Liar Liar Read online

  “I’m sorry!” he gasped. “I’m sorry! Don’t shoot!”

  The gunshot had brought more people into the park. In the distance I could see the homeless men pointing in my direction. Another siren. I grabbed my phone from the ground and took off at a sprint across the road toward the hospital. I’d lose them in the underground car park, come up on the other side of the building, disappear into the winding streets and alleyways around Surry Hills. As I ran, I remembered the phone. The line was still open. I put the phone to my ear and listened, my face burning with embarrassment.

  “Harry?” Regan was saying. “Are you there?”

  “You’ve fucked with me for the last time,” I promised him. Even to me, my voice sounded weak. Rattled.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t resist. I have considered following you around, watching you from afar, reporting your whereabouts back to you. It wouldn’t be hard. You’re not exactly the world’s hardest person to track.”

  “Bullshit,” I sneered.

  “How do you think I got your number?” he asked. “I followed you to that back-alley shithole in Kings Cross where you got the burner phone.”

  I swallowed. “Did you hurt those people?” I thought of the family sitting around the boxes, watching their laptop screen. The toddler.

  “I don’t have to hurt people all the time to get what I want,” he said.

  “What do you want from me?” I asked. “What the fuck is all this? Why Sam? I need to understand.”

  “You’ll understand one step at a time,” he said. “I’m not going to follow you. You’re going to follow me. And I think that, as you do, you’ll learn to understand both me and yourself. Things are about to get very personal, Harry.”

  “I don’t want to play stupid games. Just come at me,” I snarled. “I’m ready. If you have any guts at all, you slimy little coward, you’ll tell me where you are and we’ll have at it.”

  “I’ll tell you exactly where I am,” he said. “When the time is right.”

  Chapter 22

  WHITT WALKED QUICKLY toward the front steps of the station, his coat pulled tightly around him, partly to ward off the cold, partly as a shield against curious eyes. He knew that if he looked as terrible as he felt, there would be rumors. His past relationship with the drink was public knowledge across the police department. Everything was. He’d slipped off the wagon the night before.

  Not so much slipped as leaped, arms out. Swan-dived. He had no memory of how the evening had ended, but that morning as he dressed gingerly, stopping now and then to be sick, evidence of his fall was all around him. Glass smashed in the kitchen. Vomit in the sink. The fridge hanging open, beeping in protest. Disarray. Whitt didn’t do disarray. It was not him. Some other person had crept into his body after the second glass of wine and had refused to relinquish their hold.

  Whitt gripped the handrail to pull himself up toward the front doors of the station.

  Vada was at the doors waiting for him. He glared at her as he walked into the foyer.

  “Je-sus.” She strained to see his face over the collar of his coat. “Looks like someone pulled up rough!”

  “I didn’t pull up rough,” Whitt said. “I haven’t pulled up at all. I think I’m still drunk. Last night was…well, it was completely inappropriate, is what it was.”

  They came to the entrance to the conference rooms. Vada juggled her folders of case files, rummaged in her handbag. Whitt waited, then searched his own bag and found his security card.

  “You’re being too hard on yourself.” Vada put a hand on his shoulder as they walked the immaculate halls. “You saw two of your colleagues killed. You deserved to let off some steam.”

  There it was again. That word. Deserved. Oh, the things Whitt could justify to himself with that single word. All he had to do was think about how tired he’d become since the Regan Banks case began, how stressed and afraid he was, and he’d leap happily back off the wagon again. The temptation for another drink now just to take the edge off his sickness was overwhelming. It would probably help him work better. Ease his stomach, his nerves, stave off the full force of the hangover at least until the afternoon.

  They sat at a table. Whitt held his head in his hands as Vada took her notepad and pen from her bag, setting herself up for their first briefing. Whitt liked her meticulous placement of her pen by her paper, her mobile at her elbow, a chilled water bottle directly between them. She was organized, ambitious, direct. Maybe if she said what he’d done the night before was okay, then it was. Whitt reveled in the sensation of having a partner to reassure him. He wasn’t alone. She was going to be here for him.

