Violent Exposure by Katherine Howell Page A

‘Walking out to have dinner or something?’
    ‘Nope. He goes in and that’s that. Stays a while, maybe an hour, then he leaves.’
    Ella phrased her next question carefully. ‘Did you have any idea which one of them he was visiting?’
    ‘I couldn’t say,’ Tanya said. ‘I didn’tsee either of them with him, and the times he visited didn’t really match up with the little I could tell of their schedules. I think they work funny hours. Sometimes their car was there, sometimes it wasn’t. With their driveway and garage being right next to me, I hear them come and go, you know.’
    Ella nodded. ‘And you’ve seen both Connor and Suzanne behind the wheel?’
    ‘Yep,’ Tanya said. ‘Also,Suzanne once came into the Emergency Department with a guy, and when I walked past and saw her, I smiled and said hi, and she looked kind of worried and then ignored me.’
    Hmm. ‘What was wrong with the guy?’
    ‘Chest pain, I think,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t looking after him but he was in one of the cardiac beds.’
    ‘She wasn’t simply so worried about him that she didn’t recognise you?’ Dennis asked.
    ‘No, she definitely recognised me,’ Tanya said. ‘I got the distinct impression that she wasn’t glad to see me either.’
    ‘How old was the guy? Any chance it was her dad?’
    Tanya huffed a laugh. ‘No way. He was about thirty, blond hair, surfe type.’
    Ella and Dennis exchanged a glance. ‘Did they seem close?’
    ‘I couldn’t say,’ she said. ‘I didn’t see any contact as such.’
    ‘Did you notice his name?’

    ‘Sorry,’ Tanya said. ‘I remember I was working an early shift after a late, though, so I can probably work out what day it was.’ She went to a calendar on the wall and flipped to the previous month. ‘Yeah. Must’ve been a Thursday. Wasn’t last week or the week before, and I was off sick this Thursday here,’ she pressed a finger to the day five weeks ago, ‘so it was one of the three straight afterthat.’
    ‘You can’t narrow it down any further?’ Ella said.
    ‘It was around ten in the morning, if that helps.’
    Ella wrote down the possible dates. ‘Did you say anything to Suzanne when you next saw her?’
    ‘The hospital’s crazy on confidentiality, so you’re not supposed to even mention to someone you know that you saw them there,’ Tanya said. ‘Besides, I think I only saw her a couple of times,and she was always in her car or I was in mine.’ She shrugged. ‘There was no chance to talk, even if I’d wanted to.’
    ‘Guys just keep coming out of the woodwork,’ Ella said to Dennis as they returned to the Crawfords’ house. ‘Maybe the guy in hospital is Robert.’
    Dennis checked his watch. ‘Stewart Bridges is the one I want to corner, but we’re due back for the meeting.’ Kent and Glenroy werewaiting empty-handed on the patio but Ella wasn’t ready to go. The passports had to be somewhere. She hurried upstairs and pawed through stacked papers in the unfinished archive box, praying for the telltale size and shape.
    ‘Just bring it,’ Dennis said.
    She thought of the letter about the house purchase. ‘Do people store important stuff with their solicitors?’
    ‘Or in safe deposit boxes in banks.’He glanced at his watch again.
    Ella found photos of Connor and Suzanne in ski gear with sunburned faces, and smiling on the edge of a pool. She found a souvenir keyring from Florida, a child’s drawing of a bird surrounded with hugs and kisses, and then, hooray, a hefty envelope labelled Certificates etc . She emptied it on the floor and grabbed up the two passports that fell out. ‘Got them.’
    ‘Hallelujah.’
    ‘This might answer a few questions.’ She held one up to him. ‘Connor’s from New Zealand.’
    In the meeting room, detectives were already waiting, some eating takeaway, most downing coffee, the smell of cigarette smoke rising from the clothes of a few.
    ‘First things first,’ Ella said. ‘We just found out that Connor