'Then something really bad happened,' said Joss, 'just before I went to live with my grandparents.' He looked up and seemed surprised to see Gabriel standing closer to him. 'Me, Cutter, Simon Esterhase and Carl Waterman decided we'd do over Carl's dad's bike shop. We used to call Carl 'Fuzzy'. He said his dad would get everything back on insurance, and we were dying to get our hands on these new trick bikes in the shop. Mr Waterman wouldn't even let us touch them. I don't know how it happened…' Joss paused and started to cough. The cough caught and his face turned red as he struggled to catch his breath. He stared wildly around the kitchen. Isobel was by his side in a moment with a glass of water. He downed it in two swallows, and handed the glass back. Jill felt slightly envious of the silent synchronicity between the pair.
Joss took a couple of deep breaths. 'Sorry,' he said, his voice devoid of emotion. 'Anyway, Fuzzy let us into the shop while his dad was asleep and we took the bikes. We came back after hiding them and knew we had to smash the window so it would look like someone broke in.' He cleared his throat again. 'One of the panels must've speared inwards. Somehow it stabbed Fuzzy in the neck.' Joss was unconsciously holding his own throat, his voice threadlike.
'You didn't actually see the wound being inflicted, then?' Gabriel asked.
Joss shook his head. 'I tried to hold his throat together.' Isobel was at his side, almost touching. 'But, he just, kind of like, drowned.' Tears stood in his eyes. 'He was looking at me, his eyes just…' He trailed off.
After a pause, he continued. Emotionless. 'Anyway, he died there while I watched, and then I pissed off. I got taken to my grandmother's after that because my mum got hit by a car. I heard a few months later that Cutter got arrested, but he didn't report me and Esterhase. I thought it was a miracle that I got away with it, a sign that I had to change my life.' He looked up at them, defensive, as though challenging them to doubt him, or to laugh.
He took a seat and began to tear a piece of toast into a pile of crumbs.
Finally, Joss continued. 'You see, where I am today, I don't want people like that anywhere near me. I don't even want to know they exist. When the shit happened at Andy's, I just wanted all of us to get out of there alive. I would've done something to stop them if I could, but there was just no way.'
Isobel nodded.
'And then, just before they left, he looked at me, and I knew it was Cutter. I don't know how, but I knew it was him. I know now that he recognised me too. He followed us a couple of days ago to the movies,' he glanced at his wife. Isobel's hand was at her throat. 'He said some smartarse things. I knew then that we weren't safe and that it was definitely him that night. I told Is I wanted her to move away with Charlie for a while, but she wouldn't go. I knew we had to tell the cops, so she rang you guys.'
'Joss thought that if we did it anonymously,' said Isobel in a quiet, pleading voice, 'that the stuff about Fuzzy would never have to come up. I mainly agreed to do it though because I thought that Joss was mistaken and you guys would look into Nguyen and figure out he wasn't involved.' She looked at her husband apologetically. He laid a hand on her arm and sighed.
'Anyway, I might as well tell you everything now,' he said. His wife looked at him, surprised. 'I've been back to where we used to hang out,' he continued, as Isobel drew in a sharp breath, 'and tried to find out more about him, like where he lives now, so I could pass that on to you.'
'Joss!' Isobel looked angry.
'Anyway, I can tell you he's still hanging out with Simon Esterhase.'
'We're going to want to know everything you discovered out there, Joss,' Gabriel spoke to him for the first time. 'But I'd like you to come out to Liverpool today so that we can record your statement. I don't want to miss a thing you've got to say next. It might be exactly what we need to get the lot of them.'
Jill and Gabriel left Joss and Isobel, arranging for the couple to meet them out at Liverpool at two p.m.
Joss lingered at the doorway as they were leaving.
'Just so we're clear,' he said to them, eyeballing each in turn, voice low, 'you guys had better get this fucker fast. I told you I'd do whatever I had to do to protect them,' he angled his head back towards the interior of his house. 'And you need to understand that I will.'
Lawrence Last was not in his office when they got back to Liverpool; an urgent meeting with the police commissioner, his assistant told them. Jill shared a sympathetic expression with the uniformed man behind the desk. The taskforce meeting was delayed until Last's return.
Jill and Gabriel spent the next half-hour working on a report to summarise their movements since the last meeting.
They were just wrapping it up when Jill sensed someone behind her, heading their way. She kept her eyes on the computer screen and tried to detect the identity of the visitor from his movements. Derek Reid, she guessed, just before he spoke.
'Don't you two make a cute couple?'
Jill kept typing. Gabriel grunted.
'Come on! Just shit-stirring,' Reid said. 'Got anything new?'
'Not really,' said Gabriel.
'Not that you'd share leads anyway, hey, Delahunt?' said Reid.
'We're just finishing up a report, but we won't have anything hard until later this arvo,' said Gabriel. 'We'll fill you in on everything in the next meeting. We've got a couple of vics coming in later today.'
Reid seemed annoyed by Gabriel's neutral tone. He took a step closer to Jill, and because she was still seated, his crotch was now in her face. She stood and glared at him. He laughed at her.
'You wanna get some lunch, Jill?' said Gabriel.
She grabbed her bag from under the desk.
'Aw, how sweet,' grinned Reid. 'Can I come too? Since you've broken your rules about dating cops, Jackson, maybe you should give me a go. I'll make you forget all about Super Spy here.'
'I don't really know what you're talking about, Derek,' said Jill, smiling sweetly, 'but you're going to have to get over anything happening between you and me.' She swung her handbag over her shoulder. 'I don't date body builders. It's a little problem I have,' she stared pointedly at his groin, 'with the steroids.'
'Whoa!' Gabriel laughed, and turned to follow Jill as she walked towards the door.
'What's funny, Delahunt?' said Reid, smiling menacingly. 'Why don't you stay here and we can talk about it?'
Gabriel kept walking. 'Forget it, Derek. I don't do cock fights,' he said.
Jill and Gabriel left the room with Reid's parting words: 'Fucking freaks.'
Facing one another across the moulded plastic table, Jill felt an awkward silence between her and Gabriel for the first time since the initial taskforce meeting. The other patrons of the food hall also seemed low on conversation. Overweight kids in school uniform scoffed burgers or pizza for lunch. A young mum seated close to Jill fed her toddler hot chips, the child cawing for them like a hungry seagull. Pairs of people – a mother and daughter, perhaps, on the left, sisters or friends straight ahead – munched listlessly, exchanging grunts now and then.
Jill felt the muteness stealing over her. When that mode kicked in, she sometimes wondered whether she'd ever speak again. Why did she feel this way now? It couldn't have been Reid's comments – God knows she was used to crap like that. She looked down at the table and noticed that she'd used her milkshake as a barrier between them. This was ridiculous. She forced herself to speak.
'So how did you get posted to this case?' she asked. They'd discussed his past briefly before, but never in any detail.
'Lawrence Last asked for my help,' he said. 'I worked with him a year or so ago on an organised crime thing. I've been attached to police units on a few major cases now.'
'So, why this one?'
'My specialty's interrogation. Because they were coming up with so little trace evidence at the crime scenes, they figured they had to get more out of the witnesses and suspects. Anything to get these fuckers.'
'Makes sense,' she said. 'We're an odd group, this taskforce, don't you think? I mean David Tran – what's going on between him and Reid? And I wonder how he got injured – has he said anything to you?'
'Yeah. I'm surprised you haven't been told by someone yet. Everyone out here seems to have an opinion.'
Jill leaned back in her chair while Gabriel continued.
