Deserving Death (3 page)

‘Tell us about this ex-boyfriend,’ Ella said.

‘His name’s John Morris. He’s a cop, works in the city. They were together maybe six months. They broke up about three or four weeks ago.’

Ella didn’t know Morris and couldn’t tell from Murray’s face whether he did. They weren’t going to talk about it now though.

‘Did she tell you why?’ she asked.

‘Because he got it on with some chick at a party,’ Tessa said. ‘Alicia wasn’t going, then changed her mind. She turned up and saw him in the corner with his paws up this girl’s shirt. She went right over and dumped him on the spot.’

Ella said, ‘How’d he take it?’

‘Apparently he said someone spiked his drink, he didn’t know what he was doing, begged for her forgiveness,’ Tessa said. ‘But that was it for her.’

‘How well do you know John?’ Murray asked.

‘A bit. Alicia’s always trying to set me up with guys she knows and so I went on double dates with them a few times. He’s an okay guy.’

‘Even though he cheated on your friend?’ Ella said.

‘I don’t think she was that in love with him anyway,’ Tessa said. ‘They hadn’t been getting on very well. Like, she’d had recertification exams and he didn’t seem to get how much she had to study. Then when she did free up some time, he went off with his mates instead. She hadn’t seemed happy for a while.’

A magpie started to sing on the roof of Bayliss’s house. Tessa looked at it and then at the open door and teared up again.

Ella touched her arm. ‘Just a few more questions. Had Alicia ever said that she’d been threatened, or someone had tried to break into her home, anything like that?’

Tessa shook her head.

‘How long have you and Alicia been friends?’

‘About two years.’ She was crying now.

‘Where does Alicia’s family live?’

‘Her parents and one brother are in Melbourne. Her other brother’s in Canberra.’

‘Have you been in contact with Hannah or Kristen since you got here?’ Murray asked.

‘No.’

‘Please don’t speak to them before we get a chance to,’ he said. ‘Let us tell them.’

Tessa pressed her lips together and nodded.

‘Did you know Maxine Hardwick?’ Ella asked.

Tessa shook her head.

‘Do you know if Alicia knew her?’

‘I’m positive she didn’t,’ Tessa said. ‘We talked about it back when it happened and she said it was awful. She would’ve mentioned if she knew her.’

Ella nodded. ‘Finally, did you or Carly touch anything in the house?’

‘I touched her cheek,’ Tessa said. ‘I knew what I was looking at but I couldn’t believe it. I had to touch her. She was cold.’

Ella squeezed her hand. ‘Thanks.’

As they walked back towards the ambulance and the second paramedic, Ella murmured to Murray, ‘Do you know John Morris?’

‘Don’t you?’

‘You make it sound like I should,’ she said. ‘Why?’

He shook his head. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

Three

T
he second paramedic was still sitting on the step at the back of the ambulance, and got to her feet as they approached. Ella recognised her. ‘Carly Martens, correct?’

The woman nodded. ‘Detective Maroney.’

‘Marconi,’ Ella said. ‘This is Detective Murray Shakespeare.’ Murray had been in the Drug Squad and Ella had been working with Dennis when Carly helped them with a case – she’d got a teenage girl to tell them the truth about a whole lot of crucial stuff. ‘You still helping out with the at-risk kids?’

‘No. That program was shut down after everything that happened.’ She looked like she was going to say more, but didn’t.

Ella watched her tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. Her short bob was smooth and brown with reddish streaks. She wore no make-up, but her eyes were red and her face was so pale it looked tinged with green. She turned a mobile phone around and around in her hand. Ella could see she was trying not to look at the house. Carly gave them her full name, date of birth and address.

‘How long have you been friends with Alicia?’ Ella asked.

‘Five years. We became friends when we did a course together. I’m friends with her brother Chris too. I was wondering, uh, who’d tell him. Should I call?’

‘We’ll talk about that in a moment,’ Ella said. ‘Do you go out as a group often?’

‘Maybe once a month, if the rosters line up.’

‘What happened last night?’ Murray asked.

She told the same tale as Tessa – the five of them at Castro’s, drinks and dancing, no recreational drugs, the taxi home.

‘How was Alicia during the evening?’ Ella asked.

‘Great,’ Carly said. ‘Happy. She’d had the day off and was ready to dance, she said. And she was teasing me.’

‘About what?’ Ella said.

Carly tucked her hair back again. ‘These ads that are coming out with my face on them. Ads for the job, saying how great paramedics are, that sort of thing. I’d told her about it, but the others didn’t know and I was trying to shush her.’ A light blush rose in her cheeks. ‘It’s because of the stuff that’s been going on. They want to try to make us look good again.’

Ella nodded. The recent media stink about deaths as a result of ambulance delays had been huge. ‘Did anything unusual happen while you were at the club?’

