Frantic (23 page)

He smiled at her. ‘I just came back because I left my mobile in your lounge room.’

He went into the house and came out clipping it onto the waistband of his trousers. ‘Just be careful, okay?’ he said, before crossing the street to his car. She saw that it, too, now flew a light blue ribbon. She watched him drive off and wondered if the warning was an invitation to trust him and tell him what she planned. Once upon a time she would have liked the comfort of sharing her thoughts. Now, however, she found strength in keeping things to herself. In a way, Chris’s holding her at arm’s length helped, because his affection would make her want to open up and tell him everything. As it was, she felt single-minded and focused. Purposeful. Powerful. Nothing was going to stand in the way of her getting Lachlan back.

12.25 pm

‘This time, if you don’t stay in the car, I’m calling up Eagers,’ Ella said.

Murray shrugged. No doubt he knew she was bluffing but would play along to keep his position with the investigation.

She got out of the car and walked along the busy street in Erskineville to the florist’s. Their logo and address had been on the basket. It was a long shot that they’d give her the name of the person who ordered it but she had to try.

She was back in the car in minutes.

‘No go?’ Murray said.

‘Rebuffed with extreme prejudice.’ Ella started the car and headed towards Gladesville. ‘Woman was a lawyer in a previous life.’

‘Ouch,’ he said. ‘Think you’ll try for a warrant?’

‘For what? I have no evidence of anything.’

When they arrived at Gladesville Station, Dennis was smoking in the carpark. He glanced at the car, stepped on the butt and started off inside.

‘Not so fast,’ Ella called. She parked and caught up to him at the door. ‘Time to pay for your bad deeds.’

‘I didn’t tell him to find you.’

‘But you brushed him off after promising you’d take him,’ she said. ‘He stuffed up my conversation with Houtkamp.’

‘He was the reason it fell over, huh?’

‘Why else?’ she said. ‘You owe me, you know. You should have to look after Murray all weekend.’

‘If you’ll keep him this afternoon.’

‘If that’s what it takes.’ As Murray came up the steps, she smiled at them both and said, ‘Well, I’m off home for a couple hours’ kip.’

At home she dozed in the armchair by the window then woke at three with plenty of time to get ready. By three-thirty she was in the car heading for Randwick.

The Bower Brae Nursing Home was set back off the street. She walked between well-kept flowerbeds to the door.

A young nurse looked up from the desk. ‘Good afternoon.’

‘Hi, I’m Ella Marconi, I’m an old friend of Paul Houtkamp’s.’

The woman smiled. ‘You’ve come to see Jane, then.’

‘There’s not much chance she’ll remember me,’ Ella lied valiantly.

‘I’m sure she’ll be delighted to see you.’ The nurse walked along a corridor and Ella followed. ‘Paul shouldn’t be long.’

Ella had figured the building site probably knocked off about four. Fifteen, twenty minutes to clean up a little and drive on over, and he’d walk into the room to find her and Jane nattering away like old pals.

The nurse opened a door and ushered her in. ‘Jane, this is Ella. Do you remember her?’

The occupant of the single room shook her head. She was a chubby woman in her early thirties. She sat cross-legged on the bed. She wore a Snoopy sweatshirt and had a plastic flower stuck behind one ear. She held a fat red crayon over a giant colouring book and beamed at Ella. ‘Hello.’

‘Hello to you.’

‘Have a seat,’ the nurse said. ‘Like I said, Paul won’t be long.’ She pulled the door to and walked away.

Ella sat on the plastic chair by Jane’s bed and looked around the room.

Jane held out the book. ‘Do you want a turn to colour in?’

‘Maybe in a moment.’ Ella spotted a framed photo on the wall and got up to see. It was a wedding picture of Houtkamp and a woman. Ella looked closer. ‘Is this you?’

‘That’s me,’ Jane said. She held up her hand and Ella saw a gold ring. ‘I love Paul and he loves me.’

She looked different in the photo. ‘When did you get married?’

‘A while ago.’ Jane scribbled in the book.

‘How long have you lived here?’

‘A while.’

Ella glanced again at the picture then sat by the bed. ‘You’re really good at colouring-in.’

‘I can do one for you to take home,’ Jane said.

‘That’d be great.’

The door flew open and Paul Houtkamp stormed in. ‘Get out.’ He carried a paper-wrapped parcel.

Ella smelled hot chips. ‘We’re just talking.’

‘You lied to the nurse about being a friend of mine and you didn’t identify yourself as a cop.’

