Gilroy said: "Do you know if she was in a relationship?"
"No. We didn’t talk much about her love life. The last time I asked her if she was seeing anyone was about three months ago. She just laughed and said she couldn’t love anyone after me."
"Was that true?"
"Of course not. She was just joking."
"So you don’t know if she was seeing anyone when she died?"
"Correct, though I wouldn’t be surprised if she was. She liked the company of men."
"And men liked her company?"
"Yes."
"OK. And what about you? Are you in a relationship?"
I was uncomfortable about the direction our conversation was heading, but couldn’t see any way to divert its course. "Umm, yes."
"Living together?"
"Yes."
"When did that start?"
"Oh, about six months ago - well after I stopped seeing Yvonne."
Gilroy tucked his notepad inside his jacket. "Alright. Now I must ask you to follow me back into the house."
I would have preferred to be tied to a rocket and fired through the gates of hell. "Why?"
"Because I want you to show me exactly what you did when you arrived, and identify everything you touched."
His request sounded reasonable. I swallowed hard and nodded. "OK."
I took him over to the front door and explained how, when I arrived, I pushed it open, before going inside. Then I led him up the hallway to the living room, heart thumping. I stepped through the doorway.
Yvonne still lay in the middle of the floor, drenched in blood. I almost fainted. Gilroy studied me intently.
Crime scene technicians were moving around, dusting, scraping, photographing, lifting prints and bagging evidence.
Gilroy tapped me behind the elbow. "What did you touch in here?"
"Umm. Her wrist, to find out if she was dead. And, umm, the phone, to dial Emergency Services."
Should I mention hitting the redial button? No. Why make Gilroy unhappy? I bit my tongue.
He said: "Anything else?"
"No."
"Alright. Now I want you to provide hair and fibre samples."
I already feared being accused of murdering Yvonne. Now my paranoia took wing.
"Why?" I bleated.
"Because we need hair and fibre templates from everyone who’s been in this room. That will help us work out what we know and don’t know, understand?"
Not really. I didn’t want to give him any samples. Instead, I wanted to talk to a lawyer. But demanding that would be like holding up a big sign that said "Guilty". I also wanted Gilroy to like me. I desperately wanted that.
"OK," I said, trying to sound relaxed, with little success.
Gilroy summoned a white-overalled man in his late fifties, told him to take samples and wandered off.
The crime scene technician spent the next twenty minutes plucking hairs from my head and fibres from my jacket, before taking fingerprints. Finally, he said, almost as an afterthought: "Oh, and I’d better get a DNA sample."
He swabbed my mouth with a cotton bud, which he popped into a plastic jar that he sealed and labelled.
Gilroy had returned and was leaning against a wall, watching us. Now he straightened up and said to the technician: "Finished?"
"Yep."
I looked at Gilroy. "Can I go home now?"
"No. I’m afraid not."
"Why not?"
"Because I want you to come down to the station and make a full statement."
I looked at my watch. It was almost ten-thirty. "Can’t I do that in the morning?"
"Afraid not. I want to get your statement while the facts are fresh in your mind."
I suspected he really wanted to tie me down to a story, as soon as possible, before I could organise an alibi or conceal any evidence. But I had nothing to hide and nodded. "Alright. But I have to call my partner and tell her I’ll be a while."
"Sure. Go ahead."
How do you phone your partner and tell her, out of the blue, that you’ve just discovered the body of an ex-girlfriend, who’s been murdered, and the police want a statement?
As I fished out my mobile phone and dialled my home number, I couldn’t think of a good answer. I still didn’t have one when Anne answered the phone, sounding worried.
"Paul, where are you?"
"I’m afraid I’ve been held up at work. I’m going to be a bit late."
"Why? What’s the problem?"
"It’s a bit hard to explain right now. I’m rather busy. Got a breaking story. But don’t worry. I’m OK and I’ll be home as soon as I can."
