Frantic (6 page)

Marisa didn’t look at them. She was crying. The police moved away, talking quietly.

Sophie clipped a tourniquet around Marisa’s arm and swiftly cannulated a vein. Mick set up a bag of Hartmann’s solution and connected the tubing. The fluid was soon running into Marisa’s system.

Sophie saw that the police were at the back of the car. She felt the car move a little. There was a pop and the lid of the boot rose, cutting off Sophie’s view.

Sophie looked at Marisa but the woman stared out the windscreen. Sophie nudged Mick. ‘Go and hassle rescue again, will you?’

When he was gone she squeezed Marisa’s hand. ‘So where were you headed today?’

‘It’ll all come out soon enough.’

‘What will?’

Marisa simply shook her head.

Mick came back. The hood of his raincoat had slipped off and his white-blond hair was slicked to his scalp. ‘They’re coming now.’

Sophie checked Marisa’s blood pressure again. It was holding steady. ‘Doing fine, Marisa.’

The inside of the car darkened as firefighters opened a tarp over it. The rescue crew set up their gear under its shelter. Gloved hands draped a protective sheet over Marisa. Sophie held the sheet off her face and turned her own head away as the metal cutters bit into the B pillar. The tarp made the air warm and still and full of petrol fumes.

‘Control’s got St Vincent’s ready for us.’ Mick leaned in the window. Water dripped down his forehead. ‘Spineboard and bed’re ready to go.’

The crew peeled back Marisa’s door. Mick crouched in the space. In the car, Sophie checked the monitor one more time before disconnecting the leads for the extrication.

The rain became heavier. They had to shout to make themselves heard over the pelting on the tarp. Mick yelled at someone to bring the stretcher closer.

Hands reached in to help Marisa onto the spineboard. Crying, she struggled to turn herself. ‘Let us do it for you,’ Sophie said. She squeezed between the seats, hitting the dead man with her elbow as she wriggled forward, and twisted so she was held there by her hips and could help the rescue crew lift Marisa.

The tarp was carried over them as they took the board to the stretcher then they crunched across the shattered glass to load the stretcher into the ambulance. Once inside the vehicle Sophie and Mick moved Marisa off the board. Sophie raised the head of the stretcher so Marisa sat upright. ‘That’s better for your breathing, isn’t it?’

Marisa didn’t reply. Mick shut the door. The only sounds were the rain on the fibreglass roof and Marisa’s ragged breathing.

Sophie reattached Marisa’s oxygen mask. She listened to her chest and smiled. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Where’s Stephen?’

‘Someone will bring him to the hospital, and you can see him again there.’

Tears ran from Marisa’s closed eyes. Sophie gently wiped her face. ‘Everything’s going to be okay.’

Mick opened the side door to push the kits into the ambulance and hand Sophie a hastily scribbled note.

‘
There’s $50,000 in the boot and she’s the wife of the Director of Public Prosecutions.
’

11.50 am

Detective Ella Marconi yawned. She was sitting on her bedroom floor, next to the scanner she kept under the bed. God forbid that anyone at work ever found out she had it, that on her days off she eavesdropped on the radio traffic now and again – well, okay, pretty bloody frequently – to learn what was happening in her absence. Because, naturally, that was the other time that interesting things happened.

There was certainly something going on today. First allegations about the shot cop and the gang of robbers had been splashed all over the TV, then she’d picked up news of a car crash on the scanner. Two people dead, an officer reported. Three injured and trapped. Rescue at work. Traffic diverted. All normal, normal. But then the tempo of the messages changed in a way that had Ella leaning close to the black box. An officer said in an almost-but-not-quite-panicked voice that he’d get in touch with the radio room on a landline. Shortly after that, hordes of brass called on the air that they were mobile to the scene. Their voices were heavy and serious, and Ella knew at least one of the deadies was somebody important.

Her pager sounded. She grabbed it from her bedside table and saw Detective Dennis Orchard’s number. She turned off the scanner and reached for the phone.

‘Orchard,’ he answered.

‘It’s me,’ she said.

