In the blur of confusion and bright lights, police in tactical response gear stepped out from the shadows. Angus appeared, talking on a radio, calling an end to the procedure.

Stevie’s cry of surprise rapidly turned into a night-shattering cackle, part relief and part sheer delight. She doubled over, consumed by howling gulps of laughter, not even trying to stifle what everyone would think was an overreaction to the stress of the re-enactment. Then Barry saw it and joined her with his own guffaws. Even Angus couldn’t suppress a smile as he scooped the dislodged toupee from a puddle of water.

Stevie’s gaze turned to her ‘assailant’. James De Vakey was rubbing his jaw. He gingerly reached for his head, his expression of shock turning into one of embarrassed horror.

She was gripped by another fit of laughter. Even with her eyes closed, she could still see printed in her mind the meagre fringe of hair and the gleam of the spotlight on the extensive bald patch.

‘That was a foolish thing to do,’ Angus said, hauling him to his feet and handing him his dripping accessory. De Vakey snatched the hairpiece from his hand and quickly pocketed it. ‘You of all people should have known how tense she would be in this situation.’

De Vakey rubbed the side of his head, keeping his eyes focused on the ground. ‘I thought it was over. I wanted to make sure she was okay.’

Stevie had never expected to hear De Vakey so rebuked or sound so embarrassed. She turned on her heel. They might not have caught the killer tonight but at least she’d accomplished something. The thought filled her with a satisfying warmth. Who was it that said that revenge was best served cold?

As she made her way back up Wellington Street with Angus, De Vakey called out, ‘Be careful, Stevie, he could still try, and it’ll be when you least expect it.’

Stevie made no reply. Only when she was sure she’d left her laughing fit in the alley did she trust herself to ask Angus how it all went.

‘The ABC director thinks the footage will be good. They’ll start showing it on TV tomorrow. Cuthbert doesn’t seem to have remembered anything, but someone else might. And as for the stake-out in the alley, well, it was worth a try, wasn’t it?’

Angus’s professional demeanour and his refrain from comment about the toupee almost started her off again. She grinned and nudged him in the ribs. ‘In more ways than one, eh?’

They’d just reached the tramp’s position by the skip when a blue Commodore pulled up alongside them. Baggly’s beady gaze slid down Stevie’s body in sync with his electronic side window.

‘Any luck?’ he asked.

Angus repeated what he’d told Stevie.

‘Good, it sounds as if the footage has come out well. We’ll need to scan the crowd shots carefully. Well done, Hooper.’ With an easy acceleration, his top-of-the-range Commodore purred away up the street.

At the same moment a mittened paw clawed at Angus’s coat sleeve. Angus looked at the derelict with uncharacteristic impatience; so far all he’d given them was a fast food bill.

‘That car, that car,’ Joshua Cuthbert said, pointing to Baggly’s disappearing taillights.

‘Well, what about it?’ Angus said.

‘Same car, different driver.’

Angus folded his arms and sighed.

The old man ignored Angus and said to Stevie, ‘I don’t know much love, but I know me cars.’

24

The investigator must examine the killer’s life within the context of cause and effect. Psychologists call this ‘Psychological determinism’.

De Vakey, The Pursuit of Evil

The van headlights swept across Baggly’s driveway through a mist of rain. Monty shrank behind the hibiscus bush to avoid the sliding beams, grateful for the camouflage his army jacket provided. After his altercation with Keyes and Thrummel, he’d spent the night under the freeway bridge near the river, barefoot and semiconscious. The first thing he’d done on waking was to find a public phone and ring Stevie. Then he’d called Wayne, who told him about the APB. He’d hung up immediately, realising that for the moment he’d have to give his friends, including Stevie, a wide berth. Until he could prove his suspicions correct, anyone found helping him would be putting their careers on the line.

Next he’d made his way to Dot’s where he explained only enough to convince her to tell no one of his visit. She let him use her shower and gave him a set of her husband’s clothes.

The borrowed boots pinched and Monty was stiff and sore from waiting for Baggly to come home. His muscles screamed in protest as he struggled to maintain his crouch, anxious to discover the identity of the van’s driver.

At last the lights clicked off, the van door opened, and Justin stepped into the carport. Monty unfolded his stiffening limbs and stood up as Justin was putting his key to the front door. Then the crunch of gravel in the driveway alerted him to the arrival of another car. He ducked back behind the bush and watched as Justin tentatively approached the visitor. Despite the uncharacteristically dishevelled hairstyle, there was no mistaking the angles of the face and the long, lean figure of James De Vakey illuminated by the front porch light.

Monty heard Justin say, ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr De Vakey. I’m afraid Dad’s not home yet, he’s still busy with the reenactment.’ ‘It’s all right, Justin, it’s you I wanted to see.’ De Vakey’s shadow loomed over the younger man.

‘Me?’ Justin’s voice cracked.

De Vakey patted him on the shoulder. ‘I got the impression from you the other day that there was something you wanted to discuss with me, something more important than just signing your books.’

‘Oh, that, yes, maybe. But now isn’t really a good time. Dad could be home any minute.’

‘Well, I think this problem you wanted to discuss might involve him anyway, am I right? Let’s go inside, out of the rain. We need to talk.’

Monty decided to hover in the darkness a while longer. De Vakey’s psychic antennae must have picked up on a problem with Justin that might provide Monty with some of the answers he needed. And Justin would probably find De Vakey easier to spill to than himself. The man was a pro, after all.

He waited for the front door to close before extracting himself once more. A light came on in the front room and he glimpsed them behind the net curtains before Justin drew the heavier drapes. Moving towards the window Monty pressed his ear against the glass, but could hear only the occasional word. This was getting him nowhere. He had to find a way to get in.

Baggly’s security system proved to be almost non-existent. Within seconds Monty had crept around the house, tripped the back door lock with his credit card and tiptoed through the kitchen to the front hallway.

He’d never been in the superintendent’s home before and was surprised at the contrast between this and his office. Here were no cabinets of fine china, leather Chesterfields and antique furniture. The furnishings were old and faded, a collection of odds and ends that could have come from an op-shop. The house had an unlived-in feel, the slight chemical tang in the air reminiscent more of an institution than a home. He’d suspected earlier that the fruits of Baggly’s corruption were not those of material gain and now he saw it for himself.

The voices of the men in the living room were clear now. He hugged the wall near the half-open door and listened.

De Vakey was saying, ‘It’s always encouraging for an author to get such positive feedback, but I feel your interest in my books is not just professional, maybe it involves something more personal. Am I correct?’

Monty could feel the magnetic pull of De Vakey’s voice even from where he stood.

The boy shifted in the stiff-backed chair. ‘You’re a psychologist. What people say to you is confidential?’