Frantic (21 page)

Ella followed Dennis to the far end of the room, took a deep breath of humid air and put her hand on the shoulder of a young man in torn jeans and a black T-shirt, with a black goatee beard. He turned with a smile that shrank when she opened her badge in his face. She then held out the photo. ‘Do you recognise either of these people?’

‘What?’

Ella shouted it louder.

He screwed up his eyes over the picture. The girl with him leaned over to look too. They both shook their heads. ‘Sorry,’ he bellowed.

Ella smiled her thanks and moved on.

When she held out the picture and yelled the question for the eighth time, the man she was showing it to nodded. ‘I know him, yeah.’

‘You know him?’

‘What?’

Ella pointed to the door. She grabbed Dennis on the way. Outside they stood under a streetlight. The air was cool and smelled of car exhaust. ‘You’re sure you know him?’ Ella said.

‘Yeah, he’s a plastic surgeon. His name’s Sawyer.’ The man was in his late twenties with brown hair cut short and spiked up. He wore black jeans and a grey T-shirt with the words ‘
Crazy Mofo
’ across the chest. ‘He did my girlfriend’s tits. Did a really good job too,’ he said. ‘She’s a stripper. Tax deduction, you know. Enhanced her earning potential no end.’

Ella said, ‘Have you ever seen this man here at the Red Pheasant?’

‘Yeah, I saw him last night.’ He looked at the picture again. ‘I’m pretty sure he was with this chick. I remember cos she had no tits and I wondered if she was his girlfriend, if he’d do hers for free.’

‘You’re certain you saw this man here in this pub last night?’ Dennis said.

‘Yes,’ the man said.

‘Had you seen the woman before?’

He shook his head.

‘Can you describe her?’

‘She had no tits,’ he said. ‘That’s really all I remember.’

‘Was she tall, short, thin, fat?’ Ella said.

The man shrugged.

Dennis said, ‘What was her height in comparison to Detective Marconi?’

The man looked her over. Ella resisted the urge to fold her arms. ‘I only saw her sitting down so I don’t know how tall she is. Oh, but I remember she had skinny arms. I saw those arms and I thought, yeah, that’s why she’s got no tits.’

‘So she’s skinny.’

‘Skinny arms is all I saw.’

‘What about her face?’

‘Don’t even remember it.’ He shrugged again. ‘Say plain. Average. Forgettable, you know.’

‘Would you recognise her if you saw her again?’

‘Probably not.’

Dennis took his name and contact details and said he’d get him in for a proper statement in the morning.

‘No sweat. See ya.’ The man wandered back into the pub.

Ella thrust her hands into her pockets. ‘A real charmer.’

‘At least now we know something.’

‘What do we know?’ Ella said. ‘We already knew Sawyer was here, and left with this woman. The only new bit of information is a fragment of a description, but how do we find a woman with no tits and skinny arms?’

‘The description might help Sawyer remember her,’ Dennis said. ‘Or if she’s a drug dealer the Local Area Command might know her. We should get onto that tomorrow.’

Ella pressed a thumb into her right eye, trying to ease the growing headache there. ‘Let’s just go back in there and get this over with.’

The rest of the pub was a bust. Ella got sick of seeing people shake their heads. It was after ten when she finally beckoned Dennis outside. They had to squeeze through the door past the stream of people entering the building. Almost as many were leaving.

‘We can’t keep up with this,’ she said into Dennis’s ear. Someone bumped into her and she turned ready to snap, but they’d already slipped away into the crowd.

‘You want to call it a night?’

She gestured at the crowds jostling at the door and started to speak, then a strong male arm snaked around her waist. ‘Hey, babe!’

Without a second’s hesitation she seized the wrist and bent it back and sideways, causing the Crazy Mofo to drop to the footpath with a yelp. She kept the tension on, twisting his arm over, making him scrabble drunkenly to keep up and save his arm. People stopped to look and someone giggled crazily.

