Tell the Truth (12 page)

‘Gotcha,' Ella said.

‘But I can't say what make it is, or what model, sorry. There are shops in the city that might know, shops that stock them and sell them in decent numbers.'

‘Thanks.' Detectives Paul Li and Sylvie Catt were already doing that, armed with a USB containing footage of the unfolding as well as photos.

‘I can tell you a couple of things though,' he said. ‘The seat's too high – see how the rider's having to touch the ground with their toes?'

Ella looked. ‘In other footage you can see her wobbling.'

‘That makes sense. If the seat's too high the balance is affected.'

‘Does the seat get moved every time you unfold the bike?'

‘Depends on the model. But owners would generally know how high to put their seat before they get on.'

‘So this mightn't be her bike,' Ella said.

‘Quite possibly not.'

Confirmation. Excellent.

‘Thanks for your help.' Ella placed her card on the counter. ‘Please give me a call if something does crop up, or if you happen to remember or see anything odd.'

‘I will,' he said.

The young woman in the aquarium knew nothing about the guys in the computer shop and had seen nothing strange in the street; and the dentist was closed due to illness according to a sign on the door. Ella wrote down the dentist's name.

The accountant was on the phone in his shabby one-room office. Seeing Ella's badge, he covered the mouthpiece long enough to tell her that he did the books and taxes for the bike shop and the aquarium store, but not for the dentist or the computer shop, and he knew none of the people who worked in either.

‘Thanks,' Ella said.

Mike was standing by the door of the bike shop as she came past. ‘Get what you were looking for?'

‘Not exactly,' she said. ‘You said you sold a bike to the dentist's receptionist. Do you keep records of sales? Would you have her surname or phone number or address?'

‘Somewhere.' He glanced over his shoulder into the depths of the shop. ‘I do keep all that stuff but it's in a real jumble. Paperwork's not my strong point.'

It probably didn't matter; they'd get the dentist's address and go there first anyway. But still. ‘If you have time to find it, I'd be grateful,' she said.

‘I'll see what I can do.'

At the computer shop, she could see through the glass doors that Murray was still talking to Nick. She leaned inside. ‘Not back yet?'

Murray shook his head.

She stepped back out and rang Dennis. ‘Any news?'

‘Not on this end,' he said. ‘You?'

‘Nope. James is at the bank apparently. We're waiting in the shop.' She told him what the neighbouring business people had said. ‘And can you run a name? Jonathon Dimitri. A dentist, two doors from James but closed today.'

‘Let's have a look,' Dennis said, typing. ‘No record, lives in Campsie. Want the address?'

‘Please.' She scribbled down the details he gave her. ‘We'll nip over later.'

‘Keep in touch.'

She hung up and went into the shop. Nick was talking about wi-fi hotspots.

Ella looked at her watch. ‘Didn't you say James wouldn't be long?'

‘Usually he isn't.'

‘Does he drive there or walk?'

‘Depends.'

‘On what?' Ella said, trying to hide her exasperation.

‘If it's a nice day, if he wants to stretch his legs, if there's a lot of work on.'

‘And today?'

Nick peered out the front window. ‘I can't see his car. I guess he drove.'

‘Where is the bank?' Murray said.

He gave them directions. ‘But I'm sure he'll be here any minute. If you go, you'll probably pass him coming back.'

‘That's a chance we'll take,' Ella said.

The drive through the morning sunlight took a few minutes, and Ella kept her eyes on the oncoming traffic but didn't spot him. ‘How long've we been waiting?'

‘He could be talking to them about Stacey's accounts,' Murray said.

Inside the bank, two elderly women stood waiting to be served, and one middle-aged man was talking to a teller.

Ella went to the enquiries window and showed her badge. ‘Do you know James Durham?'

The woman nodded. ‘Yes.'

‘Has he been in this morning?' Murray asked.

‘No, he hasn't.'

‘Are you sure?' Ella said.

The woman nodded again. ‘I've been right here since nine, when we opened, and he always makes a point of saying hi.
Is this about his wife? Have you found her? I saw it on the news last night. It's just awful.'

‘Thanks for your time,' Murray said, as Ella stepped away, her notebook out, looking for then dialling James's mobile.

