Deserving Death (11 page)

‘We have bread. I’m not going out.’

‘Please, my darling?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll feel so much better if I can just have a drink. It helps my back. You know that.’

‘Getting out of bed will help your back.’

‘Just one,’ Lily whined. ‘One bottle, then I’ll stop. I promise.’

‘No.’

‘My own daughter doesn’t love me. Here I am, stuck in bed, needing medicine –’

‘Wine isn’t medicine.’

‘– and she won’t do a thing to help me.’

Tessa’s anger rose. ‘Tea and toast, or nothing.’

‘My own daughter.’ Lily rolled her head back and forth on the pillow as the tears started. ‘My very own flesh and blood. Who raised you to be so mean and hurtful? What happened to that loving heart I used to know? The sweet little girl who couldn’t do enough for her mumma?’

Tessa walked away, blood throbbing in her ears, emotion clogging her throat. She left the pot in the sink and lay down on her bed, ramming her earbuds into place, turning Daft Punk up loud. There was no text from John. She should call Robbie too, let him know about the detectives. But her heart slammed hard in her chest, and she pressed her face into her pillow, feeling completely powerless.

Twelve

E
lla and Murray stood in the chilly autopsy suite, watching as the pathologist and her assistant carefully undressed Alicia Bayliss. Post-mortems were nobody’s idea of a good time but knowing the dead person before them was a paramedic made it even worse. Alicia Bayliss had rushed to emergencies like they had. She’d brought order to scenes of chaos like they did. She, like them, had been the comforting uniform that walked through the door on somebody’s absolute worst day and tried to make it a little better.

Ella swallowed.

The assistant dropped the black dress in an evidence bag. Beneath it Bayliss was wearing a well-fitting black bra and matching underpants. The underpants didn’t appear to have been interfered with, but Ella knew that was no guarantee.

The assistant removed the underwear and put them in another bag. Bayliss lay on the steel table naked, her eyes half-open and dull, the lacerations on her face and lips dry and gaping, the bruises dark on her pale skin. The blood in her hair was starting to flake off. For a moment the only sound was the noise of the exhaust fans. Murray blinked at the ceiling and clenched his hands tight behind his back. Ella edged closer to him and let her elbow rest against his. He didn’t pull away.

Photographs were taken as the pathologist removed the bags from Bayliss’s hands and inspected her long red-painted fingernails with a bright light and magnifying glass.

‘Nothing under her nails. She didn’t scratch him.’

No skin meant no DNA, and one less piece of evidence for when they caught the guy.

Ella watched as the pathologist started to examine Bayliss’s face, leaning close with the light and glass.

‘She’s still got make-up on,’ she said.

‘Meaning what?’ Murray asked.

‘Meaning the attack probably happened very soon after she got home,’ Ella said. ‘She comes in, kicks her shoes off, but doesn’t get as far as undressing or washing her face before the killer’s at the door.’

‘He could’ve re-dressed her,’ he said.

‘It’d look clumsy,’ Ella said. ‘Bra not fitting properly, same with the pants.’

‘And he certainly didn’t reapply the make-up,’ the pathologist said. ‘This has been on for a while.’

She moved on to peer into the wounds, measuring and probing each one as they were photographed. ‘No weapon found, you said?’

‘That’s right,’ Murray answered.

‘Mm.’ The pathologist picked up tweezers and removed a broken tooth from Bayliss’s mouth. ‘X-ray showed fractures to both sides of the mandible – jawbone – and to the left orbit, maxilla and temporal bone.’ She motioned to her own eye, cheek and temple. ‘From the rounded and uneven edges of the contusions around the wounds and the structure of the wounds themselves – ragged edges, bands of unsevered tissue – I’d say these were punches, rather than strikes with a knife or with a weapon. But there are no distinct knuckle marks in those contusions, so I’m of the opinion that your killer wore gloves or some kind of padding over his knuckles.’

Ella glanced at Murray and thought again about the search taking place in and around the pond in Sydney Park.

The pathologist kept probing, and lifted a fragment of something black from inside Bayliss’s lip. ‘Ah.’

‘What is it?’ Murray said.

She laid it on her gloved palm and brought it close to the light. ‘Thin plastic. Such as you’d find coating the outside of padded fitness training gloves. It was probably torn off by her teeth.’

Ella stared at the tiny scrap. Forensics could match the piece to the gloves, could match the sweat inside the gloves to the man
– if he wasn’t wearing the latex too
.

We’re on our way.

