what happened with Karen? Is this what you did to her? I know you killed her, Justin.’
He stopped and turned to face me, his fists clenched. It should have been enough to shut me up.
‘You flew to Wellington Friday night. You went to Karen’s house and you killed her.’ He took a step towards me. ‘It’s too late to shut me up, Justin. The cops already know. I told them.’ He opened his mouth and closed it again. I couldn’t read his expression. ‘You knew Karen wouldn’t show on Saturday. You knew she was dead. But you let Sunny think she was going to meet her mother. You put Sunny through that.’
He looked at me for a long time and then slowly shook his head. ‘You stay away from her.’ And with that he turned and walked off into the park. I watched his back until he disappeared into the darkness of the trees, then I knelt and scrabbled around for my phone. The screen was shattered and there was no light behind it but I held down the on button and waited, hoping it would come back to life. To calm myself I listed all the rubbish below the bridge: red ballpoint pen, lime-green ice cream wrapper, bottle without its label, plastic milk cartoon, blue bottle cap, inner sole of a sneaker, dog collar. Right now, bloody, ripped and broken, I felt I was just one more object among all this discarded human waste. Life’s like that. One minute it’s all beautiful — the dog with the beseeching look being attended to by its young owner, the sunlight reflecting on the tilting wing of the plane, the poignant spring breeze — then the next minute some bastard attacks you and suddenly all you can see is the rubbish.
Fuck him.
I did my best to swipe the mud off my grazed palms and peeled back the ripped trackies to check out the cut in my knee. I’d live. The unnamed internal organ still reminded me it was there and hurting, and there was a loud ringing in my ears that I was pretty sure, though wouldn’t swear, wasn’t a police siren, announcing the arrival of the cavalry. I dragged myself off the bridge into the park and kept up a speedy limp until I was out of the gloom of the trees and onto the safety of Richmond Road. Once more in the comfort of traffic and people, I perched my arse on the fence and did my best to wipe the shattered phone clean. Blood poured from my knee and though the enigmatic organ probably wasn’t ruptured after all, it was definitely bruised. Or whatever the equivalent of bruised is for an internal organ. I’d have to ask Smithy one day. The screen of my phone was cobwebbed with shattered glass, a pathetic visual reminder that there was no one in Auckland I could think of to call for help. I was still staring at it and feeling mighty sorry for myself when it rang. I didn’t recognise the number. Tentatively, I held the shattered glass to my ear.
‘Hello?’
‘Diane? It’s Inspector Aaron Fanshaw.’ I immediately teared up with a ridiculous surge of relief. It was short-lived.
‘Do you know what police officers do, Diane?’ I took a breath but he continued before I had a chance to answer. ‘They investigate and, sometimes when they’re left to do their work un-interfered with, they solve crimes. That’s their job. Some even call it their profession. In short, it’s what we do.’ If tears could harden, mine would have. ‘I know you have done some work for the police department and I know you’re involved with police on a personal basis, but you are a civilian.’ Right now I was feeling more like a wounded pit bull, but I bit my tongue, rolled my eyes and heard him out. ‘Listen to me, Diane. I don’t want you interfering in this case any more than you already have. You can take this as a formal warning.’
‘Jesus,’ I said, ‘I left a message for you with some information about Justin that is obviously relevant to the case. I didn’t go to bloody Campbell Live with it. That’s what civilians are meant to do, isn’t it? They pass on information to the police?’ There was no way now I was going to tell him what Justin had just done to me.
‘You told Sunny her mother had been killed.’ It was a statement, not a question. Shit. I