Either Side of Midnight : A Novel (2020)

by Stevenson, Benjamin

  Jack, who wasn’t expecting small-talk, skipped straight to ‘I found Sam’s clothes.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Harry’s wearing them.’

  ‘Poor Harry,’ she said, then gave a light-hearted huff. ‘Tell him it’s okay. I wasn’t using them.’

  Jack remembered her saying that she hadn’t known why the brothers had fallen out, that Sam had never told her he’d been trying to drink himself to death and pushed it too far, but her intuition had clearly filled in a few blanks.

  ‘I’m down in Wheeler’s Cove,’ Jack said. Their conversation woke Harry, so Jack stood and walked outside, taking a seat in the garden furniture by the door. His lungs constricted in the cold air. The ring of parking spaces was wet with dew, dotted with dry grey rectangles from those who had got an early start. A shirtless man was having a cigarette and drinking from a black can across the lot. The iron mesh of the chair grilled a pattern on Jack’s back. He wriggled until it hurt less.

  ‘Remember what Ryan told us? He was telling the truth. Sam did write the Connors a letter. I’ve seen it. It wasn’t a suicide note, though. It was from five years ago. He says he figured out someone killed Lily Connors.’

  ‘Oh, shit. She was really murdered? And he solved it?’

  ‘He said he’d figured it out. But he didn’t say who. Maybe he found that out recently. Down here, she seems to have a cloud around her. Her family is convinced it’s murder, but no one seems to want to talk about it. Especially not the police. I’m trying to fill in the gaps. Did he talk to you about her at all?’

  ‘I mean, I knew she died. About the missed calls, how he lost the top of his finger. I suppose he told me what he couldn’t avoid, the scars I could see. The phone thing was one of his triggers, I guess. If I called him and he missed it, I’d send him a text straight after. Just to explain why I’d called. Otherwise he got anxious. Heather’s primary school for next year has a mobile phone policy. Can you imagine? God. He was not a fan of that. No phones until she’s eighteen, he reckoned. I told him he was welcome to parent a phone-less thirteen-year-old if he wanted, but he’d have to clean the blood out of the carpet himself.’ There was a clatter, and the refrain common to any parent of ‘Put that down.’ ‘Sorry. Heather,’ she offered by way of explanation.

  ‘Did he tell you about when they were kids? About why they broke up?’

  ‘You mean why she might have . . . No.’ She thought a minute. ‘But, I mean, they were teenagers. It’s all very dramatic. You’re in love until you aren’t.’

  ‘Was he talking about her more in the last few weeks?’

  ‘I don’t . . . This is sad, Jack. You think I’d cherish every memory, that those last few weeks would be all technicolour replay in my mind. Maybe I’d see him playing with Heather and smiling, giving me a kiss on the cheek as he left for work. That’s how memory is supposed to go.’ Jack understood: if he was making a show, he’d put a hazy glow around the borders of the screen to show that a character was having affectionate recall. Breakfast worked well, usually: a man in a half-done tie whisking through a kitchen, taking a slurp of coffee or a bite of toast without having time to sit down because he has to ‘rush off for a meeting’, kissing his wife with his mouth full. It was a scene from every movie.

  Celia was still talking. ‘Maybe it’s because I didn’t know it was coming, maybe it’s because I’m a bad person, I don’t know, but I didn’t catalogue those last few weeks in that way. Everything blurs together as our normal lives, just going on. Is that bad? That I remember him, but also can’t find anything particularly memorable?’

  ‘Not at all,’ said Jack. ‘I’m asking for specific details. I don’t expect you to remember all of them. But I’m trying to follow his footprints. You said you checked his phone? Emails?’

  ‘Well, yeah. It’s not like I keep tabs on him. But I wanted to check for those things. The things they said he had.’

  Jack already knew she hadn’t found anything. ‘Did he mention Lily at all?’

  ‘As far back as I read, no. I’m sorry, I have to get Heather ready for child care. I wish I could tell you more, I really do. And I know everyone’s a suspect or whatever.’ Jack could almost hear her air quotes. He noticed a grey sedan that was too well-waxed glide into the motel, stop in front of an adjacent room and idle. ‘But I’m not covering anything up. You say he was investigating a murder for five years, and that’s a surprise to me, because it was business as usual. Normal, everyday life. As everyday as it gets when he was depressed or kind of disconnected, but he took his meds and we talked and he seemed okay. Genuinely, I didn’t notice a thing.’

