Read Online Tropic of Death by Robert Sims - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Sims
Tags: australia, Serial Murder Investigation, Australian Fiction, Detective and Mystery Stories; Australian, Melbourne (Vic.)
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uniformed officers as they went. In the office of his crime investigation branch she met two of his detective constables. They were young, tanned and impressed by both her appearance and what she represented.
‘I’ve always wanted to see profiling in action,’ said one of them as he shook her hand. ‘Assessing the criminal mind. All that weird insight stuff.’
‘I appreciate your enthusiasm,’ said Rita, ‘but it’s not voodoo.’
‘Will you give us some tips?’ asked the other. ‘Show us the basics?’
‘Shut up,’ Jarrett told them. ‘You’re like a pair of spaniels.’
As he ushered her out along a corridor to the room that would be her office, she couldn’t help laughing.
It didn’t take Rita long to settle into her new workplace, even though it felt more like a time-warped gallery than an office.
While day-to-day police work was conducted in the modern block, the old watch-house was used mostly for storage and administrative purposes. The sandstone building retained much of its nineteenth-century fabric along with a faint musty odour. With its high ceilings, plaster cornices and creaking wooden staircase, the structure evoked echoes of a bygone age. No wonder people felt it was haunted, thought Rita.
The ground floor housed a community relations bureau, an accounts unit and a records section extending to the Victorian cells at the rear, now crammed with filing cabinets. The first floor was used as a repository for spare equipment and a store for logbooks and registers from the distant past. There was also a colonial-era exhibit room, the area assigned to Rita for as long as she required it. Because of its heritage value the watch-house had been listed by the National Trust and the local historical society maintained the exhibit room as a small museum, library and occasional lecture venue. As well as attracting academic interest it was good PR for the police, although Jarrett had declared it off-limits to history buffs for the duration of Rita’s stay.
She approved of the choice. It suited her needs, providing both plenty of space to spread out case material and a quiet setting to think in. Even the antique fixtures, the source of Jarrett’s bondage chamber reference, were somehow conducive to a profiling mind-set. As she paced around the room, psyching herself up for the investigation, she observed her new surroundings with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.
The three internal walls were lined with glass cases displaying artefacts and documents preserved from the days of imperial rule. The items included batons, caps, holsters and pouches, together with reward posters for the capture of bushrangers and newspaper articles about the frontier war between white settlers and Aborigines. Wall mountings above the cases held rows of leg irons, chains and handcuffs alongside a collection of swords and pistols. A series of tinted lithographs hung from a picture rail, while a heavy oil painting was suspended from the chimney-breast in the corner. The gilt-framed canvas, dark with age and dated 1870 , depicted a dozen men, white and black, armed with carbines. It was titled The Hunting Party. There was something intimidating about the group’s pose and as Rita peered at it she found the image distinctly sinister. Below it the fireplace was virtually in mint condition, with an iron filigree surround and glazed tiles. She wondered how much it had actually been used in the past hundred years.
The external wall was dominated by bookcases on either side of a double-sash window. The shelves were filled with leather-bound volumes. The view outside, which a century ago would have looked down the hill over the town to the sea, was completely obscured by a backpacker hostel, its peeling paintwork and rusting fire escapes looming over an alley. The laneway below was cluttered with rubbish bins and parked cars. A patchwork of graffiti and posters littered the hostel’s lower wall.
From the window’s base
‘I’ve always wanted to see profiling in action,’ said one of them as he shook her hand. ‘Assessing the criminal mind. All that weird insight stuff.’
‘I appreciate your enthusiasm,’ said Rita, ‘but it’s not voodoo.’
‘Will you give us some tips?’ asked the other. ‘Show us the basics?’
‘Shut up,’ Jarrett told them. ‘You’re like a pair of spaniels.’
As he ushered her out along a corridor to the room that would be her office, she couldn’t help laughing.
It didn’t take Rita long to settle into her new workplace, even though it felt more like a time-warped gallery than an office.
While day-to-day police work was conducted in the modern block, the old watch-house was used mostly for storage and administrative purposes. The sandstone building retained much of its nineteenth-century fabric along with a faint musty odour. With its high ceilings, plaster cornices and creaking wooden staircase, the structure evoked echoes of a bygone age. No wonder people felt it was haunted, thought Rita.
The ground floor housed a community relations bureau, an accounts unit and a records section extending to the Victorian cells at the rear, now crammed with filing cabinets. The first floor was used as a repository for spare equipment and a store for logbooks and registers from the distant past. There was also a colonial-era exhibit room, the area assigned to Rita for as long as she required it. Because of its heritage value the watch-house had been listed by the National Trust and the local historical society maintained the exhibit room as a small museum, library and occasional lecture venue. As well as attracting academic interest it was good PR for the police, although Jarrett had declared it off-limits to history buffs for the duration of Rita’s stay.
She approved of the choice. It suited her needs, providing both plenty of space to spread out case material and a quiet setting to think in. Even the antique fixtures, the source of Jarrett’s bondage chamber reference, were somehow conducive to a profiling mind-set. As she paced around the room, psyching herself up for the investigation, she observed her new surroundings with a mixture of amusement and curiosity.
The three internal walls were lined with glass cases displaying artefacts and documents preserved from the days of imperial rule. The items included batons, caps, holsters and pouches, together with reward posters for the capture of bushrangers and newspaper articles about the frontier war between white settlers and Aborigines. Wall mountings above the cases held rows of leg irons, chains and handcuffs alongside a collection of swords and pistols. A series of tinted lithographs hung from a picture rail, while a heavy oil painting was suspended from the chimney-breast in the corner. The gilt-framed canvas, dark with age and dated 1870 , depicted a dozen men, white and black, armed with carbines. It was titled The Hunting Party. There was something intimidating about the group’s pose and as Rita peered at it she found the image distinctly sinister. Below it the fireplace was virtually in mint condition, with an iron filigree surround and glazed tiles. She wondered how much it had actually been used in the past hundred years.
The external wall was dominated by bookcases on either side of a double-sash window. The shelves were filled with leather-bound volumes. The view outside, which a century ago would have looked down the hill over the town to the sea, was completely obscured by a backpacker hostel, its peeling paintwork and rusting fire escapes looming over an alley. The laneway below was cluttered with rubbish bins and parked cars. A patchwork of graffiti and posters littered the hostel’s lower wall.
From the window’s base
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