Violent Exposure (26 page)

‘All we can do is ask that your cooperation is taken into consideration,’ Dennis said.

‘I can’t go to jail.’ Bridges looked into the glass. ‘I couldn’t survive jail.’

Neither Ella nor Dennis moved. Ella could feel the blood rushing in her wrists.

Bridges glanced at Tristan, then sat back in the chair. ‘We were friends. That’s all.’

Ella drew out her big gun.
‘Did Suzanne ever make an approach to you?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did she ever hint or say outright that she might be interested in an affair?’

Bridges looked stunned. ‘What?’

‘Someone told us she mentioned your name in that context. That she had her eye on you.’

Tears welled in his eyes. ‘I just told you how I liked her, how I’d resigned myself –’

‘Why did you visit the Crawfords so often?’

‘I can’t believe you people. The lack of sensitivity –’

Ella leaned forward. ‘Suzanne is dead. Her father tells me he can hear her walking around in their house. Her mother’s in hospital. Your feelings are not high on my priority list.’

‘You just don’t care about –’

Ella felt a vein pop out on her forehead. ‘How dare you talk to me about caring. You claim that she was your friend but your sole
focus is protecting your own skin. You’ve lied to us, you ran away, you won’t tell us what you know. I know who in this room doesn’t care and it sure as shit isn’t me.’

‘Okay.’ Bridges slammed his hands on the table. ‘Okay. It’s drugs. Pot. I buy it and go to their place and we smoke it together. My other friends aren’t into it and I don’t like smoking on my own.’

It was hardly the bomb Ella
hoped for
.
‘All those times you went to the Crawfords’ house it was just to smoke pot and admire Suzanne from afar?’

‘Are you belittling my client, Detective?’ Tristan said.

She didn’t answer him. ‘Is this the basis of your friendship with Rocco Panozzo too?’

‘I don’t want to get him in any trouble,’ Bridges said. ‘But partly, yes. Plus we’re mates.’

‘Did both the Crawfords smoke with you?’

‘Connor more than Suzanne,’ Bridges said.

‘So you would smoke together, then sit about and chat?’

Bridges nodded. ‘What did you talk about?’

‘All sorts of things. My work, his work. Life in general.’

‘What did you see of their relationship?’ Dennis said.

‘They seemed close.’

‘They can’t have seemed too close or you wouldn’t have kept hoping Suzanne would get interested in you,’ Ella said.

Bridges pinned his hands between his knees. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘I didn’t think she’d leap on me if I was there often enough. Nothing like that.’

‘They’re your words, not ours,’ Dennis said.

‘Did Connor ever talk about affairs?’ Ella asked.

‘His or hers?’

His evasiveness was climbing further and further up her nose. ‘Whichever.’

‘He might’ve mentioned that she’d had a few
flings,’ Bridges said.

‘Hence your hopefulness.’

Tristan rumbled something down deep in his chest that Ella ignored. ‘What did Connor say about it?’

‘He was stoned when he told me so he was pretty mellow, but mostly he seemed sad rather than angry,’ Bridges said. ‘He said something about she did it to get back at him but he didn’t blame her at all.’

‘Get back at him for what?’

‘Something
that he’d done and wouldn’t tell her about,’ Bridges said. ‘He didn’t say what, just kept saying that he could never tell her the details even though she already knew the basic fact.’

‘Which was what?’ Ella said.

‘I asked once but he just shook his head.’

‘Did he say anything else about his past? His background?’

‘No,’ Bridges said. ‘Never.’

*

Connor dozed, and dreamed that Suzanne was smiling
at him. ‘It will be okay,’ she said, then punched him in the face.

He cried out and jerked backwards and the tape that bound him pulled at his arms.

‘Did I say you could sleep?’ The whisper behind him. ‘I control you now. I hold all the power. You’d better remember that.’

‘I remember all right,’ Connor croaked, his dry throat sore. ‘I remember you and I know why you’re doing this and others
will work it out too and find you and lock you up and when this is over I’ll hunt you down and kill you even if I have to get myself put in jail to do it.’

The whisperer leaned in again, his mouth right up against Connor’s forehead, his breath hot, so hot. ‘I don’t think so.’

