The Great Divide

by L. J. M. Owen

  As Jake pulled up in front of the Campbell’s gate, Kelly jumped out to swing it open. The screech as it begrudgingly scraped on rusty hinges sent a discomforting buzz up Jake’s spine.

  Max Campbell answered the door and waved them in, then continued speaking into the phone held close to his ear. ‘I have to go. The police are here. Take it easy today, please? Love you. I’ll call you later.’

  ‘My wife,’ he explained, showing them through to the kitchen. ‘Dad’s in here. Have you found his attacker?’

  ‘We’re here in relation to something else, Max.’

  The blonde man looked askance at Jake’s serious tone as he sat down at the table opposite his father. Jake was struck yet again by the similarity of their silhouettes.

  ‘What’s happened now?’ Max asked. ‘I have a feeling it means I’m going to be delayed here even longer.’

  ‘Mr Campbell,’ Jake said to his father. ‘We’re here to speak to you about the girls who used to live in the home next door.’

  ‘Why?’

  Jake stared hard at the old man, suppressing any emotion that tried to break through his professional demeanour. ‘Mr Campbell, we have reason to believe that you attacked at least one of them, possibly more.’

  ‘What do you mean, he attacked one of the girls?’ Max asked.

  ‘For goodness sake, haven’t you found the numbskull who hit me over the head yet?’ Campbell was his usual pleasant self. ‘Why aren’t you out there looking for them?’

  ‘We’re working on it,’ Kelly said.

  He seemed to have a calming effect on Campbell. ‘What does it matter what some girl says?’

  ‘It matters a great deal,’ Jake said. ‘Did you attack any of the girls in the home next door?’

  ‘Dad, did you?’ Max asked urgently.

  ‘Of course not. I took care of them. I was their first.’

  ‘Their first what, Mason?’ Kelly said.

  ‘Their first.’

  First … a university lecture on the laws of ancient Britain flashed into Jake’s mind. He stood up and walked to the enormous sideboard in the manor’s foyer and retrieved a bottle. The others were staring at him as he returned to the kitchen.

  He held the wine label out to the gathering. ‘Primae.’

  ‘Huh?’ Max said.

  ‘First. As in jus primae noctis, the right of first night.’

  Mason Campbell cackled madly.

  He had told everyone exactly what he was—displayed it in plain sight—but no one had picked up on it. Evelyn had been right the first day they had all met in this godforsaken manor. Campbell had always been a brute.

  ‘You get it,’ Campbell said.

  ‘I’m still lost,’ Max said.

  Jake cleared his throat. ‘It’s supposedly an old custom from Europe. The lord of a region had the first rights to sex with any girl who lived on his lands.’

  It appeared Mason Campbell had thrown himself into the role of ‘lord of the manor’ believing he could keep the girls in the home as chattel—his property in exchange for housing the O’Brien’s racket.

  Max glared at his father in horror. ‘Tell me you didn’t rape those girls.’

  Campbell shook his head. ‘Not rape. They didn’t put up any fight at all.’

  ‘That’s because they were drugged unconscious,’ Jake said between gritted teeth.

  ‘They were showing their gratitude.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Max yelled as he shot to his feet, knocking over his chair in the process.

  ‘I put a roof over their heads, I paid for their food.’ He shrugged. ‘It’s not as though they were of value to anyone else. They were bastards.’

  Max stood with his arms crossed, mouth gaping open. ‘I … You …’

  ‘To be clear,’ Jake said to Campbell, ‘you conspired with Liam and Ava O’Brien to keep children on your property out of the schooling system and raised them specifically to sexually abuse them.’

  ‘That stupid cow didn’t know what we were up to!’ Campbell said.

  ‘Ava O’Brien didn’t know that you were attacking the girls?’ Kelly said.

  ‘She muttered her prayers and Bible verses all the time and couldn’t see what was right in front of her.’

  ‘So Liam O’Brien drugged the girls, then you raped them and pulled out their fingernails?’ Jake managed to keep his voice steady.

  ‘They didn’t have any bloody fingernails when I got to them—they’d already been taken out. It spoiled things a little, to be honest.’

