Keeping Secrets - Chapter 4 – "CCTV"
Once again, big thank you to Duffie83 for proof reading for me.
Reader discretion applies - Some sex scenes.
Bianca sat beside Kon, notepad on the table in front of her, watching the grainy black and grey CCTV footage on a 32" flat screen LCD wall mounted TV. Some footage was smooth and clear; clear enough that facial features, tattoos and jewellery were easily identifiable, and other footage was jumpy, grainy or pixellated and difficult to watch, either due to outdated technology or reduced frame captures per second to keep file size down. All of it was bone achingly boring. Both of them sighed, and Bianca re positioned herself in her seat, trying to find a more comfortable position.
"They never show you this bit in the pamphlets," Kon mumbled, reaching over and skipping to the next video on his computer, which was connected up to the TV. "I feel stupid saying this, but what are we even looking for?" Bianca ignored him. She had discovered the hard way that rhetorical questions were often disguised as, well, stupid questions, and didn't reflect on the person asking the question, and was more often than not just vocalised internal dialogue. This was the second time they had been through the footage, and most of the revellers seemed innocuous enough. There just weren't any clear links between any of the patrons on the footage and the girls – no one clearly following them, no one stopping them to talk to them, no general harassment. There were a few guys that tried to get into the same clubs as the girls, but that wasn't enough to ring any alarm bells. Considering the hour, the location and the age of the girls, it was surprising they hadn't been able to nail the guy already. The preliminary investigations outlined in their briefing folders tracked the girls in and out of the clubs and gave them a basic timeframe, as it was easy to spot them due to the fact that there weren't too many groups of young girls floating around on Kings Street anymore, but no other leads.
"We went through the ATM footage didn't we? I don't remember looking at it," Bianca asked, stretching her back out and rolling her shoulders.
"You don't remember looking at it because we don't have it yet. The banks had a bit of a cry about it and their IT guys aren't forwarding it until later in the week. They didn't ask for it in the preliminaries. In the meantime, we get to go through this again."
Bianca tried to massage her trapezius muscles and up her neck, where some knots felt like they had developed. Hopefully she could ease the tension later that night with a really hot shower. "Do any of them have any footage from inside the clubs we can check?" Bianca asked, standing up to stretch her legs. "Do you want to take a break?" she clearly wanted to take one.
"Yeah… hang on, in a sec. I've got some of the DVD's from the club security from that night," he brought up a spreadsheet on his computer to see what footage he had. "It should have other info on it. Let me compile it and I'll call you. I want to cross check with the venues to see if there is any missing that I should get chased up as well."
Bianca nodded along with the plan and left him to collate and file the videos, taking the opportunity to move around the office and make a fresh cup of tea. She stared out the window of the tea room, sipping the hot beverage and staring blankly at the office building across the road, eyes unseeing, allowing the tea to sooth her soul. Why rape and kill a girl? Bianca pondered, watching a lone cloud drift lazily to the west. She took another sip of tea. Because you're a desperate sad sack of a person. Opportunistic, probably. Because she was there. Because he could. Surely you couldn't plan this out could you? Bianca took her tea and went back to see Kon.
"Hey, do we have any surveillance footage from Camperdown and Newtown?" He shook his head.
"If I compile a list of times and places, can you either get it or organise to get it?" He nodded affirmatively. "I want to track the girls all the way from when they were dropped off that night until after they discover Latif is missing. Get all the footage you can in the general area from that night." Kon's eyes widened a little at the amount of data Bianca was requesting, imagining the nightmare going through the hours of brain numbing footage.
"We'll have to go back and get footage from each suburb as we process it." Kon frowned and drew a line, and then overlapping circles along it, showing how each zone would have to be searched before getting more footage from the next street. "I guess we can. It's what this taskforce was formed for," he continued in a daunted manner.
"Great. I'll shoot you an email outlining what we need." She turned on her heel and went to leave the room.
"Bianca," he called after her. "Which is more important? Do you want me to finish sorting the footage inside the clubs first or do you want me to chase your list when you get it to me?"
"Do my list. I've got a hunch and I want to rule it out first. Get some of the other guys to help if you need to; there are eight of us on the team after all." She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, irritated at the resistance she was getting.
