Already Dead (7 page)

Something tightened the detective's lips. Frustration, irritation, maybe a hint of amusement. ‘I think you need to stop asking questions for a while and try to answer a few. Can you do that, Miranda?' The words were delivered with all the professional directness he'd maintained so far, with just a dash of
for-God's-sake
.

After being yelled at and shoved around and threatened with a gun, it felt good to be causing the aggravation – and he wouldn't be the first detective she'd ticked off with her questions. ‘I'll try.'

He took a second to eye her off as though deciding how to interpret her, took down the home number Tilda had had for thirty years and passed it to someone outside the car.

‘How do you know Brendan Walsh?' he asked.

‘I don't. Or at least I didn't before he got in my car at Wahroonga.'

‘Have you ever seen him before?'

‘I interviewed him about five years ago for a newspaper article.'

‘So you'd met him.'

‘I don't remember him. He told me about it. There was a group of soldiers leaving for Afghanistan. I remember the day and the article but not him.'

‘Had he been in contact with you since the interview?'

‘No.'

‘But he knew where to find you?'

‘No, I don't think so.'

‘He just turned up at your car, said, “Remember me, you interviewed me once,” and asked for a lift?'

The edge of doubt in his tone made her hesitate – and remember that ten minutes ago she'd been holding a gun and surrounded by cops in bulletproof vests. This one wanted a reason and, so far, hers wasn't making sense.

She held up a hand. ‘Can I start again?'

He pulled his brows together. ‘You want to try another story?'

She didn't answer right away. Pulling in a breath, she gathered the facts together in her mind like notes she'd taken at a press conference, then told him. The
what
,
where
,
when
and
how
: heading to Newcastle, the gun, the shouting, the nano spiders, the trained people wanting to pick them off. She explained about Brendan wanting to kill himself and believing he was going to die anyway, about trying to get to his wife and son before ‘they' got him first. She wished there was a why but all she had for that was Brendan's reasoning and she wasn't sure anyone would work that out.

The detective let her talk, eyes fixed on her face as though he was reading the story there as well. She was almost done when there was a knock on the chassis and a woman stuck her head into the open doorway. ‘Sarge?'

‘Excuse me a minute,' he told Jax and left her. Not quite alone – a uniformed officer stood at each door.

She took a sip of water and felt fatigue settle over her like a thick blanket. Limbs too heavy to lift, head an unbalanced weight on her neck. She wanted to close her eyes and sleep but her heart wouldn't stop hammering and her lids seemed to be fixed in the open position.

Beside the car, out of earshot, Aiden Hawke stood with his legs spread and his arms folded across his chest as his colleague did the speaking beside him, weapon on the belt of her trousers, clipboard and pen in hand. Out on the motorway, traffic was queued up behind patrol cars – bumper-to-bumper and snaking all the way back to the bend, probably a whole lot further out of sight. Above, two helicopters circled slowly. At least one of them was a TV news chopper.

Footsteps on the gravel made Jax glance at the windscreen. Aiden Hawke and the female detective were now standing beside Jax's car. All four doors were open, and someone was in the driver's seat. Aiden bent at the waist and peered into the rear, nodding while the woman pointed with a gloved hand. As he walked back to Jax, she tried to remember what was in there. A few cleaning products that would only hurt the environment. No gun collection to incriminate her.

The blue sedan rocked as Aiden got in. ‘What are the boxes on your back seat?'

‘I'm moving house.'

He frowned. ‘Is that it?'

‘No, the rest went up yesterday. I handed over the keys to my old house this afternoon.'

‘You're moving to Newcastle?'

‘Yes.'

‘Where?'

‘Merewether. It's my aunt's house.'

‘She has two?'

‘No. My daughter and I are moving in with her.'

He nodded.

The was no judgement in it but she wanted to clarify. ‘My husband died last year. I had to sell the house.'

‘I'm sorry. You're Nicholas Westing's wife, aren't you?'