‘Nothing,’ she said, then a light dawned in her eyes. ‘No, hang on. There was something. Alicia and Kristen went to the loo and when they got back Kristen started saying something about some guy but Alicia butted in and changed the subject.’

‘Something had happened?’ Ella said.

‘That’s how it seemed. I didn’t pay much attention because we started on another round of drinks.’

‘Neither she nor Kristen got back to the subject?’ Murray asked.

Carly shook her head.

They’d talk to Kristen and find out for sure.

Ella said, ‘So no guys came up for a chat, trying to join you, hassling you?’

‘Only Tessa’s brother, Robbie,’ Carly said. ‘He was just saying hi though.’

Tessa hadn’t mentioned that. Ella looked along the street to where she stood under the tree, head down, texting with flying fingers. ‘Excuse me,’ she said, and walked towards her.

‘You forgot to tell us your brother was at the club,’ she said.

Tessa lowered the phone. ‘You asked about unusual things or guys perving on us. There were none of those.’

‘Why was Robbie there?’

‘Having a night out with some friends, I suppose,’ Tessa said. She seemed defensive. ‘He just came over to say hi and then he left.’

‘Tell me about him.’

‘All he said was hi.’

‘He might’ve seen something that you and your friends missed,’ Ella said.

Tessa sighed, then told her. He was twenty-two, worked in a whitegoods and electronics store in Bondi, and lived with some mates in Surry Hills. Ella wrote down the address and mobile number Tessa gave her.

‘Anyone else come up for a chat?’

‘No,’ Tessa said.

‘You’re sure?’

‘Ask Carly if you don’t believe me.’

Oh, I will.
‘Don’t tell your brother about any of this either,’ Ella said.

‘I already have.’ Tessa held up her phone, open on the text screen. ‘I didn’t realise that would be a problem. You only mentioned the girls.’

‘I only knew about the girls,’ Ella said. ‘Don’t say a word about this to anyone. Does that cover it all now?’

Tessa shrugged and nodded, and went to put her phone in her pocket.

‘Hold it,’ Ella said. ‘What’s Alicia’s mobile number?’

Tessa scrolled through her contacts and read it out. Ella entered it into her own phone, then gave Tessa a stern cop look before turning away.

She went back into Bayliss’s house. The scene officers were packing up their gear in the bedroom. The body lay motionless on the bed, a vortex that sucked the air from the room.

‘Find a mobile anywhere?’ Ella asked.

‘Nope.’

She pressed to call Bayliss’s number, and listened for a ring or the low buzz of a silenced phone set to vibrate. ‘Hear anything?’

‘Nope,’ they said again.

Voicemail picked up. ‘
Hi, it’s Alicia. You know what to do.
’ Ella listened to the silence after the beep, then hung up.

‘Let me know if you do find it,’ she said.

‘Sure.’

She went back to the ambulance where Murray was still talking to Carly.

‘I thought Alicia was joking when she said she’d asked Dave to move,’ Carly was saying. ‘But she told me he’d asked her out, and then anytime he had a couple of drinks he’d go on and on about it again. She was sick of it, she said.’

‘What about her ex-boyfriend, John Morris?’ Murray said. ‘What’s the story there?’

‘I wasn’t surprised when they broke up. They argued a lot, and she was pretty fed up, so when she caught him groping this girl at a party that was the final straw.’

‘Did she say what she was fed up about specifically?’ Ella asked.

‘He seemed to expect her to fit in with his life and his shifts but didn’t give her the same courtesy,’ Carly said.

‘Were you at the party too?’

‘No, it was an engagement do for one of their cop friends. His cop friend now, I suppose.’

‘Do you know John yourself?’ Ella asked.

‘Not well. When he and Alicia did stuff together they tended to do it without us. I see him on the road sometimes and we say hi, but that’s all. I did see them fighting last week though. At RPA emergency. She’d been waiting with a patient and he’d come in with a prisoner. I saw them in a corridor. He had hold of her wrist and was in her face about something.’

‘Did you find out what they were arguing about?’

Carly shook her head. ‘I asked Alicia afterwards if she was okay and she brushed it off. Kristen was on that day and she told me later that she’d seen them too, but she didn’t know either.’

‘Had you seen him grab her like that before?’ Murray asked.

‘No,’ Carly said. ‘And Alicia never mentioned that he did.’

Ella nodded. ‘This morning, did you or Tessa touch anything in the house?’

‘The door was already open, and it was gloomy in the hall but we didn’t turn on any lights.’ She swallowed. ‘In her bedroom you could see . . . the sun coming in the window meant you could see everything. I told Tessa not to touch anything. I could see that . . . I could see we had to get out of there. Tessa touched her, I don’t know why. It was obvious that she was gone.’

