‘I would never…’ His eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m not like that.’
‘That’s what they all say.’
‘No, but look.’ He fumbled in his inside jacket
pocket and drew out a sealed envelope. ‘I wrote her a card. Look.’
Ella snatched it from his shaking hand and tore back the flap. When she opened the card, a dried pressed violet fell to the floor.
Dear Chloe, you might not believe me but I’m really sorry about your husband. I’m sorry to have given you trouble too. Love is what matters most in this world and I wish you all the best.
I won’t bother you again.
Simon.
Ella flapped the card in his face. ‘You’re
still
making a play for her?’
‘I’m not. Look, I wrote that I wouldn’t bother her again.’
‘“Love is what matters most in this world”?’
‘I was trying to say I understood how bad she’d be feeling.’ He picked up the violet. ‘I couldn’t get it into words any better than that. I went through
seven cards to get it that good. I wanted to tell her that…’
‘That what?’
‘That I really do wish her all the best.’
‘You cannot expect me to believe that.’ Ella bounced the card off his chest.
He grabbed it before it fell to the floor. ‘I think I love her, and I know she’s not interested in me, and it hurts me that I’ve frightened her when I was just trying to tell
her good luck, you know? I hope she’s happy again one day. After I met Marko in the pub I could see he was a nice guy, and I thought, well, they’re both nice, they deserve to be happy. Good for them. You know?’ The tears dripped off his cheeks into his white shirt, turning it transparent. ‘I know you look at me and you see this guy who digs trenches, and you think I don’t care about anything, that
I don’t have feelings like you do, that I barge through my life without thinking about anything deeper than where’s my next beer. You think you know me.’ He held up the violet, then placed it on the table and dropped his hands on his knees. ‘I saw today that she’s pregnant. I didn’t know that. I didn’t want her to be upset. I wished I could make it all better.’
Ella felt like slapping him.
She leaned down until their faces were almost touching. ‘I don’t believe a word you say.’
‘It’s the truth.’
‘So where were you for those five hours? You weren’t at the site. You weren’t at the pub. You weren’t at Bunnings.’ She didn’t know that for certain but felt sure he’d buy the bluff. ‘You want me to accept that you really are a decent guy? Prove it. Tell me where you were.’
He blinked through tears, then took out his wallet, removed a white business card and slid it across the table to Ella.
‘Sam’s Salvage, Campbelltown,’ she read.
‘That’s where I was for those hours. Sam’s a mate of mine. We like to have a drink now and again.’
‘You drank for five hours, and then you drove to the Thorn and Thistle for more?’
‘I help him out in the yard
too.’ He looked at the table.
Clearly there was something else. ‘You said you’d tell me.’
He let out a breath. ‘I delivered some stuff to him.’
‘What stuff?’
‘From the building site. Copper wire and pipes. Stuff like that.’
‘You steal things and sell them to him, is that what you’re saying?’
He nodded. ‘It really is the truth now. I didn’t tell you before because
I didn’t want to get either of us in the shit.’
‘You preferred us to think you killed someone?’
‘I didn’t think you really believed it was me,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d find who really did it and leave me alone. I never figured I’d end up in here.’
He looked genuinely ashamed. He looked like he was telling the truth.
‘You know we’ll be checking,’ she said.
‘I know.
Just… tell Sam I’m sorry.’
Ella walked out and shut the door behind her. She went down the corridor and found Gawande and Kemsley with Murray, looking at his computer. They straightened. ‘How’d it go?’
‘He says he was flogging stuff from the building site to a mate.’ She held out the card.
‘The foreman complained to us that stuff had gone missing,’ Kemsley said.
‘Well,
I wish Fletcher’d told us this way back at the beginning,’ Ella said. ‘Saved us a lot of time.’
Murray typed the name into a search engine. ‘It’s real, and the phone number matches.’
Ella felt flat and tired. She’d thought Fletcher was the one, but now found herself believing what he’d said. So who’d killed Marko? It couldn’t really be suicide, could it?
