Private Oz (16 page)

FOR A COUPLE of seconds it was sensory overload. Shouts from the assault team, yells and thuds from the warehouse floor. On the screen, a smudge of movement through the night vision lens. Ho fell to the floor. I couldn’t tell if he’d been shot or dived to avoid a bullet. Then Sung spun on his brother. Ho rolled to one side as the younger brother fired a second bullet. Sung was just yanking Lin Jing’s arm down when the assault team in full body armor burst through into the warehouse from two different directions, screaming as they went, Enfield SA-80s leveled.

The younger Lin reacted instinctively. Pumped up, he dived for cover, headed for a pile of metal drums to his left and fired at the approaching cops. Before he could reach the barrels he was ripped open by at least three different weapons and crumpled in a heap.

Sung whirled round, reached the Mercedes. Dai and the driver were crouching behind the car. The driver had pulled a gun, the kid looked like a puppet, cartoon eyes, limbs limp. Sung reached cover, pulled out his own weapon, a semi-automatic, Bulgarian-made Arcus 94.

Lin grabbed Dai and we all heard the gangster yell out.

“Hold your fire,” Yender’s voice boomed through the speakers.

On the screen, I could see the fragmented image of Lin Sung rising slowly from a crouching position. He had the semi-automatic at Dai’s temple. The driver shuffled away, slipping behind a hulking lump of rusting plant machinery. Then Ho Meng stood up slowly, apparently unharmed. He started to walk toward his son.

“Let the boy go,” he yelled.

Lin Sung ignored him, took a step forward, opened the driver’s door with one hand and simultaneously shoved Dai inside the Merc as he slid in beside him. They disappeared from view behind the tinted windows.

Ho reached the car but was forced back as it roared away. The cops had their machine guns raised, jumping aside as Lin accelerated toward them. The car skidded on the uneven floor, drifted for a second, tires screaming. Lin got it under control and slammed his foot to the floor.

I didn’t wait another second, slid open the door of the surveillance vehicle and ran across the gravel to my Ferrari, hitting the remote as I went.

I SPUN THE car backwards on the gravel, turned into a pitted lane beside the warehouse and shot away.

I couldn’t see the Merc, but I knew Lin had gone this way, it was the only route to the perimeter fence. Careering round a bend-topping sixty, I hit a yard-wide hole in the tarmac, bounced out, the suspension stretched to breaking point. I almost lost grip on the road as the rear end came out, just pulled it back.

The entrance to the freeway lay fifty yards ahead and I caught a glimpse of Lin’s car as it shot through the gates and accelerated up a slip road. I dodged another pothole, swung left, then a hard right, opened up the engine and tore onto the M5, headed west.

The Merc was quick but my Spider was quicker, and driven by someone in my state of mind it was
fantastically
fast. If Lin wasn’t aware of the stats, they were impressed upon him when I started to gain on his car, halving the distance between us in less than thirty seconds. The M5 freeway was almost deserted and I had the Merc in my sights only twenty-five yards ahead. The speedometer read a hundred and twenty.

Lin took the next junction, screaming onto Rocky Point Road toward Rockdale. It was a smart move, a slower road, more chance of urban traffic, plenty of turn-offs. It leveled the playing field … some.

At 1.15 am the street was pretty much empty of traffic. Lin pulled the Merc off the dual carriageway into a side street, took it wide and almost hit an oncoming car. I screeched after him, missing the other car by an inch.

It was a narrow suburban street, rows of modest houses, parked cars to the left. Lin jumped the lights. I slowed and checked, followed him over the junction. He took a right, a left. More residential roads, a church, a grocery store. I caught a sign for a sports field and glimpsed a line of trees.

Lin left it to the last second, roared into a narrow lane just before the park. I braked and flew round the corner.

The Mercedes had disappeared from view. Then I realized I’d shot straight past it. Lin had taken a hard right off the road and pulled up onto a rutted track at the edge of the field.

I reversed and caught movement in the rear-view mirror. The gangster was out of his car, gun in hand and rushing round to the passenger door. He yanked it open, dragging Dai to the ground.

I stopped, slipped out, kept low. The Merc was ten yards away. Lin was pulling Dai up, the barrel of his gun at the kid’s temple.

I was in the shadows, but Lin knew exactly where. He could have taken a pop at me, but then he risked losing Dai. “Stop,” he shouted into the night, “or I’ll kill him.”

I pulled back and crept behind a line of bushes. I knew he wasn’t sure where I was now. I moved fast. Lin and the boy
dropped out of view for a few seconds, then I found an opening in the bushes and saw they hadn’t moved.

I picked up a stone, tossed it to my left. Lin whirled round. He had his free arm around Dai’s throat.

“Stop the stupid games,” Lin said, an edge to his voice now. I was getting to him.

I moved hard round to his right and could see the back of his neck wet with perspiration. Leveled my gun to his head.

“Let him go.”

Lin spun round.

“Let. Him. Go.”

“No!”

