Blood Sunset Read online

  I rolled my eyes and told him to get up.

  ‘I just think he’s a bit young, that’s all. They’re normally older.’

  ‘Oh, turn it up. They’re all shitheads. Matter of fact, I’ll bet my next two rest days that this kid’s record is longer than my dick.’

  ‘That wouldn’t be hard.’

  ‘Gets pretty hard when your missus comes around, tell you that much.’

  We both laughed.

  ‘So what’s it gonna be?’ Finetti prodded. ‘You write this up as NSC, we’ll get the undertakers down here and be home before eight. If you wanna muck about with the whole stage show, we’re looking at lunchtime. An hour’s unpaid overtime is better than five. Come on, man. I know you love your beauty sleep.’

  Feeling suddenly deflated, I laced my hands behind my head and looked up at the sky. A haze of pink and purple spread from the east as dawn approached. On the other side of the fence I heard the first tram of the day rattle by.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘NSC it is. I’ll get Kim to finish up in here and call the body snatchers. Then we can all knock off.’

  ‘You’re the man, Rubes,’ said Finetti, a cheeky grin on his face. ‘What d’ya say about having brekkie at Greasy Joe’s? I’m so hungry I could eat a shit sandwich.’

  ‘Don’t start drooling, mate. We need to keep the body clean. And don’t go stealing anything out of the kid’s pockets either. I know what you’re like.’

  Finetti’s rebuttal echoed through the loading bay as I headed back to the car park.

  ‘Let me guess,’ said Kim, who had cordoned off the entrance with crime scene tape. ‘Dispatch got it wrong? The guy didn’t OD. He drowned or got hit by a truck?’

  ‘Nope. Think he came out the back door of the restaurant looking for the toilet, slipped on the back step and landed on a syringe.’

  ‘For real?’ she said, stowing the roll of tape in a tackle box.

  ‘Nah, they got it right. Accidental overdose.’

  ‘Nil suspicious?’

  ‘Yeah, think so.’

  ‘Nice one, we can get home on time,’ she said, checking her watch.

  I was silent, unsure.

  ‘What’s the matter? You all right?’ she said, looking up and reading my face.

  ‘Yeah, I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t look fine.’

  ‘He’s just a kid, that’s all. Probably from one of the hostels. What’s Vitazul’s story?’

  ‘Ah, pretty standard, really. Says he came to work early to clean up after the previous night. He was taking out the rubbish and found the body. Seems pretty freaked out.’

  ‘Did he touch anything?’

  ‘Nope. Said he didn’t want to.’ She glanced over her shoulder. ‘Said he was too scared.’

  Following her gaze, I saw Vitazul slumped against a palm tree, staring up at the scenic railway. Within a few hours the park would be filled with kids, tourists and thrill seekers. How ironic that so many children came here to play, I thought. So many idyllic memories forged in a suburb that for others symbolised only pain and sorrow. But that was St Kilda, the home of extremes. Children played in Luna Park while paedophiles preyed on runaways in the surrounding gardens. The homeless begged for change in streets lined with luxury cars and trendy nightclubs. Drug addicts bought and sold their wares less than a stone’s throw from tourists in chic restaurants. Cheap hostels provided accommodation to ex-felons and prostitutes alongside homes priced in the millions. And every morning large machines ploughed the beach, removing broken bottles and syringes hiding in the sand like urban landmines. The coexistence of danger and pleasure, risk and excitement. That’s the St Kilda I knew.

  ‘Why did Vitazul call the police?’ I asked Kim. ‘Why not an ambulance?’

  ‘I asked him that. He just looked at me and said, “Young lady, the boy is grey like the ghost. He is dead, so I call police.” ’

  ‘Believe him?’ I asked.

  ‘S’pose. Why, what’s going on in there?’

  ‘Never mind. Just go in and assist Finetti. I’ll finish up with Vitazul and call the undertakers. It’s going to be another hot one today so I want the body out of there before it starts to reek.’

