Detective Ella Marconi crouched inside the car’s front passenger door to study the pool of blood in the passenger footwell, while Detective Murray Shakespeare looked across from the driver’s side. The car’s owner was Stacey Durham, paramedic, last heard from yesterday afternoon. No criminal record. No DNA on file. No history of disappearances.
The car smelled like an unventilated butcher’s shop. The footwell carpet was soaked with blood, the cracked surface strewn with thick drying clots. Dried blood stained the front of the seat and spatters marked the centre console and the underside of the glove box. The roof lining was clean.
‘Anything on the driver’s side or in the back?’ Ella asked.
The Crime Scene tech shook his head. ‘Nor in the boot.’
Behind him, a couple of uniformed officers watched on. Across the car park three men in civvies sat in plastic chairs, one holding a toddler. They were kept apart and silent by a heavy-set constable.
‘And it’s human?’ Murray said.
‘Definitely,’ the tech said. ‘Hard to estimate exact amount, but based on the area it covers and the absorbency of the carpet, I’d say around one and a half litres.’
Murray whistled. ‘That’s a lot, right?’
‘If you lose that much and you’re still alive, you sure don’t feel good,’ the tech said. ‘The body only holds about seven.’
‘Don’t feel good?’ Ella asked.
‘I don’t know the full ins and outs,’ the tech said. ‘I guess you might be unconscious? Dizzy at least.’
Ella took out her mobile and pressed the first listing in the favourites.
‘Hey,’ Callum answered, a smile in his voice.
‘I’m at work,’ she said. ‘If a person loses a litre and a half of blood, how do they feel?’
He was immediately serious. ‘They’d be pale, sweaty, short of breath, nauseated, anxious and agitated. They’d feel weak and faint. Some people might be close to unconscious, or even already there. They need help, fast.’
‘And if they don’t get it?’
‘If the bleeding keeps up, they die,’ he said. ‘Even if it’s stopped but they don’t get help – fluid replacement and/or blood transfusion – they run the risk of dying anyway. Who are we talking about?’
‘I’ll tell you later,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
‘See you tonight?’
‘I’ll let you know.’ She ended the call and put her phone away.
Murray winked over the car at the scene tech. ‘Doctor boyfriend.’
‘Ah,’ the tech said.
Ella looked back into the car. ‘You ever seen this much blood in a faked disappearance?’
The tech shook his head. ‘Not even close.’
Every such case that Ella had read about or dealt with herself had involved small quantities of blood and insignificant wounds. People thought they could cut themselves to make it look like they’d been attacked, but soon found out it hurt. A lot. Cops saw the shallowest cuts and tiny tentative stabs as the would-be ‘victim’ tried to get up the courage to go deeper. They very rarely managed it.
‘Might be a stabbing,’ Murray said. ‘Carjacker forces her over, she fights back, he goes nuts.’
‘But there’s no arterial spray,’ the tech said. ‘You’d almost expect it with a stabbing that left this much blood in one place. And the shape of the spatters indicates sideways movement, which seems odd too.’
‘And if that is what happened, then what?’ Ella said. ‘There’re no drag marks, nothing on the sill or the ground, nothing that looks like it’s been wiped down. Hard to get out without leaving any marks at all.’
‘We’ll put it under Luminol later and see if anything like that was cleaned up,’ the tech said. ‘Lab tests’ll show us the rest, including DNA. If you can get some known sample of hers, hairs or whatever, we’ll try to put a rush on the match.’
Ella’s mind was in high gear. They needed to search the area, speak to everyone in the vicinity, check local CCTV. Everything. If this blood was Stacey Durham’s, the situation was urgent. Unlike a murder scene where the person was dead and the task was to identify and find the killer, here they might have a missing and dying woman – a life they might be able to save.
‘Call the office,’ she said to Murray. ‘Tell Dennis what we’ve got. Tell him to send everyone.’
Murray took out his phone and moved away.
Ella looked across the car park to the three men sitting in plastic chairs. The first, aged about forty with short brown hair, sat back in his chair, his suit coat hanging open and his hands linked over his eyes as if he needed darkness to think. The next was older, in his late forties perhaps, fit-looking, balding, in khaki shorts, blue T-shirt and runners. He leaned forward, his back straight, his elbows on his knees, watching her and the activity around the car. The third and youngest, sandy hair combed sideways like a little boy’s, in suit pants and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, bounced a giggling little girl on his thigh. The constable behind them stifled a yawn.
