Lament

© Sarah J Groenewegen 2002

The night has its own smell. A smell that changes with the same rhythm of the moon. Waxing and waning; smelling tired and worn and hot, then renewing. Becoming fresh and clean, even when there is no rain. The darkness is enough to make new again, just like sleep lets all animals heal. Little snatches of darkness, needed like the little deaths to keep life alive.

She walked with the pulse of the night-clad city. Her feet were unshod so she padded, her walk near-silent. Her clothing was black so she travelled near-unseen.

She chose to move onto the road, on the other side of the silent and cold cars parked alongside the pathway. She moved to avoid the noise from a house with warm light spilling out onto the footpath. People milled about, silhouettes illuminated by the yellow glow. From where she walked she could smell their human smells, vainly hidden by perfumes and other scents, and she could smell menstrual blood and her stomach rumbled.

As one with her stomach’s gurgle, the dog padding silently by her side rumbled a low growl. The girl laid a hand on the dog’s ruff, and both just kept walking.

The headlights swung in an arc taking in the graffiti-covered cannon guarding Hyde Park from Oxford Street. Commander Kris Hampton never noticed what she saw nearly every day, and the odd night, as she drove her car along College Street, then down Stanley Street and into the edifice that housed NSW Police HQ.

She parked the Ford in its usual spot; a coveted place near the lifts. She left it there, locked, and she went to the lifts and fumbled in her bag for her swipe card. ‘Fuck,’ she muttered, realising she’d left the thing in the car and again she found herself making a mental note to raise with the security people the idea of putting the access codes on their warrant cards so they’d avoid this joke. Card collected, she swiped the reader and waited for its magic to work. Not long, she was in luck, and the ancient carriage was there to take her up to Level Seven.

In the lift, she rested her head against the back wall, only straightening up when she felt the lurch in her stomach that meant she’d arrived. On the ding she was all set to leave the lift, smile ready in case there was someone there in the ill-lit corridors trying to make the coffee machine work. But, no one was about, and then she was at the vestibule for the offices belonging to her team.

A pool of light illuminated her secretary’s work space, but she wasn’t there. The monitor’s screen was off, and the archaic answering machine blinked in its readiness to act as receptionist. Good, Kris thought. Inane conversation about the cold of Canberra weather could wait until the morning. At ease, she rooted through her bag again and found the scraps of paperwork her secretary would demand: receipts for the airport parking station, a spare cab charge, the boarding passes for the plane. There was also a postcard of Parliament House she’d not had a chance to post. But, she’d bought one, and brought it back for the office in honour of a tradition she liked to foster. This one a pictorial reminder of the useless arguing with Canberra bureaucrats who had never seen a destitute Sydney street and could never understand the problems that made Canberra’s emergencies look ho-hum. Better, the postcard was a reminder of the late night boozing sessions—networking—with cops from the other jurisdictions that always ended up slagging off the AFP. Mostly because the be-suited Federal Agents would slink off home way too early.

She sighed as she propped the card up against the telephone. Done, she unlocked her office door, walked in and switched on the light. It was exactly as she’d left it. Nobody had broken in to file or finish off editing the article she’d been writing for Australasian Policing.

Slinging her overcoat on one of the visitor’s chairs, she walked around her desk, and then sat at it. She looked at the computer, then at the clock. No. Too late to start going through her emails. Bad enough she was here and not at home watching a DVD or cable movie. Despite her admonishment to herself, habitual duty won and her finger punched the computer’s on button and the machine ground into life. She entered her log in and password, and waited again as it connected to the mainframe and sorted out what she could and couldn’t get access to. Done, she opened the email program and went through the log in sequence again.

Two days away and over a hundred emails sat in her electronic in-tray. She looked at her real in-tray with its tower of paper, then back at the screen, imagining the virtual documents adding to the pile.

Well, it was her fault for opening the damn thing.

She went to collect a can of coke from the fridge in the meal room. Back at her desk she popped the lid and slurped from the can as she started to go through the administrative emails first. Most were junk—surprise!—or reminders for meetings she’d already sent apologies to. There was one from HR getting her hopes up about a civilian intelligence position; hopes cruelly dashed a few emails later by Finance.

