Liars, page 5
SIMMONDS: Would you agree you are of solid, muscular build, not overweight?
JOE: This a chat up? (PAUSE) Spose, yeah.
SIMMONDS: Do you agree that Karen was about one hundred and sixty centimetres?
JOE: Maybe, yeah.
SIMMONDS: And slim?
JOE: Sure.
SIMMONDS: You understand her bones were found one hundred and seventy metres from your place?
JOE: And from about fifty other houses. I didn’t …
SIMMONDS: I’m just asking if you agree that’s the case.
JOE: Oddly enough, I haven’t got a tape measure out to work out the exact distance, so I don’t know.
SIMMONDS: Did you kill Karen and then carry her body into the national park and dump it?
JOE: Fuck me. No!
——
EMAIL FROM CONSTABLE SEB BAXTER TO DETECTIVE DAN SIMMONDS, 12 OCTOBER 2024
Hi Dan,
Hope the investigation is progressing well. If there is any local information you need, let me know. I grew up here, and know most people, so if I can assist with any background about location, suspects, witnesses etc.
Seb
EMAIL FROM CONSTABLE SEB BAXTER TO DETECTIVE DAN SIMMONDS, 14 OCTOBER 2024
Hi Dan,
Just checking you got the email I sent. Here to help if you need anything.
Seb
EMAIL FROM BARB YOUNG TO VIV GRIFFITH, 15 OCTOBER 2024
Hi Viv,
I just wanted to let you know I’m worried about Joe. You probably know he is concerned the police think he killed Karen, which I think is ridiculous. He is still working, but is much quieter, and seems pensive and anxious. The pressure he is under would, I imagine, increase the chances of a relapse. He has not missed work, or acted unusually, so I don’t think he has done anything silly yet, but we should all give him what support we can. Hopefully the police will realise he is innocent and find the real culprit soon.
Best,
Barb
EMAIL FROM VIV GRIFFITH TO BARB YOUNG, 15 OCTOBER 2024
Hi Barb
Yes agree on all points.
Viv
——
CALL FROM CONSTABLE SEB BAXTER TO DETECTIVE DAN SIMMONDS, 15 OCTOBER 2024
SIMMONDS: Yep?
BAXTER: Oh, hi, it’s Constable Seb Baxter here from Bullford Point.
SIMMONDS: Yep?
BAXTER: I just ah, well, I had some thoughts on the murder you guys are investigating here. (PAUSE) Of Karen Kemp.
SIMMONDS: Yep?
BAXTER: I sent you a few emails.
SIMMONDS: Yep.
BAXTER: Am I correct that Joe is your main suspect?
SIMMONDS: I can’t say, especially as you live in the area. You understand. Don’t want people getting tipped off.
BAXTER: I wouldn’t tip anyone off. I’m a police officer.
SIMMONDS: (LAUGHS) Righto then, good for you.
BAXTER: I know the area and the people, so I thought maybe I could help.
SIMMONDS: I’ll be in touch if we need anything.
BAXTER: It’s just … I don’t think Joe did it. He’s previously been addicted to drugs and committed property offences, but never any violence. We grew up together and there was never any whisper of him being violent with girlfriends, or anyone. He’d only met Karen a few weeks ago, and almost all domestic murders happen in longer relationships, right? Usually with a pattern of gradually escalating violence. Not as a one-off after three weeks.
SIMMONDS: Fuck me. That it?
BAXTER: Also, with most of these types of murders, the killer’s been drinking. Since rehab, there’s no evidence Joe has relapsed on drugs or had alcohol. I’ve seen him at the pub twice, both times on soft drinks. I know it’s none of my business, but I presume the scenario you’re running with is that they quarrelled, he lost his temper and there was violence that led to her death.
SIMMONDS: You’re totally correct.
BAXTER: Right. So …
SIMMONDS: About the first bit.
BAXTER: Huh?
SIMMONDS: The bit about it being none of your business. So you know Joe pretty well, hey?
BAXTER: Yeah.
SIMMONDS: He’s your friend.
BAXTER: Not really friend.
SIMMONDS: Really? You said you grew up together. Sounds like a friend. Also sounds like you’re trying to influence my investigation. Steer it away from your friend.
