Web of Deceit Read Online Free PDF Page B

was smoke too, suddenly billowing up, and people started shouting and pushing thisway. I felt the wind of the train coming in, and it blew the smoke everywhere. I turned to head up the stairs myself and I saw the first guy right at the edge of the platform, and then as the train came in he went in front of it. The train driver braked, there was this God-awful screeching, and people rushed up the steps, tripping and falling on each other and screaming.’
    ‘You definitelysaw the man go in front of the train?’ Ella said.
    Furst nodded. ‘I was on the stairs. I saw over the people on the platform edge.’
    ‘Did you see the man with the cap?’
    ‘I can’t really be sure. It happened so fast, and people were shoving me from behind because of the smoke. I tried to stop but couldn’t, and I almost fell.’
    Ella looked at the steps. ‘How far up were you?’
    Furst went up a few and faced the train. ‘About here.’
    Approx five steps , she wrote.
    ‘But you didn’t see the man with the cap anywhere near him?’ Murray said.
    ‘I didn’t see him anywhere,’ Furst said. ‘But maybe he took the cap off.’
    Murray rubbed his chin in silence for a moment. ‘Then what happened?’
    ‘I got pushed along with everyone up the stairs, then managedto get out of the crowd and stop on the next level.’
    ‘Even though you thought there was a fire?’
    ‘I felt bad for the guy.’ Furst glanced at the train again. ‘I knew there was nothing I could do for him. I just wanted to – I don’t know. Tell somebody what I’d seen.’
    Murray nodded.
    Ella could see past the railings along the narrow section of platform to the front of the trainwhere torch beams flashed now and again from officers on the track. Back the other way, Crime Scene had arrived and were examining the smoke device. Between them, the two women and the pair of paramedics waited, the female paramedic checking her watch.
    ‘Did you see the guy with the cap when you were on the upper level, or coming back down?’ Murray asked.
    ‘No. I did look, but I didn’tsee him.’
    ‘All right.’ Murray gave Furst his card. ‘We might be in touch again, and in the meantime please call if you remember anything else.’
    Furst nodded, then went up the stairs two at a time, taking a final glance back at the train before he disappeared on the upper level.
    ‘Bit suspicious,’ Murray said.
    Ella looked up from her notebook. ‘Him?’
    ‘Didn’t you noticehow edgy he was? Tugging his tie all the time?’
    She eyed him. There was keenness and then there was keenness. ‘He’d just seen someone go under a train.’
    Murray shook his head. ‘I reckon it’s more than that.’
    Ridiculous . Ella turned away to look at the other witnesses. The female paramedic was checking her watch again. The male looked tired and pale, and the skin around his eyeswas dark with rubbed-in soot.
    ‘Paramedics next,’ she said.
    Murray called them over and introduced himself and Ella.
    ‘I’m Jane Koutoufides,’ the woman said.
    ‘Alex Churchill,’ the man said.
    ‘You treated the victim earlier today?’ Murray asked.
    ‘His name’s Marko Meixner.’ Jane Koutoufides described how they’d been called to a car accident in Wattle Street thatafternoon, how Marko had claimed to have driven into the pole deliberately to escape someone who was following him, how he’d had the doors locked and was too frightened to get out. ‘We persuaded him it was best to come with us, and he ran to the ambulance and jumped in, then we took him to RPA. I told the nurse there about the things he’d been saying and that I thought he needed a psych assessmentand careful watching, but she put him in the waiting room. That was the last we saw of him until we turned up here to help our boss who’d hurt himself getting down onto the line, and realised it was Marko under the train.’
    ‘What things had he been saying?’ Ella asked.
    ‘That someone was going to get him, that it was dangerous