Take Out (17 page)

She replied without words, making the last dab harder than necessary, causing him to hiss out a breath. Collecting the soiled cotton wool balls, she tossed them in the bin and began to pack up her first aid box.

His mobile phone rang. He listened to an update from the Fremantle police, spoke a few succinct words and hung up. ‘My car’s been towed away and the door collected,’ he told her. ‘They tell me it’s scarred with streaks of green paint.’

Stevie hadn’t told him about the scraping from Skye’s car she’d sent to the lab. She reminded herself to give Mark a ring tomorrow to see if the results had come through. She looked at her watch: today, she amended. ‘Green paint, like on Skye’s,’ she said. ‘They’d better damn well take a paint sample this time. What kind of car does Marius have?’

‘A dark blue Audi, undamaged and not driven recently. The Fremantle cops say he hasn’t left the club since we saw him.’

‘That doesn’t discount one of his thugs in another car.’

‘All the cars in the staff parking area have been checked and an alert put out for a green car with a freshly crumpled bumper. I’ll organise someone to pick up Marius and the woman for questioning tomorrow, let them stew at home over night.’

‘But if it’s not Marius, who else could it be? That attempt on us must mean we’re getting close to something. Could Pavel and Hardegan be behind all this?’

‘We don’t even know if they’re still alive.’ Fowler pressed his fingers into his temples. ‘Wait a minute. What colour was Pavel’s missing Jag?’

Stevie paused, looked back at him as she tried to visualise the shape of the car in the alley. ‘Green. Shit. It could easily have been a Jag that rammed us—maybe Pavel’s still alive after all?’

‘I guess we won’t know for sure if it’s a match to his car until the paint results come back.’

Sooner than you think, Stevie thought to herself.

Fowler got up from the table, swayed slightly and put a hand on it to steady himself. ‘Well, hopefully more will be revealed at the briefing.’ He looked at his watch. ‘It’ll be light in an hour, guess I’d better go.’

‘Is that wise?’

‘I’ve had worse cracks on the head than this.’

Oh, Lord, spare me the macho crap. ‘I didn’t mean that—I know you’ve got a head tougher than a macadamia nut. I meant someone tried to kill us tonight and it might be safer for you to stay here.’

‘What—you going to protect me?’ he said with a slight curl of his lip.

Stevie rolled her eyes at him. ‘Yeah, you seem to need it. Don’t be a dickhead; stay here. I have a spare room made up. It’s on the right of the passage near the front door; help yourself. I’ll drop you home when you’ve had a couple of hours rest and then you can put on a clean white shirt and we can go to the meeting at Central together.’

Fowler agreed without further persuasion. ‘I’ll need to touch base with Angus before the meeting though, tell him about all this.’ He yawned, his gaze wandering again over the primitive kitchen. ‘I suppose this might scrub up okay, if you can bear to put the work into it—very different to mine.’

Stevie shrugged. ‘Horses for courses.’

‘Guess so.’ He moved over to Monty’s tropical fish tank, temporarily placed against a wall that would one day be demolished for a walk-in pantry. He stared for a moment at the frantic movements and flashing colours of the darting fish, going nowhere, never stopping for rest. ‘I never understood what people mean when they say looking at fish is relaxing,’ he said. ‘These hyperactive little guys are doing nothing for me but increasing my headache.’

‘Monty’s prized possessions. He breeds them.’

‘Remind him of you, do they?’

Jeez, Stevie thought, the man not only had the hide of a rhino but the tact of a farting bull elephant to boot. She set about putting the first aid box away in one of the high kitchen cupboards. When she turned around again, she expected Fowler to have made a move, but found him still staring at the fish.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

He nodded. ‘I just saw a fish eat one of its babies.’

‘Generally the fish with the biggest mouth wins.’

Fowler muttered something she didn’t catch.

‘I’m going to make an omelette—do you want some?’ she asked.

‘May as well, I’m tired, but too tired for sleep.’

Stevie knew how he felt.

Stevie had planned on picking Izzy up from her mother’s and taking her to see Monty for the first time since the operation. But after the night’s drama, it was paramount she attend the briefing at Central if she was to get any inkling about what they were up against. Izzy was not impressed when she rang to cancel. She would probably store the disappointment and hurt away, Stevie thought, use it for ammunition when she was a teenager. Stevie let out a heavy sigh and replaced the phone.