  When Kim was gone, I leant against a lamp post and rubbed my shoulder, welcoming the distraction of physical discomfort and pain. It was better than thinking about my old mate from Benalla or wondering what had happened to the kid in the loading bay. And it helped block out my doubts about there being nil suspicious circumstances.

  2

  GENTLE MOVEMENT WOKE ME. Footsteps crept up my chest, then soft purring vibrated in my ear. Prince licked me on the cheek and let out a pleading meow. I opened my eyes and looked blearily at the clock on the bedside table: 12.43 p.m. Finetti had been right on the money. We’d finished at the death scene around 8 a.m. and I’d slept just over four hours. Not bad for a night shift.

  I ran a hand over Prince’s black coat then headed to the kitchen at the far side of my single-bedroom apartment. It was seven years since I’d moved into what was initially a marital investment property that my ex and I had purchased in the glory days of our relationship. Back when Ella and I were first together, Albert Park was a suburb of run-down miners’ cottages and seedy corner pubs. Now even the smallest houses cost into the millions. Because we’d got in early, I had what the bank called ‘top-end equity’, meaning my apartment was worth far more than what I owed on it. Even so, the mortgage still zapped most of my pay every month.

  Prince ran ahead and sat by his bowl. The insulin was running low. I’d need to go by the vet later and buy some – something else that chewed into my cash flow. I peeled the plastic wrapper off the syringe and an image of the syringe sticking out of the boy’s arm that morning flashed in my mind. Psychologists had an explanation for this: pictures of the subconscious. Cops call them flashbacks. Many years ago, I’d learnt to accept them as little more than an annoying intrusion. A bullet in the shoulder and twelve months of physical rehabilitation had changed all that. Nowadays, an innocent syringe for a diabetic cat became a dead kid in an alley; an old lady with a jaunty perm at the bus stop became the elderly rape victim of similar appearance I’d interviewed years ago; the backfiring of a car became a gunshot.

  After filling his bowl, I stood and watched Prince demolish his food. My kitchen was original art deco and my favourite room in the apartment. Even if I could have afforded to, I wouldn’t have updated to a modern look. The old-fashioned character and warmth far outweighed any fancy stainless steel.

  As always, the left side of my torso had stiffened during sleep, leaving my muscles and ligaments surrounding the small circular scar tight and rigid. I went into the bathroom and ran the water a while before stepping into the shower to begin my daily routine of exercises. After several minutes and a series of stretches, movement became easier and I was able to wash myself properly.

  I shaved and dressed, then downed some toast and took a glass of orange juice to the lounge window. Even before I opened the door to the balcony, I could feel the sun burning through the glass. When I did open it, the heat hit me like a furnace. It radiated off the bitumen, off the concrete walls of the nearby warehouse, and off the metallic snakes of cars traversing three storeys below. Some of the cars were caked in dirt and road grime, courtesy of water restrictions. Today would be another total fire ban, the fifth consecutive day in a row, and the city was feeling it. Immediately my eyes began to water and a familiar itch worked its way through my sinuses. I sneezed loudly, took a tissue from my pocket and blew my nose. How long before a cool change would come?

  ‘Got a cold, mate?’ The voice came from the balcony on the left. It was my neighbour, Edgar Burns, leaning on his walking stick, emptying water from a bucket into a pot plant. No doubt the water came from his shower, a water-saving practice Edgar employed religiously.

  ‘Not a cold, Ed. Just hayfever. Driving me nuts this season. Too hot and dry.’

  ‘The weather, my arse,’ Edgar said, slo
pping water over the edge. ‘Bloody pollution, that’s what it is. Look at all these cars, for God’s sake, smoking up the place. When I was a boy we all took the tram wherever we wanted to go. These days everyone needs a car just to go to the bloody milk bar. Lazy as a lizard drinkin’.’

  I’d known Edgar for as long as I’d lived in the apartment block and somehow he always managed to give me an opinion.

  ‘Not too many milk bars around here, Ed. Rare as rockin’ horse shit.’

  ‘You know what I mean. Look at that over there.’

  He pointed towards the city skyscrapers, enveloped in a thick brown layer of smoke that had blown down from bushfires in central Victoria.

  ‘You could be right. Pollution.’

