Silent Fear (21 page)

Ella heard someone tap on the door and turned to see Anthony Lu and Tom Cambridge. ‘Sorry to interrupt your self-pleasuring, but we have work to do.’

She shoved her chair backwards into his legs and walked away, her head hot, her hands clenching almost involuntarily.

*

It took them half an hour to put together the pictures of the two bystanders. When they were finished Ella printed off copies for herself and stared at the woman’s face. She tried to see the threads that linked Trina and Sutton with this pair, but knew in one respect it didn’t matter.
I’m going to find you, no matter what.

She and Murray went into Dennis’s office and put copies on his desk.

‘Fresh leads?’ Ella asked.

‘Fresher than a market garden.’ The keyboard clicked under his fingers. ‘Let’s see. Woman in jogging gear out jogging in Earlwood, no bumbag noticed, about twenty minutes after the incident; couple having a heated discussion as they went past a cafe in Marrickville where the caller was having lunch, the woman wearing a white T-shirt over a pink gym singlet and black gym pants, the man in jeans and a blue T-shirt, about two hours afterwards; couple in shorts and T-shirts walking with tennis racquets in Earlwood forty minutes later; couple in gym clothes getting into a red car in Hurlstone Park two hours after the incident.’

If the bystanders had had the forethought to split up or change clothes or collect props like tennis racquets, any of these leads could turn out to be the one.

Ella said, ‘Let’s take the Comfit pictures and see them all.’

Dennis clicked to print and Murray went to pick it up from the main printer in the outer office.

‘You’re firing on all cylinders today,’ Dennis said.

‘This woman,’ Ella said. ‘She snapped Fowler’s neck, she fake-cried to me, she was tough enough to wait around and be interviewed when she could’ve told the ambos she was upset and had to leave. That’s one cold, hard heart.’ She glanced at the open door. ‘But I have a question.’

‘About?’

‘A certain member of our team.’ She lowered her voice. ‘John Gerard.’

‘And?’

She wasn’t sure how to word it, then decided to omit the swearing. ‘What’s his problem?’

‘What happened?’

She was torn between not wanting to dob and wanting desperately to dob. ‘That depends.’

‘I need more information,’ Dennis said.

She sat down opposite him. ‘We’re friends, right? You’re not just my boss.’

‘Of course.’

‘Gerard’s harassing me.’ It sounded whiny. ‘He’s not been all that nice to Murray either.’

Dennis adjusted the position of the keyboard on the desk. ‘Harassing how, exactly?’

‘For one thing he calls me the great Marconi,’ she said. ‘Sounds like a clown’s name.’

Dennis nodded but didn’t speak.

‘And he said I let Trina Fowler punch Paul’s body –
let
– and he’s all smartarsey.’ It sounded pitiful and she stopped. She could feel herself flushing. ‘I know it sounds silly.’

Dennis said, ‘No, it sounds like you have concerns,’ but he looked at his monitor instead of at her.

Ella gripped the arms of the chair. She wanted to explain the smug way Gerard talked to her, his eye-rolling and attitude when she spoke in the meetings; that it was the tone he used when he called her the great Marconi rather than the words themselves that burned. But it sounded so self-pitying, so weak and so not her. And Dennis was fiddling with the keyboard again, not even trying to help her articulate her feelings, hardly even seeming interested.

She stared at him. ‘Dennis?’

‘Here’s Murray back,’ he said, as Murray walked in. ‘See you both here for the meeting at five, okay?’

Ella stood up. ‘I’ll meet you downstairs,’ she said to Murray, and once he’d left she faced Dennis again.

He typed something into his computer then reached for the phone.

‘Dennis, stop,’ Ella said. ‘I know you.’

He picked up the receiver. ‘We have jobs to do.’

‘Tell me what’s going on.’

He put the receiver down.

She waited.

A flush crept out of his collar. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Tell me the truth about Gerard.’

‘You know how it works.’ He looked at the open doorway. ‘Some people are owed favours, and others have to deliver, and if someone’s father’s friend is laid up in hospital post-assault it doesn’t mean their pull is lessened.’

‘You mean . . .’ She frowned.

He picked up the receiver again. ‘We have to play together, and that’s that.’

*

In the lift Ella watched the light flick through the floors and replayed the conversation. Dennis was saying that John Gerard had pull with Frank Shakespeare; that John’s dad and Frank were mates.
Great.
Would it never fucking end?

On the street the sun was bright, the air steamy. Ella put on her sunglasses, feeling the heat on her skin. Murray stood outside the cafe next door talking to Wayne Rhodes. Ella marched up to them, catching the words ‘pulling out all the stops’ before Wayne stopped mid-sentence. They both looked at her, clearly waiting for her to walk on.

