Liars, page 34
‘I found this in a cupboard,’ said Barb, appearing from the back with a blanket and draping it over Leanne’s shoulders, Leanne clutched it around her. The early November air temperature might be mid-twenties, but from recent experience Seb knew the water was still chilly.
‘Prick fucking pushed me,’ Leanne panted. ‘Wouldn’t come back. If you hadn’t come … What are you doing here?’
‘Tell you later,’ said Seb. ‘Sit here and get warm.’ He headed up front to the captain. They were only a couple of hundred metres behind Gary’s boat. He could see Gary up top steering, casting regular glances.
‘Why not call him?’ asked Barb, appearing at his side.
Why hadn’t he thought of that? He pulled out his phone. Still a couple of bars. He rang, saw Gary reach into his pocket and hold his phone to his ear.
‘Hi, Seb. That you behind me, is it?’
‘Yes, Gary. How about slowing down?’
‘Leanne fell. She’d been drinking. Didn’t have her life jacket on. I was trying to get her.’
‘Looked more like you were heading away from her.’
‘No, mate, just getting out of your way.’
‘How about you stop and we’ll have a chat?’
‘Sure. Soon.’
‘Gary. Come on. There’s nowhere to go.’
‘You don’t think so, Seb? You’ve never been much of a lateral thinker, have you?’ Gary dropped the phone and went below.
CHAPTER 77
The comedy panel show catapulted him to fame, he got oodles of money and spin-off gigs everywhere, even an ad for deodorant that he made funny. Three years later when the show got cancelled, as they all do sooner or later, he moved back to Bullford Point, and impatiently and anxiously waited for the next big opportunity.
Importantly, he had never had any sort of urge to do anything violent again to anyone. That proved he wasn’t a psycho. Just someone who had been put in a very difficult situation and had to find a way out of it.
He didn’t have a romantic life. He had seen where that could lead. He realised that Sal had had enormous power over him, and never wanted to be in such a position of vulnerability again.
Sometimes people asked him if he was seeing anyone. He just smiled enigmatically and raised an eyebrow in a way that suggested, he hoped, that he had a vigorous sex life without any long-term commitment. Sometimes women came on to him – after all, he was tall, good-looking and famous. He responded, but only for a night or two. The risks of emotional involvement, as he had seen, were too great.
Occasionally, he perused the early parts of her diary, which he kept hidden at home. He only had to read a page or two before he could drift off into the imagined future they could have shared: walks along the beach, swimming, quiet evenings snuggled on the couch, holidays in Paris, even babies that grew up through imagined years. Sometimes it felt so good that it was hard to return to his real, solitary life.
Then, just as he was in the midst of a dazzling reinvention as a game-show host, fucking Joe cleans himself up and decides to do a podcast. Said he needed a hobby. Why not take up painting, dickhead? No one’s going to have their life ruined if you make their chin too big.
Keep your enemies close. Joe wasn’t his enemy. Gary liked him, wished him well in his recovery, but he was a threat. So he offered to be Joe’s sounding board and help him craft a narrative, so he would know if Joe was starting to get too close to the truth.
He lent Joe his car to drive to the Blue Mountains, hoping that when he returned he would tell his good friend Gary what he had found out. And he did. No cause for alarm. The police hadn’t got anywhere, so whatever they told Joe wouldn’t help.
He was concerned, however, when Joe told him he was going to interview Leanne. The next time he was in the shop, he asked Sue when she was arriving. ‘Can I pick her up from the station? I’ve missed her.’
As soon as he saw her walking up from the platform at Woy Woy station, he knew she was still on the gear. Thin, unkempt hair, holes in her jeans, and not in that trendy way.
In the car, he had done small talk, then got to it. ‘Joe’s a bit, I think, obsessive about this podcast.’
‘Typical. Always about Sal.’
‘Exactly. Look, remember back then you didn’t tell the police you gave me Sal’s address, because of my TV show.’
Leanne had smiled, already knowing where this would lead. ‘Yeah.’
