“And taxis,” said Jack, obviously taking the same thought process as Cooper. “She could have got a taxi somewhere, couldn’t she? You can check that, can’t you?”
“Yes,” said Stocky again, “we’re checking all that. I understand this is difficult for you both, but in order to help Rebecca we really need you to answer our questions.”
Carmel placed both her hands flat on the table. “Right, yes. Of course. What do you want to know?”
Cooper made a point of looking at his watch. “We need to make this as quick as we can,” he said to Stocky. “Why don’t we split up?”
“Good idea. Jack, you mind if we go in your office?”
“Not at all.” Jack pushed himself up out of his seat, and he and Stocky retreated to the glass-walled office in the back corner of the room, leaving Cooper and Carmel alone at the little round table.
“That was subtle,” Carmel said, a half-smile escaping from the corner of her mouth.
“What? Oh, no, we just need to get through this quickly so we can get back out there. We’ve found it saves time to split up in cases like these.”
Carmel nodded. “Right. So what do you want to ask me?”
“How long have you known Rebecca?”
“Oh, I think about five years. We both took a creative writing class together. Short stories, I think it was. We critiqued each other’s work, got to be friends quite quickly after that.”
“Did you see each other very often?”
“We tried a few dinner parties, but our husbands weren’t what you’d call compatible.” She gave an almost apologetic smile. “With Jack being in real estate, and Royce an electrician, we thought they’d find some common ground. Houses, you know. But they always ended up arguing, so we gave up trying to do couple things.”
“What did they argue about?”
“Politics, sports, current affairs. You name it, they argued. I think they’re just too different, they naturally clash.”
Cooper nodded. “I know a few people like that. So you and Rebecca continued to be friends, despite the differences between your husbands.”
“Of course. Just because they can’t get along, there’s no reason we can’t still see each other. We meet for lunch once every couple of months. Rebecca still dabbles in writing, shows me her work sometimes. I don’t bother. Too busy here, working with Jack six days a week.”
“Can you think of anywhere she might have gone? Any reason she might have left home without her car? Without telling Royce where she was going?”
Carmel paused, worrying at her wedding ring. “Are you sure I can’t get you a coffee? Tea, perhaps?”
“No, thank you. I really just need you to answer the question.”
“I don’t know, to be honest. I can’t think of anywhere specific she might have gone.”
“Mrs Payne, forgive me, but I get the feeling you’re not being straight with me.”
“I am. I really don’t know what could have happened to Rebecca.” Carmel looked intently at something in the sink, then shifted her gaze to the window. Anywhere but at Cooper.
Cooper pretended to make some more notes, giving her time to think before he brought up the subject of the phone calls between Rebecca and Jack. In the end he didn’t have to.
“You know, don’t you?” she said softly.
“Know what?”
“That my husband and Rebecca are… seeing each other. Behind my back.”
4
“How long has it been going on?” Cooper asked.
Carmel laced her fingers together in her lap. “I don’t know, not exactly. I suspect it’s a recent development.” She glanced at the office then back to Cooper. “There’ve been phone calls, you know. Late at night. It’s stupid, really. He knows I pay all the phone bills for the office, including his mobile.”
She went quiet again.
“Did you witness the phone calls? Or did something else make you suspect?”
“I heard him,” she finally admitted. “Late at night, he’d go into the guest room where he thought I couldn’t hear him.”
“How late?” Cooper thought of the calls he’d seen on Rebecca’s latest phone bill. Most were around ten o’clock, not what he’d really classify as late for a phone conversation these days.
“Not late-late, I’m not talking early hours of the morning or anything like that. Ten, ten-thirty. That sort of thing. I like to go to bed around that time and read for a while, whereas Jack usually stays up working in his office a little longer. His office is right next door to our bedroom, and the walls are not very sound-proof. He knows that, so he doesn’t make calls once I’ve gone to bed. It’s too late for business calls by then, anyway. Then a couple of months ago he started going into the guest bedroom some nights. I could hear him go in there. He never goes in there, it’s only ever used if we have people stay over.”
