The Charlton Affair (8 page)

Chapter Seven

Roman’s telephone rang at midnight. Reaching over to the side table he answered it groggily. It was someone from the emergency department at the Royal Brisbane Hospital.

“What? Oh my God! Why are you calling me?” Roman responded, still half asleep.

“Mr. Coustas, are you a friend or relative of Phoebe Rawlins?”

“Yes, yes, her friend. Is she OK?” Roman replied anxiously.

Suddenly fully alert, he nudged Mark with his other arm until he stirred. Always a sound sleeper, Mark had not heard the phone ringing.

“Mr. Coustas, Phoebe has been in a serious motor vehicle accident. She came in by ambulance about half an hour ago. We need some information. Do you know if she has any allergies or takes any medications?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure. I don’t think she takes anything. Oh my God, is she going to be OK?”

“I’m sorry, she’s still unconscious and it’s impossible to say at this stage. Mr. Coustas, do you know who would know anything about her medical history. Her mother isn’t answering the number we found in her phone.”

Starting to think straight, he replied, “I’ll raise the HR department and get them to call you as soon as possible. But you should contact St Andrew’s Private Hospital emergency department. She was in there only a short time ago because she fainted. They’ll have everything. Can I come and see her?”

“I’m sorry Mr. Coustas, she’s unconscious and they’re working on her. Even if you did come down, you’d be in the waiting room for hours, possibly all night. I’ll have someone call you when she’s transferred to a ward or if she regains consciousness.”

“Thanks. Her husband is Michael. You’ll find him in the phone, too. But’s he’s overseas and you won’t be able to reach him.”

“Thank you, Mr. Coustas.”

The phone went dead.

*****

Detective Sergeant Sally Middleton sat at her desk pondering the information in front of her. It looked very much like someone was trying to kill Phoebe Rawlins. She didn’t normally have anything to do with traffic matters, but the Forensic Crash Unit investigation came up with some highly unusual results and the crime got referred to the Criminal Investigation Branch. It landed on her desk because she had the victim’s other file.

Phoebe’s Volvo had unquestionably been tampered with. The report outlined that the victim had attempted to drive it home after work, four days earlier. At close to 2200 hours that night, she lost control of the vehicle and it sped into the busy Racecourse Rd intersection at Hamilton, where it was all but destroyed by a truck in a multi-vehicle crash.

Other drivers suffered minor injuries. Phoebe was still in hospital with a broken sternum. She would recover fully, and she had already given a police statement. A red light camera shot of the Racecourse Road intersection verified her story. It showed her in the vehicle, looking like she was trying to force the wheel to turn, with her mouth open, screaming.

The Forensic Crash Unit officers said the only reason she survived was because of the safety rating of the Volvo. They also seemed to think the fractured sternum was caused by the airbag deployment. Sally decided to wait and see what the doctors had to say about that aspect of things before making any assumptions. As she looked at the images of what was left of the Volvo, she gave serious consideration to getting one for herself.
If all the victim got out of that was a broken sternum, it was nothing short of a miracle
, she thought. The car looked as though a train had hit it, it was so damaged. The Fire Service had to cut her out of the wreck before the paramedics could even get to her. She was stuck at the scene for over an hour before she even got to the hospital.

Sally considered the case. The victim had been subjected to two violent crimes in short succession. If the same person was responsible, he was determined and resourceful. Car tampering was highly unusual. Even more unusual was that the crash appeared to have been caused remotely. The Forensic Crash Unit found unmistakable evidence of the modification of the Volvo’s onboard computer system to accept wireless commands. According to the report, a small device allowing for remote connectivity had been physically attached to the vehicle at some stage post manufacture. They were trying to resurrect the command history in the computer and maybe even find something to identify the controlling device. But they might never be able to do it due to the heavy damage it sustained.

Sally had drawn up a constellation of Phoebe’s associates, friends and family. In her experience it was usually someone the victim knew. An examination of her life would reveal the direction the investigation would take. Of course, as with any crime against a wife, the first person to examine was the husband. Her inquiries so far had yielded extremely interesting results. However, she needed to tie up a loose end that was bothering her before she went any further. Chewing on her pen, a bad habit she never seemed to be able to conquer, she looked up a number in the system and dialed it.

“Indooroopilly Police Station,” came the response.

“Hi, Sally Middleton from Nundah Station. I’m looking for Bob Jessop.”

“Hang on.”

“Sally?”

“Hi Bob, how are you?”

“Not bad, Sally. How about you?” Bob’s laconic reply filled her ears. She remembered he was a little deaf and tended to speak too loudly.

“Bob, small problem.”

“How can I help?”

“It looks like you’ve been looking at a Michael Rawlins in the system, without any obvious reason to do so. Look, I’ve got no intentions of taking that anywhere.” Sally paused, then added, “If you tell me his name was similar to someone you were looking at as a potential witness, well, then I’d make a note to that effect in my file. But Bob, I really need to know, between you and me, why were you looking at him?”

Bob paused before saying grumpily, “Listen, I know we shouldn’t look people up as favors for anyone, but you and I both know everyone does it.”

“Yeah mate, I know. But you know what Ethical Standards are like. If they get a whiff of it, it’ll be investigated and go on your record. You’d only get a slap on the hand, but it’s a painful process.”

Bob sighed and said, “Look it was just a favor for my kid. She works for a barrister and apparently he’s the client. She thought he was a bit dodgy, so she wanted some background. Turns out his whole family were murdered.”

“What?” Sally was shocked.

“Just google his name before it was changed. You’ll see it all. Boston. Thirty years ago.”

“Right Bob, thanks. I’ll need to speak to your daughter.”

