Silent Fear (16 page)

‘Henreid claimed he and Paul were friends.’

Airlie shook her head. ‘Not in any normal sense, but then maybe he doesn’t have any proper friends, so he can’t judge.’

Ella glanced at Murray who was writing all this down.

‘Were you working the day that Paul quit?’ she asked.

‘Oh yeah. I thought Mr Henreid was going to have a stroke. He was shouting at Paul on the phone but in this really cold voice. Steve and I cleared off to the sides of the shop, pretending to tidy the displays along the wall, because it felt like if he came out of the office and spotted us he’d take it out on us. He sacked someone once when he was angry at something else, and I mean, we might not love our jobs but you gotta pay your bills, right?’

‘What effect did Paul leaving have on the shop?’

‘It’s going downhill,’ she said. ‘Mr Henreid reckoned he could do the job himself, but like I said he makes people tense. Steve talks every day about leaving. He says he can’t stand it any more and it’s not worth it. He talks about just not coming in one day, like Paul did, but I can’t see him actually ever doing it.’

‘Did Paul tell you he was quitting?’

‘Nope,’ Airlie said.

‘Did he seem unhappy in the lead-up to that day? Did you notice anything different about him?’

‘He seemed fine. But then I don’t know if he would’ve told me he was going. Maybe he was just fed up. Maybe he wanted to cause Mr Henreid as much trouble as possible and leaving like that was the best way to do it. He might’ve been afraid I’d let it slip and Mr Henreid would find out.’

‘Because he didn’t want to face him?’ Murray said.

‘Or he wanted to leave him totally in the lurch,’ Airlie said.

‘Do you think Steven knew that Paul was going to leave?’

‘If he did, he never said a word to me, and he seemed just as surprised as I was on the day,’ she said.

Ella nodded. ‘One final thing: were there ever any threats made to the store in general? Any unhappy customers? Anything like that?’

‘Not that I ever heard about,’ Airlie said.

Ella glanced at Murray but he drew a line across the notebook page, indicating he had nothing more to ask. She stood up. ‘Thanks for your help.’

Airlie walked them to the door. ‘I hope you catch whoever did it. Paul was a decent guy. I hope his little girl’s okay.’

Me too
, Ella thought.

TWELVE

H
olly got home from breakfast to find Norris cleaning the pool, something he only did when there were people coming over.

‘What’s up?’ she said.

He put down the scoop. ‘Don’t be angry.’

Her reasonable mood turned sour.

‘Don’t look at me like that either,’ he said.

‘If you keep telling me what to do, I’m walking away.’

‘It’s Seth.’

‘
What?
’

‘It’s okay,’ he said. ‘Just listen. He’s coming over.’

She squeezed the car keys hard. This was not happening.

‘Control rang. He’d called them trying to get your number. Of course they couldn’t give it to him, but they took his and phoned here. I called him back. He’s really upset, baby. I told him to come over.’

‘You knew I didn’t want to see him.’ The hollow wooden owl Norris kept on the key ring cracked in her fist. ‘I told you that, and then you go and invite him into our house.’

‘Sweetheart, he’s your brother.’ He came around the end of the pool. ‘He told me he wants to talk to you, that he wants to fix things up. He’s going to apologise. And you know how you said there’s nobody to give you away at the wedding, I thought –’

‘No way on this earth,’ she said. ‘Call him right now and tell him he’s not coming.’

‘No, baby, listen. Sometimes we all have to do things we don’t want to –’

‘Call him.’

‘I promise you it will be all right.’

‘Call him.’

‘I’m not going to call him. He’s going to come here, you two will talk, and things will be better. You just have to believe me.’ He tried to put his hand on her shoulder.

‘Don’t touch me.’ The owl collapsed in her fist with a crunch.

‘Did you just break my owl?’

She shook her hand and the pieces fell to the pavers.

‘That was my owl!’

‘Fat lot of wisdom it brought you.’ She stormed inside and upstairs and threw herself on the spare bed.

Norris followed. ‘Honey, wait a second, let’s talk about this.’

‘Call him, and leave me alone.’

‘He told me he wasn’t a great brother when you guys were young, but he’s going to make it up to you.’

She sat up. ‘You think I’d be so angry if it was that simple?’

‘I know how a thing can feel complicated when you’re in it, but –’

‘Just shut up,’ she said. ‘Call him, shut up, and leave me alone.’

He came and sat on the side of the bed instead and tried to pat her leg. ‘Sweetheart, your anger tells me that you need to talk. You need to sort this issue out, with him and with yourself.’

She stared at him, hot with fury, then pushed past him and went into the office where her work notebook sat on the desk. She flipped roughly through the pages and grabbed her mobile.

‘You said you didn’t have his number.’ Norris looked over her shoulder. ‘Is that where he lives?’

‘Yo,’ Seth answered.

‘You are not welcome in my house.’

‘Good morning, Jade-I-mean-Holly, I am well, and you?’

‘I mean it.’

