The Fourth Season (11 page)

I nodded at the folders and asked, ‘Does one of them have a description of what Laila was wearing?'

‘Why do you want to know?'

‘Bronwyn told me Laila was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt when she came to pick the car up. But the body—in the press reports she's described as wearing a red waistcoat. That's what alerted Tim and Ivan.'

Brook waited; he could always tell when I was keeping something back.

Now was the time to tell him about Don Fletcher and the sketch and diagram, but I didn't. I wasn't sure why, except that I knew Brook would be angry to learn that Don was paying me. I wondered how long it would take for him to find out from another source.

‘What about Laila's phone?' I asked.

‘In the lake, I imagine,' Brook said, ‘keeping company with the murder weapon.'

‘The same one that killed Ben Sanderson?'

Brook laughed again.

‘Well, you can't blame me for trying,' I said.

The line between talking to Brook as a friend and talking to him as a policeman often shifted, and Brook's expression, amused and lenient, but also wary, acknowledged the shift now. We were both adept at riding either side of lines that might have been invisible to other people, though that morning I was conscious of fatigue dragging at my concentration, an undertow composed of anxiety and a profound feeling of betrayal.

Brook's phone rang. He held up his hand to let me know that the call might take a while.

. . .

I drove to the Causeway, spotting the police cars from a distance, and parked on Newcastle Street, behind tape marking off an area roughly fifty metres square, observing there were two crime scenes, two chances for the police to uncover tiny but traceable links to the killer. If Sanderson had been murdered close to where he'd lived, why drive to Dickson and dump the body in the water? I wondered what DS Brideson was doing and thinking at that moment. Brook had sounded pleased that Brideson had been passed over, if that had been the Superintendent's intention. Again, I felt surprised at Brook's ­decision to jump back into work.

The two murders seemed to me to have quite a bit in common, and it would have made sense to put one officer in charge of both. I wondered if Brideson had gone out of his way to make trouble for Brook, and this tactic had backfired. The Brook I knew did not waste time on power games, or attempting to climb up the hierarchy. His battle against leukemia had put paid to that. But people changed. Look at Ivan, I said to myself. I would never have imagined Ivan falling in love with a twenty-one-year old, then going to pieces in the way he had.

Brook was stubborn and resourceful. But his remark that morning suggested a side of him that was new to me, an antipathy towards a colleague and determination to get the better of him.

Before I got anywhere near the cars, a constable in uniform pulled me up. A crime scene in a public, open space like this was bound to be a headache. As was Dickson Pool, for that matter. I retraced my steps to Blueberry Street. Autumn sun shone down on old red brick. There was a fullness to the sun that morning, a sense of promise more ­commonly associated with the spring. Recently built units were compact enough to fit on the tiny rectangular blocks that had once held workmen's cottages. They were neat, with miniature clipped lawns, many of them greener than in my suburb. One held a raw, empty bird bath. The community hall had seen better days.

Vans and cameras left no doubt as to which unit Sanderson had rented. An old man was being interviewed on the footpath right outside. I stopped to listen, and heard him referred to as Ben Sanderson's next door neighbour. But the interview was winding up, and there was little else to hear.

The reporter held her hand out, and the neighbour, leaning heavily on his walking frame, reached across and shook it. Long white hair stuck out around his head, making a bedraggled halo.

I waited at the end of his driveway. Once the TV crew had moved away, I approached and offered him a smile.

‘Well done.'

The old man smiled back, enjoying the praise. His opinions had been sought. He'd been busy supplying information.

‘Were you a friend of Ben's?' I asked. ‘I'm a cousin from Port Campbell. I'm afraid that none of it's sunk in. I thought that maybe, coming here—'

The old man eyed me steadily, balanced on his walking frame, and said, ‘I can't believe it either.'

‘Can I help at all?' I indicated the frame, the distance to his front door.

‘I'm perfectly independent, thank you.'

‘Did you know my cousin well?'

‘He was a nice young chap. Always friendly. Took the time to stop for a chat.'

I said I was surprised when I heard that Ben had moved to Canberra.

‘Well, I'll tell you something, Miss. My name's Ian, by the way. Young Ben didn't like our fair city. Too clean and prissy for him. This place, the Causeway, reminded him a bit of a coast town, he said. And it's right by the water. That was important to him.'

