‘I just want to go home,’ said Gabriel.
‘I thought you didn’t have one?’
‘I don’t.’
‘Then where will you go?’
‘Anywhere. Far from here.’
‘To another farm?’
‘No, screw that.’
‘I’d like it if you stuck around.’
Gabriel’s smile turned into a frown. Not the news he wanted to hear.
‘Why?’
His statement taken, Chandler had no authority to hold Gabriel. It was time to invent some reason to keep him around.
‘In case we need to identify a body.’
The stare he received in return made Chandler wonder if Gabriel had seen straight through his ruse. The eyes that had previously desired escape grew still and focused. They seemed to implore Chandler to tell the truth, sitting in judgement on his lies.
‘Where would I stay?’
Chandler immediately thought of the cells but they wouldn’t entice a terrified Gabriel to hang around. But the offer of a night in luxury . . .
‘We have an excellent hotel in town.’
That was a little disingenuous. Ollie Orlander’s place was no palace, but for a farmworker used to sleeping in a twenty-bed dorm it might be luxurious enough.
‘Okay,’ said Gabriel, non-committal.
‘I’ll post someone outside.’
He would. Jim would enjoy sitting around all day with his half-completed crosswords.
‘Do you have anyone we can call?’ asked Chandler.
‘No,’ said Gabriel abruptly. The bonhomie that Chandler had tried to engender between the two of them fled. The subject of family seemed to have touched a nerve.
‘No family?’ asked Chandler, plunging in deeper.
The response was a slow shake of his head.
‘Why?’ Chandler was pushing his luck, but identifying pressure points so they could be manipulated under questioning was a skill he had nurtured and was a hard one to switch off. Sometimes it angered not only others, but himself.
Gabriel offered him the same cold stare. A stare that suggested Chandler should push no further, so he decided not to. The man had been through enough today without having to spell out why he had no family to call on. In the end, Gabriel saved him the trouble.
‘They’re dead, Sergeant.’
The statement was delivered without emotion, all twitching gone, the nervous energy spent. After the frantic escape, the running for his life, the abuse his body had suffered, it seemed Gabriel had finally shut down.
‘Sergeant,’ he said slowly, the smoothness of his voice coating everything in silk. ‘The one thing we all have in common when born is the need for our parents and the comfort of religion. I was failed by both.’
‘What do you mean?’
Gabriel sighed and closed his eyes. ‘Nothing. A family thing. I’m tired, angry, scared. I just want to sleep.’
Chandler itched to fire more questions but the strings in the marionette opposite had been cut.
He led Gabriel back into the office, an unstable roll to his walk as if battling to remain upright. Tanya joined them, her subtle nod informing Chandler that the recording had been successful.
‘What have we got clothing-wise?’ he asked her.
‘Not much,’ she replied, fishing a shirt from the box of clothes that even the charity shop couldn’t sell. She picked the best of a bad bunch: a stained orange T-shirt with a small fiery logo above the breast.
‘What’s this for?’ asked Gabriel when Chandler handed it to him.
‘To wear.’
‘I have one.’ Gabriel looked at his bloodied top. ‘I don’t want to be an imposition.’
‘You can’t go around town like that. You’ll scare our citizens,’ said Chandler as he led them into the sandstone-walled yard adjacent to the station, towards the police cars.
Gabriel looked at him. Some of the defensiveness had disappeared.
‘I don’t have much, sir. I don’t like to give away anything. Even this shirt.’
Chandler understood the sentiment. As a kid he was fiercely protective of his things. He had even got into a fight with his best friend – long-lost best friend – Mitchell over an old football that had been kicked so many times it was bent out of shape and rolled like Brian East down Prince’s Street on a Saturday night.
‘You don’t have to. Just take the shirt and wear it. Call it a gift,’ said Chandler.
Gabriel took it. ‘I’ll shower first,’ he said as they reached the sparkling white police car.
