Nowhere to Run
Chapter 3 of 10
by Vanessa
[nemesis@graffiti.net]
6 August - 5 September 1999
City Morgue
"Dr Soames? Sorry we're late. I'm Detective Christey, this is Detective Goldstein, from the Sydney Water Police," Jack offered his hand to the pathologist. He barely even looked at Goldie when he introduced her; he hadn't spoken a word on the drive over, which she judged to mean that he was either hurt or pissed off. Probably both.
"No problem, you're more punctual than Central Homicide ever are. I'm Imogen Soames -- Tootsie," she said as she shook Jack's hand, then Rachel's. Dr Soames was in her late forties or perhaps a bit older, with slightly wavy blonde hair, which looked as though it had been permed.
"The message we got said there was some sort of problem with the bodies...?" Rachel prompted, looking around for them.
"That's right. I did a preliminary examination last night -- my information was that you wanted to try and get an ID before deciding whether an autopsy was necessary."
Jack nodded. "Especially the girl -- y'know, for the family. We've got a possible ID, but it's still unconfirmed."
"The girl has already had an autopsy performed on her."
"What?"
"It's a little hard to tell, with her having been in the water, but I'd say that she's been dead for two weeks," Dr Soames said, then motioned for them to step closer to the tray with the female body on it. Pulling the sheet back, she began pointing out a few marks and scars. "It looks to me as though she's had the autopsy, then been fixed up at a funeral parlour."
"So, this can't be the kidnap victim," Rachel realised. "What about the guy?"
"Similar story there. He looks like a patched up hit and run victim, he's pretty beaten up."
"But how did these two end up in the harbour?" Jack said, trying to get his head around the new information. "We have witnesses who saw two very alive people go overboard, and then the dive squad pull out two corpses that have been dead for weeks."
"You know, I've seen this sort of thing before," Tootsie told them. "Sounds partly similar, anyway. Strange case a couple of years ago."
"What happened?" Rachel asked, interested.
"It turned out that someone was swapping bodies from funeral homes with murder victims, so the victims' bodies were cremated and never found, while the others turned up as John Does because, obviously, no one noticed them missing."
"Criminal masterminds," commented Rachel.
"Well, thanks a lot," Jack said. "Tootsie, do you think you could hold on to those two for a bit longer?"
She nodded. "I was going to try and call around, see if I could get an ID on either of them."
"That'd be great. Someone's got to have noticed them missing," Rachel said. "Now we know the people we're looking for are still alive."
"It shouldn't be too hard," Tootsie agreed. "I'll call you if I hear anything."
"Thanks," Jack said again, then he and Rachel left. They began hypothesising and thinking aloud, as they walked back to their unmarked police car.
"That is weird, don't you reckon? What do you think those bodies have to do with anything?" Rachel asked.
"Could be anything. If it's our kidnapper who put them there--"
"Who else would it be? It's gotta be him."
"Then he's a real sicko."
"You say that about everyone," Rachel said dismissively.
"It's true!" replied Jack, defensive.
"Of course it's true. That much is obvious -- I mean, sick and criminal go together. You wouldn't really think to be a criminal unless you were sick, and if you were sick and not a criminal, you'd soon become one."
"Naturally," he smirked.
"Tell you what, though, I reckon we should have another chat to Tayler and Syksie when we get back -- they're our main witnesses."
"Ferry passengers," Jack reminded her.
"And the ferry passengers. Say, who's got the list of their names?"
"Oh, you know -- I think it's that devastatingly handsome detective who you work with," Jack teased.
Rachel frowned, pretending to be deep in thought. "Handsome detective? That I work with? I don't know any handsome detectives... Wait, Mick -- do you mean Mick? Or possibly Frank, but--"
As soon as she said the words, she stopped short. Jack's face turned to stone, and a heavy, awkward silence fell over them. Just then they reached the car, and Rachel unlocked it and got in the driver's seat. When they were inside, Jack finally got up the courage to ask her the question that had been killing him all morning.
"Did you sleep with him?"
"No! No, it's nothing like that between us."
"Coulda fooled me."
"Jack, I swear to you, Frank and I -- we've never even come close to it. It's not like you and me."
"Well, what, are you saying that we do have something now, Rach? Because I'd really like to know -- I'd really like to know how it is that you forget about me every time Frank comes back."
"I've never forgotten you," she said quietly.
"No. You just tried to."