Her voice developed a real edge. "When will that be?"
"In a few hours, OK. I’ve got to go now."
"Paul …"
"I’ll see you soon."
As I pocketed my phone, Gilroy said: "You handled that well."
What he really meant was: you’re a glib liar, aren’t you? I ignored his barb. "Alright, let’s go."
"OK. Let’s take your car. You’ll need it later."
Outside, the media contingent across the road had swelled. There were now at least four TV cameramen, half-a-dozen photographers and about a dozen reporters. I wished I was with them, a news-hound instead of the fox.
Most television viewers are armchair detectives who presume guilt on the slenderest evidence. Certainly, I do. So I didn’t want to be filmed leaving the house with a Homicide detective. If I did, couch potatoes all across the country, who’d just flipped over from CSI, would tell themselves I was guilty as hell and deserved a long spell behind bars.
However, it would look even worse if I turned around and ran back inside. I strode ahead boldly.
The media scrum surged towards us. Strobe lights turned night into day. I blinked hard and made a forlorn attempt to look innocent.
As we neared my car, the reporters surrounded us, waving microphones and tape recorders. I didn’t recognise any and assumed they were local reporters. Most of their questions were directed at Gilroy, wanting to know what was happening. He ignored them.
When we reached my car I couldn’t remember where I’d put my keys. Bathed in harsh light and bombarded with questions, I nervously dug around in my pockets for 30 seconds until I found them. Despite the cold, my shirt was drenched in sweat.
A reporter yelled: "Detective, where are you going with Mr Ryder?"
Gilroy turned. "Mr Ryder is helping us with our enquiries."
Shit. The magic formula. That was like saying that I’d been found with a bloody knife in one hand, a shovel in the other and a signed confession in my back pocket.
I got behind the wheel and started the engine. Gilroy got into the passenger seat next to me. He parted his small, thin lips to reveal large predatory teeth. I think he was trying to smile.
He said: "How does it feel, being a part of the story for once? It must feel ironic."
It was beyond ironic. I should never have done the right thing and called the cops. I had only committed one crime - being naïve - and was going to be heavily punished for that.
Christ, when would this night end?
CHAPTER SEVEN
Bureaucratic buildings in Canberra tend to be either Outback Neo-Stalinist or Middle-of-Nowhere Modernist. They look like they hate the landscape and want to be somewhere else. Certainly, the Australian Federal Police Headquarters in Braddon was a non-descript building decorated with filigrees of exterior plumbing. It looked like it housed obscure bureaucrats who stamped documents and issued certificates rather than men who wore guns, kicked down doors and verballed criminals. But my legs shook as we crossed the pine-panelled lobby. Would I emerge a free man? Or was my next destination a prison cell?
I half-expected to be put in a small white room and interrogated by a bad cop and a worse cop. But my visit was far more civilised than that. Gilroy took me upstairs to a small, cramped office where he sat me down, facing his desk, and turned on his computer.
He asked me to
repeat the story I gave earlier. While I did he typed it up on the computer. He wasn’t much of a typist, so I itched to perform that task myself. If I had, we’d have finished a lot earlier, with better punctuation.
Two hours later, he printed out a draft witness statement and handed it to me. I read through it and, after getting him to make a few corrections, signed it. He photocopied the signed version and gave me a copy.
I said: "Can I go now?"
"Of course."
He took me downstairs and pushed open the glass front doors. "Thank you for your assistance. I’ll be in touch."
I hoped not.
Despite emerging a free man, I felt nervous. Maybe I was already the prime suspect and Gilroy was messing with my head: relaxing his grip before tightening it again; cutting me loose in the hope I’d make a stupid mistake.
Maybe I was under surveillance right now. Startled, I looked around, but only saw darkened buildings and an empty street. But they were trained to be invisible, right? They owned the night. If I couldn’t see them, they were probably there.
