Casey frowned and sipped her beer. “Well, that’s good, Scott, but it’s still akin to searching for a needle in a haystack.”
This time Scott chuckled. “I don’t think you’re getting me. This is a 2011 Audi S5 coupe with a Victorian plate.”
Casey leaned in close to the table top. “Right?”
“Right—and the thing is, there were probably less than sixty of these sold in Victoria at that time. If you’re looking to narrow things down a bit, I would bet my house that, of those sixty, a good portion of them are still garaged here in the city. All the police would have to do is run a search through Vic Roads and see which of these cars were sold and registered at that time. They could probably pinpoint the very car even with this obscured plate.”
Casey’s expression melted into a grin. “Just like that, huh?”
Scott winked. “Just like that.”
He watched Casey as her eyes wandered. She became thoughtful.
“You’re not going to go to the police, are you.” It was less a question than it was a statement.
Casey smiled at him. Plucking the image from his hand, she stood and downed the remainder of her beer in one gulp.
As she did so, Casey glanced absently at the TV screen as a news bulletin flashed on and the image of a woman’s face appeared on screen.
A familiar face.
Casey’s grip on the beer bottle slackened and she almost dropped it. The colour drained from her face.
“What is—”
“Turn that up,” Casey snapped.
Scott reached for the remote control beside him and pointed it at the screen, bringing up the volume of the news reader’s voice.
“Police remain at the scene of last night’s horrific single-vehicle motor accident that took the life of thirty-four-year-old Josephine Catea. So far, they have spoken to a number of witnesses who were in the vicinity of the accident and our sources understand that they have told authorities the vehicle was travelling at high speed immediately before the crash.”
Casey advanced slowly towards the screen as the news reader continued.
“Ms. Catea was a federal government employee in the Department of Immigration & Border Protection. It is unclear at this time whether Federal Police will be assisting with inquiries.”
Scott looked worried now. “What is it, Case?”
Slowly, Casey turned. Her jaw was slack. She was clearly in shock.
“It’s her.”
“Her who?” Scott responded urgently. He stood and stepped sideways, putting a hand on her shoulder.
Casey pressed a hand to her forehead and turned on her heel.
“Scott, I’ve gotta go. I-I’ll be in touch, okay. I’ve gotta do something.”
___
Lionel was in the kitchen, preparing dinner when the door rumbled aside and Casey stumbled in.
He turned as she entered. Her face was ashen, her expression taut.
“Have you seen the news?” Casey blurted as she marched across to the TV remote and thumbed the power switch.
Wiping his hands on a tea towel, Lionel came over as Casey changed the station to an all news channel. They were still covering the story.
“It’s her, Pa. It’s Josephine Catea.”
“Josephine who?”
“The woman whose ID card I cloned,” Casey retorted, her voice shaking fearfully. “I used her credentials to hack into the Flaxley database.”
They watched as the newsreader recounted similar details to the story Casey had seen at the bar.
“Surely, this is just a coincidence,” Lionel gulped softly.
Casey levelled a glower at him. “Do you really think that, after what we’ve discovered?”
Lionel frowned, sensing his granddaughter was right.
Casey continued to watch the TV, noticing that the story had been expanded to include new footage of uniformed Victorian Police milling about at the accident scene along with a fire crew and a lone ambulance. It was being ushered through a cordon where the public had gathered and were watching on.
“This is my fault,” Casey gasped. “This is all my fault.”
A reporter on the scene was interviewing several lookers-on, then the camera switched back to the smoking ruin of the car, still wrapped around the light post. At that moment, Casey spotted Prishna Argawaal, engaged in what appeared to be a tense exchange between herself, two of her own colleagues and three dark-suited men.
Prishna’s eyes met the camera lens for the briefest of moments. Casey could see her expression.
Anger. Frustration.
One of the dark-suited men held out his arms on either side and began ushering Prishna away from the scene. A new group of uniformed officers converged on the car in their place. Prishna appeared to protest but the camera operator jerked away from the scene as one of the dark suits tried to block the lens with his palm.
Casey’s eyes narrowed.
“Something’s wrong.” Grabbing the remote, Casey aimed it at the screen and paused the live footage, just as the man’s hand obscured the camera lens. Casey scrolled backwards slightly until she paused it on the final clear image of Prishna.
An idea began to foment.
Turning to the workstation, Casey grabbed her smartphone and scrolled through her phone book.
“What are you going to do?” Lionel asked with mounting concern.
Casey nodded at the TV screen. “Something that is probably totally crazy,” Casey remarked.
Holding the phone up so that Lionel could see, she leaned forward. Lionel read the name of the contact Casey had highlighted.
Prishna.
CHAPTER 29.
Stepping from her car, Prishna shielded her eyes as she scanned the foreshore in front of Mentone beach. A chill morning breeze whipped off the bay and stung her cheeks. She hissed, then cursed aloud at having to leave the warmth of her car. Her eyes fell across the jetty, where she spied several figures. A pair of early morning fishermen. An elderly gentleman sitting on a bench, armed with a newspaper and puffing blue cigarette smoke into the morning air. A lone figure stood, still further along, leaning against the rail opposite. She was looking directly at her.