"I can't believe that he had the nerve to tell me I was past it." Janet and Tony were having a laugh at the naivety of the new batch of junior solicitors they received in their graduate intake at the start of the year; Janet was forced to grill a Crownie because of tardiness and lack of preparation, and his smart-arse replies were still rankling her. "Youth now days. Every year they seem to get younger. I think I've seen just about every excuse these kids think of. If nothing else, a bit of originality would be nice." She continued, "Tony, are these the best the state government can get?"
"It's the best the state government can afford; you know we're under budgetary constraints and a lot of the really sharp ones go into corporate and finance, chasing the big bucks. The good ones that want to do criminal are snapped up by the big privateers; that leaves us with the dregs of lawyer society and the ones who have an agenda. Although we know those are few and far between." Tony stood up to help Bianca put some dishes away, leaving Janet to brood at her lack of useful junior solicitor situation.
"So what's this case that your Crownie stuffed up?" Bianca inquired, taking the plates off Tony and putting them away in a cupboard.
"It was a relatively simple case; couple of kids out at night, altercation, our victim was a bit of a larrikin and somehow upset this other kid, who waited for him outside, followed him down the street and clobbered him when his mates weren't watching. He was in a coma for several weeks before dying. We had evidence and the law behind us to convict; our young solicitor managed to mix up a heap of the facts, leaving Janet in the firing line in court. She managed to ask for an adjournment for two weeks, but the damage may already be done," he cleared his throat, making a harrumph sound.
"Do you choose these solicitors?" Bianca asked. She had never had a direct line to the head Prosecutions before. It was both interesting and different to her usual dealings with the law.
"We interview them through a panel; the senior crowns are all involved at some stage or other; reviewing CV's or actual interviews. When they're fresh like that they are all rubbish," he grumbled.
"Did either of you want a nightcap?" already knowing the answer, Bianca went to retrieve the brandy they both so admired, before making herself a liquorice tea. She waited until her drink was ready before bringing Tony and Janet their digestifs.
"I distinctly remember saying this one was useless," Janet announced, clearly not done talking about her useless helper solicitor. "Good marks, but unable to apply himself. He's forgetful, Tony. I don't think he wants to be there half the time. He spent three quarters of yesterday tracking the tides to see if he could go wind surfing for goodness sakes! He's got his head in the sky, constantly daydreaming, and he leaves the office on time after promising to get work done. At least the other Crownies have the common sense to take it home with them!"
"Leaving on time isn't a crime, Janet" Bianca chastised gently.
"If you want to be a lawyer, you pay the price. There are costs to most careers; sacrifices to be made; we have to work long hours, that's our price. You have terrible shifts and have to be on call. I know, I get he wants to have it all; who doesn't? He doesn't want to pay his dues though. I don't want him working with me again, Tony."
"Now Janet," Tony cautioned, "You have to play nice with the children sometimes. I'll move him off this case, but if I can't get anyone else to help you, you might be stuck with him." They continued on with the case, bickering about which junior solicitor she would prefer, moaning that the solicitors were a major cause of failed trials. Bianca faded out, thinking about her own case.
If we could find someone following the group of girls… when would they have started? Not from dinner. Surely it would be from within that club in Newtown. We should get the footage from there. Unless they were followed during their walk? Maybe an opportunist followed them from somewhere. A bum? Unusual. A cabbie? Possible. Could have seen them, parked up the cab and followed them. Why wait until King Street if they tailed the girls for that long? Plenty of time to do the damage earlier. She gazed into her tea, not focussing on anything, faintly aware of Tony and Janet talking in the background, and the scent of liquorice floating up her nostrils. Maybe he didn't follow them. Then he would have to have been in the area, leaving. Could be an employee or a patron. The key will be in the footage. The hours and hours of footage. She morosely took a sip of the tea, dreading watching more surveillance videos. She had transferred out of surveillance for this exact reason; she was over videos; after a while all the videos begin to look the same, it wore you down, and it became hard to focus on the detail. She put the tea down abruptly, frustration evident. Tony and Janet stopped talking, looking at her. She ignored them. Perhaps they should look at the cold cases first. She took a shuddering deep breath before yawning loudly. The commissioner might be displeased if they didn't investigate the Latif case properly first, considering it was the Latif taskforce. Bianca yawned again. It was time to go to sleep.