  ‘You’re alive until you aren’t,’ Jack reflected.

  ‘Something like that,’ Celia said. ‘Thanks for what you’re doing, Jack.’

  Harry opened the door as Jack hung up. His hair was spiky, showered. T-shirt and jeans, his own clothes, no shoulder pads or neat creases. The gleaming teeth were hidden. He hadn’t shaved in a couple of days and it was starting to forest his jawline. He still looked like his brother, but it was no longer uncanny. Midnight split them. Without the slickness and the photoshop. An apartment by the airport instead of a house in the ’burbs. Twenty-two minutes. Same same but different. Harry had said he wished he could be his brother. Jack wondered momentarily if that jealousy applied to his high-school girlfriend.

  ‘Still here,’ Harry said, taking a seat next to Jack.

  ‘Still here.’

  That summed everything up pretty well. You, me, Liam, Sam, Lily. Jack thought of everyone still strung up in memory, not let go. We’re all still here.

  Detective David Winter got out of the sedan. Jack recognised him by his walk, stiff-limbed like he’d been set in clay and hadn’t quite cracked it off his joints. He’d lost hair since they’d last met in court. What was left was as silver as a polished coin, each strand like fishing wire. He had a firm, sweatless handshake.

  ‘Let’s go for a drive, Jack,’ he said. Clipped voice, perfect diction. Years of dealing with the media meant carefully chosen words so as not to be misquoted. ‘And you can tell me why every time we zip a bag up, you happen to be there.’

  CHAPTER 27

  Detective Winter drove Jack to the Arlington police station, which was a squat brick building across the road from the hospital and flush with the fire station. Jack figured if he got set on fire and needed extinguishing, justice for his arsonist and medical treatment, Arlington had him sorted with a one-stop-shop. Jack had tried to get Winter chatting, but he was as tight-lipped as a brace-face in school photos. Winter’s repeated line was that he wanted everything on the record and best to do it at the station. Jack expected nothing less.

  The station didn’t have a sign out the front, just peeling laminate letters on the sliding door that said lice. Whether that was deliberate graffiti or lack of maintenance, Jack wasn’t sure. Inside, there was one room, no reception and four desks. Three of them had chunky iMac computers so old they may as well have been a slate and chisel. The fourth had a laptop heavy enough to lobotomise someone with a good whack.

  Jack was also willing to bet the room was witnessing more activity than any local officer had seen in a long time – perhaps ever. There were at least three people to a desk, propped on foldout chairs or flipped milk crates. The few electricity outlets were pulling overtime. Power boards were everywhere, hanging vertically against the walls, every socket with a double adapter. Black cords snaked the room, running up the walls like vines. Two printers were on a table by the wall, both whirring busily. It looked as though one had been freshly purchased. Like the shiny new coffee pod machine, mountain of capsules beside it. People were hurrying from desk to desk with arms full of paper, sloshing coffee mugs. The speed setting was dialled to ground floor, Channel 14.

  The back wall had two doors with square plastic windows, one open and one closed. Holding cells. Not for serious offenders; they didn’t have beds. Just wooden slatted benches like gym changing rooms. Easy to hose down. A si
ngle steel toilet in each. Winter walked Jack through to the cell with the door closed, stuck a key in.

  ‘Seen enough of these,’ said Jack, hanging back.

  ‘There’s no interview room,’ said Winter. ‘Or an office. We’re making do. I promise you, just a chat. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Wasn’t worried. Haven’t done anything.’

  ‘We’ll get to that.’

  Winter opened the door. In the centre of the room was a single chair, pointed towards the bench. On the bench, the box for the new printer served as a mount for the detective’s laptop. He shoved the box to the side and moved his chair back as far as it would allow. Jack sat on the bench, their knees almost touching. Winter leaned over and swung the door closed. Looking at Jack, he propped the latch on the inside of the door rather than clicking it shut. Just a chat, he was saying. A peace offering. Jack took his recorder out, put it on the bench and splayed his hands: not recording.

