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.”
“They also bought the one next to it.”
“That’s even more interesting.”
Yes, things happen when you’re active.
58 – Coloured cars
THERE WERE LICENSE PLATE READERS EVERYWHERE. Mounted on police cars, buses, tow trucks, traffic lights, toll towers, shopping centre boom gates and the like, all feeding into one huge database. Analysts enter the license plate number, hoping it’s legal, and the database search engines retrieve the recent history.
The recent history of James’s vehicle started when the license plate reader in Officer Casey’s vehicle recorded his vehicle’s number. The next entry came at a set of lights in the main street of Healesville. Then it passed the Healesville police station. Not many more entries until the vehicle hit the outskirts of the city, then there were a splattering of entries. The last recorded entry was the car doing a right hand turn off a main road in the suburb of Camberwell. A number of police cars were now patrolling the area.
<°)))><
Isabella saw a police car scouting around. Who would they be looking for? She had her protection people out there—those invisible people. She hoped they were still there.
Some apprehension crept in as a black car drove past. It had a familiar feel to it. She knew there were lots of black cars on the road. Dangerous black cars, her mum would say. Her words backed up by saying research had shown black cars were the most dangerous—they don’t stand out like white vehicles. But this wasn’t about visibility. A white police vehicle offered safety. The black vehicle brought insecurity and danger. Light and darkness, something the good Lord spoke about frequently.
She decided to make a cup of tea and nibble on a biscuit. She needed to get a good meal into her soon. After pouring in the milk she went and sat down. She scrolled through her text messages as she sipped her tea. Mainly messages to do with uni. She had lost contact with her schools friends over the years. It was self-inflicted. After Madeleine’s death, she didn’t want to risk close friendships again. The last straw was the death of her parents. She could barely keep up with what was going on now. Her faith held her together, and the pills but she’d been weaning herself off those. She felt control making its way back into her life, and her faith seemed to be getting stronger.