  That didn’t make sense either. ‘So Liam O’Brien removed their fingernails? Did you ever see him do that?’

  ‘Who else would have done it?’

  Jake was almost certain Liam O’Brien hadn’t been involved in the removal of the girls’ nails, although he certainly had known who was. But if it wasn’t O’Brien or Campbell, or from the sounds of it Ava, that would mean there was a fourth person involved in the abuse of the girls.

  ‘What happened when the girls became pregnant?’

  It was a long shot, but Jake might still be able to track down Lilith’s son for her.

  ‘O’Brien’s sister always took care of them.’ Campbell shook his head. ‘So gullible. O’Brien would tell her they went out like cats on heat the moment she left, and she always believed him.’

  Jake didn’t accept that for a second. Ava O’Brien knew the girls were being drugged and attacked under O’Brien’s care and she turned a blind eye.

  ‘And once the girls gave birth?’

  ‘We’d get rid of them, mostly.’

  ‘What?!’

  Max Campbell’s shriek mirrored the distress Jake was feeling. Max started compulsively rubbing his hands over his face as if trying to awaken from a nightmare. Rather than give in to his silent rage, Jake used it to focus on the interview.

  ‘You took at least one of the girls to St Kilda and dumped her there, didn’t you?’

  Campbell shrugged. ‘That part of it wasn’t my problem. I paid O’Brien to take care of things. He’d tell Ava he’d found a family who wanted to adopt them, then take them across the Strait and leave them somewhere on that side.’

  Max Campbell grabbed at the table. ‘That’s where Mum’s money went! You were spending it all on this depraved child abuse!’

  ‘How many?’ Jake asked.

  ‘How many what?’

  ‘How many girls did you rape then dump across the Strait?’

  The casual expression on Campbell’s face as he made mental calculations tore through Jake’s brain.

  ‘Maybe ten.’

  ‘And when they got pregnant, what happened to their babies?’

  Campbell’s face grew sly.

  Jake’s stomach sunk. What had happened to Lilith’s son?

  ‘There weren’t many. Only five or six.’

  ‘What happened to them?’

  ‘O’Brien’s sister would birth them, then tell the girl they had died.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘What does it matter? It all happened so long ago.’ His voice became nostalgic. ‘And they didn’t have any real value.’

  Jake’s blood ran cold. ‘Did you sell them?’

  ‘That’s what we told O’Brien’s sister.’

  ‘But it’s not what you did?’

  ‘I’m the lord of this manor.’

  ‘What exactly does that mean?’

  ‘I paid for their mothers, I created them from my own seed. They were mine to do with as I pleased.’

  ‘What did you do with the babies?’ Max Campbell thundered.

  ‘I put them to work.’

  ‘Work? Where?’

  ‘In the vineyard.’

  ‘You’ve never had any children working in the vineyard,’ his son argued. />
  ‘They’ve been helping me all along.’

  As if in slow motion Max Campbell drew a deep, ragged breath, exhaled, then righted his chair and slowly sat at the table. He put his head in his hands, then after a few moments raised it to look at Jake. ‘I’ll help you in any way I can to sort out what happened to the children who passed through here.’ He looked from Jake to Kelly. ‘But I think it’s obvious my father is suffering from dementia. There’ve never been any children in that vineyard. He was always obsessed with keeping children out.’

  ‘They’re out there right now,’ Campbell senior insisted. ‘It’s why those vines will make gold-medal wine.’

  A smile of relief hovered on Max Campbell’s lips. ‘See?’

  ‘Mason,’ Kelly said. ‘Where are the children?’

  Campbell pointed out the window toward the vineyard. ‘Out there.’

  ‘Specifically, where?’

  ‘In the vineyard …’

  ‘He’s clearly mad,’ Max said.

  ‘… I can’t quite remember where each of them is,’ his father continued. ‘I buried them in random rows.’

  Max recoiled, his mouth dropping open.

