Page 23 of Last Breath

‘If you keep going all soft like that, then people aren’t going to respect you, Avery,’ she said, allowing a smile. ‘Sometimes you gotta bang a fist on a table to make a point.’

Whether or not Avery was right – whether or not she owed him – she’d chosen allegiance for now. She needed the police on her side if she was going to figure out who might have taken Clarkson’s notebook. There was also the possibility the cops had missed it. She’d need access to her office as soon as possible.

‘Have you told his family?’

Avery nodded. ‘His father, Yuze, lives half an hour away. He owns Bindi Charters, the tour bus company.’

I know.

It felt like someone was wrenching a rusty fishhook through her stomach as she pictured the twinkling eyes and kind, chubby cheeks of Yuze Lieu, remembered him bellowing along to ‘It’s Raining Men’ at the top of his lungs as they drove up Forrest Highway to Perth. He’d wanted Clarkson to carry on the family tour company but even when they argued about it, you could still tell Yuze was proud of his son. It annoyed Nella, because Clarkson was the closest she ever got to someone understanding what it was like to be a Barbarani, and it still wasn’t enough. Yuze never told Clarkson he would come crawling back one day, that he had no business having dreams of his own when the whole reason he’d been put on this earth was to continue the family business.

And have children who would grow up and continue the family business too.

‘Yuze Lieu’s sick,’ Avery admitted. ‘He’s trying to sell the company. He identified the body.’ Avery’s tone was clipped.

‘What do you think happened to Clarkson?’ Nella asked, refusing to acknowledge the burning in her throat that had nothing to do with the awful coffee.

He held her gaze before letting out a deep sigh. ‘I honestly think you’d have a better idea than me.’

‘It was the La Marcas.’

Avery’s frown deepened.

‘I know you think I’m just saying that because I’m a Barbarani, but it had to have been them. There must be something in that notebook that was going to eviscerate their bullshit claim that my grandfather profited from a stolen recipe, and they killed Clarkson for it.’

She shouldn’t have said it so calmly. She should be whimpering and hiccupping and acting like a proper victim. This was one of the reasons she’d never told anyone about what happened with Clarkson’s roommate: she didn’t know how to play a real victim. Even at Sally Sue’s trial, Nella had been accused by one journalist of looking ‘bored’. How could she be a victim when she was born with all the privileges people like Jett didn’t even know existed? You can’t be the villain and the victim in the same story.

Avery stared at her. ‘We’ll investigate every avenue.’Cop translation: I don’t believe you.Silence ticked away.

‘The others – Pearl and the rest – have you talked to them? Are they okay?’

‘You know I can’t comment on other interviews, Nella. But no one’s under arrest. No one else was in the office when your second-in-command found him, they’d all gone home.’

‘Ian found him?’

‘He claims he left his gym bag behind at the office.’ Avery said it in a tone that suggested that was the most outlandish thing he’d heard in his entire career. Forgetfulness was apparently less common than murder.

‘None of them knew him,’ Nella said. ‘No one from my office would have any reason to want him dead.’

‘So you see my predicament.’ Avery stood. His massive frame made the interrogation room feel like a matchbox. And Nella was the match.

‘I don’t,’ Nella said. ‘You’ve got the La Marcas. You couldn’t have better suspects even if you tried to frame them yourself!’

‘The La Marcas have never met Clarkson Lieu.’

‘Sorry.’ Nella smacked her forehead. ‘I forgot about the physical impossibility of killing someone you don’t know.’

Avery tapped his pen aggravatingly against his notepad.

‘What did they do to him?’ She should have asked that earlier.

Avery looked down. ‘You know I can’t tell you that.’

‘You know I’ll find out anyway.’

He made a sound – a half snort, half grunt of pain. ‘Got that down to an art now, don’t you?’

‘What?’ She stood too, matching his stance – hands on hips, shoulders back, rod up arse.