Breaking Point (Chapter-9)

Boston-Wright arrived home in a flurry. Throwing her bag onto the lounge, she made her way to the kitchen and opened the fridge to assess her dinner options. They were limited, again. A loaf of bread, some Kraft cheese slices, a shriveled-up tomato and wilted lettuce. With the sandwich toaster warming up, Boston-Wright quickly scampered into the bathroom to lightly freshen up. A quick wash of her face and some fresh lipstick would be all that time allowed.

Right at 7.30 her doorbell rang. Tucking her blouse in with one hand, the other holding a half-eaten toasted cheese sandwich, Boston-Wright opened the door to a freshened Creed, sporting a new shirt and a waft of cologne. Boston-Wright was a little surprised at how well he had cleaned up and in such quick time.

“You eaten, sir?” Boston-Wright asked, gathering her jacket and bag as she closed the door behind her and trying to keep up with Creed.

“Yes, I grabbed a quick bite,” Creed replied, not looking at Boston-Wright as he adjusted his seatbelt and started the engine. Creed liked to keep his private life private and he could sense Boston-Wright was fishing for answers he preferred not to give. He decided the cold shoulder treatment might be sufficient hint for her to stop in her tracks. It worked.

“So where are we off to, sir?”

“I’ve arranged for us to see Charlie Warburton of Dad’s Army in Tweed Heads. He runs the Northern Rivers branch.”

A little after 8pm, Creed was pulling up outside the warehouse of Dad’s Army in the Tweed Industrial Estate. The concrete building looked relatively new and was a mix of office and storage facilities. Creed pressed the door security, announcing himself and Boston-Wright, and was immediately let in. Unlatching the door, the team made their way up the carpeted staircase to a mezzanine floor office area. Warburton greeted the detectives at the top of the stairs and escorted them into the boardroom.

The polished timber table was surrounded by twelve high-back leather chairs. A buffet cabinet and a small bar fridge were against the back wall. The gyprock walls were a shrine to happy customers who used Dad’s Army services and included a framed map of Australia, highlighting their Australian offices.

“Can I get you a tea, coffee or water?” Warburton offered.

“Water would be great,” Boston-Wright replied, trying to be sociable while receiving a burning glare from Creed.

“And nothing for you, Detective Creed?”

Jack shook his head.

“Perhaps a wise move. Audrey has just gone home and I’m not the best tea or coffee maker.” Warburton commented with a chuckle.

He invited the detectives to take a seat and asked how he could help. He expressed his concern that one of his trade people might be involved in a serious crime.

“This is just routine, Mr. Warburton. We need your help to hopefully eliminate Mr. Talbot from our enquiries,” Creed outlined.

“It sounds serious, Detective, especially as you’ve both come up here tonight. Does he know you are here?” Warburton asked.

“No and there’s no need for him to know either,” Creed replied, giving a worried looking Warburton a firm stare.

“But what has he done? Nothing to do with kids, I hope,” Warburton said with a surprised look on his face.

“No, no nothing like that. Have you got me his job schedule over the past year like I asked for?”

“I really would like to know if our organization is at risk, Detective. We have a good community name and we can’t afford it getting damaged. We deal a lot with old people and you can imagine the reaction if our name was attached to some scandal,” Warburton stated, still fishing for details of the crime.

“He’s helping us with a murder inquiry,” Creed let out with a tone of frustration. “The schedule please,” he continued, his arm outstretched.

Warburton fumbled some papers and produced a hand written sheet of dates. “Christ, he hasn’t killed somebody, has he?”

“He’s just helping us. And thank you for your help.” Creed and Boston-Wright stood and bid Warburton good night. “We’ll keep this to ourselves,” Creed said as he and Boston-Wright descended the stairs and left the building.

“Fancy a drink, Boston-Wright?” Creed asked as he joined the M1 and headed back to Cabarita Beach.

“To be honest, sir, I’d prefer an early night.”

Creed gave Boston-Wright a backhanded wave as he thundered out onto her street, probably to the annoyance of her neighbours, who were just woken up by the sounds of a growling V8. Boston-Wright headed for the shower. She was looking forward to washing the day away but she also realized she had let an opportunity slip to further stamp her place on the murder squad. A drink with Creed would have been good. Surely he wouldn’t have marked her down for not attending. The warm cascading water felt good but thoughts of self-doubt still niggled away. Tomorrow would be another day to impress.

