The Sound of Her Voice

by Nathan Blackwell

Genres: General Fiction; Police Procedurals; Crime Fiction

Synopsis

Some murder cases you can't forget, no matter how hard you try.

For Detective Matt Buchanan it is the death of 14-year-old Samantha Coates and the other unsolved murder cases. Those innocent girls he just can't get out of his head.

He has probably been in the job too long. But when Buchanan pursues some fresh leads, it soon becomes clear he's on the trail of something big.

As he pieces the horrific crimes together, Buchanan finds the very foundations of everything he once believed in start to crumble. He's forced across that grey line that separates right and wrong - into places so dark, even he might not make it back....

The Sound of Her Voice is an authentic, gritty, character-led police procedural by an elite former detective - for fans of Ian Rankin, Stuart Macbride and Joseph Knox.

Release date: April 18, 2019

Publisher: Orion Publishing Group

Print pages: 255

Sample

Prologue

August, 1995

The chill cut right through my duty jacket. A downdraught before the storm front. The rain started to fall, cold. I shivered and looked up, staring at the night as the water started to splash across my forehead. We were parked up near the pool hall on Target Road. It offered a decent view over the Wairau Valley and Link Drive industrial area. A regular favourite of commercial burglars. I glanced over the roof at Andy and raised my eyebrows. He nodded, stamped out his cigarette, swept the water from his ginger hair and got back in the driver’s seat. I slid in on my side and pulled the door. I fired up the heat and the car warmed up while the rain hit the windscreen, harder now. Brief comfort was broken by the radio. The Comms operator was panicked, worked up. A 10-10 call. Something going down in Kumeu. Another patrol car, or I-car as they’re known, in trouble. Someone was seriously hurt, or about to be. No cars free up there. West all tied up. Another car on the Shore called for details. I reached up to the console on the dash and twisted the black dial. Flashing reds and blues lit up the dark around us and the siren wailed as Andy put his foot down, taking us out of the valley, up onto Wairau Road and then north toward the Hobsonville turnoff that would take us west.

I’d been out of Police College a little over three months. A skinny eighteen year old, green as. I’d been dicking around in my final year of high school less than twelve months ago. I definitely hadn’t come to grips with the job yet, was struggling to find my feet. How did I end up here again? Luck. No other way to explain it. I hadn’t had a clue what to do with my life. Unsure what to study. I’d wanted to help people, but I wanted excitement. Challenge. Relative terms those. Subjective. Life behind a desk? No thanks. Seeing my mates filling out their uni timetables and getting ready for yet more bookwork, I’d looked for something else. I’d seen the recruitment ad for the cops and gave it a crack. Now here I was, having fudged my way through the recruitment process and the College, no more certain of my career choice than I had been six months ago. But it was exciting. And challenging. And I had a hell of a lot still to learn.

We hit the seventy-K area north of Sunset Road, heading for the turnoff onto Upper Harbour. How can I make this easy for Andy? I adjusted myself in the seat and leaned forward to the glove box, pulling the map book out and flicking through the pages. I got motion-sick doing it. I didn’t travel well when I couldn’t see out. Suck it up, you little bitch. Andy was now throwing us in and out of the turns on Upper Harbour with his foot on the floor. Streetlights, trees, houses and big yards flashed by either side. There wasn’t much traffic this time of night, and besides a couple of oncoming headlights we shared the road with hardly anyone.

I’d been listening to the radio, and was fucking about with the map, trying to find Deacon Road. I knew Andy would be taking us up State Highway 16 into Kumeu, but from there he’d be relying on me. Kumeu was a rural area on the urban fringe, north-west of the city. My knowledge of it extended to the bakery, the pub, and the girl I’d had a thing for back in fifth form. So, not much. I found the page I needed and picked out the intersection of Riverhead and Deacon. Andy was focused on the road so I gave him simple directions.

“State highway sixteen, then right into Coatesville-Riverhead Highway. It’s off that.”