Connor tried to butt him but again he was gone. He turned his head, listening. He heard shuffling, sliding sounds then
caught a whiff of Emil. Sounds like dragging, a stumble, swearing, then more dragging.

He was taking Emil away.

He would have to open the door.

Connor started shouting. ‘Help!’

Hard, gloved fingers seized his jaw then forced it open. His mouth was stuffed full of a dirty rag. He gagged and tried to spit it out but tape was plastered across his lips and sealed down with a slap.

The fingers
closed like pincers on his forehead.

‘Now try to yell,’ the man hissed in his ear.

Connor retched.
If I vomit I’ll die, it’ll fill up my mouth and I’ll choke and die.

He dimly registered the air movement on his face again but could only moan and fight down panic.

*

When the interview was over, Ella and Dennis saw Bridges and Tristan out then faced each other in the corridor. ‘Suzanne knew
the basic fact of his secret,’ Ella said. ‘Which was what? That his identity wasn’t real?’

‘If she’d figured out that much, then it makes sense that she’d want to know more.’

‘Like who he really is,’ Ella said. ‘It wouldn’t be hard to work out the first bit, what with no birth certificate and putting everything in her name.’ She paced. ‘Maybe his parents aren’t dead at all. In which case he
might be registered as a missing person.’

‘But wouldn’t they have called in once they saw his photo in the papers?’

‘Maybe they’re old and feeble and couldn’t recognise him,’ she said. ‘When’s our first evidence of him using the Connor Crawford name? We need to look at missing persons reports in the year or so around then. We need more people on that internet cafe search because I really think
Suzanne must’ve got close and that’s why he killed her. We need –’

‘Slow down,’ Dennis said. ‘Let’s find some of the nightshift crew and get them started on it.’

‘And Rocco Panozzo,’ she said. ‘Let’s get round there and see if Bridges is finally telling the truth.’

‘Nightshift can do that too. Better if we go home and sleep, and launch into it fresh on the morrow.’

Ella said, ‘I feel fine.’

‘So do I, for now,’ he said. ‘But come 2 am we’ll be no use here and then no use in the morning either.’

He was right. Ella couldn’t stand still though. ‘They should check if Panozzo’s prints match the one on the back door. And make sure they know to call us if Panozzo doesn’t know Bridges or says he’s full of crap.’

‘Absolutely,’ Dennis said. ‘Bridges got away with lies once before and that
was once too many.’

T
he next morning, Mick sat alone in the back of the ambulance, stalled mid-equipment check and staring into the drug drawers. His eyes were sore from lack of sleep. Jo had thought his restlessness in the night was because of Aidan, and said over breakfast that he should just take him to Rozelle and get it over with.

‘I know you’re a nice guy and you don’t want to stuff up anyone’s career,’
she’d said. ‘But once he’s qualified he’ll be out there on his own, and imagine if he was called to something important? Imagine if I was pregnant then went into labour and he came along with a trainee of his own?’

Mick shook his head at the idea and the memories her words brought up of the disastrous case that he and Sophie had done last year.

The thought of another three months – he’d checked
the roster – with Aidan the way he was was almost unbearable. What if he kept up the shitty attitude? How could Mick justify
not
taking him to Rozelle if he did? But the risk of Aidan telling about the money was so high.

Mick supposed he could just hide the money and deny all knowledge – but the point was to spend it on IVF. It was the only reason he’d taken it.

Or he could hide it for a while
perhaps. But the clock was ticking. Jo was already thirty-five and the chances didn’t improve later. Plus they only got so many shots at it each year.

He didn’t have to keep the money. He could leave it somewhere. Drop it at the front door of a charity.

But it’s ours.

He didn’t want to give it away to anyone, and he didn’t want to wait. He wanted to go into the IVF centre this week, tomorrow,
today, and place the money on the desk and watch Jo write appointments in her diary then smile at him.

‘Hey.’

He looked up to see Carly leaning in the door. Carly in uniform. Carly, in uniform, with a mile-wide smile on her face.

‘Aido’s got the vapours and I’m here instead.’

‘Fantastic.’ It was one problem solved – he didn’t have to worry what shit Aidan would pull today and how to then hide
it from all the people harping on about Rozelle – but now he’d have to listen to Carly harping on about Rozelle. ‘That’s great.’

