The Dark Series

by Catherine Lee

  Brenda stood to leave.

  “Right, that’s settled then. I’ll let the girls out on the desk know as well. I’m off to cook your dad’s tea, sweetheart.” She bent down to give Eva a kiss goodnight. “He’ll drop by in the morning to see you on his way to work.”

  They exchanged goodbyes, and Brenda left.

  “Man,” said Taylor, “what is it about your mother?”

  Eva smiled, they’d had that discussion many times. She changed the subject. “I know you think I’m being selfish. I can see it in your eyes.”

  “You’re under no obligation to help Andrew Fox. I know that.”

  “Then why did you bring him back here? You agreed I should concentrate on getting better. Why are you even entertaining this idea?”

  “Because just this morning you were telling me about a faceless woman appearing in your dreams, and how vivid and real those dreams felt. Like nothing you’ve ever experienced before, that’s what you told me. I looked into it a bit more while you were in with Dr G.”

  “You Googled it, you mean. Not exactly scientific research, Tay.”

  Taylor ignored the comment. “Don’t you think that maybe, just maybe, there might be a connection between what this guy is saying and these dreams you’re having?”

  Eva hadn’t stopped thinking about that possible connection. But it seemed so crazy, so far away from rational thought.

  “It’s the drugs causing the dreams, we already decided that.”

  “Maybe so. I’m not saying you should believe him or not, just that maybe you shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the idea. Think about it, Evie. I’m going to leave this with you.” She opened the top drawer beside the bed and placed a newspaper clipping inside. “It’s the article his mate wrote. Have a read when you’re ready.” Taylor stood and kissed her friend lightly on the forehead. “Get some sleep, kiddo. You look exhausted. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  19

  Cooper walked up the driveway to his house, Quinn following close behind. When he’d called to explain the night they had in front of them, Liz had insisted they both come home for a decent meal first. It wasn’t a bad idea, actually, and he was looking forward to spending an hour with the boys before they went to bed.

  “Daddy!” Michael ran straight toward his father and clamped onto his leg before Cooper could even get the door fully open.

  “Steady on there, little mate! Let Daddy get inside at least!” Cooper beamed with pride as he managed to walk into the hallway, child still dangling from his leg. Quinn followed and was greeted by a crawling Patrick, the remains of a piece of banana mashing further into his little fist with every advance.

  “Hello there,” said Quinn, leaning down to greet the crawling mass. Patrick reached up, generously offering to share his bounty with the new visitor. To Cooper’s surprise, Quinn reached down and expertly hoisted the child onto his right hip, even managing to avoid all contact with gooey little hands.

  “My sister has two around the same age,” he explained. “Kids love me.” He seemed almost as pleased to see them as Cooper did.

  “Dinner won’t be long,” came the call from the kitchen. The group made their way down the hall and found Liz at the stove. She glanced at Cooper then wiped her hands on a nearby towel before extending one to Quinn.

  “I’m Liz,” she said as they shook.

  “Joey. Very good of you to have me, Liz. This will make a nice change from hamburgers and pizza.”

  “It’s nothing fancy, I just got in myself ten minutes ago. But like I said to Coop, you’re no good to that missing woman half-starved and sleep deprived.” She took Patrick out of Quinn’s arms. “Beer’s in the fridge. Help yourself.”

  “Thanks very much, but we’ve got a long night ahead of us. We should probably stick to something softer.”

  “It’s light. One’s not going to hurt,” said Cooper. He’d managed to untangle himself from his eldest son and was now opening the fridge.

  “Alright, boss,” Quinn conceded. “So, do these little munchkins have names?”

  “We’re not mushkins!” said Michael. “We’re boys!”

  “Oh, sorry. My mistake.”

  “I’m Michael, and I’m nearly free,” said the older boy, desperately trying to hold down his thumb and little finger to display how old he nearly was.

  “Hello Michael, very pleased to meet you. I’m Joey.” They shook hands, Michael looking as pleased as punch to be doing such a grown-up thing.