We accelerated over the Greenhithe Bridge. Normally at night you can see across the water to the Whenuapai Air Force base, but tonight the winter weather had destroyed all visibility. As the rain hammered the windscreen we passed some fields on our left, and some shops on both sides, before heading right into Brigham Creek Road. Up a gentle incline, then skirting the edge of the airbase. Through the rain and low cloud I saw halos round the big floodlights, and I could make out the hangars and a few large dark shapes on the tarmac.

Comms was trying desperately to get more out of the unit in the shit but nothing was coming back. That wasn’t good. Andy was tearing the road up, pushing it as far as he could without losing it completely, as we hit State 16 and turned right, heading north. I gave our position to Comms over the radio in the hope the crew in trouble could hear us and would know we were close. But as we took the right into Coatesville-Riverhead Highway, the words cut across the channel, strained and forced through gritted teeth:

“Comms, HSI … we’ve been shot at … status one … I’ve got gunshot wounds, we need ambos …”

Fuck me. Confusion. Both shot or just one? Someone was status one. Fuck it, we’d soon find out. There was some back and forth between Comms and the unit, clarifying that it was safe for others and attempting to get some more info about the shooter. I could feel the frustration from the guy who’d been shot, was getting frustrated myself. Because fuck it, I didn’t care what was where. Despite the fact we didn’t have firearms, Andy and I were going straight in regardless of what anyone else thought.

“It’s clear, my partner’s dying, I’m hurt bad … ambulance here …”

Holy fuck. Both shot. Odd as it sounds, coming all the way from the Shore we were still gonna be the first car there. There’s a disturbing lack of Police available to patrol the streets at night. Often only one or two cars out and about in west Auckland. They were always busy. All it took was an arrest, or a victim, and they couldn’t cut and run. And Rodney District, where we were now, this area was covered by the Orewa station. They were a long way away, and always tied up. I felt like I was shaking, but I wasn’t really. That adrenaline hit, knowing you’re heading into something bad, but you wouldn’t back out even if you had the choice. You’re only focused forward, on what you’re running into. Cops got assaulted all the time, people got hurt. But getting shot was something out of the movies. Yeah it had happened before, but this wasn’t the USA. It wasn’t a common thing out here.

I directed Andy left into Riverhead Road, and straight on toward the Deacon intersection. I saw the red and blues from HSI flashing through the rain further up, where Riverhead Road bent left and Deacon carried on straight. Andy came in right behind them. As I got out I could smell the tyres, feel the heat off them. All I could hear was the rain splashing off the bitumen. I ran toward the flashing lights through the downpour. I forgot about safety, didn’t wait for Andy. I ran past the rear of their car. Noticed the holes in their back windscreen. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. A cop was leaning over someone in the road in front of their car, lit up by the headlights. “Help me with her!” he was yelling as I moved in. He was fucked. He’d taken a round in the shoulder and was bleeding heavily. His blue shirt, already dark from the rain, was covered in a darker stain, running down his arm. He was on his arse in the mud beside the road. Another dark, shiny patch spread over his lower trouser leg. I was frozen to the spot, hadn’t seen a colleague hurt this bad.

What the fuck? What the fuck? I was going around in circles in my head, trying to assess the situation, plan a way forward. Right … he’s conscious … let’s try and stem the bleeding. Shoulder first? Leg maybe. Could be an artery. Then I remembered why he’d yelled at me. My vision expanded, widened from the dark tunnel it had been. I looked down at the person lying on the ground beside him, and my world went shiny grey at the edges, then black. I leant forward to try and get some blood back into my head. Fuckin’ hell. Gabby. She’d been on my recruit wing. We were at the College at the same time. She’d joined straight after high school too. Yeah, we were close. Her eyes were open but they were vacant. Blood flowed out of her mouth and bubbled as it pooled at the edges. Round through the chest? Through her lung? The blood soaked her uniform and I glanced back at her car. More holes in the front windscreen. My vision narrowed again. Windscreen. Bullet holes. Lashed by the rain and wind. Is this happening?

