Before I went and did my duty at the circus, there was a small task pressing on my mind. It remained to be seen how my request would go down, but I took a breath and tried anyway.
‘Hi, Jeff,’ I said, as I hung around the corner of the door into Forensics Services. Jeff Arnott was one of the police photographers and shared office space with the SOCOs. They occupied the farthest corner of the building.
‘DC Shephard, we don’t usually see you down here. What can I do for you?’ Jeff was a genial character and greying a bit around the edges. When he wasn’t busy photographing blood and guts and the detritus of crime, he was out shooting birds, of the feathered variety, with his camera. He’d done quite well at it, especially with the native birds – won some comps and a vibrant shot of a tui had even graced the cover of a magazine. I hoped he’d be sympathetic to my cause, but these days one couldn’t make assumptions.
‘Have you processed the personnel photos from Operation Sparrow yet?’ That name grated every time I used it, which wasn’t often.
‘They’re next on the agenda. Why? Was there something specific you were looking for?’
‘There’s something about one of the circus crew, a man named Zarvo the clown, or Zarvo Krunic, that rang a few alarms.’
‘He’s not on the list of possibles. What was the problem with him?’
How did you describe woman’s intuition and a finely attuned bullshit-o-meter? ‘I don’t know exactly. He seemed to have something to hide, made me feel suspicious.’
‘By the sounds of it, half of them did. Why do you want to single him out?’
My gut instincts were usually pretty sharp and this chap had set things jangling for me, for whatever reason. But I could tell that a definite answer here was more likely to get cooperation, so I said the first thing that jumped to mind. ‘He looked vaguely familiar, so I was wanting to check his photo out against wanted lists and missing persons.’
‘Does the head guy know you’re doing this?’ He inclined his head in the general direction of my tormenter’s office. I wondered if every detective in Dunedin had their lines of enquiry queried like this or if it was a special treat reserved just for me? All this extra attention was getting tedious, so I took the direct approach.
‘No, he doesn’t specifically know I’m checking this individual out. It’s a bit of an initiative of my own. Why, are you going to dob me in?’
He gave me an appraising kind of a look, then smiled – the warm, genuine variety. ‘Nah, he’s been a right royal arsehole towards you. Come back in an hour and I’ll have it ready.’