The Sudden Dark

Seventeen

It was easy enough to search the address of a Shirley Mclaughlin before I was even back in the car, but the surprise came when my phone rang on the motorway back across town toward it. It was Melissa Cole.

'Mr Hendricks, I'm glad I caught you,' she said, carefully. 'I was sorry to just learn of your recent...difficulties.'

'That's a kind way to put it, doctor,' I said calmly, even as I began to feel a weight binding my chest at the sound of the condescension in her voice. 'I don't know why you'd be calling me, though. I'm being kicked back up for another departmental hearing. Don't know what you'd have to contribute for that after just one session.'

'That's true. But I do try to keep in mind my patients' wellbeing, however transitory they may be. That's why I'm calling, Mr Hendricks. I'm not sure what your state of mind is right now, but I'd like you to know that I've cleared up some time in my schedule at the end of today if you'd like to come by and talk about it. About four o'clock.'

I looked at the time: almost ten in the morning. I already had too many things twisting around my mind, I didn't know how well another appointment notch at four o'clock that day would keep steady in the gale.

'Well, I don't know, doctor,' I said. 'I've...got a lot of stuff going on right now.'

'I can imagine. You're under no obligation to come, of course. This is a strictly off-the-record notice—for my own personal interest in your wellbeing, more than anything else. But I'd just like you to keep it in mind.'

I told her I would try—that was all it seemed like I was doing lately, trying. But for who?

I didn't think about it. Ten minutes later I found the address of Shirley Mclaughlin, a rented room down the outer path of a cheaply sprawled share house. I knocked quietly and stood back, and could hear her approach the door before it even came open.

'What do you want?' she spit.

She hung herself at the door and looked down at me; older than I'd expected, her limbs scrawny and bony, her hair thin and frizzy. She had tattoos mapping the flesh of her collarbone, peeking out from her tank top, and skin as rough as I'd seen on her husband.

'Your name is Shirley Mclaughlin?' I asked.

'No, it isn't,' she said.

'Well, you're married to a Ben Mclaughlin, is that right?'

'Oh, for...' She twisted away from the door in exasperation, then came back. 'Listen, we may not be divorced, but he doesn't live here. I told him we were splitting up while he was in prison; that was about six, seven years ago. I haven't seen him since. You trying to find the fucker?'

'Trying to get information on him, at least,' I said.

'Well, I don't know what the fuck he's doing. Is he out of prison?'

I nodded. 'About six months now.'

'Good for him. Now fuck off.'

She started to close the door, but I came quickly up the steps and stopped her. 'Ms Mclaughlin—Ma'am, I could really use anything you could tell me about him that you might know. Anything at all that you might not even think is relevant.'

She sighed; I could feel it blow at me between the wedge of the door. 'Look,' she said, 'he's a no-good shitbag felon, always has been, what else can I say? You got him on the drug charge. Whatever else he might be doing these days is his own business—I'm not looking out for him anymore. He can bloody rot for all I care. What's he been doing, selling again?'

'I believe he's implicated in a string of recent murders.'

She stopped, paused slightly, beaded her eyes at me. 'Frank and Clive?' she said faintly.

'You knew them?'

She opened the door back a little wider. 'Rusty did, years ago. The three of them worked together.'

'Worked together?'

'Yeah, running drugs, running girls, shaking down—whatever three crooks do together. Listen, don't you judge me for turning an eye at him; I got enough just living with the mean bastard for as long as I did. I'm not sorry his shit caught up with him and he went away, and I'm not sorry if I'd never see him again.'

'So you knew Frank and Clive?'

She shook her head. 'I never asked to hang out with them, if that's what you mean. But I knew the three of them stuck together. That's what Rusty went away for, heading a bad deal on their behalf. Didn't give up their names, the bloody idiot. Now they're dead. And you think it's Rusty that killed them?'

'Or is involved in a shitshow that lead to their deaths—would that surprise you?'

'Nothing would surprise me about him. I'd be surprised if he died any way other than a bullet in his back, but that's it. Whatever criminal mastermind he's turning into is his business.'

'Is there nothing else you could tell me about your hus—ex-husband, then?'

Shirley Mclaughlin grumbled, but let the door hang open enough to look me in the eyes and say, 'Okay, he had a shed out in Heathcote that he was leasing when we were together. Maybe he still is, I dunno. I never knew what he was doing with it and I didn't care. You can look there if you want—on Stone Road. Up to you, copper, but as far as I care, Rusty's dead to me.'

The door shut with a ringing on its splintered hinges.