Silent Fear (33 page)

THIRTY

E
lla parked across the road from Mary Hyde’s house, and she and Louise Brooks got out of the car. Cicadas sang in the trees. Ella saw Mary in her window with a pair of shiny new binoculars and raised a hand to her, getting a wave in return, then stepped onto the park with Louise and started walking towards Sam Roberts-Brice.

He sat cross-legged on the spot where Paul Fowler had fallen, plucking at the dead grass. She saw him look up at their approach but he made no effort to move.

They stopped two metres away. His face was tear-stained, his hair lank, the bruise on his cheek a pale blue. His knees were dirty and the laces of his runners were coming untied.

‘How’re you doing, Sam?’ Ella said.

‘Fucked.’ He flicked grass from his fingers. ‘Scuse the language.’

She crouched down. The sun was hot on her face and she squinted to see him. Beside her Louise got out her notebook.

‘It wasn’t supposed to go like this, was it?’ Ella said.

He shook his head, his eyes downcast.

‘Starting with you being assaulted,’ she said. ‘Seems like maybe something could’ve been done to stop it all back then.’

He glanced up at her.

She thought back to what Callum had said. ‘Two guys held your arms while a third hit you, right?’

Roberts-Brice yanked out a clump of grass and smacked the dirt from the roots.

‘You may as well tell us your side of things,’ Ella said. ‘Otherwise we think you’re all behind all of it.’ She took a tentative step on the limb. ‘Just like Carl.’

‘No way.’ He threw the grass away. ‘I am nothing like him.’

‘So tell us,’ Louise said gently.

‘Start with what really happened to you,’ Ella said.

‘I was in the Crown and Hand in Newtown, Sunday afternoon week before last.’

Ella knew that pub. It had no CCTV.

‘I was watching the footy and didn’t notice them there, but when I left they were suddenly all around me.’ He wiped his eyes. ‘One said he had a gun and would shoot me if I didn’t go with them into the alley. Once there they said we had to shut the place down or else, and started laying in.’

‘The place being?’

‘The brothel we opened in Tempe.’ A flush rose in his cheeks.

They’d come back to that in a moment. ‘What happened then?’

‘I passed out, and when I woke up they were gone. I drove myself home and told Sarah I’d been mucking around on a skateboard and she made me go to hospital.’

‘What did these men look like?’

‘There were three of them,’ he said. ‘All around my height or maybe a little taller. One had a thin face and dark hair and eyes. He was the one who was hitting me.’ He touched his forehead. ‘One had a roundish face, he was kind of piggy-looking with little eyes. The other one had a longish face. They were in football shorts and T-shirts, all plain black or blue, I think. I don’t remember any logos anyway.’

Ella thought back to the mug shot she’d seen of Luiz Paz, and the clear view she’d had of Trent Bligh the evening before. The third man with the long face might be the shooter. ‘Have you seen any of them before or since?’

He shook his head.

‘How about the couple doing CPR on Paul that day? You ever seen them before?’

‘Never. Why?’

‘Just checking off the boxes.’

‘You think they might’ve been involved as well?’ he said. ‘I thought they were fucking helping!’

‘We don’t know,’ Ella said. ‘This is why we need you to tell us everything, so we can work out what’s going on.’

‘Oh God.’ He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. ‘If I’d told you everything when you came to my place, Seth might still be alive. If I’d stood my ground after I was bashed, maybe Paul’d still be here too. I knew Jared wanted to stop everything then, but I didn’t want to admit I was scared. Plus I still needed the money.’

‘For what?’

‘It sounds so stupid now, but the GFC has really affected my income – I work in stocks and bonds and a lot of what I make is commission – and we have this big mortgage, and my wife comes from a wealthy family and I didn’t want her or her father to feel I couldn’t provide for her.’

‘So first you got the second job in the bottle-o,’ Ella said. ‘And it still wasn’t enough, and then you thought a brothel was the answer.’

He hung his head. ‘It sounds fucking stupid now.’

‘You even went there yourself.’

He looked at her.

‘We have photos.’

‘I didn’t actually do anything,’ he said. ‘I’ll admit I thought about it, but once I was talking to the girl it felt all wrong and I left, I swear.’

Ella wasn’t sure that’d save him from his wife’s wrath. ‘What did you say to Trina this morning?’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘You got photos of that too?’

She didn’t answer.

‘I told her she has to tell Carl to sort things out.’