Rachel sighed and shook her head, unable to reply to that. After all, she had consciously ignored Jack's messages, which Frank had taken for her. 'Leave the past in that past,' they'd decided, because that was the best place for it. But somehow, she never seemed to be able to make good on that philosophy.
and I get all your good advice
it doesn't stop me from going through these things twice
I see the knives out, I turn my back
I hear the train coming, I stay right on that track
in the middle, in the middle, in the middle of a dream
I lost my shirt, I pawned my rings
I've done all the dumb things
I melted wax to fix my wings
I've done all the dumb thingsWater Police HQ
"Frank, take a seat," Chief Inspector Jeff Hawker guided him into his office, sitting down himself behind his desk. "I trust you had a nice, relaxing time on leave."
"Yeah, yeah, I did," Frank agreed. "I've still got a week left."
"Mm." Hawker paused, thoughtful. "About your position here--"
"Is it still open?" It had only ever been temporary, anyway, Frank thought. He went away for a few months on long service leave, and when he returned he'd been replaced with two detectives, neither of whom seemed immediately willing to forfeit their position to him.
"Not your old job, obviously. The structure's somewhat different now that we have a third detective, and I believe the team we've got presently is a strong one--"
"You don't want me back," Frank translated.
"That's not what I'm saying. You're a brilliant detective, Holloway, when you're focused," Jeff emphasised this last point, reminding Frank of why he'd gone on leave in the first place. He lost his perspective, beat up a drug dealer... the list went on. "And I know you and Rachel made a winning team--"
"But..."
"But if you come back here, you won't just be working with Goldstein. There'll be three of you--"
"What, you don't think I'd cooperate with a third detective? I was here when Reilly first arrived -- we got along fine," Frank reminded him.
"That was with Reilly," Jeff said, and let the full meaning of his words sink in. Frank looked somewhat taken aback, not having considered the possibility of working with -- no, under Jack. "To be blunt, there's only one circumstance under which I'd agree take you back."
"Oh yeah?" Frank asked. "What's that?"
"Take the sergeant's position," Jeff urged.
"No way!" protested Frank. "I won't do it, Jeff. I was a sergeant, and they took that away from me -- I'm not going through that again." He shook his head adamantly.
"I'll give you until the end of the week. Think it over; talk to Rachel. Don't get me wrong, Frank, I do want you back."
"Yeah, right," Frank muttered, then stood and departed without bothering with further pleasantries.
if there's a way that you could
be everything you want to be,
would you complain that it came too easy?
just like the games with you and me
a resolution hard to see,
but that's ok 'cause I don't
see things that are plain to seeFrank found Helen sitting in front of a computer, with two of the young boat crew constables on either side of her watching intently and instructing her.
"I think his face was... rounder," Gavin decided.
"His nose was smaller," Tayler contributed.
"No, it was big, and it had a lump--"
"What? No way -- his ears were smaller than that, too."
"He had a double chin."
Watching Helen try furiously to keep up with the contradicting descriptions given by the pair, Frank couldn't help but chuckle. "Hey, Syksie, aren't you supposed to be out on the Nemesis?"
"Had my fun yesterday, I'm paying for it now," Gavin quipped.
"You want something, Frank," Helen surmised.
"Well, a word, yeah, but I can see you're busy--"
"Oh, no, I'll give you five minutes -- in that time," she looked at Sykes and Johnson sternly, "Maybe you two can sort out what this bloke actually looks like?"
They responded with baffled looks, as though they didn't even realise what they'd been doing. Helen just shook her head and followed Frank to the break room, eager to hear what it was he wanted to say. She hadn't had a real chance to catch up with him yet, but she had a sneaking suspicion of why he'd returned.
In the break room, Frank related the conversation he'd just had with Hawker, while Helen made them each a coffee.
"So what do you think, Helen?" Frank asked, concluding his monologue. "Am I crazy?"
"Always have been," she agreed, not hesitating for a second on her reply. "But we wouldn't have you any other way."
"I'll put it another way: am I being unreasonable? About the promotion?"
Helen considered this carefully. "Maybe. Why not be a sergeant, Frank? It won't make much difference to the powers that be if you decide to hold yourself back, but it means a hell of a lot to you."
"But I've been there already -- twice. And I don't know... being their boss, I don't know how good I'd be. Hawker's probably right, y'know -- I can't really work with a team. I should just leave the sergeant's position to Christey."
"Yeah?" Helen raised an eyebrow sceptically.
"Yeah -- I mean, he's settled here, he probably wouldn't want to leave anyway. And it's not really my job any more, is it?" To Helen, it sounded very much as though Frank was trying to convince himself with the speech, not her.
"Goldstein went for the sergeant's position, you know?" Helen said suddenly. Frank looked at her in surprise -- he didn't know this. "After straight out refusing to even try, in case she ended up your boss, when you left she came in the next day and put in her application."
"Well, that's the thing with me and Rachel -- we're partners. It doesn't work any other way."
"Who says? If you accept that, you've got nothing, Frank."
He shrugged. "Maybe that's best. Maybe what we-- what I've got now is nothing, and maybe I need to go out there and put all my past behind me and find something."
