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CHAPTER TWENTY

What If …

M y jaw fell open. I sat staring at him for what could have been seconds, or hours.

“What?” I whispered when I found my voice again. “How?”

“They think he fell. Or jumped. Off the balcony.”

We lapsed into stunned silence. Eventually, I got up and went to the bedroom. I pulled on my clothes, barely feeling the fabric on my skin.

I returned to the living room, but instead of taking my seat in the chair, I sat down on the lounge next to Joel. He was still staring at the wall. The shock of this, so soon after his dad …

“Joel, I … I’m so sorry,” I whispered. Joel didn’t budge.

“Last night I dreamed that I was being choked by you, on Ben’s balcony. And then I fell.”

Joel jolted, turning to me. “ I was choking you?” he repeated, his voice shaky. I nodded.

“I wouldn’t ever,” he whispered. I found myself wriggling closer, wrapping my arms around his middle, resting my head against his chest.

“I know you wouldn’t.”

God, I know that yesterday I wished Ben would leave and never come back, but I didn’t mean THIS. You know I didn’t mean this, don’t you? I would never wish that someone was dead !

I felt cold, although the apartment was quite warm. I huddled closer to Joel and let him put his arms around me.

It was three days before the police showed up at Joel’s door, but it wasn’t him they were looking for. It was me.

The rain was still hanging around, spotting the court in dribs and drabs as I ran through my drills. Sandra appeared and Joel turned away to speak with her. I continued with the drill, turning all my focus onto the movement of my body – it helped me cope.

That was until I saw the others who had come down with Sandra. I’d hoped never to have to deal with them again.

Joel walked back over to where I had frozen. “They just want to ask you a few questions.”

I gritted my teeth. Joel put a hand on my arm.

“Stink, I’ll come sit with you if you want,” he offered.

I shook my head and pulled my arm away from him. “It’s okay, I can handle this.”

I walked stiffly over to Taylor and Coughlin, nodding politely at the man, not really acknowledging his partner.

“Mel, we’ve got some questions for you about Ben Herbert.” Coughlin sounded almost apologetic. I walked past them, taking a seat on the edge of the big lounge in the rumpus room. They followed and sat across from me. I glanced outside; Joel was watching me from the tennis court.

“Okay, can we get this over and done with quickly, so I can get back to work?” I asked primly. Taylor glared at me.

“Miss Black, when was the last time you saw Ben Herbert alive?” she asked, leaning forwards like a hunting hound on the scent.

“Why? I thought he fell?” I asked. “Is there something I don’t know about this?”

Coughlin cleared his throat. “Mel, the autopsy –”

“Shut up, Coughlin!” hissed Taylor, “Melanie, answer the question! When did you last see him alive?” Taylor grated. I focussed on the reason they were here and took a deep breath.

“About eight o’clock the night he died,” I replied. They would make more of that than was necessary. Well, Taylor would; she definitely had it in for me.

“And where was this?” Taylor continued.

“At his apartment.”

“What did you two talk about?”

I sighed shakily. I didn’t want to rehash this. “We argued about his reasons for coming back to Australia, and I told him that I didn’t want to see him anymore.”

Taylor looked triumphantly towards Coughlin, who was pinching the bridge of his nose.

“How would you describe your relationship with Ben Herbert, Melanie?”

“Brief,” I snorted. Coughlin smiled and looked outside so that Taylor wouldn’t see it.

“He pursued me for a while after Steve’s death, and then while I was competing in Dubai, but I shut him down. Apparently not forcefully enough – he thought that if he moved back here there was a chance for us.”

“Did you have a sexual relationship with him?”

I nodded. “We slept together once in Dubai.”

“Was there any physical violence during your argument?”

I held my arms out, so they could see the bruises that were changing from purple to yellowish green. Coughlin leaned forward to look, a disapproving set to his mouth. Taylor gave the bruises a cursory glance.

“And what about you, Melanie? Did you defend yourself in any way?”

I grunted. “I kneed him in the balls. That was enough to make him let go of me so that I could leave.”