‘It might be weird to mention it now. It might make obsessed Joe think he was onto some big clue, when as we know, it’s nothing.’
‘Five hundred?’
Bit of a price hike since last time, but job done. His own interview with Joe went well. He was funny and charming, as always.
A few days later, however, Joe rang. ‘I asked everyone what Sal was wearing that last night at the Marlborough. I wanted to paint a picture, but everyone remembers something different. You said white overalls. You sure?’
With a bolt of horror, Gary realised he had described Sal’s outfit on the night he killed her. He couldn’t remember seeing her in white overalls before that. What if she had bought them up there? This was bad.
‘I dunno, Joe. It’s so long ago. What did everyone else say?’
‘All different things. It’s no big deal.’
‘How’s it all coming along? Happy to listen and give you notes.’
‘Going well, thanks, Gary. One thing. Did you know Leanne visited Sal in Leura?’
‘Really?’
‘She went to her house. And when I asked her if she told anyone her address, she got all antsy and stormed out.’
Fucking Leanne. Even if he gave her more money, it would be trumped by her desperate need to please Joe. She would do anything for him. If Joe kept pushing, she would crumble and tell him who she had passed on Sal’s address to, and that would be very bad.
The next day Leanne rang. ‘Joe wants to interview me again. Just thought maybe a top-up, since I gotta lie again.’
They agreed on another five hundred dollars, and he started planning. Joe was getting too close. Gary liked Joe, but he liked his life more. If he didn’t act before Leanne’s second interview, it might be too late.
He went back to first principles: kill someone in a way that ensures no one even looks for those with a motive. No one questions a former drug addict overdosing. He researched quantities and methods. He would need something to knock out Joe beforehand. He knew a TV producer who – surprise, surprise – bought cocaine regularly. Gary got a number from him, drove down to a quiet, leafy street in Hunters Hill, and purchased heroin and liquid morphine.
He rang around, got everyone to come to the club Friday, shouted Joe a lemonade, and subtly tipped in the liquid morphine.
‘Tastes like shit,’ said Joe.
‘It’s those machines. They’re terrible. The beer’s okay, though.’ He raised his glass. ‘Cheers.’
Unsurprisingly, soon after Joe started yawning. His house was a twenty-minute walk away. Gary would have liked to drive him home, but didn’t want to be known as the last person to see him alive (even though he would be), so he let Viv, who seemed eager to get away, do it. Gary gave it an hour, said his goodnights, drove into Bullford Point, parked half a kilometre from Joe’s and walked. Let himself in with the spare key, went into Joe’s room, where he found Joe unconscious in bed.
Gary loaded the syringe, tied a belt around Joe’s arm, shot him up, saw him twist and contort, foam at the mouth, vomit and eventually go still. He noticed a mouthguard and removed it, putting it on the bedside table, and pulled the covers to the side to make it look as if Joe hadn’t been under them.
He used Joe’s fingerprint to access his laptop and spent the next couple of hours listening to Joe’s interviews, just in case someone else had a listen and heard something that pointed to him. Joe had done a good job. If he’d kept pulling threads, he probably would have got to the truth. In a way, that was good, because it justified killing him. Self-defence, again.
Gary deleted the parts of Monica’s and Leanne’s interviews that indicated Leanne knew Sal’s address, and the section about what Sal wore that last night in Sydney, where he’d made his huge mistake. Everything else could stay.
Joe’s notebook was on his desk. There were a couple of pages he would have liked to remove, but it was glue-bound not spiral, and a ripped-out page might be noticed. He didn’t want to take the whole notebook, as Joe had mentioned its existence to several people at the club, so it’s absence might be suspicious. On balance, he decided it was best to leave it. Probably, no one would bother reading it. If they did, Joe’s notes were cryptic and none led to him.
He put the spare key back and, next morning, made sure he was around to offer Leanne comfort when she found out. She was both a loose end and cannon, so he would need to keep an eye on her.
