Craig glowered at her under a heavy brow. “We’re all in this together and we’ve all got something to lose if we get dragged into this. We do nothing.”
Chapter 8
It was seven minutes past two in the morning. All was quiet, apart from a noise that kept repeating, nagging, distracting dreams. A phone ringing. As his consciousness struggled to the surface to breath he became aware that the phone was not part of his dream. An eye finally opened, registered the time on the old clock radio beside his bed. He was of medium build, yet strongly put together but not in a pretty, waxed, gym junkie way. He was thirty-five. He sat up and turned the bedside table lamp on, causing momentary blindness which he shielded his eyes from. He turned the lamp on because he guessed what was coming. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he wouldn’t be going back to bed and also knew from past experience that remaining in a prone position after finishing a call often resulted in him falling back asleep. He had never quite got used to working nights.
The phone waited patiently for him while he rubbed his eyes. There was no voicemail to offer respite after ten rings or so, you either answered it or you accepted the consequences of missing the call. Earlier in the night he had partaken in a few celebratory beers, give or take several, and now he was beginning to regret it, a little. It had been a slow and tedious week, mostly spent at the Central Local court in the city waiting to give evidence at the long winded trial of a case that had been laboriously dragged through the courts for several years. The guilty verdict of murder, that had been returned by the jurors within two hours of the case being wrapped up had been a relief to all involved except the accused and his lawyer and had been the trigger for the celebration. The case had been particularly traumatic on the Homicide detectives involved. Two young children had been abducted on their way home from primary school and found murdered a week later. The accused murderer was a sixty-five year old neighbour of the children who had used his relationship with the family to lure the children away. All of the detectives involved in the case had been sickened to the core by the abuse of trust and calculated deception of the old man and were hopeful that when sentencing was handed down it would be sufficiently lengthy to ensure the offender would end his days on Earth in a small prison cell.
After nearly twenty rings, he finally reached for his mobile and flipped it open.
“Nelson here.” He didn’t bother trying to hide his grogginess, anyone answering the phone at two a.m. sounded groggy.
“Detective Sergeant Nelson, it’s Detective Superintendent Crighton here. I’m sorry to wake you.”
Nelson didn’t think he sounded particularly sorry and also thought it absurd that anyone would think it necessary to be so formal at that time of the morning. Detective Superintendent John Crighton was the Commander of the Homicide squad. He was a humourless and ambitious late forty-something year old who had made a career as a ‘yes man’ to those above him on the food chain.
“Something has come up and I want you on top of it asap.”
Nelson momentarily wondered why the hell he was speaking to Crighton instead of the usual suspects who normally woke him up in the middle of the night. He also wondered why anyone was calling him at all because as far as his hazy mind could recall he was just at the beginning of three days off after having worked the previous seven straight. He briefly wondered if he was still asleep and dreaming, such was the strangeness of the situation.
“I’m not the duty Detective tonight,” he said flatly.
“I’m aware of that Detective Sergeant, but I require your services nonetheless.”
Nelson decided to give in for the time being. From previous experience he knew that Crighton had a habit of getting his way.
“What’s going on boss?” he said through a yawn.
“Are you familiar with the Fogliani family, Detective?”
“Yes.”
“Well Emilio Fogliani has just been found dead, shot in his car in the industrial area near Sydney Park in St Peters.”
Nelson’s mind shrugged off its veil of fog and through force of will became alert as he tried to remember what he knew about the Fogliani name. It was reasonably well known in Sydney for mostly the wrong reasons, as a quick Google search could prove. Emilio Fogliani and his brother Angelo immigrated to Australia in 1960 as eighteen and twenty year olds with their parents. Their father had a long association with criminal gangs back in the old country and had brought his boys up on a diet of violence and crime. Arriving in Australia the boys immediately put their skills to good use and wreaked havoc in the city in the seventies and eighties, building up quite an empire by utilising a mixture of standover tactics, drug distribution and generally well organised and occasionally violent, robberies of jewelry stores and homes. Perhaps for all his sins, Angelo Fogliani died in 1997 from a seemingly innocent car accident and since that time the remaining family had given every impression of being just another tax minimising upper class Sydney family.
“I see. Any other information?” Nelson asked.
“It’s a bit sketchy at the moment. I want you and Detective Robards to meet me at the crime scene in thirty minutes.” Crighton provided Nelson with the address.
Nelson stared sadly at the phone as the line went dead, lamenting the probable loss of his days off. He sighed and then searched through the names stored on his mobile and placed a call.
“Hello, Pete Robards speaking.”
Nelson was slightly disappointed that Robards sounded chirpy, too chirpy, as if he hadn’t even gone to sleep, as if it was two p.m. and not two a.m.. In the background, Nelson heard the voice of a woman and realised with mild jealousy that Robards must have had some success in pursuing the quarry he had had his eye on when Nelson left him earlier in the night.
“It’s Nelson. Crighton just called me. He’s got a job for us.”
“Crighton called you? What’s going on?” responded Robards immediately. Robards was something of an annoying revelation to Nelson. When he initially joined Nelson’s squad six months previously, Nelson could barely hide his amazement that this twenty-six year old ‘kid’ held the rank of Detective Senior Constable and had secured a placement in the highly sought after and elite Homicide Squad ranks. In time however, Nelson came to understand how Robards had risen through the ranks so rapidly and seemed earmarked for future success. Despite his second-rower appearance, he had a sharp and agile mind. He also possessed some career enhancing character traits that Nelson didn’t, like the ability not to piss people off and always remembering to give a generous serving of respect and deference to his superiors, including Superintendent Crighton. Nelson was resigned to the likelihood that Robards’ career would continue to blossom while he held no such thoughts of grandeur for his own.
“There’s a body in St Peters and Crighton wants us on it,” replied Nelson, massaging his stubbly face. “He wants us to meet him there in thirty minutes.”
Robards energetically pestered Nelson for further information like a five year old on Christmas Eve, but Nelson cut him off, told him the location of the murder and hung up just as abruptly as Crighton had hung up on him.
Nelson made his way to his bathroom and regarded the man that stared at him in the mirror. His light brown hair was cropped short at about a centimetre in length all over. When it grew longer than that it had a mind of its own and grew in all different directions. He had long given up on trying to style it because it point blank refused to be styled. He noted that it was definitely starting to show more grey than he would have preferred but it didn’t bother him overly. His father’s hair had been grey for as long as he could remember so he knew what he was in for. His nose was slightly hooked, his large, blue eyes were set wide apart on his round face and were still red and tired after only a couple hours of sleep. He cast aside the tired image in the mirror, disrobed and jumped into the shower. He had a long day ahead of him.
Chapter 9
As Detective Sergeant Nelson sped along Southern Cross Drive at one hundred and forty kilometres per hour in his old rattle filled Subaru Liberty wagon, he mused that the lack of traffic was the only good thing about starting work at two-fifty a.m.. His mood continued to deteriorate as he considered that his next three days were unlikely to be filled with watching footy, heading down to the beach and catching up with some friends as he had originally
