‘Ever met McBride at the Royal Perth morgue?’ Cardilini asked.
‘Nope.’
‘He’s quite a character. And he remembers three cases with similar scarring patterns: all young women. He said he only remembered faces, so on Monday he’ll be at the coroner’s office going through the forensic pathology reports looking for the faces and names.’
‘Cooper?’
‘Not at this stage. A nurse I know put me onto McBride and also mentioned Graylands. So here we go.’ He turned in under the subway at Nicholson Road and then along Stubbs Terrace. They drove in silence into the staff car park at Graylands Hospital.
‘We’re seeing a Dr Leslie Bligh,’ Cardilini said. Spencer made a note. They got out of the car and walked together to the heavy glass entry door. From reception they were shown to an empty office.
‘Everybody here looks like they could be mad,’ Spencer whispered.
‘Yep, nuts,’ Cardilini said. They were still giggling when a short, sombre man in a checked suit and bow tie entered. His black hair was oiled flat above heavy, black-rimmed glasses and a neat moustache. Ignoring Cardilini and Spencer he walked to the other side of the desk and sat down in an organised manner. Then he tried several combinations of clasping his hands on the desk before he was satisfied. Finally, with his eyes closed, he raised his head and announced, ‘Dr Leslie Bligh’, as if calling in a third party. Spencer could feel her sides wanting to burst.
‘Detective Sergeant Cardilini and Detective Constable Spencer,’ Cardilini said and they both produced their badges.
‘Yes,’ Bligh said, turning to Spencer.
‘Detective Cardilini has some questions,’ Spencer said.
‘I’ll try to address them,’ he continued, to Spencer. ‘Would you be seated, please?’ Cardilini and Spencer sat. ‘That’s better.’ Both Spencer and Cardilini looked at him uncertainly.
Spencer turned to Cardilini to encourage Bligh to turn to him, but when she turned back he was still gazing passively at her. Then he barked out a laugh, ‘Nuts enough for you?’
Both Spencer and Cardilini stared, perplexed.
‘You overheard us talking?’ Cardilini eventually asked.
‘Oh yes, along with my secretary and a visiting doctor. We thought you were very funny. It’s quite entertaining listening to visitors who think they’re alone. It’s this, you see.’ He tapped on an intercom. ‘Signing off,’ he said, and flicked a switch. ‘You should have seen your face,’ he said to Spencer. ‘So. Enough fun. What can I do for you?’
‘Right. Well, we’re trying to trace victims who have been scarred like the young woman in this photo. She’s naked, by the way.’ Cardilini handed Bligh a close-up of the scars on Melody Cooper’s inner thighs.
‘Were you suggesting I mightn’t know what a naked young woman looks like?’ Bligh asked, drawing the photo towards him. He stared at it for some time, then looked to Spencer for further information.
‘Do you recognise this type of scarring?’ she asked.
‘I’ve seen similar,’ he said, continuing to look at Spencer.
‘Among your patients?’ Cardilini asked.
‘Obviously,’ Bligh replied, again to Spencer. ‘Victims, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘Of whom?’
‘We can’t say at this point.’
‘The ones who feel like they’re a square peg in a world of round holes often turn on themselves, in disgust, in fear, via substance abuse or suicide. Too afraid to whimper, too intimidated to raise a hand to ask for help, these poor lonely creatures will start to mutilate themselves …’ Bligh seemed disgusted at what he’d just said.
Cardilini blinked a few times to gather his thoughts. ‘We believe that people are paying to see this type of activity performed on unwilling victims.’ He watched the confident, exuberant doctor’s demeanour change.
‘Of course,’ the doctor said, nodding to himself. ‘I wonder if all are unwilling but harbour a belief that this is what they deserve.’
‘Whatever they believe, they don’t deserve this,’ Cardilini said firmly.
‘Well put.’ Bligh nodded and sat with his chin resting on his upturned thumbs. ‘Right.’ He pushed himself from the desk and stood up sharply. ‘Food for thought. Food for thought. Good work. Both of you. Your cards, please?’