Again, he felt some pride in a job well done, and started to relax. Then Seb and Barb – Barb, for fuck’s sake! – began poking about. He threw some bait to Seb to try to divert him to Viv and Dev, but they started pressuring Leanne to tell them if she’d shared Sal’s address. Leanne came straight to him again, now wanting fifteen hundred dollars to keep quiet. That was the problem with someone knowing one of your secrets. They could keep coming back for more. That was why he’d had to kill Sal.
No matter how much he gave Leanne, he was sure she would eventually crack. Once again, he put on his thinking cap, then texted her.
Nice day. Want to come out on the boat? Very relaxing! Fridge full of wine, too!
Everyone knew Leanne was erratic. He would say it wasn’t until they were past the heads that he noticed her behaving strangely. She must have had something before she got on (if they never found her body, they couldn’t do a toxicology test). She had drunk nearly two bottles of wine and wouldn’t put on a life jacket. He was just turning the boat around to take her home when she staggered to the back and went over. He threw her a lifebuoy, tried to rescue her, but she was too off her face. Tragic accident.
CHAPTER 78
By the time Gary reappeared from below, holding a coiled rope and a knife, the ferry was only a few metres behind his boat.
‘Pull alongside,’ Seb said to the captain.
Gary made his way to the front of his boat where he tied one end of the rope around the anchor chain.
Barb realised what he was intending and hurried forward to the captain. ‘Pull alongside. Quick.’
The captain manoeuvred the ferry closer. On the other boat Gary started cutting through the rope, a few metres from the end tied to the anchor.
As the boats gently bumped, Barb appeared at Seb’s shoulder. ‘He’s going to go over with the anchor.’
‘Shit.’ Seb grabbed the guard rail and stepped over. The boats were only a couple of metres apart. He caught the captain’s eyes and motioned him closer.
Gary cut the rope and tied the loose end tightly around his ankle.
‘Gary! Don’t!’ Seb screamed, but the engines drowned him out.
Gary stepped to the front of the boat, sat on the rail and swung his feet over.
Seb leaped from the ferry to Gary’s boat, slipped on the edge, half falling, before he grabbed the rail and hauled himself up.
Gary looked expressionlessly at him and pressed a button next to the anchor. The anchor plunged into the water, dragging its chain with it.
Seb ran toward the front. Gary stayed still, his eyes flicking between the unravelling chain and Seb. Seb got to him and grabbed his arm, before the descending chain yanked the rope attached to Gary’s ankle, whisking him overboard and under the water.
Without thinking, Seb dived after him. The water hit him and he grabbed the still descending chain. As it pulled him deeper, he went hand over hand down it. Below him, next to the chain, was Gary, his foot attached to the chain by the rope, being dragged down, his head and arms lagging behind, like one of those inflatable tube men outside car dealerships. Seb’s lungs throbbed. He dragged himself further down the chain, past Gary’s upper body, and grabbed the rope knot that connected Gary to the anchor chain. He started to untie the knot. If he could, Gary would be freed from the anchor and, whether he liked it or not, would float to the surface.
Seb felt a hand in his hair yank him up. He lost his grip on the rope. Gary had pulled him away.
Seb reached above his head, grabbed Gary’s wrist and tried to break his grip, but it was hard to generate power in the water. Seb’s lungs were screaming. He tried to pull himself back down the chain, but Gary held his hair, stopping him, like an owner controlling his dog.
Seb stretched, but couldn’t reach the knot. He needed air. He realised Gary could kill him if he wanted. All he had to do was keep hold of his hair until they both drowned.
CHAPTER 79
Gary’s lungs hammered, but he kept hold. No way was he letting the prick save him. If he was going down, it was this way, not to a cell.
He had loved Sal, but everything went wrong. He missed her, thought about her all the time.
Now Seb had ruined everything, just when he was getting back on top.
So why not keep hold of his hair and take him with him?
Would there be an afterlife? Bound to be. This couldn’t be the end of everything.
If there was, he might see Sal again! A fresh start. They could be together in the way he had always dreamed of.
But what if she was still upset that he had killed her? It was a long time ago. Time heals, surely. No need to hold grudges.
