Tell the Truth (18 page)

They found Steve Lynch hosing out a dog run. The grass on his whole property was mown down close, the wire in the fences taut, the paint on the weatherboard house and garage and sheds fresh and neat. His dog training business had been registered at this location for ten years, with no complaints made against it, and he had no criminal record.

He straightened and clicked the hose trigger off. ‘This is private property.'

‘We knocked at the house but there was no answer.' Ella held up her badge. ‘Got a moment?'

He gave the wet concrete a final squirt, then stepped out of the pen. It was empty, but the three next to it held five Alsatians between them. They sat silently on the drying floors, yellow eyes watching.

‘They're quiet,' Murray commented.

‘Well-trained.' Steve Lynch tucked his blue workshirt into his waistband with the flats of his hands. His Blundstones and trouser cuffs were wet. ‘What can I do for you?'

‘Do you know Stacey Durham?' Ella asked.

He thought for a moment. ‘Can't say I do.'

‘You were Facebook friends.'

He shrugged. ‘I have about nine hundred. I don't know most of them.'

‘She asked to be your friend after a discussion on the high school you apparently both attended,' Ella said. ‘You commented on each other's posts about dogs a few times.'

‘Oh,' he said. ‘Scruffy dog? Wire-haired terrier cross-breed thing? Yeah, I remember now. She rang me, said did I remember her, apparently we went out once in Year Eight or something. I didn't remember her at all but kind of fudged along until she got to the point – that her dog sometimes plays up. Wanted some advice for free, like they always do.'

‘Did you give it to her?'

‘In a way. I asked about the home life. Basically the thing rules their roost – sleeps on the bed, jumps on the lounge, she lets it lick people. I said it'll never stop playing up while she spoils it like that, but once she gets some rules in place and is sticking to them she can bring it out here and I'll help her re-educate it. She said she'd let me know. I never heard from her again.'

‘In fact she unfriended you,' Murray said.

He shrugged again. ‘Eight hundred and ninety-nine more where she came from.'

One of the Alsatians made a sound deep in its throat. He looked over and the sound stopped.

‘Did you ever call her back?' Ella said.

‘No reason to waste my time. It wasn't hard to work out that she had no interest in training the dog properly. Nor that she didn't want to pay for help to do it.'

‘So you've had no contact apart from that conversation?'

‘No,' he said. ‘Nothing.'

‘That guy's sitting on a goldmine,' Murray said as they drove back past the mansions and clear green swimming pools and clay tennis courts of Dural. ‘Little business like that, he must've bought the place years ago when it was way cheaper. Or inherited it maybe.'

Ella was thinking about Stacey. ‘Do you think we're going about this all wrong?'

‘This is the road we came in on,' he said.

‘I mean, are we missing something in the case?' she said. ‘Something big.'

‘Like what?'

‘I don't know,' she said. ‘All these threads, but it feels like they're leading in different directions.'

‘Because most of them probably aren't relevant,' he said. ‘You know how it is, you get to the end of a case and you can see how the important leads linked up, but meanwhile everything that you thought meant something along the way has disappeared from your mind. People defriend and refriend people all the time. We're more than likely just ticking boxes here.'

He was right. So much of a case was checking, rechecking, crossing off. She had to calm down.

Her mobile rang. It was Dennis, calling from the office.

‘Have you finished there?' he asked.

‘We just left,' she said.

‘Good. The lab cleaned up the numberplate of the car seen next to the cyclist at the traffic lights, where it looked like the driver was talking to her, and we got a hit. Registered owner's name is Ross Hardy, thirty-eight years old, record as long as my arm. Burglary, drug and weapons offences, stolen cars and extortion. He lives at Pendle Hill. Lawson and Pilsiger are already headed there. Can you meet them nearby?'

Ella said, ‘We're on our way.'

‘And now we have a new thread to wonder about,' Murray said wryly.

*

Ella and Murray met Detectives Sid Lawson and Marion Pilsiger two streets away from Hardy's address. Lawson bounced on his toes, his eyes everywhere with excitement. Pilsiger handed them Hardy's picture, described his house and went through his history.

