Already Dead

by Jaye Ford

  ‘This is the Not Real side.’ Jax pointed to the blank column. Aiden finally looked at it. She saw a frown grow between his brows, felt a tick of victory. ‘I’ve got a list of potentials for the Not Real side but so far everything I’ve tried to confirm has ended up on the Real list.’

  He lifted the page, took a look at the one underneath.

  She gave him a second to read then flipped to another. ‘I broke down everything Brendan said to points that could be proved or disproved. I mean there are a couple here that could probably go straight to Not Real. Nano spiders, for example, but I want …’ Jax stopped, turned, stared at Zoe.

  She was surrounded by dolls, using her hands to knock her head from side-to-side, going cross-eyed and grinning as she sang: ‘Nano spiders in my head. Nano spiders in my head.’

  The sight of it made the nerve endings on Jax’s skull prickle as though something had crept across her scalp. She knelt in front of her daughter. ‘I’ve never seen you sing that before. Did you learn it at school?’

  ‘No. That boy taught it to me.’

  ‘What boy?’

  ‘That boy from this morning. At the sad house.’

  Jax remembered the kids had been in the sandpit, waving their arms and laughing. Zoe blinked at Aiden as he stepped closer.

  ‘He sang a song about spiders?’ Jax asked.

  ‘Nano spiders.’

  ‘What are nano spiders?’

  Zoe jiggled her shoulders – it was a song, who cares? ‘It’s his daddy’s song. He sings it when he gets a sore head from thinking too much. Look, Mummy, Barbie’s got nano spiders in her hair.’ She held up a doll with a head that looked like it’d been attacked with gardening shears – Zoe’s attempt to ‘fix’ its hairstyle.

  ‘It suits her,’ Jax said, her mind rolling back to her conversation with Kate. She’d listened to Jax’s account of the carjacking without comment, then she’d talked about Brendan’s past and his PTSD. Jax had asked questions but she hadn’t thought to ask about nano spiders – she’d assumed they were a new symptom, something that had helped tip Brendan over the edge.

  Aiden cocked his head towards the notebook on the table – or perhaps to somewhere out of Zoe’s earshot.

  Following him across the lawn, Jax said, ‘Brendan talked about nano spiders in his head. He kept bashing at his skull, saying they lay their eggs in your brain, that they breed inside your skull, that once they’re there, you can’t get them out.’

  ‘He might have had a headache.’

  ‘I’m sure he did but maybe it was more than that. Information is in your head. Once it’s there you can’t get it out. And it can breed, grow big and strong. Maybe make his PTSD come back with force.’

  ‘It’s conjecture, Jax.’

  ‘It’s not much on its own, I know, but the Real side is seriously outweighing the Not Real.’

  In the sitting room, the uniformed cop greeted two men. One was carrying a fat case. Fingerprinting, Jax guessed. Aiden watched them as they surveyed the room like painters getting ready to pull out the rollers.

  ‘Okay,’ Aiden said, ‘show me what you’ve got.’

  He pulled the notebook towards him as he sat. Jax flattened a hand on the pages. ‘Just to be clear: this is still under our rules of engagement.’

  ‘Sure.’ He said it too fast.

  ‘Tit for tat. I’ll tell you what I’ve got, if you tell me what you’ve got.’

  He hesitated. Maybe trying to work out what she’d accept. Maybe just taking his damn time to annoy her. ‘I can’t promise that. It’s a police investigation.’

  ‘And I’m contributing information.’

  ‘You’re personally involved.’

  ‘Yes, I am. Do you want to see what I’ve got?’

  He folded his arms, looked like he wasn’t fussed either way. ‘You know I could get a warrant for your notebook.’

  She’d worked in a newsroom, she’d seen it threatened before. ‘Uh-huh. How long would that take?’

  He sucked in a long breath, lips tightening to a hard line. But the anger was an act and it lasted about two seconds before he shook his head. ‘You’re a pain in the arse, Miranda.’

  ‘Thank you, Detective Senior Sergeant. I try hard. What’s it going to be?’

  He smoothed his tie. ‘Same as before. I’ll answer your questions if you answer mine. That’s the best I can do.’

