Private Oz (Private 7)

“There’s also the fact,” Mary said, “that Ho Meng is sure the Triads are out for revenge. That’s why they’ve targeted him, killed his son. He believes they murdered his wife soon after the family arrived in Australia a dozen years ago.”

“So, Mary.” I turned in my chair. “You have to dig further. Ho thinks he knows the gang, we have some DNA, but that’s it. We need names, we need to know where the gang hangs out. For the moment, Ho refuses to work with the cops, but I don’t feel comfortable with that.”

“We can’t force him to,” Johnny commented.

“No, we can’t.” I scanned the faces around the table. “Okay, Darlene … What’s your latest?”

She looked down at a short stack of papers. Cleared her throat. “Dead woman: Elspeth Lampard, forty-one. Multiple stab wounds, fatal one to the heart. Tortured, face disfigured. She must have died pretty quick. I’ve found no sign of sexual assault, no prints, no alien DNA other than background stuff. There are, though, some long hairs that don’t match Elspeth’s. I found those on her dress. Doesn’t mean much. She could’ve picked them up walking along the road, or at work. The banknotes are photocopies.”

“The victim’s husband, Ralph Lampard, is CFO of Buttress Finance Group,” I said. “So, I’m wondering if there’s a link with big-time corporate money.” I looked at Justine and then Johnny before taking in the other two.

“Obviously, our first touchstone has to be money, doesn’t it?” Johnny replied. “Both husbands work in the financial sector. Banknotes placed ritualistically.”

“But what about the elephant in the room? The fact that the money is fake.”

“In both murders,” Mary added.

“But it seems too much of a coincidence that the husbands are in finance, and the two dead women were both abused the same way,” Johnny insisted.

“Unless the killer is trying to trick us,” Justine commented.

“Yeah, okay, all things are possible.” I took a deep breath. “But money is the most obvious link we have at the moment, isn’t it?”

“No,” Justine said emphatically.

“No?” We all looked to her.

“Geography. The two women lived a couple of streets apart in Bellevue Hill. That’s as strong a link as the financial one.”

“So you really think it’s more to do with the fact that the victims lived in the same suburb?” I asked.

“You don’t think that’s a tangible connection?”

It suddenly seemed obvious. “Well, yeah … of course it is.” I shook my head. “We have to think outside the box.” The others were staring at me. “What if,” I went on enthusiastically, “we have some lucky murderer? He’s killing women randomly, except for the fact they live within a few streets of each other … Bellevue Hill must be teeming with banker types, stockbrokers. It’s that sort of area.”

“I’ve experienced this sort of thing in LA,” Justine interjected and swept her eyes around the table. “The guy could be going for women with the same hair color … Stacy Friel and Elspeth Lampard were both blonde. He could be targeting women of a particular age. Friel was thirty-nine, Lampard forty-one. It could be someone at their gym, the tennis club, the local coffee shop.”

“Okay. So basically, what you two are saying is that we’ve got nowhere, because the financial link could well be absolutely spurious,” Johnny shot back.

“Guess we are,” I said, glancing at Justine.

Chapter 41

I GOT THE call from the security firm that supervises our block just as I reached my office – and it was the best news I’d had all day. Mary was passing my door just as I put down the receiver.

“Hey, Mary,” I said, coming round the front of my desk. “Got a break in the Ho case.”

“What sort of break?”

“The security company for this building, Matrix? They’ve some images of the guys who killed Chang.”

“But the killers snatched the hard drive from the guard booth.”

“They have another camera just outside the exit gate of the garage. Separate system. They’re sending over the images.”

Just as I finished the sentence, my email sounded. I walked to my chair, Mary followed me and leaned in. I tapped open the message, double-clicked the attachment.

“Oh, wonderful!” Mary exclaimed, and I felt my heart sink. The picture showed little more than a pair of blob heads behind the car windshield.