"So, you'll just bury the past, forget it all?"
"Yeah," he nodded. "I reckon so."
"Can I ask you something, Frank? Honestly."
"Shoot."
"If Rachel had gone with you when you went sailing off into the sunset, would you still have come here now, trying to get your old job back?"
Shocked, Frank's mouth fell slightly open, and he looked at Helen carefully. "Did she tell you about that?"
"No, she didn't, Frank, I just know you both too well." It hadn't been hard to figure out. Helen had known Holloway would have wanted his colleague to accompany him, and Goldstein's moping after his departure had betrayed feelings of regret. It didn't take a Detective to figure out what was up between them, that was for sure.
"Ahem," a voice at the doorway interrupted. Tayler looked at them anxiously, not wanting to interrupt even though Helen had taken longer than her promised five-minute break. "Are we going to finish this face or what?"
"Yeah, righto," Helen agreed, standing to leave. "Holloway, I can't help you decide -- just figure out what you want, and go after it."
"Mm," Frank replied. "Thanks -- you're a fantastic friend." He kissed her, and as she left Helen considered that, of all the compliments Frank had paid her over the years, that one ranked highest.
it's a catatonic state you exist in
and when you're gone, you'll be forgotten
well you can take or leave this twisted world
that you live in
but you know there's only one way out
yeah that's to give in
and when you're gone you'll be forgotten, not forgiven
don't give it up, don't take it out
don't take the easy way downRachel Goldstein stood on the docks in front of the Water Police Headquarters; the jacket of her pants suit was unbuttoned, her hands were on her hips, and she frowned at her colleagues. She and Jack had run into Mick Reilly as they were returning from the morgue, and had explained the situation in the hope that he could make more sense of it. Unfortunately, he couldn't.
"There's got to be something more to it, some reason that we can't see yet," Goldie insisted. Mick shrugged. Jack kicked a stray pebble, watching as it bounced along and over the edge, into the harbour. Seeing this, her frown intensified.
"Jack? Are you still with us on this one? You got any thoughts at all about it?"
"I reckon he's messin' with us," Jack replied disinterestedly, not bothering to look up from the ground. "Some people like to do that, you know -- mess around with people's heads, see how they react."
Rachel rolled her eyes, the action masked by her sunglasses. Sometimes she wondered if Jack knew his age; he acted like such a child, and he could be so pettily possessive.
"Hang on a minute," Mick unknowingly intervened in the lovers' tiff. "In Syksie's statement, he said he couldn't figure out why the kidnapper started slowing down, let alone turned around. They were on the verge of abandoning the pursuit, because he was too far ahead."
"Well, the bloke would have had to plant the bodies beforehand..." The dots in Jack's brain began connecting, and Rachel picked up the path they were tracing.
"So he needed to get our people to the right spot."
"Exactly," Jack agreed. "He staged it."
"All right -- why?" she challenged, having no idea herself.
"Fun and profit?" Jack shrugged. "Say, Reilly, we've got four ferry passengers as witnesses -- you wanna come around and have a chat with them, see if they hold any clues?"
"What about me?" Rachel demanded. She had never known Jack to voluntarily go with Reilly instead of her; they were the double act, Mick was their solo sidekick.
"We can handle it. You go talk to the girl's parents, give 'em the drill."
Sighing, Rachel made a mental note to knock some sense into Jack later -- preferably when Mick was absent -- and headed back into the police station. Her intention was to locate Dave McCall, and she found him joking around with Emma Woods and Frank in the break room.
"Sorry to kill the party, guys, but I've got a job for you," she announced.
"Me included?" Woods asked.
"Definitely you, Woodsie," replied Rachel. "Dave, I need you to get a dive team back out to where you found those bodies yesterday and do a thorough search of the surrounding area. We're looking for, um... well, just anything that doesn't belong there, which looks like it might belong to our kidnapper."
"Isn't the kidnapped the bloke we pulled out yesterday?" Dave inquired, confused.
"Apparently not. I'll see you out there soon, I'm going to drop by and see Simone Wolski's parents first."
"We're on our way," Dave assured her, then he and Emma left.
Rachel turned to Frank, slightly curious as to why he was still there. But then, she'd said it herself in the past -- he loved the place. "Still hanging around like a bad smell, huh Francis?"
"Something like that," he agreed. "But no one seems to be doing any work around here, anyway."
"Well, I am." She considered a minute, before making a suggestion. "Listen, Jack's ditched me -- why don't you tag along?"
"You need a chauffeur?" Frank joked.
"Nah, but I could use an extra pair of ears, in case her folks say anything worth remembering." That wasn't the whole truth, but he accepted it.
"Where're we headed?"
End Chapter 3