4
Chandler pulled out of the station and into town. Immediately the afternoon sun set about cooking them from the outside in, the intense heat trying to glue them to the black plastic of the seat and stew them in their own bodily fluids.
As they drove past the family owned businesses and abandoned shops on the main drag, Chandler glanced across at his passenger. Gabriel was staring back at him, spread out on the seat, a calmness in his manner that matched his body language. Given that now he was under police protection Chandler hoped they wouldn’t let him down.
‘Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?’ he asked.
‘They’re only bruises I think. There’s nothing he could give me. At least the pain reminds me to stay alert.’
Chandler offered a smile. ‘Wait ’til you have an ex-wife.’
There was a stab of a smile from his passenger. ‘When did that happen?’
Even Gabriel’s voice had relaxed. The jittery squeak had been replaced by the soft, enticing glow of a late-night radio DJ. A warm voice playing doleful tunes to send listeners to sleep. It was like he was in the car with a different person entirely.
Chandler paused, calculating it in his head. ‘Seven . . . seven and a half years.’
‘Long time. You miss her?’
‘Not since she threatened to take my kids.’
‘Oh.’ Gabriel stared at him. ‘She got any grounds to take ’em?’
Chandler didn’t really want to get into this with a stranger but the voice was like a shoulder to cry on; Chandler the midnight caller, unable to drift off, sounding off about his fears and woes.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘How many kids do you have?’
‘Two. Maybe the one good thing I’ve done in my life.’ Chandler smiled and looked at his passenger. ‘Two good things.’
If discussing Teri taxed his nerves, he never wasted a chance to extol the virtues of his children, almost in compensation for not getting to see as much of them as he would have wanted. This job took its toll: long hours, odd hours, paperwork and procedure.
‘How old?’
‘Sarah’s nearly eleven, Jasper’s getting on towards nine.’
‘Sarah and Jasper. Nice names,’ said Gabriel. Chandler noticed little feeling in the declaration. ‘You have no one? Girlfriend? Brothers or sisters? Cousins? Uncles?’
A shake of the head. ‘No. None.’ The harsh, defensive tone from the station was back.
‘Sorry,’ said Chandler. He couldn’t imagine being without his family.
Gabriel stared at him and said nothing for a few seconds. The stare was unnerving. Finally he spoke, the voice resigned.
‘I’m used to it.’
‘You said earlier that family and religion let you down . . . ’
Chandler let the statement float between them as they turned past the statue of Stuart MacAllen, the Scotsman who discovered the iron ore that had breathed life back into the town. For a few decades anyway. Now with the boreholes dry and abandoned, the youth were slowly being lost to more prosperous parts of the earth. He couldn’t blame them. People had to go where the jobs were. And there were few here.
Though he gave Gabriel time, he got no response. Maybe there was none, just a slip of the tongue in a time of stress, or a family argument, not to be discussed with a stranger. Like an upcoming custody battle, he supposed.
They drove past the bright orange veranda of the
Red Inn, an establishment that proudly stated that it had been in business since the end of the 19th century, despite having moved premises twice, before finally settling into its present location in 1950; the year his mum was born.
Gabriel interrupted his thoughts. ‘So what’s going to happen next?’
‘Procedure.’
‘Like what? It’ll ease my mind to know that you know what you’re doing.’
‘You don’t trust us?’
Gabriel’s wavering smile offered no answer.
‘We know what we’re doing, Mr Johnson. I’ve been doing this for over ten years.’
‘But how many serial killers have you dealt with?’
It was a fair point.
‘After I put you up in the hotel, I’ll put together a KLO4—’
‘A what?’ interrupted Gabriel.
‘KLO4. Keep a look out for.’
‘Oh.’ Gabriel shrugged. ‘Makes sense.’
‘I’ll send it out around the state, Northern Territory and the South as well just to be sure. Then we’ll organize a search of the Hill, try and find the guy or his body then locate those graves. Though I have to admit that finding this guy, finding Heath, if he’s adept at surviving out there, won’t be easy given the size of the area.’