  It wasn’t an invitation to the police station to look over evidence – it wasn’t bad, though. But she watched him as if she was thinking it through, making him wait, enjoying his eyes – the uncertainty in them, their cool steadiness, the hint of brain matter working hard behind them. ‘Okay.’

  She found the page where she’d started the lists and talked him through her process. Speaking fast, volume rising, she used her hands to explain, gestured with her arms, touched Aiden’s sleeve to make a point, glad to be saying it out loud at last. There was an energy to it, familiar from days on the job when big stories were breaking and she’d gathered details, going through them with editors, colleagues, people on the end of phones.

  As she spoke, Aiden’s focus moved between her and her notes, listening and observing. Maybe he thought it was amusing to see a civilian get overexcited about evidence. Maybe he thought she was losing it. She hoped she wasn’t because it felt damn good.

  ‘This morning at Kate’s, I confirmed more,’ she told him. ‘Scotty looks just like Brendan and he could read before he started school. Kate’s a teacher and she had trouble getting work because they moved around. She told me how Brendan used to tell people she was the best thing that ever happened to him. You took my statement. He used the same words, remember?’

  Aiden kept his gaze on her notes.

  ‘Brendan said Kate was smart, tough and soft,’ she said. ‘You’ve met her, Aiden. That’s exactly what she is. I would use the same words to describe her.’

  He lifted his face. She could see reservation in it.

  ‘Look.’ She laid fingers on his forearm, the skin warm under the fabric of his shirt. ‘I know none of Kate’s information confirms anything Brendan said about people being after him, but the Real side of the ledger keeps growing.’

  Aiden glanced at her hand, made no attempt to shift it. ‘It’s good investigating, Jax. Your methodology is clear and you’ve gathered some compelling material.’

  ‘And?’

  A small tilt of his head. ‘It’s not evidence. There’s nothing here to prove or disprove Walsh’s claims.’

  Jax winced a little, feeling suddenly, ridiculously amateurish. ‘They were more than “claims” when he had a gun to my head.’

  ‘You’re too close to it.’

  ‘Have I convinced you I’m not involved?’

  ‘There’s more than one way to be involved. Nothing comes off the table yet.’

  She frowned at him.

  ‘It’s a process.’ Explanation, not apology.

  ‘How about the concept that people were after him?’

  ‘The break-in and the incident at the beach last night opened that up as a possibility.’

  ‘Only a possibility?’

  ‘There’s always more than one. It’s good investigating, Jax,’ he said again. There was reassurance in his tone – it still felt patronising.

  ‘Sarge?’ The uniformed cop was at the door. ‘Forensics wants a word.’

  Aiden flicked his eyes to the activity inside the house – fingerprint powder being dusted on her dining chairs – then back at Jax. ‘No more questions?’

  She hesitated, unsure, a little embarrassed. She’d heard his meaning: she’d given him nothing momentous, no nice mystery-solving piece to the Brendan Walsh puzzle, so it was time to move on. It was his job, she got that. And she was an amateur. Just a stay-at-home mother with a fixation problem. Aiden was right. She was too close, her perspective had been skewed – and she clearly couldn’t investigate her way out of a cardboard box.

  He stood, lifted a chin to the cop at the door.
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br />   ‘Actually …’ She rose to her feet. He’d promised free rein on questions – and she had an obsession that needed a damn break. ‘I’ve got more questions and we’ve got a deal.’

  33

  Aiden told her that, deal or no deal, forensics got first priority. He didn’t sit when he came out again, just stood with his feet apart, arms folded and mobile in hand – body language for let’s-get-it-done.

  He told her he’d have to stick to their bargain: answer her questions, not provide a running commentary on his investigation. His phone pinged several times with incoming texts and she wondered if he’d had it switched to silent before or whether he was suddenly in demand. Jax managed to hold him in place long enough to recount his discoveries of Brendan’s whereabouts in the days before the carjacking.

