As I drove to work, a couple of grey kangaroos bounded away, startled from their feeding on the roadside grass, vanishing into the scrub. Even they were doing it hard in this long drought, trying to find feed so close to the dangerous road.
Focusing tightly in on work was a survival mechanism that had kept me going through my darkest hours. But now, the searing vision of Sofia Verstoek presenting herself for sexual action kept flashing into my mind. As well, the conflict with Iona underlay everything and Charlie’s questioning of the previous night only served to destabilise me further. I’d heard lots of old cops talk about post-traumatic stress disorder and how flashback scenes appeared in their minds, unbidden, to torment them. I’d witnessed awful murder scenes, crash scenes, bodies fused in incinerated automobiles, children dead in toilets, but things I pushed out of my mind generally stayed put, in some underground archive where they could not trouble me. Not this time, and it was adding to my unbalanced state; as if the crowded contents of that archive had been tipped out of their accustomed places and then just tossed back in again. I didn’t know how long it would take for things to settle back into the usual patterns. Blue’s bold manner of greeting me had created a psychological Trojan horse, penetrating and undermining my domain of focused reason. I needed all my energy for Iona and me and I cursed Sofia Verstoek out loud as I drove, willing her to get back in her box.
It wasn’t until I was sitting at work, sifting through the internal and external mail trays, that I remembered Tianna Richardson’s funeral was that day and would be starting soon. I arranged for the particle samples to be sent express courier to Ellis Smith and then grabbed my jacket, hastily leaving a message with the secretary. I wanted to put in an appearance at the funeral, not only because I had known Tianna, or because of my professional connection with her, but also because the life of this woman and the manner of her death had touched me. I had helped her put on her brand new skirt, the one she’d not been wearing when she met her chilling fate. There was another reason, too.
I got to the church just in time to see the pallbearers carrying the coffin out to the hearse.
‘Jason Richardson’s here,’ Brian said as I joined him near his car and he indicated a battered Holden panel van with a surfboard on racks on the roof. ‘I’m going to the cemetery for the burial and, after that, I’ll bring him back with me,’ he continued. ‘Meet me at the station in an hour or so?’
He walked over to the wide entrance with its Norman doors and I followed as he made his way past the people flowing out in the other direction. Earl Richardson, in a dark suit and black tie, was accompanied by a brown-robed and sandalled Franciscan—Father Basil, I imagined. As they came closer, I realised Earl’s tie wasn’t black but dark purple. The man had no taste. Trailing behind him was the youth who had to be his son Jason, awkward in a black suit, white-blond hair and dark tanned features, eyes squinting against the glare of the skies. Earl saw me and his eyes lit up. Damn, I thought.
‘Jack!’ Earl said, stepping forward with his hand out to shake mine. ‘How kind of you to come to this sad occasion.’
I took his hand and, while Brian busied himself with the Franciscan, Earl introduced me to a woman nearby.
‘Deirdre Delaney, meet Jack McCain, one of my oldest friends. Deirdre is a bereavement counsellor—she’s been a tower of strength to me in all this.’
‘Earl is so brave,’ said Deirdre, shaking my hand then imprisoning it with her other hand. Looking at her black lace mantilla over her yellow hair, her brows wrinkling in professional concern, I found I’d taken an instant dislike to her. ‘I simply don’t know how he’s managing to stay so calm and centred despite his loss,’ she said.
I retrieved my hand and she reached up to brush dandruff off Earl’s black shoulder. I excused myself, watching Earl as he shook hands with other members of the funeral, while Brian took Jason aside, leaving the bereavement counsellor and the Franciscan to each other.
Little more than an hour later, I was at Heronvale Police Station, sitting at a table with a bad coffee in front of me, watching on a colour monitor the proceedings in the next room where Brian was taking a formal statement from young Jason. Except for his long, narrow face and nose, something like an anteater, Jason reminded me of Damien Henshaw. He was a similar age, with the same blond hair and rangy, tall physique. I tuned out as Brian went through the formalities with the young man and wandered over to the window. From there, I could see Jason’s van. I stepped outside and went over to the vehicle. It was a Holden, about eight years old and due for registration. I walked right round it and then noticed that the passenger door was unlocked. I couldn’t resist.
Pulling on a pair of gloves, I opened it and looked inside, picking over the assorted mess on the floor—girlie and surfing magazines, takeaway food containers, the odd beer can, an empty plastic sandwich envelope which I sniffed. The scent of dope was unmistakeable. I pulled open the glove box and several items fell out onto the mess on the floor, including a fancy and well-used bong, packets of cigarette papers and a circular tin of tobacco, almost empty. It was the last item to slide out that mesmerised me. Carefully, I picked it up and slipped it into an envelope, then closed the door and went back inside, making a call to Brian in the next room as I did.
