by Vanda Symon
‘We have been told that you harassed Mr Knowes when he became engaged to Mrs Knowes.’
My misery was complete.
‘I didn’t harass him. I had one irrational moment when I had had a bit too much to drink and threw a beer bottle through his window. It is something I am very ashamed of, and I shall probably regret for the rest of my life. Lockie threatened to take a trespass order out on me. I fully realised my stupidity and the impact that it could have on my career. It was a real wake-up call. He knew it was just one drunken moment, and that I didn’t want to hurt him or Gaby. He didn’t lay charges or take out the order.’
I hung my head.
It was the Boss who summarised the situation for me.
‘From our perspective, you had the motive to kill Gaby Knowes. You had the means to doctor the evidence to cover your tracks. You haven’t adequately explained why you came to search the river so quickly, unless you already knew the body was there. You came up with an explanation for the forged script very quickly. You went to the river site this morning to create a viable reason for your vehicle tyre prints and your footprints to be there. Likewise, by being the first officer inside the Knowes house, you created a justification for your fingerprints and any possible DNA evidence to be there. Either you are very good at your job but very naïve, or you are culpable.’
What could I say to that? Argument was pointless.
‘Am I under arrest?’
‘Not at this time. We have your notebook in evidence and will examine it closely. We will be checking to verify your whereabouts. When that is completed, we will require you to come back in for further questions. You have given us another positive line of inquiry with Dr Walden, which we will have to verify was not fabricated.’
I was astonished. It was the only viable lead, and they could potentially stuff it up by questioning its authenticity. But from now on, I knew, they would question everything about me.
DI Johns continued on with more bad tidings. ‘We require you to stay in the district and we require your passport.’
‘I don’t have one,’ I said, numb.
‘As of this moment you are suspended from duty. You may be called upon at any time to give further evidence. You are dismissed.’
I heaved myself to my feet and, with what felt like a mammoth effort, moved towards the door.
‘Your keys.’
‘Pardon?’
‘The keys to your police vehicle and the station.’ I dug into my trouser pocket and tossed the keys unceremoniously onto the table. Then with as much dignity as I could muster given the circumstances, I opened the door and then closed it gently behind me. Leaning back against the door jamb, I silently mouthed a very rude word, before I realised I had an audience. With great effort, I looked straight ahead, squared my shoulders and crossed the silent and watchful room.
It was a very long walk home.
19
‘Thank God for small mercies.’
There was some tonic water in the cupboard to dilute the contents of the bottle of gin I clutched to my chest. Too bad if it was an improper time of the day to start drinking. I’d make an exception on this occasion – lunchtime was as good a time as any to start anaesthetising my woes. I would, however, make some nod towards decency and pour my G & T into a glass rather than a beer jug.
I took a sip that ended at the bottom of the glass, then poured myself another. Then I stripped off my uniform and tossed it behind the sofa where I didn’t have to see it. It had suddenly made me feel very dirty. I couldn’t be stuffed putting on anything else, so plonked down on the sofa in my underwear and settled in for an afternoon of wallowing in misery. I wondered how much alcohol it would take to slip into a coma.
The sound of a key in the door disrupted my pity party.
‘Oh shit.’
‘Sam?’ Maggie’s voice filtered through the murk in my head.
‘Over here,’ I said, and held my glass up by way of showing her where I was ensconced. She took one look at me draped across the sofa, looking ever so elegant in my red undies and matching eyeballs, then came around and gave me an enormous hug.
‘So, it’s as bad as they said?’
‘It’s worse,’ I said before the question really registered. ‘Who said?’
‘I was rung at work and told you’d been thrown off the case and it might be a good idea if I came home.’
Who, I wondered, gave enough of a toss to ring Maggie? It certainly wouldn’t have been the Boss. But the fact that someone showed at least some level of concern for my welfare made me start snivelling again.
‘Who rang?’
‘They really didn’t want me to say.’
