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  She tried to tell herself that the shakes were from the vomiting or from a lack of food. But the Day was clawing at her, reaching, taking. She thought again of the revolver, how it had felt in her mouth. That metallic coin-taste, the heaviness of the barrel on her tongue, the collision with her lip as it left. As though it were angry at her, disappointed that she lacked the courage. She felt nauseous again and leaned against the wall until the feeling subsided.

  It was difficult to tell whether working this Day was making it worse. It felt worse. It had never happened before – she’d previously gone to extravagant lengths to make sure she was away from the station and uncontactable. Leaving the waterfall this morning, she’d believed the current distraction might be a good thing; maybe being around people would intrinsically make her less suicidal. But all it seemed to do was compress her anguish into little bullets of time, which sank through her guts every couple of hours. It was less drawn out, less debilitating, but sharper and more persuasive. When it bit, it bit hard.

  Partly, it was a sense of failure. Or, more accurately, a sense of shame about failure. All this had first been triggered twenty-five years ago. She’d had psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists and counsellors down the years who’d dug at the surface; moving soil around but never getting to the core of her. She hadn’t let them. Dana had always believed, ultimately, that only she could find the solution. Yet here she was, twenty-five years later, puking behind a wall and hiding everything from her colleagues. Still denying that anyone had a right to know what was in her heart. The bile at her feet, the shaking, the finger-and-thumb, the clutching of a nebuliser, the shimmering vision – all said she couldn’t provide the solution. She was still failing.

  Trying to trammel it into one Day was not possible: she knew that, even though she clung to the strategy. Using the Day was supposed to adjust the dynamic: to delay, postpone, almost trick the heaviest shadow into waiting until it was supposed to be exposed to the light. As if there were an etiquette, understood by both her and her suicidal tendencies; social graces to be followed. Her attempts to control it and structure it were flimsy, but they were all she had. Trammelling was the only thing she could do that demonstrated she could do anything at all – the only overt sign of agency.

  She thought of ringing Father Timms but decided against it. Perhaps if she was back in the office, concentrating on Nathan Whittler, it would all magically subside.

  Dana stopped off at Custody, to check on the requirements for Nathan’s ongoing detention. The station had eight cells, including the suicide-watch cell, which was visible from the main desk. The other cells stretched away down a corridor of rough render walls, the concrete floor worn smooth by dragged and scuffed feet. Occasional cries, seemingly random and directed at no one in particular, split the air. They disrupted what was otherwise calm acceptance and stoicism: regulars who knew the routines as well as the officers. Martin Simpson was today’s custody officer, pottering around his small kingdom: blond wood, filing, CCTV and a radio tuned low.

  Closest to the custody desk was the Lecter Theatre. Near floor-to-ceiling glass at the front, it was a cell where the edges had all been smoothed off and where the underfloor heating was turned up so that no blankets would be needed. Ligature points were minimised by flush-fitting doors and locks, and a sink recessed into the wall. Everything that could be done had been done; everyone knew it wasn’t always enough. Each custody officer held the nagging, insistent fear that this shift might be the shift.

  Like most stations, Carlton had an ever-increasing problem with the mental health of prisoners: it had become the agency of first and last resort, because they couldn’t get places in hospitals. It was categorised as the police region’s biggest organisational risk: no one knew what a prisoner had taken, was suffering from or would do. Almost everything was guesswork and hope – humanity and awareness would take the custody officer only so far.

  The doctor had assessed Nathan Whittler as high risk. The main problem was that no one knew – or could verify – where he’d been or what he’d done, nor could they find any evidence of medication. That, plus his clear discomfort at any human interaction, made him a concern. Dana didn’t want Nathan to be pitched into the humiliating visibility of the Lecter Theatre, but for now they really had no choice.

  ‘Hey, Dana.’ Simpson would be finishing his shift soon and clearly couldn’t wait.

  ‘Hi, Martin. How’s our new guest doing?’

  She made sure she was around the corner from Nathan’s cell and couldn’t be heard. Somehow, she felt it would add to Nathan’s shame to be aware that she could observe him, see his degradation and lack of privacy.