‘And in the extortion,' she wound up, ‘he sticky-taped a .22 bullet to a solicitor's front door. This guy had been doing some work for some friends of Hardy's on a business deal, and things went sour. Hardy's thumbprint was found on the base of the bullet. He said it was a set-up, but the solicitor had got threatening phone calls and drive-bys as well, and identified Hardy's voice and car. He was convicted and spent eighteen months inside. Been out almost a year now.'

He didn't sound like the brightest spark, and going by the photo – round head, deep-set eyes in sallow flesh, vacant expression and a mess of dark hair – he didn't look it either.

Ella said, ‘Any links between him and the Durhams?'

‘Not that we know of, but it's definitely his car in the CCTV, so we'll be approaching him initially as a witness,' Pilsiger said. ‘We don't expect any issue, especially not with the four of us there. All good?'

They nodded. Ross Hardy's house stood in the middle of the street, a tidy red-brick one-storey with a double garage at one end and a curtained bay window at the other. A tightly pruned murraya hedge grew inside a picket fence along the front, and Ella and Murray stood back near it while Lawson and Pilsiger went up onto the verandah. The late morning sun was warm on Ella's shoulders and she could hear bees in the flowers. Lawson pressed the doorbell and stepped back, and she saw the curtain in the bay window twitch.

‘Someone's home,' she called in a low voice.

Pilsiger hit the door with her fist. ‘Ross Hardy, it's the police. Answer the door, please.'

No response.

Ella and Murray started moving in opposite directions, she aiming to go around past the bay window to the left side, he crossing the herringbone driveway to the right. She watched the other windows as she went across the grass, looking for movement, knowing the sheer white curtains would let someone inside see out without being seen.

The grass down the side of the house was sparse, the area shaded by the eaves and the paling fence. She moved carefully, silently, the beat of her heart in her ears and throat. She heard Pilsiger pound on the front door again, and then the click of a door opening at the back of the house. He'd come her way, she bet. He would've looked out the front and chosen to run against the woman. Thought it would be easier to get through. She stiffened her back, flexed her thigh muscles. Did he just.

He came her way at a run, empty-handed, looking back over his shoulder to where Murray was rounding the corner. ‘Stop right there,' Murray shouted, and Hardy put on a burst of speed. He looked ahead and saw her waiting, and she saw him ball his fists, lower his shoulder and tuck in his head.

She stepped aside, braced herself against the corner of the house, and kicked him as hard as she could in the leg. He went down with a grunt, then tried to scramble up the fence. She grabbed the waistband of his shorts with one hand and the collar of his shirt with the other, yanking him down, then Murray was beside her, pulling out his cuffs.

‘We only wanted to talk,' Ella said to Hardy. ‘Why did you try to run?'

‘Fuck you,' he spat.

Lawson ran up as they stepped back from the prone figure. ‘I can't believe I missed it.'

They walked Hardy into the house to get his keys and wallet and phone, then out to the car. He was moaning about the colouring bruise on his leg. Lawson was stern-faced with pride as he gripped the cuffs. He and Pilsiger would take Hardy to the office for a formal interview.

Ella's phone rang. She didn't recognise the number. ‘This is Marconi.'

‘My name's Jonathon Dimitri,' a man said. ‘You wanted to talk to me?'

SEVENTEEN

T
he Woolloomooloo street was tree-lined, the apartment building bright white with tinted glass lobby walls. Wayne pressed the intercom button for unit twenty-nine, and Paris heard the line open and a woman crying.

‘Ambulance,' Wayne said, and the door clicked open.

They squeezed into the lift with their kits.

‘Now,' Wayne said to Paris, his eyes on the rising numbers, ‘sometimes women patients respond better to women officers. So if we think that might be the case here, we'll get you to step up, okay? Besides, it's good practice.'

She felt the familiar anxiety, the tightening in her throat, but said, ‘Okay.'

The corridors were a far cry from those at Arnold's. The carpet was thick and soft under her boots, the wallpaper clean and new, gold stripes on a white background, and warm yellow light came from lamps in fancy sconces on the wall.

