Silent Fear (5 page)

She’d watched Murray pace the Homicide office all morning before they’d been called out here, and had suggested quietly to her friend Dennis Orchard, acting head of the unit, that he be sent home, but Dennis hadn’t gone for it. She didn’t really consider herself friends with Murray, was annoyed about being partnered with him, in fact, but this was his dad, and having lately seen her own dad struggle with illness she thought she knew a little of how he might be feeling.

Thank goodness her dad had recovered well. To celebrate his recent return to good health her mother and Aunt Adelina had taken him on a cruise around New Zealand. Ella had seen them onto the ship three days before, even gone on board so they could show her around their cabins. So far she’d had five calls on her mobile via the ship-to-shore phone, her mother each time being specific that that’s what they were calling on, partly, Ella thought, because she liked the sound of the words, and partly because she liked to joke that they were spending her inheritance.
And partly because she misses me. But good on them
, she thought, watching Murray.
Spend it, live life, be happy, and stay around for many years yet.

Murray put his phone away. He didn’t turn around.

Uh-oh.

She took a step towards him, then stopped. If he wanted support he would give a sign. Wouldn’t he? The cicadas shrilled in the trees, and the hot wind blew, and Ella’s eyes watered as she stared out of the shade into the bright car park where he stood motionless.

Anthony started back towards them at a trot while Tom walked away along the driveway with a golfer. She had five seconds. She took another step forward. ‘Murray.’

He didn’t answer.

‘Is your dad okay?’

‘This guy says a car leaving the car park nearly hit him when he was coming in,’ Anthony called out. ‘Dark blue hatchback. Maybe a Mazda. Noisy. Says he thinks it scraped a post when it took off. Could’ve left paint.’

Ella got level with Murray and glanced across. His face was unreadable. He didn’t meet her eyes but neither was he crying.

‘The timing’s perfect,’ Anthony said, eyes bright. ‘This could be your guy.’

THREE

W
hen Control had passed Holly’s message regarding her suspicions about Seth to the police, a request had come back that all three of them wait at the hospital for detectives. An hour later Holly was slumped on an uncomfortably low lounge in RPA’s Emergency Department family room regretting her decision. She should’ve gone home first
then
told them what she thought.

‘He was my best friend,’ Seth said, bolt upright on a chair nearby.

Holly said nothing. Someone else might feel inclined to comfort him. Touch him. Hug him, even. But someone else didn’t share their history. She crossed her legs and folded her arms. All she wanted was to be at home in the pool, reading her book, Norris humming to the radio and sipping a beer beside her. Not at work. Not here in this stuffy room. Not feeling angry and awkward with Seth, and not thinking about their past and feeling all the old emotions boil up again.

The door opened and Joe came in. He tilted his head at the corner and she got up.

‘I talked to Control again,’ he said. ‘They’ve given you the rest of the shift off.’

Fantastic. Home to the pool. But his mention of Control reminded her about Lacey. She hadn’t texted again. She should call her.

‘Family leave,’ Joe went on. ‘They send their sympathy.’

Seth stood up. ‘I can’t stay here any more. Knowing that he’s just down the corridor is doing my head in.’

There was a good chance Fowler’s body had already been moved to the hospital’s morgue but Holly didn’t say so. ‘Just sit down.’

‘Fine for you,’ he said. ‘It’s not your friend who was murdered.’

‘If it was, I’d be dead keen to help the cops find who did it.’

‘But I don’t know anything.’

Yeah, right.
‘Sit down, would you?’

He started to pace instead.

‘Coffee?’ Joe said.

Holly nodded. ‘White with half, thanks.’

‘Seth?’ Joe said. ‘Coffee?’

‘No.’ He stared at a print of a herd of horses on the wall. Joe went out.

Holly watched her brother and felt a tiny stab of something. She said, ‘The cops just want to find out what happened.’

‘I know that.’ He turned to face her. ‘I’m not using any more, you know.’

She shrugged and looked past him. ‘None of my business either way.’

‘I just want you to know it,’ he said. ‘And also that I’m sorry.’

She felt his eyes on her but couldn’t take her own off the print behind him. Horses, running, running, the way her heart galloped in her chest. He thought that sorry could do it. Fix it. The little stab of pity or compassion or whatever it’d been disappeared. She shook her head.

‘I never meant any of it,’ he said. ‘We were so young, though we didn’t think so at the time. You look back now and doesn’t it blow your mind? How could we have ever thought we knew what we were doing?’

Anger poured into her limbs like molten metal and hardened under her skin, turning her rigid. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘You knew enough,’ he said with a smile. ‘You knew plenty.’

Her vision blurred. Nothing had changed. She’d been right to feel anxious when she saw him there in the park. The moment the cops finished getting her info and said she could go, she was out of there. She’d get Joe to take her back to the station, jump on a train and be home in the pool within the hour. Away from Seth, away from the past. Back to her life, in Norris’s arms, being vague about her day and why she was home early but feeling better being with him again.

