Already Dead

by Jaye Ford

  ‘How did you sleep?’ she asked.

  A quick sideways dip of his head. ‘I saw a few different scenarios behind closed eyes.’

  ‘Remembering or doing over?’

  ‘Both. It’s a normal process, the brain sifting through an incident.’ Was that what a psychologist had told him or had he been there before? He slipped a hand under the top cover of the folder, pulled out a piece of paper and slid it across the desk to her. ‘That’s the number for the victim support group.’

  ‘Do I look like I need it?’

  He took a moment for another evaluation. ‘I thought it was better to give it to you now. Some people find it hard to ask for help.’

  Hedging already, she thought, taking the page and slipping it into her handbag. ‘Thanks.’

  He reached under the cover again, came back with her mobile phone. ‘Thought you might need it before you get your car back. The battery’s dead now but you’ve got a lot of missed calls.’

  ‘You checked it?’

  ‘It was in your car. I needed to know who it belonged to. The techs said it was still getting calls when they were going through it this morning.’

  A tonne of people had her mobile number and she guessed most of them had seen the news sometime in the past twenty-four hours. More than a few of them would be chasing her for a quote – she was glad Deanne and Russell had been selective about giving out Tilda’s number. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Have you seen the newspapers?’ he asked.

  ‘Only the local one.’

  ‘Nice idea to have someone speak for you.’

  ‘I’ve done the front-page thing before.’

  He nodded as though he’d already seen her headline appearances. She wondered if he’d followed the stories or read them today before slipping them into his file.

  ‘How did the papers find out you’d interviewed Brendan Walsh?’ he said.

  ‘I asked a friend to pull the story for me.’

  ‘A reporter friend?’

  Who else would have a copy? ‘Yes.’

  ‘Why did you want it?’

  ‘Because I couldn’t remember talking to Brendan.’ Because she wanted to know what was real. Because he’d died in front of her.

  ‘Is it research for a story?’

  She hesitated. You’re Miranda Jack. The journo. ‘Would you have a problem if it was?’

  ‘It depends on what you’re planning to write. If you’re unhappy with the outcome yesterday, I’d like a chance to discuss it with you.’

  She kept her eyes on him for a second. The gaze that watched her back looked like a challenge. Was he concerned about criticism? It happened. People, the media, politicians – everyone wanted someone to blame. Yesterday’s outcome was tragic, no other way to look at it, but she was glad Aiden Hawke had been on the motorway and that she hadn’t been part of a body count.

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘there’s no story. I’m just trying to make sense of what happened. I’m … Brendan …’ She stopped, pressed her lips together, something new joining the apprehension in her stomach and forming words she hadn’t spoken yet. ‘He needed help. He died in front of me because I didn’t know how.’

  ‘You did the right thing out there yesterday.’

  ‘A man who was in my car is dead.’

  ‘You didn’t make that happen.’

  Her hands curled into fists on the table as Brendan’s knuckles slipped through them again. She hadn’t lost her grip – he decided to go. ‘No, but it doesn’t stop me wishing I could’ve done something to prevent it.’

  ‘You went home to your family. That’s a big thing, Miranda. Cars going at high speed are dangerous and you were driving yours with a gun at your head. Don’t underestimate what you achieved.’

  He was being kind, she was grateful for that. It had started that way with the Homicide detectives. ‘I hope you’re telling yourself the same thing.’

  He paused, maybe a little surprised to have the empathy redirected. ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Have you heard how his family is?’

  ‘I spoke to his wife again this morning and she’s as well as can be expected under the circumstances. So far, the media hasn’t bothered her.’

  ‘Is her name Kate?’

  ‘Kate Walsh, yes.’

  Jax nodded, thinking again about Kate and her son, about herself and Zoe. About Aiden and what the hell it was like to be him. Rescuing a hostage and trying not to get shot, then finding empathy for a widow a few hours later. She wanted to ask how he did it, how he weathered the storm of those conflicting emotions, how he didn’t feel like he was being buried by them. Decided he might ask the victim support counsellor to come and pick her up if she did. ‘How long had they been separated?’

