by Jaye Ford
Kelly disconnected. ‘Maybe they’ve got him.’
‘Wouldn’t that be great? Then I can wipe the night off as a glitch in the system.’ Not another test of her resilience.
‘Hey, listen.’ Kelly turned the volume up on the radio.
‘. . . thirty-five-year-old Newcastle woman was returning to her vehicle at a Jamestown car park at around seven-thirty pm when she was grabbed from behind. Police say she hit her attacker with car keys and screamed repeatedly before he ran off. She suffered a broken hand and severe facial bruising but police say her quick thinking probably saved her from more serious injuries. In other police news . . .’
‘Wow, you sound really clever,’ Kelly said.
Liv shuddered at the memory of the fleshy resistance under her hand as she’d slammed down. ‘Yeah, Lara Croft without the boobs.’
The police station was on the way to their office, off the main road and sharing the footpath with old-style weatherboard houses. As Kelly pulled up at the kerb, Liv eyed the dark-brick building with memories of late nights at her father’s side.
As a kid, before she was old enough to stay at home on her own, her father had taken her with him when he came here to collect boys from his gym. Some of them preferred to call him instead of their own parents, others didn’t have parents. It had never been a happy occasion. Not that she blamed the police for that. Her father considered it a major offence to be hauled in by the cops, never let them off easy, gave them the lecture – Hard work brought the only rewards that were worth anything. He made them scrub toilets and run extra k’s. Liv got the same treatment the one and only time she’d deserved it. She’d been caught shoplifting lip gloss, was marched to the police station then faced her father. She’d taken the punishment without complaint because, just like the boys, she’d wanted the tough man’s approval.
‘Do you want me to come in with you?’ Kelly asked.
‘I’ll be okay and you’re late enough already. I’ll call a cab when I’m done.’
She stepped into glaring April sunlight and winced as her black eye tightened in a painful squint. Summer had stretched way beyond its use-by date this year but today the air felt as though autumn had cracked open the door and was letting a cool draught in.
A uniformed officer led Liv down a corridor to the back of the station. She picked Rachel Quest at first glance – she was the only other woman in the room. She was on the phone and, as Liv approached, lifted an index finger in acknowledgement then pointed to the chair beside her desk, ignoring her for another minute while she talked at low volume. Liv glanced around as she waited. It wasn’t any kind of high-tech, crime-fighting space. It looked like an engineering site office – big, messy room with big, messy desks. She guessed the detective was in her early thirties. The brusque, direct tone of her phone conversation suggested a straight-up attitude and the wisps of dark blonde hair curling over her ears that she hadn’t bothered to have her layers trimmed in a while.
‘Sorry about that,’ she said as she dropped the receiver in its cradle and held out her hand. ‘Detective Sergeant Rachel Quest.’
‘Livia Prescott.’ Liv held up her taped fingers. ‘Sorry.’
‘Ah. Call me Rachel.’ She propped her elbows on the armrests of her chair and made a brief, no-comment inspection of Liv’s face.
Liv shifted self-consciously. ‘Have you arrested someone? Is that why you called?’
‘No. I wanted to notify you that after preliminary inquiries, your case has been passed onto the Detectives unit. I’ll be leading the investigation and I’d like to spend some time going over the incident with you. Can we do that now?’
Rachel Quest had a measured way of speaking, as though she wanted to say it once and have no questions or misunderstandings. She’d skimmed the bad news but Liv hadn’t missed it – the man in black hadn’t been caught and the police were concerned enough to put bigger guns onto finding him. ‘Yes. The sooner, the better.’
‘So how are you this morning?’ It seemed more of a request for information than concern.
‘Sore but getting on with things.’
‘The bruises on your face and the injury to your hand, are they the result of the attack?’
‘Yes.’
She opened a file, checked the top page. ‘The officer’s report says your hand was injured when you tried to defend yourself.’
‘I punched him. I got in three good hits.’
The detective tucked a wisp of hair behind her ear as she did another quick once-over of Liv, this time taking in the gold chain at her throat, the French-polished nails, the Italian three-inch heels under Jason’s jeans – and a little doubt crept into her no-comment expression.
‘My father owned Wallace’s Boxing Gym for thirty years. I know how to throw a punch,’ Liv told her.
Rachel smiled briefly. ‘My dad used to work out there. A lot of the cops used to back then.’
‘Dad liked the police hanging around, reckoned it kept the criminal count down.’
‘I bet it did. Is your father still around?’
Liv nodded, kept the lid on her sadness. ‘He has bone cancer.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. My dad passed away with lung cancer just before Christmas.’ Rachel looked back at her folder, cleared her throat. ‘I’d like to get photos of your injuries for the file. Is that all right with you?’
‘Yes.’
Taking a camera from a desk drawer, she led Liv to a small room and closed the door. She took pictures of her face, the taping on her hand. She asked about other injuries and Liv unzipped her jeans, closing her eyes as the detective focused on the bruising on her hip and thigh. A burst of male laughter on the other side of the door made her grab for her clothes.
