Deep Down by Colin King

Author:Colin King
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Shawline Publishing Group Pty Ltd
Published: 2022-01-25T05:40:36+00:00

CHAPTER 17

‘Foehckin ’ell, is that what I’ve been asking people about?’

The accent was excitable-Irish. It had a habit of slipping out whenever Detective Natalie O’Quinn was moved to exclaim. In this instance, she had her nose to the crime board, peering down Terry’s mineshaft in a photograph she’d just finished attaching to the board. The rectangle of earthen walls tapered to unfathomable gloom. Along one side, an extension ladder reached the shaky mid-shaft platform. Another ladder beyond that disappeared into the murk.

The subterranean scene was last in a row of four photographs that otherwise included individual portrait shots of Carol Warren and Travis Vella and one of the blue tarp with Gloria Travis still wrapped inside.

As well as assembling the crime board, Natalie had the task of tracking down the gem-site’s infrequent visitors and any intelligence about deep shafts that were dug four or five years earlier.

She turned to Cockburn to explain herself.

‘I’ve seen the place on news footage and all that, but I didn’t imagine they were diggin’ their way to China. That’s one deep hole for any man to dig with a pick and shovel.’

‘It’s where they get the really good stuff,’ Cockburn said in normal speak.

His new offsider had only recently migrated to Australia and replaced Detective Julia O’Hannagain, whom Cockburn had begun, and subsequently ended, a relationship with. Julia — who was also of Irish stock, albeit second generation — was sacked for passing on privileged information. The parallels spooked Cockburn into being on his best behaviour. He kept his sailing-close-to-the-wind repartee holstered when Natalie was around. Rory enjoyed Cockburn’s internal battle of self-restraint as he and Cockburn watched her straighten the photos. It won’t last, he concluded.

Bourke arrived for his briefing. Natalie, Rory and Cockburn stood back and watched him take in the four photos on the crime board. Nothing else had been added.

‘So that’s Travis Vella?’ he began. Then turned to Cockburn.

‘How’d you go with him, Gary?’

‘He’s our man as far as I’m concerned. He’s got no alibi unless you count the bit-of-fluff he was shagging on the side vouching for him. But he only arranged for her to do that after the New South coppers had his back against the wall.’

‘I think you mean he’s got an alibi unless his current life partner was to unaccountably rescind her statement,’ Rory said.

‘That’s not out of the question. Vella as good as admitted to us that her previous in-laws regard her as a piece of work. Her husband died of cancer, and the way Vella described it himself, she well and truly got her claws into the family farm. We’re yet to chase any of that down, but I’d be surprised if we don’t find something we can use to turn the heat on her.’

‘I gather that’s not the way you see it, Rory?’ Bourke asked.

‘The alibi thing bothers me for the opposite reason. I read the New South Wales file. Vella was hesitant at first, trying to keep his girlfriend out of it, but the New South cops didn’t seem overly concerned about the alibi in any case.

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