Deserving Death (4 page)

Four

C
arly drove, stop-start, back along King Street in Newtown, seeing but not seeing the cars crawling along in front, the darting pedestrians, the sunshine pouring down.

The lights turned red and she braked, then looked at Tessa, silent and unmoving in the passenger seat, her arms covered in goose bumps despite the sunlight that filled the cabin. Carly switched off the air conditioning.

Ten, fifteen minutes and they’d be back at the station, then could go home. Mark had sorted it out with Control. There’d be a debrief first, the duty supervisor scheduled to meet them there and talk about what had happened and whether they were coping, then they’d walk out of the station and wonder if it was the same day, the same world, as when they’d walked in earlier that morning.

Alicia was dead. Carly couldn’t seem to get the fact into her brain. And then that Detective Marconi had turned up. Her card sat in Carly’s shirt pocket. Carly wasn’t one for signs or portents, but what did it mean when you made a teenage girl cooperate with a detective and that girl later killed herself over it, and the friend who supported you through your guilt and pain was later murdered and that same detective was on the case? She pressed her hands flat against her thighs and tried to think about Linsey instead.

‘You know Robbie had nothing to do with it,’ Tessa said.

Carly looked at her. ‘What?’

‘You told the cops that Robbie was there. It was irrelevant.’

‘I said he was at the club because he was.’

‘You shouldn’t have said it.’

‘They need to know everything so they can cross people off their list and nail the guy who did it.’

‘It makes him look bad,’ Tessa said.

‘How? He was in the club, and so were we. So what?’

‘The last thing he needs is the cops tramping through his work. You know he only just got that job.’

Carly stared at her. ‘Our friend’s been murdered and you’re worried about what your brother’s boss might say?’

‘Don’t say it like that. It’s not like I can only care about one or the other.’

Carly was about to reply when a woman darted up and hammered on Tessa’s window. Tessa flinched as if she was about to be hit.

‘Quick!’ the woman shouted through the glass, gesturing wildly into the side street then rushing away in that direction.

Heart jumping, Carly twisted the wheel to follow her.

‘We’ve signed off,’ Tessa said.

‘Not yet.’ Beyond the running woman Carly could see someone lying on the road.

‘There must be other crews close by who could do it.’

‘You want me to just drive away?’ Carly said.

‘We’re supposed to be going home. We just saw our friend dead. Are you in a fit state to work? Because I’m not.’ Tessa folded her arms.

‘Fine,’ Carly said. ‘I’ll get out and treat. You stay here.’

She stamped on the brake, grabbed the portable radio and jumped out. She hauled the Oxy-Viva, drug box and monitor from the back then lugged it all towards the patient.

He was a slender young man in black jeans and a black T-shirt, lying on his side, his back to her. Black thongs had fallen off his feet, and the woman kneeling beside him was grasping his hand. The man’s skin was pink and warm and dry, his breathing regular. There were no obvious signs of trauma.

‘Do you know what happened?’ Carly asked the woman.

‘I just found him like this.’

Carly pulled on gloves and felt her way over the man’s head, neck and back. No swelling, no sign of injury. ‘So you don’t know his name, or whether he has any health problems?’

‘I’ve never seen him before,’ the woman said. ‘Is he okay?’

Carly palpated his limbs. No injuries there either. She lifted his eyelids and shone her pocket torch into his pupils. Equal and reacting to light, but definitely sluggish. She made a fist and rubbed her knuckles gently along his sternum. He didn’t stir. She felt his pockets, hoping for a wallet, or a note, or a packet of prescription sedatives, which was what she was thinking he’d overdosed on. She found nothing but a plain metal ring with two unlabelled door keys.

‘Why is she still in the ambulance?’ the woman said, looking past her at the vehicle.

‘She’s not well.’ Carly took the portable from her hip. ‘Thirty-nine.’

‘Thirty-nine, go ahead,’ Control answered.

‘I’m in a laneway off King Street in Newtown with an unconscious male patient, requiring another crew, please.’

‘Copy, Thirty-nine. On their way.’ His voice was gentle. ‘Sit tight.’

Carly rehooked the radio, then glanced over her shoulder to see Tessa hunched down in the seat. Carly felt awful too, like her insides had been scooped out, her heart squeezed and stepped on, but letting this guy lie here uncared for wasn’t going to help.

