to contain his elation. “It all makes sense.”
“Oh? And how’s that?” asked Craig, sneering and cocking his head to one side.
“Well I don’t know why I need to explain it to you, but I will anyway. Firstly, you get this shit-brained idea about starting up the porn site or whatever you want to call it, but you need money. You try and hit up old Carmichael but he tells you to get stuffed, so you steal a bit of his equipment and probably flog it off to your friends on the side. Then you get caught and get sacked and start working at the hospital. You still need money so you start flogging drugs and medicines from the hospital and reselling them to this Petersham guy, but then you hit the jackpot. While you’re out stalking with your mates last Friday, you got lucky enough to follow some dealer to St Peters where you saw money change hands between the guy you were following and Emilio Fogliani. You waited until the coast was clear and then you waltzed up to the car and put three bullets into Fogliani and made off with the proceeds. Too freakin easy. It all makes perfect sense and we’ve got all the evidence we need to prove it.”
“I didn’t do it,” Craig yelled back savagely. “There was no drug deal and I didn’t kill Fogliani.”
Nelson studied his face looking for any sign that he was lying. “I’m being straight with you,” he said almost pleading, his lank oily brown hair falling across his face.
“Ok Craig, let’s start at the beginning again. Try and remember anything you left out.”
Craig Thoms told his story again, trying to squeeze every ounce of detail from his memory. He kept his eyes on Nelson and tried to believe that he was trying to help him. He needed to believe.
************
“Oh come on,” yelled Robards, his anger and frustration boiling over, his arms pointing to the heavens in search of divine help. “Most of the idiots we arrest claim they’ve been set up don’t they? It’s the standard fucking response to getting arrested. ‘Someone set me up. The cops planted the evidence’,” he mimicked in a sarcastic voice. “It’s always the same tune so why should Thoms play it any differently? It’s the best excuse in the world.” Robards’ small, deep-set blue eyes flashed fire as he challenged Nelson. “But what I don’t get is why you’re listening to him? I mean what is it about him that makes you believe, even for an instant, that he was set up? The evidence is so strong and it points straight at him.”
The interview had ended five minutes earlier and when Robards returned to the interview room after escorting Craig and his solicitor back to his cell, his anger had fissured its way to the surface.
“It’s not that I believe him,” answered Nelson evenly, trying to counter Robards with calmness and control. “I just want to be sure he’s guilty, and despite all the evidence, I’m still not convinced. There’s no GSR on his clothes or on the gloves. There’s no murder weapon, there is no motive apart from your assumption that it was a robbery and there is no real history of violence with this guy,” he said, ticking off his reasons on his fingers. “There are still major holes in this case and as I’ve said before I don’t want to get to court and have some smart arse lawyer pull our case to pieces because they looked harder at this than we did.”
“It’s not going to happen. No-one is going to get him off because he’s guilty,” returned Robards emphatically as he stormed around the small room. “The evidence is all there. We found it.”
“I know, but it’s not enough. I need to keep looking at it until I’m satisfied.”
“And what about Crighton and VanMerle? What’re they going to make of this?”
“I don’t care what they make of it,” snapped Nelson, feeling the last of his patience evaporate. “I’m going to keep looking at this case until I’m convinced that Craig Thoms did it or I prove that someone else did, and I don’t care what agendas anyone else has.” Nelson stood up and looked Robards squarely in the eyes, their faces only inches apart. “I’m the lead Detective on this case and what I say goes ok?”
“This case is fast becoming a fucking joke,” snarled Robards. He stormed out of the room, slamming the door violently behind him. The vibrations stung Nelson’s body and pounded on his ear drums. It took all of his remaining self-control not to go after him and start something he would no doubt later regret. He sat back down at the table, feeling the heat and redness of the argument in his face and tried to relax his breathing. After five minutes he felt sufficiently calm to return his attention to the case. He reviewed the notes he had taken from the interview. Loose ends glared at him from every direction and plagued his thoughts. He sighed loudly, snapped close the case file and headed back to his desk.
Chapter 31
The traffic was light and Nelson made good time as he aggressively sliced through the traffic, albeit not as quickly as when he had first sped to the crime scene in the early morning hours of the previous day. He was yet to meet a traffic cop yet who wouldn’t let a fellow officer off, even though he’d tested their patience on several occasions.
His slanging match with Robards came at the end of a long day and it was a signal to him that he needed to take a break from the case and from Robards. He was annoyed for having let Robards get to him and berated himself harshly for not staying calmer in the face of the Robards’ tirade. A dark mood descended on him like a heavy curtain and negative thoughts about the case and the people involved in it swam into his mind.
He thought about Craig Thoms, who would be about to embark on his shuttle ride to Silverwater Prison and felt the weight of his life in his hands. He knew he would only let Craig Thoms go if he could convince himself of his guilt. Although the evidence was compelling, he was unable to do this and the thought of being the lead Detective in a case where an innocent man might be convicted of murder chewed him up like acid in his guts.
He pulled his car into the driveway of his rented Brighton LeSands house. It was only a few hundred metres from the Bay. Unlike some of the McMansions that neighboured him, it was a plain looking, single level house and the rent which he split with his buddy and fellow officer Damian Polak, was very reasonable for the location. Polak worked at the Randwick Police Station and their differing shifts meant they often didn’t cross paths for a week. Polak had gone through the Academy with Nelson sixteen years ago and was one of the few people Nelson counted as a close friend.
Nelson squeezed past his Cobra kit car replica that took prize position under the single carport and made his way inside the house. He checked the house in search of Polak but found it empty and quiet and remembered that he’d gone to a mate’s house to play cards. Nelson gave a moments thought to going to the cards night but decided against it as he knew he was verging on exhaustion and couldn’t take yet another late night. He threw off his work clothes and put on a pair of tracksuit pants and a t-shirt. He went to the lounge room and slumped into the couch. He wished there was someone else there, someone he could talk to about normal stuff to take his mind off things but there was no-one. There had been other housemates who had come and gone over time and there had been women in Nelson’s life who had also come and gone. He felt like calling one of them up for some much needed female company but decided against it. None of them had been able to overcome the callouts, the nightshifts and the baggage that came hand in hand with police work and none of the relationships had developed into anything sufficiently significant to compel Nelson to put their needs ahead of his work.
He went to the kitchen, ignored the mess in the sink because he didn’t make it and reached for one of the litre bottles of Johnny Walker on the shelf above the stove. He poured himself a generous shot and added some coke zero. While he was working he liked to limit his drinking, in an effort to keep his mind sharp and engaged, but made an exception for himself on this night. He often made exceptions. He swallowed deeply and felt the familiar and welcome burn begin to seep through his body and the anxiousness begin to fade as it was searched out and neutralised by the drink.
He refilled his glass and sat alone in the lounge room. Through the haze of the alcohol his mind returned to the case and he jotted some notes on a pad as he planned his next moves. He reasoned that if Craig was innocent then someone had gone to a lot of trouble to set him up and he needed to focus on finding out who that person was. If it was a setup then the killing of Emilio Fogliani was not a random or opportunistic act - like Robards wanted to believe - but was planned, and unseen links somehow connected Craig’s and Fogliani’s fates together.
As he thought more deeply about the case, something about it began to nag and itch at his subconscious. The feeling that he was overlooking something teased his senses, but the more he tried to focus on it the more elusive it became. After trying for a while to force it into the sunlight, he ignored it and thought about other things, until through lack of attention, it finally revealed itself towards the end of his sixth drink. He knew then what his next move needed to be.