Boston-Wright lay back on the bed and let the day slip away. It was a lonely life being a copper. There was a lot of strain on a relationship, as she had already experienced. Perhaps Creed had the right blend; work away from your spouse and catch up periodically. He seemed to have a good marriage, Boston-Wright assumed.

The next morning the team gathered in the incident room and carefully went over the work schedule of Mick Talbot supplied by Dad’s Army. The report showed Talbot was painting a house in Pottsville during the same time Jessica Campbell was tortured then murdered. Talbot also did some cabinet work near the Roxy nightclub when Sharon Berg was killed. The buzz in the room was growing.

“Looks good enough for me. Let’s arrest Talbot,” Creed exclaimed.

The team looked excited, but Pratt suggested Creed run it by the Chief Super first. The evidence they had was highly circumstantial and they needed to dot their ’I’s and cross their ’T’s before they rushed into anything. Creed took a deep breath and nodded.

The Chief Super was even more cautious. He acknowledged to Creed that they were making progress but his information was circumstantial. It had to be more than a coincidence to make this stick. Get it wrong and the press would have a field day. The simple fact that Talbot was in town when a murder occurred did not make him a guilty man. O’Halloran vetoed any arrest until Creed could come up with more concrete evidence.

Creed returned to the team clearly frustrated. A look of despair covered their faces. They had been working so hard to crack this case and it seemed everybody was working against them, including their own Chief Super. But they also realized everything had to be perfect in order to make the case stick. O’Halloran did give them one glimmer of hope, though. They needed to search Talbot’s house.

Creed recalled that Talbot would be back from his Casino work this morning, so he organized the search warrant and the raid to occur this afternoon. Two marked police cars carrying four constables from the Kingscliff Station, an unmarked Ford sedan with Pratt and Smith inside, and Creed and Boston-Wright in the Mustang arrived at the corner of Tweed Coast Road and Cypress Avenue at precisely 3.30pm. Creed quickly spoke to the team on the footpath, explaining the importance of being thorough. They were watched by peering eyes from the upstairs dental practice.

Creed’s Mustang roared into the driveway of Mick Talbot’s house, backed up by the other officers. Talbot, who was washing his caravan on the side of the house, looked up, stunned. He quickly looked at other houses on the street and caught glimpses of venetian blinds clanging as neighbours looked through.

“You’ve certainly made an entrance, Detective,” Talbot said in an annoyed voice as he glanced up to his stunned wife at the top of the stairs and a Jack Creed striding toward him waving a piece of paper.

“This is a search warrant for your property, including your car and caravan, Mr. Talbot,” Creed confidently explained as he directed the constables past Mrs. Talbot and upstairs into the house.

“What’s going on, Michael?” a frightened Kay Talbot let out as her eyes welled with tears.

“Nothing, my love. The detectives just want to look around. Show them the house and make sure they don’t break anything. Otherwise we’ll sue,” Talbot calmly told his wife while giving Creed an intent look.

Boston-Wright raced up the stairs to calm Mrs. Talbot and suggested that Carmel Smith sit with her in the living room. The home was a modest three bedroom, highset. The floral patterned sofa had seen better days but the protectors on the armrests had probably added a few more years. In one corner was a Jason recliner rocker, blue leather, facing a medium sized television. The windows were covered with a combination of drapes and venetian blinds, something Smith had turned down to give the Talbots some privacy from nosy neighbours. Mrs. Talbot appeared to be quite upset but Smith did her best to keep her calm.

Boston-Wright moved down the hallway to the first door on the right, the master bedroom. The floorboards squeaked as she walked, slightly softened by the imitation Persian rug that covered them. The bedroom was gloomy. The blinds were drawn and the room appeared stuffy, perhaps because of the lack of fresh air while the couple had been in Casino. A tallboy dresser in dark timber stood against the far wall. The dark colour made the room look drab, not helped by the peeling, light cream walls. Boston-Wright thought it ironic that a man who does handy work for others could not spend some time doing odd jobs on his own house.