BAXTER: No, no, not at all.
SIMMONDS: He’s your friend so you don’t believe he could have killed someone. Fair enough. Happens all the time. But to ring me to try to push me off him. That’s not fucking on, son.
BAXTER: I’m just trying to give you extra info.
SIMMONDS: If someone tells you they killed Karen, then you can fucking call me. That’s new information. But telling us that we have misinterpreted the facts that we have? Your job’s to pull pricks over when their brake lights aren’t working. We do this every fucking day, so excuse me if we’re not going to take direction from someone who spends their life looking for Volvos doing 68 in a 60 zone.
BAXTER: I’m just …
SIMMONDS: If you want to be a detective, take the fucking exam. Till then, fuck off.
——
TEXTS BETWEEN JOE GRIFFITH AND ANDY JOHNSON, 16 OCTOBER 2024
ANDY: Need that money, prick
JOE: Will have the money in a couple of days
ANDY: Heard that before
JOE: Will text when I have it
——
EMAIL FROM DEV KERALA TO JOE GRIFFITH, 17 OCTOBER 2024
Hi Joe,
Just wanted to reach out and see how you’re travelling. Sorry to hear about your friend dying, and it’s so terrible that the police are hassling you. If you need a shoulder to lean on, I’m just a text away.
Feel terrible asking at this time, but can I bring a contract over to you to sign, so it’s all sorted? It’s not the proper, final contract to sell the house. You’d need a lawyer to look at that one. This is just a very simple, straightforward binding option, so we know we can buy the property from you at that very high, above market value, price we offered. How’s tomorrow? When’s a good time?
Dev xx
EMAIL FROM JOE GRIFFITH TO DEV KERALA, 17 OCTOBER 2024
Hi Dev,
Sorry, but I’ve decided not to sell. I’m starting to feel settled here and think it’s probably best for me to stay. Good luck with it all, and tell the builders to keep the noise down.
Joe
EMAIL FROM DEV KERALA TO JOE GRIFFITH, 17 OCTOBER 2024
Hi Joe,
Can we meet to discuss? We may be able to sweeten your offer, and even arrange some attractive alternative accommodation. Perhaps you’d like to purchase one of the apartments? You could do that and still have a handy sum left over. When can I pop over?
Dev
EMAIL FROM JOE GRIFFITH TO DEV KERALA, 17 OCTOBER 2024
Dev, I’ve made up my mind. No point meeting. Good luck with it. Joe
FIVE MISSED CALLS FROM DEV KERALA TO JOE GRIFFITH, 17 OCTOBER 2024
——
EMAIL FROM JOE GRIFFITH TO VIV GRIFFITH, 17 OCTOBER 2024
I’ve decided not to sell. I want to stay. Pretty sure the value of the property will keep going up.
EMAIL FROM VIV GRIFFITH TO JOE GRIFFITH, 17 OCTOBER 2024
Joe, you can’t keep yo-yoing with big financial decisions that affect other people. First you tell me I can rely on getting $1,000,000, now you tell me it’s not happening.
——
TEXTS BETWEEN DEV KERALA AND VIV GRIFFITH, 17 OCTOBER 2024
DEV: Do you know Joe’s changed his mind about selling?!
VIV: Yes. I’m not happy about it
DEV: He told me he was selling and we have gone ahead on that basis. Can you persuade him to change his mind?
VIV: I’ve been trying to change his mind since he was 4 years old without success so I very much doubt it
PART 2
CHAPTER 3
Oh fuck, there it was again! Wonderful warmth, rushing contented excitement, secure adventure, powerful peace. It picked him up and rocked him like a baby, taking him away from all the shit, telling him, promising him, that every little thing was going to be not just all right, but fan-fucking-tastic. Better than good, beyond best. Fuck, he’d missed it.