‘I’m already on my way. Almost there, in fact.’

‘This is your first and final warning.’ She was shaking. ‘Stay away.’

‘I’ll see you in ten.’

‘I’ll call the cops.’

‘No, you won’t,’ he said.

‘Try me,’ she said, and hung up.

Norris touched her arm and she almost punched him.

‘Baby –’

‘Don’t,’ she snapped.

He dropped his hand. ‘You’d really call the cops to keep your own brother out?’

‘Did I sound like I was joking?’

He looked at her for a long moment. ‘What did he do to you?’

The truth was untellable, but she could see in his eyes that he was thinking about pushing the point.
I cannot go there, so don’t ask me.

Her mobile rang. The screen showed Control’s number.

‘Holly, how are ya?’ She recognised the voice of Euan Fisher, one of Lacey’s colleagues on the overtime desk. ‘Get me out of a hole?’

‘Now?’ she said.

‘Yep. Soon as. At Auburn.’

‘I’m there.’

Flooded with relief she hung up, went into the bedroom and grabbed a uniform.

‘I thought you said you probably wouldn’t get any more extra shifts,’ Norris said.

‘I said I didn’t know.’

She yanked on a shirt. She didn’t understand it herself, and thought briefly that it could be some kind of test, that they were trying to establish a sense of obligation, maybe they’d be calling her later to make a statement about Lacey, but all she cared about now was getting out of the house.

Norris sat on the bed. She felt his eyes on her while she dressed, but he didn’t speak. She buckled her belt, feeling bad. He’d only done what he thought was best – he always did – and it wasn’t his fault she’d reacted so harshly. She pulled on her boots, then stood before him.

‘Listen,’ she said. ‘My brother can’t be trusted. I think he’s on drugs. He’ll tell you he’s not, of course, but I know the signs. And he’s a pathological liar, so you can’t believe anything he says. About the past, or about me.’

Norris looked up at her and she grasped a fistful of his T-shirt in a gentle hand and shook it for emphasis. ‘Especially about me.’

Norris nodded.

It was the best she could do, but as she bent and kissed him lightly on the lips, collected her notebook and phone, then went downstairs, she felt sick with anxiety that her best might not be enough.

*

Steven Parkes lived in Lidcombe, in a row of dated dark-brick, single-storey units that backed onto the railway line. Ella walked up the cracked concrete driveway, noting the line of ageing cars parked nose in against a falling-down paling fence on her right. Murray looked at his mobile, then put it away.

‘How’s he doing?’ she said. ‘Your dad?’

‘He’s getting better.’

Lo, he answers!
‘They got leads on the doer?’

‘Not that I’ve heard.’

There was a heap of people working it, she knew. ‘Won’t be long.’

‘I hope not.’

On the left of the driveway the units shared a patio that ran the length of the building. Fluorescent bars in steel wire boxes were fixed to the fly-spotted ceiling over each door. The concrete was swept clean and the paint on the railing along the front was new. The block might be old but someone was taking good care of it.

Steven Parkes’s unit was the last in the row. Ella glanced down the side of the building to see two windows. He had a great view of a sagging Hills hoist, tiny strip of grass and grey paling fence. She could see railway stanchions above it and wondered how frequently the trains went by.

Murray knocked on the door.

‘Who is it?’

‘New South Wales Police, Mr Parkes,’ Murray said.

‘Detectives,’ Ella added.

Locks turned. Steven opened the door. He was pale with dark hair and looked anxiously at their badges and faces. ‘Is this about Paul?’

They nodded.

‘Come in.’

The unit was even smaller than it looked on the outside, but it was clean and tidy and smelled of lemons. Steven motioned for them to sit on a brown vinyl lounge that was set against the wall and facing a small TV, and he brought a stool from the little kitchen to sit in front of them with his back practically touching the screen. The place was so small Ella could’ve reached out and slapped him without any trouble. He looked about twenty-three. He wore a yellow singlet with something about the Australian cricket team printed across the front, and green shorts, and sat with his long fingers grasping his knobbly knees.

‘You were friends with Paul?’ she said.

‘Sort of.’ His eyes were red-rimmed and he blinked often.

‘Airlie Robbins said you sometimes ate lunch together.’

He ducked his head and his fringe fell across his eyes. ‘Sometimes.’

‘Why only sometimes?’

‘He would get busy and have to take his break later.’ A blush rose up his cheeks.

‘Deliberately?’

‘I couldn’t say.’ The blush deepened.

Ella studied him. ‘How did you hear what had happened?’

‘I tried to ring his mobile yesterday but got voicemail, then I called his house. His ex-wife told me.’

‘Why were you calling him?’

‘I had nothing really to do, and I mentioned at work once about having a drink at the pub sometime.’ The blush crept right up to his forehead. ‘I thought if he had nothing to do either, we could do that. Watch the one-dayer, whatever.’

‘Had you seen him since he left?’

‘No.’

‘And just out of the blue yesterday you decided to get in touch,’ Murray said.

