It was two thirty-five in the afternoon when Alan Rodgers walked hurriedly into Ben’s office. He was excited as he said to his boss.
“Sir, I’ve just had a call from our cousins in blue. It seems they were called to investigate a break and enter this morning at 16 Grey Street.”
Ben looked up him from his office desk, and saw that no more would be forth coming until he made a request.
“Well spit it out, Alan. What happened?”
“Well according to the investigating officer the only thing that was taken was a wooden crate, Sir.” Ben looked away from Rodgers and stared at an invisible spot on the wall opposite. Rodgers could see that his boss’s mind was in overdrive and he watched as Ben’s fingers drummed a short beat out on the wooden desk.
After a short moment the spot on the wall lost its significance and Ben looked back at Rodgers.
“Did the investigating officer say the name of the person he questioned?”
“He said that there were two men there, Sir. A man named Barney Wild and a bloke by the name of John Kane, who seemed to be the man in charge.” Rodgers read the second name from his notebook.
“No mention of Steve Walters at all?”
“As far as I know he didn’t mention that name, Sir.”
“Where’s Anderson?”
“I think he’ll be finishing up at Cooper’s office, Sir.”
Ben thought for a moment.
“Well call him and let him know where we’ll be. Then let him know that he’s to call me as soon as he’s finished up.”
“Sorry Sir. Where will we be?”
“We’ll be at 16 Grey Street.”
“Yes Sir. Ah! Sir, do you mean that you are going to look into it personally?”
“Yes, Alan. I know you are used to working for me, but do you think you’ll mind working with me?” Ben asked with a look of feigned indignation on his face. It lasted only until he smiled and let Alan know that he was toying with him.
“Yes, Sir. No, Sir.”
“Right, ring Rodney and let’s get the show on the road. We’ll take your car.”
There was midday traffic and a trip of a little over half an hour preceded their entry into the workshop yard. Five minutes after that, they were directed through a well-equipped workshop area to an unadorned office, by the man whose name was given as Barney Wild.
They introduced themselves to the man who had been, upon their unannounced arrival, seated behind a lightly cluttered desk. The man rose to his full height and greeted each of them with an outstretched hand. Ben noted, as he was forced to do at times, that his size was matched, although the man who introduced himself as John Kane was leaner, and Ben decided, much more fit than himself.
Even when Kane was seated he radiated a confidence usual for most well-built men. He also gave a high measure of modesty, and as Ben was to learn, he was sure footedly quiet spoken with his words. He read the man’s tan. It told him that Kane was most likely an outdoors man whose lightly tanned forehead suggested he sometimes wore a hat or a cap.
Their interview lasted about twenty-five minutes before Ben and Rodgers walked back to their car.
“What do you make of him, Sir?”
“I think there’s more to him than meets the eye, Alan. Call Rodney and tell him to meet us at the office as soon as he can, earlier if possible.”
After a half hour drive back to their headquarters they entered Ben’s office, where they found Rodney Anderson waiting for them.
“What’s happening boss?”
Ben greeted Rodney with a question before he offered an explanation. “Gidday, Rodney. Is Coopers place all sorted out?”
“Yes Sir. There are two cameras in her immediate office area and two microphones. With an extra microphone in the toilet in case Lee needs to use his mobile while he’s there. We could have his calls intercepted, but that would have required some explicit explanation, and of course more paper work which wouldn’t suit our needs.”
Ben understood. The less said about the Sarah Ray Foundation the better. He knew that the law stated it was illegal to intercept a call without the legal paperwork, whereas it was permitted to tape a person who was making the phone call, if that persons conversation was connected to a crime that was being, or was about to be committed.
They had permission from Cooper to wire her office, and any conversation that took place within her office was deemed to be her property. She would give her permission to record a specific conversation simply by switching on the recording equipment.
Rodney produced two mobile phones from his jacket pocket.
“I organized an issue of two of these little puppies, Sir. One is a backup, just in case. Should I hold on to one of them?” Ben nodded his agreement as he held his hand out to accept one of the phones. He looked at it briefly before he looked again at Rodney in silent request for operating instructions.
