Blood Secret (7 page)

9

Rennie was shielding her eyes from the late morning glare, watching two uniformed cops string crime scene tape around the blood, when Trish found her. She had a large takeaway coffee in each hand, passed one over then used the free hand to give Rennie's shoulder a gentle rub.

‘How you doing, hon?'

Rennie didn't know how to answer that so she gave her an update instead. ‘They're sending out a detective and a crime scene officer.'

Trish pulled in a breath.

‘Apparently, it could take a few hours for them to get here.'

‘A few
hours
?'

She wanted to throw her hands up and shout,
Yeah, hours. Goddamn hours, can you believe that?
‘Uh-huh.'

Trish switched from shoulder-rubbing to a quick squeeze of the arm. ‘Is this what you found?' She stepped to the now completed enclosure of
police tape.

‘Yep.' Rennie gulped at the coffee, feeling its heat make its way to her stomach and the caffeine hit the tension in
her shoulders.

‘What do they think?'

Rennie glanced at the two officers who were back at the patrol car talking by the open driver's door. ‘They agree it looks like blood and that in light of the missing persons report, they need to take samples.'

‘So they think it's got something to do with Max?'

She shrugged, frustrated, irritated. ‘Not necessarily. They take the samples in case it's required later as evidence. In case it turns out Max didn't pop off somewhere in the middle of the night by choice but is actually lying bleeding somewhere while they're standing around talking.' She turned her back on them, drank
more coffee.

Trish moved to her side. ‘Hey, you don't know what's happened. It might not be his blood. I heard there was a fight at the pub last night after we closed up. Someone else might have been bleeding out here.'

Rennie nodded. ‘Yeah, you're right, you're right. He might not be hurt but it still doesn't explain where he is. It just feels like a bloody waste of time standing around in the car park when I could be . . . I don't know,
not
answering the same questions from every cop I speak to. I keep telling them he doesn't go off in a huff and he wouldn't leave without telling me. Max wouldn't do that. What the hell else do they need to know before they do something more than
this
?' She pointed at the crime scene tape with her coffee cup and glanced at Trish
for corroboration.

Trish's eyes didn't meet hers straightaway. They flicked to the blood, the patrol car moving slowly away, the single police officer left behind before settling on Rennie again. There was sympathy in her expression but that wasn't all. She seemed hesitant and Rennie remembered Trish and Max went
way back.

When Skiffs opened ten years ago, Max was the first person in Haven Bay to get past Trish and Pav's newcomer status. In what Trish described as their concerted effort to become valued members of the community, she and Pav befriended the other shop owners, insisted on local tradesmen for the renovation of their old cottage and sponsored a couple of sports teams. Which was how Max found them. He was a stalwart of the sailing club, veteran of the soccer club and lover of a hearty laugh, the last of which made the three of them
instant friends.

Rennie reminded herself she didn't own the licence for worrying about Max. ‘Sorry. You must be upset, too.'

Trish opened her mouth to speak, closed
it again.

Maybe there was more to it. ‘What?'

‘Excuse me.' It was the cop and he was speaking to a woman beside the people mover that was now trapped behind the crime scene tape. ‘Is that your vehicle?'

‘Yes.' She had a shopping bag in one hand and car keys in
the other.

‘I have to ask you to leave it there. This area is part of a crime scene.'

She was one of the tennis mums who came in for a coffee once a week after a hit in their short skirts and runners. Right now, Rennie couldn't think of her name. ‘How long will it take?'
she asked.

‘It'll be a few hours,' the officer
told her.

‘I've got to pick up my kids in twenty minutes.'

‘I'm sorry but you won't be able to move your vehicle until we're finished here.' He walked towards her, pulling a notebook from his shirt pocket. ‘And I'll have to get some personal details from you.'

She frowned, irritated. ‘What for?'

‘Hey, Maureen,' Trish said, edging around
the tape.

