Violent Exposure (6 page)

‘And then what?’

‘Suzanne said she didn’t want to go to hospital, and really she didn’t need to, she was fine, and then the cops turned up and we left.’

‘Did you tell Carly what had happened?’

‘No. Why would I? Like I said, I thought Suzanne was joking.’

‘But she did ring you?’

‘About eleven this morning. I mean, yesterday morning. I was
asleep. She wanted to meet for lunch and asked where I lived. She said she loved Vietnamese food and she knew this great place right near me, so we met there. Then she wanted to come back to my flat. So I took her.’

‘And then what?’

‘We had sex.’

‘You seem proud,’ Ella said.

He shrugged. ‘It is what it is.’

‘Use a condom?’

‘Of course.’

‘How long was she there for?’

‘Maybe an hour and a
half.’

‘Then what?’

‘She left.’

‘How?’ Ella said. ‘Drove her car? Train? What?’

‘Taxi,’ he said. ‘She rang it on her mobile from my place and the guy beeped his horn like five minutes later.’

‘You go and see her off?’

He shook his head. ‘She didn’t want me to.’

‘Were you planning to meet again?’

‘We didn’t talk about it.’

‘But you hoped you would?’

‘It was up to her,’ he said. ‘She had
my number. If she called, she called. If she didn’t, she didn’t.’

Ella considered him for a moment. ‘Did you tell anyone?’

‘Only Mick, my training officer, just before we got the job at her house. I didn’t say it was her though.’

‘Did she get any calls on her mobile while she was with you?’

‘No.’

‘Did she make any?’

‘Only for the taxi.’

‘Which company was it?’

‘I don’t know.’ Aidan glanced
at Dennis then back at Ella. ‘Did you find her husband?’

‘Not yet,’ Ella said.

For the first time he seemed hesitant. ‘Do you think it happened because of me?’

‘We don’t know.’

He looked down. Ella let the room fall silent. There was more than a good chance the hook-up was Crawford’s motivation for murder. Only a fool would fail to know it, and not even Aidan seemed that thick.

Mick came
to pick Aidan up when they were finished. From the waiting room, Ella watched him climb into the ambulance with his head down. ‘Reckon Mick’ll rip him a new one?’

‘That or give him the silent treatment,’ Dennis said. His phone rang and he answered, talked for a moment, then hung up. ‘They found the knife.’

Dennis parked at the end of the line of police vehicles outside the Crawfords’ address.
Ella was out and crossing the footpath in an instant. All the lights were on in the house and an officer in a blue suit and booties crouched just inside the front door. The grouped neighbours had gone, as had the media. There was only so much to see.

The gloved-up senior scene officer met them at the foot of the narrow driveway and led them towards the garage at the rear. Pebbles crunched underfoot
and sensor lights fixed to the wall of the house came on as they walked. A photographer crouched close to the thick box hedge, lining up a shot into the greenery. The scene officer waited until she’d finished then clicked on a torch.

Ella saw a bloodstained, long-bladed knife caught deep in the foliage. Broken twigs suggested it had been thrust there with force.

The scene officer opened an evidence
bag. The photographer took pictures of him extracting the knife carefully by the very end of the handle, then slipping it into the bag. He turned it under the light. It looked like a standard carving knife, about twenty centimetres long, with a stainless-steel blade and black plastic handle. Ella saw prints in the dry blood on the handle.

‘Beautiful,’ she said.

Ella felt the familiar tingling
in her spine, the rush of picking up the trail of her prey.

She said to Dennis, ‘Maybe Bridges coming to the front door sent Crawford rushing out the back. He fell over and broke the pots and ivy, then took off in his car. Shoves the knife in there as he goes.’

‘If that’s the case, Bridges would’ve seen him drive out,’ Dennis said.

‘It wouldn’t be the first fact he’s handily forgotten.’

The
security lights went out and Dennis waved an arm. ‘Also, she’d been dead a while before Bridges found her, so Crawford would’ve had to have hung around her all that time.’

‘So maybe he left straightaway instead,’ Ella said. ‘Felt horrified by what he’d done and wanted to get away as quickly as he could. Took off running, slipped over, drove away.’

‘Why leave the knife here? Why not take it with
him and dump it miles away?’