Rodney came to his aid and Ben was reminded again that he was a copper from the old days, who was operating on new ground with an even newer technology.
“Just slide the button on the side and she’s operational. There’s a battery charge indicator in the window and the battery is good for seventy-two hours.”
He paused for a moment to pull a length of wire from his other pocket. “Here’s the battery charger. Now that you’re turned on, all you have to do is wait for Cooper. When she switches on her recording gear each of these phones will be automatically dialled. When it rings you press this button and you will hear everything that is being recorded by all of the microphones. In this case we will both have access to the conversation being recorded, and on top of that we will be able to communicate with each other.
Rodney held his phone up to show Alan, like a kid might do with a new toy.
“Brilliant, isn’t it?” Ben would like to have shared in the young detective’s enthusiasm, but he found it difficult to be enthusiastic about a technology that was leaving him behind.
There were also other things to occupy his mind at this moment. He brought the briefing back to the business at hand as he gave the mobile phone one more glance before putting it in his jacket pocket.
He directed the conversation by saying to Anderson,
“Alan and I have spent some time over at Grey Street this afternoon. The people there have reported a break in, and it appears that someone has stolen the wooden crate.”
Ben looked to Rodgers and pointed towards the young detective’s notebook.
“Will you bring Rodney up to speed please Alan?” He believed that Rodgers shorthand expertise should cover the whole interview.
“When we arrived at the Grey Street premises, we were directed to a man whose name is John Kane by a second man who gave his name as Barney Wild. Wild, it seems, is the hired help, while Kane appears to be the man in charge. John Kane stated he is Steve Walters’s partner in the business and that Walters was over town somewhere quoting on an outside job. Other than this comment there was no other mention of Walters.”
“Kane’s story is that when he and Wild turned up for work this morning at nine o’clock, they found the front gate open. Its padlock had been cut, probably with bolt cutters. They both checked the building for break in, but found that no entry had been made. It was Wild who noticed that the wooden box had gone missing.”
“When we asked Kane about the wooden crate, he said that neither he, Wild or Walters knew anything about it. The box, as he referred to it, was owned by Sudovich Holdings, and it was as far as he could remember, delivered by a man named Turner who unloaded it from a truck which had a Sudovich Holdings sign on its side.”
“Kane said that he and Walters rented the premises from Sudovich Holdings and no one at Grey Street saw anything untoward about the wooden box. Other than the fact that it arrived one day without any notice from Sudovich Holdings, which he, that is, Kane saw as bad manners. Other than that it’s been sitting in the rear yard since then.”
“One significant item that Kane menti
oned was that he received a visit from a man named Tom Lee who introduced himself as Sudovich’s business partner. Lee pointed out to Kane that the reason for his visit was to familiarize himself with a side of the business which was usually left in the hands of Sudovich.”
“Kane said that he could have brought up the matter of the box with Mr. Lee, but it had slipped his mind at that time.” Alan looked at Ben and as he concluded. “That’s about it, Sir.”
Anderson looked thoughtful for a moment.
“What did you make of this bloke Kane, boss?”
“Well it appears to me, that the he is what he suggests himself to be, that is, a businessman operating his business. If not, then he is very well rehearsed. The thing that I noticed while we were in his office was the quiet. No sound of equipment, not even an air compressor, not a sound. Maybe that is normal at times. My noticing it may just be my suspicious mind not discounting anyone who’s been in contact with the wooden box. When I entered his office I felt almost as if I’d been expected.” He continued. “There was a pile of books and papers on the floor by the door, and the book that was in touch with the floor was about the size of the dust mark on the chair that I was offered. It suggested to me that he’d prepared the chairs with the expectation of two visitors.”
There was one other thing that Ben had noticed. A critical point if looked at with a suspicious mind and it posed a question which was in dire need of an answer. Why was it that Kane had not even shown the slightest interest as to why the Federal Police would be interested in a seemingly minor crime like a break and enter? In his experience, just about everyone who’d had a crime committed in their backyard usually had a comment, or question which they made or asked of the investigating officer.
