Web of Deceit (21 page)

The knife thwacked into the board. ‘Why does his past record mean more than what he’s doing today?’

‘It’s like in your job,’ she said. ‘Someone comes in with a history of heart attacks and the same pains, you look first at that, right?’

‘They’re completely different situations,’ he said. ‘What evidence do you have apart
from what this person said on the phone?’

She paused. ‘I don’t see why I need to justify myself.’

‘I’m not saying you do. I just think it’s a broad generalisation to say that criminals never change their ways.’

‘I never said that.’ She stared at him. He kept chopping, his eyes on the knife.

‘I’m talking about one man, not every prisoner,’ she said. ‘I’m not referring in
the slightest to your dad.’

‘Who said this is about him?’

‘I’m not an idiot,’ she said. ‘You’ve never jumped to the defence of any of my suspects before.’

‘We’ve never talked about your suspects before.’

He slapped a carrot onto the board. His cheeks were red. Ella couldn’t believe they’d gone from kissing to this so quickly.

‘So is this going to happen every time
I do it in the future?’ she said.

‘You tell me.’

She took a deep breath. ‘Look. Why don’t we back up a bit and start the conversation again. Let me help with dinner too.’

‘I’m not hungry any more.’

He dropped the knife and stalked out of the kitchen, grabbed his wine and went to the glass doors. Ella stared at his back, the blood thumping in her head. The man was full grown.
He was a doctor. And here he was acting like a child having a tantrum.

Just when you think things are going well, something always happens.

She ran through her options. She could walk out now without another word. She could go over to him and squeeze his arm, try to get him to talk. She could demand he turn and face her and admit that he was touchy about his dad. Or she could simply
speak to him, one adult to another.

‘Callum,’ she said. ‘How about –’

But he opened the glass door, stepped outside and slammed it shut behind him.

She stared after him and sucked her teeth.
Like that, is it?

She grabbed her bag off the end of the lounge and stalked out the front door, leaving it standing wide open.

*

One paramedic crew took Rebecca to St Vincent’s
Hospital, and another took Alex and Jane. Alex’s throat and neck were sore, but as he sat for the doctor’s examination he knew he was all right.

‘I’m perfectly fine,’ he said after the doctor had shone a light down his throat. ‘Couple of Panadol and I’ll be up and dancing.’

‘After we do an X-ray and make sure your hyoid bone and cervical spine are okay,’ the doctor said, tapping first
his larynx and then the back of his neck as if Alex didn’t know where those things were.

When the doctor had gone, he rolled his eyes at Jane, who sat on a plastic chair beside the bed. ‘I feel like a million bucks.’

‘That’s great, but you scared me half to death,’ she said.

He smiled at her. They’d already been down the corridor and seen Rebecca, the colour coming back in her
cheeks with fluid and blood transfusions, a plastic surgeon murmuring to her parents about her arms, a counsellor sitting quietly by the bed and listening as Rebecca talked. That was the important thing, Alex had thought, watching from the doorway: she was talking.

Rebecca had looked up and seen them, and smiled, and Alex had felt like his heart was going to burst.

‘A million bucks,’
he said again.

TWENTY

E
lla drove, snorting, back to the boatyard. Callum was being ridiculous. As if she meant that no criminal could ever be trusted again. Had she said anything, anything at all, to suggest that? She was merely stating facts. And she understood that he was sensitive about his dad, but jeez. That reaction.

She swung hard into the road down to the boatyard and
had to swerve to miss a dark grey Mazda coming out. ‘Idiot,’ she said aloud, glancing in the rear-view as it turned out onto the road, seeing that the numberplate ended with 733. She shook her head. Morons everywhere tonight.

Natasha Osborne’s pale blue truck was parked in the concrete yard. Ella pulled up beside it. The doors to the workshop shed were open again. Light shone out onto the
concrete, and a light was on in the flat upstairs. Beyond the building, the bay was black with night, the boats lost in the darkness, no candles visible anywhere. A breeze ran cool fingers along her neck as she walked to the open door. ‘Knock, knock.’

