Deserving Death (16 page)

A bit of grit made her eyes water. She blinked it away.

One more minute. She felt herself waiting for the sound of footsteps behind her. What if he didn’t come out? What if he decided the price was too high to pay, that it would be better if she did keep away?

The minute passed. He wasn’t coming. She fumbled in her bag for her keys and started walking.

‘Ella,’ Callum said behind her.

She couldn’t read his pale face. ‘I have to go.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘I have to stay. I’m not choosing between you – it’s just that she’s really upset. It’s hard for her.’

‘It’s hard for me too.’

‘I know,’ he said again. ‘I’m sorry about that.’

What did ‘sorry’ mean? It was all pointless. He’d struggled from the start, and she should’ve known all along it would come to this. She should never have let herself hope – believe – that it might work.

‘Forget it,’ she said.

‘I’m not choosing,’ he said. ‘I love you both.’

She looked away down the street. ‘It’s okay.’

‘It’s not,’ he said. ‘I can see in your face that it’s not.’

‘What do you want me to say?’

He touched her hand, then let it go. They stood there for a moment, then Ella turned and walked away, and didn’t look back.

*

Carly was finishing the case sheet when Mark came out of the emergency department with the stretcher already made up and ready to go. He loaded it into the back then came around to the passenger door.

‘I’m sorry about before,’ he said. ‘I kept thinking about Alicia.’

Carly looked at him.

‘You work like she does. The way you speak to the patient and everything? You even have the same tone of voice.’ He glanced away and brushed grime from inside the doorframe. She could see the gleam of tears in his eyes. ‘If I turned my back I could’ve almost persuaded myself that you were her.’

She hugged him, feeling bad that she’d been angry, that she’d suspected him.

‘Sorry about my phone going off too,’ he said into her hair. ‘It was Anne. She’s worried about me. I’ve put it on silent.’

‘Thirty-nine,’ Control said.

Carly let go of Mark and grabbed the mike. ‘Thirty-nine’s clear at RPA.’

‘Thanks, Thirty-nine, got a two-year-old unwell for you.’ Control gave her an address in Stanmore. ‘Feverish, vomiting. Mother very concerned.’

‘Thirty-nine’s on the job.’ Carly rehooked the mike as Mark got behind the wheel.

‘Alicia would’ve loved this case,’ he said.

She would, Carly knew. She was all over anything to do with babies or children. Carly thought of the kids she’d talked about having, the ones who’d now never be born.

‘Mark,’ she said.

‘Yep?’ He punched the horn to change the siren from wail to yelp as they shot through an intersection on a yellow light.

‘What were you and Tessa arguing about at the pub today?’

He frowned, eyes on the road. ‘When?’

‘She’d just arrived and you were talking to her near the bathrooms. She looked angry and you grabbed her shoulder.’

‘I don’t recall.’ He glanced past her for traffic. ‘Are you sure we were arguing?’

‘That’s how it looked,’ Carly said. ‘And that’s what she said when I asked her too.’

‘Hmm.’ He swung around a panicking driver. ‘I really don’t remember.’

Carly studied his profile. Unlike moments earlier, his face was empty of emotion. Could you really forget an argument as easily as that? Surely only if arguments with that person were common.

‘I’m worried about Tessa,’ she said.

‘I think she’s okay.’

The same response she’d got from Robbie.

‘But how well do you know her?’ she said. ‘She hides a lot. She didn’t say a word to the debriefer.’

‘I’m keeping an eye on her,’ Mark said.

‘How do you mean?’

‘Checking in with her, staying close. Like I am with you. Like with all you guys. Like a good boss does.’

The streetlights flashed by. Carly tried to focus on the woman and child waiting for them, but she felt more puzzled than ever, more lost in the dark, and yet also more certain that something odd was going on.

*

It was when Ella kept driving on Victoria Road, past the street she’d normally take towards home, that she realised she was going to her parents’ place.

She was done crying but in the mirror she saw mascara smeared on her cheeks. She pulled her sleeve over her hand and scrubbed her skin. In the lights of Ryde Bridge the staining looked like faded bruises.

The lights were on in her parents’ house in Chullora. She parked in the driveway and went up the steps between the rose bushes and knocked on the door. She heard her father, Franco, say something about this time of night, then the bulb overhead went on and the door opened.

‘Ella, sweetheart. What are you doing here? Come in.’

Her father’s thin hand on her shoulder. The smell of dinner and laundry. Her mother, Netta, came from the kitchen, drying her hands on a dish towel.

