RILEY SIPPED COKE as she waited for the room to fill. She was concerned that the decision to inherit the Marguerite Dunlop case was splintering cohesion: the bulk of the strike force under Tran remained focused on Gladesville, but she and O’Neil and Patel were tied up looking for links at the school. The Tennyson Point find was a good opportunity for O’Neil to bring it all back together.
O’Neil cleared his throat. ‘Alright, this is what we’ve got,’ he said. The team fell quiet and he went through the break-in. He spoke slowly, repeated details, hammered points home on his fingers. On the blown-up map on the wall, he traced the route from the Chatfield and Sheridan scenes upriver to the Tennyson Point house. There were a couple of headlands in between.
‘Doctor Farquhar predicted this,’ O’Neil said. ‘He’ll talk to you about what we’re looking at.’
He half-turned to Farquhar. The forensic psychiatrist picked up a Texta from a desk and removed his glasses.
‘I believe that what we’re looking at,’ Farquhar said, ‘is the killer’s backyard.’ He moved to the map and drew a thick red circle on it. ‘We combine Tennyson Point with Gladesville, what do we see?’
‘A confined area,’ an analyst said. ‘On the north bank.’
‘Correct.’ Farquhar pointed at his circle. ‘He’s hit in here three times—on the north bank. But’—he held up the Texta—‘don’t rule out the south side.’ He traced some more. ‘Rhodes, Mortlake, Breakfast Point, Cabarita, Abbotsford, Chiswick, Drummoyne. Even Birchgrove or Balmain, at a stretch.’
Tran raised a hand. ‘That’s a lot of ground.’
Farquhar nodded. ‘To walk or drive, yes. But we think he’s moving via the river.’ He pointed at Breakfast Point on the south bank. ‘From here, it’s less than two hundred metres to the Tennyson Point house.’ The Texta trailed east to Abbotsford Point. ‘It’s the same from here, less than two hundred metres to the Gladesville scenes.’
‘What about further north?’ Riley said.
‘Indeed.’ Farquhar tapped at the map, listing suburbs as he went: Ryde, Putney, Huntleys Cove, Hunters Hill, and then around to Woolwich and up the Lane Cove River. ‘Parcel it all up.’ He drew another, bigger circle and stepped back. ‘That’s his comfort zone. He lives somewhere in there. He may even have grown up there.’
‘What about the school?’ a Chatswood detective said. ‘Don’t we think he just killed at the school?’
Farquhar looked to O’Neil.
‘There are possible links to the school,’ O’Neil said, ‘but we’re still working on them. We’ll leave it out for the moment.’
Glances were swapped around the room. Riley knew why: the school was a faultline. It made no sense to bring the murder of Marguerite Dunlop into the investigation while withholding North Parramatta from the geographic profile. She considered pressing O’Neil and the doctor, but it wasn’t the place.
O’Neil motioned to Tran. ‘Annie, you’ll oversee the Tennyson Point canvass,’ he said. ‘Questions?’
Tran nodded at the map. ‘We’re saying he lives here,’ she said, ‘so the focus is residential?’
‘Start with that,’ O’Neil said. ‘Be alive to details, watch for lines of sight over the river, a large telescope in a bedroom, a kayak in a yard …’
Riley looked at Farquhar’s red zone. The psychiatrist saw a home base, but Riley couldn’t shake it: she still saw a poacher, and she knew O’Neil saw it that way too. The river was his highway, and Gladesville was a truck stop.
If the focus of the canvass was residential, they might miss something. She stood up and O’Neil gave her the floor.
‘Remember,’ she said, ‘he might be a commuter. Always think river traffic. With the Tennyson Point couple and the canvass of the neighbours—I know it’s two years ago, but do they recall anyone coming in close and hanging around?’
‘Such as?’ an analyst said.
‘Canoes, paddle boards, water taxi, fishermen, jetty maintenance, waterways construction …’ She stopped. It was another faultline and she wanted O’Neil to say it.
‘Maritime,’ O’Neil said. ‘Water Police.’
Heads came up and more glances went around the room.
‘Maybe he’s using a dinghy,’ Tran said. ‘A tender off a bigger boat.’
‘Go on,’ O’Neil said.
‘The Gladesville attacks were at night,’ Tran said. ‘He could be moored up in a bay on a yacht. He launches the dinghy and comes in after dark. He’d be comfy, no passers-by, all the time in the world. He could bring his toolkit.’
‘You’ve looked at boat owners,’ Farquhar said.
‘Look again,’ O’Neil said. ‘This is good work on the break-in—we don’t want to waste it.’
The briefing broke up. Riley stood with O’Neil and Farquhar. Patel came over. ‘What was that?’ she said.
‘Mm?’ O’Neil said.
‘Water Police?’ Patel said.
Analysts and detectives were settling at their desks. ‘Let’s take a seat,’ O’Neil said. They moved to the round table at the back of the room and Riley checked over her shoulder. All clear. Patel was taut, trying to read the vibe.
‘Gladesville’s hyper careful with the scene,’ O’Neil said. ‘Very DNA aware.’