‘We found out something
too,’ Gawande said. ‘Blackwood says that Bill Weaver was skimming. Looks like half a mill at least, and going up.’
Ella came back to life. ‘Holy shit.’
‘Maybe Meixner found out,’ Murray said. ‘Those secret conversations in the hallway could’ve been threats.’
Ella looked around. ‘Where’s Langley?’
‘Budget meeting upstairs,’ Kemsley said. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Check this story out and kick Bill Weaver’s butt, what else?’ Ella picked up her phone.
‘Yes?’ Audra answered.
‘It’s Detective Ella Marconi. How are you?’
‘All right, no thanks to that lunatic bearing flowers. Is he locked up yet?’
‘He’s here in our custody.’
‘I mean locked up in a cell with bars and an open shared toilet and, if possible, a large gang of vicious
and desperate men,’ Audra said with venom.
Ella wasn’t surprised at her anger. ‘How’s Chloe?’
‘How do you think? She thought the moron was going to kill me. She was hysterical.’
‘Can I speak to her?’
There was a muffled conversation, then Chloe came on the line. ‘Did he do it?’
‘I need to ask you something first,’ Ella said. ‘Fletcher claims that he met Marko in a
bar on a Thursday evening two weeks ago. Did Marko mention that to you?’
‘He didn’t,’ Chloe said. ‘I remember that night. Audra and I went to the movies. He was home when I got in about nine.’
‘Did he seem upset or anxious?’
‘Not at all. He was watching TV. I joined him and he dozed off towards the end of the show.’
‘Fletcher claims that he called Marko at the office and
said he wanted to invest money but couldn’t meet during business hours,’ Ella said. ‘They met at this bar, and he said after a while Marko realised he didn’t really have any money and got up to leave. Fletcher grabbed his arm but claims nothing was said and then Marko left. We’ll check all this with the bar, but if it really happened – and the bruise on Marko’s arm suggests that it did – I wondered
why Marko wouldn’t have mentioned it to you?’
‘That’s probably my fault.’ Chloe paused. Ella could hear she was close to tears. ‘He had a drinking problem when we met. I grew up with an alcoholic father and swore I’d never get caught in a relationship with someone like that. I fell hard for Marko, but was going to break up with him unless he stopped. And he did. But once, a couple of years
ago, he went to a bar with some friends, and though he only had one beer I had such a bad reaction when I smelled it on him I guess he didn’t want to tell me about it this time.’
‘Did he know what Fletcher looked like?’ Ella said. ‘Maybe he didn’t even realise it was him.’
‘As far as I know, they’d never met.’ Chloe blew her nose. ‘So no, he probably didn’t realise, if Fletcher didn’t
tell him. Did he?’
‘It doesn’t seem so.’
‘And did he do it?’
‘I just don’t know,’ Ella said. ‘I’m sorry.’
Neither of them spoke for a moment, then Ella said, ‘I’ll keep in touch.’
‘What did she say?’ Murray asked when she’d hung up.
Her mobile rang before she could speak. ‘Marconi.’
‘Can you hear me?’ a voice whispered.
Skin prickling, Ella held
up her hands for the others to be quiet. ‘Who is it?’
‘It’s Gwen Gorrie. Young Miriam’s come home.’
TWENTY-FOUR
J
ane stood inside Alex’s open front door, watching the news crew set up in the garden. Laird must have some pull to have got these guys out to the house straightaway. Alex shifted from foot to foot on the doormat, a wad of posters in his hands. They’d already filmed him in the lounge room, holding a photo of Mia and talking about her, and now wanted some footage
of him walking down the path.
‘Just a few minutes more,’ someone said.
Alex didn’t answer. Jane could see that he was looking past the camera at the street, as if Mia might come strolling along at any moment.
‘This’ll get the word out,’ she said to him.
He looked at her, eyes haunted. ‘I keep thinking of the worst. I can’t get death out of my head. Why do I do that? Why
can’t I believe that she’s fine? It’s like I’m giving up, and that means I’m letting her down.’
