changed brands, or she had a boyfriend who never came forward.’ Ricciardelli was wearing gloves but he worried the root of his ring finger with a nervous winding motion. ‘You’ve just read a copy of the summary report,’ he said. ‘I was able to look at the files. Believe me, the report’s very detailed and thorough. As an investigation it was textbook. That’s why it’s used as an example. An investigation carried out according to Hoyle – about as close as you can get to procedural perfection. It’s meant to teach us that you can do everything right but still get no result.’
‘Do you agree with the conclusions?’
‘It’s hard to imagine any other possibilities.’
‘If it was a serial psychopath, how do you explain the sudden cessation after the third murder?’
He shrugged. ‘It happens. He got scared. Maybe we got close and didn’t know. A bus ran over him. He left the country.’
‘There was a dissenting voice,’ she said. Her gaze flicked back and forth between the footbridge and the block of flats that bordered the path that connected to it.
‘The report acknowledged that. But I’m a fan of Occam’s razor,’ he said dismissively.
‘What about Sherlock’s razor?’ she grinned. ‘Once you’ve eliminated the possible, whatever’s left, no matter how improbable, must be the answer.’
‘No facts or evidence were produced to support that hypothesis.’
‘Desmond Poynter died and the murders stopped.’
‘A lot of crims died or got put behind bars that month. Are they all suspects?’
‘This is where Poynter’s body was found, isn’t it?’
‘It’s a school assignment, Constable. You’re not meant to solve the case,’ he said in fluent pedant. She faintly recalled saying something like that herself once. ‘Poynter was a professional. Pros keep their kills simple and plain. They use Occam’s razor.’ He grinned at his own joke. ‘Less can go wrong that way.’ The addendum suggested he’d been tempted, at least momentarily, by the idea.
‘A lot of psychopaths are professionals of one kind or another,’ she had said.
Now she watched the approach of the man he’d promised to introduce her to. He weaved towards them around crowded tables, high and low, stools and chairs and boisterous, happy-hour knots of humanity. He was surprisingly agile for such a large, bear-like individual. He deftly hooked a vacant chair from a nearby table as he passed and dropped into it beside Ricciardelli, dwarfing him.
‘G’day,’ he said. His dark eyes glittered with some private mischief. ‘You must be the cute copper from Broome I’ve heard about.’ He thrust a huge paw at her across the table. ‘Nev,’ he said, grinning. ‘Nev Marks.’
‘Carol Porter,’ she replied with a smile as she was almost lifted from her chair by the ripple effect of his handshake.
‘Right,’ he said cocking an eye at Ricciardelli. ‘Y’re draggin’ the chain, father.’
‘A pot, Nev?’ asked Ricciardelli with a wry twist of the lips. He glanced at her. ‘Another one, Carol?’
‘I’ll nurse this,’ she said.
He made his way to the bar. Marks slouched back in his chair and regarded her with that hint of amusement still in his eyes. His glossy jowls were thick slabs of gunmetal blue. ‘Ricky Ricardo tells me y’ve met Dave,’ he said, with a sideways nod in Ricciardelli’s direction.
‘Briefly. I arrested him.’
‘He escape?’ Marks grinned, the muscles in his jaw flexing his face into a pear shape.
‘I let him go. He was innocent.’
‘Dave’s anything but that,’ said Marks dryly. ‘We have a mutual friend, I reckon.’ She arched a quizzical brow. ‘Gaylord Kiss. Met ’im a coupla years back.’
‘Oh,’ she said. It sounded like punctuation: a period.
‘Oh-h-h,’ he said. Dialogue by inflection. He smiled down at his hands resting on his belly. ‘M’wife’s a Carol, too,’ he said looking up again. ‘She was a cop. Worked on the case y’re interested in. She’s the one y’should talk to. Y’gotta lot in common.’
‘What? We’re cops and Carols?’ She smiled. She was getting to like this bloke.
‘Nah,’ said Marks. ‘Much more than that.’
She stared into the dark eyes. What was flickering in their depths? And what in hell did he mean by that?
‘Wanna meet Carol, Carol?’
10
Tommy discovered it was difficult maintaining dignity and engaging in civilised and reasoned argument when your fly was undone, your nose was in a urinal and someone’s foot was on the back of your neck. This was hardly a revelation. There was no need to experience the situation to appreciate it. Simple use of imagination would suffice, but why would you imagine such a circumstance? You’d have to be some kind of sick wick-twiddler, like a masochist or a novelist, to bother.
Tommy had ducked down to the Valley at sparrow’s fart to catch the canter of a couple of likely gee-gees and grease a strapper he knew who knew things – things about horses. He’d watched a gallop or two, milked the strapper for all he could – which proved to be a half a cup of soy – and was legging it for the car park when nature whistled urgently from his satin polyester boxers. Cold weather and coffee: the bane of the baby boomers.
He thought he might have to piss against the back of the stands but, as luck would have it, the public toilets were open – and deserted. He drained the dragon and was giving its head a damned good shake, wondering if he could get out before he was asphyxiated by the pungent fumes of disinfectant, when something like Phar Lap at full gallop slammed between his shoulderblades, and spread him like Vegemite over the porcelain tiles. Then his legs were either taken from under him or they chose to cut and run without telling him. He found himself flat on his belly, his face wrenched painfully to one side, trying to suck into his lungs air that was not diluted by urine.
Through the pinheads of light that were bobbing before his eyes to the rhythm of his agony he could see his stainless-steel thermos still standing where he’d placed it an aeon ago. Perhaps if he could just reach it he could – what? – impress his assailant with his ability to pour a cup of kindness, yet? His assailant: now there was the rub. It might be helpful to figure out who that might be. Let’s see, to whom did he owe money? Well, fuck, everyone. But he wasn’t in so deep that anyone would kill him. Was he? Nah, that’d be just bloody silly. How’d they get their money if he was a worm farm? And you wouldn’t feed a greyhound a pound of his flesh. Nah, just a friendly warning.
His brain was clearing. He began to run a list in his mind. It was a long one, and he didn’t think he’d left anyone off. There wasn’t a name on it that would have scratched him – not yet. He couldn’t pick a favourite. He decided he wouldn’t lay out on this one, he’d just lie here, patiently, until the stewards announced the result of the photo.
It seemed as if he’d been there for hours before he heard the voice, but it was probably only seconds. Time dragged when you weren’t having fun.
‘Nice coat, Tommy – cashmere, alpaca? Nose hairs of the Afghan Fruit Yak?’
‘Oh shit!’ said Tommy. Because his left cheek was pressed like a waffle into the stainless-steel grid over the urinal trough it sounded more like ‘Ugh thshith’. ‘Maeve?’ he added, panic pinking his voice. It sounded more like ‘Maypth?’.
‘G’day, Tommy.’
Oh shit, thought Tommy, becoming really concerned for his wellbeing for the first time since hitting the wall,