Silent Fear (34 page)

THIRTY-ONE

E
lla and Murray were waiting for the lift in the Parramatta office building when she spotted a familiar face coming in the door. ‘Look.’

Jared Kelly came over. His eyes were sunk in dark circles and he fingered the mole on his cheek anxiously. ‘I need to talk to you.’

The lift dinged as the doors opened. Ella smiled. ‘Come on up.’

They put him in an interview room, and Murray made him a coffee while Ella updated Dennis.

‘What’s been happening here?’ she asked. ‘Sutton turned up yet?’

‘No, and there’s been nothing more on the intercept,’ he said. ‘But we found Henreid’s girlfriend. She’s one angry woman: angry that he won’t let her move in, that he leaves cash on her dresser, though he keeps telling her it’s to help out with her invalid mother, and that he won’t take her out instead of sitting around her house whining about his employees and his son. And he was there from Sunday morning until Monday morning; her wheelchair-bound mother confirmed it even though she doesn’t like him.’

Ella frowned. ‘So he has nothing to do with this?’

‘Apparently not,’ Dennis said. ‘He doesn’t want the vandalism investigated either. Doesn’t want his boy to get in any trouble.’

‘So it really was irrelevant,’ she said.

Murray appeared in the doorway with the coffee. ‘You ready?’

Jared Kelly had his elbows on the table and his head in his hands. Murray put the cup in front of him and they sat down. Ella felt the thrill of the case coming together at last. Henreid was out of the picture; they could focus now on Sutton and friends, and Trent Bligh and friends, and home in on the truth.
And run that female bystander to ground.

‘We appreciate you coming in,’ she said.

‘Sam called me.’ He sat back in the chair. His eyes were red and he blinked back tears. ‘Told me what he told you. Said you understood.’

Ella nodded.

‘Said he felt better about it, and that I was right: we should’ve stopped it all before.’ He touched the mole on his cheek. ‘So I want to get it off my chest. Answer any questions I can.’

Murray said, ‘Do you know who assaulted Sam?’

‘I was there with Carl, Seth and Paul in the pub when he told us what happened, but I don’t know who they are.’

‘Did the others know?’

‘I don’t think so,’ he said. ‘Not then. Sam was frightened, and so was I. We hadn’t signed up for stuff like that, but Carl can be very persuasive when he wants to be. Seth too.’

‘So you agreed to keep going.’

Kelly nodded. ‘Then Paul got shot. After that we freaked out even more, but Carl said some guys had approached him and said there’d be no more trouble if we went halves with them.’

Ella’s mobile rang. She didn’t recognise the landline number. ‘Marconi.’

‘It’s Symons from the photographic unit. Your job on that CCTV is done.’

‘Can you see the numberplate?’

‘Clear as day,’ he said. ‘You want me to email it over?’

‘Please.’ She hung up and jumped to her feet. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’

In the office she booted up her computer. The email was waiting and she clicked to open the image. There it was: the woman visible behind the wheel, the man in the passenger seat, and on the front of the light-coloured Mazda 6 the number-plate PM 73 XY.

She opened the database, typed it in and hit enter, crossing her fingers and toes that this wasn’t going to be another dead-end caused by the car not matching the plates and one or both turning out to be stolen.

The plates belonged to a white Mazda 6 that was registered in the name of Julie Devonshire, a thirty-four-year-old woman with an address in Bardwell Park. So far, so good. Ella tightened the crosses and typed the name into the police system.

‘Bingo!’

She sent the page to the printer, grabbed it off the machine, then hurried to Dennis’s office.

‘I found the bystander. Her name’s Julie Devonshire.’ She slapped the page on his desk. ‘She has a conviction for soliciting seven years ago, therefore her photo is on file, therefore I can confirm that she is the one who told me with tears in her fucking eyes that she tried to save Paul Fowler when in fact she was trying to break his neck.’

Dennis picked up the sheet. ‘Nice job.’

‘Photographic gave me her rego. I know what she drives and where she lives.’ She curled her hands into fists. ‘It’s time we picked her up.’

‘Picked who up?’ John Gerard said from the doorway.

Ella kept her eyes fixed on Dennis. He looked at her, then past her at Gerard.

‘I’m free,’ Gerard said. ‘I’ll do it.’

No
, Ella thought.
No, no, no
.

‘Who’s the target? What’s the address?’

‘How far through are you with Jared Kelly?’ Dennis asked Ella.

She hesitated. ‘It’s hard to say.’