"Are you okay in there, babe?"
Bianca was standing in the shower, vaguely watching rivulets of water join up and trickle down the glass of the shower stall. She woke before her alarm, and had quietly crawled out of bed while Janet was still asleep, silently padding to the shower to try wash away her weariness. She hadn't heard Janet softly call her the first time, and only mumbled acknowledgement of the question the second time Janet asked. Janet slipped into the shower beside Bianca, testing the temperature of the water with her fingers as she stroked over the other woman's lower back.
"Why is the water so hot?" she asked.
"Feels nice," Bianca mumbled. Janet reached around Bianca's waist, avoiding the hot spray, and kissed her on the shoulder. Bianca turned to face the other woman, bending and twisting slightly for the tap so she could turn the heat down. She watched Janet's eyes, taking in her steely sky blue before grasping her hips and pulling her into the spray, softly kissing her mouth and pressing her body against Janet's. She sighed, allowing her eyes to drift closed as she deepened the kiss, parting her lips so Janet's tongue could press in and probe her mouth, their tongues wrestling, tasting, exploring. Bianca stroked her fingers up Janet's side and caressed Janet's breast, before breaking the kiss and croaking "I'm sorry." She captured the other woman's lips in her own again, her fingers manipulating Janet's nipple before tracing down her abdomen. Her breathing hitched as she shifted her body, pushing Janet up against the wall firmly but gently, grinding her hips slowly but urgently against Janet's thigh. Responding to Bianca's rapidly increasing need, Janet broke the kiss and stroked up Bianca's inner thigh, parting the water where it cascaded down her body, before nudging her lower lips apart with her fingers.
"Don't be," Janet finally responded. Bianca was slippery with desire, so Janet stroked her folds, gently manipulating the woman, rubbing her while watching her reactions. Their eyes locked and Bianca slowly gyrated her hips, undulating them back and forth, setting her desired rhythm while kneading Janet's bottom with one hand and her breast with her other. Janet leaned forward again, kissing the other woman as she slipped a finger inside her lover, grinding the heel of her palm over her clit, searching for the zone that built Bianca up and tipped her over the edge quickly. Bianca moaned into Janet's mouth at the invasion, her eyes closing for a brief moment as she luxuriated in the water needling into her skin, the taste of her lover's mouth, the fingers moving inside her. She finally surrendered to the feelings as her eyes fluttered shut, allowing Janet to massage her to orgasm under the shower before kneeling and reciprocating with her tongue. It was lucky that they were up early that morning; they barely got the children to kindergarten on time as it was.
A new map adorned the wall beside the project whiteboard; one tracking the girl's movements as far as practicable from Camperdown to Kings Cross. Kon, Detective Sergeant Elliot Boxall and Detective Senior Constable Karen Liu had spent considerable time painstakingly constructing a map to show the path travelled by the group; after scouring hours and hours of ATM and CCTV footage from dozens of sources covering the missing hour and a half, going back and forth with surveillance, walking potential routes taken, doorknocking shops and boutiques looking for potential clues, they had managed to piece together a walking route which accurately showed confirmed sightings with times, locations and still images at each site. The footage also managed to contradict Bianca's hunch that the perpetrator was following the girls. Bianca ensured a ten-minute window of the ATM footage was checked before and after each confirmed sighting of the group; most of the footage either showed empty streets or passing cars. Bianca also insisted they retrieve cab GPS data from active vehicles in the 2 hour window that the girls were walking; when plotted, it was clear that there was no irregular activity from the taxis and it would have been impossible for any of the drivers to commit any crime in the area. No one followed the girls that night. It was still possible the perpetrator knew them, but more likely that it was an opportunistic attack. It was time to try and narrow down some suspects from the footage on King Street.
"I've compiled all the internal CCTV that I was able to get my hands on," Kon patted a box filled with CDs DVDs and hard drives. "Unfortunately it's from about 5pm until 2am, assuming this fella didn't spend the whole day there, and would only begin behaving badly later in the night. We pick up footage of the other girls at Martin Place at 2:03 am, so I think it's safe to assume that our perp is no longer inside any of these clubs at two. So the down side is we have seven hours of footage… per venue… and thirteen venues who were so kind as to provide us with their surveillance." Bianca blinked. Almost a hundred hours of footage to go through on top of the hours of outside footage. She looked at Kon again. She didn't think she would get away with palming this one off to the state police. She took a breath and gave her instructions.