  Simpson puffed his cheeks as the printer hummed out more warm paper. CCTV screens flickered behind his shoulder.

  ‘So-so, at best. He’s, uh, really uncomfortable with the whole thing. I can’t, in all conscience, give him any more privacy than he has – not in that cell. Unless the doc says otherwise, he’s stuck with it. You can see him flinch, though: light, people, noise – anything. He’s a flinch machine.’

  Dana nodded. ‘He’s like that in interview, too. Okay, I’ll be calling him back soon. If you can please find him anything sugary – chocolate, something like that – I’d appreciate it.’

  Simpson grinned. ‘Keeping him sweet?’

  ‘Literally, yes.’ She smiled. ‘Lovin’ your work there, Martin.’

  On her way to Bill’s office Dana poked her head round the door and spoke to Mike. ‘Anything more on that intelligence on Lou Cassavette?’

  ‘Yeah, actually.’ Mike lifted one file to extract another, then patted the pile twice until it was perfect again. ‘So, the hassle was because he went to school with two of the Alvarez brothers.’

  Dana looked blank.

  ‘Ricardo Alvarez? Biggest drug dealer in the state? Jeez, you need that bit of general knowledge. Not everything is a specialism. Okay, so the Alvarez family have been up to their buckets in various aspects of organised crime. Currently drug kingpins, though the word is they’re trying to diversify.’

  The whole world of sources bewildered Dana. It wasn’t how she operated, as a detective or a human being. She couldn’t imagine cultivating someone who would want to tell her something dangerous to them. She never knew what ‘the word’ currently was, or what the street thought.

  ‘How is Cassavette attached?’

  ‘Maybe not at all. He went to school with two of the brothers. One of the brothers is the financial chief of the family empire, another is in prison for murder. Cassavette’s previous business was a corner store in the city – they’re a natural for laundering money. I mean, high turnover – and much of it in cash – with plenty written off for shoplifting or damage. So it was a potential link that Central never followed up, but it stayed on the radar. The Alvarez family like doing business with people they know.’

  ‘Relevant to this investigation, though?’

  ‘Still chasing. Cassavette might have moved to get away from that sort of thing. Maybe it followed him down here. Perhaps they leaned on him, and he leaned back. It’s an option.’

  ‘Okay. That lawyer of Megan’s – Lynch. Is he here yet?’

  ‘I imagine he’ll be here shortly. Because I set Lucy on him.’

  ‘Ah.’

  Lucy’s view of lawyers was a conversation piece: she basically saw them as vermin. Her ‘tolerance’ was narrower than a human hair, but more fragile.

  Dana turned and headed down the corridor. She could hear Lucy before she reached the office door.

  ‘Mr Lynch, I’m not inviting you to an elegant soiree with canapés and we don’t have a lawyer quota to fill each month. This is a serious crime that requires your immediate presence.’ Lucy looked up, saw Dana and tapped the button for conference call.

  Lynch’s delivery sounded odd in the echo-ridden, tinny speaker: a well-educated fox purring in a drainpipe. ‘Seriously? I haven’t committed any crime, and I mainly deal in divorce law. I think you’re get
ting a little, uh, dramatic. Matters are rarely as urgent as people think they are. I can fit you in . . . around four?’

  ‘Mr Lynch, I am not asking you. I’m telling you to come to the station straight away. Now. This minute.’ Lucy did a cross-eye and puffed her cheeks. Dana raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Really, I’d love to help, but I’m tied up in client meetings for at least two hours. Can’t it at least wait until lunchtime?’

  Lucy sucked her gums for a second and took a deep, long breath before launching.

  ‘Mr Lynch, are you currently talking down a novice pilot whose trainer has had a heart attack? No? Are you currently guiding someone in the Congo jungle to perform surgery on themselves before they bleed out? No? Client blubbing on a ledge somewhere? No? Then what you are doing isn’t as important, or urgent, as what we’re doing. I know where your offices are. It takes six minutes to walk here. I expect you here in under ten, or we’ll march over there and we can all do that “perp walk” thing. Personally, I love that, but those on the receiving end seem to find it embarrassing. Not to say a career-screw. Under ten minutes, and counting, Mr Lynch.’