‘I just spoke to Murray; he was taking the dude to the bathroom, and he said you’d only just started,’ Gerard said. ‘Seemed like he was keen for you to get back too.’

Ella put pleading into her eyes and stared at Dennis. He gave her a tiny shrug. ‘Go back and finish there. Gerard, grab a couple of people and head out to Bardwell Park.’ He held out the sheet, Ella’s precious sheet. ‘Devonshire’s believed to be the female bystander from the park the day that Fowler was shot.’

‘Not believed,’ Ella said, her face tight with anger. ‘She is.’ She stormed out past Gerard, wishing she could slap the smug smile from his face.

In the interview room, Murray and Kelly looked like they hadn’t moved.

‘Did you guys go out?’

Murray nodded. ‘Bathroom. Why?’

She sat down with a shake of her head. It burned her up that Gerard got to be the one to knock on Devonshire’s door and see her face when he held out his badge. She folded her arms and fixed Kelly with a stare.

‘Now,’ Murray said. ‘You were saying these guys wanted to go halves in the profits of the brothel.’

‘And the drugs.’

Sam hadn’t mentioned drugs. ‘You were dealing as well?’

‘The girls sold it to the clients. Mostly coke, but some smack too.’ He shook his head. ‘God, it all sounds so tawdry now.’

Ella almost laughed.
Like it didn’t before?

‘Did Sam know about the drugs?’ Murray said.

‘No. He’s really anti. He would’ve been out of there like a shot.’

‘But the rest of you did?’

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Seth set it up. He had some contact, some guy called Trent, I think.’

Ella gripped the sides of her chair, but still would’ve preferred to be facing Devonshire.

‘It went well for a few weeks, then the supply kind of stopped,’ Kelly said. ‘Seth said he was having trouble getting onto his guy. Then Sam got beaten up.’

‘Did Carl go ahead with the deal?’ Murray asked.

‘He said he did.’

‘What did he say after Seth and Norris Sanderson were murdered?’

‘Not much,’ Kelly said. ‘I asked him what had happened and he told me to leave it, he was taking care of it. I wasn’t happy with that and he told me to back the fuck off and let him deal with it.’ His eyes grew redder. ‘I said that was it, I was out. He said it was all our faults, we all had blood on our hands because we’d agreed to keep going instead of stopping after Sam was bashed. I was furious. I said to him, you talked me into staying! He told me to shut up and say nothing to anyone.’

‘He thought you’d come to us?’ Ella asked.

‘I don’t know what he thought,’ Kelly said. ‘I was frightened and didn’t know what to do.’

‘Why did you even get involved? How could any of you think this was a good idea?’

‘Money.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘We all needed money, and Paul said he’d heard you could make loads with a brothel, even more with an illegal one because there were no licence fees or tax to pay, plus the girls would do, you know, anything. With no protection even. He was sick of his job and I think he fancied himself a business owner. He kept on about it, and one night we were out drinking and I let myself be talked in.’ He shook his head and wiped his eyes again. ‘Worst decision of my life.’

‘It was Paul’s idea?’

He nodded. ‘He told me he’d had this plan of how rich he was going to be before he was thirty, and here it was looming and he’d done nothing. He used to talk about his life, how it hadn’t turned out like he’d thought; he never wanted to get married and have kids, but when Trina fell pregnant he felt he had to do the right thing, but while he loved his kid he just felt trapped.’

Ella thought of Trina’s description of how the break-up had happened, then of Fowler’s parents’ story. ‘What did he do?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I guess he left. One day he just mentioned he wasn’t living there any more, and asked Seth if he could stay with him for a few days while he got things sorted.’

‘Why Seth?’

‘Sam and I have no room, and he and Carl weren’t that close.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘They just didn’t click too well.’

‘Was it because of Trina?’

‘That didn’t start until after they split,’ he said. ‘And I don’t think Paul knew anyway.’

‘Did Trina know about the brothel?’

‘I’m pretty sure she did,’ he said. ‘One time, after Paul’d moved in with Seth, Carl said something about the place and her wanting more money now.’

Hm.

‘How about your wife?’ Murray said. ‘Does she know about any of this?’

‘No way,’ he said. ‘Does she have to find out?’

Ella said, ‘Considering we have pictures of you going into the brothel, I think she deserves to, don’t you?’

He started to cry.

Ella looked at Murray and tilted her head at the door.

‘We’ll be back in a minute,’ Murray said to him.