  “You’re really big,” said Michael.

  “Yeah, I get that a lot,” agreed Quinn. “And who is this? Your brother?”

  “Yes!” he shouted excitedly. “That’s Patwick. He can’t hear anyfink. But it’s okay, we can make words with our hands.”

  “You can? That’s very clever. Will you show me some?”

  Michael’s parents watched as he displayed his signing vocabulary to the big detective. Cooper took Patrick and went to sit him in his highchair.

  “Mum already fed them,” said Liz, out of Quinn’s earshot. Her tone was cold; she was still pissed at him.

  “Come on, Lizzy. You know it’s not for much longer. We’ve been through this. What’s up now?”

  Liz glanced at Quinn playing with Michael. “Looks like you’ve found yourself a new partner already.”

  “He’s not my partner. Well, he is, but just until we find this woman. I’m training him for Frank, that’s all. Relax, hon. As soon as we find her and put this case to bed, I’m out of homicide for good. I promise.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she said nothing for what felt to Cooper like an age. She always did this when she was upset with him.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “But do me a favour right now, Coop?”

  “Anything.”

  “Give the kids a bath while I finish cooking your dinner?”

  Cooper’s eyebrows raised before the smile broke across his face. “That sounds like a challenge. Come on Quinn, you’re helping me with this. You get the little terror and I’ll bring the cute one here,” he said as he tickled a squirming Patrick.

  “Hey!” said Michael. “I cute too, Daddy.”

  Cooper laughed. “Of course you are, little mate. Come on, bath time.”

  Cooper and Quinn took the kids while Liz finished cooking. Half an hour later, after intervention from Liz to stop all four boys from playing water basketball all night, Patrick was in bed and Michael was ensconced with a Postman Pat DVD while the adults sat down to eat.

  “Thanks again for this, Liz. It’s delicious,” said Quinn.

  “My pleasure. What are you guys up to this evening, then?”

  Cooper spoke. “It’s a long shot, but if we can find out where Amanda was on the night she disappeared, we might be able to get a lead on where she went, or at least which direction she was headed. I’m not confident, but Grant has to have slipped up somewhere.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Someone else found him. He was murdered.” Andrew Fox had been right about that, although how he knew was something they’d need to investigate.

  “That could have been unrelated, couldn’t it, boss?” asked Quinn.

  “It could have, but I don’t believe in coincidences at the best of times, and this is a big one. No, for the moment I’m working on the theory that whoever killed him knew who he was.”

  They passed the rest of the meal talking pleasantly about unrelated things. Mostly it was Liz asking Quinn all about himself, giving Cooper a chance to clear his mind for the task at hand.

  * * *

  It was past eight o’clock by the time they left, Cooper having read Michael a story and put him to bed while Quinn helped Liz clean up.

  “You’re a lucky prick, Cooper,” said Quinn as they drove to the first bar. “Got yourself a good one there.”

  “I know. Eyes off, she’s far too good for a kid like you,” Cooper joked.

  “How come she calls you Coop?”

  Cooper took his time before answerin
g. “Liz’s brother Nick was my best friend. I was always Coop to him, so when Liz and I first met, I was Coop to her as well. It stuck.”

  ‘You said ‘was’. What happened to Nick?”

  “Car accident. He was only eighteen, we’d just finished the HSC. It was a hit and run. The other car was going way too fast, clipped Nick as it tried to overtake him and pushed him down an embankment. The bastard just took off and left Nick to die.”

  “Shit. Sorry man.”

  Cooper nodded. Nick’s death had brought him and Liz together, and inspired both of their careers.

  “Must be helpful at times to have a doctor in the house?” asked Quinn.

  “Yeah,” Cooper came back to the present. “Although we’ve been really lucky. The kids don’t get sick much, and neither do we, come to think of it. Patrick’s hearing problem has been the most we’ve had to contend with, and like Liz says, if that’s the worst we have to face, then we’re doin’ alright.”

