‘I’m worried in case I get it wrong.’
‘If you’re not sure, say so. I don’t expect you to perform miracles.’
I relaxed slightly. The silence descended again. I closed my eyes and was trying to clear my mind and calm my breathing when Dave broke into my thoughts.
‘So how do you like Adelaide? Have you been out and about much since you’ve been here?’
‘Not really. I tend to stay pretty close to home and work.’
‘That’s a shame. We have some great restaurants here.’
‘We have restaurants in Jewel Bay too,’ I said, trying not to sound too sarcastic.
‘I’m sure you do, but we have more. Maybe we could go out for dinner one night?’
My mouth dropped open. Was he for real? Was he actually asking me out with Ed sitting in the car? Had Ed not told him about us? I couldn’t think of anything to say. Thankfully Dave saved me the trouble. He seemed to have the knack of holding a conversation without the other person having to participate.
‘Ed tells me you have a friend who you work with? Maybe we could all go out together?’
I let go of the breath I’d been holding. ‘Yes, maybe.’
‘Can we focus on the job at hand? Social plans can wait until after we’ve spoken to Smythe,’ Ed said.
‘Geez, Ed, lighten up will you? I’m just trying to take Cass’s mind off things. Who put salt in your sugar bowl?’
That thought sent us all back into silent contemplation for the rest of the trip. Thankfully we were nearly there. Ed pulled into a car park next to a plain cream brick building that looked like something between a school gymnasium and a church hall. It was built in the era when functionality was all that mattered; aesthetics weren’t even an afterthought.
‘Be warned,’ Ed said. ‘Smythe’s not very charming.’
‘He’s not a fan of the police,’ Dave said.
‘I’m guessing you’re not going to tell him who I am?’
‘We’ll introduce you and not mention what role you’re playing. Hopefully he’ll assume you’re a cop too,’ Ed said.
‘I don’t think I look like a cop. What if he doesn’t buy it?’
‘You can be a profiler,’ Dave said.
‘Great, something else I know nothing about.’
‘It’ll be fine, relax,’ he said.
I couldn’t help wondering why people said that. In my experience telling someone who’s stressed to relax usually has the opposite effect.
We all climbed out of the car.
‘He’s definitely going to be here?’ Ed said, looking around the vacant car park.
‘Yep, I gave him the option of talking to us at home or here and he opted for here. Makes me wonder what he’s hiding.’
‘Well, if he’s our guy I’m sure we’ll find out eventually.’
‘Assuming we can get enough evidence to justify a search.’
‘Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,’ Ed said, striding off towards the entrance.
I wasn’t the only one who was stressed.
Smythe must have been watching for us because the door swung open as we approached. I looked up, spotting the CCTV cameras mounted on top of the building.
‘Come in. I wish I could say it was nice to see you again but that’d be a lie.’
I studied the big beefy guy holding the door open. He looked like a thug; the sort of person you’d avoid if you were out late at night. Was he their killer? I wasn’t sure. I needed him to talk some more. The memory of what the killer had said was so fuzzy. It didn’t help that I could feel Ed’s eyes boring into my head.
Ed and Dave stood back to let me go first. I walked past Smythe into the dim interior of a front reception area. Smythe hadn’t bothered to switch all the lights on. There were only a couple of small windows up near the ceiling. It was enough to see by but that was about it.
‘This way, we’ll go down to the office again.’
He led the way past the reception area to a short hallway and then into a room that smelled of sweat and stale cigarettes. I took in the tired furniture and ancient TV. Helping drug addicts clearly wasn’t a very lucrative business. I wondered if they got any government funding. If they did, they weren’t spending it on creature comforts.
‘Sit down,’ Smythe said.
I perched on the edge of a grimy armchair.
‘So? Who’s your friend and what do you want?’
‘This is Cass. She’s one of our team,’ Ed said.
I nodded at him. He gave me a look that was somewhere between freezing and arctic.
‘Thanks for agreeing to see us,’ Dave said.