Shit. Stop being stupid. I'd told the truth and was innocent. I had nothing to worry about. Nothing.
Somehow, I wasn’t fully convinced. If Gilroy couldn’t find the real killer, he might fit me up with the crime. And if he did, no hot-shot investigative reporter would expose the miscarriage of justice and free me from gaol with a full pardon. None of my useless colleagues were capable of that.
I got home at about 3am, tired, hungry and depressed. I just wanted to climb into bed and sleep. But Anne sat on the living room couch, in pyjamas. As I came through the door, she jumped to her feet, looking tense.
"Paul. What’s happening? I’ve been up most of the night, worrying. Where have you been?"
I didn’t want to describe the night’s events, but had no choice. They would soon be splashed all over the media. I took a deep breath and plunged forward. "Umm, I’ve been with the police?"
Her eyes widened and jaw dropped. "What?"
"I found a body tonight - a dead body - so I had to contact the police."
She took a step back, as if I’d connected with an uppercut. "You’re kidding, right?"
"No," I said grimly.
"Jesus. Whose body? Where? When?"
"A woman I know - knew."
"A woman? What woman?"
"A woman called Yvonne Clarke."
"Where did you find her body?"
No point lying, because the TV news would soon reveal all. "Umm, in her house - at Woden."
"What were you doing there?"
I described how Yvonne telephoned and asked me to meet her at her house. "But when I got there, she was dead."
"Oh, my God. How did she die?"
"I think someone bashed her to death."
Anne’s eyes widened. "You mean she was murdered?"
"Yes."
"My goodness. You must have been shocked."
"Horrified."
She reached out and brushed the hair off my forehead, sympathetically. "How terrible. But why did she want to talk to you?"
I shrugged. "I’m not sure. Maybe she wanted to talk to a reporter. Maybe she had a story to give to me. But when I got to her place, she was dead."
A dark suspicion flitted across Anne’s face. I was surprised it had taken so long to appear. She obviously suspected me of a far worse crime than murder: namely, infidelity.
She said: "How well did you know her?"
Once, when Anne and I were having a rare heart-to-heart chat, I foolishly admitted that, in some of my previous relationships, I’d been less than faithful. So if I told her I once had a fling with Yvonne, she’d probably conclude I went to Yvonne’s house for a bonk.
However, I’d fallen into the habit of telling the truth and let my guard down. "Umm, well, I went out with Yvonne before I started seeing you."
Her brow furrowed deeply. "Really? How long ago?"
"Oh, about a year ago. Like I said, before I started seeing you."
Several more furrows created a frown. "Did you see her after that?"
"She worked at Parliament House, so we sometimes ran into each other - that’s all."
Anne obviously had dozens more questions banked up in her brain. But to her credit, she suddenly stopped her interrogation and looked concerned. "OK. You look very tired. You’d better get some sleep. Come on."
We trudged upstairs and got into bed. I was so tired I should have gone straight to sleep. But images of Yvonne’s corpse flashed through my brain. I tried to recover feelings for her that I never had. Anne threw an arm around me and held me close. But I’d never felt so lonely.
What a fucking night.
CHAPTER EIGHT
After four hours of restless slumber, the alarm clock screamed in my ear. Groggily, I clobbered the "off" button. The harassment ceased. I rolled over and stared at the ceiling, body crying out for more sleep. But the events of the previous night tumbled back into my head. Horrible images gave me no peace.
I turned over and saw Anne was gone.
I staggered into the en-suite bathroom. Anne wasn’t there either, though the condensation on the mirror and a wet towel suggested I was hot on her trail.
Still dazed, I showered and put on my suit, before strolling downstairs to the kitchen area. Anne sat on a stool, eating cereal.
She looked up sympathetically. "How do you feel?"
"Like the lowest grade of shit."
"Maybe you shouldn’t go to work?"
I thought about Michael running the bureau on his own and shook my head. "No. Got to."
"OK. Let me make you some breakfast."
