Private Oz (Private 7)

THE PARTIAL PRINT from Jennifer Granger’s body appeared two feet wide on the flat screen. Darlene studied the lines, what analysts called “whorls” and “loops”. Darlene remembered a stat from college – a one in sixty-four billion chance of any two people sharing fingerprints.

The partial on the screen looked completely unremarkable. It was perhaps two-thirds of a full print, limited in value, but better than nothing.

Darlene double-clicked the mouse and highlighted the image, then moved the picture to an icon on the screen. The file disappeared and a box came up with the words: “Global Database Analysis in Progress.” Beneath this, a line, a tiny red dot to the left and the words: “Estimated time remaining: 42 minutes” – the time it would take for the powerful computer system at Private to compare the partial print with every database it was linked to throughout the world, some two billion records.

She pushed her chair back, ran her fingers through her hair. She felt incredibly frustrated. Here she was with some of the best forensics equipment in the world and she’d spent three days drawing a blank on four connected murders. At the back of her mind something was nagging her. It’d been needling her for at least twenty-four hours, but she couldn’t pinpoint it.

She got up and walked across the lab to a bench. She’d filed away every piece of data she had on the four murders. Most of the info was on the computer and there were a few written reports kept in a filing cabinet. Here on the bench stood ninety-six test tubes in a dozen racks. Each one was carefully labeled. Each contained something from the murder scenes.

She scanned along the racks. There were slithers of cloth, particles of soil, fragments of body tissue, blood-soaked fabrics, hairs. Hairs! She moved the racks forward, one after the other, taking care to keep everything in the correct order. Then she saw what she was looking for … a test tube containing a single whitish-blonde human hair.

Darlene felt her heart pounding. She strode over to a powerful drive that stored all crime scene photos. Tapped the mouse. Brought up the photo collections from the past three days. Clicked a folder entitled: “Yasmin Trent.” Scrolling down, she stopped over Image No. 233. A smile spread across her face.

Chapter 76

DARLENE WENT STRAIGHT from her lab to the house in Bondi where Jennifer Granger had been found. She knew the Police Forensics team

would still be there and she wanted one more search around the place herself.

A cop Darlene recognized met her at the front door, gave her a warm smile. “Darlene,” he said. “Back again?”

“Can’t keep me away from a good murder scene, Sergeant Tindle,” she quipped, reading his ID badge. He was young and good-looking, she’d spotted him at the earlier murder sites and knew that he’d definitely noticed her too.

“It’s Howard,” he said leading her through the hall. They stopped at the door to the bathroom splattered with blood.

“The murder was committed here,” the sergeant said.

“You don’t say!” she laughed. “So, I heard you got tipped off by a vagrant who slept in the front room last night.”

“That’s what we thought at first. A young guy called us early this morning. We followed up. He’d dropped his driver’s license would you believe! Turns out he’s an eighteen-year-old schoolboy. He and his girlfriend snuck in here for a quick one. They’re both respectable kids from good families. But they picked the wrong spot. They’re in a lot of trouble with their parents now!”

“Poor things.”

They emerged from the dark interior into the blazing afternoon sun. Darlene saw four men in boiler suits digging up the lawn and the overgrown flowerbeds to the rear of the house. Two CSOs were sifting through the soil searching for further clues.

Darlene heard a cry from one of the diggers and ran across the yard.

Two of the men were bending over an opening in the ground. Darlene skirted the edge and crouched down. Decayed human bones. Patches of white caught the light of the sun – a forearm protruding from the dirt.

The forensics guys ran over, saw the bones and settled down beside Darlene. “Keep digging, but gently,” one of them said to the men with shovels and started to clear the soil near the arm with smaller spades.

The grave was shallow, barely two feet deep and soon the outline of a large man could be seen. A few patches of gray-brown flesh remained on his dead bones, strands of red hair clung to his skull.

Chapter 77

IT HAD PASSED 6 pm and Johnny was leaving the office when the phone rang. A young female voice told him she was calling from Bonza Records and inviting him to a “VIP concert” starring Micky Stevens starting at 8.30 that night.

He just had time to get home, get changed and get a cab to the venue – a rather macabre place called the Old Quarantine Station near Manly.

The cab pulled into the lot, Johnny paid and walked toward the noise. He knew this place from when he was a kid. For over a century since it was built in the 1820s, it was the place where visitors to Australia were quarantined before being allowed into the country. Thousands had suffered terribly in this place. Decades ago it’d been turned into a national park novelty: “The Most Haunted Place in Australia.”

Close to the old shower block and the mortuary, the original boiler house had been converted into a swish restaurant and conference center. Johnny emerged onto a cobbled courtyard lit up by massive lights on rigs. Directly ahead stood a stage strewn with musical equipment, men in black jeans and T-shirts testing mics. There were perhaps a hundred people milling around in front of the stage. Most were wearing suits, drinking champagne, chatting animatedly.

Johnny strode over to a waiter carrying a tray, took a glass of orange juice. A leggy blonde approached with a clipboard. Johnny gave her his name.

“Ah yeah!” she said. “I was the one who called you earlier. Mel …” She extended a hand.

“So what’s this all about?”