Page 13

“Um, I’ll just grab some clothes and stuff, and then you can take that down to the car while I get Connor sorted.”

Joel seemed happy with that. He flung himself onto my lounge and switched on the TV while I went into the bedroom and sorted through the clothes still sitting in my suitcase from Melbourne. I’d only unpacked the dirty stuff, so I shoved in a few fresh items.

In the bathroom I chucked my essentials into my toiletries bag and stuffed it into the front section of my suitcase, wheeling the whole lot back out to the living room.

“Okay, I’m all packed, bet you didn’t think I could –”

My words were cut short as I saw what was playing on the TV.

“After spending the night of his Australian Open semi-final loss answering questions for police, tennis star Pete Levine has been given leave to return home to the United States.”

Some footage flashed up of Pete leaving Melbourne Police Station, a lawyer between him and the camera.

“Levine, a person of interest in the murder of tennis legend Steve Herbert, was released from police custody late yesterday evening. Levine was staying at the Savoy Tower Apartments in Southbank, where Herbert was found stabbed to death on the morning of January 28th.

“Levine was the main lead in this case, so it looks like police are back to square one, Karl,” the reporter said, and the vision flickered back to Karl Franks, host of Early Mornings.

Joel flicked the TV off, dropping the remote onto the lounge beside him. I collapsed down on his other side, feeling like I would puke. Finally, the gravity of the situation hit me like a tonne of bricks. Joel turned to look at me, his face tight.

“Well, one good thing came out of that – if Pete came clean, the police won’t harass you anymore.”

I couldn’t find the energy to even shrug. I couldn’t care a scrap about whether the police thought I was a murderer or not. Steve was gone and he wasn’t coming back. Hearing people who’d never known him talk about his death in such an emotionless way triggered something inside of me.

The sobs rattled out of me and my eyes quickly became so filled with tears that the room was just a watery blur. Once they started, they wouldn’t stop. My stomach ached, my eyes ached. My heart ached.

An eternity later, as the last hiccups started to subside, I wiped my red, swollen eyes, and took a shuddery breath.

Joel’s warm side was pressed against me, his strong arm around my shoulders, squeezing gently.

I looked up at him, my sight still bleary. His lips were pressed into a tight line, his jaw clenched. It must’ve been so hard for him to keep his cool. I wondered if he cried alone in his bedroom where no one could see how much he was hurting.

And here he was, comforting me as I fell apart over the death of his father.

I reached out a hand and gently massaged the tense muscles of his jaw. He opened his mouth, sucked in a little breath, and stood.

“Let’s get this stuff back to my place, hey?” he murmured, dragging my suitcase out the door. I heard it clatter down the stairs.

“Connor!” I called shakily. His little grey and white head popped out around the hallway door, and he galloped over to the kitchen. I scooped him up and limped into my spare room, dragging down his cat box. His little body tensed, pinpricks of pain shooting through my arm from his claws .

“No, Connie, no vet; we’re going on a holiday – someplace nice!” I promised, thrusting him into the cage before he could draw blood. He yowled in disapproval as I closed the little barred door.

I collected all his other paraphernalia and waited at the top of the stairs for Joel to come and help me. He didn’t. I leaned on my left leg, tapping my fingers against the bannister. Still nothing.

With a sigh, I picked up Connor and struggled my way down the stairs with him. I was out the door before I realised what had kept Joel. I froze as he came and stood beside me, taking the cage with the yowling Connor in it.

“Miss Black. Would you mind coming down to the station with us to answer a few questions?” Detective Taylor asked. I gulped, glancing pleadingly at Joel, not that he could help me.

He met my eyes, a grim expression on his face, “Call me when you need me to pick you up,” he offered, before loading Connor into the car, holding his hand out for my key. I passed it over, Joel squeezing my fingers briefly.

I sighed and clambered into the back seat of the police car. Detective Coughlin was waiting behind the wheel. I was surprised that Taylor let him drive – she didn’t seem to let him do anything else.

I sulked in the back seat on the drive to the station. The detectives didn’t seem to notice. That suited me just fine.

God, what is it this time? Why can’t they just leave me alone?

Coughlin played the gentleman by opening the door for me when we got out in the underground car park at the station.

Inside I was ushered into a little room that looked exactly like the ones in the movies. There was a two-way mirror on the wall and a voice recorder on the table. I sat in a hard-backed chair, Taylor opposite me, Coughlin by the door.

