Web of Deceit (13 page)

‘Her name’s Rose, his is Graham,’ Alex said in a low voice as he took over the CPR. ‘Married fifty-seven years. Haven’t been apart since she was in hospital having their kids fifty-three years ago. They’re both on blood pressure and cardiac meds,
but never been admitted for either problem. He’s been well lately, and collapsed suddenly without any warning. She called us, then started CPR straightaway, but she thought he might have still been breathing for a few minutes.’

It was more than likely just the final gasps for air triggered by a fading brain, Jane thought. They’d run through the protocol and see what happened. The chances
that he’d live were slim in the extreme, but now they were working for Rose’s sake. She would at least have the comfort of knowing that everything possible had been done.

Jane crouched over Graham’s arm, palpating for a vein. Rose wept softly in the living room. For a brief second, Jane couldn’t help but think of Laird, couldn’t stop herself imagining growing old like this with him.

She turned Graham’s arm and felt her way down to his wrist then back up to his elbow, then stripped off her gloves and tried again with her bare fingertips. His flesh was cool and soft. She found a small vein high inside his elbow, chose a twenty-gauge cannula, swabbed the site and crossed her fingers. She slid the cannula in, and after a moment saw the flash of dark purple blood in the chamber.
She held the cannula in place with one hand and withdrew the plastic-sheathed stylet with the other, then went to screw the bung in but slipped, and for a second blood poured out and over her fingers. She swore under her breath, attached the bung properly, then taped it down before wiping roughly at the blood with the used swab.
No time for this now.

‘How is he?’ Rose called.

‘We’re
doing everything we can,’ Alex said. ‘How are you?’

‘Please, just save him.’

The monitor was still showing the same flat line, with the blips getting further apart. Jane injected adrenaline through the cannula without much hope. Alex’s compressions would move the drug through the bloodstream and into the heart, where it would – in a perfect world – stimulate the muscle. It’d also constrict
the blood vessels in Graham’s arms and legs, keeping more blood around his heart and brain where it was really needed. Survival rates of cardiac arrest outside hospital were around five per cent, and way lower at his age. In twelve years of doing the job, she could count on the fingers of one hand her saves who’d been over seventy.
Poor guy. Poor Rose.

Alex had already started the conversation,
and she knew how the rest of it would go: ‘We’re doing everything we can’; ‘unfortunately he’s not responding’; ‘the damage to his heart might just be too great’. All to help prepare, to soften the blow, before you said, ‘we’re so sorry’. As if it could be softened.

She injected another bolus of adrenaline, followed it up with a flush of normal saline, then moved to Graham’s head to intubate.
She chose an eight-millimetre tube and picked up the laryngoscope, then heard Alex say softly, ‘Holy shit.’

He was staring at the monitor, and stopped compressions and pressed his fingers to the soft stubbled skin of Graham’s throat. He looked at Jane. ‘You’re not going to believe this.’

Jane reached for the other side and found a carotid pulse. Thready, but more or less regular. The
monitor started to beep with each beat. She pressed harder. It was really there.

‘You saved him!’ Rose called. ‘You did it!’

Jane glanced at Alex. He looked as stunned as she felt. She had never, ever, had someone come back so quickly after being down so long with such an awful rhythm, CPR or no CPR. She wanted to tell Rose that they had a long way to go yet, and even if his heart
kept going he’d probably be severely brain damaged, but then Graham started to gasp.

‘This is unbelievable,’ Alex breathed.

The hair standing up on her arms, Jane dropped the tube and held the mask to Graham’s face. His skin turned from white to pink and the purple congestion slowly left his ears and lips.

Rose appeared in the doorway, mask clasped to her face with shaky hands,
the Oxy-Viva dragging behind her. ‘Graham?’

‘Please sit down, Rose,’ Jane said.

She lowered herself onto the end of the bed. ‘Can he hear me?’

‘He’s not out of the woods yet,’ Jane said. ‘Sometimes in cases like this, even with the good CPR that you were doing, people take a long time to wake up, and sometimes there are lasting problems.’

‘But he’s alive,’ Rose said.