No money. There never was any money this far out from an election.

She took another sip from the coke and double-clicked on the next message:

Dear Kris

You remember we talked at the sexual assault conference? About the early warning signs for a serial sexual assault offender/serial killer. These I-COPS reports might be of interest. I’ve asked our uniformed patrols to keep an eye out, but we can’t do more than that. Don’t expect you can do much more either, but thought you’d be interested all the same.

Looking forward to your reply.

Anne Garrow

Intelligence Officer

Surry Hills Crime Management Unit

She didn’t mean to open it. Didn’t mean to open the links to the reports referred to in the email. Didn’t mean to spend time reading them and making notes. Didn’t mean to make the computer search for related events on the I-COPS database, and didn’t mean to make notes on the few other reports the computer spat back.

Skeletons of kittens, cats, possums and rabbits found. Not like they’d been lost or trapped or were old and died, their skeletons emerging as part of the natural life and death cycle. Those would never have been noticed by beat police, nor even members of the public. No, these attracted attention because they’d obviously been caught, and had the flesh stripped raw from the bones so when they were found they were found still bloody.

The first few entries were jokey in tone, saying, ‘Can you believe this? Psycho or what?’ Then they’d got more serious, but not serious enough for follow-up. Maybe in another era resources would have been devoted to matching up Skeleton ‘A’ with little Sally’s missing tabby cat. They had the technology, just not the resources.

But, she saw the pattern Anne Garrow had seen and had felt necessary to share. And she made the same leap she presumed Anne had made: what if the offender moved to killing people and stripping the skin and meat from their bones?

She looked up at the charts on her office walls showing her team’s active strike forces, and the cases demanding attention. Then there was the roster, and a name jumped out and she smiled.

‘Well now, Detective Constable Souisy. How’s about we harness your enthusiasm on the kitten killer? And it’s about time you learned to work with an intelligence officer to see what real profiling is all about.’

Then her attention was caught by the clock next to the rosters. Midnight. The witching hour. Time for all good police commanders to be in bed, not entertaining fanciful ideas about how to snaffle young and talented intelligence officers from local police stations.

Of course she remembered the conversation with Anne Garrow at the conference. She also remembered other thoughts that had little to do with profiling, and smiled as she logged out and left the building.

Fresh from her post-gym shower, Anne Garrow logged into her computer and opened the email program. Her eyes skimmed the list of subject lines and saw that Kris Hampton had opened her email. Her heart skipped as she scrolled up the subject line list, but there wasn’t any email in response.

Well, would it be likely? It had been a crazy notion, emailing the boss of Homicide and Sexual Assaults.

What if she thought she was an animal lib sicko? Wasting police time on cute dead furry animals when she ought to be tracking carjackers and drug dealers. Yet another example of civilians being a waste of time and effort and money.

Shh. Calm. It’s not like she deleted the message.

Maybe…

Graham Souisy was on the phone, but Kris couldn’t tell if it was work or pleasure. He had that easy, relaxed manner, meaning whoever was on the other end was a mate. She waved at him, capturing his startled expression, and hid her smile as she knew exactly what he was thinking: Shit. The boss wants to see me.

She didn’t wait to watch him finish up his conversation; she just continued her way into her office. There, she powered up the computer again, and fancied it was less resentful after its eight hour break than it had last night after two days break. Souisy arrived before she had a chance to log in to her emails. ‘Ah, come in. Shut the door, would you?’

He did.

‘Sit down.’

‘Ma’am.’

‘You can cut that out right now. You can call me Commander or boss if you want to remain formal, but you’ve been here long enough to know I prefer being called Kris. Obviously, this doesn’t apply when we have company from the senior ranks or from outside the police.’

He nodded, looking like he was sure he’d done something wrong but couldn’t for the life of him think what, and he was certain it was more than the transgression of title. She remembered feeling that when she’d been his age and rank, but was sure she’d hidden it better than he was. Or, maybe she just knew the signs better now.