Maureen glanced over as if she hadn't looked past the cop and the tape before now. ‘Can you believe this? My car . . .'

‘Max Tully's gone missing,' Trish interrupted. ‘And that blood might have something to do with it.'

‘It's blood?' Her eyebrows shot up as her gaze found Rennie. ‘I heard Andrew saying something about it in the newsagency. I thought I must have heard wrong. Max taught my kids to sail. What happened?'

Haven Bay was like that. Everyone was connected. That meant Rennie, too. She didn't want to go through the details again but Maureen deserved some information in return for her impounded car. ‘Trish had her fiftieth birthday party at the cafe last night. He went out to the car and . . .' disappeared into thin air ‘. . . no one's seen him since.'

Maureen's eyes flicked back to the blood and the cop. ‘Well, don't worry about the car. It can stay there as long as you need. I'll get Mum to come down.'

Rennie finished off her coffee, eavesdropping as Maureen told the cop the stain was there when she'd parked two hours ago. When she'd left, the officer had stood to one side of the people mover and folded his arms.

‘What happens now?' Rennie
asked him.

‘I'll stay at the crime scene until the forensics are done.'

‘What's the other officer doing?'

‘The patrol car is needed for general duties.'

‘So . . . what? You just wait here?'

‘That's right.'

‘You don't go and, I don't know,
investigate
?' She heard the sarcasm in her voice and saw the cop square
his shoulders.

‘A detective will be here shortly. He'll want to speak to you but you don't have to wait here. I have your details. Just make sure you keep your phone on so he can contact you.'

‘My partner is missing. I'm not going to turn my phone off.'

‘Rennie,' Trish said quietly, ‘why don't we go sit in the cafe for a while?'

She didn't want to
sit
. The sitting and the waiting and the standing around were making her uneasy and irritated. She clenched her teeth, closed her eyes, heard her sister's voice in her head.
We don't wait. Get your backpack. We're leaving
.

Trish slipped a hand around her forearm. ‘Have you had anything to eat today?'

Rennie pushed the memory down and shook her head. ‘No.'

‘Then come on. You need to eat.'

Is that what other people did when they couldn't make sense of what was going on? Comfort themselves with food instead of hard-and-fast rules and backpacks
and distance?

Trish didn't give her a lot of choice, steering her in the direction of Skiffs, looking back at the cop as she did so. ‘Can I get you a coffee, officer? I own the cafe in the main street.'

‘Oh, yeah?'

‘A cappuccino?'

‘Two sugars.' He dug around in a
trouser pocket.

‘It's fine, my shout for guarding the . . . well, you know. I'll send someone out with it.'

*

Rennie sat on the edge of a chair at Trish's desk. It was really just a small table like all the others but tucked into a corner by the counter where she could plug her laptop in. ‘Wait there while I organise some food.' She pointed at Rennie as if she were a beagle that might bound off if left unattended.

‘I'm waiting.' Rennie rubbed her hands over her face and through her hair, then folded her arms tightly. Most of the tables were full, pretty standard for a Sunday with the mix of late breakfasts and early lunches at this time of the day. Life as usual. Except
for Max.

Trish's computer bag was beside the desk, her laptop not yet unpacked. Some of the ordering and accounts for the cafe were done here but most days Trish sat and did what she'd been doing for thirty years – writing. She was a journalist by trade, had used it to work her way around the world. As Trish described it, not a war zone junkie or a save-the-planet type but scraping together a living writing inspiring, entertaining fluff. Mainly travel, some fashion, food and film, and the odd personality piece – if she bumped into someone high profile she could talk into an interview and photos. All in good fun, she said. No tell-alls, an occasional junket to a luxury resort and plenty of hospitality work to help pay the travel expenses.

