No sound from inside.
She lowered her voice. ‘I know what they have over you.’
No response.
‘Five minutes,’ she said. ‘You can give me that, surely. I don’t want you as a witness, I don’t plan to investigate any further than to find the baby. That’s all I want.’
Finally he spoke. ‘You don’t plan to.’
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re not the only copper in the force. What about your bosses?’
‘They only know what I tell them,’ she said. ‘Look, nobody knows I’m here. Nobody knows I’m even looking into this.’
‘Flowerboy knows.’
‘He doesn’t know about Rigby and how it all ties in with Chris Phillips.’ She shivered. It was cold on the landing. ‘Five minutes and then I’ll go.’
A chain slid back, a lock turned and Paul Houtkamp opened the door. ‘I must be an idiot.’
She was grateful for the warmth of the small, sparsely decorated living room. He waved a hand at a chair and sat on the lounge opposite.
‘Here’s what happened,’ she said. ‘That assault was not the simple incident you’re all pretending it was. Something took place, either then or beforehand, and you and Chris ended up with information Rigby wishes you didn’t have. Now Chris thinks his son was taken because of it, and you’re keeping mum because you’re scared for your wife.’
Houtkamp seemed to think about this. Then he leaned forward. ‘Stand up. Lift up your shirt and turn around.’
‘I’m not wired.’
‘Lift up your shirt and turn around.’
She got to her feet. This was humiliating, infuriating, but might get her the answers she needed. She did as he said, sat down, crossed her legs and folded her arms. ‘Happy?’
‘I’ll never repeat any of this in court or to anyone else,’ he said. ‘If I’m asked, I’ll deny this meeting ever happened.’
‘Fine.’
‘And I’m only helping you for the sake of the baby.’ He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. ‘God, what am I doing?’
‘It’ll be okay,’ she said.
Just like it was for Roth?
Man, she hated that smart-arse voice in her head.
Houtkamp shook his head for a long time then spoke in a low voice. ‘After the thing with Chris Phillips, when I was lying cuffed on the ground, Rigby sat there clutching his neck and told me that Jane would pay if I ever told what was going on. He said he and his friends know which nursing home she’s in, and you’ve seen yourself they have no security at all, and he said they’d get to her like this,’ he clicked his fingers, ‘and they wouldn’t just kill her. You met her, she’s like a little kid. She understands nothing. She loves everyone. She’d be all excited about visitors.’ He held out his hands. They were shaking. ‘There are things
way
worse than death, you know?’
Bile rose in Ella’s throat.
Houtkamp drew a deep breath. ‘I went to that alley to meet Rigby and give him some information. I did that sometimes, when I needed money, but it wasn’t your regular help, to catch crims. He wanted to know about particular people. People who worked in competition to some business he and his friends – some cops, some civilians – and before you ask, no, I don’t know who they are – had going.’
‘What kind of business?’
‘Some gambling scams, though I didn’t know much about that. It was mostly drugs. They were trying to take over areas of the city. I heard they got some purer stuff, they were selling it cheaper, all that kind of thing.’
Ella thought of the rash of recent accidental overdose deaths, of Lily Zander cold and stiff under a shrub. ‘And what happened then?’
‘That guy Chris was there too. I’d seen him around but never met him. He wasn’t in on it. Rigby made him wait in the car while we talked, but finally he got out and came over. He wanted to know what was going on. They got into a big argument, and from what Chris said I guess he’d figured out a few things. He accused Rigby of being dirty, being corrupt, said was he in on the robberies, said he was totally sick of cops like him. Rigby threatened him, and went for him, and they got into it. There was nobody around. Rigby had Chris on the ground and was saying, “I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you, don’t you know how much money this brings in?” I wanted to run away but I was scared he really would kill him, so I grabbed this metal pole and belted him across the neck.’
He’d probably saved Chris’s life. ‘You deserve an award, not an arrest.’