‘
Hi, this is James Durham of Durham Computers. I'm sorry I can't take your call right now. Please leave me a message, or contact the shop on the following number.
'

She hung up. ‘Voicemail.' She followed Murray back onto the street, where they looked in both directions.

‘Perhaps he couldn't handle being at work,' Murray said. ‘He's gone home to hide.'

‘I'll call his landline while you drive us there,' Ella said.

Murray pulled back onto the street and headed east with the traffic.

The landline rang out, so Ella called Dennis and updated him. ‘I'm thinking perhaps we put out an alert on his car?'

‘He's probably ignoring the phone and trying to get some rest,' Dennis said.

‘But why didn't he tell his staff that's what he was doing? Why say you'll be back soon then take off?'

‘Grief, worry, fear. You want me to go on? Knock on his door then call me back.'

Ella ended the call but kept her phone close. She'd keep trying James. She didn't like the thought that he was out there somewhere, doing who knew what.

‘Can I say something?' Murray said.

‘I have a feeling you're going to.'

‘I agree that we need to check out the husband first, but you seem awfully focused.'

‘I think he knows more than he's letting on,' she said. ‘What I don't know is whether that means he's involved, or he thinks he knows who is.'

‘You're so suspicious,' Murray said.

‘That's because I'm dealing with suspects. It's right there in their name. And you said yourself, the husband gets looked at first.'

‘Looked at, not set on fire by a magnifying glass like an ant. You wait. We'll get to the house and he'll be tucked up in bed trying to get some sleep.'

She wanted to say something about how his wedding didn't mean he could be the defender of husbands everywhere, but settled with making a scornful noise. ‘Just drive.'

*

Rowan had worked with plenty of trainees over the years, but never one like Paris. Everyone started off full of nerves, though some were arrogant as well; and it was his job to build them up – and let the arrogant ones stumble too, just a little. You got them on the right track and set them off with a good start, then hoped they did all right on their own. It was like pushing a kid on a boogie board onto a wave. But Paris was different. Six weeks in and she seemed more nervous, not less. She shook when talking to patients. Her voice trembled. She couldn't remember what to do, not even the first steps. It was agonising to witness, and looked bad to the patient and family and bystanders.

Last week, he'd lost his temper and yelled at her in frustration. He knew he should be above that – he was the trainer so he was supposed to keep his cool – and Stacey had told him so in no uncertain terms when Paris had left. He'd still been angry then though, and so they'd argued . . . and now she was missing, and he'd thought Paris would take some time off, but here she was, more burdened, shutdown and frightened than ever.

He looked across at her in the passenger seat, her gaze out the windscreen. After the controller had given them this job, a transfer from Bankstown Hospital to St Vincent's, he'd tried to talk to her again, about the work, about Stacey, about anything at all, but she'd responded each time with mumbles and one-word answers. It felt like he was prodding her with a stick, hurting her to try to make her talk, and eventually he'd given up.

He thought, not for the first time, that the problem might be him. He figured he had two options: sort it out, as difficult as that may be; or ask for her to be assigned to someone else. He'd never done that before, and it felt like failure to even be thinking of it, but this might simply be one of those situations where two people were never going to get along.

He cleared his throat. ‘Would you rather work with another trainer?'

She looked around. ‘You don't want to work with me any more?'

‘It's not about me,' he said. ‘It's about what's best for you.'

She said nothing.

He said, ‘They told us once in training school that people learn in different ways, and when they teach, their instinct is to teach in a way that matches that. So maybe I teach and you learn in opposite ways. Because this doesn't look like it's working, and I don't understand why.' He paused. ‘Do you?'

She hesitated, bit her lip, and seemed to him like she was finally going to speak, then the controller called.

‘Thirty-seven, what's your location?'

Paris grabbed the microphone. ‘Thirty-seven's on the Hume Highway in Burwood.'

‘Perfect, Thirty-seven,' the controller said. ‘Head to Burwood Road at Enfield for a two-car MVA, possible code nine.'

‘Thirty-seven's on the case.' There was a tremor in her voice. She rehooked the mike.

‘See, that was good,' Rowan said. ‘Not all six-week trainees can say where they are without having to check.'

