Blood River

by Tony Cavanaugh

  Well, not all night because at some point – it might have been three or four – I woke up and I was naked and there was something sticky on me, on my breasts where his arms were folded, and I reached across to the light switch in the cabin as he was slumbering hard and strong, his arm gripped around me, and I turned on the lamp to get some light and I saw:

  Blood. My breasts and my chest were covered in blood.

  Dried, partially dried. His? Mine?

  I jumped out of bed and shouted: Are you okay?

  And he woke up and said: Huh?

  He had blood on his hands.

  ‘I have blood on me!’

  ‘Oh yeah. Sorry about that. Let’s go have a shower.’ And he climbed out of bed and his body was crimson and wet. And blood dripped from him as he walked to the shower.

  —

  WHICH IS WHEN Pamela got him to tinnie her back to shore as quickly as possible.

  —

  ‘SO, MILES, TELL us about the blood.’

  ‘There was no blood; what are you talking about? What blood? What are you talking about?’

  ‘The blood, Miles, the blood on your body before you went and showered it off, the blood on the lady you were sleeping with at the time. On your boat. Where you live. November eighteenth. Thursday. Night-time. After you took her back to your boat and before she woke you up.’

  ‘Pamela? Did she fucking dob me in? Fucking bitch. I’m going to …’

  ‘What? Miles? What are you going to do to her?’ I asked.

  I leaned in to him. After less than a year, I was still learning and I certainly wasn’t yet an expert on questioning a person of interest, let alone a suspect. But there was something about Miles and his smugness that riled me. Billy could sense it, I knew, but he let me go. Got to drop the L-Plates some time. And, it was more than Miles. It was the case. Three victims in less than a week. It was the rain, the grey sky, the hammering relentlessness of blood and water, a river rising. It was Damon, it was mum, it was Nils and my stupid decision-making teen years that were coming back to me after I thought I had buried them and started anew. All of this morphed into Miles.

  ‘Miles,’ I said, ‘hear me now and look into my eyes.’

  Billy leaned back in his chair with a feline smile, closing his eyes, as if pretending to sleep.

  Miles stared at my chest with an I-Am-Man-Succumb look and a flick of his tongue across his lower lip, as if I would swoon. ‘Into my eyes, Miles. Not at my chest. Got it? Put your tongue back inside your mouth.’

  He nodded lazily as if he had all the time in the world and there were a thousand girls out the front of the police station, all waiting to strip off and fuck him.

  ‘You keep staring at my chest and I will rip your eyes out. Okay? Got it?’

  ‘And she will,’ said Billy from behind his closed eyes.

  A ripple of anxiety flicked through Miles. He’d got it. Looked up at me. Meanwhile Billy reclined deep back into his chair with his legs stretched out.

  ‘Tell me about the blood,’ I asked.

  ‘That Pamela, she’s a fucking–’

  ‘Stop,’ I said and he did as Billy emitted a snore, soft and low.

  ‘Where did the blood come from?’

  ‘She had her period in the middle of the night and I roll over and I’m awash in blood and I threw her out of bed and dragged her into the shower and the sheets, well, they’re wrecked, so I burn ’em; that’s Pamela for you.’

  ‘We understand you were sailing a few weeks ago.’

  ‘The crime being?’

  ‘We understand you sailed around North Stradbroke Island.’

  ‘Again, the crime being?’

  As we all well knew, there was no crime in sailing around an island, even if it had some resonance with our investigation. But fading resonance; there was no sign of a swamp daisy anywhere near Brian or Fabio. Maybe it had just been a random, unexplained diversion, forever unexplained.

  We let him go. But not back to his boat. We had impounded it and, to add to our over-stretched woes, a forensic team was sweeping through it to see if there were any incriminating DNA matches to the victims.

  —

  WHEN WE RETURNED to our desks, there was a message for me. From Damon.

  Thanks for last night. Great seeing you again. Number three, huh? Good luck catching your killer. He’s out there, waiting for you xxx

  Hey You

  NILS.