Spencer wrote their names and the office phone number on a page of her notebook, tore it out and handed it to him.
‘Office hours?’ he asked, looking at it.
‘Yes,’ Spencer replied.
‘Nut cases don’t do office hours,’ he said.
Cardilini grabbed the page and added his home number. Spencer did likewise.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Tuesday, 23 November 1965
3.30 p.m.
‘What do you think?’ Spencer asked with a smile when they got to the car.
Cardilini put a cigarette in his mouth. ‘Not sure.’
‘Are you going to light that?’
‘No,’ Cardilini answered and started the engine. ‘There’s something I should have shown you yesterday.’ He drove towards Fremantle while Spencer flipped through pages of her notebook.
‘What’re you doing?’ he asked.
‘Going over my notes.’
‘I can see that. What are you looking for?’
‘Melody’s self-harming evidence. But she didn’t say anything like that and I didn’t get the sense she was lying. Do you think she and Cooper convinced the police in Kalgoorlie it was self-harm? And they’d do that again if it went to court? If that was the reason you didn’t want to bring charges against Cooper, you should’ve told me. Because I thought …’
‘I was bent?’ Cardilini asked.
‘I’m sorry but it all seemed so obvious.’
‘Hmm.’
At Claremont, Cardilini turned onto the Stirling Highway.
Spencer looked out the window. ‘I think I was hurt, more than anything.’
‘Believe me, the last thing …’ He didn’t finish, just shook his head.
Spencer watched him for some time. ‘That’s not very helpful.’
Cardilini rolled his eyes at her before she turned away, smiling.
***
There were a number of cars parked in Duke Street when they pulled up. ‘Jot down the licence plate numbers, without being too obvious. We don’t want to scare anyone. I’ll go slowly.’ Cardilini drove the length of the street. ‘Got them?’
‘Yep.’
‘Good. We’ll need the camera.’ Cardilini doubled back to the Coopers’ house. The timber boards across the front door were exactly as they’d been on Friday afternoon. Cardilini knocked and called out: no reply came. He went round the side of the house. ‘Watch your step.’ They manoeuvred past the grass and bottles, then stopped so Spencer could get a look at the path beneath the archway of tree branches. ‘Could you take some shots of the path?’ Cardilini asked. Spencer fiddled with the aperture and timing, then began taking shots. Cardilini watched her work. She took a number of photos before checking her settings and then took a lot more. She’s thorough, Cardilini thought. He followed her part way as she walked to the rear of the block. She indicated a gate into the adjoining property. Cardilini nodded, and she took a few more shots of something on the ground. He was waiting at the rear door when Spencer shook an evidence envelope at him. Inside was a Lockwood house key attached to a blank metal disk.
‘Good. Try it on the door.’ Though Cardilini had forced the door previously, the key fit the useless lock. ‘Have a look around, take all the shots you want.’
They started in the kitchen. The broken appliances and their electric cables were gone. Cardilini tried to remember if they were there on Friday. Had someone collected them? Someone from Fremantle maybe? The new fridge hadn’t been touched and was still well s
tocked.
Spencer finished in the kitchen, then walked into the room on her right, the room in which Cardilini had seen the directional standard lamps. He waited for her call of astonishment. Nothing. Spencer left that room and crossed the corridor into the bedroom. Cardilini checked the room she had just been in.
It was empty.
‘They’ve cleared out,’ Spencer called from the other room.
Cardilini came and stood in the doorway. The wardrobe doors were hanging open. The bed contained no pillows, no sheets and no pretty quilt. The dressing table had been swept clear of its contents and empty drawers were scattered on the floor. An assortment of coloured bottles lay among them. Spencer squatted before the pile of laundry and torn clothing.
‘This is interesting,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘A lot of this stuff’s cut or torn. I’m trying to understand self-harm, but why cut or tear your own clothes? Some of this is expensive. I mean, I couldn’t afford it on a detective’s salary and I certainly wouldn’t be tearing it.’