  ‘He moved to Sydney four months ago for work. She stayed here but I’m not sure she considered it a separation.’

  ‘He told me he’d left her but he’d only left town.’ I left because I love her. I had to. Real and not real. And worse for his wife, Jax thought. She kissed Nick goodbye the morning he died; Kate Walsh didn’t have the chance with Brendan. ‘I was the last person to see her husband alive. She might have questions I could answer.’

  ‘I’ll let you know if she asks.’

  ‘I’d like to talk to her. Can you give me her number?’

  ‘No, Miranda. I can’t do that.’

  His refusal was simple, direct – and it made frustration and resentment swell hot and hard in her throat.

  She’d been excluded and bypassed too many times in the past year. No, Miranda, we won’t share that. Your husband’s property stays with us. We decide what you can have. It was a different man and a different death but nothing had changed. All she wanted was to know why her mind was being strangled with sad, horrible images – and another cop was telling her to sit quietly and do what she was told.

  She took a breath, ready to ball him out, to pick up where she’d left off with the last lot of cops. Saw Aiden across the table, pale irises on her face, something sharp-eyed and perceptive in them … and bit down on her words.

  Don’t do it, Jax. Don’t start that way. This was a different cop: it wasn’t too late for a different approach.

  17

  Jax rolled her lips together, found a neutral face. ‘Why?’

  ‘There are processes that have to take place before that can happen.’ Aiden pulled her statement from his folder, already moving on. He hadn’t closed the door, though, just asked her to wait on the threshold. ‘Can you read your statement through?’ he said. ‘Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to add?’

  The official version wasn’t like anything she’d ever written – no attempt to make sense of the moment or to convey the high emotions that had saturated the events. It was just the facts: times, places, actions, and as much of Brendan’s rambling as she’d been able to recall. Reading the document made her hands clammy.

  ‘Is this all you need?’ she asked when she’d finished.

  ‘I’d like as much as you can remember.’

  ‘Do you need direct quotes?’

  He paused, watched her through half a second of thought. ‘Do you have more?’

  ‘The entire drama is on a reel in my head.’

  ‘Then I’d like all of it.’

  Her heart thumped as she forced the images and sounds into slow-mo, picking out the detail, putting them into words for him. Aiden asked twice if there was anything else, as though she might be picking and choosing. Half an hour later, she signed the statement with a trembling hand and Aiden explained the rest of the process.

  It wasn’t a criminal investigation. She’d been cleared of any intent and Brendan wasn’t alive to answer charges. It was now a matter for the coroner. Aiden’s job was to detail the chain of events that led to Brendan’s death; hers was to give evidence at the inquest. Something to look forward to – another tearful and public event.

  As he returned the pages to his file, signalling the end of the process, she figure
d now was the time to try slipping a toe over his threshold. ‘Was Brendan at work yesterday? Did something happen that might have upset him?’

  He closed the folder. ‘No, he had a day off.’

  When she’d done shift work and had weekends in the middle of the week, she’d done housework, shopped, met friends in their lunchbreaks and skited about days off. She wondered what private security people did – maybe they went to the gym. Did they meet colleagues or avoid them? ‘He said he’d been trying not to kill himself for two days. Did something happen two days before, on Saturday?’

  He slid his pen into a shirt pocket. ‘I can’t answer that yet.’

  ‘Do you know what happened to him in Afghanistan? He talked about a helicopter crash. Was he in one?’ She waited while Aiden folded his forearms on the table, not sure if he was pausing for dramatic effect or thinking about what to say.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miranda. I haven’t got all the information yet. It’s going to take time and there’ll be some details I won’t be able to share with you. My suggestion is to get some rest, spend some time with your daughter, go to the beach, and if you still want to talk about it in a couple of days, give me a call.’