  I have found you, you who used to stab me, little bits, a millimetre here and there with your long-bladed knife, pretending it was foreplay, you who subjugated me, Nils, you who suggested I get a full-back tattoo and you who said if you can’t afford to pay for it, fuck him. You said that to me, Nils. More than once because you needed me to affirm you. If I was to be worthy of your love and commitment, I had to mirror the pain.

  And I did what you said.

  But after you sculled a bottle of vermouth, you told me about a drunken rampage years ago in Alotau by some fishing boats, in the middle of the night, because it was fun. You don’t remember that, do you, Nils? Telling me about the night in Alotau. Milne Bay. Be careful what you say, Nils. It might come back to you.

  I have found you, you my lover, my killer, the end of my dreams, I have found you. Living in an apartment close to the beach, in Miami, on the Gold Coast. We are coming to get you Nils.

  Are you my killer? You fit, Nils – Taranis, Ogmios, violence, slicing off a man’s head, bragging about it, from years ago. Nothing to connect you to a swamp daisy but who knows, maybe you’ve visited the island? Who knows?

  We will. Soon.

  —

  ‘GIRLIE, IT’S FOR you.’

  My reverie was broken as Billy leant across the desk with the phone in his hand.

  ‘This is Detective Constable Ocean, how can I can help you?’

  ‘How was Damon?’

  Mum. Talking to her leftover daughter.

  ‘I’m at work. I’m working on a really challenging homicide,’ I whispered, bending over, facing the floor so Billy couldn’t witness my embarrassment.

  ‘That I hardly need to be told. That, I read about every day. Damon told his mother you didn’t like him.’

  ‘Mum! I will call you tonight!’

  ‘You never do. When was the last time you called me? Your brother Ronnie, he calls me every second day.’

  ‘Because he works nine-to-five selling used cars that break down after two weeks.’

  ‘Don’t talk about your brother like that. He’s worried about you too. Spending all this time with dead people rather than your family or finding a suitable man. You know, once you get to thirty, it’s all over.’

  ‘I’m going now. Okay?’

  ‘You’re always going, Gao Yi. Yes, okay. Go.’

  And she hung up on me.

  I handed the receiver back to Billy, who clearly had heard my side of the call. He didn’t say anything, just put the receiver back on its cradle and returned to his Murder Book, adding in more arrows and question marks with his fountain pen. Spindly writing that only he could read. I once again reminded myself I’d made the right decision to stick with him as a partner.

  —

  I WAS BORN Wang Gao Yi.

  Wang is my original Chinese family name and in China the surname always comes first. My dad’s name was Richard Ocean. For a little while I became Yi Wang Ocean but, as the bullying cracked out of control at high school with the Asians attacking me because I was half Anglo and the Anglos, Greeks, Italians, Lebanese and every other non-Asian kid attacking me because I was The Chink, I formed a wall of anger and resentment that took me on a self-destructive road to mayhem and I changed my name. Lara Ocean.

  That’s me.

  Nils

  (I)

  ‘HI NILS, THANKS FOR COMING IN. I’M DETECTIVE INSPECTOR William Waterson and this is Detective Constable Lara Ocean. Lara and I are working a case and we would like to chat to you. We’re hoping you might be able to help illuminate a few things for u
s.’

  ‘Hey Lara.’

  ‘Hey Nils.’

  ‘Long time …’

  ‘… no see.’

  ‘How’ve you been doing?’

  ‘Good. Detective Inspector Waterson is going to ask you some questions,’ I said, deflecting to Billy.

  I had told him some of my history with Nils – that we were lovers, years ago, when I was a kid, that he dumped me, broke my heart – but I didn’t tell him the whole story. He didn’t need it. I said, I probably shouldn’t be in this interview, and he said: Nonsense. Nils gets out of line, I’ll smash his fucking head in. Sorry … ’scuse the French.

  I said: Okay.

  —

  NILS WAS THE same but different. Still over two hundred centimetres tall with serious muscle. New hairstyle, though: a Mohican look, a narrow journey of spike running along the middle of his scalp, the rest shaved. He bristled like he needed to punch the desk every couple of minutes and he smiled non-stop as if to say: I’m a good guy.