‘You’re doing neither,’ she said. ‘With all the stuff you’ve seen and done, how could you avoid thinking of those things?’
He shook his head, tears welling in his eyes. Jane hugged him.
‘You getting this?’ she heard one of the news crew murmur, then there was a crackle from the open
doors in their van.
One man went over to listen, then came back and said something to the others. Their expressions changed.
‘What is it?’ Jane said.
Now Alex turned their way too.
‘What is it?’ Jane said again, more urgently.
‘Police radio scanner,’ one of them said. ‘They found a girl’s body.’
*
Alex could barely breathe as Jane drove down the narrow
roadway into the bush in Oatley Park. News vans were already parked behind the blockade of police cars, the van behind them joining the line. Journalists waiting on one side of a stretched police tape called out questions to uniformed officers who ignored them.
He was out of the car before Jane stopped. He pushed past the journalists and under the tape and between the cars. An officer holding
a clipboard saw him coming and put out her arm. ‘You can’t be in here.’
‘I’m Alex Churchill. My daughter’s missing.’
He heard Jane come up behind him. The officer took her hand off his chest.
‘Wait here and I’ll get someone,’ she said.
Dread overwhelmed him. The trees along the road loomed. On an ordinary day, this would be a quiet and lonely place. The sun beat down on
his head and his heart seemed to be missing beats. The journalists had fallen silent. He saw a group of cops look his way while the female officer spoke to them, then one came over.
‘I’m Scott Chang.’ He stuck out his hand. ‘We don’t know much right now, you understand. We know it’s female and young, but that’s it.’
His words seemed to come to Alex down a tunnel full of wind.
‘There’s no clothing and no ID…’
Alex couldn’t see. He blinked hard but Chang was just an outline against a hazy grey background.
‘. . . dental records and DNA –’
‘Just let me see her.’
‘I don’t know if –’
‘I want to see her.’
Chang looked back at the group of watching officers. ‘I’ll just –’
‘No.’ Alex shook off Jane’s grip and started to walk.
He heard the whir of camera shutters, then Chang said, ‘Give it a break,’ and the sound stopped. The group of cops stepped aside to let him pass.
Chang touched his arm with gentle fingers. ‘It’s a crime scene. You need to step in certain places.’
They walked together off the roadway, then stepped up into the bush. Birds and cicadas fell silent. Alex could hear his own breath in
his throat and the crackle of dead leaves underfoot. Ahead, through the trees, he saw people in white plastic suits looking at the ground.
‘Step where I step, please,’ Chang said.
Alex followed him in a loop around the edge of the site, then between two trees. The officers in the white suits watched wordlessly. He heard the buzz of flies and saw a young woman’s naked body face down
in the leaf litter, the skin purple, the long brown hair stuck to the shoulders and neck with moisture. One discoloured hand, the fingers curled loosely into the palm, was visible by her hip, which bore an irregularly shaped birthmark. There was a Tweety Bird tattoo on her right shoulder.
‘Mia doesn’t have a birthmark or a tattoo. And the hair’s too long,’ he heard himself saying. ‘So are
the fingernails. It’s not her.’ The bottom grew back on his world. ‘It isn’t her.’
He didn’t remember following Chang back to the road, but once there Jane seized him in a hug.
‘It’s not her,’ he said into her hair. ‘She’s alive.’
*
Ella pressed Gorrie’s buzzer. She let them in, whispering, ‘She’s still here,’ and they eased up the stairs.
‘At least there’s no fire
escape this time,’ Murray muttered.
Ella’s heart was thudding from the harried drive over. The traffic had been its usual crazy self, making her swerve and swear in equal amounts, and Gorrie had phoned them often to whisper that Holder was still there, going into detail at one point about how she’d go out and stall her if it looked like she was leaving – ‘I’ll even pretend to fall and break
my hip if I have to.’ She’d got another text from Callum in the middle of it all too, as a bonus irritation. Now, though, as they approached Holder’s closed door, Ella felt her anticipation and excitement build.
Thinks she can hide from us forever, does she?
