I frowned. ‘So you think it might happen again?’
‘Who knows? I think you should play it safe for a while. Hopefully it was a one-off.’
‘Well, I’d better head to the security office now if I’m going to have time before my tute.’
‘Thanks for the coffee. We’ll have to make it a regular date.’
‘That sounds good. I’m glad last night didn’t scare you away. I thought you might think I was too freaky.’
‘Nope, I like freaky.’
At least someone did. I hoped she was right and whoever had vandalised my car had vented their venom and would leave me alone. I didn’t think I could maintain the calm veneer for very long and my budget certainly couldn’t take another hit like the cost of four brand-new tyres. Uni tutors didn’t exactly earn big bucks.
And then there was Ed. If he didn’t phone me I was going to have to learn to live with an unsolved murder on my conscience. There was one thing I knew for sure, it was going to be a cold day in hell before I picked up the phone to ring him again.
CHAPTER
9
Ed and Dave left the MacDonald home in Brighton and headed straight to Port Adelaide, where Ben Taylor’s mother lived. Ben’s name was the next on the list from Paul Jenkins’ pocket and he’d been missing for over a year. He was thirty-two when he disappeared; a moderately successful real estate agent who worked for one of the big-name agencies. At first glance he couldn’t have been more dissimilar from Roslyn.
Ed read the case file on his tablet on the way. He’d been unprepared for Rebecca MacDonald. She was justified in being irritated that they hadn’t read her daughter’s file properly, but it was mostly a paper-based file and they weren’t supposed to remove them from the office. If their car was broken into or stolen then sensitive material could find its way into the wrong hands; it had happened before.
The Taylor case was an electronic file. In the last few years most cases had moved away from paper. It was a change that Ed loathed. He didn’t like reading case files electronically. He especially didn’t like reading in the car. His head started to pound and his eyes ached from the effort of focusing on the screen. It was a bit tragic. He was beginning to feel like a dinosaur and he wasn’t even forty.
He scanned Ben’s next of kin information. The guy’s father had died almost ten years earlier. His mother hadn’t remarried and had moved about six months after Ben’s disappearance. Ed was surprised by the move. Often families of missing people stayed in the same place for years afterwards, hoping their loved one would come home. They had a fear that if they relocated the missing person wouldn’t be able to find them.
Ed turned his attention to priors. Ben had one blip on his record. He’d been tested for drug-driving in a routine stop and had tested positive for cocaine. The police had searched his car and found close to two grams of the drug in his possession. He’d got off lightly, a fifteen hundred dollar fine and no conviction recorded. He’d probably had a good lawyer.
The drug connection was there. Was that it? Were the names on the list all clients of Paul Jenkins? There was nothing on Paul’s record to show that he’d dealt anything other than cannabis, but just because they didn’t know about it didn’t mean it hadn’t happened.
Dave parked and they approached a group of modern apartment buildings clustered on the Quay, their shiny bright facades a stark contrast to the industrial skyline across the Port River. The apartments were a bit of a white elephant. Ed had read about them in the paper. When they’d been built they were hailed as the beginning of the urban regeneration of the Port. It was hoped that the historic Adelaide suburb, which had a reputation for being rough around the edges, would become the South Australian equivalent of Fremantle in Western Australia. Advertisements touted a thriving cultural hub of cafés and restaurants frequented by young, up-and-coming types. It hadn’t happened; the global financial crisis had.
They found the building they were looking for and Dave pressed the bell for Evelyn Taylor’s apartment.
She answered after only a short wait.
Ed leant closer to the intercom. ‘Mrs Taylor, we’re detectives …’
‘Have you found Ben?’
The words that came through the speaker were laden with so much desperate hope they made Ed’s chest constrict in painful memory of how hard it was to have someone you love go missing. He’d been caught in that terrible limbo for nearly two years, hoping against hope that Susan would be found, searching for answers and yet dreading what he might find.