‘He probably needs that arm,’ Dennis said mildly.

Ella kept the pressure on for a moment. The man grimaced up at her. ‘I’m sorry.’

She held up one warning finger then let go of his arm. The Crazy Mofo scrambled to his feet and disappeared into the watching crowd. Ella felt like crying. Her head throbbed with the music and fatigue and the sheer bloody misery of the case; she felt it would never be over, they would never find Lachlan and reunite the family, and she would spend the rest of her life calculating his age and staring into the faces of dark-eyed boys.

Friday 9 May, 7.20 am

D
ean Rigby didn’t show up and he didn’t call.

Chris lay awake most of the night thinking, and when the day-shift nurse came in to check his pulse and blood pressure he told her his decision.

‘You’re joking,’ she said.

‘You can get all the doctors in here, you can even bring the hospital CEO, but I won’t change my mind.’

She did get the doctor. He listened as Chris explained again what he wanted. The doctor said, ‘I can’t stop you but I am advising in the strongest possible terms against it.’

‘Understood.’

‘You could die.’

‘I’ll sign all the waivers you want,’ Chris said.

Gloria arrived as he was filling in the paperwork. It was way before visiting hours so he guessed one of the nurses had called her.

She stabbed a finger at the forms. ‘This is proof that you need to stay. Only a man with a brain injury would want to leave hospital so soon after being shot.’

‘I’m fine,’ he said, signing his name in haste. It was taking some effort to sit up and talk to people and read and write, and there was more to be done before he could collapse on the lounge at home.

The doctor insisted he go downstairs in a wheelchair. Chris agreed, if only to keep Gloria from getting any further on his back. She maintained a stony silence in the lift then through the hospital foyer and carpark. He climbed into the front seat of the car. She took the wheelchair back to the building then got in the driver’s seat.

As she put the key into the ignition he said, ‘I need you to drive me into the city.’

‘No.’

He opened the door. ‘Then I’ll get a taxi to the train and go in by myself.’

She considered him for a long moment, her gaze moving over the wound on his face and the bruising around his eyes. Then she turned the key and revved the engine. He closed the door. ‘Thank you.’

When they were on the Pacific Highway in North Sydney she said, ‘So where are we going and why?’

‘The Headquarters building. I have to see someone.’

‘But why?’

‘To sort out some things.’

‘Can’t you do it over the phone?’

‘No, I can’t.’ The glare from the windscreens of oncoming cars made his head hurt. He closed his eyes, then felt dizzy.

When they were over the Bridge and in the CBD he directed Gloria to the Headquarters building. ‘Stop here. I won’t be long.’

She looked anxiously about. ‘It’s a no-standing zone. I’ll get booked.’

‘If a grey ghost comes, just go around the block.’ He got out of the car, ignoring his mother’s protests.

Inside the building he took the lift up to the Recruitment Office. People bustled in the corridors. Someone said ‘Hi’ to him but he didn’t take his eyes off the door to the office.

A young female constable with her arm in a cast looked up at him when he walked in. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I want to talk to Dean.’

The door to the inner office opened and Dean looked out. ‘Chris?’

They sat on opposite sides of the desk. ‘I can’t believe you’re out of hospital so soon,’ Dean said, adjusting the wide foam collar around his neck.

‘You never called me back.’

‘It’s been crazy in here.’ Dean waved towards the boxes of mail stacked in a corner of the room. ‘We’ve got a drive going on, the phones are ringing off the hook all the time, people requesting packages and sending in applications and asking stupid questions like will a rape conviction stop them from becoming a copper.’ He smiled but Chris didn’t smile back. Dean turned serious. ‘Any news on your boy?’

‘You should know.’

‘Huh?’

Chris leaned forward over the desk. ‘You tell the others that I’m no longer a threat, okay? You tell them I’ll do whatever they want.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘What I did was wrong, I know that now,’ Chris said. ‘But nobody else knows I did it. I won’t say another word. All I want is my son.’