  ‘Too right. Won’t catch me out here on days like this. It’s about as dry as a nun’s nasty. No wonder you’re sick.’

  As Edgar waved goodbye and hobbled back into his apartment, I decided to make more of an effort with him this year, maybe take him to the footy when the season began. We’d watched the Poms go down 7 for 311, chasing a total of 407, at the previous year’s Boxing Day test. Vaughan had managed 144 from just 12 overs but the batting order fell over after he was dismissed and in the end they were no match for the Aussies. Edgar had damn near copped a heart attack when Ponting put three in the crowd off one over. We’d had a right old time.

  With the heat getting more oppressive, I got down on my haunches and checked the soil in the rose pot next to the door and decided it was damp enough to survive another day. There were a few thrips I was able to kill with my fingers, but I knew from experience this wouldn’t get them all. My mother had given me the Silver Jubilee as a cutting and it had taken well. Even in full sun it seemed to be the only plant around surviving the heat. I repositioned it and tried not to think about the day Mum had given it to me. Instead I stood up and looked out over the edge of my balcony, my eyes taking in the palm trees of Albert Park, the glittering lake and the territory all the way towards St Kilda. Edgar often described it as a million-dollar view. On a figurative level at least, he was dead right. It was what had sold me on the place all those years ago. Today, though, it also reminded me about the dead kid, Dallas Boyd. By now his family would have been notified, word would have hit the street, and the obligatory bunches of flowers would have turned up and begun to wilt and die in the loading bay. Just like the kid.

  After almost twenty years in the job – five in the former Drug Squad – I’d learnt that in most cases of teenage drug abuse there was usually something important missing from the kid’s life. Love, discipline, guidance, self-esteem. Something. I’d seen it on a personal level too. Jacko had been a good bloke, a victim of circumstance, and I wondered whether the same could be said for the kid in the loading bay. What kind of life had Dallas Boyd lived?

  Draining my orange juice, I stepped back into the relative cool of the lounge room, where I removed an old photo album from the television cabinet. At the kitchen bench, I wiped dust off the cover and opened it to the photos of my family. In one shot, my mother and father stood beside an HT Holden on their wedding day, proud as punch, with the family home in the background. It had been too long since I’d seen my mum. My father too, for that matter. In another photo my older brother, Anthony, and I stood like burnt lobsters, waving to the camera from the edge of the local swimming pool. The photos brought a smile to my face but they weren’t what I was looking for. I flipped through the album, past pictures of myself and Anthony getting older, until I came to a series of shots taken during a camping trip on the Murray River. I scanned the shots until I found the one I was looking for: three boys and two men beside a boat with the river in the background. Like a lot of the other photos in the album, it was heavily faded and yellowed at the sides.

  I studied Jacko’s face, remembering the cheeky gap between his front teeth, how his baseball cap was always lopsided, strands of hair covering his ears. And I thought again about why he’d decided to leave Benalla in the first place. Something missing.

  Closing the album, I noticed the red light on my answering machine flashing. I’d turned the ringer off before bed, which was why I’d missed the calls. I clicked the play button.

  ‘Yeah, McCauley, it’s Ben Eckles. Just thought I’d check in. Heard you were a bit off with the OD this morning. Listen, I’ve got you down for the morning shift tomorrow. Anyhow, you’re probably asleep now, so just give us a buzz when you get up to confirm the roster can stay as it is.’

  I held my finger on the pause button, thinking. Finetti must have said something to Eckles, the senior sergeant temporarily in charge of the St Kilda Criminal Investigation Unit. The counsellors had warned me about this: that some of them would want to babysit me and ease me back into the casework. They’d even advised me not to return to the CIU. Take a less active role, they’d said. Something with less pressure. The primary school liaison team, perhaps. Yeah, right. The initial forecast was eighteen months, yet I’d passed the medical and psychological assessments in just over twelve. I drummed my fingers on the bench, unsure how to take my boss’s message. I wanted respect, not sympathy.

