Malicious Intent (21 page)

Pain shot through her again, and the sunlight faded to black.

‘Can you hear me?!’

The woman imagined floating in a dinghy, with a rescuer rowing up close.

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‘Can you hear me?’

Opening her eyes snapped her back to reality. The voice was real! She tried to roll her head to see.

‘No! Don’t move! Stay still.’

Whoever he was, she dared not disobey him.

‘You’ve had a bad fall and we’re going to fly you to hospital. The updraft’s too dangerous to get you out by chopper from here. Instead we’re going to winch you up to the top. But first I’m going to get you stable. You’ve lost a lot of blood.’

The wind buffeted her more and the man shouted above the noise.

‘Could be a broken pelvis and your thigh is in pretty bad shape. I’m going to get some fluids into you and put you into an extractor device. We call it a RED. It’s like a whole-body splint to protect you. Got to make sure you’re okay for the ride up to the top. My name’s Ryan. I’m a paramedic.’

‘The tree won’t hold us both.’ Her mouth was so dry her tongue couldn’t make the words clear.

‘It’s okay. I’m on a winch. Don’t worry about a thing. It’s going to be all right.’

She knew that was impossible.

27

As a passenger in Dan Brody’s Ferrari, Anya noticed things she missed when driving. She closed her eyes and felt the warm leather seat contour to the shape of her back. The interior still had that new-car smell, a combination of leather and Armor All spray, the one teenage males spend hours using to polish the dashboards and blacken the tires. She wondered why women spent half their lives cleaning, making things ‘whiter than white,’ whereas the only cleaning job men took obsessive care with made something black look even darker.

Brody hummed to ‘Scotland the Brave’ from his CD of the Royal Military Tattoo. Anya unconsciously drummed her fingers on her lap. Brody was a bit of an enigma: fast cars, stunning women and an ardent appreciation of the bagpipes. She would have picked him more as a Led Zeppelin fan.

‘We’re almost there,’ Brody said, turning off the music.

Anya opened her eyes and blinked a couple of times in the bright sunlight. They approached the perimeter fence on Anzac Parade. Adjacent to the complex was a child care center.

Years ago it would have been unheard of to have a prison on the community’s doorstep, but urban sprawl and increasing numbers of prisoners meant the two worlds were no longer separate – something locals had to come to terms with.

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Long Bay ensured that sex offenders, supergrasses as inform-ants were known, people on remand and violent offenders in rehab programs were kept in separate blocks.

Brody turned left onto the road to the main entrance and announced himself to the guard at the boom gate, who curtly reminded him that mobile phones must be left in cars.

‘New rules, I’m afraid,’ Brody said as the boom gate lifted,

‘thanks to a prisoner who robbed the prison credit union and phoned his mate on a mobile to pick up the proceeds.’

‘One of yours?’ Anya asked.

‘The phone wasn’t mine, but I’m afraid the defendant is.

Court case comes up soon.’

He turned right, then left into a car park outside the regional office where he parked his Ferrari, straddling two spaces, making it more conspicuous than usual.

Funny, it wouldn’t occur to Anya to bring a flash car to a jail, in case it was stolen. Maybe this was actually a safe place to leave valuables, although the credit union members had probably thought the same thing.

As they stepped out of the car, the gusty wind flicked and whipped Anya’s hair about her face. She buttoned her jacket to lock out the cold but still felt the chill in her muscles. It seemed almost farcical to build a prison on such a scenic part of the coast, when the height of walls obliterated any view, where the weather could be so inhospitable, it made people
want
to be inside.

At the remand center, they walked to a door beside the visitors’ entrance and pressed the button.

The door opened automatically to a short corridor with a gate inside the doorway. A prison officer arrived and unlocked the gate, admitting visitors and their children. Anya noticed a girl of about ten wearing shoes that swam on her feet. The boy with her had on a floral shirt about two sizes too large for him.

She assumed they had borrowed clothes to dress up for their father. The woman accompanying them wore a cotton shift dress and more makeup than necessary.

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‘Sorry,’ Brody said quietly. ‘It’s a mistake to come on family visit days. Slows everything down.’