Some instinct told me I’d pushed him too far. I fired and his gun went off simultaneously. Lin flew backwards, the hood of his car breaking his fall, a cloud of red exploding from his head. Dai jolted, screamed and collapsed to the ground.

I rushed over expecting the worst. Blood was running down Dai’s cheek, dripping from his jaw. But he must have had the same awareness Lin was going to shoot as I had. He’d moved just in time. The Chinaman’s bullet had just grazed the boy’s temple.

I pulled Dai to his feet. He was shaking uncontrollably. I untied the cord around his wrists and he started to cry, tears streaming down his cheeks. He put a hand to his face and came up with bloodied fingers.

We could hear sirens. “It’s okay,” I said, realizing I was pretty shaken up too. “Just a scratch. You’re going to be fine, Dai. It’s all over, buddy.”

I GOT EVERYONE into the conference room real early. I hadn’t slept and had gone straight to Private from Police HQ. They’d questioned me for nearly three hours before they were satisfied I couldn’t have done anything different with Lin. Mark had gloated his way through the grilling of course and had taken pleasure in my discomfort. Nothing new there.

I surveyed the others. Everyone was exhausted. I had that morning’s paper in front of me. The headlined screamed: “Sydney Slasher Claims Another Victim.”

I exhaled loudly and felt a stab of frustration. “We’re getting nowhere fast with this,” I lifted the
Sydney Morning Herald
. “Darlene, anything?”

“Only what I said yesterday afternoon. I’m sure the killer is a woman.”

The others had been told about Darlene’s DNA findings.

“Not conclusive though,” Mary said. “We know the victims were all acquainted. The blonde hairs could have come from a mutual friend.”

Darlene looked at the table, nodded.

“But what if they
were
the killer’s? Let’s run with that for a sec,” I said.

“There’s no match on the database.” Johnny commented.

“Means nothing. Maybe the murderer had never committed a crime until …”

“Alright,” Justine said suddenly. “What if she happens to be a ‘respectable’ bleached blonde friend of the dead women and part of the same social circle? Maybe the motive was some relationship mess or simple jealousy.”

“The wife of a banker or a corporate suit gone gaga?” Darlene looked up. “Maybe it
is
a sex thing. An Eastern Suburbs mom taking revenge on women her husband’s slept with?”

I raised my hands. “Hang on, let’s calm down!”

“Actually, I don’t believe that,” Darlene backtracked.

“Why?”

“For a start, the hair was not recently bleached. There was significant regrowth. That in itself suggested the woman didn’t pamper herself. How many wealthy women walk around with weeks of roots growing out?”

“Search me!” Johnny said, rolling his eyes at me.

“And my sister insists that Elspeth and Stacy weren’t messing around,” Justine commented.

“Besides,” I added, “the banknotes don’t fit the theory, do they? The very fact that the notes are fake suggests the killer isn’t a rich woman living in the same area as the victims … unless that’s a trick.”

“Oh for God’s sake!” Mary exclaimed. “We’re going round in bloody circles!”

“No, no … rewind,” I said suddenly excited. I stood up and started pacing close to my chair. “Let’s say it’s
not
a trick and
that the killer
is
poor … a woman from outside the area. She can’t afford real fifty-dollar bills. She photocopies them. Yes!” I gazed around the room at the faces of the team. For a moment they all looked a little perplexed.

Then I remembered something. “Darlene you told me the other day, the fakes are high-quality photocopies. What if our killer photocopies the notes at a shop instead of at home? And what if … What if the murderer, this woman who’s left hair strands, doesn’t live in the Eastern suburbs, but works there?”

“I’ll get onto it – visit all the copy shops in the area,” Johnny said as excited as me. “I think you’re onto something, boss.”

“SO, WHAT D’YOU have?” I asked Johnny as he came into my office two hours later looking jaded.

“There’re five copy shops within a two-mile radius of Bellevue Hill. First three drew a complete blank. Guys there had no idea what I was talking about when I asked them if any suspicious-looking women had been in. Made me feel bloody stupid, actually!” He grinned endearingly.

“What about the others?”

“Fourth shop was on New South Head Road, about a mile from Bellevue Hill. The manager was a nice guy. Said he’d seen one particular woman come in a few times during the past three weeks. She didn’t look ‘suspicious’ exactly, just miserable, rundown. But get this. He described her. Above average height, well-built, bleached blonde.”

I rubbed my hand over my chin and stared at Johnny silently. “And the fifth shop?”

“Jackpot! A very sweet girl running the place.”

“Yeah, yeah …”

“She’d seen the same woman at least twice during the past month.”

“There’s more. I can tell by your tone.”

“The last shop keeps surveillance records for a month at a time. I gave the girl a hundred bucks and she ran off a copy of the disc for me.”

IT WAS A poor-quality recording, but good enough. It showed a woman coming into the copy shop, moving from the counter to a self-service machine. She placed something indistinct on the machine’s tray and watched as half a dozen copies emerged. She then paid for them and left.

