Chapter 1: Ray Clift
Detective Senior Constable Jen Lawrence pushed open the door of the newly formed Federal Sexual Abuse task force in a building in Canberra, the Capital City of Australia. She scratched the back of her well formed head which sat on a lean near six foot frame topped off with a full thick head of auburn hair. Her bright blue eyes focused on the white board which should have had more ticks regarding the clear up rate of arrests, due to the specially selected investigators from all the State Police Officer and her frustration was partly due to unspoken words from her lover Detective Sergeant Noel Johnson (NSW Police).
She shuffled along with no prospect of marriage or children, on the radar and her thoughts, which were constant, were about the affair with a divorced, much older man. Who she admired from their stint together, at the FBI academy in Quantico.
Yet she knew he was obsessed, with a private investigation into the well known Sydney multimillionaire, named Robin Melville, and incidentally a Philanthropist. He believed that Melville had murdered some pedophiles yet was roundly warned by his boss shortly after the return to Australia, to lie off: Jen distanced herself from Noel and his obsessions because she had her eye on a Profilers Course with the FBI, yet their bond still remained.
The back of her head itched ,which was always an intuitive sign and the Tarot reading she had two weeks prior confirmed much of her frustrations.-Jesus Christ,- she muttered, a marriage coming up with an older man, a great journey awaited her or was it an odyssey? As it was put.
A discovery about an older man - a relative - a lot of money coming in. She smiled to herself when two months earlier, at the required –shrink- visit and when he was out of the office, she spied on his scrawled notepad - looking for a father figure. How right was that and Noel just fitted the bill? Yet, divorced with two kids - how would I handle that? She thought.
Then the muddied dream of two soldiers in World One Uniforms standing under a tree in the middle east; she woke with a start as the word came into her mind about the tree. This was a Judas tree and right through the morning shower she thought about Judas and the betrayal. Would I be betrayed by a man, a colleague or a crook - more likely a crook? Or would it be just the betrayal, which life can sometimes bring? Money, well who cares about money?
Mother is rich anyway and she promised I would inherit the house in the South of France when she passes on and again, will I always be just a Fed cop putting on a lot of weight and bossing my staff because of my life, and without any kids? She remembered something else which never left her-about her work and the old boss- and it was always in the shower when she splashed the shampoo; liberally.
I never liked the old Inspector-the old bugger- she would yell out, who came onto me once yet she was used to the -come on approach- and warded him off. Two days later the cleaner found him hanging from a rope attached to a hook. No note no excuse just dead. These thoughts persisted and they came at a most inconvenient time - even when Noel was making love and yelling out.
‘Noël’ she enquired with the innocence unusual for such a dedicated young Detective. ‘What was the old bugger’ background, I have never been involved with suicides so fill me in will you?′ All of the Squad relied on him for answers. He was a font of information. Noël looked at her with the straight face, which he kept for serious matters.
‘He had a reputation as a ladies man for years but three divorces later - well.” He paused and grinned,’ I guess the past came back to haunt him.” he lit a cigar and after a puff of the spicy smoke he added ‘the past is not a good navigational tool - you can’t drive a car forward while looking in the rear vision mirror.’
Jen nodded at his smarts and knew that she loved the man for his manliness, yet beyond the physical stuff was his great intelligence and his care, his protection and best of all, his deep very black, cop humor.
Jen Lawrence never realized how accurate her questions and answers would be, in the fullness of time: that fullness of time was coming in at a fast pace.
