Missing (The Cass Lehman Series Book 3) (5 page)

I stood up and stretched, working the kinks out of my neck and back. It was nearly 5pm. Maybe a break would do me good. I’d make myself a pot of tea then give Mum and Gran a call. It’d been a few days since I’d spoken to them and I was missing them. I still got terribly homesick now and then, usually when Ed and I had been fighting.

Bending down, I scooped up Jasmine and gave her a squeeze and a tickle under the chin. She gave me a look that clearly
expressed exactly what she thought about my cred as a cat owner. First I’d stopped her game with the computer, now I was disturbing her sleep. Just what kind of amateur was I?

I took her into the kitchen with me, filled her bowl with biscuits and made myself a pot of tea. We were sitting in companionable silence, with me at the table and her at her bowl scoffing food, when the front door rattled and Ed came in.

‘You’re home early.’

‘Early start.’

He walked across the kitchen and bent down to kiss my cheek. It was then that I noticed the stink pervading the room. Jasmine noticed it too. The sounds of her crunching abruptly stopped.

‘My God, what’s that smell?’ I said, covering my nose and mouth with a hand.

‘That’d be me.’

‘Wow, that’s really rank. What have you been doing?’

‘Traipsing around a rubbish dump.’

‘The call-out this morning?’

‘Yep, body parts in a bag at a dump in McLaren Vale.’

‘Yuck.’

‘That’s one way of putting it.’

‘Go have a shower and put your clothes straight in the washing machine … add a capful of disinfectant, as well as powder.’

He wandered off towards the bathroom. I pinched the bridge of my nose and crossed the kitchen to tug open the window. The cat took my cue and headed for the back door.

‘Want to go outside? Don’t blame you.’ I opened the back door for her and left it open to accelerate the airing.

I cranked up the coffee machine and by the time Ed was back from his shower I had a steaming latte waiting for him. He fell into a chair at the table and sat staring into his mug. A full two minutes ticked by without him speaking, looking up or taking even a mouthful of coffee.

‘Bad day?’

‘What?’ He looked up at me.

‘Did you have a bad day?’ I repeated, trying to read his expression. His face was a blank slate. Whatever the problem was, he’d internalised it and put up the blinds.

‘It’s never a good day when we find a victim.’

‘No, I suppose not. Do you want to talk about it?’

‘There’s not much to talk about.’

We lapsed into silence again. I concentrated on finishing my tea, battling hard not to pry further. I always felt better when I’d talked about my problems and found it hard to accept when other people didn’t operate the same way. I wanted Ed to get it all off his chest. He wanted to keep it all to himself, work through it in his own time, in his own way. It was one of the main differences between us.

I decided a change of subject was in order. ‘What do you feel like for dinner? I thought maybe those steaks I picked up the other day, with some home-made chips?’

‘I’m really not very hungry.’

‘Oh, right, of course not.’ I felt like a bit of a twit. Of course you wouldn’t be hungry if you’d been immersed in the stench of a rubbish dump all day.

‘You make yourself something. I might wait until later.’

‘I’m not that hungry. Maybe we’ll both eat later.’

‘Sure.’ He went back to contemplating the contents of his coffee mug. I let him go for a bit longer, but after another five minutes of silence I parked my good intentions.

‘Come on. Spit it out. What happened? Tell me. I promise I won’t freak out.’

He looked up and our eyes met. ‘Phil was there.’

‘Phil from Fairfield, Phil?’

‘The same.’

‘Oh, right.’ I tried to read the emotion behind his statement but failed. I’d been expecting grim descriptions of rotting corpses, not this.

‘You must have been glad to see her.’ It was meant to be a statement, but it came out more like a question.

‘Yeah, I was. I don’t know if she was that glad to see me though.’

‘Of course she was. You guys have known each other for forever. She was probably just annoyed with you for not visiting.’

‘She kind of implied that.’

‘Well there you go!’

‘She’s got a new partner.’

‘You knew that.’

‘I met him today.’

I was getting an inkling of what was really bothering him.

‘Was he nice?’ I asked.

‘Nice, young and a bloody good detective from what I could tell.’

