Tell the Truth (27 page)

Murray did so. ‘What else can I do?'

‘Unless you've got oxygen, nothing.'

Abby opened her eyes. ‘You know Stacey's pregnant?' she gasped.

‘Pregnant?' Paris said.

‘Yes,' Ella said. ‘Her sister told us she thought that James caused the miscarriage two years ago. Is that why she felt she had to disappear?'

Abby nodded. ‘Protect herself and baby,' she puffed. ‘I worked domestic violence. Know what it's like. Told her at reunion, and she told me. Offered to help. Made the room. Planned it all.'

‘And the texts?' Murray said.

‘Make you think James involved, not directly, but make you investigate him,' she gasped. ‘He told Stacey once, getting more money than she could imagine. Laughed when she asked how. She knew. Bad stuff. Going on.'

‘So she sent the anonymous complaint?' Ella said.

Abby nodded again. ‘Didn't work. Had to do more. Then found she's pregnant. Not safe. Had to go. Blood to make it serious. Toe even more serious. Investigate harder. But he still found us.'

She closed her eyes, panting for breath. Her skin looked grey. Ella hoped it was the poor light.

‘Don't talk any more,' Paris said. ‘Just breathe. Breathe.'

Ella felt useless. ‘Stacey's computer's in the roof?'

Abby gestured weakly to a corner in the hallway. Ella went around it, and in the ceiling between Abby's bedroom and that of her son saw an open manhole in the ceiling. A narrow ladder lowered from it to the floor, and around it lay a scattering of items, as if thrown down, including a folding bicycle.

‘The bike,' she said to Murray.

Abby gasped something and Paris called out, ‘It was her ex-partner's. He left it when he moved.'

Murray held up a dark long-sleeved shirt, dark pants, a cap and helmet. He went back to talk to Abby again, and Ella went up the ladder.

By the light of a fallen lamp, Ella could see the room in the roof was just long enough for the narrow overturned foam mattress, and almost as wide as the span of her arms.
She could hear the murmur of voices downstairs.
Boards that had been laid over the beams to form a floor had been kicked up and there were holes in the dusty cobwebbed insulation. A pedestal fan had been knocked onto its face but the blades continued to whir inside the protective cage. A pillow and rumpled sheets lay in a heap beside bottles of water and a scattering of apples, bananas and paperback novels. An empty bucket on its side in a corner smelled faintly of urine, and a plastic supermarket bag spilled a tangle of empty IV lines and fluid bags, bloody dressings, apple cores and banana skins, and a used scalpel and needles in a plastic lunchbox. The tops of the plasterboard walls had been torn down by someone with blood on their hands, and chunks flung all over the place. The roof space beyond was gloomy except for the occasional chink of light squeezing between the tiles.

Murray appeared in the manhole. ‘Jesus.'

‘He wanted that computer,' Ella said.

She looked over the broken walls. The insulation lay untouched. If a laptop had been thrown over, it wouldn't have gone far. She'd be able to see some kind of disturbance.

‘Abby said Stacey told him she'd gotten rid of it before she came here,' Murray said. ‘She tried to get him to believe that she thought he might be able to trace her if she used it.' He climbed up and balanced on the beams. ‘He made her come up here while he searched. I guess if he'd had more time he would've torn the walls down completely.'

‘He tore them enough to see it's not out there,' Ella said. ‘We need to find it. With luck it'll give us some information about where he's taken her, as well as what he's been doing that he so badly needs to hide. Abby doesn't know where it could be?'

‘Only that it has to be here somewhere. She said James pushed his way into the house and was hitting her, trying to make her give Stacey up, and she lied and said she didn't know what he was talking about, but when he stabbed her and she screamed, Stacey let down the ladder. James heard it and was waiting for her, so she couldn't have taken the laptop down into the house and hidden it before he saw her.'

‘She couldn't have sneaked it down somehow?'

