‘YOU bastard!’
Charlotte’s head turned sharply at the raw anger in the statement from the rapidly approaching stranger.
‘There’s a dead woman in that car and it’s your fault!’
‘I didn’t even see her!’
‘You shouldn’t be allowed on the road. You’re a useless, incompetent—’
‘Excuse me.’ Charlotte turned her body and stepped sideways into the path of the stranger. ‘Who are you?’
‘I work in those offices.’ The man jerked an arm in the direction of a building over the road. ‘I saw the whole thing.’
‘Then we’ll certainly take your statement,’ Charlotte told him calmly. ‘If you go and wait beside that police car over there, I’ll—’
‘He just turned this bloody great truck in front of her. She didn’t stand a chance. Look at her, you moron!’
Unfortunately, it was still possible to see the mangled body in the driver’s seat of the small hatchback. The fire officers were trying to position a tarpaulin as a shield prior to cutting the woman’s body free from the wreck, but it was proving difficult. Wellington wasn’t known as the ‘windy city’ for nothing.
‘She was probably on her way to pick her kids up from school.’ The witness was clearly becoming even more upset at the closer view he was now getting of the disastrous aftermath of the accident, but his reaction paled in comparison to the man he was confronting. The driver of the truck involved was shaking visibly beneath the blanket an ambulance officer had draped over his shoulders. Now he had tears coursing down his face.
‘I’ve got kids myself,’ he said brokenly. ‘Oh…God! What have I done?’
‘I’ll tell you exactly what you’ve done, you damned—’ The witness shoved Charlotte aside and she stumbled sideways, but he didn’t get as far as the truck driver because another figure slipped smoothly into his path.
‘Move,’ Hawk snapped. ‘If you’re not behind that police cordon in ten seconds, I’ll have you arrested, mate.’
The man blinked, his fury hijacked by a dawning recognition that he no longer had any chance to control this situation. Charlotte was wearing a rather similarly stunned expression. In the two weeks she had been working with Owen Hawkins she had tucked away the impression that she would not want to face his anger. Now she was seeing it for the first time and she could confirm that impression. With bells on.
Hawk often looked focussed, uncompromising and even fiercely determined, but right now his expression was calmly murderous. The man he was facing outweighed him considerably and was in a charged emotional state that could readily be expressed in physical violence, but Hawk’s expression and tone had been enough to stop him as effectively as a stone wall.
‘And don’t…ever…touch a police officer again.’ The words dripped like ice into the sudden silence. ‘Unless you want to be arrested for assault.’
‘But…I saw it.’
‘Officer Jackson will take your statement. Over there.’
‘OK…sure.’ The man turned and almost stumbled in his newfound eagerness to co-operate. Charlotte could sympathise with his bemusement. She was still feeling stunned herself. Not so much by the ease with which Hawk had defused the potentially dangerous situation but by the fact that his anger had been harnessed to protect her.
She wouldn’t have considered she needed that kind of protection. She should be as annoyed about it as she had been to have doors held open for her or offers to have heavy objects lifted on her behalf. She had been in more than one dodgy situation as both a crash investigator and a paramedic and she had been quite capable of looking after herself. Determined to, in fact. Jamie’s death had bred the determination to cope alone both personally and professionally. The force of that unexpected shove had been alarming, however, and to have that kind of back-up available from a partner was reassuring. Welcome, even.
The second or two of silence was shattered as the pneumatic cutting gear the fire service needed kicked into action. Another sound also managed to reach the trio of figures that included Charlotte.
‘Daddy! Daddy!’
She hadn’t expected the presence of the small boy who was being lifted from the back of the ambulance parked close by. He looked to be about four years old and was making a beeline for the truck driver.
‘Is he OK?’
An ambulance officer followed in the child’s wake. ‘He’s fine. How are you doing now?’
‘I’m fine.’ The truck driver reached down to take his son in his arms but he was struggling for control as he looked up at Hawk.
‘I didn’t even see her. The road was clear when I started the turn. I’m sure it was. And then I checked again and there she was…’ He caught a ragged breath. ‘I put my foot down. I thought she had time to stop but that I’d better get out of the way fast just in case. And then I heard it hit and…and…’ Racking sobs broke his speech and he buried his face against his son’s shoulder.