I smothered the smile threatening to spread across my face. He was jealous! He’d been replaced by someone young and enthusiastic and he didn’t like it.

‘I’m sure Phil’d have you back as a partner at the drop of a hat.’

He huffed and ran a hand through his hair, making it stick up at crazy angles. He was probably two weeks overdue for a haircut and he hadn’t bothered to shave that morning, so sandy stubble covered his chin. He looked a bit scruffy, a look I found kind of sexy. I dragged my brain back to the problem at hand. He was frowning again and I could practically hear the cogs whirring in his brain.

‘I don’t know if I want to keep working for MCIB.’

‘Really?’ This was news to me. He still had over three months to go on his twelve-month secondment and in most of the conversations we’d had up until now, we had assumed they’d offer him an extension, and that he’d accept.

‘I miss Fairfield.’

‘You want to go back?’

‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’ He stood up, pushing his chair back so it scraped noisily against the tiles. He dumped his coffee in the sink. ‘I don’t know what I want. I just don’t feel like Adelaide’s home. I think maybe I want my old life back.’

It was my turn to frown and drop my eyes. His words needled. I’d assumed that anywhere we were together would feel like
home. Wasn’t home more about who you shared your life with than where you lived? Not to him, apparently. And if he wanted to go back to Fairfield, did he think I’d be going with him? Did he expect me to move into the house he’d bought with his dead wife Susan?

‘So tell me, does your old life include me?’

CHAPTER
4

‘Here, get this into you.’ Ed handed Dave a takeaway coffee cup.

‘Thanks. How long have you been here?’

‘I got in just after seven-thirty. I ducked out and got you this about ten minutes ago. Thought you’d be in before now,’ Ed said.

‘Seven-thirty? That’s got to be some kind of record for you. Trouble in paradise?’ Dave raised his eyebrows and smirked.

Ed shook his head, refusing to go there. He and Cass had gone to bed the night before barely speaking to each other and he’d snuck out before she’d woken, keen to avoid another round of hostilities.

‘And why are
you
late, or should I just ask what her name is?’

‘Why do you always assume it’s a woman?’

‘It wasn’t?’

‘Nah, it was. Her name’s Paula. Built like a supermodel but there’s not much between her ears.’

‘I didn’t know intellect was a prerequisite for you.’

‘I can’t be shagging all the time. They need to have a bit more going for them. There are trained monkeys out there with higher IQs than Paula. So what are you looking at?’ Dave moved around and peered over Ed’s shoulder.

‘Thought I’d work through the missing persons files and see how many were an approximate match for age and gender.’

‘And?’

‘Six so far. We need a better guess at age from the pathologist. Makes it hard when we don’t have any idea of height.’

Dave swallowed a mouthful of coffee and plonked the cup on his desk before shedding his jacket and carefully hanging it. ‘Seen Crackers this morning?’

‘He grunted at me on his way past about twenty minutes ago.’

Crackers, aka DCI Robert Arnott, was their boss, a man not known for his pleasant disposition first thing in the morning. He wasn’t really pleasant at any time of day, but interactions before 10am were best avoided.

‘He wants a briefing in fifteen minutes,’ Ed said.

‘Great. Just the way I like to begin my day.’

‘Drink up. Caffeine will help.’

They stuck their heads through the door to Crackers’ fishbowl ten minutes later. He had the phone wedged under his chin but waved them in, holding up a finger to say he’d only be a minute. Ed surveyed the small office, then studied the man behind the desk.

Crackers was short, overweight and balding. His suits had probably been expensive when he’d bought them twenty years earlier, and they might have even fitted him too. These days, his pants sat under an enormous, overhanging paunch and his jackets were a good four inches away from buttoning up. Add shirts that looked grey and thin from over-laundering and cheap wide ties and the picture of neglect was complete. Crackers was no advertisement for a career with the MCIB.

The phone call wound up and Crackers smacked the phone back into its cradle. ‘Bloody drug branch trying to offload their dregs again. I told them we were up to our eyeballs. Tell me you’re up to your eyeballs in the dump case.’