‘You ready?’ she said to Murray.

‘In a minute.’

‘I’ll get the car then, shall I?’

She walked off without waiting for an answer. In the car she started the engine and put the aircon on high. The conversation was probably to do with Murray’s father. Maybe one of Wayne’s guys had twisted some informant’s arm and got a lead on who’d stabbed ol’ Frankie. Maybe an operation to nab the bad guys was being planned and Wayne was offering Murray the chance to be in on it. It didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed at Murray for not warning her about John Gerard’s pull. Dennis was her friend, but it was humiliating to have said all that to him and sounded so damn whiny and then find Gerard was protected anyway.

She was sitting with her arms folded and all the vents facing her way when Murray got in. She wasn’t going to speak but then he said, ‘You ever heard of a Dante Novak?’

‘Is that who stabbed your –’

‘Have you heard of him? Yes or no?’

‘No,’ she said.

‘That’s all I asked.’ He clipped in his seatbelt.

She released the park brake but kept her hand on it. ‘Your dad okay? Getting lots of visits from his friends and so on?’

‘He’s doing okay.’ He looked at her. ‘We going out to do some work or not?’

‘I just want to be sure you’re ready, that there’s nothing you need to do. Or talk about.’

He faced the windscreen. ‘I’m perfectly fine.’

Her teeth gritted, she put her foot down and drove out of the car park.

SEVENTEEN

H
olly sat in the Mazda on Balmain Road in Rozelle and stared at the brown brick building that housed the ambulance state headquarters. She’d done her maths and comprehension entry tests there in a room with two dozen other hopefuls, performed CPR on a mannequin for long minutes then helped carry a person downstairs as part of the physical test, and smiled and lied through her teeth to a superintendent about her recent past in the interview.

She turned the air-conditioning vents to blow directly into her face and watched a man in uniform walk out the front door and into the car park, and thought through her options. She could go over there, find Maida Quartermaine and get ahead of all this. She could explain, and make a complaint against Kyle while she was at it. Admitting that she’d lied on her application could very well get her sacked, but she felt that waiting until Kyle told them would end up with her sacking anyway, and at least this way Kyle might face some consequences for his treatment of the overdose patient and his harassment of her. Or she could . . . what? Do exactly as she was doing. Stay silent out of fear.

She stared past the building at the accommodation block. A group of trainees in civvies came out of the door, laughing and pushing one another. They’d be off to the Orange Grove Hotel across the road. Holly didn’t live in when she was training but had still spent many evenings in the pub with her class. It had been an uneasy time, thinking she would somehow be found out, that Lissa’s actions would be discovered and Holly would be kicked out when she’d just found the life she knew she’d love; but over time the fear had faded, and she’d made friends, and the past became just the past.

Until now.

The thought of losing the job made her chest tight.

She squeezed the wheel. Could Kyle really get proof? HR at Royal Melbourne was closed. Even if he knew someone high up – even if the head of the department was his
mother
– the system surely couldn’t be accessed on a Sunday.

Perhaps Maida Quartermaine was calling about Lacey after all.

It was a small hope, and she clung to it with every bit of strength she had.

And anyway, she thought, silence could also be resistance. Say nothing and what could anyone do?

*

The young couple who’d seen the woman out jogging looked at the Comfit picture while Murray stood silently behind Ella. They shook their heads. ‘She was about fifteen kilos heavier.’

The middle-aged man who’d seen the couple with tennis racquets did the same. ‘They were Chinese. Didn’t I mention that?’

‘Two down,’ Ella said when they got back in the car.

Murray looked out the window and didn’t answer.

‘Murray.’

‘What?’

‘You haven’t said a word in an hour.’

‘So?’

‘So work with me here,’ she said.

‘What do you want? You need me to hold the pictures? Fine.’

‘Forget it,’ she said.

The third potential witness had seen a couple in gym clothes getting into a red car in Hurlstone Park two hours after the shooting. The man was grumpy when he came to the door, his face creased with sleep. He looked at the pictures then shook his head. ‘The ones I saw were much younger, and skinny.’

Back in the car Murray looked out the window again. Ella glared at the back of his head. ‘Who’s Dante Novak?’

‘Why do you have to know everything?’

Hot with embarrassment because it was true, still angry nevertheless, she grabbed the printed page and looked for the fourth address.

