Harper, Jane - The Dry by Harper Jane

Author:Harper, Jane [Harper, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Published: 2016-02-15T05:00:00+00:00

‘He’s in there.’

Falk peered through a thick glass panel in the door into the station’s sole interview room. Jamie Sullivan sat at the table staring miserably into a paper cup. The farmer seemed somehow smaller than when they’d been sitting in his living room.

Falk had felt guilty leaving Gretchen in the park. He’d wavered as she’d looked him in the eye and said it was fine. He hadn’t believed her, so she’d given him a smile and a push towards his car.

‘Go. It’s OK. Give me a call.’

He’d gone.

‘What’ve you found?’ Falk asked Raco. The sergeant told him and Falk nodded, impressed.

‘It was there in plain view the whole time,’ Raco said. ‘It just slipped through the cracks with everything else happening that day.’

‘Yeah, well, it was a busy day. Especially for Jamie Sullivan, it seems.’

Sullivan’s head shot up as they entered. His fingers were clenched around his cup.

‘Right, Jamie. I want to make it clear to you that you’re not under arrest,’ Raco said briskly. ‘But we need to clear up a couple of things we talked about the other day. You remember Federal Agent Falk. We’d like him to sit in on this chat, if you’re willing for that to happen?’

Sullivan swallowed. He looked back and forth, not sure what the right answer was.

‘I suppose. He’s working for Gerry and Barb, right?’

‘Unofficially,’ Raco said.

‘Do I need my lawyer?’

‘If you like.’

There was a silence. Sullivan’s lawyer, if he even had one, probably spent fifty weeks of his year dealing with property disputes and livestock contracts, Falk thought. This could well be fresh territory for him. Not to mention the cost per hour. Sullivan seemed to come to the same conclusion.

‘I’m not under arrest?’

‘No.’

‘All right,’ Sullivan said. ‘Just bloody ask. I’ve got to get back.’

‘Good. We visited you two days ago, Jamie,’ Raco began. ‘To talk to you about the day Luke, Karen and Billy Hadler died.’

‘Yes.’ There was a fine sheen of sweat on Sullivan’s upper lip.

‘And during our visit, you told us that after Luke Hadler left your property at about 4.30 pm, you stayed behind. You said –’ He checked his notes. ‘I stayed on the farm. I did some work. I had dinner with Gran.’

Sullivan said nothing.

‘Is there anything you want to say to us about that at this point?’

Sullivan swivelled his eyes between Falk and Raco. He shook his head.

‘OK,’ Raco said, and slid a piece of paper across the desk. ‘Do you know what this is?’

Sullivan’s tongue darted out and ran over his dry lips. Twice. ‘It’s a CFA report,’ he said.

‘Yep. You’ll see here on the date stamp it’s from the same day the Hadlers died. Every time the firefighters are called out, they log one of these. In this case, they were responding to an emergency alert. You can see that here.’ Raco pointed to typed lines on the paper. ‘And below, the address they were called to. Do you recognise the address?’

‘Of course.’ A long pause. ‘It’s my property.’

‘According to the summary –’ Raco picked up the report.

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