Judgement Day, page 1
About Judgement Day
Family law judge Kaye Bailey is found murdered in her chambers. Is this the work of a disgruntled complainant? Or an inside job by a jealous colleague? Or is there something even more insidious at the heart of this brutal act?
Detective Jillian Basset is just back from maternity leave, trying to juggle new motherhood as she tackles the biggest case of her career. As her work and home lives get messier and messier, though, something’s going to give.
Exploring the murky underworld of the justice system and setting a cracking pace, Judgement Day is a gripping thriller from a fresh and compelling new Australian voice.
Contents
Cover
About Judgement Day
Title page
Dedication
Epigraph
Prologue
PART ONE
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
PART TWO
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
PART THREE
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Author biography
Copyright page
Newsletter
For my family
‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ Dante Alighieri*
*Written about Hell but could just as easily have been referring to the Family Law Courts
Prologue
When Kaye Bailey woke on the morning of her death there were no omens on display, no clues from which her imminent murder might be deduced. There was no crow perched on the window ledge, no bells tolling ominously from St Patrick’s Cathedral whose steeple pierced the view from her window. It was a perfectly ordinary April day – grey-skyed, warm but with a brisk autumnal breeze; the type of day that matched the mood of a city that had belatedly shaken off the lethargy of summer and finally returned to the work of living.
18 April 2018.
It was the eighth sitting week of the year for the judges of the Federal Circuit Court and Kaye’s seventh year on the bench. She hoped too that it might be her first as chief judge. ‘That tremendous prick’ (as she referred to His Honour Saul Meyers privately) was turning seventy in a week and therefore retiring. Kaye knew that she was in with a strong chance to replace him. Her time at the court had revealed to her the inefficiencies in the family law system, the failures in culture and planning that had led to the court being a victim of its own success. ‘If you give me a chance I can fix this.’ That had been her pitch to the appointment panel, and she felt they had been receptive to it.
Kaye had always been a consummate planner. She had meticulously charted her graduation from university, the two years at a boutique law firm then three at Legal Aid before taking the Bar Reader’s course and joining the Victorian Bar. How then had she not planned for an early death? If she had only known, she might have chosen a different outfit, reapplied her make-up in the afternoon, tidied her desk and telephoned her daughter to say goodbye. It was the smallest blessing that she was able, in those final hours, to sign off on the judgement that had been stalking her like a shadow since December 2017.
Sharma & Nettle – or Mad & Madder as her associates jokingly referred to what would be her last judgement – was the sequel to so many of the world’s great love stories. He, a forty-one-year-old cosmetic surgeon, and she, a thirty-two-year-old online content creator, had the youthful looks of Romeo and Juliet, the tempestuousness of Catherine and Heathcliff, and the difference in material situation of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. They were also both arseholes.
Kaye had started the day early, waking with unresolved exhaustion to a perfectly still flat. It was not quite light, but that pale in-between time when the world seemed alive with possibilities. At this hour she might still have been a girl waiting for her mother’s clock radio to spur the day into action, or a young mother gazing at three-year-old Ama, spread-eagled between herself and Bruce in their old house in Northcote.
She thought of Ama as she dressed, and felt the melancholy pride she always did when she thought about her daughter. Ama had only left for the UK a few weeks ago but already Kaye missed her dearly. She missed her presence in the flat, the noises she made washing dishes and talking to the cat, missed her falling asleep with the television on, the smell of her shampoo, the mess of textbooks and phone chargers and half-empty lip glosses lying around.
Kaye left the house at six-thirty, having packed a change of outfit and her make-up bag for Saul’s retirement party that evening. The walk from East Melbourne to the legal precinct was a little over twenty minutes and she arrived with the sun, both of them edging their way into the quiet of the city. In a laneway off Little Bourke Street a youngish man was furiously billboarding an advertisement for an anti-fascism rally to be held at the State Library that Sunday. It showed Donald Trump’s face on Hitler’s body. She took a photograph and sent it to Michael O’Neil, her companion (she was too old for a boyfriend). Shall we go and invite The Boys?
The Boys was how she and Michael referred to the club of older male barristers and judges they spent so much time around. These men were a particular breed – conservatives who hated Trump not on the basis of policy, but because of his vulgarity. It wasn’t his cruelty that was repulsive, it was his use of words like ‘pussy’.
Kaye found him repulsive too, of course she did, but to her mind, a man like Trump who never hid who he was, was less threatening than those pernicious characters she encountered so regularly in her professional life. Men who were one thing to the world – unassuming doctors, lawyers, carpenters or teachers, perhaps – and monsters in the privacy of their own homes. These were the men who truly scared her.
