An Easeful Death

  Table of Contents

  sunday night

  Prologue

  wednesday

  1

  2

  3

  thursday

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  friday

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  saturday

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  sunday

  23

  24

  25

  26

  two weeks later

  27

  Acknowledgements

  CITY OF LIGHT

  Felicity Young was born in Hanover, Germany, in 1960 and went to boarding school in the United Kingdom while her parents were posted around the world with the British Army. When her father retired from the army in 1976 the family settled in Perth. Felicity married at nineteen while she was still doing her nursing training and on completion of training had three children in quick succession. Not surprisingly, an arts degree at the University of Western Australia took ten years to complete. In 1990 Felicity and her family moved from the city and established a Suffolk sheep stud on a small farm in Gidgegannup where she studied music, reared orphan kangaroos and started writing.

  Having a brother-in-law who is a retired police superintendent, it was almost inevitable she would turn to crime writing. Her first novel, A Certain Malice, was published in Britain by Crème de la Crime in 2005.

  To Mick with love

  Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

  I have been half in love with easeful Death

  John Keats

  sunday night

  Prologue

  I sit in the unmarked, waiting for case file number 001005 to step out into the gloomy street. To pass the time, I watch the antics of a derelict accosting passers-by for money. It’s still light enough to catch the look of fear on an old woman’s face when the wino demands change for the phone. Although on a stakeout, I can’t just sit here and watch an innocent woman being scared half out of her wits.

  I step out of the car just as she begins to fumble in her purse. Her hands shake. She knows she won’t stand a chance if the wino decides he wants more.

  His eyes, sunk in a mat of hair and bristles, shine with a predator’s gleam. He licks his lips and thrusts out a mittened paw. The other hand clasps a bottle; a brown paper bag clings to it like a mummy’s skin.

  Her voice quavers as she drops a few coins into his hand.

  ‘I’m sorry, that’s all I have.’

  ‘You got more, I saw it,’ he says. The woman recoils as the pungent breath hits her. I smell his sickly reek as I approach. He sees me and drops his hand, stepping back into the shadows. My hand edges towards my pepper spray. The last thing I need now is a bottle to my head.

  ‘Is that you, Cuthbert?’ I say. I’ve heard the cops talk about this old guy who hangs around Wellington Street at night. The fact that I know his name will make him think twice before trying anything stupid. It will also reassure the old woman that I have the situation under control.

  He doesn’t answer my question but in an act of submission tosses the empty bottle to the ground. It rolls a few feet down the footpath before catching on a jutting brick wall.

  ‘Evening, Officer,’ he says, slurring his words. ‘It’s a cold night, ain’t it?’ Nature agrees; a plastic bag brushes against my foot, visits each of us in turn before it is blown from the footpath into the road by another chilly gust.

  ‘Time for you to get a move on,’ I say to the wino. ‘St Catherine’s should be open now. They’ll give you a warm bed for the night.’

  We watch as the man shuffles off down the dirty street. The woman’s shoulders slump in relief. She looks back up at me; her expression of adoring gratitude makes me feel like a Greek god.

  ‘Thank you, Officer,’ she says.

  ‘You shouldn’t be out alone. All the weirdoes start coming out at this time of night.’

  ‘It’s stupid of me, I know. I was delayed and missed my usual bus. There aren’t have many to choose from on a Sunday. I was making my way down to the train station.’

  The station is on the other side of the road, about a block away. I walk her to it and nod at her effusive thanks; it’s all part of the job.

  When I return the street is deserted. I settle back into the car and continue my vigil. I am confident 001005 has not yet left, these kind of photographic shoots usually take several hours. I pass the time by listening to the crackling voices on the police radio.

  At last, the wooden door creaks open and I see the head of 001005, and then the rest of her. She stands in the doorway for a moment, looking up and down the street before stepping onto it. The wind blows her black miniskirt against her body and she pulls her thin cardigan to her breasts. She looks up from her clacking feet when she hears the car door slam. We make eye contact; I do not waver, I speak in a kindly but authoritative tone.

  ‘Miss Royce? I’m Constable Dixon from Central Police.’ I tap my name badge and flash my ID wallet. A smile would not be appropriate under these circumstances.

  She stares at me and her pretty love-heart mouth breaks into a smile of recognition. ‘Oh, it’s you!’

  I look back at her, keeping my demeanour serious.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ she asks, worried now.

  ‘Your mother asked me to pick you up.’

  She had mentioned at the cafe, where I spoke to her the other day, that her parents were friendly with several cops. It should be no surprise to hear that someone is pulling a favour. ‘She asked me to take you to RPH. I’m afraid your father’s had a turn. The rest of your family’s waiting for you there.’

  Her hand flies to her mouth and I guide her by the elbow to the passenger side of the unmarked.

  I settle into the driver’s seat. My body tingles in a way that makes me feel phosphorescent. I’ve done it by the book, and it’s all been so easy.

  I always feel good when I’m about to close a case.

  wednesday

  1

  The absence of sexual intercourse in a crime that is obviously sexually motivated will often indicate some form of sexual dysfunction in the offender.