‘Did I have a choice?’
‘We wanted to ask you a few more questions,’ Dave said.
‘I don’t know what else I can tell you.’
‘We’ve found out a bit more since the last time we spoke,’ Ed said.
‘Oh yes?’
‘I think we might have told you that our first victim, Paul Jenkins, had a list of names on him when he died. We’ve since found all of them. Only one’s still alive,’ Ed said.
‘And what’s that got to do with me?’
I watched Smythe as he spoke. His body language radiated hostility. I was concentrating on every word he said. It could be the same voice. The problem was, the killer’s voice had been distorted, like it was coming from a long way away or through a tunnel. The voices weren’t completely different, they had the same pitch, but I wasn’t sure.
The part of my brain that wasn’t straining to listen to Smythe to work out if he was their killer was busy battling images that kept flashing in front of my eyes. Every time I looked at Smythe I saw him in a balaclava. I couldn’t work out why. The killer and my stalker weren’t the same person. It didn’t make sense.
Maybe Smythe had a similar build to the guy who’d attacked me or something. Whatever it was, it was freaking me out. My heart was racing. Sweat was dripping off me. I felt like there were iron bands around my chest and no matter how much I breathed I couldn’t seem to draw enough air. The room started to recede and go fuzzy around the edges.
‘Hey, is she all right?’ I heard Smythe’s voice but it sounded like it was coming from a long way away.
‘Cass? Are you all right? Can you hear me?’ Ed grabbed my shoulder but it wasn’t enough. I could feel myself falling sideways.
‘Move away, for God’s sake. Don’t you know a panic attack when you see one? Give her some bloody air. Get her feet up,’ Smythe said.
Someone reclined the armchair I was sitting on and I felt air being fanned onto my face.
‘Here, give her this,’ Smythe said.
A glass of water was pressed to my lips. I opened my eyes and took a sip.
‘I’m OK. I’m sorry. I’ve been having a few panic attacks lately. Sorry, keep going. I’ll be all right in a minute.’
‘Maybe you should take some time off work,’ Smythe said.
I sat up. ‘I’ll be fine, really. Ed, maybe I can wait in the car?’
Ed nodded. He fished around in his pocket and handed me the keys. ‘I’ll walk you.’
‘No, I’ll be fine. Stay.’
I headed out of the room and back down the hallway. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. I knew Ed and Dave would be thinking I’d had a vision. For once, it wasn’t true. I was just losing it. There was no way Smythe was the guy who’d attacked me. He hadn’t even known I existed until tonight. What the hell was wrong with me?
I got into the front passenger side of the car, put the keys in the ignition, then rolled the window down and pushed the seat back so I was half lying down. I closed my eyes and tried to get my heart rate and breathing back to normal. Hot tears filled my eyes and threatened to run down my cheeks. All I wanted was a normal life and I couldn’t seem to manage it. If it wasn’t my gift that was making things difficult it was something else. I was a disaster when it came to doing normal.
‘Cass?’
My eyes flicked open. E
d had come out to check on me.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said.
He walked around and climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘Don’t be. Did you have a vision?’
‘Nope, it really was a panic attack.’
‘I didn’t know you had those.’
‘Neither did I until this week.’
‘Was it seeing Smythe that triggered it?’
‘Sort of. It was him, the attack and my car all rolled into one.’
‘Right, well, since it actually was a panic attack you’d better have this.’ He handed me a business card. ‘Billy gave it to me to give to you. It’s for a psychiatrist; he does some pro bono work here at the clinic. Apparently a lot of drug addicts suffer from anxiety disorders. We actually interviewed the guy last week. He seemed OK for a psychiatrist, not that I’ve met that many of them.’
‘You think I need a shrink?’
‘I’m no expert but maybe you should think about it.’
I nodded. ‘Maybe.’
We sat in silence for a while. I spotted Dave heading in our direction.
He jumped into the back seat.
‘Do you want to drive?’ Ed said.
‘You can, I don’t mind. So, fill me in.’