‘I’m sorry, no. Am I talking to Mrs Taylor?’ Ed said.
‘Yes, you are.’
Ed could hear the sadness now, the endless torment.
‘We’re investigating a suspicious death and we think the victim might have known your son. We’d like to ask you a few questions if that’s all right?’ Dave said.
The sigh was audible. ‘I’ve answered so many questions already that I suppose a few more can’t hurt. Come up; apartment sixteen on the sixth floor.’ The intercom disconnected and they heard the buzzing of the door latch.
Ed followed Dave across the small foyer towards the lift.
They squeezed into the tiny cubicle and made their way up to the sixth floor. Dave had been unusually quiet since they’d left Brighton. Ed toyed with the idea of asking him what was on his mind but decided to let it be. Why look a gift horse in the mouth, as his mother used to say.
Evelyn Taylor was waiting for them at the door. She was a small, frail-looking woman who looked every one of her sixty-eight years plus some. Her hair was cut short in a masculine crop. A web of wrinkles stretched across her face, giving her a weathered and careworn look.
‘Hello, Mrs Taylor. I’m Detective Dyson and this is Detective Reynolds.’
‘Come in.’ She turned and walked briskly into the apartment.
The interior was decorated in cream and beige tones. There were no frills anywhere; no ornaments, no photos. The only thing that broke the monotony was a large print of a seascape that hung on one wall. The place was clean, tidy and utterly lacking in any personality, making it impossible to learn anything about the woman from her environment.
‘Sit down.’ She gestured at the beige couches that clustered around a plain timber coffee table over near the windows. The view was an interesting one. It was a combination of the dock, waterways and a cluster of industrial buildings. The Port wasn’t going to leave its working-class roots behind any time soon.
‘Coffee?’
‘No, not for me,’ Ed said, sensing the offer was made reluctantly.
‘I’d love one,’ Dave said.
Ed groaned inwardly. The woman clearly didn’t want them there. Sometimes it amazed him that his partner had made it to detective; the guy was hopeless at reading people.
They sat in silence while she fussed in the kitchen. When Dave’s coffee arrived it came on a tray with milk and sugar on the side. The china was plain white and solid-looking. ‘So, what do you want to know?’
‘We’re wondering if your son might have known a man by the name of Paul Jenkins?’
She frowned, thinking. The lines between her brows deepened into furrows. ‘I’m sorry but I can’t remember Ben mentioning anyone by that name. Why?’
‘Paul Jenkins was found dead yesterday with a list of names in his pocket. Your son’s was on it,’ Ed said.
‘I see. How did he die?’
‘The autopsy results aren’t in yet but we believe he either jumped or was pushed off the balcony of his fourth-storey apartment,’ Dave said.
‘Oh dear!’ Her hand flew to her mouth as she imagined it. ‘Did he have family?’
‘No, no close family. His parents are both dead and he didn’t have any siblings,’ Dave said.
‘Well that’s something, anyway.’
Ed nodded. Only people who had lost someone they loved truly understood the pain of being a survivor.
‘Do you mind if we ask you some questions about your son, Mrs Taylor
?’ Ed asked.
She nodded, but Ed could see the weariness settle over her like an invisible blanket. She had probably answered the questions he planned to ask a dozen times before. He remembered the grinding frustration and hopelessness every time he’d answered questions about Susan. He’d wanted to say no to each new request, but didn’t dare in case telling it one more time made the difference.
Ed hated this kind of interview where you were throwing another handful of salt into someone’s wounds with every question. ‘Were you close to your son, Mrs Taylor?’
Evelyn Taylor looked down at her hands. Another wave of pain clawed its way across her face.
‘I was once, yes.’
‘When did that change?’ Dave slurped his coffee, seemingly immune to the woman’s suffering.
‘It changed when he started to take drugs, Detective.’ She looked up and stared him straight in the eye.
‘He was a cocaine user?’ Dave said.
