Cold Justice (26 page)

‘No, you didn’t.’ He took the remote and skipped back a scene.

Lester said, ‘The job will not save you.’

‘I don’t know,’ McNulty said. ‘A good case –’

‘Ends. The handcuffs go click and it’s over. And the next morning it’s just you in your room with yourself.’

Wayne pressed stop and looked at her.

She squeezed his leg playfully. ‘But sometimes you’re in my room too.’

He raised his eyebrows.

‘Oh, come on,’ she said. ‘You’re bringing down the mood.’

‘You should think about that conversation.’

‘I’ve decided I don’t do “should”.’ She grabbed for the remote. ‘Can we just watch?’

He released her hand. ‘Maybe I’d better go.’

‘Wayne.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know.’ She turned off the TV. ‘I guess you need to do whatever you think is right.’

He got to his feet and looked down at her. ‘Take some time and think about it. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

She stared at the blank TV. She was tired and over it. ‘I hate games.’

‘I’m just trying to help you.’

‘By pulling away whenever I do something you disagree with? By trying to control me with your behaviour?’

‘It’s not like that.’

‘It’s exactly like that, and if you can’t see it then we have a problem.’

He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

She shrugged. He stood there a moment longer then kissed the top of her head and left.

His car started up and drove away. She let her chin sag briefly to her chest, then jumped up and got her phone.

Half an hour later she pulled up outside the café. It was small, warm and brightly lit. Again, Callum was waiting. Ella sat opposite him and smiled.

‘I’m sorry to keep calling,’ he said.

‘Don’t be. I’m always pleased to talk.’

He fiddled with the salt shaker. ‘I guess detective work is a little like doctor’s work. Time is elastic, so-called normal working hours are irrelevant, and you go where you’re needed when you’re needed there.’

Ella felt like grabbing his hand in gratitude. How come he got it when Wayne didn’t? ‘It’s about commitment,’ she said.

‘Exactly.’ He smiled. ‘If you’re going to do a job, you should do it properly. You should give yourself over to it completely.’

Oh, this man!

‘I could tell from the moment I met you that this is what drives you,’ he said. ‘I’m so pleased you have Tim’s case, because I know that drive means you won’t stop.’

She couldn’t help herself now, she had to seize his hand.

His fingers curled around hers. ‘You are going to find the killer.’

I am.

They ordered coffee. She felt like she was with an old friend. It was comfortable and there was no pressure, and it made her realise how often Wayne put her on edge.

‘I actually called because I remembered something else.’ Callum put down his cup. ‘At least, I think it’s a memory.’

‘Tell me,’ she said.

‘I know you said not to force it but I couldn’t stop imagining that night at the barbecue. Tim was trying to talk to John and was angry, at least partly because he was being ignored. I tried to remember back to when we first arrived, and I’m certain that John and Tim were already at it even then. I have this vague idea that I overheard Tim say to John, almost begging really, that it wasn’t about going out, he just wanted him to come upstairs so he could talk.’

‘Okay.’

‘And again, I don’t know if this is a proper memory or not, but I have a recollection of John saying something about how he knew Tim’s tricks, he wasn’t going to be softened up like that, he’d told him he couldn’t go out and that was that.’

Ella considered this.

‘Now that I’ve said it out loud it sounds like nothing.’ Callum turned red along his hairline. ‘How can I remember anything from nineteen years ago? How come I didn’t tell the police back then?’

‘You were eleven,’ Ella said. ‘Your brain absorbed things you couldn’t possibly know the meaning of at the time but which help you make sense of things now. And being interviewed by detectives at that age, when your cousin had just been murdered and your family was awash with grief, wouldn’t have made for good recall. You knew there’d been arguing and that was all you could say.’

‘I suppose.’ Callum turned his cup around and around. ‘So what do you think this means? If it really is a memory?’

‘I don’t know.’

She did know: John Pieters was becoming ever more clear as a strict father whose rules were deliberately broken by his son after a slow build-up of arguing over that very subject. A father who would kill? That was yet to be determined.

It was after eleven when she pulled back into her driveway, still musing on the subject. The sensor light over her front door went on, startling her. She saw movement in the doorway and hit the lock button with her elbow, then recognised Wayne coming towards her.