‘And?’ Patel said.
‘There’s a line of thought that he might be trained in forensic investigation,’ O’Neil said. ‘It’s not in the mainstream of inquiries, but we need to consider it. He might be police.’
Her eyes were wide and very white. ‘Jesus.’
‘Yeah,’ O’Neil said.
‘He leaves nothing behind?’ Patel said.
‘That’s part of it,’ O’Neil said. ‘He knows to change gloves.’
‘He’s probably triple-gloved, booties, gown, mask, hairnet,’ Riley said. ‘And he’s carrying ammonia and bleach. And plenty of wet wipes.’
‘That’s what’s happening in practice,’ Farquhar said. ‘There’s some theory behind the possibility as well.’
‘Theory?’ Patel said.
‘Studies show serial offenders are drawn to authority, fascinated by it,’ Farquhar said. ‘They might aim high, try to become a police officer, and if they fail they take the next rung down that allows them to exert some control. A parking inspector, say … or president of the church council.’
‘Or a headmaster,’ O’Neil said.
Or a skipper on a charter boat. Riley chewed her pen.
‘The Americans just netted a big one,’ Farquhar said. ‘He’d escalated over years. Prowler, ransacker, fetish burglar, rapist, killer. He’d worked as a police officer until he was fired for shoplifting.’
Patel scratched her head with both hands.
‘Back on the DNA, or the lack of it … the crime scene sophistication,’ Farquhar said. ‘That could point to specialist police training, but it could point to a lot of other places as well. He could be in a lab—industry, university, the military. He might just be reading the internet, or watching TV. There are textbooks. Forensic investigation is hardly a state secret.’
‘But he’s smart,’ Patel said.
‘Correct,’ Farquhar said. ‘And he’s organised. And we have to consider police. And that’s tricky.’
Riley rubbed her eye. Tricky was a nice way of putting it.
O’Neil uncrossed his arms to wave towards the rest of the room. ‘If we’re going to catch Gladesville, we need all our resources. Forensics, the labs, the water rats, the techs, the boffins, the uniforms, the analysts, the overalls, PolAir, Highway Patrol.’ He stopped and stabbed a finger on the table. ‘If it got out that Satyr was looking internally it would be seen as betrayal. Morale would die, we’d kill the goodwill. That’s not theory—that’s a fact.’
‘We could start by looking at any officers through the Family Court or with domestic violence orders,’ Patel said.
O’Neil sat back. ‘Slippery slope.’
‘The integrity commission would know,’ Riley said.
‘Yeah. But they won’t give it to us,’ O’Neil said.
‘But Water Police?’ Riley said. ‘We could start with who has access to boats in Sydney. Check the logs against the nights in November and the date for Tennyson Point.’
‘Nope.’ O’Neil stood. ‘Too risky. Not yet.’
A TV in the strike force room was showing O’Neil fronting a press conference outside the Gladesville police station. He released the name and an image of the missing gardener, Kevin Lynch, and appealed for the public’s assistance in finding him.
Riley turned the volume down as an analyst handed her a briefing note. Bowman’s rego had raised no red flags around the school on the Wednesday or at Gladesville on the relevant dates in November. She called her contact in police media: nothing had come out in the press on a roll of black plastic being found at the school, or on the drone footage or rape categorisation or the marking of the victims. Bowman was toeing the line.
Her tongue probed her ulcer. She packed up for the day and grabbed her keys. In the carpark, she texted Bowman and arranged to meet for a beer at The Commercial, near his house. He was waiting for her outside the pub when she pulled up, sitting on an empty keg. They shook hands and she smelt beer on him. She followed him in, past a clutch of five florid locals drinking off the night before.
‘Adam,’ one of the men yelled.
‘And Eve,’ said another.
Coarse laughter followed as she and Bowman went to a booth out the back.
‘Friends of yours?’ she said, sliding in.
‘The table of knowledge,’ he said. ‘The usual?’
She nodded and scrolled through her phone until he returned with the beers. ‘So, I’ve been thinking,’ he said.
‘Uh oh.’
‘The gardener. Doesn’t add up.’
‘You did say your maths wasn’t good.’
‘He’s either nothing—or you think BMK lives at the school.’
‘Why shouldn’t he live at the school?’
‘He could. But if he does, wouldn’t it be weird that he’s killed there?’
She sipped. It was all very neat around Lynch. ‘For this guy, weird is normal.’
‘Yeah, but is he stupid? Killing at the school—he’s shitting in his own nest.’
‘Mm.’
‘So?’
Had the idea that Gladesville didn’t kill Marguerite occurred to him? She glanced at him while he gulped. Stupid? No. Maybe he knew but wouldn’t say.
‘Lynch has bolted,’ she said. ‘It’s not a good look.’
‘Do you know much about him?’
‘I know he likes a drink.’
He put his glass down. ‘And he lives onsite?’
‘He lives in the flats,’ she said.
No micro expression. No surprise.
‘You know where I mean?’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ He held her eye. ‘Where we were today.’
