(2005) A Certain Malice Read online

  “Go into the lounge room, grab the standard lamp and plug it in here,” he said to Leanne, pointing to a power point in the garage wall. “I can’t see a damned thing. And Pete, open up the roller door and let some fresh air in.”

  The job was more tolerable with the new light and the fresher air. Cam’s eyes travelled from the tip of Vince’s highly polished shoes, up the sharp creases of his trousers to the top of his head. He loosened the noose. Though padded with a towel, the inverted V-shaped bruise on the side of the neck was clearly visible. He shone the torch on the neck and pointed out the telltale sign to the young constables. His latex-covered fingers moved across the uniform jacket and came to rest on a piece of paper protruding from the top pocket. He removed the paper and read the note out loud. It was Vince’s writing; he’d recognise those chicken scratches anywhere.

  “I’m sorry.” Cam paused and looked at the shaken youngsters. “Vince.” He let his breath out with a sigh. “That’s all.” He shrugged and flipped the paper just to make sure.

  He turned to Pete and rubbed his grainy eyes. “You two go on home. I’ll deal with SOCO and the pathologist,” he said.

  “We don’t mind staying, Sarge. You’re done in, what with the fire and everything,” Leanne said.

  He gave her a glance to indicate that he appreciated her concern. “No, I’ll stay here. Off you go. And on your way home, call in on Ruby and tell her I won’t be home till morning. She’s probably still up watching the late movie.”

  Pete nodded. “No probs, Sarge.”

  As they turned to leave, Cam called out, “And make sure she’s locked the house up properly.”

  23

  From the front porch Cam could hear the softened voices of the SOCO officers as they placed Vince’s bagged clothes in the back of their vehicle.

  One of them commented that it was the third police suicide in three months, how the Police Royal Commission was causing a big drop in morale. The other man’s answer was low and muffled. Cam wondered if either man knew Vince; suicides were always grim but even worse when they involved a fellow officer. He sat down and leaned his head against the brick wall, allowing the cool mist from the neighbour’s sprinkler to waft against his skin.

  After a few moments he stood up and rejoined the SOCO team. He pointed out Vince’s car, and they dusted it for prints inside and out with no luck; visually, all the prints looked the same. They would be run through the database, but Cam could predict that their owner would be Vince.

  The SOCO boys moved into the house and Cam held back, still looking at the car. The position of the driver’s seat was bothering him. He opened up the driver’s side door and sat in the seat, placing his hands upon the wheel, his eyes away from the dangling Elvis. He had to stretch his feet right out to reach the pedals, only then feeling them through the toe of his boots. Vince and he were about the same height. There was no way that he would have been comfortable with the seat this far back, even if it was only a matter of reversing the car out of the garage and parking it on the street.

  Cam was pondering this as he walked back to the garage. He found Freddie McManus, the forensic pathologist, holding a thermometer under a standard lamp, squinting in the poor light, caterpillar eyebrows furrowed with concentration. McManus had not cracked a black joke since his arrival.

  “Can you give me a time of death yet, Doc?” Cam asked.

  “I’m still working on it.”

  Cam nodded and wiped the back of his arm across his forehead. “It’s a hot night.”

  “Quite,” the pathologist replied. “He’s a big boy, would take a while to cool down.”

  “My officers found him at about nine. He was still warm then,” Cam said.

  McManus wiped the thermometer and put it back in his bag, then squatted at the body again. Pushing Vince on to his side, he pulled up his jacket and shirt. Cam shone his torch on the area, noticing the purplish skin where the blood had collected.

  The pathologist pressed his gloved finger into a patch on Vince’s back. The skin blanched and returned to the purple colour when the pressure was released. McManus allowed the body to roll back on to its original position and moved to Vince’s head. He cupped the jaw in one hand and gently manipulated the joint from side to side.

  “Lividity’s not fixed yet, rigour’s only just starting,” he said. He placed the head back on to the concrete floor. “Your man’s been dead somewhere between three and five hours, Sergeant.”