  Whitt spread out his own papers, a map with a winding river cutting through forest and suburbia.

  “This was where we last saw him,” Whitt said, pointing at the map. “After Regan was wounded in a shooting beside the Georges River, we believe he swam ashore here at Sandy Point, on the opposite side of the bank. He made his way through the national park and stole a car from a service station here, on Heathcote Road. We don’t know the extent of Regan’s injuries, but the officer who winged him thinks he got him at least twice. And I think I can confirm that. I saw him shot.”

  Vada was scrawling notes.

  “Obviously the wounds were not life-threatening,” Whitt continued. “We lost him for a couple of days. He dumped the car in Baulkham Hills, and then five days later turned up in Lane Cove. He abducted Doctor Parish and her daughter Isobel. He forced them to drive to her plastic surgery clinic in Mosman, where she treated his wounds. Then he killed them both.”

  “My God,” Vada said. She sat looking closely at the crime-scene photos of the Parish murders that Whitt had offered her.

  “It was clever,” Whitt said. “Hitting a plastic surgeon. We had eyes on vets, hospitals, medical centers, doctors’ offices. We’d even put word out around the organized-crime community that he might try to use one of their underground doctors.”

  “He’s an intelligent man.” Vada nodded.

  “Since then, we’ve had facial recognition at train, bus, and ferry stations on the lookout for him. The airports, too. Regan’s face and description is circulating around police, security, and customs departments daily.”

  “Did CCTV inside the command building confirm it was Regan who killed the officers yesterday? Karmichael and Fables?”

  “There was no CCTV of the incident,” Whitt said. “But I’m sure it was him. Ballistics will have to see what they can do with the bullets removed from the officers.” Whitt squeezed his eyes shut. A vision of Karmichael’s face had appeared before him, blood gushing from the hole in the young man’s throat. Karmichael had been pushing for approval to take the detective’s exam before he was caught goofing off in a nightclub.

  “So what are the current leads?” Vada asked, lifting her eyes to his.

  “There aren’t any. We’ve talked to as many foster parents, prison guards, teachers, and institutional carers who ever dealt with Regan as we can. There are some we’re still tracking down. This is what I was working on yesterday.” Whitt handed Vada a sheaf of documents. “Interviews with his former cellmates and prison associates. We’re still waiting on the psych report. It’s taking some time, apparently. I’m pretty sure I know what it’s going to say, though. We’ve checked out everyone he knew who’s still incarcerated, and everyone who’s been released since Regan got out, to see if they know where he might be hiding.”

  “What about his phone? Bank accounts? Where was he living after his incarceration? Where was he born?”

  “When he got out of prison, he secured a ground-floor apartment in Newtown,” Whitt said. “Not far from where Sam Blue was living. We checked it. It was stripped—but apparently he didn’t own much anyway. His cards and phone have been dead since he went on the run. We don’t know what he’s using for money. The house his parents owned when he was born was an ordinary little working-class place in Greenacre. It’s industrial estate now. There’s a paper factor
y there. We’ve had eyes on the place for weeks, but there’s been no sight of Regan there or anywhere near it.”

  Vada smoothed out the papers before her, seemed to want to absorb the images and words she was seeing with her fingertips. She was quiet for a long time, but when she spoke, Whitt was taken aback by what she said.

  “Can we talk about Harry?”

  Chapter 23

  “UH.” WHITT SHRUGGED. “Sure. What do you want to know?”

  “I want to know where she fits into all this,” Vada said. “Harry’s personnel file went missing from the records room—so we can assume that Regan is interested in her now. Interested enough to kill two innocent police officers just for a snippet of information on her.”

  “It’s so awful.” Whitt rubbed his weary eyes. “She doesn’t deserve this.”

  “You sound almost like…” Vada began. But when Whitt looked at her, she blushed and turned away.

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know.” She said. “Like her boyfriend or something. You care so deeply for her. You feel her pain.”