‘If you don’t tell me, I’ll just keep asking and pouting and whining until you do.’ I gave her my best doleful look and she shrugged her shoulders.
‘OK, OK, enough with the Bambi eyes, it was Paul Frost. He didn’t give me any details, just said he really thought you shouldn’t be alone.’
Paul Frost. That was unexpected. For all of his badgering, pigheaded rudeness, he must actually care.
‘So are you going to tell me what happened?’ But before I could open my mouth in reply she interrupted. ‘Hold that thought.’ She grabbed the gin bottle and confiscated it, taking it out to the kitchen. ‘How many of those have you had?’
‘You came home too early. I only got two into me.’
‘It’s too bloody early for that and it won’t help matters. I’m going to make a pot of coffee. Have you had lunch?’ I shook my head. ‘I’ll make you a toasted sandwich. Go get some clothes on, then we can sit down and talk about it.’
God, I loved my flatmate.
Once attired in jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt, I sat at the table and picked at the cheese and Vegemite toasted sandwich while Maggie poured very strong coffee into my mug.
‘They think I killed Gaby.’
The pouring stopped abruptly, then resumed. ‘Well, they must be mad.’
I managed a smile at the immediate vote of confidence.
‘I’m serious. I’m a suspect. They interrogated me. Oh God, Maggie, it was awful.’ Tears seeped out again.
‘Why would they think you a suspect?’
‘Oh, apparently I have motive. I was jealous enough of my ex’s wife to knock her off.’
Maggie reached out her hand and grabbed the teaspoon I was ting-ting-tinging against the tabletop. ‘Oh, I get it, because that would win him back, and all.’
‘Yeah, men love being fought over. Seriously, though, they truly believe I could have done this.’
Maggie pushed the coffee towards me, and then sat down with her own.
‘They must be clutching at straws. Did you tell them about Gaby having an affair with her doctor?’
‘Yes, and they’re going to check it out because they don’t really believe me.’ God, the thought of that irked. ‘I talked to Chrissie, and did you know that bastard of a doctor was blackmailing Gaby for sex? She didn’t want it, so he threatened to have Angel taken off her if she didn’t comply.’
A slosh of Maggie’s coffee hit the table. ‘He was doing what?’
‘You heard, blackmailing her.’
‘And they think you’ve got motive? That poor bloody woman.’
I thought about that statement and realised that I felt something other than resentment towards Gaby Knowes. I did feel sorry for her, for what she had endured in life and probably in death. Her world was not quite the fairy tale I’d envisioned.
‘What are you going to do?’ Maggie asked, mopping up the spill with some of my tissues.
‘What do you mean, what am I going to do?’
She gave me ‘the look’.
‘I’m going to get horribly drunk, cry some more, drink more, then, if I can walk that far, I’ll go to bed.’
‘Well, that’s a very grown-up approach.’
I didn’t appreciate the tone. ‘That’s easy for you to say. My career’s up the pole, people think I’m a killer and,
at the end of the day, I could very well end up in jail. How the bloody hell am I supposed to take it?’
‘Well, that’s better, anyway.’
‘What’s bloody better?’
‘A bit of fight left in the old girl somewhere. Good to see.’
Maggie could always do that. Say the right flaming thing to get me focused again.
‘Bitch,’ I said, by way of compliment.
She flashed me her best smile.
‘You can make light of it all you want, but you know I’m in serious trouble.’
Maggie shook her head at my words. ‘No, Sam, you would be in serious trouble if you were guilty. Sure, you’re suspended, but they have to do that – it’s protocol. If they truly believed you were guilty, you wouldn’t be sitting here at home drinking coffee. You’d be warming a cell down at the station.’
Maggie was right. They’d have me under lock and key if they were that convinced. The gauge on my pity-o-meter clicked down a cog or two.
‘Even if they suspect you, it’s only until they can rule you out of the equation. No one at the station would want to believe you could be guilty of murder. I think they’d work pretty damned hard to prove it wasn’t you.’