‘Husband’s in the jacket, James Durham, owns a computer shop in Strathfield,’ the senior uniformed officer said behind her. ‘Middle guy’s Rowan Wylie, a frie nd and colleague of the woman. He noticed her car when bringing his granddaughter to the play place there.’
Noticed, Ella thought.
‘He saw the blood and called the husband,’ the officer went on. ‘Young guy is Simon Wylie, Rowan’s son, works for James as some kind of computer tech.’
It was all very buddy-buddy. Ella eyed them. James Durham pressed his thumbs into his temples. Simon Wylie and his kid pointed at birds in the sky. Rowan Wylie hadn’t moved. His gaze was steady, watching them.
‘Anything else in the car?’ Ella asked the officer. ‘Purse, handbag, phone?’
‘Nothing.’
Murray came around the back of the car. ‘Troops are on their way.’
‘Good.’
Ella looked back at the three men. You always started with those closest to the victim, because closeness meant emotion, and emotion of some kind – hate, love, jealousy, revenge, greed – were behind most violent crimes.
‘So which one’s the husband?’ Murray asked.
‘Follow me,’ Ella said.
James Durham stood as they approached. His light blue shirt was creased under his coat, his navy tie pulled away from his neck. His eyes were dark and deep-set with reddened rims as if he’d been crying, and he smelled of anxious sweat.
‘Stacey’s my whole life,’ he said, as if by way of introduction.
‘Detectives Ella Marconi and Murray Shakespeare,’ Ella said. Closer up she could see he was a little older than she’d thought, with lines around his eyes and grey at his temples. ‘Can we have a word?’
He followed them a few steps away and leaned against the boot of a parked car as if he couldn’t trust his legs. ‘So much blood.’
‘We don’t know that it’s hers,’ Murray said, taking out his notebook.
James Durham looked at him flatly. ‘That guy said it’s human.’
Ella took careful note of his response. People tended to hope, even against the odds, when someone they loved was missing. Despondency at this early stage could indicate that he knew Stacey wasn’t coming back.
She asked him his date of birth, contact numbers and address, then Stacey’s date of birth and mobile number. Murray sent both mobile and landline numbers to their boss, Dennis Orchard, to start the processes of getting their phone records and tracking Stacey’s mobile signal in the hope that it might show them where she was.
Ella said, ‘When did you last talk to Stacey?’
‘Yesterday afternoon, about four,’ James said. ‘I was in Melbourne for a conference. We talked for five or so minutes. She said she was tired and going to have dinner in front of the TV, a bath, then an early night.’
‘Who called who?’
‘I rang her mobile from mine,’ he said.
‘Where were you staying?’ Ella asked.
‘The Novotel on Collins Street, where the conference was held.’
‘When did you leave there?’
‘This morning,’ he said. ‘I texted her from the airport and said I’d go straight to the office when we landed, but she didn’t reply.’
‘Was that normal for her?’ Murray asked.
‘It wasn’t abnormal enough that I worried,’ James said. ‘Sometimes she sleeps in. I tried her again later, when Rowan called about her car. Tried home too. Got voicemail on both. I called her sister too, but she hadn’t heard from her either.’
‘What’s her sister’s name?’ Ella said.
‘Marie Kennedy.’
‘Is she at work today?’
‘Home. It’s her RDO.’
‘Where does she live?’ Murray asked.
James gave them an address in Padstow. ‘She’s a physio. She told me she talked to Stacey yesterday and she was fine. Her daughter, Paris, is a paramedic too. She works with Rowan there.’
‘Stacey’s parents?’ Ella asked.
‘Dead five years. Car accident. There are no other siblings.’
‘What about her friends?’ Murray said.
‘The three she spends most time with are Aimee Russell, Claire Comber and Vicky Page,’ James said. ‘Claire’s a paramedic, the other two are nurses. They all go out for drinks sometimes, dinner, movies. That sort of thing.’
Ella nodded. They’d track them down later. ‘Do you know your wife’s blood type?’
He glanced past her at the car. ‘AB positive.’
‘Is she on any medication?’
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Oh, the pill. Does that count?’