  I tried to look away, but he kept staring steadily at me. I didn’t need to ask him if he was still with Rhonda, the girl he dumped me for. I had already checked, before we got him in, before we found him. Rhonda had left him six months after he left me. She came from Hamilton in New Zealand and she was a tall redhead with a razor-cut and she was thin and she had a beautiful body, better than mine. She had dimples and a soft smile. She played the harpsicord; imagine that.

  Rhonda was dead. Smack. Overdose. No-one went to her funeral. No-one. I checked. I rang the crematorium and some guy remembered her: No, no-one, we just got the body. Some cops dumped it in the foyer and left before we had even asked, ‘Who’s this?’ We put her in a cardboard box and incinerated her. Little thing, even though she was quite tall but, you know, in death, we all shrink. She had a pearl ring on her finger. She’s out the back, under a yellow rose bush. Flowering now. Are you family? There was a man who we tried to call. Nils, I think that was his name. We discovered he was her partner but he never called us back. Never paid either. He owes us some money. Not a lot. The cardboard-box funerals are pretty cheap but you know, they still cost … Hello? Are you still there?

  —

  ‘WHY AM I here?’ asked Nils, his pale blue eyes not leaving mine.

  ‘Well,’ said Billy, ‘I’m gonna be up-front and say that you are a person of interest for us in some recent incidents, and thanks for coming in because we want to ask you some questions; is that okay, Nils? A person of interest ain’t no suspect. Alright on that, Nils?’

  I pulled my gaze away and looked at Billy and he looked at me and gave me a nudge, knee to knee with a: Keep it cool, girlie.

  ‘You’re known to like knives, yeah?’

  No response; he kept staring at me, those pale blue eyes, no flinching.

  I stared back.

  ‘Can you tell us where you were on the night of November eighteenth? Last Thursday.’

  After what felt like hours but was, as Billy later told me, ten seconds, Billy leaned into Nils and said:

  ‘Stop staring at her. The next moment I see you staring at my partner – and I know you have history, you two – the next moment I see you staring at her, I’m gonna cave your head in. Okay?’

  Nils leaned back and kept staring at me with those pale blue eyes and I tried not to fall into them and he said:

  ‘Come back to me.’

  And for one crazy moment I wanted to, I wanted to fall into those pale blue eyes. But I could not possibly do that a third time. Not any more Nils.

  And then I heard:

  ‘Turn the fucking cameras off now! NOW!’

  As Billy lurched out of his seat and grabbed Nils by the throat with an ‘I will fucking kill you.’ Nils said: ‘I can’t breathe,’ and Billy said: ‘Great, excellent’ and ‘Those cameras better be off because I am Billy Waterson and you know who I am.’

  He leaned up into Nils’s face, breath to breath and he said:

  ‘I know who you are. You are a fucking viper. You are heroin. You are here to answer questions – Lara, get the fuck out of here.’ And I ran. The last thing I heard as I closed the door to the interview room behind me was:

  ‘I will fucking kill you if you ever, ever attempt to make contact with her. Got it?’

  As he was being throttled, as I fled, I heard: ‘Got it.’

  —

  I DON’T WANT you to think I was a victim. Because I wasn’t.

  I brought the knife into the relationship. I whispered into his mouth: Can I hurt you? and he said: Maybe, not really, what do you mean? And I said: Lie back and close your eyes, and I reached down to the floor and took my flick-knife and said: Tell me how this feels, as I drew the blade across his back, from his shoulder blade to his bum and then I pricked him and said, Fuck me now, and he did and as we both came together I stabbed him even more and there was blood, a lot of blood, and I licked it off him and he said: You are very weird, and I said: Be me.

  I want to say I regret those times, that, now, as a Homicide cop, I am a different person and it’s all behind me. But there are no regrets. That was me, that was then, I will carry it for the rest of my life, a flake of my life. And I sometimes wonder if, like a junkie, I could be triggered back into that dark sex and violence.

  Becoming a cop saved me. Homicide kept me sane and alive. We live and breathe murder.

