Hindsight (9781921997211) (3 page)

‘What do you want to do?'

I sighed. Gran never gave people straight answers. She should have been a psychiatrist, or a politician.

‘I think I should let the police know what he looks like, but will they still be interested?'

‘The police are always interested in closing unsolved murder cases. Plus, if her family is still alive I am sure they would want to see the murderer caught.'

‘So they don't live around here any more?'

‘No, they couldn't stand it here after Kerry died. Everyone's well-meaning sympathy was too much to take. They needed a fresh start. I think they moved back to the city.'

‘So how do I do it? I can't just front up to the police station and ask to see the sketch artist.'

‘I'm not sure. Come downstairs and we'll talk to Anita about it. She's made your favourite biscuits and we'll take tea in the garden and try to work out what to do.'

‘Mum's baking? Things must be bad. OK, I'll be down in five, I just want to wash my face and clean the week's worth of fur off my teeth.'

We spent the afternoon talking things through and in the end we decided an anonymous tip was the best solution — the local police weren't ready to deal with the reality of my gift just yet. Mum posted them a letter with a full description of the murderer. For weeks we scanned the local papers hoping to see an article about fresh leads in the Kerry Sampson case. Nothing ever appeared.

The episode left me feeling like I'd failed. I had a niggling doubt that I should have done more. Over time I thought less about it but I never forgot and I never really got over it. The one thing I knew for sure was that I never wanted to experience another death as brutal as Kerry Sampson's.

That was nine years ago. I'm twenty-eight now and I've been living like a recluse ever since.

CHAPTER

3

Ed Dyson felt like he'd been beaten about the head with a blunt object. His eyes were stuck together with sleep and his tongue had grown its own shag pile rug.

He'd spent the night before with a bottle of the best Irish his limited resources could afford and Jeff Buckley to keep him company. When the phone screamed into his consciousness it was like surfacing from a deep, black pool. He looked blearily at the clock for long enough to register that it had just gone 5 AM. He took the call with a deep sense of dread.

‘Yeah.'

‘Dyson, we got a DB. I'll pick you up in ten.' And with that his partner, Phil Steiner, rang off.

Ed hauled himself out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom. The harsh glare of the fluorescent light sent fresh needles of pain through his eyeballs into what was left of his grey matter. He sniffed under one arm and decided that he couldn't go without a shower. No way would Phil put up with him smelling that bad. He turned the shower on and grabbed for his toothbrush — might as well deal with the shag pile at the same time. Standing under the steady stream of hot water he battled the urge to retch and began brushing.

The drive over from Jewel Bay took Ed and Phil less than twenty minutes. When they arrived on the scene there was only one uniform there. He was from the small station in town and Ed hadn't come across him before. He was so new his uniform looked like it was just out of the packet.

‘So what is the story here, Constable …?'

‘Forsyth, sir.'

‘Tell me what you found, Constable Forsyth.'

‘I was on call last night when the emergency operator put one through. It was a man saying that there'd been a murder. He was really hard to understand and I wasn't sure if it was someone winding me up or not.'

He swallowed a couple of times, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down. Ed twitched impatiently.

‘Anyway, he told me there was a body in a crate in Johns Lane. He said the killer wasn't there any more but he couldn't wait, he had to go. Then he hung up. I got here about twenty minutes later. I just had a quick look, found the crate with the body and called it through to you.'

Phil looked up from taking notes. ‘Did he actually say the body was in Johns Lane?'

‘Yes, sir, I mean ma'am.'

‘Isn't this Stuart Lane?'

‘Yes, ma'am, but the older locals still call it Johns Lane. John's was a pub that used to be on the corner over there.'

‘So he must have been a local?' Ed asked.

‘Yes, I suppose so, sir.'

Ed stood there for a few seconds digesting this. ‘How long have you lived here?'

‘I was born here.'

‘Do you know many of the locals?'

‘I know a lot, sir, but not everyone. We have over five thousand people if you include the outlying properties.'

‘Yes, I know that. Do you have any idea who phoned it in?'

The young officer fidgeted and dropped his glance to the ground. ‘I'm not sure but it might have been Old Mick.'

‘Who's he?' Phil asked.

