Hindsight (9781921997211)

by Casey, Melanie

  She was attractive: long blonde hair and a peaches and cream complexion. It was her eyes that really did it. They sparkled with a deep enjoyment of life.

  The article outlined the facts about when she went missing. It explained that Ed had been ruled out as a suspect early on. He’d been working a case and hadn’t been alone for more than five minutes. Neighbours had seen him leave for work and wave goodbye from the front door. She was alive when he left and gone when he got home.

  I clicked on a few other links. Mostly they were appeals for information. Without any new developments or salacious details to keep the readers interested, the media interest died down pretty quickly.

  I looked at my watch. It was coming up for 1.30 PM and I hadn’t had anything to eat all day. My stomach was protesting so loudly that I half expected Mrs Jones to tell it to be quiet. My head was starting to pound too — probably caffeine withdrawal.

  I headed for the doorway hoping to sneak past Mrs Jones, who had her back to me sorting through a pile of returned books and putting them in order. I got within ten steps of freedom before her voice stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘Leaving so soon, Cass?’

  She really was a nosy old cow. ‘Yes, I can’t seem to get into it today.’

  ‘Hmm, perhaps the peace and quiet isn’t for you.’

  I decided to let that one go. With a quick nod and half wave I bolted for the door. Stepping out into the light and air, I breathed deeply, relieved to be away from her overbearing ways. I strode briskly down the street to Mrs McCredie’s.

  It was reasonably busy, as always, and I nodded to the few people who recognised me. Not too many; a testament to my reclusiveness. As I waited to order I heard a couple of older women over by the window clucking over the terrible way someone had died. Over near the drinks fridges, a young bloke was asking his girlfriend not to walk home but to catch a cab to be safe. The conversations weren’t the usual run-of-the-mill things people talked about in country towns. Still, people were bound to be twitchy.

  Mrs McCredie brought my food over. She paused after she’d deposited the plate, licking her lips, a sure sign that there was something she wanted to tell me. I waited patiently. She was a kind person and over the years she’d visited our home regularly for readings from Mum and herbs from Gran.

  ‘So you’ve heard the news then?’

  ‘About Janet Hodgson?’

  ‘No, about Old Mick.’

  ‘What about him? Has he given the police a description of the person who attacked her?’

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. He was hit by a truck last night on South Road and killed.’

  ‘Killed?’ The word came out as a squeak.

  ‘Police are saying that he must’ve been drunk and walked in front of a semitrailer. If you ask me it’s too much of a coincidence: one day he sees a murder and the next day he turns up dead? I don’t think so!’ She tutted a few more times and then left me to my meal.

  I sat there staring after her. My mouth was probably hanging open. People didn’t just go around pushing old men in front of trucks, did they?

  I mechanically forked the food into my mouth. My appetite had disappeared again. I could’ve been eating chaff for all it mattered. After a while I gave up and put my knife and fork down. I looked around me. All the worried faces and concerned conversations made sense. Everyone in here knew what’d happened and most of them would be thinking that it was no accident.

  I took a few half-hearted slurps of my milkshake to wash down the lump of food that seemed to have lodged itself in my throat, picked up my bag and keys and headed for the door. There was only one place that I wanted to be.

  When I got home I couldn’t get inside fast enough. I stood in the warm dimness of the hallway and let the familiar smells and sounds envelop me like an embrace.

  ‘Is that you, Cass?’ Mum called.

  ‘Yep, it’s me.’ I threw her keys into the bowl on the hall stand and headed for the kitchen. I pushed my way in, smelling blueberry muffins baking. My stomach growled, announcing the return of my wayward appetite. I walked over and put the kettle on and then slid into my chair with a sigh.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been baking, Mum?’ Blueberry muffins were one of the few things that Mum could cook. The fact that she was baking was a sure-fire sign that something was bothering her. She was standing at the sink washing dishes and had her back to me.

  ‘Yes, I was worried about you, Cass.’