Wayne tapped on the door marked twenty-nine and a shaky tear-filled voice called that it was open. Inside the apartment, a woman of eighty or so sat huddled on the lounge, a red fleecy dressing gown pulled tight over pink dotted flannelette pyjamas, thick socks on her feet. Her hair was white and thin, her face red and marked from crying.

She looked up as they approached, despair in her eyes, and Wayne said gently, ‘I'm Wayne, this is Rowan, and this here is Paris. She's going to talk to you, okay?'

He nudged her forward, taking the first-aid kit and drug box out of her hands.

Her heart beating high in her chest, Paris knelt by the lounge. ‘I'm Paris.'
He already said that. Idiot.
‘What's your name?'

‘Pamela Chapman.' She clutched the gown around her neck. The bones of her hands stood out like sticks, her worn gold wedding band hung loose on her finger, and her skin was dotted with liver spots.

Paris saw Rowan walk further into the apartment, checking the rooms. She said, ‘Can you tell me what's happened, Mrs Chapman?'

The woman shut her eyes tight. Tiny veins stood out in her temples. ‘It's my husband.'

‘What's happened to him?' Paris asked.

‘I can't find him.'

Rowan came back, shaking his head. There was nobody collapsed or dead here, at least.

‘Does he live here?'

Pamela Chapman nodded.

‘When did you last see him?' Paris said, thinking of an excursion to the shops, an old man getting confused and wandering in the wrong direction.

‘I don't remember.' Pamela Chapman pressed her hands to her face.

Paris glanced at Rowan and Wayne. Wayne made a ‘keep going' gesture.

Okay
, Paris thought.
All right. Let's do some stuff
. ‘Mrs Chapman, while we talk about Mr Chapman, can I check your blood pressure?'

‘It's probably high,' she said. ‘I'm just so worried. What could have happened to him?'

Rowan handed Paris the sphygmo, and she wrapped the cuff around Mrs Chapman's thin upper arm. Her skin felt hot.

‘How are you feeling yourself?' she asked as she inflated it.

‘I'm just so worried.' Mrs Chapman grasped her hand. Her fingers were long and thin and feverish.

‘You might have a temperature,' Paris said, for Rowan's and Wayne's benefit. ‘Your blood pressure is fine at one-thirty, but your pulse is a little fast at one-ten. Do you take any tablets?'

‘Oh, there's a whole box of them in there.' Mrs Chapman waved a hand behind her and Wayne went off to find them.

‘What about Mr Chapman? Does he take any?' Paris said.

‘He takes even more than I do. He's a sickly man, very sickly.'

Wayne might find a clue there, Paris thought. Were there medications for dementia? ‘What's Mr Chapman's first name?'

‘Roger,' she said.

Rowan bent to Paris's ear. ‘There's no sign that anyone else lives here,' he murmured.

Paris looked at Mrs Chapman. Her eyes were fever-bright, and now that she'd stopped crying her face was pale with red spots high on each cheek. At school they kept saying ‘looks sick, is sick', and Mrs Chapman looked sick. She smelled sick too; her breath was sour, her body odour stale, and now and again Paris caught a whiff of something else, something like urine but not quite. Heat radiated through her dressing gown, and her hand on Paris's knee was just about burning through her trousers.

‘How about we take that gown off you?'
Paris said.
‘You might feel a bit better.'

‘Oh no, no. I'm so cold.' She bunched it up around her neck.

Wayne came back with a plastic box full of medication packets. ‘Cardiac, hypertension, anxiety and arthritis meds. Nothing under anyone else's name.'

There was something else they said at school, something about confusion in elderly people, women in particular. Confusion could be a sign of low or high blood sugar, so they'd have to check that, then Mrs Chapman shifted on the lounge and Paris caught the smell again and remembered.

‘Mrs Chapman, does it burn when you go to the bathroom?'

Mrs Chapman glanced up at Rowan and Wayne, as if horrified to be speaking of such things in front of them. She leaned close to Paris and whispered, ‘I don't like to go. It burns terribly.'