‘Yeah, well, Rigby went down for a moment then he leapt up and grabbed me. Next thing I’m in cuffs and he’s standing over me holding his neck and kicking the crap out of me. Chris called for back-up, I guess knowing Rigby wasn’t going to listen to him, and just before they arrived Rigby backed off.’
‘Was anything else said between them?’
‘Nothing that I heard. Just lots of glares.’
‘And then you got charged, and the story is that you hurt them both,’ Ella said. ‘And you’ll probably get locked up.’
‘If that’s the price to pay to keep Jane safe, I don’t mind,’ Houtkamp said. ‘Who would listen to me anyway?’
‘I am.’
‘I mean officially. What boss would take my word over two cops’? And even if Rigby got slammed straight in jail, he’s still got friends.’
‘There’s witness protection–’
‘Where can you hide a thirty-year-old woman with a mental age of five?’
He was right. All Ella could do was use what he’d told her to solve her case. For the moment anyway. She put out her hand. ‘Thank you for trusting me.’
He held onto it. ‘Don’t let me down.’
Ella threw her mobile phone on the passenger seat. There was no way she could ring Dennis about any of this tonight. She needed time to decide what to say and how to say it.
She started the engine and turned the heater up high, rubbed at the goosebumps on her arms. She now knew exactly what the robbery gang was capable of. If Rigby was involved with them, as Houtkamp claimed, and if the gang had taken Lachlan, the odds of finding him alive were not something she wanted to consider.
9.07 pm
Sophie was sitting bolt upright when Angus burst into the café. He stormed to the booth and sat down opposite her. She waited for him to speak. He put his clenched fists on the table and pressed the knuckles together, then leaned forward. She leaned forward to meet him.
‘This job,’ he said softly, ‘is fucked.’
She stared at him. ‘What did you find out?’
‘They’ve gone completely hands-off on Sawyer,’ he said. ‘It is such bullshit. Guy’s a big-shot doctor, surgeon, whatever; looks after rich and important bastards; so he knows people and obviously they know people and the detectives do nothing but wait for him to step out of line. Which he won’t.’
‘They’re doing nothing?’
‘Oh, they have this piss-weak surveillance on him, but all that is is watching his house and seeing if he goes out,’ Angus said. ‘But if it’s already all been done, he doesn’t need to go out, does he?’
‘But Lachlan is an officer’s child,’ Sophie said.
‘I know. It should count for something.’
‘It should count for a lot,’ Sophie said.
Angus’s knuckles were white. ‘I knew there’d be a day when I’d have to leave the job. When we can’t even look after one of our own any more, I don’t see the point in struggling on.’ His voice cracked.
Sophie felt cold and hollow. ‘So what will they do?’
Angus wiped his eyes with his sleeve. ‘In a few days they’ll call off the surveillance, then they’ll cut back the team working the case. They’ll say the leads have dwindled out, they don’t have the work for all those people any more and they’re needed elsewhere. Soon there’ll be just a couple still on it, but they can’t do much.’ He lowered his gaze. ‘Then it’ll be marked unsolved and filed away.’
Sophie stared at him but was seeing instead the moment when Sawyer’s daughter was born, remembering how she’d cradled the tiny body in her hands, feeling the heat of the baby’s skin, the slippery texture, the smell of the blood and vernix. She had done her absolute best for that child, she had worked so hard and willed her to live as strongly as she’d ever willed it for anyone. Couldn’t Sawyer understand that? How could he have done what he did, knowing that Sophie and Chris had gone through a delivery just like he and Julie had?
Angus was shaking his head. ‘This friend of a friend, on the surveillance team, he said they are having a party, of sorts. Lots of people there, they can hear the glasses clinking from across the street. And apparently Sawyer’s going back to fucking work tomorrow. Jesus.’
Sophie focused. ‘Work? On a Saturday? Where?’
‘St Helens, in Camperdown.’ Angus rubbed his red eyes. ‘He’s saying he’s got paperwork to catch up on, and needs to get out of the house. You ask me, he wants to try to give surveillance the slip.’