There was no answer.

She stepped in and let her eyes adjust. Fluorescent lights dangled on chains from the steel-beamed ceiling, and
three outboard motors were clamped to the side of a long workbench. A silent clock radio sat at the back of the bench, and tools hung neatly inside their outlines on a pegboard screwed to the wall above it, while drums of oil and grease were lined up underneath. Frames in the centre of the space held an upturned tinnie and another two outboard motors, plus a large piece of machinery that Ella guessed
was an engine from inside something bigger. At the back another smaller door stood open, a breeze blowing in and straight through the building.

At the far end of the shed, a flight of timber stairs led to an open door. She went up the stairs and knocked on the frame.

Inside, Canning and Natasha Osborne sat on opposite sides of a small square table covered with a yellow cloth, a bottle
of red wine, two half-full glasses, and a plate of cheese and crackers between them. They still wore their work clothes.

‘Hi,’ Ella said.

Osborne chewed and stared at her, while Canning put a slice of cheese down on his plate. ‘Detective.’

‘Lovely place you have here,’ Ella said. ‘Mind if I come in?’

She stepped inside without waiting for an answer. The floor was plain
boards, the kitchenette cheap white melamine with a tiny sink, the wall dividing it from the next room unpainted plasterboard with rough smears of filler over the nail holes. The breeze blew in through the open windows that faced the bay, flapping the curtains, bringing the smell of brine and seaweed. She could feel her pulse in the crooks of her arms, in the skin of her face.

‘Anything
in particular you’re after?’ Canning said. ‘Maybe I can help you find it.’

‘I’m just looking.’

Ella walked to the window and glanced down at the car park, then went to the open doorway into the next room. A red rug lay on the centre of the boards. A neatly made double bed with a blue quilt stood against one wall, a melamine wardrobe and chest of drawers against another, and in the
corner a doorway led into a small clean bathroom. It had a combined shower/bath and the curtain was dotted with pictures of fish. The toilet lid was closed. One orange and one green toothbrush stood with a tube of toothpaste in a glass on the sink. Ella opened the wardrobe and looked at the hanging shirts and trousers, then went back out.

Osborne’s cheeks were red. Canning said something
to her in a low voice.

‘Everything okay?’ Ella said.

‘You like looking through other people’s stuff?’ Osborne said. ‘Get your jollies that way?’

Ella smiled at her. ‘I wish.’ She peered out the kitchen window towards the water. ‘Are all those boats waiting to be worked on?’

‘No,’ Canning said. ‘They mostly belong to people who live nearby.’

‘Nice life if you can get
it.’ Ella looked into the sink. Another wineglass stood in the bottom. ‘You just had a visitor?’

‘No,’ Canning said.

Ella pointed to the glass.

‘That’s mine from earlier,’ he said.

Ella stared at him, thinking of the dark grey Mazda with the plate ending in 733. ‘Really.’

‘Yes,’ he said. His face was empty.

Natasha Osborne picked up her glass and drank. Ella
studied her, willing her to make eye contact, but she kept her gaze on the wall across the room. ‘So what are you guys working on at the moment?’

‘We
were
having supper,’ Osborne said.

Ella saw Canning touch her foot with his under the table. ‘We’ve been servicing outboards,’ he said.

‘You like the job?’

He nodded.

She glanced along the floor. ‘No pets?’

‘No.’

‘I thought places like this usually had cats,’ she said. ‘You know, so much fish around. You like cats, don’t you, Paul? Although I guess here, with water everywhere, there’s a high risk that a cat could drown.’

He didn’t blink. ‘I’ve never been one for domesticated animals.’

Ella held his gaze. ‘Some people just aren’t.’

Osborne scowled. ‘Do you always come into people’s
homes and ask such stupid questions?’

Ella smiled at her, then pushed off the bench. ‘Ask Paul there what I mean. You two enjoy the rest of your evening, won’t you?’

