Deserving Death (6 page)

‘No such thing if you ask me,’ Murray said. ‘Here he comes.’

Dave Hibbins burst through the building’s front door. They watched through the windscreen as he ran across the paved forecourt and onto the footpath without looking around.

‘Can’t have shouted at Clarence for long,’ Ella said. ‘Hardly even had time to ring the girlfriend.’

‘I bet he did though,’ Murray said.

Ella called Dennis on speakerphone and told him about Hibbins’s anxious behaviour, then Murray read out Amber Jacobson’s address.

‘She’s a nurse, working tonight,’ he said.

‘Head round there after you’ve talked to Kristen Szabo and Robbie Kimball,’ Dennis said.

‘Roger that,’ Ella said, full of anticipation.

*

Area supervisor and peer support officer Julianne Rackley, all huggy arms and intense understanding gaze, had been waiting at The Rocks station when Carly and Tessa pulled in. Carly sat through the subsequent debrief without saying much at all. She didn’t feel like sharing her feelings about Alicia’s death here; she just wanted to go home. Tessa was silent too. Julianne worked hard, sweat stains growing under her arms as she tried to get them to open up, asked them about their emotions, outlined the counselling and leave available to them. Carly crossed and recrossed her legs, and Tessa sat with her elbows on her knees and her gaze on her boots.

Finally Julianne took cards from her shirt pocket. ‘Here are my mobile and home numbers,’ she said, writing on the backs. ‘Call me anytime, okay? And here are the contact details for the service’s psychologist.’ She pressed the cards into their hands. ‘If there’s anything I or the service can do, please just say the word.’

Carly nodded and smiled, and stood in the plant room counting the seconds until Julianne drove out with a kindly wave.

‘I hate that fake sympathy,’ Tessa said.

‘It wasn’t fake. She knew Alicia too.’

‘I mean sitting in there like that,’ Tessa said. ‘Pretending to care about what I feel.’

‘Maybe she does,’ Carly said.

‘Why didn’t you spill your guts then?’

‘Just because I didn’t feel like sharing doesn’t mean I don’t think she’s genuine.’

Tessa snorted and turned away.

Carly had had enough. She hauled her workbag out of the ambulance then went inside to the locker room. She took out the jeans, shirt and runners she’d worn in on the train that morning, got changed, stuffed her uniform and boots in the locker with her bag, then shut the door.

Tessa was nowhere to be seen when she stepped back into the muster room. The lounge and kitchen were empty too. Carly peered through the window into the plant room and saw her standing in the driveway beside a red Commodore, talking to the driver. Carly opened the door and stepped into the plant room. Tessa looked up, then said something to the driver, who backed the car quickly down the drive and out onto George Street. By the time Carly reached Tessa, the car was turning out of sight under the bridge.

‘Who was that?’ Carly asked.

‘Tourist asking for directions. Trying to get to Darling Harbour.’

Really
, Carly thought.
Because I could’ve sworn that was John Morris.

‘So you’re ready to go?’ Tessa said.

‘Huh?’ Why would John be here, talking to Tessa?

‘You’re in civvies. Ready to go home.’

‘Yep. Off to the train.’ And why would Tessa lie about it? Carly thought she spotted a flash of red car up the street. ‘Are you getting the train too? Want me to wait for you?’

‘No, no,’ Tessa said. ‘You go ahead. I’ll probably be a little while.’

‘You sure?’

‘Absolutely,’ she said. ‘Take care.’

‘See you.’

Keys in one hand, wallet in the other, Carly walked down the drive and turned right onto George Street. She glanced back to see Tessa watching her and waved. Tessa raised a hand in return, then Carly faced front and walked on. She kept going until she rounded the slight bend in the street and knew she was out of Tessa’s sight. Then she ducked over against the window of a shop, and edged back to a place where she could see the station. The roller doors were closed – she guessed Tessa had shut them while she went inside to change. She hurried across the street and inside a shop where she could pretend to be browsing the overpriced clothes while watching for Tessa to emerge.

Less than three minutes later there Tessa was, popping out of the small door to the side of the big rollers. Carly watched her pull it closed then test that it was locked while glancing both ways along the street. Carly held her breath as Tessa walked down to the footpath. If she turned right, coming this way, heading for Wynyard and the train home, then Carly was overthinking things, getting all dramatic. If she turned left . . . well, it still mightn’t mean anything. She might feel like sitting near the harbour for a while, thinking about Alicia. She might decide to take a walk, get some air, have a drink by the water.

She turned left.

