The Dark Series

by Catherine Lee

  Cooper tried to picture the man he knew as Des Saunders as a wife beater. He’d seen enough domestic violence to know that abusers come in all shapes and sizes, but Des Saunders was such a puny little man. Cooper struggled to see it, and he told Stocky so.

  “I thought the same thing. Couldn’t believe he’d been doing this to her, couldn’t believe I hadn’t seen it. But you know there’s no type for domestic violence. Sometimes it’s the little guys who do it precisely because their wives are the only ones they feel they can control.”

  “That’s no excuse.”

  “No, I never said it was an excuse. There’s no excuse for that sort of behaviour.”

  “So what did you do next?” Cooper sipped at his beer. He held a spare coaster in his right hand and flipped it around and around as he listened to Stocky’s account of a fellow police officer’s domestic abuse.

  “The next morning, Jenny begged me not to tell anyone. She’d somehow managed to keep it from the girls, and she assured us Des never laid a finger on them. Both Anthea and I tried to change her mind, told her we’d help get her out of there, that sort of thing, but she was adamant that she loved him and wanted to stay in the marriage. She said it didn’t happen very often, only occasionally when he drank very heavily. I didn’t believe her. I think it happened more often than she’d admit.”

  “Did you get her to change her mind?”

  “No. She said if I said anything she’d deny it, so there was no point. The only thing I could do was confront him about it myself.”

  The coaster Cooper had been spinning flipped off the table, and he left it rather than bend down to pick it up. “What happened when you confronted him?”

  “Well he couldn’t deny it, could he? I caught him red-handed. So he went on about being really sorry, it was the drink, not him, it wouldn’t happen again, etcetera.”

  “And you believed him?”

  “Of course I didn’t. Men like that don’t change. I tried to get him into some sort of counselling, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Worried about his reputation if it got out. So I kept an eye on him, and Anthea took it upon herself to keep an eye on Jenny. We decided we’d try and see more of them, not less. If we couldn’t make it stop, we’d at least be there for Jenny when the shit eventually hit the fan. Or so we thought.”

  Cooper was confused. How did this all translate into what was happening now? Why was Saunders deliberately trying to ruin Stocky’s career? He asked the question.

  “He thought I was having an affair with Jenny.”

  “What? Are you serious?”

  “Totally serious. When Anthea and I started spending more time with them, Des somehow twisted that into me and Jenny having some kind of fling. I know I used to try and get her alone for a couple of minutes to ask how things were going. Anthea and I even planned it — she’d distract Des while I checked in with Jenny. Apparently Des has processed this in his warped mind as me trying to get it on with his wife.”

  Cooper was stunned, but then the more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He pictured Stocky pulling Jenny aside for a discreet little chat while Anthea supposedly distracted Des. If Des saw this, which he obviously did, Cooper could see how his mind would jump to the wrong conclusion. Men who were abusive towards their partners were often the type to be insanely jealous, whether the threat was real or perceived. This was quite a situation Stocky had gotten himself into, all because he tried to help out a friend.

  “So, let me get this straight. Des Saunders, your old partner and friend, was beating up his wife. You found out about it and confronted him, and he promised to change but didn’t. You stayed close to keep an eye on things, and he mistook that for you having an interest in his wife.”

  “Not just an interest, he thought we had a full-on affair. Still thinks that, in fact. Nothing I say can convince him otherwise. He ordered me to stay away from his house, his wife, his daughters, the whole nine yards. God only knows how Jenny is these days. Anthea and I haven’t seen her in about three years.”

  “And then he turns up in Professional Standards, and figures this is his chance to get you back for something he thinks you did years ago.”

  “That’s right. And if he gets Davis in his pocket, there won’t be a thing I can do about it.”

  14

  The rain hammered steadily on the windows of homicide headquarters in Parramatta. Cooper listened to it as he looked through the old Facebook profile and tried to understand what the analyst was telling him.

  “So before she married Jack Payne three years ago, Carmel Payne’s name was Carmel Simpkins,” he clarified.

  “Correct.”

  “And Carmel Simpkins moved to Sydney from Perth a little over four years ago.”

  “Correct.”

  “So what are you showing me here?”

  The analyst, Anita, flicked to a second open window where a different Facebook profile was open. “This is Carmel Payne’s current Facebook profile,” she explained. “If I scroll right down to the bottom, you can see she joined just after she got married.”

  “What’s unusual about that?”

  “Nothing, by itself. It’s completely normal for someone to have only joined Facebook three years ago. But I did a little more digging. I was able to find an older profile that matched her identity details from when she lived in Perth. This Carmel Simpkins was a Facebook early adopter — she had a profile for a couple of years before leaving Perth, almost right from when Facebook came on the scene. Before that, she had a MySpace page, and I was able to get into that as well.”

  Cooper took control of the mouse and flicked back to the original Facebook profile. “So this is her before leaving Perth,” he flicked back to the current profile. “And this is her after getting married. Nothing for the year in between?”

  “I haven’t been able to find anything. But then, it’s also not unusual for someone to go off the site for a while. Some people like to take a break from social media, it can get overwhelming.”

