Silent Fear (7 page)

Fowler’s face was pale and still. A tube jutted from his mouth and an intravenous line was taped into his arm. His eyes were half-closed. His T-shirt had been cut up the middle and monitoring dots were stuck to his chest.

‘Seth?’ she said.

Garland blinked back tears. ‘It’s him.’

‘We need you to say his name.’

‘Paul Fowler.’

Holly said, ‘Was that so hard?’

‘I feel sick,’ Garland said.

Holly grabbed him by the arm and shoved the door open and dragged him out. The cop reached across and closed the door behind them.
That went well
, Ella thought.

‘Can we see the wound?’ she asked.

Callum opened the door and called in a passing wardsman. They put on gloves, then rolled Fowler onto his side, facing them. Ella pulled on a glove of her own. The blood at the back of Fowler’s neck had dried and made a thick pad of matted hair over the wound. She couldn’t see a thing through the mess but felt a small round hole. She stepped back and drew off the glove while Murray took a look.

Callum met her gaze. She waited for him to look away, but he didn’t.

‘Do you think it’s a gunshot wound?’ she asked.

‘Post-mortem will tell for sure.’

‘But in your opinion?’

‘Possibly.’

She could tell nothing from his tone. ‘Did he have anything on him when he was brought in? Like a phone?’

Callum shook his head. ‘Not a thing.’

‘I’m done.’ Murray stepped away.

They let Fowler down onto his back and the wardsman left.

Callum said to Murray, ‘I’m sorry about your father. How’s he doing?’

The stabbing had been all over the news.

‘He’s got an infection,’ Murray said. ‘We thought he’d be back home by now, but they said it’ll be days yet. Even the doctors are worried. Mum’s going nuts, of course.’

Callum nodded. ‘I know that feeling.’

‘Me too,’ Ella said.

Callum glanced at her, then pulled the sheet over Fowler. ‘So someone from Glebe morgue is on their way to get him?’

‘Should be,’ Murray said.

‘Good. Then I guess we’re done.’ He nodded to them both – distinct separate nods, Ella noted – then walked out of the room.

Murray said, ‘He really doesn’t like you.’

‘All I saw was professionalism.’

‘You need glasses then.’

She looked at him. ‘You worked his cousin’s case as well. Whatever he feels about me he has to feel about you too.’

‘Not necessarily.’

Ella walked out to find Holly waiting with her arms folded. ‘Seth okay?’

Holly shrugged. ‘He’s in the bathroom.’

Ella checked her watch. The afternoon was slipping away and they had so much to do.

‘Let’s get yours and Joe’s statements done then we can all get out of here,’ she said.

FOUR

H
olly kept herself calm as she described the call to the job, what they’d done on scene and how everyone had behaved, including the way that Seth had spoken to each of the friends in a voice so low she couldn’t hear. The male detective, whose name she’d forgotten, scribbled it all down in his notebook while the female one, Ella, listened.

Then Ella said, ‘I asked you before why you said you thought Seth was involved, and you said it just seemed wrong.’

Holly nodded, keeping her face blank. ‘That’s right.’

‘Has he ever been in trouble with the police?’

‘Not that I know of, but I haven’t seen him for twelve years.’
He was skilled at flying under the radar before that though, so who knows what he’s managed to get away with.

‘How did it seem wrong?’

‘Like I said, he was whispering to his friends. And acting a bit shifty.’

‘Shifty how?’

‘It’s hard to pinpoint,’ she said, her heart beating so loudly that they could surely hear it. ‘I just had a really strong impression that he was hiding something.’

‘How quickly did he recognise you?’

‘Straightaway,’ she said. ‘Same as I recognised him.’

‘Even after so long?’

Holly shifted on her chair. ‘Some people you don’t forget.’
Prepare yourself. You know where they’re going next.

Ella said, ‘We talked to him about why you don’t get on, but I’d like to hear your side of it too.’

Seth had as much to keep from them as she did, so she knew he would’ve told them nothing. ‘We just never got along. You know how some kids fight all the time? That was us.’

‘Do you have other siblings?’

‘No.’

‘Are you still in touch with your parents?’

‘They’re both dead.’

‘Sorry to hear that,’ Ella said. ‘Long ago?’

‘A little over twelve years.’

‘So the last time you saw Seth before today was . . . ?’

Holly hadn’t wanted to go here, but to baulk would raise a flag she couldn’t afford. The little one that’d gone up when she pointed the finger at Seth was flapping loudly enough.

‘At their funeral,’ she said.

‘They died at the same time?’

She nodded. ‘House fire.’

‘What happened at the funeral?’

‘We had an argument and I walked away, hoping to never see him again.’

‘What did you argue about?’

A half-truth was better than an outright lie. ‘Money. He thought I’d kept his share. There actually wasn’t anything to inherit.’ She rubbed the back of her neck. She felt tense and a little sick. Dehydrated maybe, or just suffering the effects of the past. Oh, to be at home in the pool with Norris, washing all of this away.

‘Did you see or hear anything while you were at the scene?