‘Isn’t it?’

She went inside to get her workbag and he jumped down from the truck and got in the passenger side. She could have the easier task of driving today; he could pretend to be constantly absorbed in treatment with no time to discuss Aidan.

The phone rang and
Carly answered then brought out the slip. She threw her bag in and climbed behind the wheel. ‘Call to a building site in Pyrmont, person in a skip, possibly code four. They’re trying to get more information.’

‘Thirty-seven’s on the case,’ Mick radioed Control, while Carly fired up the lights and siren and floored the ambulance out of the station.

‘I can’t tell you how great it is to get to work
with you,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ he said. ‘Clear left.’ She checked her side at a red light and went through. ‘I don’t have to keep an eye on you, I don’t have to try to teach you things when you aren’t listening anyway.’

‘Clear left,’ he said at the next light.

‘And we can decide what to do about the little turd.’ She roared through the intersection before grinning briefly across at him. ‘I’ve
been thinking that we should go today, the two of us. We don’t need him there. We can set it all out for them and make them see.’

Yeah
, Mick thought,
and then Aidan will get called in and spill every single bean
.

‘Thirty-seven.’

He grabbed up the mike. ‘Thirty-seven.’

‘Likely code four at that scene,’ Control said. ‘I’m sending police.’

‘Copy.’

Carly thumped the horn with her fist to change
the siren from wail to yelp and yanked the high-beam stalk with her little finger as she weaved between cars. ‘How do you die by falling into a skip?’

‘He might’ve started from up high, like on scaffolding.’

Carly braked hard for an oblivious lane-changing driver then punched the siren into yelp and left it there. ‘So how about we call Control after this, tell him we want to go to Rozelle?’

‘Knowing our luck it’ll get busy.’ Mick pulled on gloves and tucked a pair of mediums down the side of her seat.
I hope.

‘We should tell him anyway, see if he can find us ten minutes.’

Mick shifted in his seat.

*

Carly saw contractors’ vans parked along the footpath and a knot of people standing on the road. They turned at the siren and started waving furiously. She flashed the high beams at
them and flipped the siren off. Working with Mick was such a lovely change. In contrast to the times when a difficult job was infinitely harder with that twerp Aidan by her side, she and Mick worked perfectly together. She could read his thinking, know what equipment he wanted next, see when he was planning to load and go.

‘The A team,’ she said.

Mick reached for the mike. ‘Thirty-seven’s on
scene.’

‘Thanks, Thirty-seven.’

Carly parked by the people on the road. More were gathered around a skip on the footpath. The house behind was undergoing major renovations.

‘Hurry up!’ somebody yelled, though Mick was already out of the truck and grabbing gear from the back. Carly pulled on her gloves as she came around the front to get the rest of it. The yeller met her there. ‘Quick!’

He
was a burly man in King Gee workclothes, and his eyes were huge, his face pale, his hands shaking. She would’ve liked to explain how his shouting did nothing but upset people, that she literally could not pull the kits from the ambulance any faster, but panic made people do funny things and his behaviour was simply one of them. She said nothing and pushed through the knot to where Mick was hoisting
himself onto the lip of the skip.

She did the same and saw two men crouched in the rubble beside a dusty body. One of the men pressed irregularly on the body’s chest while slipping on cut pieces of lumber while the other seemed wary of touching its face.

‘Blow in his mouth!’ the chest-presser barked.

‘I think he’s gone,’ the other man said.

Carly thought so too. The body’s face was covered
in dust, the eyes half-open and claggy-looking, and the skin purplish in patches. Dried blood marked a cut on his right forearm. The dust was thicker on the skin around his wrists. She caught a whiff of putrefaction.

‘Please stop and climb out,’ Mick said. She leaned close to his ear. ‘I’ll get a story.’

The person standing closest was another construction worker. He shifted from one steel-toe
to the other, his arms folded across a holey yellow T-shirt, and looked only a little shell-shocked.

‘Hi,’ Carly said. ‘What happened?’

‘We’d started work and I went to chuck some offcuts in the skip and saw him,’ he said. ‘Benny in there kind of freaked out, leapt in and started doing that PCR stuff, even though the rest of us knew. We tried to tell him but he’s a stubborn bastard. Made poor
Paulie get in too.’