S White - Hermit

‘And hunt some more for the Toyota?’

‘Ooh, yes. Do that. I think it’s buried under fifteen years’ worth of foliage somewhere, so you’d be trying to prove a negative, really. But yes; any sightings, any traffic offences, etcetera. Good stuff, Rainer. I like your thinking about this. Thanks.’

With Rainer gone, Dana was about on schedule for the strategy meet with Bill and Mike. As she turned to gather a file, she was seized by a sudden panic. Her vision began to swim, like a bookshelf in an earthquake. She clutched the desk to stay upright. Oxygen left her, a slight whistling sound as it passed beyond her control and away.

Hoping she wasn’t groaning or screaming, she turned her back on the corridor and felt blindly for a pocket. From the moment she grabbed the nebuliser, the fear stabilised. She grasped it tight, squeezing desperately. Facing the wall, she took a big hit from the inhaler, and waited. For twenty seconds she allowed the gasping to subside, holding her file in front of her so anyone passing would think she was reading. Eventually she felt the heat dissipate, the vision calm and the wheezing recede.

She’d faced it down again, thanks to the enduring, resilient power of placebo.

Her own self-doubt whined that she should be able to cope by now: that since she had faced some version of this at least once every day for years, she should have a better means of coping. But while she was darkly familiar with panic attacks and feelings of utter hopelessness, on this Day they were fiercer; more sure of themselves and the vulnerability they induced.

How many times could she get away with it? Each incident was a lesson. They seemed to be random – certainly beyond her control – and once started, they had to take their course. She couldn’t imagine an incident in front of Nathan or in a meeting with Bill. She didn’t want to think what they’d see in her during those moments. For now, she was trusting that an incident would punch through at a time when she could hide and ride it out. Luck. She was hoping for luck. The thing that was forever in short supply.

She passed Lucy’s office on the way to Bill’s and caught the latest catch-and-throw with Rainer.

‘How’d it go with Pringle? Did you chaise him down, drawer him in? What did it hinge on? Could he handle it?’

‘I kept chiselling away. Sofa so good, but now I’ve had to shelve it.’

They both chuckled then fist-bumped.

‘Here we go. Toyotas and their secret lives…’

Mike had propped himself up against a filing cabinet, checking his messages. Bill was sitting in his comfy chair, a desk chair shaped like the driver’s seat in a sports car. It was the only overt display of masculinity in the whole room. Bill’s wife, Melinda, was an interior designer and she’d made over her husband’s office. She’d done ridiculously well: Dana wanted to live here.

‘Stu called me,’ began Bill. ‘He tried you first, but you must’ve left the office by then. And, for the hundredth time, turn on your damned mobile.’

Dana’s hand reflexed to her pocket and she blushed when she realised she didn’t even have the phone with her, let alone on.

‘Sorry. What did Stu want?’

‘They found the knife, eventually. Wedged under a freezer at the end of the murder aisle. Not, in his view, hidden there deliberately. The angle it was – accidental, he thinks. Maybe kicked there in the scuffle. Anyway, it has blood on it. He had it bagged and driven to Forensics: they’re working on it now.’

‘Hmm, unlikely there’ll be fingerprints. Whoever did it might well have been wearing gloves. So it’s handy but might not be conclusive.’

That was true, thought Bill. He remained convinced it was Whittler, simply because nothing was as compelling as finding the man there, hands on a dead body and blinking in torchlight. They kept finding maybes and could-haves on the motivations of others – Megan, Lynch, the Alvarez clan – but it still turned in Bill’s eyes to Whittler.

‘What’s your plan of attack, Dana?’

She checked her notes. ‘Well, I think two main areas. First, the cave.’ She focused primarily on Bill, knowing Mike’s role in this discussion was devil’s advocate. She and Mike had an unwritten understanding that they would push each other in this kind of meeting – the reasoning and justification it required made them think better.

‘Whittler needs to know we’ve found it. It’s crucial to him, and we’ll be asking things that show we now understand where he’s been. It would be silly to deny it, and I think we need to face his pain up front. He’s going to be very upset, I think. It’s so personal to him.’

‘Yeah, totally,’ interjected Mike. ‘We’re opening him up, and he’s not used to having anything in his world disrupted.’

She turned back to Bill. ‘So, my plan there is to focus on wonderment and marvelling on what he created. In time, I’ll need to segue into getting from the cave to all the places I’m sure he robbed, but I think that might need to happen gradually. I can be an utterly convincing know-nothing rube, for some reason. And I genuinely couldn’t live in such a place myself. So I think I’ll seem authentic to him.’

‘Yeah, I think if you can settle the fact that we know where it is, and that we’re being respectful in how we search it, you’re going to have to ride out the rest. As we said, he’ll pick a fight over something as part of his adjustment process. The more I consider it, the more I think it’ll be this. The other area?’

‘Rainer did some interesting work on Pringle, of Pringle’s Furniture. I want to ask Whittler about his time there: looks like it was quite formative generally. I think I can work in some questions about why he ran, and why then. There’s some kind of family iceberg there we’re not seeing yet. Talking it over with Rainer, I think Whittler was spooked by something particular which made him run then, rather than later.’

Mike shifted slightly. ‘I think that’s more solid ground than the first one, isn’t it? I mean, beyond knowing that we have his cave, there’s no need for questions about how Whittler ate or crapped. It’s not, uh, germane to the investigation. Unless we find DNA or something incriminating about the stuff he owns, and we’re just starting on that. Maybe focus on the history with Pringle?’

For a second time Dana found herself questioning whether it could be, once again, the prurience of incredulity.

‘I get you, Mikey. But a lot of this is about Whittler’s fragile state and ego. We’re still treading a fine line to stop him lawyering up. I’ve puffed up his ego and built up a rapport. If I ask anything that shows we know his cave, without telling him first that we’ve found it, I lose some of that trust. Praising him for the home he built increases the trust. Plus, as Bill says, there’s going to be conflict sooner or later. He’ll lash out for his own reasons. I’d rather have that happen in relation to something that isn’t, as you say, necessarily germane. That way, I can reward him by backing down once his tantrum blows out, without actually losing anything relevant to the investigation. As we’ve said this morning, we may well have no witnesses at all, and only circumstantial forensics. We have to get Whittler’s full story from him – if that’s a confession, so be it.’

Mike cogitated for a few seconds then gave a thumbs-up. ‘Yeah, yeah, I can see that. Put that way, I’m in.’

Bill beamed. ‘I love it when a plan comes together.’

Dana raised a finger. ‘Can I ask a wider strategy question? Are we still thinking Whittler might have committed other crimes? I mean, besides this one and maybe burglaries? I ask because if we think he’s an experienced killer, I need to cast a wider net with my questions.’