‘Great. Get some shots here and we’ll take it all back to East Perth. I’ll get some evidence bags.’
‘We should get forensics in to do that,’ Spencer said.
‘You’re right,’ Cardilini said slowly, ‘but I’m worried if we do that Fremantle would step in.’
Spencer was thinking of the implications as she looked around the room. Something caught her eye. She crossed to the bottles on the floor and crouched down. ‘I don’t think Melody packed up her stuff. There’s a drawer missing. I think it was all swept into that drawer, and what fell on the floor was just left. But no woman …’ Spencer pointed to a narrow rectangular bottle lying on its side, ‘… no matter what the hurry, would leave that behind.’ She turned to Cardilini. ‘Do you know what it is?’
‘Perfume?’
‘But what perfume?’
Cardilini shook his head.
‘It’s L’Interdit. Do you like Audrey Hepburn?’
‘Yeah, I suppose.’
‘Everyone likes her; every girl wants to be her – slim, beautiful, sophisticated. Well, that’s her perfume.’ Spencer held it reverently out to Cardilini, who just nodded. ‘It was created for her in ’59 I think by Hubert de Givenchy. The shops haven’t got it yet, that’s how expensive it is.’
‘Okay.’
‘You don’t think that’s strange?’ Spencer asked.
‘What part?’
‘Melody’s eyes and hair, her childlike face?’
Cardilini was trying to draw conclusions but couldn’t. ‘Go on.’
‘She looked like Audrey Hepburn at the hospital.’
‘I suppose,’ Cardilini conceded.
Spencer started sorting through the torn underwear. ‘Whoever packed everything up thought those clothes in the corner were just dirty laundry. But it’s all too expensive for a working girl.’
‘Go on,’ Cardilini said.
‘You said something about the kitchen chairs yesterday. Now I remember they were facing the chair Melody was on.’ Spencer stared, wide-eyed. ‘There was an audience to see her getting cut.’ Cardilini nodded grimly. ‘You knew?’
‘I guess.’
‘And didn’t tell me?’
‘I wasn’t planning to keep it from you, it was …’
‘… officers at Fremantle might get involved …’ Spencer said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Ryan?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, I get it, you were afraid I’d run off screaming about it to anyone who would listen.’
‘Maybe.’
Spencer looked distractedly about her, then back to Cardilini. ‘I’m not completely naive; I know what goes on. I don’t want any part of it, though.’
Cardilini nodded.
‘The ones who allow it are no better than the perpetrators.’
‘Okay, well, what are you going to do?’ Cardilini asked.
‘I plan to see how you manage it.’
Cardilini shook his head. ‘I’d like to be the person you think I am, but you’re asking too much.’
‘Don’t get a swelled head, I’m not asking anything.’ She went back to the clothing. ‘This is a black silk slip.’
‘Yep,’ Cardilini said.
‘This is matching underwear.’ She pushed a torn bra and pants to the side with her foot. ‘And I think I’ve seen a film where Audrey Hepburn … I think the way Melody wears her hair … I think she was impersonating Audrey Hepburn while she was being cut.’
Cardilini nodded slowly. ‘You could be right.’
Spencer smiled. ‘Thank you.’
***
Back outside, Cardilini upended the rubbish bin onto the crushed limestone path at the rear of the house. They bagged dry cleaning tickets, movie tickets, receipts for clothing, shoes and jewellery. And glass vials.
‘Morphine,’ Cardilini said.
Spencer looked back questioningly. ‘For Melody? To ease the pain?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Injected?’ Spencer asked.
‘Did you see any needle marks on her arms?’ Spencer indicated that she didn’t. ‘It didn’t have to be a vein; they can inject into muscle, it just takes longer to reach the brain.’
‘I might have missed them in that case.’
‘Not necessarily. Those tin containers could have contained tablets. And there’s also a way of converting liquid morphine to a smoking form.’