  “Of course I feel her pain,” Whitt said. “She’s my friend.”

  “You moved all the way across the country for her,” Vada went on.

  “I did,” Whitt said. “She needed someone to be with her during her brother’s trial.”

  “But you’d only worked one case with her,” Vada said. “You’d only known her weeks. That’s a huge commitment, isn’t it? For someone you’ve just met?”

  Whitt hadn’t thought much about the time before Sam Blue’s trial, his decision to leave everything in Perth and transfer to the New South Wales Police Force to be beside Harry when she needed him. The move had seemed to come very naturally, had seemed almost like his only option. The right thing to do. No one had ever asked him to explain it.

  “I guess I came because it didn’t seem like Harry had any other real friends,” he said. Only in voicing the words did he realize their sad truth. Yes, he knew Harry to have acquaintances, and she was close in a father-daughter kind of way to their boss, Chief Trevor Morris. There was Tox Barnes, but Barnes was so aloof and weird as to fail to count as being “close” to anyone.

  Whitt was about to go on, to defend Harry’s friendlessness somehow by explaining that she took some time to be understood, that she was damaged and volatile but loyal and clever in equal measure. But before he could speak, his phone rang. It gave them both a start. A private number. He picked it up.

  “Detective Edward Whittacker.”

  “Whitt,” Harry said, “we need to talk.”

  Chapter 24

  SHE SOUNDED DESPERATE. On edge. He stood, exhilaration bolting through him.

  “Harry!”

  He couldn’t help it. He’d not heard from his partner since she disappeared from the airport. Vada stood with him, her face tense.

  “Harry, where are you? Are you okay? Tell me where you are. I’ll come get you.”

  “I’m in communication with Regan,” she said, ignoring his pleas.

  Whitt’s mouth became dry. “What?”

  “He’s started calling me,” Harry said. “He was behind the shooting at the station. He went to—”

  “—to steal your records. We know.”

  “He has everything on me, and he says things are about to get personal.” She paused, trying to catch her breath. “We have to think about what that means. He’s got information on all my former partners. You. Pops. Everyone there is at risk. I think he’s going to try to come after someone I love. You better warn my mother, I guess.”

  “Why is he doing this?” Whitt asked. “What’s the connection between him and Sam?”

  “I don’t know.” Whitt could almost hear the fury rising in her voice. “He’s doing this because he’s got spiders crawling around in his shriveled little brain. Whatever the reason he chose Sam, Sam’s gone now. He’s shifted his focus to me. You’ve got to be careful, Whitt.”

  “I will, I—”

  “He knows where you live. He knows…He knows everything.”

  “Harry, you’ve got to come in. We can work with you. We can put a trace on his phone.”

  “You won’t be able to trace his phone any more than you’ll be able to trace mine.”

  “Come in,” Whitt begged. “Harry, please. We’ll help you find him.”

  There was a pause. The line went dead. Whitt looked at the disconnect screen on his phone and felt an urge to throw it across the room.

  “Fuck!” he snapped. Placed the phone down carefully. “Sorry. Sorry.”

  “This is so irresponsible.” Vada shook her head. Her face and neck were flushed. “So reckless.” Whitt didn’t answer. He didn’t have the strength to defend Harry now. Regan Banks did indeed know where he lived and had attacked him there before. He wondered if he should get a hotel room. If he should request an officer be posted to watch over Tox Barnes in hospital.

  They sank slowly into their seats, the weight of the work before them filling Whitt with dread.

  “Don’t lose heart,” Vada said. “We will find him.”

  “Or he’ll find one of us,” Whitt answered.

  Chapter 25

  KNOCK, KNOCK.

  Bonnie Risdale looked up from her computer screen toward the hallway at the sound, a politely quiet rapping at the front of the house. Charity door knockers, she thought. It was the curse of working from home. At least once a month they came with their little pamphlets, embarrassingly happy to see her, painful cheerfulness on youthful faces. She put the laptop aside when the knocking came again, walking to the door in her slippers.

