Double Take (14 page)

Eden stepped aside, and Steel was hit with the overpowering scent of cheap perfume as he entered the interview room and nodded at Detective Thomas. His first impression of the woman seated at the metal table wasn't a good one. Everything about her screamed fake. The long red nails. The over-the-top makeup. The padded push-up bra. The black hair was perfect too, a little too perfect. When she smiled he noticed the diamond stud in her lip.

“Good afternoon, Miss—”

“Black.” She offered her hand. “Tiffany Black.”

“I'm Superintendent Montgomery Steel. Constable Eden tells me you have quite a story.”

Her fingers disappeared in Steel's oversized hand but he didn't miss how soft her skin was. She definitely wasn't a blue-collar worker.

“It's not a story. It's the truth.”

“Okay, how about you tell me from the beginning?”

She rolled her eyes and he noticed how incredibly blue her irises were. “I've already told it twice now. Don't you boys take recordings or something?”

Thomas leant forward. The vein over his temple was more prominent than usual and Steel wondered if Detective Thomas had the same doubts about Miss Black that were already running through his brain. “We usually try to establish the situation before we record anything. But now, with your permission, we will.” He placed his palms on the table and for the hundredth time Steel wondered if the rest of Thomas's body was as hairy as the backs of his hands.

“Of course.” She eased back slightly, but was still able to tap her fingernails on the table. Which she continued to do as Thomas fiddled with the tape recorder.

“Okay, here we go,” Thomas said. “Please state your name for the audio.”

“Tiffany Black.”

“No middle name?” Steel paused with his pen over his notepad.

She hesitated for the briefest beat. “No.” When her eyes shot to the right corner of the room, Steel was almost certain she was lying. In his experience, when a person didn't maintain eye contact after being asked a very basic question, they had to be lying. Thomas and Eden wouldn't have wasted his time without a reason, though, so he decided to hear her out.

“Will you please start from the beginning again?”

“I suppose so.” She sighed. “I live in a small flat in New Farm and the walls are really thin. So thin I can tell you just about everything about my neighbours, right down to what they eat for breakfast. Anyway, about four weeks ago, my neighbour in number four started having mates over on a regular basis.”

“I don't follow. What's so unusual about that?”

“He's been there for over a year and never had a visitor. Not one.”

Her voice was high-pitched and didn't seem to suit her. Steel decided to speed her up. “How about you get to the robbery part?”

“I am getting to that, Superintendent Steel.”

The way she said his name, almost snapping it off her tongue like that, made him wonder if she'd previously memorised it. He nodded at her slightly. “My apologies. Please continue.”

She puffed out her chest, putting extra emphasis into those already pumped-up boobs. Clearly she believed she'd just had a small victory.

“Anyway, a couple of these meetings were what you would call…heated. And I heard enough to understand they were planning a bank robbery.”

“Go on.”

She placed her elbows on the table, pushed her hands together and peered at Steel over the top of her long slender fingers. “Jack, my neighbour, and his new friends talked about how they'd rob the bank, what their getaway plan is and how they'd divide up the money.”

“You told Thomas and Eden they plan to do it tomorrow. How do you know?”

“They said Melbourne Cup day.” She drummed her nails again.

Steel frowned. This wasn't adding up. “Why did you wait until now to come to us?”

“I wanted to make sure I had as much information as I could. People don't always take me seriously. And I knew this was serious.”

“Why should
we
take you seriously?”

A smile curled at her lips and Steel noticed cherry red lipstick smudged on her front tooth. “Because I recorded some of their conversations. Do you want to hear them?” She tilted her head and in a cocky move, she winked at him.

Steel laughed aloud and her smile broadened. “Of course I want to hear them. Eden, go get the other tape player.”

Tiffany leant over to the side of the table and Steel assumed she was getting the tape from the plastic handbag he'd seen at her feet when he walked in. He used the moment to meet Thomas's eyes. Thomas was a no-bullshit kind of guy and Steel liked that about him. Thomas would tell you your shit stank if it did. But right now Steel couldn't read him. It was like he was torn between what he was hearing and what he thought was true. Thomas twisted his wedding band, a sure sign he was still analysing things.

Eden returned and Tiffany placed two tapes on the table before her. But when Steel reached for one, she slapped her hand over them like they were playing a card game. “There's just one thing,” she said. “Do I get any money for this…information?” Her words elevated in a crescendo.

Thomas gave Steel a ‘here we go' look and then motioned to the door with his head.

Without a word, both men stood and as they walked from the room Tiffany said, “I'll just wait here then.”

With the interview room door shut, they stepped into the adjoining room. “What do you think?” Thomas ran his hand over the thinning hair on his scalp.

“I reckon she's about as fake as Pamela Anderson's boobs, but I guess that's not unusual with women these days. The audio might be interesting, though.”

“I agree. On both counts. Melbourne Cup day's not good. We're already down a few men.”

Steel had already realised the significance of the day. Over one hundred men from all over the CBD were already pulling Cup day duties. Mostly crowd and traffic control. Three from their own squad. It'd be hard to even get a taskforce together. “Let's hear the tapes.”

“You giving her money?”

“I reckon a hundred should do it.”

“If the tapes prove worthy.”

“I hear you.”

Steel pushed back through the door. One glance at Eden convinced him the poor rookie was pleased they'd returned. The silly bugger's top lip was just about breakdancing. He'd love to know what she'd said to get that reaction out of him.

He took his seat again and the metal chair scraped over the wooden floor when he tugged it forward. “Miss Black,” he said. “We're not in the business of handing out money before we check the validity of the evidence provided.”

“I get it.” She now had a chunk of purple gum in her mouth and she chomped on it as she spoke. “You want to see if these tapes are good enough.”

“Correct.”