In the corridor Ella said, ‘I vote we take what we know and confront Trina. Slap those photos down before her and play some of the conversation she had with Sutton earlier and see what lies she tries to come up with.’

‘You don’t think –’

Her mobile rang.

‘It’s Mary again. That little burbly car’s back.’

Ella grabbed Murray’s arm. ‘It’s there now?’

‘Right out the front.’

‘I’m on my way,’ Ella said. ‘Don’t open the door for anyone unless they show you a badge.’

THIRTY-TWO

W
hen Ella reached the scene she found the maroon Astra parked in by two marked police cars, the kids standing under a tree at the side of Beaman Park, and Mary Hyde waving from her wheelchair in her open doorway. Ella slammed her door and raised a hand to Mary, then crossed to the kids.

‘Indiana, Justin,’ she said. ‘Didn’t we talk about this?’

‘We just wanted to look at the storm,’ Indiana said. ‘Where’s the law against that?’

The uniformed cops stood with their hands tucked in the back of their duty belts.

Ella said, ‘Thanks, guys. You can go.’

They got in their cars and left.

‘Seriously,’ Indiana said. ‘Look.’

Ella glanced where she pointed, at the build-up of clouds in the south-east, occasional lightning marking their outline against the darkening sky. A freshening breeze whipped leaves along the street.

‘In the whole of the city, you had to watch from here?’ she said.

‘We weren’t doing anything,’ Justin said.

Ella opened the passenger door and looked into the car. Red P-plates hung inside the front and back windscreens and a McDonald’s bag full of empty cups and balled cheeseburger wrappers lay in the passenger footwell. She put her knee on the passenger seat and lifted the school bags that had been tossed in the back and found maths and science textbooks, then looked in the glove box and found a digital camera.

‘So you’re the ones.’ Mary Hyde sat in her wheelchair on the road, the wind blowing her fine white hair. ‘I’m Mary.’

Ella turned the camera on.

‘You don’t have to do that,’ Indiana said to her.

Ella nodded towards Mary. ‘Introduce yourselves.’

They did so, their eyes on Ella’s hands.

‘You like this spot?’ Mary said to them. ‘I was young once too, you know. I remember how it is.’

‘We just wanted to see the storm,’ Justin said.

The most recent shots on the camera were indeed of the clouds, the ones before that of Indiana posing in her school uniform, the two of them kissing, Indiana flashing her bra and laughing. There were day and night shots, in the car, on the bonnet, with traffic whizzing by. Ella scrolled back through, one eye on the date at the bottom of the screen.

She found some dated Saturday night, when John Gerard had pulled them over and she’d asked him whether he’d searched the car.
Sure you did, John.

Then she found some from the Monday before.

She turned the camera so they could see the screen, and pointed to the date. ‘You both said you were at home this night.’

They said nothing. Thunder rumbled in the distance.

The pictures were taken inside the car. It was dark outside and both Indiana and Justin were naked from the waist up, at times more naked even than that. In some of the shots the camera’s flash reached as far as the trees at the side of the park. In others Ella could make out a lighted house window and in the corner the small form of Mary in her wheelchair.

Ella looked at them. ‘Didn’t you?’

‘We were both supposed to be somewhere else,’ Justin said. ‘If you talked to our parents they’d know we weren’t.’

‘And you decided your best option was to lie to me?’

They said nothing.

Mary rolled a little closer. ‘They’re just kids,’ she said to Ella.

‘They had you worried and us following a dead lead.’

But Mary was grinning at Justin and Indiana. ‘We all want to have our fun, don’t we?’

They looked at the ground.

‘They’re not in trouble, are they?’ Mary said. ‘They meant no harm.’

Ella turned the camera off and weighed it in her hand, looking at Indiana and Justin, at Mary, and over the street to Mary’s house.

‘Here’s the thing.’ She put the camera on the passenger seat. ‘On Saturday you lied to me. We’re investigating a murder and time is important and you wasted it. I then asked you not to come back here and you did, and that meant those other officers and I had to stop what we were doing to come here and deal with you.’

Justin’s ears were red. Indiana stared at her shoes.

‘You’ve got nothing to say?’

‘Sorry,’ they mumbled.

Ella pointed over the car at Mary’s overgrown garden. ‘See that?’

They looked up.

‘You’ll come here on Saturday and fix that up. If it takes more than one day, you’ll come here on Sunday too. If it takes still more, you’ll be here the next weekend as well. Mary here will be checking that it’s done right and I’ll be dropping in too.’