Even at this distance, Prishna knew it was Casey. She tilted her head.
Dressed in an oversized hoodie, black leggings and trainers, Casey stood back from the rail and lifted her hand gingerly. Prishna hesitated by her car, sizing up Casey.
If Casey was nervous about this meeting, her body language gave no indication. She appeared calm. Relaxed.
She’d ignored Casey’s instruction to come alone. Prishna wasn’t about to take any chances. Glancing south along the foreshore, she spotted her partner who had emerged from a line of trees adjacent to a children’s playground. He began pacing back and forth.
Reaching down to her belt, Prishna discreetly thumbed the transmit button of a UHF walkie-talkie.
“Stand by, Rob,” she said.
Locking the car, Prishna buttoned her jacket and trudged down the steps.
Casey watched as the detective approached to within several feet on the opposite side of the jetty and then rested her forearms on the rail. She gazed across the water at a pair of racing yachts that were cruising past. Lifting the cowl of her hoodie, Casey shifted and put her hands in her pockets. Prishna glanced over her shoulder.
Casey gestured with a nod over at the beach.
“You might want to tell your goon to find a seat away from the play equipment,” Casey suggested sourly. “Unless he wants to be confronted by an angry parent accusing him of being a paedophile.”
Prishna smiled bitterly. It faded quickly.
“I have to confess, Casey, I’m impressed. I thought you were afraid of open spaces.”
Casey noted how tired Prishna appeared. Troubled. There was none of the usual snark in her voice.
“You looked tired,” Casey commented. “I saw you on the TV last night.”
“Yeah, well. Tiredness is an occupational hazard when y
ou’re called upon to investigate a security breach and the apparent victim of that breach turns up dead.” Prishna turned around and glared at Casey. “I know it was you, Casey,” she challenged.
“Come off it, Prishna. You don’t honestly think—”
“Not the car accident,” Prishna snapped forcefully. “I saw the security footage at Flaxley. You’re terrible at disguising yourself. I spotted you a mile away.”
“If you’re so sure it was me, take me in now,” Casey challenged.
“Oh, don’t tempt me.” Prishna’s voice trailed away.
Casey tilted her head, examining Prishna curiously. “The Feds have frozen you out,” she observed. “Haven’t they?”
To Casey’s surprise, Prishna nodded. “It seems that whoever accessed the network at Flaxley with Josephine Catea’s credentials has stirred up a hornet’s nest.”
Prishna paused, gauging Casey’s expression. “The question is: what did Josephine look at that caused such a shitstorm?”
“You don’t believe that car crash was an accident?”
Prishna considered the observation. “There is…suspicion.”
Casey crossed over the jetty and stood beside Prishna. The gravity of what she had caused weighed heavily on her.
“Josephine Catea allegedly performs a search for a series of file numbers in a Federal Immigration Department database and not even twelve hours later she is dead.”
Prishna shrugged her shoulders. “According to the centre she’d left work late after a long day of dealing with the mess you created.”
Casey looked away. She felt sick.
Prishna could sense Casey’s guilt. “The official word is, she most likely fell asleep at the wheel.”
Casey glared at Prishna. Her eyes were reddened. “C’mon, Prishna. You know that’s not true.”
Hesitating, Casey reached into the pocket of her hoodie and took out a small square of paper. She handed it to Prishna.
“What’s this?”
“That…is what I went searching for yesterday.”
Prishna regarded her carefully.
“They’re file numbers, Prishna,” Casey explained. “My guess is that they’re for people who were detained at Flaxley. The moment I entered them into the system, it caused an alarm to trip somewhere and the rest…well, just look at what happened.”
“Where did you get this?”
A gust of wind whipped up off the water, causing Casey to push several locks of hair away from her eyes. She looked back at Prishna.
“Saskia Andrutsiv.”
Prishna’s lips parted in shock.
“Josephine Catea wasn’t the only one who died because of those file numbers.”
Casey placed the piece of paper into Prishna’s hand and gestured.
“You can check the handwriting if you want. I guarantee you it’ll match with Saskia’s.”
“I don’t understand.” Prishna asked. “What does this have to do with Saskia?”
“I got Shelley Agutter to talk,” Casey said. “Turns out she had a lot more to say to me than she did to the police. Saskia gave Shelley those numbers the night she died. She never told Shelley what they were for.”
“You’re not suggesting that Saskia’s death was because…” Prishna said, exasperated.
“You’ve read her file, Prishna,” Casey shot back. “You know very well that Saskia was detained at Flaxley over a dispute with her student visa.”
Prishna’s eyes narrowed and she nodded.
“Saskia,” Casey continued, leaning forward, “met someone there. Whoever that someone was, they found out that she had those numbers and they killed her because of them.”
Surprisingly, Prishna nodded. “Shelley Agutter came to the police some time after Saskia’s death,” she said. “She tried to tell us that she had new information about someone Saskia had spoken to the night of her death. But we didn’t pursue it. Shelley Agutter and her friends were deemed unreliable witnesses because of the drugs they’d taken that night.”
“Well,” Casey said. “Don’t you think there’s something here worth pursuing?”