‘It’s OK,’ Charlotte found herself saying as she put her hand on his arm. ‘Come and sit down for a minute.’
It took some time to get a statement from the distraught truck driver, Steve Poulsen. He knew he could lose his job and he had four children to support. It had also been the first time he’d given his son, Ben, the treat of having a day on the road with him, but the relief that his child was unhurt or the worry about losing his livelihood couldn’t begin to mitigate the grief that a life had been lost and that it could have been his fault. Charlotte spent nearly an hour talking to Steve before arranging a squad car to take him home.
Hawk was marking the scene and taking photographs. Charlotte joined him and they spent another hour working together as the scene was gradually cleared. The ambulance was long gone, not having been needed for Steve or Ben and unable to do anything for the woman in the car. A hearse arrived and left with the victim’s body and then the fire appliances departed. A tow truck took the wrecked car away and the truck was driven away to be impounded for further forensic investigation. By the time Hawk and Charlotte had collected the information they needed, broken glass was being swept from the road and the spectators were finally dispersing, leaving only the SCS and one other police vehicle present. One of the officers from that car approached Hawk.
‘Are you guys nearly done?’
‘Nearly.’
‘There’s a call out to any available vehicles for an armed robbery in town.’ Young Officer Jackson looked eager to get in on the action.
‘You go,’ Hawk told him. ‘We’ll close the scene here.’
‘I’m supposed to go and see the dead woman’s family and break the news.’ Jackson looked far less keen for that unpleasant duty.
‘Have you got her details?’
‘Yeah.’ A page of his notebook and a driver’s licence were located and Jackson looked hopeful. He ripped the page out as Hawk extended his hand.
‘Are you sure? Hey, thanks, Hawk. I owe you one.’
‘No problem.’
Charlotte watched as Jackson flicked on his squad car’s beacons and then started the siren as soon as the car was rolling.
‘That was a nice thing to do.’
‘Not really.’ Hawk was folding the legs of the theodolite’s tripod. ‘It could be useful for us to talk to her family anyway. I’d like to know what her state of mind was.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘It’s a bit weird, isn’t it, not having any braking marks further up the hill? Either she just wasn’t looking or the truck did turn directly into her path.’
Hawk looked from the point the truck had turned across the road into the driveway up to the bend in the road some distance uphill. ‘The speedo’s locked at 70 kph, which is the speed limit here. It could be that there isn’t enough stopping distance from that bend even if the road was clear when he started his turn.’
It was exactly the kind of information the SCS could establish, report to the appropriate authorities and have a change made that could make the road safer for future drivers.
‘We’ll need to do some testing,’ Charlotte said. ‘Skid testing for speed and stopping time and for the truck turning. How long does it take, do you think, to turn a truck that size across half the road width?’
‘I’d guess somewhere between five and eight seconds, but it would only be a guess.’
Charlotte wasn’t so sure about that. Hawk’s ability to calculate time and distances had impressed her considerably over the last two weeks. She relied on her computer programs to supply many of the results from the complicated equations they needed to use in their investigations. Owen Hawkins seemed quite capable of doing most of them in his head, which was irritating. Had Cam been just as clever mathematically? She had no hope of competing with a skill like that.
She moved to pick up the cones protecting their work space. ‘We’ll need to check out those advertising hoardings on the roadside. It could be that they’re obstructing visibility.’ It was another aspect of the scene’s environment that would be easy enough to correct if an influence was proved.
A few minutes later, Charlotte started the car. ‘Where are we headed?’ she queried.
‘Breakwater Bay. It’s a few kilometres up the coast.’
‘What information have we got?’
‘Her name’s Katrina Jones. Thirty-four years old. Next of kin are listed as her parents—at the same address.’
‘I guess her parents might be in their sixties,’ Charlotte said, ‘so it’s quite likely we’ll find someone at home.’ It seemed unusual for someone Katrina’s age to be living at home. Had she been single? Or had she moved home for help in coping as a solo mother? She hoped there were no children involved. Breaking this kind of news was always worse when the victim was a parent of young children.
