Safe House

Chapter 3

3

Based in Alice Springs, the second largest city in Australia’s Northern Territory, Detective Inspector Russell Foley and Detective Sergeant Sam Rose were senior members of the Major Crime section of the Northern Territory Police Force. Both were career police officers, having joined the force as members of the same recruit training squad, Foley at age twenty-three, and Rose at age twenty-two. Now, twenty years later, they had been partners for a long time, were best friends and a very good investigative team, respected by their police colleagues and the hierarchy alike.

Rose and Foley, however, had not always been best friends. Several years earlier, when both were members of what was then known as the Criminal Investigation Branch based at Police Headquarters in Darwin, the capital city of the Northern Territory, there occurred an acrimonious split in their friendship.

Sam Rose was a confirmed bachelor, and an unashamed ladies’ man. While he had a reputation among his male colleagues of being a skirt-chaser, it was a reputation undeserved. He was a red-blooded, Australian male, and in the opinion of most women who knew him, he was the complete package: tall, confident, intelligent, nice looking, had a likeable sense of humour, still had all his hair, was employed, and most importantly, he was single and available.

Despite the perceived lothario reputation among his male colleagues, Sam was faithful to the woman he happened to be with at the time and remained so until that particular relationship had run its course. Sam’s one big mistake, one he regretted immediately it was over, and still regretted on the rare occasions he reflected upon it, was the time he slept with Jennifer Foley, estranged wife of Russell Foley. It only happened once, and he was so drunk at the time he had no recollection of whether the liaison was enjoyable or otherwise. What he did know was he was overcome with regret the following morning, and the fact that Russell and Jennifer had been apart for some time had no bearing on the severity of the guilt he felt.

From Jennifer Foley’s point of view, Sam was just another conquest in her scheme to hurt her husband, as often as she could and as painfully as she could. In this case, Sam Rose was the facilitator. For Jennifer, seducing Sam was not about romance, it was about spite. What better way was there to hurt her husband than to screw his best friend? Subsequently, she couldn’t wait to broadcast the dalliance to Russell, and indeed the whole CIB squad room. She proceeded to do so, in full voice, and in graphic detail.

The incident precipitated a physical altercation between the two detectives which ultimately led to the fracture of the friendship they had enjoyed for many years. Sam Rose subsequently resigned from the police force, and Russell Foley was promoted to Officer in Charge of the Criminal Investigation Branch.

The acrimonious split lasted for twelve months, and ended when both men, Foley in his role as a homicide investigator and Rose as a private investigator, were involved in the investigation of a series of brutal murders. The killings, committed against select members of the judiciary and the police force, were the work of a psychopathic killer responsible for killing his wife and two young children.

Subsequently, Sam was invited to return to the police force, and Foley was transferred to Officer in Charge, Major Crime Southern Command in Alice Springs.

Russell Foley never re-married. Jennifer Foley took their two children and fled to Queensland where she diligently continued to make his life more difficult by constantly demanding he send her more money, over and above the amount ordered by the Family Court at their divorce settlement hearing. It was for the children, she insisted. Foley suspected the money found its way into her pocket rather than to the benefit of his kids, but he sent it anyway.

He dated occasionally, but the whole falling in love, marital bliss thing was tainted now following his experiences with Jennifer. Besides, he loved his job, always had, and his commitment to it was always going to make it difficult to maintain a happy, contented marriage. Best not to commit to anything resembling a long-term relationship, he reasoned.

Unlike his friend, Sam Rose, Foley was an average looking man, rather than conspicuously good-looking. In truth, ‘average’ best described all aspects of his physical appearance: average height, average weight. He was clean-shaven and, like Sam, he had all his hair, although it was starting to thin a little on top. Around the outer edges of his eyes, crow’s-feet creases threatened to deepen over the next few years, a result of over twenty years under the blazing Territory sun, he reasoned. Or, perhaps it was nothing more than the natural aging process. It mattered little either way to Foley, he was not one who suffered from vanity.

Where Foley differed from many of his police colleagues was in his approach to his job. The vast majority of the police force membership were a hard-working, diligent team of men and women who went about the often-difficult job of policing in a professional, dedicated manner. If that approach was to be considered the average for the force, Foley constantly strived to be better than average. The general opinion among his colleagues was that he was a ‘cop’s cop.’ He was aware of the analogy of course; hard not to be given the gossip mill in the police force was healthier than the local Country Women’s Association. Although he found it flattering, he considered it of little consequence to him in his overall application to the job.

For the most part, Foley was a ‘by-the-book’ cop. There were occasions when he found it acceptable, if not necessary, to bend the rules in his endeavour to achieve the best outcome; most cops were guilty of procedural manipulation at one time or another. For Foley, however, such occasions were rare, although more frequent when working with Sam Rose. Rose’s approach notwithstanding, Foley never once felt guilty of compromising his principles. The end-game, after all, was all about getting a conviction and taking the baddies off the street. The best way to do that, he considered, was to present the best possible case to the prosecutors. If that meant bending the rules occasionally, without actually breaking them, he was okay with that.