Dark Past by Catherine Lee

Author:Catherine Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Catherine Lee

27

Cooper had spent the last four hours going over the facts of the case and lamenting that he’d have to hand it all over to someone else. He’d never been involved in a JOCG case before, and he was slightly curious as to how it would all fit together, but mostly he was nervous the multi-agency approach would dilute their importance and jeopardise the murder investigation. There wasn’t much he could do about it, though.

It was just past two in the afternoon when the first meeting of the hurriedly-assembled group took place. They’d kept the Strike Force Braddock name, but they’d been allocated a larger area of City Central — one floor above where Cooper and the rest of his team had been working. Superintendent Rochford had insisted they switch desks to join the strike force team upstairs, but Cooper hadn’t yet got around to claiming a desk up here. It was petty, but he wanted to show his resistance for a little longer.

Detective Inspector Grayson ran the meeting, and was officially in charge of the investigation. Cooper liked Grayson — they’d worked together on a couple of cases in Homicide, and Cooper found him enthusiastic and easy to get along with. His promotion to Inspector was reasonably recent, and Munro had mentioned this was Grayson’s first big JOCG case as Officer In Charge. That usually meant any history between them was irrelevant, with the newly promoted and more senior officer eager to prove his worth. Cooper would be interested to see how their relationship was affected by the change in position.

Cooper took a seat near the back of the room next to Quinn. He recognised some of the people in the room, at least by sight, if not by name. There were three members of State Crime Command’s Drug Squad on his left, all looking as disinterested in the joint operation as he was. At the front of the room were two guys in Customs uniform, and another two suits next to them who Cooper guessed were also from Customs and Border Protection. Behind them were six more suits, two of them women, who Cooper assumed were either NSW or Australian Crime Commission. One of the men from the NSW Crime Commission he’d met in a previous investigation. He was an okay guy, but all about procedure and paperwork. The rest of the room was filled with analysts and office staff, given away by their more casual clothing. There were about thirty people in all, including Cooper’s own team of six. Munro didn’t join them on this occasion.

The room finally quietened and Grayson introduced himself. He also pointed out the key teams, and encouraged them all to get to know each other after the briefing. He was keen to get on with things, which Cooper took as a good sign.

“We’ll hear from each of the team leaders in a minute,” Grayson continued, “But first I just want say one thing. JOCG was formed five years ago, as most of

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