‘I’ve got a job for you.’

He relaxed, but well short of how he’d been when on the phone. Wise of him.

She ploughed on, ‘But first I want you to tell me what you learned on the course you were on last week.’

‘The one on profiling?’

She nodded.

‘It’s a bit more than I thought it would be. Like, to do it properly you’d need a psych degree. But, even lunkheads like me could do all right.’ He smiled, hoping. She barely smiled back, but gave him enough for him to know she knew what he was going through, and what he was thinking. Peripheral perfunctory exchanges, yet they meant so much, she thought, then refocussed her attention on what he was saying—both body and speech.

‘They basically said that if you get to know the victims then you can start to get into the head of the offender.’ He’d leaned forward, was speaking fast, betraying his interest. Good. ‘That’s the key,’ he continued. ‘Entering their heads so you can start to think like them. That’s important because their logic isn’t normal. Their reasoning isn’t what we’d do and if we just applied what we think we’d never make sense of it.’

She nodded. She’d been right to choose him. Now for the difficult bit. ‘Did they teach you about the common indicators for likely serial offenders? What many of them share before they become murderers?’

‘Um.’ He leant back in the chair, his face reflecting the search through his memory and his desperation to please. ‘Yeah,’ he said, drawing the word out while he thought. Then, ‘A lot of them were bed wetters as kids, and sometimes older.’

He didn’t sound sure of himself, so she nodded again to show him he was on the right track.

‘And they like lighting fires and killing animals. Plus, they…’ he was rushing it again.

‘Graham. Stop. That’s excellent. I’m pleased we didn’t waste money on sending a “lunkhead” like you on that course.’ She smiled to show she thought him anything but a lunkhead and he smiled back, but she noticed he’d tensed up again. ‘I’ll be honest with you. We are not geared to deal with stopping serial killers before it’s too late and there are several dead people. It’s not just us. Frankly, I think we’re better prepared than most. No, it’s our justice system. How can anyone prove beyond reasonable doubt that little Johnnie from next door is going to become the next backpacker or granny or bank vault killer?’

He nodded again. He looked like he was following, but just didn’t know where the conversation was going to end up. Hm, she thought. Time for a popular culture reference she vaguely recollected the team talking about once.

‘I didn’t see Minority Report—I don’t like Tom Cruise—but I hear it tried to tackle the problem of proving someone guilty of a crime not yet committed but ended up putting the dilemma in the too hard basket.’

He was looking perplexed, and no wonder, she castigated herself. Get back on tangent, Kris, or you’ll lose him, she thought.

‘Anyway, a philosophical discussion was not why I asked you here. There’s a case that’s come to my attention. On the basis of what I’ve just said, there’s no way I can justify budgeting a strike force on it, but I don’t want to leave it also because of what we’ve been talking about. Now, normally, we’d have an intelligence officer I could assign to assist. I think it’s probably more intelligence work at this stage, anyway, and may not ever develop into anything but intelligence. As you know, we don’t actually have any intelligence analysts at present, so I’ll be asking an intelligence officer from Surry Hills to assist. Her name is Anne Garrow and she needs to know how profiling is done in the real world.’

On Monday morning Anne sat in her suit in the café overlooking Whitlam Square. She was looking at the people walking across the intersection, looking at them wrestle with umbrellas in the wind and rain. Then she saw the man she was looking for: young, with the standard detective haircut, clean-shaven, wearing a conservative charcoal-grey suit that must’ve cost two month’s pay at a constable’s wage.

He entered, looking lost, so she waved and he came over to her. ‘Ms Garrow?’ he asked, polite, accent betraying his Australian birth.

She nodded. ‘Call me Anne. It’s pretty fierce out there, hey?’

‘Yeah.’ He smoothed his black hair back into shape. ‘Coffee?’

‘Sure,’ she smiled. ‘Long black decaf, thanks.’

He ordered the full strength version of the same, and then sat down. ‘Hi. The boss told you what this is about?’

‘Yeah,’ she said again.