‘Chippies!’ Jane said. ‘Ella, is it okay if I finish your picture after afternoon tea?’

‘Absolutely.’

Paul smiled at his wife then leaned close to Ella’s ear. ‘You have no right to be here.’

‘I just want to talk to you.’

‘Paul, I’m hungry.’ Jane reached for the parcel he held.

He gave it to her. ‘And the only way you could manage it was by lying?’

Ella spread her hands. ‘You were obviously embarrassed to have us at your work.’

‘I wasn’t embarrassed,’ he said.

‘Who sent the flowers?’

He looked at Jane, who was unwrapping the paper. The smell of vinegar filled the air.

‘Is somebody threatening you?’ Ella said.

He stayed silent.

Ella didn’t take her eyes off him. ‘I just want to find the baby.’

‘I like babies,’ Jane said. ‘I like potato scallops too.’

‘I had nothing to do with that and it’s up to you to prove otherwise.’

‘Ella, do you want a scallop?’

‘I don’t know if Paul will let me,’ Ella said.

‘Paul, can she have a scallop? I have four here, so that’s one for Ella, one for Paul, and two for me!’

‘She can have one,’ Paul said after a moment.

Ella tore off a scrap of paper to hold it. Jane patted the side of the bed and Paul sat down. She offered him a chip. ‘Aren’t you hungry?’

‘Not really.’

Ella said, ‘If you want me to go, I will. But I know there’s something odd going on, and while there’s even the slightest chance it involves the Phillipses I won’t stop looking into it. So you can tell me now, or you can wait till you’re sick to death of the sight of me knocking at your door, sitting outside your work, following you in your car.’

‘I know who’ll get sick of it first, and it won’t be me,’ he said.

Ella ate the rest of the scallop and wiped her fingers on her jeans. ‘Bye Jane. It was nice to meet you.’

‘What about your picture?’

‘It doesn’t matter,’ Ella said.

‘Yes it does, yes it does! I’ll finish it now.’ When she handed it over the red-crayon picture of a kitten was marked with grease stains.

‘Thank you,’ Ella said. ‘I’ll put this on my fridge at home.’

Outside, evening was falling. Ella rounded the garden beds and almost ran into the nurse who’d shown her in. This time Ella got out her badge.

The nurse looked at it carefully in the gloom. ‘I knew you weren’t really an old friend of theirs.’

‘But you still let me in,’ Ella said.

‘It’s a nursing home, not a jail,’ the nurse said. ‘People can visit whoever they want.’

Ella put her badge away. ‘Did you work on Wednesday night?’

‘Yes, and the other police already asked me about that.’

‘I know,’ Ella said. ‘Is it possible that Paul Houtkamp wasn’t here the entire time he said he was?’

The nurse frowned. ‘I didn’t actually see him, but the doors are locked after hours. To get out you have to press a buzzer and the other nurse or I come and let you out. To stop patients wandering, you know. And we only let Paul out once.’

‘There’s no other way he could’ve got out? A window, maybe?’

She shook her head. ‘They all have security screens.’

‘Thanks,’ Ella said.

‘Jane do that for you?’ The nurse pointed at the picture she carried. ‘She’s my favourite.’

‘Why is she here?’

‘About three years ago she left her car in neutral and forgot the park brake and it started to roll. So she tried to jump back in to stop it, but she was crushed against a tree. She suffered brain damage and now has a mental age of five.’

‘That’s awful.’

‘She used to be this big-shot hairdresser, had her own salon in the city and everything.’

Ella said, ‘Paul seems dedicated.’

‘You know why he brings the chips on Fridays? Well, it used to be fish and chips but Jane won’t eat fish any more. They started the tradition on their honeymoon, and he keeps it going.’

‘Incredible.’

‘He really is,’ the nurse said. The phone started to ring inside the building. As she walked away she said over her shoulder, ‘If only there was a man like that for each of us, hey?’

6.05 pm

Chris sat on the bottom stair, tissues to his nose. Gloria turned at the front door to face him. ‘Families should pull together at times like these, you know.’

‘We’re just not hungry.’

‘It’s not only the meals,’ she said. ‘You don’t talk to each other, or to me. A family should share its burdens.’

‘Like–’ He stopped himself, and pressed the tissues harder to his nose.

‘Like what?’

He looked up at her then away.

‘Like what?’ she said again, her voice a little harder.

‘Like our family did?’

She folded her arms.

‘I’m just saying,’ he said.

‘So say it.’

