'Fair enough,' Ca.s.sie said. 'But you never wanted to know who you were robbing? Surely you asked.'

'Well, actually I did ask, but Dall said I didn't need to know. Said the money and the job was all I should worry about. f.u.c.kin' typical, always keepin' the details to himself. Tell ya what though, now I'm glad he didn't tell me.'

Ca.s.sie's nose and forehead were beaded with sweat. I was the same and it wasn't just the heat. I swiped the sweat away and told Sparks to show us the DVD.

'Uh-uh, not me,' he said, standing up and whistling for the dog. 'This is as far as I'm gonna go. There's some filthy s.h.i.t on there. I've seen a lot of crud in my time, but nothin' like that. You wanna look at it, be my guest, but I'm not watchin' it again. I'll be over here with Hooch. Call me when ya done.'

He led the dog across the park to a drinking fountain. Ca.s.sie moved around and sat next to me. I could feel her shoulder pressed against me and the scent of her perfume reminded me that I needed to call Ella and cancel dinner. It was the last thing I wanted to do but we were barrelling on the wave and we had to keep riding.

'Sure you want to do this?' Ca.s.sie asked. 'Maybe we should log it with the techs and get them to do it right. What if we lose a file or something?'

I shook my mind clear and focused on the case.

'I don't think so. Not yet. Dallas Boyd was killed because of this laptop. Whatever's on this disk has something to do with that.' I turned on Ca.s.sie's laptop. 'Let's see what we've got.'

When the computer finished booting I slid in the disk but nothing happened.

'You're hopeless,' Ca.s.sie teased, nudging me with her shoulder and turning the laptop towards her. 'Shove over.'

I watched her hands dance over the keyboard. 'Bingo!' she said within a minute. 'I've got pictures and movie files.'

I leant over her shoulder as she ran her finger across a list of files on the screen that appeared to be sorted by date.

'They're all recent,' she said. 'Created mid last week, all except one.'

She clicked the first file and a photo appeared, filling the screen. The picture wasn't p.o.r.nographic but it still turned my stomach. Two naked toddlers a boy and a girl playing on a beach somewhere, neither more than about two years old. The picture had obviously been taken by a camera with a powerful zoom lens; the genitalia filled the centre of the shot. I wondered where the parents had been and how they hadn't noticed their children being photographed.

'Sick,' Ca.s.sie said.

The next three shots were of the same two children taken from different angles. In one shot I made out the blurred image of a man's leg next to the children. The father, I guessed. Behind his leg were a row of coloured beach boxes. I felt a charge of recognition and pointed at the screen.

'Those beach boxes. I know them.'

'Brighton Beach,' Ca.s.sie said.

'Right.'

The fourth photo nearly knocked me off the bench seat. It was of poorer quality than the others and depicted a teenage boy, maybe fourteen or fifteen, performing oral s.e.x on an adult male. I forced myself to study the picture. The camera had been placed in such a way as to capture the image of the boy but not the older man, whose head and shoulders were outside the frame.

Ca.s.sie explained that the image was actually a movie file. She clicked the keypad and the boy's mouth began to move up and down the man's p.e.n.i.s. The camera zoomed in on the boy; all we could see of the man was his hands and p.e.n.i.s. It was repulsive.

'Holy s.h.i.t,' Ca.s.sie said. 'That's Justin Quinn, the kid killed in Talbot Reserve last night.'

'You serious?'

'Serious as a heart attack. I was b.l.o.o.d.y well there today. I saw his face.' She put a hand to her mouth. 'That's f.u.c.king him. Jesus.'

She slid off the bench and walked away. For a second I thought she was going to vomit, but she just stood under a tree, facing the sky, hands laced around her head. I wanted to offer her something but there was nothing I could say. Instead I tried to absorb this new information. Justin Quinn being the kid in the movie changed things significantly. It meant Sparks had probably been right to a.s.sume his murder was connected to Dallas Boyd.

The movie was short, less than a minute in total. When Ca.s.sie came back she suggested it was probably a sample clip, like an advertis.e.m.e.nt or trailer to promote a full-length version.

'This looks like a hotel room,' I said, tapping the screen. 'There's a notepad or something on the bedside table. Can we enhance it, blow it up?'

She shook her head. 'Not without high-end software. Let's open the next one.'

The images that followed were still shots of the boy performing the same act, this time with the male offender on a bed. Despite my repulsion, I noticed something about the camera work. Like most men, I'd seen my fair share of p.o.r.nography and to me this was an amateur job, but not in the 'mock.u.mentary' sense. This was genuine amateur, as though a camera had been set up in the cupboard.

