Web of Deceit (14 page)

Jane stared.

‘You know her,’ Rooney said.

‘It’s Deb, my ex’s wife.’

Deb’s dark hair was matted with blood across her forehead and her skin was white. Dizzy, Jane took a step back.

‘Why would she be here?’ Rooney said.

‘She thinks Steve and
I are seeing each other,’ Jane said, as the paramedics wheeled the stretcher away. ‘She’s been coming around and smashing my lights and windows. I need to sit down.’

‘Did you report her?’

‘I asked Steve to tell her to stop.’ Jane felt the ground moving under her feet. ‘It wasn’t working though, because today she complained about me at work. I really need to sit down.’

Rooney
led her across the lawn to the far corner of the porch. The tiles were cold through her dress. Rooney stood in front of her with her notebook. ‘What was the work complaint?’

Jane described the allegation of the damage to a car and the subsequent confrontation she’d had with Deb.

‘She might have bruises on her wrist. That was me, trying to restrain her.’ She raised her own arm. ‘She
did this to me at the same time.’

Rooney looked at the fingermarks. ‘What time did you finish work?’

‘Six thirty.’

‘Then what did you do?’

‘Caught the bus home, had a shower, made myself dinner.’

‘Were you here when she arrived?’ Rooney asked.

‘No.’

‘Where were you?’

‘I went out for a drive,’ Jane said.

‘Where?’

‘Just around. Bondi way,
the suburbs. I parked at the beach for a while. To look at the ocean and think.’

‘About what?’ Rooney said.

‘Work. You know how the job can be. I had a guy under a train yesterday. I talked to some of your people then too. Detective Ellen something. Ella.’

Rooney turned the page. ‘What time did you head out on this drive?’

‘Around eight thirty.’

‘You encounter anyone
in your travels?’

‘Guy at the drive-through bottle shop on Anzac Parade. I bought a sixpack of rum and Coke. He’d remember me because I was crying and he said something kind about a hard night and I told him to mind his own fucking business.’

Rooney looked at her.

‘You ever think you might have PTSD?’ Jane asked.

‘How much did you drink?’ Rooney said.

‘Four cans.
I don’t drink much usually.’ The thought of it now made her stomach spasm.

‘What did you do then?’

‘I left the car at the beach and walked home. It took me a while. I stumbled in here and tripped and fell on her.’ She held out her hands. The dried blood was flaking off.

‘What time was that?’

‘Whenever the neighbours called you,’ Jane said.

Rooney checked her watch
and wrote something in her notebook. ‘Wait here.’

Jane pulled her sticky cardigan around herself and watched Rooney talk to a blonde detective and two uniformed cops, while a crime scene officer took photos of the golf club. The lie about where she’d been hadn’t been planned, but she’d realised as she spoke that she never wanted to tell anyone about Laird. She even regretted having called
Tracey, but at least she could make up some story by the time Tracey got reception at Machu Picchu and called back. It wasn’t like leaving Laird out of the story here made a huge difference: she
had
driven to Bondi then around the beach suburbs; she had gone to the bottle shop, then parked at the beach, then walked home. Cars had passed while she’d staggered along the road, she was almost certain,
so if the police tried they could no doubt find people who’d seen her. All this checking was just the police filling in the night’s blanks, putting the story together like she did in her case sheets. This happened, then that happened, and the victim was found at such and such a time by a person named X.

Rooney came back with the guy with the camera. ‘Stand up,’ she said to Jane. ‘Hands out
by your sides, palms forward.’

Jane did as she was told, shutting her eyes against the flash.

‘Turn your hands over.’

More flashes.

‘Stay there.’

The photographer moved in for closer shots of her hands, back and front, and of her bruised wrist.

‘She bit me, too,’ Jane said, pointing to her elbow. ‘She tried, anyway.’

‘Did you hurt yourself when you fell?’
Rooney asked.

‘No,’ Jane said, cold now and starting to shiver.

‘What about that bruise on your forehead?’

