Violent Exposure (12 page)

‘It was her reaching for the ringer.’

The
driver pointed to the door. ‘Get off before I call the cops.’

‘You a lezzer too?’

‘Now.’

‘Fuckin bitches.’ He stumbled down the aisle and out, then gave Carly the finger through the window.

The driver closed the doors and pulled away.

Carly said, ‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’

‘Men,’ said the old lady behind her.

Carly exhaled, and shielded the phone to read the text. It was from Mick.
Still
no word
.

It was no surprise. Some of the cases she’d been a witness in had taken ages. Only natural though that Mick was freaking over his friend. Sophie had already been sacked when Carly transferred from Fairfeld to The Rocks, so Carly’d only learned about her through the media guff and the service gossip and Mick’s stories. She knew which one of those she believed, however, and understood
Sophie to be a good operator and a kind and compassionate person who’d been driven to the edge then pushed right over by an out-and-out criminal. What she’d done wasn’t right, but Carly still hoped they found her not guilty and let her go home to her husband and little boy.

Her stop approached. She pressed the bell and the bus slowed and stopped. She smiled at the driver, who smiled back. She
climbed down the stairs, waited as the bus heaved itself onward in a cloud of diesel fumes, then crossed the street. She was late, she should hurry, but she didn’t have it in her. The afternoon was hot and she walked in the shade of the shop awnings, avoiding thoughts of the audition and the drunk, thinking instead about Mick checking his mobile screen and lifting his landline receiver every other
minute, then she took a left at the butcher’s down the narrow street to the community centre.

The doors were open, the interior black to her sun-glazed eyes. Usually from outside she could hear music playing along with the thud of teenaged boys’ feet as they pushed and shoved, but today all was quiet.

She stood in the doorway with her hand on the frame until her eyes adjusted. Three boys and
three girls sat or leaned along the stage while Streetlights social worker John Oberon paced the floor before them and talked.

Dammit.
John had read an acting book at some point in his sixty-odd years and always made the kids be trees, leaves blown along by the wind, blah fucking blah. Carly and Linsey, and even Gus on the occasions he came along, felt it was better they do something with a little
more relevance, especially when they had only an hour a week to do it in, but John could never be persuaded.

Her mood had risen a little after the bus driver’s actions but now it crashed. The audition debacle and the drunk were signs. She was not going to feel better at the end of the hour. She would probably struggle not to lose her temper. She should’ve gone home after all.

But then she caught
the name Crawford, and stepped inside. One of the girls, Brooke, waved to her, and John stopped speaking and turned around.

Carly joined them. ‘Everything okay?’

‘One of our benefactors died last night,’ John said. ‘Suzanne Crawford. She gave the kids work at her nursery.’

‘Oh no.’ Carly had a policy not to mix her worlds. To a point, at least. These guys knew she was a paramedic, the other
paramedics knew she helped out here, but that was it. ‘That’s terrible.’

John nodded. He was a thin man, a little taller than her, with pouched brown eyes and receding brown hair that he kept short. Linsey had said he was a runner, did the City-to-Surf every year, charity things like that. He looked like each race took a bit more meat from his bones, leaving him stringier than before. ‘It’s a
tragedy,’ he said.

Carly looked away from him. On the edge of the stage, Brooke Hayes sat with her hands tucked under her knees, her feet swinging off-beat, the heels of her sneakers thudding against the wood. Beside her, Felicia Greenleaf stared at Carly as if taking her measure. They’d known each other for six weeks but she was always like this. Carly didn’t wonder at the events in a fourteen
year old’s background that would make her behave this way; she’d seen it all in her eleven years as a paramedic. Some people should never have kids.

The third girl she hadn’t met before.

‘Hi, I’m Carly.’

The girl looked past her and didn’t answer. She wore green thongs, high-cut denim shorts and a purple singlet top over a black sports bra. A bad tattoo of Bart Simpson decorated the top of
her thigh.

‘This is Paris Peters,’ John said.

‘Hi.’ Carly nodded. ‘How about we get started?’

John checked his watch. ‘Linsey’s supposed to be bringing Aaron.’

That little turd
. ‘Let’s start anyway.’

‘How’d your audition go?’