‘It’s okay, I locked it,’ Rachel said. When Liv didn’t resume her position, she added, ‘Can you manage a couple more?’
This wasn’t what she’d expected. She’d wanted to give over the facts and dust her hands of the whole episode. Now her trousers were down, she was cold and a couple of metres from loud and insensitive laughter. She felt vulnerable and exposed, not strong and assertive. ‘Just get it done.’
Back at the desk, Rachel said, ‘Tell me what happened.’
Liv went through it from the walk across the car park to Daniel Beck looming over her. The detective nodded and took notes, saving her questions until Liv was finished.
‘What was his voice like?’
Liv let his words play in her mind again. ‘Deep, breathy.’
‘An accent?’
‘No.’
‘How tall was he?’
She remembered the aggressive thrust as he shoved her against the car, the sense that he was on top of her, but not much more than that. ‘I don’t know.’
‘When you saw him in the car window, was he taller than you?’
Until now, her memories had been of grappling and grunting but she forced herself to find some freeze-frames of the action. ‘He was taller than me, I’d say one-eighty-two, at least. His hand over my mouth was big and his shoulders were broad. His instinct was to push and shove, not to throw punches. And he was strong.’
‘What about his clothes? Was the black top a hoodie?’
Liv tried to focus on the detail. ‘There was no hood. I think his top zipped up the front, all the way to his chin, and the balaclava was tucked into it.’
‘What about the trousers? Were they jeans or did they match the top like a tracksuit?’
‘They definitely weren’t jeans. I don’t know if they matched. All I remember is that everything was black. Sorry.’
‘No. What you’ve given me is good.’
It was good. Specifics felt assertive, positive. She flexed her broken knuckle gently. ‘He’ll have a decent bruise on his face, maybe a black eye. It won’t be as spectacular
as mine but he’ll know I hit him.’
Rachel nodded. ‘I’ll add that as a possibility.’
‘I don’t think it’s a possibility. I hit him hard.’
‘It can feel like that in the heat of the moment.’ Her tone said experience but Liv heard the doubt behind it.
‘I broke my finger on his cheek.’ She held her hand up to prove it.
‘I’ll make a note of it.’ The detective wrote for a minute more, shuffled paper, looked back at Liv. ‘Do you know anyone who’d want to hurt you?’
So they were back to that again. ‘No.’
‘Have you ever been threatened?’
‘No.’
‘What about your husband?’
‘No.’
Rachel stopped, waited.
Liv felt her cheeks grow warm.
‘What happened between you and your husband last December, Livia?’
6
Liv’s eyes flicked away for a moment. ‘It was nothing.’
‘The police don’t get called to people’s homes for nothing.’
She felt the tight anger of that night again, tried to keep it off her face.
Detective Quest lifted a page from her file. ‘Police were called to your husband’s house by neighbours who heard shouting. The officer’s report says you and he were engaged in a domestic dispute in the driveway and that you had fallen to the ground at some point and had mud on your clothing. Has your husband ever threatened you, Livia?’
‘No, it wasn’t like that. We were shouting at each other but . . .’ If Cameron hadn’t been at a friend’s house that Saturday, she would never have opened that festering, insidious can of worms. ‘It was raining and I slipped.’ Flinching away from Thomas. She’d sat on her arse on the muddy lawn, embarrassed and humiliated, and cried in front of him, something she’d sworn she’d never do again. When the police arrived, he was trying to help her up and she was pushing him away, shouting at him, mad as hell, conscious that his mistress was clean and dry and feminine and petite and watching from the expensive louvre windows of their lovely new home.
‘When was the last time you saw your husband?’
Liv crossed her legs, tried to shake off the memory. ‘Last night at the hospital.’
‘He picked you up?’
‘No, he works there. He heard I’d been brought in and he wanted to drive me home. I declined the offer.’
‘How did you get home last night?’
‘I didn’t go home. A friend came and got me and I stayed at his place.’
‘Does your husband know about your friend?’
Liv let out a sarcastic huff. ‘Thomas isn’t jealous, if that’s what you’re thinking. He left me. And the man who picked me up isn’t that kind of friend. He’s the husband of my business partner. The three of us have been friends for years.’
‘Does your husband have a stake in the business?’
‘Not anymore. Why are you asking all this?’
The detective laid a pen across her file. ‘Assaults are committed for all sorts of reasons, Livia. My job is to consider every possibility and eliminate as we go.’
‘But the attack was random. It had to be. There’s no reason for someone to hurt me. Why aren’t you looking for people who . . . who do that kind of thing?’
‘We’re doing that, too.’
‘What exactly are you doing?’
The detective paused a moment and Liv wondered whether she was deciding to keep the details to herself. ‘The uniformed officers searched the car park last night and visited businesses in the street that were still open. The canvassing is continuing today and we’re checking on CCTV footage from the parking lot.’
‘Did they find anything last night?’
‘No.’
‘Did anyone see anything?’
‘No.’
She wanted to know more, something, anything – couldn’t think what else to ask. The only thing she knew about police work was from the plethora of American cop shows on TV and she was pretty sure Rachel Quest wasn’t about to call in SVU or CSI or NCIS or any other combination of letters.
