Cold Justice (31 page)

Ella showed her badge. ‘Is Danielle Kingsley here?’

‘She’s out.’

‘At work?’ Murray said.

The girl shook her head. ‘Shopping, I think. I don’t know when she’ll be back. Sometimes she’s gone for friggin’ hours.’

‘And you are?’

‘Her daughter, Kelly.’

Ella smiled at the toddler who dribbled rusk. ‘Do you have a photo of her that we could see, please?’

‘Can I ask why?’

‘To confirm something.’

The girl frowned but fetched one. She unlocked the screen and held it out. Ella studied it and Murray looked over her shoulder. It looked similar to the woman in the CCTV, but it was hard to say for certain.

‘Is this recent?’ Ella asked.

‘A year, maybe.’ The young woman hoisted the toddler higher. ‘She’s lost a bit of weight.’

That could be it. They’d have to see her in person. ‘She still got the Mini?’

‘Yes.’

‘You live here with her?’

She nodded.

‘Do you have a car?’

‘The yellow Datsun on the street there.’

‘Anyone else live here, and have a car?’

‘Dad. He has a black Ford Falcon. That’s it.’

‘His name?’

‘Paul Kingsley.’

Ella gave the woman one of her cards. ‘Have your mother call us when she gets in, please.’

‘What about?’

‘We just need to talk to her,’ Ella said. ‘Straighten some things out.’ She smiled at the toddler. ‘Thanks.’

The corner supermarket where Julia Palmer worked was three blocks down. Ella parked at the back and they walked around.

‘Morning.’ The woman behind the counter had her light brown dreadlocks tied up in a pink scarf. Her name tag said Julia. ‘Can I help you with anything?’

‘Are you Julia Palmer?’

‘Ye-ess.’

Ella got out her badge. ‘Can we talk for a moment?’

‘Wow, that was quick!’ Julia said. ‘So is it her?’

Ella glanced around. There was nobody else in the shop. ‘We haven’t spoken to her yet. We just met her daughter.’

Julia was nodding. ‘Yeah, her daughter, that’s right. She’s got a little girl herself.’

‘How often do you see Danielle?’ Murray asked.

‘Every week, sometimes twice a week. Usually for milk and stuff like that, stuff you run out of quick. Although sometimes her husband comes in instead. Hey, you want to know how long it took me to work out that it was her? How I was so certain that I rang you guys up?’

‘Well –’ Murray said.

‘I knew it was her because she has this manner,’ Julia said confidingly. ‘I study people, see? I watch them all the time. I saw that photo in the paper and I just
knew.
I could almost see her in action, walking. Just like I was watching her on the screen myself.’ She squared the air with her hands.

‘Thanks,’ Ella said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’

Outside in the car Murray said, ‘What do you think?’

‘She seems loopy rather than deliberately misleading.’

‘I agree,’ he said. ‘At least we can check out that Hornsby PQW Commodore while we’re up this way.’

Edgeworth David Avenue was long. Ella drove them past the girls high school and down the hill, through the dogleg at the shops and further. The house was set back on an overgrown block with the garden spilling across the lawn. It made Ella wonder if her roses were dead yet.

The patio was pebblecrete with a low cast-iron railing. Murray knocked on the white door. The man who answered was in his forties. He was on crutches with a cast on his right leg, and his salt-and-pepper hair was trimmed around a fresh line of sutures above his right temple.

Murray showed his badge. ‘Is Lisa Peterson home?’

‘She’s at work,’ he said. ‘I’m her husband, Ashley. Is everything okay?’

Ella said, ‘Does she still have the Commodore with the plate PQW 199?’

‘Has there been an accident?’

‘No, it’s fine,’ Ella said. ‘Is the car here?’

‘In the garage. You want to have a look?’

‘Thanks.’

He pulled a bunch of keys from the back of the door and hobbled out. ‘I’m sure there’s been no accident with it. She would have told me.’

They followed him along the pebblecrete path to the garage door. He unlocked it and awkwardly started heaving it up before Murray took over. The cream Commodore was parked nose in. Ella squeezed along next to it, looked inside, checked out the pristine front panels and the bonnet.

‘Has somebody complained or something?’

She squeezed back out. ‘Was Lisa driving this on Sunday night?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was in hospital. Motorbike spill. I only got home yesterday.’