  ‘You didn’t have to worry, Mum, I’m fine.’

  She turned around, wiping her hands on her apron. She looked at me for a few seconds then sat down. ‘No, you’re not,’ she said quietly. ‘Do you want to tell me what happened when you went to see Detective Dyson?’

  I gave her a twisted sort of smile. ‘You knew then.’

  ‘I didn’t know for sure; let’s just say I was pretty certain. You really are a terrible liar, Cass; you go all blotchy and wring your hands. It’s a dead giveaway. You’ve done it ever since you were a little girl.’

  ‘I really need a cup of coffee and one of those muffins and then I’ll tell you what happened.’

  ‘OK, the muffins are nearly ready. Can you call Gran?’

  ‘Do you know where she is?’

  ‘I think she’s upstairs in her sewing room.’

  I stuck my head out of the door. ‘Tea’s ready!’

  Mum sighed. ‘I could have done that. I meant for you to go and get her, not to yell like a fishwife.’

  It was a familiar remonstrance from Mum and, after the morning I’d had, even being told off by her felt soothing.

  ‘I knew that had to be you, Cass. There was no way your mother would be yelling for me like a banshee.’

  ‘Sorry, Gran.’

  ‘That’s all right, sweetheart. You look wrecked. Things didn’t go very well, then? Was he still angry?’

  I barked out a short laugh. ‘You too, hey? And there I was thinking I had been so clever and devious.’

  The timer on the oven went off and Mum got up and took the muffins out. I made a pot of tea for them and a bucketful of coffee for myself. When we were all sitting again I suddenly felt at a loss where to start.

  ‘So you went to see Detective Dyson?’ Gran prompted. ‘How was he?’

  ‘He certainly wasn’t thrilled to see me. He had this whiteboard set up with all these photos on it.’

  ‘Photos of what?’ Mum asked.

  ‘Photos of all the women who’ve gone missing in the last ten years. I couldn’t help myself, while he was on the phone I went up to look at them. I noticed that four of them had these incredible green eyes so I pulled them off and rearranged them together so I could have a better look. He was really pissed off. One of the pictures was of his wife and I came out with this lame statement about them all having the same eyes as if he wouldn’t have thought of it himself. It just went from bad to worse then. I offered to help him find his wife and he accused me of being a stalker.’ I felt myself getting all teary at the memory.

  Mum reached out and took my hand.

  ‘Never mind, Cass, you meant well,’ Gran murmured. ‘He might realise that once he calms down a bit.’

  ‘I don’t think so, Gran. I think he’s made up his mind about me. He made it pretty clear that if he never saw me again that would be too soon.’ I couldn’t hold it any more. The embarrassment and horribleness of it swept over me and I covered my face and cried like a big baby.

  Mum and Gran wisely waited for me to calm down before either of them said anything. Mum just pushed the box of tissues in my direction. Eventually the tears stopped and I pulled myself together with a good nose blow and a few shaky breaths.

  ‘Sorry,’ I mumbled.

  ‘That’s all right. Better to let it all out. So, why does he think you’re a stalker?’ Gran asked.

  ‘He thinks that the on
ly reason I offered to help the police was so I could work with him. I guess going to his house today was a stupid idea.’

  ‘I’ll have a word to Natalia,’ Mum said.

  ‘No, please don’t,’ I said quickly. ‘I feel embarrassed enough without having to drag her into this. Let’s just leave it for now, please, Mum? Anyway, the scene with Ed was only the beginning of my bad day. I didn’t want to come straight home afterwards, so I went into town —’

  ‘You didn’t have a vision did you?’ Mum asked anxiously.

  ‘No, nothing like that, I went to Mrs McCredie’s to get something to eat and she told me about Old Mick.’

  ‘Old Mick?’ Gran asked.

  ‘Yes, everyone thinks he was the one who witnessed Janet Hodgson being killed. Mrs McCredie told me he was killed last night. She said that he got hit by a truck on South Road.’

  ‘That’s terrible! The poor man,’ Mum cried.