  “That must be hard, though, is it? The deaf thing? Was he born that way?”

  “Yeah, these days they test babies’ hearing days after they’re born, so we knew something was wrong right away. It was hard at first, for sure. I was devastated, finding out my perfect baby boy wasn’t so perfect after all. But he is, you know. And Liz is a bloody marvel. It was her who got us into the Auslan stuff. I would never have thought to do all that.”

  “Don’t they have those implant things they can put in now, to make kids hear again?”

  “Cochlear implants, yeah. It’s a possibility for Patrick, but the doctors say he has some complications that mean it won’t be straightforward. They’ve advised us to wait until he’s older before we start subjecting him to difficult surgeries. He’s not even one yet. Here we go.” Cooper pointed out a bar located on a busy section of Oxford Street. “First on the list.”

  After parking the car in a nearby loading zone, Quinn put the police sign on the dashboard to keep the parking officers at bay and they went inside. The place was reasonably busy for a Wednesday night. Cooper briefly wondered if any of these people had families waiting for them at home, but he quickly put the thought out of his mind. He’d seen too much in sixteen years on the force, eleven of those as a detective.

  They went to the bar, showing photos of Amanda, Mickey, and Fraser Grant. Most of the staff and a few patrons recognised Grant immediately; it was the same photo that had been plastered all over the papers and television all day. But he hadn’t been in the bar, and no-one recognised Amanda or Mickey. They moved on to the next place on the list.

  After four hours and eight bars, Cooper was about ready to give up. The photos of Amanda and Mickey were recognised at a number of places, but they had not been there the night she disappeared. There were the usual nutters whose eyes lit up at the thought of their local being related to the serial killer, but mostly the detectives felt like they were wasting time. That was, until they went to The Ivory Bar on Bond Street.

  The waitress had not been working the night Amanda disappeared, and Cooper was about to move on when she lightly grabbed his arm and asked for another look at the photos.

  “I recognise her,” she said. “She’s been in here a few times, meeting this guy.” She pointed to the photo of Mickey. “Yeah, usually she gets here first, orders a drink, does some texting or whatever like they all do when they’re sitting alone, then the guy shows up and they leave together. One time we got talking while I was making her a drink. She seemed nice. Lives on the North Shore, I think. Anyway, she’s always wearing great clothes. That’s how come I remember her.”

  “Do you recognise this man?” asked Cooper, showing her the photo of Grant.

  “Well sure, he’s all that’s been on the telly today. Couldn’t get through Bold and the Beautiful without that creep’s head popping up all the time. But no, I’ve not seen him around here.”

  “Can we speak to someone who was working last Saturday night?”

  “I’ll get Ray. He’s the manager, he’s here every Saturday.” She walked over to a doorway at the back of the bar and knocked. A man answered and they had a short discussion before he looked toward the detectives. He closed the office door and walked over.

  “Ray Brooks. How can I help?”

  “We’re wondering if you saw any of these people in here on Saturday evening.” Cooper produced the photos yet again.

  “Can’t say for sure, we get a lot in on Saturdays, as you can imagine, but there’s an easy way to find out.” Just then Quinn returned — he’d wandered away while the waitress had gone to fetch the manager.

  “What sort of security setup you got here?”

  “I was just about to tell your partner. The cameras cover the bar area, the dance floor, main lounge, and both front and back doors. If those people were here, we’ll have them recorded.”

  Cooper wasn’t getting his hopes up; past experience with security cameras had taught him that. But it was a glimmer, and soon the three of them sat in front of a screen in a back room somewhere while Ray searched through the files for the right digital images. Jess, the waitress, had brought in a tray of mineral water and Quinn poured them three glasses. It was past midnight.

  After about twenty minutes Cooper called out.

  “Stop! Back it up a couple of frames. There! That’s our girl coming in the front door.”

  Quinn leaned closer to the screen. “Yep, that’s her.”