Katrina Jones had not been a mother but her parents were devastated at the information Charlotte and Hawk had to impart.
‘But she’s such a careful driver. Trina’s never had an accident.’ Her father had slumped into a chair, his face grey.
His wife was pale. Numbed by the shock, she was desperately trying to avoid facing reality. ‘You must have made a mistake. Maybe someone stole her car.’
‘We have her driver’s licence, Mrs Jones. From her handbag.’
‘They might have stolen the car and the handbag.’
‘No.’ Charlotte had looked at the photo ID on the licence. While the victim’s face had been virtually unrecognisable, there could be no mistake with the distinctively long, blond hair. ‘I’m terribly sorry but there hasn’t been a mistake. Your daughter has died as the result of the crash.’
She looked from Katrina’s mother to the grey-faced man in the armchair. She hated this part of a police officer’s job. As a paramedic it never seemed quite this awful. At least she would have been seen to have done something to try and help prior to announcing such devastating news. Charlotte swallowed hard. ‘I’m terribly sorry,’ she repeated.
Katrina’s father had his head bowed. Charlotte could see beads of perspiration appearing where his hairline had receded. She stepped closer.
‘Are you all right, Mr Jones?’
Charlotte caught the ironic glance she received from Hawk. The message was crystal clear. Of course he wasn’t all right. He’d just been told his only daughter was dead. Charlotte ignored the look and crouched beside the armchair. It was an automatic gesture to pick up the man’s wrist and feel for a pulse.
‘He’s got a bad heart.’ Mrs Jones latched onto the potential distraction. ‘He had triple bypass surgery only last year.’ She clutched at her husband’s other hand. ‘Stan? Are you all right, love?’
‘Do you have any chest pain at the moment?’ Charlotte didn’t like the erratic rhythm her fingers detected. Frequent missed beats could herald a medical emergency.
Stan Jones nodded slowly. His eyes were closed and tears trickled down to join the perspiration on his face. His colour was awful and Charlotte noted the increasing effort he was making to draw breath. She glanced up at Hawk.
‘Could you get my kit from the car, please, Hawk?’ Her query was calm but Hawk’s nod showed his instant comprehension of the actual message her gaze was delivering. ‘Perhaps you could call for an ambulance as well.’
Mrs Jones gaped. ‘Oh…dear! Do you think it’s that bad?’
‘Let’s just be on the safe side.’
Charlotte’s words to Mrs Jones had been reassuring but Hawk moved rapidly. He called through to the control centre on the squad car radio.
‘Can we have an ambulance to this address?’
‘Nature of call?’
‘There’s a paramedic with the man and she thinks he needs one. He could be having a heart attack, I guess.’
‘Is it urgent?’
Hawk remembered the alarm he had detected in the depths of Charlotte’s quick glance despite the calm tone of her voice. ‘Yes,’ he said decisively. ‘It’s urgent.’
Pulling the bulky kit from the back of the car, Hawk hoped his assessment had been correct. Walking back into the living room of the Joneses’ house, he wished he had been wrong.
Stan was slumped forward. Charlotte had her arms under his shoulders and was pulling him from the chair.
‘Help me get him onto the floor, Hawk.’
Mrs Jones was in the way. Hawk put a hand on each of her shoulders and moved her firmly but gently to one side. She resisted.
‘Stan! Stan, what’s the matter with you?’
‘It’s all right, Mrs Jones,’ Hawk said. ‘Charlie here is a paramedic. She’ll know how to help Stan.’ Hoping like hell this statement was correct, Hawk moved even more swiftly, picking up Stan’s legs and helping Charlotte place him face up on the incongruously cheerful floral carpet.
Charlotte checked his mouth briefly, then tilted his head back. She put one ear close to his mouth and nose, one hand resting on his diaphragm. ‘He’s not breathing,’ she told Hawk quietly. ‘Can you open my kit, please, Hawk? You’ll find a mask with a soft bag that looks like a rugby ball attached to it.’
She had her hand on Stan’s neck now, feeling for a carotid pulse. Hawk saw the imperceptible shake of her head and the way her lips set into a determined line. He didn’t mind that she was describing her equipment in terms a three-year-old might understand. This was serious and he was way out of his comfort zone.
