Shit shit shit, she’d gone too far. This meeting was supposed to be about the case, not her. She scanned the table looking for a distraction, but the waiter hadn’t even left a menu for her to peruse. She cleared her throat, wishing she could erase that moment of honesty. ‘I’m sure any woman would. Hell, I’ve seen male detectives double up at the sight of assault victims with their balls kicked into their throats.’

He winced, but not without humour. Touché.

‘You were talking about the photographer,’ she reminded him.

Serious again, he hesitated before he answered, his intense grey eyes fixed on her face as if still dwelling upon what she’d said earlier. He’d let it drop this time, but she knew he’d stored it away for future use.

He said, ‘The fact that the photographer has to rely on his wife to pick him up from work is enough to eliminate him as a suspect, not to mention his nervous disposition.’

Stevie forced herself to think back to the small, grey photographer and his nervous twitch. ‘That makes sense.’ And then, ‘Did you watch the interviews with the bank security guards? What do you think of them?’

De Vakey thought for a moment. ‘I take it the surveillance footage has been analysed?’

‘The AV guys say that the cameras in the bank’s front lobby didn’t show anything unusual. Cameras are positioned at all the exits. If the guards had left the bank that night it would have been on tape. The camera on the outside is a different story. It doesn’t cover the bench where the body was found, but someone approaching it would have been caught on screen. It appears to have been covered up with something. There’s about five minutes of blank footage, where they think a cloth was thrown over the camera. Then there’s another glitch a couple of hours later. We think that must be when he came back to remove the props from her stiffened body.’

‘Have you considered polygraphing the guards?’

‘Should we still be regarding them as suspects?’

‘Perhaps.’

‘Explain, please.’

‘Before you leave, I’ll give you a rough list of what I have so far, but I want to point out that nothing is canon, my profiling is still only at its most preliminary stage. I’d like you to discuss my list with Monty and maybe it will give you something to get started with.’ He paused and turned towards the fire, looking pensive.

Stevie braced herself, hoping this wasn’t leading back to her again. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘I’m not usually called in this early in an investigation. My specialty is serial killers. The police tend to call me in after a series of similar crimes.’ He looked back at her. ‘Is there something about this case I haven’t been told?’

She felt flustered, more for Monty than herself this time. ‘Well, it’s really not my place...’

‘Monty feels that this killer has struck before, doesn’t he? At the press conference I heard mention of the Kings Park murders. I followed them closely at the time, was surprised not to be called in. I’d like to know what’s going on.’

Stevie let out a breath. ‘Politics, I’m afraid.’

‘I see,’ he nodded thoughtfully. ‘I’ll arrange a meeting with Monty tomorrow. It’s important I’m told everything.’

She agreed, glad to pass the buck. ‘It’s something you really need to hear from him.’ She climbed to her feet. ‘What’ll you have to drink?’

‘Very convenient, I was just getting on to you and Monty.’ The tease that had been absent for most of the morning was back in his voice.

‘You have to get your drinks from the bar here. I’m getting an orange juice. What can I get for you?’

De Vakey smiled. ‘I’ll have champagne, but allow me.’ He moved for his wallet. Stevie stopped him with a raised hand. ‘I like to buy my share of the drinks, thanks all the same.’

She returned to find the lunch they’d ordered had arrived. De Vakey said he didn’t wish to discuss the case when he was eating, it interfered with his digestion.

Shit, they were going to be here all day.

She watched him prepare his meal for eating. First he put the napkin on his knee, then helped himself to salt and pepper after offering it to her first. Then he turned his plate until the meal was balanced to its aesthetic, symmetrical best. Each bite was slowly savoured and alternated with sips of iced champagne.

She shovelled down a mouthful of local snapper and salad, risking a glance at her watch as she chewed.

‘I’m sorry, am I keeping you?’ he said.

‘Oh no, I still have plenty of time. I promised my daughter I’d be home early today, that’s all.’

‘And what time does her father get home?’ he said, carving off a piece of bleu steak.

Now she was trapped. The rare meat quivered on his fork as if its synapses were still firing. Deciding that the truth would give him less to work with than a hedge, she said, ‘Actually, her father and I split up not long after I discovered I was pregnant.’

‘I’m sorry. It must be hard for you.’

She shrugged off the unwanted sympathy. ‘My mother lives down the road. She’s a big help and has a lot of time on her hands since my dad died.’

‘And, of course, you have Monty.’

The warmth spread from her neck and heated up her words. ‘If you’re trying to imply that Monty and I are anything other than old friends, you obviously aren’t as good at reading people as you like to think.’

De Vakey raised his hands in surrender, but the butterflies in her stomach told her it was she who’d lost the battle.

8

It is of vital importance that the investigating officers have some form of emotional release. Those without supportive families must have a life outside their work through which they can relax. An officer with no outside interests is well on the way to burn out.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

Stevie and De Vakey headed back to his hotel in the unmarked Commodore. They were passing through the Polly Pipe when he said, ‘Continue on the freeway past the old power station, it’ll probably be quickest.’

She shot him an irritated glance. The orange tunnel lights flicked across his face, striping it with light and shadow. ‘Know Perth well, do you?’

‘I grew up here. Still come over whenever I can for private consults. I’d live here if I had the choice, but unfortunately most of my work’s in the eastern states.’

Stevie masked her surprise; it was hard to imagine such a smooth, urbane man as this being at home anywhere but in a large cosmopolitan city. ‘Would you rather drive?’

‘No.’ And then, ‘Sorry, I’ve been back-seat driving haven’t I?’

She pulled a face. ‘I wouldn’t have let you drive even if you’d said yes.’

‘Ah, but you would have liked me to say yes. It would have given you the opportunity to put me in my place.’

‘Got it in one,’ she said, smiling at last. ‘So, what kind of private work do you do when you’re over here?’

He turned away from her to look through the side window. ‘Seminars mainly.’

Out of the tunnel, they saw the river, its surface under the gloomy sky grey as wrinkled as elephant’s skin. The dilapidated power station loomed amidst a tangle of wires. ‘I see they still haven’t made up their minds about what to do with that old place,’ he said.

‘It’s stirring up quite a controversy.’

‘And how do you feel about it?’

‘I don’t feel anything.’

‘Is that because you’re not originally from here?’

She shrugged. ‘Maybe. I don’t know.’ After a pause her curiosity got the better of her. ‘How do you know I’m not from Perth?’

‘Your accent for a start. You’re a country girl.’

Any minute now she expected him to comment on how out of place she seemed, that she was like a hayseed blown to the city on a warm wind.

For his sake, she was glad he didn’t.

She dropped him off at his hotel and wound her way through the afternoon traffic to her home in Maylands, one of the older suburbs. Hers was the most ramshackle house in the street—the price she’d paid was more or less block value only. Her father had insisted upon the purchase and given her the money for it—they’d done well from the sale of the family station. He’d said he wanted to see her settled before he died, said she’d get a lot of satisfaction doing the place up. And perhaps she would have if her circumstances had been different, if the challenge of day-to-day survival hadn’t proved so hard. Several years later the roof still leaked, the stumps were still supported by jacks and a recent storm had left one rusty gutter dangling like a withered vine.