Web of Deceit (11 page)

‘You want me to come?’ Alex asked.

Architects’ office – shouldn’t be any knives lying around.
Unless she brought one from home.
No – Deb wasn’t smart enough to think Jane might confront her here.

She picked up the portable radio and opened the door. ‘Back in a tick.’

She strode to the office, a nervous worm wriggling in her stomach.
Are you a man or a mouse?
She pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Deb
sat bolt upright behind a wide timber desk; she looked over with a smile that froze, but only for a second. ‘Good afternoon. May I help you?’

‘It’s time we talked,’ Jane said, watching Deb’s hands. Just in case.

Deb’s smile didn’t change. ‘Did you wish to arrange a consultation with one of our architects?’

‘You need to withdraw your complaint.’

‘I’m sorry but I don’t know
what you’re talking about.’ Deb glanced at the computer screen. ‘Did you have a particular architect in mind? Brenda Plowman has just stepped out but shouldn’t be long. Jonathan Frances isn’t back until tomorrow morning.’

Like that, was it? Stubborn and playing dumb.

Jane drew herself up. ‘I know you put in that complaint. I know you made it up and I can prove it. You should be aware
that there are serious consequences for lying like that, and if you don’t withdraw it I’ll do everything I can to make sure all those consequences happen. Enough with the phone calls too, and the trashing of my windows. Apart from when we talk about the kids, I don’t have anything to do with Steve and I don’t want to.’

Deb’s eyes looked overbright. ‘I suggest that you leave.’

‘I’ll
leave when you promise to withdraw the complaint and stop harassing me.’

‘Perhaps I should call the police.’ Deb reached for the phone.

‘Go ahead.’ Jane felt more confident by the second. ‘I’ll report the damage you caused at my house.’

Deb’s eyes took on a glint. ‘You have no proof that was me.’

‘Not yet maybe,’ Jane said. ‘But the police will talk to the neighbours, and
who knows how many looked out their windows when they heard glass smashing?’

‘If I get into trouble that’ll affect Steve too.’

‘You have to get it through your head that I don’t care.’ Jane stepped close to the desk. ‘I left him. Can’t you understand that? I. Left. Him.’

Deb’s ears turned red. ‘The kids then –’

‘They won’t care either,’ Jane said. ‘You either promise to
withdraw the complaint, pay for my windows and leave me alone, or you call the police.’

The red spread. Deb stood up. Jane thought for half a second about taking a step back, but she was done with retreating, with trying to get along, with playing nice. Besides, the woman was behind a desk.

‘Clock’s ticking. What’s it going to be?’

‘You think you’re so tough,’ Deb said.

This was ridiculous. ‘Time’s up. Pick up the phone.’

‘Marching in here in your uniform, harassing me like this.’

‘I’ll even dial for you.’

Jane reached across the desk for the phone, but Deb grabbed her arm. Jane tried to jerk away, but Deb’s fingers dug into her wrist. Jane twisted her arm and pulled back. Deb’s grip tightened.

Deb bared her teeth in a horrible imitation
of a grin. ‘You think you’re so smart.’

The radio was in reach on Jane’s belt. She could call Alex in, but how embarrassing to need backup for something like this. Deb was smaller than her too. How could she be so strong? Jane planted her feet and heaved backwards, at the same time raising her free arm to fend off any punch from Deb’s other hand. But Deb locked that hand onto her wrist too,
and as she was dragged forward Jane’s palm smacked into Deb’s chin – just as a woman opened the door and stepped into the office.

‘Brenda!’ Deb screeched. ‘Help me!’

‘Give up, Deb,’ Jane said through gritted teeth.

‘Come and help me!’

The woman seemed not to know what to do or say. She carried a cup of takeaway coffee, and looked around as if she needed to put it down before
she could think. Jane yanked again and Deb fell onto the desk. Jane wrenched her arm free.

Deb popped up and pointed a shaking hand. ‘She threatened and assaulted me.’

The woman came closer, suspicion on her face. She was short and stocky, in her early fifties.

Jane stuck out her hand. ‘Brenda Plowman, is it? My name’s Jane Koutoufides.’ She saw recognition of the surname in
the woman’s eyes. ‘Deb’s now married to my ex, and she and I are having a couple of issues.’

