Violent Exposure Read Online Free PDF Page A

thanks.’ Dennis reached in and hauled on the weeping man’s arm.
    Ella put theyoung paramedic in the front of her car. ‘What’s your name?’ she said.
    ‘Aidan Simpson.’
    He was lean and smooth-skinned, with black hair cropped short around the back and longer at the front. She could smell his cologne. She knew his type, had seen it a million times in the young guys who joined the cops at least partly to impress girls with their uniform and their guns. Paramedics could be evenmore appealing with the whole caring thing they had going on.
    She started the car and turned it around. He sat with his hands between his knees like a little boy. Just a trainee. She wondered if there were rules about relationships between paramedics and patients like there were between cops and victims. Not that a one-day stand really counted as a relationship. But still.
    The streets were quietand the station wasn’t far and she followed Dennis’s tail-lights and let Aidan stew in the silence.
    They were almost there when he said, ‘She came onto me, you know.’
    ‘It’s best you don’t say anything now.’
    ‘What am I, a suspect?’
    ‘Why would you ask that?’
    ‘Suspects get that Miranda warning thing.’
    ‘And have I recited that to you?’
    ‘You said it’s best not to talk. Same difference.’
    Shegave him a cool smile and parked in the police-only zone outside the station. Dennis was already walking inside with the slump-shouldered friend. Aidan got out and pushed his hands deep into his trouser pockets. The ambulance drove up and Ella indicated to Mick that he should park behind her, then she pointed out the path to the waiting room at the front of the station.
    Inside the station, sheput Aidan in an interview room. ‘Wait here.’
    Dennis had taken the friend to another interview room.
    ‘He say anything?’ Ella asked.
    Dennis shook his head. ‘Just cried. I cautioned him anyway.’ He dug in his pocket for the slip of paper with the other paramedic’s information on it. ‘You want to phone her while I get us set up?’
    ‘Will do.’
    But first she went to the waiting room. Mick sat onthe low chair with his elbows on his knees, the posture of a man whose worries hung on a too-thin strap around his neck.
    Ella said, ‘I’m about to call Carly. I won’t say much about why we want her to come in, so if you’re here when she arrives, please don’t tell her anything.’
    He nodded.
    ‘We’ll have somebody take your statement as soon as we can. Meantime, can I get you a coffee?’
    He shookhis head. ‘Thanks anyway.’
    She went out, letting the door close gently between them.
    In the main office, she sat at a vacant desk and pulled the phone close. It was just after one in the morning.
    ‘Hello?’ Sleepy.
    ‘Carly Martens?’
    ‘Yes.’ Alert now.
    ‘This is Detective Ella Marconi calling from Kings Cross police station. We need you to come in and make a statement regarding a homicide.’
    ‘Did Mick put you up to this?’
    ‘I can give you the station number and you can call me back if you want,’ Ella said. ‘Mick is here, actually.’
    ‘What? Is he okay?’
    ‘He’s fine. He’ll be giving a statement too.’
    ‘Christ, it must be Aidan then,’ Carly said. ‘Is he okay?’
    ‘Fine,’ Ella said. ‘Can you come in? Now?’
    ‘Sure, yes. The Cross?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Twenty minutes.’
    Ella was hanging up when shesaw a familiar figure hurry past the door. ‘Detective Peter Hepburn, how are you this lovely morning?’
    He came back. ‘Hey, Ella. Where’s this briefing at?’
    ‘You live too close. Nobody else is here yet,’ she said. ‘Take a couple of statements for me in the meantime?’
    ‘Sure.’
    She explained about Mick and Carly, and left him to it.
    She found Dennis waiting outside the interview room, and glancedthrough the window in the door to see the friend lifting a polystyrene cup in a shaking hand.
    She opened the door and they went in.
    Dennis began by cautioning