Ed pulled a face then realised his boss wasn’t smiling. ‘The Fairfield pathologist sent the remains through to the lab here yesterday once she’d finished her preliminary exam. Our guys are running some more detailed tests. We’re checking missing persons to see if anyone matches the approximate description. The Fairfield team are interviewing employees of the dump and reviewing CCTV footage, trying to pinpoint where the bag was before the tractor moved it.’

‘What are the crime scene techs up to?’

‘I’ll check in with them later this morning. They were going to sift through the rubbish found with the parts to see if anything might indicate where the load came from,’ Ed said.

Crackers swung back in his chair and tucked his hands behind his head, displaying circles of sweat under his arms despite the early hour.

‘What a fucking nightmare. The scene’ll be so contaminated, nothing they get’ll stand a snowball’s chance in court. What about other bodies? Any suggestion it might be part of a bigger scene?’

‘Not so far. There’s a team still combing the site. State Emergency Services are sending a team to help set up a grid search. It might be worth bringing in a dog.’

‘SES help is a good idea, but a dog? Really? They’re more of a pain in the arse than they’re worth. Would a dog really be able to pick out the smell of a dead body over the general stench?’

‘It’s worth a shot.’

Crackers drummed his fingers on the faux timber desk. His nails were chewed so far down, the quicks looked raw.

‘You’re the only person around here who actually thinks they’re worth the headfuck. All right, send me a business case and I’ll sign off on it. We’ve got some budget I need to blow through before the next funding review. Don’t want to be in an underspend situation. When are you meeting up with the Fairfield team again?’

‘We thought we’d head down there later this morning and help with the interviews.’ Ed and Dave stood up to leave.

‘We’ll report back tomorrow,’ Dave said.

Crackers nodded, then pinned Ed with a look. ‘Did you have fun with your old pals yesterday, Dyson?’

‘It was good to be back in that neck of the woods.’

‘Well, don’t get all fucking nostalgic on me. You’ve still got three months to go here. You’re not one of them anymore, you’re one of us.’

Ed was beginning to think there might be a bit more behind Crackers’ decision to give the case to him and Dave. The relationship he had with Fairfield CIB was only one part of it. He was also being tested. His future in MCIB probably depended on whether he could keep the lines from blurring when working with his old colleagues. The thought would have made him anxious a week earlier. Now, he wasn’t even sure he wanted a future in MCIB. Amazing how twenty-four hours could change your entire perspective.

‘Don’t forget what’s important. I don’t want any personal relationships clouding your judgement. Speaking of which, are you still seeing that psychic woman?’

Ed frowned. This was the first time Crackers had ever wanted to know anything about his personal life. He couldn’t help wondering at the sudden interest.

‘We live together.’

‘Thought she might have buggered off back to Fairfield after the Metzger case.’

‘She’s from Jewel Bay.’

‘Whatever. That’ll do for now. I expect another update tomorrow.’

They walked out of the office with Ed still scowling over Crackers’ questions about his domestic arrangements. One thing he’d learned in his time with MCIB was that Crackers never did anything without a reason. Problem was, he couldn’t exactly ask what was behind the questions without sounding paranoid.

‘Stop worrying about it. He’s probably just wondering if you’re planning to skip out on us and go regional again.’ Dave clapped him on the back. ‘If you’re getting laid here in Adelaide you’re more likely to stay put.’

‘Does it always come back to sex for you?’

‘Man, you sound like one of my ex-girlfriends. But, since you asked, it normally does.’

‘Must be nice to lead such an uncomplicated life.’

‘You oughta try it sometime.’

‘Maybe I will.’

He thought back to the sub-arctic conditions in the bedroom the night before. Hopefully Cass would’ve thawed out a few degrees by the time he got home. Maybe a good shag would help. He’d have to avoid being eaten alive in order to get close enough. He forced his mind back to the case, driving away the image of a praying mantis that had suddenly filled his head.

‘I’ll give Sonya a call and see if she’s got anything more specific for us from her preliminary examination. Then we can finish going through the missing persons cases before we head for Fairfield,’ Ed said.