Violent Exposure (20 page)

The guy squinted up at her and Dennis, raising his stick hand to block the sun, then said, ‘Hi.’

‘Do you know Emil Page?’

‘He lives there.’ He pointed with the knife.

The door to unit 4 was closed. On the patio, a foot-high cactus in a cut-off orange juice carton balanced on a metal table frame missing its glass top. The fabric of
the director’s chair beside it was faded and frayed, one wooden arm split.

‘He home today?’ Dennis said.

‘Don’t know.’

‘What’s your name?’

‘Roger the dodger.’ He put the knife and stick in his left hand and held out his right. ‘Roger Small, officially. But nobody calls me that.’

Ella shook his hand. His skin was warm and damp and she could feel scraps of bark between their palms. He seemed
harmless but she trusted nobody. ‘Can I borrow your knife for a minute, please?’

‘Sure.’ He closed the blade and handed it over.

‘Thanks.’ She slipped it into her pocket and walked with Dennis to Emil’s unit.

Dennis knocked on the door. She tried to see in the window but the blind was down. There was a thick layer of cigarette butts in the cactus carton and stub marks in the cactus’s skin.
Dennis knocked again.

Roger called out, ‘Ain’t he home?’

‘Maybe Connor has been here,’ Ella said in a low voice.

Dennis tried the door but it was locked. Ella tested the window but it was locked too. She heard a soft noise from inside and stopped still. ‘Is that someone crying?’

Dennis put his ear close to the door.

‘Is he in there?’ Roger said at the patio railing, then bawled, ‘
EMIIIIIIIL!
’

‘Shush,’ Dennis said, then to Ella, ‘I can’t hear anything.’

‘I’m going around the back,’ Ella said.

Roger followed her. ‘Is Emil in trouble?’

‘We just want to ask him something.’

The grass at the back grew long against the bricks. There were no back doors, and the windows were higher off the ground. Ella pushed against unit 4’s window with her fingertips but it felt locked too. ‘How well
do you know Emil?’ she asked.

‘He gets up really early in the morning and sometimes gives me bread when he comes home,’ Roger said. ‘He didn’t sit outside much until he found the kitty.’

‘He’s got a cat?’

Roger looked afraid. ‘It’s only a little one.’

‘Have you seen it wandering around the last two days?’

‘Don’t think so.’

Ella went back around. ‘It’s a cat.’

Dennis put his ear against
the crack and tapped on the door. ‘I think you’re right.’

Ella said to Roger, ‘Did Emil tell you he was going away?’

‘Nope.’

She looked at Dennis.

He said, ‘Any access at the back?’

‘Only a window higher than this.’ She turned to Roger. ‘Is there a caretaker here, somebody who has all the keys?’

‘Housing owns it,’ he said.

The Department of Housing. Oh lordy. It could take forever to get
somebody out here with keys. Ella raised her eyebrows at Dennis. He nodded.

‘Roger,’ she said, ‘got any tools at your place?’

He didn’t, but woke up the old man and borrowed a crowbar. Dennis fitted the flat end into the doorframe and leaned back. The frame splintered then gave way, and a grey cat leapt out and started to weave around their ankles.

Roger gathered it up. ‘See how little it is?’

Ella followed Dennis into the unit, sniffing the air and smelling only cat pee. If somebody was dead here, he hadn’t been that way for long. The combined living room/kitchen was almost bare, a card table with rusting legs and a stool with an orange vinyl seat the only furniture. A box of Whiskas dry cat food stood on the kitchen counter, an empty shiny stainless-steel bowl on the floor. The cramped
bedroom held a single bed under a bare bulb. The pale blue sheets and a quilt in a faded brown-striped cover were pulled up to the thin pillow. Emil’s clothes lay in neat piles in an open plastic suitcase. His baker’s uniform hung on a clothes hanger on the door and a photograph of three children was thumb-tacked to the wood.

‘Have to give him credit,’ Dennis said.

Ella nodded. It was the home
of somebody who was trying their best.

They glanced in the bathroom. A green toothbrush and a half-used tube of toothpaste stood in a cracked plastic cup with a picture of Nemo on the side. The lone towel on the rack was thin and brown. A can of No-Frills deodorant stood on a glass shelf below a mirror that was losing its silver backing.

‘Is he home?’ Roger called from the front door.

‘No,
he’s not.’ Ella went out to him.

He rubbed the cat’s face on his cheek. Its purr was like a Harley starting up.

‘When did you see him last?’