  He clearly had no idea what it was like to be left on the outside after being trapped in the middle. She knew sarcasm wouldn’t help but it found its own way to her voice. ‘Is that what other people do? Have a surf and forget about it?’

  ‘Some of them.’

  ‘What about the rest?’

  He held his hands out, no answer for that. Or perhaps he didn’t want her to think there was an option.

  ‘Do they call you back?’ she pressed.

  ‘Some of them.’

  ‘Do you answer their questions?’

  ‘It depends on the questions.’

  And she’d thought a dress and nice hair would work in her favour. ‘Do you ever give a clear answer?’

  He hesitated. ‘Do you ever run out of questions?’

  Familiar hackles started to rise on her neck. ‘Not usually.’

  One side of his mouth turned up the tiniest bit. She clenched her teeth, told herself amusement was better than the response she’d had from other detectives.

  ‘I’m not telling you to forget it,’ he said. ‘I’m just suggesting you give it some time.’ He pushed his chair back. ‘And if you decide to call, maybe you can email ahead with a list of questions so I can have a few answers for you.’ He raised an eyebrow, more cheeky than patronising.

  Okay. Take a breath. She found a smile. ‘Thank you.’

  He picked up the folder as he stood, making it clear he wasn’t fielding any more questions today. And that was it, apparently, until she called him back. Not a whole lot put into perspective, but she’d signed the statement. It was closure, of sorts. She could go and buy herself that drink. Sit on her own and tell herself she’d made the right decision selling up and bringing Zoe here. That a shitty start didn’t mean the rest of it would turn out that way. That she’d find work, make friends, put her life back together.

  That she couldn’t let this thing linger on inside her.

  Hitching her bag to her shoulder, watching as Aiden turned to leave, she wondered if goodbye was the best way to go. If she could get a foot through Aiden’s door, he might tell her when he had the answers, instead of waiting until she rang. And, well, if nothing else, he was the only person she knew in Newcastle who was within twenty-five years of her own age.

  ‘Can I buy you a drink?’ she asked.

  He looked back at her, surprise in the rise of his brows. ‘You don’t need to do that.’

  Great, Jax. That door was just swinging to the jamb. ‘Sorry, I probably should’ve explained what I meant.’

  Aiden tucked his folder under his arm as though he was ready for her to make a report. Heat touched her cheeks like two warm hands and she wished it was as easy as she told Zoe: Hi, my name’s Miranda, do you want to play in the sandpit?

  She cleared her throat. ‘Nothing attached, no victim–cop thing, not a date. My aunt told me to treat myself to a chilled glass of chardonnay when I’m finished here and if I go home without wine on my breath, she’ll be worried about me.’ She laughed, like it was funny her aunt was encouraging her to take comfort in alcohol. ‘Actually, I could do with the drink, but sitting on my own isn’t all that appealing today and I’m new in town, I don’t know anyone else. So I figured, if we’re done here, we could just, you know, have a drink.’

  His expression didn’t change; he just glanced briefly through the glass into the room behind him.

  Now it was embarrassing. ‘Sorry,’ she said again. ‘I didn’t ask if you … you’ve probably got a wife and kids to go home to. It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’

  ‘No. No wife or kids.’

  ‘Right.’

  Maybe there were regulations about socialising with victims you’d disarmed. Maybe he didn’t want to because she was a victim he’d had to disarm. Understandable. But as she waited for the polite rejection, he flicked a look at his watch, ran a hand down his tie and said, ‘Yeah, why not? I’ll need about ten minutes to finish up here. Why don’t I meet you somewhere?’

  Jax waited on the deck of The Beach House, away from the other drinkers, the surf at her back and her arms folded. Uneasiness had returned to her stomach and she was wishing she’d suggested coffee somewhere quiet when Aiden walked out through the glass doors. She almost didn’t recognise him – he’d found his black-framed sunglasses, lost the tie and looked less like the serious detective she’d been talking to twenty minutes ago and more like an FBI G-man on a drinks break. Yes, Tilda, well within the realm of handsome.