  Cam looked at his watch and scrabbled through his own set of mental calculations. So Vince had died at seven at the earliest, nine at the latest. If Vince hanged himself at seven, there was no way he could have bombed the photo lab.

  Cam had arrived at the school at eight, just as the bomb was thrown. If Vince had thrown the bomb then, he may just have had time to rush home, change and hang himself minutes before the arrival of Pete and Leanne. The body was still warm when they found him at nine. Then again, Cam realised, on a night like this, it probably would still have been warm if he had hung himself at seven.

  Death before eight and Vince was innocent, after eight and he might still be guilty.

  The pathologist gave Cam a questioning look. “Any the wiser then?”

  Cam’s hand rasped against his jaw. “When you do the autopsy, Doc, will you be running the usual blood toxicity tests?”

  “I always test for drugs and alcohol.”

  “Good.”

  McManus regarded Cam over the top of his glasses. “Something tells me you’re are not convinced this is a straight suicide.”

  “I tend to be a fence-sitter ’til I see all the evidence.”

  “That’s the way to be.”

  “It infuriates my junior officers.” Cam gave a tired smile and pointed to the overturned drum. “Is that how you’d do it then? Climb on a drum with a noose around your neck and just jump off?”

  McManus stared at the drum for a moment.“Hell no,” he said. “If I wanted to do the job properly I’d want a bigger drop than that, big enough for the hangman’s knot to snap against the neck and break it. With a drop like this, of about three feet, a person would slowly suffocate.” McManus shivered.“A horrible way to go.”

  “You’d think a police officer with Vince’s experience would have learnt that.”

  The pathologist shrugged, stooped over his bag and began to pack away his equipment. “Not for me to say.”

  A thought struck Cam. “Wouldn’t his service revolver have been quicker and cleaner? Why didn’t he use that?”

  Cam spent the remainder of the night with the Scene of Crime officers. When they’d finished collecting the evidence at Vince’s house, they drove to the school to sift through the wreckage of the photographic lab. Preliminary findings indicated the cause of the fire and subsequent explosion was, as Cam had suspected, a Molotov cocktail through one of the front windows. They found the doorknob under a nearby bush and took it back to the lab for fingerprint analysis, though Cam doubted it would yield anything incriminating. Vince, if it had been Vince, was too much the experienced officer to leave prints behind.

  The stick-tall and balding SOCO sergeant reminded Cam of Jacques Cousteau, but when he opened his mouth to speak, sweaty bush hats and iron ore replaced the image of glistening wet suits and salt spray. Cam tried to focus on the man’s slow, soporific tones, but science had never been his strong point, and fatigue was dimming his mind. The man droned on and on about fire patterns, accelerants and chemical reactions.

  “Did you get the fax?”

  Cam jerked himself awake, “What fax?”

  The man gave a belly laugh.“You should be home in bed, mate. I faxed you this evening. You wanted to know about the glass we found at last week’s bushfire, remember?”

  Of course, this was the same SOCO guy who’d collected the evidence from the bushfire scene. Cam tried to shake the cobwebs out of his brain. Maybe Cecelia wasn’t the only one with concussion.

  “I wasn’t at the station this evening. What
did you find?”

  “We recovered glass from two Jim Beam bottles; one was broken, one complete. Both were covered with the prints of your vic, Herbert Bell.”

  Cam nodded. “Anything else?”

  “We found remnants of twisted tin. A jam tin to be precise. It had no detectable prints, but we did find traces of gunpowder on it.” The man could see he now had Cam’s full attention and gave a self-satisfied smile. “And it gets better.”

  “Go on.”

  “Some of the glass shards were from a magnifying glass.”

  Cam’s heart skipped a beat as the implication hit him. “A magnifying glass bomb?”

  The man clapped Cam on the shoulder. “I thought that’d wake you up. Not a very big one, but enough to set the bush alight.”

  A magnifying glass bomb, a simple but most effective timing device. Cam’s voice rose with excitement. “A small amount of gunpowder at the bottom of a tin topped with a magnifying glass. The sun’s rays shine down on to the powder and when the temperature reaches ignition point– boom!”