They signed forms stating their names, the prisoner they intended to visit, reason for the visit and who they worked for.

Brody wrote his license plate number alongside the time –

LAW4L.

The forms were inserted into plastic covers and pinned to their jackets. Anya pulled out her driver’s license with a photo that made her appear so bloated that the officer looked twice to confirm she was in fact the same person.

Brody flashed a Bar Association ID with what must have been a ten-year-old photograph. Vanity wasn’t the sole domain of women.

They handed more forms to an officer inside a glass cage who entered the information into a computer database, which recorded details of every visit.

Finally, the guard started looking Deab up on the computer.

Brody folded his arms and waited, watching him. The frown on his face deepened as the minutes ticked by.

‘Not here, mate. You must have the wrong section,’ the guard finally announced.

Brody’s mouth tightened. ‘I assure you he
is
here. He was assaulted yesterday, Officer –’ He stared down the other man.

‘May I document your name for future reference, particularly as I’ll be seeing the Minister at lunch tomorrow?’

The guard looked back to the computer screen. Within a short time, he’d miraculously discovered Deab in the section after all.

‘Go through the metal detector, then out that door over there,’ he instructed, not making eye contact. ‘You’ll have to cloak everything but paper and pens.’

Beyond the door, they headed in silence along a narrow walkway between a two-story windowless building and a wall covered with razor wire. Judging by the mold on the path, even sunlight had an aversion to the place.

Visiting prisons always made Anya feel claustrophobic, KATHRYN FOX

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despite knowing she could leave at any time. Brody didn’t seem bothered by the process, or didn’t let on if he was.

They passed through a gate to the outside visiting area.

Anya eyed the drab furniture and umbrellas fixed in concrete.

To think this was the highlight of an inmate’s week.

Prisoners dressed in white overalls that zipped up the back sat and walked with their partners and children. No chance of hiding contraband, so the authorities assumed. The little boy with the floral shirt shook hands with a stocky man, tattooed on the side of his neck. A father and son with so little physical and emotional contact were painful to witness.

Brody walked toward a set of caged stairs that led to a basement.

‘It’s the dungeon for us, today,’ he quipped.

They walked down and along a corridor that smelled like stagnant water. Peeling paint showed it hadn’t been tended to in years. On one side stood a stained toilet bowl, not connected to anything. The place felt like a mausoleum.

‘God knows what went on down here in the past,’ Brody said. ‘It’s where I usually interview protected prisoners.’

They entered a concrete room containing a mirror. Brody waved to the officers on the other side. At one of the tables, a man and wife seemed oblivious to them, making the most of the opportunity for physical contact.

‘Don’t worry. These aren’t conjugal visits, but the guards have a good look before they break it up.’

Mohammed Deab entered the room accompanied by a guard who didn’t look more than about twenty. Anya expected to see a large man, huge in stature. Instead she stood to face a shorter, plumper version of his son. Mohammed’s features were coarser than Anoub’s but the resemblance was striking. In his younger days he might have been considered good looking, but time and, judging by the nicotine-stained fingers on his right hand, tobacco, hadn’t been kind.

He nodded at Brody but didn’t acknowledge Anya as he sat at the plastic table.

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Brody introduced his colleague and explained the rationale for a medical examination, but Deab merely stared at the table.

‘She can examine only what she can see,’ he said without looking up. ‘I will not undress in front of her.’

‘Fine, that is your prerogative,’ Anya agreed. ‘I can’t do anything without your permission.’

Anya took notes of the facial bruising and asked him to extend his hands. She drew the blackish-brown bruises over both sets of knuckles, which were understandably more prominent on the right side, his smoking and dominant hand.

‘Can you make a fist with each hand, please?’

Deab complied.

‘Good. That suggests your metacarpals, the long bones in your hand, are okay.’

‘Would you mind standing up for a moment? I’d like to check your face.’

Deab shot Brody a cold stare, reminding him of the conditions.

In heels, Anya stood slightly taller than Deab and bent down to get a better look at his face. His breath reeked of sickly sweet tobacco, which he made no attempt to hide.