She slipped an oxygen mask onto his face and stuck monitoring dots to his chest. Sinus rhythm, a little on the slow side at fifty-eight. Oxygen sats of ninety-six per cent according to the clip she put on his finger. She pricked another finger for the blood glucose test, and while it was processing she checked his blood pressure. One hundred on seventy. Low, but not dangerously so.

The woman was sitting cross-legged now, her skirt tucked into her lap, watching Carly and still holding the man’s hand. She looked about his age, early twenties, and had bright red cropped hair and multiple piercings in both ears and her lower lip.

‘I’m Carly,’ Carly said.

‘Susie. What do you think’s happened to him?’

‘I don’t know for sure.’ The glucometer beeped. Four point one. Normal. ‘You’re sure you’ve never seen him around before? You have no idea where he lives?’

Susie shook her head.

It wasn’t that unusual to take an unconscious person with no identification to hospital, but it meant that until they woke up there was no way to learn their medical history or let their family know where they were.

Carly heard a siren in the distance. She opened the drug box and clipped a tourniquet around the man’s arm while glancing along the street, hoping to spot someone looking out a window, someone who might’ve seen him collapse or which way he’d come. But if anyone was watching, they weren’t showing themselves.

Veins popped out all over his forearm. Not a frequent IV user then. Carly shaved the hair from his wrist, cleaned the skin with an alco-wipe, then slid a sixteen-gauge cannula into the vein. She got the flash of blood in the chamber and was pulling a strip of tape from the roll to secure it when the man’s breathing changed and his arm went rigid in her grip. His head twisted back and his feet drummed on the roadway.

‘What’s happening?’ Susie said.

‘He’s having a fit.’ Carly struggled to keep the cannula in place as his arm jerked. She needed the IV access now more than ever, to give him midazolam if the seizure didn’t end. His breath rasped through his clenched teeth. His body spasmed and a dark patch appeared in the crotch of his jeans. She smelled urine. His head twisted back further, his face turning purple. His skin grew slippery with sweat and she almost lost the cannula.
Shit.

Suddenly Tessa was there, dropping to her knees and grabbing the tape to secure the cannula. Carly kept hold just in case, because the tape didn’t always stick when the skin was sweaty. Tessa drew up the midazolam.

‘Is he choking?’ Susie said. ‘He’s going blue.’

‘All the muscles in his chest are in spasm so he’s not moving air very well,’ Carly said, as Tessa injected the drug. ‘Once this takes effect the muscles will relax and he’ll improve.’

It wasn’t a great thing to be giving him more sedatives when he might’ve already taken some, but they had no choice. The risk now was that his breathing might slow down too much, but once his jaw relaxed they could intubate and control that for themselves.

The tension left his body and he sagged, his breathing sluggish and snoring. Tessa moved his head to the correct position, tilted back a little so that the back of his tongue fell clear of his airway, and the snoring ceased. Carly smiled at her and got a small smile in return.

The siren was close now, and Carly felt the sun warm on her shoulders as she took another set of obs, then remembered about Alicia.

*

In the car on the way to Kings Cross station, where John Morris was waiting, Ella said, ‘So tell me about him.’

‘You really haven’t heard his name?’ Murray said.

‘How often do I play dumb?’

He lifted his fingers off the wheel. ‘Last year people were saying he’d assaulted and raped the probationary constable he was working with. I don’t know where you were hiding to have not heard about it.’

Ella felt sick. ‘What happened?’

‘She made a complaint. He denied it and claimed the sex was consensual and the bruises on her back were from a tough arrest. She said, yes, there had been a rough arrest, but that wasn’t the cause of the bruises, Morris was. He continued to deny it, and said she was failing and had made up the accusation in an effort to make him pass her. She went to hospital and there was evidence of sex but not conclusive evidence of force, apparently.’

‘And of course everyone had to talk about it,’ Ella said.

‘You wanted to know,’ Murray said mildly. ‘In the end she withdrew the complaint. But –’

‘People still talked,’ she said.

He inclined his head. ‘And she failed, and she left.’

Ella stared out the windscreen. ‘Any more stories about him like that?’