Charlotte took the ambubag from Hawk, held the mask firmly on Stan’s face and pressed the bag. His chest rose and fell. She gave him another breath and glanced up at Hawk. ‘Do you know how to do chest compressions?’
‘Kind of.’ Hawk’s mouth felt suddenly dry. ‘I did a first-aid course.’ The thought of doing it for real was terrifying. No wonder the bystander at that first crash they had attended together had looked so shaken. Somebody’s life might depend on his input here. ‘It’s a few years ago, though.’
‘Look.’ Charlotte was using some heavy-duty scissors to cut Stan’s clothing. A woollen jersey, plaid shirt and a singlet separated to reveal his chest. ‘Here’s the bottom rib.’ She ran her fingers up the prominent curve on the skinny chest. ‘Go to the sternal notch in the middle here and then measure two finger widths up. Place the heel of your other hand at that point, then lace the fingers of both hands together. Like this.’
The demonstration was as swift and smooth as her speech. ‘Straighten your arms and lean forward. You need to press hard enough to reach a depth of three to five centimetres and it needs to be this fast.’ The compressions were far more rapid than Hawk would have thought necessary.
‘Count…silently,’ Charlotte advised Hawk as she moved aside, indicating her expectation that he would take over. ‘Every fifteen compressions, pause, and I’ll get a couple of breaths into him.’
Hawk knelt beside Charlotte, his thigh pressing against hers for a few moments as she watched to make sure he remembered her directions. He didn’t notice the tiny shake in his hand as he traced the line of the bottom rib and positioned his hands. He started compressions, taken aback by how different a human felt to the plastic dummy he vaguely remembered from the first-aid course. He concentrated hard.
‘Good. You’re doing well, Hawk. Don’t forget to count.’ Charlotte was pulling equipment from her kit. She attached a small oxygen cylinder to the bag mask for the next two breaths she gave Stan, but the next time Hawk paused she was ready for a more complicated manoeuvre. She had a silver instrument in her hand and a tube lying on top of its opened sterile packaging beside her.
‘I’ll get you to press on Stan’s Adam’s apple for a second here, Hawk.’ Charlotte had levered Stan’s mouth open with the blade of the laryngoscope and was peering in as she inserted the tube. ‘It helps me visualise the vocal cords and get this endotracheal tube positioned correctly.’
It took only seconds to complete the intubation and Hawk had to trace Stan’s ribs again to find his hand position and restart the compressions. Charlotte had attached the bag mask and oxygen to the tube protecting Stan’s airway by the time he was due for another two breaths and then her hands were into the kit again, pulling IV gear out.
‘Where’s your defibrillator?’ Hawk was pleased he’d remembered the name of the life-saving cardiac equipment. This man’s heart had stopped and it was clearly what they needed right now.
‘I don’t carry one. We’ll have to keep up the CPR until we get back-up.’
Hawk bent to his task again but a sense of hopelessness was creeping in. She had a miniature oxygen cylinder in her pack. Surely it was big enough to hold a small version of a defibrillator? The physical effort involved was making itself apparent now as well. This was hard work and they were some distance from the city. How long would it take for an ambulance to arrive? Trying to reassess the depth of his compressions, Hawk pressed a little harder on Stan’s chest. To his horror he felt something crunching under the heel of his hand. His gaze flew up to meet Charlotte’s. She continued attaching the tourniquet to Stan’s arm but her brief glance was reassuring.
‘It was just a rib,’ she murmured. ‘It happens. You’re doing just fine, Hawk.’
And suddenly Hawk didn’t feel tired or hopeless any more. He was proud of what he was doing to help and he was proud to be with Charlotte who clearly knew what she was doing. Having inserted an IV line into Stan’s arm, she then startled Hawk by turning to speak to Mrs Jones. He’d been focussed enough to forget he wasn’t alone with Charlotte and their patient. He glanced up to see Stan’s wife perched on the arm of her husband’s chair, her hands clasped and pressed against her mouth, her eyes wide and terrified.
‘We’re doing all we can to help Stan,’ Charlotte told her quietly.