Strange noises? People in a hurry? Anything at all that felt odd or out of place?’

Only Seth.

‘No,’ she said.

Ella looked at her colleague as if checking something. He didn’t look up.

‘We’ll need to get a formal statement at some point in the next day or so, if you can come to the office,’ Ella said.

Holly nodded.
Nearly clear. Soon be home.

‘Thanks.’ Ella stood and put out her hand.

Holly stood up too and shook it. Ella didn’t let it go immediately, and stared into Holly’s eyes.
Hold the gaze.
Holly imagined the pool, and didn’t flinch. Ella released her.

Holly went out of the room feeling weak, and they called Joe in. She stood in the corridor for a moment and breathed and listened. She could make out a nurse telling a patient to keep his oxygen mask on, and another one somewhere encouraging somebody to cough deeper, but she couldn’t hear Seth’s voice. It didn’t mean he wasn’t around though. She should hide. Hopefully he’d think she’d left and go home himself and she’d never see him again.

She texted Joe:
In the bathroom. Text when you’re done.

Okay
, he sent back.

She hurried around the corner to the staff bathrooms and locked herself in the women’s. She closed the toilet lid and sat down, and looked at her shaking hands. She was not going back there any more, not in life and not in her mind. It was done. Past. Over.

And Norris didn’t know, and could never find out.

*

When Joe texted, Holly opened the door and listened for Seth’s voice, then sneaked around to the family room. Joe jangled the ambulance keys and she grabbed his arm. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

She hurried him through the Emergency Department and out the sliding doors into the hot afternoon air of the ambulance bay. She blinked in the glare, then her heart sank as she saw Seth and his friends gathered in the driveway. He came towards her across the asphalt as Joe unlocked the ambulance with the remote. She put her head down and went straight for the passenger door.

‘Wait up,’ Seth said.

Holly got in, but Seth caught the door before she could close it.

‘You’d leave, just like that?’ he said.

‘Yep.’

‘At least give me your number.’

‘No.’

‘We’re family, Holly.’

She gave him a look that made him let go of the door.

‘You don’t know me any more,’ he said. ‘I went to TAFE and uni; I’ve got a great job with Williams, Dean and Shaw –’

She slammed the door in his face.

‘This could be our fresh start,’ he said through the window.

‘Drive,’ she said to Joe.

He started the engine and put his hand on the gearstick. ‘You’re sure?’

‘Go,’ Holly said, ignoring Seth’s knuckles rapping on the glass.

Joe pulled out of the bay. Holly didn’t glance back.

The lights on Parramatta Road stopped them. Joe tapped his fingers on the wheel, then glanced over at her. ‘Did he call you Jade when we first got on scene?’

‘No, why?’ She hoped he hadn’t mentioned it to the detectives, but knew she couldn’t ask without raising suspicion.

He shrugged. ‘Thought I heard it.’

‘He didn’t.’

The denial was as natural as breathing, the worry equally so.

*

Ella came out of the air-conditioned hospital to find that the afternoon was hotter than ever. She hadn’t thought that possible. The sun beat down on the car’s windscreen. She sat gingerly in the driver’s seat, the wheel too hot to touch, and started the engine and aircon.

Murray got in, then, as Garland stepped away from his friends and hurried towards them across the empty ambulance bay, he got back out.

Her phone rang. Dennis. ‘How’d you go?’ he said.

She gave him a brief summary while turning the aircon vents on her face. Garland and Murray talked at the front of the car. Murray shook his head.

Ella said, ‘We’ve got the keys to where Fowler was staying and are on our way. No sign of his phone yet though.’

‘Keep in touch.’

She ended the call as Murray shrugged Garland off and came back to the passenger door. Garland looked pissed off but went to his friends.

‘What was that about?’ she said when Murray got in.

‘Wanted Holly’s address.’ He clipped in his seatbelt. ‘Tried to tell me he used to have it and just mislaid it.’

As if we hadn’t noticed the animosity between them
, Ella thought. She’d be keeping a very close eye on what happened there.

She tested the wheel. Better, almost cool. Ready to go.

*

Seth Garland’s flat was on The Grand Parade in Brighton-Le-Sands. Ella lowered her window to smell the salt of the bay but the hot air was full of car exhaust as people trawled up and down in the vain hope of finding a parking space. The beach was packed and kids screamed and splashed in the calm blue waters of the bay, while more families walked along the parkland carrying eskies and towels.

‘The brown building with the white trim.’ Murray pointed to a block of units.

Ella pulled into the driveway and parked in one of the visitors’ spaces. Garland’s flat was on the ground floor. A number one was screwed to the door above the peephole. Ella fitted the key into the lock and turned it. The flat was a mess. Clothes lay scattered everywhere, the old coffee table was stacked high with cups and beer cans, a pizza box lay open on the floor with two dried-up crusts in a dark grease stain. Light poured into the room from the big windows that looked over the road to the bay, and the contrast between the deep clean blue of the water and the complete shambles at Ella’s feet was almost painful.

‘Talk about a bachelor pad,’ Murray said.