‘Not that I’ve heard.’

Ella thought of the power imbalance in a probationary/senior officer relationship, the evils of a ‘he said/she said’ situation. Accusing a colleague broke the unspoken rule of loyalty too. The woman would’ve been afraid her fellow officers might not back her up if she called for help.

‘We need to talk to her.’

Murray accelerated through an orange light. ‘That we do.’

*

Ella sipped the bitter station coffee then put the cup down. Opposite her sat Constable John Morris, half a metre back from the table, shoulders straight, legs apart, hands clasped in his lap. She’d been watching his face since they first met, ten minutes ago in the station’s main office, and was almost certain that his expressions were carefully chosen and arranged. He’d looked upset initially, frowning, biting his lip, but now appeared concerned and attentive: the very model of the reasonable cop who just wanted to help.

Murray started the tape. ‘Just a precaution,’ he said, then recited everyone’s names.

Ella watched Morris’s gaze move steadily between her and Murray. He’d shown no surprise or exasperation when they said it’d be a formal interview. This was going to be interesting.

She moved the cup aside and leaned forward. ‘John, you mentioned when we arrived that you already knew that Alicia Bayliss was dead. Can you tell us how you found out?’

‘A mate rang me,’ he said. ‘He’s on the desk at Newtown today and heard people talking about it.’

‘How did you feel?’

‘I was shocked and horrified, of course. And sad. Alicia and I had been close. And murder’s always awful.’ The upset frown again.

‘Did you have any immediate thoughts about who might’ve done it?’ she asked.

‘There’s that housemate,’ he said. ‘Hibbins. No doubt you know about what he did, how he came onto Alicia a couple of times?’

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

‘He told me himself. I saw him at the hospital and he said now that she and I had split up I wouldn’t mind that he asked her out, would I? I said something about her having better taste than that and he smirked. I saw her later and told her to look out. She said he’d already tried it on, more than once, and that it was none of my business who she did or didn’t see.’

‘Was that when you grabbed her?’ Ella said.

Morris looked at her. ‘We argued, yes. She pushed me. I stopped her. I had hold of her arm at one point. I assume that’s what your witness saw. Whoever it is. Then she said he was moving out so it didn’t matter anyway.’

‘When exactly did you and Alicia break up?’

‘Friday the tenth. Just over three weeks ago.’

‘What happened?’

‘The relationship had run its course.’

‘Up another woman’s top?’ Ella said.

‘We’d discussed breaking up before that happened. As far as I was concerned it was all but over.’

He breathed evenly, his posture and position unchanged, but he’d put on his cop face, the one of boredom and indifference that you used when you wanted nobody to see how you really felt, especially if they’d got to you.

‘Are you in a relationship with that woman now?’ Ella asked.

‘The one from the party? No.’

‘Something funny about that?’ Ella said.

‘Not at all.’

Uh-huh.
‘Where were you last night?’

‘At a mate’s place until about midnight, then home.’

‘What’s this mate’s name and where does he live?’ Murray asked.

‘Ben Trevaskis.’ He recited an address in Bondi Junction.

‘A cop?’ Ella said.

‘Yep. Works here with me.’

Ella didn’t know him. ‘What did you do at his place?’

‘Had a couple of beers and watched UFC on his Foxtel. Ultimate Fighting Championship, you know?’

Ella knew. She thought about the lacerations and bruising to Bayliss’s face. ‘Are you into fighting yourself?’

‘Boxing’s part of my gym routine, but I don’t actually fight,’ he said.

‘Mind showing us your hands?’

He held them out, palms up, then turned them over. His skin was intact and bore no bruises, but good padding or gloves could have protected it.

‘Which gym do you go to?’ she said.

He told them the address in Coogee.

‘What about when you got home last night?’ Murray said. ‘Do you live alone?’

‘No, I have a flatmate.’

‘Another cop?’ Ella asked.

‘Yep.’

‘Where’s he work?’

‘Paddo.’

‘Was he awake when you got in? Did you have a conversation?’ Murray asked.

‘He was playing guitar in his room,’ Morris said. ‘I knocked on the wall as I went past and he said hi.’

‘What time was that?’

He shrugged. ‘Some time after midnight. I didn’t notice.’