7
The balding psychologist propped his elbows on the glass-topped desk, allowing himself a moment to survey the colourful fish on his tie and launched into a gaping yawning, resembling a whale set to swallow them.
‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘but you do insist on these sessions being early.’
‘I humour you while my heart rate is at its slowest,’ Breeze murmured. He took his pulse at the wrist. ‘But it seems you’ve already wrecked that.’ He settled back into his grapefruit purple sofa chair and sighed. ‘You mightn’t do much for a guy’s head but his butt gets pretty comfortable while you’re doing it.’
‘Thank you. The purple is intended to bring out your inner child.’
‘If this kind of chair was around in my childhood I might have sat down more.’
‘Would that have helped?’
‘I don’t think any of my dozen or so scars were the result of sitting down.’
‘No, I daresay they are more likely the result of reckless behavior such as bursting into a warehouse full of gunmen without backup and with an evidence bag over your head. Anyway, bragging is a defense mechanism and we need to move beyond that.’ The psychologist, Dr Frank Matera, removed a pen from the breast pocket of his khaki business shirt and started clicking around with it, possibly wishing he was the kind of doctor who could unload his patients with a prescription. ‘I understand well enough you are only here because it has been set as a condition of your remaining on the force, very much like your partner Furn before you, but if you are not willing to take the process seriously, I will be forced to state as much in my assessment report.’
‘I don’t think the negative report of a psychologist will get me kicked out of the RIP,’ said Breeze, ‘because that was what helped me get the job in the first place. And besides, it would certainly be dangerous for me to cooperate with you.’
‘Dangerous?’
‘Breaking down the things holding you together can get pretty ugly on the other side.’
‘Not if you have things to replace them.’
Breeze stood up and scooped up his brown suede jacket from the back of his chair. ‘You mean replace the power, the guns, the cheap existence, the easy relationships which become like buffering tyres on a speedway?’
‘You don’t consider those things ugly?’
Breeze smirked. ‘I have to go. So, just tick that box, will you?’ He left the room with its desktop clock still dolling out his time, left the psychologist with his Client Progress Report to scrawl in.
From the psychologist’s practice it was a short drive into the city. Breeze parked his bright orange Renault in a No Parking zone and put up onto the windscreen the yellow and green disabled parking sticker, which foot patrol cops and clamp-happy parking inspectors would know meant undercover law enforcement. He crossed St Kilda Road, the traffic crammed upon it as impotent bystanders. Police Headquarters’ entrance was quiet, the day’s strategies being hatched in deep burrows. People or no people, Breeze was used to passing through the corridors in silence. It wasn’t the kind of workplace where you were swamped in greetings.
The uniform division’s briefing room smelt of new carpet and closed windows. Apparently the sit-at-the-back types didn’t make it through the Academy these days, the room ready to flip head over heels with all the weight at the front.
‘We’ve accepted the need to slowly wean our African friends off the idea their wars have followed them here,’ the Watch Commander, Senior Sergeant Inverloch was saying. ‘But some of you seem to be taking slowly in a geological sense. What I want to see is the Fitzroy Gardens clean enough to have a picnic, even after midnight. If your wet sponge is not working then use some wire wool.’ Although his unkempt ginger hair may have indeed resembled wire wool, his uniform was immaculately neat and he was standing proud and tall, his shoes glistening with a parade polish.
The uncharacteristically wandering eyes of his charges alerted him to Breeze’s presence in the doorway to the side.
‘Detective Sergeant Burres, what brings you here?’ he called out.
‘Well, I so rarely see the uniformed branch these days,’ Breeze replied with a hard edge, ‘even when I call for backup.’ He strode to Inverloch’s side. ‘But just to show you there are no hard feelings, I’m going to offer up the confessions the shrinks have been trying to dig out of me. Growing up in the West Parisian slums with a gangster for a father and a violent temper that had run up a lot of branches in my family tree, I was making your African gangs here look like candy boy scouts. I was getting too hard to handle, even for the likes of my father. And he responded by dumping me at Charles De Gaul Airport on my twenty first birthday, bluntly telling me that unless it was with a bullet hole for a passport, I was never to return. With the passing years I have become a cop and my father has become an even more infamous gangster. But what has really changed is now I have a son of my own; he is being raised by his mother in a small village in the Bourdea, and I might be willing to take that bullet to see him again.’ A heavy silence hung over the briefing room. Breeze took it like an egomaniac would applause. ‘So, here’s a friendly piece of advice,’ he continued. ‘From now on, whether I’m calling for backup or not, you’d best stay out of my way.’
He marched out of the briefing room feeling light and refreshed like he supposed therapy was supposed to feel. He did realise, however, that he had put himself in the same building as his office and, with a new case to deal with, he couldn’t really justify staying away from it. He headed for the elevators, starting to feel a weight again. Missing person cases usually weren’t of particular interest unless the subjects had gotten themselves missing in a casino or somewhere warm. He doubted a Person Of National Importance would be any different and it would come with timeframes that were bound to be unrealistic. And then there were the Sapiens. Torturous vigilantes or just the tag of an unhinged graffitist? He had the nasty suspicion he would have to find out before the case was over.
