The Great Divide

by L. J. M. Owen

  Murphy grinned, his pale-blue eyes nervous. ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Tell me you’re having me on?’

  ‘Come on mate, it wasn’t like what Campbell did, if that’s what you’re thinking. They always got over it and they never complained, except …’

  ‘Except?’

  ‘This one stuck-up bitch, but Kelly said she couldn’t prove it wasn’t consensual, so he wouldn’t charge me. Didn’t want a bad mark against my name for no reason.’

  Jake shot out of his chair, stalked to the front door and slammed it open. Outside, he let the freezing air punch him in the face and threw a flurry of frenzied blows at the mist in return. He gulped in air, then coughed, his lungs seizing with the cold. Eventually he straightened up and stared into the white-grey fog.

  Shit. Shit! Shit!! He was sharing an office with a man who’d drugged and raped who knew how many girls and thought it was funny.

  And Kelly knew.

  With extreme reluctance, he had to confront what had been staring him in the face since his first day in Dunton. Jake had turned a blind eye to too many signs; clues that a detective of his experience should have pieced together from the get-go. Why had he been so slow?

  Not wanting his chance at starting his life over to be screwed up in less than a fortnight, maybe. Wanting to be away from Melbourne for an extended period of time, to give himself space to rest, recover, process his feelings about his bastard brother’s betrayal of Nic; time to set new directions in life.

  Wanting to like Kelly and Murphy, and be liked in return? That was a factor. Jake was tired of his only friends at work also being his family. He’d wanted to start over in a new community, become part of something bigger for once. But if he did this, he was going to be run out of town …

  Fuck it.

  Dunton had shitty takeaway anyway.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dunton, Tasmania

  Friday, 6.52 a.m.

  Jake walked around the station to his cottage, shivering. He cranked the heater to the highest possible temperature, stood directly in front of the warm blast of air and rang Meena, trusting she would already be in her office.

  ‘Jake?’

  ‘I …’

  ‘I was going to call you this morning,’ she said. ‘I’ve already got the rush results from overnight.’

  ‘That’s great. Listen, I need to ask you to run an exclu­sionary test …’

  ‘Jake.’ The tone in her voice forced him to skid to a halt.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I already ran everyone in your station for exclusionary purposes. I always do. I have … um. News.’

  ‘Right?’

  ‘We have a match for the maternal line.’

  Confusion caused Jake’s mind to freeze momentarily. ‘I don’t follow? We know who the baby’s mother was.’

  ‘I mean Lilith. Someone we keep on file for exclusionary purposes popped up as closely related to her, as in a grand­parent or half-sibling. That close.’

  ‘Murphy?’

  ‘No, Senior Sergeant Aiden Kelly.’

  Jake’s mind churned. Kelly had two sons and a daughter … that Jake knew of. How many other children might he have out there?

  ‘You think Kelly is one of Lilith’s grandfathers?’

  Possible family trees churned through Jake’s mind. One possible combination fit the known facts. ‘Geezus.’

  ‘This helps?’

  ‘You’re fantastic. But right now I have to go.’

  Jake could almost hear her smile down the phone line.

  ‘Go!’

  *

  The sun glowed dimly through the canopy of fog riding the mountains to Dunton’s east as Jake pulled up outside Aiden Kelly’s home. He ran to the apartment door at the side of the building where Evelyn lived and knocked loudly.

  No answer.

  He ran back to the front door. Maria Kelly opened it a crack to reveal her maroon velour dressing gown and a shock of hair.

  ‘Is the sergeant here?’

  ‘He’s out on a call,’ she yawned. ‘Shouldn’t you know that?’

  Jake assumed his most reassuring smile. ‘He might be out of phone range. Would you mind if I check his study? I noticed he sometimes writes case notes in there before heading out.’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Something important’s come up that I think he should be the first to know about.’

  He followed her down the warm corridor into the lounge room. A sliver of darkness lined the edge of the study door.

  ‘Would you like a coffee?’ she asked.

  ‘I have to keep moving, but thanks.’

  Jake waited for her to exit the room before opening the door. The rainmaking tube that Evelyn liked so much caught his eye.

  He picked it up and tipped it one way, then the other.

  The soft pitter-patter actually did sound like light rain.

  He placed it diagonally on the desk to stop it rolling, closed his eyes and took two deep breaths.

  Okay, what in here was going to help him?

  There was a notepad on the desk, the top sheet blank, and there may be something in the drawers.

  Jake pulled pair of latex gloves from a pocket to begin searching through Kelly’s desk.

  The second drawer he opened contained a set of binders.

  Jake pulled out the folder with the letter ‘M’ on the spine and opened it …

  Murphy, Bob. Works Mon to Fri at garage, pub on Sat. Gambles.

  Murphy, Carl. Not working, mostly at home address. Pot.

  Murphy, Carly. Mon to Fri late shift supermarket. Affair with Brown, Tom 2002–2005. Drinks.

  Jake flicked through the pages then pulled another binder from the drawer. Every page contained lists of locals—information on where they worked, their main movements each week, and presumably their vices or pressure points.