Ella shrugged. ‘Bad guys are stupid.’

Dennis turned to the scene officer. ‘See anything notable on next of kin during your travels in there?’

‘There’s an address book in the little office upstairs. You’re right to go in now.’ They went inside. Ella climbed the stairs slowly, looking around. Framed modern art prints hung straight on the walls in the stairwell, every
piece of the dark wood and leather furniture in the upstairs rooms was clean and undisturbed, nothing was shattered or broken or apparently out of place. In the main bedroom, a plasma TV on the wall was turned off. The right side of the bed was neat while on the left the covers were pushed down. On that side the small lamp was on and a book lay closed on the table. A woman’s silver watch and a
pink mobile phone had been placed on top. Ella bagged the phone to give to the scene officer.

‘So she’s in bed,’ she said. ‘Maybe he makes a noise downstairs. She goes down to see and he stabs her. Or maybe she goes down for some other reason – cup of tea, glass of milk – same result.’

Dennis nodded. ‘Certainly didn’t appear to begin up here.’

The office was small and overlooked the street.
The blinds were partly open and angled so that Ella could see the cops talking on the footpath. The desktop computer was on, the screen blank, but when she poked the mouse with the tip of a pen the screen asked for a password. There were no notes taped to the monitor or the noticeboard with possible answers.

‘Job for the techheads,’ she said.

Dennis phoned Hepburn to arrange it.

The address
book was tucked beside the monitor. Ella turned to M and found a listing for ‘Mum and Dad’ with an address in Lane Cove. The handwriting was small and neat. On a whiteboard fixed to the wall, the same handwriting said:
Connor, don’t forget the BAS!

‘Don’t hang up.’ She held out the book.

Dennis read the information to Hepburn, then wrote down the names the system returned. ‘William and Lydia
Sheppard.’

Ella took the book back but couldn’t find any listings for another ‘Mum and Dad’ or for anyone named Crawford. They searched the papers on the desk and in the drawers but found only documents to do with the Crawfords’ business – a nursery near Moore Park. There was nothing, anywhere, about Connor’s family.

The eastern sky was just starting to turn from deep blue to purple as they
drove across the bridge then through the northern Sydney suburbs to Lane Cove.

William and Lydia Sheppard’s house was a Tudor-style two storey. In the glow of the streetlight Ella could see that the dew-covered lawn was short and neat. The weed-free garden beds were edged with curved concrete strips and the letterbox stood on a fancy wrought-iron leg in the centre of a perfect circle of clean
white pebbles.

‘Money,’ Dennis said.

‘Maybe there was life insurance.’

Dennis got out and shut the door. The sound was loud in the empty street. Ella pushed hers until it latched, then walked around the car and up to the dark house, a bomb hurtling towards this quiet suburban life.

Dennis slowed his pace and she found herself in front. She felt a little sick.

A sensor light came on as they
stepped onto the verandah. The place was chockers with plants, in pots on the varnished floorboards, in hanging baskets, in little sideways pots on the wall. She took a lungful of fresh morning air and pressed the doorbell.

Then the wait. Dennis looked at his shoes. Ella stared into the dark glass in the door. No lights. No sounds. The sensor light overhead went off and she stepped sideways in
the dark to trigger it.

Dennis suddenly sneezed and she slapped his arm. ‘Scared me.’

He grinned.

A longer press of the doorbell this time. Ella heard it chime through the house. Possibilities ran through her head. They might be away. They might be . . . dead. Maybe Connor had been here too. She looked at the door. It was definitely closed. But was it locked? She was reaching for the handle
when lights came on in the house and she heard the distant sound of footsteps and muffled voices.

Another big breath. Straighten the shoulders. Get the badge out. She always felt time ticking at this point, the seconds counting down to the moment these people’s world exploded.

The hall light went on and somebody came up to the door. ‘Who is it?’

‘Police, sir.’

The lock turned and the door
opened to the extent allowed by the chain. The man who looked out was in his sixties, grey hair standing up, cheek creased from sleep, but blue eyes alert and alarmed.

Ella held up her badge. ‘William Sheppard?’

‘Yes.’

‘May we come in, please?’

‘This is . . . is it . . .’ Distress on his face.

Ella nodded gently at him. Everyone knew that cops didn’t come to your door at night – or at any
time – to tell you something good.