“So you got curious?” Cooper suggested.
“Yes, you might say that. One night when he did it I snuck out and listened at the door. I heard him speaking, so I assumed he must be on the phone. I didn’t want to stand there and listen, so I went back to bed. But I couldn’t stop wondering who he was talking to at that time of night, especially since he wasn’t telling me about it. We have no secrets, Detective. At least I thought we didn’t.”
It was amazing how many times he’d heard that before. We don’t have any secrets; my husband wouldn’t lie to me; my wife tells me everything. In Cooper’s experience, people always had something to hide.
“Is that when you checked his phone bills?” he asked.
“Yes. I’m not proud of it, but I just had to know who he was talking to. And I was shocked to find out it was Rebecca.”
“Why?”
“Well, she’s my friend, not his. They barely say two words to each other. To be honest, I thought Rebecca didn’t like Jack. You know, since he didn’t get along with her own husband. Whenever I spoke about him she always looked bored, and took any opportunity to change the subject.” Carmel’s eyes widened, her expression changing into one of sudden realisation. “Oh, I really am blind, aren’t I?” A bitter laugh escaped her. “She didn’t want to talk about him because she was sleeping with him behind my back.”
Cooper tried his best to look sympathetic. “It’s possible, yes. When did all this happen, Carmel? When did you suspect Jack of having an affair?”
“It’s only been in the last couple of weeks. I heard him on the phone in the guest room the week before last. The phone bills came to the office on Monday, and I had a good look at his. I recognised Rebecca’s number. Then I dug out the old bills, and the calls have been happening for the last three months. I was considering confronting him about it, but…”
“So you haven’t yet? Confronted him?”
“No.” She got up and opened one of the kitchenette cabinets. “I really need a coffee.” This time she didn’t ask if he wanted one.
“All right, Carmel. I think you’ve told me enough for now.” Cooper stood and tucked his notebook into his top pocket.
“What happens now?” Carmel asked. “I mean, you don’t think Jack and Rebecca’s… affair, has anything to do with her disappearance, do you?”
“Do you?”
She seemed to not understand the question straight away, and Cooper stared straight at her for a long moment. Her face was devoid of any emotion, before she finally came around.
“No. Not unless… oh, goodness, what have I done?” She put down the coffee mug she was holding, almost missing the bench. She looked up at Cooper, and this time her eyes told a story of fear.
“What have you done?” Cooper asked, as calmly as he could.
“I told Royce. I saw him yesterday morning, tracked him down at the house he was working on. I thought he had a right to know. Oh, God, what if he’s…”
Cooper waited for her to finish the sentence, but she didn’t. He pulled his notebook back out of his pocket. “You saw Royce Gilmore yesterday, and told him his wife and your husband were having
an affair?”
Carmel slowly nodded. “Yes. Well, I told him I suspected it.”
“But you didn’t know for sure, because you hadn’t confronted Jack about it.”
“That’s right.”
“What about Rebecca? Did you ask her directly?”
“No. Like I said, I haven’t spoken to her in a couple of weeks. I’ve been busy, and usually she’s the one who contacts me. She hasn’t, not lately.”
Cooper tried to get it straight in his head. She’d suspected the affair for approximately one to two weeks, confirmed it only as far as the phone call evidence, and then gone and told Royce Gilmore that his wife was sleeping with her husband.
“Carmel, can you tell me where you and Jack were last night?”
“We were at home. We had a few drinks, and watched a movie. It was a relatively early night.”
“Okay.” Cooper wrote it down. He also got the address of the house where she saw Royce, but didn’t have time for any more questions before Stocky and Jack came out of the office. The look on Stocky’s face told Cooper they needed to regroup out in the car and figure out where to go from here. They each handed over business cards in case anything else that might be helpful was thought of, or if Rebecca got in touch with either of them. Cooper didn’t think the second scenario was likely. His gut was telling him something bad had happened to Rebecca Gilmore.