It was a cream-painted, cramped-looking semi in Dulwich Hill. Ella found a park across the street and turned off the car. She got out without speaking to Murray and slammed the door. The sun blasted down on her, heat rose into her face from the asphalt, steamed almost visibly off the bushes in the small gardens. Air conditioners hummed and dripped on the sides of the houses. Somewhere a dog was barking, over and over, but tiredly, as if it wanted to stop but couldn’t. Ella’s shirt felt too small, the sleeves nipping her under the arms and the fabric clinging across her back. She could smell her sweat, smell Murray’s too, the smell of tired cranky people who needed first to shower then to rest, preferably somewhere cool and dark.

She marched herself across the street and up onto the tiled patio and pressed the plastic buzzer.

The door opened and a woman in a flowered sleeveless dress looked out. ‘Yes?’

Ella held up her badge. ‘Phillipa Meddeman? You called the hotline?’

‘Yes, I did.’ She stepped back and motioned for them to come in. ‘Cup of tea? Coffee?’

‘Water would be lovely, thank you,’ Ella said.

The living room was dim and cold, the air conditioner on the wall pumping out a breeze that stroked Ella’s skin and cooled her blood and improved her mood immediately. She even smiled at Murray.
He’s stressed about his dad, that’s all.

He sank into the armchair opposite her and rubbed his forehead with his palms.

Phillipa Meddeman brought in a tray with tall clinking glasses of water. Condensation was already forming on the sides and ice cubes jostled with slices of lime in the top. Ella took one and the feel of it in her palm was like a blessing, the cold water in her throat a promise. She drank half in one go, then put the glass down and appraised Phillipa. She was about fifty. Her dark hair was streaked with grey and cut neatly above her shoulders. She sat forward on the edge of the lounge, hands on her knees, her face alert and interested.
Fingers crossed
, Ella thought.

‘What time was it that you saw these people yesterday?’

‘Quarter to two,’ Phillipa said. ‘I was having a late lunch.’

‘Could you look at a couple of pictures for us, please?’

Phillipa straightened her back even further. ‘Certainly.’

Ella handed over the sheet of paper and watched Phillipa’s face as she studied them, her eyes going back and forth between the faces.
Please be doing that out of thoroughness rather than doubt.

Finally Phillipa said, ‘The woman is right.’

Ella wanted to lean over and punch Murray on his cottonpickin’ arm.

‘But the man is different.’

‘Sorry?’

Phillipa tapped the face with her finger. ‘This is definitely the woman I saw in the street outside the cafe, but she was arguing with a different man. He was older than this one, maybe five or ten years older, and he had a longer face.’

‘Are you certain?’ Murray said. ‘That you remember them in such detail, I mean?’

‘Of course.’ She picked up a sketchpad from the coffee table and flipped through to a page near the back. ‘I’m an artist. I notice people all the time. Once I heard on the news what you were looking for, and I rang in, I drew these so I wouldn’t forget.’

Ella took the pad and compared the two faces to the Comfits. The woman was eerily accurate and Ella got a shiver looking into those eyes again. The man was a whole other story, just as Meddeman had said. So, the bystanders had split up. Gone their separate ways. Easier to hide like that.

She said, ‘What were they wearing?’

‘The woman was in black fitted gym pants that reached just below her knees, and a plain white T-shirt over a pink singlet. The T-shirt looked a bit big and I remember thinking she must be hot in those layers. She had dark brown hair that reached just past her shoulders. The man was dressed in jeans and a light blue T-shirt, also plain. He had a rectangular face, longer than it was wide, and he was clean-shaven and wearing a baseball-type cap that was pulled down low enough to make his ears stick out a little. The cap was plain grey and he’d been sweating so you could see the dark line of sweat above the visor. They were both wearing running shoes, mostly white with patterns on the side. I didn’t see the brands, sorry.’

‘You recall all that detail because you’re an artist?’ Murray said.

Phillipa nodded. ‘I was there to people-watch. I have these dark sunglasses and nobody can tell where I’m looking, and I study people who catch my eye. This pair were tense, and where there’s tension there’s drama, and that’s what I’m interested in.’

She sounded slightly loopy but Ella didn’t care. ‘What were they doing?’

‘They were walking quickly towards me and I saw the woman snap at the man who was slightly behind her,’ Phillipa said. ‘He said something back as they drew level and she turned to face him and they started arguing, but in low voices. Hissing, I guess you’d call it.’ She smiled a little. ‘I tried to hear what they were saying, of course, but between the traffic noise and the volume of their voices it was difficult.’

‘How far from you were they?’

Phillipa glanced around the room. ‘From here to the doorway, I suppose.’

‘Which one was facing you?’

‘They were side-on.’ She pointed with open palms. ‘The woman on the left, the man on the right. She was angry, you could tell from her face. I was already thinking about drawing the scene.’ She motioned towards the sketchpad. ‘Turn back a page.’

