3

DR MARJORIE ROWAN dabbed some gauze at a weeping incision that traversed the top of Susan Wright’s head. She then worked a small, spade-like instrument into the incision and lifted the skin away from Wright’s skull. She paused, examined her progress, and worked at the incision for a bit longer. Satisfied, she downed her tool. Then she took the skin of Wright’s forehead in both hands and slowly peeled back the dead woman’s face to reveal red tissue and skull, and two clouded eyeballs peering from their sockets.

Rowan picked up a small electric saw from a side table, and, with everyone in the room craning for a view, she hit the switch and gently manoeuvred the machine around the edge of the skull. She put the saw down and dabbed more gauze at the furrows she’d created. Then she used another shiny instrument to separate the section of skull from the head.

‘Skullcap removed,’ she said into a microphone overhanging the table. ‘Brain exposed.’

She picked up a scalpel and cut through the tissue connecting the brain stem to the spinal cord. Then she took the brain in both hands, lifted it out of the skull, and put it into a tray, which she placed onto a set of scales.

‘One point four three kilos,’ she said.

An assistant took the organ away, and Rowan peeled off her surgical gloves and threw them into a bin.

‘That’s it for now, Mr McHenry,’ she said. ‘I’ll be over your way as soon as I’ve got something for you.’

Taking that as our marching orders, McHenry thanked Dr Rowan, then led us from the post-mortem room down the main corridor of the Forensics Centre and out through a pair of sliding doors into the carpark. A huge pack of media was pressed against the security fence that surrounded the building, and they immediately began shouting questions at us — which we ignored.

McHenry had arrived at the centre with a couple of uniformed guys, but he dispensed with them and headed straight for the car that Smeaton and I had driven over in. I unlocked the vehicle, and McHenry squeezed himself into the front passenger seat. I figured he’d joined us so that he could give me a bollocking for the way I’d dealt with the prime minister. Perhaps I was even in for an official warning.

I drove slowly through the mass of media people milling around the front gates, and when we’d cleared them, and I had the vehicle up to speed, I braced myself for a whacking. But it didn’t come. In fact, once we’d hit the road, McHenry pushed his seat back as far as it would go, then silently stared out the window. Having been displaced by the boss, Smeaton sat cramped up behind me, his legs folded to his chest, his spidery arms wrapped around his knees. He didn’t say anything during the drive back, either. Watching someone have their innards outed will quieten most people. And maybe that was why the boss wasn’t getting stuck into me. Or maybe Brady hadn’t spoken to him yet. Whatever the cause, I knew it was only a reprieve and that I’d soon cop it for my trouble.

When he’d led the search for Susan Wright, McHenry had worked from a Major Incident Room at City Station. Thirty of us now sat behind desks in that same room, waiting for our analyst, Ruth Marginson, to set us up on PROMIS — the Police Realtime Online Management Information System. It was a sophisticated program that would collate and cross-reference everything we did, everyone we spoke to, and every bit of evidence we’d collect during this investigation.

McHenry leaned over Marginson as she tapped away. Occasionally, he asked her for a change or made a suggestion. When they were satisfied with what they saw on the screen, she leaned back in her seat, and he returned to his desk at the front and raised his hand. The room was immediately silent.

‘Dr Rowan’ll be here soon,’ he said, looking around the group. ‘So, while we’re waiting, I suggest you all go into PROMIS and see what Ruth’s set up for you there.’

McHenry sat down at his desk and began tapping away, and I fired up the computer in front of me and opened PROMIS. The task force that’d searched for Wright had been through her Canberra residence. There was a write-up documenting that effort, and one for the door-to-door work that had covered Wright’s possible routes home on the night she disappeared.

There were scanned copies of Wright’s phone records, and those of all her staff, as well as copies of letters she’d received from angry greenies, disgruntled farmers, and fruit loops who were obsessed with her or her portfolio. One of the fatter files documented a search of all her office computers. And there were transcripts of interviews with the lobbyists she dealt with, as well as reports on those of them who’d recently suffered a serious knockback.

‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said McHenry, rising from his chair. ‘I need a minute now.’

He moved to the front of his desk and waited till he had everyone’s attention. Then he looked us over again. Now for the pep talk, I thought.

‘We’ve got a lot to get through in the next twenty-four hours,’ he said. ‘So stay focused, be methodical, and follow correct procedure. Do that, and we’ll crack this case. And remember — everything that happens in this room, stays in this room, until I clear it. Everyone’ll want to know what you’re doing in here, but you don’t say anything to anyone. Do I make myself clear?’

‘Yes, sir,’ we said in unison, as though we were all police cadets again.

‘Right! Assignments are on the board. As for rosters, there won’t be any. We’re on this, twenty-four-seven, until we crack it. Having said that, I want everyone to take a few hours off each day to refresh. Fatigue leads to sloppiness, and that’s one thing I will not tolerate. We’ll be setting up stretcher beds in the rec room. Kip when you need to. And people with families, get home when you can, but keep it brief. And check with Ruth or me before you go. There’s a dozen people from major crime on the way over. That’ll ease the pressure a bit.’

There was a sharp knock at the door, and Dr Rowan walked in, wearing a formless dark suit that she’d dressed up with a single string of pearls. With her was the head of Forensics, Peter Kemp. He wore the same mud-spattered overalls he’d had on at the crime scene. McHenry directed the two of them to the row of chairs beside his desk, and once they were seated, Rowan took a purple folder from her briefcase. She turned to McHenry, who swept a hand in her direction, giving her the go-ahead.

‘Thanks, inspector,’ she said, adjusting her half-moon glasses. ‘Well, ladies and gentlemen, there’s been a rare outbreak of unanimity back at the lab. Everyone there, including me, thinks Mrs Wright was murdered.’

She paused while the buzz in the room swelled and died.

‘We knew it was carbon monoxide that killed her,’ said Rowan. ‘But an hour before her death, somewhere around midnight last night, Susan Wright consumed a substantial quantity of sloppy pasta mixed with vegetables. There were traces of maize starch, yeast extract, and cheese in the food, so we’re thinking it was tinned soup. And mixed with the soup was a large dose of ketamine, a potent veterinary anesthetic favoured by date-rapists. In other words, Mrs Wright was unconscious when the carbon monoxide got to her, and therefore she had no hand in killing herself.’

Rowan turned to McHenry, and he nodded at her grimly, thus launching a murder investigation without a word. It was what we’d all been expecting, but this confirmation changed the mood in the room in an instant. Like all terrible news, it made the past seem a much simpler place.

‘So, let’s get to what else we know,’ said Rowan. ‘The X-rays were normal, and apart from the ketamine, and the carboxyhemaglobin that killed her, there was nothing notable in her blood. And from what we can tell, she hadn’t eaten for a while before she ate the soup. In other words, whoever killed her starved her to make sure she’d eat whatever she was offered. That’s all from me for now. Peter?’

Kemp thanked her, and, before he spoke, opened his briefcase and took out a plastic evidence bag.

‘We’re still working our way through most of the physical evidence,’ he said. ‘But I thought we should bring this mixture of fibres from the victim’s clothes to your attention straightaway. There seem to be two things in it. The first is some sort of animal fur — maybe from a dog or a cat. The vet’ll have more for us later.

‘The second is a bluey-grey manufactured fibre. We think it’s probably carpet fluff. The thing is, there was almost twice as much of this fluff on the minister’s clothes as there was fur, a fact which gives this mixture a unique signature. In other words, if you find the carpet that this fluff came from, and if that carpet has a healthy amount of animal fur on it, then you’re probably in the place where Susan Wright died.’