Sophie thought for a moment, then started to talk.
Saturday 10 May, 7.11 am
D
ennis was smoking in the carpark when Ella arrived for the morning meeting. She locked her car and leaned on the wire fence beside him.
He said, ‘Seems like Sophie was outside Sawyer’s house again last night.’
‘With Arendson?’
‘Nope. All alone.’
‘Doing what?’
‘Standing, staring.’ He stubbed out the butt on the top of a post. ‘Surveillance spotted her in the streetlight but they don’t think Sawyer did. He had people over, an after-funeral type thing. She was there for about five minutes then she left.’ He looked at Ella. ‘That’s two days in a row.’
‘I’ll go and see her after the meeting.’
Dennis nodded. ‘So where were you yesterday? Did you get my messages?’
He’d left one on her landline as well, she’d found when she got back home. ‘I was out and about. Looking into things.’
‘You’re supposed to let me know what you’re doing.’
‘Yeah, sorry.’ Last night she’d thought at length about what to say and whether she could keep Houtkamp’s confidence. ‘Briefly, Chris Phillips argued with Rigby about Houtkamp, and then I found out that Rigby might be involved with the gang or, at the very least, something else dodgy.’
‘You found out how?’
‘I can’t say.’
‘Houtkamp told you.’
‘His family’s been threatened. I promised him nobody would know we talked.’
‘You can’t promise stuff like that,’ Dennis said.
‘The ends justifies the means if we find Lachlan.’
‘But you can’t pick and choose,’ Dennis said. ‘Follow up some allegations, some cases, and not others.’
‘He’ll never testify, so what can I do?’
‘Maybe he won’t testify because he knows it’s all lies,’ Dennis said. ‘And anyway, you said Roth said Chris wasn’t involved in the gang.’
‘I don’t think he is,’ she said. ‘I think he found out something about it. I think he rang the TV stations and now he believes his son was taken as payback.’
‘Chris told you this?’
‘Not exactly.’ She explained what she’d overheard and the men’s reactions.
‘So you’ve got a man with a criminal history who may be lying, but who you believe, and two officers who you claim are lying though you have no evidence to say so.’ He shook his head. ‘This is why you should always take me along on your excursions.’
‘If I can get a warrant I can find out who sent the flowers to Houtkamp, maybe prove a link between him and Rigby.’
‘Murray told me about the basket.’
‘All I need is that first crack. I jam in the crowbar and away we go.’
‘You’ve got no grounds for the warrant though,’ he said. ‘And listen, there are other things happening. We got the phone records from the TV stations. I’ve had people going over them half the night and with any luck they’ve found the origin of the calls.’
‘Maybe we can prove it was Chris who rang, then.’
‘Crowbar mark two,’ Dennis said. ‘Let’s go in.’
Before they reached the station door a uniformed constable came out. ‘You were on an arson case?’ he said to Ella. ‘A guy named Edman Hughes?’
‘Don’t tell me – he’s made a complaint against me.’
The constable shook his head. ‘He was found hanged at home this morning. Left a note about having no future, according to the officers called there.’
He went back inside and Ella leaned on the railing. ‘Shit.’
‘Sorry,’ Dennis said.
‘It’s only been five days,’ she said. ‘Who gets their case solved in five days? How could he expect me to run around on that when we’ve got this missing kid?’ She didn’t want to tell Dennis how she’d brushed Hughes off the day before, on these very steps. She stuck her fists on her hips. ‘Oh shit.’
8.20 am
Sophie sat in her car up the street from The Rocks ambulance station, her mobile in her hands. She’d seen the tired night-shift crew wander out to their cars a minute after eight, and the day-shift crew power out of the building just a couple of minutes after that. They turned left, the siren wailing and beacons flashing as they went under the Bridge. Saturdays were busy – hell, every day was busy. They wouldn’t be back for hours.
Her phone rang.
