Liars, page 29
She turned her mind to Joe’s podcast. She had hoped to find some sort of clue within the recordings, but hadn’t, really. Perhaps all Joe had put together was a collection of fragmented memories that shed no additional light on what had happened to Sal. He had searched, but not found.
And yet, Joe had acted as if he had found something. They had been in the car on the way home from cleaning a client’s gutters, a job Barb was very pleased to have a partner for, especially one who showed no fear of heights, when Joe had mentioned that Leanne was coming up to do an interview.
‘It’ll be interesting. Given we jumped into the drugs pool together, I don’t know how happy she’ll be that I’ve pulled myself out while she’s still in it.’
‘Perhaps you can help her?’
‘Plenty of people tried to help me over the years. Doesn’t do any good until something clicks in your head.’
‘What makes it click?’
‘Dunno. They say you have to hit rock bottom, but I hit it plenty of times and didn’t do anything. For years you can’t, then one day you can. Anyway, I’m making progress with the podcast. Someone told me something about Leanne and Sal that I didn’t know before. Be interesting what Leanne says about it.’
‘What did they tell you?’
He tapped the side of his nose. ‘All in good time.’
The thing was, Barb had listened to everything Joe had recorded, and couldn’t recall anyone saying much about Leanne and Sal, except that Leanne didn’t like Sal, which Joe, surely, already knew. Where, then, was the new information Joe had been interested in? She frowned. Had she missed something?
Only one way to find out. She slid her feet off the couch and grabbed Joe’s laptop from the coffee table.
Two hours later she was none the wiser. She had listened to everything except Leanne’s interview again, and no one had said anything that Joe wouldn’t already have known about Sal and Leanne.
*
Barb had suggested he watch a funny movie to relax after the day he’d had, but Seb had decided on a podcast. He opened a beer and plonked down on the sofa, full of defrosted spag bol. He wished Uber Eats would hurry up and get to Bullford Point.
He took a swig. Someone had tried to kill him. Fuck. It was still kind of unbelievable. He wondered how Internal Affairs were going with Perkins. Dawes had texted that she would update him in the morning.
Barb had emailed him the final sound file she had found on Joe’s computer – ‘Sal’s Last Night In Sydney And After’ – and told him he should listen to it. Sound quality was better with headphones, but he was too spooked to block his aural early-warning system, so he just pressed play on his phone.
Listening to everyone describing that last night made him feel uncomfortable again, especially the bit where Joe confronted him about why he had returned to the pub after leaving with Sal. Joe had thought he was lying, and he was right.
After Joe and Sal became an item, Seb had convinced himself that his conclusion that he’d be a better boyfriend for Sal than Joe was not entirely self-serving. Joe was reckless. Joe was a cheater – because he had still been with Leanne when he and Sal had got together. Often, Joe was a good guy, but Seb was sure he was a better one. As humans had done for thousands of years, Seb tried to work out how to get what he wanted. If he wanted to be with Sal, first she and Joe had to break up. How, then, could he make that happen?
Sal was always punctual, whereas Joe had a more fluid relationship with time. Seb exploited it. Sometimes it was as simple as being at the pub with Joe and, knowing Sal was expecting Joe to come around at a particular time, keeping him there a bit longer by shouting a last round or two, knowing Joe would never say no to a free beer. If Sal mentioned Joe was coming over after work, Seb would pop into the pub as Joe finished his shift, suggest a drink or a bite to eat, and afterwards, that they walk home, because that took longer than the bus. Joe would turn up late and a bit pissed, Sal would be irritated, and Seb would feel both mission accomplished and guilty.
When Joe and he were at the pub, often with Gary, of course Joe talked about Sal. He said nice things, but also let slip a few frustrations. It wasn’t hard for Seb to innocently drop them to his flatmate.
‘How are you going on that new song, “Sparkling”?’
‘I’m really happy with it. Why?’
‘Oh, Joe was saying the chorus wasn’t quite there yet.’