She shut the door, then walked down the stairs, back under the fluorescent lights and outside. She took a long look in the windows and tray of Osborne’s truck, then turned to smile and wave at the white net curtains before
she got into her car. She couldn’t see them, but that didn’t mean they weren’t watching.

*

Alex had to wait a couple of hours for the all clear, but once that was done they went back to station, showered and changed, then spent over an hour filling out paperwork on the incident. When that was done, the supervisor told them they’d been signed off for the rest of the shift, and to go
home.

Jane and Alex stood in the plant room and watched him drive out.

‘Are you going?’ Jane said. ‘I don’t want to.’

Alex looked at his watch. It was just after midnight. ‘I’ll wake Mia and Louise if I go home now.’

He didn’t want to leave, anyway. He’d thought they would keep working, but if they weren’t going to work, it would be nice to sit on station. And Jane would
otherwise be going home to an empty house.

‘Cup of tea?’ he said.

They shut the station doors and went inside, made tea and kicked back in the recliners.

‘What a day,’ Jane said.

He looked at her. ‘How’s your face?’

‘Forget about that, how’s your neck? I thought I was going to kill you.’

‘I never thought that,’ he said. ‘I thought, I’ll just hang on to her and
you’ll pull us up. I never doubted it.’

‘Well –’ she began, then her voice broke, and she started to cry. She put her cup on the floor and her face in her hands and wept.

Alex squeezed her shoulder.

‘I thought you were both going to die. I thought she’d lost so much blood, and I was choking you to death right there, and wouldn’t be able to get you up in time. I thought –’ She
shook her head.

‘But we didn’t. You saved us both. Even with your fear of heights. You went out over that railing and you saved us.’

He knelt by her chair and put his arms around her. He felt her tears on his neck and a lump in his own throat. ‘It’s going to be okay.’

And it was. Not just this – everything. Saving Rebecca had fixed something that’d been broken when he couldn’t
save the girl in the car.

Say her name. It’s not a jinx. Mia. Just like his own.

He’d done his best, but he couldn’t save her. But today he’d done his best, and this time he and Jane
had
saved someone. And everything really was going to be okay.

*

He woke to the buzzing of his mobile. They were still in the recliners, Jane half-curled on her side, her hands tucked between
her knees. She’d cried herself out, then they’d talked for a while, then dozed off. He could see the windows were light and realised he hadn’t dreamed about the girl. He guessed it was close to seven even before he got the mobile out of his pocket and saw the time. Seven ten. Louise calling him. He sat upright.

‘Louise?’

‘Oh my God, Alex, I’m so sorry –’

He was on his feet, heart
hammering. ‘What’s happened?’

‘She’s gone, I don’t know where or when. I went to wake her up and she’s gone.’

Alex turned cold.

Jane blinked up at him. ‘What’s the matter?’

‘Was the door locked?’ he said into the phone.

‘Yes, it’s all locked up. She must’ve let herself out –’

‘What time did you check her?’

‘Alex, I’m so sorry, I didn’t. I know I tell you
that I always do, but –’

‘I’m on my way.’ He hung up on her.

Jane was staring at him.

He said, ‘Mia’s gone.’

Jinx.

*

On the way into the office, Ella stopped at the cafe on the ground floor for a proper coffee. Her improved mood after needling Canning had dissipated overnight, then been killed altogether by the shouts, radios and nail guns of the builders who
were back on their site next door. Callum hadn’t called to apologise either.
Well, stuff him.

Coming back out into the bright morning sunshine, she saw a car pull into the bus zone. Murray got out of the passenger door, and Ella slowed as she saw the driver’s door open and a tall woman with long dark hair run around the front of the car. She laid one hand flat on Murray’s tie and placed
the other in the small of his back, pulling him towards her. Murray was laughing as she talked, close to his face, and they kissed. They parted, Murray raising a hand as the woman climbed back behind the wheel and drove off.