‘A few days ago.’ He frowned into the cat’s neck. ‘I’m not good with days.’

‘How long has he lived here?’

‘A few weeks. I think.’

‘Did he have a car?’

‘He was saving up for this sweet Subaru.’

‘Did he ever have friends over?’

‘Not when I was around.’

‘Are you around a lot?’

Roger smiled. ‘Most of the time.’

Dennis took some papers from a nail in the kitchen wall. ‘Two bills, a birthday card from Streetlights, a pay slip from the bakery.’ He folded them all and tucked them in his pocket.

Ella put her hands on her hips. There were no signs of a struggle, no keys in the back of the door, no wallet lying about. ‘Hmm.’

Dennis jangled the car
keys. ‘Next stop Streetlights. Find his friends.’

‘Better call Housing about the door,’ Ella said.

‘I can guard it till they get here.’ Roger stood tall. ‘I can mind the place and feed the cat too.’

‘That’d be great,’ Ella said. At least there was nothing there to steal. She handed him the penknife. ‘Thanks for the loan.’

He smiled broadly over the cat’s head. ‘Anytime.’

The old man was slumped
back down in his chair outside unit 10. Ella raised a hand as they approached but guessed he was asleep again. Dennis laid the crowbar against the wall and the old man sat bolt upright. ‘What?’

‘It’s the police bringing your crowbar back,’ Ella said. ‘Do you know Emil who lives in unit 4?’

‘Who?’

‘Emil Page. Young man. Works as a baker.’

‘That fool who drops sticks everywhere?’

‘No, a different
young man.’

The old man lay back in his chair. ‘Don’t know him.’

‘Thanks anyway,’ Dennis said.

They crossed the dusty lawn. Roger waved from Emil’s patio, the cat on his lap. ‘I’m guarding!’

At the car, Ella said to Dennis over the roof, ‘No-Frills stuff for himself and brand name for the cat? No way he’s going away and leaving the thing locked inside.’

Dennis nodded. ‘This feels bad.’

It did, Ella thought. Very bad indeed.

*

Mick gave a brief and muted handover to his friend Bridget who was working triage. She cupped her hand on Sophia’s shoulder. ‘We’ll look after you,’ she said, then turned to Mick. ‘Bed seven, thanks.’

They wheeled the stretcher through the department. Mick’s need to get back to the ambulance and check his bag was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, and
grew worse by the second. In the last cubicle, they parked the stretcher by the bed and Bridget pulled the curtains around. Mick unclipped the belts. ‘Sophia.’

She opened her tear-filled eyes.

‘Can you wiggle across here?’

She half-sat and levered herself over. When she was off the stretcher, Aidan pulled it away and walked out of the cubicle.

Mick touched Sophia’s hand. ‘Look after yourself.’

‘Thank you,’ she whispered.

‘You’re welcome.’

He hurried out of the cubicle. Aidan was walking slowly along the corridor.

Mick caught up to him and put his hand on the stretcher handle. ‘I can take that, if you want.’

‘Sorry?’

‘If you want the loo or something.’

Aidan smiled. ‘I’m fine.’

Dammit
.

They walked together out to the ambulance.

Aidan parked the stretcher and got in the back.
Mick took the case-sheet folder to the cabin. He glanced at his bag.

‘Everything okay?’ Aidan said.

Mick looked at him, half-standing in the back, half a smile on his idiot face, his arms full of clean linen for the stretcher.

‘Fine,’ Mick said.

He couldn’t look in his bag until he was alone. The block of money was so big it would be almost impossible to cover it up if anyone glanced over
his shoulder. If Aidan didn’t know about the money because he hadn’t been in his bag – which was now almost impossible to believe, given his smart-arsy behaviour – to look in there while he was around was to practically guarantee that he would find out.

Mick ticked boxes and filled in blood pressure and pulse rate on the case sheet while his own blood raged in his veins and his breath came short
in his chest, then Aidan appeared beside him in the open passenger door. He didn’t speak, and after a moment Mick looked up.

‘Thought I might get us a coffee. You’re white with one, right?’

Mick nodded.

Aidan slapped his hand on the door. ‘I’ll be back.’

It felt too handy, and Aidan seemed too knowing of what Mick wanted, but Mick didn’t care. He watched Aidan walk into the department and,
when he was out of sight, he dragged his bag out from behind the driver’s seat, grabbed the zip tag and yanked it along. His jumper and rain gear were awry and a torn edge of clear plastic poked out. The bag was ripped, a block of money gone. Mick couldn’t breathe. He put his disbelieving fingers into the space.