‘I thought tonight was Callum’s birthday do?’ she said.

‘It was,’ Ella said.

Her parents glanced at each other.

‘I’ve just put the kettle on,’ Netta said. ‘I’ll get your cup out.’

Ella followed her down the hall, Franco behind her. He touched her shoulder gently, patted her arm. ‘You’re okay?’ he said.

She let out a breath. ‘I will be.’

They sat around the kitchen table. The shine of the light on the faded benchtops and the sound of the kettle’s whistle, the smell of the tea and the trickle of the milk and the clink of the spoon in the cups were so domestic, such markers of Ella’s childhood, that she felt in an instant that she was seven again, or eight or nine or ten, sitting always in the same chair, swinging her legs, with Franco opposite and Netta to her left, looking at her just as they looked at her now.

Her cup was one she’d been given as a child, with Snoopy on one side and Woodstock on the other. She’d forgotten about it until Netta found it in a clean-out a year or so ago, deep in a box of toys and dress-ups. The rest of the contents had probably gone to Lifeline, Netta resigning herself to a grandchild-empty future, what with Ella being past forty and showing no signs of what Netta would call settling down. Ella wondered if Callum’s appearance had made Netta regret that throwing-out. She didn’t need to, that was for sure.

Franco sipped his tea. Netta blew on the top of hers. It was obvious that they were waiting for Ella to indicate the direction of the conversation.

‘Roses look good,’ she said.

‘They do, don’t they,’ Franco said, though they both knew she couldn’t have made out any detail in the dark. ‘I’ve been onto the aphids from the start this year and the effort has really paid off.’

‘Not to mention the fertiliser,’ Netta said.

‘Tried a different brand,’ Franco said. ‘So far so good.’

‘That’s great,’ Ella said.

‘The magpie family has been around too,’ Netta said. ‘Singing away at the back door in the morning. It’s lovely.’

Ella’s tea was strong and sweet. It warmed her. She hadn’t known she was cold. ‘How’s Aunt Adelina?’

‘Finished her physio at last,’ Netta said. ‘She says the wrist still aches sometimes but otherwise it’s good as new.’

‘She’s back at the bowls as well,’ Franco said. Adelina was his sister. They had no other family. Their relationship was usually good but had been tested in recent months when she’d come to stay after breaking her arm.

‘That’s good,’ Ella said.

‘Anyone else feel like a biscuit?’ Franco said.

‘You and your biscuits,’ Netta said, but she got up to get the tin from the pantry.

Ella pushed away thoughts about Callum, about the look in his eyes when they stood on the street, about the world out there where uncles killed their nephews and women were murdered and put back in their own beds. She lifted her toes from the floor and swung her feet.

*

The lone sick child turned out to be three, all under five years old and all miserable with fever and vomiting. The mother was exhausted and teary. Carly loaded the family into the ambulance and Mark drove them to RPA. There, Carly gathered up the three-year-old boy while Mark took the older boy and the mother carried the two-year-old girl. The child put his arms around Carly’s neck and rested his head against her cheek as they walked into the emergency department. She felt the heat of his body through her uniform, his sturdy weight in her arms, and thought of Alicia.

A nurse directed them to an empty cubicle and she and Mark placed their kids gently on the white sheet. The mother sank into a chair, her daughter clinging to her. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

Back at the ambulance Mark blinked hard. ‘It makes me think of the kids Alicia won’t have, and how great she was to me and Anne when we lost Hamish, and just what a loss, what a fucking loss it is. To the whole world. You know?’

Carly nodded. ‘And that some bastard did it to her.’

Mark hugged her. She smelled his aftershave, the clean ironed fabric of his uniform. He held her tight and she pressed her face into his shoulder.
Alicia.
It was real. It was really real. A sob rose up from deep inside her and broke against his neck.

He squeezed her, then grasped her arms and looked into her face. ‘We’ll get through this.’

It felt too soon to be talking about that, but Carly nodded.

‘We just have to stick together.’

She nodded again, though something in his intense gaze made her uncomfortable. His fingers were tight on her arms. She leaned back a fraction, and he leaned forward. His eyes flicked to her mouth and his hand moved to brush her cheek. She flinched at his touch and saw in his eyes that he was going to kiss her, then the electric doors slid open behind them and a nurse came out and he let her go and turned away.

The night air was cool on her wet face but her blood pumped hard. Had that just happened?
What
had just happened? Nothing, technically, but . . .

She went to where he stood by the open driver’s door. ‘Mark.’