‘She assaulted me,’ Deb said. ‘You saw that. She punched me in the face. Oh, I feel so dizzy.’ She flopped to the carpet with a howl.

Now Brenda moved, hurrying around behind the desk to where Deb thrashed on the ground.

Jane sighed. The good ol’ fake collapse and seizure, dependable
standby of those wishing to avoid awkward conversations.

She took the radio from her hip. ‘Alex, can you come in here, please? No equipment.’

He could be a witness if anything weirder happened and Brenda turned out to be under Deb’s spell.

She walked behind the desk. Deb rolled and flailed on the carpet. Her skin was pink, she was having no trouble breathing, she hadn’t wet herself.
She was also being transparently careful not to hit her windmilling arms on the desk and chair.

Brenda glared up at her. ‘Can’t you do something?’

‘There’s nothing wrong with her,’ Jane said, as the door opened and Alex walked in. She crouched beside Deb and tried to catch her flapping hands. ‘Deb, it’s time to stop this.’

Deb screeched again.
Trying to drown me out
. Her face
was screwed up but Jane knew she was watching from slitted eyes.

‘You’re just embarrassing yourself. Calm down and let’s talk.’

Alex came to stand near Deb’s feet and she kicked at his legs.

‘Enough,’ Jane said, sterner. She held Deb’s wrists tightly.

Deb writhed and lurched herself into a half-sitting position and tried to bite Jane’s arm. Jane let go just in time and
Deb’s teeth scraped over the skin, leaving it wet with saliva. Jane stood up and stepped back, her heart thumping with anger.

‘What are you doing?’ Brenda said. ‘You have to help her.’

‘She doesn’t need any help.’ Jane took a breath to steady her voice. ‘She’s angry and is pretending to be sick because she doesn’t want to talk to me. So we’re going to walk out of here now and get back
into our ambulance. We’ll wait there until you come out and nod at us, which will be the signal that she’s suddenly better. If this doesn’t happen within a minute or so, we’ll come back, and I’ll call the police and have her charged with the damage she’s caused to my house and with assault for biting me.’

She glanced at Deb, who still rolled back and forth on the floor but was undoubtedly
listening. ‘Deb, it’s up to you.’

Brenda blinked and said nothing.

Jane walked to the front door, then outside, with Alex close behind her. She was steaming, but didn’t speak until she got in the ambulance and slammed the door.

‘That bitch.’ She rubbed her arm. ‘And I was being perfectly reasonable.’

Alex climbed behind the wheel. ‘She got a psych problem?’

‘Yeah,
it’s called being an attention-seeking drama queen.’ Jane rubbed her arm again. There was a red band around her wrist from Deb’s fingers, and a paler red mark from her teeth. ‘Bitch.’

‘I see what you mean about how she looks like you. Same hair, same everything. Just fifteen years younger.’

‘Tells you a lot about Steve’s taste, doesn’t it.’

Alex chuckled, then looked out the
front. ‘There she is.’

Brenda had come out onto the footpath, looking a little shell-shocked. She nodded at them.

‘Quicker than I expected,’ Jane said. ‘Can’t you just picture her, pretending to wake up on the floor, saying, “Ohh, what happened? I don’t remember a thing.” ’

Alex started the engine and pulled out. Jane looked over as they went past, meeting Brenda’s perplexed
gaze and seeing Deb peering out of the window behind her, then turning hurriedly away.

‘Wonder if she’ll put in another complaint,’ Alex said.

‘If she does, she’ll pretty much have to admit that she gave a false name on the first one.’

Alex stopped at a red light. ‘So where we going? Back to the station?’

Jane nodded, her heart harder than ever. She was going to take Deb
down. ‘Time to gather evidence.’

TEN

E
lla turned off the Pacific Highway and parked on the side street just past the ten-storey blue-glassed building that housed the State Parole Authority office. She’d met a few parole officers in her time and they’d all been like cops. You got into these jobs to help people and because you wanted to believe they could do right. Some officers, of course, managed to
keep that hope alive longer than others.