I usually had to fend for myself at breakfast time, so this was a special treat. She went over to the fridge, took out some bacon and eggs and started frying them in the skillet. She was obviously dying to ask more questions about Yvonne’s death. Eventually, the dam burst. "Have you got any idea who killed her?"
"No," I said curtly, making it plain I didn’t want to discuss the topic.
She put a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me. I ate it quickly, said I was going and kissed her on the cheek.
She said: "You really sure you should go to work?"
If I didn’t turn up, Michael would spend the whole day playing computer games. "I’ve got no choice."
"OK. But if you feel like a chat during the day, give me a call."
"Sure."
Few places look as desolate as Canberra on a cold winter's morning. Brownish grass, streaked with frost, covered the nature strips; gauzy mist drifted through gaunt trees.
Driving from my garage, I recalled that I’d promised to pick up Alan Casey that morning. The last thing I wanted was a passenger on the ride to work. But Alan was expecting me.
I drove over to his house, parked outside and beeped the horn. He soon emerged, a dishevelled journalistic dinosaur, the last of his herd, shambling through the dew-encrusted weeds. He obviously hadn’t watched the TV news that morning, because he got into the car and didn’t mention Yvonne Clarke. Just said a brisk hello and asked how I felt.
"A bit tired."
"How come?"
"Late night."
"Really? Why?"
"Oh. I found a dead body and got questioned by the cops."
Alan’s head snapped around. "Fuck. You serious?"
"Deadly serious."
He assailed me with questions and was still asking them when Parliament House came into view. I only finished telling him about my big night out while driving into the underground car park.
He whistled. "Shit. Poor woman. Got any idea what she wanted to talk about?"
"Nope. None at all."
"Maybe she just wanted a shag, for old times' sake?"
"I doubt it. Women don’t usually pine for me like that."
"True. So you’ve got no idea who might have killed her?"
"Absolutely none."
He shook his head in amazement. "Boy, catching a lift with you is never boring."
I parked my car and we caught a lift up to the Press Gallery floor. Alan told me to call him if I needed to talk and peeled off.
I emptied the Herald’s press box and headed up the corridor towards my bureau. I soon discovered I was a celebrity of sorts. In quick succession, two journos I knew waylaid me to say they’d seen me on TV that morning. Tiredness exacerbated my paranoia. I studied their faces for signs they thought I was a brutal murderer. They cleverly masked their suspicions.
I muttered about being in the wrong place at the wrong time and kept walking.
I was half-an-hour late. Michael Boyd was already at his desk, looking alert but not intelligent.
He said: "Wow, you’ve had a big night."
Shit. If Michael already knew what had happened to me, the whole world must know. I hung my jacket on a peg behind the door and strolled over to my desk.
"What do you mean?" I said, dreading his reply.
"Saw you on tele this morning, coming out of that woman’s house. You discovered the body, huh?"
"Yeah."
"Shit. What were you doing there?"
I was reluctant to tell him anything. But we did work together and I’d better tell him what happened, to get the record straight. So I gave him a very brief run-down of the previous night, without mentioning I spent three hours at the police station. Why add to the manure in his brain?
He said: "God. When you saw her body, I bet you freaked out?"
"I was upset."
He looked suspicious. "She was an old flame, huh?"
"Yes."
"Sure you weren’t going over there for a quick poke?"
Was my reputation that bad? I wanted to punch the cheeky little shit.
"No," I said firmly.
He looked disappointed. "You’ve been getting a lot of calls this morning from other reporters wanting some sort of comment. I’ve left their numbers on your desk." He pointed at a small pile of message slips.
I picked them up and dropped them in the bin. "If anybody else calls, tell them I’ve got nothing to say."
"Sure."
I scanned the newspapers laying on my desk. Most of the lead stories were about the leadership struggle between the PM and Martin. The general consensus was that Martin would win handsomely.
Crooked House Page 5
