No Safe Place

by Jenny Spence

  “Do I?” she says, her voice cold.

  “For the benefit of the tape,” says Lewis drily, “Ms Cartwright was one of two victims of an unidentified gunman in Ellen Street, Brunswick at approximately 5.35 pm yesterday. She was taken to the Royal Melbourne Hospital for treatment to a gunshot wound to the upper arm and spent the rest of the night there.”

  Webster writes all this in a little notebook, then suddenly looks up at me.

  “So he made coffee for you?” she asks.

  “Yes.”

  “You said he was waiting for you with a cup of coffee because he knew just how you liked it?” she says.

  “Well . . . yes, sure. He did that every time I went there.”

  She’s playing with her pen on the desk, then she points it at me. “Would you say you had a close personal relationship with the deceased?”

  “No, actually, I wouldn’t.”

  “But he was waiting eagerly with coffee for you ‘just the way you liked it’. To me, that suggests a certain degree of intimacy.”

  There’s something so pompous in her manner I can’t help laughing. She goes red, switches off the tape recorder and stalks out, slamming the door.

  “What’s with her?” I ask Lewis.

  He glances at the tape to make sure it’s off.

  “Try not to get up her nose,” he says in a low voice. “This is her investigation, and she has to start by ruling you out.”

  “Me?”

  “Cherchez la femme, and all that?”

  “But that’s ridiculous!” I say.

  He shrugs. “Just gotta let her work through it, Elly. Right now, she’s got a dead man, two coffee cups with your fingerprints probably all over one of them, and your admission that you were there yesterday, which is going to be in roughly the right time frame.”

  “Well sure, but why would I . . . ?”

  “Some sort of lovers’ tiff? Elly, most murders are domestics, and most victims know their killer. All her training is telling her to look at you.”

  “But not if I’m obviously innocent, surely.”

  “Nobody’s obviously innocent.”

  “I don’t think Ms Webster likes me,” I complain. “Can’t you investigate it? I don’t want her.”

  “What do you think this is, a hairdressing salon? We share it around, and I’ve got the Mabel case.”

  “Well, it’s obviously the same killer.”

  “Obvious, maybe,” he concedes, “but the only link so far is you. Webster has her own ideas about that.”

  He goes out of the room, leaving me to figure that one out. They can’t think I shot Mabel and myself yesterday – even Agatha Christie couldn’t come up with a way for that to happen – so what’s on their minds? Do they think I was so deranged by yesterday’s experience that I raced over to West Melbourne today and attacked Carlos?

  No, wait – Carlos has been dead for hours. Rigor mortis. If I killed him, it would have been yesterday, while I was there. In fact, it can’t have been long after I left. What if I’d stayed for lunch, I wonder. Somehow, irrationally, I imagine that I could have saved him, helped him defend his fortress. I might have seen the killer at the door and warned Carlos not to let him in. An absurd image pops into my brain of a shadowy figure on the CCTV screen, a hat pulled down over his eyes, one hand on the gun in his pocket.

  But that’s not what the killer looked like. He wore a Pizza-licious uniform and a silly red cap.

  I wish I’d seen his face. Now, more than anything, I yearn for it. I wish I had glanced around, last night, at that creeping car. It was later, it was dark. He’d been to West Melbourne, and he was coming for me. He couldn’t be sure that woman in a raincoat with the hood up was me, but he knew where I lived so he followed patiently, watching to see if I would stop at that gate. What if that had been Miranda coming home? I think, horrified.

  Images of that silly red cap, that face at the door, would have shown up on Carlos’s screens and been saved to his hard disks. All gone now.

  They both come back into the room and sit down.

  “Tell me about Carlos’s girlfriend. Did you know her?” says Webster.

  “He didn’t have a girlfriend,” I say patiently.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “I would have known if he’d had a girlfriend.”

  She leans forward. “But you say you didn’t have an intimate relationship with him.”

  “How is this helping to solve Carlos’s murder?” I say, struggling to stay calm. “What’s some mythical girlfriend got to do with this?”