‘Wh-what’s happening?’
‘His heart has stopped. What we’re doing is helping him breathe and keeping his circulation going until some more help arrives.’
‘Is…is he going to be all right?’
‘He’s very sick,’ Charlotte said carefully. ‘But we’re not going to give up just yet. Can you go and make sure the front door is open? The ambulance shouldn’t be too far away now.’
It was further away than Hawk would have wished. The contact with Mrs Jones had reminded him of why they were in this situation in the first place. This woman had just been informed that she had lost her daughter. And now her husband was possibly dying right in front of her. The relief that the arrival of the ambulance crew and all their gear engendered was almost enough to make Hawk feel light-headed. He moved aside as an ambulance officer took over compressions and another slapped electrodes and gel pads to Stan’s chest.
‘Extensive cardiac history,’ Charlotte told the paramedic in charge of the crew. ‘Sudden collapse after being informed of the death of his daughter in an MVA.’
The paramedic swore under his breath and shook his head, but his gaze was fixed on the screen of the life pack. He caught Charlotte’s gaze. ‘What do you reckon?’ he queried. ‘Fine VF?’
Charlotte’s expression was grim. ‘Barely more than asystole.’
‘Worth a shot?’
Charlotte nodded. She rocked back on her heels as the paramedic called for a clear space. Hawk stepped further back as he watched the convulsive jerk.
‘It’s asystole now.’
‘Let’s get some adrenaline on board.’
‘Sure. Oh, great—you’ve already got an IV in.’
Hawk looked away from the rapid actions of the paramedics as they continued CPR and started drawing up and administering drugs. His gaze found Mrs Jones, back in her position by the armchair but looking as though she herself might fall over any second. Hawk moved. At least there was something useful he could still do. He put his arm around the older woman and encouraged her to turn away.
‘Come with me,’ he said gently. ‘I think we should give the experts a bit of space for a minute.’ He led Mrs Jones towards the kitchen. ‘They’re doing everything they can for Stan.’
‘But that’s a police officer,’ Mrs Jones said anxiously. ‘How does she know what to do?’
‘She’s a rather special police officer,’ Hawk heard himself say. He hoped the emergency personnel behind them were too preoccupied to overhear his reassuring statement. ‘She’s a paramedic as well.’
If Charlotte had overheard the remark she gave no indication of it and any new appreciation Hawk might have for her diverse talents were buried over the next few days by the heavy workload the team was under. The victory Charlotte felt in finally persuading Hawk to take the time to accompany her to the Joneses’ funeral service was dampened by his obvious discomfort in being there. He was still looking less than happy when they had left as soon as could be considered courteous.
‘We shouldn’t have gone. It was an intrusion.’
‘I don’t think so.’ Charlotte felt the gears change as she accelerated in their departure from the funeral home car park. ‘It’s not as if we’re going to the graveside ceremony. We were simply paying our respects to the family of a case we’re involved in.’
She glanced at Hawk’s profile after a minute’s silence. ‘I know how you feel,’ she offered. ‘I used to feel the same way but Jamie persuaded me. He always attended the funerals associated with his cases and he convinced me that the benefits outweighed the less pleasant aspects.’
The grunt Hawk made suggested he was not likely to be easily swayed. ‘I don’t see how.’
‘He reckoned it gave a more personal connection to a case.’
‘That’s not something I would consider a good thing. If we get too involved, we can’t do our jobs properly.’
‘More open communication with other people involved, like relatives and friends, can be a good thing, though. Besides, you can’t argue that it doesn’t give a more human element to our job.’ Charlotte expelled her breath in a huff that could have signified mirth. ‘On second thoughts, I’d guess that you could argue about anything. So feel free, Hawk. Tell me I’m barking up the wrong tree or something.’
‘I wouldn’t dream of it,’ Hawk said pleasantly. ‘Far be it from me to contradict any wisdom you inherited from Jamie.’