Good old Scotty Messent. Eyes in a chubby face like raisins pressed into dough, jeans stretched tight across an expansive middle, at fifteen years still a sponge soaking
up the world. She sometimes imagined taking him to auditions of his own and letting others see the fire of his actual acting talent. But foetal alcohol syndrome had left him with a spontaneous fury that had seen him kicked out of foster home after foster home until he found his own space on the street. She’d seen him let loose once and had been truly frightened, despite all the aggro she’d faced
down in her years on the job. Knowing the cattle-call nature of auditions, the blank-faced stares given by the casting agents and directors, it was a risk she could never take.

She smiled at him. ‘Waiting for word on one for cat food,’ she lied.

‘What are your lines?’

‘My pussy loves this shit.’ Mojo Tatler lay on the stage with his eyes closed. ‘My pussy looooves what my boyfriend serves up.’

Scott smashed his fist into Mojo’s thigh. ‘Don’t you talk to her like that!’

John Oberon was whip-fast, pulling Scott away, white-knuckled fingers deep in the flesh of his upper arm. ‘Enough.’

‘He started it,’ Scott whined.

Mojo was rubbing his leg. ‘Cockhead.’

‘Shut it,’ John snapped.

On the stage beside Mojo, Gary Saxby picked his fingernails with his head low between his shoulders. Brooke
and Felicia whispered together. Paris yawned.

Carly sighed.
I so shouldn’t have come.
She was getting a headache as well. But it was too late now.

‘Let’s do some improv,’ she said. ‘Let’s say we’re casting a new horror flm and need to find people for the different roles. I need a director, a killer, some victims –’

‘Bags killer,’ Mojo said.

‘I want to be the killer,’ Scotty Messent said.

‘We can have two killers,’ Carly said. ‘You have to work together.’

John drew her aside. ‘I don’t think this is appropriate, given what’s happened.’

‘They hardly seem traumatised.’ Gary was lying flat on the stage, Mojo and Scott appeared to have reached a truce with Mojo mock-strangling a laughing Scott, and the girls were looking at something on Brooke’s phone. ‘And if they are, isn’t reflecting
on it through activities like this a good thing?’

‘You can’t tell how they feel and you can’t know what’s good for them right now.’

‘Then we can’t say this is a bad thing.’

John shook his head. ‘There’ve been many studies that show –’

‘Fine. Whatever.’ She wasn’t in the mood for a lecture and went back to the group. ‘Sorry, guys, funding’s been cut and the project has been shelved.’

‘Aw!’

‘Bullshit.’

Carly said, ‘John’s going to tell you what to do instead.’

More groans. Brooke and Paris headed for the door.

‘None of that,’ John said. ‘Girls, come back, please.’

They slipped outside.

‘Your loss,’ John said. ‘The rest of you, think of new growth on trees, new buds coming through, of change taking place, change not only in the unfurling leaves but inside each and every one of
you.’

His words were hollow. Carly needed fresh air. At the doorway, she walked into Linsey and Aaron. Linsey gave her a look and Carly shook her head.

Aaron grabbed Mojo in a headlock. ‘Got interviewed by the cops this morning cos I kissed that dead chick.’

‘Dude!’

Outside, Brooke and Paris leaned against the wall with their cigarettes held by their thighs. The sun was lower and the speckled
shade from the gum tree danced in Carly’s eyes. She checked her mobile. Jury must still be out. Or else Mick was so shattered he couldn’t text.

Paris stood on her cigarette and walked back inside. Brooke looked across at Carly. ‘She reckons she sees ghosts.’

‘Really.’

Brooke nodded. ‘Says you’ve got a whole stack of them hanging around you.’

Ooookay.
‘What do you think?’

‘I’ve never seen
anything weird that would make me think they really exist.’

‘Me neither,’ Carly said.

Brooke took a long drag and looked out across the car park. ‘You been to something like that last night? That happened to Suzanne?’

‘I have,’ Carly said.

‘What’s it look like?’

‘Sometimes there’s blood and sometimes not.’ Carly chose her words carefully. ‘The injuries don’t look like you’d expect – they’re
often small and even neat. And the person always looks at peace.’

‘How can they when they died like that?’

‘The muscles are all relaxed.’

Brooke pushed her cigarette butt into the wall, grinding it in like she wanted to do the brick damage.

‘You okay?’ Carly said.