  ‘Oh, how awful.’ Gran’s hands flew to cover her mouth.

  ‘That’s only half of it, Mrs McCredie seems convinced that it was no accident. She thinks he was killed because he saw the killer.’

  ‘What have the police said?’ Gran asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The ticking of the clock marked out the seconds as we sat there, lost in thought.

  ‘So what do you want to do, Cass?’ Mum asked quietly. Her words sliced through the silence.

  ‘Do? What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I assume you think you can help the police work out who killed him?’

  I let the implications of that sink in. Call me stupid, but I’d been so busy focusing on the dog’s breakfast I’d made of my visit to Ed’s that it hadn’t even occurred to me that I might be able to help the police with Mick’s murder. The thought of it made me feel physically ill. The only way I could possibly help the police would be to go to the scene where Mick had died and experience his death for myself. If he was murdered I might see who did it but I would also experience the full horror of being flattened by a semitrailer. I sat there staring at the table, not sure what to say.

  ‘No one could expect her to do that, Anita,’ Gran said eventually.

  ‘No and I wouldn’t want you to, Cass. You don’t know what experiencing a death like that might do to you.’

  ‘It would stay with me for the rest of my life. Besides, Detective Dyson would rather eat crushed glass than set eyes on me again.’

  ‘I could always read for you,’ Mum said.

  It was said as a statement but it was more of a question. For years I’d resisted any attempt by Mum to nose around in my future.

  Normally I would’ve just said no without hesitation. This time though, things were different. I felt lost and in need of direction. Despite my almost overwhelming loathing at the thought of reliving Old Mick’s last moments, there was also a voice in my head whispering that I was being selfish; telling me that if I could help in any way then I should, no matter what the personal sacrifice.

  ‘OK.’

  Mum looked startled. Gran stood up and rested her hand on my shoulder.

  ‘There’s no shame in not helping, Cass, and just remember, you might not like what your mother sees.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Well, I’ll leave you to it.’

  She left the kitchen, shutting the door behind her. Mum and I sat there looking at each other. This was uncharted territory for us. Mum took my hand and stroked it.

  ‘Close your eyes, Cass. Try to relax. You’re going to need to totally let go if you want me to be able to read you.’

  I shut my eyes and focused on the ticking of the clock. I felt a strange pressure behind my eyes. My first instinct was to block it but I took a few deep breaths and imagined opening a door to my inner self. Mum said nothing for a while. I could hear the magpies warbling outside. We had a resident family that Gran had been feeding for years. The adults were calling to each other and every so often last season’s youngster would try it on, squawking like a newly hatched baby in hope of a free feed from one of his parents. Eventually Mum let go of my hand and I opened my eyes. She was sitting there staring at me, tears in her eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ I asked, panicked.

  ‘I won’t lie to you, Cass. It’s not going to be an easy or pleasant road. I can’t get a totally clear reading, even when you want to let me in, I can’t quite get everything. I saw you working with Detective Dyson. Apart from that all I got was fear and visions of fire. For some reason fire kept coming up.’

  ‘Great! Well, that makes it easy then doesn’t it? If helping Detective Dyson leads to fear and suffering then I won’t help him. You’ve said yourself that the future isn’t set in stone. Look at what you did for Natalia.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true, but it’s not always that simple. Sometimes fate will have its way no matter what we do.’

  ‘Well it’s not going to have its way with me,’ I said.

  CHAPTER

  13

  ‘You’re kidding right?’ Phil looked at Ed like he’d suddenly sprouted an extra head. ‘You don’t seriously think that kooky Miss Raising-the-Dead might actually have hit on something?’

  ‘Look, right now I’m willing to give anything a shot. If Janet Hodgson had green eyes …’

  Phil looked at him, her jaw clenched. It wasn’t the first time they’d been down this path. Over the last two years they’d followed so many false leads they’d lost count. Phil had put up with it in good grace, being a friend and lending a hand because it genuinely seemed to help Ed. But this latest development was testing the boundaries of her tolerance.