‘Do you know where she was that evening?’ Murray said. ‘Was she visiting you?’

‘She wasn’t with me,’ he said. ‘She’s not good with hospitals. You’ll have to ask her if she went out anywhere but she doesn’t usually.’

‘Does anyone ever borrow this car?’

He shook his head. ‘What’s it supposed to have done?’

‘Can we see a photo of Lisa, please?’

‘Well, sure. If you want.’

He hobbled out of the way as Murray pulled the door down then he locked it again. He went back into the house and came out with a wedding photo.

‘How recent is this?’ Ella asked.

‘Six months,’ he said.

Lisa was short and round. Her hair was short and spiked and dyed bright blonde. She grinned at the camera, as did Ashley beside her.

‘Nice photo,’ Murray said. ‘Congratulations.’

He smiled. ‘Thanks.’

Ella handed it back. ‘Thanks for your time.’

‘What should I tell her?’

‘It doesn’t really matter,’ Murray said.

‘I could say you just needed to check a couple of things.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘She’ll want to know why, though.’

‘It’s just part of a case,’ Ella said. ‘Thanks again.’

He was still leaning on his crutches on the patio, the frame in his hand, when she started the car. ‘They always want to know every last little detail,’ she said.

‘Drives me nuts,’ Murray said. ‘Anyway, another bust. Home, James.’

Georgie held Matt’s hand as they walked across the bridge. She considered herself lucky: after the fight they’d had about whether she should go to work tonight or not, she hadn’t expected he would walk her in, let alone touch.

They passed the southern pylon. He slowed a little. ‘Dayshift would be different.’

She kept walking.

‘I bet Freya would love to get off nightshift for a few weeks. Why don’t you ask if you can both go on a day-only roster for a while?’

‘No such thing.’

‘You have a legitimate reason to ask them to create one.’

‘But somebody will have to cover the extra nights and that’s not fair on them.’

‘I don’t care about them.’

She was practically dragging him along. ‘I’m going to be late.’

‘Listen to me,’ he said.

‘Nothing’s going to happen.’

‘Why even take the chance?’ He pulled on her hand and made her stop. ‘If we explain the danger to your bosses I’m sure they’ll understand.’

‘But it’s just another thing, you know? One more reason why I’m a pain, why they should just wash their hands of me. I can’t risk that.’

‘The job’s no good to you if you’re dead.’

‘I’m not going to die.’

He stood there looking at her.

‘Come on,’ she said. ‘Or I’ll really be late.’

He didn’t move. Tourists pushed past. Somebody in the traffic blew their horn and the lowering sun made their shadows long against the fence.

She put her free hand on her hip. ‘What do you want me to say?’

‘That you won’t go to work tonight.’

‘I can’t.’

‘Call in sick.’

‘I’m on assessment. I need a certificate for even one shift.’

‘So get one,’ he said. ‘There are doctors everywhere.’

‘I’m not sick.’

‘So lie.’

‘Matt.’

He let go of her hand. She stared at him until he frowned at the Opera House instead.

‘I can’t do this now,’ she said. ‘I have to go.’

‘So go.’

‘Not like this.’

‘Like what?’

She eyed him angrily. This passive front drove her nuts. ‘Walk with me and we can keep talking.’

‘What’s the point? You’re not going to change your mind.’

‘If that’s the only reason you want to talk to me then you’re right, there is no point.’

He turned away.

‘Oh, so you’re going? That’s it?’

‘Have a good night,’ he said over his shoulder.

The muscles in her neck and back were locked up tight. She wanted to scream and punch something. She wanted to chase him down and push him over and make him talk to her, make him see that this wasn’t about safety, it was about keeping her job. But the clock was ticking and, just like she couldn’t afford to go sick, she couldn’t afford to be late either. She took one last glance at his receding back and turned south.

Further along she looked back. She could just spot him, still getting smaller. She watched but he didn’t turn around. She bottled her anger up tight and started down the steps to the road below.

She made it to the station with a minute to spare. The day-shift paramedics were getting their bags out of the truck. One nodded to the back. ‘Freya’s in there already.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Good luck.’

‘With what?’

He raised his eyebrows and didn’t answer.

Georgie went to the open rear door. ‘Hi.’