‘Abby was adamant. It sounds like it all happened too quickly for that.' He pulled at the torn insulation, and dust rose into the air.

The plasterboard was dry in Ella's hands, snapping off in big pieces when she bent it. She wanted to see further into the roof. She could hear Paris talking to Abby downstairs, telling her to hang in there, but no sound from either Abby or Lucy. A siren approached in the distance.

‘Hey,' Murray said, ‘it's exactly like the psychic said. Small room, built for her, with no door.'

Ella snorted. ‘Exactly like any captive's room on any crime show or movie in the last billion years.'

But he was eyeing her. ‘So what did she mean when she told you to take care?'

‘She meant for you to shut up,' Ella said. ‘Why couldn't she tell us that Stacey was with a friend? Or that she was even here in Sydney? Or where the goddamn laptop is?'

‘I suppose.' Murray stooped under the low angle of the roof at the front of the house. ‘You can see the street from here.'

She crossed the beams and half-crouched beside him, the rough wood of the rafters catching her hair. She felt the day's warmth in the tiles on her face as she peered closely at the tiny gap. She could see their own car parked at the kerb. ‘She would've seen James arrive.'

‘And probably had a plan for the laptop then.' Murray looked around. He picked up the mattress and squeezed it, then the pillow.

Ella felt a breeze against her legs and knelt to see the second gap. Something had been pushed between the tiles, something that glinted. A wedding ring, she realised; only visible from up close. She worked it loose from the gap, then felt the tile above it shift. ‘This one's loose.'

She wriggled it free and looked outside. There, propped in the gutter, wrapped in a plastic bag and hidden from the street by the top leaves of the frangipani, was a shiny pink laptop.

TWENTY-SEVEN

P
aris felt like she was blathering, but Abby squeezed her arm periodically as if to say,
I'm still here.
Lucy sniffled in the stroller.

The siren drew closer.

‘That's them,' Paris said. ‘They're almost here. They'll come in like a herd of elephants, laden down with gear, and then it'll be action stations all around you.'

Under her compressing palms the plastic wrap was hot and slick with blood. Abby's breathing had evened and calmed a little, and the plastic meant that no more air was being drawn into her chest from the outside at least. Her skin was pale and clammy, her lips tinged with blue. Kneeling there in her blood, Paris realised what it meant to be able to give oxygen and IV fluids, to know backup was a radio call away, to have a sidekick to bring in the stretcher, and an ambulance in which to race to hospital.

‘It'll get busy around you,' she went on, ‘but don't be scared. They might put the siren on when they take you to hospital, but don't get scared by that either. This time of day, traffic's crapola and it's just to get them to move.'

She wanted to say,
It doesn't mean you're dying
,
but wasn't sure she could make the words convincing. Abby opened her eyes and Paris saw that she knew the truth.

‘Listen,' she said.

‘Don't talk,' Paris said. ‘Save that air.'

‘It was Stacey in the hallway last night. When you were in the bath.' She closed her eyes. ‘She wanted to talk, tell you everything's okay. That she loves you.'

Paris didn't know what to say. ‘So you don't have a ghost?'

Abby smiled. ‘No ghost.'

The siren stopped outside. Paris saw the ambulance through the open door, the paramedics grabbing their gear. ‘Hang in there. You're going to be just fine.'

‘Look after Lucy,' Abby whispered. ‘Tell her and Liam I love them. I'll always love them.'

‘You'll be telling them yourself after a bit of surgery,' Paris said. ‘You're going to be fine.'

The paramedics came in, two women Paris had met before. ‘Paris, right?' one said, and Paris nodded. ‘What's happened?'

‘This is Abby. She got stabbed in the right chest. It's a sucking chest wound, I've got plastic over it. The knife didn't come out her back, and she's not hurt anywhere else. Um, I don't have a watch but her pulse has been about a hundred to one-twenty, around there, and her resps were like about forty at the start and now down to thirty or so.' Now that help was here she could feel the tears and the shakes creeping up. ‘She's lost all this blood, it's like, I don't know how much . . .'