Mary’s face was alight. ‘I’ll make iced tea.’

Indiana stared at the garden. ‘What’m I supposed to tell my mum?’

‘I’ll explain it if you like,’ Ella said.

Justin elbowed Indiana. ‘We’ll be here.’

The wind blew hard in the trees and a few raindrops hit the Astra’s windscreen.

‘What time suits you, Mary?’ Ella asked.

‘Nine is good.’

Ella raised her eyebrows at Justin. He nodded. Beside him Indiana gave a small half-shrug, half-nod.

‘With smiles too. Big ones.’ Ella tapped the roof of the car. ‘Get out of here, and don’t forget that I know where you live.’

She stood next to Mary and watched the Astra drive away as the sky beyond the end of the street filled with black clouds. Rain dotted the road, the smell rising with the steam from the asphalt. The park on their left was empty, the grass looking dry and dead, the wind blowing dust across its surface, the place in the middle where Paul Fowler had lain as anonymous as the rest.

‘You better head in,’ Ella said.

Mary turned her chair. ‘Is it wrong that I’m already looking forward to them coming?’

Ella smiled. ‘I’ll see you then.’

She waited until Mary waved from inside the front window, then drove off with leaves gusting across her path.

Down the street she pulled over and called Dennis. ‘Is Gerard back in yet?’

‘Nobody answers at Devonshire’s place,’ he said. ‘So he’s parked up waiting for her to come home. What was the car? I heard you sent the uniforms away.’

‘Kids,’ she said. ‘I have to speak to Gerard.’

*

John Gerard was parked next to a playground across from the end of Julie Devonshire’s street. Ella ran through the spattering rain and yanked open his front passenger door. ‘Searched their car, did you?’

His eyes were fixed on Devonshire’s house. ‘I’m busy here.’

Ella got in and slammed the door. ‘Those kids had been outside the park taking photos of each other with their pants down. The camera was in their car. If you’d searched properly we would’ve known that.’

He shook his head slightly but didn’t answer.

‘Sheer incompetence,’ she said. ‘What else have you stuffed up?’

‘Be quiet.’ He stared out the window through the rain.

She moved to get out and her foot hit a glass jar half-full of yellow liquid. ‘What is this? You pissed in here?’

‘Shut up and don’t move.’

‘Don’t you dare tell me what to do.’

‘Shut up,’ he hissed, and she saw through the rain streaks on his window the tail-lights of a car backing out of a driveway and a garage door coming down. ‘She was home after all.’ He started the engine without putting his foot on the brake so the lights stayed dark.

Ella recognised the white Mazda and could just make out the numberplate through the rain. ‘If she’s suspicious enough not to have answered the door she’ll have noticed you sitting here. Let me go in mine.’

‘There’s no time.’ He drove off the grass and onto the road, leaving his headlights off.

‘Let me out.’

‘She’s too far away already.’

Ella clipped in her seatbelt while looking back through the rain at her car. The jar hit her foot again. She pulled her feet up onto the seat. ‘You’re disgusting.’

‘How long am I supposed to hold it?’

‘You haven’t even been here two hours.’ She took out her mobile and phoned Dennis. ‘Devonshire’s on the move. I’m in Gerard’s car and it’s a long story but we’ve just turned right onto Bexley Road.’

‘Hold on.’ He called instructions to someone in the room, then came back. ‘Don’t pull her over. We still don’t have an address for either Trent Bligh or Luiz Paz, so give her a bit of space and see if she leads you there.’

‘But if we nab her now we could grill her hard, and get her phone records, trace them that way,’ Ella said.

‘We know where she lives,’ Dennis said. ‘We have everything to gain from following her and nothing to lose.’

‘Okay,’ Ella said. ‘We’re crossing the railway line now.’

The rain grew heavier, big drops hitting the windscreen hard. Gerard turned on the headlights. Devonshire slowed as she caught up to a line of traffic at a light and her tail-lights made smears of red in the water left by Gerard’s wipers. The jar rolled back and forth in the footwell.

‘That lid better be on tight,’ Ella said.

‘Check it if you’re so worried,’ Gerard said.

‘Backup’s on its way,’ Dennis said in her ear.

‘We’re still on Bexley Road, heading north.’ The rain hammered on the car roof. Gerard turned up the aircon to clear the fog from the windscreen. ‘Close to Campsie now, and she’s slowing down. She’s pulling over.’

Gerard dropped back.

‘She’s turning into the car park of a gym.’ Ella looked at Gerard. ‘What was she wearing when she came out of the house?’

