The Darkest Hour (25 page)

‘We’re going out shortly,’ he said. ‘Tim got a promotion and we’re going to the restaurant to test him out.’

‘Oh.’ She’d thought she could ask him over, just show him without saying anything and see how he responded.

‘Did you need something?’

‘It doesn’t matter. Have a good evening.’

When he was gone she went into the kitchen and stood close to the bench. Was it really possible that she’d left the things out and forgotten to shut the fridge in her rush to leave? She had been late, after all. She tried to think back, but routine actions like that you just did, you never thought about. It was like driving to work – suddenly you were there. You didn’t remember every intersection and red light.

She stood as if making breakfast and went through the actions. Open the cupboard, get out the Special K and put it on the bench. Get out the milk. Pour both into the bowl. Eat, then put the bowl in the sink.

If you were rushing to get on the road, you might just turn away at that point and go to clean your teeth, put on your face and rush out the door.

The problem was the fridge. At what point could she have opened it then forgotten to both put the milk in and close it? And wouldn’t she have poured the milk over the cereal then put the carton back in immediately?

She put her hand inside the fridge. It was warm enough to have been open all day. The milk sat in a puddle of water, a sign of the condensation that had collected on the outside then trickled down to the bench. The sides of the carton were now dry, the milk warm.

She stood there for a moment longer, then shut the fridge. She picked up the carton and tipped the contents down the sink, and threw the empty carton in the bin. She shoved the cereal box back in the cupboard. She turned the stereo on, checked the doors once more, got the new shampoo from the plastic shopping bag, and went to shower.

Sal woke with the neck-prickling knowledge that somebody was in his room. It was dark but he could just make out a black shape by the door. ‘Mum?’

‘
Mum?
’ the shape mimicked in a high-pitched voice, and Sal heard the hope he’d put into the word. Embarrassment and disappointment flooded through him.

He snapped, ‘You never dream?’

‘I dream of having you off my back.’ Thomas came further into the room.

Sal stood up and put the chair he’d been sitting on by the window between Thomas and himself.

‘You seem afraid.’ Thomas came closer still. ‘But that makes no sense. Why would you be afraid of me? You’ve done nothing wrong – have you?’

‘Of course not!’

‘Nona told me you rang the police back,’ Thomas went on. ‘But you didn’t do it till this evening.’

‘I waited for you, I was going to check with you–’

‘Don’t you have a brain of your own?’

‘Yes, but–’

‘So why wait so long? They ask you to ring them, you fucking ring them.’

‘I wanted to check with you.’ He tensed his abs. ‘Where’ve you been anyway?’

Thomas was right in front of him now. He grasped the chair and yanked it from Sal’s hands. ‘Why are you sitting here at the window?’

Sal resisted the urge to fold his arms.

‘You want a bird’s-eye view when they come up to the door again?’ A car passed outside and the glow of its headlights glinted in Thomas’s eyes. His skin smelled of the chemicals and the soap he’d used to try to wash them off. ‘What are you planning, Sal?’

‘You said you’d take care of that paramedic,’ Sal said.

‘That’s not an answer.’

Sal couldn’t even muster a surreptitious lats flex. Thomas put his hand on his shoulder.

‘This isn’t right,’ Sal said. ‘We used to be friends.’

‘You don’t think we still are?’ Thomas’s fingers dug into his trapezius. ‘Think for a moment about everything I’ve done for you. What about in that alley? Didn’t I help you there?’

Sal tried to breathe deep. ‘I know what you’re capable of.’

‘You think I’m reminding you to point that out? Sal, buddy, pal, you’ve got me all wrong.’ Thomas slid his arm around Sal’s neck and yanked him close. His breath was hot on Sal’s ear. ‘I’m just helping you remember what you owe me.’

Sal tried to pull Thomas’s arm away from his throat. ‘I owe you nothing.’

‘You think?’ Thomas tightened his grip, closing off Sal’s airway. ‘The way I see it, you owe me silence. And one way or another, that’s what I’ll be getting.’

The pressure built in Sal’s head. He yanked at Thomas’s arm but Thomas only squeezed tighter. Sal heard buzzing, and felt the pounding of his heart grow more intense. His lungs burned for air and he saw red flashes in the darkness. His legs grew weak. His fingers were slick with sweat and slipped off Thomas’s arm. Thomas gave one final squeeze, then released him and walked from the room without a word.