The sky had cleared a little and a sharp breeze shivered the leaves in the trees along the roadside. Traffic rushed past in a continuous stream as she and Murray walked towards the building. A man hurried towards them from the other direction. He wore tight jeans that were faded on the thighs and dirty sneakers with new white laces, and kept his hands
stuffed into the pockets of a thin brown jacket. He glanced up at them then quickly back to the ground, and Ella knew he knew what they were. He reached the door first and didn’t hold it for them.

The lobby was full of the light of buzzing fluorescents. A board on the wall listed the SPA as being on the fourth floor. The lift button was already lit and the fire-stairs door was slowly closing,
the man nowhere to be seen.

‘Doesn’t want to ride with us,’ Murray said. ‘Fine with me.’

On the fourth floor, the lift opened onto a grey-carpeted corridor and a sign on the wall indicating that the SPA was to the right. They followed the corridor to the end, where a heavy glass door opened onto a waiting area with a reception desk. Two men and a woman sat on the brown vinyl chairs
lining the waiting area, all in their early twenties. The woman had earbuds in and thumbed through tracks on an iPhone with a cracked screen. One of the men flicked through a car magazine; the other slumped with his arms folded and a beanie pulled down low on his head. Neither was the man they’d seen coming in off the street.

‘Can I help you?’

The woman behind the reception desk had
assessing eyes and a straight line of a mouth. Her brown hair was scraped back in a ponytail and she wore no make-up, and her black button-up shirt was baggy around her body.

Ella held up her badge and Murray said, ‘We’re here to see Grace Michaels.’

‘Do you have an appointment?’

‘No,’ Ella said. ‘We’re from the homicide squad.’

The woman picked up the phone and pressed
a couple of buttons. ‘Police to see you,’ she said, listened for a moment then hung up. ‘She’ll be out shortly. Have a seat.’

Ella and Murray stayed on their feet. Murray checked his mobile. Ella watched the waiters, all of whom she knew would be feeling her eyes on them though none of them looked up. She’d had dealings with repeat offenders, and had listened to them complain about how hard
it was to get by on the outside after years in. She wouldn’t like it either, she was sure.
Just another good reason not to start in the first place.

‘Officers?’

She looked around to see a thin woman of about thirty in the hall that led away from the reception area. The woman motioned for them to follow her, and they went past a couple of interview rooms then into an open-plan office
area where the air conditioning was too cold and two women and two men typed or talked in low voices on the phones. The woman went towards the window. A pale-looking plant sat in a pot on the sill, casting a thin shadow onto a desk piled with papers and folders. The computer monitor showed a generic screensaver of coloured lines; a scattering of pens lay around its base, and the letters were partly
worn off the keyboard. The woman sat, and Ella and Murray took the chairs beside the desk.

‘I’m Grace Michaels,’ she said. She wore a hint of eyeliner and lipstick, black pants and a grey shirt. Her shoulder-length hair was dark and hooked back over her ears. She wore no rings and no jewellery apart from a plain watch with a narrow black leather band.

‘Detectives Shakespeare and Marconi,’
Murray said. ‘We’re here about Paul Canning.’

Michaels nodded, her expression unchanged. ‘What would you like to know?’

‘He’s been out how long?’

‘Seven weeks.’

‘How’s he doing?’

‘So far so good.’

‘How often do you see him?’ Ella asked.

‘I’ve seen him three times so far,’ Michaels said. ‘The first week he was out, then three weeks after that, then yesterday.’

Yesterday.
‘Did he come here?’

‘The first time. The other times I went to where he lives and works.’

‘What time yesterday?’ Murray asked.

‘Late afternoon.’ She dug under the papers for a diary and flipped back a page. ‘Five thirty.’

‘Why so late?’

‘Surprise visit,’ she said. ‘When they’re not expecting you, you sometimes find them with people they shouldn’t be
with or doing things they’re not meant to be doing.’

Ella could see scrawled on the diary page the address of the boatyard in Neutral Bay.’

‘He’s living with a woman who’s taken him on as an apprentice marine mechanic.’ Michaels said. ‘Her name’s Natasha Osborne.’