For the moment, Jane thought. But she realised his breathing was getting deeper and stronger, less gaspy, more normal. She looked down at him and was startled when he blinked. Focus came into his eyes and he looked into hers.

‘Graham?’ Rose said again.

He moved his hand in a decent approximation of a wave. Jane blinked back tears.

Rose fell to her knees off the bed and grasped
his foot, weeping. ‘I knew you wouldn’t leave me.’

Graham reached up to the mask and tried to push Jane’s hands away.

‘Hold on,’ she said. ‘Take it easy. It’s oxygen. Good for you.’

He lowered his hands and clasped them over his chest, looking like a man relaxing on a beach. Alex started to laugh.

Rose smiled through her tears. ‘I knew that if I didn’t give up he’d be all
right.’

Jane tried to pull herself together. ‘Graham, how are you feeling?’

He gave a thumbs-up.

‘Do you know where you are?’

He folded his hands together and put them beside his head, mimicking sleep.

‘Bedroom,’ Alex said, his voice full of wonder.

Graham gave another thumbs-up.

‘Do you know what happened?’ Jane asked.

He touched his left chest
over his heart then drew a line across his throat.

Alex laughed again. ‘I like this guy.’

Jane heard boots in the hallway. ‘Hello?’ someone called.

‘In here,’ she said.

The crew came to the door and looked in. ‘You got him back.’

‘Like you wouldn’t believe,’ Alex said, jubilation in his voice.

Jane felt tears bubble up. She would not break down here. She had
to get out.

‘I have to wash this blood off my hands. Alex, can you take over here?’ she managed to say, adding to Rose, ‘Okay if I use your bathroom?’

She stumbled away without waiting for an answer. Through a blur of tears, she found the bathroom in a short hallway off the living room and locked herself in, her chest tight with emotion. She scrubbed at the drying smears of blood on
her fingers, blinking as hard as she could. Funny how you got used to the bad stuff, the dying, the deaths, and someone coming back like this made you fall apart.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
Laird.
She was suddenly craving his skin, his body, his arms around her. She looked at the message.

Sorry
, Laird had written.
Shocking day, just too busy. Too exhausted for tonight too. Call
you tomorrow.

She read it again. Disappointment squeezed her heart and made her stomach sink, and she realised just how much she’d been looking forward to seeing him – and not just now, not just because of this case. She wanted to see him smile at her, she wanted to hold him, and she wanted to tell him that she loved him.

Oh God, no. Not that.

She was a grown woman. A mother
of three grown children. Divorced for years, content on her own, enjoying her life, happy for a bit of fun but not interested in anything more.

So you thought.

‘Dammit all to hell,’ she said.

*

Ella drove angry. She didn’t care what Langley said, Fletcher had lied. And Miriam Holder must have something to hide or she wouldn’t have run. So why the hell weren’t she and Murray
on one or other of those doorsteps right now?

She wished Chloe and Audra could be present every time Langley sent detectives home, the action more or less declaring that Marko wasn’t worth the cost of overtime. See how calm and composed he’d be then.

And now she had to meet Callum and listen while he told her ‘it’s not you, it’s me’ or some such thing.

She wrenched on the handbrake
outside the cafe in Annandale and stormed in to pick up coffee. She wanted a plan, a list of things to say in reply, reasons why they should give it another go. But that felt ridiculous. If he didn’t want to be with her, why should she continue to want to be with him? She should walk away with her head held high. But she couldn’t shake the memories of the good times they’d had; the intense
conversations, the connection she’d felt and was sure he felt too, the mutual understanding when it came to the pressures of their jobs. They’d clicked, there was no other way to put it. It felt like such a waste to give up on all that, to not even try to work it through.

At the hospital, she parked in the police bay. Three ambulances stood with their back doors open, the crews joking with
each other while they cleaned up after their cases. She texted Callum and waited, half-hoping that he’d say he was too busy.
I’m on my way
, he replied.

Teeth gritted, she got out of the car and put the coffee on the bonnet, then straightened her back and pressed her hands against the car and looked up at the leaves moving in the wind.
Just don’t let him see that it hurts.