She met Pav in Serbia when it was still a part of Yugo­slavia. He'd been working in a dodgy, backstreet restaurant and had to leave in a hurry so they did it together. Rennie never heard the why, just that they travelled for ten years, Pav talking his way into kitchens while Trish wrote articles about street markets and fashion houses, alpine dinners, jungle treks and the glorious places she found off the beaten track. They came back to Sydney to nurse Trish's dying mum and when she'd finally, painfully, passed away, Trish brought Pav out to Haven Bay to show him the old holiday house before it was sold. And they
never left.

Now she wrote magazine articles and a popular blog, ran a travel website and organised the occasional tour, all from Skiffs. Someone else who'd given away one life for another in
Haven Bay.

‘Pav's making your favourite,' Trish said as she slipped into the
chair opposite.

‘Thanks.' French toast, she thought, and another memory surfaced – the first time she'd eaten it, the morn­ing after a bloody and terrifying night when Sergeant Evan Delaney had taken Rennie and her sister home for some of his wife's cooking. It ended up being the start of the four-month stay during which she'd scoffed down Claire's French toast with lashings of maple syrup every Sunday morning. Pav's version was a little fancier with spiced fruit compote and Greek yogurt on the side but it was still comfort food. And it reminded Rennie she needed some help.

‘Hayden turned up last night,' she told Trish. ‘Rang from the train
at three am
wanting Max to pick him up at the station.'

Trish's eyes widened in surprise. She'd known Hayden since before he started school, before Max's ex-wife Leanne took him to Sydney to live. ‘Did Max know he was coming?'

Rennie shook her head and told her about the ‘Oh, it's you' greeting, the conversation with Leanne and missing the plane to Cairns. ‘I thought . . . 
hoped
Max would turn up this morning and Hayden wouldn't have to know anything about it. And I wouldn't have to try to sit him down and talk to him.'

‘Where is he now?'

‘I left him asleep in bed. Which is the next issue. I think I should hang around for this detective but I want to ring the house to see if Max has called and I don't know what to tell Hayden. He's a kid, he shouldn't be told over the phone that his dad is missing and I'm not sure I'm the right person to deliver the message.'

Trish cocked her head. She loved Hayden and she knew Rennie struggled with him. She also understood what Rennie meant about not being the right person. She hadn't tagged her Don't-Fuck-Me-About Rennie for nothing. ‘What about Naomi and James? Maybe they could be there when he's told.'

Aunty Naomi and Uncle James were distant-enough relatives and too great a source of good times and nice gifts to warrant Hayden's sneer-and-grunt treatment. ‘Good idea. What about calling the house? Any suggestions how to handle that?'

‘Could Naomi phone and ask for Max? See if Hayden's spoken to him?'

‘Yeah, that could work. I'll call her.'

Trish reached for the cordless phone behind the counter. ‘Here, use this so you don't tie up your mobile.'

Rennie stood as she dialled, unable to sit still any longer, edging around customers to the street entrance and peering out as she spoke
to Naomi.

She'd heard from James and sounded anxious and apolo­getic that she didn't have better news. There was no sign of Max at the plant so James had gone back to MineLease and found nothing changed from
last night.

As Naomi talked, Rennie watched a kid coast past on a skateboard. He crossed the road, hit the kerb on the lake side, found air and landed shoulder first on the grass. Yesterday, she might have grinned. Today, she just scanned past him to the figures in the park, looking for Max-like bodies among the walkers and joggers and
bike riders.

She told Naomi about Hayden, asked if she could ring the house without spilling the beans and come around later to help break
the news.

A family group had gathered in the park. It looked like children, parents and grandparents. Food was being laid out on a picnic table, kids were crawling and running and falling over. A couple of men checked out the communal barbecue, another man had a camera out taking snaps of the lake, the park, the kids. Then turned around and aimed the lens at
the street.

Rennie eased away from the door, watching him from inside the cafe: older, thin, a brimmed hat covering his face. Tourists weren't unheard of in Haven Bay, she reminded herself, and the main street hadn't changed much in a hundred years. Plenty of reason to take photos, even the locals did it. But today, with her past on rewind, it made
her uncomfortable.