Sal fell to his knees. His hands trembled at his aching neck. He couldn’t believe it had come to this. They’d had fun in Spain, partying with the tourists 24/7, selling Es in the clubs owned by his cousins, although even then there’d been glimpses of Thomas’s true colours – his at times all-consuming focus on money, the easy way he’d manipulate people when it suited him, the lack of conscience with which he could hurt someone. Then he was here, and things were okay, mostly, only really turning bad during Kristi’s pregnancy – Sal still couldn’t believe some of the things he’d said, like that Kristi was turning into a whale and he wished she’d got rid of it – and then, worst of all, when he went back to Austria without even seeing his daughter. He’d eventually worked in Spain again, with Sal’s cousins, then got together with Sal’s uncle and planned this business. Sal guessed Thomas saw it as his, being as how he started things off, but to Sal’s mind it was more his family’s than anyone’s. It was Uncle Paulo’s contacts in China they were using, it was through them that they’d got the cook; it was Paulo’s friends here who were letting them use the plastics factory. Thomas was just one part of the whole, not king shit like he thought.

Sal sat on the edge of his bed. The frame squeaked with his trembling. He put his face in his hands and tried to think about something other than Thomas’s threat, but his fingers were tingling and he was breathing too fast. He struggled to slow himself down.
In through the nose, hold it and count to five, then out through the mouth.
He’d read in the paper that this was part of what happened in panic attacks, as was the feeling of impending doom. But sometimes – like now – he feared that the feeling was less to do with the altered levels of carbon dioxide and oxygen in his blood than with how things were getting worse by the day, and how he knew deep down that it would all end in disaster, and soon.

E
lla picked Lauren up at eight-thirty on Monday morning and drove her into the Police Centre in Surry Hills. Lauren was nervous, shifting in her seat, feeling constricted by the seatbelt across her shoulder and chest. The wound on her back was hurting too. When she thought of what she’d have to say, a flush crept over her. It didn’t make sense that she should be embarrassed or ashamed – Thomas had threatened her, and his actions since had proved that she was right to be afraid. But she wasn’t habitually a liar and to apply that word to herself made her feel bad.

She glanced over at Ella, who looked tired and stressed. Lauren thought about that, how at least in her job the cases were usually over within an hour. They were longer if you worked in the country, of course, or when there were difficult circumstances. Cops on the other hand could go for weeks, months, even years, on the same case. It must haunt them, she thought, spending so long thinking about the same people and actions and situations, and trying to fit the pieces together and find the answer. Or collect enough evidence to lock somebody away.

Thirty minutes later they were in an interview room. To Lauren’s relief, Detective Lance Fredriks was warm and friendly. He shook her hand. ‘Have a seat. I hear you’ve been through the wringer lately.’ He sat opposite her, a laptop open on the table between them. Ella sat next to him. Lauren folded her arms, then thought that might look defensive and unfolded them and put them under the table so she could lock her fingers together out of sight.

‘When we get Werner into court,’ Fredriks said, ‘both your original statement and this one will be handed in as evidence. The defence will of course say that because you lied then, how can the court be sure you’re not lying now, and so on and so on, but it’s their job to cast doubt, and we have plenty to come back at them with. The main thing for now is that we get down what really happened that night. Everything else we’ll worry about later.’

Lauren took a deep breath and thought back. ‘I was working on my own. I’d just been to a fatal car accident, and waited around on scene there until the government contractors turned up, then I left. I got coffee on Broadway then was sent to Paddington, so I was taking the back way and was driving down Smithy’s Lane when a man ran out in front of me.’

She could see it again, the flash of movement in her headlights, feel the lurching fear that she was going to hit him. ‘Another man came out of the alley and fell over. He looked hurt so I called Control and told them what I had and asked them to send back-up. I lied in how I described that man too.’ She flushed again. Her hands were sweaty. ‘He was about eighteen, skinny, thin face, with acne. He had short spiked black hair. I think he was a prostitute. His shoulder had dislocated – he said it happened all the time, and usually to fix a thing like that the person needs to go to hospital. So the local hospitals probably have him on their records. He might’ve even walked into one that night.’

Fredriks nodded as he typed. ‘That could help us.’

‘He told me he wasn’t going to get involved,’ Lauren went on. ‘I wondered after whether that meant he saw Thomas in the alley. I think there may have been somebody else there too. There was a car up on blocks, near the body, and there was a dark shape there, at the front of it.’

‘I remember that car,’ Fredriks said.