‘I met her coupla times at the nursery. Seemed a nice lady.’ She let the butt fall.

‘That’s what I heard.’

Brooke made no move
to go inside. Carly leaned against the wall beside her and looked at the sky.

Brooke said, ‘Do the cops know who did it?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘It’s wrong. It’s sad and fucking wrong.’

Carly saw something like distress in her eyes. ‘Are you okay?’

Brooke hesitated. ‘Is it true that a picture of the last person you see when you die stays on your eyeballs?’

Carly shook her head. ‘D’you know how
many eyes my picture would be on if it was?’

Brooke didn’t laugh. Emotions rushed across her face.

‘What are you worried about?’ Carly said.

‘Who said I was worried?’

Carly said, ‘I know some cops. Good people. Easy to talk to. If somebody was to know anything, I mean.’

‘All I said is that I met her.’

‘Yeah,’ Carly said. ‘I heard you.’

A car pulled up and three little girls in pink ballet
outfits jumped out.

‘Time’s up,’ Brooke said, and walked away.

*

The RTA’s idea of ‘right now’ is distinctly different to ours
, Ella thought. The photo they’d eventually sent showed the Crawfords’ red hatchback from the front, two people in the front seats. They both looked male, not short, not fat, one possibly with short dark hair, the one in the driver’s seat wearing a jacket with the hood
up. More than that was hard to say.

‘The one in the passenger seat could be Connor,’ Detective Steve Mitchell said.

‘If so, who’s he with?’ Ella said. ‘And now that we’ve found out Connor’s a New Zealander, what if they were headed for the airport?’

‘But we have his passport,’ Laurel Macy said.

‘Maybe he has a fake,’ Jen Katzen said. ‘He would know we know his real name and could fag him.’

‘Good call getting them to check that route,’ Dennis said to Lola. ‘How’s everyone feeling? Anyone need a break? Okay then, next lot of tasks.’

While he assigned jobs, including for people to show Suzanne’s photo at internet cafes in the CBD and to send Connor’s photo to airport security, Ella stared at the picture, trying to recognise Connor in either man, trying to understand what had happened
at the house and what it meant that Connor was apparently not alone in this. She stared until the image was just a collection of pixels, each as meaningless on its own as the clues they already held. They needed to find the key to the whole pattern.

When the detectives fled out of the room, she said to Dennis, ‘Stewart Bridges.’

S
tewart Bridges’ house in Stanmore was small, brown and closed up. Ella leaned on the door buzzer while Dennis looked down the narrow driveway at the side to the carport. ‘Car’s here,’ he said.

Ella let up for half a second then pressed again. She held it on even when she heard the locks being turned.

Bridges yanked the door back and glared at them. ‘I was asleep.’

‘Why were you driving
past the Crawfords’ house this morning?’ she said.

‘I told you, I was going past to see if they might still be up.’

‘This morning, I said. After the sun rose. Few hours ago. Ring a bell?’

He folded his arms. ‘I lost a good friend last night. I can’t quite get it through my head. I drove past thinking it might help.’

‘And did it?’

‘No.’

‘How often have you been dropping by?’ His gaze slid
over her shoulder. ‘You mean lately?’

‘I mean whenever,’ she said. ‘Would you call yourself a frequent visitor?’

‘Depends on your definition of frequent.’

‘Once or more each week,’ Dennis said.

Bridges screwed up his nose. ‘That’s not what I would call frequent.’

‘How often do you go there?’

‘We’re good friends. I like to visit my friends.’

Ella’s hackles were rising at his unhelpfulness.
‘Just answer the question.’

‘All I did was find her. I don’t know why you’re being so harsh.’

‘Because, Stewart, twice now we’ve found out things that you’d kept from us,’ she said. ‘First that you had an argument or discussion or something with some man on the street right outside their house, and now that you visited them frequently and were there again today.’

‘My friend got killed! I found
her body! How can you expect me to think straight?’

Dennis stepped towards him. ‘Mr Bridges, we’re just trying to work out the nature of your relationship with the Crawfords. Each time you lie, even by omission, it makes us wonder what’s really going on and how else you might be involved. That makes sense, doesn’t it?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘We want to find out who killed your friend as much as you
do,’ Dennis went on. ‘And to do that we need you to tell us why you go there so often.’