I looked back down and realised I’d gone to my knees beside her. Rain was splashing around us. Her long dark hair was plastered across her face and I pulled the wet strands aside. My fingers on her carotid, but I felt nothing. Andy had brought up the first aid kit we had and, taking it all in, flung the kit at the guy and got in with me beside Gabby. They teach you to assess the surroundings, plastic shields, gloves, all that safety shit … but this was real, not a training day. It all went out the window. I didn’t have Ebola. And neither did Gabby.

I scooped what blood I could out of her mouth with my fingers, and wiped it on her uniform. After that did fuck all, I tried to turn her head, letting the red mess run out of her mouth onto the road. I rolled her head back and delivered breaths while Andy pumped her chest. I was trying to force air past the blood in her mouth, could taste metal and salt, could feel the warm stickiness staining my face as I tried to get her breathing, stopping all the time to scoop more blood away or tilt her head sideways again. We’re getting nowhere pretty fuckin’ quickly. This routine went on for a bit before Andy began tiring. We swapped around and I did compressions. He also struggled to push his breath past the red froth coming out of Gabby’s mouth and had as much luck as I’d had. The rain splashed down and there was a shallow pool of water around us now. The smell was so out of place – one of the few details I really remember. A weird, sickly sweet coppery combination of fresh rain and blood.

We were just speeding things up, pumping the life blood out of Gabby quicker. No way of effectively stopping the bleeding, and unable to get any air into her. We needed shit we just didn’t have. A lot of the bleeding was internal. We were fighting a losing battle, but we weren’t doctors – we couldn’t make the call, and we sure as hell weren’t going to stand around and not try anything. Not when our mate was dying beside us. Her partner was in a bad way too, he was losing blood fast but had somehow managed to bandage up his leg. He was now struggling with his shoulder. I continued compressions and Andy stopped with the breathing, giving the guy a hand to tie off the bandage and check the pressure on the one on his leg. My vision was filled only with Gabby’s face. The only calm, serene thing in this total gang-fuck. That image burned itself into my head as I kept on doing compressions. Looking for some change in her that I knew wasn’t coming. I didn’t know it then, but it was an image I was never going to shake.

I don’t remember much more of the night. Things blurred into one and I couldn’t be sure of the order of events. The rain didn’t let up. More cop cars came from somewhere. Paramedics arrived and took over. Gabby had been dead a while by then. Detectives from the CIB turned up and took charge of the scene. Tents went up to protect what little of it hadn’t already been washed away. Some big bosses walked around. Cordons went up and I ended up back at one of them, out on the Highway. I was soaked through. Rain. Mud. Gabby’s blood. Her partner’s blood. The water stopped the blood from drying. It covered me – face, neck, uniform – had flowed down across my arms. I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing. Didn’t know what was going on. People raced around but nobody gave me too much attention, I don’t really remember. My head spun, and my vision began to close off again. Nausea. I leant against the car at the cordon, but the feeling kept rising from inside me. I pushed myself up off the bonnet and saw the red impression I’d made with my upper body. The rain diluted the stain, and my vision closed off completely for a brief moment. I dropped my head and it returned. Then the ball of sick rose too far.

 

Chapter One

July, 2011

Missing person, homicide investigation, re-investigation – it doesn’t matter. They don’t fade. Faces burn into your memory. You don’t shake them. But you don’t want to anyway. Churchill said something about being in the arena. That’s where I needed to be. I couldn’t watch from the sidelines – go to work, read the paper, watch the news – like every sane person. A life of that shit would’ve bored me to death.

