“That was the prisoner. Lucas Fell,” Detective Taylor said. “He was being escorted back here to the station.”

“Yes,” Aaron said. “Lucas Fell set off some alarms, and he’s why Defence got involved. He’s connected with a technology we’re after. It’s more of a national security thing.”

“Not meaning to be rude, but why are you involved in this . . . the accident? Surely it’s just a police matter that we can solve?”

Aaron understood his boldness. He was grieving, and wanted to do everything possible to fix this up. And the country air always seemed to relax protocol.

“Yes, no problems. We’ve been hearing things as we’ve been trying to track down this piece of technology and connect all the dots. There’s been talk and accusations of killings, murder. We also need to locate a person of interest who we believe has a piece of technology and need your resources to help us find him. We are also concerned that Lucas Fell has gone missing and are wondering what he’s up to.”

Officer Casey nodded slowly.

“Go on, Officer Casey,” Detective Taylor said.

“Yep. Okay. My initial reaction was that the other occupant, this Lucas fellow, may have caused the accident. I traced his tracks after the accident. It appears he wasn’t badly injured, and that’s a miracle, as he climbed up to the road. There were large imprints in the damp soil. He pulled himself up by the roots of the trees.”

“Definitely sounds like he wasn’t too badly injured. He was a fit man too. Prison does that to some—they work hard to keep fit,” Aaron said.

Officer Casey nodded. “It looks like he may have been picked up by another vehicle. I gave way to a vehicle as I was making my way to locate my partners.” He paused. “I had a quick chat with the driver to see if he was aware of any accident. His response was negative. There was a passenger asleep in the car and it now appears that was more than likely our escapee. My onboard recording system would have captured the vehicle’s details. We’ve put a trace out on the vehicle.”

Circumstances could cloud judgement. Maybe the officer hadn’t seen the dispatches out about Fell.

“I should’ve paid more attention to the passenger but I didn’t have a good feeling about my partners and wanted to find them.”

“Understand perfectly,” Aaron said. Casey must be a mind reader. “Are we thinking that the escapee had caused the accident?”

Detective Taylor gave a go-on nod to Officer Casey.

“I’m a bit of a country lad—I’ve spent a lot of time in the bush and I notice things. So I did some more exploring. I noticed an unusual marking on the road, as though someone had used the leaves of a branch to sweep over something. I followed the path of the sweep which took me to the edge of the road. There was a large branch resting up against a boulder a few metres down. It looked out of place. There was no bush litter settled on it—things like dead leaves, creepers. I climbed down to it.” He pointed to the pile on the table and rummaged through and isolated a couple of photographs. “The pictures there show what I discovered.”

Aaron looked down at the table. There were some photos amongst the papers that he hadn’t noticed before. One showed a large cut into the main arm of the branch. A smaller branch which must have broken off as the branch tumbled down had splashes of paint on it.

“All signs that this large branch had been hit by something.”

“Like a vehicle?” Aaron asked.

“I would say so. It was possible they could’ve avoided it. I would say the accident could’ve been helped along with something else, like the driver being blinded by a laser device. Someone’s tried to cover it up. And it wouldn’t have been the escapee unless he was working with someone. But I doubt that as he was in the car when it went over the side. The chances of him surviving such a crash would’ve been slim.”

“So who?” Aaron asked.

Officer Casey stood. “I’m sure you boys will work that out. I’ve got to go to another appointment now.”

“You’ve done well, Officer Casey,” Detective Taylor said.

Officer Casey put out his hand towards Aaron. They shook.

“Thanks, Officer Casey. It’s great work you’ve done.”

Aaron watched him walk out of the room. Casey was using his professional skills to solve whatever happened to his partners. He was going to let the system bring whoever did this to justice. Aaron wondered if there was a twinge of revenge in there. There would be.

“The chances would be high that it was the lady you mention in your report. The one Isabella mentions,” Detective Taylor said.

Aaron was pleased the report had been read.

“If so, then we’re dealing with one smart and dangerous lady whose motives I haven’t yet worked out.” Aaron said. “But we have help. We have an intelligence analyst doing some further digging for us.”

Aaron retrieved his phone. “I got a message earlier.” Aaron scrolled through the messages. “Could we meet in town, say twoish? They’ve scheduled the meeting at the City West Police Station.”

“Just as well we both enjoy driving.” The detective gave Aaron a wink. “Look forward to it.”

57 – Anybody home?

WHERE WOULD ISABELLA BE? Ava Perdu sat in her car, tapping the steering wheel. Her car was parked outside Isabella’s normal place of residence. Sitting around staring at her husband wasn’t going to achieve anything, so here she sat. She’d done some surveillance work around the streets first and, after convincing herself no one was watching, parked the car.

Ava also ran some background checks on the place where the potato-sack man was staying. Maybe he owned it in a previous existence but she doubted that and her doubts were well founded. She’d researched the sales history, and through some legal contacts located the solicitors and real estate agents used in the latest sale. She now waited patiently for a call but needed to keep herself busy.

She got out of the car and walked over to the block of units. The main entrance had a number of intercoms to the right of the door. Someone peered through the curtains of a ground floor unit. Ava waved, and the curtains quickly closed.

Ava pressed in the intercom for unit one and waited. No response. She did this for the other five units with the same result. Everybody out except for the person in the ground floor unit who choose not to answer the intercom. She could break into the building but that presented too much of a risk due to the nosy person. Ava wouldn’t be surprised if she had already called the police.

She turned to return to her car and heard a crackle come from one of the intercoms. “Hello. Who's there?” said a sleepy voice.

“Oh, hi, I’m trying to locate a friend. Her name is Isabella. She told me she lived here but I can’t remember the unit number.”

“It’s number five, but she’s not here.”

“But this is the address she gave me. Do you think she’s at work then?”

“A friend, you say?”

“Yes, more of a friend of her mother’s.”

“That’s a sad state of affairs that one.”

This person liked talking on the intercom. “It is.”

“Isabella isn’t at work. She’s a fulltime student at the moment. She told me she was going to stay at some place her mum had.”

“Do you have the address?”

“No, sorry. I best go now. If I see her I’ll tell her you called.”

Ava was glad she didn’t ask her name. “Thank you.” She would be remembered as the polite lady who was a friend of Isabella’s mum.

As she walked back to the car her phone vibrated in her coat pocket. She retrieved it, looked at the screen and answered. “Hello, are you a bearer of good news?”

“Don’t know. The unit in question was purchased by a Mr and Mrs Rose.”

“That’s interesting.”