He blew his nose and stuffed the handkerchief into his trouser pocket. ‘I’ll help with the case sheets. Which kid do you want me to write up?’

‘What was that?’

‘What? Just now? I wiped a tear from your cheek.’

‘Mark.’ It was embarrassing to even say, but she couldn’t not. ‘You were going to kiss me.’

His eyes grew round with surprise. ‘Why would I do that? You’re gay. And you’re practically hitched. And I’m married too.
I was upset, you were upset, we were hugging. I was trying to comfort you. That’s all.’

The bluster told her everything. ‘Forget I asked.’ She went around to the passenger side to get the case sheet folder.

‘It’s a ridiculous idea,’ he said.

‘I said forget it.’

‘I mean –’

She looked at him. ‘Okay. You’re right. Because why would you? I’m gay. So you just wouldn’t.’

‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘That’s exactly right. I wouldn’t. I didn’t.’

‘So let’s forget it,’ she said. ‘You can write up the four-year-old.’

They sat on the ambulance’s back step to fill in the case sheets. To anyone walking past they’d look companionable, but Carly watched Mark’s forearm move as he wrote and thought about how you could think you knew someone, but really knew nothing at all.

Seventeen

‘W
hy don’t you stay?’ Netta said an hour later, closing the photo album they’d been laughing over. ‘I’ve got mushrooms for breakfast.’

Why not? Ella thought. She could get up in time to go home and change before work. She thought of lying in her old bed in her old room – ostensibly the spare, though neither Netta nor Franco called it that – and hearing them get ready for bed themselves, the low murmur of conversation through the walls, the click of light switches, the quiet dark settling over the house. The feeling of security she’d had as a child, knowing that one cry would bring them running, that the doors were locked against the world and she was loved and safe from all harm.

‘Sure,’ she said.

‘The bed just needs the clean sheets putting on,’ Netta said, starting to get up.

‘I’ll do it,’ Ella said.

The linen cupboard smelled of mothballs and fabric softener as it always had, the folded sheets were still worn smooth with use, and the light from the round fitting in the centre of her bedroom ceiling fell in the same way on the same striped crocheted blanket. She sat on the side of the bed with the sheets in her arms. Franco had painted the ceiling a few times over the years but the same tiny cracks always showed through eventually. She used to lie in bed and trace them with her eyes, taking a different direction each time, imagining them as roads leading to new places. She remembered the sense of anticipation she’d had about life, wondering what she might do – always sure it would be something splendid – and about the person who would be by her side while she did it.

She wondered how Callum had seen his life, and how he was feeling now. Whether the party had died after what’d happened, people drifting out the door unsure what to say or how to say it. Her arrogance had caused that. She’d had a go at Genevieve for ruining his birthday and looked what she herself had done. Her efforts to get Callum to talk were no better either. It all came from her desire to fix everything for everybody; her bigheaded belief that it was in her power – and that she was right – to do so.

She felt hollow. Had she just thrown away something precious for the sake of her pride?

Franco came in. ‘Need a hand?’

‘Actually, I think I’m going to go,’ Ella said. ‘There’s something I need to do.’

*

The killer drove smoothly and below the speed limit. His eyes were drawn to the dark spaces between the streetlights and in the alleys, his thoughts to the things you could do in places like that.

He lowered the window and felt the night breeze in his hair, the hugeness of space above this petty world. He passed a couple arguing on a street corner, heard the tremble of emotion in their voices. People never learned. Feelings got you nowhere. You had to get control and only then could you do what needed to be done.

As he was doing, tonight.

*

Ella could see a light in Callum’s window, but there was nobody on the balcony and no strains of music, nineties or otherwise. She went up the stairs and tapped softly at the door.

He opened it. ‘Hi.’

‘Can we talk?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Mum’s still here, but she’s asleep in my bed. Come out to the balcony.’

They went out to sit on the plastic chairs.

‘Is she okay?’ Ella asked.

‘Drunk and emotional.’ He slid the glass door shut.

‘But okay?’

‘She’s not happy,’ he said. ‘We had an argument after you left. It wasn’t pretty.’

His face was pale in the light through the curtains.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Ella said. ‘I was a total arse.’

‘She shouldn’t really have come,’ he said. ‘And certainly shouldn’t have driven here.’

‘I don’t just mean tonight – I’ve been a total arse to you for a long time. I’ve tried to make you talk to me about everything to do with Tim and your dad, and thought I could make your mum talk about it too, but I have no right to do anything of the sort. It’s because . . . well, it’s hard to explain, but I have this need.’