I’d been pulling a file apart at my desk, and started searching my drawer for one of those crocodile-looking things that rip the staples out. I saw the photo I kept. The guilt hit me, as it always does. I stared at her face, locked forever, fourteen years old. Samantha Coates had gone missing in March 1999. She’d have been twenty-six now, if she was still here. But I knew she wasn’t. She’d been walking home from school towards Hillcrest when she’d disappeared. I’d been a Constable attached to the CIB at Henderson then, a baby investigator, far from a qualified Detective. It had been all hands in the District to the pump. After initially chasing a few leads I was made the file manager when the previous guy went on leave. That job was usually a shafting, because you were the bitch. But you got your head round the file well as you sorted all the incoming information. Suspicious very early on, obviously. But an eighteen-month investigation with thirty CIB officers on-and-off had turned up nothing. We’d had fuck all leads, and they all ran out. No forensics. Nothing firm. We never found her body. Like she’d disappeared into thin air. You’d think that probably wouldn’t happen in little old New Zealand, but there have been plenty. So I held on to her photo. It reminded me of my incompetence. I couldn’t let this slip into some dusty old archive. Homicides never get filed or inactivated. Unsolved, they remain assigned to a Detective until they are solved, even after the investigation proper winds down. Missing person files were different. They did get closed. But I’d held on to this, because I knew there was only one way to explain the fact she had vanished. The case was mine until it was solved or I left the job and handed it on. I never felt I’d done enough.

The dead and missing leave a pretty big impact. Faces, names. I always remembered the victims, but struggled with offenders. They did fade. No cop takes the killing of a human being lightly. So, the photo reminded me. Of my obligation to Sam and her family. No one else in the Police was going to be her voice twelve years on. The twenty-six ring binders that made up the hard copy file were still sitting on the bottom few rows of the shelf next to me. I found the staple-ripper thing and closed the drawer.

I was working with Dan tonight. A good mate. Bright guy, solid investigator. Five years younger than me, he had a short sharp haircut and always had the latest shirt or shoes. But a better Detective than I’d ever be. It was late, and I was on my sixth Nescafé instant. I could feel the kidney stones forming. Or was that just the big shit I needed to take? My phone rang and the on-road Senior Sergeant was on the other end. It was Stef, an ex-Detective who’d been promoted and gone back into uniform. That meant the call was good and bad. It meant he’d be all over it. It also meant that if he couldn’t sort it himself, it was pretty serious.

The Orewa station was all one level, so I left my desk and wandered up to the front reception area where he’d said she’d be arriving. She’d beaten me to it. Jeans and T-shirt, feet up on the chair in the front counter area, hugging her knees. Light brown hair loose around her shoulders. Her parents were sitting beside her. Their faces pale. Unsure. Looking for direction. Join the club. Dealing with a rape was never easy, not for me anyway. I was always so shit scared of fucking up in front of them, and losing their trust. This girl had just survived something horrific, and I was supposed to have the answers. Tough gig. But I guess I could have been on a building site if I’d wanted. My mind wandered. That’d be the life. But you expect certain things when you speak to a Detective. Like answers, and professionalism. So I held my shit together on the outside, while on the inside I was a nervous wreck, hoping like hell I was going to be the person this girl needed me to be. I introduced myself.

“Kelly, I’m Matthew, a Detective here. Thanks for coming straight in. Let’s get out of this reception area and go somewhere more comfortable.” Kelly followed me and I opened the door, guiding her through, followed by her parents. We chatted a bit and I shook hands with her dad. Late forties, balding, glasses. His eyes were uncertain, searching mine for answers. I explained to the three of them about speaking to Kelly in private, the importance of getting a brief recollection of events from her. We call it a preliminary interview. There isn’t much detail, you just get the basics. I wouldn’t ask many questions or clarify too much, that’d come later when a cognitive interviewer sat her down for a few hours. Tonight I just needed what, where, when, and, if possible, who. The last thing Kelly needed now was to relive it all over again. I needed to get her to a doctor, so I didn’t want to linger here at the station any longer than was necessary.

