Finetti had made at the death scene that morning. Something about the missing syringe lid still bothered me. If the kid had prepared his fit like any other junkie, he’d have injected himself in the same location he was found in. As such, all the paraphernalia should have been located near the body. Yet we hadn’t found the lid, even after the body was removed. What did that mean? I tried to tell myself it was nothing. Like Finetti had said, the kid could’ve swallowed it accidentally, or it could’ve simply fallen down a drain or into a crack or under a bin. At the end of the day, what did it matter? The kid had injected himself and overdosed. Simple. It happened all the time.
I began a cursory tidy-up of the apartment, stacking the dishwasher and putting on a load of washing. But doing housework wasn’t going to remove the image of Dallas Boyd slumped against the wheelie bin. Nor would it remove the doubt that squirmed in my gut or the possibility that I’d ignored my own instincts, instincts that had lain dormant for over twelve months.
I sat at the bench and reread Finetti’s notes, wondering if it would’ve been any different had I scribed and Finetti dictated. Then it hit me. Something was missing. I opened the daybook to a fresh page as the threads of a theory began to form, welcoming the feeling as I listed an anomaly I believed needed further investigating: Mobile recharge receipt – no phone?
The receipt we’d found in Dallas Boyd’s wallet indicated a mobile recharge card had been purchased at 10 p.m. the night he died, yet no mobile phone had been located on or near the body. These days, everyone had a mobile phone. So where was the dead kid’s?
That made at least two anomalies, but there was something about the tourniquet that wasn’t quite gelling either. I went over Finetti’s notes again but nothing jumped out, so I connected my digital camera to the television and began scrolling through the pictures I’d taken. Zooming in on the leather belt, I tried to make my theory take shape, but all the image did was frustrate me. I needed to see the belt again. I needed to hold it in my hands. There was only one place to do that.
3
THE VICTORIAN CORONER’S OFFICE was located in Southbank, less than three kilometres from my apartment. A low-level facility made of steel and glass, the complex spread across half a city block and was divided into three joined buildings: the coronial court, a forensic pathology centre and an area specifically designed for the identification of bodies.
The allocated police bays outside the complex weren’t for the private vehicles of police members, but my Falcon was only two years old and always passed for an unmarked car, so I parked and followed the main walkway to the building in the middle. Inside the foyer, I approached a circular reception desk for the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine. The morgue.
Behind the desk a grey-haired woman sat chewing on a pencil as she stared into a computer screen, Paul Kelly’s ‘Dumb Things’ playing on a radio behind her. Clearing my throat, I asked to speak with Matthew Briggs.
‘And you are?’ she asked.
‘Police,’ I replied, flipping open my badge case.
‘What’s it in relation to?’ She sounded like a suspicious mother guarding her precious child against the neighbourhood riffraff.
‘A case I’m working on. The undertakers said Mr Briggs signed in a body this morning. I need to ask him some questions about it.’
She punched a few digits into a phone, waited a brief moment, then put down the handset and said he wasn’t available before going back to reading whatever it was on her screen.
‘Ah, what does that mean?’ I asked. ‘Has he gone home for the day, or is he just away from his desk?’
She shrugged. ‘Could be in the toilet for all I know. Maybe you could call his mobile.’
‘Good idea. Are you able to tell me what the number is or should I speak to someone more senior – your manager perhaps?’
The woman faced me angrily. ‘I’m getting it for you now, if you can be patient.’
After a moment she was back on the phone. When she hung up, she spoke without looking at me.
‘Take a seat by the window. He’s on his way down.’
Matthew Briggs arrived shortly after, tall and thin, dark eyes set deeply into a pale face, like a skeleton. A green medical