‘It's okay. You've done great.' The first paramedic put an oxygen mask on Abby's face. ‘Hi, Abby. I'm Jo and this is Tia. This is oxygen to help you breathe. Tia's putting a tourniquet around your arm and she's going to pop in a little needle to give you some fluids. We'll check out this dressing on your side where Paris has done such a great job, and whizz you off to hospital. Are you allergic to anything? Do you take any medication?'

Abby shook her head twice.

‘Great. Okay.' Jo listened to Abby's chest, then hung the stethoscope back around her neck. ‘Keep the plastic in place there for me,' she said to Paris. ‘The little one's okay? And you?'

‘We're fine.' Paris felt the crack in her voice.

Abby's eyes were closed, her grip on Paris's arm loosening a little. Under Paris's hands her chest moved in and out as she breathed, but her skin felt cooler. She heard the detectives come down the ladder, then they appeared with a laptop.

‘How's she doing?' Marconi asked.

Behind her, Shakespeare was taking the laptop into the kitchen and turning it on.

‘Good,' Paris managed to say.

Jo held a clean wad of dressing in one gloved hand and an adhesive plastic-backed dressing in the other. ‘When I say go, lift off and let's get this thing in place. Ready? Go.' Paris released the pressure on Abby's ribs. The paramedic removed the blood-coated plastic wrap and fixed the new dressing in place. She made sure the edges were stuck, and winked at Paris. ‘You did good.'

‘Abby,' Marconi said, ‘was James here last night?'

Paris said, ‘He was here earlier today. I was here too. He said Abby looked like the woman in the CCTV photo and was talking about how she and Stacey had met at the reunion.'

‘Did he use the bathroom?' Marconi asked.

Paris nodded.

‘Where is it?'

‘Along there.'

Paris followed them. They opened the door to the bathroom and went in.

Marconi said to Shakespeare, ‘He didn't hurt the others. He knew Stacey was here and not at the other houses. She only had that bucket up there, so she must've come down sometimes, to the toilet and shower. If he planted a bug here, he could've seen or heard her.'

Paris watched them inspect the walls, the architraves, and items on the bathroom shelves. Then Marconi stood under the fan vent and looked up. ‘Murray.'

He went over, and she put a hand on his shoulder for balance and climbed onto the edge of the bath. She pressed her fingers into the grille of the vent and twisted. It came loose from the fitting, and Paris saw a tiny camera taped to the plastic cover.

‘Bingo,' Marconi said.

*

By the time the ambulance left with a semiconscious Abby onboard, Liam and Paris following in Abby's car with Lucy strapped in the back, Crime Scene were working the hallway and the room in the roof and Elizabeth Libke was hunched over Stacey's laptop. Patrols were checking the Durham house and Marie's house, and were still searching for James's car.

Ella
, feeling restless, fevered,
watched Libke's fingers fly over the laptop's keys.

‘There's definitely a partition here,' Libke said. ‘He's set it up so if Stacey stumbled across it she'd think it was an ordinary error message.'

‘And he never had to worry about anyone finding it because if she had a computer issue she'd get him to fix it,' Murray said.

Libke nodded. ‘But if you know where to look, there's a password box.' The box appeared on the screen, the cursor flashing in the left side.

‘Can you get around it?' Ella asked.

‘Possibly. Though there's a chance he's programmed it to delete the files if I try, or if we attempt too many wrong passwords.'

Ella said, ‘It could be our only chance to find out what he's been doing and where he's taken Stacey.'

*

Emelia clapped her hands as Rowan drove into the Playland car park. ‘We here!'

‘Yes, we are,' he said. He couldn't see Imogen's car, but they were a little early. He was looking forward to seeing her again.

‘Guess what I doing first.'

‘Going in the ballpit?'

He started to swing into the parking space, but the back door opened. James got in beside Emelia, a knife held low, and shut the door.

