My morning had got off to a slightly better start than the previous day. The shower was hot, for starters, although Mum counteracted that with a touch of the frosty nostril at breakfast and the need to ping me. Apparently, I wasn’t visiting Dad enough, but that was a little difficult considering I seemed to be working every waking hour and I’d had a few major distractions in my life. Her presence in the room like Big Chief Thundercloud wasn’t any incentive to visit, either. But on the occasions I did, Dad and I had enjoyed the Olympic sport of eyeball rolling and eyebrow lifting behind her back. He knew how it was. They were supposed to be heading home this afternoon, so I’d pop in later.
To avoid any possibility of encountering unwanted windscreen decorations, I’d walked down to work, and hadn’t even glanced in the general direction of my car.
The morning briefing was more manic than most, even though depleted in numbers. DI Johns had marched into our office and made the announcement, ‘We’ve got another body’ only minutes after I’d arrived. Dunedin was certainly having a bad run. It wasn’t doing our image as a safe and sleepy city any favours. A team of SOCOs and detectives had immediately been formed to go to the crime scene, and I, naturally, wasn’t a part of it.
Early indications were the deceased was the victim of an assault and robbery. His body had been found this morning down Kaikorai Valley in some trees by the bowling alley car park, his wallet nearby, minus cash and credit cards. He was, according to the wallet, Cameron Ellison – although yet to be formally identified – a young man, early twenties, and although he was another student, at the polytechnic rather than university, his death didn’t seem to bear any relation to the Bateman case. A huge relief to all concerned. The last thing we needed in that investigation was another body and the associated government and media attention and demands as to what we were doing. As it was, with yet another student dying, I was sure there would be a number of parents out there having second thoughts about sending their beloved children down this way for their continued education.
The new case did leave the department rather stretched. One murder in Dunedin was rare, let alone two at the same time, let alone the whole circus fiasco, hence the reduced head count at the morning briefing.
For those of us in attendance, verbal reports confirmed what we suspected. The activist angle was a dead end. Rabid though one or two of them were, the overwhelming claim was that human life was sacrosanct, and they were devastated that animals had died as a result of the vigilante actions. In fact, they were more upset by the animal deaths, particularly Cassie’s, than the people’s. Cassie’s upset me more too, but my perspective was a little different. What I did find hard to stomach was the activists’ assertions that Cassie need not have been destroyed and the police – i.e. me – had overreacted. What the bloody hell would they know?
To my relief, the focus swiftly moved on from me to the more interesting presence of a flash, out-of-town profiler. His views made for fascinating listening, and a thumbs-up to Maggie because he said pretty much what she had, only with a little more detail as to how Mr Psychopath became Mr Psychopath: that he had a complete distain and disrespect for authority figures, most likely stemming from his relationship with his father, who probably beat, raped or psychologically abused him. Surprise, they always did.
I was quite happy sitting in the back row when a certain voice boomed out, ‘Detective Constable Shephard, what have you got to add to Dr Kitchin’s assessment?’
All the heads in the room swung around to face me and I was momentarily flummoxed. I was sure the DI wasn’t asking because he valued my opinion.
‘We need to take a closer look at Professor Simpson at the university,’ I said. He fits into a number of those categories and is the age and stature the witness from the Botanic Garden described, although his dress sense is not up to date, but it would be easy enough for someone to dress different for the occasion. He’s very intelligent and charming, but he was quite belittling to Detective Smith and I when we talked yesterday.’
‘Was there anyone else there who jumped to mind?’
I thought DI Johns slotted nicely into a number of those categories too, except the charming one, but I wasn’t going to go there. ‘Not specifically, but I’m sure there are a number of men at the university who fit that description. We should cast our net a little wider than her immediate colleagues in pharmacy and biochemistry.’
I thought of another thing Maggie had mentioned which I had been ruminating on and which no one had discussed. Well, not in front of me, anyway. ‘One thing. This man has travelled frequently to kill, so either he’s single or a loner, but this doesn’t fit the furtiveness or secrecy of Rose-Marie’s behaviour, acting like she was having an affair with someone, perhaps a married man. Unless he was able to fabricate a reason for frequent travel, so it wouldn’t seem amiss to his family. Whether that be for work, research or a hobby; or perhaps even his partner was away a lot, so these activities would have gone unnoticed.’ If the DI had thought he’d do some point scoring to my detriment, he’d failed, and I thanked Maggie under my breath.
‘Thank you, DC Shephard, that’s a good point.’ Was I imagining it or did he seem almost disappointed. I could tell from the morning’s attitude I was back on his top-ten most-hated list. I wondered what had pissed him off this time. Perhaps the wife didn’t iron his shirt right, or he hadn’t had enough coffee. Whatever it was, it was in my best interests to give him a wide berth.
‘Detective Smith, you and I are going to go and pay a visit to Professor Simpson and invite him back here for an interview. The rest of you know what you need to be doing. Get going, people.’
Smithy turned and gave me a grimace that said he knew too well what was happening, and I, with a sigh, realised my time in the loop was over and I was back to being shark bait.