  “Jealous, are you?” For the first time, Webster looks happy. Lewis is gazing into space. I do some yoga breathing.

  “Are you following up the pizza carton?” I ask.

  “I beg your pardon?” She frowns.

  “You did see the pizza carton on the floor, didn’t you?” I say. “The one that had a folded newspaper in it, and no sign of any pizza?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Well,” I say, “when Carlos ordered home delivery, which was pretty well every meal for him, he’d get his plate ready, with a knife and fork crossed on top. I saw that in the kitchen.”

  “Shit,” says Lewis. “You said Carlos wouldn’t let anyone in.”

  “That’s right,” I say, “except when he was hungry. He would have had to open the door for the people delivering his food.”

  Webster gets up without a word and leaves the room again.

  I don’t feel particularly optimistic – she’ll probably think I planted it.

  9

  Hours later both Webster and Lewis have disappeared. Constable Tong takes me to a sort of canteen, where I get a sandwich and some coffee, which I take out into a courtyard. Because it’s way past lunchtime there aren’t too many smokers hanging around, so I’m able to find a tolerable corner and turn on my phone. There’s a string of messages from Carol, ranging from increasingly concerned: “Sweetie, you are having the world’s biggest nap. How many of those pills have you taken?” to downright furious: “So I race home to organise a stomach pump or whatever. Where the hell are you?” There are texts from Miranda: mum pls call me lunchtime 12 2 1 , then where R U call me after 3 please mum. There’s also a voicemail from Derek: “Elly, what happen to you? Luke say police take you away. Elly, you been arrested?”

  I text Miranda: Will have big talk tonight. Please trust me and wait for my call.

  I call Derek. “So Luke and Steve are back?” I say.

  “Yeah, we’re all pretty shock here. No-one getting any work done. How come you were there, Elly? I thought you stay home today.”

  “It’s a long story, Derek. I’d rather tell you tomorrow. I’m still at the police station right now.”

  “What’s happening to this city, Elly? That murder right in your street, and we have the break-in here, and now this terrible thing with Carlos! Did you really find him?”

  “Yeah. I don’t want to talk about that just now, Derek. What did Luke and Steve say about the computers?”

  “Luke say the killer pull out all Carlos’s data. Everything. When you coming in?”

  “Tomorrow morning, I promise. We’ll know more by then.”

  “Okay, see you then.”

  “Wait a minute!” The penny drops. “What break-in, Derek?”

  “Last night. Someone broke into the building, try to get into our office.”

  “My God, Derek! Did they get in?”

  “Course not. I like to see someone get through our security.”

  Derek is proud of his state-of-the-art locks and alarms, and I think he’s quite pleased that someone’s finally bothered to test them out. But I’m reminded of something else.

  “Derek, did Carlos send in his backup yesterday?”

  “Yeah, the courier come at about three o’clock. We put it in the safe.”

  “Can you call the police and tell them that? Ask for Detective Senior Sergeant Webster. Thanks, Derek.”

  Well, that sh
ould take care of DS Webster’s suspicions. In line with his general paranoia, Carlos always burned his most important files onto a CD every Monday afternoon and sent them to Derek for off-site storage. He always used the old-fashioned non-rewritable ones, so the contents could never be tampered with. When the stack of CDs in the safe gets too big they go off to some bunker or other, happily paid for by Carlos. So I wasn’t the last person to see him alive after all.

  Now I have to ring Carol. She picks up on the second ring.

  “Elly! Christ, what are you . . .”

  And I start crying. It’s sudden and devastating, like a dam bursting. I can’t say anything for a minute, while she rants at me, then realises something is wrong.

  “Elly?”

  “I’ll text you,” I gasp.

  “You will not! Don’t you dare hang up!” She’s in full command mode. “Come on, take a few deep breaths.”

  Constable Tong has reappeared and put an arm around me, and I manage to calm down and tell Carol what’s happened.

  “I’ll come and pick you up,” she offers.