Freya slammed the drug drawer shut. ‘Hello.’

Feeling ill, Georgie went to get her bag from her locker. The phone rang and one of the dayshift guys answered, then handed her a slip of paper with an address as she came back out. ‘Query stroke in Potts Point.’

At the ambulance she tossed in her bag and climbed up after it. ‘CVA.’

Freya hurled the Oxy-Viva into its compartment. ‘So day-shift couldn’t be bothered.’

‘It’s right on six.’

Freya slammed the back door so hard Georgie felt her ears pop with the air pressure. Freya threw herself behind the wheel.

‘Potts Point,’ Georgie said.

Freya didn’t answer. She cranked the key and roared out of the station.

Georgie got out the street directory and tried to focus on the map. This bad start didn’t mean the whole night was buggered. They would do the job and do it well; a CVA was no big deal, and through it they would find their equilibrium. Freya would get over whatever was up her nose at the same time as Georgie got over the argument with Matt, and the night would be okay.

‘It’s in Macleay Street,’ she said.

‘Paddo’s job.’

‘Must be busy.’

Freya shot her an
oh really?
look.

Georgie frowned at the map. ‘Next left.’

Freya went straight ahead. ‘I know where it is.’

Georgie closed the book and stuck it down the side of her seat.
CVA
, she thought.
Posture, oxygen, get the history, check blood pressure and blood sugar.
She didn’t need to run through the list really; she’d done so many she could do them in her sleep. It was just a way to block out the angry woman hunched behind the wheel. It was as if Georgie had done something really bad to piss her off, but she knew she’d done nothing. It was probably domestic, like the thorn in Georgie’s own side. Best thing to do was leave her alone.

Freya ripped through the evening traffic, scowling and muttering. In Macleay Street a woman stood in the centre of the road and waved frantically at them. She kept waving even though Freya was driving straight at her, then started pointing at an apartment block on the left and almost got herself hit by a car as she tried to get traffic to move aside.

‘Jesus,’ Freya said. ‘Don’t we have enough to do?’ She flicked off the lights and siren and double-parked next to a BMW.

The waver hammered on Georgie’s window, mascara and tears running down her face. ‘Please hurry!’

Georgie called on scene to Control then got out and grabbed the Viva from the back. Freya could bring the rest.

‘What’s happened?’ she asked the woman.

‘My sister’s collapsed, I don’t know what it is. She couldn’t talk and then just collapsed.’

‘Was she still conscious when you came downstairs?’

‘I think so. She was moaning.’

They hurried into the lift. The woman attacked the button but Georgie put her foot against the door. Freya stalked across the lobby and into the lift with the monitor and drug box, and Georgie let the door close.

‘What’s her medical history?’ she asked.

‘She’s got none.’ The woman kept pushing the button as if that would make them rise faster. ‘Oh, except she had an operation done on her knee a couple of days ago. But that’s all.’

‘Has she been up and about much since then?’

The woman shook her head. ‘She was told to rest it. That’s why I was over today, to help with the kids.’

‘Is she on the pill?’

‘I think so.’

The doors slid open and the woman leapt out and rushed down a short corridor to an apartment door held open by a phone book. She shoved it back and Georgie heard wailing.

In the living room, a man and a woman struggled on the floor, the man trying to restrain the woman’s thrashing limbs. Georgie smelled vomit and saw it was all over both of them. Three small children stood pressed against an armchair, the littlest with his head hard into the cushion, the other two sobbing with their hands to their faces.

Georgie put the Viva down. ‘They don’t need to see this.’

The sister gathered them up and took them into another room as Georgie touched the man’s shoulder. ‘What’s her name?’

‘Susie,’ he panted. ‘I’m Darren. I can’t hold her much longer.’

‘Ease off a bit,’ Freya said.

‘She just thrashes.’

‘It’s okay,’ Freya said.

Georgie was on her knees by Susie’s head. Her long blonde hair was stuck to her face with vomit. She wore denim shorts and a pink T-shirt and had a brace strapped around her left knee. She tossed her head from side to side and grunted and moaned.

‘Susie!’ Georgie said.

The woman didn’t respond.

‘Has she talked to you at all?’

‘She came out of the bedroom and said she had a funny headache then fell over. That was it.’

‘She was fine before then?’