‘Oh Christ,’ Monty whispered, knowing the image of the gore-splattered profiler would stay with him for the rest of his life. He took De Vakey by the arms and pulled him to his feet. ‘You need to go to the bathroom and clean up,’ he said.

‘I should have stopped him,’ De Vakey gasped, pale with shock.

‘You couldn’t have stopped him, neither of us could. Now go and clean up. It’s obvious what happened here, we don’t need any more evidence.’

Monty turned away to find himself confronted by an equally disturbing sight. Justin was walking rigidly towards him up the hall with all the grace of a zombie.

‘Go wash up,’ Monty said to De Vakey before focusing his attention on Justin. ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ He looked at the boy and softened his voice. ‘I’m sorry, your father’s dead, son.’ Taking him by the arm, he guided him back into the living room.

‘It’s my fault, it’s my fault,’ Justin repeated over and over.

Monty sat next to him on the sofa, ready to hold him back if necessary. ‘I know this is a terrible shock for you,’ he began, ‘and it’s not over yet. I need to ask you some important questions. You have to clear your mind of this mess and answer me as best you can.’

Justin dropped his head in his hands. Monty took him by the shoulders and gave him a gentle shake. ‘Do you hear me, Justin?’

He took the choked sigh to indicate a yes and handed Justin his handkerchief. After allowing a few seconds for nose blowing, he took from his wallet a photo he’d found at Dot’s. ‘Do you know this man?’

Justin looked at the picture of Tye Davis for a moment, closed his eyes and nodded.

‘Who is he and how do you know him?’

‘Frank Dixon, he’s a friend of Dad’s. He sometimes comes over to the house. Sometimes Dad meets him at the old power station.’

Monty frowned ‘The power station?’

‘Dad has a key. The guy’s in demolition or something and was interested in looking around the building. Dad was hoping to get the council to contract Dixon into knocking it down once all the red tape has been cut through. He hates—hated—that power station.’

‘Can you tell me anything else about this Frank Dixon?’

Justin sniffed. ‘Dad used to act kind of funny when he came over, almost like he was scared of him. He had an old bomb of a car and sometimes Dad let him borrow his. Sometimes I had to let him use my van.’

‘When did you see him last?’

Justin was interrupted by De Vakey’s reappearance. ‘Phone call for you, Stevie’s mother.’ De Vakey handed Monty the phone and took his place on the sofa next to Justin. Monty stepped into the hallway.

‘Monty, is that you? You haven’t been answering your phone. Stevie’s was on the kitchen table and I got De Vakey’s number from it. I was hoping you’d be together.’ Dot spoke rapid fire, as if wanting to get the explanation over and done with.

‘Slow down, Dot. What’s the matter? Where’s Stevie?’

‘That’s the problem, I don’t know. I was asleep, she must have come home then gone out again, but she left her bag and phone behind. Her phone was switched off and the kitchen phone was off the hook. Tye came around earlier when she was out and said he’d return tomorrow. That’s all I remember. He’s trying to get custody of Izzy. Stevie didn’t want you to know. She didn’t want you to worry.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ Monty’s hand flew to his forehead. ‘Listen Dot, everything’s going to be okay.’ He pressed the phone so tight to his ear it hurt. ‘You stay with Izzy. I’ll send an officer to keep you company. I think I know where Stevie is and I’ll bring her back home.’

‘You sound awfully worried, Monty. Are you sure everything’s all right?’

‘Of course it is, but look, I’ve got to go.’

He punched the off button and rang Wayne, explained the situation and requested a team be sent to Baggly’s and another to the power station.

After finishing with Wayne, he instructed De Vakey and Justin to stay in the house and wait for the police. The whisky bottle was empty and they’d started on the gin. De Vakey was lying sprawled across the sofa, in no better shape than Justin. Monty could only hope they’d both be coherent when the police arrived.

25

The word psychopath was once widely used, but these days sociopath is the preferred term. All serial killers are sociopaths, but not all sociopaths are serial killers or murderers. Their common ground is a complete lack of empathy for their victims. One needs only to look at some of the world’s top businessmen to see how this is true.

James L De Vakey, (PUV Press, Sydney, 2006). ‘One man’s best-selling account of the hunt for Australia’s most notorious multiple murderer.’

Stevie was staring at a map of the old British Empire, or so she thought as she willed her eyes to focus on the shapes in front of her. But when the fog of unconsciousness began to lift and the map of the world cleared, she found herself staring at a red brick and plaster wall, lying on her side on a concrete floor with her hands and feet bound with duct tape.

Oh God, let this be a nightmare. But nightmares took place in the dark and she was surrounded by light, light so bright it made the glare of the chipped plaster wall hurt her eyes. She became aware of loud male voices talking above the chesty vibrations of a generator, felt the bite of carbon fumes in her lungs. Rolling onto her other side to find the source, she found her view of the room partially blocked by a twisted hunk of metal. Through the gaps she could see the solid legs of a wooden table and three pairs of shuffling feet.

‘I can’t believe you got away with this, you’re a fucking genius!’ The voice was familiar and deep, one of the creeps who’d tossed Monty’s flat—the older one, Keyes was it?

‘Told you you could count on me, didn’t I?’

Her flesh crawled at the sound of the second man’s voice. Smooth and controlled to a casual listener, only she could tell by the slight inflection how close Tye was to snapping.

‘Beauty, let’s have a look.’ The third voice belonged to Thrummel, the younger partner. What the hell was going on? Some kind of racket, no doubt, but how she’d ended up stuck in the middle of it she had no idea. For a moment, curiosity overcame her fear. She managed to twist herself up into a sitting position so she could peer through a higher gap.

She watched, hardly daring to breathe, and saw Thrummel dig his hands into a plastic holdall on the table, and lift them, letting the contents fall through his fingers. The generator muted the clunking of the nuggets but the light spearing from the cascading gold was unmistakable and flashed rapaciously in the eyes of all three men.

‘I’ve never seen so much gold,’ Thrummel said in awe.

‘It’s yours. Keep your mouths shut and there’ll be more in another couple of months.’

‘But how—’ Thrummel began.

Keyes cut him off, ‘Shut it, Thrummel. We don’t want to know, okay?’ Then he turned to Tye. ‘No more killings, there’s been enough killings. I hope you’ve put that Hooper chick out of your mind now, you were pushing the envelope there.’

Stevie drew a silent breath. No, this couldn’t be. Tye wasn’t behind the killings, he had an alibi, she was hearing this wrong. Tye was a lot of things, gold thief, obviously, but not a murderer. She screwed up her eyes, attempting to block the thought: the father of my child is not a murderer.

Tye smiled. ‘Laid to rest, mate. Just a temporary moment of insanity.’

‘Yeah well, it’s too bad those others had to get knocked off before you came to your senses.’

‘The Birkby woman had to be silenced, you know that, she was about to pull the carpet right from under us,’ Tye said. ‘Hell, you bitched enough about the interrogation she put you through, the non stop hassling, the phone calls day and night.’