‘Yes, but not at first. It started when he was at university; a bit of marijuana, then some other things, I’m not exactly sure what. I knew about some of it and we talked about it. He promised me it was only occasional and I had nothing to worry about. It was easier for me to believe him.’
Ed nodded. It was a familiar story. ‘So when did you know he had a problem?’
‘I think I always knew, I just pretended I didn’t. It’s hard for me to forgive myself for not acting sooner but I was on my own and still recovering from the loss of my husband. I didn’t even know how to help myself. I wasn’t there for Ben when he really needed me.’
Ed felt sorry for her. Parental guilt was a terrible thing. She was blaming herself for her son’s drug habit and probably his disappearance as well. ‘You think he turned to drugs to cope with the loss of his father?’
‘Partly, and partly to cope with having an emotionally absent mother as well.’
‘When did he start doing the harder drugs?’ Dave asked.
‘I don’t think he could afford it until he left university and started to work. I think some of his colleagues were into it as well, although I can’t be sure. They’re not exactly going to tell me, are they? By the time I was ready to reach out to Ben and try to help him, he’d withdrawn from me so much that he didn’t want to talk to me about it.’
‘Did he have a partner?’ Ed asked.
‘He had lots of women in his life but no one special that I know of. He worked hard and played hard from what I could tell. I was lucky if I heard from him once a week in the months before he went missing.’
‘So you wouldn’t have known who was supplying him with his drugs?’ Dave asked.
‘No, there was no way he would have shared that kind of information with me.’
‘Is there anyone you can think of who might know?’
‘Well, one thing I do know is that he was trying to give up. We had a big argument about a month before he went missing. I was worried he was going to kill himself with the drugs and he told me he’d given up. He swore he was clean but I didn’t believe him. He accused me of always thinking the worst of him. I told him I was going by his track record.’
Tears welled in her eyes. She took a shuddering breath and reached for a box of tissues on the coffee table. ‘He told me he’d been going to the Alberton meeting of Narcotics Anonymous. He was also seeing a psychiatrist.’
‘A psychiatrist?’ Dave’s eyebrows shot up.
‘Yes, to try and deal with the underlying reasons for his addiction. Maybe you should talk to him. Ben probably told him things he never would have told me.’
‘Do you have his details?’
‘Yes, Metzger, Dr Richard Metzger. Ben got his name from the NA people.’
Ed scrawled the name in his notebook. ‘Thanks, we’ll have a chat to him. Did Ben have debts? Do you think he owed people money?’
‘No, he earned good money and despite his habit he had a pretty good bank balance when he disappeared.’
Dave finished his coffee and set the cup down on the table with a bang that made Evelyn Taylor jump. ‘So why do you think he disappeared?’
She dabbed away more tears. ‘I don’t know. For a long time I hoped he’d wanted to make a fresh start somewhere and that one day he’d make contact again. Now my heart tells me differently. I think my son is dead. I think he probably took an overdose and whoever was with him covered it up. When you turned up today I thought you were here to tell me you’d found his body.’
CHAPTER
10
‘Do you have an appointment?’ The perfectly coiffed and manicured receptionist eyed Ed up and down. Her expression of polite interest never waned but Ed got the impression he’d failed her test of respectability. Dave stepped in and Ed was happy to let him. It was definitely a job for his superior charm.
‘We’d like to see Dr Metzger.’ He flashed his ID and his smile simultaneously. The woman drew a breath but Dave kept going before she could say anything.
‘We understand how busy Dr Metzger must be, and you wouldn’t be doing your job if you didn’t try to manage his schedule but we wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t really important. We’re working a suspicious death and we think he can help us.’ Dave gave her another smile that showed all ten thousand dollars’ worth of orthodontic work.
The receptionist blinked rapidly at the mention of the word death. She pressed her lips together in a thin line.