‘So, she dulls the pain, but screams anyway?’
‘Probably.’
‘And that’s what these people are paying for?’
Cardilini shrugged.
Spencer pointed to the clothing. ‘If she wanted to replace that clothing, I know the shop she’d go to.’
Cardilini shook his head. ‘I don’t know another detective on the force who could say that.’
Spencer smiled. ‘Maybe being a woman has some advantages, after all.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Thursday, 7 March 1957
2 p.m.
Archie led Melody to the ANZAC Memorial Park; there stood a granite plinth engraved with the names of young Geraldton men who had lost their lives in the two world wars. Melody stopped twenty yards from the memorial. She looked around at the lawn that needed watering and the established gum trees, cheek by jowl along the fences. A woman pushing a pram was across the road. She was beginning to feel a little anxious. ‘Why have we come here?’
‘It’s where I hid the stuff,’ Archie said, smiling shyly at her.
‘I’m going across to the fence. You bring it there.’ She felt better calling the shots, and started walking.
‘Hello, Mrs Little,’ Melody called to the woman as she leant on the fence.
Mrs Little, on the other side of the road, stopped and turned. ‘Melody, what are you doing out of school?’ Mrs Little was a neighbour who had concerns about Melody and her mother. Though the Pennys were not too much of an embarrassment to the local community, Mrs Little couldn’t help feeling sorry for Melody. She was sure her little girl in the pram had already had more care and attention than Melody had had her whole life.
‘I’m sick,’ Melody said, taking a quick glance back to the memorial. She couldn’t see Archie and hoped neither could Mrs Little.
‘Is your mum at home?’
‘She’ll be at work. I’ll go and see her before I go home,’ Melody called back brightly.
‘You don’t sound sick.’
‘I’m not as bad as I was.’ Melody gave a cough and watched Mrs Little give a little wave, and continue along the footpath.
Archie came up beside her. ‘Why did you do that? She’ll tell your mum.’
‘No, she won’t. Anyway, mum won’t care. What’s in that?’ Archie was carrying a bundle wrappe
d in white cloth.
‘Come in the bushes and I’ll show you.’
Anxiety fluttered in her stomach. ‘No, show me here.’
‘Someone might see.’
‘Behind the tree.’ Melody walked to the thick trunk of a gum tree and crouched down where she was hidden from the footpath and roadway. Archie sat beside her, laid the cloth on the grass and slowly unwrapped it. Before them lay six steel shafts the size of pencils, two with blades attached, and four plastic boxes containing more blades. Archie said that he’d put the two together and knew they were for operations.
‘I know that.’ Melody made out she knew all about them. As she picked up the scalpel she felt a trembling at her throat, her breath quickening.
‘Careful, they’re really sharp,’ Archie warned. Melody was holding the blade against her palm. She picked up the other one and asked if she could have them. Archie was unsure, but admitted that Con didn’t know he had them. He told Melody he’d got a little glass bottle of morphine for him. ‘Well, actually, for Bruno’s dad.’
Melody felt empowered, ‘I’ll take these then.’
‘What will you say if your mum sees them?’
‘I’ll say I found them in the park. Mum doesn’t care. Where’d you get them?’
Archie explained that his mum was a cleaner at the hospital. He’d pretended to be waiting for her and ducked into the storeroom when no one was looking, ‘Just grabbed the stuff. But I’m putting the rest back.’
They walked back to the memorial, where Archie pushed the bundle below the leaf litter beside a row of bushes. ‘What are you going to do with those?’ he asked, indicating the two scalpels in her hand.
‘Nothing.’ And she flicked her hair as she’d seen the other girls do. Archie felt emboldened and asked her if she would go to the beach with him, but Melody again felt the anxiety flutter. ‘What for?’
‘Nothing. I just thought we’d hang out.’
‘We can sit there.’ Melody indicated a raised grassed area in front of the bushes, facing the memorial. Archie sat beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Melody said, pushing his arm away.
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