Abacus

disappears. I haven’t heard it at all while they’re rooting; perhaps she drowns the cat out with her screaming.”
    “Plausible,” Randall added.
    “Well, I have heard Hoskings yell when she has scratched him during sex, so perhaps she morphs into the cat when she is shagging.”
    “Good the ory,” he said. “I like it.”
    * * *
    With the suspects now retired for the night, Randall reached for a deck of playing cards from his bag. “You up for a game of Euchar?”
    “Yeah , why not?” Hobbs said, pulling his seat a little closer.
    Trying to make sense of his pathetic hand, Randall said, “Well, big guy, here is a question. What sort of couple can shoot a man, cut off his head and hack him into pieces. On top of that, they go casually about life as though nothing has happened while continuing to fuck like there is no tomorrow.”
    Hobbs led with his first card, and said, “And they have shown no interest in the media, or even talked about our involvement at all. It makes you think, we may have it wrong. They may be innocent.”
    Randall agreed, perhaps they were looking at the wrong people, things just did not add up.
    “I can’t understand that they wouldn’t even discuss the dead ex-boyfriend or our involvement. You would expect even innocent people to at least talk about that,” Randall said, tossing his cards into the centre of the table.
    “Yeah , good point,” Hobbs said, gathering up the cards.
    With the suspects sound asleep the rest of the night was uneventful. Randall finished his shift at six A.M. and slid into his car utterly exhausted. He was that tired he could hardly remember the trip home.
    When he fina lly did arrive, he parked in the driveway and fell asleep with his head resting on the door pillar, where he remained for a good part of the day.
    He was startled as his head rocked back and forth, hitting the pillar. Squinting to adjust to the light, he looked out the window and saw his neighbour Bill had woken him up. Slowly opening the driver’s side door, he stretched his arms and yawned.
    “Sorry , Bob, I wasn’t sure whether to wake you up or not. You’ve been here for most of the day so I thought it was time to wake you. I knocked on the window, but it didn’t work, so I gave the car a bit of a shake. I hope it is all right.”
    Looking at his watch , Randall said, “Appreciated, Bill. I needed to get up about now anyhow.”
    “Jeez, Bob, you don’t look crash hot, you look like you need a beer. I got some coldies in the fridge if you wanna come over for a quick one.”
    “Thanks , Bill, but I gotta get back to work. I’ve gotta case which is taking a lot of my time. If you’ve got a spare one, I might take one to have on the road.”
    “No rest for the wicked then, eh?” Bill said jovially.
    Randall smiled and patted him on the back as he walked up the driveway. “No rest for the wicked is right, mate. I haven’t slept well in a month.”

CHAPTER 18 – THAT’S MY SCENE

    “Folks, there is nothing coming from the listening post, so it has got to a point where we either confirm or disqualify these two suspects. If these two are involved, we need to consider where the crime scene may be,” Randall said calmly.
    “T he post mortem stated that the head was severed with a combination of a slicing instrument such as a knife and a crude instrument which broke the backbone. So where do we think our victim was slain and carved?” Jesse asked, looking around the room for answers.
    “ Jesse,” Leanne said, springing to life. “We know the victim’s unit is not the crime scene, and as he died from a gunshot wound, that noise, along with the decapitation itself, would just about exclude most residential areas in the inner city. I don’t think there is any possibility that Cheung’s Newtown unit is the crime scene.” Leanne paused and looked around the room to gauge the support from the others before continuing. “Hoskings is known to go on shooting trips out west, why not do him in out there.”
    Hobbs leaned forward from his seated position. “From what we can tell, the victim and Hoskings did not know each other, so how would they get the victim out there? I don’t think it is reasonable to think that a kidnapping took place, either. Anyway, it doesn’t make sense to cart a head all the way back to the city to dump in the Botany River. You would just bury the whole body out there; there would be no need to cut it up at all.”
    Leanne nodded . “What