‘Where have you been?’ he said.

‘Bloody hell, you scared me.’

‘Then we’re even.’ He tried to open her car door. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Give me two seconds to get out, will you?’

He stepped back.

‘How long have you been sitting there?’ She looked back out to the dark street. ‘I didn’t even notice your car.’

‘It’s there,’ he said.

‘Lucky somebody didn’t see you lurking and call uniform.’

He didn’t smile. ‘Where have you been?’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not cheating on you.’ She walked to the front door.

‘You were working.’

‘So what if I was?’

‘After everything we talked about,’ he said sadly.

‘You talked about it.’ She rammed the key into the lock. ‘You told me what you think and feel, and I think and feel differently. What’s so hard to understand about that?’

He stood on the step, looking up at her. ‘I love you.’

‘I . . . what?’

‘I love you.’

She raised her eyebrows. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’ He was looking at her with a question in his eyes.

She pressed her lips together. She couldn’t say it back to him, and she couldn’t shake the thought that love was another way to control a person.

What was wrong with her?

The silence between them lengthened, then he pushed his hands into the back pockets of his jeans and looked down the driveway. ‘I guess I’d better go.’

‘Wait,’ she said. Maybe it would just take time. Maybe he really meant it. Maybe this was a new page. ‘Want a cup of tea?’

He smiled. ‘That’d be nice.’

ELEVEN

E
lla walked into the office early the next morning, thinking more about Callum than what Wayne had said.

‘Have you seen them?’ Murray said.

‘What?’

‘The newspapers, with the CCTV image of the woman who called. They came up really well.’

‘Give us a look.’

He passed them over. They did look good: the picture was clear, the article short and to the point.

‘Crimestoppers passed on any info yet?’

‘Not so far,’ he said.

They would, Ella was sure.

‘Get your purse,’ she said. ‘First stop Damien Millerton’s.’

On the way to Cherrybrook she told him about Callum. ‘I thought after we see Millerton, we’d drop in on the Pieterses and you can meet them for yourself. Tamara’d be happy to see another face.’

‘Yeah, I saw her on the news last week,’ he said. ‘But I don’t know about this memory stuff. How many times have they listened to little kids and charged adults with weird sex crimes then realised it was all crap?’

‘This is different,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t struggling with some horrific episode in his past –’

‘His cousin was murdered.’

‘You know what I mean,’ she said. ‘The barbecue was before that.’

‘It’s all part of the same thing. He’s recalling the barbecue in the light of the murder, plus you’re suspicious of John and he’s no doubt picking up on that. Why would he ask if Tamara blamed him if you hadn’t put that idea into his head?’

‘It’s his family,’ Ella said. ‘He wants to understand what happened more than anyone.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Murray said. ‘You should proceed with extreme caution. What actual evidence do you have? Twenty-year-old vague half-memories from somebody who was eleven at the time aren’t going to stand up in court.’

‘I’m building a picture, that’s all.’

‘Picture schmikshure,’ he said. ‘Hey, that’s hard to say.’

‘Don’t say it then,’ she snapped. He was bursting her balloon with a memories-are-so-unreliable, proceed-with-caution lecture. He hadn’t been there listening to Callum. She knew what she knew.

Damien Millerton’s house was a pink cement-rendered two-storey McMansion. One of the two garage doors was open and inside a man sat writing at an old schooldesk, surrounded by boxes. He got up and met them on the driveway.

‘Damien Millerton?’

He nodded. His black hair was cut short at the sides, exposing the first few greys. He wore jeans and a plain grey T-shirt and brown sandals. ‘Come in.’

Murray looked around. ‘This is your office?’

‘Yep. My wife and I sell Candy’s Candles.’ He pulled a brochure from the desk drawer and gave it to Ella. ‘Biggest candle franchisers in the country. You might have heard of us?’

‘Nope.’ She handed the brochure straight to Murray. ‘Tell me about Tim Pieters.’

‘I don’t know anything more than what I told the detectives at the time, and again six years ago.’

‘Nevertheless,’ Ella said.

‘Starting with what? When we met in kindergarten?’

Pissed because I dissed his candles.
‘Tell us about when he told you he might be gay.’