‘We haven’t talked about it yet,’ Ed said.
‘Shit, you guys are hopeless, you know that?’
‘Dave, Cass isn’t well!’
‘It’s all right, Ed.’ I turned and looked directly at Dave. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t be sure if he’s the guy or not. The voice I heard was too distorted.’
‘Shit,’ Dave said.
‘Hang on. You’re not sure if it was him but you’re not saying it wasn’t either,’ Ed said.
‘No.’ I knew he was thinking of the last time we’d done this when I’d been adamant they had the wrong guy. This wasn’t the same at all. ‘I didn’t hear the killer’s voice clearly. It was distorted. Smythe could be your guy. I can’t say one way or the other. I’m sorry.’
‘No, don’t be. It keeps Smythe in the mix as a possible suspect, which is better than nothing. Did you ask him about Jenkins?’ Ed said, turning to Dave.
‘What do you reckon? Of course I did. He said he didn’t know him. The first time he’d heard the name was when we said it to him last week.’
‘He’s lying. If they spent time in the same block they must have seen each other. We’ll see what Janice uncovers. We’re going to have to find some more evidence if Smythe really is our guy. I’m still not sure. He seems like a straightforward bloke. If he was going to kill people he wouldn’t go to the trouble of drowning one, burying another and throwing the third off his own balcony,’ Ed said.
‘Yeah, I agree. I’d have thought Smythe’d be a one-trick pony. Guys like him usually have no imagination, but who knows? There’s always a first time,’ Dave said.
CHAPTER
28
‘Get that into you. Rico’s one of the best baristas in Adelaide.’ Dave slid a steaming latte in front of me, smiling his toothy smile and wafting a cloud of aftershave in my direction.
‘Thanks, Dave.’ I forced a smile.
He ducked back to the counter. ‘Here, try this. The cakes are incredible.’ He slapped a huge wedge in front of me.
‘I won’t need dinner after this lot,’ I said.
‘Dave’s a feeder.’ Ed said, grabbing his fork and tackling his own mountain of food.
‘Cass, how have you managed to get around Adelaide? Do you have visions all the time?’ Dave asked.
‘Not all the time,’ I tried to smile at the question. ‘I keep to the same routes mostly. If I stick to places I’ve been before I can avoid any surprises.’
‘But you can’t always do that. You don’t know Adelaide very well, do you?’
‘It’s a bit hit and miss. I’ve been pretty lucky so far. I’ve had a few interesting times, but not too many.’
I thought back to my house-hunting efforts and my conscience niggled at me. I’d been meaning to tell Ed about the vision I’d had in the bathroom of that house. No time like the present. I sucked in a breath.
‘You look like you’ve been caught with your hand in the cookie jar,’ Ed said.
‘It’s something I probably should have told you sooner.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I had a vision when I first came here. I saw a guy kill his wife in the bathroom of a flat I was inspecting. He dropped a digital radio into her bath. I think he got away with it too, because when I asked the agent about the murder that’d happened there she didn’t know what I was talking about. She said there’d been an accidental death not a murder.’
‘No way!’ Dave said.
Ed frowned at him. ‘Do you know when it happened?’
‘No idea, I’m afraid.’
‘Their names?’
‘I know his first name; she called him by it right before he killed her.’
‘You should have told me sooner.’
‘I wanted to, there’s just been so much going on.’
‘Give her a break, Ed, it’s not like there’d be any evidence. It could’ve happened twenty years ago.’
‘Not if there was a digital radio,’ Ed said.
‘But if they were renting the place any evidence would be long gone,’ Dave said.
‘Yeah, but what if the guy decides to try it again? We should at least check him out,’ Ed said.
‘OK but I’m not sure how we’re going to do that if there’s nothing to suggest he was involved.’
‘It’ll have to be off the record.’ Ed pushed his chair back. He ran his hand through his hair, making it stick up in all directions. ‘Great, just what we needed, another case with no evidence.’