‘The one where you have to fix everything?’

She looked at him. ‘You know about that?’

‘You wear it like a neon sign,’ he said. ‘Haven’t you ever thought about what you’re doing at work? Why you fight so hard for the victims?’

‘I prefer to think that’s me being good at my job.’

‘It goes deeper than that,’ he said. ‘It’s who you are. I have it too. It’s why we’ve ended up in the jobs we have.’

‘But you don’t try to fix me,’ she said.

‘From where I stand, nothing about you needs fixing.’

Her heart swelled, but she said, ‘Except the way I upset your mum and hassle you about your dad.’

‘I chose you for me, not for how you get along with them.’

‘But,’ she said, even as her heart swelled more, ‘how is that ever going to work? The problem’s always going to be there. What if your mum wants to slap me every time she sees me? What if you start seeing your dad’s face every time you look at me?’
If you’re not doing that already?

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘You see it as a problem, but maybe it’s just a situation. You see it as something that needs solving, but perhaps it’s just a fact of our lives.’

She tried to think that through. ‘I should change my perspective.’

‘And just let it be,’ he said. ‘Don’t try to fix it. Don’t worry about what might happen over it. It’s part of our lives, yes, but only part – it’s not everything.’

That was true. ‘Is that how you deal with it?’

‘To tell you the truth, I don’t think of it that often.’

She tried to read his expression in the muted light. Could he really not think about it? Men could be good at compartmentalising their thoughts and emotions. If she had stronger walls in her head she might be content to shove it behind one too. But who knew? It might work. It was hope, at least. The problem – the situation, she corrected herself – could just be allowed to exist while they lived their lives around it. She could channel all her fixyness into work, and leave it there when she came home. She would be not just the new Ella, but the new improved Ella.

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Let’s do it.’

He smiled and leaned in for a kiss. It lengthened, and deepened, and he murmured into her mouth, ‘Staying?’

‘Might be a squeeze with your mum already in the bed.’

‘Time we tested the lounge.’

He kissed her all the way there.

‘She won’t wake up?’ Ella said from the velvet cushions.

‘As long as you keep your screeching down.’

‘That’s you, not me,’ she said, unbuckling his belt.

He fell on top of her and pretended to bite her neck, and she imagined their life being good like this always. But something in her wondered if she’d really be able to turn her mind, her emotions, her drive – all of it – on and off quite so easily.

*

She woke in the morning to the muffled ringing of her phone. The sky was light through the curtains and she scrambled off the lounge and dug her phone from her bag. Dennis.

‘Hey,’ she whispered, while Callum struggled into his jeans and shirt. At some stage of the night he’d fetched a blanket, and it slid to the floor around her.

‘We got an anonymous phone call last night,’ Dennis said. ‘It included information about where Maxine Hardwick’s wallet was hidden.’

‘What? Where?’

‘Mark Vardy’s garage,’ Dennis said.

‘Alicia’s boss?’ She was on her feet. ‘Anything to indicate he killed her too?’

Callum shushed her, frowning towards his closed bedroom door. She made an apologetic face.

‘Not as yet,’ Dennis said.

‘Has he been arrested?’

‘He’s at work. They’re picking him up now.’

She said, ‘I need in on that interview.’

‘Why do you think I’m calling?’

‘Good,’ she said.
Great.

*

They’d been flat out until five in the morning, then had come back to the station and collapsed into the recliners. Mark had kicked off his boots, but Carly hadn’t bothered doing even that. She’d fallen immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep. She woke with a start when the station phone rang and Mark jumped up to get it. She felt nauseated and exhausted and it was only a little after six. Not even close to knock-off. At least things between them felt normal again. After a bit of stilted conversation during the next few cases, she’d pretty much shrugged and moved on.

‘Vardy, The Rocks,’ Mark said on the muster room phone.

Carly rubbed her face and yawned.

‘Oh. Okay,’ Mark said. ‘Yep. Okay, will do.’

He sounded mystified. Nobody sounded like that when they were taking a job.

She got up as he hung up. ‘What is it?’

‘He said someone’s coming to see us,’ Mark said. ‘We’re signed off apparently, and the someone will be here soon.’

Carly’s first thought was that someone else had died. Tessa, she thought. Then,
Linsey
. She grabbed her phone and called her.

‘It’s too early for talking,’ Linsey answered in a sleep-doped voice.

Carly felt her heart rate return to near normal. ‘You’re okay?’

‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

Somebody knocked on the plant room door.

‘There’re cars out there,’ Mark said, and pressed the button to open the roller door.

‘What’s going on?’ Linsey asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Carly said. ‘I’ll call you back.’

She hung up and followed Mark into the plant room. Parked on the driveway were a marked police car, two uniformed officers getting out, and beside it what she guessed was an unmarked. The two men in the doorway certainly looked like detectives.

‘Mark Vardy?’ one of them asked.

‘Yes,’ Mark said. ‘What’s going on?’

‘We’d like you to come with us to be interviewed.’

‘What for? What’s happened?’

‘We’ve spoken to your wife and she knows where you’ll be.’

‘But why? What’s going on?’

The detectives were expressionless. ‘We’d appreciate it if you would come with us.’

‘I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what this is about,’ Mark said.

The detectives glanced at Carly.

‘Anything you need to say you can say in front of her,’ Mark said. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong and I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘Maxine Hardwick’s wallet was found in your garage,’ the detective said.

The ground seemed to shift under Carly’s feet. ‘What?’

‘It’s not true,’ Mark said. ‘It can’t be true.’

‘If you’ll come with us, we can sort it out.’

‘I had nothing to do with her death,’ Mark said. ‘I didn’t do anything wrong.’

‘That’s why we need you to come with us, so we can talk about it and find out what’s going on.’

‘Am I under arrest? Do I need a lawyer?’

‘You’re not under arrest, and you can get a lawyer if you want one.’

‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ Mark said.

‘Then you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.’ The detective motioned to the car.

Mark walked towards it. ‘You said Anne knows?’

‘She knows where you’ll be, yes.’

He looked like he was about to ask another question, then said, ‘Okay.’

He glanced back at Carly with an apologetic expression, then climbed into the unmarked’s back seat. The detectives got in the front, the uniforms got into their car, and they backed out and drove off, leaving Carly shell-shocked in the early morning sunlight.

*

Tessa heard the boots on the doorstep a split second before the pounding started. Her first thought was that the cops had come –
at last –
but then Carly shouted her name.

She leapt out of bed and flung open the front door. ‘Keep your voice down.’

Carly put a shaking finger in her face. ‘I want to know what’s going on and I want to know now.’

‘You think I’m up to something dressed like this?’ Tessa pointed to her blue penguin-patterned pyjamas. ‘You think I’m running a crime syndicate from my bedroom at seven o’clock in the morning?’

‘The cops just took Mark away,’ Carly said. ‘They found Maxine’s wallet in his house.’

‘You’re such a lying scrag.’

‘I was on nightshift with him. They sent me home early. Why else would I be here in uniform at this time of day?’

‘God, you’ll say anything about anybody, won’t you?’

‘I saw the two of you having an argument yesterday at the Grove,’ Carly snapped. ‘He denied it, but I know he was lying. And now the cops’ve taken him away. Something’s going on and you and him and Robbie and John are all involved, and I think it’s to do with Maxine and Alicia. So help me god, I will do whatever it takes to find out the truth and sink the whole damn lot of you.’

Tessa shoved her off the doorstep. ‘Fuck off out of here.’

‘No.’ Carly grabbed the railing. ‘Call the cops, tell them I’m trespassing. I dare you.’

Inside the house Lily cried, ‘Tess?’

Tessa gritted her teeth. ‘Just leave.’

‘Call the cops,’ Carly said. ‘I’ve got all day.’

‘Tess?’

‘Just a minute,’ she shouted over her shoulder.

‘Here, you can even borrow my phone.’ Carly dug in her pocket. ‘The number’s triple zero.’

Tessa balled her fists, feeling the tightness in her muscles from training last night, the good ache deep in her wrists and hands. ‘You want to know what Mark and I argued about at the Grove? I’ll tell you. I told him that I hoped you weren’t going to be there because you can’t keep your nose out of anyone’s business and you’re a snooping, wrist-pinching, fucking dyke bitch. He told me not to say that and I shoved him away and he grabbed me and told me to calm down. I told him to fuck off, like I’m telling you, and I went into the bathroom, and guess what happened then? The dyke bitch herself came in to snoop.’

Carly stared at her.

‘So,’ Tessa said. ‘You happy now?’

‘I will be when you tell me the rest.’ Her tone was hard.

‘Tess?’ A drawn-out cry from inside.

‘Fuck you, and fuck the rest.’

Tessa went in and slammed the door, hoping Carly hadn’t seen her shaking, wishing everything was different.