Authors: Neil Cossins,Lloyd Williams
Like an energetic hound on the trail of a fox he ran the
scent to ground. He again searched the criminal record database and found that
Bruno Trulli had no criminal record. Slightly confused but still determined, he
Googled the name on the Internet. The search pulled up almost one hundred hits
on Bruno Trulli, the first of which was an article on a website that contained back
copies of a local newspaper. The article was a 2010 review of a restaurant in
the city named Pellegrinos. Nelson vaguely recalled having dined there a few
times a couple of years ago, with a pretty blonde girl named Susan who hadn’t
hung around for long before moving on. The article named Bruno Trulli as the
long serving maitre’d of Pellegrinos. Nelson thought briefly for a moment then
smiled knowingly and felt a rush of excitement and adrenalin as he recalled
that Pellegrinos was one of the restaurants the Fogliani family owned. He
laughed aloud - which drew quizzical looks from the surrounding desks – as he
realised he had found another small but important missing piece of the puzzle
and was now perilously close to filling in the complete picture.
Nelson knew he’d had a good morning. He hoped that he
had put an identity to the mystery triggerman that Craig Thoms had told him
about
and
found the connection between the triggerman and the Fogliani
family. It was heady stuff and he was half tempted to sit in his seat and bask
in his own glory for just a couple of minutes. Instead he phoned Manuel
Torres’ probation officer and got his current work and home addresses. Finding
Manuel Torres was the key. When he got hold of him he’d let Robards go to work
on him in the interview room. The probation officer told him that Torres
seemed clean since leaving prison and although she pushed Nelson for
information on why he was asking about Torres, Nelson gave her nothing in
return. With the Manuel Torres file tucked under his arm Nelson stood and
peered toward VanMerle’s office. To his relief, it was still empty. He asked one
of the Homicide squad civilian administrative assistants where VanMerle was and
was told he would be in budget meetings for the remainder of the afternoon. Nelson
gave a quiet prayer of thanks to no-one in particular for VanMerle’s end of
financial year preoccupation and smiled at the way his luck was holding. He
grabbed his jacket and headed out to his own car to track down Manuel Torres.
**********
Nelson initially checked the panel beater shop in Balmain
where Manuel Torres’ probation officer said he was employed, but was told by a tattooed
grease monkey with body odour issues that Torres hadn’t shown for work in the
last two days. Nelson accepted the information as a neat fit to his emerging
theory that the Foglianis were pursuing Torres for the murder of Emilio
Fogliani. He reasoned that Torres would be unlikely to return to his home
address but decided to check it out anyway and see if his luck continued to
hold. He drove to Redfern and leisurely drove by Manuel Torres’ apartment
block on Elizabeth Street before parking on the side of the road sixty metres up
from it in a position that afforded him a clear view of the front of the building.
The building was four stories high and was built in the
early sixties for housing commission tenancy. It was reasonably neat and tidy
but couldn’t hide its undercurrent of underpriviledge. Nelson considered his
options and decided to make a quick reconnoiter of the old apartment block before
settling in to wait for his quarry. Entering the building he took the stairs
to the fourth floor and quietly made his way along the hallway to Unit thirty-three.
There was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen from the exterior of the
apartment. The front door, while stained and marked by the passage of time,
was intact. Nelson contemplated busting the door in and searching it for
evidence. He knew there would be questions asked later if he did, but without
witnesses he could deny responsibility. He had done it often enough before.
On this occasion however he decided to try the patient approach and return to
his car and wait. He was still smarting at his error in judgement in
approaching Jennifer Nolan without any evidence to back him up and didn’t want
to repeat his mistake.
On his way out of the building he checked for other entry
points where Torres might be able to sneak into the building out of sight of his
vantage point, but was satisfied there were none, unless he possessed
spiderman-like climbing abilities. Nelson returned to his car and settled in
to wait. He hated stakeouts with a passion and struggled to sit still in a car
for hours while still maintaining high concentration levels. He began to wish
Robards was with him, as he possessed a keen set of eyes and also a seemingly never-ending
supply of crude and amusing stories that he was only too willing to share.
Nelson surveyed the street and those who were on it. Redfern
was a suburb that no police officer enjoyed visiting. Its reputation for
lawlessness and for pushing back against those who sought to tame it was second
to none in Sydney. The road and foot traffic on Elizabeth Road was regular but
not heavy. Most of the people in the street were a mix of either first
generation middle Eastern and African migrants or ten-thousandth
generation Aboriginals. Although the location was in the better part of
Redfern, if there was such a place, Nelson kept his car locked and his keys in
the ignition just in case.
**********
Three hours later Nelson was regretting the Grande sized cappuccino
that he had brought with him to help him stay alert and keep the tiredness at
bay. He looked through the car for a bottle to urinate into and was surprised and
disappointed at his own cleanliness when he could find nothing. Darkness had
come early thanks to the proximity to the winter solstice, so he alighted from
his car, ducked behind a tree in a nearby garden bed and noisily urinated.
As he was finishing up, a battered old VH Commodore rattled
past and double parked in the street. Nelson’s presence was hidden by the shadows
of the trees, where the street lights didn’t penetrate, and from his vantage
point he watched a man leap out of the car and run into the apartment block.
It happened so fast that Nelson wasn’t able to get a good look at him. With
his curiosity alerted and his nerves tingling, he crossed the street and
concealed himself beside a large four wheel drive. As he waited to get a closer
look his phone vibrated in his pocket. He considered ignoring it, but his hand
flipped it open.
“Hey, it’s Pete. Where are you?”
“I’m just on my way home.”
Nelson didn’t think Robards believed him and didn’t
care. “What’s up?”