‘The chorus is the best bit. What did he …?’
‘Oh. Maybe I got it wrong. Sorry.’
More tension seeded.
It worked the other way too. Sal would confide in him, and he used that with Joe.
‘Back in the good books yet, Joe?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘No, nothing. Just, it seemed maybe Sal was a little pissed you were, apparently, late the other night.’
‘Fuck me. Ten minutes!’
Seb had even, at rehearsal, gently pushed back at parts of songs he knew Joe had written – ‘I don’t think the middle eight is working’ – to try to get Joe defensive and strident, knowing Sal wouldn’t like it. Seb knew he was behaving badly, but he could also see it was working. The couple’s ease was being gradually replaced by tension, in-jokes by sharp comments, smiles by eye-rolls.
Eventually, they broke up. Mission accomplished. Ends, means. He told himself that all he had done was to slightly speed up something that had been inevitable. Sal and Joe were fundamentally incompatible.
Then he had fucked it all up and Sal had run away.
His phone pinged. Claire.
Visiting soon?
Fuck, fuck, fuck. He had completely forgotten she had asked to see him, which in itself was pretty extraordinary.
Yes of course. Sorry, been snowed under with work
Perhaps better not to mention the assassination attempt.
Will get there as soon as I can
Another reason he wouldn’t sleep well tonight.
CHAPTER 63
Maybe she should listen to Leanne’s interview again, thought Barb.
Twenty-two minutes later she sat back, frowning. Joe had told Barb that he was going to ask Leanne something new about her and Sal, but there was nothing like that in the interview.
She opened Dev’s interview and clicked to the end.
JOE: I think that’s everything. Thanks so much, Dev.
DEV: Happy to help. Great to reminisce about old times, and about poor Sal. While I’m here, just curious, how are you feeling about our offer?
JOE: I’m impressed you managed to wait this long before asking. Let me just turn this off.
She clicked to the end of Gary’s interview. It ended with: ‘Thanks, I’ll turn this off.’ And Viv’s, Monica’s and Seb’s were similar. Leanne’s, however, ended differently.
JOE: After Sal disappeared, what did you think we should do with the band?
LEANNE: I wanted to keep going. No one stopped when I had to stay in Bullford Point and finish school. What was the difference?
That was it. No thanks. No goodbye. Why had Joe ended her interview more abruptly that the others? Could the end of the interview, perhaps containing the new thing about Sal that Joe said he was going to ask Leanne about, have been deleted?
Barbara remembered something from Monica’s interview. She opened it and listened through again until …
JOE: Did she have any other friends up there? Boyfriend?
MONICA: No boyfriend. She didn’t really socialise. When she had free time, she just liked to stay home, chill, do yoga, study, play guitar, write in her journal.
There it was. A glitch. A tiny change in the quality of the sound, and then …
JOE: Did anything unusual happen before she died?
Barb had vaguely noticed the noise the first two times she’d listened, but thought nothing of it. She was no sound engineer, but she guessed that it was an edit. Had Joe cut something? Or could someone else have done it? Could the reason there were no clues in the podcast be because someone had removed them?
CHAPTER 64
‘Morning,’ said Barb, as she entered the station. She placed two coffees and a laptop on the counter, raised the piece at the end, came through, regathered her luggage, put a coffee in front of Seb and pulled a chair to his desk. ‘Isn’t it good you’re never busy?’
‘I wouldn’t say never.’
‘It means we have lots of time to talk. I know you usually have a flat white, but I thought after the shock of yesterday a cappuccino might be a welcome treat. How are you recovering?’
‘Fine, thanks. Much better now they’ve caught him.’
‘Perkins has been arrested?’
‘He’s “assisting Internal Affairs with enquiries”. That means they’re telling him how much trouble he’s in, and trying to get him to spill on others involved.’
‘Goodness. Well done, you. Amazing job.’ She opened Joe’s computer. ‘Now for the next problem.’