‘Come outside a minute. I’ve got something you might want to use in your interview,’ I said. ‘I found it in young Jason’s car.’
‘Jack,’ Brian started to say, his tone a warning.
‘It’s okay. It was unlocked.’
I watched Brian on the monitor as he excused himself and, moments later, he was with me.
‘Look,’ I said, fishing out what I’d found, letting it hang from my still-gloved fingers.
Brian frowned for a moment before light dawned. He hooked it closer with his pen and studied it. ‘This necklace goes with those earrings,’ he said.
‘Nineteenth-century Victorian rose gold in a distinctive design of interlinked hearts set with green peridots and seed pearls,’ I quoted, remembering the gist of the jeweller’s certificate. ‘Just like this necklace.’
‘She must have had a matching set,’ said Brian as I dropped it back into the plastic bag and handed it to him. ‘How come Jason’s got this?’
‘Good question,’ I answered.
A few moments later, I watched on the monitor while Brian presented the necklace in its packet and laid it on the table. I studied Jason Richardson as closely as I could under the circumstances. He stiffened, clearly shocked.
‘You’ve got no right!’ he cried. ‘You’ve been going through my things!’
‘Not your things, Jason,’ said Brian. ‘This doesn’t belong to you, does it?’
Jason, who’d been leaning forward against the table that stood between him and Brian, pushed himself away.
‘Just relax, Jason,’ I heard Brian say. ‘And tell me about how this comes to be in your glove box.’
Tianna had been wearing the matching earrings when her body was found and, unless we had a coincidence of the greatest magnitude, Jason Richardson must have taken this necklace from his stepmother.
I watched as he twisted awkwardly in his chair. ‘Can I have a coffee or something?’ he asked.
‘Sure,’ said Brian. ‘I’ll go and get one, and while I’m gone I want you to think about this: your stepmother’s just been murdered and in your glove box we’ve found a gold and pearl necklace that matches the pair of earrings she was wearing when she was killed. You can see what people might think.’
‘Shit! I never touched her! I wasn’t even in the bloody state! Gran gave me that necklace.’
Brian’s face was a picture. ‘Gran? Your grandmother gave you that necklace?’ he said, all eyebrows. ‘What? To wear to impress your mates?’
Again, I watched the monitor closely, but Jason’s face was half-hidden by the way he was sitting.
&nb
sp; ‘You just wait here and think about what you’re telling us, Jason.’ Brian stood up and went out the door and I watched Jason sitting there, hunched over, staring at the wall while Brian left him to stew.
Brian was back a few minutes later with two steaming styrofoam cups.
From somewhere I could hear a butcherbird carolling his call sign and another, more distant bird answering.
‘Tell me about the necklace, Jason.’
Jason sipped his coffee and grimaced. ‘I usually have sugar,’ he said.
‘We’re all out,’ Brian said. ‘Sorry.’
‘You ask Gran,’ Jason said.
‘I will,’ said Brian. ‘In the meantime, we need a little cheek scrape from you. A DNA sample.’
Jason spluttered in his coffee.
‘Just to put you in the clear,’ added Brian.
After Jason had provided his sample, I accompanied him and Brian back into the interview room.
‘So how do you spend your time, Jason?’ I asked.
He shrugged. ‘Work a bit. Surf a bit. Travel a bit.’
‘Bit of a nomad, are you?’ Brian asked.
Jason didn’t answer so I decided to engage him a little. ‘Nice sort of life,’ I said. ‘I’ve got two kids—not much younger than you. I’d love to be able to do that. No bosses. Just work when I need to and keep driving all round Australia.’
‘Not just Australia. I’ve been to England too,’ he said proudly. He hadn’t achieved much else in his life so far, I thought.
‘Not much surf there,’ said Brian. ‘Why England?’
‘I was trying to trace someone,’ Jason said, his voice wavering. I remembered Earl Richardson’s first wife had, quite wisely, I thought, gone back to the UK. Must have been hard for Jason—feeling dumped by his mother when he was just a youngster.
‘Your grandmother bring you up?’ I asked.
He nodded.
‘That must have been hard sometimes.’
The grunt he answered with might have covered a lot of ground. It could have meant my mother didn’t want me, nor did my father or his new wife.
We sat in silence for a while.
‘So did you trace your mother?’ I asked.
Jason looked away and shook his head. ‘She didn’t want to be found,’ he said, voice sad, muted. ‘At least, not by me.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I just know it. Okay? She didn’t answer any of my letters. I found an old aunt who said she’d had a letter from her and that she’d run off with some man. She was entitled to a new life,’ he added.
‘And a baby is entitled to his mother,’ I said. ‘You must have resented Tianna Richardson for replacing your mother.’
He shrugged again, either with bravado or genuine indifference. ‘I did okay.’
‘So how were your relations with Tianna?’ Brian asked.
‘They were fine. How often do I have to tell you?’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘We’ll have to have a chat to your grandmother.’
