The Darkest Hour (30 page)

‘Cold?’ Dennis said.

She shook her head.

He nodded at the house. ‘Any ideas? Somebody fresh out of the clink? Or your current case maybe?’

‘Maybe.’ She told him about the case, about trying to find if. Werner was here or overseas, about the attack on Lauren and the possible mole in the office. ‘But what could they hope to achieve?’

‘Put you off,’ he said. ‘He can’t get to Lauren now, so he tries this.’

She was thinking. ‘We should call a locksmith too. The mole must’ve got to my keys.’

‘Did you ever leave them unattended?’

‘They’re in my bag in my desk drawer, but I don’t take it when I go to see Kuiper or into a meeting or whatever.’

He nodded. ‘Somebody could choose their moment when everyone’s busy, get the keys out, make a wax impression, and all the while they know the lift will ding if it stops on the floor, and the stair door makes a noise when the fire seal closes.’

‘And no doubt they’d have some good excuse ready if somebody did happen by.’

‘I dropped all these files and was picking them up.’

Ella stared at her house. Soon the crime scene officers would be here, and Kuiper, and probably the detectives investigating the leak too. She didn’t like the thought of Bethany Mendelssohn looking through her things.

‘Don’t stay here tonight,’ Dennis said. ‘Come to our place.’

‘If I go, that’s letting him freak me out.’

‘Nobody’s keeping score.’

‘I’ll be fine with new locks.’
I hope
. ‘And if he’s going to try for serious harm, wouldn’t he have done it already instead of this kind of stuff?’

‘They might be steps along the way.’ He dug his hands into his pockets. ‘If step A doesn’t stop you, he goes to step B.’

‘So, what, he wants me to quit?’

Kuiper’s red sedan came flying down the street. Dennis pushed himself off the side of her car. ‘Maybe it’s all about distraction. You’re working well on the case, and he knows it. He wants to put a worm in your brain and slow your thinking.’

He went to speak to Kuiper, leaving her to consider that.

If Werner thought she was doing well, that must mean she was getting close.

T
hey went right through Ella’s house in search of fingerprints, fibres, hairs, listening devices and bombs. Kuiper had people speaking to the neighbours, asking about cars in the street, people loitering about, workmen apparently checking wires or meters or pipes. Ella stood against her car and felt that she was the centre of a tornado – while action went on all around her, she was becalmed. Immobile.

Powerless.

Kuiper came over to her. ‘Locksmith’s on his way.’

‘Good.’

‘I’m going to put a couple of people in there tonight just in case he comes back.’

‘I’ll be fine.’

‘You won’t be here,’ he said. ‘Dennis said you can go with him.’

‘I’d really rather stay.’

‘Out of the question.’ He looked across the lawn to where Bethany Mendelssohn and Bryan Greer conferred over a notebook. ‘They spoke to you already?’

She nodded. ‘Sir, I feel that if I don’t stay I’m letting him control what goes on.’

‘He doesn’t control it; I do.’ A uniformed officer came hurrying down the street. Kuiper said ‘Excuse me’ to Ella and went to meet him.

Ella slumped against the car, feeling more ineffectual than ever. She knew they were only worried about her safety, but she wasn’t a little girl. She was a detective, for god’s sake, yet they wouldn’t trust her to be left with a few burly blokes to wait for a bad guy? It was her case, her bad guy. If he was going to come back, it wasn’t fair that she didn’t get to be in at the showdown.

As for Mendelssohn and Greer, they’d told her they were looking into three possible moles, and asked how much contact she’d had with Edwina Guilfoyle from Admin, Tracy Potter from Human Resources and Tony Ansible from some computer company. Edwina she thought she’d maybe spoken to once, Tracy she’d seen around the office a fair bit but had only spoken to a couple of times, and Tony never. She couldn’t even conjure up a picture of him in her head. The detectives had nodded and jotted in their notebooks, while Ella wondered how much that’d help them.

She watched them walk over to Kuiper and the uniformed officer, and felt on the outer of her own problem. Other people decided what she should do and she didn’t even get a chance to give her opinion. Well, no more.

When Kuiper came back she said, ‘I’ll stay at my parents’ house.’

He frowned.

‘How can he know where they live?’

‘We don’t know what he knows.’

‘Well, he can’t have keys. I keep them in the back of the pantry with a bunch of other old ones. None of them are labelled. Nobody could know what they’re for.’ She put everything she had into her gaze. ‘I’ll have two phones, and I’ll get my gun, and the woman next door is an insomniac so even if all that fails, the second I scream she’ll be on the phone.’