This sort of complacency might be found to be more evident if the investigating officer was ordinary everyday State Police. If the investigating officer was identified as Federal Police, then Mr. General Public had a tendency to sit up and take notice. He’d certainly be more inquisitive.
He let this observation lie for the moment with the intention of finding out if Rodgers had picked up on it.
“What about you, Alan? Did you draw any conclusions?”
“Yes Sir, a couple of things. The one called Barney had very clean hands. Not only clean, but they appeared to have no ingrained grime. His fingernails were also very clean, even the edges and the cuticle. My father was in the same game and even with industrial crème cleaner he couldn’t get his hands as clean as Wild’s were. Maybe Wild is very committed to his personal hygiene, which might explain why the workshop hand basin was spotless, unusually clean for a workshop. The other bloke Kane didn’t have a computer in his office which struck me as odd. There was a computer in the open office area that we walked through to get to Kane’s office, but it had no printer. It looked to me like an old Apple which I doubt would be fast enough to run an M.Y.O.B program. The oddest thing I thought was that Kane showed no interest at all in why Federal Police would be interested in a small time break and enter. Not much to go on, Sir. Maybe I’m thinking like you, with a suspicious mind. I agree with your earlier observation that there may be more to Kane than meets the eye.”
Ben smiled lightly. Glad to have heard what he’d been listening for and he raised another point.
“Kane seemed to be extremely forthcoming with information. He looked to me to be glad of the opportunity to be able to mention Lee, and of course he slipped Sudovich’s name into the conversation. In my experience people who are being interviewed by the police usually only mention someone else’s name in an attempt to redirect police attention. Anyway all this is supposition, and the only real facts that we have are. There was a wooden box that we felt warranted close scrutiny, and now suddenly, it has disappeared under suspicious circumstances.”
“So we are where we were, other than the fact that we are in possession of more supposition.” Anderson announced. When there was no response from his two colleagues he asked, “Boss, what did Commander Bates say about the crate at your meeting?”
“He read Alan’s report. When I explained our interest in Lee, he welcomed my request that we give the wooden box close scrutiny. He asked if we would keep him informed if we found that it is connected to any known ‘names’ or radical elements, and that means I owe Rodney an apology.”
“Apology, Sir? What for?”
“Well Rodney, seeing that I was the one who requested we follow up on the wooden box, then I’m the one responsible for the fact that you are going to sit through hours of speed camera tapes searching for the truck that carried the transformer away from the building site in Liverpool.”
Ben waited a moment until the groans had subsided before he chuckled at him and continued.
“Come on. Who else gets paid for watching T.V? You know the trucks departure point and where the cameras are situated. You have a description of the transformer truck and the approximate times.”
Ben then turned his attention to Rodgers and gave him directions.
“Alan, I want you to have another talk to the transport driver who made the delivery to Liverpool. Have him concentrate on the fork lift truck, then test the memories of the people at the building site itself? Find out if anyone in the houses or buildings opposite remembers anything of it? Those who are behind this venture must have bought it from someone; it may even have been registered. Check out fork lift truck registration transfers back as far as a month before Walters’s arrival in the country.”
The two detectives turned to leave Ben’s office and then stopped. “Rodney.”
“Yes, Boss.”
“Is Cooper’s mobile turned on?”
Rodney Anderson reached into his jacket pocket and lifted out the surveillance phone. He looked at it, and then slid the switch at its side into the ‘ON’ position.
“Sorry, Sir.”
“Stay on the ball Rodney. After all, if those two women need back up, I’m sure that you would want to be the first on the scene wouldn’t you, and act on Miss Booth’s behalf maybe?” Ben suggested as an almost undetectable smile touched his lips.
“But Sir, I’m a happily married man.” A slightly embarrassed Rodney Anderson replied before he joined Rodgers. As they went, Anderson quietly said to Rodgers, “He doesn’t miss a thing Alan, doesn’t miss a thing.”
CHAPTER 15