‘No, I just – I’d thought about it before then, but hadn’t got around to doing it, that’s all.’

Ella looked at him.

He met her gaze, then glanced away. ‘I thought it’d be nice to catch up.’

‘So you tried his mobile first,’ she said. ‘What time was that?’

‘About quarter past twelve. It went straight to voicemail so I knew it was turned off.’

‘Can you check that time, please?’

He got up and went into the small bedroom and brought back his phone. He thumbed through the buttons. ‘Twelve seventeen.’

‘Can you tell us his number, please?’

He recited it. Murray wrote it down but Ella recognised it as the same one that Trina had given them.

‘Did you leave a message?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I said that I’d try the house.’

‘But you knew that he and his wife had split up?’

‘Yes, but I didn’t have the number of his new place, and I knew sometimes he went to see his daughter on Saturdays, so I thought there was a chance that he might be there.’

A train rumbled past and the window rattled in its frame. Ella watched Steven’s fingers turning white in their tight grip on his phone. She felt he was a desperately lonely guy. Maybe it’d taken him days, weeks even, to gather the courage to call Fowler, and now look what’d happened.

When the train had gone he said, ‘I rang there at twelve twenty.’

‘What did his wife say?’

‘She said he’d been killed.’ His hands shook. ‘I said how? What happened? And she said something about him having been shot, then she started crying and hung up.’

Ella glanced at Murray. Trina Fowler had said that Carl Sutton came over and told her about Fowler, but at twelve twenty Sutton and the rest of Fowler’s so-called friends were still at the park. In fact, considering that time of death had been declared at the hospital at only four minutes past one, the resuscitation had probably even been still under way.
Big call to say he was dead then.

‘What did you do after that?’ she said.

‘I went to the pub on my own,’ he said. ‘I got drunk and I bought rounds for strangers so they’d drink with me. The newsbreaks in the cricket kept mentioning a man having been killed in a park in Earlwood and I got drunker. I was there most of the afternoon, then I walked home, then rang Airlie and told her.’

‘What time was that?’ Ella asked.

He scrolled through the phone again. ‘Five-oh-eight.’

‘You didn’t call Henreid?’

‘No way.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘He’d probably go off at me for calling out of work hours or something,’ Steven said. ‘Plus I know how angry he was when Paul left. There’s just no way.’

‘How well do you get along with Henreid?’

‘Not,’ Steven said. ‘As soon as I find another job I’m out of there. I’ve got an interview on Tuesday at a computer games shop. Fingers crossed.’

Ella nodded. ‘You said you and Paul only sometimes had lunch together.’

‘Yes.’ Steven ducked his head again.

‘Do you think he avoided you?’

‘I couldn’t say.’

‘But is that what it felt like?’

‘A bit.’ He rubbed the back of his neck.

‘Did he tell you anything about himself? His life?’

‘I know his little girl’s name is Darcy, and his wife’s Trina.’

‘Did he mention why they split up?’

‘All he said was that it was complicated and he didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Was he upset?’

‘No, he was very calm. I remember the shop was quiet and he was standing by the front window looking out and I walked past and said something like “How’s it going?” and he said he’d moved out. I asked was he okay and everything, but he just said the stuff about it being complicated and that was it.’

Compared to what Henreid and Airlie Robbins knew, Fowler had practically spilled his guts to Parkes.

Ella said, ‘Was he having an affair?’

‘Not that he ever said, and I saw no signs of it.’

‘Did he say if his wife was?’ Murray asked.

‘No.’

‘Did he tell you he was quitting?’

‘Not exactly,’ Steven said, ‘but looking back there were signs.’

‘Like what?’

‘He wasn’t happy. He used to be cheerful around the shop, friendly, always happy to have a chat when Mr Henreid wasn’t around, though never about himself. But in the week before he left he stayed in his office a lot and seemed distracted when he did come out on the floor. I thought it might’ve been the break-up but I realised later it was only that last week that he was distant; before that, and after he’d left her, he seemed okay.’

‘Did Airlie notice this change too?’

‘No. I didn’t tell her what Paul’d said about the split, and when he quit she seemed completely surprised.’

‘Why do you think he left?’

‘I don’t know exactly, but I know that he and Mr Henreid had a big argument at the start of his last week. It was after closing, and I’d got halfway to the station then had to go back because I’d left my phone on the counter. I let myself in and I could hear them in the back, shouting at each other.’

‘Shouting what?’

‘Well, the door was shut and the sound was muffled, and I didn’t want Mr Henreid to burst out and see me there. I’d get fired on the spot. I need that job.’

‘So you planned to grab your phone and get out of there,’ Ella said.

He nodded. ‘But I did think I caught a sentence.’ He stopped.

‘What was it?’

‘It doesn’t make a lot of sense. And I can’t swear to the accuracy.’

‘What was it?’ Ella said again.

‘I thought I heard Paul say, “Every word Daniel said about you is true”.’

Ella and Murray looked at each other.