CHAPTER 19

His computer told him that the officer in charge of Karen’s Bondi Beach larceny charges was Constable Sandra Hackett at Waverley. Seb looked up her number and rang.

‘Hackett,’ said a busy voice, maybe fortyish.

He introduced himself. Name, rank, station. ‘I’m calling about a matter of Karen Kemp. Larceny.’

‘Umm … yep.’

‘Just letting you know she was murdered up here a few weeks ago. Were you aware?’

‘Fuck. Guess that explains her failure to appear at court last week. Honestly. No one tells me anything.’

‘Yeah, sorry about that. Homicide had the case until last week. I’m just cleaning up loose ends.’

‘Fucking Homicide. Too important to waste their precious time telling us anything. “Keep it tight cos everyone’s a suspect.”’

Apparently, it wasn’t just him who didn’t love Homicide.

‘Who killed her?’ asked Hackett.

‘They zoned in on a local guy who was having an affair with her, which probably explains why they didn’t chase you for info. He died of a drug overdose, so they’ve tied a big “solved” ribbon around it.’

‘Huh.’ There was a long pause that could either have been Hackett thinking, or losing interest and wanting to get off the phone.

‘I understand Kemp wanted to share some information to try to get a sentencing discount?’ said Seb.

‘Yeah.’ Hackett’s bat couldn’t have been deader.

‘Sorry to hassle, but Homicide haven’t done any of the clean-up, so I have to. I just need a quick rundown of the details so I can put it to bed.’ Another lie, but plausible.

‘Sure. She got busted for stealing three phones and some AirPods at Bondi Beach, had two priors for the same thing, so she was shitting herself about jail. A month or so ago she calls and says she has info on someone. I said, “Who?” She goes, “I don’t know.” I go, “How’s that helpful?” She says her ex-boyfriend is Vanessa Pierce’s nephew. Know her?’

‘Not my area, really.’

‘She runs drug distribution and other stuff around Parramatta and the city. I figure that if she wants to give up her ex it must have been a nasty break-up, but she says, “No he’s small fry, I’ve got someone bigger.”

‘She said that before they broke up, she drove Pierce’s nephew – her boyfriend, Justin someone – to a meeting in a park. She was supposed to drop him and go, but he was boasting about the meeting being a big deal, so she got curious. Instead of going home, she drops him off, drives around the park and pulls in where she can see him sitting on a bench. Kemp says an Uber pulls up, a late middle-aged dude, brown hair, glasses, nice suit, gets out and sits next to the boyfriend. The boyfriend pulls out pen and paper and writes some stuff down, short meeting, off they go.

‘The other man walks past her car, and Kemp says she’s seen him before, but doesn’t know where. She reckons – reckons – he looked important. I mean, these days fucking real estate agents look important. Who knows? Maybe it would be useful for us to know who this respectable-looking guy Vanessa Pierce seems to be in bed with is, or maybe it’s nothing. But she says she wants to come in, look at a shitload of photos and see if she can ID him.’

‘But even if she did, what have you got? Meeting in a park.’

‘She’d thought it through, I’ll give her that. She said that if she could identify him as someone who was maybe in government or business, and we know he has a connection with Pierce, then we could get a warrant, bug his phone, look at emails and texts, and maybe get something more. Anyway, that’s all stuff for the bigwigs. My job was just to send it upstairs, so I did.’

‘Who to?’

‘Potential informers on organised crime skip a few levels and get referred straight to my inspector, Adam Drummond. I forgot about it until her court date, when I wondered if she was going to show up with a letter from Drummond saying she helped us. But she didn’t show, apparently on account of being dead.’

‘Do you know if Kemp actually saw the inspector?’

‘Yeah, they sent me a note saying she was booked in.’

‘Do you know the date she was going to see him?’

‘Fuck me! The questions. Hang on, I’ll look up the email … let me see … here. September eighteenth.

‘Just so I can tidy it all up for the file, do you think the inspector’s office would let me know what happened?’

‘Yes, definitely.’

‘Great.’

‘I’m joking. They won’t tell you shit. They treat people who give sensitive info confidentially, for obvious reasons. If they had ended up giving Kemp a ‘Help’ letter they wouldn’t have even told me what it was for. “Information of assistance to police enquiries” is about as specific as they get.’

‘Okay. Thanks for all that.’

‘No problem.’

Seb hung up. He wondered if Karen had spoken to Tom about the person she saw meet her ex in the park. He rang him.

‘Sorry, Tom. Can I ask just one more thing about Karen?’

‘Sure.’

‘Did she mention her court matters in Sydney?’

‘Court? No.’

‘Right. She was charged with stealing phones from Bondi Beach.’

‘Shit.’

‘She was trying to trade some information to police to get a more lenient sentence. She said she had seen someone hanging around with crime figures. Sorry. Must be a shock.’

‘Another one.’

‘Did she ever talk about trying to identify someone, or seeing a clean-shaven middle-aged man with glasses in a suit? Someone she was trying to put a name to?’

‘Nah. Not at all.’

‘Okay. If you remember anything, even a throwaway comment she made, let me know.’

‘Sure. Fuck. You think you know someone …’

After ending the call, Seb wondered what to do next. Before he had worked it out, he got a text from Barb.

Please text me photo of syringe Joe used. Will explain later

Doing so would be a breach of police rules, but he had just told several lies to a fellow officer. If he wanted to find out what happened, it seemed rules had to be broken. He found the photo in his phone and sent it.