‘I don’t have post-traumatic stress, boss.’
‘Flashbacks?’
‘No. I don’t have flashbacks, I don’t relive the prick shooting me. I remember it, I’ve got a perfect memory of being shot, everything till I passed out.’
‘Good. And stress? Feel stressed?’
Dove looked down. ‘Can I ask you a question, boss?’
‘Sure.’
‘Ever been shot?’
‘No. Shot at, yeah. Few times.’
‘Get flashbacks?’
‘No. Dreams. I’ve had dreams.’
Dove held Villani’s eyes, he wasn’t going to look away. ‘Can I see your medical records, boss?’ he said. ‘Discuss them with you?’
Villani thought about Dove’s attitude, always bad, not improved by being shot. He was a mistake. The best thing would be to issue formal cautions, starting today with insubordination. Then he could be posted elsewhere. In due course, someone else could fire him.
‘Right,’ said Villani. ‘You seem normal to me. It’s a low baseline but there you go.’
‘This’s because of yesterday. Boss? My questions to Kiely? Simple questions about procedure.’
Villani saw a chance. ‘Inspector Kiely to you. I get the feeling you’re unhappy here. No names, no pack-drill transfer might be the go.’
Dove held his gaze. ‘No, boss,’ he said. ‘I’m happy. To do whatever you want me to do.’
‘That’s normally the way it works in the force.’
‘Yes, boss.’
Tracy from the door. ‘Boss, bloke won’t give a name. Old mate, he says.’
‘His number, I’ll call him back.’
To Dove, he said, ‘Get Weber.’
They were back in seconds.
‘So tell me,’ said Villani.
‘It’s not good,’ said Dove. ‘They haven’t provided the video for the parking and the lifts. They claim technical difficulties. The publicity says state-of-the-art but nothing worked. Could be a building in the 1950s.’
‘New world of total security,’ said Villani. ‘New world of total bullshit. What about cards, the PINs?’
‘They actually have no idea who could get into the apartment. Just about anyone in security can make a card, program the PIN. Then later they could change back to the old ones.’
‘Shit. Okay, moving on. Scientists.’
Dove inclined his head at Weber.
‘No prints, they say DNA’s unlikely, it’s cleaner than a hospital,’ said Weber, the bright look.
‘No longer a benchmark, hospitals,’ said Villani. ‘What’s the butchery say?’
Weber had a printout. ‘Time of death around midnight on Thursday. C5 snapped, very likely head jerked back, no bruising or abrasions. Recent intercourse. Tearing to vaginal and anal passages. No semen. Used cocaine. She’s sixteen to twenty. Scar on left tricep, more than a year old. Bruising on her ribs left side, probably punched, that’s recent. Slightly displaced septum, probably in the last six months.’
Silence.
‘So what do they offer?’ said Villani.
Weber coughed, he looked at Dove.
Dove said, ‘She’s possibly had her hands tied, she’s gagged, something soft, there’s vaginal and anal intercourse, he’s behind her, he’s very big, as in huge or he’s wearing something or it’s an object, that kind of thing. He at some point jerks her head back violently, breaks her neck. He would have her head in his hands. He places her in the bath and washes her, pulls plug.’
‘Then,’ said Weber, ‘then he disposes of her clothes, shoes, everything and wipes all surfaces touched.’
‘Just another homey night in the Prosilio building,’ Villani said. ‘Before the sex, they probably ate pizza, watched a DVD. Checked for that, did you, Mr Dove?’
Dove blinked. ‘Ah, no. No.’
‘Possibly Pretty Woman,’ said Villani. ‘Religious text for hookers. Hooker’s New Testament. Message of salvation. Familiar with it, Mr Weber?’
Weber made a smile, perhaps he forgave the levity, they would never know. ‘You’re saying that, boss? A hooker?’
‘No,’ said Villani. ‘I’m just leaning that way. I’m close to falling over. Checked the laundry chute, the garbage?’