Ella caught up with him in the foyer and they stepped into the lift together. The doors closed. He was smiling. ‘Nice morning.’

Stupid love.

‘That cop Paterson
rang me back last night,’ she said. ‘Meixner was getting harassed before he testified, but Canning had alibis, all the witnesses for which Paterson reckons had been threatened.’

He faced her. ‘This wasn’t in the file.’

‘His superior officer said it was nothing. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?’ The lift doors opened and she stalked out.

‘Hang on,’ Murray said, following. ‘What sort
of harassment? How could they leave it out of the file?’

She stopped in the corridor and told him about the cat, the broken windows, the car that followed Marko, and about Paterson’s colleague’s response.

‘You know what Langley’s going to say if you tell him,’ Murray said.

‘What do you mean if?’

‘He’ll say it’s more proof that it was hallucinations or whatever. Meixner
thought someone was following him back then, just like he thought when he crashed Truscott’s car.’

Ella shook her head and was about to speak when the lift pinged and the doors opened. A young guy holding a big flat pink cardboard box stepped out and looked both ways in the corridor, then at them. ‘Uh, where would I find a Detective Marconi?’

‘Right here.’ Murray pointed at Ella.

The guy handed her the box, then stepped back into the lift. ‘Enjoy,’ he said as the doors closed.

The box was light. She could smell sugary food. She felt disbelief and annoyance in equal amounts.

‘Open it,’ Murray said. ‘What, you think it’s a bomb?’

‘I don’t want it whatever it is.’

‘Who’s it from?’

‘What makes you think I know?’

‘I bet I know.’ He grinned.
‘Open it.’

‘You open it.’

He took it from her and peeled off the sticky tape that held the lid down. ‘Ooh, donuts. And a note.’ He handed her the sealed envelope and showed her the array of iced and sugar-dusted donuts.

She crumpled the envelope in her fist. ‘Throw them out.’

‘No way,’ he said, and took them with him into the meeting room.

Left alone in the corridor,
tense and angry, she ripped the back off the envelope and opened the card inside. The front had a picture of a red flower. Inside, in blue pen, were the words,
I’m sorry. Can we please talk? C.

‘You have got to be joking,’ she said aloud, and ripped the card in half.

*

Alex stood in Mia’s room, Jane silent behind him. The bed hadn’t been slept in. The quilt was rumpled, as if
she’d lain on it while waiting, counting down time, but she hadn’t got in. That meant she’d left after she’d said good night to Louise and come upstairs. If he’d come home from work at midnight he would’ve checked her, and seen that she was like this, and been able to stop it all.

Louise, who’d lied about looking in on Mia each night as he’d asked, was sitting downstairs, crying. He’d told
her she had to wait to talk to the police. She’d said she had her job at a childcare centre to go to, but he’d made her phone in sick.

She’s gone. You thought it would all be fine. You tempted fate and thought life was good and now she’s gone.

He’d thought the fear he’d felt on the roof was bad.

‘Let’s do this methodically,’ Jane said. ‘Is her schoolbag here? How about clothes?
Toiletries? Does she have much money? Or a diary?’

‘That won’t help us find her,’ he said.

‘But we’ll be able to tell the police how well she prepared.’

Jane went to the dresser and pulled out the top drawer, but Alex ignored her and went to the desk. Mia’s desktop computer was on, and he moved the mouse to wake the screen. Homework documents, internet, email. He clicked on the
email first. It asked for a password. He typed in
jdbieber1394
but was rejected. He put in her own name and birthdate in various combinations, but they were all rejected.

When Mia first got email and Facebook accounts, Alex had made it a rule that he knew her passwords, and he’d looked at both accounts a few times, but she and her friends just complained about homework and parents’ rules,
or raved about boys in bands and on TV. He hadn’t checked for a few months, thinking he should give her some privacy; a teenaged girl didn’t want her dad to know everything she thought and felt. Now, as he stared around her room, he kicked himself. He should’ve realised that when the posters on her bedroom wall changed, so would other things.