Page 45 of Last Breath

‘How is he – Mr Lieu? The last memory I have of him is when he drove Clarkson and me up from Bindi Bindi with all of our shit in his charter bus. He stayed the whole day and helped me put my bed together in the flat.’

Oliver nodded. ‘He’s ... Nella, I can’t explain it. It’s unnatural, you know? A parent shouldn’t have to bury their child. And Yuze wasn’t doing well anyway – he’s sick, MS. He didn’t want people to know, but it’s getting worse, and now the business ...’

‘Did the cops give Yuze a green notebook?’

Jett resisted the urge to kick water onto the back of Nella’s pants. Surely even she wasn’t this insensitive?

‘His Boogie Board – the electronic notepad? Looks just like a paper one? No, I haven’t seen it since Clarkson left to come here.’

‘He wrote all his notes down in it – with a pen.’

‘Stylus.’

Wanker.

‘We don’t use notepads,’ Oliver graciously explained for their uninitiated ears. ‘Terrible for the environment, too easy to misplace, get burned in fires, things like that. All our case notes are put in the Boogie Board. Clarkson likes to use the handwriting-to-text function because he’s old-school.Wasold school. It’s all encrypted, keeps our clients’ information private, no other copies.’

‘Don’t all those fancy notepads upload to the Cloud anyway?’ Nella asked.

Oliver chuckled. ‘Not ours. Clarkson was hacked, really badly in our second year in business and he’s never trusted any tech the same way since. I tried to explain there are ways to secure everything but he wouldn’t budge. If he had it his way, we’d be sending carrier pigeons around the office with staff memos. It goes to an encrypted app.’

Nella’s shoulders visibly slumped. ‘So you have no back-up?’

‘Of course we have back-up.’ Oliver didn’t move the cup from his lips. ‘I programmed his notes to upload to an app on an external iPad. It’s in a safe in his office. Mine is in an undisclosed location.’ He tapped his nose.

‘You have the code?’

‘No.’ Oliver sighed. ‘Why?’

‘His notebook is missing. Or the cops have it and won’t hand it over. Either way, I’ve got no way of knowing where he was at with the case against Barbarani Wines or what, if anything, he discovered the day he died.’

Jett’s whole body tightened like his muscles were made of individual little rope knots. Did Nella not realise how she sounded? Was she deliberately trying to appear as cold as possible to this guy? Or was this just how all lawyers communicated in the wild?

‘You are an intriguing one, Nella Barbarani.’

Oh, right. Jett had momentarily forgotten Oliver was a human, heterosexual male with eyes. What Nella was saying or how she was saying it was of lesser consequence to him than how her breasts were straining against the buttons of her shirt.

Don’t think about her breasts.

‘Well, Clarkson certainly thought there was something intriguing enough about this case to justify him high-tailing it down here at short notice.’

Yes Nella, it was your family’s very, very intriguingly deep pockets.

‘Was Clarkson alone?’ Oliver asked.

‘When he died? I don’t know.’

He scratched his jaw. ‘No, I mean, did he come here on his own? I wondered ... I think he was seeing someone. He didn’t say much about it but ... Well, has anyone told her what ...? Someone should tell her what happened.’

‘Who?’ Nella’s voice was sharp. ‘Who was he seeing?’

Was that jealousy in Nella’s voice?

‘I don’t know.’ Oliver shook his head. ‘She was blonde, tallish, that’s all I know. Saw her in his office once. Christ. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe she was a client. I just ... got the feeling they didn’t want to be disturbed, if you know what I mean.’

‘He didn’t come with anyone.’

Oliver looked dejected. ‘What are you doing Saturday night?’ he asked suddenly.