Fowler had also been on the phone, talking to Angus. ‘He wants me to fill the team in at the briefing,’ he said with a noticeable edge to his voice.

They arrived at the Serious Crime Squad’s incident room with plenty of time to spare. Angus had not yet emerged from Monty’s office. Officers milled around the room sipping coffee from corrugated cardboard cups and pulling up chairs.

Wanting to remain unobtrusive, Stevie perched on her old desk at the back of the room. Wayne Pickering wandered by without seeing her, but spotted Fowler immediately. ‘Hey, what happened to your head?’ the older detective said.

‘I was picking flowers,’ Fowler replied.

‘Picking flowers can be a dangerous occupation; just ask Little Red Riding Hood,’ Wayne said, heading to the front row of seats.

Stevie jumped down from the desk and grabbed Fowler’s arm before he could sit down. ‘Christ, you sure know how to win friends and influence people, don’t you? You might have to work closely with that man, but there you are, antagonising him before you’ve even started.’

‘My mother always told me to be wary of men in purple and pink plaid sports jackets,’ Fowler said dryly.

‘Wayne’s a personal friend of mine. Just because he’s an eccentric dresser...’

‘With breath like a komodo dragon.’

Someone told them to shut it. Stevie retreated to her perch at the back of the incident room and folded her arms just as Angus stepped out from the office.

Monty’s office.

Stevie thought of Marius waiting in the wings, ready to fill the vacuum Pavel had left behind, but stopped herself before it went any further. Angus wasn’t like that.

As Angus summarised the case, Stevie recalled her days with the SCS: this briefing was a lot more organised than when Monty ran the show. It was almost as if Angus had stood in front of the mirror and rehearsed for it; he looked as dapper as a presidential candidate in his dark suit and striped tie. There were no tension-relieving jokes or ironic putdowns, and even Wayne and Barry were being less competitive with each other than usual. Officers raised their hands before they asked questions and Angus managed to keep his cool, no matter how idiotic some of the questions were.

A small specialist group, the SCS seconded officers from other divisions when the need arose. As Stevie watched the proceedings she found herself putting names to many of the backs, uniformed and non-uniformed, before her. Angus, Wayne Pickering and Barry Snow sat in the front row near the whiteboards and overhead projector and ran the show.

Angus moved to the board near the wall and the officers reached into the files of information they’d been provided. Stevie hadn’t been issued with one because she wasn’t supposed to be here; she’d have to have a gander at Fowler’s later. On the wall next to the whiteboard hung a corkboard with pinned pictures of Jon and Delia Pavel, baby Joshua and Ralph Hardegan. As yet Skye’s name or photo hadn’t been posted. By the end of the meeting, she hoped they would.

Angus summarised the events leading to the discovery of Delia Pavel’s body in the river, then ran through the time line. It had been twelve days since the Pavels were last seen, eight since the baby had been found and five since the discovery of Delia’s body. He also presented Melissa Hurst’s pathology report, which delivered no surprises—cause of death: gunshot wound to the head.

A SOCO sergeant stood and addressed the team. ‘As well as fingerprints from both parents in the baby’s room, we found several sets of unidentifiable prints which don’t match any others in the house except on one of the back windows. The window was unlocked. We think this might be where the woman—we’re assuming either a woman or child as the prints were relatively small—accessed the house to feed the baby.’

Stevie hoped Rodika’s prints had been taken by now. No mention was made of a match.

‘Upon searching the perimeter of the house,’ the SOCO officer went on, ‘we found two shotgun casings in a ventilation gap in the wall parallel to the ground, just below the kitchen window.’

Stevie shifted in her chair and wondered how close she’d been to the casings when she’d been scrabbling amongst the weeds. It was unlikely the perpetrator had placed them in the gap deliberately—she might even have inadvertently knocked them into the ventilation gap herself. Shit! Her stomach dipped. Better stay silent on that one.

But if her error was grave, Fowler’s was even worse; he hadn’t bothered to have the area near the window searched at all. Stevie saw his white shirted shoulders stiffen; he knew this was another black mark for his file and she felt almost sorry for him.

Angus took the floor again and explained how a gun using the same or very similar ammunition to that found in the gap had been used to inflict the wound to Delia’s head.

A young female officer put up her hand. ‘A shotgun’s a bloody noisy weapon. Didn’t anyone hear the blast?’