She explained her suspicion that there had been deletions from Joe’s podcast. ‘If something has been cut, would there be some way of getting it back? I’m not asking you because you’re male, by the way. I’m asking you because you’re young.’
‘He might have backups,’ mused Seb.
‘Whatups?’
‘In the cloud. Or to an external drive.’
As far as Barb was concerned, Seb might as well have been speaking Etruscan, or saying something about car engines.
‘Let me see.’ Seb poked and moused the computer. ‘Connect to our wi-fi …’ More poking. ‘Wow. No backups into the cloud.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Either Joe never made any … But everyone backs up their computer. It happens automatically. Or all his backups have been deleted.’
‘How would that happen?’
‘By someone deleting them. But no one would delete their backups. Why would you?’
Barb hoped the question was rhetorical. She was so far out of her depth there might well be a giant squid beneath her. She didn’t even know what questions to ask.
Seb took pity on her. ‘A backup is a safety, so if something happens to your computer, you’ve still got everything. If someone wanted to remove something from Monica or Leanne’s interview, just cutting it wouldn’t be enough, because you’d still be able to access the original version from an earlier backup. To properly get rid of it, you’d also have to delete all the backups.’
‘And that’s what happened?’ Barb ventured cautiously.
‘Exactly.’
She felt like she’d solved Wordle first go.
‘Joe’s computer had heaps of free space, so there was literally no reason for him to have done it,’ continued Seb.
‘So does that mean that if there were clues in the podcast, and someone cut them, and then deleted all the backups, they’ve gone forever?’
‘Unless Joe backed up his computer to an external hard drive as well and put that somewhere.’
‘To a what?’
‘It’s a device about the size of a phone.’
‘Right. Got it. Umm …’
‘Yes?’
‘Would that be a mobile or landline phone?’
Seb smiled. ‘Mobile.’
‘Right. But why would someone go to the trouble of cutting bits of Monica and Leanne’s interviews? If they wanted to get rid of something, wouldn’t it be easier to simply delete the whole sound file?’
‘Yes, but also more obvious,’ said Seb. ‘Joe’s killer wanted it to look like there was no killer. Leanne knows she was interviewed, as do others, so if her whole interview disappeared, it might look suspicious. But who’s going to notice a little cut?’
‘Me! Eventually. Pity it was Leanne’s interview.’
‘Why?’
‘The others would be more likely to remember what they had said. With Leanne, well, she can be a little … addled.’
Seb nodded. ‘What about Sal’s housemate, Monica? If she said something about Sal and Leanne, she might remember it.’
‘I don’t even know her surname, but her number might be in Joe’s phone. I’ll try to track her down.’
They both sipped their coffees, accidentally in unison.
‘I had another thought,’ said Barb. ‘If you were being strangled, you’d fight like heck, yes?’
Seb immediately looked uncomfortable.
‘Don’t think about her,’ urged Barb. ‘Imagine the victim being someone you don’t like. Joseph Stalin.’
‘I don’t actually know much about Stalin.’
‘Very unpleasant. Take my word for it. Now, the first victim was very old, the second had cancer. Sal was small, but according to Monica she had been doing regular yoga, plus when people are desperate, they find extra strength. I bet you swam faster than you ever had yesterday when you were being shot at?’
He nodded again.
‘Choke me.’
Seb stared at her, alarmed. ‘What?’
‘Pretend, obviously. Come.’ She moved to the old sofa by the wall and lay back on it. ‘Stand above me and put your hands on my neck. You might need to rest a knee on the cushions.’
Seb reluctantly obeyed, lowering a knee to the sofa and, as lightly as he could, resting his hands on her neck.
‘If you were trying to kill me, you’d need two hands, which means you couldn’t hold or block my hands.’ Barb started waving her hands around. ‘The harder you push, the more you lean down, yes?’