Chandler looked to Gabriel. He could see that his response had made his passenger a little uneasy.
‘We’ll send a chopper and plane up to look.’
‘Like you’re searching for a missing person?’
‘Kinda. We’ll start a ground search too.’
‘Seems like needle-in-a-haystack stuff.’
Chandler shrugged his shoulders. ‘It’s all we have, strength in numbers – one man against hundreds.’
‘Like Jesus versus the unbelievers.’
Chandler glanced across. ‘So you’re a religious man?’
Gabriel blew air out of his nose. ‘I believe, if that’s what you’re asking. You?’
‘I go along with it. Moral grounding for the kids, I suppose. They’ll make their own decisions when they’re older. It’s not as if God forced anyone to follow him.’
‘No . . . if only his followers abided by the same edict.’
The conversation stopped abruptly. It didn’t matter. They’d arrived at the Gardner’s Palace, a squat, three-storey building that looked chipped out of a single block of sandstone, bright red, brighter even than the dust that scarred the landscape. It was perfunctory, the black tar on the roof painted white to reflect back some of the vicious heat, the wooden shutters guarding each window, protecting it further.
The pair of patched armchairs in the narrow reception area welcomed them. It wasn’t the Ritz but good enough for the rare occasions they needed to keep someone around.
The owner, Ollie Orlander, greeted them, his stomach bubbling over his trousers like an overheated pot of misshapen pasta. Ollie was more than happy to take their strays. The government always paid its bills and he could lease out his most expensive room, the misnomer known as the Presidential Suite, at full price.
Ollie eyed up his new guest to make sure that he understood who owned the place. An unnecessary attempt at intimidation and part of the reason Ollie got very few repeat visitors. In Chandler’s experience, guests favoured a hearty welcome rather than obvious suspicion.
Ollie’s beady eyes turned to Chandler. ‘He’s not going to cause any damage is he?’
‘He’s not a criminal,’ said Chandler.
‘Then what’s he doing with you?’
‘He provided us with some information. We need to put him up for the night.’
‘The usual suite?’
Chandler nodded wearily. ‘The usual suite will do.’
‘Very good, sir.’ A lopsided smile passed over the rotund face. He waddled off to ready a few things as Chandler led Gabriel upstairs.
‘Don’t expect too much,’ warned Chandler.
‘If it’s got a warm bath and a soft bed that’s good enough for me.’
Chandler studied his face. Some of the nervousness had returned, eyes that darted around as if expecting Heath to appear from behind every corner.
‘I’ll stick an officer outside.’
‘I don’t need one, Sergeant.’
They reached the door of the Presidential Suite.
‘I insist,’ said Chandler. He was not about to let Gabriel become a victim of his own bravery.
5
Constable Jim Fall arrived, book of crosswords in tow, extricating his lanky frame from the police car in stages; right leg, then left, then his arms gripped the roof before hauling his torso into the late afternoon. How he had survived down the cramped mineshafts Chandler still didn’t know. Though they had joined only a couple of years apart, Jim had refused to rise above the rank of constable, happy with the minimal level of responsibility it brought. He was reliable to a tee.
‘What’s the job?’ asked Jim, elongating the last vowel while scratching his unruly bush of greying hair.
‘Watch the hotel. Make sure that our guest is okay.’
‘He likely to run?’
‘I’m not sure.’
Gabriel’s wits seemed to have recovered enough to have the sense to get out of town – possibly why he had originally baulked at the offer of police protection.
‘Just keep an eye out,’ added Chandler as he left Jim sitting under the awning outside Annie’s Cafe across the street.
Returning to the station, Tanya had already called in the final member of the team. Luka Grgić was wiping the sleep from his eyes. This was supposed to be his day off and he let Chandler know as much via his glare alone. He might have been young and occasionally reckless but he knew better than to question the orders of a superior, even if he was frustrated at being stuck behind Chandler and Tanya in the chain. The flashes of blind ambition reminded Chandler a little of Mitch. He chased the ghoulish presence of his former partner from his head. It was time to concentrate.
