Davey booted up his computer and took another sip of take-away coffee. He got by without much sleep these days, but every now and then his central nervous system would tug at his sleeve and beg for a break. It used to be easier when he drank. He could lull himself into a stupor for a few hours and tell himself that it was as good as sleep. He had some leave coming up, he reminded himself, and he could sleep then. Or not. It didn't matter anymore.
He had expected to find Decca Brand at home when he dropped by her apartment in Williamstown that morning, but ringing the doorbell had yielded no response.
On the way to his desk Davey had looked in on Kransky. Everyone else had had a shot at getting the suspect to talk. Davey figured it was worth keeping up the pressure.
`You're not doing yourself any favours, mate,' he said, entering the room. The suspect did not turn to look at him and when Davey walked around the table to face him he did not shift his gaze from the wall.
Ellis, the duty-sergeant, had told him Kransky slept during the night. If he had, it must have been in the seated position because Kransky did not appear to have moved one inch from when Davey last looked in on him.
`If you keep up the silent act in front of the magistrate tomorrow you'll be in remand until your trial, did you know that?'
No answer.
`And then you'll go to gaol. For a very long time.' Nothing. `It'll just happen, mate.' Kransky seemed to be in some sort of trance.
`We've made contact with Decca Brand, by the way,' Davey said. Kransky's eyes flashed at him for a microsecond. `Perhaps you'd like to talk to her, mate.'
Not if Archie could help it, Davey thought.
`Might be helpful,' he cajoled, trying to make eye contact again. `It's what shrinks get paid to do.'
Kransky's focus had snapped back to the wall. Davey sighed and signalled be let out.
`Regular checks,' he said to Ellis on his way out. `And I want to know if he makes a sound. If he calls out to his mum or his maker, I want to know. Got it?'
`No worries,' the guard said, following him out. `What about singing?'
Davey turned to look at him, confused.
`Well, it was more like groaning, Davey, if you know what I mean,' Ellis said. `Wailing even. But it was, you know,' he shrugged, `tuneful.'
So, we've got Joe Cocker banged up, thought Davey, giving Ellis a dismissive wave and charging ahead. He could see the headline now: `The Singing Suspect'. The press would eat that up.
Traffic lights reared up suddenly, snapping Decca out of her reverie. Farmland had been replaced by steaming towers of industry on either side of the road. Decca took the Williamstown Road exit from the Westgate freeway and motored home.
She parked the bike next to her Mustang in the basement car park and hoped her next weekend trip would pan out better than this one. She dumped the panniers and went to put her key in the lock when she noticed a business card stuck in the door jamb. It was a Victoria Police card, with the name Detective Sergeant Glen Crockett on it and a handwritten message saying he'd called around and found no one home and would she please call this number at her earliest convenience. At one thirty on a Sunday afternoon? Damn you, Volker! These guys were not going away.
Davey sat back from the computer, stretched his arms above his head, checked the time and groaned. One forty-five was way past lunchtime. He stood, pulled his head over from side to side and hunched his shoulders up and down in a vain attempt to loosen his stiff neck.
`Where are you off to?' Archie grunted as he passed him in the passageway.
`Coffee,' Davey said.
`Smoko more like it. Bring us back a doughnut would ya? Jam.'
`Please?' muttered Davey, under his breath. `Back in fifteen.'
The café round the corner was quieter than usual. Anyone with half a brain was at the beach or having hot sex between air-conditioned sheets or lying sprawled out on the grass at some winery, listening to bad jazz.
Back home on a hot Saturday afternoon Davey would have driven up to the lake, maybe, or parked himself on the couch with a beer to watch the cricket. If he'd been rostered on he'd make sure he took something to read. Not a lot of murders in Hepworth; not a lot of anything much. Far better to be busy, he reminded himself. And wasn't this the sort of work he'd always wanted to do?
Careful what you wish for, his mother always said.
`Toasted ham and cheese and a flat white, thanks, mate.'
It was too hot to sit outside, but Davey needed nicotine more than he needed to be cool. He pulled a metal chair in under the awning and shooed the flying rats away with his cricket lighter. His thoughts returned to the Ritz Hotel.
Blind Freddie could have told us what was going down in that bar, he reasoned. If Inga had been crazy enough to tell her husband the name of the hotel she worked at, what was to stop Kransky turning up there out of the blue one night and putting two and two together?
The Prahran nuff-nuffs had assumed Kransky was unaware of the hotel's reputation because of his accent and the way he described Inga as a `manager'. But what if he knew exactly what was going down at the Ritz and knew that his wife was on the game? Was Oleg Kransky a man in denial who had finally cracked? A cloud dragged itself across the sun, muffling the heat for a few blessed minutes.
Cars crawled up and down the sweltering bitumen, while trams rattled and clanged in the distance. A sudden gust of wind flapped the awning and Davey's gourmet snack finally arrived. He burned his lip on the coffee. Cursing and slamming the glass back on to the saucer, another possibility popped into his head. It was so obvious Davey wondered why it hadn't struck him before: what if Kransky filed the missing person report knowing exactly where Inga Kristensen was?
Friday, January 28 would have been four days too early for her to be dead, but what if Kransky had flipped, kidnapped her and decided to kill her but wasn't quite sure how to go about it? Filing the Missing Person report would buy him some time and, better still, cover his arse.
So, he tells the police she's missing and it's duly noted by two idiot coppers who won't forget him in a hurry, Davey thought. He kills her, buries the body and she stays missing. No one suspects foul play because she's just another ho gone AWOL. If Kransky had managed to top himself before Davey and Shannon arrived, everything would have been hunky-dory. Perfect murder, perfect suicide. The poor prick had failed spectacularly on both counts.
After a lazy couple of days stretched out flat as a fitted sheet the ocean surface began to pucker in the freshening wind. Decca slid open her picture window and went out on to the balcony where the air, still heavy, was at least on the move. Her first floor apartment on the Altona side of Williamstown boasted spectacular views of the sea and container ships sliding back and forth across the horizon at all hours of the day and night.
The phone rang and she stormed back inside to answer it.
`Hello,' she snapped, expecting either Volker or the pesky detective.
`And hell-o to you!' a woman's voice snapped back. `What's biting your arse?'
`Oh, sorry Zan,' she blustered. `I'm having a shit of a day.'
`What are you doing home? I thought you were away `til later.'
`Then why are you ringing me?' Decca asked.
`Lucky to get any calls at all with that attitude, if you ask me, doll. Don't hang up! I was going to leave a message to say come round for dinner tonight when you get back. I've got someone I want you to meet.'
Decca groaned inwardly. This was the last thing she needed.
Since being dumped by Volker, friends were forever setting her up on blind dates and introducing her to `interesting people' who weren't.
`Oh, thank you, darling,' she said in an apologetic tone to her oldest and closest