CHAPTER 81

EMAIL FROM VIV GRIFFITH TO DEV KERALA, 7 NOVEMBER 2024

Hi Dev,

Thank you for your offer to buy 28 Bayview Avenue. I agree that your offer is above market value, but after careful consideration, have decided to decline for three reasons:

1. Houses on the water will always be a good investment, and I prefer the income stream that renting it out can provide.
2. I am concerned about the controversy now surrounding this project, regarding the role that the deputy mayor played, whether the way in which council provisionally approved the project was proper, and the upcoming Independent Commission Against Corruption inquiry.
3. I heard that you had boasted you could ‘get me to agree to anything’ and I wanted to disprove that assertion.

All the best,

Viv

EMAIL FROM DEV KERALA TO VIV GRIFFITH, 7 NOVEMBER 2024

Viv, can we talk about this? I definitely didn’t say that.

Dev

FIVE UNANSWERED CALLS FROM DEV KERALA TO VIV GRIFFITH, 7 NOVEMBER 2024

EMAIL FROM VIV GRIFFITH TO LEANNE HITCHCOCK, 7 NOVEMBER 2024

Hi Leanne,

I have decided not to sell my parents’ house, and will be renting it out. Sue mentioned that you have decided to stay for a while, and I am looking for three tenants. Are you interested? As we have known each other a long time, I can be flexible and try to find a rent that fits your budget.

One caveat, however. If you do want to move in, I would prefer that I was responsible for finding your two additional housemates, not you. Hope that is okay.

Viv

EMAIL FROM LEANNE HITCHCOCK TO VIV GRIFFITH, 7 NOVEMBER 2024

Hi Viv,

Yes! Thanks. That would be great. I’m also looking for a job so if you hear of anything, let me know. Anything that isn’t Mum’s shop!

Leanne

TRANSCRIPT OF CALL BETWEEN CONSTABLE SEB BAXTER AND SENIOR CONSTABLE JOANNA DAWES, POLICE INTERNAL AFFAIRS, 7 NOVEMBER 2024

SEB: Hello?

DAWES: Hi, Sebastian, Joanna Dawes. Just want to update you on the Perkins case.

SEB: Oh, hi. Okay.

DAWES: We’ve found that he has significant money in offshore accounts and there is evidence linking him to Vanessa Pierce, who runs drugs and other illegal stuff. Do we have enough to convict him in court? Maybe, probably, but not sure.

SEB: Did you find out who killed Karen Kemp?

DAWES: Not yet, but we’re working on it. We’ve offered Perkins a deal to roll over and help us get Vanessa and others. Telling us how Karen was killed would be part of that.

SEB: If he takes the deal, will he walk?

DAWES: Fuck, no. He probably ordered Karen’s murder, as well as a hit on you.

SEB: Good.

DAWES: Listen, Seb. You fucked up. When you found that photo on Karen’s phone and sent it to him, that was dumb. If you’d thought it through, you would have realised that either Perkins or Drummond was probably involved.

SEB: I know. It was super dumb.

DAWES: Nearly got you killed. And you played fucking hardball with us, giving us that fifteen-minute deadline. Not cool. Having said that, I get why you did it. On the positive side, Karen Kemp’s death had been closed by Homicide, you didn’t buy it, you pushed and pushed, and because of you we caught a corrupt cop in a position of power, and cleared an innocent man, albeit a dead one, of murdering Kemp. Without you, Perkins could have kept doing that shit for years. You were tenacious and smart. Apart from that one super-dumb thing.

SEB: Thanks.

DAWES: Want to come work for us?

SEB: Sorry?

DAWES: Bad line, is it? You heard.

SEB: Is that like a hypothetical enquiry?

DAWES: It’s a job offer. Here in Sydney.

(LONG SILENCE)

DAWES: You there?

SEB: Yeah, sorry. I … I’m interested for sure, but … there’s something I need to sort out first.

DAWES: Sure. Let me know. Soon, ideally.

EXTRACT FROM CENTRAL COAST CYCLING CLUB NEWSLETTER, 8 NOVEMBER 2024

Watch out, folks, Viv Griffith is back! Just when he thought this year’s comp might be turning into a one-bike race, Sam Delaney has been beaten!!

Forty-three riders tackled the 75-kilometre Tuggerah Lake circuit. After a watchful start and middle, Sam and Viv broke away from the pack with 20 kilometres to go, and with Smiling Sam looking fresher, younger and happier, the smart money was all on him. When Sam broke away from Viv at the 5-kilometre mark, and then with 2 kilometres to go had a 50-metre lead, it looked like game over. But somehow, Viv summoned an incredible burst of energy for a final sprint, reeling Sam in and beating him to the line by a metre. What a finish!

Former (and perhaps future?) club champ Viv put it down to his new diet. ‘It’s all about the fuel you put in your body.’ Then he did something I’ve never seen before. He smiled! Good old clean living! Well done Viv.

TEXT FROM BARB YOUNG TO FORMER DETECTIVE JOHN MAYNE, 8 NOVEMBER 2024

Hi John, an update on our investigation, hopefully before you read it in the news, although with the internet it spreads so fast these days. Case solved. The Blue Mountains Strangler is Gary Turner. Give me a call and I’ll share details

TEXT FROM FORMER DETECTIVE JOHN MAYNE TO BARB YOUNG, 8 NOVEMBER 2024

Thanks for the chat. Fuck me, the psychic handywoman. Congratulations again. I feel like a bit of a dill being outsmarted by someone who fixes windows. Amazing work. Won’t be sleeping much the next few nights, going through everything and trying to work out how I could have got the bastard. Wish you’d been around seven years ago

EMAIL FROM CONSTABLE SEB BAXTER TO DETECTIVE DAN SIMMONDS, 8 NOVEMBER 2024

Hi Dan,

Just updating you on some statistics. When we met that morning at Joe Griffith’s house, you asked me how many murders I’d solved, and I said none. The answer is now five. Still not as many as you, of course, but then again I’ve only been doing it a month. By the way, you said you’d solved twenty-eight, but I guess that should be twenty-seven now, given that you had Joe down as Karen Kemp’s killer and that turned out to be wrong.

All the best,

Seb