I introduced myself as Sandra. Ian began walking slowly up the path, then turned to look at me along his shoulder. His eyes were bright, face still flushed with the excitement of the interview. ‘Come inside,' he said, ‘if you've got five minutes. I'll make us a cuppa.'

I followed Ian into his small kitchen, but I could see that he wanted to do everything himself, so confined my help to carrying two mugs and a plate of biscuits to a table pushed right against the window.

With a little prompting, Ian was happy to talk to me about Ben's job and what had brought him to the national capital. Ben always went out for a run after work and the night before last Ian had watched him leave.

‘I had a bad feeling. I was trying to explain it to that young journalist. I was used to Ben's routine, you see.'

Ian described how Ben ran the same route every weeknight; down Blueberry Street to Sandalwood, up Spinifex to Cunningham, along the Causeway to Newcastle, then back up Blueberry. He started at seven and was back within three-quarters of an hour.

I recalled that daylight saving had ended on the weekend. Unless Ben had changed his time, he would have been running in the dark.

I mentioned this to Ian and he nodded, looking sad and guilty, his enthusiasm gone. He'd had a bit of tea in front of the telly, he told me, hadn't seen or heard Ben coming home. He'd had a bad feeling, but he hadn't acted on it.

‘If I'd known he hadn't come back, you see, I could have phoned the police.'

I murmured something that I hoped would offer Ian some small comfort. We drank our tea in silence for a few moments, then I steered the conversation back to Ben's diving. Ian was as proud of this as though Ben had been his grandson.

Ben had dived all over the place. He took groups to the south coast on a regular basis. ‘He worked for them big oil companies as well, down in Bass Strait. What's it called, the Gippsland basin? Where all the oil rigs are.'

Ian described the dangers of working on the rigs, the storms that could blow up with very little warning, how problems had to be dealt with immediately because any time a rig was off-line, that was millions of dollars down the plughole, literally. ‘Per
hour
, mind you, not per day.'

But Ben had given up that kind of work. He hadn't worked for an oil company for the past few years.

I knew I should go before Ian began probing my connection with Ben's family, but chanced one last question. ‘Did Ben ever mention a rig called the Babel?'

Ian frowned and said he couldn't recall that one directly. I thanked him for the tea and we said goodbye.

. . .

I left my car parked where it was, and walked to the nature reserve along the route Ben's neighbour had described. Joggers and cyclists were making the most of the fine morning, well-dressed, fit young men and women for the most part. Focussed on their heart rates, all of them ignored me. The bush smelt fresh, despite the lack of rain.

I estimated that, if what Ian had told me was true, Ben would have reached the Newcastle street dead end, where the nature reserve started, at about seven-thirty. He would have had to slow down to make the turn back to Blueberry. I looked up and noticed that one of the street lights was broken. A car could have parked between the trees and the killer waited there without being seen.

A well-marked path to the right led to bird hides and wetland ponds, joining other paths that wended their way through stands of eucalypts a good thirty to forty metres above the water. The land between was boggy, covered with tall reeds. I wondered about disposal of the weapon. Would a man who'd just committed murder make his way through the reserve in the dark, in order to throw it in the creek? Would he risk using a torch? I returned to a fork, and took the left path this time. It was much narrower, no more than a winding line of flattened brown grass. A rabbit hopped ahead of me and veered underneath a bush. A sign warned me that fox bait had been laid, and blackberries sprayed with poison.

I stood on a rise overlooking the creek. Reeds and thick bushes made closer access difficult. Difficult, but not impossible, I thought.

. . .

More details about Ben Sanderson were reported on the evening news, along with film showing police divers searching the lake. Ben had taught diving at Civic Pool as well as Dickson. He was qualified to a class three commercial certificate, one of the most highly qualified divers in Canberra. He'd done maintenance work for ExxonMobil in Bass Strait.

I recalled that ExxonMobil had recently put in a new bid for acreage close to the marine park. It took me a few minutes to find the reference. ExxonMobil owned over twenty rigs in the Gippsland Basin, including the Babel.

