Robertson squatted down beside Graves in front of Angelo's car. "This headlight is new," she told him.
Robertson looked closer and then looked at the other headlight; up this close, he could see now that one had a slightly cloudy appearance from being in the weather. "I believe you're right." He stood up. "Excellent pick up Graves."
"And the paintwork around it isn't a complete match. See here," she pointed. "I'm pretty sure it's the same shade of red, yet it is slightly darker and shinier because it hasn't been in the sun as long as the rest of the car."
He couldn't see a difference but he'd take her word for it. He turned and faced Angelo. "Mr Rosetta, have you had any work done on your car recently?"
"None whatsoever," Angelo stated confidently.
"Thank you Mr Rosetta, you've just given us a reason to have your car impounded."
"What!"
"You forgot to mention the new headlight and paintwork, which has me wondering why you lied."
"Jerk!" Ruby shouted at the retreating figure.
"Ruby, you ok?" asked Joey. She'd just been leaving the Club when she saw Ruby arguing with the guy who was now walking away.
"Yeah I'm fine," she murmured. "It's just my whole life is falling apart," Ruby said with a dramatic sigh.
"Sounds really bad," Joey replied, completely deadpanned.
Ruby grinned at her. "That's exactly the way Charlie reacts to my histrionics, by laughing on the inside."
"Well, I'm just going on my own experiences as a teen and how I used to carry on whenever I thought my life was falling apart." She nodded toward the retreated figure. "So who was that guy?"
"Hugo fucking Austin."
"Oh him."
"I take it you've heard about him then?"
"A few things."
"If they're bad things, they're probably true."
"So why is your life falling apart and what does Hugo have to do with it?"
"Oh, he doesn't really have anything to do with it," Ruby said. "He just bumped into me and spilled my drink all over my top which is just the perfect end to a completely shitty day."
"You want to talk about it?"
Ruby considered Joey's offer. She always spoke to Charlie or Georgie about most things and she still didn't know her sister's girlfriend all that well, but since they were all living together now, it might be nice to have someone else to speak to and Joey had already given her good advice on how to plead her case to Charlie for driving lessons. She got a sudden gleam in her eyes. Joey had been given a clean bill of health so there was no excuse now about not giving her lessons because of her stress levels.
"That would be good," Ruby said to her, already formulating a new argument for driving lessons, only this time, they would be directed at Joey.
Charlie swore under her breath as she watched through the window of the interview room where Angelo had spent the last five minutes lying his arse off. With his car impounded, she hoped the A.I.T. would find something to prove he was lying, starting with confirmation that his car had been repaired recently. Since they'd turned up nothing with the local garages and backyard businesses, Charlie had expanded the search to the city. If Angelo had headed straight there after the accident, then allowing for a few hours to have someone do the work, which with his money, Angelo wouldn't have too much trouble having it done quickly, then Charlie believed he'd have just enough time to get back or have someone else drop off his car, so she'd had Hogan send a description of Angelo's car to other stations.
"What a bastard," Hogan muttered at her side.
"You got that right." She leant forward in interest when Robertson confronted Angelo about his car and what they believed the A.I.T. would find when they examined it more closely.
"Didn't expect him to say that," Hogan said when they heard Angelo finally admit he was involved in the accident.
"Neither did I," admitted Charlie.
"So you're saying that Miss Scott was also with you in the car at the time of the accident?" Robertson said.
Angelo sighed heavily and nodded. "Yeah and it's her fault this all happened."
"Shit," Charlie muttered. She had a sudden uneasy feeling where Angelo was going with his confession.
"How so?" Robertson asked.
"Bianca was the one driving."
"Miss Scott was driving your car?"
Angelo held back his scowl. It was obvious Robertson was buying it but he needed to stick to his guns. "I was upset after being threatened at the diner by John Palmer and so I went for a walk to try and calm down. I ran into Bianca along the way and when she saw how upset I was, she was kind enough to offer to drive me home."
"So you let her drive your car?"
"Like I told you, I was in no fit state, so yeah, I let her drive."
Charlie snorted from the other side of the window. She didn't believe him for a second and now that they could place him and his car at the scene, they still needed to put him behind the wheel.
"Ok, so Miss Scott was driving you home," Robertson said. "Then what happened?"
"This roo, it came out of nowhere," he said dramatically. "Bianca swerved and managed to avoid it, but she'd been unnerved by the whole thing and she never really got the car back under control by the time we saw this other car coming at us."
"The bastard is going to pin it all on Bianca," Charlie thought furiously, just as she suspected he would the moment he said Bianca had been in the car with him.
"I couldn't believe it when she side swiped that car." He shook his head as if recalling a bad memory. "I asked her to pull over so we could help, but she wouldn't and I had to yell at her a few times before she finally did stop and we went back to check on the other car."
