After an interminable night of broken sleep, woken constantly by shifting blankets and his racing mind, Jake dragged himself to the shower and pledged his undying soul to any being—celestial or demon—who supplied him with decent coffee and a hot breakfast this morning.
Half an hour later, shovelling a spoonful of cold, soggy Weet-Bix into his mouth, he reviewed the growing list of questions he needed to answer. Between Ava O’Brien’s death, the mutilation of both the old woman and Amelia, and now an apparent attack on Mason Campbell, everything looked as though it centred on the girls’ home. He needed to know more about it.
Once Murphy arrived he set the constable on the trail. ‘I need you to find something on that girls’ home. Anything official that shows us who owned it, where the money to run it came from, the origins of the girls in it and where they ended up, how they were schooled …’
‘So not much then,’ Murphy said with a dejected chuckle, slumping his lanky form against a doorway.
‘It seems there were at least ten other girls who passed through there,’ Jake continued, ‘so there have to be records of them. Doctor Gill’—Jake noticed Murphy’s nostrils flare at the mention of the pathologist’s name— ‘can’t find any trace of them, so we need to start looking at Royal Hobart and other Tasmanian hospitals for records of children from the estate.’
‘What will you be doing?’
‘I’ll head over to pick up Liam O’Brien, take him to check out his sister’s house, then to the morgue to formally identify Ava. You checked his alibi?’
‘Yep. Jenny who works behind the bar at the pub said he was there all night drinking, then rented a room upstairs to sleep if off, like he said.’
Jake pinched the end of his still-frozen nose. ‘Any security camera footage to confirm he didn’t go out during the night?’
‘Nope.’
The lack of CCTV and private security webcams in Dunton may have lent the town a homely feel but it was proving an obstacle for Jake’s investigation.
‘Let me know as soon as you turn up anything on those girls or the home?’
‘No problem.’ Murphy stopped shuffling the papers on his desk. ‘Has the boss said when someone from FSST will arrive to help with this?’
‘Not yet. You’d think it has to be today though, right?’
*
At Jake’s insistence, Liam O’Brien wandered around his sister’s house wearing a pair of gloves. He appeared unable to control his impulse to touch everything he walked past. If this was his normal behaviour, his fingerprints and possibly DNA would be on most items in the public areas of the house.
‘Mr O’Brien, would you agree to us taking a blood or DNA sample from you at the hospital, to help us exclude any DNA we find here that belongs to you?’
O’Brien shrugged. ‘Of course.’
‘You mentioned Ava kept files from the girls’ home here,’ Jake said. ‘Could you show me where?’
‘Like I said, probably in her sewing room, but I’m not certain exactly where.’
‘You’ve had a good look around the house now—do you think anything is missing or out of place?’
‘I don’t know about missing, but she certainly had a tidy up after I left on Wednesday night.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘It’s not that she ever let the place go, but there were usually dishes in the sink. That kind of thing.’ He took in the bare kitchen benchtops with a sweep of his hand. ‘She spent so much time sewing these days.’
Jake really needed the FSST team to process the house. ‘Might she have been expecting an important visitor?’ he asked.
‘Other than me?’ He shook his head.
Jake would have to ask Charlotte, Ava’s other regular visitor, about the usual state of the house. ‘Ava might have had friends you didn’t know about,’ Jake said.
O’Brien’s expression disagreed.
‘When we went through Ava’s diaries, we couldn’t find any reference to what was happening during the years she ran the girls’ school. You must know something?’
‘I already told you everything I know about the place.’
For someone who was yesterday demanding that Jake uncover what happened to his sister, O’Brien wasn’t being particularly helpful. Now was the time to push him.
‘Mr O’Brien, I need to ask you about something the doctor discovered when she was examining Ava.’
‘All right?’
‘Ava had had some unusual surgery in the past.’
O’Brien looked at him blankly—not a flicker of interest.
‘Surgery on her genitals. Do you know why?’
