Violent Exposure

Katherine Howell is a former ambulance officer. Her award-winning novels are published in the UK and Europe in six languages. She lives in Queensland with her partner and is currently working on her fifth novel about Detective Ella Marconi.

www.katherinehowell.com

Also by Katherine Howell

Frantic
The Darkest Hour
Cold Justice

KATHERINE
HOWELL

First published 2010 in Macmillan by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Limited
1 Market Street, Sydney

Copyright © Katherine Howell 2010
The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying, recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

National Library of Australia
Cataloguing-in-Publication data:

Violent exposure / Katherine Howell.

ISBN: 9781405040051 (pbk.)

A823.4

Author photograph © Cal Mackinnon
Typeset in 12.5/14 pt Bembo by Post Pre-press Group, Queensland
Printed in Australia
by McPherson’s Printing Group

The characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Papers used by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin.

These electronic editions published in 2010 by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd
1 Market Street, Sydney 2000

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

All rights reserved. This publication (or any part of it) may not be reproduced or transmitted, copied, stored, distributed or otherwise made available by any person or entity (including Google, Amazon or similar organisations), in
any form (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical) or by any means (photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise) without prior written permission from the publisher.

Violent Exposure

Katherine Howell

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For Benette

T
hanks to my agent Selwa Anthony and to my publisher Cate Paterson.

Thanks to all the great people at Pan Macmillan – editor Brianne Collins, publicist Sue Bobbermein, and everyone in sales, marketing and publicity.

Thanks to the Big Book Club, especially Alison Crisp.

Thanks to my families: Guys, Crowes, Kohs, Ellises, Hibbinses and Murphys.

For technical and other advice,
thanks to Adam Asplin, Karen Davis, Leah Gale, Tennille Duffy, Grant O’Brien, Mel Johnson, Leigh Redhead and Alan Smith. As usual, all mistakes are mine.

Thanks most of all to the one who comes home from work never sure what she’ll hear when she asks about my day. You, Benette, make it all worthwhile.

T
he phone rang and Carly grabbed it up. ‘Martens, The Rocks.’

‘Call to a woman screaming, possible domestic, at 11 Iredale Street in Potts Point,’ Control said.

Carly scribbled down the address and looked out the muster room window, past the parked ambulances, at the empty plant room doorway. ‘Has Aidan called in sick?’

‘Nope.’

Little shit
.

‘It’s four past,’ Control said.

She knew. ‘Put
me down as single and him as absent.’

‘O-kay,’ Control said.

She read a whole world in his tone. ‘You know what he’s like.’

‘Further info on the case,’ Control continued blandly. ‘The cross street is Viscount Road.’

Just then Aidan sauntered into the plant room, hands in pockets and sunglasses on his stupid face though the sun had almost set. Carly broke the pencil lead on the street name.
‘Cancel that absent.’

‘O-kay,’ Control said.

Carly hung up and yanked open the muster room door. ‘You’re late. We’ve got a job. Get in.’

Aidan took off his sunnies. ‘Gotta grab my workbag.’

‘No time.’ She got into the ambulance and fired up the engine then saw him go into the locker room. Her scalp tightening, she whooped the siren and blew the horn but he still took almost a minute to emerge
with his bag over his shoulder. She punched the button to drop his window. ‘Could you take any longer?’

He climbed in and put his bag on the floor. ‘What’ve we got?’

‘Woman screaming, possible domestic.’

She drove out of the station and jabbed at the remote to shut the doors, then hit the lights and siren.

‘It’ll turn out to be nothing,’ he said. ‘Woman’ll say she’s fine. They always do.’

The blood thundered in her veins. ‘That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘I’ve seen it before and I’ll see it again.’

She looked across at him, his pretty-boy face, his oh-so-cool slouch. ‘You’d better get your shit together. We start at six, not six-oh-five.’

‘It’s the trains.’

‘Catch an earlier one.’

‘I was at a job.’

‘Time to work out which job you want.’

‘Like you with your auditions?’

She jerked the wheel to avoid a braking driver. ‘You’re fulltime here and a trainee to boot. You should be using your free time to study, not prance about on catwalks.’

‘That’s not the kind I do.’

‘Mick and I have to write reports on your progress and punctuality gets noted.’

‘I’ve met trainees who did worse stuff and got through.’