The doors
opened and Callum stepped out. He didn’t smile. She watched him cross the asphalt, heart beating in her ears, trying to read his blank expression. She lifted her chin.
I’ve chased killers. I’ve been shot. I’ve seen people die and I’ve helped bring them back to life. Whatever he says, they’re only words.

‘Hi,’ he said.

She handed him his coffee.

He nodded. ‘Thanks.’

They
leaned on the car, sipping. The paramedics clanged their stretchers and flapped clean linen and one sang along with the radio; Hall and Oates, Ella thought.

Callum faced her. ‘Ella.’

Here it comes.
She kept looking at the ambulances. ‘Coffee’s too hot.’

‘I told my dad that I’m seeing you,’ he said.

She turned. ‘What?’

‘He went very still and quiet, then he said he
couldn’t believe it, that I was letting him down, that you were a liar and I should stay away from you.’

She couldn’t help herself. ‘When did I lie?’

‘He said he was confused in the interview.’

‘No way,’ she said. ‘I remember that interview and he was not confused. He admitted everything.’

Callum put his cup on the bonnet. ‘This is my father we’re talking about.’

‘Don’t worry, I’m not likely to forget it.’ She took a sip of coffee but it was bitter on her tongue. She launched the mostly full cup at a bin and missed. ‘So that’s why you were angry yesterday? Because of what your father said? Thanks for being honest and open with me.’

‘Mum’s not happy either.’

‘Why the hell did you tell them?’

‘It seemed important.’

‘For you or for
them?’

‘It just was.’

‘I haven’t told mine.’

‘Perhaps because you know that who I am doesn’t matter to them,’ he said.

Ella had known there would come a time when his parents would find out, and had figured it would make things awkward – awkward being an understatement – but it felt like Callum had shut down on her completely, that his parents’ opinion was the most important
thing of all.

‘And because of that you don’t want to see me any more,’ she said.

‘I understand why they feel that way. I knew it wouldn’t be easy for them.’

‘Or for you.’

He nodded and looked across at the ambulances.

She didn’t know what to say. She liked him, and she felt sick that their past might loom so large over them that this was never, ever, going to work.

‘The thing is,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what I want. I sometimes wonder whether –’ The pager on his belt started beeping and he looked at the screen. ‘I have to go.’

‘Wait.’

But he was already jogging across to the door. ‘Emergency. I’ll call you later if I can.’

She started after him. ‘Just a second.’

But the doors closed behind him.

Ella stopped, trying to decide
what to do. After a couple of months of the relationship dying off, he’d told his parents. Did that – what did that mean?

She was aware of the paramedics watching from their vehicles, of the fluttering in her chest that was either hope or fear. She could walk away, call him later. Or she could…

Ella went up to the doors. They slid open and she walked in. The department was lit
by overbright fluorescents, and she heard a kid screeching somewhere, barked commands, someone vomiting behind a curtain. She walked down the aisle between the cubicles and found herself at the foot of an occupied bed. Callum bent over a woman’s arm, tapping the skin with gloved fingers. The woman was ghostly pale and trying to push away a nurse who held a mask and bag to her face. ‘You have to keep
this on,’ the nurse said.

Callum wiped his forehead with his wrist and looked up at the patient. ‘Margie, it’s okay. Just relax and breathe through the mask.’ He put his hand in hers and squeezed her fingers. The woman turned her white face his way and he cupped her shoulder and smiled at her. ‘Breathe and take it easy and we’ll have you feeling better in no time.’ He didn’t look around;
he had eyes only for his patient.

Ella stepped away. She liked him. A lot. And for this kind of focus as much as anything.

She headed back outside, determined that whatever happened, she wouldn’t let him go without a fight.

TWELVE

J
ane parked her car on the street near Laird’s house at twenty to nine. She was freshly showered, and wearing a light cardigan and a cotton dress that moved around her hips and legs and lacy underwear when she walked. She could smell the perfume rising with the heat of her body and looked forward to seeing his face when he opened the door. They didn’t have to do
anything. They could watch TV, they could sit and have a drink, they could just talk. He could doze with his head on her lap. They could go to bed and fall asleep in each other’s arms. She was on nightshift tomorrow night; they could wake up late, share breakfast, have a proper lazy morning.