The photographer leaned in for a shot of it, then some of the blood on her neck and chest.

‘Bumped it on the steering wheel when I was drinking,’ Jane said.

‘Uh-huh,’ Rooney said.

The photographer finished and walked back to the body.

‘Is that your
golf club?’ Rooney pointed.

Jane shook her head. ‘I hate golf.’

‘Know anyone who plays?’

‘My ex.’ Did Laird? She didn’t know. ‘Can I go inside now? I’d really like to shower and lie down.’

‘Sorry,’ Rooney said. ‘I need you to come to the station for a formal interview.’

‘Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

‘Sorry,’ Rooney said again.

Jane looked down at herself,
trying to bury her feelings.
Just more box-ticking
. ‘Can I at least change my clothes? Clean off this blood?’ And get out of this goddamned itchy lace crap.

‘Better if we go now.’

Rooney took her arm again, but this time the grip felt more like a restraint than a support.

THIRTEEN

E
lla left when her mother dozed off in her armchair. Adelina had gone to bed an hour before, and Netta had visibly relaxed. The three of them had stayed in the lounge room, the TV on but none of them watching it, instead talking about holidays they’d taken when Ella was young, about pets they’d had, about weather and gardens and Sunday dinner the coming weekend.

Franco waved her off, and she settled deeper into the driver’s seat as she pulled away. It was late but she didn’t feel tired. There’d been no text from Callum, but she kept thinking about how he’d looked at that patient. She would talk to him tomorrow. They would sort it out and it would be good.

She stopped at a red on an empty intersection. Home was east, to the right, but she didn’t
feel like going there just yet. She looked in the other direction. Granville wasn’t far.

The light turned green, and she sat there a moment longer, then turned left.

Half an hour later she was parked across the street and down from Simon Fletcher’s ramshackle house, her car tucked between a couple of others outside the closed gate of a panelbeater’s workshop. Fletcher’s white van with
the plastic pipes strapped to the roof was parked at the kerb in front of his house, and she could see a light behind the curtains in his front window.

Sometimes on surveillance she felt the passing of every second, but tonight she was in no hurry. She slithered down in her seat and thought about Callum. The dedication. It was what they shared. Here she was, in her car, on her own, doing
what Langley should’ve organised. It was all about the case, about finding who killed Marko Meixner and bringing that person to justice. About doing her best to help one person, just as Callum did with a patient. Nobody could save the world, but – what was that saying? – if you’ve helped one person today then it’s been a good day.

Fletcher’s light went out. She yawned, thinking she’d give
him a few minutes before starting the car and heading off, then she saw the front door open. The man himself stepped onto the verandah. He wore jeans and zipped up a dark jacket as he crossed his crappy garden to the footpath, then got behind the wheel of his van. She clutched her own wheel in excitement, and watched as he turned on his headlights and drove away down the street.

She waited
until his car was almost at the corner, then started her engine and followed.

*

Alex woke fighting the sheets. He could feel the girl’s dead hand in his, hear her parents’ sobs in his head. Every night this happened. The psychologist said it would get better. He walked to the bathroom and rubbed his sweaty head with a towel, wondering
When? When?

Down the dark hallway, Mia’s
bedroom door was open an inch. The streetlight shone through her partly open blinds. He eased into her room and stood watching her sleep. She lay curled on her left side as she usually did, her face relaxed, the quilt high around her shoulders. Every night since the crash, he’d come in here and stood like this. She never woke.

Every night that he wasn’t on nightshift, that was. And on those
nights, he’d asked Louise, the sleepover sitter, to come in and check on her. He’d said Mia tended to throw the quilt off and not wake up, and was prone to serious chest infections if she got cold. Louise had believed him, and told him every morning that she’d checked, that Mia’d slept fine. He knew it was irrational, but he felt it helped keep her safe.

He moved to the wall beside her desk
and eased himself down onto the floor, careful of his knees that sometimes clicked. Mia breathed evenly. He lifted the back of his T-shirt to wipe the last of the sweat from the nape of his neck, and sat there watching the light lie in bands on the floor.