Boston-Wright went through the hanging clothes in the cupboard, placing her hand inside the pockets of Mick Talbot’s jackets and trousers. He was obviously a modest dresser with only two pairs of long trousers and a jacket, all of which exhibited labels known to Best & Less. There again, the man came from a non-privileged life, so Jo wasn’t expecting Hugo Boss.

The other half of the dresser housed Mrs. Talbot’s clothes. Again, a coat and a couple of blouses hung neatly from hangers. The chest of drawers contained nightdresses, underwear and the like. The bedside tables had loving photos of the couple, one from their wedding day and the other from a holiday by the beach somewhere.

Boston-Wright moved past the bathroom where two of the constables where going through the cabinet, fumbling their way through the toothpaste, brushes and razors. She stopped long enough to notice the pristine condition of the bath tub and basin and secretly wished hers looked that clean.

The next room was set up as a bedroom with a slightly more masculine feel. Camping and woodwork magazines adorned the bedside table and a small laptop computer on a desk sat in one corner. The left hand side of the dresser had more of Mick’s work clothes in it – checked shirts, King Gee shorts and a pair of Blundstone work boots, similar to what her dad had owned. The other side of the dresser was more like a storage area for files and paperwork.

Boston-Wright returned to the living room while allowing the other officers to continue searching the bedrooms and the rest of the house both up and downstairs. Creed had allowed Mick Talbot to join his wife; it seemed to have comforted her.

“Was it necessary to go to Charlie Warburton, Detectives?” Mr. Talbot asked.

“Just collating information, Mr. Talbot,” Creed replied, pacing the floor, hoping for a constable to rush in with some incriminating evidence.

“But you told him you were investigating a string of murders. Was that really necessary? It’s just that it’s difficult to get work at my age and we need it to supplement the pension. This kind of stuff doesn’t help.”

“We are trying to be discreet, Mr. Talbot,” Boston-Wright piped in.

“Yeah, sure you are. King Kong here roaring up the driveway, four cop cars with badges blasted all over the place parked outside my house. Very discreet, Detective,” Talbot replied. Boston-Wright looked at him with some sympathy while Creed continued to look through the house.

“I haven’t murdered anybody, Detective,” Talbot expressed to Boston-Wright while holding his wife’s hand, gently stoking it to add some comfort to a distressing situation.

“You see that photo on the wall?” He pointed to a black and white picture of their wedding day. “It was the happiest day of my life. I married my childhood sweetheart. I would never jeopardize what we have,” Mick Talbot explained to Boston-Wright with tears in his eyes. Boston-Wright bit her bottom lip as thoughts of her own parents’ close relationship flashed into her mind. She looked at Mrs. Talbot and gave her a nod of assurance.

Creed walked around the room, giving Boston-Wright a glare as he walked by her. He could see the old couple were having an effect on Boston-Wright, something he didn’t approve of. He needed a clear thinking, levelheaded police officer on the job, not one whose emotions were pulled up and down like a yo-yo every time some doddering old man gave a rendition of his wedding vows.

“I need to take some items with me, Mr. Talbot, and I need you to sign for them. I also want you to check that we haven’t damaged anything,” Creed explained to a wide-eyed Mick Talbot as he directed the Talbots around their house.

“I’ll see you in the car, Detective Boston-Wright,” Creed commented as he walked off.

The other police offers drove away from the property, Pratt and Smith transported the confiscated goods. Creed calmly reversed out the driveway, then placed the Mustang in drive as he idled up the street before rounding the roundabout and heading back to Kingscliff.

“What the fuck were you doing in there, Boston-Wright? Playing how to win friends or something?” Creed let out in a fury.

“No. I was just listening to Mr. Talbot’s story and observing how he interacted with his wife.” Boston-Wright shuddered as she moved closer to her door, wishing now that she had taken her own car.

“And what did you observe, Dr. Phil? Is Mick Talbot our murderer?” Creed asked in a patronizing tone.

“No, I don’t think he is. He couldn’t bear to be separated from his wife, sir.”

Creed looked Boston-Wright in her eyes. He could see her intensity and to some degree had to agree with her. There wasn’t much revealed in today’s search.