‘He didn’t say that,’ Damien said. ‘He asked if
I
thought he was gay. I said no. He said that something had happened with a man, and he came, and he was worried what that meant. Then we met some friends who came past in their car and we never talked about it again.’

‘None of his family or other friends knew anything about that,’ Murray said.

‘I know. I’m just telling you what he told me.’

‘Did you believe him?’

‘Why wouldn’t I believe him? He was almost crying.’

‘That night when you were in the pub,’ Ella said. ‘What did he say about the family argument?’

‘Just that there’d been one. He didn’t say what it was about and I didn’t ask.’

‘And you last saw him when?’ Murray asked.

‘About half past eleven. We realised about midnight that we couldn’t find him. We looked for him in the toilets and outside, then I said to the others that he probably took a taxi home, so we went back into the pub.’ He rubbed his forehead. ‘I don’t regret much in my life but I regret that.’

‘That’s why you were reluctant to see us?’ Ella said.

He nodded. ‘When I saw his mum on the news I knew you’d be coming around again and it made me feel sick. I wish I’d gone out and found him, and then none of this shit would’ve happened, and I wouldn’t feel so awful every time it comes up.’

‘It can’t be easy,’ Murray said.

‘It’s not.’

Enough with the pity party. ‘
Damien, with the benefit of adulthood and hindsight, do you have any new insights into Tim and what was going on in his life?’

‘None whatsoever.’

‘No further thoughts on what was going on at home?’

He shook his head. ‘I wish I could help you. I wish it was solved and whoever did it was locked up, and then I could never think about it again.’

‘And focus on your candles instead,’ Ella said.

‘Well, yes. Is there anything wrong with wanting that?’

‘Not at all,’ Murray said quickly. ‘Thanks for your time.’

In the car, heading to Pennant Hills, Ella said, ‘Do you think they’ll all be so helpful?’

‘What can you realistically expect when it’s been almost twenty years? What could you remember after so long?’

‘More than that,’ she said darkly. ‘How’d you go with the other ones? Did the stoner remember you were waiting for him?’

‘I gave up and called Chris Patrick. He works in the CBD and said anytime today would be fine. When I tried Steven Franklin’s number again he beat the flatmate to the phone and said he’d be home today.’

‘Good.’

They could get them out of the way quickly and concentrate on what might be coming in from Crimestoppers about the newspaper pictures. Ella turned off Pennant Hills Road and headed for the dump site.

When she parked, Murray got out and stood at the edge of the scrubby brush.

‘Right there.’ Ella pointed.

He looked at the roadway, the streetlights, and the closest houses.

‘It’s all pretty much the same, except that there were more low shrubs so it was even harder to see from the houses.’

‘It’d be a quiet place late at night.’

‘That’s for sure.’

At the Pieterses’ house she knocked and waited. No answer. She knocked again, wondering if Tamara was home alone, staring at a blank wall in the granny flat.

‘We’ll see them another day.’ Murray started back across the lawn.

Ella wanted them all to meet. Tamara might be more open with another detective, and Murray might see something in John that he currently thought was all in her mind. She knocked again, harder.

‘Come on,’ Murray said from the car. ‘Places to go, people to see.’

She turned reluctantly away.
I’ll be back.

Georgie struggled to wake up. She could hear the knocking but felt drugged and half-paralysed. She fell out of bed and lurched across the room. ‘Coming!’

She staggered up the hall to the door, part of her mind waking up enough to say that she should’ve stayed in bed asleep, she should’ve put in the earplugs; yes, it was quiet way up here but she should’ve thought about people knocking on the door. The pre-nightshift sleep was precious beyond words. Once that was stuffed, so were you.

She slid the chain back and opened the door. A young man smiled and held out a massive bunch of flowers.

‘Whassat?’

‘Flowers,’ he said. She could make out the emblem of some florist on his shirt. ‘For you. If your name’s Georgie.’

‘Oh.’ She blinked. ‘Thanks.’

She took the bouquet, almost dropped it, then closed the door.
Oh Matt!
They smelled fantastic, a colourful mix of who knew what. She wasn’t good with her flowers; if they weren’t easily identifiable, like roses or banksias, she was pretty much done for. ‘It doesn’t matter what you are,’ she said, and took them into the kitchen to see if Chris kept such a thing as a whopping great vase.
Oh Matty . . .