Once night had fallen, I became restless, unwilling to stay shut up in the house. But I didn't think it fair to go out again, on a night I didn't have to. I thought about the mist, my walk to the closed-up internet cafe via the pool. I recalled the two figures and the voices.

. . .

When Don Fletcher answered his phone, I asked, ‘Why didn't you tell me that you had a brother?'

‘What brother?' Don sounded surprised, prepared to be affronted.

‘The one you were with last night.'

There was the noise of something falling in the background. Don said, ‘That copper, he's a mate of yours?'

Two could play the refuse-to-answer game. I asked Don for his brother's name. After waiting too long to make one up, he said unco-operatively, ‘Cameron.'

Fourteen

‘Pammy!' Owen leant forward in his hospital bed with a delighted grin.

‘Look at you, you big old bear!'

Pam leant forward as well, and the two friends folded their arms around each other, Pam's twisted left hand holding tight to Owen's back.

‘I'm not hurting you?'

‘Go on girl! My top half's in fine shape. It's my bottom half that's mangled.'

Pam and Owen were red-faced, awkward in my presence, as pleased with themselves as growing children exchanging their first kiss.

Pam drew back a little. ‘What does the doctor say?'

‘A success so far.' Owen's voice was careful not to express hopes that might turn out to be premature. I saw, from Pam's swift upward glance, that she registered this too. Rita had told me the aim of the operation was to reduce pain. There was no hope that Owen would walk again.

Pam cocked her head in my direction. ‘This kind lady drove me over so I wouldn't have to waste money on a taxi.'

Owen nodded thank you.

Pam sucked in her breath and said, ‘I saw that girl who was murdered, Owen. At the club. She was with another girl.'

‘A big girl with spiky hair? Sandra told me, but I don't recall her. She might have come into the cafe. I just don't remember.'

‘Sandra was wondering if that diver who was killed—'

‘Ben Sanderson. I've been following the news.'

‘Whether you'd seen
him
.'

‘What? In the cafe?'

‘Anywhere,' I said.

‘I don't think so.'

‘I'm trying to find out if they knew each other,' I said gently. ‘Ben Sanderson and Laila.'

‘Why should they?' Owen asked. He was beginning to sound distressed.

‘Laila was a keen scuba diver,' I said. ‘Sanderson was a professional. He taught at Dickson Pool.'

‘I see.' Owen winced, but his curiosity was caught. ‘Well, I certainly never saw the two of them together. I would have remembered
that
.'

. . .

I'd just dropped Pam off when Brook rang to ask me what I'd been doing the night Sanderson was killed.

Brook sounded frustrated and angry. ‘You were seen driving around Dickson pool.'

‘I never drive around the pool,' I told him. ‘I walk over there to swim.'

It wasn't possible to drive around the pool, in fact. There was a carpark at the back, then tennis courts and a community centre. It made the question of access an interesting one.

‘Your car was seen,' Brook said curtly. ‘The number plate was noted.'

‘Who by?'

‘I can't tell you that.'

‘What? Why didn't you—' I was beginning to feel angry too.

‘I shouldn't even be ringing you like this, Sandra. Someone else will have to take your statement. But if it
was
you—if you were on your way somewhere and just happened to take a detour round the pool, tell me now.'

‘I swear to you I didn't.'

I'd been skulking around Bronwyn's house, but I couldn't tell Brook that.

‘It means fuck all that whoever it was quoted the number plate,' I said. ‘In fact, it should make you suspicious. What ordinary citizen would take note of and memorise a random rego number?'

‘It wasn't random,' Brook said. ‘It was yours.'

Brook hated me swearing. Against all evidence to the contrary, he nourished an image of me as a contented wife and mother. I felt like shouting the offensive word again.

He hung up before I could compound my fault.

I stared out the window, dismayed, struggling to catch my breath. What could I tell the officer who came to interview me, when he or she turned up, except to repeat that the accusation wasn't true?

. . .

‘Kingston,' Ivan said when I told him what had happened. ‘Of all the places to have been. Are you sure you didn't make a detour through Dickson on your way home?'

‘Unless I fell asleep at the wheel and drove there in a dream, yes.'

Ivan drank water standing at the sink. When he turned to face me, the whites of his eyes looked yellowish and sick. I felt like shaking him till they came loose, or something did.