Then Taylor spoke to the voice recorder, “Interview with Melanie Black, in relation to the murder of Steven Herbert …”

My skin went cold as she stated the date and time. This was no joke. This was really fucking serious.

“So, Pete Levine corroborated your alibi,” Taylor began, tapping a pen against the table in the most annoying way and looking up at me from under her sharp fringe. Why did she need a pen when she was recording this interview?

“I heard,” I replied. Told you so ! I screamed inside my head.

“But there was something interesting about his story. Would you care to take a look?” Taylor’s voice was smug. My palms broke into a sweat. What did she mean, ‘take a look’ ?

Taylor nodded at Coughlin, who switched off the lights and left the room.

Taylor flicked on the TV screen. I had no idea what was going on until a too-familiar figure appeared on a bed on the screen, tinged with the green of a camera with night vision.

I heard my slurring voice and I felt the blood rush to my face.

I thought I’d remembered everything about that night with Pete. Apparently, there was a lot that I hadn’t. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen – it was like a car wreck. I wanted to block my ears, block out the animal moans that were coming out of my mouth.

Taylor picked up an identical remote to the one Coughlin had used and flicked the video into fast forward.

I thought it was bad watching it in real-time, but seeing myself on a screen sucking Pete’s dick and getting banged doggy-style in high speed was pretty horrific too.

Pete had managed to position me so that, even in night mode, you could see everything .

Oh God.

Taylor didn’t slow down until the little time bar showed four-thirteen AM. Pete obviously hadn’t bothered to press stop when he’d caught on camera the part he wanted to.

Taylor turned to me as I continued to stare at the screen. You could see the sleeping forms of both of us in the bed. She was waiting for my reaction, but I was frozen, horrified. The video rolled on.

Then I saw it. I saw myself climb out of the bed and hobble drunkenly off-screen. My brow furrowed in confusion. Taylor continued to stare at me as she pressed fast-forward once more. The minutes ticked by. She pressed play. I watched myself clamber back into the bed and roll over.

“An hour and twelve minutes, Miss Black.” Taylor picked up the pen again and tapped it against the table. I chewed on my lip. What was her point?

“You can come back in now, Coughlin!” she shouted. The older man returned and flicked the lights back on. I squinted from the glare.

“So?” I asked, confusion tainting my tone. I remembered all too well curling up in front of Pete’s toilet bowl and hurling up half-digested pizza and too much vodka and juice.

Taylor looked at me like I was missing some really important point. I waited for her to get to it.

“Melanie, the coroner has declared that Steve was murdered between three and five AM.”

Oh. Oooooh.

Fuck!

“This is serious, Melanie. This almost puts you in a worse position than you were in before Pete came clean. You and Steve fought earlier in the day, and you’re seen leaving the bed of the man you insisted was your alibi around the time the murder took place, creeping back immediately after.

It doesn’t look good. Did you know Pete was filming this? ”

The blood that had stained my cheeks while I watched myself fucking on camera swiftly drained away.

Honesty is always the best policy, Mel.

“I didn’t know that he was filming. I wish I still didn’t! But I didn’t have anything to do with Steve’s … with what happened to Steve.” Tears were threatening. “You must be able to see that I was really drunk – I mean who does that sort of thing sober?”

Coughlin’s mouth twitched at the corner. I couldn’t hate him, not the way I hated Taylor, who gave me a stony stare.

“If you were as drunk as you claim, can you remember with any clarity what happened in that hour and twelve minutes?”

I closed my eyes. “Before morning. I remember getting up and spending a long time on the floor of Pete’s bathroom, getting to know the inside of his toilet bowl and the contents of my stomach, very well.

” I opened them again, pointing to the screen.

“Plus, you can see my crutches right there, propped up on the wall beside the bed. Unless you think I crawled out of the apartment, up two floors and, somehow managed to …” My throat closed around the words.

Steve … lying in his own blood.

I gripped the edge of the table until my knuckles were white.

“Is that all you have to say about this?” Taylor asked in disbelief.

I cleared my throat and Coughlin handed me a box of tissues. I took one and wiped at my leaking eyes. “Yes.”

“So, at no time from midnight until nine the next morning did you leave Pete Levine’s apartment?” she prompted.