CHAPTER 42

Next morning, Barb put out seed for the birds, made toast with homemade strawberry jam for herself and they all ate together on the deck. That was more like it.

Her phone pinged. Julie!

Just checking how you are Mum. Taking care of yourself?

Nice to hear from her, of course, but her text was a little businesslike. Dutiful daughter checking on recently singled mother. Brief, too. Ten words. How long did that take her to write? Eight seconds? A call might have been nice. And no mention of a visit.

She wondered if Julie had sent the same message to Dennis, just changing Mum to Dad.

All well, thank you. Adjusting to this new life

That would stop her worrying.

Back to business, by which she meant investigating Joe’s death, not her real business. She had actually been putting off paid work to give herself more sleuthing time. Trying to solve a murder was much more interesting than replacing fence palings. She wasn’t sure how everything she had heard in Joe’s podcast recordings fitted into their investigation, or even if any of it did, but she now had a more complete picture of those who had known Sal and Joe best. Whilst the complexities of those intertwined relationships, and the hurt feelings they produced, might not be uncommon in friend groups around that age, two early deaths in a group of seven certainly was.

It seemed to Barb that the remaining five must be her main suspects: Viv, Dev, Gary, Leanne and … she hesitated. Sebastian was the fifth. She didn’t want to put him on the list, she felt guilty putting him on the list, but he was the last person to see Sal before she vanished. The best way to eliminate suspects was to investigate them, wasn’t it? So how could she leave him off?

What next? When she had visited Tanya the drug dealer she had shown her photos of Joe, Viv, Dev and Sue and asked if she had sold to them. Joe was ‘not recently’, Viv was ‘no’, Dev was ‘yes, cocaine’ and Sue ‘yes, heroin’, although that turned out to be a red herring. But what about the others? Showing Tanya a photo of Leanne was still pointless, as any purchase she made might have been for herself. That left Gary and Seb. Had they ever bought drugs from Tanya?

Something nagged at Barb about her visit to the dealer. She had been so shocked when Tanya had identified Sue – she was sure she had missed something. She tried to replay the conversation in her mind. Tanya had recognised Joe, and so had Morgan. Then they had both recognised Sue. Then Tanya had looked at the photo of Viv on Barb’s phone, shaken her head and handed it straight back. Tanya hadn’t shown Viv’s photo to Morgan, as she had done with the others. Why not?

*

Andy drove the mean streets of Wahroonga, marvelling at what he could see of the mansions behind their fences and hedges. Some were on blocks the size of public schools. He had tried to focus his business on the affluent Upper North Shore, full of doctors, lawyers and executives seeking the quiet life. Amazing how often they, their spouse or their offspring found that life a little too quiet and went looking for something to spice it up.

Chasing drug debtors in this area had several advantages. They were rich, or their families were, so if you leaned on them they could always find the money.

They were entitled. Thought they owned the fucking world, and some of them kind of did. So, even when they could afford it, they didn’t always pay what they owed, which meant plenty of work for him.

They were also naïve. Knew fuck-all about how the real world worked, so as soon as you got in their faces, their ‘How dare you!’ bravado collapsed quicker than an over-ambitious mortgage after a few interest rate rises.

Finally, they were as soft as the deluxe toilet paper in their loos, so he never had to even clench a fist, much less hit anyone. Easy money.

His phone rang: ‘Joe’. Gave him a jolt – until he remembered it would be Barb. She’d be asking for something, probably help in finding out what happened to Joe. He was tempted to let it ring out, but … not a bad prick, Joe. Someone killing him, if that’s what happened, when he was getting his shit together, if that’s what he was doing, was a dog act. He answered.

‘Why did you ring me on his phone, Barb?’

‘Andy, how are you?’ Barb’s voice filled the car via bluetooth. ‘You don’t know my number and people are so suspicious these days. I won’t keep you. Just wondered if I might be able to impose one more time.’

‘Thought you might say something like that.’

‘There’s just a couple more photos I’d love Tanya and Morgan to look at. Would that he possible?’

‘You getting somewhere, Barb? Or just fishing?’

‘I now have a shortlist of suspects. Tanya has already told us about some of them, but there’s two more. I can send you their photos. And I’d love her to have another look at the picture of Joe’s brother, Viv.’

‘She said she didn’t recognise him last time, didn’t she?’

‘She did, but she said it very quickly, and his was the only photo she didn’t show to Morgan. Well, it just made me wonder if she might be hiding something. Perhaps she didn’t want Morgan to see the photo because he might have blurted out something.’

‘That’s possible. Morgan is one to blurt.’

‘Do you mind doing that, Andy?’

‘Have to pop up that way tomorrow, actually.’

‘Isn’t that fortunate? And I haven’t forgotten I owe you a banana bread. Shall I have it ready for afternoon tea?’