  ‘I know you don’t want me to do it. I’m not asking you to help. All I’m asking is that you turn a blind eye,’ Ed said.

  ‘You know you’ve got to stop doing this eventually don’t you? If there was something there — if there really was a link between any of those missing women — don’t you think we would have found it by now?’

  ‘Yeah, true. And I guess that CS would have found anything there was to find, especially with their high tech databases and systems. I’m sure if there were links and patterns they would’ve picked them up,’ Ed said.

  ‘CS? You reckon? If Byrnes and Rawlinson are anything to go by I wouldn’t be putting too much faith in that mob of clowns.’ Phil snorted her disgust. ‘C’mon then, let’s go back and find Sonya. While you’re talking to her, I’ll give Reg and his rookie a call and let them know that CS have taken over the world again.’

  They stepped out of the café into the cold. Even though it was barely 4 PM the dampness was already creeping into the air. They hurried the short distance back to the station, their breath creating puffs of steam.

  When they walked back into the squad room Phil slipped behind her desk and picked up the phone.

  Ed headed for the lift and took it to the basement, where Sonya and her team had their autopsy suite and facilities. The lift doors opened and Ed’s nostrils were assaulted by the smell of chemicals and disinfectant. It was like a hospital but not quite; the silence was all wrong. It was unmistakably a place of death, not life. Ed walked down the corridor and peered through the glass into the autopsy suite. Sonya was bent over Old Mick’s body.

  Ed rang the buzzer. Sonya glanced up and, seeing who it was, stepped over and pushed the button to unlatch the door with her elbow, gloved hands held aloft. Hearing the faint buzz and click, Ed pulled the handle and stepped inside.

  ‘Gowns and masks are over there if you want to come and watch.’

  ‘No thanks, I’m happy to keep my distance. I’ve already seen what the truck did to him. I don’t really want to see it again.’ Ed walked over to the bench that ran along the wall furthest from the autopsy table, pulled out a stool and sat down.

  Sonya turned back to the body on the table. ‘So what can I do for you?’

  ‘I want to
know what colour eyes Janet Hodgson had, and your preliminary thoughts on Old Mick here.’

  Sonya stopped what she was doing and looked at Ed.

  ‘How is her eye colour relevant? Word is that CS took over the case because it was an organised hit.’

  ‘It’s just a long shot and if you could do me a big favour and not let Sorenson know I asked, that’d be great.’

  ‘I won’t lie for you, but unless she asks me whether you’re still investigating the Hodgson case I won’t go out of my way to mention it, deal?’

  ‘Deal.’

  ‘Just let me finish what I’m doing and I’ll hop onto the computer and have a look for you.’

  ‘So what’s your feeling about Mick?’

  ‘You know I don’t deal in feelings, Ed, only in facts, but the facts are quite interesting. His liver has advanced cirrhosis. He also had emphysema. He was a fairly heavy smoker, or had only recently given up. He’d eaten not long before he was killed. None of that is remarkable. What is interesting is the trauma he suffered.’

  ‘I thought he looked pretty much like he was hit by a semitrailer.’

  ‘Well, yes and no. If a person walked out in front of a semitrailer generally most of the trauma would be from about knee high upwards due to the height of the vehicle off the ground. This body shows severe impact trauma from about shoulder level.’

  ‘So what does that mean?’

  ‘Two possibilities, either the vehicle was exceptionally high off the ground or the victim wasn’t standing at the time he was hit.’

  ‘I can’t think of any vehicles that would be that high. So if Mick wasn’t standing what was he doing — lying on the road?’

  ‘No, that doesn’t fit either. He was in some position that made his shoulders level with the grille of the truck, kneeling maybe.’

  ‘I can’t imagine why he would have been kneeling on the road.’

  ‘No, and it doesn’t look like he was facing the oncoming vehicle either. Most of the impact was on the right side.’

  ‘So what do you think?’