‘Regarding?’

‘After Paul died, he said these guys approached him and offered him a deal,’ Roberts-Brice said. ‘He told us they said we could keep the place going if we gave them half the money. Me and Jared kinda wanted out by then, but Carl said there’d be no more assaults and whatever, so we were safe, and that some money was better than none. So we finally agreed. Seth too. But then Seth and that other guy got kidnapped and shot.’

‘His name was Norris Sanderson,’ Ella said.

Roberts-Brice wiped his eyes again. ‘I called Carl but he told me to email. So I did that, saying what the hell’s going on? He didn’t reply. I talked to Jared, who said he’d tried to talk to Carl as well and basically been told where to go. I thought Trina could get through to him.’

‘And you put an ant in her brain about Paul.’

‘I wanted an answer.’

Ella and Louise waited.

‘And it did occur to me that it was very convenient for Carl to have Paul gone,’ he said.

‘But Trina didn’t want him back,’ Ella said.

‘Carl’s the jealous type,’ Roberts-Brice said. ‘If he so much as suspected she might change her mind . . .’ He shrugged.

Ella glanced at Louise. It was time to knock on some doors.

*

At the car she said, ‘You want to update Dennis, tell him Roberts-Brice is on his way in, and see if he wants us to head to Sutton’s? I just have to make a call.’

‘Sure.’ Louise got in and opened her phone.

Ella walked a few steps away and watched Roberts-Brice trail forlornly across the field to his car as she phoned RPA. When the switch answered she said, ‘Emergency Department, please.’

The phone buzzed for a moment. ‘Emergency.’

‘Is Doctor Callum McLennan there?’

‘Just a second.’

She listened to hold music like a chorus of doorbells, then Callum said, ‘McLennan.’

‘It’s Detective Ella Marconi,’ she said, suddenly nervous. She stood up straight and put her free hand on her hip. ‘Just thought you’d like to know that your feelings about that assault case were correct. The person in question just told me how it happened; exactly like you said.’

‘Well, I’m glad,’ he said. ‘Does this help your case?’

‘It’s helping to make things clearer, even if it’s not getting us closer to the culprits.’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘And how are you?’

‘Busy.’ She glanced around at Louise. She was still on her phone. ‘Yourself?’

‘Fine. That little girl drew a picture of you for us while we were looking after her brother.’

Ella blinked. ‘A good one, I hope.’

‘Of course. You have an odd-looking halo, huge muscles and enormous wings.’

She could hear he was smiling. ‘Maybe I could drop in and see it sometime.’

‘Or I could give it to you,’ he said. ‘If we happened to run into each other at a cafe, say.’

A lump rose in her throat. ‘That’d be nice.’

An alarm rang in the Emergency Department. Callum said, ‘I have to go.’ He hesitated. ‘How would you feel about giving me your number?’

‘Let me think.’ She recited it.

‘I’ll call you,’ he said with a smile she could hear.

‘I’ll answer.’

He laughed, then was gone.

She walked back to the car in a daze. Louise leaned out of her window. ‘Hurry up.’

‘What?’

‘We’re grabbing up Sutton.’

*

Carl Sutton lived in a red-brick house in a street off Beamish in Campsie. Ella collected her thoughts on the way. They arrived to find John Gerard in his car in the service station yard across the way, eating a chocolate bar that was melting in the heat.

Ella pulled up next to him. ‘I hope you didn’t run inside to buy that and miss our man fleeing.’

‘Ha ha.’ He nodded at the white station wagon parked in Sutton’s driveway. ‘Dude hasn’t budged. And I brought this from home.’

She drove back out of the lot and parked across Sutton’s driveway. As she and Louise got out, Murray pulled up behind them.

John Gerard crossed the street and started up the driveway. ‘I’ll take the back.’

‘I better go too,’ Murray said.

Ella and Louise walked up the path to the front door. Trees along the footpath partly shaded the small paved yard from the blazing sun. The verandah had been enclosed and the windows and blinds inside them were closed tight.

Ella tested the handle of the security screen door, found it locked, and banged on the frame with her fist. ‘Carl Sutton. Open the door.’

No answer.

She banged again, harder. ‘Carl Sutton!’

Louise went to the side and looked down. ‘Anything?’

‘Nope,’ Murray called back.