“And what time did you leave?”

“About fifteen minutes after I arrived. And before you ask, I went straight back to my apartment and I stayed there for the rest of the night. ”

“Can anyone confirm that for us?” Taylor asked, a nasty tone to her voice.

“My friend, Brad Jacobs – he drove me to Ben’s and he waited for me downstairs. He can tell you that he brought me home. And Joel,” I looked outside. Joel was pretending to be busy moving the drill equipment, but I could tell he was straining his ears to hear every word that was being said.

“Joel came over not long after I got home.”

“Can anyone vouch that you stayed at home the whole night?”

I got cross then. “No, they can’t. I live alone, Detective Taylor. I don’t have a flat mate, and I’m not in the habit of inviting people to stay over. I guess you could ask my cat – but he probably wouldn’t want to talk to you, he’s got better taste!”

Taylor scowled at me. Coughlin hid a grin behind his big hand. I flicked my eyes towards Joel, who was chuckling out on the tennis court. I felt better knowing that he and Coughlin were on my side when it came to Detective Taylor.

“Miss Black, we’re not talking about me, we’re talking about you! So, you’re saying that you went straight home and stayed there for the night. You didn’t leave the house? You didn’t go back to Ben Herbert’s house – alone – and strangle him before pushing him off his balcony?”

My breath caught. “He was strangled ?” I gasped.

Coughlin interrupted Taylor’s interrogation. “Yes, Mel. The autopsy showed that he was strangled with a piece of cord before he was pushed.”

My fingers flew to my throat. I found that I was having trouble breathing. A warm hand landed on my shoulder. I hadn’t realised that Joel had come inside and was sitting on the back of the lounge. I felt better almost immediately knowing he was there.

“Listen, Detectives, she hasn’t done anything wrong,” Joel said.

“If you don’t believe that she didn’t leave her apartment again that night, then maybe you should question the bus drivers that were on that route, and the taxi and Uber drivers who picked people up in Vaucluse that night.

Mel doesn’t have a car, so if she left the house again, someone would have driven her there. ”

“And what about you, Mr Herbert? Where did you go after you left Miss Black’s apartment that night?”

Joel shrugged. “I came home and went to bed. My mother can vouch for me.”

Coughlin turned to Taylor. “If you want to look into the taxis and the buses, we can get into that straight away.” He stood up. Taylor stood up briskly beside him, smoothing down her tailored pants and adjusting her jacket.

“Thanks for your time, Mel,” Coughlin said pleasantly, giving me a smile. I couldn’t return it – I was still too shocked.

Sandra came down the steps then, offering to show the detectives out. Taylor looked like she wanted to interrogate me some more, but Coughlin gave her a glance and she followed him back up the stairs. It seemed that he did have some control over her after all.

I heard the door shut upstairs and Sandra came back down.

I was frozen on the lounge, touching my throat, remembering the panic of being choked in my dream.

Sandra went to the fridge behind the bar and pulled out a bottle of juice.

She poured three glasses and brought them back over to the lounge, putting one into my hand and passing one to Joel, before sitting beside me and taking a sip of her own.

Joel reached around and gently pried my hand from my neck. He squeezed it once, but he didn’t let it go like I expected him to. Instead, he sat it down on his leg, which was resting on the back of the lounge, and put his hand over it.

“Sandra, I’m so sorry about this,” I whispered, my throat raw and raspy. “This isn’t something you … so soon after Steve.”

Sandra patted me on the knee. “Don’t you work yourself up about it, Mel. How on earth is this in any way your fault? You just make sure you look after yourself through all of this.”

Sandra finished her juice and stood up. “Well, I’d better let you two get back to business,” she said with a smile, heading back up the steps. I looked down at my juice, still untouched in my hand. Joel plucked it from me, walking back over to the fridge and putting it inside.

“You can drink that later when we’re done with your training.” He smiled gently, beckoning out towards the court with his head. I followed.

He’d cleared up the equipment from the drills, and he handed me my racquet.