He’d been to more fatal crashes than he could remember. Eventually they tended to blur, for the mind’s sake he guessed. This one, though
. . . The dream always put him right back there, breathing the smells of oil and petrol and eucalyptus from the battered tree, seeing the twisted shell of the old car as he pulled up, getting close and finding the bodies, the young man pinned behind the wheel, head back, open eyes sightless, blood on his face from fatal head injuries caused by the caved-in roof, and in what was left of the passenger
seat, crumpled against the tree, the girl. Open head wounds. Crushed chest. Dead stare. Blood all over her, and Mia’s age and size. One limp white hand hung out what remained of the window. He’d called for urgent rescue though they were beyond hope, and stood holding that hand while he waited. And then her parents had arrived.

*

Jane had been inside Maroubra police station once before,
when David had been caught trying to shoplift a carton of Coke at the age of fifteen. He’d been in tears, and she’d thanked the officers for giving him a fright that fortunately had stuck. The station hadn’t changed much in ten years, but it felt different to be walking in covered in blood, the cops at the desk looking up at her as Rooney opened the door into the back. She could easily have been
a victim, but something in their gazes made her feel like they believed she wasn’t, like they recognised some action or tone of Rooney’s that marked her as something else.

Unsettled, she followed Rooney through the office areas and into an interview room.

‘Have a seat,’ Rooney said.

Jane hesitated then sat. ‘Should I be concerned about anything?’

‘Like what?’

‘Am
I a suspect?’

Rooney’s gaze was even. ‘Why would you think that?’

‘I would really have liked to clean myself up.’

‘I can imagine,’ Rooney said. ‘But we won’t keep you long. Sit tight and I’ll be back in a minute.’ She closed the door behind her with a click.

Jane sat in the chair with her hands in her lap. They hadn’t said she was under arrest, and she was almost certain
that meant she didn’t have to stay if she didn’t want to. She thought about getting up and seeing if the door was locked, seeing if she could walk out or if someone would come running and grasp her arm again. But paramedics and police worked so well together normally, it would probably look odd if she didn’t want to cooperate now. Odd, as in she had something to hide. She started to pick dried blood
from around her nails, then felt sick and tucked her hands under her thighs. Blood didn’t usually bother her, but she didn’t usually have it coating what felt like most of her skin and it didn’t usually come from the comatose body of someone she knew. She hoped Deb was okay.

Minutes dragged past. She heard someone walk past the closed door, and somewhere a telephone rang five times. She
kept her hands under her thighs and tried to stay still. Her bladder was full and her nausea growing. She waited as long as she could, then got up and knocked on the door.

No answer.

She tried the knob. It was unlocked and turned smoothly in her hand. She looked up and down the corridor but there was nobody in sight.

‘I need the bathroom.’

No reply.

She hadn’t seen
one as they’d come in from the right, so she went left. The second door she found was the female bathroom. She locked the cubicle door and sat on the loo. Now she’d get to wash her hands as well.
Thank goodness.

The urine poured out of her like a flood. She grabbed sheets of the same government-issue paper they had at her station, stood to pull up the scratchy lace underpants, then froze
at the spotting on the lining.

She hadn’t had a period for four years, and now she was spotting.

She sank back onto the toilet, dismay and anxiety and fear filling her limbs with lead. She’d only spotted three times in her life, and they were called Glenn, David and Breanna.

‘Jane?’ Rooney said, right outside the door.

She started. ‘Yes?’

‘Are you okay?’

‘Fine.
I’m just – one minute. I’ll just be another minute.’

‘I’m outside in the corridor if you need me.’

‘Okay,’ Jane said. ‘Thanks.’

She sat there trembling as the outer door closed, then looked at the spots of blood again. It might not be that, she told herself. It could be the stress of Laird, and Deb. Perhaps she had an infection. Or maybe her menopause wasn’t as straightforward
as she’d thought, and this was some new and exciting phase.