  Brendan Walsh spent the Friday and Saturday on a Secure Force assignment: a property protection detail driving from Sydney to Melbourne to pick up a woman’s jewellery collection, then returning with it ahead of a removalist’s van. Nothing suspicious about the job, no papers or documents in the inventory, all delivered well within the estimated time, customer satisfied. And why not, Jax thought. She’d transported her own meagre collection of jewellery in a toiletries bag.

  Kate Walsh spoke to her husband for the last time via the landline in his flat late on Saturday afternoon. He told her there was an extra shift going; she accused him of wanting to stay away. Kate found several missed calls from his mobile on Sunday and Monday but nothing in the message bank, and she was unable to make contact with him. So far, Brendan’s mobile hadn’t turned up. Aiden was having forensics check the burnt-out car for any indications the phone was inside.

  According to Secure Force, Brendan didn’t have an extra shift over the weekend and didn’t turn up to the one he’d volunteered for on the Monday. He’d been assigned as one of three bodyguards to protect an American actor during a whistlestop tour of Sydney and there’d been a scramble finding a replacement for him. Brendan’s boss had tried repeatedly to contact him without success. Brendan’s flatmate hadn’t seen him since the Friday morning, when he left for the Melbourne job.

  ‘So that’s two days he was out of contact,’ Jax said. ‘In the car, he said he’d been holding it off for two days. I thought he meant he’d been trying not to kill himself.’

  Aiden didn’t comment. Well, it wasn’t a question.

  She pressed on. ‘The men who were waiting for me at my car last night – maybe they turned up at Brendan’s flat or he saw them somewhere and he spent the time trying not to be found. Holding “it” off could have meant holding them off, couldn’t it?’

  ‘We know one chased you. We don’t know they were after Walsh.’

  She dragged her teeth across her bottom lip. ‘Meaning they could have been with him before he got in my car?’

  ‘Meaning I’m not jumping to any conclusions.’

  ‘It’s got to be connected, though, don’t you think?’

  ‘I agree that’s a possibility and I’d like to know where he was in those two days, but we can’t assume he was being pursued by them.’ Aiden’s phone signalled another message. He checked its screen before continuing. ‘There could be other explanations. He could have been acting with them. He could have committed a crime and was evading police. Or Kate Walsh might have been right that he wanted to stay away – he could’ve been having an affair and was off on a dirty weekend.’

  Jax straightened with surprise. ‘You think an affair’s a possibility? That he spent the weekend with a woman then lost touch with reality.’

  Aiden’s phone pinged again. He didn’t look at it, just spread his hands in apology. ‘Jax, I’ve got to go.’

  She thought of his capable-looking colleague, Suzanne May, and felt a beat of self-consciousness. Was the detective constable texting so he could make excuses and escape? ‘Aren’t you going to read it?’

  ‘I know what it says,’ he shot over his shoulder as he headed for the door.

  ‘Stop wasting your time?’ She made it sound like a joke.

  He looked back at her. No guilt at being caught out. Not laughing, either. ‘We’ll unravel it, Jax, trust me. But I’ve got to get to another crime scene.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ She’d been prolonging someone else’s drama.

  Inside, the uniformed cop was gone and the forensics officers had their heads down dusting the living room. Outside, the courtyard was empty except for Zoe and her dolls. She was six, old enough to play on her own, but there were cops here – not to protect her but to collect evidence of someone uninvited. ‘Zoe, baby, come inside while I walk the detective to the door.’

  Holding Zoe’s hand, following Aiden through the living room, Jax told herself to be grateful he’d stayed as long as he had. She eyed the well-sprung effortlessness of his legs as he climbed the stairs, figured if Brendan had remembered something about Afghanistan, it would take time to track the answer down. As well as contacts and a lot of phone calls.

  ‘I’ve got more questions, you know,’ she told Aiden as he opened the front door.

  ‘I’d be surprised if you didn’t.’

  Sweet talker. ‘When do I get to ask them?’

  A chuckle rumbled in his throat as he stepped off the threshold. ‘Give me a call, buy me a drink and bring a list.’

  ‘It might need two drinks.’

  He slipped black sunglasses on. ‘Then you’re buying.’

  She grinned at his departing back for about two seconds before the amusement fell from her face. Was that flirting? What the hell was she thinking? She was holding her daughter’s hand and he was a cop whose interest was now reduced to getting her victim support. Still … she’d thought her sense of male–female interface had died with Nick.

