There was blood on the shotgun as well.
Barron looked at the remains of the woman and felt the bile rise in his stomach. He fought it back.
Malone took Wallace’s arm and threw it over his own shoulder, half-supporting the young detective, walking slowly from the room, skirting the bodies on the floor, muttering comforting words as he walked, you’ll be okay, mate, just get a bit of fresh air. Throwing a smile at Barron, we all feel like this at one time or another, come on, get some fresh air.
“Bring Green back with you,” Barron said. “And get Wallace to call for the wagon and the doctor. And get some front men in here. I don’t want nosy neighbours in here and I don’t want the media here either.”
He caught the eye of the commander. He nodded.
“Okay.”
The naked man had not stirred again. Course not. Imagination.
Outside it was raining. Pouring down.
Barron remembered the noise they’d made as they came down the street and the noise of the breaking wood on the door as he’d kicked it open and stormed in, not waiting for them to park the cars or provide him with the proper back-up. He had had to get in. He normally hated being first because you never really knew what to expect, or what was waiting for you. Some drug crazed idiot with a gun, twitching at the noises, firing at the least noise, not caring what the hell they hit. Or some smart street kid with a knife, keen to prove to himself and his friends that he could cut a cop as easily as anyone else.
Or a shotgun. Worst of them.
All you saw was the black hole between you and the heavy, then the explosion and it was all over. Close confines of a room like this one. They couldn’t miss. Any bloody idiot could hit you. Couldn’t stop them.
Get your face blown away.
Like the woman.
They’d understand why he hadn’t waited.
Quiet room. He had a few minutes before Malone and Green came back. He looked around. There was some blood on the walls. Spray. Strands of hair stuck on the wall, the woman’s, blonde.
There were signs that there might have been a fight or something in the room. A chair was overturned and a vase had fallen off a table, smashing, sending flowers and water over a scattered pile of magazines. The ceiling was holed around the spot where there had once been an overhead light. The thought went through his mind - the shotgun had been used to kill the lights.
There were two items of underwear on the floor. Black lace bra and what appeared to be matching panties. Hers.
No other clothes. Why not? Why these?
He ran through the questions that would be asked.
Routine. It took his mind off the bloody body. He felt the bile rising again and turned away, sucking in air.
Nothing else out of the usual in this part of the room. Television, radio, three bookshelves crowded with paperbacks and another pile of magazines. On a small table there was an open bottle of scotch and next to it were two glasses, both empty.
Was the man drunk?
He heard footsteps coming from outside and he turned back to where the two bodies sprawled across the floor. For the first time he noticed the thin gold chain around the woman’s ankle and his immediate thought was the chance to use it for identification. His eyes flashed to her hands. No other jewellery, no rings or bracelets. And no chain around her neck. No earrings. Unusual? What would they make of that?
“Christ!” Green this time. And to Barron, “Is he dead too?”
“Yes.” He had imagined it. “Got the camera?”
“Here.”
“You take them.”
Green brought the camera up, checked the exposure and the settings on the flashgun. Then he proceeded to take the photographs, catching the scene of the crime, the victim and the perpetrator, from all possible angles. Green was thorough.
Behind him another officer was using a movie camera to record the scene.
“Done?”
“Yeah.”
And Barron stepped quickly to the side of the naked man.
“Thought you said he was dead...”
“What?”
“Thought I saw him move.”
Malone was back and he stepped forward pushing Barron and Green aside. He had pulled on plastic gloves and he felt for a pulse at the man’s neck.
“He’s fucking alive! Get the medic in here, bloody smart!”
The call for the medic transferred down the hallway and out of the house.
Barron knelt beside Green and lifted the weapon carefully off the man’s body. There were smeared finger marks on the wooden stock, tracing lines in blood. He rolled out a sheet of clear plastic and put the shotgun on it and then folded the plastic over it, covering it. He let Green deal with the body.
He gripped the side of the naked man and pulled, forcing the body backwards, rolling him over. One hand slid from the woman’s thigh. The fingers were covered in blood.
There was blood across the man’s chest and the upper part of his stomach. There was a long scratch down the inside of his left thigh; it was red and angry.
His right arm had rolled as the body had rolled and his arm still obscured his face. Green bent forward and took the arm away, uncovering the face.
“Shit.”
“My God,” Malone echoed.
The face was covered in blood. It had been lying in the pool that had formed on the floor, drained from the woman’s body. The face was obscene.
“Christie!” Green said. “It’s Christie.”
And as the three men stood over the naked man his eyes opened, clear and white circles in a crinkled blood soaked mask. Brown eyes. Eyes that saw them and saw nothing.
Eyes that then slowly closed.
“James Christie,” Malone echoed.
James Christie, Barron thought. What now?
Day 2 - Melbourne
“This is not going to be easy.”
Barron was standing in the office of his Chief Superintendent, Charles Lefroy. It was a spacious office, on the fifth floor of the office block. There wasn’t much of a view - other office blocks across the road that towered over them. Towards the docks, a sliver of green that was Flagstaff Gardens.
“Why not?”