Seb was hitting his arm, trying to break his grip on his hair, but the water made his movements comically slow-mo and weak.
Gary smiled. He was going to see Sal again! He started to laugh, let out air, bubbles racing to the surface.
Time to die.
Seb had fucked everything up. But Sal had liked Seb. She wouldn’t like it if he killed him.
And if there was an afterlife, he didn’t want Seb to be in it to fuck everything up for him again.
He raised his middle finger in front of Seb’s face. Then he let him go. For Sal.
*
Barb sat next to Leanne, who was huddled inside a blanket, only her head visible, as the ferry motored back toward Bullford Point, towing Gary’s boat. Once Seb had been dragged on board and his breathing sounded a bit less like someone trying to blow out a fire while having an asthma attack, he and the captain had gone over to Gary’s boat, winched in the anchor, awkwardly hauled Gary’s body on board, and laid it on the deck.
Now Seb, also covered in a blanket on the other side of Barb, spoke. ‘After Joe died, Homicide told me that when a suspect commits suicide, it’s basically a confession. So I guess Gary confessed.’
‘It’s my fault,’ Leanne mumbled. ‘I gave him Sal’s address.’
‘No, no,’ said Barb. ‘If you hadn’t told him, he would have got it some other way. He was very clever. You said yourself, it’s not hard to find where someone lives.’
Leanne looked forlorn. ‘I miss Joe.’
Barb put her hand on her arm. ‘Me too.’
PART 5
CHAPTER 80
Seb had called Gosford police from the ferry to report an attempted murder, a suicide and, ‘by the way, do you remember the Blue Mountains Strangler case from seven years ago? We’ve solved it.’ As a result, shortly after they reached the jetty, sirens blared and three cop cars arrived.
He explained what he could, promised to give a full statement soon, but please could he go home and get dry first? Mercifully, they allowed it.
He had dropped off Barb at her car, halfway between the jetty and the police station, and seen her drive back toward her house. So he was surprised when, just a couple of minutes after he got home, she knocked on his door.
‘What’s up?’ he asked.
‘A loose end. You have a shower and put on some dry clothes. I’ll make tea.’
As he showered, he tried to work out what it might be, but after nearly being killed for the second time in a few days, he seemed incapable of ordered thought. He was looking forward to the tea, though.
‘Ahh,’ he said after the first sip. ‘Best ever.’
She raised her mug. ‘Well done, us.’
‘I suppose, but …’ He trailed off, not sure how he felt, or how he was supposed to. Solving murders committed by your friends was a lot more emotionally complex than issuing speeding tickets. ‘How close do you think Joe got to discovering it was Gary?’
‘Close enough to feel he might be in danger. That’s why he hid the computer backup in my car. He knew Leanne had visited Sal in Leura. Maybe he suspected her, or maybe he suspected that she had passed on Sal’s address to someone. He wanted to interview Leanne again, and I think if he had, he would have got her to admit she gave Sal’s address to Gary. That’s why Gary killed him. He knew Leanne wouldn’t be able to resist Joe for long. And Joe would have got Sabina’s permission to talk to Viv, too, and found out about the assault on Sal. He would have got there.’
‘What’s the loose end, then?’
‘This is important, and potentially unpleasant, so I’ll just get on with it. Where did Joe get the three thousand dollars I found in an envelope in his sock drawer? My theory that Joe blackmailed someone was a reasonable one, but you never seemed interested. You were so tenacious with everything else. Followed every lead. Why not this one?’
Seb stayed expressionless.
‘I wondered if the reason you weren’t trying to find out who Joe was blackmailing might have been because you already knew.’
He stared back at her.
‘I was asking you all about handwriting, and fingerprints on the envelope, but the clue was more obvious. It was the envelope. You said I could probably find them in any newsagent, but I tried four and none stocked it.’ She pulled the envelope with ‘Joe’ written on it from her pants pocket. ‘There’s only one place I’ve seen an envelope like this.’ She pulled a second envelope from another pocket and held them side by side. Identical.