No levelling out yet. It kept on coming, crashing in, more and more, wave after wave rushing through him, carrying him along, so strongly he could hardly stay on top of it. How big was this fucking wave? Was he going to slip off and get smashed? It was too much. He wanted to keep going but he needed it to stop, keep going and stop, stop fucking stooooppppppp now, get off me, let me go, you fucker, STOOOPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP …
*
Barb wasn’t one to honk, but she did appreciate punctuality, and as she sat in her car outside Joe’s house, she was sorely tempted. 7.33 a.m. It wasn’t like him to be a minute late, let alone three. At least, not recently. She imagined in his old life he hadn’t exactly been an ornament to punctuality. However, in the last month, whenever she had texted him a pick-up time, he had always been waiting outside when she arrived. Sometimes he even held two coffees he’d bought, which was no small thing. Given the frosty reception Sue would have given him, Barb was surprised they weren’t iced.
To make room for Joe, when he eventually decided to honour her with his presence, she reached over to the passenger seat, grabbed a corn chips packet and juice bottle and threw them into the back to join what looked like an untidy collection of service-station food wrappers and drink containers. After work she liked a snack on the way home, and couldn’t always be bothered unloading the rubbish. What was wrong with that? Tidy house, messy car.
Barb had told Eliza Cummins they would be at her place at Copacabana to tame her garden by eight and she didn’t want to subject herself to the polite passive aggressiveness that would follow if they were late: ‘I was going to bring you out a cold drink after an hour at nine, but I suppose now we should make it nine sixteen?’
She had a quick look in the mirror. Her short brown hair looked neat enough, without suggesting she had been anywhere near a hairdresser recently. She adjusted her glasses, opened the car door and pushed down on her seat to give her some momentum to exit.
Barb felt pretty good, considering she was in her late fifties and her husband had just left her. Being a gardener and handyperson kept her healthy. Sue had recently called her ‘sprightly’, which she was happy with, although one traitorous knee had started to get irritated whenever it was asked to do anything more challenging than walk in a straight, flat line.
She strode along the stone path, which happily was a straight flat line, toward Joe’s house, plants and ferns on either side. Emily Griffith had loved her busy garden and given it regular haircuts, but Joe was less interested in it than his mum had been and it was starting to get shaggy.
Barb knocked three times, trying to convey the right mixture of politeness and slight impatience. Nothing happened for a bit, and then for a bit more, so she tried again, this time increasing speed and force, and doubling the number of knocks to six. Still, no sound inside.
How on earth did you oversleep when you have commitments? She always awoke before her alarm, as if it were her job to rouse it. She stepped off the front deck and made her way down the side of the house along a rough path covered in twigs and leaves. He should clean it up. Bushfire tinder. It was unlikely any fire from the national park would make it this far, but even so, everyone should do their bit.
She came to the window of what used to be Joe’s parents’ room and was now Joe’s. The blind was down, but the window was open a few centimetres.
‘Joe,’ she called.
No response.
No flyscreen either, so she reached in and lifted the blind.
Barb’s family had occasionally gone skiing when she was young. One day it was snowing, her goggles fogged, and she had stopped halfway down a run to wait for her parents and sister. As she stood, the earth had started to slide beneath her. What was happening? Earthquake? Avalanche? After a few seconds, it stopped. She was shaken, until she realised it had not been the earth that had moved. It had been her. She had been sliding slowly backwards on her skis, her fogged goggles had caused her to lose perspective, and it had felt as if it was the earth that was shifting.
She felt the same sort of incomprehension now. Joe lay on his side in bed, in shorts and T-shirt, covers pushed against the wall, a belt tied around his upper arm. On the floor was a syringe. His skin was pale with a bluish tinge, his chest still. His eyes bulged as they stared lifelessly at the window, almost, unnervingly, meeting Barb’s gaze, and a semi-circle of dried vomit and spittle surrounded his mouth. His face was contorted in what looked like pain, but couldn’t be, because to feel pain you have to be alive.
*
‘Skim flat white,’ called Sue, wrestling with the lid. They could invent iPhones. Why not a lid you could easily get on a Styrofoam cup?
‘There you go, Dave,’ she smiled, handing it over. ‘You don’t need skim, darl.’ To be honest, he could lose a bit, but it’s nice to be nice.
‘Thanks, Sue. I’ll tell Diane you said so.’
‘Make sure you make it clear it was said in a friendly way, Dave.’ Last thing she wanted was for Diane to think she was flirting. Even worse, for Dave to.