‘You’ve heard about this crash?’

‘A bit of it. Who’s the toetag?’

‘Dudley-Pearson.’

For a second she couldn’t speak. ‘You’re shitting me.’

‘That’s not all. He had Marisa Waters plus a whole wad of cash with him. They were headed for the airport and had tickets for Thailand.’

‘Get out of here.’

‘The rumour is,’ Dennis lowered his voice, ‘that Duds was in on the gang, got scared about this malarky over the possible informant and bailed before it all fell down around his ears.’ There was a noise in the background and Dennis said, ‘Yeah, okay,’ to someone before coming back to Ella. ‘I’ve got to go.’

‘Hey, what about this Roth guy?’ she said, but Orchard was already gone.

Ella put the phone down. So Duds was dead. Ella had seen more than her share of bodies but found it hard to picture that florid face gone pale and those wobbly jowls still. He’d been commissioner for almost two years, right through the time of the robberies, and he was an idiot, no doubt about it. But corrupt? Though size and shape meant nothing, Ella couldn’t imagine the tubby man scheming and conniving. He was like a baby elephant. Then again you didn’t get to be commissioner without having some skill for the game.

Marisa Waters was PA to one of the deputy commissioners, and married to the Director of the Department of Public Prosecutions. Robert Waters was quite a looker: a real Ralph Lauren model beside the baby elephant. Sure, looks weren’t everything – but still. More amazing was the fact that if Marisa and Duds had been on together it was the best kept secret in the job. The idea of Duds being somehow involved in the gang was beyond that again.

There would be repercussions, of course. A new commissioner would be appointed. Dudley-Pearson wasn’t popular with the officers but it was a case of the devil you knew. Although, Ella realised, she knew the most likely replacement as well. Rupert Eagers was the current Assistant Commissioner in charge of Operations. He was a man for whom the job was practically a family gathering. He had uncles, nephews and a father sprinkled about the state, more in high-up positions than not, and all known for their longevity. Dennis had once described the lot of them as harder to shift than a limpet off a rock. In fact, Eagers’s paternal grandfather had died at his sergeant’s desk while working on station rosters. Eagers was a man with things to prove and a tree to climb. There was little doubt in Ella’s mind that if given the chance to step up into the acting position, he’d bust a boiler to make a good impression and persuade the government he was the right man for the job.

Yeah. He probably knew retired Assistant Commissioner Frank Shakespeare too.

3 pm

Sophie switched her mobile on, ignoring the look Mick shot her in the ambulance’s rear-view mirror. So what if it was impolite to use a phone while sitting beside a patient? The old lady had dementia, and anyway Sophie felt if she was able to understand what Sophie was doing and why, she wouldn’t mind one bit. As it was, the ninety year old lay on the stretcher looking out at the traffic, waving at pedestrians who couldn’t see in the tinted windows, her sparse white hair and thin neck giving her the look of a baby bird getting its first view out of the nest.

There were no missed calls. She dialled Chris’s mobile. ‘Got to find my husband,’ she said to the old woman, who smiled widely at her and repeated, ‘Husband.’

For once Sophie’s call didn’t go straight to voicemail. She sat up straighter.

‘Hi,’ Chris answered.

‘At last,’ Sophie said. ‘I was starting to worry.’ She tried to put a note of levity in her voice but she knew he’d have seen how many messages she’d left on both phones.

‘I’ve been a bit busy.’

The old woman started to sing in a high quavery voice. Sophie thought it was a hymn.

‘What is that?’

‘Patient,’ Sophie said. ‘So is everything okay?’

‘Why wouldn’t it be?’

‘All this stuff happening.’ Sophie gritted her teeth. ‘And Gloria didn’t know where you were.’

‘I had to go in to headquarters,’ he said.

‘On your day off?’

He gave an irritated sigh. ‘I went to see Dean, okay? I went to apologise for not going last night.’

Sophie rolled her eyes at the old lady, who rolled her eyes back. ‘And what did Dean say?’

‘Dean said it was fine.’ Chris mirrored her smart-aleck tone.