It was a good thing she wasn't in the room with him, fumed Charlie, wanting nothing more than to throttle the lying bastard.
"But when we got closer and she saw what she'd done, she panicked and ran back to the car."
"Even though it was just an accident?" Robertson queried.
"I think she may have been drinking."
"You let someone who had been drinking drive you home?"
"She wasn't drunk or anything, I just don't think she thought anyone would believe us about the roo and so would blame the booze." He shrugged. "I mean, she has a bit of a rep and I've already been unjustly accused of hurting my wife that time, so yeah, with the way this town has it in for us, I guess neither of us thought we'd be believed that it was all just a tragic accident."
"Fucking hell," Charlie murmured. She had no doubt that he was lying but with his looks and the right delivery, he might just be able to sell it to a jury, that's if it ever go that far.
"Look, you really should be speaking to Bianca about this, she was the one driving, after all," Angelo said.
"As you're already aware, we're having a little trouble tracking down Miss Scott."
"Well I hope you do find her, because she'll back me up."
"You seem confident of that."
"Because it's the truth."
"That it was all her fault."
"I suppose it's a little unfair to say it's her fault, all she was doing was trying to avoid the roo, but yeah, since she was driving, she was the one who caused Martha's car to go off the road."
"Blood was found at the scene and we know it belongs to a woman, so was Miss Scott injured during the accident?"
Charlie held her breath, wondering how he'd respond. The longer the interview had gone on, the more worried she'd become for Bianca.
Angelo had been practicing the story in his head just in case they did catch up with him, like now. "Not in the accident, no, but in her panic to get back to the car, she slipped and fell and hit her head on a rock or something."
"Did she fall forward or backward?"
Angelo hesitated, letting them think he was remembering the scene before answering. "Backward," he stated empathically. "She was going up the incline when she slipped, so she sort of went like this," he demonstrated for extra effect. "I know I should have stayed or at least called 000, but with everything that had happened that day, I was all over the place, not thinking clearly at all."
"So even though you stopped with the intention of helping Martha and her son, you ended up fleeing the scene and leaving behind a woman fighting for her life and her young son trapped and crying in his seat while you rushed off to have your car fixed."
"Not my finest moment," he said with a self-depreciating smile. "It was dumb, I know, but when Bianca panicked and got hurt, I ended up panicking as well."
"And Miss Scott, how serious was her head wound?"
"She was a bit dazed, but seemed ok."
"Hogan, I want you to take Avery and go around to Bianca's place," Charlie said. "Talk to her neighbours, see if anyone has seen her since yesterday."
"Right Sarge."
"Did you take her to a hospital?"
"No, she didn't want to go, but during the drive to the city, her headache got worse so I dropped her off at a clinic as soon as we got to the city."
"So you had your car fixed while you were there?"
"Yeah, I shouldn't have done that but like I said, I wasn't thinking clearly at all."
"You seemed to have been thinking clearly enough to cover your arse by getting to the city, you lying piece of shit," Charlie muttered.
"We'll need the name of the person who fixed your car," Robertson stated. "And the name of the clinic you left Miss Scott at."
Angelo nodded and wrote down the details for them. "He's a buddy of mine who owns a few garages, but I kind of lied to him about how the car was damaged and told him that I needed it fixed quickly because I didn't want my wife to see it as she'd be pissed I'd dinged her car."
"You could have saved us a lot of time if you'd mentioned all of this when we asked you about Miss Scott earlier."
"I know," he said in a voice full of remorse. "I'm sorry ok, my life seems to be going down the shit lately and I just didn't want any more hassles."
"I'm sure that will be some comfort to her sister who has been worrying about her and to Martha and her family," Robertson said sarcastically. "So you really have no idea where Miss Scott is?"
"She was worried she'd get into trouble, so she might have taken off from the clinic."
"Yet you seemed confident before, that she'd back up your account if we spoke to her, which would mean her having to take all the responsibility."
"Well I don't think she'd lie about what happened once she realises there's no point anymore."
An hour later, Charlie watched Angelo hop into a taxi and leave.
"We've charged him with fleeing the scene of an accident and covering up evidence of an accident, but since he cooperated by giving us the name of the garage and clinic, that may get him some leniency with the DPP," Robertson said.
"What about all his lies?"
"We check out the clinic and garage for any inconsistencies in his story and hope like hell the A.I.T. turns up something in his car so that we can prove he is lying."
"Bianca might be able to help with that," Charlie said, then she sighed. "But going by how sure he seemed she'd back him up, it has me worried." Charlie looked at Robertson. "Worried that he's too confident we won't be able to find her to ask her."