car and headed west.
Despite the new developments, there were many questions that remained unanswered and still next to no direct evidence that pointed at anyone other than Craig Thoms. Nelson checked his watch and accelerated as he joined the traffic on the M4. He decided that the Crenshaw case would have to wait, and that his immediate priority was to locate Manuel Torres before the Foglianis or anyone else did.
Chapter 45
In hindsight it seemed ridiculous. Manuel Torres searched his memory for ideas on how he could find Kylie and apart from ringing her mobile phone – which she wasn’t answering - he had no idea. He didn’t know where she lived apart from it being in an apartment somewhere east of the city. They had been together for six weeks and he had never been to her place. She had told him she was renovating and that he could see it when it was finished. It sounded perfectly reasonable at the time so he didn’t question it. He didn’t know where she worked either, other than it was somewhere in the city. She had rarely talked about her work and when she did he normally tuned out through lack of interest or it went straight over his head.
After dealing with his would-be captors and finally getting home just before midnight, he spent the remainder of the night lying on his bed chewing panadol while his calf beat like a jungle drum. He assumed he had a few hours grace before possibly receiving any further visitors but had his hand gun on his bedside table in readiness just in case. Kylie had told him to throw it in the harbour where no-one would find it but now he was glad that he’d kept it. He was exhausted and he tried to sleep but his mind kept thinking about her. Although he loved her, he realised he knew very little about her. As he remembered and analysed their time together he recalled that on the few occasions he’d asked her about a personal topic, she had gently deflected his questions, and distracted him with her physical presence in some way, which was an easy enough thing to do.
He desperately wanted to talk to her and get her to explain why it couldn’t possibly have been her who had sold him out because she loved him and would never hurt him, but in the back of his mind his doubts were spreading. As far as he knew, apart from himself, only two other people had known about the time and the location of the hit he carried out on Emilio Fogliani. One of them was Bruno Trulli, a man who he owed his life to and who he would willingly give his life for, and the other was Kylie.
Manuel felt certain that Bruno would have maintained his silence because it had been his idea to kill Emilio Fogliani in the first place. Bruno had worked tirelessly for the Fogliani family for twenty-five years and was repaid for his service and loyalty by Emilio Fogliani raping his nineteen year old daughter late one night in the kitchen of Pellegrinos after Bruno had gone home. His daughter had been so traumatised by the event that she refused to report it to anyone, so Bruno had also remained quiet and devised another way of seeking retribution. He had lured Emilio to St Peters on the false presumption that he would be meeting one of his mistresses for a secret rendezvous. It had been an easy enough thing to achieve as Emilio had never been particularly discreet with his numerous affairs. Bruno had everything to lose if his part in the murder was discovered.
So that only left Kylie. He shook his head in disbelief at the possibility that what they had together wasn’t real. A hot rage began to simmer mindlessly inside him and yet it was tempered by his confusion and doubt. He vowed to find her and find out the truth once and for all.
The next morning, despite the soreness of his calf muscle, which felt as though someone was jabbing a fork into it with every step he took, he walked the streets of the city looking for her. It was all he could think to do. He pulled the hood of his jacket to cover his head in search of anonymity, just in case. After several hours of fruitless and pointless searching, scanning the myriad of faces on the street, he decided to go to Nero’s Lounge and Bar because it was the only place he knew she frequented. On the night that he had killed Emilio Fogliani, he had taken a quick glance in there and seen her there, laughing with her friends. Finding her here again seemed a long shot, but it was all he had.
He sat drinking beer after sullen beer in a quiet corner at the rear of the bar and waited. He watched the people who came in and went out the front door and kept to himself. At around six p.m. a couple entered the bar and his heart skipped a beat as he recognised their faces.
Manuel Torres struggled with his self-control over the next hour while they chatted and laughed together. He sipped another beer and watched them under hooded eyes as the bar began to fill and the evening outside darkened. Eventually his patience was rewarded and they left together. Manuel followed them, his face set in a grim mask, the pain in his calf dulled, and mind swimming recklessly, from an afternoon of drinking beer. After a short walk they appeared to say their goodbyes to each other and went their separate ways. Manuel followed fifty metres behind her, his eyes burning holes in her back. He waited for the right time to approach her, somewhere quiet, somewhere where there would be little chance of being disturbed while they talked.
Fifteen minutes later, Manuel saw her turn into a block of apartments. His calf had stiffened considerably during the walk and the renewed pain throbbed loudly throughout his entire leg as if it had its own heart. He heard the jingle of keys as she checked her mail box and then made her way upstairs, her heels echoing loudly on each step. Manuel quietly followed, closer now, close enough that he could smell her perfume, which he breathed in deeply.
As Jennifer Nolan unlocked the door of her apartment, Manuel loomed up quick and large behind her. He placed one hand around her mouth and the other tightly, cruelly, around her waist picking her up in the process. He pushed her forward into the apartment, bearing her slim body to the ground beneath his and flicked the door closed with his foot.
Chapter 46
Upon his arrival back at Headquarters Nelson threw himself into finding out everything he could about Manuel Torres. He checked the criminal history database and got a full printout of his record including several photographs from various angles. Nelson studied the pictures that were on file and compared them to computerised likenesses of the mystery triggerman that had been provided by Natalie Bassett and Craig Thoms. Neither likeness was particularly accurate, however Craig Thoms’ image showed some resemblance to the tone of his brown skin, his high cheekbones and squarish jaw. Nelson noted that the file photographs of Manuel Torres were taken upon his arrest some eight years ago, when Manuel had been only eighteen and reasoned that he may have changed quite a lot in the ensuing years.
The file on Manuel Torres’ criminal history was surprisingly short as he appeared to have spent almost all of his adult life in the maximum security wing of the Goulburn prison for manslaughter. Nelson phoned the Corrective Services department and asked them to send him a list of names of those people who had visited Manuel Torres during his period of incarceration. He used all his powers of persuasion on the clerk on the other end of the line to encourage a quick turnaround. While he waited, he studied Manuel Torres’ file in an effort to gain an understanding of the man he was now hunting. To Nelson’s pleasure and surprise the fax from Corrective Services arrived within thirty minutes. He read it eagerly and scanned the list for the name of Kylie Faulkner, but didn’t find it. That would have been too easy, he thought to himself. Manuel had received very few visitors during his period of incarceration, however the name of Bruno Trulli appeared several times. Nelson was certain he had seen or heard that name somewhere before, but couldn’t quite place it as he stared up at the office ceiling, trying to force his mind to divulge its deeply buried knowledge.
Like an energetic hound on the trail of a fox he ran the scent to ground. He again searched the criminal record database and found that Bruno Trulli had no criminal record. Slightly confused but still determined, he Googled the name on the Internet. The search pulled up almost one hundred hits on Bruno Trulli, the first of which was an article on a website that contained back copies of a local newspaper. The article was a 2010 review of a restaurant in the city named Pellegrinos. Nelson vaguely recalled having dined there a few times a couple of years ago, with a pretty blonde girl named Susan who hadn’t hung around for long before moving on. The article named Bruno Trulli as the long serving maitre’d of Pellegrinos. Nelson thought briefly for a moment then smiled knowingly and felt a rush of excitement and adrenalin as he recalled that Pellegrinos was one of the restaurants the Fogliani family owned. He laughed aloud - which drew quizzical looks from the surrounding desks – as he realised he had found another small but important missing piece of the puzzle and was now perilously close to filling in the complete picture.
Nelson knew he’d had a good morning. He hoped that he had put an identity to the mystery triggerman that