  ‘It was the best way for them to serve me,’ Campbell gloated. ‘I sacrificed my own flesh and blood in exchange for the finest grapes in existence. They would have been proud to give up their lives for their progenitor’s fame and glory.’

  Max looked as though he wished the ground would swallow him whole. ‘But … I had brothers and sisters … and you killed them!’

  His father dismissed him with a wave of one hand. ‘They were only bastards,’

  ‘What kind of sick—’ Max’s face twisted with outrage. ‘What are you?’

  ‘It’s a shame though,’ Mason’s voice was snide.

  Max bit. ‘What is?’

  ‘Some of them were boys,’ Mason Campbell sneered at his son. ‘Might have turned out to be better sons than you.’

  Jake stood up. ‘Mason Campbell, you are under arrest on suspicion of the rape and murder of multiple children under the age of sixteen.’ He pulled the cuffs from his belt. ‘You do not have to say anything further, but if you do, it may be used in evidence against you.’

  ‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

  Jake felt a chill; the bent old man sitting at the table actually believed he was within his rights. He pulled Campbell to his feet, gathered his fragile wrists behind him and snapped on the restraints.

  Kelly had moved to stand next to Max. ‘So, O’Brien and Campbell were both involved in this from the beginning. I guess your hunch was correct, Hunter. Solid work …’

  ‘No worries.’ Jake wasn’t sure how else to respond.

  ‘I suppose it was Campbell who killed Ava to silence her,’ Kelly continued. ‘Then when O’Brien realised who’d done it he attacked Campbell here in the kitchen, and finally Campbell decided to end it once and for all by killing O’Brien.’

  That wasn’t a theory Jake had put to his superior officer. Where was Kelly headed with this?

  ‘Aiden! I never touched Ava or Liam, you know that.’ Campbell remained indignant.

  ‘No, Mason, I don’t know that,’ Kelly said slowly. ‘What I do know is I let my personal relationship with both of you blind me.’ He looked at the ceiling. ‘That I could have spent time under your roof, and even brought my family here. It sickens me.’

  This didn’t make sense. Why was Kelly trying to pin Ava’s death entirely on Mason? Given his physical fragility, he couldn’t have moved Ava. He might have killed her, but he wasn’t capable of carrying her body across the vineyard to dump her. That would have required someone else’s involvement.

  Kelly unclipped his own handcuffs.

  ‘Max Campbell, please stand. I’m arresting you on suspicion of rape and being an accessory after the fact in the murder of Ava O’Brien.’

  Kelly had apparently decided it was Max who carried Ava’s body into the vineyard. That it was Max who Jamie Taylor had seen in the fog last Friday morning.

  ‘Huh?’ Max looked stunned, even as he complied with Kelly and stood to put his hands behind his back.

  ‘Ava and Liam O’Brien mutilated the girls, and the two of you raped them.’ Kelly snapped the cuffs tightly around Max’s wrists. ‘And when he told you Ava was going to start talking, you either killed her and dumped her body yourself, or helped him move the body after the fact.’

  ‘You’re absolutely mad,’ Max said. ‘I had nothing to do with any of what my father has done.’

  The idea that Max Campbell might have been involved also rang hollow to Jake.

  ‘You’re desperate to return to the mainland, to your wife. Perhaps you were an accessory after the fact in O’Brien’s sister’s murder.’

  Max was shaking his head murmuring, ’No, no.’

  ‘Did O’Brien’s sister come here to confront Mason, thinking O’Brien would be here too?’ Kelly continued. ‘Did Mason kill her, then ask you to help him move the body? Was your need to wrap everything up here so urgent that you decided to help him rather than calling the police?’

  Max looked dazed. ‘This is a nightmare. I’ve never had anything to do with any of the sick, twisted things that have apparently been going on here my whole life.’

  ‘Then explain how you’re a DNA match for one of the children born here?’ Kelly said.

  ‘My father just told you—he was the one who did this. I share his DNA, it doesn’t mean I had anything to do with it.’

  ‘You were the father of one of the children here.’

  Jake realised that Kelly had misunderstood the DNA results he had tried to explain earlier. ‘Sir …’ he began.