She pulled gloves from her pocket, and did he see a tiny smile? ‘Thank you.'

He smiled back at her and reached for the lights and siren switches. Maybe things would be okay.

ELEVEN

E
lla and Murray reached the Durhams' house to find a silver Toyota parked in the driveway.

‘Told you,' Murray said.

‘That's not his.' Ella went back through her notebook. ‘He drives a black Holden Cruze. This belongs to Marie Kennedy.'

‘Oh,' Murray said. ‘Huh.'

They knocked on the front door. The dog barked and someone shushed it. Ella heard the locks turn, then Marie looked out.

‘Have you found her?' she asked.

‘Not yet, I'm afraid,' Ella said. ‘Is James here?'

‘No, he isn't.'

‘May we come in?'

‘Certainly.'

Once inside, Ella could see her better. Her eyes were red and puffy, her skin grey with exhaustion. ‘Are you all right?'

‘You looking at me and asking me that feels like deja vu all over again.' Marie sat on the lounge and tucked her feet beneath her. The dog jumped up next to her. ‘I came to see how James was doing, then let myself in. I can't believe she's out there somewhere and nobody can find her. I'm so frightened for her.' She wiped her eyes.

‘You have a key?' Ella said.

‘I know where they keep the spare.'

‘Has James been here?' Murray asked. ‘Or have you spoken to him on the phone?'

‘I haven't seen him this morning; I assume he's at work,' she said. ‘I called his mobile but it went to voicemail.'

‘Did you come to talk to him about anything in particular?' Murray asked.

‘Just to offer a bit of moral support. And get some for myself, I suppose. I thought I might cook something to go in the freezer too, but I haven't collected myself enough to start yet. I've taken some time off work, and Paris is on duty, so rather than hang about at home I thought I'd come here.'

‘Where do you work?' Murray said.

‘At a physiotherapist in Bankstown.'

Ella nodded. ‘Excuse me a minute. I have to make a call.' She went into the hall and as she pressed to ring Dennis, she heard Murray say, ‘Have you had any new thoughts about what might've happened?'

‘Orchard,' Dennis answered.

‘He's not here now and he hasn't been here all morning.' She lowered her voice. ‘So Marie Kennedy tells us. She came over and let herself in.'

‘To do what?'

‘Wander about and cry by the looks of it,' Ella said. ‘Is his phone visible?'

‘No. It's turned off.'

Ella's radar went nuts. ‘Why would he do that unless he knows we're keeping an eye on him and decided to hide?'

‘Or his battery went flat,' Dennis said.

Yeah, right,
Ella thought. ‘So the alert?'

‘Is being put into place now,' Dennis said.

Back in the lounge room, Marie was talking about the trouble she'd had getting to sleep and the dreams that swamped her when she did. ‘I kept seeing this man with no face. When I'm awake, I can't imagine who would want to hurt her, and it's as if the same happens when I'm asleep.'

Ella scribbled a note about James's phone being off and handed it to Murray. ‘Marie,' she said, ‘is there anywhere James might go if he wanted to get away from people? Somewhere special to him, or to him and Stacey perhaps?'

‘Nowhere springs to mind.'

‘Where they honeymooned maybe?' Murray said, stuffing the note in his pocket.

‘They went to Bora Bora. The place they liked best was here. This house.' She looked around sadly.

Ella took out the photo of the cyclist. ‘Does this person look at all familiar?'

Marie studied it. ‘Where was this taken?'

‘It came up in the investigation,' Ella said.

‘Is this who took Stacey?'

‘We don't know. Do you recognise her?'

Her knuckles white, Marie stared at the picture as if she could leap in and throttle the woman. ‘I don't know who this is,' she said finally.

Murray said, ‘Nothing about it that's familiar? Person, bike, helmet?'

‘None.' She held it out as if she couldn't stand to look any longer. ‘James told me that someone texted and said he knew what it was about. Is that true?'

‘Someone did say that, yes,' Ella said.

‘Is James behind what's happened?' Her eyes were intense, her jaw tight.

‘We don't know.'

‘She's my sister,' she said. ‘Tell me the truth.'

‘I am,' Ella said. ‘We honestly don't know.'

It was so frustratingly true. They finished up and left her there, twisting her hands on the lounge, the dog still sitting patiently beside her.