  He was not what she expected. He was alone, his big fist raised for further knocking, and his chiseled face didn’t spread into a smile as she opened the door. He was handsome, if in a tired, worn way. The glasses were inexpensive, almost ill-fitted.

  “Hello, Bonnie,” he said.

  The first sparkle of fear. A silly thing she pushed aside immediately. There was nothing to be scared of. A tall, handsome man was standing on her doorstep, framed by the red rosebushes on either side of her stoop. His hair was short, neat, combed to the side in an almost boyish way.

  “Um, hi?”

  “I’m Detective Sergeant Richard Winslow.” He waved a badge, but her eyes didn’t focus on the silver shape in the leather; she was too distracted by his other hand, reaching for her own. He gave a flicker of a smile, really not more than a twitch. “I’m sorry to bother you. I’m here making inquiries into a matter of some importance, and I think you can assist me.”

  The hand was cold. A second pulse of fear, higher this time, a tightening in her throat. Bonnie had dealt with the cops long ago. This man’s language was the same. Stern. Unnecessarily official. She glanced at the empty street. Something wasn’t right, but she couldn’t place it. His shirt was wrinkled. His shoes didn’t match his trousers. Shouldn’t he be with a partner?

  “Where’s your—”

  “May I come in?” He took a step up onto the stoop, smiling. “The matter relates to someone you’ve been involved with in the past. A Detective Harriet Blue?”

  Bonnie felt the fear in full now, an invisible choking grip around her throat. She stepped back. Harry. God, it had been so long. There were days, few and far between, when Bonnie didn’t think about what had happened to her at all. A swift, violent attack behind a bar in the city six years ago. Harriet Blue had been Bonnie’s investigating officer. Bonnie remembered the small woman with the keen blue eyes, a straight-to-the-point hunter of details. Harry had interviewed Bonnie over and over. She’d caught the guy. Of course. The detective had never allowed Bonnie to feel any doubt that she would. She’d seemed the over-the-top type, the kind of fierce, obsessive cop who would pursue the case without eating, without sleeping. A cop who took it personally. She’d been abrasive in the beginning. Almost rude. But Bonnie had grown to love the woman who’d solved her case.

  Bonnie had seen something about Harry and that serial killer running arou
nd Sydney in the news a week earlier. She turned into the hall, hardly focusing on the man on the doorstep, her mind whirling.

  “Oh, God,” Bonnie said, her hand at her throat. “Yes, come in, come in.”

  The man followed her into the kitchen. She went to the sink and filled herself a glass of water. The shock of it all—remembering the rape, remembering Harry and those dark days during the investigation and trial. Bonnie told herself that those memories were where the fear was coming from. But as she looked over at the stranger in her kitchen doorway, the fear refused to go away.

  She swallowed painfully. “Is Harry okay? She’s…she’s on that serial-killer case, isn’t she? Something about her brother.”

  “Tell me about Harry.” The man dragged a stool out from under the marble bench, blocking the door. He sat on it and folded his thick arms.

  Bonnie felt hot all over. Her heartbeat was thumping in her ears.

  “Can we go outside?” Bonnie asked. “I just need some air.”

  The smile he’d flashed on the front doorstep was nowhere in sight now.

  “I’m sorry,” she said for some reason. “What did you say your name was again?”

  He didn’t answer. Just sat there, staring at her. Bonnie had backed into the corner of the kitchen.

  “I’m…” She rubbed her arms. “I’m uncomfortable with this. I’d like to go outside. I’d like to—”

  “Bonnie,” he said.

  Her hand fluttered of its own volition toward the knife block on the countertop, instinct taking over. He watched coldly as she grabbed the biggest handle.

  “Bonnie,” Regan said, “don’t be stupid.”

  Chapter 26

  WHITT FOUND CHIEF MORRIS just outside his office, standing with a group of beat cops consulting a map. They seemed to be planning a cordon around Kings Cross. He tapped Pops on the shoulder.