She bought a coffee at Trapski, a hole-in-the-wall cafe on the Little Lonsdale side of the court complex. As she was waiting for the barista to steam the milk, lost in thought, a car pulled up behind her. She turned at the sound of a window lowering.
‘Buy a mate a coffee?’
It was fellow judge Grant Phillips, a man Kaye had known most of her professional life. Grant had a long quick face and expressive eyes that always looked to be foreshadowing a brilliant smile. He was typically referred to as a ‘character’ – witty in an outrageous sort of way, bright enough that he allowed himself to be lazy.
‘What are you after?’
‘Get me the most expensive drink on the menu – some triple-shot, almond-milk, fluffed-up bullshit thing. When they announce you later today you’ll be able to afford it.’
‘It’s not me,’ Kaye insisted, although of course she was hoping. ‘I haven’t heard a thing.’
Saul Meyers’ replacement had been a topic of much speculation within the walls of the court. Kaye was aware that she had been widely tipped as a frontrunner, but she was also aware that her progressive attitudes on family law (and her suspected politics) put her at odds with the current attorney-general, and of course with Saul himself.
‘Liar,’ Grant said with a wink. ‘I’ll see you up there.’
He waved as he put his window back up and turned into the underground carpark of the Commonwealth Law Courts, where only judges were permitted to park their government-issued cars.
Kaye ordered Grant a strong latte, and when both orders had been made, collected them, walked through the security door and took the judges-only lift up to her chambers on the twelfth floor. The building was silent save for the murmur of old computer monitors and photocopiers and the humming of the automated lights overhead.
Grant’s chambers were next to her own and an exact replica – an antechamber for the two assistants, referred to as associates, and an inner sanctum for the judge. Grant’s associates had both recently left for the bar and were yet to be replaced. Kaye knocked lightly on his outer door and, not hearing a response, entered, intending to leave his coffee on his desk. She found him halfway through changing into his court attire.
‘Sorry!’
‘Not to worry.’ He pulled off his shirt, displaying a lean, albeit mottled, iron-man physique as Kaye placed the cup on his desk. At sixty-five he was still in good shape. ‘So you’re telling me Saul hasn’t had a secret meeting with you?’ he said as she turned to leave.
‘I swear.’
‘Well, that’s very interesting.’ Grant cocked his head as though considering her, and she was transported back to her first meeting with him many years earlier, when she had briefed him at the last minute for a very vulnerable client. That morning he had put his head to the side in the same way and said, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you look like Demi M
At eight-thirty Kaye’s associates, Matthew and Christianne, arrived together, talking animatedly about the season finale of a reality television program. Christianne took the files for the matters in court that morning down to Kaye’s courtroom, and at ten o’clock Kaye and Matthew went down to the court on level two. Matthew knocked briskly on the door behind the judge’s bench and entered. ‘Silence please, all stand and remain standing; the Federal Circuit Court of Australia is now in session.’
From a professional point of view, it wasn’t really the type of morning any judge would choose as their last. A tedious procedural argument from a solicitor who Kaye considered incompetent and who insisted on doing his own appearances, the listing of a trial in a property matter, the finalisation of parenting orders for an eight-year-old girl that Kaye knew were ultimately doomed to fail. When the matters concluded Kaye returned to chambers with her associates and continued to work on Sharma & Nettle.
‘I’ve sent the Notice of Judgement out,’ Christianne told her at four-thirty.
‘Well, that means I really need to finish it,’ Kaye sighed.
At six o’clock the three of them joined the various judges of the court in the conference room between the two wings of the twelfth floor. Several members of the bar were in attendance, including the functional alcoholic Greg Eaves and the belligerent Graham Norman. These were Saul’s cronies – the men he went to the races with, played golf with, ate lunch with most days.
The room smelled like roasted meat. Despite the early hour, the party was in full swing. Saul’s heavy cheeks were bright red and Judge Virginia Maiden, his good friend, was hanging off him, her face also coloured with drink. Saul appeared to be midway through a joke, the telling of which was eliciting uproar from those gathered around him. Virginia’s eyes met Kaye’s own, cold and unwelcoming. Despite her gender, Virginia was one of The Boys.
‘Fucking insufferable.’ Grant had materialised beside her. ‘Drink?’
‘Several,’ Kaye said. ‘Thank you, manservant.’ She turned to Grant’s wife Harriet, who greeted her with her usual awkwardness, something Kaye had become accustomed to over the years.
Kaye urged her associates to help themselves from the overwhelmingly carnivorous platters in the middle of the room. She noticed that Saul hadn’t invited his own associates, who he referred to as ‘his girls’.
At seven-thirty Virginia Maiden tapped the edge of her glass with a spoon to announce the formalities. She then held forth on the brilliance of her friend, his commitment to law and justice, and his expansion of the court’s jurisdictional and physical presence.
