Web of Deceit (3 page)

‘Alex?’ she said in the quiet.

‘It’s him,’ he said.

She stumbled around to where Alex was on his hands and knees on the rocks between the train and the platform. She pushed past the protesting cop and in next to him, held the beam of her torch as steady as she could and shone it between the
wheels to see the dead white face of Marko Meixner staring back at her.

*

Detective Ella Marconi’s phone beeped with a text as she entered Town Hall station half a step behind Detective Murray Shakespeare.

You can’t just phone?

On a case, Ella sent back.

Dinner tomorrow then?

Let you know.

She switched the phone to silent. Her mother, Netta, was getting
as obsessive about speaking to her live as she was about dinner invitations. It didn’t stop Netta herself from texting as often as she wanted, of course.

Ella put her mother out of her mind and followed Murray onto the stairs. The call was an odd one: man under a train, and something about a smoke bomb and a crowded platform and a pushy guy wearing a cap. On the drive over, Murray had discussed
at length his thoughts on whether it might be a homicide, a suicide or an accident, and the issues they needed to examine to work out which.

Ella had watched him talk and mused on his chattiness, his recent new enthusiasm about everything and a certain light in his eyes; and now, as they descended the stairs, she noticed that his hair was freshly cut across the back of his neck. Everything
fell into place. The general level of intensity, the way he carried himself so newly tall and straight, the commencement of the use of cologne. There was no doubt about it: Murray had a girlfriend. She smiled. Good on him. She herself was spinning her wheels relationship-wise, but now was not the time to dwell.

They reached the platform, and she put on her cop face and looked around. A train
sat stationary to the left, and the tracks on the right were empty. Firefighters were packing up gear, and uniformed cops stood with a small group of what Ella guessed were witnesses: three civvies, the train’s driver, and two paramedics in dirty uniforms. The air smelled smoky and she could see a haze up high in the tunnels. She wondered what had really happened here.

A uniformed constable
came towards them.

‘What’s the story?’ Murray said, and Ella opened her notebook.

‘Just before six the platform was packed, with trains due on both sides,’ the officer said. ‘The witness in the blue suit said that a man pushed through the crowd past him, muttering about somebody being after him. A moment later another man came pushing through, seeming very determined, and with a cap
on. Then a smoke device was triggered, people shouted “Fire” and the crowd panicked and rushed the stairs. A train arrived then, and the same witness said the first man fell in front of it.’

Ella scribbled to keep up.

‘What did the other witnesses see?’ Murray asked.

The officer gestured at the group. ‘Woman in the pink shirt also got pushed by a man in a cap shortly before the
panic started. Woman in stripes says she saw the smoke gadget start up. Driver didn’t see much at all, just sudden movement right in front of him. Paramedics say they took the dead guy to hospital earlier today after he crashed his car into a pole.’

‘Head injury?’ Ella said. ‘Concussed and confused maybe?’

The officer shrugged. ‘They said he was talking about somebody being after him
then too. They thought he was a psych case.’

‘Thanks,’ Murray said.

The officer nodded and walked away.

Murray turned to Ella, all eagerness. ‘Driver first?’

Ella nodded. The guy looked drained. It was the kind thing to do.

Murray beckoned him over.

‘Detectives Shakespeare and Marconi,’ Murray said.

‘Troy Casey,’ the driver said. His broad hands shook
until he jammed them in his pockets, and he smelled of anxious sweat.

Murray asked him for his address and phone numbers, and Ella wrote them down.

‘How old are you, Troy?’

‘Thirty-one.’

‘What did you see here today?’

‘I was pulling in, normal speed, and as I got to the platform here I could see something was happening.’ His eyes were red and his face strained. ‘People
were running, rushing away. And there was smoke too. I braked and just crossed my fingers that nobody tripped and fell. Then right here near the stairs I saw this flash of movement and heard the thud and knew somebody had gone under.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s my third one this year.’

Ella felt for the guy.

‘You couldn’t tell if he’d jumped or fallen or was pushed?’ Murray said.

‘It was all too fast.’ He wiped a trembling hand over his forehead and thinning hair. ‘Just this flash and then the sound.’ He shook his head again. ‘Is that all? I’d really like to go home.’

‘We might need to speak with you again later.’

