The Soulmate(45)

43


PIPPA

NOW



Detective Senior Constable Tamil is not alone. She is accompanied by another police officer, a middle-aged man named Conroy. Tamil introduces him, but my brain is too scrambled to take in the details. Instead, Gabe and I wrap towels around the girls, which they immediately start flapping about like wings, with little regard for their dignity.

‘Come in,’ I say to the detectives, at the same time as Asha says, ‘Why aren’t you wearing a police hat?’

‘I’m a detective,’ Tamil says. She has the polite but baffled tone of someone who likes children but doesn’t have any herself. ‘Detectives don’t wear uniforms. But I do have a badge. Would you like to see?’

She gets out her badge and Freya and Asha look at it for a split-second before losing interest.

‘Why aren’t you driving a police car?’ Asha asks, glancing through the window at the unmarked car in the driveway. Her towel is now around her head.

‘I do drive a police car,’ Tamil says. ‘But it’s not a blue-and-white one. Mine is a police car for detectives.’

‘Does it have a siren?’

‘Yep. But it’s only for emergencies.’ Tamil meets my gaze over the top of the girls’ heads. ‘Sorry to take you by surprise. We were down this way today and we thought we’d try to cover off a few last details with you, Gabe, before we finalise the suicide from the other night. If you have some time now, it will save us another trip.’

‘Of course,’ Gabe says, charming as ever. ‘Come on in.’

We file down the hall into the living room. Asha is now holding Tamil’s hand.

My mind is going a million miles an hour. First, I wonder if Detective Conroy could have been the man asking Mr Hegarty about us, but I quickly discount it. This man is a police officer. He would know exactly where we lived. Next, I think about the wording Tamil just used. Finalise the suicide, she’d said. Surely, she wouldn’t have said that if new evidence or information had come to light.

‘Why don’t you have a seat?’ I say. ‘Can I offer you something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Water?’

‘We’re fine,’ Tamil says, as they move towards the sofa.

The girls are bouncing around, thrilled by the unexpected visit. I know my role is to remove them, but I can’t bring myself to leave.

‘Girls,’ I say, ‘we need to speak to the police. If you and Freya go and put on your pyjamas, you can have a Tim Tam each from the pantry.’

The girls scamper off. Gabe and Tamil sit on the couch and I sit in an armchair. Conroy continues standing. He wanders over to the back sliding doors and looks out at the cliff. ‘Lovely place you’ve got here,’ he says. ‘What is it you do for work?’

‘I’m a lawyer,’ I say, even though he’s looking at Gabe. ‘Wills and estates. Gabe looks after the girls.’

‘Awesome.’ He is still looking at Gabe. ‘I did that for a while when my kids were little. My youngest is a teenager now. It was pretty unusual to be a stay-at-home dad back then. How long have you been doing it?’

‘Just over a year.’

‘Bet your daughters love it.’ Conroy sits in the armchair opposite me, crossing his legs. ‘What did you do before that?’

Conroy sounds casual, friendly, and yet I sense an undertone that tells me this is more than friendly conversation.

‘I worked in investor relations,’ Gabe says. ‘Back in Melbourne.’

‘Investor relations.’ Detective Conroy smiles. ‘I’m not from the corporate world. What does that mean exactly?’

‘Well,’ Gabe says, ‘in a nutshell, I found people to give us money when we were looking to expand our business.’

‘“Our business”? Which business was that?’

Gabe hesitates. Act natural, Gabe, I urge silently. Act natural. At the same time, Freya appears with her pyjama top stuck around her head. Her timing couldn’t be more perfect.

‘I’m stuck!’ she cries.

I let Gabe rescue her, taking the opportunity to change the subject to the weather.

Once Freya is unstuck, the girls run to the kitchen to get their Tim Tam and Gabe returns to the sofa. Tamil gets out her notebook and, thankfully, the questioning takes a different turn. ‘Okay, I’m sorry to keep coming back to this but we need to go over your statement again.’

‘Why?’ I ask.

‘Standard procedure,’ Tamil says. ‘Sometimes people remember things differently after a few days, when the adrenaline has settled.’

‘But it was a suicide.’

‘Even so, we are required to investigate all deaths with an open mind before we can rule it a suicide. So, we need to dot our i’s and cross our t’s.’

I wonder if she’s heard from Max.

‘Fine,’ Gabe says. ‘Go ahead.’

‘All right. Let’s go over what happened again. From the start.’

Gabe goes over the story again, with only a little prompting from Tamil. Conroy doesn’t speak at all. I wait for one of them to drop the bombshell – We know that you worked for Max Cameron – but neither of them mentions it.

‘All right,’ Tamil says, after Gabe has finished. ‘That’s it.’