Seb gently experimented. ‘Yep. Leaning down, I can apply more pressure.’ He glanced nervously over his shoulder. ‘I really hope no one walks in.’
‘If they do I’m going to scream, “Help! Stop!”’
‘Not funny.’
‘But if you were strangling me and someone walked in, well … who would they call?’
‘Ah, that joke.’
‘Back to business.’ Barb reached her hand up and touched his cheek. ‘I can reach your face or neck. I could scratch you, punch you.’ She turned her head to the side and craned her neck, while grabbing his wrist and pulling it toward her mouth. ‘I could probably bite your wrist. If I was doing either of those things, and you were trying to strangle me, what would you do?’
‘Ignore it and squeeze harder.’
‘Exactly. To stop me scratching and biting, you’d have to stop choking me, so you’d press on until the job was done.’ She looked satisfied. ‘You can let go now.’
‘Oh, sorry.’ Seb released his hands and almost jumped away from the couch.
Barb got up and paced up and down the side of the station next to the sofa. To get out of her way, Seb sat on it.
‘So for the next few days,’ Barb said, ‘the Strangler might have had scratch marks on their face or neck, or bite marks on their wrist. She stopped and covered her face with her hands.
‘You okay?’ Seb asked tentatively.
‘Just trying to put it all together. Here goes. Sal fled Sydney because someone assaulted her. She didn’t tell any of her friends and, six months later when she visited Viv, moved the photo of them all so she couldn’t see it, suggesting to me it was one of them. She was considering reporting the assault to police, but before she did she was killed, and a bloodied shirt she had as evidence of her attack went missing.
‘Seven years later, Joe does a podcast about it, starts to find out things, and also ends up dead. The people who know most about Joe’s podcast are the people he interviewed, who also happen to be Sal’s closest friends. Dev, Gary, Leanne, Viv and umm …’
‘Monica,’ added Seb.
‘Well, yes, Monica. But also, umm …’
‘Oh. Me.’
‘Yes.’ Barb hurried on. ‘Now, I’m not saying someone in your friend group definitely killed Sal and Joe, but they’re definitely the strongest suspects. And as we discussed, Dev and Viv aren’t cleared. Nor are Gary and Leanne.’
‘What about me? As far as you’re concerned, am I cleared?’
‘Yes, of course. Definitely … I mean, technically, no … but let’s say yes.’
Seb opened his mouth, about to try to grapple with her response, but decided to conserve energy. ‘Would Leanne and Dev have had the strength to strangle her?’ he asked instead.
‘They’re both bigger than her. Mayne said the Strangler may have controlled his victims with a gun, perhaps a replica. They use the gun to make Sal lie on the sofa, stand above her, put one hand on her throat, drop the gun and use both hands. So, yes I think so.’
Unpleasant images formed in Seb’s mind.
Barb continued. ‘Here’s the thing. Maybe someone remembers back then, just after Sal died, seeing one of you – one of them,’ she corrected, in response to Seb’s withering look, ‘with a scratched or bruised face, or a bite mark on their wrist. Maybe someone has a photo taken just after she died. Do you have any?’
She sat beside him on the couch.
Seb pulled out his phone and scrolled. ‘Pretty sure I wasn’t in the mood for photos after … Nope. Nothing for weeks.’
‘But maybe some of the others have some. It’s a lead.’
‘Agree.’ Seb drummed his fingers on the desk. ‘I listened to the last bit of the podcast.’
‘Good. I listened to it again last night, too. I had a question. Sal’s last night in Sydney, you slept at Joe and Gary’s place. After you went to bed …’
‘A.K.A. passed out on the couch …’
‘Do you remember anyone going out, or coming in?’
‘No, but I’d drunk a lot. I was out.’
‘If we think Sal was assaulted that night, you could see it two ways. Everyone who was sleeping in that house has an alibi – you, Dev, Gary, Joe and Viv. But, really, no one does. Anyone could have come home and then snuck out again. Did you see anyone when you got to their house?’