They took up position, Murray slightly behind and to one side of Ella. There was no sound from inside the apartment. Ella glanced back
at Gorrie’s door and saw the peephole was dark. The older woman would be glued to it.
She knocked on Holder’s door.
No answer.
She knocked again.
Nothing.
As she turned to Murray to swear, Gorrie inched her door open and sneaked out onto the landing. She put a thin finger to her lips.
‘Miriam, are you there? I’m not well, love.’
Still silence.
‘I
wonder if you might call the ambulance… ooh, dear…’
Gorrie let out a gasp and fell to her knees so realistically that Ella grabbed her arm. Gorrie squinted up at her in surprise, then Ella heard locks turn and Miriam Holder opened her door.
She gave a gasp of her own and was quick to slam it, but Ella was quicker, shoving her shoe in the gap. Holder let go of the door, and
Ella saw a bulging black suitcase by the wall.
‘Going somewhere?’ she asked.
*
In the interview room at the office, Miriam Holder sat with her arms folded and her legs crossed. Her lipstick had crept into the fine lines around her mouth, worsening her scowl.
‘We talked to Bill,’ Ella said. ‘He’s quite upset.’
Holder refolded her arms. ‘There’s a surprise.’
‘This is your chance to tell us your side of the story,’ Murray said.
‘I know how it works,’ she said. ‘I want immunity from prosecution.’
‘We can’t give you that,’ Ella said.
‘A lesser sentence then,’ Holder said. ‘A good behaviour bond. Not jail.’
What had they done?
‘We can’t make any promises,’ Ella said.
‘You can put it on record that I told you everything.’
Holder jabbed a finger into the table. ‘You can write down that I cooperated.’
‘Fine,’ Murray said. ‘But the key word is “everything”.’
‘The money’s in an account in the Bahamas. Here are the details.’ She pulled a sheet of paper out of her handbag and slapped it down. ‘Bill sold his properties and gave me the money and I put it in there. The money he skimmed from his clients is also
in there, as is the money – a much lesser amount – that I took from mine.’
‘And the rest,’ Ella said.
‘There is no rest. That’s it.’
Ella leaned back in her chair. Murray crossed his legs and tweaked the crease in his trousers, then placed his hands in his lap. Neither of them spoke. The silence stretched out while Miriam Holder stared back at them.
‘You can’t deny that’s
more than he told you,’ she said finally.
They didn’t answer.
Holder pushed the sheet of paper towards them with one finger. ‘He didn’t give you that, did he? So I’m in front.’
Ella and Murray glanced at each other.
Holder made a scornful sound in the back of her throat. ‘He’s so weak. I knew he’d crack if anything happened. He probably told you it was all my idea, right?
Don’t believe a word. I went to talk to him about some investments and could see it in his eyes. We got talking, as you do, and it was him who brought up the stuff a person could do with our knowledge and access. The money you could take without anyone knowing. Put it somewhere safe, plan your way out, and boom. By the time they realise, you’re long gone off the cruise ship and spending your days
on your own personal beach in a place with no extradition treaty while one luscious little brown boy brings you margaritas and another rubs your toes.’
Ella felt her scalp prickle. The way Holder spoke as if it was someone else breaking the law wasn’t lost on her either.
‘And don’t worry about the wife,’ Holder said. ‘She’s got family money, plus she’ll get that big house. Bill told
me what it was like between them. They’re both better off.’
‘How nice of you to think of her,’ Ella said.
Holder didn’t blink. ‘Bill planned it all. I helped carry some of it out, but he did most of it. That needs to be taken into account.’
Ella said, ‘Bill was very upset that you hadn’t called him.’
Holder folded her arms. ‘He calls it love, I call it something else. In
my version, you cut your losses and get out while you can.’
Ella stared at her. ‘It really doesn’t bother you that his life is wrecked, does it?’
‘Mine’s no bed of roses either,’ Holder said. ‘You think the CPA will let me stay a member with a criminal record?’
‘Where does Marko Meixner fit in?’ Ella said.
‘What?’
