The fall between, p.10
The Fall Between, page 10
The hospital bed felt cold. Giles pulled the sheet up higher. She mumbled, ‘I’m not a liar,’ but her voice sounded weak and distant, without any of her earlier conviction.
‘Look, I believe the doctors will discharge you in the morning. When that happens, go home and get some more rest. Then, if you feel up to it, meet me in my office that afternoon. I don’t want you making any comment to anyone, especially about hangovers, until we go over your account of events together.’
‘Sounds serious,’ said Giles.
‘The LECC is serious. You may think it’s something that happens all the time, but I promise you’ll want the best lawyer you can get.’
‘And that’s you?’
‘That’s me.’
The barrister dropped his business card on the side table, beside an enormous bouquet of seasonal white flowers. His name was David Hemmings; she’d never heard of him. Without saying goodbye, he left her room.
Nice to meet you too. Giles gazed at the empty doorway. She knew she might soon need the barrister on her side, but she had enough on her plate without dealing with the LECC or Mr Rickard bringing legal action against her. That was just a ruse to make himself look innocent. No, the most important thing for her to worry about was Ava Emmerson.
The image of Ava’s body came flooding back and Giles gave a shiver. If it wasn’t Rickard who had brutalised the young woman, then who else would want Ava dead? And what type of person could commit such an act? Who was she dealing with?
Giles knew the Evidence Recovery Unit would be collecting everything they could find at the scene; the pathologist would be examining the body; the coroner would no doubt find it beyond suspicious and it would be declared murder. There was nothing she could contribute to the case until she was discharged from hospital and got her story straight.
The ward was quiet and Giles was grateful for the private room. Even though she’d already slept for hours, she was dog tired. Her head felt thick and her body burdened. She needed to rest. She needed to be left alone. She needed to fully recharge so that, first thing in the morning, she could see what the team, the newly housed rural crime investigation unit had found on Ava Emmerson, and then she could either arrest Mr Rickard or start hunting down the real killer.
TWELVE
Turner arrived to collect Giles from hospital after her breakfast of watery orange juice, cold toast, soggy scrambled eggs and a packet of rice bubbles with a tiny jug of milk. The painkillers had been tastier than the breakfast.
Turner handed her a plastic bag with a police navy-blue tracksuit set and some slip-on canvas sneakers that looked two sizes too big. There was no bra or underwear in the bag, and Giles restrained herself from grumbling.
‘Spin round, Turner. Eyes to the wall.’
Giles was slow getting dressed; her shoulder and ribs ached. She still felt giddy, fragile.
‘Are you doing okay?’ Turner asked the wall.
‘Yeah. They said I had a bit of concussion. Still can’t see well out of my left eye.’
‘You passed out on the steps of Eaton Pub.’
‘Concussion can do that,’ said Giles. ‘But the doctors had me under surveillance —’
‘Observation?’ corrected Turner.
‘Yeah, that. They reckon I’m okay to be discharged, so long as I go home and rest. But I’ve been sleeping on and off since yesterday afternoon, and right now I’d rather get back to work, while my memory’s still fresh.’
Turner was cringing as he turned back to face Giles. The tracksuit was too tight, and it struggled to cover her midriff.
‘Falkov said to take you straight home. He doesn’t want you in today, he wants you rested so you can be on top of your game.’
‘Hmm, that’s thoughtful of him.’ Giles thumbed at the white bouquet by the bedside. ‘Did the troops all pitch in for the flowers?’
‘They’re not from us. Were you expecting us to get you flowers?’
‘Never mind. It’s the thought that counts.’
‘None of us thought about getting you flowers.’
‘Thanks.’
‘You just don’t seem like a flowers type of girl, that’s all.’
‘Thanks again.’
Giles wondered briefly if the bouquet was from Falkov or Benjamin. They couldn’t possibly be from David Hemmings, the barrister.
‘Has my dad been told what’s happened?’
‘Yep.’
‘Flowers must be from him then.’
‘No card?’
