He folded like a cheap suit after church on a Sunday, sank to his knees and then slumped until his forehead met the pavement with a sickening crack.
The crowd around him faltered as he fell, then parted like a river around a rock, avoiding his prone body as they spilled out between the towering sandstone pillars of Sydney’s Darlinghurst Courthouse.
I was two metres behind, maybe three, and I’m ashamed to say I considered letting the crowd carry me away, until the weight of the warrant card in my bag tugged at my conscience. Dropping to my knees beside him, I cursed my decision to wear heels and a skirt as my knees scraped on the car park’s damp tarmac. My fingers found a feeble pulse before I eased him over onto his back. That’s when I saw the spreading red stain and felt the crowd bristle around me.
‘Is that . . . ?’
‘Oh, Christ.’
‘He’s bleeding.’
Time slowed as my training kicked in. I scanned the scattering crowd for anything out of place. For stillness. Someone who couldn’t
look away. Any sign of a gun.
My heart pounded as I pushed my bag and the brand-new coat I’d been carrying away before sliding out of my jacket and pressing it to the wound. I’d seen enough bodies to know what I was dealing with, and what I was dealing with wasn’t good.
A gunshot wound. And it looked professional. A centre mass shot, probably taken over distance, as I’d seen no sign of a gun and hadn’t heard the shot.
I looked past the half-moon of grass and hedge to the heritage buildings that lined the Oxford and Flinders streets intersection. Ornate two- and three-storey facades, the perfect hide for a sniper. Beyond those, a handful of multistorey buildings lined with windows, any of which could have harboured a gunman.
We were too exposed, but when I checked his pulse again it was weaker. I couldn’t risk moving him…
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