Ella wrote it down. ‘What did you think when Rowan told you Stacey’s car was here?’
‘First I assumed she was in the kids’ place, waiting to surprise Em and Rowan.’ He nodded towards Playland. Ella saw a couple of people watching them through the glass door. ‘Then when he said he couldn’t find her, and I couldn’t see where her phone was through that app, and there was blood in the car, I started to worry.’
‘What did the tracking app show?’ Ella asked.
‘That the phone’s turned off,’ he said. ‘Or the battery’s flat, or the SIM’s been removed. The last time it was working was at Bicentennial Park in Homebush, at ten past six last night.’
‘Is that a place she would normally go?’ Ella asked.
‘She likes the boardwalk-type things there. She’s been a couple of times in the past year, but never at that time of day.’
‘Did she ever meet anyone there?’
He glanced sideways at Rowan. ‘Not that I know of.’
Ella noted his action. ‘Have you had any immediate thoughts about what might’ve happened?’
‘All the worst ones, I guess.’
‘Like what?’
‘What do you think? Kidnapping, abduction, assault – god, you want me to say it? You want me to actually say out loud that someone’s taken her? Might’ve killed her?’
‘Okay, Mr Durham,’ Murray said. ‘Does anyone have any reason to want to hurt her?’
‘None,’ James said. ‘None whatsoever. She’s perfect. She’s a complete sweetheart.’
‘How about wanting to hurt you?’ Ella asked.
‘No.’
‘No other computer shops in your area?’ Murray said.
‘You’re thinking another business owner might’ve done this?’ James shook his head. ‘There are always people who’d like to see competition go down, but I can’t imagine anyone doing this.’
‘So you haven’t had any calls or threats?’ Ella said.
‘Not recently. Three months back somebody told you people that I was running a scam. I wasn’t. You people checked it out. The investigating officer said anonymous tips are generally bullcrap anyway.’
‘Do you recall the officer’s name?’ Murray asked.
‘DC Elizabeth Libke.’
‘You’ve got a good memory,’ Ella said.
‘I remember her because she was useless,’ James said. ‘More or less shrugged and said there was nothing she could do.’
They’d check that later. ‘How’s your marriage?’
‘Better than anyone else’s that I know,’ James said. ‘Five years this year, we hardly fight, she’s my entire world.’
‘Kids?’ Ella said.
James shook his head. ‘It’s just us.’
‘When did you leave for Melbourne?’
‘Friday afternoon, 5 pm flight. Simon came with me.’ He nodded at the young man with the toddler.
‘He works for you, correct?’
He nodded again.
‘And you’re friends with his dad Rowan?’
‘For years,’ he said.
Ella chose her words carefully. ‘How close are he and Stacey, do you think?’
‘They’ve worked together a lot.’ He shrugged, a rather tense shrug in Ella’s eyes.
‘Do they socialise?’ she asked.
‘She sometimes meets him and the baby for coffee, or here at the play place.’ He glanced over at Rowan again. ‘We sometimes get together in a group, though that hasn’t happened for a while.’
‘Why not?’ Murray asked.
James shrugged once more. ‘Life’s busy, I guess. Between shift work, the business, and the baby, we never have the same time free anymore.’
‘When did you last actually see Stacey?’ Murray asked.
‘Friday afternoon when I left home for the airport.’
‘She didn’t drop you off?’
He shook his head. ‘It was peak hour. She would’ve spent an hour stuck in traffic. We took a taxi.’
‘Was she working over the weekend?’ Ella asked.
‘No, she was off.’
‘So why didn’t she go with you?’ Murray asked.
‘It was a computing conference,’ James said. ‘She’s not into any of that. I said she could come along and spend the days shopping or just wandering about, but she said no.’
He could’ve slipped back into Sydney without anyone knowing, Ella thought. He could’ve arranged for someone else to deal with Stacey while he was fully alibied. He looked anxious, and she wondered if he was trying to act the scared and worried husband, trying to remember to use the present instead of the past tense: I love my wife as opposed to I loved my wife, which could slip out if he knew she was dead.
‘We’re going to need to search your house,’ she said.
‘Do whatever you need to do. I just want her found.’
*
Rowan watched the detectives talking to James. He knew this was how it worked, that they’d all be interviewed and it was the beginning of a long process of investigation, but it felt wrong to be just sitting like this, in a chair in the sun. Something had happened to Stacey and here they all were practically killing time.