‘Chris, mate, you’ve lost me.’

The ringing started in Chris’s ears. The room was so hot. He took a deep breath. ‘What do they want? They want me dead?’

‘Chris–’

He tried to blink away the dark spots. ‘Talk to them, tell them what I said, then call me.’ He lowered his head to his knees. ‘That Detective Marconi’s looking into Houtkamp, you know. It’s not a huge jump from one thing to another.’

There was silence from across the desk. With a little more blood in his head Chris was able to look up. Dean was staring at him.

‘Tell them what I said.’

Dean suddenly smiled. ‘I think you’ve come out of hospital too soon. Something’s wrong with your head, making you paranoid.’

‘I won’t wait forever,’ Chris said. ‘Bring him back today. You tell them.’

Dean gave half a laugh. ‘How about I get an ambulance, get you back to where you should be?’

Chris stood up unsteadily and moved towards the door. ‘You tell them.’

Mercifully, the lift was empty. He leaned his forehead against the cold steel doors and fought back tears. He’d known Dean wouldn’t admit to anything but he’d hoped that there’d at least be some sign that the message was getting through, that things would be fixed. Instead he’d seen no response at all – only a glimmer of fear when he’d mentioned Houtkamp.

10.12 am

There was nobody home in the top-floor flats. Sophie took a moment to lean on the landing’s windowsill. The glass was broken and she looked out over the southern suburbs and felt the breeze come across all those houses, all those families, to touch her face.

‘You’re different this morning,’ Angus said.

It was true. While she hadn’t yet decided to go ahead with her idea, she could feel herself coming to believe it was the only way she’d find Lachlan. Going flat to flat now felt pointless, little more than a time-filler while she decided how to do it.

She watched Angus from the corner of her eye, wondering how much he could be trusted. He’d kept The Big Mistake a secret from Chris, and hadn’t ever embarrassed her over it. He’d come along with her so far, had even given her information she wasn’t meant to have, but what she was considering next was much worse than a simple con. Finally she said, ‘Have you ever done a case where the law didn’t do what it was supposed to? Where someone didn’t pay for their crime?’

‘Lots of people get shorter sentences than they deserve.’

‘I mean a case where the culprit walked completely free. Or where maybe he was never even charged.’

Angus nodded. ‘They’re unfortunately not that rare.’

‘Don’t you ever wish you could do something more?’

He brushed at his tie. ‘I did, once.’

She faced him.

‘When I was working out Bankstown way, this guy grabbed a twelve-year-old girl off the street. The girl had been on her way home from dance class. She wanted to be a ballerina. After she’d been on the stand and had to answer questions about the exact details of the man’s anatomy and actions, after the case got binned on technicalities, she took an overdose of her mother’s newly prescribed depression medication. She spent a week in ICU and came out brain-damaged enough to no longer dance or cope with school, but not so brain-damaged she didn’t know about it or had forgotten the entire sequence of events.’ He kicked the wall. ‘I saw the mother some time later; she told me they put their place up for sale and the guy came along to an open house under a false name and took a picture of the girl’s bedroom then mailed it to them.’

‘What did you do?’

Now Angus studied her as if measuring her trustworthiness. ‘I followed him for a while.’

She waited.

‘And one night he came out of a pub drunk and started walking home, and when he staggered into a dark street I was waiting.’ Angus lowered his gaze. ‘I kicked the crap out of him.’

A week ago Sophie would have disapproved. ‘Did he live?’

Angus nodded. ‘Bruises, scrapes, a few cracked ribs, bit of internal bleeding.’

‘Did it do the job?’

‘His name hasn’t popped up on the system since.’ Angus shrugged. ‘I don’t know if people like that can really change, but I like to think he got a bit of his own medicine.’

Sophie looked out the window again. There was a message in what Angus had just told her: the way to do it was on your own. There was no need to tell him what she was thinking. It was safer that way too, because he might be happy to pretend he worked for the Health Department, he might beat up a child rapist in a dark alley, but what she was considering was a whole different matter.