‘A homeless man who wanders in and out of town.'

‘A homeless man?' Ed rolled his eyes.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Jesus Christ, I suppose he's a drunk as well?'

‘Yes, you could say that, sir.'

‘So our only witness is a homeless drunk?'

‘Witness, sir?'

‘Yes, witness, Constable Forsyth. He did tell you the killer was gone, didn't he?' Ed snapped.

‘Well, yes, I suppose so.'

‘Did he or did he not say that the killer was gone? What were his exact words?'

A deep flush started to creep up the young man's neck. Dark patches of sweat had appeared under his arms despite the chill of the morning. He sucked in a breath.

‘He said the killer was gone now.'

‘Which suggests he might have seen him and possibly even witnessed the murder?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Did you think to look for him once you'd secured the scene?'

‘No, sir.'

Ed's eyes bored into the young man. ‘Did you recognise the victim?'

‘No, sir.'

‘Did you touch anything?' Phil asked.

Forsyth looked put out. ‘No, well that is, I touched the lid of the crate to open it and check for the body but then I secured the area and called for assistance.'

‘Good lad. So the lid was closed?'

‘Well no, not exactly.'

‘What do you mean not exactly? It was either open or closed, which was it?' Ed barked, losing his patience.

The young officer's Adam's apple went into a frenzied dance. Phil shot Ed a look.

‘You're doing great, Constable, just tell us exactly what you saw when you found the crate.' She flashed him a thousand-watt smile, patting his arm reassuringly.

‘It was pretty dark so I was using my flashlight. I saw the crate and the lid was half on, half off. I moved it slightly so I could shine my torch inside and see what was in there. When I saw her, I reached in and checked for a pulse.'

‘So you touched the lid and the body?' Ed asked.

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I'll finish up here with Constable Forsyth if you like?' Phil said, giving Ed a very pointed look.

Ed thought about arguing but decided Phil was probably right. He wasn't in the mood for dealing with a rookie. Phil's bedside manner was better suited for the conversation with the wet-behind-the-ears Constable Forsyth.

‘Fine by me.'

‘So back to what you did when you discovered the body …'

Ed wandered off and left them to it.

An hour and a half later he was by the side of the road freezing his balls off. The sun was struggling over the horizon and a wind straight from Antarctica was whistling around the collection of vehicles gathered to witness the unravelling of another tragedy. Police tape fluttered and cops in uniform stood around, shifting from foot to foot. They were waiting for the final scene; the crew who would take the corpse to the morgue.

Phil was standing next to him but they hadn't spoken much. They'd worked together for more than ten years. Phil was his closest friend and partner and there was no need for words. She'd sent Constable Forsyth off to write his official report instructing him to be back by 9 AM when the local businesses opened, to check whether any of them had CCTV cameras turned on the street outside their shops. It was unlikely in a sleepy town like this, but it was worth a shot.

Ed felt Phil's eyes boring into the side of his head for about the tenth time in as many minutes. She'd been shooting him concerned glances on and off all morning. He was doing his best to ignore it. He didn't have the energy to get into it.

When she'd picked him up her only comment was, ‘You look like shit.' It was both a reprimand and a statement of fact. Phil knew about the drinking; she knew about the all-consuming depression that Ed had fallen into after his wife, Susan, disappeared two years ago. Susan had been four months pregnant and they were planning for their new baby, renovating their 100-year-old house and looking forward to a long, happy future together.

In an instant, that had all vanished. Susan went to work as usual one day and just never came home. Over and over again he'd replayed that final morning in his mind. He was tired and grumpy. A triple fatality on one of the most notorious stretches of the local roads had kept him up until the wee hours of the morning. He was angry at yet another senseless waste of life caused by testosterone mixed with alcohol.

He and Susan had talked briefly about it. Then she mentioned going shopping for baby things and he upset her by saying he thought it was too soon. She accused him of always being pessimistic. It was true enough, but after two miscarriages he was afraid to get his hopes up. Then she'd disappeared and he'd felt his pessimism was somehow the cause of it.

In the first two weeks after she'd gone missing, he was frantic. He phoned hospitals, checked with every friend and distant relative he could think of and pestered colleagues from neighbouring towns and Adelaide every few days.