“Quite a powerful-looking woman,” I said.

“And piss ugly!” Johnny remarked.

I exhaled.

“Sorry!”

“Can’t see much of her. But she definitely has bleached her hair.”

“First thing I noticed,” Johnny replied.

“Take it through to Darlene. See if she can do anything with her souped-up imaging equipment.”

DARLENE WATCHED THE short clip taken at the copy shop. Johnny was leaning on the back of her chair peering at the screen over her shoulder.

“It’s pretty crappy,” she mumbled.

Johnny said nothing.

“But, thanks to my new buddy, Software Sam, I might get something out of this. It works just as well for video as it does for still images.”

She ran her hands over the control panel of the image enhancer. Then she turned back to the computer keyboard and slithered her fingers over the keys.

The screen went blank for a second and then the film spooled back to the start. Darlene tapped another couple of keys. The clip was 500 per cent clearer.

The woman came into the shop. She was wearing a shapeless blue sweat top, handbag on her right shoulder. They could see her straight-on. She had a wide face, flat nose, small eyes. Her shoulder-length hair looked greasy. It was bleached blonde. Not dyed well – a bottle from a pharmacy. She wasn’t wearing make-up and she’d shaved her eyebrows.

“Not the prettiest specimen,” Johnny remarked, a little more diplomatically this time. “What would you say? Five-seven, five-eight? Hundred and seventy pounds?”

“Five-nine, one seventy-five.”

“I bow to your superior skills,” Johnny retorted.

They continued watching as the woman walked over to the photocopier.

“Can you close in on her there?” Johnny asked.

Darlene played her fingers over the keyboard, slowed the film, zoomed in and adjusted the enhancer to sharpen the picture. She was straining the software to its limits.

Tugging the mouse gently, she moved the center of the image to see what it was the woman was placing on the copier. They both noticed she was wearing latex gloves. She plucked a sheet of paper from her bag. It was impossible to see what was on it.

Darlene let the film creep forward a few frames a second. The first copy began to emerge. She shifted perspective, closing in on the paper spewing from the copier. It appeared slowly. She moved in closer still. Darlene toggled the controls on the enhancer, prayed the software would hold up.

And there, in the plastic collection tray of the photocopy machine, lay a sheet of paper containing the image of four fifty-dollar bills.

“Wow!” Johnny exclaimed.

“We still don’t know who she is,” Darlene commented. “I’ll get this over to the police. They may know something we don’t.”

JUSTINE WAS WITH me in the office when Pam Hewes called to suggest we meet.

“You look exhausted, Craig,” Justine said as I put the phone down.

I gave her a wan smile. “Felt fresher.”

“Can I help?”

I was about to say, “No, everything’s cool,” then changed my mind. I told her all the details of the Hewes’ case. She looked intrigued.

“Would Pam mind if I helped out? Would you mind?”

I cocked my head. “It’s my call … I run my own show. And, well, I’ve persuaded myself it would be good to have you along!”

Pam Hewes arranged to meet me at a small café close to the Opera House. Justine and I arrived early and sat admiring the view.

We didn’t notice her come in. She lowered herself into a chair beside me and gave Justine a quizzical look.

“Hi, Pam, this is my colleague from the LA office … Justine Smith.”

The women shook hands.

“What you drinking?” I asked.

“Double espresso, please.”

I leaned back and called over the waitress.

“So Craig’s filled you in on my husband’s antics, I imagine,” I heard Pam say to Justine.

“What’s been happening?” I asked.

“Geoff’s returned.”

“You don’t seem that relieved.”

She exhaled. “No, I
am
relieved, but I’m also suspicious.”

“Did he explain where he’d been?” Justine asked.

“Oh, in that way he has,” Pam sighed. “Claims a couple of his drinking buddies played a prank on him. I don’t believe that for a second.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Does sound a bit …”

“Far-fetched?”

“I was going to say ridiculous, actually.”

“I agree. He’s up to something,” Pam said. “What’ve you found out?”

I told her straight, all about the brothels. Pam was my client and a big girl.

“Well, that makes sense. Is one of them in Chester Street, Mosman?”

I gave her a surprised look.

“The first thing Geoff did when he got home was to call one of his pals … I ‘overheard’!” Pam added, seeing my puzzled expression. “He was talking to some guy called Brian about cameras installed in Chester Street. Apparently Loretto
had them removed. Geoff was telling his friend to reinstall them … right away.”

“That’s bad. Very bad,” Justine said. “From what Craig has told me, Loretto’s not the sort to mess with. If your husband has put cameras in the guy’s brothels …”

Pam looked pale. “You spoken to Loretto, Craig?”

“He’s out of town. But as soon … Look, it sounds like he held Geoff somewhere – maybe a final warning to back off?”

“So, what now?” There was a tremor to her voice.

“Well, Pam,” I said, “I reckon that’s up to Geoff. If Al Loretto was giving him one more chance and he takes notice, that’s one thing. If he chooses to ignore it …”