“Bloody hell! What for?” Bob exclaimed angrily. “Look it’s one thing reporting me, but don’t you get my kid involved!”

Soothingly, Sally replied, “Bob, I’m not reporting you. And the boss might not even notice it in the material. But this bloke’s wife is the subject of an attempted murder and I need to get to the bottom of it, OK? If your daughter has anything that’ll help, I need to speak to her.”

“Don’t even bother, Sally. She’s not stupid. She’ll never say anything if she think’s it’s going to compromise her boss. Anyway, I’ve already told you what she found. Leave it at that. I’ll take whatever’s coming, but if you try to use this to put my kid in a compromise, you’ll be the one that gets investigated.”

Bob hung up on her.

That went well
, Sally thought sarcastically.

She sat, chewing on her pen, googling the name Jefferson Charlton. She was amazed at the results. She sat reading the screen avidly for about half an hour. After printing off the relevant material, she placed it methodically in her investigation file. Carefully, she made a list of leads to follow up with regard to Rawlins, aka Charlton.

*****

Charlie looked up to see Amanda standing nervously in her office doorway.

“Charlie, there’s something you need to know,” Amanda said.

Charlie frowned, “What?”

“Well, you remember how I spoke to my Dad about Michael Rawlins?”

“Yes?”

“I just spoke to Dad again and he said someone tried to murder Phoebe Rawlins.” Amanda blurted out.

Charlie stared at her, open mouthed. She felt as if the pit of her stomach had fallen to the floor. She demanded, “Is she OK?”

“I don’t know.”

“Just give me a moment.” Charlie directed Amanda. She started dialing Roman’s number before Amanda had even left.

“What the hell is going on? Is she OK?” Charlie barked the moment Roman answered.

Roman replied tersely, “Don’t panic. She’s going to be fine, her sternum is broken. She gets out of hospital late today.”

Feeling less shaky, Charlie demanded, “Why didn’t you tell me? And what happened?”

“Car crash. I couldn’t tell you. She was unconscious for the first day and then she didn’t want me to.” Roman explained, adding snidely, “I take it your ‘client’ told you?”

“I can’t speak about that,” Charlie replied automatically, her mind racing ahead to the implications for her and her client.

“Yes,” Roman replied, extremely frustrated, “Nobody can bloody speak about anything, and I’m stuck in the bloody middle.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You love drama,” Charlie accused him.

“Not this sort, I don’t,” Roman groaned. “I was scared out of my skin for her. They kept her in an induced coma for a whole day.”

“I’m sorry, Roman. This is a really shitty situation. I won’t ask you for anymore details.” Charlie replied sympathetically.

“Good, because there’s nothing more I can say.” Roman said stuffily.

“I’m just so relieved she’s OK.” Charlie said, her feelings apparent in her voice.

“Physically she’ll be fine, but I bet she’ll be in therapy for years over all of this.” Roman replied, his voice sad.

“You’ll keep an eye on her, yes?” Charlie begged.

“I don’t want to let her out of my sight, but it’s up to her what she does. She can be stubborn.”

“Just do your best to get her to stay with you and Mark, OK? Promise?” Charlie said, begging again.

“Is this a hint about another one of those things you can’t tell me about?”

Charlie hesitated and then said, “I can’t say, but it’s very important. You really must do your absolute best to get her to stay with you.”

Roman sighed, then said, “I promise. I’ll do my best.”

After she hung up, Charlie sat for a moment, wondering if there was a way she could make sure Phoebe stayed safe. Her mind raced to all sorts of extremes, from hiring guards, to parking outside Phoebe’s house at night herself. But if Michael was behind it, all of that would be useless. Phoebe needed to be with Roman and Mark. 

Charlie knew Michael would automatically be the prime suspect in any investigation. His circumstances added up to the perfect motive.
Bloody hell! How can I protect Phoebe, when my first duty is to protect my client?
She thumped her desk in frustration.
If it is him, surely he won’t be stupid enough to do anything once he knows the police are onto him?
She desperately needed more information. 

She buzzed Amanda to come back in.

When Amanda was seated, Charlie said, “Please tell me exactly what your Dad said.”

Amanda replied, “Not much more than what I’ve already told you. Someone tried to murder Phoebe Rawlins. The investigating officer, Detective Sergeant Sally Middleton from Nundah CIB, called him because he accessed Michael Rawlins file in the database. They’re not supposed to do that if they’re not looking into the person themselves.”

Charlie nodded.

“Sally Middleton told Dad she wanted to speak to me. Dad did his nut at her and told her not to.” Amanda said, her expression a mixture of pride and worry for her Dad.

“It’s OK, police officers are always doing that. If Ethical Standards do investigate it, he’d only get ‘managerial guidance,’ which is almost nothing, a stern talking to.” Charlie replied.

“Yeah, Dad said the same thing. But I just hate it that I put him in that position.” Amanda frowned.

“Did your Dad say anything to Middleton?”

Amanda looked down and then admitted, “He told her to google Michael’s real name.”

“Don’t worry about that, she would have done that anyway.” Charlie replied, relieved.

“Dad doesn’t know anything else, other than Michael’s a client.” Amanda added.

Charlie smiled at her, “Don’t worry, you haven’t done anything other than be a good investigator.”

Amanda looked relieved.

“Speaking of that, we need to find out what really happened. Police will direct their inquiries to Michael at first. When they find out he has a lover, it’ll be game on. We need to be prepared. I want you to start looking intensively into Phoebe’s and Michael’s backgrounds. Spend whatever you have to, find out every little thing you can. Follow up Michael’s lover, too.”

Charlie paused, looking directly at Amanda, “Nothing is more important. Even if you have to get a temp agency to get someone in to do your other work, OK?”