“Oh, they're good all right. And what's not on the tape”—
chomp, chomp
—“I have up here.” She tapped her temple with her long red fingernail, then she slid one of the tapes over.

Thomas slotted it into the machine and hit the play button.

“Fuck you,” were the first words projected from the device.

“Sorry about that.” She wrinkled her nose. “Unfortunate timing.”

Steel just nodded. She was definitely putting on an act for them. But why?

As the tape rolled on, the four people in the room remained silent. Thomas wrote notes, Steel just let his pen find its own play on a blank page of the notebook on his lap. He was confused about the clarity of the tape. It was almost as if the audio had been recorded in the actual room these guys were sitting in. Her walls must be bloody thin.

A woman's voice on the tape made him look up. Miss Black met his gaze. “Her name is Rachel,” she said as if reading his mind. “She's the one who bought the guns.”

“Guns?”

“Don't worry, they're fake.”

Steel shook his head. He needed to focus on the audio.

All up, the first recording took just under an hour. He contemplated firing questions at her, but decided they'd listen to tape two first. They did. It was of a similar quality to the first. Steel had noted six characters: five men, one woman. The leader's name was Jack, and his brother was Jimmy. The three other men were Donny, Stubbs and Pete. That was a large crew to control. He'd bet his left testicle these guys had some history together.

The tape snapped to the end and Thomas fired off the first question. “Did you get a look at any of these guys?”

“Yes.” She did that cocky wink again and Steel knew there was more coming.

“We need to get a sketch artist in here,” Thomas said, as much to himself as the other three in the room.

“No need.” Tiffany smiled. “I took photos.” She stared at them, chomping. Her eyes flicked from Thomas to Steel.
Who does this woman think she is, Agatha Christie?

Steel could just see Eden from the corner of his eye and he was grateful he couldn't view much more, 'cause he was certain that top lip would be just about in cheerleader mode right now. “How did you take them?”

“It was fun, actually. One day when they were next door, I set up the tape recorder, then I ran over the road and climbed a big tree. When they finished I took snapshots of them. The photos aren't that great, but you may be able to work out who they are.”

“Let's see them then,” Steel said. This he had to see to believe. The whole scenario was so unbelievable he wondered if he was in some kind of
Candid Camera
setup. Not once in his twenty-five years in the service had he received information about a crime before it happened. The whole damn situation was nuttier than his mum's hedgehog slice.

Miss Black bent over again, and this time when she sat up she had a small envelope in her hand. She reached in and removed one photo.

“This is Rachel.” She slid the glossy photo over the table. And all three men leant over to get a better look at it. The woman in the photo was about 180 degrees south of his mental image. And there was something familiar about her.

“Not what you were expecting?”

He shook his head and noticed Thomas and Eden did the same.

“I agree. If I hadn't seen her for myself I wouldn't have believed it.”

She removed another photo. “This is Jack.”

“Hang on a minute, how do you know their names?” This was Eden's contribution to the questioning. It was a good one, too.

“Jack's the one from next door. I worked out the others by a process of elimination. By listening to what they said and when they left, I was able to put faces to names. Some were more obvious than others. You'll see what I mean.”

She slid another photo across the table. “This is Jimmy, Jack's brother. He's not very bright.”

“I'm sure none of them are bright.” Eden was growing confident now.

“No. I disagree. I think Jack and Rachel are both quite intelligent. God knows why she's messed up in this, though. She doesn't strike me as someone who needs money.” She tried to tuck her hair behind her ear but it bounced back out again. Steel now wondered if it might be fake, too.

“Often it just comes down to sheer greed,” Thomas said.

She nodded and averted her eyes. Bottom right this time. The fourth photo was of a man covered in tattoos. If he'd done any time, they should be able to get a match on this one.

“This is Pete. He's the scariest looking one.”

Steel had to agree with her.

“This one is Stubbs. See his hand? He's missing a couple of fingers. Maybe that's why they call him Stubbs. And this is Donny.” She placed the last two photos on the table. With all six photos in front of him, Steel now took a moment to analyse them. If they were all taken from a distance, as she said, then she must have a damn good camera to zoom in that close.

This was some weird shit. All this information and the crime hadn't even been committed yet. “You have so much information here, Tiffany, we could probably arrest these guys now.”

“No.” She fired the word out. “I mean, really? Is that possible? They um…haven't even committed a crime yet.” Her eyes jumped about and Steel had a gut feeling something else was going down here.

“There's only one thing stopping us.” Steel nodded to Thomas, letting him take over.

“Unfortunately,” Thomas said, “we wouldn't be able to use these tapes in a court because it's illegal to record a conversation when you are not party to it.” He leant back and crossed his arms over his chest. “At the moment, Miss Black, the only person we can arrest is you.”

Her hand snapped over her mouth and her eyes darted from Thomas to Steel. Steel heard her swallow. After a long excruciating pause she reached for the photos. “In that case, how about you just pretend I was never here.”

Thomas put his hand on hers and she looked up. Steel was certain he registered fear in her eyes. “Don't worry, Miss Black. We have no intention of arresting you. Our number one priority is public safety, and if the information you've provided helps us save some poor people from being held up tomorrow then of course we'll use it.”

“But I thought you said it was illegal.”

“It is. We can't use your tapes but we can record our own. So how about you give us your address?”

Her eyes widened even further. “What for?”

“We'll need to use your apartment to set up our own surveillance gear.”

She let out something halfway between a giggle and a choke. “I'm sorry. But you can't do that.”

“Why not?”

Tiffany looked down at her nails.

“Do I need to remind you of the fine line you're treading? You've already broken one law. If you impede our investigation you could find yourself in serious trouble.”

She finally looked up. “Jack moved out yesterday. He only needed one truck to move all his things. I guess he doesn't plan on returning.”