  She stabbed the end-call button with the tail of her pencil. Her face shifted from glowering to perky. ‘Hey, Dana. I’m practising my people skills.’

  ‘Jeez, Luce, you’re terrifying. Let me apologise in advance for anything I ever do to upset you.’

  ‘Nah, you’re gold. Lawyers, on the other hand: their sanctimonious, patronising crap. They aren’t even the bottom of the barrel. They’re the thing you use to scrape it.’

  Dana grinned. ‘When he gets here, stick him in Interview Three. No drinkies, no one with him. On his own to stew for fifteen minutes, then Mikey can have at him.’

  ‘Ooh, gently simmering lawyer. My favourite. Will do.’

  Dana gave her a thumbs-up and walked on to Bill’s office. There was a small window in his office door, and she peered through it as if it were a speakeasy entrance until he waved her in.

  ‘Hey, Dana. Grab a chair. I just need to sign off on these.’

  She sat and gazed out of the window, watching the breeze pick up on a pair of trees that had finished with the scenic gold and were now turning bare and frigid. Up here, it was difficult to hear much of anything. Dana could understand why some bosses stayed in their office the whole time; dealing with politics but relishing the serenity.

  Bill’s sideboard had a picture of his wife: clearly professionally taken and, Dana reckoned, about a decade ago. Melinda’s face had a calm assurance and self-possession, like an early Bacall, with a glint that said she knew more than she’d ever need. Dana briefly wondered if anyone – no matter the equipment, diffusers and post-production software – could get her anywhere near looking like that.

  Bill perused a report, running his pen rapidly down the centre of each page. Speed reader. Dana had always wondered about taking that course. Central offered it, but it was a three-day residential and she didn’t like being away from home for that long. It spooked her. She’d had to do a week’s residential on investigative techniques, and she wound up driving in and back each day, even though it was a six-hour round trip. She had to admit, though, Bill’s ability to absorb and retain vast chunks of information was impressive.

  ‘Test me.’ He slung over the report.

  ‘Hmm. Page seventeen, there are two photos. The upper one – who took that?’

  He closed his eyes, and the pupils danced like REM sleep. ‘Top right, italics, Brian, Brian . . . Mulcahey.’

  She put the report back on the desk. ‘That’s creepy – and a really flimsy super-power.’

  ‘Yeah, I was offered invisibility or flying. I went with “memory for trivia”. A mistake in retrospect.’

  ‘On the other hand, PrettyGoodMemoryMan doesn’t have to wear tight spandex.’

  He smiled. ‘For which we’re all grateful. Especially me. Something on your mind?’

  ‘I wanted to collect your thoughts before the next go at Whittler. Lucy thinks his body language says he’s softening.’

  ‘She’s right,’ agreed Bill, ‘although some of that is him simply adjusting to being around people generally, not necessarily warming to you. That particular road is limited, though. Be ready for him to pick a fight about nothing.’

  Dana tilted her head. ‘Because?’

  ‘Because he’s spent the last fifteen years being a particular person with a particular view of the world. You being pleasant to him puts a dent in that.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that occurred to me, too.’ Dana settled back and rubbed her recalcitrant knee. ‘He’s defined himself by that “lone wolf against everyone” personality. Getting on with someone, and not getting screwed over, undermines his sense of self.’

  ‘Exactly. Don’t get me wrong; he welcomes what looks like friendship. You’re doing an outstanding job: being precisely the kind of person he’d warm to, in exactly the right way. But be prepared for his long-term persona to give one more kick, one more moment representing him.’

  Bill took off his glasses to rub his eyes. It struck Dana that he had been there when she arrived at Jensen’s Store; he must have been at work before 5 a.m.

  ‘You believe he went fifteen years without speaking?’ Bill asked.