Carly brushed off an approaching shop assistant and eased out of the shop door. Tessa strode along, handbag clamped under her arm. The street curved under the Harbour Bridge not far in front of her, and Carly skipped and dodged around ambling tourists to catch up a little before she went out of sight.

Tessa slowed and looked behind her. Carly slipped in behind a group of American tourists, but it was okay, Tessa was just checking for cars. She darted across the street. A red car turned in from the far end and came towards her, then braked. Carly saw Tessa get in the passenger side. She ducked back behind the tourists as the car pulled out and came her way, and as it passed she saw Tessa deep in heated conversation with the driver, John Morris.

Six

K
risten Szabo’s flat was one of four in a tired-looking art deco building bordered by a weedy lawn and close enough to the beach that the street was lined with parked cars. Ella pressed the button at the front door and heard a tinny chime through a window above her head. She looked up past the rust stains on the cracked white paint to see a twenty-something woman peering down.

‘Kristen Szabo?’ Murray said.

‘Yes. Who’s asking?’

‘Police.’ Ella showed her badge. ‘Can we come in, please?’

Szabo’s expression turned anxious. ‘I’ll be right there.’

A bus heaved past as they waited, then Szabo opened the front door. She wore velvet trackpants and a long-sleeved pink T-shirt. Her feet were bare, and her long brown hair was fuzzed at the back as if she was not long out of bed.

‘Is everything okay?’ she asked.

‘If we could come in for a moment,’ Ella said.

Szabo hesitated, then led them up the flight of wooden stairs to a creaky linoleumed landing at the top. Her flat was to the right, and her living room overlooked the street. Ella caught a glimpse of the glinting ocean far to one side. Szabo closed the window then motioned awkwardly towards the two-seater lounge. Ella and Murray stayed standing.

‘I’m afraid we have some bad news,’ Ella said, then paused. It always felt wrong to say it too fast, no matter how much you might want to. ‘Alicia Bayliss is dead.’

Szabo stared at her. ‘What?’

‘She died at home,’ Murray said. ‘We’ve just talked to Tessa and Carly there.’

‘Oh my god,’ Szabo said. ‘Are you serious?’

Murray nodded. ‘We’re very sorry.’

‘What happened? Did she have some kind of accident?’

There was no kind way to put it. Ella said, ‘Unfortunately she was murdered.’

Szabo shook her head. ‘This is some kind of joke, right? She put you up to this? That’s a fake badge, right?’

‘We’re very sorry,’ Ella said.

Szabo backed to the window and sat on the sill. ‘You’re really serious.’

Ella nodded again. Szabo stared past them, tears coming. Ella gave her a moment, then said, ‘We need to ask you some questions.’

They sat at the tiny wooden table in the kitchen. Sunflower decals dotted the top and Szabo picked at the edge of one while she talked.

‘Alicia and I went to the loos, and on the way back this guy stopped us in the corridor. He was going on to Alicia like he knew her, but she told him to fuck off and we pushed past.’

‘What was he saying?’ Ella asked.

‘Just like, “Hello, darlin, fancy meeting you here, it’s been much too long.” He leaned in as she was shoving past and said something else but I couldn’t hear what.’

‘Could it have been just drunk talk?’ Murray said.

‘That’s what I thought,’ Szabo said, ‘but looking back, Alicia seemed rattled. At the table I started to tell the others but she kicked me and changed the subject. So perhaps she did know him, or else he said something really pervy and awful to her, and either way she just wanted to forget it.’

‘What did he look like?’ Ella asked.

‘Tall, broad, with shaggy blond hair.’ She wiped her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Like a bear, but pale.’

‘How tall?’ Murray said.

‘Maybe six foot. And not fat, just big. A big frame.’

‘How old was he?’ Murray said.

‘I only saw him for a couple of seconds, but I’d guess in his twenties. Late twenties more than early.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Um, dark jacket and shirt, dark pants or jeans, I think. The jacket might’ve been leather. Black, I think it was.’

‘Did you spot him at any other time, either before or after?’ Ella said. ‘Or on the street when you were leaving?’

‘No.’

‘Do you know what time you saw him?’

‘We’d been there for a couple of hours, and we didn’t leave for some time afterwards, so maybe around ten? Eleven?’

‘Did you notice anything else about him? Tattoos anywhere, moles on his face?’ Murray asked.

‘He had big hands,’ Szabo said. ‘He leaned on the wall with his elbow up high and his hand kind of dangling down.’

Ella thought of the wounds to Alicia’s face, the cast-off blood on the wall. ‘Anything else you can remember about him?’

