Deserving Death (27 page)
‘From what I read, it looks like he’d been living here after his divorce – he had plenty to say about that too, his ex-wife. Things weren’t going well between him and his mum, and then six weeks ago she had a fall and couldn’t get up. He couldn’t help her because of his back, and so they called the ambulance. Alicia was working single and turned up. She was supposed to get backup, but she lifted Mrs Janssen on her own, and said something about Andrew being feeble.’
‘And was no doubt joking, but he didn’t take it that way?’ Ella said.
Murray nodded. ‘Especially when his mother later started ribbing him about it too. He got in a rage and punched her. She fell and died, and he blamed Alicia for making him do it.’ He shrugged. ‘Nobody said he was sane.’
‘Six weeks ago,’ Ella said. ‘So that was the trigger.’
‘Yes,’ Murray said. ‘He wrote about how none of this would’ve happened if he hadn’t been injured at work. Losing his job, his wife, his kid and his house meant he was a failure as a man, and being, quote,
forced to react to his mother’s bullying
was the last straw. He decided Hardwick had to pay. The reality unnerved him a little, but then he pulled himself together to murder Bayliss as well.’
The pointless violence sickened her. Men like Janssen and John Morris felt they could do whatever they wanted, that they got to decide who deserved what and then dealt it out.
The officers had placed the body on the unfolded body bag. Ella glanced over as they lifted the handkerchief off. The woman’s face was discoloured and had been battered: just like Hardwick and Bayliss.
What a waste.
She turned and walked towards the back door, thinking of Carly and Linsey getting checked out in hospital, dried blood in their hair, dark bruises on their faces and necks. Carly would need stitches for her split lip and X-rays, but they were both alive. Last Ella had seen, they were holding hands and smiling at each other like the rest of their lives would be golden now, no matter what.
She took out her phone and dialled.
‘I was just about to call you,’ Callum said. ‘Dad’s on the mend. He’s going to be okay.’
‘I’m really glad,’ she said, and meant it.
‘Did I see you on the news just before?’
‘Possibly,’ she said. ‘It’s a very long story.’
‘How about I come over and make you dinner while you tell it?’
‘I’m going to be tied up here for quite a while.’
‘How about I come over and keep your bed warm until you get home, and then in the morning I’ll make you breakfast instead?’
She thought of going home late, after all the interviews and debriefs about her shooting of Janssen were done, after the scene walk-through was over, when she’d be alone in her car, the night outside, the radio silent. That was the time she’d let herself cry. To know he was waiting for her would help.
‘That’d be great,’ she said.
Acknowledgements
T
hanks to my agent Selwa Anthony, publisher Cate Paterson, editors Vanessa Pellatt and Nicola O’Shea, and publicist Charlotte Ree. Thanks also to everyone in Pan Macmillan sales, marketing, and publicity, and – last but by no means least – all the booksellers.
For technical advice, thanks to Adam Asplin and Karen Davis.
For friendship and help in countless other ways, thanks to Karen Brooks.
Thanks to all my family, and again especially to Benette.
About Katherine Howell
Katherine Howell is a former paramedic. Her award-winning and critically acclaimed Detective Ella Marconi series is published in multiple countries and languages. She lives in Queensland with her partner and is currently working on the eighth Marconi book.
www.katherinehowell.com
Also by Katherine Howell
Frantic
The Darkest Hour
Cold Justice
Violent Exposure
Silent Fear
Web of Deceit
Katherine Howell
Frantic
In one terrible moment, paramedic Sophie Phillips’ life is ripped apart – her police officer husband, Chris, is shot on their doorstep and her ten-month-old son, Lachlan, is abducted from his bed.
Suspicion surrounds Chris as he is tainted with police corruption, but Sophie believes the attack is much more personal, a consequence of her own actions.
While Chris is in hospital and the police, led by Detective Ella Marconi, mobilise to find their colleague’s child, Sophie’s desperation compels her to search for Lachlan herself. She enlists her husband’s partner, Angus Anderson, in the hunt for her son, but will the history they share and her raw maternal instinct lead to an even greater tragedy?
‘Howell may have left the ambulance service but she can still drive a narrative at full speed with the sirens blaring’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘Compelling drama from the author whose career as an ambulance officer gives the tale an unnerving ring of truth’
WOMAN’S DAY
Katherine Howell
The Darkest Hour
Paramedic Lauren Yates stumbles into a world of trouble the night she discovers a dead man in an inner city alley – the killer still lurks nearby. When the murderer threatens to make her life hell if she tells the police, she believes him – he’s Thomas Werner, her sister’s ex and father to Lauren’s niece . . . and not a man to mess with.
But when a stabbing victim tells her with his dying breath that Werner attacked him too, she finds herself with blood on her hands and Detective Ella Marconi on her back.
Ella knows Lauren is the perfect witness, but when Lauren tries to change her statement, Ella realises that Lauren is hiding something. The harder she digs into the paramedic’s past, the more Lauren resists, and the worse the threat from Werner becomes.