Ella saw that she was pinching the skin on the inside of her wrist. There was already a small fresh bruise there.

‘And you didn’t touch anything on the way out?’ Murray asked.

Carly shook her head wordlessly.

‘Have you told anyone what happened?’ Ella said.

‘Only the controller.’

‘Nobody else?’

Another shake of her head.

‘Please don’t,’ Ella said. ‘It’s important for the investigation.’

‘Not even her brother?’ Carly said.

‘We’ll look after that,’ Ella said. ‘One more thing: did you or Alicia know Maxine Hardwick?’

‘No,’ Carly said.

A white station wagon tore into the street, followed by a news van. Ella glanced at the uniformed officers standing by the gate and the older one followed her nod and started walking that way. She wanted the gawkers and news crew kept as far back as possible, at least until the body was carried out and the paramedics themselves had gone.

The white car screeched to a stop and a thin man in jeans and a grey T-shirt leapt out and ran towards them.

‘It’s our boss, Mark,’ Carly said.

Ella motioned for the uniform to let him through.

He reached them, gasping. Ella pegged him as mid-forties. He was unshaven and pale beneath the stubble. He grasped Carly’s arm. ‘It’s not true?’

She nodded just as Tessa rushed from the front of the ambulance and flung her arms around him.

‘Detectives Ella Marconi and Murray Shakespeare,’ Ella said.

‘Mark Vardy,’ he said over Tessa’s shaking shoulder. ‘Station manager at The Rocks. Alicia’s boss.’ Tears in his eyes, he looked at the house. His face was narrow, almost gaunt.

‘How did you hear about this?’ Ella said.

‘Control rang me. I was in Ikea, just around the corner.’

He squeezed Carly’s hand. Ella observed that she didn’t seem to feel the need for more contact, in contrast to Tessa who had her face pressed into his neck.

‘We’ll need to ask you a few questions,’ Murray said, motioning him away.

Mark prised Tessa off. She wiped her face with both hands and didn’t look at anyone. Mark followed Ella and Murray to the kerb.

‘How long have you known Alicia?’ Ella asked.

‘A couple of years.’

‘How does she get on with the other officers?’

‘Brilliantly,’ Mark said. ‘No problems at all. She’s good mates with both Carly and Tessa, but she gets on well with everyone.’

‘Has she had any issues with patients lately?’ Murray asked. ‘Or anyone else – bystanders, someone like that?’

‘No. She and I’ve worked together for the past nine weeks, and there’s been nothing.’

‘We know she recently broke up with her boyfriend,’ Ella said. ‘Did she talk to you about that?’

He nodded. ‘Long shifts in a vehicle together, you end up talking about everything. I knew there’d been arguments and a few times I overheard angry phone calls. About six weeks ago she started talking about breaking up – whether they should, or if things could be fixed.’ He turned his wedding ring on his finger as he spoke. ‘How you could know whether you were in love, that sort of thing. How to know when it was worth fighting for.’

‘She’s asking you this because you’re married?’ Ella said.

‘Eleven years, but I think mainly she was asking because she needed to talk.’

Another two news vans had arrived. Cars drove around them and parked, detectives getting out. Murray went to brief them and get the street canvass underway.

‘Did Alicia talk about Dave Hibbins, her housemate?’ Ella asked Mark.

‘She did. They got on well until she split with John, then she said he turned a bit creepy and she asked him to move out.’

‘Creepy how?’

‘Asked her out, didn’t seem to accept no as an answer, dropped hints about sharing a bed on cold nights. That sort of thing.’

No wonder she booted him, Ella thought.

Mark looked at the ambulance. Tessa sat on the back step, forehead in her hands. Carly stood with her back pressed against the vehicle, shoulders hunched, fists jammed in her pockets. ‘Poor things,’ he said. ‘When can they go?’

‘Soon,’ Ella said. ‘When did you last see Alicia?’

‘Eight o’clock Saturday morning, when we finished our nightshift.’

‘Did she say what she was doing over the weekend?’

‘She was going out last night, with Carly and Tessa and a couple of other friends, but that’s all I remember.’

Ella let him go back to his officers, then looked around the street. The neighbour who’d found Alicia was still sitting on her step, a cat rolling over at her feet as Detectives Marion Pilsiger and Reece Bennett drew near. Other detectives had started the door-to-door questioning. Ella hoped that somebody had seen or heard something. She herself was itching to get on and talk to Dave Hibbins and John Morris – and find out what Murray knew about him – and to Kristen Szabo and Hannah Dodds. Then there was Robbie Kimball and whatever was going on there, including why his sister hadn’t mentioned him. Something told Ella that the reason Tessa had given wasn’t the whole truth.

It was time to get moving.