O’Brien’s eyebrows shot up. ‘I don’t get involved in women’s business,’ he said. ‘Nothing to do with me.’
‘Was your sister ever seriously ill? Perhaps with cancer?’
‘She was perfectly healthy all her life, as far as I know.’
‘Was there a time when she went to hospital and you didn’t know why? Perhaps on one of her trips to the mainland?’
‘I told you, she was just visiting friends. Why are you interrogating me about her? She was a good woman who never caused any trouble. Why would you mention her private business like this? It’s disrespectful.’
‘I’m trying to work out how your sister died,’ said Jake through gritted teeth. ‘How she ended up in the middle of a vineyard in the dead of night. You want me to find out, so why aren’t you helping me by telling me more about Ava?’’
‘Not trying to be difficult.’ O’Brien waved a hand across his eyes. ‘I do want you to find out. Only I don’t know. You should be asking …’
‘Asking who?’
‘Well, I don’t know! Not me!’
‘Right. Well, if there’s nothing that’s caught your eye here, let’s head to the hospital.’
*
As he drove along the twisting dirt road into the mountain’s embrace, Jake felt a sense of relief wash through him as he broke through the fog line into bright sunshine, heading for the antiseptic atmosphere of the district hospital.
Finally, an hour of biblical epithets and scriptures later, Jake pulled into the car park. If nothing else, O’Brien’s commitment to his religion was certain.
‘Mr O’Brien,’ Jake said once they had reached the entrance, ‘once you’ve had a chance to see Ava I’m going to need you to formally identify her; to say aloud if it’s her that you see. Do you understand?’
Liam O’Brien pursed his lips and nodded.
‘It’s her,’ he said, seconds after Meena Gill led them in to the viewing room.
Meena, or someone who worked with her, had cleaned Ava’s face and combed back her hair to make her look more as she would have in life. Jake and Meena stepped to the corner of the room behind Liam leaving him to quietly mourn his sister. He murmured passages from the Bible at her still form.
‘I had an opportunity to perform a CT scan this morning,’ Doctor Gill said to Jake in a low voice, flicking her eyes toward Ava O’Brien’s body.
‘Was it what you thought?’
The doctor nodded, though she obviously shared Jake’s discomfort at discussing the mode of Ava O’Brien’s death in front of Ava’s brother.
In the centre of the room, Liam O’Brien unexpectedly began lifting the sheet covering his sister just enough to slip one hand underneath.
‘No!’ Meena stormed to the examination table. ‘What are you doing?’
Before she could stop him O’Brien pulled Ava’s hand from under the sheet and clutched it in both of his. ‘But she—’ He stared at her fingertips. ‘Bloody hell!’ He dropped her hand and it flopped bonelessly against the side of the stainless-steel slab.
O’Brien staggered back two steps. Jake rushed forward to catch him under the armpits before he fell, but he steadied himself.
‘Mr
O’Brien?’
O’Brien’s face had blanched ghostly grey. ‘I’m all right, I’m all right. You didn’t say anything about her hands.’
‘We haven’t released that information yet,’ Jake said, aiming for the right balance of stern and commiserating. ‘It’s vital that you don’t tell anyone else about that detail.’
O’Brien stared vacantly into Jake’s eyes, the muscles on each side of his jawbone pulsing as he clenched and unclenched his teeth.
Jake had seen that look before, usually in the interview room when he had worked at Internal Affairs. It was the look of someone hurriedly calculating their next move. Liam O’Brien had just placed himself in Jake’s sights.
Doctor Gill quickly replaced Ava’s hand under the sheet and turned to Liam. ‘Mr O’Brien?’ Meena grasped his elbow. ‘Would you like a seat?’
Maintaining eye contact with Jake, the old man batted her away. ‘Don’t touch me,’ he snapped. ‘Bloody darkies,’ he whispered to Jake.
Jake looked to Meena, his eyes wide with discomfiture. He was torn between admonishing O’Brien on her behalf and taking advantage of the old man’s current state of shock. Should he censure O’Brien?