Prishna’s expression faltered. “I don’t know what you expect me to do with these?”
Without warning, Casey snatched the piece of paper from her grasp and held it up between them. The breeze blew across the top edge of it, flapping the paper furiously.
“Cut the shit, Prishna. Saskia had these numbers in her hand and she died because of them,” Casey snapped. “Now Josephine Catea is dead because of them. Someone really doesn’t want these files to get out. You want to know what they mean just as much as I do.”
Crossing her arms over her chest, Casey gnashed her teeth. “You can do some poking in the right places.”
Prishna considered the numbers. Casey couldn’t believe she was still doubtful.
“Look. You find out what they are and…I’ll give you Octagon,” Casey said.
For the briefest of moments, Casey saw Prishna’s tongue caress her bottom lip and she allowed herself a satisfied smile. She lowered her hand towards Prishna, offering the numbers. Prishna took them.
Casey stepped back, then turned and strode away from her. Prishna remained stationary. The walkie-talkie squawked at her hip as her companion tried to raise her.
“What are you gonna do?” Prishna called after Casey.
“I’m not going to stop,” Casey replied, without looking back.
“Casey!” Prishna called after her. “Stay out of this. Let the right people handle it.”
Casey paused and glared back over her shoulder.
“Find out what those numbers mean, Prishna.”
Prishna looked down at the piece of paper again, then slipped it into her pocket.
I’m not going to stop… Casey’s words echoed in Prishna’s mind.
“Shit,” she hissed aloud. I don’t want you to stop.
The walkie-talkie continued to squawk incessantly and finally, she reached down. Pressing the transmit button, Prishna watched Casey shrink as she crossed the sand, then climbed the steps.
“Let her go,” Prishna said softly.
___
Lionel was sweeping the courtyard when he heard the Volkswagen pull into the carport.
He waited, hearing the engine extinguish then the door open and close.
Casey appeared in the entrance. Her expression was blank.
“So?” Lionel ventured.
Casey leaned against the doorframe and shrugged. “Okay…I think. She agreed to look into it. But I had to throw her a bone of sorts.”
Lionel’s expression tightened.
“Do I want to know?”
Casey sat down inside the doorway. “Probably not. I’m taking a risk but I think Prishna might just come around.”
“Sounds like a big risk?” he pried. “But, at the very least, you’re doing the right thing in going to her.”
Resting the broom against the wall, Lionel put his hands in his pockets. “I forgot to ask you last night, what did your friend Scott have to say?”
Casey’s expression went wide and she looked up at Lionel suddenly. “Oh shit,” she hissed. “I totally forgot!”
Casey sprang to her feet and bounded up the stairs. Caught unaware, Lionel blinked, frozen where he stood before finally following in her wake.
Entering the apartment, Lionel watched as Casey rifled through her shoulder bag.
“Why are you so pleased with yourself all of a sudden?”
Casey flashed her grandfather a grin as she held up the image of Saskia and Shelley posing in front of the Audi. She strode across to the computer and tapped the darkened screen with her fingers.
“Scott found our needle,” she said. “He reckons he’s sure of the make. I just need to make sure it’s the right one.”
“Well, that’s good news. I guess.”
Casey’s fingers danced across the keyboard. “Possibly. I just hope Scotty hasn’t lost his touch.”
Lionel set his gloves dow
n on the kitchen counter then clasped the back of a kitchen stool, carrying it across to the workstation.
“Pray tell how are you going to do that?” he queried with wearied concern.
She glanced up at him, still smiling, but didn’t respond.
Instead, she opened her notebook to a page near the middle and handed it to him to hold for her.
While typing and scanning down a list of numbers on the page, she identified the one she wanted and typed it into a newly opened command window.
Lionel watched as she tapped the ‘Enter’ key. A flurry of text and numbers scrolled across the screen, their brightness dazzling him. He had no idea what they all meant.
Casey pointed to a drawer underneath the glass surface.
“Open that for me.” Lionel complied and looked down onto a small, rectangular box inside. “And hand me that,” she instructed.
He lifted it out and watched as Casey opened it, revealing a dozen golden objects inside that looked like small ingots, perfectly aligned in a foam holder. Each of them was inscribed with an alpha numeric code on their surfaces.
Looking down from the screen, Casey ran her finger across each of the objects until she stopped at one in the middle and plucked it out. She held it up for Lionel to see.
It was a USB key.
“We’re going for a little trip,” she said, plugging the golden key into an empty port on the side of the monitor. Returning to the screen, she pointed at it.
“First, I need the right IP address for the remote system from the notebook. Once I’ve opened that, I just need to identify the correct port number within that address.”
“Oh…kay,” Lionel responded, completely flummoxed.
Casey looked at a new series of numbers, pursing her lips.
“Gotta have the correct port in order to sneak inside.”
“Sneak inside?” Lionel responded with alarm. “Sneak inside where?”
“Just watch.”
Finding what she wanted, Casey tapped in a fresh series of commands, then pressed a small button on the gold USB key. A blue LED winked on its surface. Three words flashed up in the dialogue box.
‘Loeffler’s helminth deploying.’
“Oh, well that’s charming,” Lionel grumbled caustically.