  ‘I’m going to ask you the same question you’re going to ask me, so we may as well get started,’ said Jack. ‘What the hell happened last night?’

  ‘There was a planned police operation that resulted in loss of life.’

  ‘Don’t give me the press release – I can read that in the paper. You want to talk, let’s actually talk. Loosen up.’

  ‘I’m interviewing you.’

  ‘No. I have agreed to provide you an interview. Different thing.’

  ‘Right,’ Winter said. His eyes darted to the recorder as if making sure it was off. ‘I will get to the details, loosen up as you say, once I’ve asked a couple of questions. An interview with police is voluntary because you’re not under arrest, but you know that. But providing false evidence or otherwise perverting the course of an investigation is illegal, but you know that too, from experience.’ He paused to let the insult dig in, then rubbed both of his hands down his thighs to his knees. ‘But,’ he said, his voice softening, ‘I have no interest in holding or charging you. It would be difficult, dare I say impossible, for you to be connected to this. But you like sticking your big nose in things and, if I’m honest, I’m interested in how you beat us to it.’

  ‘Was that a compliment?’

  ‘I don’t do compliments, Jack. I said you had a big nose.’

  Jack almost laughed, but Winter had said it with such sincerity Jack wasn’t sure if he knew it was a joke. He nodded instead. Winter took out a pen and a Moleskine notebook.

  ‘You know Sam Midford?’ Jack asked. ‘His brother has hired me to look into his . . .’ Jack almost said the ‘m’ word, but pulled back. He didn’t want to lie. But he also didn’t want Winter to see him as a fool. He still didn’t know the details of last night’s ‘operation that resulted in loss of life’ so he figured it was best to play it coy. ‘Into the reasons behind his death.’

  ‘He committed suicide,’ Winter said. ‘That’s me loosening up. I’ll tell you, the forensics are undeniable there. Case closed.’

  ‘He’s paying me for denial, then,’ Jack said, which he now knew was truer than anything he’d said so far.

  ‘When did you come to Wheeler’s Cove?’

  ‘Yesterday. It was supposed to be a day trip, but you asked us to stay. So here I am. Cooperating.’

  ‘And what did you hope to find here?’

  ‘The Midnight Twins had a significant life event – I would say a traumatic one – thirteen years ago at this carnival. I’m building a history, so I thought it was important to have a look.’ Jack scratched at the wooden bench. He wondered if this really was the only place they could talk, or if Winter thought locking him in a cell again would somehow compel him to spill his guts. It wasn’t working. ‘You’re a bad date, having me do all the talking. Your turn.’

  Winter looked at his notes for a second. ‘Last night, an officer approached a residence. He was fired on, and returned fire. The assailant was killed.’

  ‘If that’s as loose as you get, this is going to be a short conversation.’

  ‘I had an interest in keeping tabs on you, Jack, once you got out of prison.’ I’m not saying you’re on a list . . . ‘And I know you’re poking around with Harry Midford. But like I said, that’s a sensationalist case, and it’s a suicide. Seems to suit some flashy TV show or whatever. Doesn’t bother me. What does bother me, and why I asked them to keep you here until I could get down here, is this.’ Winter sucked air through his teeth, then leaned forward and picked up one of the manila folders. He opened it between his legs and rifled through, landing on a photo. Mugshot. He was portly, had a rugby player’s square head; they could have rotated the height gridlines and it would have been more useful. That’s the one, officer, I remember he had a four-foot-two forehead. Even upside down, Jack recognised him. Black Singlet. He looked younger. Less dead.

  Winter spun it on his lap. ‘Recognise him?’ he asked.

  ‘I saw him at the carnival. Ran the wheel. I also saw him later, shot to bits. Don’t know his name, if that’s what you’re asking.’

  ‘Dennis Slater,’ Winter muttered as he flipped through the next few pieces of paper. The name didn’t mean anything to Jack except that Harry had got it right. ‘You know your problem, Jack? You think you’re a bit of a hero, that you have to be the centre of whatever’s going down. But you forget among your hypothesising, your questions, your little recorder and your shit-eating grin that I can smell from Sydney, that there are dozens of people working their arses off to put the bad guys away the right way. You don’t have the evidence. You don’t have the tact.’ The tendons in his neck were tight as guy ropes. ‘There’s been a crime here, and you are getting in the way.’