"Well, lets split it up and we can each go through it and see if we can find any irregularities. Remember we're looking for basic anti-social behaviour… anything that doesn't feel right. Once we identify this we can see if we can link it to the group of girls." Bianca finished with a frown. Just another glamorous day, saving the world. I'm going to need coffee if I plan on getting through this, Bianca thought before heading outside to see if the coffee cart was still there. It was going to be a long few days.
"Can't sleep?" Janet asked softly from a few steps behind Bianca, who was sitting on the couch watching a terrible late night shopping channel that was hocking an odd chicken rotisserie device with the sound turned right down. With a tired smile, she twisted around to face the other woman.
"You'd think I'd be sick of watching the TV," she commented. Janet came around and sat on the couch beside her, tucking one leg under the other, facing her lover.
"I woke up and you were gone. I was expecting you to be there, considering you live here now." She reached over and brushed an errant strand of hair off Bianca's face.
"Yeah, sorry. I was just tossing and turning and I didn't want to wake you. I know you've got that thing tomorrow." Bianca glanced at her watch.
"The date's been postponed – two more days. I can almost sleep in now." A weary smile graced her lips. "It never occurred to me how unsettling it can be to roll over and expect someone to be there, only to find them gone. I think I know how Ash felt now."
Bianca blinked with both eyes, keeping them closed for longer than normal, disguising it as fatigue before opening them again. She shuffled towards Janet, shifting so she was positioned under Janet's other leg, tugging on it a little to get more comfortable before leaning over and resting her forehead on the juncture of Janet's neck and shoulder. She sighed and closed her eyes again. She felt so tired.
Janet wrapped her arms about Bianca's shoulders and leaned her head over to rest on Bianca's. "Do you want to tell me about it?" she asked.
Bianca grunted unintelligibly and shook her head, before mumbling, "There's nothing to tell. We haven't managed to get anywhere. Just hours and hours of surveillance footage."
"Why are you watching this rubbish then? You can't really be in the market for a chicken roaster."
"There was a Bambillo before."
"Please tell me you didn't buy anything from the T.V."
"OK. I didn't buy anything from the T.V."
Janet sighed, before beginning to slowly stroke Bianca's back. Bianca was clearly in a mood, and the contact between them was making Janet feel better. They stayed like that for a while, in silence, Janet stroking Bianca's back, until Janet's leg fell asleep and Bianca's breathing evened out. Janet eased her leg out from underneath herself and put her foot on the floor, wiggling her toes until the pins and needles disappeared and her leg felt normal again. She slowly shifted her other leg off Bianca's lap, before increasing the pace and pressure of her stroking. Bianca roused slightly, enough for Janet to tug on her hand and ask her to come to bed. Grumbling, Bianca turned the TV off and made her way upstairs; she allowed Janet to help strip off her clothes before she climbed into bed and promptly fell asleep.
It had eventually taken them three days to go through the footage from inside all of the clubs and bars; another day and a half each to swap data and sweep for irregularities between their assessments; two additional days to cross-reference with external and ATM footage. After scouring the data, the taskforce identified four targets; the targets were identified due to their aggressive, anti-social behaviour, combined with them venturing into the CCTV black spot right at the time of the Latif girl's disappearance. Their first target, a large, muscular fellow with tattoos on his arms had tried to follow a girl into the bathroom, whereupon a staff member had intervened and forcefully ejected the man after a violent scuffle. They were able to track this man travelling in the same direction as the girls, however, he passed several of the surveillance points close to ten minutes after the girls did.
The second suspect left with a group of people; Kon had identified him due to his leaving the group and tracking up and down the strip for a length of time between 1:40 and 2:10am, before disappearing. He looked in his early twenties, mid length hair, scruffy clothing.