He wiped his nose, refolded the tissues and applied the clean area to his nostrils. ‘A little more gentle conversation in our house and maybe Dad wouldn’t have gone.’

She was staring at him, he could feel her gaze burning the top of his head. After a long moment, she turned on her heel and stamped out the door.

After her car pulled away, Sophie came down the stairs. ‘She’s gone?’

‘Yes.’ Chris didn’t look around.

She sat a couple of steps behind him. Her foot nudged his back. He heard her breathing and felt the tentative touch of her hand on his neck. He wanted to turn and smile at her, take that warm foot in his hand, but in the same way he’d got Gloria to leave he needed Sophie gone too.

He leaned slightly forward, leaving her foot touching nothing. She moved it in pursuit. He shifted on the step, out of reach again. Her foot stayed still and she took her hand from his neck, and he blinked back tears. He would explain later. For now nothing was more important than getting Lachlan back.

He was aware of time ticking by. Soon, he needed her out soon. He’d wasted the whole day staring at the screen of his mobile. The house phone had rung frequently but he always let someone else answer. That line was tapped and Rigby and his mates would know it. There’d been no contact, and it was time to make his move. ‘What are you doing tonight?’

‘Now the car’s back from the garage, I thought I might go looking again.’ The garage had found the lead had come off the starter motor. It happened occasionally, they said, and had been simple to fix. ‘Do you want to come along?’

‘My head’s too bad,’ he lied. ‘The car would make me sick, too.’

Sophie said nothing. Chris sat for a moment, hands clenched between his knees, trying to summon the strength for what he needed to say.

He turned on the step to look up at her face. ‘You know you’ll never find him that way.’

The hurt in her eyes was like a knife sliding into his already shredded heart. ‘What are you doing that’s so much more successful?’

‘I was shot. What do you want me to do?’ He felt cruel but the words had the effect he wanted. She leapt to her feet and stormed up the stairs, then seconds later pushed roughly past him without a word, the jacket she carried whipping him in the face. He watched her, wishing he could say something comforting but knowing that might make her stay. She grabbed the car keys and slammed the door on her way out. The car screeched backwards out of the garage and onto the street, then she was gone.

Chris wiped his eyes then pulled his mobile from his pocket. ‘I need a taxi please.’

Friday 9 May, 6.22 pm

E
lla burped as she turned in to Easton Street. The Subway sandwich wasn’t sitting as neatly in her stomach as it had when she’d scoffed it while parked in a no-standing zone in Newtown. The scoffing was the problem, not the pepperoni or the onions, she was sure. She took another sip of milkshake and slowed as she neared the Phillips house.

A taxi was in the drive. Chris came gingerly out of the house and climbed in the back. He was holding a wad of tissues to his nose. Perhaps he was going back to hospital. But then why wasn’t Sophie or his mother driving him?

Ella slid low in the seat as the taxi backed towards her then drove off. She put the milkshake down on the passenger seat and followed.

Down Pittwater Road, then left onto Epping Road. They went slowly with the evening traffic. Through Epping itself, into Cheltenham, Beecroft, Pennant Hills. Ella kept the taxi’s red tail-lights in view but would’ve bet money their destination was Dean Rigby’s house.

Sure enough, fifteen minutes later the taxi braked on Wright Street in Hornsby. Ella parked some distance back and watched through the steering wheel as Chris got out and the taxi drove away. Chris moved slowly from light pole to light pole, resting against each one. Ella felt for the man but to go to him and reveal her presence was out of the question. Nevertheless, what he did or said when he knocked on Rigby’s door could answer all the questions buzzing around her head.

She knew from looking into Rigby’s file that he lived at number sixty-three. She put her headlights on again and drove past the lurching Chris down the dusky street, turned around and came back to a spot near Rigby’s single-storey brick house. The light was on over the door but the streetlights were far enough away that she could slouch in the seat and see without being seen. She reached over and lowered the passenger window, then watched Chris stumble into Rigby’s yard.

The door opened before he knocked. Rigby stepped out and pulled it shut behind him. Chris lowered himself onto the small wall to the side of the porch and put his head in his hands, and Rigby crouched beside him, looking awkward with the foam collar around his neck.

They talked too softly for her to hear. She wanted to thump the steering wheel and swear. Instead she surveyed the surroundings, looking for shrubs that might provide cover for her to sneak closer. But the foliage on the few bushes was thin and the streetlights revealed too much of the footpath and gardens of the houses.

She leaned towards the open passenger window and held her breath.

