overnight and take her back to the nursing home tomorrow, if the fires don’t get too close.’
‘Anything I can do?’
‘Just speak to Chloe. I’ll deal with Mum and Dad for now.’
‘All right, mate. You take care.’
‘Thanks. Ciao.’
‘Everything okay?’ Cassie asked when I hung up.
‘Family politics,’ I said, brushing her off. ‘Let’s go do this.’
I filled her in on the YMCA dead end as we walked into Café Vit. Like everywhere else in St Kilda that day, it was crowded, hot and loud.
‘I don’t know a Karl Vitazul,’ a waiter named Nigel said in answer to my question. ‘Nobody by that name works here.’
‘Think!’ Cassie said. ‘He told us he was the owner.’
‘He’s overweight,’ I added. ‘Maybe five ten, thin hair, round face. Speaks with a European accent.’
The waiter frowned. ‘You must mean Gervas.’
‘Who’s Gervas?’
‘Gervas Kirzek. He’s the owner.’
I frowned, confused. Why had the owner given me a different name, one that matched the registration plate and home address of a ninety-three year old?
‘Where is he?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
Cassie stepped closer, lowering her voice. ‘Don’t lie to us, Nigel. We’ve got a job to do, just like you. Just tell us where he is and we’ll be out of here.’ She nodded towards the seating area. ‘If not, we’ll make a real scene.’
Nigel ran a hand through oily hair. ‘Look, I don’t know where he is. He hasn’t been in since that dead kid was found out back. Freaked him out.’
‘Did you know Dallas Boyd?’ Cassie prodded.
‘Who?’
‘The kid your boss found outside.’
‘Just some junkie, wasn’t he? Shame they can’t all go that way, I reckon. You should see what some of them do around here. Just last week we had one guy –’
‘Your boss,’ I interrupted. ‘Where can we find him?’ ‘At home, I suppose. I hope he hasn’t done something stupid.’
‘Like what?’
‘Shit, I don’t know. As I said, he was pretty freaked out after finding that kid. And they say it’s victimless to use drugs. Tell that to Gervas. He had to wait outside with the body. He was a mess afterwards. People feel sorry for junkies, but I don’t. They come in here all the time, thieving and harassing everyone. Last week one of them even vomited in the –’
‘Save it,’ I hissed.
‘Kitchen,’ he finished.
‘Just tell us where he lives.’
‘All right! I’ll get you the address. I’m just saying that thing last week had him real wired, man. Maybe you could check on him, make sure he’s all right,’ he said, leading us past the kitchen to an office at the rear.
At the back door, I looked out at the loading bay where Dallas Boyd had died and thought about how far we’d come in just a few days. There were cops who said that all cases had a rush point: the moment you knew you were face to face with evil, when all your instincts and gut feelings were proven. With it came an immense rush of adrenaline that surpassed anything else on the planet. Before Nigel even wrote down the address, I knew it would be the same house we’d just been to in Elwood, and I felt that familiar sensation build in my stomach. I looked at Cassie and knew she felt it too. Rush point. We were closing in.
27
IT TOOK SOME PERSUADING, but Cassie agreed to keep the Dallas Boyd murder and the laptop separate, even though we knew the two were linked. My rationale was that it would be premature to inform the Homicide Squad of our suspicions since we didn’t know yet who Gervas Kirzek or Karl Vitazul were.
I left her at the station to run record checks and she soon rang back to confirm that the name Vitazul matched the BMW Sparks had stolen, which in turn matched the address the waiter had said Gervas Kirzek, the owner of the café, lived at.
Meantime, I drove north towards the city, trying to fit it all together. Why had Kirzek, or whoever the hell he was, given me a false name when I first spoke to him at the crime scene? It wasn’t unusual for crooks to adopt an alias, especially when questioned by police. Usually they did it to protect a past they didn’t want exposed. That would fit with having a driver’s licence and the BMW’s rego being under a bogus identity. The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with Finetti that Kirzek had killed Boyd, staged the scene and called police with a concocted story and phoney