‘Who are you to criticise me for driving to Kingston, or anywhere I damn well like?' I demanded.

‘Keep your shirt on Sandra. It's just a bad coincidence, that's all.'

Ivan frowned, then crumpled. ‘I'm sorry,' he said. ‘I'm going to have a shower. I feel—I don't know, I can't seem to get clean.'

. . .

The police took our car for testing. I felt like ringing Bronwyn and saying that made two of us. I felt like taking a leaf out of Bronwyn's book and pissing off, leaving the whole sorry mess behind me.

My interview with Detective Constable Erickson was frustratingly predictable. He was young, nervous, with an edge of aggression which coloured his questions, while I tried to keep my cool. No, I repeated, I had not been anywhere near Dickson pool on Wednesday night. The constable said that, if I knew what was good for me, I'd stay right away from the area. He made it sound as though the whole suburb ought to be off limits to me. It's my suburb I felt like shouting at him.
My suburb and my pool.

Being told to stay away from somewhere makes going there seem the one essential thing to do. To return to the crime scene would be childish and foolhardy, I told myself as my feet began walking out the door.

A police car was parked close to the entrance. I heard voices inside, behind the black plastic, but I didn't recognise them. I walked around the fence, but saw no one. Reluctantly, I admitted to myself that there was no point in hanging round.

I brightened up when Pam rang to say that Jake had something to show me.

This time, I sat at the front of the
Tradies
, recalling the way Jake had flounced off on the previous occasion.

Jake walked quickly to my table, pulled a button out of his pocket and set it down in front of me.

I picked the button up and turned it over in my hand. It was a small wooden button, painted red, circular in shape, and roughly, inexpertly made; it was chipped on one side, so that plain wood showed through the paint. A tiny frayed end of red thread clung to the centre.

When I asked Jake if it had fall off Laila Fanshaw's waistcoat, the waiter went as red as the button. His scalp, newly relieved of hair, shone with youthful perspiration.

‘I was wiping down the table,' Jake said, recovering his composure slightly. ‘It was underneath a paper napkin.'

‘Have you told the police?'

‘Why should I? It's just a button, but they'll take it. I'll never get it back.'

I asked Jake if he'd tried to return it to Laila, and he started to say no. He'd done what Pam had asked him to; he'd shown it to me; and now he wanted me to leave. But I kept him talking, and finally he admitted to finding out where Laila lived. But he was adamant that he'd never been there, or spoken to her on the phone. He also admitted seeing Laila at the internet cafe, but insisted that they hadn't spoken there either, not so much as a hello.

‘What about the night the button fell off?'

‘She was with her girlfriend.' Jake blinked and a look of disgust passed across his face.

‘What makes you think they were a couple?'

‘They were holding hands, weren't they? They were dykes.'

‘Would you sit down for a moment, please?'

Jake glared at me, but did as I asked.

I went back quickly over ground I'd covered with Owen, and with Rowan and Pam. Jake admitted that he used to wear his hair gelled and spiky. He didn't know who the dark-haired young man with glasses had been in the internet cafe that Thursday night, but he recognised Rowan from my description. He was definite about not having seen Rowan or Laila again, except for the time Laila had come to the club with Bronwyn.

Jake had watched Laila get up and leave. Each of her movements was branded on his memory. When the door shut behind her, he'd felt Owen's eyes on him, ‘like some old owl about to pounce'. He'd felt embarrassed then, so he'd stayed where he was for a few minutes longer, and by the time he
did
leave, Laila was gone.

‘That fat boy was standing on the footpath, staring down the street.'

‘Do you recall seeing anybody else?'

Jake frowned.

‘Please try and remember,' I said.

‘I think there was someone. I didn't really take any notice. But—a figure—maybe.'

‘A man?'

‘I think so.'

‘What kind of man?'

‘I couldn't say. Honestly. It was just a glimpse out of the corner of my eye.'

‘What about Pamela?'

‘What about her?'

‘Didn't she leave the cafe at about the same time?'

‘Pam was—' Jake broke off, then began again. ‘She was talking to the wheelchair guy.'

‘What else was Pam doing?'

‘Look—Pammy and the wheelchair guy are friends. I wasn't there to spy on them.'