‘I think you might have a urinary tract infection,' Paris said.

‘Oh no,' Mrs Chapman said.

Out of her view, Wayne grinned and gave Paris a big thumbs up.

‘It's nothing too bad,' Paris said. ‘We'll take you to hospital and they'll give you some medication and you'll feel better in no time. Though first we're going to check your blood sugar, to make sure that's okay.' And there was still the question of Mr Chapman.

Rowan got out the glucometer. ‘This would be easier if we take off your gown.'

It wasn't true, they only needed her finger, but it had the effect they wanted. Pamela Chapman let them ease the gown over her shoulders and off her arms. Paris could feel the heat of her fever even just sitting next to her.

‘When was the last time you saw Mr Chapman?' she said.

‘I'm not sure.' Mrs Chapman flinched as Rowan pricked her finger and collected a drop of blood. ‘Oh, wait. Yes, that's right. He was at Hedgebrook.'

Paris didn't know what that was, but Wayne said, ‘The nursing home?'

‘Yes,' Mrs Chapman said. ‘But they sent him home. He should be here.' She looked around the room, puzzled.

Wayne caught Paris's eye and held a hand to his ear, miming a phone call.

‘How about I ring them?' Paris said.

Mrs Chapman squeezed her hand with her overheated fingers. ‘Would you? There's a dear.'

Paris found a phone on the wall of the kitchen and a phone book tucked in a cabinet below. The earpiece of the phone was grimy and she held it clear of her head as she dialled.

‘Hedgebrook Village, can I help you?'

‘Hi,' Paris said. ‘My name's Paris and I'm a paramedic with the New South Wales Ambulance Service. I'm with a Mrs Pamela Chapman who's concerned about the whereabouts of her husband, Roger, who may or may not be living there now?'

‘I remember Roger. He died about eighteen months ago, I'm sorry to say. Brain cancer.'

‘Oh,' Paris said. ‘You're sure? There couldn't be two of them?'

‘Mrs Chapman lives in Woolloomooloo, right?'

‘Yes.'

‘That's definitely him,' the voice said. ‘Sorry.'

‘No problems. Thank you.' Paris hung up. Mrs Chapman must know already, but now she was going to find out again. Paris hadn't yet had to tell someone that their loved one was dead, though Stacey had told her she'd be doing it pretty regularly. She hadn't looked forward to it then and she didn't now.

She walked back into the lounge room and whispered to Wayne, ‘He's dead. A year and a half.'

He made a face. She looked down at Mrs Chapman, the grey skin of her scalp, her thin shoulders inside the pink pyjamas. Rowan was packing away the glucometer, so the reading was obviously fine, and he motioned that he'd go to bring up the stretcher.

‘I'll help,' Wayne said, giving Paris a wink, and followed Rowan out.

Mrs Chapman looked up at her, hopeful. ‘Was he there? Did you find him?'

Paris sat down and took Mrs Chapman's hand. How the hell was she going to do this? So much for Wayne helping her. She cleared her throat but the lump didn't go.

‘I talked to Hedgebrook and they said he used to live there, but he died eighteen months ago. I'm very sorry.'

Pamela Chapman looked stunned. ‘What?'

‘He passed away eighteen months ago,' Paris said. ‘He had cancer.'

‘No,' Mrs Chapman said. ‘Oh no. That can't be right. He was coming home. They were letting him come home.'

‘I'm sorry,' Paris said. ‘The nurse remembered him. She was sorry too.'

Mrs Chapman shook her head. ‘There's been some mistake. He was sickly, but he wasn't dying.'

How awful, Paris thought, and how sad, to have to relearn of your husband's death, maybe only when you were sick and confused, or maybe over and over and over again. Mrs Chapman was crying again, clutching Paris's hand, rocking back and forth.

Paris put her arm around her. ‘Do you have any family nearby?'

‘The children are all at school,' she wept. ‘They won't be home for hours.'

Paris guessed she was talking about her own children, and in her confused state thought she was way back in the past. ‘What are their names?'