  “Not even much of a boom – more of a pop actually,” the SOCO officer said.

  Cam thought back to Vince’s interview with Ruth Tilly. “The witness who reported the fire said the smoke was dirty white.”

  “Well, they were wrong if they saw the fire when it’d only just started. The gunpowder, plus the fuel the body was soaked in, would have made the smoke oily black, certainly until the accelerant was all burned up. What time was the fire reported anyway?”

  “11 am. The witness thought it’d only just started,” Cam said.

  “What was the weather like then?”

  “Hot, heading towards thirty-eight degrees at a guess. It was cooler the next day because of the wind.”

  The man’s fingers danced over the buttons of his calculator. Cam peered over his shoulder but the numbers meant nothing to him.

  “I’ll keep it simple.”

  “I’d appreciate that.”

  “Taking into account the environmental conditions, the angle of the sun, and the ignition temperature of the gunpowder, it would have taken several hours for the bomb to heat up enough to explode. I’d say it would’ve started cooking with the very earliest of the sun’s rays.”

  Cam frowned and rubbed his chin.“So we don’t need to be looking for someone skulking around the bushes that morning, because the bomb was probably dumped with the body sometime the previous night.”

  “That’s right, mate. No one started your 11 am fire. The fire started itself.”

  24

  EARLY FRIDAY MORNING

  Cecelia Bowman gripped the edge of the toilet bowl and heaved her guts dry. It seemed the only thing preventing her from falling into the murky depths was Ruth’s cool hand upon her forehead.

  “I’m all right now, I’m fine,” she said, sinking on to the tiles of the bathroom floor.

  “OK, darl, up you get now and rinse your mouth out.”

  Ruth helped Cecelia over to the bathroom sink. Cecelia’s hands shook as she squeezed the toothpaste on to the toothbrush, cleaning her teeth as tenderly as if they were hanging on threads of silk.

  “Better now?” asked Ruth. Cecelia nodded although she could still taste the burned chemicals in her mouth and feel the caustic sear in her lungs whenever she took a breath.

  Ruth held a warm flannel to her face. “The doctor said you’re suffering from smoke inhalation. All the cilia in your airways have been singed off, just like those of a veteran smoker.”

  “I’m never going to smoke again.”

  “You’ll definitely give up now.” Ruth threw the flannel into the sink and took her gently by the arm, down the passageway to her bedroom.

  She should have been prepared for the impact when she heard the scrabble of feet from behind. But her reflexes were dulled and she was unable to sidestep the mammoth paws as they slapped against her back, knocking her from Ruth’s clasp on to the wooden floor.

  With what little strength she had, she pushed the slobbering beast away while Ruth got a grip on her collar. The effort caused a fit of coughing. She caught her breath and gasped, “Prudence seems to think she’s hungry.”

  “I fed her when you were in the bath. All I could find were lentil patties. She didn’t seem to mind,” Ruth said.

  “The dog meat’s in the freezer.”

  “Oh, I thought you were one of those obsessive vegetarian types who doesn’t give her dog meat.”

  “Give me some credit, Ruth,” Cecelia said as Ruth helped her off the floor.

  She flopped on to her bed. The dog climbed up next to her, putting her head on the spare pillow and falling asleep instantly. Cecelia sank back, envious of the dog’s carefree slumber, wondering if a peaceful sleep would ever be hers again.

  Ruth bustled around the room. With her halo of blonde curls, she looked angelic in the soft light. Watching her, Cecelia wondered how she could ever show Ruth how much she appreciated and valued her friendship. Ruth had always seemed so self-sufficient. She never seemed to get into scrapes, never needed any kind of help or moral boost.

  And it wasn’t as if Ruth’s life lacked tragedy.

  “Ruth?” Cecelia said leaning back further into her pillows, her mood continuing along its contemplative path. “Do you still think of your husband?”

  Ruth was straightening the patchwork quilt on the end of Cecelia’s bed. She stopped what she was doing and looked at her friend, a frown creasing her forehead.