  With the other camera angles they were able to follow Amanda to the bar, then over to a small table at the side of the lounge. She had positioned herself facing the door, obviously waiting for someone. According to the time-stamp on the tape, she waited for seven minutes before getting up and going back over to the bar. This time she came around to the far side, where the camera could only see her from the back. She sat down next to a man.

  “She started talking to him straight away,” said Quinn. “That’s someone she knows.”

  “That’s Fraser Grant,” said Cooper.

  Quinn looked closer. “Shit, it is too.”

  The man had his back to the camera, but his build and lack of hair gave him away.

  “Rewind it, will you?” said Cooper. “I want to see when he arrives.”

  Ray pressed rewind, and the three of them watched as the recording revealed that Fraser Grant had arrived at the bar a full ten minutes before Amanda.

  “He got there first. That means he wasn’t following her,” said Cooper.

  “Fits with your theory,” said Quinn.

  Ray forwarded again to the point where Amanda came over to the bar, and they continued to watch as Fraser bought Amanda a drink and motioned to a nearby couch. As they moved, he was careful to keep his face turned away from the camera, but it didn’t matter about that now. We already know who you are, you bastard, thought Cooper. Once they sat down, the camera had a broken view of the pair, but they could make out Amanda checking her mobile phone every so often and looking toward the door. Then she appeared unsteady, and there was some fumbling with her purse. Fraser took hold of her mobile phone, appearing to dial a number and then pass it to her. It looked like no-one had answered. After another minute, the two of them got to their feet and Fraser guided Amanda out the front door. Switching to the outside camera view, Cooper watched helpless as the young woman was led off by the vicious, sadistic murderer.

  “Fuck!” Quinn leapt to his feet, almost knocking over the tray of glasses. “Fuck! Now what, boss?”

  “Now we know for sure that Amanda Fox is our tenth victim.”

  Cooper thanked Ray for his assistance, and arranged for a technician to come straight over and gather all his security footage for the last three months. He had a feeling this was not the first time Fraser Grant had been to The Ivory Bar.

  Outside, as they got into the car, Quinn repeated his question.

  “What do we do now, boss?”

  “Go home. First thing in the morning I’ll send a crew to check out any surveillance cameras in the surrounding streets
. Most of the businesses that would have cameras aren’t open anyway. For now, I need some sleep.”

  20

  Amanda rubbed at the redness circling both her ankles, but it barely helped anymore. Andrew stared back at her from the wall. Her husband, her protector. Where was he now? The killer he was chasing had sat in his kitchen, and he hadn’t even noticed. Hadn’t a clue.

  It was his fault she was in this mess. She told him years ago to give up that nonsense, to leave it to the police. They were the ones trained to catch killers; they were the ones with the guns and the badges. Not journalists. She told him, over and over, but he never listened. What was he thinking? No wonder she was seeing someone else.

  So where was Mickey? Why hadn’t he shown up? Mickey was never that late meeting her. He was always there before she finished her first drink. Drink. She was thirsty now. Her first water bottle was empty, and there wasn’t much left in the second. She took the tiniest of sips, swishing the water around in her mouth before swallowing, drawing out every little bit of moisture. That’s better. She hadn’t planned to meet Mickey that night, but she’d cancelled on him the night before so his text wasn’t entirely unexpected. But why did he text and then not show up? Was she losing him too? Bloody men. None of them could be trusted.

  Marriage. Affairs. It’s all life, isn’t it? It wasn’t her fault if her husband ignored her. Not her fault if he was too busy writing his big, important stories to notice her. If he was more interested in a rapist and murderer than his own wife. You win, mate. He’s got me now. He’s going to kill me, and you won’t have to worry about me nagging you anymore. What an ending this will make for your precious book.

  Amanda lashed out at the photographs, but the bed was in the middle of the room and the chains wouldn’t allow her to reach the walls. All she could do was look at them; all she could see was that one photo of her husband smiling back. She crumpled onto the bed and let the tears come.