She nodded. ‘Place could’ve been tossed and we’d have no idea.’

Murray walked past her and into the small kitchen. ‘Same state in here.’

Boys
.

Ella turned right down a short hallway and found a bathroom with a dripping sink tap and a crumpled towel on the tiles, then a bedroom where a foam mattress lay squeezed on the floor between an empty computer desk and a window with closed curtains. Blue cotton sheets were tangled at the foot of the mattress and clothes were piled in the four corners of the room, even behind the door. Ella could smell that they needed washing. Three used coffee cups stood between the legs of the office chair that was pushed up hard against the desk. A cardboard box on the desk held an unplugged clock radio, a couple of paperback books and a stack of CDs. A child’s drawing of two stick figures next to a pool was propped against the wall by the flat pillow.
Darcy
, Ella thought.

‘Check this out,’ Murray said behind her.

He stood in the doorway to the main bedroom. The large window looked out over the bay, the curtains pulled well back, one of them moving in the breeze that came through the security screen. Below stood a bed made with almost military precision. There were no clothes on the floor or flung over the timber chest of drawers, the top of which was bare and dust-free. Murray opened the sliding doors of the built-in wardrobe and Ella saw clothes hung neatly on their hangers, organised into shirts, jeans, trousers and suits.

‘So Garland’s a neat freak, and is suddenly living with a total grub,’ she said. ‘Think that’d be enough motive? Guy coming into your space and messing up your system?’

Murray looked into the top drawer of the chest. ‘He colourcodes his underwear.’

‘He told us he was fine with Fowler living here, not paying rent and everything.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Can we believe that now?’

‘I didn’t believe it then,’ Murray said.

Neither did Ella.

*

At The Rocks ambulance station Holly pulled on the plain blue T-shirt she’d worn in on the train that morning and stuffed her uniform shirt into her backpack, then Joe dropped her at Wynyard where she had to wait just a few minutes on the crowded platform for a train. It made good time out through Central and Redfern and as far as Croydon, and she was thinking only about the pool, nothing else, certainly not Seth, when the thing slowed to a crawl.

‘Probably the heat affecting the tracks,’ she heard another passenger say.

The carriage was full and she was squashed up against the doors on the sunny side with the heat blazing in on them all. The humid air smelled of sweaty bodies and failing deodorant. The aircon vents above her head sighed cool air a couple of times, but the brief taste of how it should be was worse than constant heat. She tilted her head back in the forlorn hope of getting a little breeze on her throat and hoped nobody would collapse. In this crush of people it would be a nightmare trying to lie an unconscious person down, trying to get them some air.

The train inched along, then jerked to a stop. People groaned. She twisted to the window. She thought they were almost at Burwood but wasn’t sure. The sunlight on the streets and roofs was bright and hot.

The speakers crackled and a blurred voice began a long and indecipherable announcement. People rolled their eyes at each other. Sweat ran down Holly’s back and the corner of someone’s bag jabbed her in the leg. Her head was being overrun with thoughts of Seth and the past, and all she wanted was to be underwater in the pool.

The train jerked again. It rolled forward, staying under a walking pace, to enter Burwood station. The doors slid open and air rushed in, still hot but fresher than inside. A couple of people got off but Holly and the rest waited for the doors to close and the train to go on.

‘Everyone off, please.’ The train guard came along, motioning them all out. ‘Everyone off.’

People grumbled and swore.

‘Problem with the train,’ the guard said. ‘Everyone off.’

There was a push to get in the shade under the awning of the station house. Holly squeezed into a gap by a vending machine and pressed her back against the cool bricks of the building. To her left was a bench on which a number of passengers had squashed themselves, and the rest stood crammed together under the roof. A few talked and grumbled and made calls to tell people they’d be late, but mostly they were silent. The sounds of the guard’s voice from further up the platform and the call of a magpie on the roof were loud in the still, hot air.

A young man came drifting along the platform. Holly could see at a glance that he was on the nod. His head lolled on his neck and his eyes were half-closed. His hands were scabbed and his arms skinny, and the faded Iron Maiden T-shirt he wore looked four sizes too big. He stumbled and almost fell against the stationary train but recovered his footing and stood swaying, then sank to the hot asphalt. Holly watched him, remembering the feeling.

He sat cross-legged, his head down, his hands loose in his lap; in different circumstances he could’ve been mistaken as meditating. A fly landed on his cheek and walked across it. He made no move to brush it away. Someone in the crowd giggled.

Holly made herself look away. She took her mobile out of her backpack. The screen showed no new messages. Nothing from Lacey explaining all the secrecy, and nothing from Norris either, who she’d texted to please pick her up at the station, she was on the four-oh-four. It wasn’t far to walk but on a day like this she could really do without it. But there was nothing. He was probably in the pool, thinking she wasn’t going to be home for hours.

She scrolled through the phone book and pressed the number for home. The phone rang. And rang. There was a ringer right near the window by the pool; even underwater you couldn’t miss it. She hung up and typed out a text.
Train broken down. Will call when almost there.
He’d find it sometime.