*

Carly dropped Linsey off at her sister’s in North Bondi early that morning, pulling over the block before to kiss her goodbye, then came home and climbed back between the Linsey-perfumed sheets. She didn’t sleep, just lay there thinking. Last night she’d felt like she had a plan, a purpose, but in the bright light of day she had to admit it was nothing more than the intention to work out what was going on with Tessa and hopefully through that find out who murdered Alicia. It’d seemed possible then, and during the night when she’d lain awake listening to Linsey breathe, but what could she do, really?

She tried to call both Kristen and Hannah but neither answered their phones. She called Tessa, but her phone was turned off. Finally, pinching her wrist, she rang Chris, expecting to get his voicemail, but he answered.

‘Carly.’ His voice was low, close to a whisper. ‘How’re you doing?’

‘I’m so sorry.’

‘C’mon, it’s okay. It’s okay.’

Carly pressed her face to the pillow. ‘Are you out of hospital?’

‘Not yet. I’m not supposed to have the phone, but what’re they going to do? Stick me with needles?’

She chuckled in spite of herself. ‘How’s the family?’

‘Well, you know. I’m hoping to be out tomorrow, then Nico and I can come up and join them.’

Carly thought of the funeral, wondered whether it’d be here or in Melbourne, but couldn’t ask.

‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Thank you again for being there.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘You know what I mean. You saw her. You were there in her house. She at least had friends there then. Somebody who loved her.’

Carly wiped her eyes. ‘I wish I’d had her stay the night here.’

There was a stern female voice in Chris’s background.

‘I’m busted,’ he said. ‘Nurse’s making me hang up. Let me say goodbye at least, all right? Carly, I’ll talk to you later. She loved you. She loved all of us. I’ll – okay, all right! Just –’ And he was gone.

Carly looked out the window. In the distance, the top branches of a eucalypt danced in the breeze. White clouds hung in the sky. She’d been to the morgue, she’d seen post-mortems, she knew where Alicia was and what was being done to her, perhaps right now. She’d cared for assault victims and seen the pain and terror in their eyes. And that was when they’d lived.

She had to do something. She had to try.

She scrolled through her contacts and called Mark.

‘I was just about to ring you,’ he said.

‘Are people going to the pub?’ she asked.

‘At one.’

‘Tessa know?’

‘Yep. I was just talking to her. I don’t think she’s doing very well. How are you?’

‘In need of company,’ she lied. ‘See you there.’

*

The flat John Morris shared with Patrick Green was on the second floor of a white-rendered building on a busy road in Coogee. Ella nosed their car into the visitor’s space, then she and Murray walked through the traffic noise to the front door. There was a row of buzzers, but someone had propped the security door open so they went straight up the stairs. Ella knocked on the door of number eleven and saw the peephole go dark.

‘Who is it?’

‘Detectives, Patrick,’ she said. As if he didn’t know.

He opened the door and smiled at them. ‘Come in.’

They sat at the round table in the dining nook. He looked calm. Prepared, Ella thought. Whether Morris was lying or not, Green would’ve known he’d be interviewed and have thought about what he’d say. Hopefully it was the truth.

‘Were you home the night before last?’ Murray began.

Patrick Green nodded. ‘All night.’

‘Was John here too?’

‘He was out, at Ben’s place. He got back some time after twelve.’

‘Some time?’ Ella said. ‘How much time?’

‘I don’t know. I watched a movie until twelve, then I was playing my guitar in my room. Working on a song. I don’t have a clock in there, and I didn’t look at my phone.’

‘Rough guess?’ Murray said. ‘Ten minutes? Three hours?’

He smiled a little. ‘Probably less than twenty minutes. Ben’s place isn’t that far.’

‘But you can’t be sure,’ Ella said.

‘You asked me to guess. That’s the best I can do.’

‘How was John when he came in?’ Ella asked.

‘I didn’t see him. He tapped on my door and I said hi. I heard the shower running, then nothing, so I guessed he went to bed.’

Why would Morris need to shower after an evening spent drinking beer and watching UFC with a mate? Ella thought of how much energy a person expended in killing another, how sweaty he might be when he got home. How washing might be a way to try to ease feelings of guilt.

‘Does he always shower before bed?’ she asked.

Green looked at her oddly. ‘I can’t say I’ve ever noticed.’

‘Really?’

He shrugged. ‘I suppose that sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn’t. Like anyone.’

‘Did you see him the next morning?’ she said.

‘Yep. He was eating breakfast when I got back from my run. He talked about the fights he and Ben had watched.’

‘How did he seem?’ Murray asked.

‘Fine,’ Green said. ‘No problems at all.’

‘How often does he box?’

‘I don’t know. I guess it’s part of his gym thing, and he goes there a few times a week, like maybe three or four, but I don’t know for certain how often he does the boxing.’

‘When was his last fight?’ she asked.

‘He doesn’t fight,’ he said. ‘Doesn’t even spar. It’s just training, for fitness. Hitting bags and pads.’