‘It’s a go,’ Angus said. ‘See you soon.’
When she entered the station she went first to the storeroom and put back the drugs she’d taken the previous day from Thirty-one. She went next to her locker and changed into her last spare uniform. Someone had left a portable radio on and the voices echoing through the empty building put her on edge. From above the roof came the constant sound of traffic crossing the Bridge. She went into the station manager’s office and searched through the desk drawers for the spare locker keys. In the men’s change room she opened the locker of Joe Vandermeer, a nice guy who was the closest to Angus’s height and build of any of the men on the station. She took one set of uniform then replaced the keys in the drawer.
The plant room had space for three ambulances. This was the minimum they could have on a station of their size – one for day shift, one for night shift if the day shift wasn’t back yet, and one spare in case of breakdowns. On the whiteboard was a log of mileage and service due dates for each car. Beside car thirty-three Sophie scrawled ‘
workshop’
then took down a set of keys. Mechanics and vehicles came and went all the time. Nobody would wonder about Thirty-three.
In the ambulance she put Joe Vandermeer’s uniform on the passenger seat and activated the roller door. Sunlight streamed in. She drove out of the building, closed the door and was on her way.
Sophie slowed on Carillon Avenue in Camperdown. There was the phone box on the corner, but where was Angus? An older man standing there raised his hand as she drew level and she realised with a start that it
was
Angus.
His hair was grey and combed back, and he wore tan slacks and a plain jacket and carried a plastic shopping bag. His face was different, even his stance. She pulled over and he climbed into the passenger seat. Even close up she had trouble recognising him until he smiled. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Good make-up, good dressing-up and good acting. That’s what working undercover teaches you.’ He put the bag on the floor, took the uniform and scrambled into the back of the vehicle. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Fine,’ she lied. ‘Good.’
His face appeared in the rear-view mirror. He was buttoning the paramedic shirt. ‘I’ve been around and into the hospital. There’s one guy watching his car, and two inside, I’m pretty sure, on the exits. I don’t know any of them but they’re easy to pick when you know what to look for.’
‘And Sawyer?’
‘With a judicious flower delivery and a story about my dear departed wife and her breast reconstruction after cancer, I found out from a sympathetic receptionist that he should be on the fifth floor for the next hour or so.’
‘Good.’ Sophie’s hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. ‘No problems getting the stuff?’
‘None at all.’ He climbed back into the passenger seat and smiled at her. She was struck for an instant by the absurdity of life, how just days ago she had squirmed with guilt every time she saw him, and now they were about to commit a serious crime together.
Angus said, ‘We’re going to find Lachlan today. I know it.’
She knew it too. A fire burned in her chest, fanned first by the plans they’d made last night, then the thoughts that had come when she’d lain in bed at home, unable to sleep.
She drove further along Carillon Avenue then turned right into Milson Road. St Helen’s Private Hospital lay directly ahead.
She took a deep breath as they approached the hospital driveway. They could do this; she just needed to control her nerves. The key to the entire operation was to hide in plain sight – to make no attempt to sneak about but to be fully visible at the same time as looking like they belonged. If things went to plan, no witness would recall more than the uniforms.
9.00 am
Chris opened the door to find Ella standing there. ‘No news, I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘May I come in?’
Behind him Gloria clanked pans in the kitchen. He said, ‘If you want.’
They sat in the lounge room. ‘Is Sophie home?’
‘No.’
‘Driving around?’
Chris nodded. He had no idea where she was, really. She’d gone off in the car at seven without saying a word.
‘Was she here last night when I dropped you off?’
It went quiet in the kitchen. Chris’s skin tingled. ‘Yes.’
‘That was about seven-thirty, wasn’t it?’ she said. ‘And did you or she go out later?’
‘No.’
‘You slept in the same bed, you would’ve known if she went out, right?’
‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Why are you asking?’
‘Someone matching Sophie’s description was seen outside Boyd Sawyer’s house last night. I want to talk to her, find out if it was her. Explain what a bad idea it is to be doing that.’