‘Nothing in the laundry chute,’ said Dove. ‘Garbage taken on Friday morning. It’s in the landfill.’
‘That’s really promising,’ said Villani. ‘The manager produce the other stuff?’
‘I don’t think Manton’s flat out on this,’ said Dove, stroking his head. ‘He referred us to Ulyatt, to Marscay. The owners.’
Ulyatt. The man who could speak to someone who could tell the chief commissioner what to do.
‘What about the casino guests?’
Dove looked at Weber. Weber said, ‘Uh, I left that with Tracy, boss. Casino security is run by a company called Stilicho. Sounds like it’s part of Blackwatch Associates.’
‘Well, retrieve it,’ said Villani. ‘That’s not her job. Since when do Blackwatch do this kind of thing?’
‘Don’t know much about Blackwatch, boss,’ said Weber.
‘The name Matt Cameron mean anything?’
‘The cop?’
Villani had served under the legendary Matt Cameron, gone to the scene of the killings of his son and his girlfriend, taken part in the massive, fruitless man-hunt.
‘Once the cop. He runs Blackwatch. Part owns.’
‘This lot is a new company,’ said Dove. ‘I think it’s Blackwatch in partnership with someone else.’
‘Okay,’ Villani said. ‘Dead woman, no clothes, no ID, no idea how she got there, no vision, so we have dogshit.’
‘Encapsulated it, boss,’ said Dove, the little smile-smirk.
Villani rose, stretched his arms up, sideways, rolled his head, some bones clicked, he went to the window, he could not see the eastern hills, lost in smoke. He thought about his trees. If they went, he would never go back there, he would not be able to bear that sight. Smoke, he needed a smoke, he would always need a smoke. Weber would always be a pain, his purity a living reprimand, but he would worry and lose sleep, do a good job. Dove was another matter. Too clever, too cocky, not enough dead seen.
Villani thought about the dead he had seen. He remembered them all. Bodies in Housing Commission flats, in low brown brick-veneer units, in puked alleys, stained driveways, car boots, the dead stuffed into culverts, drains, sunk in dams, rivers, creeks, canals, buried under houses, thrown down mineshafts, entombed in walls, embalmed in concrete, people shot, stabbed, strangled, brained, crushed, poisoned, drowned, electrocuted, asphyxiated, starved, skewered, hacked, pushed from buildings, tossed from bridges. There could be no unstaining, no uninstalling, he was marked by seeing these dead as his father was marked by the killing he had done, the killing he had seen.
Villani said, ‘Tell Mr Searle we want her on all channels tonight, hair up, hair down, a women found dead in an apartment in the Prosilio building in Docklands.’
‘Is that like being murdered?’ said Dove. ‘Is murdered a word that can be used?’
‘That’s it, Detective Weber. Detective Dove, a minute.’
Weber left. Villani gazed at Dove, blinked, gazed, didn’t move his head, his hands were in his lap. Dove blinked, moved his head back and forth, wouldn’t look away, blinked, touched an ear.
‘Understand that I don’t like a smartarse,’ said Villani. ‘You’re only here because when they offered you around trying to get rid of you, I took you on. Now all you’ve got going for you is you got shot. The sympathy vote.’
‘Haven’t exactly had much of a chance,’ said Dove.
‘This is your chance,’ said Villani. ‘Don’t stuff it up. Tell Manton we don’t get everything today, staff names, CVs, who came and went, we will say some very nasty things about the Prosilio building. And we want that Orion guest list too.’
He did paperwork, read the case notes, wrote instructions, gave instructions, spoke to squad leaders. Things were in hand, the day ticked by. At 5.40pm, he left, bought Chinese on the way, reached the empty house in time for the television news. They showed her face. The resemblance to Lizzie was strong, he hadn’t imagined it. Even in death, she was lovely, serious, but she looked no more dead than if it were her passport photograph.