Chapter 4

I’M NOT Avigilante. Sometimes I just have no choice but to take matters into my own hands.

I’d worked in sex crimes for five years, and I was tired of seeing predators walking free from convictions. When I got close to a victim, the way I did with Molly Finch, I found it hard to sleep after their attacker was acquitted. For weeks I’d lain awake at night thinking about Hammond’s smug face as he’d walked down the steps of the courthouse on Goulburn Street, the wink he’d given me as he got into the taxi. I’d managed to make a minor physical assault charge stick. But there had been no proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the sex Hammond had had with Molly that night hadn’t been consensual.

That’s how it goes sometimes with sexual assaults. The guy’s lawyer throws everything he has at the idea that she might have wanted it. There was no physical evidence, or witnesses, to say otherwise.

Well, now there was no evidence to say Ben Hammond wasn’t bashed half to death by a mugger gone nuts, either. If he went to the cops about what I’d done, he’d know what it felt like not to be believed.

But he wouldn’t go to the cops and tell them a woman had given him a beatdown. His kind never did.

I rolled my shoulders as I drove back across the city toward Potts Point, sighing long and low as the tension eased. I was really looking forward to getting some sleep. Most nights saw me at my local gym pounding boxing bags to try to exhaust myself into a healthy presleep calm. Smacking Ben around had given me the same delicious fatigue in my muscles. I hoped it lasted.

At the big intersection near Kings Cross, a pair of hookers strutted across the road in front of my car. Their skin was lit pink by the huge neon Coca-Cola sign on the corner. The streets were still damp from a big storm the night before. The gutters were crowded with trash and huge fig-tree leaves.

My phone rang. I recognized the number as my station chief.

“Hello, Pops,” I said.

“Blue, take down this address,” the old man said. “There’s a body I want you to look at.”