Ella pounded on the door. ‘Shit.’ She went to the corner of the house and looked down the side. She heard John Gerard hammer on the back door and shout Sutton’s name, a note of desperation in his voice.

Yeah, you should be worried: you lost him.

Louise put her hands on her hips. ‘What now?’

‘Wait here.’ Ella walked down the side path to the back of the house. The yard was pebbled with a concrete fountain in the shape of a fish in the centre. The fish was cracked, just a dribble of water flowing from the corner of its mouth, and the water in the bowl around it was green with algae. ‘No answer?’ she said to Gerard. ‘Fancy that.’

He tried the windows, his jaw set.

A pile of concrete blocks lay beside the back fence. Ella climbed up on them and looked over to see a woman in her late teens with pink cropped hair wiping down her car with a towel on the end of the concrete driveway behind the block of flats. The concrete was wet and dotted with foam, and a sponge rested on an upturned bucket nearby.

Ella pulled herself over the fence and walked up to the woman. ‘Hi.’

The woman smiled.

Ella said, ‘I don’t suppose you’ve seen someone else come over that fence this morning?’

‘The blond guy?’ the woman said. ‘Skinny face? Looking for his cat?’

‘That’s him,’ Ella said. ‘How long ago?’

‘I’d just started on the car here.’ She rubbed at a water spot. ‘Half an hour?’

‘Thanks,’ Ella said.

She went back to the fence where Murray and John Gerard stood on the blocks. ‘He went half an hour ago,’ she said, eyeing Gerard. ‘Tell Louise to drive around and meet me.’

*

They canvassed the street and found a man in his seventies working in his garden who said he saw Sutton get into a taxi.

‘You’re sure it was him?’ Gerard said.

‘I know him; he fixed my computer last month.’ The man shielded his face from the sun with the trowel. ‘I said hello to him and he nodded but didn’t speak.’

‘What kind of taxi was it?’

‘A sedan.’

‘I mean what company,’ Gerard said.

The man shrugged. ‘I didn’t know there were different companies. I think it was white though.’

‘That narrows it down,’ Gerard said. ‘Most of them are.’

‘What can I say?’ the man said. ‘You’re lucky I noticed that much.’

Ella smiled at him. ‘Thank you for your help.’ Walking away she said to Gerard, ‘You’re the one who lost Sutton. Don’t take it out on him.’

Gerard snorted and walked faster to get away from her.

Ella rang Dennis and updated him. ‘I think it’s time to talk to Trina.’

‘Take Murray with you, and send Louise back with John,’ he said.

*

Trina opened the door and folded her arms.

‘May we come in?’ Ella said.

She shrugged and turned away.

Ella glanced around as she walked in. ‘Darcy home?’

‘Paul’s parents have taken her out for the day.’ Trina sat on the lounge and crossed her legs.

Murray stood with his hands on his hips near the doorway. Ella pulled up a chair from the dining suite, like she’d done the first time she was here, when she’d watched Trina lie about what and how she knew of Fowler’s death. She leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. ‘When did you last speak to Carl Sutton?’

‘Ages ago.’

‘Ages being . . .’ Ella checked her watch, ‘. . . two hours.’

Trina shrugged. ‘If you say so.’

‘Where is he?’

‘At home, I suppose.’

‘No, he isn’t,’ Murray said.

Trina gestured at the room. ‘Well, he’s not here either, I can tell you that much.’

‘Where was he going?’

‘I’m not his mother.’

‘We didn’t say you were,’ Ella said. ‘Where was he going?’

‘I suppose he went out.’

‘Out where?’

‘What makes you think I’d know?’

‘You and he are close.’ Ella held up two fingers twined together. ‘Like this, am I right?’

‘We’re friends,’ she said.

Ella raised her eyebrows. ‘And the rest.’

Trina looked across the room. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘I thought he was mean to you earlier,’ Ella said. ‘There’s never any need to speak like that.’

Trina stared at her. ‘You’re bugging our phones? Our houses?’

Ella let the question hang in the air, then said, ‘Where’s Carl Sutton?’

‘I’m not answering any more questions.’ Trina stood up. ‘I want you to leave.’

They stepped outside into the midday heat and she slammed the door behind them.

‘I reckon we should just take her in,’ Murray said as they walked to the car.

‘We don’t have enough to arrest her yet.’ Ella unlocked the doors. ‘But next time we’ll bring photos of her darling Sutton going into the brothel and see how protective she feels of him then.’