  Taking Zoe upstairs, away from the fingerprint powder and the array of questions it would generate, Jax remembered Aiden’s, We’ll unravel it, and wondered if the ‘we’ included her or just his team of real investigators. Ignoring the boundaries she’d wanted to establish, she helped herself to Tilda’s fridge, throwing together a cheese sandwich and sitting with Zoe on the deck in the breeze, thinking about where she’d gone wrong with her research.

  She didn’t have access to the kind of information a cop might gather – at least, not in the three days since the carjacking. She’d approached it all like a feature article, as though her time with Brendan was one long interview and her job was to verify everything he’d said. Her speciality had been human interest, she looked for the truth in people, tried to give a sense of who they were while she wrote their story. She’d hoped to discover who Brendan was, hoped it might explain his intentions.

  Aiden, on the other hand, was a cop. He wasn’t interested in who but what Brendan had done in a timeframe that was relevant to a coroner’s investigation. Information that proved or disproved, not ideas that suggested what he’d been thinking and feeling. Aiden assumed an affair or a crime or bad company as easily as he might assume Brendan ate toast for breakfast.

  Maybe Aiden had seen too much. Maybe Jax was naïve and idealistic.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice called.

  Jax met one of the forensics guys halfway down Tilda’s stairs.

  ‘I was told there was electrical equipment missing from up here.’

  Jax pointed him to the TV unit and the walnut desk and watched with Zoe while he worked, fielding her daughter’s questions and telling herself that Aiden wasn’t shutting her out – he’d promised to answer her questions so long as she was buying.

  Except he was considering culpability and collecting facts for an inquest. He wasn’t interested in the level of desperation that made a person get in a car and point a semiautomatic pistol at a stranger.

  The forensics guy packed up his kit and stood. ‘I think you’ve got a budding scientific officer there,’ he said, nodding at Zoe.

  ‘I think she’s aiming for interrogator.’ Jax smiled.

  ‘We’re finished downstairs. You can go back in there now.’
/>   Jax made a start, straightening chairs, wiping off fingerprint dust and thinking. Of Kate Walsh.

  Brendan’s wife was stuck inside Jax now, like a splinter that was deep and sore in the palm of her hand. She wanted to figure out Brendan’s message and give it to Kate so at least one of them could move on.

  Jax checked her watch. ‘Come on, Zoe. We’re going out again.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘A cafe.’ To see a man who might have some of the information she needed to put it all together.

  ‘Can I bring my dolls?’

  Jax glanced at the mound of them in Zoe’s wheelbarrow. ‘You can bring two.’

  ‘Three?’

  Zoe had been brilliant all day. A long, sensitive, fraught day. ‘Okay, three dolls.’ Jax pointed to her cheek, leaned down for Zoe to kiss it, bundled her into a quick, tight hug in return.

  She phoned for a cab, locked the house, made another call while they waited for it on the driveway and was told her car was ready to be picked up from a police compound in the city. She wanted it back; after the break in, she wanted to know she could leave in a hurry. But two men had found her Mazda on the street yesterday, so she figured it could stay where it was for another few hours and she’d pick it up when she was ready to drive home again.

  She dialled another number as the cabbie headed down the hill towards the beachfront.

  ‘Russell, it’s Jax,’ she said.

  ‘Hi, Uncle Russell,’ Zoe called from the other side of the back seat.

  Jax turned the phone as he called back. ‘Hey, Zoe-bear!’

  ‘We had some police at our place today,’ Zoe said, as though she’d been dying to tell someone.

  Jax returned the phone to her ear. ‘She’s a blabbermouth. I wasn’t going to tell you.’

  ‘Everyone okay?’

  Her eyes drifted to the long, gentle curve of beach that stretched ahead of them. Sand the colour of egg yolk, an ocean fringed with the crisp white of breaking surf, all baking under a deep blue sky. ‘We’re fine. We had a break-in. Some electrical stuff was taken. And my big laptop.’ He was already worried about her – he didn’t need to know she’d almost chased a guy.