Szabo shook her head.

‘What about Tessa’s brother, Robbie?’ Murray asked.

‘He came up to say hi, asked us if we wanted a drink but we were good, then he went away. That was a little while before the big blond guy.’

‘Did you see Robbie talking to anyone else?’ Ella said.

Szabo shook her head. ‘The crowd was too thick. He just disappeared in it.’ She looked down at the table. She’d peeled off most of a flower.

‘How well do you know John Morris?’ Ella asked.

‘As much as I want to. He cheated on Alicia so she broke it off with him, but then he was in the emergency department afterwards talking like he’d been over her anyway. And I saw them arguing in a corridor there one day last week. They both looked pissed.’

‘Did she tell you what they argued about?’ Ella said.

‘She didn’t want to talk about it. I let it go.’

‘Did you talk to anyone else about it?’

‘Carly said she’d seen them arguing too, but she didn’t know what it was about either.’

‘Did you see Morris last night at the club?’ Murray asked.

‘No, but that place is dark. He could’ve been there and stayed out of sight, easily.’ She tore the end of the sunflower’s stalk off the tabletop.

‘What about Dave Hibbins, her housemate?’ Ella said. ‘Do you know what happened there?’

‘After she and John broke up, Dave asked her out. She said no. She said he kept hinting about it, and in the end she felt weird and told him to move out. I heard he’s staying with a friend near the hospital.’

‘Would you describe him as a friend?’ Murray said.

‘Not really. He’s nice enough – at least I thought he was, until Alicia told me how he kept hitting on her – and I say hi when I see him around the department, but personality-wise we’ve never clicked.’

‘Did you happen to see him at the club last night?’ Ella asked.

She shook her head.

Ella looked down at her notebook. The strange blond man was someone else to track down and investigate, but John Morris and Dave Hibbins still had to be numbers one and two on anyone’s list. People usually got killed by someone they knew – often someone they knew very well indeed. And hate or love were the top two reasons why they did it, with revenge not far behind.

‘What about Hannah?’ Murray said. ‘Is she working today?’

‘She’s flying to Adelaide this afternoon, to see her family for her birthday.’

‘Please don’t tell her,’ Murray said. ‘Let us talk to her first.’

‘Don’t tell anyone,’ Ella put in.

Szabo nodded and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands.

‘One more question,’ Ella said. ‘Did you know Maxine Hardwick?’

‘The paramedic who died last month?’ Szabo shook her head. ‘Why? You think that has something to do with this?’

‘We’re checking every avenue,’ Murray said.

Szabo looked down at the tattered plastic sunflower, then crumpled it into a ball.

*

Carly stamped up the steps from the railway station feeling like she could barely keep the top of her head on. Her fists were clenched, her neck was so tense it hurt, and she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from shouting at the pedestrians who wandered across her path. All the way here on the train she’d stewed about how Tessa had run to meet John Morris and the way they’d talked urgently as they’d driven off. She’d squeezed her phone in her hand while typing an anger-shaky text to her, trying to word it like a caring ‘how’re you going, get in touch if you need to talk’ message when what she really wanted was to . . . what? Poke the hornets’ nest, she guessed. Remind Tessa of something. Everything. She’d sent the text – and got no reply, of course – then had looked around the carriage and seen Alicia’s dead expression on the faces of the other passengers.

Now the sun beat down on her, and the air was hot and full of exhaust fumes, and her head throbbed, and her fingernails were cutting into her palms.

Alicia. Alicia who she’d met at training school five years ago, sat next to by chance and hit it off. Alicia who’d transferred to The Rocks two years after that, who she’d been partnered with when Brooke, who she knew through the Streetlights youth program and who she’d persuaded/forced to tell Detective Marconi about the drug-dealing habits of her consequently jailed boyfriend, had killed herself. In some kind of horrible irony, Carly and Alicia had gone to the job. She’d never forget rolling Brooke’s body over, seeing her face, the needle still in her arm, and the note on the floor, or the way that Alicia had supported her, taken care of her, listened as she’d talked about it for weeks of shifts afterwards. Nor would she forget Alicia’s care when she’d struggled with coming out, as smooth as it had turned out to be, nor the friendship of Alicia’s brother, Chris, gay himself, a public servant now living in Canberra with his public servant partner and oblivious to the fact that his beloved only sister was gone.

And Tessa was hiding something.

If Carly didn’t reach Linsey’s calming arms soon she might just have a rage- and grief-induced stroke.