Seth was still smiling at her. She couldn’t just stand there. She took out her phone and rang Lacey. It went to voicemail.

‘It’s me,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Everything okay? Call me back.’

‘You’ve still got the infinity symbol then,’ Seth said. ‘And you’re engaged! What’s his name?’

No way she was telling him a single thing. She put the phone away and sat down, folding her arms and hiding her ring and the tiny tattoo on the inside of her left wrist. From out in the corridor came the squeak of nurses’ shoes and the rattle of a passing trolley. She leaned back and stared at the fluorescent panels in the ceiling.

From the corner of her eye she saw Seth come a step closer. ‘Holly.’

She didn’t look at him, didn’t answer.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I understand that you might be angry.’

She focused on the ceiling. Thought about Norris smiling in the pool.

‘Holly.’

Her phone buzzed. A text from Lacey.
Call you later. Don’t say anything.

‘Holly.’ He sat down next to her. ‘I really am sorry.’

She ignored him and texted back:
To who? About what?

There was no reply.

‘It’s like a miracle, don’t you think? That we found each other again?’

She looked at him: red eyes, short brown hair, onion on his breath, slight stubble growing through on his throat.

‘Let’s make a deal,’ she said.

He brightened.

‘We tell the cops what happened, walk out the door, and never see each other again.’ She smiled hard into his face. ‘Life will go on exactly as before.’

‘I promise you I’ve changed.’

She laughed, a short sharp sound.

‘You managed it,’ he said. ‘What makes you think I can’t too?’

She laughed again, longer and bleaker.

Joe came in with her coffee and one for himself. She half-stood to take it from him, then sat again.

‘You’re not being fair,’ Seth said.

Don’t scream
, Holly told herself.
Get a grip and do not scream. Just a little longer, then you’ll be free of him again.

*

Ella’s phone rang while they were looking at the scrape of dark blue paint on the red brick wall on the left side of the golf course entrance. The screen showed Dennis’s office number, and she walked a few steps away from the golfer’s excited retelling of his near miss.

‘What’s happening?’ Dennis said.

She summarised the friends’ and golfer’s stories. ‘Murray’s on the line to Scientific now.’

‘Leave Anthony and Tom with it,’ he said. ‘Have you got next-of-kin info?’

‘The ex-wife lives in Belfield.’

‘Hop on round,’ he said.

She called Murray and they walked back down the long driveway. The sun was right in their faces and Ella’s clothes stuck uncomfortably to her skin.

‘What’d your mum say?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

She looked at him. ‘You can talk to me, you know.’

He shrugged and shook his head at the same time.

She almost asked if he was still pissy because she hadn’t let him lead before, then thought better of it and walked on without speaking.

It was a twenty-minute drive to Belfield. Murray sat silent in the passenger seat, and Ella stared at the traffic and thought about the ex-wives she’d interviewed in the past. Most murders happened because someone close to the victim was angry. An ex-wife could be a good prospect, or at least might have had issues with the victim and be willing to spill some dirt.

Paul Fowler’s wife and daughter lived in an estate of twelve neat beige-brick townhouses.

‘Number nine.’ Murray put his notebook away as they entered the estate. ‘Her name’s Trina.’

The white concrete driveway blazed bright under the sun, and the fronds of the palms lining it hung motionless in the heat. Ella eased the car along behind a skinny-legged boy on a scooter, seeing the sole of his kicking foot flash over and over and the wheels wobble each time he looked back. In the centre of the driveway’s loop a fenced grassed area surrounded a pool packed with splashing kids. At the apex of the turn the scooter boy shot off onto the grass, dropped his wheels and ran through the gate to join them.

Ella parked in the visitor’s space next to number nine. The path to the front door was lined with jade plants in terracotta pots. Murray pressed the doorbell then stepped to the side, leaving her front and centre. She didn’t mind. She wouldn’t want to do it either if her dad was as sick as God-knew in hospital, and besides, she was keen to see the woman’s first split-second response.

The door opened. It was dark inside and Ella could only just make out the shape of a woman through the security screen.
Too dark to see her face. Damn.
She held up her badge. ‘Mrs Trina Fowler?’

‘Yes.’ The woman unlocked the security door and opened it. ‘I already know about Paul.’ She let go of the door and walked away.

Ella followed her in. The house was dark and cold. Once her eyes adjusted to the gloom she saw that Trina Fowler’s face was red and puffy, but not too much.

‘I’m Detective Ella Marconi, and this is Detective Murray Shakespeare,’ Ella said. ‘We’re very sorry about your husband.’

‘Ex.’ Trina Fowler sat on the lounge and pressed her eyes with a wad of tissues.

She looked to be closing in on thirty. She wore cut-off jeans and a black singlet top. Her feet were bare. Her shoulder-length hair was light brown with honey-coloured streaks. Around her neck hung a heart-shaped silver pendant, and her finger and toenails were painted with silver glitter. She lowered the tissues and looked at the floor, her face blank.

