Yong put another transparency over the first with the same map. This one had blue dots, which covered almost all the red ones beneath.
‘What’s this?’ Watkins asked tetchily.
‘This is taken from the list of shows performed by the Australian Travelling Show Park, a circus, and indicates where they were on the relevant dates.’
The fan continued its lament, but otherwise the conference room was utterly still.
‘Holy Dooley, we’ve got ’im!’ Lebie shouted.
‘The chances of this being a coincidence are, statistically speaking, about one in four million,’ Yong smiled.
‘Wait, wait, who is it we’re looking for now?’ Watkins interjected.
‘We’re looking for this man,’ Yong said, placing a third transparency on the overhead. Two sad eyes set in a pale, slightly bloated face with a tentative smile looked at them from the screen. ‘Harry can tell you who this is.’
Harry got up.
‘This is Otto Rechtnagel, a professional clown, forty-two years old, who has been on the road with the Australian Travelling Show Park for the last ten years. When the circus isn’t working he lives alone in Sydney and performs freelance. At the moment he’s started up a small troupe giving shows in town. He’s got a clean record as far as we can see, has never been in the spotlight in connection with any sexual offences and is considered a convivial, quiet fellow, though somewhat eccentric. The crunch is that he knew the deceased, he was a regular at the bar where Inger Holter worked and they had become good friends over time. She was probably on her way to Rechtnagel’s the night she was killed. With food for his dog.’
‘Food for his dog?’ Lebie laughed. ‘At half past one in the morning? I think our clown had something else on his mind.’
‘And right there you’ve put your finger on the bizarre side of the case,’ Harry said. ‘Otto Rechtnagel has maintained a facade as a hundred per cent, card-carrying homosexual since the age of ten.’
This information occasioned mumbling round the table.
Watkins groaned. ‘Do you believe that a homosexual man like this could have killed seven women and raped six times as many?’
McCormack had entered the room. He had been briefed. ‘If you’ve been a happy homo with exclusively homo friends for the whole of your life, it’s perhaps not so surprising that you become anxious the day you discover that the sight of a shapely pair of tits makes John Thomas twitch. Christ, we’re living in Sydney, the only town in the world where people are closet heteros.’
McCormack’s booming laugh drowned the braying of Yong, who was laughing so much his eyes had become two narrow slits in his face.
Watkins didn’t let himself get carried away by all this good humour. He scratched his head. ‘Nonetheless, there are a couple of things here that don’t stack up. Why would someone who has been so cold and calculating right through suddenly reveal himself like this? Why invite a victim home in this way? I mean, he couldn’t know if Inger had told others where she was going. If she had, she would have led us directly to him. Besides, it looks like the other victims were chosen at random. Why would he suddenly break the pattern and choose a girl he knows?’
‘The only thing we know about this poor bastard is that he has no clear pattern,’ Lebie said, blowing at one of his rings. ‘However, it seems as if he likes variety. Except that the victims have to be blondes –’ he polished the ring on his shirtsleeve – ‘and that they are often strangled afterwards.’
‘One in four million,’ Yong repeated.
Watkins sighed. ‘OK, I give in. Perhaps we’re simply having our prayers answered. Perhaps he has finally committed the all-important mistake.’
‘What are you going to do now?’ McCormack asked.
Harry spoke up. ‘Otto Rechtnagel is unlikely to be at home, he’s got a performance with his circus troupe on Bondi Beach tonight. I suggest we go and watch the show and arrest him straight afterwards.’
‘I can see our Norwegian colleague has a sense for the dramatic,’ McCormack said.
‘If the performance has to be interrupted the media will be onto it straight away, sir.’
McCormack nodded slowly. ‘Watkins?’
‘Fine by me, sir.’
‘OK, haul him in, boys.’
26
Another Patient
ANDREW HAD PULLED the duvet up to his chin and looked as if he was already lying in state. The swellings on the side of his face had acquired a spectrum of entertaining colours, and when he tried to smile at Harry his face distorted in pain.
‘Jeez, does it hurt so much to smile?’ Harry said.