‘She said you know a lot about profiling. That you’ve got a degree, or something.’

She hadn’t told Kris that, and she wondered if the commander had looked it up, then wondered why if she had. ‘Um, not exactly. I mean, I’ve got a degree. I wouldn’t have this job without one. But, I have done a course at Quantico with the FBI.’

Their coffees arrived. ‘Wow. I joined the cops because of the FBI guy in Red Dragon.’

She shrugged, and didn’t tell him she’d done her degree and applied for the job because of Jodi Foster in Silence of the Lambs. ‘How long have you been a cop?’

‘Two years. Got fast-tracked to detectives, and got lucky when I applied for Homicide. The boss is amazing, and I’m real lucky to be working with her.’

She nodded, and didn’t say how lucky she felt to be working for her, however tangentially. ‘Anyway, did you read the report I sent?’

He nodded, taking a sip of the coffee. ‘It’s good. Your report, I mean. It’s convincing, but I’m just not sure if it’s enough to go on. Usually there’s something else. Like break and enters but where only knickers are stolen.’

She sighed. Great. Whoever said little bits of knowledge were dangerous was bang on. ‘Have you got any idea how many break and enter reports could fit that profile?’ He looked like he’d deflated. ‘Sorry. Did you want to see where they found the latest one? It’s not far from here.’

‘Sure,’ he said.

***

It had stopped raining, but the wind still squalled, pushing them forward and making them push forward. They walked up Riley Street, and then turned off into one of the alley ways. Souisy’s shoes crunched a syringe into the uneven asphalt, and they both tried to avoid other needles littering the little lane.

‘It was here,’ Anne said, stopping. ‘The rain’s washed some of the blood away.’

‘I see it. It was a possum this time, wasn’t it?’

‘Yeah. So far the only animals have been cats, possums, rabbits and once a fox. No dogs. I wonder if that’s significant.’

‘Could be.’

She noted he was refusing to commit. Then he pulled a folded sheaf of papers from his jacket’s inner pocket, and sorted through them, battling the wind gusts to get to a particular page. Anne recognised the papers as a print out of her report. He found what he wanted and smoothed it out against the brickwork of a terrace house bordering the lane. It was a map, dots pinpointing the locations of all the kills she’d identified.

‘There’s no pattern,’ he said. ‘You said that yourself. And there’s lots of them, and given the assumption is right that we haven’t found a lot of them, there could be up to one of these a night. They’re clustered around Centennial and Moore Parks; even Hyde Park. Okay, those are the types of places you’d go if you were after animals like possums, but they’re pretty public places and whoever’s doing this is going to cause noise. And where the hell’s the flesh ending up? And the skins? Do we know if they’re being stripped alive?’

She suppressed a shudder. She’d been down that path before, imaging, trying to wonder why and how. ‘It’s hard enough to get a post mortem on a street kid these days, let alone on an unwanted animal,’ she said, trying to not let the anger surface. It wasn’t fair on him when he was trying so hard to take it seriously.

He put the papers back in his pocket, frowning. ‘So. What do you suggest now?’

He was looking at her. Taking her seriously. Putting the onus for action on her. Right. ‘Do you have time to go to Centennial Park?’

He nodded. ‘You think there’s more there than have been found, yeah?’

‘Yeah.’

The wind had died down by the time they caught a cab and arrived at the park, but the rain was driving down. Souisy was being a gentleman with an umbrella, not that it was doing much good. At least the trees afforded some shelter.

‘Over there,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘See that girl? With the dog? I want to talk to her. She might have seen something or overheard others talking.’

Anne looked over to where he’d indicated and saw the girl and the dog sitting in the natural shelter afforded by a hollowed out trunk of a tree. As they walked closer, Anne noted the girl’s ragged black clothes, feet that looked like they’d never seen a pair of shoes, and hair of a peculiar grey-brown that was the same as the dog’s.

‘Hi,’ said Souisy. ‘Mind if we have a chat with you?’