Doctor Gill turned on one heel and stalked out of the room.
Damn it. He’d hesitated too long. He’d apologise to her the minute he next saw her. For now, he needed to pursue his case.
Jake adopted his harshest voice. ‘You know who did that to your sister, don’t you?’
O’Brien looked down and shook his head.
Jake wasn’t convinced. ‘You clearly know more than you’re saying.’
O’Brien put both hands over his chest. ‘I don’t feel well.’
Jake decided to play along and see how genuine this threatened heart episode was. ‘Good thing we’re in a hospital then,’ he said mildly. ‘I’ll ask Doctor Gill to call a team for you straight away—get you hooked up to a heart monitor.’
O’Brien’s hands dropped to his side and he stood back. ‘I’m sure I’ll be fine. I … er … Mason Campbell’s here, isn’t he?’
Jake cocked his head to one side. ‘Yes.’
‘He could probably do with a visit.’
Wondering why the sight of Ava’s fingers would lead O’Brien to want to see Mason Campbell, Jake led the old man out of the morgue toward the elevators.
Unless he was a consummate actor, O’Brien had been shocked by the sight of his sister’s hand, which made it unlikely he was responsible for the state of them. But the rest of his reaction was far less grief than that of someone whose world had just been shaken.
‘You mustn’t tell anyone about what you just saw,’ Jake said as the lift doors opened.
O’Brien wasn’t paying attention to Jake anymore—he was shaking his head and talking to himself. ‘I thought she’d just gone for a wander, thought she’d done something silly. I didn’t think …’
They stepped into the elevator and Jake pressed a button to take them to the general ward. ‘Didn’t think what, Mr O’Brien?’
‘Nothing, nothing.’
‘Liam?’
‘I didn’t realise there was anything unnatural about it.’
Unnatural? That was one way to describe your sister being tortured and killed. Once again, Liam O’Brien seemed more preoccupied than grief-ridden.
Jake’s phone rang as they entered Mason Campbell’s room. He stepped away from Campbell’s bedside into the corner of the room, leaving Mason to talk with O’Brien.
‘You left?’ Meena Gill said. ‘I still need to talk to you.’
A pang of guilt gripped Jake’s ribcage. ‘I’m sorry, I’m following up on something,’ he said. ‘I’m in Ward 6B.’
‘I’ll come straight up.’
It struck Jake that he had an opportunity here, albeit an ethically debatable one … bugger it. He was on to something and he needed to take advantage of it.
His back still turned to both men, he continued talking into his phone after Meena hung up, edging toward a series of shelves on the wall. He glanced at the two men, who seemed immersed in their conversation with each other. Putting his phone on silent and then voice record, he placed it between piles of magazines on the lowest shelf, making it invisible from the vantage point of Mason’s bed.
Anything his phone recorded would be inadmissible as evidence, but it might help him to ask some more pointed questions. Jake had never admitted to anyone that he used this tactic occasionally, though he assumed other detectives did as well.
‘I need to step outside to speak to one of the doctors,’ he said to Campbell and O’Brien.
‘Sure, sure,’ Campbell waved at him dismissively from his bed.
‘And I’ll need to take a statement from you when I return,’ he said, picking up a magazine from the shelf as he left the room.
‘Not like I’m going anywhere,’ Campbell said.
*
Meena Gill strode up the corridor and flashed him a smile as they met. ‘I wanted to talk to you properly.’
Shame over not having stood up for her in the viewing room prodded Jake’s conscience. ‘Listen, I’m sorry I didn’t tell O’Brien off for …’
‘I got it,’ she cut him off. ‘You needed to take advantage of his surprise.’
‘It was still wrong of me.’
She fixed him with a glare. ‘Let’s move on. It wasn’t just shock at the sight of her hand, was it? He looked more like he’d seen a ghost.’
‘My thoughts exactly.’ Jake hoped O’Brien was on the other side of the wall telling Campbell all about it right now. ‘So, what were you able to find this morning?’