‘I’m sorry. It’s just not possible, I …’
A patient chose that moment to exit the doctor’s private room. A big beefy guy who looked like a fullback on a gridiron team followed the patient out and spotted them standing at the counter. He skewered them with a look and headed in their direction.
‘It’s all right, Simone. Can I help you, gentlemen?’
‘We’re detectives. We’d like to talk to Dr Richard Metzger about a case. Are you Dr Metzger?’ Ed asked.
He didn’t reply straightaway. His pale blue eyes locked with Ed’s and he had a sudden insight into what a specimen under a microscope might feel like.
‘I’m his partner, Dr Young. You’d better come this way.’ He swung around and strode back towards his office, leaving Ed and Dave to scuttle along behind.
‘Sit down.’ He pointed at the two chairs on the opposite side of his desk. ‘This is not very convenient, gentlemen. I have patients waiting. Friday morning is my busiest time. It would have been better if you’d phoned first.’
Ed looked around the room. It was decorated in clean, crisp lines with pale beechwood furniture and light green and blue soft furnishings. A couple of tall palms sprouted out of the corners. It was modern and comfortable. The mental images Ed had of a psychiatrist’s stuffy rooms furnished with chesterfields and bookshelves didn’t match this space. The man in front of him didn’t fit Ed’s mental images either. His hair was streaked blonde. He had what looked like a very good fake tan. Ed could imagine him posing on the pages of a sportswear catalogue. He wore thin half-moon glasses that seemed to be more of a prop to make him look intelligent than an aid to reading. His hands were devoid of rings and there were no photos on his desk.
‘You must be good at what you do, Doctor. You seem to be in demand,’ Ed said.
‘I have a certain standing.’ The doctor smiled. It was a thin-lipped smile with no warmth in it.
‘We’re sorry to interrupt you, but we’re in the middle of investigating a suspicious death and we hoped Dr Metzger would help us with our enquiries. When will he be in?’ Ed asked.
‘Richard doesn’t work full-time anymore. He only comes in two days a week. Tell me about the suspicious death.’ The doctor leaned forward and looked over his glasses at them. ‘What makes you think that Richard can help?’
‘We’re investigating links between several people who have died or gone missing in the last few years. One of them attended the Alberton Narcotics Anonymous group. We understand that your partner works with members of that group?’ Dave said.
‘Yes, he does, unfortu
nately.’
‘You’re not a fan?’ Dave asked.
‘I’m not. I wish Richard wouldn’t work there. It was his work with a patient from NA that nearly got him killed.’
Ed sat up straight in his chair. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Dave tense at the same time.
‘We didn’t know. Can you tell us what happened?’
‘About three years ago Richard was treating a client who was a drug addict and a paranoid schizophrenic. The client had a psychotic episode in the middle of a therapy session and attacked him.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that. Was he badly hurt?’ Ed said.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. He was stabbed multiple times and clubbed with a chair. He spent two weeks in intensive care and suffered massive swelling on his brain and a badly broken leg among other injuries.’
‘And he hasn’t recovered fully?’ Dave asked.
‘No, he’ll never be the same. It’s the reason he only works part-time. He still finds the time to volunteer with the NA group, though.’
The bitterness in Young’s voice was unmistakable. Ed and Dave exchanged a look.
‘It sounds like his volunteer work has caused some tension between you,’ Ed said.
‘It has. He’s a very generous man and he has always liked to do his fair share of pro-bono work. Working at Narcotics Anonymous is his way of trying to help people who would normally slip through the cracks of the mental health system. The problem with dealing with people who are both drug addicts and suffer from mental illness is that they can be both unpredictable and dangerous. I just hate the thought that he’s continuing to put his own life at risk by helping them.’
‘Can you tell us the name of the patient who attacked him?’ Ed asked.
Dr Young frowned. ‘I don’t see why not. It’s a matter of public record. His name is Carl Monaghan. He was deemed mentally unfit to stand trial. He was sent to a secure facility for treatment.’
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