At the car Murray said, ‘Why would James turn off his phone?'

‘More importantly,' Ella said, ‘where is he, and what's he doing there?' The idea that he was sneaking around drove her up the wall, but until they got a lead on his location, they had to keep going. Jonathon Dimitri, dentist, was next on their list.

*

Paris squeezed the side of her seat, out of Rowan's view, as he drove them to the accident. His voice sounded like it was coming down a long tunnel as he asked her about potential hazards – power lines down, fuel leaks, and other cars crashing into them because the drivers were gawking
–
and reminded her about response, airway, breathing and circulation. She tried to focus, but what if the wreck was so bad she couldn't get to the trapped person? What if there was more than one code nine?

The cars in front pulled out of their way, a bunch of kids on the footpath waved and smiled, the gardens flashed green as Rowan accelerated. She was breathing too fast. She took in and held a breath, but it made the pounding of her heart reverberate in her chest even more. She didn't even have Stacey to talk to when it was all over.

The traffic grew clogged, and Rowan cut onto the wrong side of the road. There it was. Two cars, a T-bone collision by the looks of it, someone failed to give way. A woman in her fifties in a flowered dress stood in the road screaming. Paris couldn't see into the cars.

She picked up the mike with a trembling hand. ‘Thirty-seven's on scene, will report shortly.'

‘Copy, Thirty-seven.'

She got out. Sunlight glinted off the shattered glass on the asphalt and crunched underfoot. The Oxy-Viva hung over her shoulder, the thick padded strap reassuring in her hand. The woman was still screaming. A couple of bystanders tried to catch her hands to stop her tearing at her hair. Holy crap. What could make someone do that?

Calm. You can handle this. Just stay calm.

‘Who was in the cars?' she found herself saying.

A man raised his hand and pointed to the car with damage to the front. ‘I was driving this. I'm okay. She was driving that.'

Paris looked at the car with the crumpled rear passenger-side door.

‘She just pulled out, right through the give way,' the man was saying. ‘I was only doing fifty but I had nowhere to go.'

Paris could see a shape inside the car, beyond the shattered window in the back passenger seat,
unmoving
. She realised the woman was not just screaming but screaming words. ‘Nicholas! Nicholas! Nicholas!'

Rowan was at the car, opening the back door on the driver's side, leaning in to the motionless child. Paris took a step closer and saw that he was blond-haired and about nine. His eyes were closed, his head back against the seat, his throat thin and pale and defenceless. The crushed door pinned him to the seat.

‘Nicholas! Nicholas!' The woman screamed and sobbed and fought off the bystanders. She fell on her knees and howled. The sound and all its horror and despair struck Paris like a slap.

‘Paris,' Rowan said, but she was already walking towards the woman.

The woman looked up at her, face haggard with grief, tears like rivers. ‘He's dead. I killed him.' She grasped Paris's arm with icy-cold hands. ‘I killed my own grandson.'

Paris crouched and hugged her. The woman clutched her like she was drowning. Paris had a pain in her chest and a lump swelling in her throat and she felt the woman's sobs against her neck, the sweaty anguish and wretchedness of her shaking body. She felt for her beyond words, but she also felt in that moment that this was what she wanted to do: provide comfort, even if it was just a hug in the terrible hell of a grandmother's guilt and loss.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned her head to see a bystander as he bent close to her ear. ‘Your colleague said to come back because the boy's not dead.'

Shame swamped her. She tried to look back at the car but the woman wouldn't let her go. She pried the woman's fingers off and tried to direct her grip onto the bystander, tried to get away without saying anything. She didn't trust herself to speak, because what if she told her he wasn't dead and then later he did die?

The woman clung on. There was no other way.

‘I need to go and look after him,' Paris said.

‘He's dead, he's dead.'

‘He's not,' Paris said. ‘I need to go and help take care of him.'

The woman looked at her, shock and fear and hope in her eyes. Paris pulled free of her grip and hurried back to the car, feeling the eyes of the growing crowd, embarrassed to face Rowan in the car.

She reached the window. ‘I'm so sorry.'

‘Later,' Rowan said tightly. ‘He's only pinned by the legs. If we push the seat cushion down we can get him out.'