  The fleeting look Kelly stabbed at Jake warned him in to silence.

  ‘Did one of my brothers or sisters survive?’ Max looked hopefully at Jake. ‘Have you found them?’

  ‘Not a sibling, a child,’ Kelly insisted.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ Max said, bewildered. ‘It can’t be mine.’

  Taking a deep breath, Jake decided this was neither the time nor place to explain. ‘Everything will become clear at the station.’

  *

  Murphy was annoyed that he had been left out of the arrest. ‘Given all the paperwork I’ve done on this case …’

  Jake managed to maintain a passive expression. Rolling his eyes at the constable now would be counterproductive.

  ‘I’ll fill you in later,’ he said.

  ‘They’re not going anywhere,’ Murphy countered. ‘Tell me now.’

  ‘Take five minutes now, Hunter,’ Kelly said. ‘Bring Murphy up to speed. Let them cool their heels in the lock-up. We’ll start processing them in ten.’

  Max Campbell remained bewildered and his father defiant throughout the booking and interview process. Once he grasped Jake’s revelation, Max seemed to cling to the news that he had a child out there that he’d never known existed, though neither Campbell offered any new information.

  Jake returned to the front office to find Murphy and Evelyn hunched over his desk talking quietly.

  Despite her perfect mask of light make-up, she looked pale.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Jake asked.

  She nodded. ‘Of course. Pat was just filling me in on this afternoon’s arrest.’

  Jake gave Murphy a hard look.

  ‘Just the basics,’ the constable said, grinning.

  Jake’s phone began to vibrate. ‘Pete, hang on.’

  He covered the microphone with the fingers of one hand. ‘I’ll take this out the back,’ he said to Murphy, who had already returned to his conspiratorial hunch with Evelyn.

  ‘All right, Pete, go ahead.’

  ‘It’s not great news, but I thought you should know. My records guy found two other girls dumped on St Kilda beach in the five years before Lilith Hav
erstock. We traced them, but unfortunately both are deceased—one from a drug overdose, one from suicide.’

  Jake slumped against the doorframe.

  ‘I’m sorry, mate, thought you should know. We’ll keep searching.’

  Pete really was making an effort. ‘Thanks, and ah …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Just thanks.’

  ‘No worries.’

  ‘Gotta go,’ Jake said to Pete and hung up.

  As Jake returned to the main room, Murphy emerged from Kelly’s office and slapped him on the shoulder.

  ‘Come on, mate,’ Murphy said. ‘Boss’s given us the all-clear to celebrate. He’ll mind the shop, we’re both off the clock till eight tonight and then—lucky me—it’s your shift! Time for a beer.’

  ‘I don’t feel like …’

  ‘For fuck’s sake, come and have a beer.’ Murphy looked like he wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Jake needed to walk Kelly through the DNA evidence again. He’d clearly misunderstood which of the Campbell men had fathered which child.

  ‘Get out of here, Hunter, that’s an order,’ Kelly called from his office.

  Perhaps he’d give him an hour or so to relax, then he might be more receptive.

  *

  Jake stood back to scrutinise the facade of Dunton’s most popular pub, The Empire. The two-storey, Federation-style building’s red bricks, green wrought ironwork, slick black posts and oversized balcony lent it a genteel air.

  Shrieks from patrons of the beer garden to the side of the building—hidden from view by a thick hedge of red-tinged lily-pilly bushes—challenged that impression.

  He’d never felt comfortable in a gathering of loud, rough people drinking—the unpredictability of drunken emotions and the potential for violence repelled him. At the same time he was a little envious of how much they were enjoying themselves.

  By six o’clock the pub was heaving with wall-to-wall inebriated tradies, farmers and the occasional ‘little woman’.

  ‘I might head off,’ Jake said to Murphy after the second round, ‘get some food before my shift.’

  ‘Nah, stay for another one.’ He raised an empty glass.

  ‘So, whaddya think, Mr Mainlander?’

  A high-vis-wearing man assaulted Jake with the alcoholic haze emanating from his mouth, and possibly skin, as he leaned over Jake’s shoulder.