‘Nope. Definitely Dad then. He’s not into sentimental words. If he did write a card, it would read “get up”.’
Turner smiled and held out his arm. Giles took it and stood up gingerly. She didn’t want to slink back down into a jelly puddle like she’d done on the steps of the pub.
‘You sure you’re okay?’ he asked.
‘Yep.’ She tested her wobbly legs. Her body was sore and aching, her lungs felt dried out from coughing up sludge and water, but she was pleased to be getting out of the hospital. ‘Shoes are a little big. I look like a clown.’
‘Nah, you look like someone who came second in a fight.’ Turner flinched, realising his comment sounded more like a swipe at her – he’d intended it as a joke.
Giles’s face fell. ‘Yeah, I guess I do.’
Sticky Pete also woke up sore and aching in the morning. In the car park of a nearby playground, he had slept on the back seat of his old Hyundai Getz. He didn’t have enough petrol in the tank to drive home to Singleton and back, and he certainly didn’t have the money to get a room for the night.
It had been an uncomfortable night. He’d had to sleep crooked, and he’d forgotten to crack a window, so by morning he’d almost been baked alive. Plus he’d parked under a river red gum – all night he had listened to gentle rain, only to find in the morning that it had been the gum tree’s nuts falling onto his car, which were now stuck in the grooves of his windshield, boot and bonnet.
Pete had difficulty straightening his neck out. His shirt was wet with sweat and his neatly ironed pants were now wrinkled. The Brylcreem made his hair look greasy, and his breath was putrid. He had no deodorant, toothbrush or toothpaste. Yesterday he’d looked respectable when he went into the police station – it all seemed so sensible and rational when his wife had explained it – but Detective Giles still hadn’t been there when he went back in the afternoon. He’d have to try again today, despite how he looked.
When Pete walked up to the front desk, he noticed it was staffed by a different constable than the day before. The young officer seemed to be taking his role as the first point of contact with visitors seriously, and gave Pete a look of pity that he wanted to smack off of his chops – he didn’t really want to admit to himself that he looked almost derelict.
When he asked to see Detective Giles, he could almost see the constable’s balls squeezing at the mention of her name. Something big was going on – Pete could hear about a dozen phones ringing in different parts of the station, and the young officer looked flustered at having to man the front desk all on his own. It must have been to do with the murder he’d heard about the day before. Maybe there was some nutter on the loose, drowning young women and wrapping them up in barbed wire.
‘Look, mate, she’s not going to be back in the station for a while. Go home, have a shower and relax. I’ll tell her to make you a priority the moment she’s available. She can give you a ring as soon as she’s in.’
‘But the CCTV footage might be wiped by then. Shit, mate, can’t I see her now?’
The front desk’s phone started ringing – the constable looked as if he was about to pop a blood vessel. Pete sighed, smelled his own rank breath, saw the constable take in the great waft and reel back. ‘Look, go home, mate. Clean your teeth. Leave your details and I’ll get Detective Giles to call you. It’ll be all good.’ The constable picked up the phone.
‘Don’t look all that bloody good to me,’ snarked Sticky Pete as he turned and left the station.
Sticky Pete couldn’t help thinking that the news about the murder must have been dire for the young constable to be so distant and dismissive. Shit, I’m going to end up back in jail. They had no time for the likes of him. Why did life just keep fucking him over? Why turn over a new leaf when the world was out to get you? It was just a bloody ring for his missus’s birthday – he was just trying to do something nice. Now it was going to get him sent back to the clink. All because Giles wouldn’t take five minutes out of her day to speak to him. He sighed. ‘That fucking bitch.’
Claire Ellis and her two daughters stepped off the train at Hamilton Station. She had let the girls wag school for the day, giving the events in the doghouse time to die down a bit before they faced their teachers and peers.
Already the heat of the day had kicked in. Before it really ramped up and drained her motivation, Claire pressed on quickly and headed straight for the pawnshop. Mikaela and Kayleen were in tow, trying to keep up. Mikaela was skipping, elated that both she and her sister had been promised brand new pushbikes. Kayleen, however, was brooding; the necklace was pretty and she wished they could have kept it a few days longer. Still, she had the brooch to look at, hidden deep in her own pocket.