Paris leaned in. The boy was still unconscious, but Rowan had fitted a cervical collar to protect his neck. He wore a robot T-shirt and red shorts, and cubes of shattered safety glass dotted his lap and chest. Rowan had put an oxygen mask on him, the sphygmo was wrapped around his thin right arm, and monitoring leads snaked from under his shirt to the monitor propped in the front seat.

‘Press,' Rowan said.

Paris pushed down on the seat. The boy's legs were narrow, his knees exposed below his shorts, one bruised and oozing blood onto the back of her gloves.

Rowan worked to get his hands under the deformity in the door. ‘A bit more.'

Paris forced the cushion down hard. Rowan eased the boy's legs out and free. He palpated them for evidence of fractures. ‘Go get the spineboard and stretcher.'

‘And tell Control we don't need Rescue?'

‘I've already done it.' The rebuke in his voice was clear.

She hurried to the ambulance and pulled out the stretcher, then laid the spineboard on top. In the time it took her to hug that woman and get stupidly, idiotically, ludicrously proud of herself, Rowan had done so much. In addition, she was the treating officer and she'd walked right past a trapped and unconscious child to his screaming relative. How many times had they gone over that in school? It was the quiet ones you needed to check; by their noise, the others were demonstrating how good their airway and breathing were. For fuck's sake. For fucking fuck's sake.

She positioned the stretcher beside the driver's side of the car, then leaned in behind Rowan. ‘What else?'

‘Move the front seats as far forward as they'll go, then have the board ready,' he said.

The child was semiconscious and moaning, the woman sobbing in a police officer's arms on the footpath in front of a fascinated crowd. Paris knelt on the driver's seat and pulled the mechanism under the passenger seat, heaving it forward, then did the same on the driver's side. Her hands shook and her arms felt weak. She got the board and leaned it against the car, then saw another ambulance pulling up. She didn't recognise either officer.

They came over and glanced at her, standing there not knowing what to do with her gloved hands, then bent to the car. Rowan issued a list of instructions that Paris couldn't quite hear. The crowd craned their necks as the other officers moved, one into the front seat, the other squeezing in beside Rowan.

‘Board,' Rowan said, and Paris fed it between Rowan and the other officer and felt one of them take hold.

She supported the end while they manoeuvred it into position, changing their stances so they could place it flat on the seat. The one in the front had jammed herself between the front seats, her hips holding her there so she had both arms free to help lift the crying boy. Paris stood with her hands on the board, envious of the way they worked.

‘One, two, three,' Rowan said, and she felt the board dip under the child's weight. He was still crying, and his grandmother was calling his name again.

People in the crowd murmured and took photos with their phones. Fire officers stood by with a charged hose. The air smelled of hot metal and oil and asphalt. She looked at her hands gripping the end of the board and wondered if this was the last case she'd do.

Rowan pointed Paris to the resus seat in the ambulance. It was at the head of the stretcher and out of the way. She got in and sat down, feeling small and stupid. The backup crew loaded the stretcher and Rowan climbed in alongside it, making sure the IV line and oxygen tubing didn't tangle, talking to Nicholas like everything was fine.

Nicholas was properly awake now, but still crying. ‘Where's Nanna?' he hiccuped.

‘She's fine,' Rowan said, ‘she's right outside. She's going to follow us to hospital in the other ambulance.' As he talked he reconnected the monitor leads, ran a strip, checked the blood pressure. ‘You are looking fine, my man. How do you feel?'

‘My head hurts.'

‘Yep, you've got a bit of a bump there. Do you know where you are?'

‘In an ambulance.'

‘Ten out of ten,' Rowan said. ‘Do you remember what happened?'

‘I remember we were in the car, but I don't know what happened then.'

‘That's okay. Can you tell me where you were going?'

‘To the shops,' he said.

‘Goodo. And here's a tough one: do you know what day it is?'

‘It's Tuesday.'

‘Brilliant. High five.'

They slapped hands. Paris looked out the side window. Where did you get this ease with strangers? And now Rowan was starting on the case sheet, asking Nicholas his date of birth and whether he took any medicine, checking his pupils again, asking whether he liked his teacher at school. How did you become that person?