She tore off another wad of paper. A few more slight smears. She stared at them, then dropped the paper into the toilet, yanked up her underpants and flushed. Her dress fell around her thighs and she unlocked the cubicle door and went to the sink.

Rooney hadn’t said straight out that she couldn’t clean herself up, and she
didn’t care any more about what might look odd. She lathered her hands and washed the pink-tinged foam down the drain, then wet handfuls of paper towel and scrubbed at the blood on her neck and chest, and dress and cardigan. Her gaze drifted to her stomach where it pressed against the cotton of her dress. It bulged a little, but she was a middle-aged woman who’d had three kids.

She dumped
the sodden towels in the bin and turned for more, and couldn’t help glancing into the mirror as she did so. Was the bulge bigger?

No. No. It was an infection or something. It had to be.

But in the mirror, her face was pale, her eyes huge.

*

When she stepped into the corridor five minutes later, the top of her dress and cardigan were wet and stained pink but the blood was
gone from her skin.

Detective Juliet Rooney pushed herself off the opposite wall. ‘All right?’

‘I want to go home,’ Jane said.

‘Beg your pardon?’

‘I’m going home.’ Jane stood up straight like she’d practised in the bathroom. ‘I’ve told you everything that happened tonight, and a formal statement won’t have anything new in it.’

Rooney looked at her for a long moment.
‘Okay. We’ll do it another time.’

‘And I need a lift.’

‘Sure.’

They eyed each other, then Rooney turned away. ‘Come on then.’

Jane followed her through the station and outside under the dark night sky. She felt disconnected from the world. Her fingers felt sticky, and she could still smell the blood.

As she climbed into the police car, she was horrified to catch herself
putting a protective hand over her stomach.

*

The closer they got to Ryde, the harder Ella found it to sit still. And now Fletcher was turning off Lane Cove Road. He was really going there. She could hardly believe it.

She hung back as he slowed, his brakelights showing intermittently, and for the shortest second she thought he was going to drive past, but then he slowed even
further and the van crept at walking pace into Amy Street.

I knew it.

She adjusted her grip on the wheel as she eased around the corner behind him. Chloe and Marko Meixner’s flat was in a building about halfway down the street, but it was empty, she knew, because Chloe was still in hospital.

Fletcher crawled along the parked cars, then swung in to stop across a driveway. Ella
stayed back, her heart beating in her ears, tucking her own car into a no-standing zone and hoping he hadn’t noticed her. She turned off her lights and slid down in the seat, eyes on the motionless back of the van. There was a streetlight directly over it and the glow shone dully off the plastic pipes on the van’s roof. Ella slowed her breathing and made herself stay calm. She could see both the
driver’s and passenger’s doors. A breeze moved the leaves in the trees and made the light waver. The van’s brakelights were still on, which meant Fletcher was sitting there with his foot on the pedal. If he got out and went up to Chloe’s door, if he did something, she could go after him. If he didn’t… well, she didn’t want to show her hand.

Time inched past. Ella swore under her breath.
Get out and do something!

But nothing happened.

Ella stared at the van’s back door. What was he doing? She thought of the hang-up calls Chloe had mentioned. Maybe he was calling to see if she was home. Maybe he was thinking that if she answered, he’d hang up, then go to her door and knock. And then what?

Ella had never been gladder to know that someone was in hospital.

After a couple more minutes, the brakelights went off and the van crept out of the driveway and down the street. Ella craned to keep it in sight. She knew the streets that crossed Amy further along, knew that if Fletcher was heading back to Lane Cove Road he’d turn right at the roundabout. She twisted the wheel and started to swing out of her space, headlights still off, watching as he made the right
turn.

She sped down the street, and by the time she reached Lane Cove Road was just two cars back from him at the lights. Again she stared at the back of the van, annoyed by the thought that she’d followed him here only for him to return home.

But he did still come here. That means something.

But what?