The question caught her off guard, but she realised he must already know the answer and probably had a lot more information than that. He'd known her name when he pulled up and started shouting, and he'd got Jax from somewhere. He'd followed her for an hour or more, calling in troops, setting up a roadblock, probably checking the record of the owner of the car he was following. Possibly he had her email addresses and the balance on her bank account. ‘Yes.'

‘It's a good town. You'll enjoy being back there.'

Maybe he had her residential history, as well. ‘It's not a great start.' This whole day felt like a bad omen, made her wonder again if she'd done the right thing.

‘No, I imagine it was a terrifying experience. I'm sorry it had to end like this.' He nodded towards the ambulance that stood like a shield beside the crash scene. Maybe it was for the best that she couldn't see what was over there. She'd had too many ugly images in her head over the past year; she didn't need more.

‘Okay,' he said,
we're-done-here
in his tone. ‘I'd like to get an official statement from you tonight, while the details are still fresh in your mind. But not here. You'll feel better when you can get away from all this. Do you think you can manage that?'

She wanted to hold Zoe, hug Tilda, have a stiff drink. She also wanted this over. ‘Yes.'

‘You'll have to leave your car here, so an officer will drive you to the station in Newcastle. One of my detectives has spoken with your aunt but you can call her yourself on the way in. I'll see you there in a while.' He shifted on the seat, getting ready to leave, paused a second and looked back. ‘What did you say to me in the car park?'

The moment flashed through her memory. Spine-stiffening terror, the risk of trying to catch his attention, the relief when he was waiting for her eyes. ‘Help me.'

He nodded once. Followed it with a sudden smile and a quiet huff of a laugh, as though she'd confirmed what he wasn't sure he'd seen. ‘I'm sorry I couldn't make it end there – I didn't want to get you shot.' It was an aside, a sentence in parenthesis without the police-business tone. Maybe a message from Aiden Hawke, guy in the wrong place at the right time, instead of the detective who'd done his job.

‘Nothing to be sorry about there,' she told him.

Nodding again, he banged twice on the chassis as he got out, and was pointing and talking again before he'd left the doorway.

 

A uniformed officer told Jax her car would be towed to a police compound, fingerprinted and searched. Her handbag, when it was passed in to her, had clearly been through the search process already. The contents looked like they'd been tipped out and stuffed back in, and she wondered if it had happened before or after Aiden Hawke decided she was a victim and not an accomplice. There was no sign of her mobile. She guessed they'd find it in the glove box if they hadn't already, probably fingerprint
it too. What would the detective make of Brendan's prints all over it?

Dusk turned the afternoon to early evening while Jax made the journey into the heart of Newcastle from the front of a patrol car – a trip that was as weird and off base as the rest of the day had been. The motorway heading north was deserted. Aside from a single police vehicle at the roadblock site, there wasn't another car to be seen. Just the faint glow of their own headlamps in the lowering light and the constant stream of traffic heading south.

Inside, the air was filled with the hum of the engine and constant chatter from the police radio. All of it was from the crash site, as though keeping Jax and her driver updated: crime scene investigators arrived, then another two ambulances for passengers in the minibus; a contra-flow was being set up by the RTA, sectioning off a lane on the other side of the motorway to start the process of getting the banked-up traffic moving. And the media made its presence felt – a news chopper touched down on an empty section of motorway, reporters wanted details and an officer requested a spokesperson.

It was a big story. All of it – the gunman, the police operation, the massive traffic jam. Jax knew the news desk at her old paper would be trying to get a journalist and photographer into a chopper so they didn't have to wait at the back end of the traffic. Other reporters would be working the phones and their police contacts. They'd know it was her by now – the
who
travelled as fast as the
what
when there was an angle, and the angle on this was Nicholas Westing's widow involved in a police drama. His death would be rehashed yet again. Maybe it was just as well Jax's mobile was with the cops – she didn't want to take the inevitable calls.