‘Leanne, is that bacon and egg roll for Sam ready?’
There was no reply.
Sue turned to see an empty stove. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ she muttered. She cracked an egg onto the fryer, laid two bacon rashers beside it, and cut open a roll. Saturdays were always busy; it was only nine o’clock and she was over it already.
At least her daughter was home. Not in the best of health, not in the best state of mind, unreliable in the shop and with the concentration span of a can of tuna, but she was here. She had gone AWOL for two days after bloody Joe interviewed her for his stupid podcast, eventually returning bedraggled, exhausted and off her face. But at least she had returned, and since then hadn’t lapsed again.
Naïve, vulnerable Leanne, following Joe to Sydney eight years ago like a dog chasing a stick, where he had emotionally entrapped her, got her into drugs and led her on a merry waltz into hell. It still made her blood boil, which was why …
‘Morning, Sue.’
She turned, automatically plastering on her ‘Happy Shopkeeper’ face. ‘Hello, Gary. Usual?’
‘Of course. That’s why it’s the usual.’ He smiled. A proper, warm smile, not like the fake ones some customers plastered on.
Why couldn’t Leanne have fallen for him, instead of Joe? Gary was tall, slim and handsome, with a straight nose, gentle eyes and Hugh Grant hair. Most importantly, he wasn’t a junkie.
Sue grabbed a felt-tipped pen and wrote ‘Sk Cap’ on a lid. They were hard to write on, too. Ridiculous.
‘Going out on the boat?’ she asked.
‘Not today, sadly. Recording the show on Monday, so have to do some prep. It’s not all talent and charm, you know.’ The twinkle in his eye made his words more self-mocking than conceited.
‘Well, you better make the most of our beautiful little bay before it gets destroyed by that horrible development.’
‘I know,’ replied Gary, shaking his head. ‘Terrible thing. But I also know you’re fighting hard. If anyone can stop it, you can. Um, know why there’s a police car outside Joe’s? Seb’s, I guess.’
‘No.’ Sue came round the counter, past Gary and outside, where she peered across the square to Joe’s house.
‘Hope it’s nothing serious,’ said Gary, appearing at her shoulder.
‘Never know with Joe. Could be anything.’
‘Not your favourite person, I know, and of course understand, but he’s been going well.’
She repressed a scoff, and walked across the square toward the house. An ambulance appeared around the corner and drove down Bayview Avenue. Not racing. No siren. Was that a good or bad sign? It stopped next to the police car, and two paramedics emerged and walked to the front door, not, it seemed, in a rush. They knocked and were let in by Seb.
‘Oh, dear,’ said Gary, who had caught up to her again.
A wash of fear enveloped Sue. She suddenly felt off balance and self-conscious, and wondered if her hands were trembling. She didn’t want to draw attention to them by looking, so she jammed them into her pockets.
‘You okay?’ asked Gary.
‘Yes of course. Just … worried, you know.’
*
As the paramedics pushed the sheet-covered body out of the bedroom on a gurney, Seb tried to pull himself together. He had known Joe since they were zero. Now he was dead.
Be a professional. Do your job.
He heard the door and turned to see a fleshy man with a buzz cut – in maybe his late forties – and a loosened tie and grey suit, stride into the lounge room like he owned the place.
‘Hey,’ he greeted the paramedics. ‘Simmonds, Homicide. Quick look if you don’t mind.’ Without waiting for permission he whipped back the sheet and peered at Joe’s face, then arms. ‘Looks like a one-off, yeah?’
‘No other track marks we’ve seen,’ said a paramedic.
‘Heroin?’ asked Simmonds
She shrugged. ‘That’d be my guess. Autopsy will tell the tale.’
‘Won’t tell us if it was accidental or on purpose, unless they can autopsy what he was thinking just before he pushed it home. Still, doesn’t matter much.’ He dropped the sheet. ‘Ta.’
The paramedics wheeled out Joe. Was it still Joe, Seb wondered, or just his body? He had seen a few bodies in his time on the force, but never anyone’s he had known so well before. He gathered himself as Simmonds descended five stairs into the open plan kitchen and dining area.