The walk felt like a long trek for little legs, made more difficult by the scorching heat, and Kayleen’s bubbling temper wasn’t helping either. She shuffled along, frowning at Mikaela, envying her enthusiasm and energy.
In the palm of Claire’s hand, the green stone and diamonds of the necklace were warm – she’d been clenching it for the whole train journey. Claire was scared she’d lose the damn thing, and she didn’t want to risk it falling out of her pocket or getting her handbag nicked, so she held it tight in her fist. She couldn’t stop wondering how much she’d get for it. It looked bloody expensive.
As they scuttled down Beaumont Street, Claire paused outside an op-shop and stopped to glance in the window, giving her girls time to catch up.
‘Can we get dumplings for lunch?’ asked Mikaela.
‘Yep,’ said Claire. ‘Let’s get dumplings and sit under the fig trees in Gregson Park.’
‘And ride our new bikes?’
‘Yep,’ Claire said. She turned swiftly on her heels and made a beeline for the pawnshop. The girls again trotted to keep up.
THIRTEEN
‘My place is just up here on the left,’ said Giles, pointing to a coffee-coloured house. The driveway was lined with camellia trees and standard rose bushes ran along a white panel fence. A weeping cherry tree stood in the middle of the yard. On the veranda, a wisteria vine trailed along the decorative trim under the eaves. Two comfy wooden rocking chairs sat on the front veranda, and hanging baskets were filled with a chain of hearts and begonias.
‘Not a flowers type of girl?’ smirked Turner. He didn’t switch off the car’s engine, leaving the air conditioning running. Giles had the bouquet from the hospital in her lap.
‘Okay, let’s cut the bullshit,’ said Giles. ‘Rickard is going to lodge a complaint with the LECC.’
‘Shit!’
‘Yeah, shit. I had a visit from a barrister last night.’ Giles handed Turner the card. ‘David Hemmings. Do you know him?’
‘I don’t know him, but I know of him. You hear stuff around the station. Is he on your side?’
‘Yep.’
‘Gosh, that’s a relief.’
‘But you don’t know who sent him to me?’
‘Nope.’
‘Listen, Turner – when you arrived at the scene, what did you see?’
‘Rickard was giving you CPR. You were out cold on the west side of the water trough. The victim’s body was in the mud on the east side. Look, that old geezer wouldn’t have had the strength to move two dead-weight bodies.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’m not saying we thought you were dead, Giles, but you were dead weight. Rickard is all skin and bones. The man must be in his seventies.’
‘What the hell is going on, Turner? You were there, you would have seen Rickard drowning me.’
‘Seriously, Giles, he was trying to bring you back to life. The guy was a wreck.’
‘What do you mean, “a wreck”?’
‘Trembling, scared. Said some guy just appeared out of nowhere, whacked you over the head, second time round he’d crept up from behind your police vehicle and cracked you again with the rock.’
‘Rickard had the rock. It was in his hands when I was talking to him. I saw him pick some up and look at them – probably choosing which one to knock me out with.’
‘No, he said those rocks weren’t from his property. Farmers know their land like the back of their hand. He said he was looking at the rocks because they were volcanic, and that type of rock is way up in the mountains, in the national park, not down on the flats. On the plain, it’s all limestone and slate. He thought the jillaroo must have brought them in to use as stepping stones, so she wouldn’t get mud caked on her shoes when she stood around the cattle trough or the storage tank, but it confused the hell out of him. He said those rocks weren’t there before.’
‘And under them?’ asked Giles.
‘Yeah, a straw hat, like you said. Artificial flowers. Rickard couldn’t explain those either.’
‘I bet he couldn’t.’
‘He was genuinely shocked. Recoiled from them, even. Said he’d never seen them before on his property. To be honest, I think the flowers and hat disturbed him more than our victim. I watched his body language, like you taught me.’