'It's like a hidden camera,' I said. 'But it zoomed in before so someone must be operating it. The kid must've known he was being filmed. Maybe they're trying to make it look like he didn't know?'

'There's another possibility,' said Ca.s.sie, grimacing. 'Somebody was operating the camera from another room. You know, via remote control.'

I considered the scenario. Some like-minded men hire two hotel rooms, side by side. The camera is set up in one room, hidden in a cupboard and linked to the recording equipment in the other. They test it out, check that it works. Then they hire someone like Dallas Boyd to find them a desperate street kid in need of fast cash. The kid gets paid, probably given drugs, and together they make themselves a little kiddie p.o.r.n.

'Makes sense,' I said. 'Part of the appeal, I suppose. Give it an underground feel and you create demand.'

Ca.s.sie clicked the next file: another movie clip. It opened with a shot of the interior of a house. Polished boards, large white door, stained-gla.s.s entranceway. The front door opened and two high school kids in uniform rambled in, holding hands and giggling. They shut the door and began to kiss against the wall, school bags sliding to the floor. This time the lighting was better and it was more ch.o.r.eographed, but it still had the feel of an amateur production. The camera moved in as the kids fondled each other, tearing at each other's uniform.

'Dallas Boyd,' I said, recognising the boy.

I focused on the girl and recognised her as Tammy York, but her hair was styled in pigtails to make her look younger.

'That's his girlfriend,' I said, wondering why she'd not mentioned this.

'Didn't she say Dallas never did skin work?' Ca.s.sie asked. 'No, she said he never did kiddie p.o.r.n. Said he just scouted for them and sold it on the side.'

'What the h.e.l.l is this then?'

'I don't know.'

The two of them moved up the hall, past the camera and into an open-plan living area, where the curtains had conveniently been drawn and all the lights turned on. They proceeded to have s.e.x on the sofa, the camera zooming in to capture the girl's shaved genitals. The film ended after a minute or so and I had to agree with Ca.s.sie: these were sample clips. I looked at the laptop Sparks had stolen and realised he was right to be scared. If this was an illegal p.o.r.n racket, with paedophiles running the show, losing the laptop and disk would've caused a major panic. If they fell into the wrong hands, they could bring them all undone. But why kill Dallas? The only likely explanation was that they knew he was behind it. How they knew was another question. So too was the murder of Justin Quinn. Had he been involved in the theft as well, or was it to keep him from talking? Sparks hadn't mentioned anything about him.

Ca.s.sie clicked ahead and opened another series of photos. They were less offensive but the intent was just the same. In the first shot a group of children frolicked in a public swimming pool. The second depicted a young girl, perhaps five or six, standing on a diving board.

'That's the Albert Park Aquatic Centre,' said Ca.s.sie, clicking some b.u.t.tons and leaning into the screen. 'It's less than a month ago. The oldest file was created January fifteen, the most recent last week. Even the movie clips are new.'

I thought about the sequence. It was all recent. Maybe the person who owned the disk had been in the throes of having the sample clips professionally edited, or added to a mailing list or website?

'Whoever made this disk knows their way around a camera,' Ca.s.sie said, scrolling back to the first few pictures of the children on Brighton Beach. In the background the sun was setting over the water, and I was suddenly reminded of the photo of Dallas and Tammy that I'd seen in the apartment. Had it been taken by the same man?

'I've tried to take sunset photos before,' Ca.s.sie was saying. 'It's not easy getting the lighting right. Maybe we're looking for a professional photographer?'

'A local local photographer, Ca.s.s. First Brighton. Then Albert Park.' I pointed at the screen. 'That house with Dallas in it is Edwardian, and I bet it's somewhere close by. So we're looking for someone who's part of the community. Someone who blends in.' photographer, Ca.s.s. First Brighton. Then Albert Park.' I pointed at the screen. 'That house with Dallas in it is Edwardian, and I bet it's somewhere close by. So we're looking for someone who's part of the community. Someone who blends in.'

Ca.s.sie turned away from the screen and stared at the park. In the distance, Sparks was wrestling with his dog.

'You know what I don't get,' she said. 'There's no pa.s.sword for any of this.'

'But Sparks said there was, said he couldn't get it started.'

'I don't mean the laptop. Even basic laptops have pa.s.swords. I mean this disk and these files. Why no pa.s.sword? If I had this disk, I sure as s.h.i.t wouldn't keep it without some form of protection.'

I thought about the possibilities, then said, 'These files are all recent, right?'

'Right, some created last week. That means the files were loaded onto the disk then, not necessarily filmed. We don't know when the pictures were taken or the clips filmed.'