‘She came out in the car. You forgotten that already?’

Idiot.
She slid low in the seat and stared out the rain-wet window as Gerard drove into the parking area of the video store next door. Devonshire got out of her car with a folded towel over her head. She was dressed in black three-quarter-length gym pants and a bright red top, and carried a black sports bag slung over her shoulder. She didn’t look around but ran straight to the door of the gym and disappeared inside.

‘She went inside, all dressed for a workout,’ Ella said to Dennis. ‘We can see both her car and the door of the place.’

‘Okay. Marion and Louise should be right on top of you.

I’ll send them round the back and get Murray to meet you at the front. Call if she comes out.’

Ella put her phone down. Gerard kept the engine running and his hand on the park brake. Ella saw movement in the side mirror as Murray eased into a space behind them.

‘Move to another spot so she thinks we’re gone,’ she said to Gerard.

‘There’s no way she saw us.’

She got out without answering and ran to Murray’s car through the rain and jumped into the front.

‘She still in there?’ he said.

‘No, she drove away but we waited for you.’

He raised a hand. ‘Just asking.’

Ella wished Dennis had sent him around the back and Marion and Louise to the front, but at least she was away from the jar of pee.

Gerard drove to a far corner of the car park, then dashed back through the puddles and leapt into the rear seat. ‘No sign yet?’

Ella ignored him and stared through the glass.

Gerard tapped Murray on the shoulder. ‘Any news on that Dante kid?’

Ella pricked up her ears.

‘No,’ Murray said, his tone suggesting he didn’t want to discuss it.

‘You tell your dad? Did he know him?’ Gerard barged on.

Ella held back a smile.

‘No,’ Murray said again, his voice cooler.

‘So it was just a random thing?’ When Murray didn’t answer, Gerard sat back in the seat and huffed air out his nose. ‘Kids and their knives.’

Murray shook his head and mumbled something Ella didn’t catch, but neither she nor Gerard asked him to repeat it because at that moment Julie Devonshire opened the door of the gym and looked out. She turned her head as if scanning the street but her eyes lingered on the place where Gerard’s car had been.

‘I told you she’d seen us,’ Ella said.

‘She can’t be sure,’ he said. ‘Or there’s no way she’d come out so soon.’

Devonshire had changed into jeans and a pink collared shirt. The bag was over her shoulder. She stepped out of the doorway but stayed under the building’s awning as if waiting for the rain to ease, her eyes still moving everywhere.

They sat motionless in the car.

‘She’s suspicious,’ Ella said.

‘You think?’ Murray hissed.

‘Nah,’ Gerard said. ‘If she really was, she’d stay in there for hours.’

Devonshire ran to her car.

Ella phoned Dennis again. ‘She’s on the move, now dressed in civvies. She’s waiting for traffic on Bexley Road, no indicator.’

Murray eased the car forward and joined a short line waiting to exit the video store’s car park. John Gerard jumped out and ran crouching back to his own car, then roared around and got in line behind them.

Ella kept her eyes glued to the back of the white Mazda. ‘Still no indicator.’

‘You lot turn left,’ Dennis said. ‘I’ve got Marion and Louise heading right.’

‘Go left,’ she said to Murray.

He moved forward but was still one back from the street when Devonshire swung left herself.

‘She’s gone left,’ Ella said to Dennis.

She spotted Marion and Louise go past in the other direction and knew they’d be U-turning as soon as they could to join the tail. Murray drove around the car in front, which was waiting to go right, and bounced over the kerb and onto the street. Ella turned to see Gerard following.

‘Bit obvious, both cars leaping off like that?’

‘You want to lose her?’ Murray said. ‘Anyway, look.’

Devonshire was driving smoothly along the road with no sign of panic, four cars between her boot and Murray’s bonnet, as much water spraying up from the tyres as was falling from the sky.

‘Going well,’ Ella said into the phone to Dennis.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Listen, your talk with Trina worked. She’s called Sutton’s house and mobile five times in the last hour.’

‘Leaving messages?’

‘Yep, of increasing desperation. First just asking him to call her back, but in the last ones she said she was worried, where was he, is he okay.’

‘So she knew he was going to “sort things out”, whatever that means, and now she’s worried that he hasn’t been in touch, presumably to say it went well.’

‘Sounds like it.’ Somebody said something in the background and he said to Ella, ‘I have to go.’

She lowered the phone and looked at Murray. ‘Trina’s starting to crack.’