Kuiper rubbed the back of his neck. ‘How about we find out the results of the canvass first.’

It was as good as she’d get for now. ‘What did that constable find out?’ she asked, nodding to the officer Kuiper had just spoken to.

‘A woman four doors up watched a man walking slowly in the street two days ago. She thought he was looking a bit too closely at the houses. She sneaked out into her garden and watched him continue on down this way. She’s certain he didn’t come in here, but she said she saw him again today, about two in the afternoon, this time getting into a blue sedan. She managed to get the plate – we’re running it now.’

The constable came over. ‘Numberplate was stolen from a Toyota van in Alexandria last week.’

‘Could she describe the man?’ Ella said.

‘Short dark hair under a cap in Broncos colours. He was white, and she thinks in his thirties. Average height and build, wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt. She wasn’t close enough to see anything else.’

‘I’ll come and talk to her,’ Kuiper said. ‘Hopefully somebody else saw him too, plus was close enough to see his face so we can show them the airport photo of Werner.’ He glanced at Ella. ‘You stay here for now.’

She watched them walk up the footpath.
You stay here?
What was she, a puppy? That was really it.

‘Honestly, I’ll be fine.’

Dennis stood on the porch of Ella’s parents’ house and peered out at the street. Tree ferns obscured the view of their cars. The porch smelled of cold concrete and mulch. Lily was still near her fence, pretending to garden in the dusk. They’d already waved hello.

‘Dennis,’ Ella said. ‘Are you listening to me?’

He turned from the street. ‘Let me come in and check the house.’

She unlocked the door and turned on the hall light. The house was still and silent. Dennis went into the living room and examined the window locks. ‘Are they all keyed locks like this?’

‘And the doors are all deadlocked. Nobody can get in.’

He went into the kitchen and tested the back door. ‘So there’s just this and the front door?’

‘Plus one at the side there, through the laundry.’

He went to see then came back. ‘Bedrooms?’

She led the way first to her parents’ bedroom, with its high bed, then to the one that had been her own. It was technically a spare now but Netta still told any staying visitors that they’d be sleeping in Ella’s room.

Dennis checked in the cupboards and under the beds, then paused to look at a framed photo of her at eleven.

‘Not one word,’ Ella said.

He turned away grinning, but grew serious when they neared the front door again. ‘Please come and stay with us.’

‘I’m fine right here.’

He put a sad look in his eyes.

‘Don’t give me that,’ she said. ‘Go home. I’m okay. Nothing will happen.’ She reached past him and unlocked the door. ‘Donna will be wondering where you are.’

‘She always knows where I am.’

‘Yeah, at work,’ Ella said. They smiled at each other. ‘I’ll see you in the morning.’

Dennis turned away, then stopped on the step and surveyed the street again. He went down the path to the low gate then to his car. Before getting in he looked up at her again. She flapped her hand. He motioned closing the door and turning the key. She did so, then stood inside, listening, as he started his car then drove off.

She scraped together a dinner of pasta and tuna, ate in front of the TV with her gun and phone by her side, left the dishes in the sink, showered and went to bed, all the while thinking about the case. If it was Thomas Werner who was doing these things, then, as Dennis said, it had to mean she was on the right track. Which was what?

She thought of her talk with Sal that afternoon. The timing seemed wrong though. If it was Werner who’d been seen in the street around two, her visit with Sal hours later could not have been the trigger. What else had they done? Spoken to Paul Davids again, talked with Benson Drysdale. How could Werner know what they’d been doing? The mole’s supply of information had surely been severely constrained, if not completely cut off, with the clampdown in the office and Mendelssohn and Greer watching everyone like hawks. Maybe Drysdale or Davids had hopped on the phone as soon as they’d left. Weasels.

She rolled onto her side, watching the tree ferns alongside the window move in the night breeze, backlit by the light in Lily’s house next door. She felt a buzz of excitement. It wasn’t entirely logical; she knew she should be worried, maybe even frightened. But to think that they were getting close!

She doubted whether she’d sleep tonight.

The smashing of glass brought her bolt upright and groping for her gun and phone on the bedside table. The room was dark. Lily’s lights were out. Gun in one hand, phone in the other, she moved quickly out of the room. She left the lights off as she hurried barefoot down the hall to the front of the house where she could see a glow coming in the windows of the front room.

She edged up to the curtain and peeked out, her thumb on the phone’s keypad, her gun up and ready.

Fire. Something was on fire out the front.

It could be a trap.