I thought about Paul Frost phoning Maggie. Perhaps there were some people on my side. The coffee and company must have been working their magic: I was starting to feel a little more rational.
‘At least they’ve got a real suspect now – or two. They would have to seriously look at Dr Walden’s wife too. The microscope isn’t focused on just me any more.’
‘They have you to thank for that information, and they’ve kicked you off the case. That’s gratitude for you.’ Maggie reached over and pulled my plate away before I could mutilate the sandwich any further.
‘It wouldn’t be so bad if I was just off the case. I’m off the job. What the hell am I supposed to do?’
‘Can you go home to the farm for a few days, till this blows over?’
‘I’m not allowed to leave the area.’
Come to think of it, they hadn’t defined the word ‘area’. Mum and Dad weren’t that far away – only an hour. A bit of home comfort and TLC would be nice, though the inevitable parental interrogations wouldn’t be. Besides, it probably wouldn’t be wise to piss off the Boss over semantics at this delicate time.
‘I think it best I stay here. I’d rather be close to the powers that are deciding on my fate.’
20
Maggie was mean enough to confiscate the gin, but not to ban me from the pub. In fact, she insisted on playing chaperone, but only at a respectable hour. I managed to fill in the afternoon with an obscene amount of housework. Maybe I was more like my mother than I liked to admit.
Another more difficult chore involved the telephone. There was something I had to do and I wasn’t at all sure how it would go down. I picked up the handset and tapped in the number I’d written down, then, as the phone started to ring, I had to stop the urge to hang up. My innards felt like they were about to betray me again. I was seriously considering a trip to the loo when someone picked up.
‘Hello.’ The voice was quiet and familiar.
‘Lockie. Hi, it’s Sam.’
‘Sam, what’s happening? Do you have some news?’ He sounded almost eager, and I felt even worse about what I was going to tell him.
‘No, nothing like that. It’s just, well … I wanted you to hear it from me first.’
‘Hear what?’
I took a very deep breath. ‘They’ve thrown me off the case and suspended me.’ I spat the words out quickly before my nerve deserted me. ‘I’m a suspect, Lockie.’
There was deathly silence from the other end of the phone.
‘I promise you, Lockie, I had nothing to do with Gaby’s death. I’m only a suspect because of our past … you know, relationship.’ It sounded so awkward, but I had to try to explain. I was going to say something more when he interrupted.
‘Is that it?’
‘Well, yes, I just wanted you to hear it from me.’
‘You shouldn’t be talking to me, then.’
I flinched at the click, and then listened for a while to the series of regular beeps before I hung up.
I decided I did need that trip to the toilet, after all.
21
I turned my head aside to discreetly stifle the beer belch. It didn’t work: the damned thing escaped anyway, as did the accompanying guilty giggle. It was echoed from the other side of the table.
‘Oh, you’re just class, girl,’ Maggie said with a slightly exaggerated wave in my direction.
‘At least I tried.’
As soon as it was a socially acceptable hour, we’d shifted camp to The Arms. There were, thankfully, only a handful of patrons, most of whom barely registered our arrival. Perfect by me, though I did take the care to turn my back to the rest of the pub. If people did happen to talk about me, I preferred to stay ignorant.
Two hours later, the place had filled up considerably and so had I. Maggie and I had carefully avoided any conversation about the whole Lockie business; instead, we had busied ourselves with the consumption of impressive quantities of beer while talking utter drivel. Beer – the choice of chumpions. I generally got too bloated to want another drop before I got to the hideously pissed stage; nonetheless, I had quite a sway on when I finally had to get up to pay my respects to the ladies’ room. I wove my way over to the small hallway, and thought I had made it to sanctuary without being accosted when a large hand slapped my shoulder.
‘Sam, Sam, Sam.’ The slur in those three words told me Trevor Ray had put quite an effort into his drinking tonight too. ‘Who’s been a naughty little girl, then?’