Patel was right. If he was a liar, he was a natural. Two of the drunks from the main bar came and slid into the booth, reeking and plastered. ‘So, ya gunna introduce us?’ one of them said.
Bowman pushed away his glass. ‘We were just leaving,’ he said. He jerked his head and edged out the other side of the booth. They walked through the bar and he held the door for her.
‘Sorry about that.’ He was awkward on the pavement. ‘They’ll have been going all day. We’d never have gotten rid of them.’
‘No worries.’ She felt for her keys. She needed a pad thai and a bottle of white on the couch.
He took a couple of steps down the hill. ‘You hungry?’
‘Nah. I better get moving.’
‘Come on.’ He tossed his head again. ‘My place is here. One beer.’
She imagined her empty flat. He was waiting, not quite looking at her. She didn’t want to get stuck for hours. ‘One beer,’ she said.
They walked twenty metres down the road and left into a narrow lane with old sandstone buildings on either side. ‘You couldn’t get a horse and cart down here,’ she said.
‘The first wooden house in Balmain was right there. Built in 1840. It used to be dockworkers, timber yards, brothels. Now it’s people who put up signs like that.’ He pointed to a placard in a window: Climate Action Now. ‘The water police are at the end of the lane.’
Grog curdled in her stomach. Coincidence made her wary. He couldn’t possibly know of the conversation in the strike force room. Bowman stopped in front of a blistered little clapboard and took out his keys.
He held the door. She went into a living room with a sofa and an armchair, a low table and a television. He dropped his bag against a wall.
‘Nice,’ she said. Well, nicer than Lynch’s flat.
‘Take a seat.’ He disappeared down a hall.
The place was small, four or five rooms, she’d guess. There was art on the walls—actual framed painted pictures, pretentious blobs of colour, a big yellow thing that mimicked road signs … someone had never done a shift on Highway Patrol. The room was ordered, spotless. A bookshelf ran down one wall, built to fit, not from Ikea. Hundreds of books. She looked at spines and recognised nothing, which didn’t mean much … no Green Eggs and Ham.
He came down the hall and handed her a stubby.
‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘My mother would say you keep a tidy home.’
‘OCD. Often accompanies alcoholism. Cheers.’
She swigged and nodded at the shelf. ‘Have you written a book?’
‘No. But I play ball, you guys give me everything … There’d be a book in that.’
She felt her disdain. He was in it for himself, it was all about the story.
‘Sure you’re not hungry?’ he said. ‘I can make some pasta.’
She screwed up her nose. ‘I’m fine.’ She could no longer smell beer on him because it was now also on herself. He could have had a beer at home before he left, but she didn’t think so. She thought Bowman had been in the pub before she’d arrived. Had he set up the interruption with the drunks, hoping to get her into his house?
‘Who are you looking for, anyway?’ he said. ‘White, male, loser?’ He sat in the armchair and gestured at the sofa.
Rearranging her Glock on her hip, she propped herself up straight on the edge of the lounge. ‘We don’t profile anymore.’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s too blunt and everyone’s gone PC. We’re in the age of terror, and terrorism profiles always say the same thing: look for an Arab with a beard.’
‘They’ve ditched it?’
‘Pretty much,’ she said. ‘Actually, what they say is, we’ve got DNA now, who needs profiling?’ Except that they didn’t have DNA now, and they were profiling. He didn’t need to know that.
‘What would they say about BMK if they were profiling?’ he said.
She shifted on the lounge. Journalists were dilettantes, no skin in the game. They didn’t stand in the slaughter of the kill rooms. Riley had learnt to file the images away.
‘They’d say he could be functioning in society, he might be in a relationship,’ she said. ‘Or that he lives at home with Mummy, or on his fucking yacht.’
He studied her and segued. ‘How’d you become a cop?’
The beer tasted metallic in her mouth. ‘Started uni, didn’t like it.’
‘What’d you study?’
‘Occupational therapy. Speech pathology.’ She worked at peeling the bottle label. ‘Mum was a nurse.’
‘Where’d you grow up?’
‘On a farm, in the Hunter. Then Campbelltown.’
Bowman asked more questions and she answered. She had been going to join the army but settled on the cops. Nine months at the academy and she had a career. And a motorbike. And a gun.
She looked at the bookshelf. ‘You read all them?’
‘They’re objects, designed to impress …’
‘Yeah?’ She’d prefer a big V8 in the garage. Or even if he had a garage.
‘Would you say there’s something underlying from your upbringing?’ he said. ‘A sense that you want to serve, to give back?’
What was this: Farquhar’s couch? No, because his motivation was selfish: he was thinking of his book, how’d he fill her out and write her up. She didn’t want to talk about it, how she had no one because she didn’t want to head home and talk about her day. No kids. She’d seen too many dead children. Maisie Hall, three years old, blue and broken in her bed—because Riley hadn’t listened to her gut.
She drained her stubby. Why did she do it? For the victim. Because no one else was going to take responsibility.
‘Another beer?’ he said.
She put the bottle on the table. She needed to eat. ‘Best be going. Thanks.’ She rose and felt the weight of her new resolution: justice for Marguerite. Bowman walked her to the door.