Will Ella’s investigation put her career on the line? Can Lauren keep her family safe? Or will they all – Ella included – pay the ultimate price?
‘As with
Frantic
[winner of the Davitt Award for the best crime novel], I galloped through this book with my heart racing’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Katherine Howell
Cold Justice
The past haunts the present . . .
Nineteen years ago teenager Georgie Daniels stumbled across the body of her classmate, Tim Pieters, hidden amongst bushes. His family was devastated and the killer never found.
Now political pressure sees the murder investigation reopened and Detective Ella Marconi assigned to the case. She tracks down Georgie who is now a paramedic. She seems to be telling the truth, so then why does Ella receive an anonymous phone call insisting that Georgie knows more? And is it mere coincidence that her ambulance partner, Freya, also went to the same high school?
Meanwhile, Tim’s mother suddenly turns her back on the investigation yet his cousin, the MP whose influence reopened the case, can’t seem to do enough to help.
The more Ella digs into the past, the more the buried secrets and lies are brought to light. Can she track down the killer before more people are hurt?
‘A murder, a secret and a detective who won’t let go –
Cold Justice
has pace, precision and a wonderful sense of place.’
MICHAEL ROBOTHAM
‘One of my favourite books of the year. Katherine Howell has written a winner!’
TESS GERRITSEN
Katherine Howell
Violent Exposure
When Suzanne Crawford is found stabbed to death and her husband Connor is discovered to be missing, it looks like just another tragic case of domestic violence to Detective Ella Marconi. But as the investigation progresses, it becomes clear that all is not as it seems. Why is there no record of Connor Crawford beyond a few years ago? Why has a teenager who worked for the pair gone missing too? Is trainee paramedic Aidan Simpson telling the truth about his involvement? And above all, what was the secret Suzanne knew Connor was keeping at all costs – even from her?
As Ella begins to build a picture of the Crawfords’ fractured lives, things around her are deteriorating. Her relationship with a fellow officer is hanging by a thread and her parents are keeping secrets of their own. But Ella only has time for the job she loves, and she knows she has to see her way through the tangled web of deceit and lies to get at the truth – before it’s too late.
Katherine Howell
Silent Fear
On a searing summer’s day paramedic Holly Garland rushes to an emergency to find a man collapsed with a bullet wound in the back of his head and her long-estranged brother Seth watching it all unfold.
Seth claims to be the dying man’s best friend, but Holly knows better than to believe anything he says and fears that his reappearance will reveal the bleak secrets of her past – secrets which if exposed could cause her to lose everything.
Detective Ella Marconi suspects Seth too, but she’s also sure the dead man’s wife is lying, and the deceased’s boss seems just too helpful. Then a shocking double homicide makes Ella realise that her investigations are getting closer to the killer, increasing the risk of an even higher body count.
‘authentic and fast paced’
SUNDAY MAIL
‘Howell can juggle a two-heroine plot with ease. She is also acute on men and women in the workplace – their competition, the sexual tension’
SUNDAY AGE
‘The strength and interest of this series include not only the precisions of its . . . setting and characters but also – and especially – the attention to the paramedic’s work’
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
Katherine Howell
Web of Deceit
When paramedics Jane and Alex encounter a man refusing to get out of his crashed car, with bystanders saying he deliberately drove into a pole, it looks like a desperate cry for help. His frantic claim that someone is out to get him adds to their thinking that he is delusional.
Later that day he is found dead under a train in what might be a suicide, but Jane is no longer so sure: she remembers the raw terror in his eyes.
Detective Ella Marconi shares Jane’s doubts, which are only compounded when the case becomes increasingly tangled. The victim’s boss tries to commit suicide after being questioned, a witness flees Ella’s attempt to interview her, and then to confuse matters further, a woman is beaten unconscious in front of Jane’s house and Alex’s daughter goes missing.
Ella is at a loss to know how all these clues add up, and feels the investigation is being held back by her budget-focused boss. Then, just when she thinks she’s closing in on the right person, a shocking turn of events puts more people in danger and might just see the killer slip through her hands.
Praise for Katherine Howell:
‘Howell is good at panic and rush . . . at character and dialogue . . . what she does best: relationships in all their complexity . . . the real strength of this always interesting series’ Sue Turnbull,
SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
‘Howell’s books are always suspenseful and her plots thicker than minestrone’
SATURDAY AGE
‘Not to be read on public transport: you might miss your stop’
SUN-HERALD
First published 2014 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 2000.
Copyright © Katherine Howell 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.
This ebook may not include illustrations and/or photographs that may have been in the print edition.
Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available
from the National Library of Australia
EPUB format: 9781743518007
Typeset by Post Pre-press Group
Cover design by Deborah Parry Graphics
Cover photographs: Tricia de Courcy Ling/Alamy; Claudia Pescatori/Getty Images
The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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