The cafe door was open and she stumbled inside. The place was gloomy after the brightness of the outside world. Fans puffed the coffee-scented air into her burning face and a voice said, ‘Carly? Are you okay?’

She focused on the face of Jo, one of the waitresses. The young woman took her arm. ‘You need to sit down?’

‘Linsey?’ Carly tried to see past her. The air seemed full of black dots.

‘She’s here, but –’

Carly pushed her aside. She needed Linsey. She needed to hug and be hugged. She needed to spill out everything she was thinking and feeling. She saw Linsey coming and reached for her, but Linsey stopped short.

‘Carly, hi. You remember my family, right?’

Carly saw blurred shapes beyond her as Linsey finally came close and hugged her in a friendly way, quickly and around the shoulders. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered in Carly’s ear, before stepping back and squeezing her arm like a pal. ‘Bad morning? Have a seat. Let me make you a coffee.’

Carly sank into a chair.
Of all the days.

Linsey touched her shoulder, just a brush of the fingers, but Carly felt her anxiety.

She looked up into Linsey’s apologetic eyes and said, ‘Coffee would be great, thank you. Exactly what I need.’

‘And a bite to eat, I’ll bet,’ Linsey’s mother said, looming behind her, teeth shining. ‘Won’t you join us?’

On the spot, unable to come up with an excuse, Carly nodded.

*

The conversation between the Bradaghan family bounced back and forth over the table: a new real estate investment, the booming state of the rental market, the problem they were having with the printer who was failing to produce their stationery.

‘I told you he was going to be a problem,’ Linsey’s mother, Delancey, said, cup balanced between her fingertips. There was just the slightest American twang left in her words. ‘When he didn’t return your call that very first day, I said this was going to bring nothing but trouble.’

On the other side of the table, Linsey’s father, William, cut into the last of his seafood crepe without looking up. ‘He’s much cheaper than the old one, and in this climate every cent counts.’

Carly sat amid the noise, holding her cup. It felt impossible that she’d been in that room and seen Alicia lying there in bed, dead eyes on the ceiling, bruises and blood on her face; impossible that she hadn’t sat up and thrown off the quilt, laughing at them for falling for the trick.

‘The quality matters more, Dad.’ Zoe was twenty-four but was often mistaken for younger. Linsey had told Carly that Zoe always made a point of telling the family when it happened. She speared a chunk of tuna with her fork. ‘People notice that.’

Her husband, Benjamin, said, ‘All I know is we’re almost out of letterheads and the business cards aren’t far behind.’ He wiped his mouth with a folded paper serviette and placed it on his plate like it was the last word.

Carly drained her cup and put it silently on the saucer. Behind her she could hear Linsey at the coffee machine. She wished they were at home, in bed, talking and holding each other. Something in her felt free when they were together. Here, now, she felt squeezed, compressed, shrunken.

Delancey leaned over and gave her a nudge. ‘And how are you, Miss Carly?’

‘Getting by.’ No way she was going to say a word to them about Alicia. ‘Can’t complain.’

Delancey glanced past her at Linsey. ‘Linz is looking good now that she’s lost a little weight, don’t you think?’

‘I think she’s always been fine.’
I am not your co-conspirator, and that’s my girlfriend you’re talking about.

Delancey went on as if Carly hadn’t spoken. ‘If she’d just style her hair differently and put on a dab or two of make-up, she’d be beating off the boys with a stick.’ She focused back on Carly. ‘You must work with a lot of young men. Is there anyone decent you could set her up with?’

‘Nobody comes to mind.’ Carly pushed her cup away.

‘Forget decent then.’ Delancey smiled, showing her eyeteeth. ‘I’m kidding, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Carly said.

A police car tore past. It was the first one she’d seen since Alicia’s house. She felt like there should be hundreds of cops out there, swarming the streets, chasing the killer. She thought of John Morris and Dave Hibbins. Most of the murders she’d been involved in – attending the scene, testifying about it, following it in the papers later – had been done by someone close to the victim. In a few cases the killer was still there at the scene, sobbing bloodied over the body, or standing silently smoking a cigarette, or hanging dead themselves. What did she really know about John and Dave? They seemed nice enough, but people always said that, didn’t they? Neighbours were always on the news declaring some killer to have been such a lovely quiet guy. And John had something hard in him, a cold streak. But really, what cop didn’t?

She thought of Maxine Hardwick. She’d once known someone who’d worked at Parramatta, and when the news came out she’d wondered whether they were friends. Wondered what it would feel like to know someone who was murdered.