The modest RIP office was down a passageway and through a door simply marked Detective Inspector Riley. The lack of periphery staff, namely personal assistants and cleaners, had usually been more apparent. Currently, on Riley’s expansive L-shaped Antiguan imported desk there was not so much as the usual roughly-handled Financial Review newspaper. Breeze was able to loiter in this doorway a lot longer without getting noticed than he had in the briefing room. It was a promising indication that the two occupants at the desk were focused on something noteworthy. And why not? Riley was afforded not only a top of the range executive desk but also a significant say in what went on top of it. Currently, there were two laptops displaying the same pallid, bald headed man: cold grey eyes and wire, thin lips bent in a disturbingly callous smirk; it was the kind of face that could a elicit a guilty verdict out of a jury before the case was even heard.
Breeze dropped into the remaining unoccupied chair, the deep leather cushion a very comfortable landing.
‘Happened to be in the neighborhood,’ he said.
‘You’re brave,’ replied Azu Nashy, the Federal Police detective who was sitting beside Riley at the desk, raising her eyebrows at Breeze, ‘coming into the station after yesterday’s incident. You’re slated for so many blood tests you’re likely to become anemic.’
Breeze gestured to the man on the screen. ‘There are more important tests to be had than blood tests.’
‘His name is Barry Jewel,’ said Riley. ‘He’s a high school mathematics teacher cum armed robber. His only interest to us is the calling card left behind at his crime scene.’ He took off his reading glasses. ‘The only crime scene where we’ve had a calling card and a conviction to go with it.’
‘Calling card?’ murmured Breeze. ‘The Sapiens?’
‘Sapiens,’ replied Nashy, dryly. She picked up a bunch of evidence bags from a cardboard box on the floor at her feet, each containing a single white calling card. ‘We’ve picked up a dozen from different crime scenes and they’re never the same hand writing.’
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‘Do they have contact details on the back?’
‘No,’ snapped Riley impatiently. ‘Forget the blood tests. Addresses are what I want. You’re going over to City Correctional to get them.’
‘Sure. And if we’re lucky your friend Jewel will fill us in on the Sapien’s next town hall meeting.’
‘We’ve got eleven cold cases, one closed case and not much time,’ said Riley impatiently. ‘Just get your head in there and start sniffing.’
‘We’re still compiling the list of people we’re going to let you shake down,’ added Nashy. ‘Be at South Bank at eleven.’
‘Wragg’s the name of the wayward brother,’ added Riley. ‘To the best of my knowledge we’re going to need him alive. Not exactly your strength, is it? Did you see Dr Matera?’
Breeze nodded half-heartedly.‘I go deeper when I cut myself shaving.’
‘Didn’t shoot him at least?’
‘Left my gun in the car.’
‘Your partner was last seen handing a dead kangaroo to the Assistant Coroner. I’ve put a message on his phone to meet you at the penitentiary. If you’ve picked up any useful mind tricks from your therapy you might be advised to put them to good use.’ He reached into the desk’s green velvet lined central drawer, extracting an A3 manila folder. He slid it across the desk. ‘The case file. Read it before you start beating Jewel with it.’
‘Stuck up a Saint George’s Credit Society,’ Nashy chimed in. ‘A real insider’s job. We got him on an anonymous tip. Could be he had a falling out with the Sapiens. The money has not yet been recovered either. He may have been double crossed. You could try leveraging him with that.’
Breeze scooped up the folder. ‘Until we get something more specific we need to cover as much territory as possible. So, give me the Sapien angle and Furn can go after known associates.’
‘No splitting up this time,’ returned Riley, adamantly. ‘Don’t forget how promptly your predecessors dropped out of the picture. I know your preferred method of communication with partners is Christmas cards but on this one I want you watching each other’s back from the outset.’
Breeze pulled a face. ‘What’s with the dead kangaroo?’
‘That’s a question. Normally I’d be inclined to pin Furn’s badge on a healthier kangaroo and watch it hop away into the sunset. But these cases give me moment to pause.’ He waved his hand at the two laptops. ‘Nothing as tame as armed robbery.It appears Severe Alternative Punishment is just the mouthful way of saying torture. So we can’t discard or discount anything.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Some adults never grow out of their thumb-sucking. For others, it’s skinning the neighbourhood pets.’
‘Well, I’m on my way to a barbecue lunch. I’ll be happy to take the leftovers of the kangaroo off the coroner’s hands.’ Breeze was not big on such formalities as hellos and goodbyes, so when he turned for the door Nashy reacted in haste.
‘Give this to Furn when you see him, will you?’ she said, holding out a brown paper bag.
‘Play lunch?’ Breeze took the bag and peeked inside. It was a black Heckler and Koch, partly wrapped in a white handkerchief. He closed the bag up again. ‘I’ll pass it on.’ He gazed into Nashy’s large brown eyes, looking for clues as to why there was a gun in a paper bag. But there was nothing specific, just a faint hint of desperation.