And there they were. Ella stared at the drawing, the woman’s posture forward like she was getting stuck into the man, his arms out as if trying to explain himself. The female bystander had worn her hair up in a ponytail; if released it would’ve been this long for sure. There was nothing drawn in the background, so she couldn’t judge the woman’s height, but her build was the same as the bystander’s. She shivered.

‘Were they aware that you were watching?’ Murray said.

‘I don’t think so. Though they must’ve been aware of people being around them, to keep their voices so low.’

‘Then what happened?’ Ella asked.

‘The man said something about a dog.’

Ella’s heart leapt. ‘Are you sure?’

Phillipa nodded. ‘He was scared, he said. It was a big effing dog. And he held his hand out by his thigh. Like this.’ She stood up and put her hand by her leg, palm down.

‘As if indicating how big it was,’ Ella said.

‘Yes.’

‘Hang on,’ Murray said. ‘You just said how noisy the traffic was and how quietly they were talking, and there would’ve been people at the tables around you, right? Eating and talking?’

‘Yes, but he raised his voice,’ Phillipa said. ‘The woman was angry and getting in his face, and it looked like he couldn’t get a word in, then said this loudly to cut across her.’

‘How did she respond?’ Ella asked.

‘She slapped his forearm, and not in a joking way. Then she turned and marched off as if totally exasperated. He followed a few steps behind.’

‘Which direction did they go?’

‘Down past the pub, then they turned the corner into Spencer Street.’

Ella looked at Murray. He still appeared doubtful, but she was certain. The description of both their clothes, the sketch showing the woman’s build, the sketch of her face matching the Comfit that had been created with Murray’s and Lu’s and Cambridge’s memories as well as her own, and the mention of the dog.

‘We need to get to that location and try to find CCTV showing where they went next,’ she said to Murray.

‘So it’s helpful?’ Phillipa asked.

‘So helpful I can’t even put it into words.’ Ella stood up and put out her hand.

*

Outside on the street, Murray said, ‘I don’t know.’

‘What can you possibly not know?’ Ella said. ‘They’re arguing in the street about a dog that scared the man, they’re dressed almost the same as the female bystander and the man seen near the playground in the trees just before the shooting – she’s just pulled on a T-shirt over the top. It all fits.’

‘So you think the bystanders and the loiterer met up afterwards, and the male bystander took the sports bag and went one way while this pair went another,’ he said.

‘He took the woman’s bumbag as well,’ Ella said.

‘Whatever. But you’re forgetting that the bystanders stayed around to be interviewed.’

‘She just said she saw them at about quarter to two,’ Ella said. ‘That’s two hours after the shooting. We arrived on the scene at quarter past one, ten minutes after Fowler was declared dead at the hospital, and we didn’t finish talking to the bystanders until, what, twenty-five past? Then remember they strolled off to the footbridge over the river? The shooter could’ve been in a car in the golf club car park waiting to pick them up –’

‘With cops wandering around?’

‘Or they could’ve walked out of the golf course as if they were heading home,’ she said. ‘Their fake address was Livingstone Road, so that’s the way they’d go to get there. Once out of the club gates the shooter could’ve been parked anywhere waiting for them. Maybe the male bystander gets behind the wheel, then he drops the woman and the shooter somewhere closer to Marrickville Road. They walk along to wherever they’re going and have an argument that catches Phillipa Meddeman’s eye.’

Murray made a face. ‘Why not just get in the car together and get out of there?’

‘Why hang around to talk to us when they could’ve left?’ she said. ‘Because they think they’re smarter than us. They think we’d never be able to put them all together.’ She unlocked the car. ‘I’m going to call Dennis, then look for CCTV. You coming?’

*

Holly stood in the park alongside The Grand Parade in Brighton-Le-Sands and stared over the passing cars at the block of units where Seth lived. The building was four storeys high, made of brown brick with white trim on the windows and balcony railings. She didn’t know which unit was his, and wasn’t going into the block to find out. She wasn’t even sure why she was there.

She turned and walked down onto the beach. The breeze raised tiny whitecaps out on the bay and children ran screaming in and out of the water. She found an empty space among the families and sat down, pulled off her boots and socks and pressed her feet into the hot sand. The wind was hot in her face, the sun was hotter on her back.

She looked at the screen of her mobile. No missed calls and no messages. She hesitated, then dialled Lacey’s number. It went to voicemail. She couldn’t think what to say and hung up, then regretted it. She shouldn’t have called at all. She should’ve let Lacey stew.

She stared out at the bay, her eyes watering behind her sunglasses, aware of people around her glancing over, and no wonder with her still in her uniform pants and a too-large bright green T-shirt of Norris’s she’d found in the car.