* * *
Cooper drove while Stocky relayed the highlights of his conversation with Jack Payne. After some nudging, the realtor had freely admitted he’d been sleeping with Rebecca.
“Did he say why?” Cooper asked.
“What do you mean, why? Why do men have affairs, is that what you’re asking?”
“Not all men. Just this one. You saw his wife, she’s quite attractive. She seems smart, professional. The kind of woman most guys would want on their arm. From her pictures, and what her family says, Rebecca Gilmore is the opposite. She’s short, plain looking, and a little overweight. Homely, I guess you could describe her as. Not the kind of woman you’d think a man like Jack Payne would go for.”
“Maybe that’s why. Maybe he wanted something different from his wife. Maybe his wife is good for business, she’s the one he wants to be seen with. But maybe homely is what he really wants. Who knows?”
Cooper shrugged. “I guess. What else did he say?”
“He called her last night, but the conversation was brief. She hadn’t mentioned any plans to go out, was apparently going to have a bath and enjoy having the house to herself. He said he thought briefly about going over to see her, but decided it would be too risky with the husband just down the road at the local pub. He also said he’d promised Carmel they’d spend the night in together. She corroborate that?”
“Yeah. Said they had a couple of drinks, watched a movie, and went to bed early.”
“Not the greatest of alibis.”
“Do you think Jack had something to do with Rebecca’s disappearance?”
Stocky shrugged. “I don’t know. But if he was sleeping with her, which he admits, it’s got to put him on our radar.”
“True. But I think we need to consider Royce Gilmore pretty closely.” Cooper told Stocky about Carmel confronting Royce.
“Yes, I suppose that makes the husband suspect number one.”
“It does nothing to rule him out, that’s for sure. While we’re on suspects, what about the obvious one?” Cooper asked, changing lanes to head in the direction of the Gladesville Bridge.
“Obvious one? You mean the Adultery Killer?”
“Yeah. He’s due, she’s having an affair, she’s missing. It fits.”
“It does fit. Where are you going? We’re due back at the office.”
“Oh, shit.” Cooper realised his mistake and quickly ducked into a side street before he was stuck going over the bridge. “Sorry, not thinking.” He headed in the opposite direction, down Victoria Road towards Parramatta where the Homicide Squad was stationed within the NSW Police Force Headquarters.
“It could be him,” said Stocky. “We can’t rule it out. But I want to look closely at the husband and the boyfriend as well. Don’t want to miss anything.”
5
Cooper’s desk was one of a number in the open-plan office style of the Homicide Squad room. He sat heavily in his chair, the morning’s business taking its toll. They’d done a drive through on the way back for lunch, and the fast food sat heavy in his stomach. He really needed to stop eating crap and start exercising, but where the hell was he going to find the time? And what was the point, anyway? He’d seen too much violent death in his time as a police officer to worry about slowly killing himself with food.
There were a number of glass-walled offices along one side of the squad room, and Cooper couldn’t keep his eyes off the second office from the left. In it Stocky was having a heated discussion with Senior Sergeant Frank Munro. It didn’t last very long. Stocky flung the door open and stormed to the elevators, pressing the button repeatedly before giving up and taking the stairs.
Cooper waited a minute for the air to clear, then went over to greet the man in charge of his team.
“They pull you in on the weekend, too, Sarge?”
“Yeah. Briefing in ten minutes. What do you think, is it him?”
“I don’t know. We’ve got a missing woman, and we’ve confirmed she was having an affair. It sounds like him, on the face of it.”
“But you’re not sure. What’s different?”
“The woman herself. Doesn’t fit the victim profile. Something feels off. Stocky wants to keep on the husband and the lover, and I agree.”