‘No problem.’

Ella shook his clammy hand and they let him go.

‘Poor guy,’ she said, when he’d gone up the stairs.

But Murray
was already looking at the remaining witnesses. ‘Next up, blue suit?’ He beckoned him over before Ella could reply.

The man’s name was Neil Furst. He was forty-three, worked in human resources, and lived in Bankstown.

‘What happened here today?’ Murray asked.

Furst described what the officer had summarised: the men pushing through the crowd, the smoke, the panic, the train, the
death. His forehead was shiny, the skin around his shirt collar red, and Ella watched him pull his tie from side to side as he spoke.

‘You sound like you think the second man was after the first,’ Murray said.

‘It did seem that way,’ Furst said.

‘In hindsight?’

‘I don’t know,’ Furst said. ‘It seemed strange from the outset. The way the second guy was coming through the
crowd – he wasn’t just meandering.’

‘What did these men look like?’

‘The first one was about my age, I think, brown hair, tanned. He was muttering, like I said. Looked a little wild-eyed.’

‘Clothes?’

‘Blue shirt’s all I remember. Business-type shirt. It seemed a little at odds with how crazy the muttering sounded.’

‘Did he have a briefcase or bag?’

‘I don’t
remember seeing one.’

‘And the second man?’

‘Brownish cap pulled down low. Maybe greyish-brown. A nondescript colour, like it was badly faded.’ Furst tugged at his tie. ‘He had a shirt on, but I don’t know what kind. The colour didn’t jump out either.’

‘It’s okay if you don’t know,’ Ella said. ‘No need to guess.’

Furst nodded.

‘What else?’ Murray said.

‘He was
a white guy. Couldn’t see his hair. No beard or moustache.’ He pulled on his tie again.

Ella’s hand ached from writing so fast. ‘How tall was he?’

‘A little taller than me,’ Furst said. ‘Maybe five or ten centimetres. About a metre seventy. Or maybe eighty.’

‘Skinny? Fat?’ Murray asked.

‘Average, I think. I’m sorry. I wish I saw more.’

‘How long between the first
guy and the second?’

Furst studied his watch. ‘About three seconds.’

‘And after that?’

‘Like I said, I heard someone shout about a fire, and I looked that way –’

‘Which way?’ Murray said. ‘Show us where you were standing.’

Furst moved closer to the steps and stood two metres from the edge of the platform. ‘I was about here. The men were heading that way.’ He pointed
towards the narrow area of platform going past the stairs.

‘Can you be sure they weren’t going up the stairs?’

Furst hesitated. ‘I guess not. That’s not how it seemed though.’

‘Then what?’ Murray said.

‘Someone yelled “Fire” down there.’ He pointed towards the other flight of stairs. ‘There was smoke too, suddenly billowing up, and people started shouting and pushing this
way. I felt the wind of the train coming in, and it blew the smoke everywhere. I turned to head up the stairs myself and I saw the first guy right at the edge of the platform, and then as the train came in he went in front of it. The train driver braked, there was this God-awful screeching, and people rushed up the steps, tripping and falling on each other and screaming.’

‘You definitely
saw the man go in front of the train?’ Ella said.

Furst nodded. ‘I was on the stairs. I saw over the people on the platform edge.’

‘Did you see the man with the cap?’

‘I can’t really be sure. It happened so fast, and people were shoving me from behind because of the smoke. I tried to stop but couldn’t, and I almost fell.’

Ella looked at the steps. ‘How far up were you?’

Furst went up a few and faced the train. ‘About here.’

Approx five steps
, she wrote.

‘But you didn’t see the man with the cap anywhere near him?’ Murray said.

‘I didn’t see him anywhere,’ Furst said. ‘But maybe he took the cap off.’

Murray rubbed his chin in silence for a moment. ‘Then what happened?’

‘I got pushed along with everyone up the stairs, then managed
to get out of the crowd and stop on the next level.’

‘Even though you thought there was a fire?’

‘I felt bad for the guy.’ Furst glanced at the train again. ‘I knew there was nothing I could do for him. I just wanted to – I don’t know. Tell somebody what I’d seen.’

Murray nodded.