I told Jake I respected their right to privacy as well, then asked him, ‘Where did you go after you left the cafe?'

‘Home.'

‘By car?'

Jake nodded, and, in answer to my next question, said his car had been in the
Tradies
carpark. He'd not had far to walk.

‘How did you know Laila would be there that night?'

He'd seen her from the club, where he'd called in to put himself down for extra shifts over the weekend and to check the roster.

‘Who else besides Pam knows that you kept the button?'

‘Al does. No one else.'

‘The waiter you were with the other night?'

Jake nodded. He looked up and frowned, then swiftly returned the button to his pocket, and was through the swing doors in a few long strides.

I turned around to see who'd caught his eye. Sam Borich, the Dickson Pool manager, was walking towards the counter. I had only to take a few steps in order to cross his path.

Sam smiled a greeting and said it was a coincidence, bumping into me, because someone had called asking about me just the other day.

The caller hadn't volunteered his name. ‘He asked if I knew who you were. I said you swam regular in the summer. Tell you the truth, I didn't take too kindly to someone quizzing me without being willing to say who he was.'

I wrote down my mobile number. ‘Could you let me know if he rings back?'

Sam nodded, glancing at his watch.

‘How's Joe bearing up?' I asked.

‘Totally spooked,' Sam said. ‘He's nineteen, for Christ's sake. Poor blighter was scared even before any of this happened—the last person you'd wish it on, as a matter of fact. He's been living with his Mum and step-father, and not getting on with either. His real Dad's in Queensland. He walked out on them when Joe was a little fella.'

I knew what that was like, but Sam was in a talking mood and I had no intention of interrupting with a story of my own.

Sam checked his watch again and frowned, then ordered coffee and asked me if I wanted one. We took them to the nearest tram to drink. I noticed that Sam sat facing out, with a good view of the rest of the cafe and the entrance.

‘Ah, that's better,' Sam said. ‘Joe had a big row with his step-dad, and told me he was moving out. It was just after that break-in at the pool. I suggested he could sleep in the office while he was deciding what to do. The kid's got no money apart from what I pay him. My wife and I feed him as often as he'll let us, but he's too proud to let us all that often.'

‘Who knew Joe was sleeping at the pool?'

Sam made a face and said, ‘We didn't keep it a secret, couldn't have. But we don't broadcast the fact either. Joe's ashamed of taking charity, like I said. I told him he was doing me a favour, but he saw through that right quick. The other staff know. Apart from that, it's impossible to say. Anyone who looked through the window and saw the bed, I guess.'

Whoever had dragged Sanderson's body through the hole in the fence and across to the water had done so either in ignorance of the fact that Joe had been sleeping twenty metres from them, in defiance of that fact, or, just possibly, because of it.

It seemed Sam Borich was following my line of thought, or had got there first.

‘Joe's clean,' he said. ‘I'd stake my life on that. He was asleep when it happened, and thanks be to God he never woke up. The police have been through him like a dose of salts. They've found nothing to incriminate him.'

I asked Sam how well he'd known Ben Sanderson.

‘Sanderson was a good diver.' Sam nodded as though reminding himself of this, and possibly of other things that Sanderson hadn't been so good at. ‘Very experienced.' I noted that there was no sadness, certainly nothing that could be called grief, in the pool manager's voice.

While we spoke, he kept looking up towards the entrance. He ­muttered something about people with no sense of time.

Sam told me that Ben had taught on his own at Dickson because the classes were small. School groups normally hired their scuba equipment from a shop in Lonsdale Street, the same one that organised dive trips to the coast. Ben was often down there. Sam had no idea why anyone would want to kill him. He returned to Joe Bianchi, about whom he was obviously more concerned than Ben.

‘Joe phoned me, you know, first thing in the morning. When I got there, he was out the front, shaking and white as a sheet. I thought he was going to faint. I made him sit down with his head between his knees while we waited for the cops.'

Ben had been floating face down at the shallow end of the fifty metre pool, and it was clear that he'd been bashed. ‘There was quite a lot of blood in the water. I saw the hole in the fence right away.'

When I asked how Ben had seemed in the days before his death, Sam replied, ‘Normal. If Ben had worries, he didn't bring them to work.'