  ‘Yes, I think he did. There’s a . . . spirit, a determination. I think he found his niche out there. Around people, that single-minded independence would have grated; they wouldn’t have appreciated it. The modern world rewards confidence and self-absorption: he’d have been derided.’ She could feel herself blush with emotion. ‘But out there? Oh, he’s king of his own little world, and that world doesn’t need any chitchat, does it?’

  ‘Mikey doesn’t believe it. Personally, I’m agnostic. What matters is that Whittler feels believed by you – which he does.’

  ‘I get where Mikey’s coming from. Stu’s the same.’ Dana nodded and paused. ‘I wanted to ask you something specific. When I asked Whittler early on if he’d slept in any of the cabins, he got very indignant. I actually thought I’d blown it at that point.’

  ‘Yeah, in retrospect that was a tight squeeze. At first, I thought maybe he had slept in them and he was getting agitated because you read him so quickly. But now, I’m not so sure. I think maybe he hasn’t. Partly, I think he has his own very black-and-white ethics. People who live alone don’t have them modified by messy compromises: they harden them.’

  Dana raised an eyebrow ironically.

  ‘Oh, crap. No offence.’

  She smiled and waved it off.

  Bill coughed a recovery and continued. ‘Also, he’s secretly really proud of the home he got together and how he survived. I think he has an ego about it, and you need to play up to that. He hasn’t had an audience in fifteen years. You played it exactly right, saying how it spoke to his integrity not to use the cabins.’

  ‘Hmm. Lucky door back in, that was.’

  ‘No luck in it. Told you, Dana – you’re exactly the person for this. My advice? Keep going how you’re going. Hopefully we’ll find his magic secret lair and that’ll give you a whole world of ammo. But until we do, maybe keep on the philosophy track a little more. When you talk about that, his sentences get longer, he opens out more. It makes you a kindred spirit. For all his independence, I think he wants one.’

  ‘Cool. We’re on the same page.’

  ‘Singin’ from the same spreadsheet, sister. I want you to focus on Whittler – the how, and the why. He remains prime suspect for very good reasons, Dana. If we’re going to get full value out of him, we’ll need to nail the details and the motive. That’s your aim in there. We’ll keep Mikey and Luce focused on other options – other people, other scenarios.’

  As she got to the door Bill’s voice rang out. ‘Hey, you know Holt’s name is pronounced Ryner, right?’

  She laughed. ‘Don’t start with me, Bill, I swear to God . . .’

  Chapter 15

  Nathan was sitting upright. He was about one third through Animal Farm, seemingly eng
rossed. When no one was around he demonstrated the extreme ease with his own company that Dana found almost inspirational, and Mike had labelled ‘weird’ when he passed the room. Nathan exuded a serene stillness that seemed practised yet unforced.

  As she glanced through the glass she looked for signs of fatigue. If he really hadn’t spoken to anyone in fifteen years, she guessed that this intermittent conversation they were having would be draining him. He would, at some point, find it debilitating. She was trying to gauge when that moment would arrive and how she could spot it, because knowing when he was waning would influence her strategy. So far, Dana was struggling to detect it. His fatigue seemed apparent only when he was at his limit, or in tears: then, she knew to give him a rest. Perhaps she wasn’t giving him enough credit for resilience or reserves.

  After dispensing with the preliminaries and the tape machines once more, Dana prepared to poke again at Nathan’s philosophy. She paused momentarily, wondering who was now standing behind the mirror or when the tape of this conversation might be replayed. Since it was entirely possible her words would be broadcast in a courtroom – and shortly after, in the media – she wasn’t sure how much to personalise them. Authentic feelings from her unravelled Nathan’s defences more quickly; getting answers to his questions pleased and emboldened him. But Dana loathed sharing emotions with anyone else, let alone everyone else.

  ‘I assume we’ve been taking care of you correctly when you’re outside this room, Mr Whittler?’

  ‘Adequately, thank you. Although . . .’

  Dana looked up. ‘Yes, Mr Whittler?’

  He winced before replying, as though his request were an imposition and likely to induce scorn. Or punishment.

  ‘I wonder if you could remove the Bible that’s been placed there?’