‘Don't blow the horn, don't shout, don't do anything to alert anybody,' he said. ‘If you love this kid like I love my wife, you'll put the car in reverse and drive out of here. Nod if you understand me.'

Mouth dry, blood screaming through his veins, Rowan nodded. In the mirror, he could see the tip of the knife pressing against Emelia's stomach, catching in the lace on the front of her dress.

‘Don't hurt her,' he whispered.

‘Do as I say and I won't need to.' James smiled down at Emelia. ‘How's that puppy?'

But she was looking out the window as Rowan backed out of the space. ‘Want to go in the ballpit!'

‘It's okay, honey,' Rowan said.

He drove towards the street at a crawl, hoping to catch someone's eye, hoping someone would reverse out without looking and give him a reason to stop. In the mirror, James's eyes watched him, cold and hard, his free hand over the back of Emelia's car seat and his fingers twirling her curls. Emelia tried to move her head away but his hand followed. Rowan's heart twisted with fear.

‘It's all right, sweetheart,' he managed to say.

Ahead, he saw Imogen's car turning in from the street. He willed her to recognise him, to notice.
See me. Look at me.

The cars drew closer. He couldn't wave in case James saw. Imogen craned her neck, looking for him near the parked cars. He slowed a fraction and stared at her face with all the intensity he could muster.

See me. See me.

And then he was past.

*

Detectives had gone to the Durhams' house then to Marie Kennedy's, but had found only Marie, who seemed genuinely stunned when they told her what had happened. Officers all across the city were looking for James's black Cruze. Ella paced in Abby Watmough's living room, wondering how Murray could sit still.

‘That was easier than I thought,' Libke said at the table. ‘He obviously never thought anyone other than Stacey would have serious access to her laptop.'

Ella looked over Libke's shoulder, but couldn't understand what was on the scrolling screens. ‘Have you found any addresses?'

‘Not so far.' She was still typing and reading as she talked. ‘From what I can see, he's been running a few different Trojans and key loggers. A client would call him for an issue, say a virus or whatever, and he'd clean that off but hide the malware on their computer instead. This gave him access to things like their banking details, but he didn't use that – instead, he used their emails to send the malware on to their friends, often months down the track. Then he'd access the friends' banks and credit card details, and by keeping the value lowish – one to two thousand, say – when they discovered the problem and reported it to their bank, the bank would repay them and not put too much effort into tracing where the money had gone. Typically, scammers like him use VPN proxies, which means the IP address leads to a dead-end, often somewhere in Russia.'

‘So nothing happens?' Murray said.

‘We need to find Stacey,' Ella said.

‘Nobody can keep up with it,' Libke said to Murray, her eyes still on the screen, ‘and it's cheaper for the banks to deal with it that way than fix the system. They're in the business of making money, after all, so they'll take the cheapest option every time. Oh, this is interesting. An overseas account in the name of Stacey Jame – not Jane, not James – Durham. Stacey's a male name in the US, and Jame could be passed off as a misspelling of Jane or vice versa, so the gender could be explained either way. He's got half a million in that. And he's made a few drug purchases. Let's have a look. Prozac. For himself or her, I wonder? Viagra. Ha. Mifepristone.'

Ella googled it on her phone. ‘For medical termination of pregnancy. Stacey was right.'

‘The bastard,' Murray said.

Ella took a big breath. ‘Still no addresses?'

‘You'll be the first to know,' Libke said.

Ella went back to pacing, then her mobile rang. She grabbed it up. ‘Marconi.'

‘This is Imogen Davidov,' a woman said. ‘I'm sorry to bother you, it might be nothing, but something strange has happened.'

‘Like what?' Ella said.

‘Rowan driving out of the Playland car park with Emelia in the back and James Durham beside her,' Davidov said. ‘I almost missed them, and only saw the side of Rowan's face, but from what I could see, something's very wrong.'

‘Got it,' Libke said behind her.