Private Oz (Private 7)

Mary had plucked her cell from her pocket. She nodded toward the car as she called 000. We ran over, leaving the two thugs groaning in the dirt.

From the corner of my eye I saw a group of people run out of the building.

Mary was giving instructions into the receiver as we crossed the patch of ground. I was limping like an injured footballer leaving the field and totally in awe of how incredibly fit and powerful Mary was. She was recovering so fast.

It was only as we got fifteen feet from the Toyota we realized all four tires had been slashed.

Chapter 107

JULIE O’CONNOR CAUGHT the train from Sandsville, headed for the CBD. She had close to two hundred bucks in her pocket and a stolen credit card. She had formulated a plan.

She thought about the apartment she’d destroyed. There was nothing there of value. She had nothing, nothing but her notebook, the bag she had with her, the two hundred bucks and a credit card. She still felt the buzz, the thrill she had experienced – making the petrol bomb from the materials in the shed, tossing it into the apartment, descending from the roof of her block using the metal ladder and slipping away in the commotion.

Ten minutes into the journey she left her seat, walked calmly past a family in the next aisle and into a corridor. Pulled open the door to the washroom.

Yanking her backpack from her right shoulder, she let it drop to the floor. Leaning down, steadying herself as the train swayed, she found the plastic bag she’d put in the bag earlier. She placed it on the small sink.

Pulling out a dark wig, a fake moustache and a baseball cap, she arranged them on the side. Tugging on the wig, she tucked a few loose strands of bleached blonde hair beneath the edge, found the tube of glue she’d purchased, ran a line of it along the back of the moustache and put it in place. Then she tugged on the cap. Looking at her reflection in the mirror, she had to smile.

She was wearing jeans, boots and her lumberjack shirt. She turned to her handbag, pulled out the roll of banknotes – real ones – three fifties plus a twenty, a ten and a few coins. There was a second roll wrapped in an elastic band – ten fifties, photo copied money … ready for later.

She then removed the stolen credit card, a packet of mints and her favorite baby picture, one she had salvaged from her scrapbook. It showed a real cute kid – about nine months old – a girl wearing a nappy. She had an adorable fat tummy and was crawling toward the camera, a big smile on her face.

Julie stuffed all these items into the pockets of her jeans, opened the window of the washroom and tossed out her handbag. Then she checked herself in the mirror again and brushed a stray bit of wig under the cap. Taking a deep breath, she leaned into the mirror, real close, her face filling her view. She bared her teeth. “You can do this, Julie O’Connor,” she hissed. “You can do this … baby!”

Chapter 108

“JUST IN FROM one of our cars out in the Western suburbs, sir,” said Sergeant Tim Frost. He handed a sheet of paper to Inspector Mark Talbot. “Thought you might find it interesting.”

Talbot scanned the report and grinned, touched the Steri-strip across his nose. Craig Gisto had almost been barbecued, then beaten up by a couple of teenagers in Sandsville.

“He’s not in the Serious Burns Unit of the Royal North Shore by any chance?”

“Not this time, sir,” the sergeant replied.

“Shame,” Talbot remarked under his breath. Glanced at his watch. “Hell. I’m late.” Turning, he strode down the hallway.

He crept into the conference room just as Brett Thorogood was about to start talking, found a seat and manned out Thorogood’s glare.

There was a buzz of excitement in the room. Even Talbot could sense it. This is why he’d joined the force – a man-hunt, well, a woman-hunt in this case. He felt his heart beat faster.

“This is the suspect,” Thorogood announced pointing to a large photo of Julie on the smart-board. “A snap taken when she started work at SupaMart.”

“Hideous bitch,” Talbot thought.

“Don’t have much on her,” The Deputy Commissioner went on. “Name: Julie Ann O’Connor. Age: 26. Current address: 6 Neptune Court, Impala Road, Sandsville. No record. So far, so ordinary. Her father was a cop, Jim O’Connor … killed in the line of duty in 1996. She disappeared in 2000, off the radar until 2004. Cropped up in State records as a cleaner for a small engineering firm, Maxim Products, Campbelltown. Our friends at Private have come up with some useful stuff.”

Talbot felt a knot in his gut. He couldn’t bear even hearing the word “Private”.

The DC clicked a remote and footage from the copy shop came on screen.

“Appears the woman is underprivileged, lives in a slum, works in one of

Sydney’s most affluent areas. Some sort of motive for her killings we suppose. She copies the banknotes using a couple of different copy shops near Bellevue Hill.”

“Underprivileged?” Talbot said and looked around at the five other officers in the room.

“Yes,” Thorogood replied. “Your point?”