  “Tell me about it.” Cooper was yet to embrace the world of social media, not having a Facebook account of his own or even really understanding what it was all about. It certainly seemed to keep his wife busy, though. “All right, so she had two different accounts and a gap year in between. What does it all mean? Or matter?”

  Anita smiled; she clearly had something up her sleeve and was reaching the point of her big reveal.

  “I wasn’t a hundred percent sure this old profile was really her, because there were no clear photos, and no mutual friends on the two pages. So I reached out to some of the friends she had on the old page, the Carmel Simpkins page. Two of them were willing to talk to me, and I discovered a few interesting things. But the real kicker was when I sent a photograph of the current Carmel Payne to both of them that I pulled off Jack Payne’s real estate website.”

  “And?” Cooper was beginning to get impatient.

  “They recognised her all right. But not as Carmel Simpkins. They both identified her as Vanessa Bridges.”

  “Who’s Vanessa Bridges?”

  “Vanessa Bridges and Carmel Simpkins left Perth together to come and live in Sydney.”

  This was confusing. The woman he interviewed on Saturday, Carmel Payne, was actually someone called Vanessa Bridges, who left Perth four years ago with another woman named Carmel Simpkins? Two women somehow became one? It didn’t make any sense.

  “I’m afraid you’ve lost me,” he admitted.

  “Who’s lost?” Stocky’s voice came from behind Cooper’s chair. He’d been so engrossed in trying to understand this Facebook confusion he didn’t notice his partner come in.

  “I am.” Cooper rolled back his chair and stood. “Try and explain it to him.” He gestured for Stocky to take his seat, and stood behind the two of them to listen again and maybe get it all straight in his head.

  “It’ll all make sense in a minute, I promise,” said Anita, but the smile on her face told Cooper she was actuall
y enjoying his confusion. He listened again as she explained the two Facebook pages to Stocky, and the obvious question occurred to him this time.

  “So where’s Vanessa Bridges?”

  “That’s just it. Two women left Perth, Vanessa Bridges and Carmel Simpkins. Only one arrived in Sydney — Carmel Simpkins. But according to the two witnesses, the friends left behind in Perth, the woman who now goes by Carmel Payne is actually Vanessa Bridges.”

  “How do you know Vanessa Bridges never arrived in Sydney?”

  “Because she doesn’t exist here. In fact, she only existed in Perth for a couple of years. I think we’re looking at some kind of identity theft, guys.”

  Cooper was beginning to understand. “So the Carmel Payne we interviewed on Saturday — the friend of our murder victim — is actually Vanessa Bridges. Or was for a couple of years. Before that, do we know who she was?”

  “No,” said Anita. “That’s as far as I’ve got.”

  “So she could be anybody,” said Stocky.

  “Including a murderer,” Cooper added.

  Stocky stood. “About time we had another little chat with the Paynes, don’t you think?”

  * * *

  Carmel Payne was with a customer when Cooper and Stocky walked into the real estate office. Jack looked up from his desk and came out of his office to greet them.

  “Have you found out what happened to Rebecca?” he asked, not bothering with hello.

  “We’re getting closer,” said Stocky. “We actually need to have another chat with Carmel, if that’s okay?”

  “Of course.” Jack looked at his wife, who got the message and explained to the couple in front of her that he’d take over from there. Jack introduced himself to the man and woman and led them into his office, closing the door. Cooper and Stocky took the seats they’d just vacated.

  “Sorry about that,” said Carmel, with a smile.

  “Not at all,” Stocky replied. “We’re sorry to interrupt you in the middle of work.”

  “Well, now that you have, what can I do for you?”

  Cooper kept a close eye on Carmel. She appeared quite calm, not at all concerned they’d come back for another interview.

  “We wanted to ask a few questions about your past, if we could,” said Stocky. “Before you married Jack you were Carmel Simpkins, is that right?”

  “That’s right.”

  Cooper watched for any facial tics, anything that could tell him Carmel was lying. He didn’t see any.

  “And you used to live in Perth?” Stocky consulted his notebook. “A suburb called Rivervale?”

  “Yes. What does this have to do with Rebecca’s murder?”

  “We’ll get to that. Bear with me. Our investigation has uncovered that you travelled to Sydney from Perth approximately four years ago with a woman named Vanessa Bridges, is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Cooper noted Carmel was full of one word answers, not giving anything away. We’re onto something here.

  “What was your relationship with Ms Bridges?”

  “What do you mean by relationship? We were friends. We both decided we’d had enough of Perth and wanted to experience life on the east coast. So we did. I don’t understand why you’re asking me all this.”

  “We’ve been doing background checks as part of our investigation, and yours came up with a few questions. We’re just trying to clarify things, that’s all.”

  Cooper studied Carmel’s body language. She sat with her legs crossed, the chair pushed out from under the desk. Her back couldn’t have been straighter, and her arms were folded tight. The earlier calm was gone; she now gave the impression of someone with something to hide.

  “What is it you want to clarify, then?” she asked.

  “We couldn’t find any trace of Vanessa Bridges. There’s no record of her ever having lived in Sydney in the last three years. No address details, no bank accounts, no mobile phone, nothing on social media. Nothing to say she ever arrived, actually.”