She dialled 000 and asked for police, then told the call-taker who she was and what was happening. The flames were rising higher, casting a brighter glow on the porch. The next number she dialled was Lily’s, to tell her to stay inside, but as she did so she spotted her running out the front with a hose. ‘Dammit!’

Ella changed position at the window, trying to see through the tree ferns. She could make out Lily’s outline against the fire, waving the hose about. She couldn’t see anybody else, but a moment later the scene was lit with blue and red flashing lights, and police officers wielding fire extinguishers appeared.

One stepped over the low gate and came up the path to the door. She knocked. ‘Detective? Are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’ Ella started to unlock the door.

‘DS Kuiper asked that you keep the door locked and stay where you are,’ the officer said quickly. ‘So long as you’re okay.’

I’m not going to talk to you through a locked door like some hostage-taking crazy.
Ella opened the door and looked out at the street. ‘What is it?’

‘A car.’

‘Maroon Mazda?’

The officer looked away. ‘Hard to tell the colour.’

Ella took the keys from the lock, stepped out and locked the door behind her.

It was her car all right. The fire was mostly out. Lily aimed the hose directly in a broken window while a heavy-set constable squirted an extinguisher under the engine. In the distance a siren wailed. Firies, Ella thought. She folded her arms against the chilly air, gun and phone and keys digging into her armpits, and watched her upholstery smoulder and planned her response.

The sun was almost up when Ella hammered on Sal Rios’s front door.

Murray still looked half-asleep. She jabbed her thumb at the upstairs windows. ‘See any movement?’

He blinked up at them. ‘Nope.’

Ella pounded on the door again, making the screen rattle in its frame. ‘Sal!’

Now she could hear footsteps. The lock turned and the door was yanked open. Nona glared out. ‘What the fuck is your problem?’

‘We need to speak to Sal.’

‘Keep your voice down, I’ve got kids asleep up there.’ She hadn’t unlocked the screen. ‘Anyway, he’s not here.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I just looked in his room.’ Nona cinched her dressing gown tighter around her waist. ‘Bed’s not been slept in.’

‘We’d like to come in and see for ourselves.’

‘Our brother’s dying. We’ve been at the hospital most of the night. Everyone’s exhausted, and you are not going to start tramping through disturbing them. Anyway, Sal’s probably with Julio now.’

‘We’ve already checked,’ Ella said. ‘He hasn’t been in.’ She stared at the woman through the screen door. ‘You’re sure he’s not in the bathroom or garage or somewhere else?’

‘I’m sure.’ She put her hands on her hips. ‘Anything else?’

‘We’ll be back later with a warrant,’ Ella said.

‘Yeah, that’d be right. Family’s grieving, but you don’t care.’

‘Get Sal to call me, that might change things. Otherwise, see you then.’ Ella headed down the driveway.

In the car Murray said, ‘Have we got more evidence? Enough for a warrant?’

‘We might have by this afternoon.’ She looked up at the house. ‘Did that curtain just move? The one second from the left?’

‘I didn’t see it.’

‘I’ll bet he is in there.’ She started the car. ‘He was probably lurking on the stairs, listening to every word we said.’
Weasel.

They got breakfast on the way to the office. The food sat in Ella’s stomach like a rocky island, the coffee a heavy surf washing around it. She was still trying to rub away the indigestion when they stepped out of the lift.

The office was empty except for Jason Lambert, who looked up, startled, from his monitor. ‘You guys are early.’

‘So are you.’ Ella turned on her computer.

Murray said, ‘The rest of them won’t be far behind us, I reckon.’ He looked at Lambert. ‘Did you hear what happened?’

‘About what?’

Murray told him what had been going on with Ella. It made her embarrassed to hear it and she frowned down at her keyboard as he spoke.

‘Wow,’ Lambert said. ‘You okay?’

‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘She’s her usual happy self,’ Murray said. ‘She’s already had me out there this morning trying to kick down doors.’

‘Are we going to start work or not?’ Ella said.

Murray sat at his desk and flipped a pen between his fingers. ‘Will you tell Lauren about what happened?’

‘She’s working tonight so she’ll still be asleep.’

‘It might be better not to tell her,’ he said. ‘Fire-bombing talk would make anyone nervous.’

‘It was only a beer bottle full of petrol. Fire-bomb makes it sound like something from World War Two.’ She pushed papers around on her desk, keen to start work. They couldn’t get the folders yet because they were locked away and Kuiper had the key. She looked at her watch. It was just after seven. She hoped he wouldn’t be long. She wanted to read back over things, see what she might have missed about Sal Rios.