‘What’s your relationship to Daniel Beck?’
The question threw Liv for a second. There was no relationship. She barely knew him. ‘We rent space in the same building.’
Rachel consulted her notes. ‘Did you know him before he opened the office in January?’
Liv didn’t realise it had been that long. ‘No.’
‘Do you see each other outside the office?’
‘No.’
‘You’ve never had a drink together, say?’
‘We’ve waited in the queue for take-out coffee a couple of times.’ She smiled, tried to make light of it.
Rachel didn’t join her. ‘You ever pull up a chair while you’re waiting and chat about . . . stuff?’
‘No.’
‘How well would you say you know him then?’
‘Before last night, only well enough to say hello in the corridor.’
‘I’m guessing you guys got a bit better acquainted while you were waiting for the patrol car, though.’
‘Not really. I was pretty shaken up until I got in the ambulance. But he came to the hospital and sat with me until my lift came.’
‘Is that right?’
Something about the way the detective said it and the stillness of her expression made Liv feel like she’d put Daniel on the wrong end of the questioning. After everything he’d done she didn’t want to dump him on a suspect list. ‘Look, I don’t know why you’re asking all this but it wasn’t him. Yeah, he’s tall but he was wearing a shirt and tie when he found me. I’m lucky he was working late and bothered to check out the noise.’
Rachel nodded like she’d made an interesting point. ‘He used to be a fireman. Did you know that?’
Liv nodded. ‘Fire Rescue.’
‘He’s a former colleague of mine. He worked out of the fire station next door.’ She cocked her head towards the side wall of the office. ‘He was always good in a tight situation.’
The detective paused as though she was waiting for an answer. But there’d been no question, so Liv just nodded like that was good information to have.
Rachel gave it another second then said, ‘Okay, that’s all I need for now.’ She dropped the pen into a holder, closed the file. ‘One other thing, Livia. I want to remind you that your assailant is still at large. My advice to you is to avoid taking any risks.’
She frowned. ‘You think he could try it again?’
‘Until someone is caught, I think you should consider that a possibility. Avoid walking alone at night and don’t go to unpopulated places on your own. It would be wise to stay away from the car park for a while, too. You should tell your colleagues to do the same. If it’s random, they could also be at risk.’
As the detective pulled a business card from her desk and wrote on the back, Liv considered the ‘if’. If it was random, he could come back and use the car park as a hunting ground. If it wasn’t . . .
‘Here are my numbers – direct line and mobile.’
Rachel stood up, signalled for Liv to walk with her. Behind her in the corridor, Liv noted the physique that went with the unflinching attitude. Rachel was at least a head shorter than Liv’s one hundred and eighty centimetres, but what she lacked in size, she made up for in body language. She was built like she played sport hard. Running down a bad guy and wrestling him to the ground didn’t look beyond her.
‘By the way,’ Rachel said over her shoulder, ‘the police media unit has released details of your assault. I’ve already spoken to a reporter from View TV. I don’t know where she got her information but she asked about you and your business partner. I didn’t confirm or deny anything, but I think you should
expect a call.’
Liv took a guess at who it was, waited until they’d stepped into the foyer to ask her question. ‘What do you think about me talking to the media?’
Rachel pushed hands into the pockets of her trousers. ‘We release information to encourage people to come forward with information. You shouldn’t feel obligated but it might be something to think about. Are you being picked up?’
‘No, I’ll get a cab.’
‘You should call from here.’ She gestured to the officer at the front desk, holding her hand to her head like a phone. ‘I’ll be in touch. Be careful, Livia.’
It sounded like a warning and it felt loud and clear as Liv waited outside for the taxi. You’re standing in front of a police station in broad daylight, Liv. Is there a safer place?
Her hand ached and the swelling on her temple seemed huge now, like a wad of cottonwool blocking her peripheral vision. It made her uneasy. She was fit, maybe not like Rachel Quest these days, but she was strong for a woman, tall with good reach – and she was blindsided on the left, weak on her right. Vulnerable on both sides.
Liv got the cab driver to drop her off across the road from the office like she always did. Cars heading south couldn’t turn right for three blocks then had to negotiate a course of roundabouts to rejoin the road and head north again. She’d always figured the minor hassle of crossing the busy, four-lane road was worth the time and money it saved her in a taxi. But today, with a police warning ringing in her ears, it made her uncomfortable.
Park Street ran through the suburb of Jamestown like a backbone. Newcastle’s jewel of a harbour was visible at the top end and the grand, old park for which the street was named was almost six kilometres away at the other. Not too many years ago, this stretch of it had been a dilapidated neighbourhood strip but when commercial rent in the city skyrocketed, a group of investors bought up the vacant and mostly vandalised premises and gave them up-market makeovers. Professionals and small businesses moved in, bringing with them an influx of office workers, which in turn brought back the shops and the residents. Now the area was a mix of suits and locals, cafes and milk bars, boutiques and your basic butcher and deli.