‘Better get moving.’ She bent to pick up the red kit then heard a noise. She froze.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Listen.’

Angus frowned. ‘I can’t hear…’ He stopped. The sound was faint but distinct.

‘That’s a baby crying,’ Sophie said. She went to the nearest door and pressed her ear to the wood. Angus checked the next one. At the third one Sophie found the cry was louder. ‘It’s in here.’

Angus put his ear against the door while Sophie stood back and surveyed the area. There had been no signs of life in any of these flats when she and Angus knocked. There were no peepholes in the doors, no windows along the landing.

The baby wailed.

‘I can’t hear any other sounds,’ Angus whispered. ‘Maybe there’s nobody here with it.’

‘Or they’re taking great care to sneak around.’ Either meant something was wrong. Sophie tested the doorknob and found it locked.

Angus went to the end of the landing and leaned out the window. ‘There’s one window that might be within reach.’

‘We’re six floors up.’ Sophie tapped a knuckle across the wood. She’d kicked flimsy doors down before, getting to critically ill patients. This one sounded solid.

In the flat the baby howled.

‘Maybe between us we can kick it in?’ she said. ‘If we find him, or we save someone’s life, nobody’s going to be too fussed about asking why we were here.’

They stood side by side, holding each other for balance. Angus counted down and they hit the wood simultaneously with their heels.

‘Again.’

This time Sophie reeled back, her foot throbbing. ‘It must be deadbolted top and bottom.’

Angus crouched and rubbed his ankle. ‘How the hell are we going to get in?’

Inside the flat, the baby screamed.

10.22 am

Edman Hughes waved at Ella from the station doorway as she drove into the yard.

He came down the steps to meet her. ‘Hello, Detective Marconi.’

‘I’m sorry but I can’t talk now,’ she said, going past him, the manila envelope of photos in her hand.

‘It’s just I’ve heard nothing about my case,’ he said. ‘I was wondering what you’d found out about the, um, accelerant?’

‘The samples are still being processed.’ Had she even sent them in? God only knew. ‘I’ll let you know when I hear anything.’

‘I can’t find work,’ he said, looking up at her from the bottom step. ‘All my money was in that business.’

‘I’m sorry for you, Mr Hughes, but I have other cases going on, and I have important things to do.’ The station door clunked shut behind her and she hurried away. Just before she turned the corner in the corridor she couldn’t help glancing back, and she saw he was still there, peering in like a lost dog. She felt like shouting,
Hey, I’m trying to find a baby here! Let’s get our priorities right, shall we?

Around the corner she ran into Detective Hollebeck, who was leaning against the wall. He checked his watch. ‘Part-timer?’

She went to move past. ‘If you don’t mind, I have things to do.’

‘I know.’ He pointed her down the corridor. ‘Top of your list is talking to us.’

When they were seated in an office Hollebeck leaned forward on his folded arms. Draper, the quiet achiever, opened her notebook. Ella put the envelope on the table and waited.

‘There’s been some interesting developments in the Roth case,’ Hollebeck said.

‘How so?’

‘Your prints weren’t on the IV bag or line.’

‘I wore gloves.’

‘We know,’ Hollebeck said. ‘Dennis told us.’

‘When did you talk to Dennis?’

Hollebeck ignored her question. ‘In fact, nobody’s prints were on the bag or line.’

‘The nurse wore gloves too. I told you that.’

‘We know.’ Hollebeck smiled at her.

Ella smiled back. ‘Can we get to the point?’

‘Preliminary tests on the IV set show traces of lignocaine and insulin. Whoever went for Roth knew what they wanted and knew how to cause it,’ he said. ‘We’ve spoken to the staff on Roth’s ward and none of them saw any strange nurse. We checked the hospital’s security footage. The woman you describe does not appear.’

‘So she changed her clothes and wig in a bathroom somewhere,’ Ella said.