  It was too hot to sit outside so Jax bought the wine and a beer while he went in search of a table in the air-conditioning. The Beach House was an old-style hotel, for years left in disrepair and only, recently renovated with lots of glass that showed off the original timberwork inside and out. Jax figured she could probably see Tilda’s house if she wandered out to the southern stretch of the deck. She found Aiden facing east, in front of a huge window that overlooked sand littered with towels and umbrellas and bathers – and a swell beyond it that had brought out enough surfers to fill a small suburb. It was Newcastle, city by the beach.

  ‘Do you surf?’ Jax asked as she arranged herself on a stool opposite him.

  ‘Not in years. How about you?’

  ‘I’m a country girl. Never felt comfortable out of my depth.’

  ‘Well,’ he lifted his beer, ‘welcome to Newcastle.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She tapped her wineglass against it and took a sip, hoping she didn’t look as uncomfortable as she felt. It was a long time since she’d sat in a bar with a man. A year since she’d sat in a bar without friends whose main game was to cheer her up and avoid the subject of Nick. Across the table, Aiden had pushed his sunglasses onto his head, and if he noticed her discomfort, he didn’t show it.

  ‘Can I ask a question?’ she said.

  ‘Just one?’

  ‘I can’t promise there won’t be a follow-up.’

  ‘Wait a sec.’ He took a mouthful of beer. ‘Right, go.’

  Okay, that was a little cute. Maybe he wouldn’t be like the other cops. And maybe she shouldn’t push it. ‘Last night on the motorway, you called me Jax. I figure a cop can get basic information from a person’s registration plates, but a nickname? Is it on a police file somewhere?’

  ‘As in Miranda Jack “a.k.a. Jax”?’

  ‘Does it say that?’

  ‘No.’ He chuckled as he glanced out the window, something self-conscious about the way he ducked her gaze. ‘I knew who you were. I didn’t tell you before because you didn’t seem to remember me, but now …’ He did a brief sideways nod. ‘We were at Newcastle Uni together about a hundred years ago.’

  Well, that was a surprise. She searched his face, trying to imagine him fifteen years younger. Probably studious and sensible, not one of the ra-ras. ‘Were we in the same course?’

&n
bsp; He gave a quick, quiet laugh. It was uni, there’d been partying and drinking and …

  Oh geez, had she forgotten the cop who’d rescued her? ‘Did we …?’ She winced instead of finishing.

  He chuckled again. ‘No. I was second-year Psych when you were there. We were both at Evatt House.’

  The university on-campus accommodation. ‘God, I haven’t thought of that place in ages.’ Back when she was there, it was known as the country kids’ college. Technically she hadn’t been a country kid after living with Tilda for two years but her aunt had encouraged her to try it – moving out but close enough to go home if she needed to.

  After her parents’ deaths, Jax had buried herself in schoolwork for two years, blitzed her final-year exams, then had a breakdown. She spent the four months of the Christmas summer holidays suffering crying jags that could last for days, feeling numb and fatigued. A psychologist gave her pills and told her, among other things, to get some fresh air, exercise and write a journal – and she’d started to transcribe her way out of the fog. By the time the academic year began, Jax had been accepted for Law degrees at universities in Sydney and Melbourne, but opted to stay in Newcastle, close to the only family and home she had left. She studied Arts for a year, lived at Evatt House on weekdays and went to Tilda’s on weekends, sometimes taking friends and making it a house party, other times retreating to the solitude of her room. She had weird memories of that time – highs and lows, laughter and black days. There hadn’t been a lot of studying, she’d been marking time until she graduated from something more personal.

  ‘There were what, two hundred kids at Evatt House?’ Jax said. ‘Did you pinch the student lists for future policing needs?’

  ‘Actually …’ He did a side-to-side with his head, a little sheepish. ‘I got you for Murder Week.’