knew this was going to come back to bite me in the arse.
‘I told Sunny that Karen was dead. I didn’t say she’d been killed.’ He wasn’t going to catch me out on it a second time. ‘Sunny rang me because she knew I had gone back to Wellington and would see Karen and I … I felt I had to tell her.’ I listened to his breathing.
‘You had no right to do that and you know it. Given your special relationship with police, I assumed you knew not to speak to anyone about Karen’s death or I would have formally warned you not to at the time.’
I was suitably chastened but with it went a feeling of righteousness. Special relationship indeed — prick. I don’t like being told off no matter how justified it is. He probably thought it was time for me to say I’m sorry. I didn’t say it.
‘You didn’t mention your phone call with Sunny during our talk at the station on Monday.’
‘Our talk, as you describe it, wasn’t quite what I was expecting it to be,’ I responded, feeling ridiculously close to tears. The delayed shock and the cold were taking effect; I wasn’t sure if I was shaking or shivering, or both. I wanted to finish the call, go home and clean myself up, get some antiseptic onto my knee and spend some time feeling sorry for myself. I hadn’t done quite enough of that yet. ‘Okay, fine. I’m …’ I tried to say the sorry word but my mouth just wouldn’t do it. ‘I’m admonished.’ There was the distinct sound of a guffaw on the other end of the phone, which I ignored. ‘But I hope you’ll follow up on the information despite it having come from me.’ I heard the long sigh. No doubt I was meant to hear it.
‘We already know Justin saw Karen on Friday night.’ I stopped breathing. I think I even stopped shaking. ‘He went down to talk her out of meeting Sunny. He thought it would be bad for his daughter, that she was too young. He wanted Karen to wait a couple of years.’ The photo on the mantelpiece, it must have come from Justin. ‘He brought a photo of Sunny to give her.’ I wondered if I’d spoken aloud. ‘Bit of a peace offering, I think. He hoped it would hold her off for a while.’ Fanshaw’s tone had become downright chatty.
I risked a question. ‘How did you find this out?’
‘Like I said, it’s our job to investigate and solve crimes.’
I breathed through my teeth and tried counting to ten. By the time I got to six he relented, realising, I think, how prissy he sounded. ‘In this case it was easy. He told us.’
‘Justin told you this? When?’
‘He rang us as soon as he heard Karen was dead.’ Fanshaw jumped at the opportunity to remind me of my transgression. ‘Thanks to you, he heard that from his daughter on Saturday night. Ideally, we should have given him that information and been there to witness his response first hand.’
Of course he was right and I knew it. He definitely knew it, too. ‘Okay,’ I said defensively. ‘So he’s a suspect?’
‘Everyone connected to Karen is of interest to the enquiry.’ Meaning, he was including me in that everyone. ‘But we don’t believe Justin was responsible for his ex-wife’s death.’
‘What? Why not?’
‘Because Justin returned home to Auckland on Friday night.’ I opened my mouth to speak but he answered my question before I had a chance to ask it. ‘We checked.’ I opened my mouth again. ‘Thoroughly,’ he answered. This guy was uncanny. I decided to keep my mouth shut. ‘As far as we’re concerned,’ he said, spelling it out for the thick but thankfully now silent person on the other end of the phone, ‘we have eliminated Justin from our enquiries.’
‘So it is a homicide?’ It wasn’t much but it was the only point I could score.
‘We are treating the death as suspicious, yes,’ he admitted. ‘But I have already informed the family of this so there’s no need for you to tell them.’
Touché.
Bastard.
Chapter 19
TUESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2012
A blindingly hot shower is a truly wonderful thing. I prescribed a glass of wine and a couple of paracetamol for my damaged internal organ and it accepted its medicine gratefully. It probably wasn’t my liver then. A cold wet cloth on my knee eased the sting, but my pride still smarted from the confrontation with Justin, followed by