He looked at Simon, blowing raspberries on the back of giggling Emelia’s neck, and asked, ‘Did James say what he thought might’ve happened when you were driving here?’
‘No conversation, thanks,’ the uniformed constable behind them said.
Simon raised his eyebrows at Rowan, then looked back down at Emelia. Rowan stared across the car park. The female detective gave James a card and he kept it in his hand as he walked towards the chairs, his face so full of emotion that Rowan had to look away.
The detectives conferred, then motioned for Rowan and Simon to join them. The woman took Rowan in one direction while Simon followed the male detective in the other, bouncing Emelia on his hip. The woman was around forty, with dark hair blowing across her face in the breeze. Her navy pantsuit and white shirt fitted her well.
‘I’m Detective Ella Marconi,’ she said.
‘Rowan John Wylie.’ He recited his address and date of birth without being prompted.
‘You’ve done this before,’ she said.
‘Paramedics get to be witnesses a lot.’
She nodded. ‘How did you come to notice Stacey’s car?’
‘I glanced across the car park and saw it,’ he said. ‘I see it parked at work. With the numberplate and the sticker on the back window, it’s familiar.’
‘What did you do when you saw it?’
He told her about looking in the window, calling Stacey’s mobile, checking inside Playland, calling James.
‘Why did you look in her window?’
‘I’ve never seen her car here before,’ he said. It sounded weak. ‘It seemed out of place.’
She studied him, then she said, ‘When you called James, how did he respond?’
‘The first time he said she was probably around here somewhere. The second time he was worried and came straight over.’
‘When did you last see or speak to Stacey?’
‘Last Thursday, at eight o’clock in the morning. I was going off duty and she was starting an overtime shift.’
‘You’re certain?’
He nodded, but Marconi watched him as if she expected more. Unnerved, he glanced away to where Simon was saying something to the male detective about James calling the bank.
‘Mr Wylie,’ Marconi said, but before she could go on, cars pulled up on the street and people who he guessed were plainclothes police got out. She excused herself and went to speak to them, leaving him glad of the respite from her stare, but the police rapidly fanned out along the street and through the car park, and too quickly she came back.
He steadied himself. You know nothing about this, you have nothing to hide.
‘Mr Wylie,’ she said again. ‘Have you ever been to Bicentennial Park?’
‘We took Emelia there last summer.’
‘What about recently?’
He felt uncomfortable under her gaze. ‘No.’
She made an abrupt note. ‘How long have you known Stacey?’
‘Eight or nine years,’ he said. ‘We met on the job. I played soccer with James back then and when my wife turned forty, seven years ago, we had this big party and invited them both. Turns out James and Stacey knew each other as kids – James went out with her sister Marie a couple of times apparently – but they hadn’t seen each other for years. They got together, then a couple of years later got married.’
Marconi raised her eyebrows. ‘Happily ever after, huh?’
‘From what I’ve seen, yes,’ Rowan said.
‘So how long have you known James?’
‘Ten years, thereabouts.’
‘And your son works for him?’
Rowan nodded. ‘For the last ten months or so.’
‘And Stacey’s niece works with you?’
‘She’s my current trainee, yes.’
‘It’s quite a little circle, isn’t it,’ Marconi said.
He couldn’t read her tone. ‘I guess so.’
She went on without pause. ‘Has Stacey ever told you about problems she’s been having?’
‘We’ve talked about annoying patients, or issues at work with rosters and so on, but that’s it.’
‘Nothing personal?’
‘Nothing that stands out in my mind.’
That gaze again. ‘Would you say you and Stacey are close?’
‘Not close exactly. Good friends.’
‘Good friends aren’t close?’
‘To me close means something more.’ He felt sweaty. ‘Good friends are . . . friendly.’
Marconi nodded. ‘Has she seemed normal lately? Happy? Sad? Angry?’
‘She’s been her normal self,’ he said. ‘She’s cheerful. She’s got a black sense of humour, and she’s smart and she’s funny.’ He felt he was babbling, but couldn’t stop. ‘So when I saw her car I was hoping she was here because she’s good to be around. She’s one of those people others just like to be with.’
‘Including you,’ Marconi said.
‘Well, yes.’
‘You said you were married?’