A third fellow was first identified on Martin Place; he was travelling towards King Street, and his path should have crossed with the girls in the surveillance blackspot area. Bianca had tracked the final suspect from 10:30pm until 1:50pm; he had started the evening at a strip club before being thrown out; Bianca tracked him into a pub, then from the pub to a nightclub, before tracking him following the girls; he was their strongest lead by far; the footage showed him following the girls from one end of the Cross to the other, waiting in line behind them, leaving as soon as they were rejected from each venue.
With the four suspects identified, new photos now adorned the map on the wall; the four men, names and identities unknown. It was time for the taskforce to track these guys down.
"So none of the security have any idea who these guys are?" Andy wasn't impressed or convinced that this was true. "You went back with the stills?"
"Elliot and Karen went. I also got them to ask about knock-off times of the staff to make sure we were after the right person; knock-off for all these joints is about four in the morning – lock out at 1:30, last drinks at three, about half and hour to an hour to clean up before they're allowed to go. Noone had any staff leave early; bouncers and security can pretty much leave after they've booted everyone out, which only takes about fifteen minutes, if that. No, it was definitely a patron, not a staff member."
"Where does this leave us then? The Commissioner won't be happy that we have come up with a dead end."
"We can still look more closely at those cold cases; we have the DNA link, so if we can find him through the cold cases, it still counts. Technically we are still working on the Latif case." Danica's been going over the files we got when we got the DNA matches."
"Yeah, Ok. This is moving more and more into sex crime territory. Get Danica on those cases, see if she can see a link. See if she's managed to come up with anything after looking for these last few weeks."
"You're the resident expert on sex crimes; Andy thinks we need to chase that avenue more. If we sink out teeth into the Cameron and Brennan cases, we may be able to progress the Latif case as well." Bianca placed the first box of files on Danica's desk. "How far have you gotten? The old case is only about ten years old, the other ones only two years. It probably shouldn't even be in with the cold cases." Bianca picked up the top manila folder, opening it and absently thumbing through it. It seemed the DPP wasn't the only government department with severe budgetary constraints. She saw it less with the Federal Police; the bean counters obviously thought some crimes were more important than others. She was glad she was raised in Canberra; starting her career there meant she went straight into the feds, and she didn't really have to deal with departmental finance problems, and allowed them to chase and investigate most crimes to their conclusion without fear of being shut down prematurely. "How do you think we should approach it? How do you think we should start?"
"Well, besides the sex, we should look at it like any other crime. Let's go back to basics and consider them like homicides to start with. If we look at it like we have a drowning and a break and enter gone wrong…"
Bianca interrupted. "There were no signs of forced entry."
"Yeah, OK. Ummm… if we look at it as a violent assault, what have we got?" Daniaca asked herself, going over to the whiteboard to examine the autopsy photos. "I think after going through the physical evidence that we have, crime scene photos and whatever; we should check the witness statements and see if we can glean any clues from those. We can ask for more forensics to be done, ten years isn't that long ago, and maybe we will revisit some of the witnesses to get clarification from them if we need it."
"That's a good plan; it's probably where I would have started as well. Let's hold off from re-interviewing witnesses unless we absolutely have to. I'm reluctant to get them to relive trauma, especially considering we aren't technically investigating the deaths of their loved ones." Bianca went to her desk to pick up the second cold case box. "I'll get Elliot and Karen to look over it as well. They'll be more open to investigating if we present it as homicide." Bianca knew some cops got squeamish when a sex factor was added into a crime, and as a result, the quality of work dropped. "What were these originally classified as?"
Danica flicked through the file in front of her. "No designation on the Cameron case, there are some notes in here suggesting death by misadventure. Brennan case…" she flicked over some more pages, before answering Bianca. "Flicked back and forth between homicide, armed robbery and sexual offences before being filed into cold cases." Bianca winced at the carelessness of it all. Sarah Brennan was someone's wife. Someone's daughter. Someone's mother. She wondered if she should ask Andy about it; after all someone had died, so it was a homicide matter. In the end, she decided it wasn't worth agitating Andy about it; if they uncovered any new information in an organic manner then it wouldn't be seen as stepping on toes, and Andy may have a case to try to increase his budget. It also meant the inter-departmentary hornets' nest wouldn't be stirred up and they could stay friends; they were, after all, on the same team and she did spend significant time in New South Wales now; a friend high up in the state force sometimes really helped grease wheels, and some things just weren't worth fighting over.