It had taken them almost an hour to down pack the pantech. Even then it had been a rush job, risky to sensitive equipment but Foster Barnes considered the risk worthwhile. Just like almost forty-eight hours previously, their arrival at the Broadbeach Police Station, the Police Headquarters on Queenslands’ Gold Coast, had been less than cordial. The Constable on the front desk proved reluctant to provide any assistance. Up until this point, Peter Gallagher had been extremely mild mannered. He’d coped with the ten hour drive from Sydney, the lack of parking for the rig, the poor reception on arrival, their shunting out to the Federal Police building, and now again the total lack of cooperation from this junior pup. Peter Gallagher had not slept in nearly two days. He was no longer the easy going, laid back offsider. He was the craggy faced hairy human dynamo who was not going to let the lack of courtesy or the time of day affect what he required right now. The Constable let his hand edge toward the phone, his hesitation drawing a further tirade.
“Pick it up and dial the number sonny boy, or I’ll have the whole Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet wanting your name in less than hour. And an hour after that you’ll be looking for a new career. Do it!”
“Um, er, who shall I say is calling sir.”
“I’m not a fucking sir, I’m a Federal Police Officer, and you know who this is so stop wasting time and ring that number.”
Foster Barnes looked at Pete appreciably and not a little surprised. He’d even had to suppress a chuckle when Pete waved an arm at him during mid tirade. He had turned to look at Foster and winked. Barnes turned away and composed himself, looking suitably professional, and a tad sorry for the young Constable. He nodded at the boy when he too had glanced at him. The telephone was proffered to Pete who before taking it cocked his head to one side. The Constable finally realised what he was waiting for.
“It’s ah, it’s Superintendent Bailey sir, um, sir.”
It was the Constables’ turn to look surprised as Peter returned to his normal laid back charm when he took the receiver. The voice changed as he spoke into the phone.
“Why thankyou Constable, you have been most helpful. Hey Rob you old barstard, sorry to get you up mate, yeah, long time no see.” Peter covered the receiver with his hand and whispered to Barnes, “an old mate, we went to school together, only found out he was in charge here couple of hours ago meself,” and then back into the phone, “uhuh, yeah look ol’ mate, I’ve brought this here septic up, yeah that one, no, no he’s okay for one of them, yeah, seems like this Vivienne Curtis may have called triple 0 and asked for Barnes by name but she hung up before anyone had a chance to talk to her. No more than two hours ago. That’s okay with you? Excellent! Uhuh. Yep. You got it mate, okay, see you later, what was that? Yeah same to you ya old fuck. Here Constable, he wants to talk to you.”
Peter turned and stood beside Foster Barnes, both of them laughing hysterically yet managing not to let a snicker to pass their blank facades as they watched the humiliation of the Constable.
“Yes sir, of course sir, no sir, yes sir, yes sir.” Finally he put the phone down and both men saw him gulp before lifting his head to look at them. “Sir, sirs, if you’ll please go to that door and I’ll buzz you in.” Even his arm trembled as he pointed.
“Thankyou Constable.” Pete lobbed a set of keys before entering the door. “And park the rig for us will you? We had to double park out front.”
Chapter 11
“Lost and Alone”
Vivienne seethed. She felt like shouting, screaming at the top of her lungs “I am no murderer.” The cop had been fine. Nobody had been hurt. He hadn’t been hurt – she didn’t kill anybody. Anybody, I didn’t kill anybody she wanted to yell so the world knew she was innocent. She was just a mother with a baby daughter and a loving husband at home in the suburbs. Normal like everyone else – like everybody. Except for this heat. She looked at her arms, a fine sheen of perspiration making them shine like an oiled body on the beach. The beach. She looked at the surf as it crashed into the sand, and at first didn’t recognise it, wondering how the beach could be this far inland. Shocked, she realised that she was almost at Surfers Paradise. She had walked nearly five miles, power walked she guessed by her arms, and in less than half an hour judging by her watch. It said four-thirty, not too long before the light of dawn hit the horizon and bringing with it sunshine. Sunshine, the warmth of the sun – and people. Her picture had been spread across the newspapers and she was the talk of the town. She was labelled a killer and here she was in the centre of the waking tourist population, waiting for someone to walk past during their morning constitutional, or on their way home from a nightclub, and recognise her. She dashed across the road and saw a blue phone outside of a newsagency. The owner was disappearing into the doorway with a bundle of papers dangling from both hands. She hoped briefly that her picture wasn’t on the front of those too. Her trembling fingers pushed triple 0 again.
“Police. I’m Vivienne Curtis.”
Chapter 12
“First Contact”
Staffing was minimal at this time of night but suddenly Barnes and Gallagher were being feted, celebrated, patronised. Foster Barnes knew if he’d requested a lobster salad or a bottle of Bollinger, every effort would have been made to procure them. He knew the contrast was only because of Peters’ school buddy.
“If you’d done your homework correctly you would have known this friend of yours was in charge here beforehand,” he chided. “Might have saved us a lot of work.”
“Sorry boss, I thought I had. I was misinformed,” Pete grinned back. “Rob was in Townsville last I knew, but the old boy net failed me as badly as the formal staff lists forwarded three days ago.”
Foster Barnes knew Pete had not reacted to his gentle chiding and was only repeating the facts. Seems like professional courtesies were the same the world over, not what you know, but who. The young constable returned with the current working file on Vivienne, and pot of coffee as Barnes had requested. The file was very thin, surprising Barnes, but it was the coffee the Constable was most apologetic about.
“It was, is, it’s the best I could do sir, don’t, we don’t normally make ‘em by the pot.”
“It’s fine son – this is the only file?”
“Ah, yes sir, everything is on floppy, most things. I’ll log you on to the computer so you can open it.”
They were in a small cubicle of an almost deserted open plan office that Barnes knew would turn into a hive of activity in a few short hours. He wished to be well clear by then and nodded at the Constable to proceed. He looked over the short partition and wished he could hear into the operator’s room adjacent – there was something gentle and soothing about the flashing lights of their computer switchboard. He would read the reports first, then take a seat in that room with the suitably dim lighting and continuously flashing banks of switches and panels. In there he would think – and wait.
He firstly read the complaint levelled by Dudley William Wallace about his noisy neighbours across the road, Mr and Mrs Curtis. Wallace had thought the domestic dispute had risen to a level that required Police intervention. There had been no action recommended on the complaint as Wallace had reported the same neighbour on three previous occasions in the past year, the first two discredited after local patrols from the northern Police Station at Coomera carried out limited investigations. More importantly was the reference in the report to many other complaints Wallace had made in the last six years about almost every single one of his neighbours – they were cross referenced so that Barnes could access them if he wished, but he did not. He knew he would find nothing