‘During the second round of questioning,’ Wayne’s tone emphasised the fact that this was missed the first time around, ‘some of the neighbours reported hearing a car backfiring that night.’ He paused and looked directly at Fowler. ‘But I guess a shotgun blast is the last thing anyone expects to hear in Peppy Grove.’

‘A backfiring car’s not likely to be heard in that area either,’ Barry said. Someone sniggered. Angus silenced the offender with a look. He asked Fowler to tell them about his recent findings. Stevie saw Barry’s elbow dig into Wayne’s side. Other members of the team shifted in their chairs, squirming for the man from Peppermint Grove.

Fowler’s back moved as if he was taking a breath to bolster his courage. He rose from his chair. Stevie felt a tightening in her stomach. Fowler looked at the crowd, his gaze travelling over every face in the room except Stevie’s.

‘The old lady next door who raised the alarm has speech difficulties and seems to know a lot more than she can tell,’ he explained in a level voice. ‘I arranged to interview her with a Silver Chain nurse present who I hoped might be able to help interpret. Sadly, the young nurse was killed in a traffic accident before she could attend the meeting.’

At this, Wayne turned his head to the back of the room and raised his eyebrows at Stevie, drawing a ripple of attention from the others, including Angus. Stevie felt herself colour.
Just bugger off why don’t you, Wayne?

Fowler cut to the chase as if hoping to redirect everyone’s attention. ‘But recent events have led me to believe that the nurse’s death might not have been accidental.’ He moved over to the board and added Skye’s name. He explained how he and his nameless colleague—at which Wayne turned around again—visited the Vertex nightclub to reinterview staff, and then he filled the team in on the attempt on their lives in the alley.

Angus told the group that the staff at the club were being requestioned, with the manager, Marius, and barmaid, Rodika, waiting downstairs to be formally interviewed. The barmaid’s prints were being compared with those in the baby’s room. Both Marius and Rodika’s prints were also being run through the National Database to see if they could be linked to any other crimes.

A detective Stevie didn’t know asked if the audit results had come through from the club, restaurants and fresh-produce shops.

‘I spoke to the money boys first thing,’ Angus said. ‘They hadn’t finished the audit, but the books are hot, with several anomalies detected so far. It seems the lifestyles of Pavel and Hardegan don’t match the bottom line of their legitimate incomes.’

Angus turned back to the team. ‘I want the door knocking to be continued, and anyone with anything interesting to say the first time around is to be reinterviewed. We want to jog memories. We have vague reports of a woman sighted around the house at the time the parents were missing—I want this pursued further. The baby is thirteen months old. Tests reveal that he was given canned baby food as well as milk formula. The woman in question must have been carrying a bag, bulky with feeding equipment, food and clean nappies. The image of a bulky bag might just be the memory jogger we need.’

Angus indicated for Wayne to take over and Stevie assumed they’d discussed the information Angus had received from Fowler earlier. Wayne mentioned their suspicions about Pavel and Hardegan being involved in a people-trafficking operation. He said he was waiting for Interpol to get back to him on anything they might be able to scratch up about Jon Pavel. The AFP had also been notified. This meant that if they didn’t play it right they could lose the case altogether. The news was not well received; no one wanted the Feds on their patch.

Angus stood for a moment like an actor playing for the right dramatic timing. When Wayne had returned to his seat, Angus reached into his jacket pocket for a typed report and stopped the murmuring of his audience with a raised hand.

He read directly from the police report: ‘Last night, at approximately ten p.m., fishermen discovered the body of a naked man face down in the Swan River at Bassendean. The back part of his skull was missing.’

Jon Pavel? Stevie’s mind latched hold of the idea and ran with it. The body was found further west than Delia’s, but that would make sense given the pull of the current. And he was naked, which must mean no identifying jewellery. She wondered if the hand tattoo was still visible.

Angus Wong put an end to the direction of Stevie’s racing thoughts. ‘The pathologist did the autopsy first thing this morning,’ he said, ‘and found the COD to be a shotgun wound to the head, inflicted by a similar, if not the same weapon as killed Delia Pavel. The body has been in the water for about two days, and though it’s not been formally identified, it seems to match the description of missing businessman, Ralph Hardegan. Someone from one of his shops is coming in this afternoon to identify the body—that’s something I don’t want his elderly mother to have to do.’