‘Is that ethical?’ Murray said. ‘That they work and live together?’

‘We have no problem with it,’ Michaels
said. ‘Our main concern is getting them to stay away from criminal influences. We checked Osborne out completely when they said this was what they wanted to do – she’s got no criminal record and has worked at this place for ten years. While I’m not sure the relationship will last, so far it seems to be working.’

‘Why don’t you think it’ll last?’ Ella said.

‘These women who start up
with these men while they’re inside.’ Michaels shrugged. ‘I’ve seen it too often: the woman thinks she can fix him, she can be the one to save him, then one day you see her, she’s got a black eye – or worse – and you wonder what it’ll take before she realises who she’s really living with.’

Ella nodded. She’d seen it too.

‘But you haven’t seen any signs of that yet?’ Murray asked.

‘Not yet.’

Ella rubbed goose bumps from her arms and looked up. An air-conditioning vent was right over her head. ‘How did the relationship begin?’

‘They were penpals first,’ Michaels said. ‘There are internet sites where friends of inmates put up information on their behalf. Osborne found one of these and started writing to him early last year. Later there were visits.’

‘What’s she like?’

‘Seems smart enough.’ Michaels shrugged again. ‘She says she understands what he’s done, and she believes everyone deserves a second chance. I told her she can call me if she has trouble. She said she wouldn’t need to.’

Huh.
‘What’s Canning like?’ Ella asked.

‘Adapting fairly well, all things considered. He was locked up before the internet was widely used,
before everyone had mobiles. He said it’s taken him a while to adjust to the lack of bells telling him what to do every minute of the day. Some people can’t adjust to that at all and need to write up their own timetable to give their day some structure, especially if they don’t have a job.’

‘And as a person?’

‘Hardened, definitely, but he seems aware of how he has to behave to cope
on the outside. He says he knows it’s not about swagger and influence out here. He says he enjoys his work and wants to train up fully.’

‘What were his inmate records like?’ Murray said.

‘He had some problems early on – many young inmates do. They get in fights, they can’t stay clear of trouble. Looks like he got a handle on his temper after that, and for most of his sentence he’s
done all right.’

‘And you said you saw him at five thirty yesterday afternoon,’ Ella said. ‘How long were you with him?’

‘About twenty minutes,’ Michaels said. ‘He and Osborne were working on a motor in the workshop. I talked to them then I left.’

Ella jotted this down. Marko Meixner had gone in front of the train at ten to six, and Grace Michaels had been with Canning at the
boatyard until that time. If Marko had been pushed off the platform, it wasn’t Canning who did it.

‘Do you have a current photo of Canning?’ Murray asked.

Michaels moved the mouse and clicked to open a file. A black-and-white photo of a man’s unsmiling face filled the screen. Ella studied it. Canning’s hair had thinned at the front but he still combed it to the right, and while the
skin under his eyes had pouched a bit he didn’t appear to have put on much weight. He looked at the camera with much the same blankness of expression as in the mug shot taken on his arrest at the age of twenty.

She felt Murray’s eyes on her and closed her notebook to indicate she was done. He shook Grace Michaels’s hand. ‘Thanks for your help.’

She nodded. ‘You said you’re from homicide.
What did you think Canning might’ve done?’

‘The witness who testified against him was hit by a train late yesterday afternoon,’ Murray said. ‘There’s some confusion about whether he fell, jumped or was pushed, so we’re trying to rule out possibilities.’

A sudden crash and burst of shouting cut him off. Ella’s heart leapt and she jumped to her feet.

‘Fucking arseholes, the lot
of you!’

Michaels, Ella and Murray hurried with the other staff to the front interview room to find the man from the street screaming obscenities over an upturned table at a burly male parole officer.

The officer put his hands out in a placating gesture. ‘Gary, you need to settle down.’

‘Fuck you!’

‘This isn’t helping you,’ the officer said.

‘Like I fucking care?’
Gary’s face was bright red, his broad hands clenched, and one bright white shoelace had come undone.

Ella glanced at Murray. He was pulling up his coat sleeves.

‘Sit down now or face the consequences,’ the officer said.

