crystal vase, the centrepiece of the mantle. Bruised purple lilacs and crushed crimson crepe myrtle spilled from the vase. Jill wished she’d noticed the flowers last night and had stopped to smell the lilacs. Then the acrid stench of the fire came back to her, and she realised that even if she’d tried, she’d have smelt nothing but the destruction.

The scent memory focused Jill’s attention. She didn’t think this was what Gabriel wanted her to look for. She zoomed down to the floorboards, noting the depth of char where the accelerant must have hit, and a clear line of burn demarcation where the accelerant had failed to catch. Thank heavens, she thought. Had the fire caught fabric, the whole house would probably have burned. She zoomed in tighter, then tighter again, noting the large rolling blisters in the centre of the burn, indicating the most rapid and intense heat.

She continued to focus on the damaged area but saw nothing that would add to what they already knew. She widened again, then decided to use a strip pattern to search, as she would if she were there, searching for evidence. She scanned imaginary horizontal lanes, reaching the bottom of the scene and moving back up. She focused on every surface, wall, ceiling, object, floor. She got nothing new.

Jill looked up and stretched her neck. Gabe’s eyes were completely shadowed by his hat. He was scrolling intently.

‘Anything?’ she asked.

‘Fucking nothing,’ he said. ‘I mean, everything in the scene is there, but it doesn’t scratch the itch that I’ve got in my head. I feel as though I registered something last night but I didn’t file it properly, and now I can’t find it.’

‘File it?’

‘You know, in my brain.’

‘Maybe we should take a break,’ she said. ‘Or start again tomorrow, with fresh eyes. It’s been a long day.’

‘Yeah. Nah. You go.’

‘There are a lot of people out there looking for him, Gabe. It’s not just you now. You made the case.’

Gabriel tightened in on something and sat forward, his shoulders bunched. Suddenly he flopped back into the chair. He flicked the mouse and the room on the screen span. He groaned. ‘Something, something, something,’ he muttered.

‘What about the stills of the scene that you took after you collected the evidence?’ said Jill. ‘I doubt we’ll find anything else though. You’ve got every part of the scene here.’

‘Worth a shot,’ he said. ‘You up for it?’

After Gabriel sent the pictures to her computer, Jill went through the first few carefully, trying to find the minute changes caused by Gabriel’s investigation of the crime scene. She felt as though she were completing one of those magazine puzzles – spotting the difference between one picture and another, where each, at first glance, appears identical. Again, other than a tiny scrape here and a scuff mark there, she found nothing to remark upon.

Suddenly tired and impatient, Jill began flipping through the still shots more quickly. I don’t even know what I’m looking for, she thought. How am I supposed to know if I see something that would scratch Gabriel’s itch?

The images in the photographs began to extend beyond the immediate crime scene, and again Jill became captivated by Erin Hart’s decorating style. At first glance, the kitchen seemed much too country for her tastes. In her home, Jill loved the cold efficiency of German stainless-steel appliances, granite, lots of clean, cold surfaces. But she had to admit that Erin’s kitchen looked like the kind of place you could hang out.

A heavy wooden table in the centre invited you to pull up a chair, shuck some peas, drink some wine while you chatted to the cook. Suspended from the ceiling above the table was a wrought-iron rectangle, with cooking utensils, colourful enamel pots, bunches of herbs, a string of garlic and a strand of fairy lights all hanging from it. Jill couldn’t imagine having a jumble of food and utensils on display like that. But it actually fitted perfectly here, and was probably very useful too. She was surprised that she hadn’t registered the rack last night. She flipped to another photo. She also hadn’t noticed that the refrigerator was a bright cherry-red. A red fridge. Huh.

There was the calendar on the wall that she’d noticed last night. She zoomed in: birthday and Christmas parties, sporting matches, a concert, exam dates. She panned across to the fridge.

‘Wow,’ she said. ‘That’s weird. Gabriel, take a look at this.’

She honed in on a card, which had been opened out and stuck to the fridge with a magnet in the shape of a cauliflower. Gabriel wheeled his chair closer to hers.

‘It’s an invitation,’ she said. ‘To Erin Hart, for a black-tie dinner at Incendie.’

‘That’s it,’ said Gabriel, his chair rammed up against hers. ‘When is it for?’

She moved the mouse.

‘Tonight,’ she said. ‘Um, now.’