  James L De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil: A textbook for law enforcement officers (PUV Press, Sydney, 2004)

  The telephones were supposed to be the same model, but by now Stevie could recognise each by its own unique shrill. And her sleep-deprived brain was beginning to see the tones in various colours too. With each shriek a coloured streamer seemed to shoot itself into the air and tangle with the others already hanging in the thick fug of the incident room. The one-sided conversations added further texture and tone to this multicoloured net.

  ‘You think it’s your neighbour...’

  ‘Is that a T for Tom or a P for Peter?’

  ‘You’ve seem him do what with the garden hose?’

  ‘Serious Crime Squad, DS Angus Wong speaking...’

  ‘If you can give me your address, Ma’am, I’ll send a uniformed officer over.’

  But the net was no tighter around the offender than it had been two days ago.

  Stevie’s phone had been silent for all of three minutes. She rubbed her forehead and, taking advantage of the lull, began to transcribe the scrawl of her latest interview. About to rewrite a sentence, she pressed the pencil to her notebook.

  A sudden crash made the pencil point snap on the page.

  Wayne Pickering rolled his eyes at Barry Snow and placed a hairy hand over his receiver. ‘Here we g
o again. Better call the cleaner, Barry.’

  Barry pulled a frog face, his protruding ears following his mouth downwards. Stevie wondered why a man with ears like that would choose to shave off all his hair.

  ‘I’m surprised there’s anything left in there to break,’ Barry said.

  The stream of expletives seeping through the porous office walls became a torrent. Angus Wong kicked Stevie under the desk, indicating the inspector’s office with a jerk of his blue-black head.

  She set her mouth into a straight line and didn’t move.

  ‘Go on, make yourself useful,’ Wayne said as he put the phone down and smoothed a long feathery sideburn. Today he wore his wide-lapelled bottle-green suit and zebra-print shirt; Stevie could still see the black and white stripes when she closed her eyes. They added a crackle of static to the web of sound.

  ‘You have such a soothing effect on him,’ Wayne added.

  She reached into her bag for her smokes, met his eyes and lit up. After a luxurious inhalation she blew out, enveloping him in a grey cloud.

  ‘Put it out, Stevie,’ Angus said without expression. He didn’t give a hoot about smoking in the incident room, but it was in the book, so he enforced it.

  Young Barry Snow grinned a monkey grin. She ground out her cigarette and mouthed ‘fuck off’ to him.

  ‘Go check on Monty,’ Angus said.

  Stevie swallowed her sigh of resignation, stood up and pulled at the legs of her jeans to dislodge the bunch of seams knotted at her crotch. The inspector’s door was ajar. She pushed it open and stood in the doorway for a moment, watching him.

  Monty was standing with his back to her, hands on his hips, gazing out of the sixth-floor window. He was looking at the aerial acrobatics of a red leaf caught in the updraft of a wind tunnel, rising and falling like the flicker of an igniting flame.

  He turned when he heard the click of the closing door. ‘Watch the glass,’ he said. He closed his eyes and let out his breath, his complexion fading from red brick to jarrah pink in the time it took to inhale again.

  Stevie managed to pull her features into an expression of cool severity not lost on Monty. He slapped at his thighs, bent down and started tossing the bigger chunks of glass into the rubbish bin.

  She took a leaflet from his desk and scraped the smaller shards into a tidy pile. ‘Barry’s called the cleaner. This’ll need vacuuming,’ she said at last.

  Monty made an indifferent grunting sound.

  After some more silent scraping she said, ‘You going to tell me what this is about?’

  ‘I’m surprised you need to ask.’ He tossed a piece of glass into the bin, straightened and jabbed his fingers into his rust-coloured hair.

  ‘The super?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s piked out of the press conference last minute; knows he’s in for another roasting and handed it over to me.’ Monty wagged his head from side to side, mimicking their superintendent. ‘You always handle the press so wonderfully, Monty, in the palms of your hands. Just tell them the bare essentials, tell them we have some leads, that we expect to be laying charges within the next twenty-four hours.’

  ‘But that’s bullshit!’

  ‘Of course it’s bullshit, which is exactly how the Kings Park murders were handled.’ Monty flung a hand towards the super’s office, two floors above. ‘His excuse is that he’s got that Christmas in July dinner with his politician buddies. The bottom line is he’s terrified of the press and wants me to do his dirty work for him.’

  ‘Let’s face it though, Monty, he is good at schmoozing the pollies.’

  ‘I know, he’s a natural brownnose. I guess he does have some talents.’

  Stevie looked her inspector up and down, unable to hide the smile she felt tugging at the corners of her mouth. ‘Well, you can’t go to the press conference looking like that,’ she said, indicating his smudged tie and the crumpled shirt he’d been wearing for two days.

  Monty glanced down at his clothes; his physical appearance wasn’t one of his priorities. But one of the perks of belonging to an elite team like the SCS was the luxurious appointments of the inspector’s office: on the back of his private bathroom door Stevie found a hook laden with dry cleaning. She thrust a plastic-covered bundle into his arms and turned to leave.