The porch light was on, and she stepped up and knocked on the door, a little breathless, weak in
the elbows, a smile spreading across her face.

The woman who opened it was ten centimetres taller than her and whip-thin. The bulk of her blonde hair was pinned up, the rest straggled oh-so-carelessly around her face, and she wore a tight white velvet tracksuit zipped down just far enough to reveal large fake cleavage. She looked at Jane with round blue eyes. ‘Yes?’

Jane couldn’t think.
Lucille?
She couldn’t remember enough about the photo she’d seen online. ‘Is Laird here?’

‘Who’s asking?’

‘I am.’

The woman eyed her. Jane could see now that while she was striving for early twenties, the work wasn’t invisible and she was more like thirty-five. The hands would tell the true story – you could get your face lifted all the way over the top of your head, but there
was nothing you could do about your hands. She shifted her glance to the woman’s left hand where it rested against the open door, then saw the rock on the third finger and the wedding band beside it.

The woman held out her right hand now, and Jane saw in those hard eyes that she recognised why Jane was there. ‘I’m Mrs Lucille Humphreys.’

Jane took the cold fingers automatically, managed
to say, ‘My mistake. Wrong address,’ then turned to stumble off the porch.

‘No, wait, let me fetch him.’

Lucille screeched Laird’s name over her shoulder, and a moment later he looked out of the sitting room, a set of headphones in his hands.

He gazed blank-faced at Jane. ‘Yes?’

She backed away and lurched out to the street. The footpath seemed to be tilting. She could
hear Lucille’s shrill voice demanding that Laird tell her her name and Laird swearing about autograph hunters.

He’s not separated at all. He’s still fucking married.

She staggered to her car and fumbled her keys out of her bag, then dropped them. On her knees on the asphalt, the burn of tears began and she groped between the wheels through a haze.

Once in the car, she swiped
at her eyes with the back of her hand, then tore away from the kerb.

Five blocks later, she pulled over. The streetlights were smears in her eyes, and she pressed her forehead hard against the top of the wheel.

Either they were separated and he’d taken her back, or she had just been away for a while and he’d hidden every speck of evidence of her existence. Photos, her clothes, toiletries,
everything. What kind of fucking bastard did that?

And what does that make me, that I couldn’t see through it? That I was so taken in I’d started to fall in love?

She banged her head hard on the wheel.

When she could see again, she dug in her bag for her mobile and called her friend Tracey. She was overseas and out of contact, but Jane needed to hear her voice.

‘
Hey, this
is Tracey. Tell me the short version and I’ll call you back for the long one.
’

‘It’s me.’ Jane wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her cardigan. ‘You’re not going to believe what I’ve done. I always thought I was smart, you know? I’d never be one of those people. I wish I could talk to you. You won’t get this for days but no doubt when you do I’ll still need your help. Love you.’

She put
the phone on the seat. She ached all over. Her mind rushed: image after image of her and Laird, the sound of his voice and his laugh, the feel of his skin against hers. The feeling she’d had this evening when walking from her car to his door; the shy and secret and now so ridiculous hope that maybe he was falling for her too, and they might have a future together, like Rose and Graham.

She jammed her hands against the horn. ‘Fuck it all!’

*

Ella scraped the plates off into the bin in the corner of her parents’ kitchen, then stacked them in the sink. In the dining room, her mother, Netta, tried to get a word in, but Aunt Adelina wasn’t letting go of the conversation. ‘So I said to the girl, don’t they teach you arithmetic in school any more? And she said, “What’s arithmetic?”.’

Ella’s father, Franco, stumped into the kitchen with the vase of violets from the table.

‘I thought they were fresh,’ Ella said.

‘I needed an excuse to get out.’ He lifted the flowers out, tipped the clear water down the sink beside the plates, refilled the vase and thrust the flowers in again. ‘God knows I love your aunty, but sometimes enough is enough.’