‘…all day,’ Chris said, his voice rising. Mutter mutter from Rigby, and he put his hand on Chris’s shoulder. Then – hello – Chris was on his feet, his finger in Rigby’s face. ‘Don’t you dare act like you’re still my friend.’

Rigby stayed crouching, his hands spread wide. A reasoning tone.

Chris shook his head. ‘I told you what I wanted, what you had to do.’

Mutter.

Chris reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a handgun.

‘Holy shit,’ Ella whispered.

Rigby stayed where he was. His voice dropped even lower.

Ella swallowed nervously. Chris wasn’t pointing the gun at Rigby yet. If she got out and ran over there he might be prompted to do so, or to aim at her, in which case she’d be forced to draw her own gun at him. She sat tense and taut, gripping the wheel.

‘You’re not listening to me.’ Chris raised the gun and pressed the barrel to his own temple.

Rigby eased up to his feet, his hands wide to the sides.

‘Is this what you want?’ Chris yelled.

The door opened and a woman stuck her head out. She took one look and slammed the door closed. Ella guessed her next action would be to call the police, and knew she had to move.

She got out of the car as stealthily as she could. There was a line to tread between being so quiet she startled them when she drew close, and being so loud they stopped talking too soon. She edged along the footpath, keeping in shadow as much as possible.

Chris was trembling. His nose streamed blood down his face and onto his shirt. ‘I promised you I’d never say anything about Houtkamp. Why couldn’t you believe me?’

‘I did believe you,’ Rigby said. ‘It’s not me doing it.’

‘You or one of your mates in the gang. It’s all the same.’

The gang?
Ella crept closer.

‘I haven’t heard anything there either,’ Rigby said.

‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’ Chris was pale and starting to cry. ‘You want me dead, to prove I won’t talk again? Okay, I’m dead.’

‘It’s not us!’

Chris drew a long hitching breath, then Ella’s movement must have caught his eye. ‘Who’s that?’

Rigby whirled. He shielded his eyes from the porch light.

Ella moved out onto the footpath. ‘Put the gun down, Chris.’

‘It’s not an offence to kill yourself.’

‘I know that, but if the boys turn up in droves, as I suspect they will any second, you’ll scare the shit out of them waving that thing around.’

Chris lowered the gun to his side. Ella slowly approached him, her left hand out, her right on her own gun in its holster. ‘Give it to me.’

Shakily he put it in her palm. It was his service Glock. She checked it while Rigby spoke to his wife.

‘She didn’t call anyone,’ he reported back. Chris sat on the low wall, his head in his hands again.

The Glock safely under her folded arms, Ella looked both men up and down. ‘Care to tell me what that conversation was about?’

Rigby swatted a mosquito. Chris sniffed, a wet sound.

‘I heard you arguing about Houtkamp and about the gang. About you, Chris, not talking again,’ she said. ‘Spill it.’

Chris spoke in a low voice. ‘I came here because I was upset. Dean was comforting me.’

Rigby nodded.

Ella took a step closer. ‘I heard what you said.’

‘You must have misunderstood,’ Chris said.

‘I heard you say Houtkamp.’

‘I was telling Dean how upset I was. I said I felt like killing myself.’

‘I was trying to comfort him,’ Rigby put in.

‘You pair of bastards,’ Ella said. ‘I’m trying to find your son, Chris – how the hell can I do that if you keep lying to me?’

The men were silent.

‘Which one of you sent flowers to Houtkamp with some kind of message?’

They didn’t reply.

She took another step closer. ‘Sooner or later I’m going to find out what’s going on, so you may as well tell me now.’

After a long moment Chris looked up at Rigby. ‘Mind calling me a taxi so I can get home?’

‘Sure.’ Rigby turned to go inside but Ella said, ‘I’ll take you.’

Chris considered her. ‘Okay. Thanks.’ He got to his feet and walked slowly across to the street, pulling a handkerchief from his pocket. Ella gave Rigby a long hard look then followed.

At the car she found the milkshake had fallen over and the front seat was wet. Chris got into the back and sat with his head against the window, his eyes closed and the handkerchief to his nose. Ella put the Glock into the glovebox, angled the rearview mirror so she could see him, and started the car.

After they’d gone a few kilometres he said, ‘I know what you’re going to say. “Now that we’re away from him, why don’t I tell you what’s going on.”’

‘That’s pretty much it.’

More kilometres went by. He refolded the handkerchief. ‘Mum says that I should go back to hospital because I’m bleeding all the time.’

‘She’s probably right,’ Ella said. ‘Why don’t you?’