‘So what’s this about, boss?’ asked Luka, yawning.
‘We have a situation.’
Luka’s jet-black eyebrows furrowed, shadowing a pair of smouldering eyes that much of the female population of the town had taken quite a liking to. If Wilbrook ran a most eligible bachelor competition then Chandler was dead in the water. Luka would win hands down.
Chandler continued, ‘We have the statement of a man who claims to have been attacked and held captive out on Gardner’s Hill by a man he’s named as Heath. Heath, according to the description, is thirty, five foot six or seven, of stocky build, with brown hair and a beard. Tanned too. As in a working-outdoors tan. We’re to consider him dangerous, possibly armed.’
‘And he’s wanted for? Assault? Kidnapping?’ asked Luka.
‘Attempted murder.’ Chandler looked around his team. ‘And we have reason to suspect he may have killed before.’
‘Yes!’
Chandler turned to the source of the cry. Embarrassed by the outward show of delight, Nick drifted back to his desk and pretended to scribble on some paper. Chandler had known that this detail would spark him. His fascination with serial killers was such that Chandler believed there wasn’t one he couldn’t relay the entire history of.
Chandler looked at Tanya. She was the only one not listening to him, working on the KLO4.
‘How long ’til we can send—’
‘Ready,’ she announced.
Chandler quickly scanned the details. ‘Send it.’
With a click of a button the KLO4 winged its way to all stations in the Pilbara, Western Australia, Northern Territory and South Australia. The state police would get a copy too. Wilbrook would soon become the focus of much attention.
Seeking to get ahead of the game, Chandler brought up computer-generated maps to get an idea of the area they needed to cover. On the screen it looked viable for a small team, contour lines and markings scattered sparsely over the map, but the dog-eared paper copies spread across the meeting table confirmed the sheer size and expanse o
f the region. There might be nothing up there, but there was an awful lot of nothing.
‘You’re going to have to call HQ,’ said Tanya.
Chandler knew that. He also knew what it would entail. HQ meant Port Hedland. And Port Hedland meant Mitch.
‘I know.’
‘We’ll need at least . . . twenty, don’t you think?’ said Luka, immediately making it obvious that he had never set foot on the Hill.
‘Triple that unless we strike lucky,’ said Chandler. He looked to Tanya. ‘See if we can get a chopper or a set of wings up today. Get them to eyeball for anything unusual, maybe narrow the area down.’ He turned to Luka. ‘Luka . . . check up on the name Heath, any criminals with that forename. Or surname. Focus on anyone charged or convicted for murder or assault. Get me all the info you can.’
Orders given, the officers went. That left Chandler with a task he was dreading. Involving Mitch. A task that would reduce his role from leader to assistant. But if Gabriel was correct, then they had a serious criminal on the loose. He needed support to surround the area, erect roadblocks to contain the suspect, as well as organize a search of the Hill and nearby farms. It was too much for five officers on their own.
He reached for the phone but was interrupted by a cry from the main office. Nick’s Melbourne drawl swooped through the air like a foreign language.
‘Zero-zero-one, Sarge.’
An inside joke, code for a call from his mum. Chandler was her personal emergency service. Most likely Dad attempting something she didn’t like. Given it was summer he was probably trying to haul the large rubber pool from the garage to the backyard. Another of Chandler’s jobs. In exchange for free babysitting.
‘What’s it about, Nick?’ asked Chandler. He could do without the distraction right now. The stifled chuckle might have been imagined but it was enough to irritate him.
‘Something to do with Sarah.’
‘Right, put her through.’
Chandler answered halfway through the first ring.
‘Chandler?’
‘Yes, it’s me, Mum.’ He sighed.
‘What’s with your new boy’s accent, I thought I’d phoned the wrong place.’
‘You phone twice a day, Mum.’
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