‘So give them a call and tell them it’s a hot one. Give them a few details, but not too many. Just enough to get them interested. I’m sure they won’t mind working a Sunday for this.’
I stepped around her and crossed to the conference room adjoining Eckles’ office. Through the window, I recognised most of the people in there, except a woman in a beige suit pointing to a whiteboard. I opened the door and the woman stopped talking.
‘Ah, sorry,’ I said as everyone turned to look at me.
Two large colour photographs hung on the whiteboard. One was the man I’d spoken to at Café Vit on the day of Dallas Boyd’s murder. Gervas Kirzek. The other was an elderly man I didn’t recognise. Beneath him was the name ‘Karl Vitazul’.
‘Sit down, McCauley,’ said Eckles, pointing to a seat opposite him. ‘This is Fiona Johns. She’s a forensic psychologist on loan from the Feds and is bringing us up to speed on the man we’re after.’
Nik Stello sat across the table, flanked by three other detectives from the Homicide Squad. I nodded but none of them nodded back. To my left were an SOG sergeant, the divisional superintendent and two inspectors. I didn’t acknowledge any of them. Instead I looked at the woman in front of the whiteboard, who cleared her throat and used a pen to point to the elderly man on the right.
‘Karl Vitazul arrived in Australia in 1987, just prior to the collapse of the Ceauescu government in Romania,’ she explained. ‘The name Vitazul, by the way, means “brave man”. Not sure whether that’s relevant, but from what the Immigration Department records show, he was granted refugee status under the claim he was fleeing the Romanian dictatorship. We believe Karl Vitazul married a Romanian woman and subsequently moved to Brashov in Transylvania, where he worked for the Communist government. In effect, he lied to gain entry and residence in Australia.’
There were groans at the table as everyone feigned surprise.
‘We believe they were unable to have children of their own and so fostered a child from one of the notorious orphanages in Romania, known as leaganes,’ she continued, pointing to the other photograph on the whiteboard. ‘Gervas Kirzek.’
I began taking notes, as was everyone at the table except the SOG sergeant. He didn’t need to know any of this for his mission. All he needed was an address.
‘According to intel,’ Johns went on, ‘and this comes straight from the spooks in Canberra, Kirzek was born in 1960 in a village outside Brashov. We don’t know who his biological parents were, but ASIO believe he was fostered out of the orphanage at age four, after which he lived with the Vitazuls until he was eighteen. He joined the Securiate where he remained until the age of thirty when –’
‘The security what?’ the superintendent asked.
‘The Sec-u-ri-ate,’ Johns said, writing it on the whiteboard. ‘The Communist Party’s secret political police. They were responsible for guarding the internal security of the Ceauescu regime and suppressing any dissident groups that criticised or challenged it.’ She crossed her arms and turned to the photo of Kirzek. ‘I’ve seen pictures and read personal accounts of the tactics they used to achieve this. They trained their recruits in slaughterhouses and used live pigs as practice. Trust me, they were barbarians.’
I thought about the boy who’d been murdered in Talbot Reserve and Cassie’s words reverberated in my mind. Some sicko cut his throat so deep it damn near severed his head. I wanted to tell them about the laptop, the disk and the connection with Justin Quinn, but decided to wait until the end of the meeting.
‘In 1990, the Ceauescu dictatorship collapsed and the Securiate scattered,’ Johns went on. ‘Some fled to the US or Britain, others left for more remote and accepting countries in West Africa or South America. Kirzek disappeared for seven years, then guess where he turned up?’
Several people answered at once. ‘Australia.’
‘Right, but not Melbourne,’ Johns replied, pointing at the picture of the elderly man. ‘The foster father, Karl Vitazul, sponsored him and Kirzek was granted residency. This is where it gets interesting. Kirzek spent seven years in Sydney and clocked up a decent docket, mostly for sex offences and assault. Then in 2004 the stepfather died and Kirzek saw an opportunity to start afresh and pick up some inheritance, so he moved into the Elwood residence and took over the café, then buys himself a BMW, under the old man’s name,