Private Oz (Private 7)

WHEN THE DOOR opened, Geoff Hewes had no idea how long he’d been in Al Loretto’s basement.

They’d given him water and some bread. They left a bucket in the corner for him. It stank. He’d slept, on and off.

The big guy who’d smashed in his face came for him. Hewes heard a series of strange sounds, then suddenly felt water blasting his face and chest. He panicked for a second then realized the big guy was hosing him down, like a dog.

The force of the water pinned him to the wall. He struggled to get away but he couldn’t.

“Strip off you idiot!” the big guy bellowed and Hewes felt something hit him in the guts. He looked down and saw a bar of soap on the concrete floor.

He took off his filthy clothes, used the soap, and a couple of minutes later the water stopped. He was flung a towel and some old clothes, jeans and a tee.

“Get those on and get out of my house, Hewes.”

Geoff followed the sound and saw Loretto at the top of the stairs into the basement. “I’m only having you washed because I don’t want you messing up my carpets. Show your face again and I’ll have it blown off.”

Chapter 70

I WAS IN the NSW Police Path Lab with Darlene. She was leaning over the dreadful remains of the dead woman discovered in the old house in Bondi. I watched her work methodically, felt a growing anger we hadn’t learned about the corpse for at least five hours after it was found. Even then it was only because Darlene heard about it third-hand from a friendly cop at Police HQ. In the time since then she’d caught up pretty fast.

The victim was Jennifer Granger, thirty-eight, of Newmore Avenue, a street perpendicular to Wentworth Avenue in Bellevue Hill where Elspeth Lampard had been found. It was within spitting distance of the other victims’ homes.

“I spoke to one of the sergeants at the station in the CBD,” I said. “Jennifer Granger was reported missing three weeks ago, December 15.”

Darlene didn’t look up. “Who reported it?”

“Her husband. She was supposed to be on a girls’ weekend in Melbourne, but didn’t show. Her girlfriends didn’t tell her husband, a gynecologist called Dr. Cameron Granger, until the Sunday morning.”

Darlene lifted her head at that.

“Two of them knew Jennifer was having an affair. They concluded she had used the weekend as a cover without telling them. The same two women tried to SMS her. When they got no reply, they phoned her cell. No response. Straight to voicemail. We’ve followed up on the calls, their story holds up.”

“Probably dead at least twenty-four hours by then.”

I stared at the mess of rancid flesh that stank of newly applied chemicals. I tried and failed to imagine her as a beautiful wealthy woman engaged in an affair.

“What’s the husband been doing all this time?” Darlene asked.

“The sergeant at the station told me that Dr. Granger called them at least once a day,” I said. “Went to the station half a dozen times, offered a reward of ten grand for any info. That was all in the first week after she vanished. One of Jennifer Granger’s friends finally enlightened her husband about the affair. But he still kept up the pressure on the cops. In fact, he doubled the reward.”

Darlene raised an eyebrow. “I reckon this poor woman is the first victim.”

“Is that based on anything empirical? Apart from the fact that she died three weeks ago?”

“No, just a hunch. The murder is a bit different to the others … done with less confidence.”

I tilted my head.

“The murderer got the woman to come to him … in a derelict house, away from Bellevue Hill. Now though, he’s literally on the victims’ doorstep.”

“He was you mean … What about Yasmin Trent?”

“I’m convinced she was snatched. Probably close to where she lived. The cops found her car fifty yards from her body.”

It was my turn to look surprised. “I didn’t know that.”

“They checked the odometer. The last journey in the car was thirty-one miles. Precisely the distance from Bellevue Hill to where Yasmin Trent’s corpse was discovered in Sandsville. I reckon our killer is beginning to feel the heat in Bellevue Hill and mixing it up to keep us off his scent.”

I was about to reply when the door opened and Mark Talbot walked in.