‘They belonged to his wife. The pub – at the Eaton, there were photos on the wall of Rickard’s wife and she was wearing that hat and those flowers in every one of them. That’s where I went yesterday.’
‘We know, Giles. The ambos pointed them out to us when they picked you up.’
‘So why did you let him go!’
‘They were planted, Giles. The hat and the flowers. It looks like Rickard was set up. ERU bagged them up and will get an estimation on how old they are – they’re being tested for prints, DNA, the whole lot – but I think someone just smeared a bit of dirt on them. To tell you the truth, that hat didn’t look like it was more than three days’ old, let alone thirty years. I don’t believe it was his dead wife’s original hat.’
‘So, what? You think Rickard was set up to look like he committed the murder?’
‘Yeah, I do. Or at least that the hat and flowers were planted to distract us and direct suspicion elsewhere. To waste our time. Make the case weird. Just like that gutted wallaby – whoever killed Ava Emmerson did their best to muck with the scene and fuck with our heads.’
‘And I fell for it all.’ Giles turned and looked out the window. She could feel her ears burning. ‘Like Hansel and Gretel, I naively skipped off into the woods and ate up all the candy. And then the witch got me.’
‘Could have been any of us,’ said Turner.
‘But it wasn’t, it was me.’ He gave her a sympathetic look. Giles looked away; she didn’t want sympathy, she wanted answers. She toyed with the white petals from the bouquet, racking her brain for more. ‘Wait, but then – explain why Rickard had my gun?’
‘He could have shot you if he wanted to, Giles. Seriously. ERU swabbed him, we interviewed him, but there was no direct evidence linking him to either crime. Ava’s murder or the attack on you. He said you went down, he grabbed the gun from your holster and held the perpetrator off. He was trying to get you back on your feet.’
‘By my hair? So, he saw this person then?’
‘Yep. The description he gave was tall, dressed in darks, balaclava, black leather gloves.’
She blinked, shook her head, and plucked a petal from a flower, crushing it between her fingers.
‘Rickard says he was trying to drag you to the back of your police vehicle, so he could get you in it, drive off to safety. But the perpetrator came back up from behind, hit you again, and pulled his own gun on Rickard. Told Rickard to grab your arms and made him help carry you to the cattle trough.’
‘Well, that was nice of Rickard.’
‘He had a gun on him, Giles.’
‘Where was my gun then?’
‘On the ground, in the mud. The guy ordered Rickard to toss it.’
‘So now I’m in the water? Then what?’
‘Black balaclava man holds you under, only you fight back and knock his own gun in the mud. While he looks for it, Rickard retrieves your gun and fires two shots at the perpetrator. Both hit the water trough.’
‘You’re kidding.’
‘The old geezer has cataracts, Giles! He’s almost blind. Ballsy of him, though.’
‘Silly prick could have shot me instead!’
‘Well, I guess he missed you both.’ Turner flashed a smile. ‘But the bullet holes drained most of the water out of the trough. But between that and the splashing around from dumping you in and the girl out, the surrounding animal prints are . . . well, contaminated. Ruined. They found cow prints, but not the dog print you’d spotted, and only a partial wallaby print. The fight to dump you in the trough wiped out a lot of the previous evidence.’
Giles punched the window of the car with the back of her hand. The case was a complete shambles. She realised she’d need that barrister more than ever. She turned to Turner, snatched back the business card and slipped it in her pocket.
‘But it also added new evidence,’ Turner continued.
‘Like?’
‘I believe black balaclava man is real. There’s proof there were more people present than just you and Rickard.’
‘Was there?’ Giles raised her brow, still sceptical.
‘There were prints everywhere in the mud. Rickard’s, but also unidentified prints. Not yours. Patience, Giles. Just wait for pathology and the ERU to get back to us, then we can start doing our job.’
‘Is Falkov pissed at me for leaving the scene?’
‘A little,’ said Turner. ‘But he also feels bad that you were attacked. So does the rest of the crew. Bray said you looked beat up at the hospital. He was clearly rattled.’