'Well, let's a.s.sume they're all recent. And let's also a.s.sume you're right about these files being promotional adverts for full-length productions. I think the disk is just a temporary storage device.'

She frowned and stared at the laptop.

'Think about it,' I said. 'You've just received a new collection that you need to disseminate safely or upload onto a website. But you have to store it temporarily somewhere, at least until the files can be encrypted or hidden.' I tapped the screen where the list of files was shown. 'The most recent of these was created last Tuesday. Sparks said he boosted the laptop on the Wednesday. What if they were just about to upload them, or in the process of doing so?'

Ca.s.sie's eyes widened as she sensed where I was going. 'Right, well that explains the disk, but what about this laptop? Dallas paid two grand for Sparks to boost it, and everything we've learnt so far tells us he was planning something, but we don't know what. To me, that's the real question. Why did he want this laptop?'

I rubbed my hands together as I thought about Ca.s.sie's question. I stood up and called out to Sparks. I wanted to make sure he wasn't playing us.

'f.u.c.kin' gross, hey?' the kid said as he walked over, dog following. 'Didn't mind seeing Dall get it on with that school b.i.t.c.h though. That was pretty cool. But the other s.h.i.t ... can't believe he was into it.'

I ejected the disk, closed Ca.s.sie's laptop and stared at Sparks for a moment.

'What?' he said.

'You sure you don't know why Dallas wanted this laptop?'

'No, man. Like I said, he wouldn't tell me. But after seeing what's on that disk, isn't it obvious?'

'Enlighten me,' I said.

'Well, the dude was a player, a scammer. Maybe he was lookin' to do a number on them.'

Ca.s.sie and I exchanged a glance. She was thinking the same thing: blackmail.

'And you're not in on that?' I asked. 'Sure you and Dallas didn't scheme up some plot to make these perverts pay you off?'

Sparks stared at me with contempt. 'Hey, I've been straight up with ya both all along. If I was into any of that s.h.i.t, why would I bring ya into it and risk me life talkin'? Why wouldn't I just ditch the laptop and bail out?'

Fear and anger glinted in his eyes and I knew he was telling the truth.

'All right, we believe you,' Ca.s.sie said, giving me a frustrated look. 'We're sorry, but we have to cover all bases. What about Justin Quinn, you think he was into it?'

'Well, that's another story. You ask me, I wouldn't put it past Dall to recruit someone like Jussie for a skin flick, just so they could put the pinch on 'em later.'

I nodded. It made sense. We now had a workable motive. And we also had a suspect.

'Okay, one last thing,' I said. 'You say you knocked off the car keys and the laptop from a house not far from here, right?'

'What I said.'

'Remember the house?'

He frowned in suspicion. 'Why?'

'Because you're going to show us. Let's go.'

25.

WE DROVE TO A SHADED Elwood street lined with neat lawns and hundred-year-old maple trees. Most of the homes were old money, solid and secure, with intricate fretwork bordering full-length verandas. Elwood street lined with neat lawns and hundred-year-old maple trees. Most of the homes were old money, solid and secure, with intricate fretwork bordering full-length verandas.

'Halfway down,' said Sparks. 'Double-storey joint, big as a pub.'

I eased off the accelerator as a beautifully restored Tudorstyle home appeared behind a picket fence.

'That's it,' said Sparks, sinking low in the back seat.

'No car in the drive,' said Ca.s.sie. 'Maybe he never got the Beamer back. Either that or no one's home.'

I drove on and pulled up behind a Bentley.

'I don't like this,' Sparks said. 'Can ya take me back to St Kilda? Think I've done enough.'

'Relax,' Ca.s.sie said. 'If he's home, we'll just make something up, tell him there's been a few burgs in the street. Besides, he can't exactly see you from here, can he?'

Sparks slumped against the seat, resigned, hugging his dog. I followed Ca.s.sie along the footpath to a paved driveway. The Sunday newspaper had yet to be retrieved and all the blinds were drawn. Our feet creaked on the porch as we stepped up to a towering front door.

'Recognise the door?' Ca.s.sie murmured.

'Yeah, the school kids movie with Dallas and Tammy,' I whispered back, then pressed a bra.s.s buzzer on the wall and waited. After a moment I pressed it again but again no one answered.

Ca.s.sie checked the letterbox; it was empty. I pulled out my phone and called Mark Finetti on his mobile. More than one way to skin a cat.

'What's up, Bad Boy?' I said when he answered. 'You still on two legs?'

'Nope, we're on a split rotation. I'm in the tank till eleven, babysitting the drunks.'

Good, right where I wanted him.

'Listen, I need one more favour.'

'Oh man.'

'Then we're even.'