He also noted the name of the officer who had made the latest file note - Sergeant John Soward. Nelson pondered the name for a moment, swishing it around in his mind to get a taste of it.
“Now there’s a blast from the past,” he said to himself.
Chapter 30
Detective Robards led Craig Thoms and his solicitor Martin Warnock from the holding cells up to the interview room. Warnock’s lips were pursed paper thin tight in annoyance at having next to no time to prepare for another interview. Thanks to the slow weekend bail court proceedings, his client had only been returned to his holding cell at around four-thirty p.m. after having spent most of the afternoon at the Parramatta Local court, waiting for his case to be heard. When his turn had finally arrived the Magistrate took all of five minutes to summarily reject his bail application, much to his solicitor’s chagrin. Warnock had spent hours preparing a noble speech on natural justice and wrongful confinement and had only got through the first few pages of it before the Magistrate tired of it, silenced him with a wave of his hand and denied the application. As a result of bail having been denied, Craig was due to be transferred to the Silverwater Correctional Facility on the seven p.m. shuttle. It was not something he was looking forward to.
Nelson was already waiting for them when they arrived, thumbing his way slowly through the hard copy of the case file that was already a half inch thick and growing rapidly. Robards sat Craig down heavily in a chair and took a seat straight across the small table from him.
“Right Mr Thoms, thanks for coming,” Robards said, smiling at his own little joke. “Let me start by telling you that I’ve been looking into your life a little bit and I must say that I’m impressed, but not in a good way.” Robards went on to document the conversations he’d had with Craig’s colleagues at the hospital which elicited no response from him or his solicitor. Robards then mentioned his conversation with Craig’s previous employer, John Carmichael.
“Carmichael said you were sacked because you were stealing stock, probably to feed your drug habit I’d bet,” said Robards grinning.
“I don’t do drugs and I didn’t steal from Carmichael,” retorted Craig indignantly. It had been a long and exhausting day preceded by a sleepless night and he felt like he was running on empty. He took a deep breath and tried to muster his last reserves of calm. “I only borrowed a few things to use in the stalking. I was gonna return the stuff the next day but Carmichael noticed they were missing. Ask Bryce, he knew. He was a part of it as well. I took the blame cos’ I didn’t think there was any point in both of us getting sacked.”
“You took the blame for it did you? That’s big of you.”
“And Carmichael had it in for me anyway.”
“Did he? Maybe that was because you were always hassling him for money to invest in the porn site you wanted to start up?”
“Oh for fuck sake it wasn’t about porn,” snapped Craig, casting aside his short lived calm as his raw nerves were again raked by Robards. Martin Warnock placed a hand on Craig’s forearm to try and calm him and maybe get him to think first, for once, about what he said before committing it to the record for all time, but it had no effect.
“I was going to sell security equipment on the internet. You know, like nanny cams, listening devices, GPS trackers and stuff like that. It’s all the rage these days. I was just looking for a partner with some contacts in the industry and a bit of cash to help with the start up costs, that’s all. You’re trying to twist everything that happened.”
“And this is all just hearsay and conjecture,” piped up Warnock bravely.
Robards ignored him. “Come on Craig. You’re among friends. Why don’t you stop playing games with us and tell us what really happened that night.” Robards waited theatrically for a response but got nothing but a sullen glare from Craig.
“Alright then, let me again go over what we’ve got on you. We’ve got the bloodstained gloves with your fingerprints on them and we’ve got video of you, and the footprints which are a match with your boots, all of which places you at the scene of the crime at the time of the crime. We’ve got missing drugs at the hospital with everyone pointing the finger at you, we’ve got an ex-employer, a retired police Sergeant no-less, who says you were fired for stealing and who thinks you’re a scumbag. And to top it off, you’ve got a criminal record for a couple of assault charges and DUIs and there’s an unsolved vehicular double fatality that lists you as a prime suspect. Now am I making all this up? Am I twisting all this like you said, just to make you look bad, because if I’ve got it wrong somewhere I want you to tell me.”
Craig made no effort to correct him and sat quietly pondering his future, which was looking bleaker by the minute. Robards continued his assault, his voice louder, booming around the small room, leaning forward so that their faces were separated by only a distance of fifty centimtres. “Now I’m no expert on human behaviour, but I reckon if we put all this in front of a jury, it’s not going to take them very long to find you guilty. So why don’t you just save everyone some time here, tell us what happened and tell us where the murder weapon is.” Robards slammed his hand down on the table for emphasis resulting in the pint sized Martin Warnock visibly jumping in his seat.
“Detective, let me suggest that my client’s past issues have nothing to do with this case and would be inadmissible in court.”
Robards turned toward him as if noting his presence for the first time. Warnock tried to bravely match Robards threatening glare but had to look away after a few seconds.
Nelson took a deep breath and sighed.
“Look, Mr Thoms, if you want us to help you, you need to give us something here. You don’t have to be a genius to understand that right now it’s not looking too good for you.”
Craig looked at Nelson who met his eyes and stared back unemotionally.
A strained look came across Craig’s face.
“I didn’t do this. What else can I say? What do you want me to do?”
“I want you to be straight with us right here and right now. You claim you were set up, well if that’s true then you must have some idea about who would do that and why. Who the hell would hate you this much to go to all this trouble?”
Craig sat in silence for thirty seconds as he weighed his meager options. He knew he had enemies, everyone did, but by revealing them he would no doubt dig himself into a hole. Still, he judged that it probably wouldn’t be as deep as the hole he was already in, charged with murder and facing a likely twenty years in jail. He shook his head and wondered how his life had all gone so badly wrong and which god he had pissed off along the way. He felt he had been backed into the tightest of corners and the only person standing behind him was his skinny sexually agnostic solicitor, which did little to comfort him. He looked at Warnock for guidance and received a small nod of ascension. Warnock knew the case was going to hell and he was going along for the ride.
“Ok,” Craig began. “I have taken drugs from the hospital.” Martin Warnock emitted a small groan as his case went from a seventy-five percent chance of being a loser to about ninety-five percent at the utterance of those seven words.
“Tell us about it Craig,” said Nelson. “Tell us everything, for your own sake.”
Craig Thoms met Nelson’s even stare. He began to tell them about the drugs he had taken and how he had on-sold them to a man named Harvey Petersham. He had met Harvey when he had also worked at the hospital as an orderly, before he had been later fired for stealing from patients. With his access cut off, Harvey had approached Craig and asked him to obtain the drugs for him. He admitted that the money on offer had been too good to say no to, so he had agreed. Harvey had provided him master keys for most of the drug lockers in the hospital and instructions on what drugs to focus on.
“It was only ever going to be a temporary thing,” Craig offered in consolation. “Just until I got enough money together to start up the website. I was almost there too. I told Harvey that I was finished when I met him on Wednesday night.”
“How did he take that?” asked Nelson.
“He wasn’t happy. In fact he was off his nut. Harvey’s only a weed but he claimed his friends wouldn’t be happy with me cutting off their supply.”
“I knew it. I fucking knew it.” Robards laughed out loud, slapping his knee with genuine exuberance, unable