As she looked up at them both, Anne was certain the girl’s eyes were the same as the dog’s. Blink, and they were normal dark brown eyes that looked like they’d seen the history of the world. She shivered at the gap between her life and the girl’s, and again remembered why she’d never wanted to become a police officer. It was bad enough keeping the real world at computer-length.

‘What’s your name?’ asked Souisy, and Anne admired his gentleness.

The girl spoke, softly, as though she was unsure of her speaking voice, ‘Someone called me Erin once.’

‘You’ve got a nice dog. What’s his name?’ He stretched his hand out…

‘Don’t touch!’ And the dog growled, softly, but watchful.

‘Does he bite?’

‘She doesn’t like being touched by strangers.’

‘What’s her name?’ said Anne, not wanting to just stand there.

The girl’s smooth face creased into a frown. ‘Why are you people so concerned with naming everything?’

What a strange question, Anne thought, but didn’t get to say anything because Souisy asked, ‘Have you been in the city long, Erin?’

‘No. Not long.’

‘Do you have many friends? Family?’

‘My people are dead,’ she said, matter-of-fact.

‘We’re sorry to hear that,’ he said, sounding like he didn’t believe her so why should he be sorry? ‘Look, I’m a detective.’

She didn’t say anything. Just stared at him, and Anne noticed the dog was staring, too.

‘We just want to ask you a few questions.’

‘I haven’t done anything wrong,’ she said.

‘No one’s saying you have. I just want to know if you’ve seen or heard something. About someone killing animals around here.’

Erin just kept staring, like she didn’t comprehend what he was saying. Anne guessed they weren’t going to get any sense from her, not wearing suits and standing over her in the rain in the middle of a park. She felt laughter at the incongruity bubble up within her, and it was all she could do to stop it from breaking forth. She looked away, took a deep breath, then touched Souisy lightly on his arm. ‘No,’ she said. Surprising her, he nodded.

Anne sat, uncomfortable, in the visitor’s seat closest to the door. Escape. But it might as well have been a locked gaol cell door for all the good it did her.

Souisy had provided the report of their day in the park, and around the street kid haunts. Maybe it had been the weather, he’d speculated, but no one was forthcoming about the animals. Oh, he’d been professional, but Anne couldn’t help but think he thought it had been a waste of his time. Ergo, a waste of his boss’s time. And she didn’t want to waste the commander’s time.

She’d listened, though. Asked questions at the right times, then dismissed the young detective. As Anne had made to stand up, she’d said, ‘No, Anne. Could you stay, please?’

Her heart thudded up to her throat so she didn’t trust herself to speak, just sat back down again, barely noticing the door click shut behind Souisy.

‘You were very quiet.’

‘Ah. Graham said it all.’

‘You looked like you wanted to say something when he was talking about the homeless girl in Centennial Park. The one with the dog. Erin, wasn’t it?’

‘That’s what she said her name was. I don’t think it is her name, though.’

‘Well, kids like that often don’t volunteer their real name’s first up.’

‘No. There was something odd about her.’

‘Do you think you need to talk to her again?’

Anne looked carefully at Kris’s face. No sign of teasing, no sign of disappointment. She swallowed. ‘Yes. But not with Graham.’

‘Fine. I owe you a coffee, but I’d rather give you lunch.’

Anne didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.

Finding the girl with the dog proved not difficult. Kris was pleased Anne was able to provide succinct descriptions to the people they met, and was pleased two women wearing semi-casual work clothes were obviously less threatening than Anne and Souisy had been. It did not take long to put together a decent itinerary of the girl’s movements, and confirmation the dog never left Erin’s side.

She was sitting on the grass overlooking Mrs Macquarie’s Chair and the harbour. A beautiful spot, perfect to just sit and watch the world go by. By her side was the grey animal, also seated and also looking out over the water.

‘Anne.’

‘Yes.’

‘Would you let me talk to her first?’

‘Yes. Of course.’

Kris kept walking forward, concentrating on the girl and the dog. She moved around to the dog’s side, slowly and careful so as not to spook them. The dog growled softly, and both turned as one to look at her, and she caught the same effect Anne had described with their eyes.