‘Carl came around,’ she said. ‘Said he’d been shot.’

‘We believe so,’ Ella said. An air conditioner hummed on the wall. The air coming out was icy. She had to take a step away. ‘There will be a post-mortem, probably tomorrow, and we’ll know more then.’ She glanced around. ‘May we sit?’

Trina flapped a hand.

Ella brought a chair over from a black timber dining suite. Murray did the same. They sat side by side, facing Trina.

‘I’m very sorry but we need to ask you a few questions,’ Ella said.

Another flap of the hand.

‘When was the last time you saw Paul?’

‘A week ago,’ she said. ‘He came to see Darcy.’

The daughter. ‘Where’s Darcy now?’ Ella thought she might say in the pool with the others.

‘Upstairs in her room,’ Trina said. ‘Colouring in.’

Ella glanced at the doorway. She couldn’t see the stairs and lowered her voice. ‘She knows?’

Trina nodded. ‘She colours in when she’s upset. She’ll come back to me later.’

Ella said, ‘Did Paul visit with her for long last week?’

‘He took her to Pizza Hut for lunch. He came to the door, I kissed her goodbye, an hour later he brought her back.’

‘Did you and he talk?’

‘I reminded him that we had bills and he had to help, and he got angry and walked off. I haven’t spoken to him since.’

‘Was he supposed to come back today for another visit?’

She shook her head. ‘It wasn’t that organised. He’d text to see if we were home, if he could come past.’

‘How did he seem last week?’

‘His usual cranky self.’

‘Even with Darcy?’

‘Well, no,’ Trina said. ‘He turns it on for her. Like a big clown.’

‘How long ago did he move out?’

‘Six weeks and four days,’ she said. ‘I came home and he was gone. Asked me later via text to tell Darcy he was sorry.’ Her voice was bitter.

Ella said, ‘Did you think you’d be able to reconcile?’

‘It might be possible with someone who talks, but he wouldn’t.’

Ella was aware that this was a long line of questions to throw at a bereaved woman but equally aware that Trina seemed to be handling it well. ‘May I ask, was there a final straw?’

‘You don’t always need one.’ Trina Fowler moved her shoulders. ‘Things were never fabulous between us.’

‘Did he have any enemies?’

‘Not apart from me.’

‘And where were you around midday today?’ Murray said.

She looked at him for a long moment. ‘In the pool with Darcy and everyone else who lives in the complex.’

‘Does Paul have life insurance?’

‘He better,’ she said, then stopped.

Ella followed her gaze and saw a slight girl of about seven in the doorway. She wore a pink dress and yellow thongs and clutched a wrapped Christmas present. Pinned to the centre of her chest was a round purple badge saying ‘World’s Best Dad’.

‘Darce,’ Trina said, her voice gentle, and the girl sidled over to stand next to the end of the lounge. Trina hugged her from the side. Darcy’s eyes were dark in the poor light, her face pale, her gaze moving back and forth between Ella and Murray as if she was measuring their ability.

Trina said, ‘Do we have to talk about all this now?’

‘Most of it can wait,’ Ella said. ‘Just a couple more things. Do you have his mobile phone?’

‘No.’

‘Could you tell us the number, please?’

She recited it and Murray wrote it down.

‘Wasn’t it with him?’ Trina said. ‘He takes it everywhere. Took.’

‘I’m sure it’ll turn up,’ Ella said, then hesitated. ‘There is one other thing. We need someone to formally identify him to us.’

‘No.’ Trina squeezed the tissues so hard the tendons in the backs of her hands stood out. ‘I can’t see him.’

‘Does he have siblings? Parents?’

‘His sister Carmel lives in the UK. His mum and dad are away on holiday. They have a caravan. They’re on the Sunshine Coast. Due back next week.’

‘What’re their names?’ Ella asked. They’d get the local coppers to notify them.

‘Ray and Barbara.’ Trina kissed the side of Darcy’s head. Darcy’s eyes followed the movement of Murray’s hand as he wrote the information down.

Ella thought about the friend named Seth Garland at the hospital. He could do the ID. She studied Trina. Her eyes were dry now, and she seemed calm. They needed to get going.

‘Is there someone we can call for you?’ she said. ‘A friend in the complex?’

‘My mum’s on her way from Wetherill Park. I’ll be okay till then.’

Ella got out her card. ‘Please call me anytime – if you need anything, or want to talk or ask any questions. We’ll be in touch again tomorrow. Again, we’re sorry.’

She looked at Darcy, who looked past her. ‘I’m really sorry about your dad.’

Darcy said nothing.

Trina kissed the top of Darcy’s head, then walked them to the door and opened it. Heat and light rushed in and she flinched.

Ella peered back into the gloom and could just make out the shape of Darcy, motionless beside the lounge. She looked at Trina’s face. ‘I mean it. Call anytime.’

*