There Is More Light Than Dark

Chapter Eleven

Friday July 8

Detective Sergeant Dean McCoy studied the small, washed-out house he'd been called to the night before. It was an unrenovated 1950's bungalow, slowly thawing to the dull, dense grey Melbourne winter days sometimes conspire to. Plain in a suburban sense; smelt of stuffy washing and cheap, quick cook ups. The place was small but it felt like it had less light than it should have. He'd been to much more graphic and obscene versions of suspicious death but even though this was placid and orderly something just didn't fit.

He walked slowly from the front door, counting his steps without thinking about it, humming a tune which worked like a metronome for his calculations and his thinking. Harper Lewis had already gone in, inviting herself to be ahead of the cruve, and outside the instruction of McCoy first thing in the morning. Her night before had been rough, just as she had expected. She carried the brown satchel tight on her hip.

McCoy noticed the dingy lounge off to the side of the entry had those pizza boxes he'd noticed the afternoon before that gave him a slap of familiarity and the musty, marked linen couch that automatically went with them in houses like these. He stepped just inside the yellowing plaster archway and looked – it felt unremarkable. He strolled through to the kitchen, a sink of dishes rinsed but not washed and cupboard doors all shut. He crouched and opened a few of them, noting the bin half full. He sat that on the bench whilst he opened a few more. Plates, pans, glasses. Damp shelves here and there – lived in and predictable. This is how it all should feel. He took out a bread knife and poked through the bin. Meat scraps, wrappers, half a passionfruit shell. Dean McCoy wasn't even sure what he was looking for, but it wasn't in the bin. He thought about calling Lewis down from where she had called out to him from a bedroom down the hall but he wanted some time to himself first.

The interview the night before had worried him. The young man that sat across from him was smart, he could tell that much. He was the sort of kid he'd dealt with many times – middle class private school sort who had the arrogance to feel they were better than him and enough smarts to back it up. His answers fit well enough but it was the way he was too.... prepared that just caught his attention. And he could feel Lewis and Vincent having an almost decipherable conversation without speaking. McCoy had already checked that they hadn't crossed each other's paths around school – she was three years older than him but just something about the both of them and the way they'd looked and even smiled – McCoy couldn't shake the feeling that trust wasn't something he should be dishing out right now.

Of course, he would never consciously entertain the thought that it was where they were from as much as what they did or didn't do that formed the basis of his crushing bias. But old habits die hard.

McCoy wandered down to the bedroom where the sheets still lay askew. He saw Lewis looking out of the bedroom window as he walked in.

'Hey, Detective.' Lewis gave a polite and slightly too cheery greeting.

McCoy nodded and proceeded to walk over to the side of the bed where the body had lain the previous evening.

The imprint of Avery's last living position shadowed her side of the bed. The glass had been dusted and taken, as well as the contents of what had sat atop her side table. He sat on her side of the bed and put his head down. It had been a few years now since he'd remotely mourned these sorts of occasions. For some time the challenge of not worrying about it all had been a greater pull than trying to make sense of it. Of course it was pointless, the loss of a life like Avery Prosser's, but he wasn't paid to care and he no longer had the moral fortitude to do it pro bono.

He could feel Lewis watching his every move.

He was thankful she couldn't hear his every thought.