I’d expected to feel better once I’d told them about the murder, so I was bummed to find it had the opposite effect. Instead of feeling relieved, I felt bad for making their lives harder than they already were. I poked at my cake and shifted it around the plate. I’d lost my appetite.
‘You know what we should be focusing on?’ Ed said, breaking the morose silence.
‘What?’ I asked.
‘Trying to figure out who’s out to get you. It’s too much of a coincidence that your car’s vandalised and you get attacked in the space of a week. The words written on your walls and the windscreen of your car have me convinced it’s the same person. Have you any idea who it might be?’
‘Not really.’
‘But there’s something?’
‘There’s the student who outed me, the head of department who hates me, a colleague who asked me out for drinks so he could pump me for information about the Fleurieu case … but honestly, no one I can think of who’d seriously be out to get me. It’s doing my head in not knowing who’s behind it. I’m jumping at shadows all the time.’
‘Have you had other panic attacks?’ Ed said.
‘Not as bad as the one I just had, but yes, a few.’
‘Then you probably should go and see someone. Metzger, the guy on the card I gave you, should be able to help.’
‘Yeah, I might go and see him.’
‘Good, but in the meantime if you give me the names of the people you mentioned, I’ll check them out.’
‘All right.’ I felt better knowing that he cared enough to do that – pathetic but true. I decided it was my turn to change the subject. ‘Can I ask you about the case or is that off limits?’ I sipped my coffee, almost groaning in pleasure at the smooth creaminess.
‘As long as Dave doesn’t mind,’ Ed said.
‘Fine by me, it’s not like we’ve got heaps to reveal.’ Dave leant back and unbuttoned his suit jacket before resuming his attack on his cake. I couldn’t help but smile at the contrast between Dave and Ed. Ed was unshaven and dishevelled. He looked like he hadn’t had a good sleep in weeks. Dave, on the other hand, looked like he’d just stepped out of an Armani catalogue.
‘So how many victims do you think there are?’
‘We think there are three, but I suppose ther
e could be more we don’t know about. The guy who took a dive off his balcony had a list of three names in his pocket. Only one of them’s still alive,’ Ed said.
‘And you think they all went to NA?’
‘Yeah, we think they went to the Tuesday-night group, but we can’t find anyone who can confirm it. Smythe’s never done Tuesdays and the current leader’s new.’
‘What about the old leader?’
‘We went to see him. He’s a vegetable in Hampstead,’ Dave said.
‘That’s a hospital,’ Ed said, seeing Cass’s blank look.
‘Oh, what happened to him?’
‘He overdosed.’
‘You know that for sure?’
‘What do you mean? The guy’s drug-fucked, there’s no doubt about that,’ Dave said.
‘Yes, but if someone’s after people at the NA group, and this guy’s the link that ties them all together, maybe someone tried to finish him off as well.’
They both stopped eating and looked at me. I felt a flush of embarrassment start to creep up my neck and across my cheeks.
‘She’s right, Dave, it could be connected.’
Dave nodded. ‘Yep, it’s a good thought, but I’m not sure how we prove it. He’s been in hospital for ages. If there was any evidence it’d be long gone. We could interview his family but that could make us look like bumbling idiots.’
‘Still, it’s worth looking into to see if it was ever considered suspicious.’
‘Yeah.’
I sat there staring at them both. I felt a rush of pleasure. For once I’d actually said something helpful.
‘I wonder if he said anything before his condition got worse?’
‘We could talk to the nursing staff.’
‘I wish we could talk to him.’
‘No chance, the guy’s a living corpse.’
I was vaguely aware they were still chatting but the café started to recede and my heart began to beat fast and hard in my chest. I tried to swallow the mouthful of cake I’d been eating and felt it stick in my throat like a lump of clay. Beads of sweat broke out on my brow.
‘Cass?’ Ed said.
‘Sorry, what?’
‘Are you all right?’
‘Um, yes, I think so.’
‘You’re not having another panic attack, are you? You’ve gone all pale.’
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