‘Hello. It’s Erin, isn’t it?’

No response.

‘Do you mind if I sit with you?’

‘I am the last. It does not matter.’

Kris sat on the damp ground, careful in her positioning so she could see both the girl, the dog and yet not stare at them. ‘The last what?’ She asked, quietly.

‘The last of my people in this land.’

‘Is that because your family are dead?’

Silence again, but Kris sensed it was because the girl was struggling with something. Time to try a different tack? ‘Your dog. She’s very beautiful. Does she have a name?’

‘I… We have no compulsion to name things as you people do. We are not like you people, though perhaps you may think of us… me… as you would yourself. She and I are one.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘We are not like you.’

Was she mad? Delusional? It was nothing like Kris had experienced before, both dog and girl looking steadfastly at her as though they were thinking the same thing. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what you mean.’

‘It is hard to explain to one of you who has no memory.’

‘I have memories,’ she said, puzzled, floundering

‘You have knowledge, not memory. You do not have access to the race memory. Pictures in your mind of when your people first walked the Earth. I know this for my people have been with yours for centuries. You do not understand us, but we understand you.’

‘Who are you?’

‘Your people have called us many things. The wolves of Fenrir. Hell-hounds. Witches’ beasts. Shape-shifters. Werewolves.’

‘But when the moon is full you don’t turn into a wolf?’

‘No,’ said Erin, forcefully. ‘That is a myth spoken by ignorance. The wolf and I are one. She and I see the same things, hear the same things. If she is hurt, I feel it. If I am hurt, she feels it. Kill one of us, and we both die.’

Kris looked at both of them and saw again the uncanny resemblance. Both creatures wearing the same world-weary expression on their faces. ‘Why did you come to this city?’ she asked, finally.

‘I do not want to be here. I close my eyes and I see green. Virginal green. The green of a land untouched by what they call “progress”, untouched by the advances made by your people, the ones-without-beasts. I smell the sweetness of fresh rain mixing with the tang of wood-fire smoke. I hear the sounds made by those who wander this earth like we do. And now I feel the hunt. I hear our feet thudding, the baying of our wolves and the death-scream of the beast as we hound it to the kill. And now I taste the flavour of the blood that gives us life. Warm. Throbbing. Pulsing life. The feasting of the hunt has no equal.

‘All things have endings. Those-without-beasts joined the hunt against us. Killing that which they no longer understand. I feel the fear of that hunt clearly, knowing it well. I know the dank of the prisons they built for us. The coarse rope around our necks. The flames licking at us as we die. The claustral space of the ships as they rolled over the seas, taking those of us they kept alive as pets to this alien land. This barren, hot land. So different to all we had encountered before. Let free, we formed another pack. Until… until we were hunted once more.

‘My people are dead. I am the last.’

Kris didn’t look at the girl and the wolf, didn’t have to look to know she was telling the truth. Not just her truth, the truth. She looked back quickly at Anne, who was seated on the path looking away from them. Would she understand?

Then she turned to the girl, and resisted the urge to embrace her. ‘Can you promise me one thing?’

Those eyes just looked right into her own. She refused to look away.

‘Would you promise to only hunt and eat the small animals you have been. Not to hunt anything larger.’

Their eyes locked, and Kris was aware the wolf had stood up, then the girl smiled a wolfish grin that made Kris shiver.

‘I’ll do what I can to make sure you’re left alone,’ Kris added, knowing it was more for her own benefit, to assuage her own guilt.

The wolf shook itself, then sat again. Both resumed their vigil over the harbour. Excused, Kris stood up. Not turning back, she went and joined Anne. She draped an arm around the other woman’s shoulders. ‘How about I buy you dinner?’

‘What? Did she…?’

‘Trust me when I say we don’t have to worry about our kitten killer graduating to people.’

Please note that permission to publish stories from the Scarlet Stiletto Awards 2002 online has been expressly granted to Sisters in Crime Australia Inc. You may not republish, reproduce electronically or in paper form, or otherwise make use of these stories without the permission of the author.

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