‘The only things Saul’s ever been interested in expanding are his stomach, his bank account and his beach house,’ Grant whispered in Kaye’s ear. Virginia Maiden looked at him as though she’d overheard, eyes narrowed. It was well known that she detested Grant, who she openly referred to as a ‘glib showboat’.
Saul’s turn to speak was accompanied by much throat clearing and pomposity. ‘My friends, colleagues, brothers and sisters,’ he began, ‘I want to thank you all for being here today to celebrate . . . well . . . me.’ He chuckled, and proceeded to talk at length about his time at the courts, ending finally with, ‘So thank you, my dear friends, for your support and encouragement.’ He waited for applause, which came after the merest hint of delay.
‘Who’s replacing you then?’ Grant called over the dying claps.
Saul waved his hand as though shooing the question away and accidentally smacked his own cheek. He really was quite drunk.
‘Tell us, go on!’ one of the barristers called.
‘Yes, put us out of our misery.’
‘Oh, very well,’ Saul said, clearly eager to regain the gravitas lost when he’d hit himself. ‘I can confirm that the next Chief Judge of the Federal Circuit Court is none other than Kaye Bailey.’
‘You sly fox!’ Grant exclaimed, leaning in and kissing her on the cheek. Other judges followed suit, crowding around to congratulate her and offer hugs, handshakes and kisses.
At around eight, Kaye returned to chambers where her associates were hard at work. Her heartbeat reverberated too loudly and she felt wired and anxious. Did that really just happen? She shook her head, took a deep breath and told herself that she would think about what had transpired later. She needed to finish the judgement first.
‘Time to go,’ she called out to Christianne and Matthew an hour later after each of them had proofread it again. She stayed on to do her own final read-through of the hard copy.
The facts of the matter had been confirmed in painstaking detail, and the several pages after that contained a precedent that she’d used in many previous judgements that set out the relevant legislation and case law. It was the section headed ‘Findings’ that had changed so much as Kaye had turned the matter over in her head again and again.
‘Alright, I think you’re finished,’ she addressed the final page. Her associates had also prepared the orders that were to accompany the judgement. She read through them carefully, signed both documents and placed them on Christianne’s desk, ready to be photocopied first thing in the morning. She then set to work on the other piece of business she hoped to complete and which, with her appointment, had a new urgency.
At eleven she thought she heard a rustling in the antechamber. From under her door she could see that the lights, which responded to movement and which had turned off over an hour ago, had flicked back on. ‘Hello?’ she called. When there was no response she stood up and opened her office door. The noise from the party down the hall had died down and there was no sign of anyone. Maybe the cleaner, she thought, and, leaving her door open, she returned to her desk. She wondered where Saul and Virginia and Saul’s barrister cronies had gone to continue their celebrations. She imagined the men all leering at some poor university student moonlighting as a barmaid, telling themselves they were just as charming as they’d been at twenty-five.
Shortly before midnight she stood up, intending to call it a night. She walked over to her window and looked out onto Flagstaff Gardens. Clouds were hovering low over the tops of the trees. It would rain any minute.
It was then that she saw her killer’s reflection.
She knew what was going to happen before either of them moved. She knew with certainty that the fight was unwinnable, but she also knew that she would fight regardless, because that was what she had always done and who she was. It was over quickly. In her final moments, Kaye Bailey was left with a succession of emotions – love for her daughter, an appreciation for the privileges she had been given, but most deeply, an aching pain at the injustice of it all.
PART ONE
Chapter 1
The deluge, abrupt and insistent, began anew as Detective Senior Sergeant Jillian Basset was getting dressed.
‘It’s a sign,’ said Aaron, his voice muffled by the pillow protecting him from the light of the bedside lamp.
She directed the light towards her wardrobe, and when she still could not differentiate between activewear and work wear, turned the overhead light on.
Her husband’s body contracted into the foetal position like a slater whose belly had been poked. Jillian was dimly aware that he’d been awake half the night with their eight-month-old son, Ollie, who was, depending on which website you read, either in the midst of a sleep regression or suffering demonic possession.
‘Pants!’ she said. ‘I need actual proper pants. Preferably a top too.’
‘You’ve got plenty of pants,’ Aaron groaned.
‘But you put them somewhere weird!’
‘I put them in your drawer. That’s not weird, it’s tidy.’
She opened the drawer with too much force, pulling the whole thing out of the unit. ‘This is all activewear. I can’t wear activewear to a crime scene.’
Finally she located a pair of black pants that almost accommodated her postpartum figure, and a white shirt she’d bought because it did not require ironing. She poured herself into them, studying herself in the wardrobe mirror.