The officer driving lent Jax a mobile and as she dialled Tilda's number, she tried to scrounge up words and a voice that said she was fine, brave, holding it together. ‘Tilda, it's –'

‘Jax, honey. Are you all right?' Tilda's 61-year-old voice was tremulous with concern.

‘I, I'm …' She didn't finish, couldn't speak for the sobbing. ‘Christ, Tilda, sorry. I'm okay, I just …'

‘No, Jax, don't be sorry. Just so long as you're all right.'

She pulled in a loud, hitching breath, unable to answer, grateful just to hear her aunt's voice, reminded of other times, years ago, and the tears and reassurances between them. Newcastle would be okay. Tonight, anyway.

‘I haven't told Zoe,' Tilda said. ‘And I kept the news off the TV. Russell rang too, he knew it was you.'

‘Yeah, I figured he would.' He'd handled the media for her before and she was hoping he'd do it again.

‘Where are you now?'

Jax explained about the statement she had to make, said she didn't know how long she'd be, asked would Tilda pick her up from the station when she was done. It could be hours and it meant bringing Zoe out late but she needed to hug both of them.

At the station, she was given coffee, a chocolate bar from a vending machine and a seat in a glassed-in office that looked like a cross between a kitchenette and a meeting room. After the heat on the motorway, the air-conditioning was freezing, so the officer who'd been her driver found a blanket and then hung about like it was her job to keep an eye on Jax. Maybe it was. What would she watch for – signs of shock or criminal intent?

Jax's cheek was resting on the cool of the tabletop when Aiden Hawke walked in, crumpled shirt the only sign of a long day, his dark hair a foil to his pale irises. She followed him with her eyes until he'd pulled out the chair beside her, then she sat up and rubbed her face.

‘Detective Hawke,' she said.

‘Why don't you call me Aiden?'

‘Aiden, then.'

‘How are you going?'

‘I've no idea. I've got nothing to compare it to.'

He blinked – not the response he'd expected, perhaps.

‘I'm too exhausted to move but I can't close my eyes,' she explained. ‘It feels really weird, a bit out-of-body, but maybe it's normal. What do you think?' Her mouth felt loose, the words a little slurry.

‘It sounds like you're doing okay but you should try to talk to someone in the next day or so, a counsellor or psychologist. If you can't find one, I can give you the number for a victim support group.'

A full-service cop. ‘Thanks.' She wondered if he'd be seeing someone too – he'd pointed a gun at a frightened woman, it would have to do something to his head. Not that he seemed perturbed about it now.

‘Before we start with your statement, I want to let you know that our preliminary inquiries are indicating the man in your car
was
Brendan Walsh. He was under treatment for mental health issues and had stopped taking prescribed medication.'

No surprise there. ‘Was it post-traumatic stress disorder?'

‘PTSD has been mentioned, among other things.'

She nodded. He wasn't the only soldier to be injured by the memory of what he'd seen and done. ‘What else?'

‘Apparently there'd been some issues around …' he held up a finger, took a notepad from his shirt pocket and read: ‘Anxiety, paranoia and fear of delusions.'

‘Who feared the delusions? Brendan or the doctors?'

He hesitated. ‘I can't clarify that as yet.'

Either way, nano spiders said the delusions had arrived. ‘Was he frightened about people coming after him?'

‘That detail wasn't discussed in the initial phone call but it's possible, likely even, that none of it was real.'

She nodded. It was possible. She could believe that – but she'd also believed Brendan, at least on some of it. ‘Does he have a wife and son? Kate and Scotty?'

‘He has a wife and child who live in Newcastle. I can't confirm their names for you.'

‘He wanted to go to Newcastle?'

‘Is that what he told you?'

‘He never said where. He just wanted to get to Kate and Scotty.' And she'd imagined driving all the way to Queensland with a gun in her face. ‘Did he go to Afghanistan?'

‘We're still accessing his military records.'

‘But he was in the military, right?' Or had Brendan read her article and imagined he was at the airbase with the other soldiers?

Aiden took a second to answer. ‘There's nothing to indicate anyone was after him.'