  —

  ‘SO, WE’RE ALL comfortable?’ asked Billy.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Nils, looking at the floor.

  ‘The recording is back on – we had a little glitch back then, yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes, and so I’m going to retrieve my partner, Detective Constable Lara Ocean. I’m going to get her to return to the interview. Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’

  —

  ‘WE ARE GOING to resume the record of interview with Mister Nils Marnell. Where are you from, Nils?’

  ‘I am currently living in Miami on the Gold Coast.’

  ‘Good, Nils, great.’

  Nils kept looking at the floor. Somewhat abashed. I had always imagined him as a Viking warrior. Unvanquished. As I sat and watched him being subjugated by an old cop with an English accent and the lover he once held in a captive thrall, I couldn’t help but feel a little sad. It was me I was angry at. I was the one who fucked up. I fell into the darkness.

  ‘And I was born in Denmark.’

  ‘Great. Good, thanks for that, Nils,’ Billy said as he slid a sheet of paper across the table. ‘Can you have a look at that for us, Nils? If you wouldn’t mind.’

  ‘Do you recognise that? Nils?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Illuminate us, old mate; what is it?’

  ‘It’s the Celtic symbol for Taranis, the god of thunder,’ he said, keeping his eyes on Billy.

  ‘You wanna take off your shirt for us? Can you do that for us, Nils?’

  The merest eye-flick towards me and he stood, turned his back to us and removed his shirt.

  Stretching from shoulder blade to shoulder blade and from the edge of his neck to the base of his hips was a massive tattoo of Taranis.

  Nils, the god of thunder.

  Fruit Loops

  IN MY SHORT TIME AT HOMICIDE WE HADN’T ENCOUNTERED many big, high-profile cases. Of course, Brisbane being a capital city, there had been some which generated front-page news, which generated anxiety and pressure on the investigating crews. I had observed this from the desk I shared with Billy. Watch and learn. Kristo, our Officer-In-Charge, and even the Commissioner, leaning on them every day to get the media off their backs. Just solve the fucking thing, all right! was the consensus from up high.

  It seemed to me, at times, that the identity of the actual murderer was less the priority to our esteemed Commissioner than the completion of justice. But I would never say that; just do your job and get on with it, Lara.

  And high-profile cases were, as were virtually all homicides in Queensland, crimes driven by big emotion, committed by someone close, som
eone the detectives suspected or, often, knew, from day one. Then it became the hard slog of finding the evidence, the hairs, the fibres, the fingerprints, the DNA from sperm or saliva and matching them to ensure the case didn’t fall apart in court. Motivation was and is important but only part of what is needed to get a conviction. A jury usually doesn’t convict without credible motivation, a body, a link of physical evidence from accused to victim and a proven geographical placement between crime scene and killer. Usually, not always, all these boxes need a tick.

  We had none of that. What we had was three bodies within a week, and one of our biggest gaping holes was motivation. Queensland may have had many unsolved crimes but in each, a motivation lingered like an alluring scent. It was pretty much always to do with a young and attractive woman and a thwarted and angry guy. Or a rainbow’s bucket of money.

  We were also missing a physical link between one of our suspects and the three victims. There wasn’t even a social link between any of them. They lived in totally different spheres, which just went to confirm the randomness of the crime and the lack of motive.

  And then there was the fact that Queensland had never experienced a serial killer. It had seen some extremely violent murderers, such as Tracey Wigginton, but they were an aberration. Serial killers were actually so rare that when I first heard the phrase back around the time I graduated from my criminology TAFE course, I thought it had something to do with murder at breakfast. I’m not kidding.

  Fruit Loops were my guilty pleasure. Dad would often sneak me and my brother a bowl of them, when we lived in Cairns, before he died, before everything in my life went to shit. So now – but I would never tell Billy this, as he and I begin to realise we are investigating such a rarity in the world of murder – I keep thinking about the overly sugary, multi-coloured breakfast cereal.

  I’m not alone. There’s a cop I know, about my age, who works down in Melbourne. Tough and dangerous. Also works Homicide. He told me he had exactly the same reaction as I did.