Harris watched the confrontation with a look of amusement. Elvis finally sat, face like a hatchet.
'We need to re-interview the man in the car with Manzi when he was killed,' Jardine continued. 'What was his name, Harris?'
'Jamaal Mahmoud,' Jill answered instead, all ears again.
'Yeah,' said Jardine, 'that's him. He told Harris that he didn't see who hit him. Said he was getting out of the car when he was hit from behind and reckons he must've fallen back in. Problem is, forensics say the blood pattern from the wound at the back of his head doesn't match his story.'
'We're wondering why he would lie,' said Harris.
Jill decided it was time to bring Honey into the picture.
'Mahmoud is a long-term associate of Sebastian. An employee, as far as we can determine. Their connection extends back at least a decade, probably longer.'
Jill then told the group Honey's story, adding that she'd also seen Sebastian visiting Jamaal in hospital after the attack.
'Don't you think you could have told us that earlier?' Harris said.
'Jamaal hadn't come up yet. I was going to.' Her tone was defensive. Truth was, she felt protective of Honey and did not want these men interrogating her.
The meeting wound down soon after, with Jardine setting a preliminary division of jobs for each member of the taskforce.
As she walked from the room with her partner, Jill could feel Elvis's eyes burning into her back. Mercy willed her eyes to stay open, but her lids prickled and took longer to re-open following each blink. She gazed, dry-eyed and unfocused, at her 4 p.m. patient, Lynette Balaqua. Lynette cried quietly as she spoke again about the breakdown of her marriage.
'I really think you should be getting some more sleep, Dr Merris.' Her patient sounded offended. Mercy was shocked to find herself opening her eyes.
'I'm so sorry, Lyn. I haven't been well. I'm really very sorry. I've never done that before.'
Mercy saw her disgruntled patient from her room and sat back in her recliner. She looked around the office. This was all meaningless. She stood and made her way to her desk, gathered up her handbag and keys.
She turned at the sound of a polite rap on the door.
'Mercy, a word?'
Noah. She forced a smile to her lips.
'Actually, Noah, I find myself unwell, and have decided to leave for the day.'
'You haven't been well for a while, Mercy. It's being noticed around here, and I'm beginning to worry.'
'Well you needn't, Noah.' She dropped the smile, and made her way towards the door. 'I'm taking some time off. I won't be in again this month.'
'But what about our work, our sessions?'
'I'm stopping for a while. I said I'm sick.'
She tried to get past him to leave. He moved slightly, blocking more of the door.
'Have you told anyone?'
'I'll call Carole when I get home. Now please, Noah. I will be fine, but I really would like to go home now.'
'I'll drive you, you're not well.'
'Really, I will be fine with some more sleep. I insist you let me out of my room please.' Her voice carried now.
Dr Noah Griffen stood back, surprised, and watched his protege walk down the hall.
He was still standing there five minutes later when a cleaning woman walked past.
'All right there, Dr Griffen?' she asked him, smiling.
'Yes, yes, Joan.' He smiled back. 'I hope so.'
37
The taskforce had agreed to split the murder sites between them, and Jill was pleased to be travelling out to Leichhardt alone. She could have waited until morning, of course – she knew the rest of the team would – but she didn't feel like going home right now. The onset of autumn was definitely getting to her.
The afternoon light was beautiful but the exquisite golden sunshine evoked more melancholy than pleasure for her. She wanted to be as far away from Elvis as possible when she felt this way. Vulnerable. Like the door to her heart had been blown open by the turn in the weather. She'd have to work harder to close it.
She drove into the street in which Crabbe had lived, and pulled in to the kerb in front of his house. A large townhouse, freestanding, Jill could see that it had been split into four apartments; the crime scene tape across the door on the left marked Crabbe's former residence. A wall had been built between the two front doors to stop the occupants having to greet one another every day unless they felt like it. Left of Crabbe's door, shrubbery shielded the house from a small park – a narrow strip of greenery with one bench and a small swing set.
As she was gathering together her notebook and camera, and an empty box in which to collect evidence, a couple in sweats and sneakers walked past, out doing their afternoon exercise. They threw an offended glance towards the homicide house. People in this neighbourhood were highly sensitive about anything that could affect property prices. If they'd recently bought into the area, they likely shouldered ridiculous levels of debt, and didn't want their neighbourhood associated with crime.
The forensics team was finished with the house, and had given her the okay to go through it. She'd picked up a key to the flat and a just-faxed copy of their report before leaving Central. The killer was right-handed. They'd confirmed that, as with the other sites, there were no fingerprints, just smooth gloved smudges. She let herself into the flat and snakes of blood screamed at her from the walls. She shuddered. It didn't surprise her that no-one had yet been around to clean up. Crabbe had no close family, and chances were that professional cleaners, paid for by the real estate agents, would get the job of washing away what was left of Wayne Crabbe's life.
Neighbourhood smells of jasmine and roast lamb couldn't mask the metallic odour of blood in the doorway. Jill imagined Crabbe here, fighting for his life two nights before. Superimposed over the scene in front of her was the image from the photo this morning. Whoever took it must have been standing just about here, she thought.
The excessive violence betrayed the killer's emotion. Crabbe had died of stab wounds to the lungs, neck and stomach, and his face had then been smashed beyond recognition. The medical examiner was fairly certain that he'd been dead, or close to it, from the stab wounds when the bashing began. Jill tried to imagine someone standing right here, hammering down on the face of an unconscious or dead man at their feet. Blow after blow with some heavy, metal weapon, pulverising bone and flesh in a feverish bloodbath in an otherwise quiet suburban street.
Detectives from Leichhardt had interviewed the owners of the two upstairs units, and both had denied hearing anything that woke them from their sleep; the murder took place sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. The unit next door was currently for lease. Jill could see the proprietor having difficulty renting both of the bottom floor units for some time to come. By law in New South Wales, agents were compelled to advise people if the last occupant of a home had been murdered. People steered clear of the ghosts.
She put her equipment on the floor, avoiding the dried blood pools, and walked a little further into the house, her footsteps loud in the silence. She shivered; wrapped her arms around her ribs. A quiet click from the kitchen propelled her heart into her throat and her hand to the gun at her waist. Almost immediately, she recognised the sound as the refrigerator humming through a new cycle, and she forced herself to reduce her grip on the handle of her firearm. She didn't put it back in its holster.
The floorboards in the hallway were bare. A dilapidated sofa, the colour of vomit, was positioned in front of a no-name widescreen TV. Other furnishings were minimal, and the perfunctory curtains were open. There was a clear view of the swing set in the park next door. Jill would be willing to bet that this outlook had influenced Crabbe's decision to lease the unit.