Chris shook his head. ‘We were both definitely here.’
Ella looked doubtful, but she leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. ‘The other thing is, we’re tracing the calls made to the TV stations about the robbery gang.’
‘How does that help our case?’
‘I thought you should know. So you can be prepared.’
‘You won’t find my number there,’ he said. He’d started to sweat and he hoped she couldn’t see it. He was safe, he told himself. There was no way they could link that public phone to him.
Ella lowered her voice. ‘It would be best for you to tell me what you know now.’
‘What I know about what?’
‘The robberies and the gang,’ she said.
‘I know nothing.’ He badly wanted to wipe his forehead.
‘I don’t believe you.’
His nose started to drip blood and he grabbed a handful of tissues.
Ella said, ‘When the facts come out, and we can prove you chose not to tell us what you know, do you think people will believe you weren’t involved?’
Chris’s blood rose. It didn’t matter what people thought. Finding Lachlan was all he cared about. ‘If you’ve got no news on our case I’d like you to leave.’
When Ella was gone, Gloria came in from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a dish towel. ‘You shouldn’t lie to the police.’
‘I am the police,’ Chris said. He was tired of talking, of trying to stay mentally one step ahead when his head ached and he was dizzy.
‘You told that detective Sophie was home when you got home, but you told me she didn’t get in till midnight.’
‘Sophie’s trying to deal with her grief. If she has to be out there driving on her own, then that’s fine with me,’ he said. ‘The last thing she needs is to be accused of stalking somebody.’
‘What if she is?’
‘Come off it, Mum.’ He squeezed his pounding forehead. He wished she’d go back into the kitchen so he could lie down. If he did it now she’d say he was sick and should go back to hospital.
‘It’s a mother’s instinct,’ she said. ‘You don’t know what you might do until your child is threatened.’
‘He’s my child too!’
‘It’s different for men.’
‘That’s old-fashioned crap.’
‘Oh really?’ she said, eyes flashing. ‘When your dad and I broke up, who was it that left? Who never had any contact with you again?’
Chris shut his eyes. ‘Here we go.’
‘Don’t take that tone,’ she said. ‘You have no idea how it was. You were just a baby.’
‘I was four and I remember more than you know.’
‘Four,’ she said. ‘So what do you remember, Christopher?’
‘I remember you yelling at Dad. You told him to get out. And he went.’ Chris blinked back tears. ‘Without saying goodbye.’
‘So why was I yelling? You know so much, you should be able to tell me that.’
‘You were just fighting,’ Chris said. ‘Like you always fought. Shouting and screaming.’
Gloria’s mouth was a tight line. ‘Yes, he was always careful to keep the actual punches behind closed doors.’
Chris looked at her. ‘Dad didn’t hit you.’
‘You think because you didn’t see it, it didn’t happen?’ She was trembling.
‘But–’
‘But what?’ she said. ‘You thought you knew how it went and now you’re learning the truth. Your dad was nobody worth looking up to, and the reason I finally got the courage to kick him out was that he’d started to turn on you.’
Chris was speechless.
‘That day.’ Gloria started to cry. ‘You were playing outside. He took his belt off and hit me once, and you walked in. He rounded on you and raised his arm. You were looking at me, you didn’t even see him.’
Chris shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you.’
‘He left us with nothing, and for your sake I didn’t try to get child support, I decided it was best to live our lives alone, just us, with nothing to do with him.’ Her voice was rising. ‘All my life I’ve protected you and sacrificed for you. I put myself at risk to help you. How can you sit there and accuse me of lying, when I was the one who stayed with you, getting up to you in the night, helping with your homework, encouraging you, loving you? Who held the bucket and washed the sheets when you had that awful gastro for days on end? Who gave up a promotion because it would have meant more hours away from you? Who took care of things when your sixteen-year-old girlfriend turned up at the door pregnant? You think your no-good father would have done all that for you?’