Violent Exposure Read Online Free PDF Page B

was worried about them.’
    ‘What did you do when you saw Suzanne?’
    ‘I froze,’ Bridges said. ‘It didn’t seem real. Then Ithought maybe I could help her and I bent down, but when I touched her her skin was cool and I knew it was too late. I think that’s when I got the blood on my shoes.’
    Forensic examination would help determine if that was true. ‘And then what did you do?’
    ‘I got out my phone and rang triple 0,’ he said. ‘Then some cops turned up and they made me go outside.’
    ‘You stayed in the kitchen all thattime?’
    ‘It was only a couple of minutes, I think.’
    ‘You stood there looking at her for even that long?’ Ella said. Most people ran away as fast as they could.
    ‘I felt like . . .’ He cleared his throat. ‘Like I didn’t want to leave her alone.’
    Ella caught the faint flush spreading across his face. ‘How close were you and Suze?’
    ‘Just, you know, friends. I was friends with both of them.’
    ‘How did you meet?’
    ‘I don’t remember.’
    ‘How long have you been friends?’
    ‘It’s hard to say. Couple of years, maybe.’
    ‘But you don’t remember how you met?’
    ‘I meet a lot of people in my job.’
    ‘So you met them through work,’ Ella said.
    ‘No, I mean . . . I’m always meeting lots of people and I don’t store my friends catalogued in my head by the ways we met.’
    ‘You said you’re a freelance photographer,’Dennis said. ‘What kind of things do you photograph?’
    ‘Whatever I’m paid to do,’ Bridges said. ‘I shoot for magazines, I do a lot of corporate stuff, real estate sometimes. Portraits. Weddings. Whatever.’
    Ella made a note to Google his work. Maybe he had a thing about death.
    ‘You seem much calmer now than when we first met you,’ she said. ‘Why is that?’
    ‘I guess the shock wore off,’ he said.‘You probably see that a lot.’
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘Usually people who find their friends murdered stay pretty upset.’
    Bridges looked at the table. ‘It’ll hit me again later, no doubt.’
    ‘No doubt.’ Ella nudged Dennis’s foot under the table. It was time to leave Bridges alone for a while to think. They got up. ‘We need to check a few things then we’ll come back.’
    Bridges frowned. ‘Do I need a lawyer?’

    ‘What for?’
    ‘I didn’t do anything wrong, you know.’
    Ella smiled at him. ‘Sit tight. We won’t be long.’
    *
    Mick waited in the ambulance on the street. Carly’s car was parked behind him and he wasn’t going to call Control until he got a chance to talk to her.
    When the copper brought him back to the waiting room after giving his statement she’d been sitting there, and she’d jumped up and grabbedhis arm, saying, ‘Are you okay? You’re sure? You’re sure?’, but the next second the cop took her inside to do her own statement and Mick found himself alone.
    The spring night was chilly but his anger made him hot. He stared out the windscreen fuming, ignoring the drunks who staggered past, until at last she appeared. He bumped the horn with his fist.
    She climbed in the passenger seat. ‘Whatkind of pipsqueak idiot arsehole have they got us working with?’
    ‘You should’ve seen him, bragging about it before we got called there,’ Mick said. ‘Holland almost ruptured a nut when I rang him.’
    ‘I bet.’
    ‘Shitty little bastard.’ Mick’s anger rose higher. ‘I can’t believe him.’
    ‘I can,’ Carly said. ‘Some days he does nothing but check out chicks.’
    ‘But to do this?’
    ‘Guys like him can’tkeep it in their pants,’ Carly said. ‘This is it, Micko. If this doesn’t get him sacked, nothing will.’
    ‘I guess.’
    ‘Start your next letter,’ she said. ‘No – go in and see them in Rozelle. They can’t have someone like this in the job. And if they sack him, they might put you on full-time to fill the hole in the roster.’
    ‘You think?’
    ‘Why not?’ she said. ‘What’d Jo say? No, wait – I bet