  “No! In fact, I’m coming to get my stuff. You’re not going to be involved in this.”

  She starts to argue, but I’m adamant.

  “Carol, someone might be watching me. If they are, I want them to see me get my stuff and leave your place. It’s not just you, it’s Rick and the kids. I don’t want anyone to think I’m staying with you.”

  “But what will you do, where will you go?”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll see you soon, if the crazy lady cop here doesn’t arrest me.”

  More time passes, with lots of coming and going, before Igor from Rush’n’Around confirms that our regular courier saw Carlos alive just after two yesterday, when she picked up the CD that he sends into the office every Monday. Webster reluctantly accepts that I’ve got an unassailable alibi.

  “So now will she finally agree that it’s the person who killed Mabel?” I ask Lewis hopefully. “You can prove it was the same gun, can’t you?”

  “Could do, if it was a gun. Sorry, Elly. Not official yet, but Carlos was stabbed, and his . . . in the end, his throat was cut. He was trying to get away, out the back.”

  Tears come to my eyes at the image of Carlos in terror, driven from his sanctuary, trailing his lifelines, the cables that connected him to the only world that was real to him.

  “What about this CD?” asks Lewis. “What’s on it?”

  “It’s just his off-site backup,” I explain. “He burns all his new code for the past week and sends it to the office to be stored. Derek’s got a stack of these CDs in his safe.”

  “Don’t they store that sort of thing on the Internet these days?”

  “This is Carlos,” I say. “Did I mention he was paranoid? He wouldn’t put his code on the Internet for some Carlos-like person to find. Anyway, have you checked out the pizza carton?”

  “You were right. No sign of any pizza. He had ordered the Monday Special from Pizza-licious, but about five minutes later the order was cancelled.”

  “Do they know who by?”

  “No. They don’t record calls like that, and no-one had any recollection of it.”

  “Were there fingerprints on the carton?”

  “Stacks, but I doubt if we’ll get anything useful. The box was a bit battered – probably came out of a recycling bin somewhere. My money’s on the so-called delivery guy wearing gloves.”

  “Yeah, of course,” I agree. “And Carlos wouldn’t get suspicious when he took the box, because that newspaper stuffed inside gave it just the right weight. But then he would have realised it was cold.”

  “Do you think he’d notice something like that?”

  “Carlos was really cautious,” I explain. “It’s not like it was justified. It was almost like he lived in a fantasy world, like one of those games those nerdy guys play. You know, like he wanted to think people were after him, just to give his life a bit of excitement. You saw what a fortress his place was?”

  “So that makes him look pretty interesting as a target. Webster’s trying to find out more about where he got his money, and maybe who his enemies were.”

  I feel immensely tired. Where do I start with someone like Webster? Would she be interested in anything I might tell her?

  “We’d better get you home,” says Lewis. “We’ll get the local police to keep an eye on your house for a few days, if it makes you feel better.”

  “Somehow, it doesn’t,” I say. “What I want to do is pick up my things from my friend’s place, but then I want to be taken somewhere else. Discreetly.”

  I explain my plan. He raises his eyebrows, but makes no comment, except to say: “Okay, I’ll take you to Brunswick myself.”

  There’s little conversation on the trip to Carol’s house because Lewis is on the phone. I gather from his cryptic contributions that they haven’t got a suspect for who shot Mabel, but they’ve found a stolen car that was abandoned a few streets away.

  “Was that the car?” I ask in a brief interval between calls.

  “We don’t have much of a description,” he says. “But it was in the right place at the right time, and it’s been expertly wiped.”

  “Expertly,” I repeat. “And there was a silencer on the gun, wasn’t there? Do you think this was a professional, some sort of contract killer?”

  He keeps his eyes on the road. “We’re not ruling anything out,” he says.

  When we arrive at Carol’s, she’s waiting anxiously to hand over my stuff. She’s added a few useful things from the stash of clothes she hopes will fit her again someday. We hover around the front door for a few minutes.