Adelina had come
to stay while she recovered from a fall at home that had left her with a broken wrist. Ella had sat at dinner listening to her father and aunt bicker like they were children again, while her mother tried desperately to smooth things over.
No wonder she’s so keen to get me here.

‘And there you were always apologising to me for not giving me siblings,’ she said. ‘Really, you did me a favour.’

His face softened. ‘Did we?’

Ella turned to the sink and started filling it with hot water. ‘Has she said when she might leave?’

‘Sometimes she talks about the weekend, but doesn’t say which one.’ He tied up the handles of the bin liner.

‘Let me do that,’ she said.

‘It’s all right, bella. Both
my
arms work.’

She followed him outside to the wheelie bin and lifted
the lid. ‘Doesn’t she do anything?’

‘Even asked your mother to help her wash.’ Franco gripped the handle, but Ella gently took it from him and started to pull the bin out to the street. He followed. ‘Who needs two hands on a washer?’

She parked the bin at the kerb. Moths circled the streetlight.

Franco positioned the bin just so, then looked up. ‘No stars tonight. Too much cloud.
Bit more rain tomorrow – be lovely for the roses.’

Ella looked up too. The air was cool and smelled of damp grass and tree bark.

‘I’m still sorry we didn’t have any more after you,’ Franco said. ‘You were the most cute thing I’d ever seen. Dark curls, dark eyes, your little shoes.’ He smiled. ‘We tried, but nothing.’

Ella felt her face grow warm. ‘Look, a bat.’

He didn’t
glance up. ‘And as much as I complain about Adelina, I do love her. She’s my sister.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘People. It’s people that matter the most in life.’

She had the sudden horrible thought that he was sick again. ‘Where’s this coming from?’

‘We worry about you sometimes. So busy with work.’

‘I love my life,’ she said.

‘Relationships are important too,’ he said. ‘You
know you’re always welcome to bring a boyfriend to dinner. Or a girlfriend, we don’t mind. Whoever you love. Either way.’

‘Fine, next time I have a boyfriend I’ll bring him.’

She was hot with embarrassment. All through dinner, her thoughts had strayed to Callum. She’d called him on the way here, left a message saying hi and asking him to get back to her when he could, and ever since
had kept touching her phone in her pocket, hoping to feel a text arrive. Now she thought about opening up to her dad, telling him what was going on and what had happened tonight, but firstly she didn’t know what to say and secondly she was frightened she might cry.

‘Look, another bat.’

Franco kissed her cheek. ‘I know, bats everywhere.’

*

Jane went to a drive-through bottle
shop and bought a sixpack of pre-mixed rum and Coke, then sat in the car by Maroubra Beach, staring into the night darkness over the ocean and drinking. The worst thing was feeling so stupid. She took pride in being able to suss people out at work – she was always the first one to spot the faker, to recognise the crazy, to see the danger coming their way when the brawl seemed over – and here
she’d acted like a twelve year old with her first crush, mooning over her memories, dreaming they’d be together forever.

She felt sick over the idiocy of her hope, and had to lower the window and lean her head on the sill. The wind tasted of the sea and blew through her hair, and she stared into it, her eyes watering, the can cold in her hands, the lace underwear making her itch, the ache
in her chest raw and growing.

‘Fucking bastard,’ she said.

She finished the can and put it on the passenger side floor, then opened the next. Cars with thumping stereos cruised the car park but she focused on the black water. Her skin grew sticky with salt. Her ear got sore and she put her fingers between it and the sill and kept drinking. Her phone stayed silent, but she wouldn’t
have answered him anyway.

When she dropped the fourth empty on the floor, she started to think about going home. She felt ridiculous in the lacy underwear and wanted to strip it off and throw it away. And how come they still couldn’t make these things itch-free? But she shouldn’t drive. She rested her chin on her folded arms on the wheel and thought about calling a taxi, or Alex. It was
only a ten-minute walk. The fresh air might do her good. She was on nightshift tomorrow, so could sleep in, then walk down and get the car late in the morning. That would be two walks in two days. Yes. Excellent idea.