Another ambulance drove into the bay and Mick shoved the jumper back over the cash.
He hauled up the zip and rammed the bag behind the seat, cramming the hard hat back on top. Adrenaline made his ears ring and his hands shake, and anger tightened his throat and scalp, but he forced himself to smile at the other paramedics as they climbed from their vehicle to unload their patient.

He stared at the case sheet, fury blurring his vision, and forced himself to wait until the other
paramedics took their patient inside. Then he reached behind him for Aidan’s bag, but there was a loud and deliberate cough and he looked around to see Aidan coming across the bay with a cup in each hand.

‘Here you go.’

Mick couldn’t speak; bees buzzed madly in his head. He nodded at the dash, and Aidan put one cup there then stood in the open door to sip his own.

Mick rested his pen on the
case sheet but couldn’t write. It had to have been Aidan. The ambulance had been locked the rest of the time. The little arse had pawed through Mick’s bag looking for the report and realised the money – that amount, and hidden under his stuff – was not entirely legitimate. He would have remembered how Mick had been to a dead drug dealer and had to wait alone for the cops, and now here he was, that
same half-smile on his face, knowing that Mick couldn’t say or do a thing.

Aidan sipped his coffee and exhaled on the side of Mick’s face. ‘We still going to Rozelle?’

Mick’s urge to punch him was so strong he had to fold his fists under his arms. ‘We’ll have to see how busy it is.’

‘Yeah.’ Aidan smiled. ‘If it’s too busy I guess we can’t go.’

The bees flung themselves off the inside of Mick’s
skull.

*

Ella stuffed down her slice of lunch pizza while standing in a tiny shop in the Cross, then dragged Dennis up to the Streetlights office while he was still chewing.

‘Bad for the digestion to rush,’ he mumbled.

Angie Crane was on the phone again.

‘Hi there,’ Ella said. ‘How are you?’

‘I’ll call you back,’ Angie said into the phone, and hung up. Her green hair was less vertical today
and matched her demeanour. ‘I don’t know where he is,’ she said. ‘I truly don’t.’

‘Why didn’t you tell us that the bakery had called you?’

‘I thought it was just one day. Why should a kid get in trouble for missing just one day of work?’

‘Two days now, and he’s not in trouble,’ Ella said. ‘But this is a murder investigation and if we say we need to talk to somebody we mean it. This could be
obstruction, you realise.’

‘Have you heard from him?’ Dennis said.

‘I haven’t, I swear. And I’ve tried calling him but I get no answer.’ Angie shuffled through a mess of papers on her desk. ‘Maybe he’s sick. I have his address here somewhere.’

‘The bakery already told us where he lives but he wasn’t there.’ Ella explained about the cat.

‘Oh no. Oh no, no. He loves cats. He would never do that
voluntarily.’

‘Where’s his family?’

‘His mother lives in Annandale. They’re estranged really. She and I have spoken a few times, she’s even been in here to see what we do, and he’s okay with that – I checked – but he doesn’t want to see her himself. Her partner used to drink a lot and get very violent, things happened and poor Emil left home at thirteen and survived on the streets for years.
She’s so pleased that he’s now getting his life back on track, she’s hoping that one day he might see her again.’ Angie’s rummaging grew frantic. ‘What if something’s happened to him? He would never hurt a soul, he’s just the gentlest boy, he –’

‘Angie,’ Ella said, more sharply than she’d intended. ‘Once we have the information we can start looking for him.’

‘Yes, yes, okay.’ Angie found a scrap
of paper, studied it, then handed it over. Ella read the name
Miranda Page
and an address in Annandale.

‘Do you have a photo of him we can have, please?’

She fetched the shot of him in his bakery uniform. ‘Can I get it back later?’

‘Sure,’ Dennis said. ‘Who were his particular friends here? Was he close to any of your staff?’

‘Among the social workers he got on well with Linsey and Gus. Gus
works part-time.’

‘And apparently visited Emil at the bakery on Monday,’ Ella said.

‘Did he? I can imagine that. He’s so proud when any of them makes it out of this world.’ Angie read out the social workers’ details from a folder and Dennis copied them into his notebook. ‘Friend-wise I’d have to say Gary Saxby, Mojo Tatler and Craig Price.’

Ella remembered speaking to Craig at the nursery.
He’d told them about Emil and another boy, Aaron, having kissed Suzanne. ‘What about Aaron Maguire?’ she asked.