  ‘Stevie wait, there’s something else.’ Monty put the bundle of clothes on his desk, yanked at his tie.

  She knew what was coming and her heart dropped. She’d missed putting her daughter to bed for the last two nights; it was already seven—only half an hour until bedtime.

  Monty knew it too. He spoke without looking at her, too busy ripping at the flimsy membrane covering his clean shirt.

  ‘You’re going to have to go to the airport and pick up De Vakey. His plane comes in at eight. I’ll never get there on time now with this fucking press conference.’ He stopped what he was doing and scrawled out the flight details for her.

  Now it was her turn to feel wound up. ‘Jesus Monty, can’t you ask someone else? I haven’t seen Izzy for two days!’ She didn’t like the whine she heard in her voice but it was too late to take it back now.

  He raised his eyebrows and held up one finger.

  Don’t push it, she said to herself, you knew the hours when you took the job.

  Her intentions on holding back, however, proved futile. ‘I’ve never been in favour of bringing De Vakey in. Baggly’s against it and he could make things very difficult for you. It’s a big career risk.’

  ‘Just let me worry about my career, okay?’ Monty’s frown suggested this was the end of the topic. He handed her the sticky yellow slip and turned away in a quaint gesture of propriety. A shiver rippled the muscles of his broad back when the crisp fabric of the shirt brushed his skin.

  ‘Izzy’s happy enough with your mother, isn’t she?’ He turned back to Stevie as he did up the buttons.

  ‘She’s taught her the ABC song.’

  ‘That’s great.’ The lines at the sides of his eyes crinkled like a geisha’s fan.

  ‘And how is Dot?’

  ‘Batty as ever. Driving me crazy.’

  ‘I think she’s coping remarkably well. It can’t be a year since your dad died.’

  ‘Eighteen months. I think she has TAFE tonight.’ The lie slipped out without any premeditated help. ‘She’s just enrolled in a herbalist class. I don’t know who else I can get to babysit.’

  ‘You’ll find someone. What about Justin Baggly? I thought he was good with her.’

  Stevie let out a sigh; she could see Monty wouldn’t be budged. When he started fumbling with his belt buckle she decided it was time to leave. She opened the door just as the cleaner raised his hand to knock. His sudden appearance made her jump back a step. He was a strange-looking man, an albino who worked the night shift, sleeping during the day so he could hide from the sun.

  ‘C’mon in, Martin,’ Monty said, unfazed at being caught in his polka-dotted boxers.

  Stevie pressed herself into the doorjamb and tried to squeeze past the cleaner without making any physical contact. She found the man repulsive, like one of those blind naked moles that live underground somewhere in Discovery Channel land. The sullen look he gave her in return suggested he was well aware of the distaste beneath her transparent smile. She shivered, ashamed of herself. Prejudice. God, she knew all about that. Sometimes she felt she’d written the department manual.

  ‘Hey Martin,’ Monty said. ‘Did you hear the one about the nun and the bus driver?’

  ‘Nope. Don’t think so.’

  She stepped over the vacuum cleaner and closed the office door behind her.

  ***

  Stevie slicked her way down the rain-washed highway where the lights flickered like coloured stars. Lost in her own thoughts, it was only when she had to slam the brakes to avoid the sudden erratic lane change of a mini-minor, that she found herself jolted back to the present. With alarm she realised she had no memory of leaving Central, of the dodgem dash across the roundabout, the Ca
useway, or even noticing Gustav the one-armed fisherman on the bridge. Until now she hadn’t even been aware of the press conference on the radio.

  She reached for the volume button and turned up the sound. Monty began with the standard plea to the public for help. The sound of his voice was a welcome distraction from the unsettling thoughts that had been dogging her for the last few days. She pictured him standing at the podium in the conference room, reading from his official statement. In one of his better suits he would look dapper and imposing and maybe even intimidating to some.

  Now it was question time and his voice boomed. She visualised him holding his hands up to silence the barrage. ‘I’ll answer what I can of your questions now, one at a time...’ The mike amplified the coughs, the whispers, the jostling. ‘Yes, you in the red coat.’

  In her head Stevie saw a glowing beacon among the sea of bodies.

  ‘Can you tell us anything more about the victim, her family, where she lived?’ a woman’s voice asked.

  ‘Miss Royce lived with her family in Kensington. I’m hoping the press will have the courtesy to leave them alone for now. If they wish to give any statements, I’m sure they will in their own good time.’

  ‘Michelle Birkby, the West.’

  A beat. ‘Yes Michelle?’

  Stevie’s grip tightened on the steering wheel.

  ‘Inspector McGuire,’ the journalist said, ‘newspaper polls have shown a significant drop in the public’s confidence in the police service, particularly after the failure to catch the Kings Park killer who terrorised the West Perth area nearly four years ago. Have the police learned from past mistakes? Will they adopt a different approach to catching this killer?’