Once his initial panic abated it was replaced with a burning anger — anger at himself; anger that she was still missing; anger at the people he worked with. Then the whispers started, the sideways looks. Some people were saying she'd left him because of the job. Others were hinting that there was another man. The most malicious gossipers were convinced he was responsible.

The humiliation of having to be questioned about her disappearance was the final straw. It sent him into a rage so violent that the Chief had been forced to send him home for the day.

After that he'd walked around in a daze. He couldn't feel anything, couldn't cry, couldn't accept what had happened. He was on autopilot.

Eventually the storm broke. It happened suddenly, when he was at the supermarket. He caught a glimpse of a woman who looked so much like Susan from behind that he almost called out her name. She turned around, sensing his eyes drilling into her back and it was then that he saw she was holding a baby, not more than a few months old. She returned his intense gaze with a puzzled frown, wondering why this stranger was staring at her.

He'd dropped what he was holding and ran out of the shop. He ran until the pain in his lungs forced him to stop. He threw himself down on a bench in a park and cried, deep, gut-wrenching sobs. He didn't give a damn about who might see him. All he cared about was the agony that was ripping his insides apart. He'd cried until he was drained. After he'd sat there for hours, he called Phil.

She knew he'd gone to pieces as soon as the first word left Ed's lips. She dropped everything to come and get him and take him home. She put him to bed and he'd fallen instantly into an exhausted sleep.

After the breakdown, Ed sank into a pit of alcohol and depression. He couldn't get out of bed, couldn't eat, couldn't be bothered doing anything. The only thing that took away the pain was the booze, and that didn't last for long enough.

Three months passed in a drunken stupor until Phil finally reached the limit of her tolerance. She marched in one morning, dragged Ed out of bed and forced him into a freezing cold shower. She made him eat and drink what felt to him like a litre of black coffee and then she started talking.

She told him that she couldn't imagine what he was feeling but that Susan would be ashamed of him if she could see him. She told him how proud Susan had been when he'd solved the last case they'd worked before her disappearance. She told him it was time to fuckin' pull himself together.

After that day the blackness had started to lift. He made an effort to live and within a month he was back at work. The moods still hit him but less often.

The arrival of the meat wagon snapped Ed back to the present. The cold wind penetrated again and he stamped his feet and shoved his hands under his armpits to try to bring back the circulation. The empty street stretched in front of him. He and Phil headed over to talk to Sonya, the pathologist. She stood at the entryway to the lane. Weak sunlight had started to stretch its fingers into the shadows but it would be another hour before it was bright enough to see properly. Floodlights illuminated a doorway about a third of the way down. Sonya was hunched over a pile of rubbish next to a large wooden crate that took up most of the doorway.

She straightened up and turned to shoot them a smile. A pleasant-looking woman in her early forties, she had chestnut brown hair pulled back in a simple ponytail. Her face was bare of any make-up, not surprisingly considering the hour. When she smiled she showed a wide mouth full of straight white teeth. The effect was a bit startling and slightly horsy.

She swept a glance over Ed and laughed. ‘Jesus, I've seen corpses that look more alive than you do this morning.'

‘Thanks for that. I know where to come when I need my ego stroked. What have we got?'

‘It's a nightmare of a crime scene for the forensic team, lots of traces of bodily fluids of one type or another, mainly urine. It's really too contaminated to be certain that anything they collect belonged to the killer. I might have more luck with the body when I get her back to the lab.

‘I'm not sure what killed this one. No obvious wounds or injuries. No marks around her neck to indicate strangulation, although there is a small red mark over her carotid artery that could be a puncture wound. I'll have a closer look back in the lab.

‘There are traces of fresh urine just outside the doorway over there. It could be hers. Looks like she soiled herself. There's also a pile of vomit next to the crate. It looks fresh and smells of alcohol. Doubt it was hers but it might belong to either the killer or the guy who called it in.'

‘What about the crate?' Phil asked.

‘I don't think there's anything special there but the team are checking. It looks like a standard shipping crate. It'll go back to the lab to be checked for prints. I don't like your chances though. This one looks planned.'