  “Well I can assure you she did.” Carmel uncrossed her arms and legs and pulled her chair under the desk. She laid her arms out in front of her, clasping her hands together. “We parted ways, though, so I can’t tell you anything about what she did when she got here.”

  “You parted ways?” asked Cooper. “Why would you travel across the country with someone only to part ways when you finally arrived?”

  “We had a falling out along the way. It’s a long journey. It took us the better part of a week, and by the time we got here we were well and truly sick of each other’s company. I can’t tell you what the falling out was about, something tiny, I’m sure. But when you spend all day every day with someone you’ve had a disagreement with, well, things can get quite nasty.”

  “So you went your separate ways?”

  “I had money for a hotel, but she didn’t. I offered to pay for a room for her for a couple of days, but she said she’d rather stay at a hostel. So as far as I know, that’s what she did. She set off to find a backpacker’s, or whatever those places are called, and that’s the last I saw of her.”

  “That was it?” asked Stocky. “No phone calls, nothing to see how you were going?”

  “No, nothing. I still had my mobile from when we were in Perth, but Vanessa had gotten rid of hers. I believe she even closed her bank accounts before we left, withdrew all the cash she had. She was going to open a new one once she got settled here. To tell you the truth, I got the impression she’d been in a bit of trouble back in Perth. Wanted a completely fresh start over here. As I said, I still had my mobile, and she had the number. I figured she’d get in touch at some point, but she never did. I had no way to contact her, so that was it, I’m afraid.”

  Stocky was writing all this down, and Cooper took the time to process everything Carmel had just said. Her story that they’d both arrived safely and each gone their separate way didn’t ring true. If they were good enough friends to leave their old lives behind and travel across the country to start fresh together, would a minor disagreement along the way really be enough to destroy the friendship for good? He couldn’t see it happening with any of the friends in his own circle. He wondered when Stocky was going to introduce the witness statements about her photo matching that of Vanessa Bridges. He didn’t have to wonder for long.

  “Mrs Payne, as part of our investigation we spoke with two former friends of yours.” He consulted his notes again. “A Priya Kontou and Eden Powell. Do you remember them?”

  Her frown was subtle. “Yes, I think so.”

  “Well they remember you. Only, they don’t remember you as Carmel Simpkins. They say you are actually Vanessa Bridges.”

  Carmel’s face dropped, but Cooper couldn’t tell if it was because she’d been caught in a lie, or because at that moment Jack’s door opened and he was showing the customers out. She said nothing until he’d closed the door behind them and come over to her desk.

  “How’s it going here, then?” he asked, oblivious to the tension Stocky had just created.

  “I was just trying to clear up an issue we seem to be having with identity,” said Stocky. “It appears your wife might not actually be the person she says she is.”

  “What? That’s ridiculous. Carmel?” He turned to his wife. “What are they talking about?”

  Carmel had regained her composure. “I don’t know, sweetheart. They’ve dug up some friends from my past, you know I used to live in Perth, anyway, they’ve contacted these people for whatever crazy reason, and now they think I’m Vanessa.” Jack’s face was blank. “You know, I told you about her. The friend I travelled over with.”

  “Oh, right. The one you never heard from again once you got here. I said you were better off without her, didn’t I? Just using you for a ride, that’s all she was about.” Jack scratched his head and looked at Stocky. “What makes you think Carmel is Vanessa? That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “As I said, we’ve had statements from two individual witnesses bo
th saying that the photo we showed them, the photo taken from the website of this business, is not Carmel Simpkins but is in fact Vanessa Bridges. We’re asking your wife to explain.”

  They all looked to Carmel. “Well I can’t explain it, can I? I don’t know why Priya and Eden would say such a thing. Maybe you’ve gotten it mixed up or something, I don’t know. Or maybe they’re still upset because I left. They weren’t very happy about it.”

  Cooper and Stocky exchanged glances, and Cooper knew they were done for now. As much as their suspicions were raised, they didn’t have any evidence to back up their claims. Not yet, anyway.

  “Okay. We’ll be looking into it further, and we’ll come back out and see you again if we need to.” Stocky and Cooper both stood.

  “You still haven’t told me what any of this has to do with Rebecca’s death.”

  “Maybe nothing,” Stocky replied, one hand on the door handle. “But like I said, we were doing background checks on everyone involved in the investigation, suspect or not, and we came up with some questions. We like to get answers to those types of questions, Mrs Payne.”

  15

  Cooper picked at the fries in front of him. He hadn’t even touched the burger. They’d gone to the real estate office with hopes of cracking the case, but left despondent. Cooper knew Carmel Payne was guilty of something — there were too many unanswered questions. He just couldn’t prove it.

  “Anita had any more luck tracing Vanessa Bridges?” he asked, after Stocky checked a message on his phone.

  “No. That was Munro.”

  “Oh. He got anything for us?”

  “No. It’s about the Cadogan case.” Stocky spoke very quietly, and that meant it wasn’t good news.

  “What’s happened?”

  Stocky took a bite of his burger, taking a long time to chew and swallow. Cooper hated when his partner did this, didn’t answer straight away. It was frustrating as hell.