He closed the door and slid the chain off and opened it wide. He wore a long navy bathrobe and his veined feet were bare beneath it.

A woman was standing down the hallway in a matching robe, fear on her face.

‘Lydia Sheppard?’ Ella said.

She nodded.

‘I’m Detective Marconi, this is Detective Orchard. Is there somewhere we can talk, please?’

Lydia went into
a living room on their right and turned on the lights. Her husband came in and took her hand. They stayed on their feet.

Ella and Dennis faced them.

‘I’m afraid I have some bad news,’ Ella began. ‘There was an incident tonight at your daughter Suzanne’s house. I’m very sorry but she has died.’

That sound, that first, horrible, animalistic sound. Ella lowered her gaze as the couple clung to
each other. Dennis turned his face away.

‘We’re very sorry,’ she said again, when the sobbing quietened a little.

‘What happened?’

‘Perhaps we could sit?’

They lurched to the lounge.

Ella took the chair opposite them. ‘She was assaulted.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She suffered a number of injuries –’

‘What sort? Please, just say it!’

‘I’m sorry to say she was stabbed.’ Such a violent word.

The Sheppards recoiled. ‘Oh my God, oh my God,’ William said.

‘Who did it?’ Lydia said.

‘We’re not sure yet.’

‘Is Connor okay?’

‘He’s missing,’ Ella said.

‘What?’ Confusion filled Lydia’s face. ‘How?’

‘We’re not certain yet what happened,’ Dennis said.

‘But you have some idea,’ William said, his tone rising. ‘You have some idea, don’t you?’

‘We can’t really –’

‘What did he do?’

‘Please,
Mr Sheppard,’ Ella said, but he was on his feet, tears streaming down his white face, hands fisted and shaking.

‘What did he
do
to my
girl
?’

‘Mr Sheppard, please. We need your help.’

Weeping, Lydia pulled on his robe and he slumped onto the lounge.

‘We’re very sorry but we need to ask you some questions,’ Dennis said. ‘It will really help us sort out what’s happened, and find Connor.’

‘Okay,’
William whispered through his tears.

‘First, could you confirm that this is Suzanne and Connor in this photo, please?’

They looked at the picture Ella held out, the one she’d taken from the living room of the house.

‘That’s them,’ Lydia said.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Mr Sheppard, is there a particular reason you feel that Connor may have hurt Suzanne?’

‘Just little things.’ He wiped his eyes.
‘Suzanne told me I was being silly.’

‘What kind of little things?’

‘A couple of times I saw bruises on her arms,’ he managed to get out. ‘She said she was always bumping herself at the nursery, moving big pots around. But I don’t know. I thought . . . I thought they almost looked like somebody with big hands had held her too tight.’

‘Did you see them too, Mrs Sheppard?’

‘They just looked like
bruises to me,’ she wept. ‘I thought Connor was lovely. I thought William was being overprotective. I thought it was just because she was Daddy’s little girl and nobody could ever be good enough.’

William pulled her close.

Ella waited a moment. ‘Anything else?’

‘Sometimes he spoke harshly to her,’ William said, wet eyes far away. ‘I thought, if he does that in front of us, what does he do in
private?’

It wasn’t much to go on but it helped build a picture. ‘When did they get married?’

‘Four years ago.’ William blew his nose. ‘They went on a holiday to the States and did it then.’

‘How well do you know Connor’s family?’

‘He doesn’t have any. His parents are dead and he was an only child.’

‘Did he ever speak of other relatives?’

‘Suzie . . .’ Tears filled William’s eyes again.
‘She told me he has none. No cousins or anything.’

‘May we ask, do you have any other children?’

‘Suzie was our only one.’

Ella nodded. ‘When did you last speak to Suzanne or Connor?’

‘We haven’t seen or spoken to him since lunch on – what day was that?’ Lydia said.

‘Monday,’ William said. ‘But I talked to Suzie on the phone two days ago. She sounded well. Happy.’

‘Were they having money
problems? Trouble with anyone they knew?’

Lydia shook her head. ‘The nursery’s going well. There was never any hint that something was wrong. They ran it together. They loved it.’

Ella scrawled a star in her notebook. Times were tough and any business was bound to be suffering. Money could be the root of this evil too.