Ella could see past the railings along the narrow section of platform to the front of the train
where torch beams flashed now and again from officers on the track. Back the other way, Crime Scene had arrived and were examining the smoke device. Between them, the two women and the pair of paramedics waited, the female paramedic checking her watch.

‘Did you see the guy with the cap when you were on the upper level, or coming back down?’ Murray asked.

‘No. I did look, but I didn’t
see him.’

‘All right.’ Murray gave Furst his card. ‘We might be in touch again, and in the meantime please call if you remember anything else.’

Furst nodded, then went up the stairs two at a time, taking a final glance back at the train before he disappeared on the upper level.

‘Bit suspicious,’ Murray said.

Ella looked up from her notebook. ‘Him?’

‘Didn’t you notice
how edgy he was? Tugging his tie all the time?’

She eyed him. There was keenness and then there was keenness. ‘He’d just seen someone go under a train.’

Murray shook his head. ‘I reckon it’s more than that.’

Ridiculous
. Ella turned away to look at the other witnesses. The female paramedic was checking her watch again. The male looked tired and pale, and the skin around his eyes
was dark with rubbed-in soot.

‘Paramedics next,’ she said.

Murray called them over and introduced himself and Ella.

‘I’m Jane Koutoufides,’ the woman said.

‘Alex Churchill,’ the man said.

‘You treated the victim earlier today?’ Murray asked.

‘His name’s Marko Meixner.’ Jane Koutoufides described how they’d been called to a car accident in Wattle Street that
afternoon, how Marko had claimed to have driven into the pole deliberately to escape someone who was following him, how he’d had the doors locked and was too frightened to get out. ‘We persuaded him it was best to come with us, and he ran to the ambulance and jumped in, then we took him to RPA. I told the nurse there about the things he’d been saying and that I thought he needed a psych assessment
and careful watching, but she put him in the waiting room. That was the last we saw of him until we turned up here to help our boss who’d hurt himself getting down onto the line, and realised it was Marko under the train.’

‘What things had he been saying?’ Ella asked.

‘That someone was going to get him, that it was dangerous for us to be talking to him, to be near him,’ Jane said.
‘I tried to get him to tell me more but he wouldn’t.’

Alex Churchill nodded. ‘I tried again at the hospital too, but he said it was useless, that nobody could help him. He sounded full of despair.’

Ella thought Alex himself sounded pretty low too. ‘Did he have a psych history?’ she asked.

‘Not that he admitted to us,’ Jane said.

‘Did he suffer any sort of head injury in
the accident?’

‘He didn’t have so much as a bruise.’

‘The airbag had gone off, but otherwise it looked very low impact,’ Alex said. ‘The damage to the bonnet wasn’t severe. There were no skid marks, and no damage to the back as if somebody had hit him. It looked like he really did drive himself into the pole.’

‘Did he tell you who was after him?’ Ella asked.

‘He said he
couldn’t tell us, that it was dangerous for us to know,’ Jane said.

‘So he had someone in mind?’ Murray said. ‘It wasn’t some random bad guy, or agent from the government, or whatever?’

‘I got the feeling he knew who it was,’ Jane said.

Murray glanced towards the train. ‘And you’re certain it’s him under there?’

‘We saw his face,’ Alex said. ‘There’s no doubt.’

Ella
circled RPA in her notebook. That would be the next step: to find out if he was assessed and what was found. Doctor Callum McLennan might be on shift. She felt a peculiar mix of hope and trepidation at the thought.

‘What details did he give you?’ Murray asked.

‘His name’s Marko Meixner,’ Jane said again. ‘He’s thirty-five years old and lives in North Sydney. I can’t remember his exact
address, but it’s on my case sheet up in the ambulance. I don’t know anything else about him. He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, but some guys don’t, do they.’

She sounded upset. Ella studied her, then looked around. ‘North Sydney.’

‘Yes.’

‘This is the platform for the Bankstown line,’ she said. ‘He wasn’t going home.’

Murray put his hands on his hips. ‘So where was he going?’

*

The female witness in the pink shirt described the man who’d pushed her as wearing a brown cap, jeans and a black T-shirt. Her name was Jessica Sullivan and she was twenty-five years old and lived in St Peters. She carried a bright pink handbag tucked high under her left arm and held two paper bags from The Body Shop in her right hand. Her hair was tall and pink and so were her heels.