Oh Christ, just what I needed right now – a pissed old geezer in a confined space. I looked over his shoulder, desperate to catch anybody’s eye.
‘Your friends in the Fuzz have been checking up on you. Wanted to know if you’d been out to see me? Think you’ve been popping off the opposition, do they?’
Man, living in a small town was a pain in the arse sometimes. I leaned against the wall for support, knocking a stuffed trout trophy askew in the process, and removed his hand from my shoulder.
‘Mind your own business, Trev. It’s nothing to do with you.’
‘Hah, that’s right. This is bloody brilliant: the Fuzz versus the Fuzz.’ His chuckle was positively girlish. ‘You do my heart good, girl. It’s bloody hilarious.’ The offending hand had found its way back onto my shoulder.
‘Well, I don’t find it bloody funny at all.’ I had an overwhelming urge to wipe that childish grin right off of his face and was about to forcibly remove his hand from my shoulder when someone else did it for me.
‘Off you go, leave the lady alone.’
Trev looked indignant for a second and then, when he saw who it was, grinned again and obligingly shuffled off, prattling on to himself about police suspecting police.
‘Thanks, Cole.’
Cole worked for Trev, which probably explained why Trev was willing to take the hint.
‘Lockie told me.’ It was brief but direct and, considering how much I’d had to drink, so was my response.
‘Well, it’s a crock of shit. Did they tell him about the doctor?’
Cole’s brows clashed together. ‘The bastard.’
‘How’s Lockie taking it?’
‘Not well.’
‘You make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid, you hear?’ To emphasise the point I leaned forwards and jabbed him in the chest. He grabbed the offending hand and bent down to give me a good look.
‘You’ve had too much to drink.’ It was a statement, not a question, and no defence I could mount to the contrary would have had a leg to stand on.
‘Just enough to take my mind off it all.’
‘Did you drive here?’
‘No, no, no, no, no,’ I said, shaking my head. Oddly, Cole kept shaking long after my head had stopped moving. ‘The bastards took my truck off me. I’m wheel-l
ess.’
‘I’ll give you a ride home.’
I was going to protest, then thought better of it. It had been a shit of a day, and bed was an alluring prospect.
‘Where’s Maggie?’ he asked, assuming, correctly, we would have come here together.
‘Over by the sofas. But I gotta pee first.’ I lurched into the bathroom.
When I finally got out of the ladies’ room, Cole was still leaning against the wall, ready to escort me over to Maggie. She looked up at our approach and waved cheerily.
‘I was wondering where you’d got to. I was just considering sending out a search party.’
‘I was accosted by the toilets, but thank God Sir Lancelot here came to my rescue. We’ve got a ride home.’ I patted Cole on the arm.
‘Hallelujah,’ she said, and then gathered up her bag. She wobbled over to Cole, stood up on tiptoes, soundly kissed him on the cheek and proclaimed, ‘My hero.’
I believe the hero blushed.
22
My hair hurt.
I didn’t even know that was possible. My head hurt too, but my hair, being attached to my head, made me feel like Medusa with a snake ache. Blinking made matters worse; it invited my eyelids to join in the torture party.
Gawd, if only we’d stuck to the beer. But Maggie and I had made the ill-conceived decision to polish off an open bottle of port scavenged from the back of a cupboard after we got home. It had an unsophisticated nose with a hint of currants and old sock, but we didn’t care – it had an alcohol content. Cole, quite understandably, had declined our invitation to join us. Probably thought he’d get far more sensible company back at the pub.
When I heard a fumbling from the direction of the kitchen, I briefly toyed with the idea of getting up to join Maggie, but then snapped myself out of it. I took the long- distance approach.
‘Cooooooffffffffffeeeeeeeeee,’ I called, as quietly as I could.
A moment later there was a tap at my bedroom door and an apparition appeared around the corner. ‘You rang?’