‘Because of Lachlan.’

‘What can you achieve being out here? Apart from supporting Sophie, I mean.’

‘Sophie.’ He cracked the window a little. The sound of traffic came into the car. ‘She’s off on her own thing.’

‘The driving around?’

He nodded.

‘You didn’t want to join her?’

‘She blames me for what happened, and she’s right to, but searching the streets won’t bring him back.’

Ella looked at him in the mirror. ‘So what will?’

He closed his eyes against her gaze.

‘Okay then, let’s see if I can figure it out,’ she said. ‘You think you know who has him and why but you can’t tell me because… because you think that will jeopardise your chances of finding him.’

Chris said nothing.

‘Meanwhile Rigby covered for you back there because you are friends. No, that’s not it: you said, “Don’t you act like you’re still my friend.” So if he’s got no interest in protecting you, maybe his caginess is because he could lose something too. Is it a risk to himself or his family? Or perhaps his career?’

No answer.

‘I’m guessing it all revolves around Houtkamp,’ she said. ‘Something happened at that assault, didn’t it?’

‘You can guess as much as you like,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nothing to say.’

‘Were you expecting trouble? Is that why you took your gun home? You wanted to be prepared?’

‘If that was the case, don’t you think I would have kept it handy and used it when that guy knocked at the door?’ he said. ‘I took it home accidentally.’

That sometimes happened. Ella drove through Ryde and into Gladesville. As she turned into Easton Street she said, ‘How can you be so sure that Houtkamp will stay silent too? Or was that a death threat attached to the basket of flowers?’

‘There are worse things than death.’ He opened the door to get out but she reached over and grabbed his arm.

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘Exactly what I said.’ He pulled free and got out.

She watched him go into the house. No lights came on. Her mobile rang and she checked the screen. Dennis. She let it go to voicemail. She had to go into Wynyard to put Chris’s gun in the station safe where it should be, and then she wanted to think for a while, and drive – not talk.

7.30 pm

Sophie parked in Maxwell Road in Glebe and walked across Jubilee Park in the darkness. She pulled her jacket close against the cold air. She’d spent the last hour driving aimlessly about the city, trying to resist the pull of this place. She wasn’t surprised that she’d lost.

At the edge of Rozelle Bay she looked at the black water lapping against the stone wall, then went right, walking along the edge towards the lights of the city. In Pope Paul VI Reserve she stood under a spreading figtree and stared at Sawyer’s house. It was brightly lit and she could see people moving about near the windows. She clenched her fists in her pockets, her whole body taut with fury.

When she could breathe again, she went around to the far side of the tree, took her mobile from her pocket and dialled. When Angus answered she said, ‘I think he’s having a party.’

‘Sawyer?’

‘Of course Sawyer.’

‘Where are you?’

‘In the park.’ She shivered.

He was quiet for a moment. ‘Do you know that café on George Street, the art deco one with the old paintings in the front window? Near the–’

‘I know it.’

‘Go there and wait for me.’

‘Okay.’

‘I might be an hour. Don’t leave. Just wait.’

‘Okay,’ she said again. Angus hung up and she slipped the phone back into her pocket. It would be good to talk with Angus. If she couldn’t release her rage with him she didn’t know what she might do.

8.12 pm

Ella parked the car outside Houtkamp’s block then listened to the voicemail message Dennis had left on her phone.

‘
Sawyer’s sister persuaded him to call me about that picture from the pub CCTV. He says he remembers nothing, doesn’t recognise the woman, continues to have no idea whatsoever. Um – you missed this afternoon’s meeting. Give me a call sometime so I know you’re still alive.
’

It came as no surprise that Sawyer remembered nothing.
Claimed
to remember nothing, that was.

However, this thing with Houtkamp and Rigby and Chris made her reconsider her judgement of the doctor. Maybe he really was drugged and abducted. But why? And was it just a coincidence that it happened two days after the death of his family, which served as such a neat motive, and the same night Lachlan was kidnapped?

Ella entered Houtkamp’s building and climbed the stairs. Stewing about Sawyer was pointless. If things went to plan here she’d be able to forget him entirely.

The lights were on in Houtkamp’s flat: she could see the glow through the peephole. She knocked on the door. The peephole darkened and she smiled at it.

The door stayed shut.

‘I know what’s going on,’ she said.

The peephole turned bright again. She imagined him moving to the side of the door, standing there, listening.

‘I heard Rigby and Chris Phillips arguing. Your name came up. And Chris told me there are worse things than death.’