  This was how Kelly was able to predict where the people of Dunton would normally be and how they could be manipulated to suit his purposes. He was tracking everyone in town, maintaining notes on their lives.

  Jake flipped to the entry on himself.

  Hunter, Jake. Station. Affair with colleague? Alcoholic?

  Jake had told Kelly his one true vice—climbing—in their first conversation. The sergeant hadn’t believed him.

  Ahh … That’s why Murphy was constantly prying, trying to piece together the details of Jake’s personal life. He wanted to ingratiate himself with Kelly.

  Jake continued to search the lists of names. Significantly, Mason Campbell and Liam O’Brien weren’t there. Whatever Kelly knew of their routine and vices he had committed to memory.

  In packing the folders away he accidentally knocked the rainmaker off the table. Picking it up, he noticed the wax seal on one end had partially come away. On closer inspection it looked as though it had been removed and replaced repeatedly since manufacture. The edges of the wax were wrinkled and worn.

  Jake pulled the seal out completely and upended the tube over an empty glass.

  Like a patter of fine rain, a cloud of fingernails caked in streaks of dried blood and gore trickled into the cup.

  Jake held his breath for several seconds.

  Slowly, his mind formed a scenario that could explain everything.

  It was horrific.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Dunton, Tasmania

  Friday, 7.47 a.m.

  First thing—find Kelly. He wasn’t on a call. Jake knew what had come through the station overnight and there was nothing to occupy the sergeant’s time. So where was he?

  Glancing at the writing pad on the desk, Jake remem­bered that the old tricks were often the best. He picked up a pencil and began rubbing the side of the nib lightly across the page.
/>   A suicide note. Signed, Evelyn.

  Jake ran from the room.

  ‘Maria? Maria?’

  Kelly’s wife emerged from the kitchen. ‘Would you like that coffee now?’

  ‘Where’s Evelyn?’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  Maria was a stickler for pleasantries.

  ‘Where is she?’

  ‘Aiden said that Murphy girl had called in wanting to talk to her. Something about closure, or some such nonsense. Evelyn’s gone to meet her.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The old girls’ school.’ Maria shuddered.

  ‘What is it about that place that disturbs you?’

  ‘I don’t … It’s fine.’

  ‘Tell me!’

  ‘How dare you speak to me in that tone!? Please leave, now. I’ll be speaking to Aiden about your behaviour.’

  Jake bared his teeth. ‘Tell me why you don’t like the girls’ home.’

  She pushed her nose in the air. ‘I find it hard to believe Evelyn could go back there, that’s all.’

  Maria Kelly had just confirmed one of the more tenuous links Jake had pieced together in the wicked knot of lies, deception and mistruths surrounding the girls’ home.

  He pulled his car keys from his pocket as he ran for the front door.

  *

  Jake had pulled away from the curb in front of the Kelly house before the danger of the situation hit him.

  On the one hand, he shouldn’t go charging up to the manor.

  On the other, if he didn’t another life might be lost.

  He needed a plan. He only had two options—neither of them great.

  He made two calls, first one to Hobart and then one to Murphy. He just had to hope they paid off.

  As he turned the key in the ignition for a second time, his phone rang. He grabbed it hoping it was a return call from headquarters in Hobart.

  It was Meena again.

  ‘Diane has been searching old files for me all week.’

  ‘You didn’t say anything …’

  ‘Didn’t want to get your hopes up.’

  ‘Meena, it’s crunch time on my end. As fast as you can?’

  ‘Right. Fifty years ago there was an incident—I guess you’d call it a suicide, but there was a lot more to it than that.’

  ‘Okay?’

  ‘Tom Kelly, a farmer in Dunton, was brought in with a gunshot wound to the head. He didn’t survive.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘He was your Kelly’s father. From the looks of it, it was a failed murder-suicide. Along with Kelly there were five children and his wife, all of them maimed and suffering from carbon monoxide poisoning.’

  ‘Bloody hell.’

  ‘It looks like Tom Kelly subdued his whole family, tortured each of them, then locked them in the garage with a running car in order to kill them. Then he turned a gun on himself.’

  As common as such stories were, they always made Jake’s blood run cold.

  ‘A neighbour heard the shot as they were going past, dropped in to see what was happening, and called for help.’

  ‘You said he maimed the children?’

  ‘He’d mutilated them by removing something different from each one. One boy’s little toes had been cut off; another had a chunk of flesh excised from the back of her arm, another the back of his leg.’

  ‘And Aiden?’

  ‘A large area of skin and muscle over his ribcage. But the mother …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘All the mother’s fingernails had been ripped from the beds.’

  Like father, like son. Jake couldn’t delay, he had to get to the manor now. ‘Meena, I’m going to the Campbell manor. I’ve called Hobart to send back-up, and I’ve let Murphy know where I’m going.’

  ‘Him?’

  ‘Exactly. So I’m letting you know in case, well …’

  ‘I understand. I’ll call Hobart as well and emphasise the urgency.’

  Jake could only hope they listened.

  *

  Jake parked outside the manor’s rusted gate and opened the boot of his vehicle, where he stored his service weapon in a safe. He quickly extracted and loaded the pistol and attached the holster to his belt. Going in weapon- drawn could provoke violence, but he needed to be prepared.