Carly thumped the horn to change the wailing siren to yelp.
‘Don’t you want to be good at the job?’

‘Hey, just because I don’t cry doesn’t mean I don’t care.’

‘That was a SIDS,’ she said. ‘And I’m not talking about crying. Anyone can see you don’t give a shit.’

He turned the rear-view towards himself and touched his hair. ‘Think what you like.’

‘What I think goes in the report.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

Carly wrenched the mirror back. The shift stretched
out before her like the road to hell.

He said, ‘You know what they say about actors?’

‘You already told me.’

‘Those who look good, model. Those who don’t, act.’

Carly flung the ambulance around the corner into Iredale Street and smacked off the lights and siren. She spotted number 355 on her left and pulled over. Aidan released his seatbelt and reached for the door.

‘The job’s at number 11,’
she said.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t know for sure, because I’m just a stupid trainee, but I have a feeling that might be up the other end.’

‘So why have I stopped here?’

‘Probably to lecture me about something.’

She squeezed the wheel. ‘What are we going to?’

‘Domestic.’

‘What’s the first thing you consider in going to any job but especially these?’

‘The address.’

‘Safety.’
Idiot.
‘Look down there.’

Aidan stared out the windscreen.

‘Any cops?’

‘Oh,’ he said. ‘No.’

‘Look like anyone is out and listening, or upset about hearing something?’

Aidan shook his head.

The street was quiet, the twilight shadows deepening. A man walking a fat brown dog looked curiously at them.

‘Think that guy would look so relaxed if the shit was hitting the fan down the way?’

‘No.’ Snippy
now.

Carly gritted her teeth. ‘So what decision do we have to make?’

‘Whether to stand off or go closer.’

‘That’s right,’ Carly said. ‘Your thoughts?’

‘It’ll be all right.’

All trainees took that stance. Carly had done so herself once upon a time, before a bullet whistled past her ear. Now if she felt so much as a twinge at the back of her neck she stood off.

She released the park brake
and lowered the windows and dawdled the ambulance towards the address. Even doing this was too much on some jobs because people got the shits if they spotted you and you wouldn’t go in. If she’d seriously felt there could be trouble she would’ve hidden in a side street out of sight.

‘If –’ Aidan began.

‘Shut up.’ She heard no fighting or screaming. Her neck was good. She parked close to the
address and turned off the engine. ‘Okay.’

Aidan grabbed the Oxy-Viva and first-aid kit and headed for the low gate. Carly followed with the drug box and monitor, still listening. No sound other than the sigh of tyres on the street behind her and a newsreader being all serious on a television somewhere nearby.

Two steps led up from the footpath to the townhouse’s small porch. The black front
door was closed. A window beside it was protected by black bars, and a heavy curtain stopped them seeing in. Aidan glanced at Carly.

‘You happy?’ she said.

He nodded and reached for the brass knocker. The sound was dull and flat. Carly listened closely. Sometimes this was when the screaming started.

The woman who opened the door after a minute was red-eyed but held her chin high. She looked
about thirty. Her light brown hair was tied back in a ponytail. Drops of blood marked the left shoulder of her grey T-shirt and the leg of her jeans, and she pressed a folded wad of tissues to her earlobe. A twist of silver hung from the piercing in her right ear. ‘Oh. Hello.’

‘Are you okay?’ Aidan said.

‘It’s nothing,’ she said. ‘Certainly not an emergency.’

‘How about we come in and make
sure?’

‘Really, it’s fine,’ she said with a smile.

‘Who else is here?’ Carly said.

‘My husband. He’s also fine.’

‘Mind if we speak to him as well?’

‘Of course you can,’ a male voice said from down the hall. The man who walked towards them wore jeans and a green jumper. He looked older than the woman, maybe forty or so. His short dark hair was flecked with grey. He smiled at Carly. ‘Sorry
that you guys got called out. I don’t know who rang but it wasn’t us.’

‘Neighbours sometimes worry,’ Carly said.

‘Understandable,’ the man said. ‘Would you like to come in?’

‘Thanks,’ Carly said. ‘We’re pretty much required to check you out once we’re here.’

The man nodded and the woman stepped back and held the door for them. Aidan and Carly followed the man down the hallway to a dimly lit
lounge room. Carly looked for signs of the fight but there were none.

‘So what happened?’ she asked.

‘Just a silly disagreement,’ the woman said.