UPSHOT
In the Supreme Court of NSW, Spencer Barrett – a journalist with a Sydney daily newspaper – watches Bridget Conrad chillingly confess to the murder of her own father.   It is 11th September 2001; the day news reaches Australia of the terror attacks in New York . With the image of the crumbling buildings burnt indelibly in Barrett’s mind, he can only shake his head at the words of this beautiful young woman.   But in Barrett’s own life, the boundary between right and wrong has become blurred. He feels in himself a sense of power; a potency which does not seem to be acknowledged by the world around him.   Perhaps it is this that draws Bridget Conrad to him, entangling him in a web of crime and deceit?   A fast-moving thriller set in Australia and South-East Asia post 9-11-2001.   A journalist becomes intimately involved, then criminally entwined, with a young woman serving a prison sentence for murder.	In Store Price: $AU23.95  Online Price:   $AU22.95 ISBN: 1-9211-1857-1 Format: Paperback Number of pages: 218 Genre: Fiction  Cover: Clive Dalkins
Author: John Trigger  Publisher: Zeus Publications Date Published: 2006 Language: English

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

John Trigger was born in 1956 in Brisbane .  

In his youth, John travelled widely throughout South-East Asia . It was then he came across Koh Samui, a secluded island in the Gulf of Thailand , where a number of events in this novel are set.  Upshot is John’s first novel.  John is married with one child.

Prelude

Supreme Court of New South Wales  

Bridget Conrad’s notoriety stemmed not just from the heinous nature of her crime – she had murdered her father – but also because of the chilling manner in which she confessed to it in the courtroom.

For almost a day, Spencer Barrett, a journalist with a Sydney daily newspaper, had struggled to stay awake through the complexities of legal argument. The proceedings seemed to go on forever, to-ing and fro-ing, incomprehensible to everyone except the lawyers. Barrett had watched the legal fraternity ply their trade, puffed up with their own self-importance, revelling in what seemed endless detail. Finally Bridget took the stand. She was good-looking, aged about twenty, and dressed in a conservative beige skirt and blouse. She had a slim figure and long legs. Her thick blond hair fell down her shoulders and back.

At first, it seemed as though she was about to describe to the hushed court a pleasant day’s outing on the water with her family. There was a softness, almost a touch of nostalgia, to her voice.

Barrett strained to hear her testimony.

“Since Mum died, Dad would sometimes get a bit despondent – his friends thought he spent too much time alone. I always felt I ought to spend more time with him and I knew he liked scuba diving. He was always pestering me to go with him. Last year, he asked me up to Byron Bay .”

She paused and glanced wistfully around the room. Barrett was conscious of her eyes settling upon him, giving him special attention, as though she was addressing herself directly to him. Earlier in the trial, he had thought it was his imagination, that everyone in the room was getting the same attention, but now it was unnerving. She seemed to look straight at him as she spoke.

“We’d had a good couple of days and were on our way out on a dive. It just came into my head. I don’t know why. I thought; ‘who’d suspect a daughter?’”  

Surprise showed on the prosecutor’s face. “Would you please speak up, Miss Conrad?”

Staring directly at Barrett, Bridget calmly raised her voice. “I knew we’d be going deep when I sabotaged his tank. When he got into trouble, I stayed with him for a moment before I went to the surface. I wanted him to know what I had done. ‘You take from life what you can.’ That’s what he told me, and that’s what I did. Maybe he understood that just before he died? I hope so.”

Barrett leaned forward, hands on thighs, palms downward, fingers spread wide. 

It occurred to him that Bridget’s confession was especially unsettling given the morning’s events - as though attesting to the evil that the human race had just witnessed.  

The date was 12^th September 2001.

That morning, Barrett had awoken to a radio report impelling him to switch on his television set. Over and over, vision was being played of two passenger jets slamming into the Twin Towers in New York City .

Now, eight hours later, with the image of the crumbling buildings indelibly burnt in his mind, Barrett could only shake his head in dismay at Bridget’s words.

He scribbled hurriedly on his notepad.

He was conscious that while Bridget Conrad’s dramatic admission to killing her father was newsworthy, it would likely receive only a few paragraphs in his newspaper the following day. Like every other paper, the Sydney Daily Herald would be dominated by the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The Sydney Daily Herald thursday 13^th September 2001  

I Murdered My Father to Watch Him Die  

Spencer Barrett reports from the Supreme Court of NSW  

A court yesterday heard a dramatic admission by a twenty-year-old woman that she murdered her father.  

During cross-examination, Bridget Anne Conrad admitted she had sabotaged her father’s scuba tank just before they went on a dive at Byron Bay in December of last year. The court had already heard evidence that her father, Charles Conrad, had drowned as a result of the damaged scuba tank.  

In her shock testimony, Ms Conrad said she had waited and watched as her father drowned. She said that she “wanted him to know what she had done”.  

In the lead up to the unexpected admission, it had been argued Charles Conrad had been a loving father devoted to his daughter. Witnesses testified Bridget and her father often dived together and it would have been easy for her to tamper with the tank without his knowledge.  

Earlier in the trial, the prosecution had admitted it could not suggest a motive for the murder. The prosecutor had said, ‘Only Ms Conrad knows the real reason she killed her father and if she decides not to tell anyone, we will never know’. 

In her admission, Bridget Conrad did not indicate any reason for carrying out the murder.  

Immediately after her testimony, Ms Conrad conferred with her lawyer and changed her plea to guilty. The Court was adjourned pending sentencing.         

One    

Barrett perched on the hard prison chair waiting for Bridget to explain why she had written to him asking that he come and visit her. She looked different from the last time he had seen her at her trial just over four months before. She now sported short hair, a ring through a pierced eyebrow above her eye, and two gold studs in one ear. Her face was pale from lack of sun. She wore no make-up and her prison clothes disguised her young body. Even so, her good looks were not diminished. The hair cut and jewellery complemented the features of her face. The lack of make-up accentuated her natural attractiveness and Barrett could not help but notice the line of her breasts and her svelte figure beneath her formless jail dress.

On impulse, Barrett took the initiative. “It’s been a while since the trial. What do you want from me?”

“You smoke?”

He shook his head.

“Pity. What I hate most here is that the weeks and months go by and nothing happens. You’re always waiting for something to happen but nothing ever does. The odd fag helps a bit.”

A guard ambled by just as Barrett spoke. “I would have brought you some if I’d known.” Contrite, Barrett looked up at the officer. “We were talking about cigarettes.” The guard smiled and moved on.

Bridget shrugged to say it didn’t matter.

“I want you to do something for me. I want you to read a letter my father wrote to me – his lawyer gave it to me after the funeral.”

“After you killed him.” The words were out before Barrett could stop them.

She did not blink. His indiscretion unsettled him more than her.   “Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean. So will you read it?”

Barrett was keen to find out as much as possible about Bridget and her father. He had been taken by surprise when she contacted him. It had come out of the blue.

“Sure. Why not?”

Bridget handed Barrett the letter. It was thin in his hand, slightly torn along the folds from being opened and closed too many times.

For a moment, she seemed to retreat into herself. “Nobody else alive has seen that letter. I spend a lot of time thinking about it.”

Barrett watched her, waiting for her to explain what she meant, but she did not elaborate. Soon he felt uncomfortable with the silence.

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