Munro shuffled some papers around on his desk. Cooper wasn’t the tidiest of people himself, but the state of Munro’s office was ridiculous. How the man could find anything was a mystery not just to Cooper, but to the rest of the squad. But he always seemed on top of everything, so the messy approach must work for him.
“Fair enough. We’ll go through it at the briefing, but yeah, keep working those two closely. There’s something else I need to ask you, close the door.”
Cooper did as instructed, and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of Munro’s desk.
“What’s up?”
“Stocky’s being investigated. Someone from Professional Standards will be interviewing him on Monday. I need you to make sure he’s here.”
Cooper gritted his teeth. “Is this about the Cadogan case? He said you wanted to see him yesterday but you never got the chance. What’s going on, Sarge?”
“I’ll let him tell you. Just make sure he’s here on Monday, okay? Davis will be interviewed as well, so if you need to go out for this case, take Sammy.”
Sammy Saulwick was Ray Davis’s partner, and they were all on the same team here at Homicide. Davis was a prick, but Sammy was okay. It had been Davis who’d dealt with the Cadogan domestic homicide case with Stocky back when Cooper had been on paternity leave.
By all accounts it had been a straight forward case. The husband had walked into Mascot police station and told the first officer he came across that he’d just stabbed his wife in their Botany home. Covered in blood, he’d accompanied them back to the house where they’d found the woman dead on the kitchen floor, knife by her side. He was arrested and charged, and the case was set to go before the courts in two months’ time. Cooper couldn’t understand why Professional Standards would be anywhere near this case. And not just that, but Munro said Stocky himself was being investigated. What was that all about?
He promised to make sure Stocky was available for his interview, and left to get set up in the briefing room. As the senior investigators on the case, it was up to them to run the briefing, with Munro overseeing. Stocky was the senior partner, so ordinarily he would do all the talking. But Stocky had stormed off and was nowhere to be seen, so Cooper figured he’d take the lead. He selected a black marker and began making notes on the whiteboard set up in the corner of the room.
“What’s this? They final
ly put you in charge of something, Cooper?” Ray Davis smirked as he took a seat in the back row, his partner slinking in beside him.
“You better believe it.” Cooper plastered a smile across his face; he wasn’t going to let Davis get to him. Hell, this guy was probably the reason Stocky wasn’t standing up here right now. “Nice to see you on this fine day.” Cooper made a point of looking out the window, the glorious winter sunshine reminding him of something. “Didn’t you have footy tickets for today?”
The smirk disappeared quickly from Davis’s face. He was a massive Parramatta Eels fan, and missing the game this afternoon must be hurting. Cooper turned back to the whiteboard and allowed himself a little moment of smug satisfaction.
“All right, settle it down, you lot,” Munro said as he entered the fast-filling room. “As you know we’ve got a potential Adultery Killer victim. Missing woman, last seen by her family early yesterday evening, confirmed today as having an affair. We all know that’s our killer’s main requirement in a victim, so Stocky and Cooper are lead on this until we know otherwise.” He took a seat at the side of the room and nodded in Cooper’s direction.
“Thanks, Sarge. I’ve put what we know so far up here,” he began, indicating the whiteboard. “Apologies for my writing. The victim is Rebecca Gilmore, white female, fifty-two years old. Husband Royce Gilmore, also fifty-two, two kids still living at home, Ashley, twenty-two, and Josh, nineteen.”
“Last to see her?” asked a voice from the middle of the crowd. Cooper wasn’t sure who.
“The daughter, Ashley. Said she gave her mum a kiss goodbye when she left the house around seven pm. Josh left minutes before, and Royce had left earlier, around six-fifteen, to go to the local pub.”
“We got verification of that yet?”
Cooper looked up in time to see who was asking the questions this time.
“Got a list of names to check. You want to do that for me, Baker?”
Senior Constable Isaac Baker scratched his head and shrugged. “Sure.” He looked to his partner, seated next to him, for confirmation. “We’ll take that.”
The Dark Series Page 3