‘He must’ve said it slowly.’

Chris said nothing.

‘For you to have been in there for so long, I mean.’ Even as Sophie said it she regretted it, but couldn’t cut the words off. She was hurting and she wanted him to feel a bit of it too.

Chris said, ‘You’re really funny, you know that?’

Mick was looking at her in the rear-view mirror again. She met his eye reluctantly then saw his gaze shift past her. ‘Look out the back,’ he said. ‘That blue Beemer just hung a U-turn in front of all those cars.’

The old lady hit a high note in her song.

Sophie turned to the rear window to see the traffic behind them in chaos. A bus slewed sideways. Smoke rose from someone’s tyres. The BMW careened in the ambulance’s wake.

‘Is he after us?’ Mick slowed down. ‘He’s flashing his lights. Maybe he’s got a sick kid in the car or something.’

Sophie released her seatbelt and knelt up in her seat to watch the car draw closer. She couldn’t see anyone other than the driver in the car but someone could be lying down in the back. ‘He’s blowing his horn too,’ she said.

Chris said, ‘What?’

Mick pulled to the side of the road. The Beemer screeched to a halt behind the ambulance, half in the next lane. Horns blew as traffic started to queue behind it.

Sophie said, ‘I’ve got to go.’

Chris said, ‘Fine,’ and hung up. Sophie had just a second to feel angry that he didn’t ask what was wrong when the driver of the BMW threw his door open. She recognised him with a start. ‘It’s the father from this morning.’

‘The what?’ Mick was still in the driver’s seat, looking alternately in the side and rear-view mirrors.

‘The father, from the birth. Sawyer.’ Sophie tried to read the man’s face as he passed close to the rear door. ‘He’s coming up your side and he looks angry.’

Mick opened his door and got out. The old lady said something to Sophie but Sophie ignored her. She moved forward, leaning between the seats into the cabin to hear what was going on outside.

‘You killed my family.’

Sophie gasped.
Julie and the baby died?

‘Sir–’ Mick’s words were cut off by a thud. Sophie strained to see him through the open driver’s door but only caught a glimpse of Sawyer, bent over. There was another thud and Mick groaned.

Sophie stretched forward into the cabin and grabbed the radio microphone to call in a code one.

‘All cars stand by,’ Control said. ‘Thirty-one, I copy your message. What’s your location?’

‘You.’

Sawyer was glaring at her. She kept on with her message. ‘Thirty-one’s on Liverpool Street in the city. Mick’s been assaulted. Assailant’s still on scene.’

Sawyer stepped over Mick up into the cabin.

‘Copy, Thirty-one. Friends are on their way.’

Sawyer’s face was red and sweaty. He breathed out a cloud of alcohol fumes. Sophie wasn’t scared yet. She’d been in situations like this before and knew that sometimes you could stall or distract the person from hitting you. She didn’t need much time either: the police always turned up super fast and in droves when you put in the code one. But she was worried about Mick, and the old lady behind her was calling out in fear.

‘I’m so sorry about your wife and baby,’ Sophie said. Out on the street a man in a suit approached them, looking to where Mick lay, his hands out in a placating manner, but Sawyer growled and the man backed off. Behind him people stared and got out of their cars in the developing gridlock. In the distance, sirens wailed.

‘You killed them.’

Okaaay. Slow down and think. He’s drunk, but he’s still a doctor
. Sophie said, ‘We did everything possible. You saw that.’

‘You let them die.’

The thought of the cold, still baby blurred her vision. ‘We tried to resuscitate your baby and we gave Julie as much fluid as we could.’

‘I told you they had to go to hospital.’

‘I’m sorry, but I explained at the time why we couldn’t move any earlier,’ she said. ‘Do you remember me saying that?’

He held onto the steering wheel with one hand, the back of the seat with the other. He wore the same grey trousers and white shirt. His eyes were bleary and he looked wobbly, as if she could shove him hard in the chest and make him fall out of the ambulance. But he might land on Mick, and to shove him meant getting within reach of his grasp.