“I’ve got some news. Remember Jennifer Nolan from the Fogliani
case?”
“Yeah, sure, how could I forget.”
“Well she’s just been found dead in her Woollahra
apartment. Apparently she took a bit of a beating before she died. Bovis and
I are still at Kings Cross station and heard about it from the LAC Detectives here
who have gone off to check it out.”
“Shit,” said Nelson taking the information in. “Anyone
see anything?”
“Yeah, a neighbour saw a guy running from the apartment
block.”
“Got a description?”
”Yeah, he had brown skin, shaved head and was of solid
build.”
“Torres,” Nelson said under his breath.
“What did you say? I didn’t catch that?”
“Ahh, nothing. It’s nothing.”
As Nelson continued to quiz Robards for further
information the man from the double parked car came out of the building. He scanned
the street as he walked towards his car carrying a small suitcase. As he
passed underneath a street lamp, Nelson’s heart skipped a beat as he recognised
the face. It was Manuel Torres.
“Look Pete, I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you soon. Give
me a call if anything new comes in about Nolan.” He snapped his phone shut. He
considered asking Robards to provide backup for him but decided against it for
the time being. He felt bad about leaving Robards out of the picture but wanted
to follow the lead through to the end without having to explain or justify his
actions to anyone else. It was something he would have to do alone.
Manuel Torres jumped in his car and drove off,
accelerating hard. Nelson sprinted back to his car, pulled out from the curb
with his headlights off and followed at a discrete distance.
Nelson followed the battered looking Commodore as it made
its way northward through the city, crossed the Harbour bridge and wound its way
along the Pacific Highway. Nelson found it difficult to conceal his presence
because Manuel Torres had pulled over three times during the journey. As
Nelson drove past the stationery vehicle on the first time Manuel had stopped,
he looked into its lit cabin and had seen that Manuel appeared to be looking at
something on his lap. After the third stop, Nelson realised that he was probably
checking his progress on a street directory on his lap.
It piqued Nelson’s curiosity even more and during the
course of the journey he thought hard about where Manuel might be going and how
it fitted with the case. A small seed of an idea began to germinate in his
mind and grew with confidence after every passing kilometre. When Manuel
turned off the Pacific Highway Nelson knew where he was going and was
reasonably certain he knew why.
After almost thirty minutes of driving, Manuel parked his
car outside a Roseville apartment block and made his way inside.
Nelson switched off his engine and glided to the curb fifty
metres behind Manuel’s Commodore. He again considered calling for backup, this
time from the nearest Local Area Command, but decided against it for the time
being as he didn’t want the outcome to be hijacked by the wailing sirens of a
couple of squad cars filled with energetic and nervous young Constables. He
checked his weapon, got out of his car and headed into the apartment block.
Nelson entered the lobby with gun drawn. He tried to
quieten his beating heart which pounded heavily in his ears and throat. He
looked up through the dim central staircase and thought he could hear faint
voices filtering down to him from above. Moving quickly yet cautiously he went
up the stairs, bypassing the silent first floor and making his way to the
second. He could almost make out the voices now.
He crept down the short corridor, honing in on the raised
male voice. The door to apartment ten was ajar by about forty centimetres and
light spilled out into the hallway from within. The frame of the door had been
shattered and broken shards of wood lay on the floor.
A door opened behind Nelson and he swung around instantly,
ready to retaliate against the surprise attack. Within a split second of pulling
the trigger he realised that it was just an old woman, a nosey neighbour, with
incredibly lousy timing or a euthanasia wish. He lowered his weapon, showed
her his badge, urged her to silence, frantically waved her back inside her
apartment and was relieved to find that his heart was still beating within his
chest cavity. Taking a few deep breaths which had no effect, he sidled quietly
and smoothly along the wall until he was just outside apartment number ten. He
focused his hearing on the enraged voice within.
“Do you think I’m completely stupid Kylie? I know what
you been doing. You set me up.” The words were bitterly spat out, the tone
was menacing and hard edged.
“C’mon baby it’s not like that. I didn’t do anything. I
didn’t tell anyone anything. I helped you, remember?” she replied, her honeyed
voice, calm and soothing. “I gave you someone to take the fall for you so
you’d be safe. He’s already been arrested for it.”
Manuel Torres looked into her sea green eyes, searching
for a hint of a lie and saw nothing. He wondered if he was making a terrible
mistake in accusing her and that maybe someone else could have known about the
murder and taken the photographs. She had been so good to him, so good for
him. He shook his head in an effort to clear it and pressed his hands against
the growing pain in his temples. He looked away to block out the sight of her
and give his mind time to think. His resolve to exact revenge had been diluted
by her convincing words and thoughts rushed through his mind, confusing him.
And yet, it had to be her, there was no-one else. He looked back to her and
noticed her eyes quickly dart back to him. For the briefest of moments he had
seen something in her face before it had been wiped clean to be replaced by a
different look. What was it? Fear? Anxiousness? What had she been looking
at?
He looked toward where he imagined her eyes had been
focussed and his eyes fell upon an eight by ten framed photo on the television
set. It was a photo of Kylie draped warmly over another man. The inference of
intimacy was unmistakable.
Kylie saw his eyes go to it and quietly cursed. She
looked longingly toward the open door but didn’t highly rate her chances of
escaping through it, at least not intact.
“That’s just an old photo. Someone from the distant past,”
she said, hoping to placate him. It was to no avail. Manuel’s confusion and
doubts evaporated.
“You’re a fucking liar,” he shouted. The force of the
accusation made her flinch involuntarily. He raised the gun and gestured at
her. “You played me bitch.”