Lauren stared across the room, picturing it. ‘I’d heard a noise when I was checking Blake’s body for a pulse, and started down that way, then I saw that shape. I thought it was a person, huddled over, you know, and I was trying to shine the torch on it when Thomas made a noise behind the skip. I think he was trying to attract my attention away from it, because it wasn’t an accidental kind of noise; he actually groaned.’

She couldn’t hold back a shiver as she explained how he’d claimed to have chest pain, then feigned unconsciousness, and when she went close had grabbed her. ‘When I was on my back and he was on top of me, with my shirt and jacket all bunched up hard under my chin, he said “Go”.’

‘Maybe telling whoever was hiding behind the car to get out of there,’ Ella said. ‘Did you hear footsteps?’

Lauren shook her head. ‘All I could hear was Thomas breathing in my ear and saying that if I told the police about him being there he’d get us. He said he had contacts and he’d know if I told.’

‘Get us,’ Fredriks repeated. ‘Us being . . . ?’

Lauren tightened her grip on her own hands. ‘Me and my sister, Kristi, his ex, and their daughter, Felise.’

Fredriks typed this in. ‘What happened then?’

‘He made me roll over and he pressed my head to the roadway and told me not to move,’ Lauren said. ‘Then he got off me. I heard him running down the alley. I could hear the sirens coming. I took a moment to pull myself together, hauled myself up against the skip.’ She breathed in, recalling the odour of wood and plasterboard, the coldness of the night air. ‘I checked myself over and tried to think what to do. I knew the police would be there soon and I had to be ready with whatever I was going to say.’ She looked at her lap. ‘So I decided to do what he said.’

The only sound was Fredriks’s fingers on the keyboard.

‘I told the uniformed police I’d seen only the two men running away,’ she said in a small voice. ‘Then you came along and I told you the same thing. And I said it in court as well. And Thomas went free.’

She didn’t say the rest; they all knew it.

And he killed again.

Ella dropped Lauren home then went back to the Homicide office in Parramatta to find the desks empty and the door to the meeting room closed. She knocked. The voices inside stopped, then the lock turned and Kuiper looked out. He held the door open to let her in, and she stood at the side of the room as there were no empty chairs.

‘As I was about to say,’ Kuiper said, locking the door again, ‘the Griffith boys believe they’re getting closer to finding Deborah Kennedy. They’ve received information from a local who believes he saw her and her daughter Tess with a man he identified as Paul William Roper. Roper lives in the region and works for a livestock agent. He grew up in Kempsey, which is where we’ve found Deborah Kennedy lived in her teen years, so it’s possible they know each other from then. Officers are making contact with his friends in the area out there, so with any luck we might have her in the next couple of days.’ He looked at Ella. ‘Anything new from the interview?’

Ella told the group what Lauren had said about the young man with the dislocated shoulder. ‘She said such an injury can happen repeatedly and needs medical treatment, so there’s a good chance he’s known to local hospitals and might even have presented that night.’

‘Good,’ Kuiper said. ‘Strong, forget about your other task for now. Nip off to the hospitals this morning and see what you can find.’

Strong nodded.

‘Okay, let’s get to it.’ Kuiper unlocked the door and people filed out.

‘That’s a good lead,’ Murray said to Ella as they headed up the corridor. ‘If we can find that guy we’re not so reliant on Lauren’s testimony.’

‘Has Simon Bradshaw been in touch yet?’

‘No calls, but looks like we’ve got a new email.’ He sat at his computer. ‘He says Feng did have a mobile, according to the professor. They haven’t found it yet. Here’s the number.’ He read it out.

‘That seems familiar,’ Ella said.

‘From where? Kennedy’s list?’

‘I don’t know. Grab it and we’ll see.’

While he was fetching the folder Ella dialled Wayne Rhodes’s mobile. It went to voicemail. ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘You’re hopefully getting some great information from Mrs Nolan, but I’ve got another phone number for you to check when you’ve finished eating cake.’ She recited it. ‘Gimme a call, okay?’

Murray plonked the folder down. They took out the pages of the incoming and outgoing numbers and split them up.

Ella ran her finger down the list, her nail sliding over each number, her eyes fixed on the last three digits, looking for seven one two. Six eight three, four seven nine.
I’ve seen it, I know I’ve seen it somewhere.
Seven one one, two two four, seven one two. Her heart lurched. Did the rest of the number match? She slid her finger across.

It did.

‘I’ve got one,’ she said. ‘Feng called Kennedy five weeks ago.’