‘You have extensive bruising of this cheek and eye area. I’d like to feel the bone if that’s all right.’

Deab grunted, which she took as tacit approval. She pal-pated the bony prominences on his face, looking for boggy swelling, an indication of a fracture. Conjunctival hemorrhage covered most of the white part of one eye but didn’t extend to the sclera’s outermost part. She felt the skull and located a firm swelling on the back of his head on the left. Probably from where he hit the ground after being punched.

‘It’s unlikely you have a fractured cheek, although the bruising is quite impressive. Both pupils are equal in constriction and reaction to light. Mr. Brody said you didn’t lose consciousness.

If that’s the case, even with the lump on your head, a significant head injury this long after the assault is unlikely. How’s your neck?’

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Deab copied Anya’s lead and moved his neck from side to side, up and down so that his chin came close to his chest.

‘Good. Were you hurt anywhere else?’

‘I have a sore back, that is all,’ he said, touching his left lower ribs at the back. ‘And a bruise.’

‘Any shortness of breath or pain when you breathe?’

‘A little pain.’

Anya placed her hands on either side of his chest. ‘I‘m going to spring your ribs. If you have a broken rib this could hurt.’ She gave two short sharp pushes inward and Deab failed to react.

‘Can you take some deep breaths?’

Deab exhaled in her face. ‘No more.’

Dan Brody shifted in his seat, as if bored. Anya returned to the table to document her findings on a body chart diagram in her notepad.

‘My guess is, the bruise on his back was caused by a boot after he hit the ground.’ Anya turned to Deab. ‘Do you know if the medical officer tested your urine for blood?’

Deab addressed Brody. ‘He said test was good.’

‘You are either very lucky or whoever did this didn’t intend to kill you. You have soft-tissue injuries, which will heal in a few weeks.’

Dan Brody asked, ‘Why would anyone assault you?’

‘Someone knew the Galea family. I tell him that boy deserves to die for the dishonor he has brought my family. I tell him I will spit on his grave.’

Brody sighed. ‘That might explain the assault. You can’t go around making verbal threats against the person you’ve been accused of putting in intensive care.’

Deab stared at the table again. Anya suspected he wasn’t used to being reprimanded.

‘We can talk about your plea in a minute, but first Dr.

Crichton has some questions to ask you about your daughter.’

‘I have no daughter,’ he said calmly.

‘We need to know about Fatima, Mr. Deab,’ Anya urged. ‘It may explain what happened to her.’

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‘I once had a daughter who shamed me. She is dead. That’s how it should be.’

Brody flicked Anya a concerned look but she ignored it.

‘Your daughter died alone in an awful place. Don’t you want to know why?’

‘You sit there thinking you are better.’ He clenched his fists.

‘You with your loose morals. I didn’t go to university but I know things you don’t.’

She spoke quietly. ‘I am not passing judgment. I am trying to find out how Fatima breathed in something that could be quite dangerous. Your workshop, for example. Did she spend much time there?’

‘I look after my workers, just like I look after my family,’ he said through closed teeth.

‘Like you looked after Fatima?’ she said, a little too aggressively. Anya couldn’t help feeling he knew more than he was letting on, the same way she felt Anoub had been hiding something the day he came to her office. She watched the dark parts of his eyes fill with a blackness she would have feared if they were alone.

‘No one is accusing you of anything,’ Brody said. ‘The doctor is asking some questions that may or may not turn out to be important later on.’

‘Fatima dishonored me. You look at me like I am some kind of animal but I am not ashamed of anything I have done. I will tell you and anyone else. Just like with Galea, I took care of my family. No one will shame me again.’

Anya spoke on reflex. ‘How did you take care of the family, of Fatima?’

Deab looked up from the table at her.

‘I make sure she can no longer bring shame upon my family.’

Brody interjected. ‘Mohammed, we don’t need to know about this. Don’t say another thing. Anya, I’m terminating this interview.’

She wasn’t about to protect this man from himself. ‘What did you do that you hadn’t done to her before? You’d already KATHRYN FOX