Silence fell again in the car and Charlotte gritted her teeth. OK, maybe she did mention Jamie quite often but Hawk was just being immature if he let it get up his nose. It was tit for tat, anyway. He talked about Cam just as often. And Charlotte couldn’t help making comparisons. That disturbing level of awareness she had of Hawk, both physically and professionally, had made her inward comparisons an almost automatic habit by now. And three weeks of close professional contact with Owen Hawkins had highlighted huge differences between the two men. The example of Hawk’s reaction to attending the funeral had been another biggie.
Jamie wouldn’t have thought of doing otherwise but then, he had been a people person. Enormously popular, he’d been able to establish an instant and lasting bond with virtually everyone he’d met. He had been laid back to the point where simply his presence had lightened an atmosphere and generated good humour and laughter.
So much laughter. Charlotte had fallen in love with him because of the way he’d always been able to make her laugh, no matter how bad she’d been feeling. If it had been Jamie sitting beside her in the car now, he would probably have found something to make her laugh even in the wake of attending the tragic double funeral of the whole of Eileen Jones’s immediate family. She stole another sideways glance at Hawk. Almost an accusatory glare that he couldn’t be more like Jamie.
Her passenger was massaging his forehead between the thumb and fingers of one hand and Charlotte’s resentment faded.
‘Have you got a headache?’
‘No.’
They lapsed into yet another silence as Charlotte tried to concentrate on the route she was taking. She had to stop comparing Hawk to Jamie. It wasn’t fair on Hawk and it wasn’t helping her to settle into this new job. There was no comparison anyway. The two men were simply too different. The thought of describing Hawk as laid back would make Laura hoot with laughter and Charlotte would concur. There was an intensity about Owen Hawkins that made him capable of generating tension without even trying.
And Charlotte could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of times she’d seen him really smile. Aloof, that was the word for it. She didn’t believe it was because he didn’t have a sense of humour or that he lacked compassion. He was probably just very careful about who he let close enough to share it.
It was Hawk that broke this silence. ‘Bit rough, wasn’t it?’ he said quietly. ‘She’s lost her whole family.’
‘Yeah.’ Maybe he wasn’t so aloof at the moment. That head-rubbing gesture might have signified an emotional reaction deeper than Charlotte had credited. Or maybe he had decided to let Charlotte a little closer. The amount of pleasure the thought gave was not warranted, however, and it wasn’t welcome. Charlotte flicked on her indicator and checked her rear-view mirror, effectively excusing any further comment. She did not crave Owen Hawkins’s acceptance on anything more than a professional level.
‘At least that truck driver didn’t turn up. He said he was going to, didn’t he?’
‘He was very upset at the time.’ Charlotte began to slow the car as she checked house numbers on letterboxes. ‘I scheduled this interview so he wouldn’t have the chance to attend, though, just in case. I didn’t think his presence would have helped anyone—including him.’
‘It’s been a week. He should be pulling himself together by now.’
Charlotte decided she might need to revise her opinion of Hawk’s level of compassion. ‘He’s lost his job and he has a court appearance pending. It must be pretty tough when you’ve got four young children to support.’
‘Let’s hope he feels more communicative than he did the last time we tried to talk to him.’
Steve Poulsen was, in fact, nowhere to be seen when Hawk and Charlotte knocked at the door of his modest house in an outlying suburb of Wellington.
‘He’s still in bed.’ Steve’s wife, Jane, looked embarrassed but Charlotte could see her underlying distress. ‘He won’t get up. He says there’s no point.’
They ended up talking to Jane in the tiny kitchen, with Ben and another pre-schooler playing nearby and a baby in a high-chair banging a half-chewed rusk on the tray.
‘He sounds very depressed,’ Charlotte said when Jane had let her worries flood out. ‘Has he seen his doctor?’
‘He won’t.’ Jane shook her head unhappily. ‘He doesn’t want to talk to anyone.’ Tears began flowing again. ‘He says…he says he’s a murderer and he can’t live with knowing that.’
The baby started howling in sympathy with his distressed mother and Jane reached to pick the infant up. ‘I don’t believe it could have been Steve’s fault,’ she said brokenly. ‘He’s just so careful.’
Charlotte waited until she was back in the car with Hawk to announce her decision.
‘I’m going to take another look at this job. If there’s some way of clearing Steve, I want to find it.’
‘We’ve completed the investigation.’