‘I’ve got one too,’ Murray said. ‘And another. And another!’

She grabbed the pages from him. Kennedy had called Feng Xie three times in the space of two days, almost three weeks ago. They’d spoken for between one and three minutes each time. ‘I bet there’s more too,’ Murray said.

She had an idea. Her heart started hammering. She flipped to the last page. Feng’s was the last number Kennedy had called before he died.

They stared at each other, Ella holding back a grin. ‘Told you it was something,’ she said.

Before Murray could answer, Ella’s phone rang.

‘This time Mrs Nolan fed me chocolate cake,’ Wayne said. ‘Mud. ’Twas lovely.’

‘I’m pleased,’ Ella said. ‘But listen to this–’

‘Just a second,’ Wayne said. ‘She also showed me a letter she got back this morning from one of the businesses she’d written to as part of the folding up of the warehouse. It was a post office box, and the PO had stamped
Not at this address
across it. She’d checked in the files – she even showed me while I was there – and Adrian, who was apparently a little anal when it came to paperwork, had noted that the address was current as of the start of the month, as he’d done with all of them. But when the envelope came back Mrs Nolan put on her investigator’s hat. Seeing there was no phone number for them in the file, she went to the phone book. Finding nothing there, she called directory assistance. Zippo.’

‘Silent number?’

‘A business with no way of being contacted?’ he said. ‘That’s like . . . like . . .’

‘Okay,’ she said. ‘So what’s your theory then?’

‘Shenanigans of a criminal nature.’

‘Nolan’s got no record.’

‘There’s always a first time,’ he said. ‘I’m delving further into this DNP Holdings with their dodgy post office box at the Sydney GPO. Now, what’s your news?’

She told him about finding Feng’s number on Kennedy’s list. ‘Recognise it?’

‘Can’t say I do,’ Wayne said. ‘But I’ll have a look when I get back to the office and keep you firmly posted.’

Ella put the phone down but wasn’t entirely happy. Something about that number still niggled.

What?

Lauren sat at the little table in the attic and watched Felise colour in. Every couple of minutes Felise would turn the picture around for Lauren to examine. ‘You’re an excellent student,’ Lauren said. ‘I think we’re shaping up for a gold star here.’

Felise smiled and bent close to the page again, fingers white with the effort of staying inside the lines. Lauren looked past her out the small window. The sky was pale blue, the day warm. The interview with Fredriks hadn’t been so bad in the end. If he thought she was an idiot for thinking she could keep the truth hidden, he hadn’t shown it.

She wondered if they’d found the dislocated shoulder guy yet – whether they ever would. He might not have gone to hospital that night at all really. He might have managed to pop it back in himself.

They might all be in the same position as before, with just her word against Thomas’s.

The air in the attic was stuffy and still.

‘Are you hot?’ she said.

Felise shook her head.

Lauren went to the window but it was already open as wide as it would go. She leaned on the sill and stared south, at the red roofs and blocks of flats and trees. Thomas was out there somewhere. Or so the police thought. She couldn’t help but hope and pray he’d sneaked through the airport and gone home.

She heard the sound of the postman’s motorbike. Felise leapt up. ‘Postie!’

Lauren followed her down the stairs. Kristi sat on her knees on a chair at the kitchen table, frowning over some new mosaic design. ‘That client rang me again,’ she said. ‘Got quite abusive.’

‘You should just go and finish it,’ Lauren said. ‘Go this afternoon. I’m here with Felise. Nothing will happen.’

Kristi shook her head.

‘This is your business,’ Lauren said.

‘Don’t even start.’ Kristi drew hard black lines on her sketch.

‘Life doesn’t just stop.’

‘It almost did.’

Lauren turned away to the stairs.

Felise hopped from foot to foot at the front door. ‘I didn’t touch the lock.’

‘Another gold star,’ Lauren said. ‘What if we run out of them?’

She checked the peephole and opened the door as the postie’s bike drew near. Their letterbox was fixed to the wall but Felise danced on the spot. ‘Let me get it, let me get it!’

Lauren looked around the street then let her jump forward onto the step as the postie pulled up. He handed Felise three thin white letters and one fat brown one and she took them with delight then bolted up the stairs. Lauren thanked him, then locked the door and checked that it was secure before going up.

‘Let me see,’ Kristi was saying in the kitchen. ‘Felise, give it to me now, please.’

Felise clutched the fat letter to her chest. ‘Why can’t I open it?’