‘Fuck you! You think I’ll go back inside all meek and mild? You think you can tell me to sit and I will?’

Murray pushed past Grace Michaels and Ella stepped
right up beside him, the adrenaline pumping, her jaw set.

‘Police,’ Murray barked. ‘Do as he says.’

Ella saw Gary size them up then glance back at the parole officer. ‘Look,’ he said in a conciliatory tone, but Ella saw his feet shift and knew he was going to try to rush them. She set her own feet a little further apart and braced herself, and felt Murray doing the same.

‘Look,’
Gary said again, then turned and barrelled straight at them.

His shoulder hit Ella’s chest and almost knocked her over, but she was ready and grabbed his arm, twisting it behind his back. Murray kicked his legs out from beneath him and shoved him sideways and he went down in the doorway, Ella stumbling onto his back. He thrashed and swore and between them they seized his wrists and cuffed
him tight. Ella saw a hand in front of her and took it as she got up. Grace Michaels turned it into a handshake. ‘Thanks.’

‘No worries.’ The adrenaline had made her shaky but she brushed off her trousers like she felt fine. ‘Glad to help.’

The male parole officer crouched beside the still-swearing Gary and talked to him in a low voice. The other officers drifted away, and Michaels
motioned Ella and Murray into the hall.

‘I’m sorry I couldn’t be more help on Canning,’ she said.

‘No, you were great,’ Murray said.

He was perky. The rush of put-downs always energised him. Ella, in contrast, was tired now. She checked that her notebook was still in her pocket and took a hinting step towards the front of the office. Murray glanced into the room where the officer
was helping a subdued Gary to his feet.

‘You can take the cuffs off now,’ the officer said. ‘He’s fine.’

‘You’re sure?’

The officer nodded.

‘If you say so.’ Murray unlocked them and came back out with the metal jangling in his hands.

‘Thanks again,’ Ella said to Michaels, and they left her standing in the corridor.

*

The rain had started and stopped again
by the time Ella and Murray parked by the boatyard in Neutral Bay where Paul Canning lived and worked. The place looked deserted; despite a number of boats being moored in the bay and at the dock, none appeared in use, and there were no people in sight. The low grey sky and the humidity made Ella feel flat. The water was the same colour as the sky and slid around the pylons as the wake of a passing
dinghy rolled in. The air smelled of salt water, seaweed and oil.

A final few raindrops dotted the puddles as they crossed the concrete forecourt to the shed. A wide door had been pulled back and inside a radio played Lady Gaga. Ella saw the flash and spit of welding as Murray banged with the side of his fist on the wall.

A tanned and fit woman in a tight black singlet over khaki workpants
came out, a spanner in her hand. ‘Yes?’

Ella said, ‘We’re looking for Paul Canning.’

The woman turned, the long brown plait at the back of her head swinging over her shoulder as she did so, and shouted, ‘Paulie!’

The welding stopped, then a man emerged from the gloom behind her. His straight brown hair had recently been trimmed and was shorter than in the photo Grace Michaels
had shown them, and the pouches under his eyes were mostly gone. He was clean-shaven and tanned, and, like the woman, wore a black singlet, but with navy workshorts. They both wore black steel-capped workboots.

Canning looked them in the eye as he wiped his hands on a rag already dark with grease. ‘Officers.’

‘Detectives,’ Murray said. ‘Homicide.’

‘My mistake.’ Canning’s voice
was even. ‘What can I do for you?’

Ella looked at the woman. ‘Natasha Osborne, correct?’

‘That’s right.’

She was in her early thirties, with freckles on her cheeks and squint lines around her eyes. She looked like she was about to say more but didn’t. Ella had no doubt that Canning had schooled her on how to behave, had told her how the pigs would try to rattle you but you could
never let them see you cared.

‘Where were you yesterday afternoon?’ Murray asked.

Canning pointed his thumb over his shoulder. ‘Working.’

‘All afternoon?’

‘Yep.’

‘What time do you usually knock off?’ Ella said.

‘Depends on the workload,’ Canning said. ‘If we have a job that Nat wants to get done, if a client’s on her case, then we keep going. If it’s quiet,
we knock off a bit earlier.’