‘That witness from the office block isn’t reliable. He decided Steve was at fault and that was that. He couldn’t even see the bend from his window so he can’t know whether Katrina’s car was visible when Steve started his turn.’
‘She wasn’t speeding. The line of vision wasn’t obscured by the hoardings. There was nothing wrong with her car. If the road had been clear when he started his turn, there was no reason she couldn’t have had time to stop.’
Charlotte was silent. They had spent hours over the last week conducting the tests. They had done skid tests in a car similar to Katrina’s and measured the friction marks to confirm her speed as being within the limit. They had used a truck to measure turning times and Hawk had been as close as she had suspected he would be in his estimation. It took between 4.6 and 6.3 seconds for the turn. They had measured the visibility distance to the bend at the start of the turn. Eighty-two metres. They had made a scale plan for sight lines. A car travelling at 70 kph would have taken just over four seconds to cover the distance. Less than the time for the turn but plenty of time to stop if the brakes had been applied earlier.
Why hadn’t Katrina seen the truck? The obvious answer was that Steve had miscalculated the time he would need for his turn or that he had not seen the car, but Charlotte wasn’t content to leave it.
‘Has Katrina’s cellphone been returned to her mother?’
‘Not that I know of. But I checked it. There were no recent calls at the time of the accident so she wasn’t speaking to anyone. No missed calls either, so she wasn’t trying to pick it up off the floor or anything.’
‘I’d like to take a look at it.’
‘Why?’ Hawk’s tone challenged her to accuse him of missing something and Charlotte sighed. It was about time they stopped watching how each other did their jobs, looking for something to criticise or feel offended about. She wasn’t trying to catch him out here or prove anything. She just wanted to solve the case to her own satisfaction.
‘I’m not sure,’ she confessed. ‘I just have the feeling we might be missing something.’
‘Feminine intuition?’ Hawk snorted softly and Charlotte gave him a somewhat scathing glance. She decided against sharing the odd comment Katrina’s mother had made to her when she’d left the funeral home.
‘I thought we’d sorted your prejudice at having a female colleague.’
Hawk cleared his throat. ‘My apologies,’ he said unconvincingly. ‘I just don’t appreciate having my accuracy or efficiency questioned.’
‘I’m not questioning it,’ Charlotte said sincerely. ‘I’m quite aware of how well you do your job, Hawk. In fact, I’d have to say I’m pretty impressed.’ There. Maybe that would make him think twice about looking over her shoulder from now on. ‘I just want to double-check everything. For my own peace of mind.’
‘It’ll be a waste of time.’
‘Maybe. I’ll make sure it’s my time.’
‘Stubborn, aren’t you?’ Hawk stared at her. Then he shook his head as though conceding defeat and gave one of his rare smiles. Charlotte found herself grinning instantly in response.
‘Sure am. I would prefer to think of it as being tenacious, though.’
Hawk was still smiling. ‘I’m sure you would.’
Charlotte found herself remembering that smile as she signed in for the collection of evidence still being held in secure storage. Funny how she could remember every occasion Hawk had smiled at her in the last few weeks. Or maybe it wasn’t. The fierce lines of that uncompromising face were transformed by a smile. It was like having a glimpse of a completely different person and it was rare enough to make it memorable.
Why didn’t Hawk smile at her very often? she wondered. She had seen him look amused and even laugh aloud when he was with his mates in the cafeteria. Was he keeping a barrier up to make sure they didn’t allow friendship to creep into their working relationship? Perhaps he just didn’t like her. Or maybe he was still hoping her company was only a temporary inconvenience until the wonderful Cam returned. It might complicate things if Hawk accepted how well they could work together or even, heaven forbid, started enjoying her company.
Charlotte took the cellphone back to their office. It was lunchtime and Hawk had disappeared, which was just as well. She pushed the menu buttons on the small silver phone and checked the listed calls. The last incoming call had been two hours before the crash. The final outgoing call had been late the previous evening. What had Mrs Jones meant when she’d said she blamed him?
‘He was married, you know. He should have known better.’
