Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
I woke up in the morning with no sudden epiphany as to who’d locked me in, just a raging headache and a craving for painkillers.
My unwilling chauffeur was five minutes late and tried to make up time by literally cutting corners.
It was too early to talk, and he had turned up with coffee, so I didn’t pass comment on his kamikaze steering skills; that could wait for later.
My phone went just as we got onto the Princess Parkway, Wrigley’s name flashing up and I thought about how it would be one of the last times I saw it.
“Mia,” I answered, heart rate increasing as it always did at the start of one of those calls. It was just before six-thirty, briefing was at seven-fifteen, a call now shouted that something had changed.
“Head to Wethersett. Andrew Smith’s in the middle of a park hanging from a tree.”
“Fuck.” I relayed the information to Vinny who used it as an excuse to change lanes and take a wild U-turn, causing a couple of drivers to beep. “Who found him?”
“Kids on the way to school. Think they might’ve been given the day off to deal with their trauma, and I doubt they’ll piss about round there again.
” Wrigley was full of heart. “Local cops did two welfare checks last night at nine and eleven, when he said he was going to bed. They did a drive by at three this morning and everything was locked up.”
“What about Lily Mayhew? Did they check her house?”
“House was dark and no answer. They weren’t sure if she was there or asleep and not answering, but no sign of anyone hanging around.
Her van was on the drive. I’ve sent Lachy to Damian Fairburn’s to check that Lily was there last night or if she’s there now.
A welfare call.” Wrigley sighed, because it wasn’t really a welfare call.
“It looks like a suicide, Mia, but the post-mortem will tell us more.”
I ended the call, pulling at my hair into my fist, frustrated and angry.
“He sounded like a man confessing yesterday evening,” I said to Vinny, who was now aiming for Formula Two rather than Formula One, mainly because the traffic was hampering him.
“Nothing any of us could do, Mia,” Vinny said, surprisingly quiet. “He was obviously feeling guilty yesterday.”
“I should’ve at least seen if we could’ve sent a FLO round.” I was cross with everything today; me, lack of sleep, Taz, Andrew Smith, Lily.
Vinny shook his head. “He would’ve turned them away and you know that.”
I did, he was right. A rare thing, but he was.
I said nothing else for the rest of the journey, both of us unusually quiet. Vinny turned up the radio, a sports channel that he was mildly obsessed with and for once, I didn’t complain.
We reached Wethersett Park and ducked under the crime scene tape, the place awash with forensics.
Jenna Osei was there, which always filled me with confidence, as was my brother.
He was bent over a stretcher, the body of Andrew Smith already taken down and covered, after all the necessary notes and photos had been taken.
In cases like this, things were done swiftly; preserving dignity, maintaining privacy.
No need for media drones or telescopic camera lenses because there would be nothing to see.
Nate was deep in conversation with one of the CSIs when I reached him, face solemn, finger pointing at the tree from which rope still hung. The CSI scuttled away, someone I hadn’t seen before.
“Mia,” Nate said. “Not what I was expecting this morning.”
“No. We had some good news though – Cade, the boy in the fire at Roselea, is conscious and talking.” Wrigley had called back when we were in the car to let us know. Cade’s prognosis was good; his grandmother was ecstatic.
My brother nodded. “Good. Not so good for this fella.” He looked over to the rope that’d been used.
“Suicide?”
“I can’t say yet. The PM will be later this afternoon and I’ll know more then, but the logistics look a bit odd for that.” He pointed to the branch. “That’s high. How’s he got up there?”
The tree was at the top of a steep slope, which peaked about three feet higher than the ground below. Andrew Smith would’ve had to climb high enough up the tree to wrap the rope around the branch, get back down and then bring the rope to the edge of the slope.
“You’d have to lean off the top to get your head through the noose. That wouldn’t be easy.”
“And if you were heightened, you’d probably drop the rope a few times and would have to get hold of it again.
There are easier ways to go than like this.
” Nate nodded at two of the CSIs to stretcher the body over to the van to return to the morgue.
It was a macabre scene, even under what was going to be a brilliant summer sky. Maybe even more because of that.
“Any signs of anything that he’d stood on – but if he had, it’d still be here.” I shook my head, frustrated. “He could’ve had help.”
