Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(22)

‘Because Harry said you were on our side.’

‘I’m on Harry’s side,’ Whitt swallowed hard. ‘And Harry’s on your side.’

‘Right.’ Sam nodded, his jaw ticking with barely contained fury. ‘Well, mate, you’re correct. Whoever is framing me has gone to an awful lot of effort. They must hate me really bad. And it would be ridiculous for me to have no idea what it was, unless of course I never knew how angry they were in the first place.’

‘OK.’ Whitt nodded. ‘I see your point.’

‘What if it’s an ex-girlfriend?’ Sam shrugged. ‘Someone I broke up with, who I thought was OK, but who really wasn’t? You know, people can get these crazy stalker women. What if, all these years, she’s hated me for leaving her. And I never knew it. And the hate has just been festering and festering.’

‘Hmm,’ Whitt said.

‘Imagine how many sick and twisted people I might have offended in my ordinary everyday life who I have no idea have harboured this … this vendetta against me. I’ve had students over the years who have plagiarised assignments for my classes. They were expelled because I caught them out. Because I brought their work to the Dean, and he cancelled their enrolment.’

‘Right.’

‘There was a guy …’ Sam was almost rambling now, his eyes wandering over the scratched surface of the glass between them. ‘Another applicant for the position at the university. Maybe he blames me for not getting that job. Maybe this goes back further than that. Maybe it goes all the way back to when I was a kid moving around in and out of care. What if someone got placed in a family, or didn’t get placed in a family, because of me?’

‘Sam –’

‘What if –’

‘Sam, I think you’re winding yourself up now,’ Whitt said, touching the glass where the prisoner’s knuckles rested. ‘You’re right. If it’s a frame-up, it could be anyone. This person is sick. Why they’re doing it to you may not be as logical as we’re expecting it to be.’

Sam tapped his wrist on the table before him, making the cuffs clatter rhythmically on its surface. He was panting. On the edge of losing it completely. Whitt made notes in his notebook, glancing up now and then at the frightened man’s eyes. It was all very convincing, Whitt thought. If Sam’s distress wasn’t real, it sure was a good act.





Chapter 30


HE DIDN’T EVEN feel the impact. Whitt was walking across the darkened car park towards the elevator of his apartment building when suddenly it seemed that the lights went out. He only realised he’d been hit when he tried to move and felt the oily, wet surface of the asphalt beneath his face. He shifted and the pain in his head made itself known, a huge, thumping ache.

Terror sparked through him. He saw blood on the hand by his face, his own hand, numb. Whitt tried to rise and a voice stopped him.

‘Not so fast,’ a gravelly voice said. ‘You’ll make yourself yack.’

Whitt slid carefully into a sitting position, propped himself against the wall by the elevator. There was a man leaning against the bonnet of someone’s car just metres away, a slice of pizza in one hand and a cardboard pizza box balancing on the flat of his other palm. Unkempt blond hair. A dusty leather jacket. Big boots. Whitt took the details in slowly, his mind refusing to come to full consciousness all at once.

He did, indeed, feel like ‘yacking’. He felt the back of his skull tentatively with his fingers, noted the blood soaking his hair. His briefcase, wallet, phone, gun. It was all gone. He found his glasses and slipped them on.

‘Did you do this?’ Whitt asked.

‘Heh! No. I’m not a fucking coward. I use my fists.’

‘I was … hit with something?’

‘You been slocked,’ the man said. ‘Congratulations.’

The man rolled a lump of asphalt he’d been toying with under his enormous black boot across the space between them. It came to a stop near Whitt’s knee. He picked up the chunk of rock and looked at it, dazed.

‘Whoever it was that hit you, he was an ex-con.’ The man took a bite of his pizza, chewed while he talked. ‘You learn to slock a guy in prison. Back in the day, you’d do it with a padlock. In a sock. Hence, “slock”. Plenty of locks around prisons. Makes a convenient, disposable weapon. Take your sock off, load it up, swing it up, over, and down on the guy’s head. Dump the lock, put your sock back on.’

‘I see.’

‘You know any ex-cons?’

‘Just current ones.’ Whitt dragged himself to his feet. ‘I didn’t catch your name.’

‘Tox Barnes.’

‘Tox?’ Whitt squinted.

‘Yup.’

‘I’m –’

‘Edward Whittacker. You’re the reason I’m here. I expected to find you upstairs in your apartment, sippin’ a chardonnay or browsing an IKEA catalogue or some shit. Nope. Looked in the windows there and saw you face-planted on the garage floor. Who’d have thought.’

Whitt struggled to comprehend. One minute, he’d been walking from his car to the elevator, dreaming of home, worn out from the day in court, visiting Sam in prison. Now a strange, dishevelled man was schooling him on prison fight tactics. Whitt dragged himself up. He reached for his phone. Remembered it was gone.