  Jack found it surprising that, of all people, Winter had been investigating Sam Midford’s death just the same as he had. He was as by-the-book as they came. Jack felt elated that he, too, had been sniffing for something fishy.

  But the feeling of camaraderie quickly faded. How could Jack be in the way? Winter had said he believed – no, he knew – that Sam’s death was a suicide. Jack was working off what Harry was telling him and what they were chasing was a whisper, a word in a man’s ear, a death in the past. What crime was Winter talking about?

  It dawned on Jack. ‘You’re here because of Sam’s computer?’

  ‘You think we’re not interested in child pornography on a celebrity’s computer? You think we’re not interested in a guy who kills himself on national television? I swear to God, if you’re in possession of any illegal material—’

  ‘Oh.’ Jack stood up. Winter rose too, blocking the exit. Chest-to-chest. ‘So that’s why I’m here. I haven’t seen any of the photos. I told you, I’m here building a history.’

  ‘I have an officer who almost died.’

  ‘And that’s my fault how?’

  ‘Suspect got nervy. Because you were asking questions about something you shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Was he a suspect before you lot shot him?’

  ‘I’ll ask the questions.’

  ‘Don’t hang this on me. Who’s the cop?’

  ‘Senior Sergeant Waldren.’

  ‘Tell him he’s a fucking idiot for starting a shoot-out at a family carnival.’

  ‘It might not have been a shoot-out,’ Winter bristled, ‘if you hadn’t been snooping around asking questions.’

  ‘I didn’t say anything to Dennis Slater. He sold me a ticket to the Ferris wheel. That’s it. And I’m sure I’m the easy fall guy,’ Jack continued. ‘You’ve got my history. You don’t even need me here to hang me out to dry. So the police got someone shot and I’m your front page. But I wasn’t even near it when it happened. You want to talk about making a suspect nervy, maybe don’t splash the parking lot with red and blue lights next time. Quite frankly, I think we’ve got better things to talk about than you trying to lock that door on me again.’ Jack pointed to the cell door. He shook his head. ‘If I’m honest, I’m here on a long shot. I’m as surprised to see you as you are to see me.’

  ‘The images on Sam’s computer, t
hey were—’ Winter cleared his throat, rubbed his cheek. His eyes were red-rimmed, black sand coves underneath. ‘Pretty bad. You know what I’m saying? But we can’t get an ID on the girl, which is a problem. On something like this, it’s important for us to try to find out where it’s coming from. Especially when it involves people of profile, like this, there’s always a fear that there may be . . .’ He was hesitating, Jack knew, on the word ‘ring’. His eyes darted to Jack’s recorder, making sure it was off. ‘More.’

  ‘Like drugs,’ Jack said. His mind was processing Winter’s words. The girl. Just one. Jack had always assumed it was a bounty of pornographic content. But now, just the girl. ‘Sometimes it’s better not to take the little guy off the streets. You find the source instead.’

  Winter nodded. ‘So you tell me how I’ve been working on these images for weeks, and you blunder into it before we do? I advise you stop lying to me, Jack. There’s no possible’ – he drew the word out like chewing gum, accusing – ‘way you could be aware of the connection between Dennis Slater and Sam Midford without being in possession of something you’re not supposed to have.’

  ‘Connection?’ Jack finally figured out why Winter was here. ‘Oh my God. They had the same photos. Sam and Dennis.’ He pointed at Winter. ‘But you can’t have known that. Otherwise you wouldn’t be so pissed that I beat you to it.’ Winter’s forehead crumpled like it had sat down. ‘So the cops must have found them after Dennis died. In the caravan? The same ones that were on Sam’s computer. That’s why they called you in. Add me into the mix, and you couldn’t get here fast enough. That’s why there are so many of you. It’s not just this one police shooting, you’re trying to crack a pornography ring.’

  ‘I didn’t say any of that,’ Winter said, but Jack could tell by his retreating tone he’d got it mostly right. ‘I brought you in here to ask you to stop snooping around before any more of my officers get shot at.’