The Sudden Dark

Three

I was woken by the trill of my phone, and even in the throbbing, semi-drunken haze of broken sleep, I knew it was the first call I'd gotten since my suspension. Nobody talked to me anymore; nobody I used to know or worked with wanted the risk.

'Is this Mr Hendricks?' a gentle voice said.

I didn't want to play games with my head pretending to fool myself into thinking it was anyone worth a damn to me. I knew who it was, even though I'd never spoken to her before.

'This is Cole? Doctor Cole?'

There was a smile that rose in her voice. 'How are you feeling today?'

'I don't know. Scrambled,' I said. I was rubbing the remains of a misty pain out of my forehead. 'I feel...I don't know. I guess that's what the appointment is for, right? I should leave all my feelings to then.'

'Sure, if you'd like.' There was a gentle pause that I didn't know who was expecting who to break first. After a few moments, she kindly did.

'Well, the reason I'm calling, Mr Hendricks, is to inform you of a slight change in the schedule of your appointment. There's been some difficulties at the office and a bit of a backlog. I'm afraid we'll have to push back our first session from this week to the start of next—Monday at two p.m. Is that alright?'

'Well, I've got no say in it, do I?' I said flatly.

She didn't say whether I did or not. 'Thank you for understanding,' was all she said. I'd imagined she'd heard it all before—and heard worse. And I wasn't in the mood to do that to her, not then.

'In the meantime,' she continued, 'I'll just have to ask that you keep to your own devices. We'll trust you to keep straight, Mr Hendricks—the department will be notified of any infractions, of course. In the meantime, just try to keep to yourself and stay out of trouble. Think of this time as a recuperation period.'

There was an undertone lining her voice that said all the things I didn't need to be told: no drinking, Mr Hendricks. You haven't been let go from the force yet, Mr Hendricks. We trust you to be smart enough not to do anything you can really be crucified you for, Mr Hendricks.

I heard it all, and had heard it before. I grunted a little and Doctor Cole hung up after a simple goodbye.

I was alone again, in a bedroom with too much sunlight falling over me, too many thoughts, too many regrets, and too many things coming my way that I couldn't see.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn't call back and say I'd gotten shitfaced already the night before; that I'd lost a brief moment of self-control and decided to go off and torture myself at a pub for a few long hours. I couldn't say that to her during our appointment on Monday, but I wondered, the smart doctor that this Melissa Cole I'd been assigned must be, if she'd find out anyway. She'd probably find some way to wring it out of me. I'm not invincible.

To take my mind off it—off anything—I suddenly remembered what it was I'd signed on for the previous night. Why did I do that?—To give myself a distraction?

There were a lot of things I'd done lately that I couldn't explain.

I came out of bed eventually, showered, shaved cold, and made a call direct to the desk of Adam Holland, at my old precinct.

'Max?' Is that really you?'

I heard the squeak of his desk chair lounge back and his breath of incredulity release through the line.

'Yeah, it's me,' I said.

'How're you holding up so far, then, old man?' He laughed once. 'I thought you weren't allowed any contact with the force till your shrink sessions were done.'

I made a hum at that. 'Well, I...you've been partnered with me long enough to know I always bent the regulations a bit.'

'Yeah, I'll reckon. You wouldn't be under suspension if you didn't. If you were a law-abiding samaritan like the rest of us.'

I tried to laugh, but it sounded hard and forced. I blew it off and held the phone closer to me. 'Listen, Adam—I'm calling because I need something real quick...'

I heard a quiet sigh down the line; Adam said after a moment, his voice lowered, 'Maxie, you know I can't do anything like that again...'

'I know, I know. It isn't that. Nothing illegal, nothing to get you in trouble. If anyone'd get in trouble, it'd be me. See, there's someone I met around here who wants a favour from me.'

'A favour? Someone you know?'

I paused. 'Yeah,' I lied. 'An old friend—I ran into him last night. He heard I was on suspension, and asked me to run up something for him; something he doesn't want to hire an investigator for. I figured I could at least check it out while I have some free time.'

There was a moment's hesitation in Adam's quiet voice. 'You know you're not supposed to be doing any criminal work, Max...'

'I'm not, honest. This fella's got a brother who's run away with his girlfriend; all he wants is to know where he is. I figured you might be able to punch in her details and give me an address on her or if she has a record, anything like that. They're young, they're in lust, and they're bound to be holed up at her place or somewhere else she might be. That's all it is.'

There was a long silence, Adam deliberating across an entire city from me. He sighed again. 'What's her name?'

I gave him what Wayne Markwell had given me the night before: 'Maddie Reed. For Madeleine or Madison, I reckon; one or the other. Try both.'

I sat back for a few minutes and gave myself a lung full of my bedroom's stale air before Adam's voice returned from the phone.

'Got a Madison Alice Reed, age twenty-five. No listed occupation and no priors or convictions. Resident of 91 Temple Court, Pennant Hills. Is that enough?'

'That's all I'll need. I'll have this wrapped up today. Thanks, Adam.'

'Sure, Max. Sure.' There was a pause that hung between us a moment, before Adam said, 'Good luck with those sessions, alright? Get on back here soon so we can get back to work already.'

I didn't know what to say to that. Everything that trailed into my head seemed too intimate, or not intimate enough; something I didn't know how to say. So I just throated a noise that didn't mean anything and made myself alone again.