  I smiled at the next message, from my brother. ‘Wakey-wakey, hands off snakey. Mate, Anthony here, s’pose you’re still asleep, slacker. Anyway, just confirming this arvo’s appointment. Don’t forget, three o’clock at the usual. And do your stretches. Real stretches, too. Fifteen seconds each grouping. I don’t want you suing me. See ya.’

  The ‘usual’. He made it sound like a drink in a pub.

  The third message was from Ella. ‘Hey spunksta, it’s me. Still on for tonight, I hope? I finish at six, probably be at your place about seven. Give me a call, let me know what to bring. If you can’t get hold of me, leave a message with the triage nurse, she’ll pass it on. Ciao!’

  I dialled the Alfred Hospital switch but missed Ella on a lunch break, so I left a message and thought about our plans for the night. Nothing special, she’d said, just a DVD and a bottle of red. I was still adjusting to the kind of date you had with your wife post-separation-possible-reconciliation. What was the word she’d used last time? Rebuilding, reconnecting? A DVD was a safe option, I supposed. Maybe she just thought I was too much of a tight-arse to take her to the movies.

  I double-checked my daybook and saw a notation reminding me to see Anthony at three and be home for Ella at seven. Inside the diary were loose photocopies of the notes Finetti had made at the death scene that morning. Something about the missing syringe lid still bothered me. If the kid had prepared his fit like any other junkie, he’d have injected himself in the same location he was found in. As such, all the paraphernalia should have been located near the body. Yet we hadn’t found the lid, even after the body was removed. What did that mean? I tried to tell myself it was nothing. Like Finetti had said, the kid could’ve swallowed it accidentally, or it could’ve simply fallen down a drain or into a crack or under a bin. At the end of the day, what did it matter? The kid had injected himself and overdosed. Simple. It happened all the time.

  I began a cursory tidy-up of the apartment, stacking the dishwasher and putting on a load of washing. But doing housework wasn’t going to remove the image of Dallas Boyd slumped against the wheelie bin. Nor would it remove the doubt that squirmed in my gut or the possibility that I’d ignored my own instincts, instincts that had lain dormant for over twelve months.

  I sat at the bench and reread Finetti’s notes, wondering if it would’ve been any different had I scribed and Finetti dictated. Then it hit me. Something was missing. I opened the daybook to a fresh page as the threads of a theory began to form, welcoming the feeling as I listed an anomaly I believed needed further investigating: Mobile recharge receipt – no phone?

  The receipt we’d found in Dallas Boyd’s wallet indicated a mobile recharge card had been purchased at 10 p.m. the night he died, yet no mobile phone had been located on or near the body. These days, everyone had a mobile phone. So where was the dead kid’s?

  That made at
least two anomalies, but there was something about the tourniquet that wasn’t quite gelling either. I went over Finetti’s notes again but nothing jumped out, so I connected my digital camera to the television and began scrolling through the pictures I’d taken. Zooming in on the leather belt, I tried to make my theory take shape, but all the image did was frustrate me. I needed to see the belt again. I needed to hold it in my hands. There was only one place to do that.

  3

  THE VICTORIAN CORONER’S OFFICE was located in Southbank, less than three kilometres from my apartment. A low-level facility made of steel and glass, the complex spread across half a city block and was divided into three joined buildings: the coronial court, a forensic pathology centre and an area specifically designed for the identification of bodies.

  The allocated police bays outside the complex weren’t for the private vehicles of police members, but my Falcon was only two years old and always passed for an unmarked car, so I parked and followed the main walkway to the building in the middle. Inside the foyer, I approached a circular reception desk for the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. The morgue.

  Behind the desk a grey-haired woman sat chewing on a pencil as she stared into a computer screen, Paul Kelly’s ‘Dumb Things’ playing on a radio behind her. Clearing my throat, I asked to speak with Matthew Briggs.

  ‘And you are?’ she asked.

  ‘Police,’ I replied, flipping open my badge case.

  ‘What’s it in relation to?’ She sounded like a suspicious mother guarding her precious child against the neighbourhood riffraff.

  ‘A case I’m working on. The undertakers said Mr Briggs signed in a body this morning. I need to ask him some questions about it.’