The comfort being offered by relatives had made it inappropriate to ask what she meant and Charlotte had no intention of visiting Eileen Jones again now. That would be an intrusion and it would be getting too personally involved for her own comfort. But Katrina’s mother hadn’t been referring to Steve Poulsen, Charlotte was sure of that. There was someone else involved. Someone significant. She toyed with the phone, pushing the menu button again.
The whole case had grown in significance. Charlotte wanted to clear Steve, and now that she’d stuck her neck out she had to. Hawk might scoff at her instinct but Charlotte had learned to trust it. If she could prove herself right, it would go a long way to proving to Hawk that she could measure up as a partner. That she could provide an element to this partnership that Cam had never supplied.
She was sick of being compared to Cam. Cam kept his files here. He did his scale plans on that paper. He kept his desk tidy enough to find things quickly and he never cluttered his work space with unnecessary items like medical textbooks or…or hand cream! Charlotte deliberately added to the clutter with personal items like the jar of quirky pens with fake flowers on the ends that now sat between Jamie’s photo and the pump bottle of hand lotion.
Cam wouldn’t have wasted his lunch-break playing with a cellphone either, but any thoughts of her absent competition faded as excitement suddenly pushed away any resentment. Charlotte pushed the buttons rapidly, reading the text messages, both received and sent. One had come in about half an hour before the accident time of 2:45 p.m.
I’ve told her
And the sent message was: How did she take it?
Not good
R U OK?
No
Want 2 meet?
Yes. Usual place?
B there in 10
The final message had been received at 2:44 p.m. Need u babe. Where R U?
And the final outgoing message had never been completed.
Almost th—
Charlotte took the paper coming out of the printer as Hawk arrived back in the office.
‘Read this,’ she commanded, handing over the transcript she had made of the messages. ‘Text messages from Katrina Jones’s cellphone.’
She had listed the times beside the lines of text. Hawk read silently. Then he looked at Charlotte, his expression one of grim comprehension.
‘She was texting. That’s why she didn’t see the truck.’
‘She probably only looked up long enough to negotiate the bend.’
‘On her way to meet an upset lover who’d probably just told his wife he was leaving her.’
They looked at each other in silence for a moment. The owner of the mobile phone Katrina had been texting to would need to be interviewed. The victim impact statements already prepared for the court hearing would have to be revised. They would make compelling reading and it was almost certain that Steve Poulsen would be cleared of any blame or repercussions other than the psychological effects he was suffering. Charlotte had been right and she had picked up something that Hawk had missed or simply not thought of. She wasn’t about to score points here, though. This was supposed to be a partnership, wasn’t it?
‘Do you want to call Steve and let him know we’ve found something that might put him in the clear?’ she asked Hawk.
The gaze Charlotte was receiving changed. A subtle addition emerged that might have been appreciation or even an acknowledgement that a truce was being called.
‘No, you do it,’ Hawk said. ‘You’re good with people.’
Making the call that offered light at the end of a very dark tunnel for Steve Poulsen made Charlotte feel good.
But something else was making her feel even better.
‘I think this might actually work out,’ she told Laura that night. ‘We could make a real team.’
‘He obviously needs you around to make sure the job’s done properly,’ Laura said. ‘Fancy missing something like that. I’d rub his nose in it if I were you.’
Charlotte just smiled. She didn’t need to. Hawk might appear aloof and intimidating but he was aware of every nuance, however subtle, in what happened around him. He was quite capable of sensitivity. Who wouldn’t be, with that degree of intelligence? He just didn’t choose to show it frequently. But he had shown her…just a tiny amount and it was enough to change how she felt about her new position.
‘I think I’ve earned some respect finally. Maybe he’ll stop comparing me to Cam now.’
‘If he thinks you use feminine intuition to solve a case, I have my doubts. What does he think it is? Some form of witchcraft?’
Charlotte grinned. ‘Maybe it is.’ Her grin faded. ‘No. We’re definitely making progress.’
‘That’s good.’ Laura gave her friend a rather curious glance but Charlotte didn’t feel like discussing her job or Owen Hawkins any more right now. It was good and Charlotte was content to simply enjoy the new space rather than try to analyse it into extinction.
Yes. Charlotte felt good.
Better than she had felt in a long, long time.