  After a few deep breaths to steady his nerves, Jake slipped past the side of the front gate and prowled slowly up the edge of the overgrown gravel driveway. He stopped every few steps and cocked an ear. No sounds except the croak and chirp of birds in the vineyard.

  Two vehicles were parked in front of the house’s main entrance. Damn it, Jake had been hoping for just the one.

  He was certain he knew where his quarry was, but better safe than sorry. Jake checked every door and window on the ground floor one by one, moving as quietly as possible.

  Satisfied the manor hadn’t been broken into, he edged his way around the two-metre-high hedge toward the back garden of the former girls’ home.

  A faint whine reached Jake’s ears and caused the hairs on the back of his neck to stand up.

  He padded to the side of the cottage and peeked through the window into the main room on the ground floor. He caught a glimpse of Aiden and Evelyn Kelly grappling on a sheet of plastic in the middle of the room, a bowl of strawberries and a pair of pliers on one corner of the sheet. Some old primary school chairs lay against the walls, but otherwise the room was empty.

  Shit. Shit, shit, shit! He was too late.

  Jake eased the pistol out of its holster. He could feel the palm of his hand grow slick with sweat against the cold metal of the weapon—fortunately he hadn’t had to use a gun in the field for years, although he’d kept up his range training.

  Jake pushed against the front door of the cottage gently, edging it open fraction by fraction.

  Kelly was forcing a strawberry against Evelyn’s face, smashing it against her teeth through the skin, juice dripping down her chin. ‘Just eat it.’

  Her lips were clamped together as she struggled to pull her hair free from his grasp.

  The hinge creaked. Kelly’s head whipped around. He dropped the strawberry and closed a second hand around Evelyn’s throat.

  ‘Hunter. What are you doing here?’

  ‘I assumed you’d need help,’ he said as he entered the room, pistol pointed at the floor.

  For a millisecond hope flickered in Kelly’s eyes that Jake may have been offering himself as an accomplice, until the meaning of his words registered.

  ‘We’re at a bit of an impasse then, aren’t we?’ Kelly’s manner was almost jovial as he squeezed the life from his daughter. ‘What are we going to do?’

  ‘You’re going to let go of Evelyn, get off her and lie face down while I cuff your hands behind your back,’ Jake said, keeping his voice low and calm.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Kelly said, increasing the pressure of his grip on Evelyn’s throat. She whimpered.

  ‘Stop,’ Jake said, raising his gun and levelling it at Kelly’s head.

  ‘We both know you don’t have the guts.’

  So, Kelly was that kind of criminal. He’d choose death by cop ahead of being arrested. It was the ultimate cowardly act—he’d force responsibility for his life into someone else’s hands and make them shoot him so he didn’t have to face the consequences of his actions. Jake had no intention of complying.

  ‘What are you going to do, you little poofter?’

  That was something. If Kelly was resorting to childish taunts he was under more mental strain than he wanted to let on. Jake calculated his best next move. He shifted slightly to his right; Kelly mirrored him.

  He wasn’t confident he could shoot Kelly without killing him. So much of his body was shielded by Evelyn that there wasn’t much to aim for apart from his head
. Jake would have to somehow entice him to move enough to get a better shot.

  The only aspect of Kelly’s nature he felt he could appeal to was his need to dominate—could he flatter him into a mistake?

  ‘I want to know if I’m right,’ Jake said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I want to know if I figured it all out.’

  ‘You’re only delaying the inevitable.’ He wobbled Evelyn by her throat. She sucked in air through tight nostrils, her eyes wide and skin drained grey.

  Jake contrived to shrug.

  Kelly laughed again. ‘It’s not going to stop me from killing her. If I’m going down, I’m taking her with me. We both know you won’t shoot me.’

  ‘Just tell me if I’m right. I won’t move.’

  ‘Give it your best shot.’

  Kelly was, if nothing else, cool under pressure.

  Locking eyes with the older man, Jake edged his way over to one of the primary school chairs and dragged it into the room before taking a seat about five metres from Kelly. With a rapidly beating heart, he adopted the most nonchalant pose he could.

  ‘Everything was fine until Max Campbell came back to town, right?’ Jake began.

  Kelly’s head dipped infinitesimally.

  ‘His arrival set Charlotte and Amelia talking, then arguing, and that got Ava O’Brien upset.’

  Jake took Kelly’s silence as a yes.

  ‘And that concerned you, because you thought Ava knew what you had done to the girls at the home. And you thought she might now tell someone else.’

  No response. He wasn’t getting anywhere, and Evelyn’s face was shading toward blue. Should he try for an emotional response to childhood?

  ‘I assume you grew up in an abusive household? Given the way your father mutilated you and your siblings before he died,’ Jake said.

  Kelly lifted his chin. ‘What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.’

  ‘Your obsession with removing women’s fingernails comes from him, right?’

  Kelly’s eyes bore into Jake’s, unblinking.

  ‘Didn’t it hurt your mother when he did that to her? Didn’t she scream?’

  Kelly’s head moved down a fraction again.

  ‘If you could see how badly it hurt her, why would you turn around and do it to young girls?’