“Let’s have a game, hey, Stink?” he asked me, taking his place on the baseline. He bounced a ball in front of him, getting ready to serve.

“Hey, Joel!” I called, before he served. He caught the ball and looked at me.

“Thanks. For the support, I mean. I don’t really tell you often enough how much I appreciate it.”

He grinned at me. “Hey, it’s my job, Mel. I’m just doing my job.”

He served to me then, before I could argue. It wasn’t just that. He did more than he needed to, job-wise. I took a breath and set my mind to the game.

For the second time in less than six months I found myself back at Saint Gertrude’s for a funeral. This time there was less of a circus outside, but there was still a decent pack of journalists; it was the funeral of a murdered man, a rich murdered man.

‘The Herbert Murders’ the media was calling it. I cringed at the name. Journalists conveniently forgot that these people had families who were grieving.

Deep down though, I wondered. Was there a connection between the two murders? It would be too much of a coincidence for there not to be – two brothers don’t just both get murdered randomly, do they?

Ben’s friend from Dubai had flown in for the funeral and he gave the eulogy. I paid little attention to his words. He was tall, slim, and Middle Eastern. He spoke perfect English with a rich accent. His skin was olive and flawless. He was dressed smartly in a charcoal suit, grey shirt and tie.

His smooth voice flowed over me and I listened without really hearing what he was saying. I glanced up at Joel. His teeth were slightly bared, his jaw clenched so tightly I was worried that it might shatter. He looked absolutely furious.

I very quickly tuned in to the eulogy.

“… he was generous with everyone he knew. Ben wasn’t the type of person to hoard his wealth. He shared it with friends and loved ones, with no expectations in return. He was never interested in flaunting his fortune …”

I reached out and took Joel’s hand, resting it on my thigh and placing my own hand on top of it.

His head jerked and he turned to me. His face began to relax, although his lips were still pursed.

The right corner of his mouth tweaked up, and he put his other hand on top of mine, leaning closer to me.

I rested my head against his shoulder, listening to his breath hiss in and out. I felt the stiffness in his body ease.

The eulogy ended and the priest started speaking again.

I wasn’t listening to that either, but for a different reason.

Joel’s thumb was moving back and forwards very gently on my thigh.

I sneaked a glance up at Joel’s face, but he was watching the service.

Was he trying to get a reaction out of me?

If he was … no, he couldn’t possibly be that bold, to do it in the middle of a funeral.

There was another option: that touching me in such a familiar way was becoming second nature to him … and I kept letting him.

Should I stop him? Or should I just let it happen? Before I could work out the answer, the priest announced a hymn and as we stood, Joel’s hand slipped from my leg. I breathed a sigh of relief. I couldn’t deal with how his touch made me feel right now.

On the way home from the funeral, Joel’s phone bleeped with a notification.

“Can you check that for me?” Joel asked, navigating through the traffic from Bondi back to Rose Bay.

“Really? What if it’s one of your fuck buddies?” I asked , picking his phone up from the centre console.

“It won’t be,” he assured me in a low voice.

I looked down at the screen. “It’s a Tweet, from that guy, tennisfanboi, the one who leaked the …” Joel grabbed the phone, typing in his passcode and handing the phone back to me.

“What does it say?”

I skimmed the Tweet. “Holy fuck!”

Joel dragged the steering wheel to the side, pulling up to the kerb. “What is it?” he demanded, snatching the phone from me.

Police leak: the bar brawl was a red herring! Grant Johnson’s stabbing back in February happened INSIDE his apartment, ya’ll! Police treating as attempted murder … more to come …

“Where the fuck is this guy getting his info?” Joel exclaimed, putting his phone down and gripping the steering wheel with white knuckles. “He must have access to police files.”

But something else was niggling at the back of my mind. Something about this information turned my stomach.

“Joel …” I whispered, turning to him, my face suddenly cold.

“Stink, what’s wrong?” he asked, voice thick with concern.

“What if … what if it’s all because of … me?”