‘Is his gym gear here?’

‘No. He keeps his bag in his car. So he can go before or after work.’

Of course.
‘How was he after the break-up with Alicia Bayliss?’

‘Not that cut up, to be honest,’ Green said. ‘I don’t think they’d been getting on all that well.’

‘What did he tell you about it?’ Ella asked.

‘Just that he’d been drunk and this girl came onto him at the party, and he kinda played along, not really thinking, then suddenly Alicia was there. He said he felt bad because she was upset, and he’d tried to talk to her and apologise a couple of times later, when he saw her at work and so on, but she never wanted to know.’

‘Apologising in the hope that she’d take him back?’ Murray said.

Green shook his head. ‘He just felt bad that he’d done that, that it ended that way. He’s a “no hard feelings” type of guy. I got the impression that things’d kind of come to their end for him with her anyway. He just likes to leave things neat. Nice.’

Ella wasn’t impressed.

‘Has he had a girlfriend since?’ Murray asked.

‘He’s been out a few times but not with anyone steady,’ Green said.

‘How did you hear about Bayliss being dead?’ Ella said.

‘Ben texted me.’

‘Have you talked to John about it?’

He nodded. ‘Yesterday afternoon. He was disturbed.’

‘Disturbed?’ Ella said.
Seriously?

‘Bordering on upset. I mean, they weren’t together any more. He’d been over her for quite a while. He couldn’t really believe it’d happened, that she was gone. That someone had done that to her. He said you guys had interviewed him and he knew he was a suspect, but he didn’t do it.’

‘He told you that outright,’ Ella said.

‘Yes. I mean, it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the ex-boyfriend is always in the firing line. We’re in the job too. We know how it goes.’

‘I mean about not having done it,’ Ella said.

‘Yes,’ he said again. ‘It was like, “I know they’re looking at me, but I didn’t do it.”’

Ella wondered about that.

‘How did he feel about being a suspect?’ Murray asked.

Green shrugged. ‘He got it. As do I. Besides, you have to talk to everyone. It’s how the job works.’

‘What time did he get home yesterday?’

‘I don’t know,’ Green said. ‘I was at the driving range. I left about three and got back at five and he was here.’

‘Which range?’ Ella asked.

‘Moore Park.’

Murray wound things up and they left. Once Green had closed the door, Ella dragged Murray out of earshot.

‘If you hadn’t killed someone, would you say so to your friend?’

‘I don’t follow,’ Murray said.

‘Wouldn’t your friends assume you hadn’t done it? Why do you need to say so?’

He looked puzzled.

‘Doesn’t it sound a bit like protesting too much? “They interviewed me and I know I’m a suspect but I didn’t do it.” Doesn’t that feel odd to you?’

He rubbed the flats of his fingers over his lips. ‘I don’t know.’

‘It does to me.’

She looked around. There were four apartments on this level, with no sounds coming from any of them. She went to the nearest door and knocked.

‘It’s Tuesday,’ Murray said. ‘People’re probably at work.’

‘We’ll see.’

She knocked again, harder, waited a moment then moved to the next. Patrick Green was no doubt watching through his peephole. Let him watch, she thought. Let him watch, and then tell Morris, and let Morris worry. He was hiding something, she was sure, and she was going to find out what.

No answer at the second door either. Or the third.

She looked up the stairwell. ‘Come on.’

Nobody answered at the flats above; and on the two levels below Morris’s they found only one resident at home, an elderly woman who started to shake when she saw their badges, thinking they’d come to deliver bad news. Once reassured, she said she took a sleeping pill every night and so heard nothing, that night or any other.

Ella got behind the wheel of their car and slammed her door. ‘So we’ll just have to come back.’

Murray clicked in his seatbelt without answering.

‘Until we pin down the time he got home, we know nothing,’ she said.

‘But what are the chances that anyone saw or heard him?’

‘Just enough to try,’ she said, and started the car.

*

Carly dressed in a navy tank top and jeans and plain sandals, and got in her car. She could smell Linsey’s perfume on her shoulders when she turned her head to check for traffic. She took Johnston Street through Annandale, saw people going about their business in the shops and offices, the spring sun warming the day, the fresh growth on the trees shiny in the light. So much beauty, so much heartbreak. Life made no sense.

But I’m going to find out what’s going on.

She squeezed into a parking space on Point Street in Rozelle, and went into the Orange Grove Hotel to find the main bar packed with paramedics, most in civvies but some with plain Ts pulled hastily over their uniform shirts. The rule was that you couldn’t be in a bar in recognisable uniform. Not that it was any struggle to work out who they were, with the place being across the road from the training school and state HQ.