“Kelly, it’s your call but I’d like it to just be you and me at this stage. If it’s just us, I’m a blank canvas, you can say what you like to me, it won’t get repeated without your say-so. But if your mum and dad are there, you might not say something that’s really important, you know, to protect their feelings about what’s happened.”

That was part of it anyway. The rest was that I knew she wouldn’t tell me everything in front of her parents, because they wouldn’t know the half of what really went on in their daughter’s life. But I sure as fuck wasn’t going to say that in front of them. All three of them nodded, and Kelly’s parents went into the room next door where Dan was all ready to sort them out with the coffee machine.

As they left I looked back at Kelly. She was fifteen. Not much older than Hailey. I felt a brief flash of anger, but suppressed it before it rose and my face gave anything away. Fuck! If anyone ever … I cut away from it though. Hailey’s fine. Focus on Kelly.

“There’s some things that I’d suggest doing, because it allows us the best chance of securing the evidence we need to move forward. But Kelly, these are suggestions, okay? Nothing happens tonight without you. Nobody’s going to force you to choose or do anything. If you want to talk to your parents, or go home, or stop, or you want or need anything, you tell me, right?” She nodded. “We won’t be long here. I want to get you to the doctor. But when did you last eat or drink?”

Easy question. Let’s just get her talking. Build some trust. She found her voice.

“The lady on the phone told me not to eat or drink anything. She was pretty firm about that.”

“Yeah. That’s because there’s a chance some evidence may be washed away if you eat, drink or get changed. But that’s all that is. I’d rather make sure you’re okay right now. How long has it been?”

“I had a drink this morning …”

Fuckin’ hell. “I’ll be right back. One minute.”

Evidence could get fucked for all I cared. At this stage, building a trusting relationship with Kelly was more important than anything else. Fuck that up, and this would go nowhere fast. I went to the kitchen and sent Hailey a text as I went, letting her know I’d be late:

Don’t wait up for me, just

got a job. It’ll probably be

a late one, so I’ll see you in

the morning. I’ll drop you

to school. Love you.

Hailey hated it when I spelled whole words out in my texts. So I did it all the time. I didn’t get War and Peace back though:

Swt

I returned with a glass and a roll someone had left in the fridge. Tough shit for them. Kelly ate and drank. Then I took the prelim. I let her get out what she wanted to get out. I got the what, where, and when, but not the who. I struggled like hell to keep my face neutral, not giving away how I felt.

Kelly had been at a party in Stanmore Bay. Lots of kids, range of ages, fourteen through eighteen. Advertising a party on Facebook could be a whole lot of fun or a recipe for disaster, depending on a number of variables. A lot of older guys there, and everyone was getting pissed. Kelly remembered passing out, waking up to two guys on top of her in a bedroom. She had screamed, tried to push them off. A few people came into the room and got into a fight with the two. They left and Kelly didn’t remember much else. She rang her dad. He came to the party and found her, heading home initially before changing course to the Police Station once Kelly started talking. They’d met Kelly’s mum here.

Right now, the “who” was probably the least important. That’d be easy enough to work out once we started interviewing other people from the party. I called Helen, my Detective Sergeant, and briefed her. She said she’d come in and coordinate the rest that night. The scene needed securing, preserving for tomorrow. There were a lot of potential witnesses to track down too. Me and Dan, however, we were taking Kelly to the on-call forensic doctor at Greenlane. Her parents followed us in their car. It was a pretty long drive, onto the motorway south, cutting through the rural areas and then Silverdale and Dairy Flat.

I hated silence, hated someone sitting awkwardly in the back. It didn’t need to be like that, this shouldn’t be harder on Kelly than it already was. So we talked the whole way about other stuff. The best way to build rapport with someone is to talk about them, and be genuinely interested. Yeah, sounds obvious, but everyone’s shit at it. Kelly was Year Eleven at Orewa College. Decent netballer, shit at science, liked English and history. I was telling her how Dan was a rocket scientist, but I’d been average at pretty much everything.