Jenna walked over, camera in hand. “There are definitely two different footprints at the top,” she said. The soil’s fairly loose, so we don’t have clear prints as such, but I can see two different sizes of print, and I’d say one’s a woman’s. They also could be from someone unrelated.”
“Anything else been found?’
“A hair bobble. It looks clean still, so I’d say it’s been recently dropped. We’re just in the process of taking photos and bagging it. If we’re lucky, we’ll have a hair follicle on a hair tied round it and we’ll get DNA back in a few weeks.” Her excitement was chocolate dipped in sarcasm.
“I’ll go and have a look round.” Vinny was already on the top, hands in pockets, surveying the land.
The early sun cast him as a silhouette, dark and menacing, nothing like I usually saw him.
The forensics team had cordoned off the area around the tree and at the top of the slope, photographs being taken from all angles.
One of Jenna’s team was heading out to the tree with a laser, looking at angles and trajectories; a full report with diagrams would be sent over later, the science nerds at their finest.
From the top of the slope, it was a steep drop down.
The branch from which the rope was hanging was sturdy and a good six foot higher than the top of the slope.
The rope had been doubled over and hung over the branch, then threaded through.
It looked as if the rope had then been tied around Smith’s neck with some complex knot.
It looked problematic.
“What do you make of this?” I said to Vinny, who was completely still, the only movement the way the wind was blowing his hair and his jacket.
“I think the postmortem will be interesting. Is it suicide or staged to look like suicide? It’ll be convenient for certain people if it’s a suicide.” Vinny took a step back, heading back down the slope and away from the crime scene.
It would be convenient. I doubted Andrew Smith was responsible for the deaths of Amanda and Micky, and the fire that harmed Cade, but he had no alibi that we’d found so far and he did have motive.
I looked around the spot, seeing the flattened soil where his feet would’ve been as he’d left the planet for the last time then a drop and a swing and life would’ve left him.
I couldn’t imagine being that desperate to end my life that way.
I felt impossibly sad for the man who’d borne a level of guilt that would’ve been intolerable, even more so because it was of his own making.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. Wrigley, again, which meant he wanted an update.
“Mac,” I answered, just to be polite.
“Is it a suicide?”
“We don’t know yet. There are questions. There were definitely easier ways to do it if it was.”
“When’s the PM being done?” Wrigley was acidic this morning.
“This afternoon. Forensics are here doing their maths stuff and taking photos.” I tried to appease him that things were happening and we weren’t just standing round doing nothing. “We’ve found no belongings here.”
“Check his pockets. See if he had his house keys on him. If he’s already in the van, get one of the morgue assistants to do it as soon as they can, then we’ll need someone to do an official ID.”
“Who identified him this morning?”
“Local cop who was called to the scene. He’s gone home after throwing his guts up on the road.
He lives in Wethersett and one of the kids who found the body ran to his house and got him.
We’ll still need a formal ID.” He covered the phone while he shouted something at someone with him in the Fishbowl.
“You saw him yesterday evening, Mia. What did you think of his state of mind?”
“Resigned. It felt like he was accepting his fate, but I wouldn’t have said he was suicidal. Have we found his son yet?” I watched Vinny talking to my brother, both of them looking at the rope that was now being taken down from the tree.
“No sign of a Stefan Smith. We’ve found Steven Smiths, spelt with a vee and a tee aitch ess, but no Stefan.”
“Smith won’t be his last name,” I remembered what Andrew Smith had said. “He wasn’t married to Stefan’s mum and didn’t play a huge part in his life. I bet Stefan had his mum’s surname.” Why hadn’t I asked for his full name yesterday, instead of just assuming?
“Jesus, Mia. Get yourself in Andrew Smith’s house and see if you can find anything that has Stefan’s name on it. He’s a member of The Holding, he’ll have paperwork.” He sounded tired. “Especially if he’s left a suicide note, preferably one that confesses to the other murders.”
“With a financial motive. Look, Boss, there’s fishy stuff with the original investigation; I spoke to Terry Jones again - ”
“I know. He phoned the Super.” Wrigley cut me off.
“I think Andrew Smith was paying for his son not to be investigated. There were cash amounts withdrawn every month from The Holding account. We can’t link them to anyone or any company, but I think he might’ve been being blackmailed.”
“By who, Mia?”