  “Sometimes.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry. I suppose I’m just feeling a bit maudlin. There’s nothing like a near-death experience to get the old brain cells cranking: life, death, the secrets of the universe, etcetera.”

  Ruth straightened herself up, letting out a long sigh.“To dwell on death is futile. It’s life that counts.”

  Cecelia closed her eyes and took a breath. “I still think about little Tom.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “He wasn’t conceived under ideal circumstances. I suppose he was never meant to be.”

  “You need to get to sleep. Thoughts like that will only keep you awake. I don’t want a depressive on my hands.” She paused for a moment’s thought. “I’m going with Cliff to a bike show in the city on Saturday. We’re going to stay the night with one of Cliff’s mates, but we’ll be back early Sunday morning - why don’t you come along?”

  Cecelia shook her head. The topic had been changed, just as it always was when she tried to scratch beneath the surface with Ruth.

  “I’m not sure I’ll be up to it by then. The doctor said I had to take it easy, remember?”

  “That’s OK. I just thought it might help.” Ruth flicked a finger into the air. “I’d better get you a bucket, just in case. I’ll be back in a sec.”

  Cecelia blew out a breath. At least she’d got a valid excuse to miss the bike show. Cliff was one of the few people Cecelia had met to whom she’d taken an instant dislike; he emanated violence the way a pot-bellied stove gave off heat. On several occasions Ruth had sported mysterious bruises for which she had no explanation other than liking it rough. It was at times like these that Cecelia would catch a glimpse of the vulnerability as fragile as the tip of an icicle, buried deep within her friend.

  Ruth reappeared. “How are you now? I’ll bet that bed feels good,” she said.

  “Just about everything aches, even my hair.”

  “You were very lucky.” She drew the curtains, and put a glass of water on the bedside table and a bucket by the bed. She stood over Cecelia, looking at her with anxious blue eyes. “Would you like me to stay? I will if you’d feel more comfortable.”

  Cecelia didn’t trust herself to speak. The concern in her friend’s face was enough to start the tears welling.

  Finally she sniffed. “There’s a spare mattress under the bed. You can grab some bedding from the linen cupboard.”

  “OK. Go to sleep, Cecelia. When you wake up you’ll feel much better. Things are always worse in
the middle of the night.”

  Cecelia clutched her pillow to her chest and Ruth rubbed her back in slow circles until she relaxed. Then, overcome by her own weariness, Ruth succumbed to the mattress on the floor.

  But sleep didn’t come to Cecelia. She knew it wouldn’t. She lay awake listening to the rock-crushing snores of her bloodhound and Ruth’s soft breathing from the floor by her bed. Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in the prefab, the flames growing closer, building up like the screams inside her head. Her heart pounded in her head with a sickening rhythm. She took some deep breaths to slow it down, noticing how the rhythm seemed to have synchronised itself to the ticking of the alarm clock and the noises of the night. From the river a banjo frog called to its mate with a slow resonant twang. The old gum in the back garden creaked to the whisper of the breeze.

  She listened to the tapping of the moths as they threw themselves against the flyscreen, trying to get to the soft glow behind the curtains. By morning they would be no more than small piles of powdery nothingness on the windowsill.

  And then her thoughts drifted to the man with kind eyes, who, in a moment of panic, had mistaken her for his dead wife.

  25

  The early morning sun filtered through the bedroom curtains making the inside of his eyelids warm and red despite the cold emptiness he felt everywhere else. Cam exhaled and stretched out on the bed with his hands tucked under his head, trying to make some sense out of the previous night.

  Vince was dead. He’d destroyed the photo lab and come close to murdering two people in an attempt to protect his career. Overcome with remorse he had then taken his own life. No, this was all too neat, too tidy. Suicides are rarely so transparent. Vince had never obliged anyone in life; why then would he be so obliging in death?

  The facts pricked at Cam’s mind like a grass seed in a dog’s pelt: the car seat, the suicide method, the time-frame, the motive, even the note did not ring true. He stared up at the purring ceiling fan as it shifted stale air around the room, willing it to blow the fuzz from his brain. But he received no blinding revelations, just a noise from the kitchen to disturb his thoughts.