‘Angela, she's the oldest, almost fourteen now, and then there's Geoffrey. He's eleven, and Lynn who's only eight.'

‘Let me check something.' Paris eased out of her grip and went back to the phone. The writing on the card beside the preset buttons was faded but she could just make out the names. She picked up the handset and pressed the first.

‘Hello?'

‘Is that Angela Chapman?'

‘Yes, it is.'

Paris explained who she was. ‘I'm with your mother now, and she's quite confused, especially about your father.'

‘Christ,' Angela said. ‘This again? I live right downstairs. I'm on my way up.'

The phone went dead in Paris's hand.

On the lounge, Mrs Chapman was still rocking, still weeping.

Paris rubbed her back. ‘Angela's on her way.'

‘He's supposed to be coming home,' she said. ‘Why won't they let him come home?'

The lift dinged and a middle-aged woman hurried in, shirt hanging out, her hair half-done, followed by Rowan and Wayne with the stretcher.

‘Mum,' the woman said.

‘Oh, Angela, hello,' Mrs Chapman said. ‘Have you seen your father?'

‘Dad's dead, Mum.' Angela sat down beside her. ‘Remember? We were all there with him. We all said goodbye. Geoff sang at the funeral.'

‘No, that was someone else's funeral,' Mrs Chapman said. ‘Give me a minute and I'll remember their name. Very sad it was.'

Angela looked across her at Paris. ‘She goes like this
whenever she has a fever. Usually she's fully with it.
I suspected yesterday that she was getting sick, and I even made an appointment with the doctor for this afternoon, but I think she'd be better off in hospital.' She smiled. ‘Thanks for looking after her.'

Paris smiled back, and when Wayne leaned close to say, ‘Good job,' she felt a little light go on inside her.

*

‘Now that was something to write home about,' Wayne said.

Paris sat sideways in the resus seat in the back of the ambulance, looking through the cabin out the front windscreen. Wayne twisted in his seat to see her face as he spoke. They'd delivered Mrs Chapman to hospital, and now were going to collect a man from his nursing home at Camden and transport him to RPA. Purple clouds gathered in the sky further west, and Paris kept her gaze on them as Wayne talked.

‘You stayed calm, you did your job,' he was saying. ‘You even diagnosed her, fer Chrissakes. We left you on your own and you handled it, man. That was awesome.'

‘Thanks,' Paris said.

‘As for what happened yesterday, well, you reacted as many trainees do, but you're only six weeks in,' he said. ‘But at the same time, you're six weeks in. You follow?'

‘Yes,' Paris said.

‘A good paramedic keeps her cool, keeps her eyes open, doesn't let herself get caught up in the emotion.' Wayne widened his eyes, emphasising his words. ‘Nobody's saying that it's easy. The best of us have trouble sometimes, a job gets through the armour for whatever reason and next thing you know you're fighting the feelings, but you hold it back until the job is done. You lock it away, keep it inside.' He put one fist inside the other and squeezed. ‘Lock it up tight, see what I mean?'

Rowan glanced across at him but didn't speak.

‘Nobody in the job ever wants to see a trainee kicked out,' Wayne said. ‘Nobody wants you to fail. Quite the opposite in fact: everybody wants you to succeed. I heard you came top of your class, is that right?'

‘Yes,' she said.

‘Okay, that's great. You've got it all in your head, which is cool. But there's obviously something wrong between here and here.' He pointed at her head, then her hands. ‘It's not abnormal to feel a disconnect between what you learned in school and what you actually do once you're on the road, but there's more going on here than that. Even allowing for the thing with Stacey, and let's face it that only began yesterday, yet it sounds like you've been having trouble for weeks. Am I right?' He didn't wait for her answer. ‘I thought so. So let's talk about that. Nerves are normal, I might point out here. This job is a big responsibility.'

He looked happy to be lecturing. The clouds outside grew darker. But Paris felt like finally, maybe, things were coming together.

‘It seems all dashing and glorious when you're on the outside,' he went on, ‘but then you're in it, and you're the one walking into a scene with everyone looking at you to fix what's wrong, and that can be damn nerve-racking.'