  “This is Detective Senior Sergeant Lewis,” I say. “Carol Brennan.”

  “Mike,” he says, holding out his hand.

  “Hi Mike,” she says, shaking it briefly. “Listen, Elly, are you sure about this? We really need to talk.”

  “Let’s have lunch tomorrow. Have you got time?”

  “Of course.”

  We make our arrangements, then Lewis and I get back in the car and head to St Kilda Road. I use his phone on the way. As we drive into the basement car park I take the battery and SIM card out of my own phone and drop them in my bag. From now on I intend to be under the radar.

  A curly-haired young cop is waiting with a police van. I climb in the back and we ease out into the peak-hour traffic. Once we’re past the city and heading west I squeeze through to the passenger seat.

  “Constable Macintyre, is it? I hope you don’t mind doing this,” I say.

  “Nah, it’s great. I get to drive the van home and back again in the morning. Beats public transport.”

  “Where do you live?”

  “Box Hill.”

  “God, this is right out of your way!”

  “It’s okay. The boss thought I should do it, because of my dad.”

  “Your dad?”

  “He’s the Senior Sergeant at Augusta Creek.”

  “Ahhh!” So this boy’s father is keeping an eye on Miranda. Suddenly I feel enveloped by warmth.

  “Do you know the place?” I ask. “Did you grow up there?”

  “Nah. City boy. Dad just took the post a couple of years ago, when he and Mum split up.”

  The image of a rosy-cheeked mother serving up pie in a cosy kitchen dissipates, and I see the dejected country cop hunched over a lone counter tea. Steak and chips.

  “Good place, though. I go for the odd weekend – do a bit of rabbiting with Dad.”

  The two men stride into the bush in boots and plaid jackets, at ease with each other. Nice-looking lad. Perhaps Miranda . . . ?

  “There’s some weirdos down there, though. Hippies and greenies. Dad says it’s worse than the city sometimes.”

  Or perhaps not.

  My long, unruly hair makes me pretty recognisable, so before we reach our destination I pull out my merino scarf and drape it over my head and neck. Then I get Constable Macintyre to let me out in the heart o
f Little Vietnam, opposite the Footscray Market. Pedestrians give the police van a wide berth and I wait until he’s well out of sight before I merge into the crowd and stroll round the corner.

  In the main drag, I wander in and out of a few takeaways, as if trying to make up my mind where to go for a meal. I don’t think I’m particularly good at this, but the idea is to keep changing direction so I can have a good look round and see if anyone is following me. The only other European I see is an old lady with painfully swollen legs, hobbling home with her shopping cart.

  Eventually I stroll into the Khá Sen Restaurant, about halfway down the block. It’s brightly lit and emanating good smells. The laminex-topped tables are well scrubbed, ready for business, with an array of spicy sauces in little bottles set out on each one. Inside it’s empty apart from a couple of sombre Vietnamese men hunched over bowls of noodles in a corner. There’s no-one behind the counter, but a buzzer announces my arrival and Lily Ng, the owner, comes bustling through the plastic strip curtains at the back.

  “Elly! You really come!”

  She gives me a big hug, her smooth dark head fitting neatly under my chin. I can see a few streaks of grey, but other than that there have been no signs of ageing in the eight years I’ve known her.

  When I was freelancing as a kind of information consultant I did some work for a smarmy operator called Freddie Tranh. At first I was impressed by his spiel about setting up low-cost software systems for his own people, tailored to their sometimes peculiar business practices; and that was more or less what he did. But the sting was that he deliberately customised everything, unnecessarily in my opinion, to make his clients dependent on him, then charged them exorbitant maintenance fees. Lily and her husband Du run a small printing business next door to the restaurant, and they were paying off both buildings. The website Freddie set up for them was much more complicated than it needed to be, and Lily and Du were struggling to pay his bills. Instead of adding the high-priced information system he was recommending, I stripped the whole thing back and helped them to get out of their contract with him. It only took a couple of after-school sessions to teach their oldest son Nam, then fifteen, how to maintain the system.