“This way,” the detective says, guiding me with a hand on the small of my back. He’s holding an umbrella out for me, and rainwater wets his long trench coat.
“How did you know to come?” I ask, looking around, seeing just one fire truck but a barrage of police vehicles.
“We got a tip from someone out of Hong Kong,” he tells me. “That a man on the FBI’s most wanted list was entering Australia. We maintain a cooperative relationship. We’ve been following your father.”
“You could have fucking got here sooner,” I say.
“He lost us in the rain.”
I shake my head, watch as Duncan is driven off.
“What’s going to happen to him?”
“He’s under arrest.”
“Charges?”
The detective shrugs. “We’ll hold him while we analyze the crime scene.”
We reach the ambulance, but the paramedics are busy dealing with Dad’s knee and Bullock’s knife wound.
“I think there may be someone else,” I say. “A fourth man, the driver of the limousine.”
The detective stiffens, pulls out his weapon.
“Here? At the school?”
“Yes, one of my father’s men.”
The detective rounds up the officers to sweep the area. In the commotion I take the gun from Duncan’s jacket and throw it down a sewer grate.
It’s been raining so heavily all night, I can hear the water surging.
The cogs in my mind are whirring, and I’m hoping I’m not making a terrible mistake.
When the detective returns, panting, he tells me that they searched the school but found nobody, asks me if I’m sure.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I think I’m in shock. Are you going to handcuff me?”
“Not if you don’t resist.”
“Then I’ll come willingly,” I tell him.
I just hid a piece of evidence. I’ve got to get this exactly right!
Chapter Forty Five
The man who walks into the room is not the media stereotype of a cop. He’s well-dressed, clean-shaven, in good health for a man in his fifties.
The detective has cleaned up after getting wet in the rain. He obviously keeps a change of clothes at the office.
He smiles warmly at me as he closes the door to the interview room behind him.
I’ve been sitting in this room for four hours, but they’ve put the radio on in the room to keep me awake. It’s now nearly five in the morning, and I haven’t been able to catch a wink. I know they do it for a reason, to get you tired so you might blurt something.
There’s water and food on the table, and I’ve helped myself liberally. If they’re going to keep me up, then I need to keep my strength up.
“Ms. Marino,” he says, looking down at his file and then back up at me. “Deidre Marino?”
I nod.
“We found an image of the real Caroline Sax.”
“Am I being charged?” I ask.
“Not yet.”
“Am I being detained?”
He pauses briefly. “Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Eight hours, but we can get that extended to twelve.”
“And how long can you question me for, legally?”
The man sits down opposite me, and gives me a curt smile. “Four hours.”
“You’re required to give me your identity.”
“Detective Inspector Mike Grayson,” he says. “Would you like to see my identification, Ms. Marino?”
I nod. “Yes.”
He sighs, reaches into his back pocket and pulls out a worn leather wallet. He flips it open, and there I see his badge. He pulls out his identification card and slides it over the desk to me.
I look at it – it’s him.
“I have the right to be told what I’ve been arrested for, Detective Grayson.”
“Ms. Marino, you should know that being hostile is only going to make this last longer.”
“My right to know what I’ve been arrested for, please,” I say. I try to keep my face as calm as possible on the outside, but inside my heart is racing, and my nerves are threatening to undo me.
I remember reading about the process of events when you’re arrested in Australia when I first got to Melbourne, but four months later, my memory is hazy at best.
“Accessory to murder before the fact.”
I swallow. Murder. They must mean Frank.
“What is the maximum sentence?”
“Life imprisonment,” he says. “In Australia.”
“Will I be extradited?”
“You haven’t even been charged yet.”
“So I’m being interviewed as a suspect?”
“Yes,” he says. Then, almost awkwardly, he adds, “Formally.”
I ponder the addition. What’s his angle?