‘I was. My wife, Jennifer, died two years ago. Breast cancer.’
Marconi said, ‘I’m sorry.’ She glanced at Simon and the other detective.
‘He and his girlfriend and Emelia live with me,’ Rowan found himself saying. ‘Megan’s parents threw her out when she got pregnant. We all looked after Jennifer at home. Emelia was six weeks old when she died.’ He closed his mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ Marconi said again.
‘Stacey and I are good friends. That’s all.’ He could feel the sweat run down his sides.
She looked at him for a long moment. ‘Understood.’
‘Hi, Pa.’ Emelia was waving at him. He waved back, a feeling like a cramp in his chest.
Marconi said, ‘Do you know Stacey’s sister, Marie?’
‘Not well, but we’ve met a few times.’
‘How about Stacey’s friends?’
He nodded. ‘She’s got three that she hangs about with. Claire Comber, Vicky something and Aimee Russell. Claire’s a paramedic based at Rockdale. Vicky and Aimee are nurses at Westmead. Surgical ward, I think.’
Marconi wrote in her notebook, then looked directly into his eyes. ‘What did you think, deep down, when you saw the stain in the car?’
‘About how I’ve seen less blood in cars when I’ve pulled out stabbing victims too late to save their lives.’
Saying the words aloud made the skin go tight on his scalp.
*
Murray was still talking to Simon, so Ella took the spare moment to type Stacey’s mobile number into her phone then call it.
‘Stacey here. Leave your deets and I’ll bell you back.’
‘This is Detective Ella Marconi of the New South Wales Police,’ Ella said after the beep. ‘Stacey, we need to know where you are and that you’re okay. If you need urgent assistance call triple zero. Otherwise please call me back on this number.’
When she hung up, Murray was waiting for her by the boot of the car.
‘I think there’s something between Stacey and her work pal Rowan,’ she said. ‘Between the way that James looked over at him when we asked if Stacey ever met anyone at Bicentennial Park, and Rowan himself saying that he just “noticed” the car here, I get the feeling there’s something deeper going on.’
‘A relationship?’ Murray asked.
‘I don’t think so. But something. He did say he hadn’t been to the park recently, though. What’d you get?’
‘Simon said that James called his bank on the drive here and asked about any withdrawals by his wife from their accounts,’ Murray said. ‘He also asked about putting a stop on them.’
‘Did he now.’ Ella beckoned James Durham back over. ‘You phoned your bank?’
He nodded. ‘I thought that if she’d been abducted or something she might’ve been made to give up her cards and PINs, and if the bank could tell me where a withdrawal was made we could start to find her. But the accounts haven’t been touched.’
‘You wanted to put a stop on them too,’ Murray said.
‘And an alert, for the same reason. I want to make life hard for some scumbag kidnapper, not easy.’
‘You were already thinking that she’d been abducted?’ Ella said.
‘Rowan said there was blood in the car. What else was I going to think?’
His voice was hard. Ella assessed his face again. He looked furious. Either he really was, or anger was an easier expression for him to fake than concern.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘And you were once in a relationship with Stacey’s sister, Marie?’
‘If you call going to the movies a couple of times at the age of sixteen a relationship. People’ve sometimes made a big deal about it, like it’s a huge joke that once I was with Marie but ended up with Stacey, but it was nothing.’
They let him go.
‘That was interesting,’ Murray said.
‘Fishy’s the word I’d use,’ Ella said. ‘He doesn’t ring true to me at all.’
‘You always think it’s the husband.’
‘Yeah, because most of the time it is.’ She looked at him. ‘I hope the wedding hasn’t fried your brain, made you go all pro-husband just because you’re going to be one.’
‘I refuse to give that statement the dignity of a reply,’ he said. ‘Besides, you were just saying how something’s weird about Rowan.’
‘So? The two things aren’t mutually exclusive.’
‘You’re exhausting,’ Murray said. ‘I’ll call Dennis and update him, then how about we do the home visit?’
Before Ella could answer, Detective Sid Lawson came up at a trot. He was new to the team, bright-eyed and keen, with razor burn on his cheeks every morning as if he wasn’t yet skilled at shaving and a grin like a schoolboy let out early. He and Detective Marion Pilsiger had been checking CCTV in the businesses across the street.
Breathless with excitement he said, ‘We got something.’