‘Recognise that name?’
‘That’s a name?’ Holder
said. ‘Poor sod.’
‘You ever met the man?’
‘I have no clue who you’re talking about.’
‘He’s one of Bill’s employees.’
Holder shook her head. ‘It wasn’t like he took me along to work functions.’
‘Did you ever go to his office?’
‘He came to me. Either at the office or my place.’
‘What did he say when he rang you before he hung himself?’
‘A lot of gabble,’
she said. ‘He thought that we were going to get found out because you were there. I told him to calm down, that if you were talking about some dead guy that’s all you’d be investigating.’
‘The dead guy being Meixner,’ Ella said.
Holder shrugged. ‘Whoever. It had nothing to do with us, and that’s what I kept saying to Bill. But he went on and on, like a little girl, practically in tears,
certain we’d get caught and the whole plan would fall apart.’
‘You did get caught,’ Ella said.
‘Only because he panicked.’
‘So Meixner didn’t know what was going on with the money?’ Ella said.
‘Nobody knew, and nobody would know now either, if he’d kept it together.’
‘How can you be sure Meixner didn’t know?’ Murray asked.
‘Look what Bill did when he thought
he was going to be found out,’ Holder snapped. ‘You think he could’ve behaved normally if he knew one of his employees had any idea?’
Ella said, ‘Did Bill tell you he was going to try to kill himself?’
‘I said it was stupid. I told him to just shut up, and you lot would be gone soon enough. He went on about what would people think, he’d lose everything, Prue would get the lot, blah
blah. I snapped at him. He started to cry in earnest, and I hung up.’
‘And where were you going today?’ Murray said.
She dug in her handbag and slapped down an Emirates ticket. ‘London for starters, then who knew where.’
Sure.
Ella bet Holder had researched places with no extradition treaty and had planned the next leg of her trip down to the finest detail.
‘Again, you’d
better be taking my cooperation into consideration,’ Holder said. ‘I give you all this stuff so you don’t need to go looking for it yourself. How many man-hours am I saving you? You’d better be letting your boss know.’
‘I’m sure he’ll be delighted,’ Ella said.
You’d make a fine pair.
She felt sorry for Bill Weaver, despite all his lies. ‘I don’t know what Bill ever saw in you.’
‘A
kindred spirit. Someone who loves money as much as he does. It’s not my fault that somewhere along the line he started thinking he loved me too.’
‘And that you loved him back,’ Ella said. ‘I guess a sexual relationship can sometimes make people think that way.’
‘More fool them,’ Holder said. ‘It’s a transaction like any other.’
Ella smiled. ‘Actually, more fool you.’
Holder
lifted her chin. Ella saw the curiosity in her eyes but knew she’d never stoop to ask.
She picked up the ticket. ‘Bill told us nothing. He mentioned the Woolcott, as you’d no doubt guessed he would, but he refused to say anything more until he knew you were safe.’
There it was, crawling across her suddenly pale face: Holder’s realisation that she’d dropped herself in it by assuming
that he’d told them everything.
‘I don’t care,’ she said, her mouth a tight line.
‘I think you do, and deeply,’ Ella said, and she and Murray walked out.
*
Bill Weaver was out of bed and dozing in a low chair. His head was back, exposing the bruising on his throat in all its colourful glory, and his chins quivered as he snored. The hospital gown barely covered his thighs
and the cotton blanket draped over the top was slipping off.
Ella faked a cough and he woke with a start. ‘Hello, Bill.’
‘Oh. You.’ He rubbed drool from his mouth.
‘You look a little cold.’ Murray motioned to the exposed skin.
Weaver yanked the blanket back up with a scowl.
Ella leaned against his bed. ‘We found Miriam.’
His face lit up. ‘She’s okay? Was she
at the Woolcott?’
‘She’s healthy all right, but she was at home, packing a suitcase.’
He frowned.
‘Bit early, you’re thinking?’ Ella said. ‘You weren’t supposed to go on the cruise for a while? Sorry, but she was heading off on her own.’