‘I ran Ava O’Brien through a CT scan and yes, she has extensive tissue damage around C4, 5 and 6. Along with the bruising around her neck and petechial haemorrhaging, it looks like she’s been strangled by someone with their bare hands.’
Chapter Nine
District Hospital
Monday, 2.24 p.m.
‘Were there any other injuries that you could see?’ Jake asked Meena.
‘No.’
‘How strong would the person have to be to do that?’
‘She’s quite small with frail bones, so even someone of average strength could cause fractures.’
‘Detective Hunter?’
Max Campbell shuffled toward them down the gleaming corridor floor, carefully holding two foam cups in front of him. Looking past the man’s tanned skin and chiselled jawline, Jake could see the shadow of worry in his eyes.
‘We’ll talk again soon?’ Jake said to Meena.
She smiled warmly. ‘Definitely,’ she said as she turned away.
‘Let me get that for you,’ Jake pushed open the door to Mason’s room with one hand, raising the magazine he was holding in the other to shepherd Max through. Mason lay in bed and Liam sat in the visitor’s chair. Both were silent.
‘Sorry, Mr O’Brien, didn’t realise you were here,’ Max said. ‘Would’ve gotten one for you too.’
‘About time,’ his father said.
Liam O’Brien waved a hand toward the steaming cups of black coffee. ‘That’s okay, I don’t drink it. Can’t stand the stuff, actually.’
Jake nonchalantly positioned himself between the shelving and the room’s occupants. He then replaced the magazine on the shelf and simultaneously retrieved his phone from its hiding place, slipping it into his jacket pocket. Criminals weren’t the only ones who practised sleight-of-hand. He then turned toward O’Brien and the Campbells and pulled the phone out, deftly switching off the recording function and turning the sound back on. It rang immediately.
‘That’s the trouble with people these days,’ Campbell said, blowing on his coffee, ‘always on those bloody portable phones.’
‘Murphy?’ Jake said.
‘Dad, they’re called mobile phones,’ Ma
x said.
‘They’re portable, aren’t they?’ his father replied.
Jake put his finger in the ear that didn’t have a phone pressed to it.
‘… in St John of God who knows anything about the girls’ home,’ Murphy said. ‘Can’t find records on the girls either, but the boss said maybe they’ve all been archived somewhere on the mainland?’
Campbell stabbed a thumb toward his son. ‘This one’s on his day and night,’ he said to O’Brien.
‘I’ve explained to you,’ Max said. ‘Karen’s is unwell, I’m usually checking on her. And the rest of the time I’m taking care of business. Someone has to.’
Jake turned his back on them to concentrate. It didn’t make any sense. How could ten or more girls go through the home before Amelia and Charlotte without leaving a record? The church and the government should have extensive records of the home and the girls who had lived there.
‘Keep looking.’
‘I rang to let you know FSST called.’ The constable sounded grumpy. ‘They will send a team on Friday.’
Any biological evidence at the crime scene should be nicely degraded by then. ‘Better late than never,’ he said. ‘Thanks, Murphy.’
The phone line went dead.
He addressed the man lying in bed. ‘Mr Campbell, I need to ask what you remember from yesterday.’
The wrinkles on Campbell’s face shifted into a scowl. ‘I was in the kitchen making tea because this one’—he stabbed a thumb at his son again, causing the coffee in his other hand to slop over the side of the cup and on to the sheets on his lap—‘was on the phone instead of looking after me. Next thing I know, I wake up here. Max said you’re the one who found me?’
‘It appears that you either fell over backwards and hit your head on something—maybe the corner of the table—or someone hit you from behind.’ Jake had wondered about the freshly washed pan on the side of the kitchen sink. Would anyone be so casual as to smack Campbell on the back of the head with it then take the time to wash away any blood spatters while Mason lay on the floor nearby? ‘Can you think of someone who might have reason to attack you?’
The Great Divide Page 11