She put up the windows, got out and locked the car, placed the keys carefully into her bag, then started off through the car park. The night had grown somehow darker and she
kept stumbling, almost falling more than once. On the street, she focused on the power poles and walked slowly and consciously from one to the next, slapping the wood with the flat of her hand as she passed each one. ‘Laird. You. Cheating. Slime.’

She stopped for a breather with her arms around a pole, and realised the pain was better. She was almost numb, in fact.

‘See, I’m over you
already!’ she shouted. ‘You bastard!’

She found her street and turned into it. It was even darker here, and so quiet. It must be later than she’d thought. She must’ve fallen asleep in the car. She soldiered on and reached her house at last, and rested against the fencepost for a moment. The garden and porch were pitch dark. She hadn’t yet replaced the globe Deb had smashed.

‘Bitch,’
she said aloud.

That’s what else she’d do tomorrow: call up Gittins and listen to his apology. Sleep, walk to the car, call up Gittins. It felt good to have a list. A schedule. Such a thing left a person with no time to think.

She lurched into the yard and along the path, then tripped on some kind of stick. She fell forward, her hands landing in something wet and skidding out from
under her, dropping her chest down on something big. She rolled off it, sticky wetness all over her hands and neck, the air thick with a smell her alcohol-fogged brain knew well but couldn’t immediately name.

What has that bitch Deb done now?

If this was a dead or injured animal, she’d kill her.

She couldn’t see a thing in the darkness and reached towards the object tentatively.
Her fingertips brushed what felt like skin. An arm.

‘Jesus.’

The flesh was cool and firm, and the person didn’t move when she squeezed. And blood, it was blood that she could smell. She felt her way cautiously, fearfully, up the slender arm and across soaked clothing to the neck. Blood everywhere, and a thready pulse.

‘Jesus!’

*

Jane sat in the gutter with her dress
tucked around her legs and her blood-smeared hands gripping the concrete kerb. The drying blood on her neck and chest pulled at her skin when she moved and the metallic smell rose into her face. A paramedic crew she didn’t know had taken over the care of the unconscious woman, helping Jane up from the path beside her, where she’d knelt supporting her head after rolling her in the recovery position
and screamed and screamed for help.

She could hear her neighbours talking in low voices behind her, one saying he’d get a towel and water and help her wash, another answering that the police were on their way and had said not to touch anything or anyone. Above her, the night sky felt endless.

A torch shone in her face then down her body. ‘I’m Fran, a paramedic,’ a voice said from behind
the light. ‘Are you hurt?’

Jane shook her head. ‘I fell into the blood.’

‘That’s her house,’ one of the neighbours volunteered. ‘She’s a paramedic too.’

‘Really?’ Fran said. ‘Where do you work?’

‘Rocks.’

It was too tiring to talk. She closed her eyes. She felt Fran’s gloved fingers on her wrist, then the BP cuff being wrapped around her upper arm. Cars pulled up and
doors slammed and people conferred in serious tones about body this and body that. The BP cuff was removed and Fran squeezed her shoulder, then someone’s shoe tapped sharply against hers.

She opened her eyes and looked up.

‘I’m Detective Juliet Rooney,’ the woman said. She held an open notebook. ‘Your name?’

‘Jane Koutoufides.’

‘Stand up for me, please.’

Jane tried
to get up and almost lost her balance. The detective caught her arm. ‘Been drinking?’

‘Yep,’ Jane said.

‘Look at me.’

Jane blinked into her face. The street was lit by car headlights and moving torch beams. Rooney was a pale-skinned woman with cool eyes and brown hair in a smooth ponytail. Jane felt filthy standing there in front of her.

‘Who is that in your garden?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jane said. ‘It was too dark to see.’
But I have a suspicion.

‘Come and look now then.’ Still holding her arm, Rooney steered her past the neighbours and through her own front gate, detouring off the path and around the stick Jane had tripped on – a golf club, its head matted with blood and hair. The paramedics had the woman on their stretcher. She was collared, intubated
and being bagged. The cardiac monitor beeped, IVs had been started, and a thick pad and bandage covered most of her head.