Jason sat back and looked at me. ‘That necklace,’ he said. ‘I should tell you. Actually, Gran didn’t exactly give it to me.’
‘You pinched it?’ I asked.
‘It’s not like that.’
‘Then how is it?’ Brian said.
‘Gran was going to give it away anyway. It’s not like she wanted it.’
‘You still haven’t answered me,’ I reminded him. ‘Did you pinch it?’
‘Tianna loved that set. She was always on about it.’ Another of his shrugs. ‘I took it. I thought it might have been valuable if she was after it.’ He looked at me. ‘It was my mum’s.’
I frowned. ‘Why would your mother give it to her mother-in-law?’
‘How would I know? I took the necklace last time I visited Gran’s. From the drawer.’
‘We still need to talk to your grandmother, Jason,’ said Brian. ‘We need to confirm if you’re telling the truth now.’
‘She’s not here at the moment,’ he said.
‘Let’s check that out, shall we?’
Brian left the room to make a call and came back a few minutes later. ‘No one’s answering at her number, but I’ll be sending someone over later to check it out,’ he said.
‘See? I told you. She’s away for a few days. Visiting a friend. She’s often away.’
‘Okay, Jason,’ said Brian. ‘You’ve already tried some bullshit story on me. We’ll be checking to make sure if the necklace was in the possession of your grandmother. What if you didn’t get it from her at all? What if Tianna already had the stuff? And you had a big fight with your stepmother? Or maybe you were pinching it from your stepmother except she returned unexpectedly and you killed her. Is that what happened?’
‘No way! Like I told you, I pinched it from Gran’s place!’
‘We have a witness who recalls you having a terrible fight with your stepmother,’ Brian said. ‘And your father too. You didn’t get on with either of them, did you? You better stay in town, Jason. Until we’ve checked that what you’ve been telling us is true—that the necklace came from your grandmother’s place,’ he added.
‘How’s your father?’ I asked.
Again the shrug.
‘You don’t get along with him, do you?’ I said.
He didn’t answer me, remaining silent.
Brian told him he could go. ‘But don’t leave town, son, until we’ve spoken to your grandmother,’ he said.
Jason got up and hurried outside and over to his van. I watched through the window as he jumped in and slammed the door shut, long blond hair shining. I felt sorry for the kid, abandoned by his mother, neglected by his father, lost and wandering around surfing.
I stayed with Brian and had an instant coffee with him in the meal room while he organised notes into various folders. I flipped one open and glanced at the contents: photographs, print-outs of statements signed by those who’d made them. I pulled out Earl Richardson’s and glanced at it. I spent the evening watching television until about ten o’clock then I went to bed. I did not know anything about my wife’s death until I was woken by the police at four-thirty in the morning.
Pulling the Richardson folder closer, I leafed through it, pausing at a clipping from a recent edition of Police News complete with candid photo taken at a Christmas party. I read how Earl Richardson had thrown a shindig at Balmain Leagues Club for some of his erstwhile colleagues in the police; the close-up shot of Earl showed him as a jovial host, holding a schooner of beer aloft.
‘I used that photo in the first twenty-four hours or so,’ said Brian, ‘until I had a better shot. Showed it round the street but no one had seen him the day Tianna was murdered.’
I looked closer at a blonde woman behind Earl in the picture and recognised her. ‘That’s the bereavement counsellor,’ I said, pointing her out to Brian.
He nodded. ‘I remember her. She was at the funeral.’
‘I wonder why you’d need a bereavement counsellor before your wife’s death,’ I said.
‘She’s associated with the Glebe morgue,’ Brian said, flipping through his notes on Jason Richardson, sorting them into some sort of order. ‘What do you make of young Jason?’ he asked.
‘He’s a lost soul leading an aimless life,’ I said, leaning back in my chair as I considered the young man who’d just left.
‘Do you think he’s a killer?’
‘You should be asking my brother that, not me,’ I replied.
‘Come on, Jack. You’ve been around longer than me. What’s your gut feeling?’
‘Jason’s the sort of kid who often ends up involved in criminal matters,’ I said, looking through the crime scene photographs. ‘Raised by a grandparent, few ties to the community, no girlfriend,
a loner, on the road a lot, unemployed—he’s not on a good trajectory. You’d have to ask how he supports himself moving around like that.’
‘He reckons he’s on an extended working holiday,’ said Brian, ‘but he was very vague on names and places. Bit of bar work, fruit-picking, that sort of thing.’
‘He could hate Tianna for taking his mother’s place,’ I said. ‘I’d like to talk to the grandmother, find out a bit about his background.’ I wrote down her address on Sparrows Ridge Road some fifty kilometres from Heronvale out in the high country that surrounds the nation’s capital. Then I stood up to leave. Brian accompanied me, grabbing a drink of water from a cooler near the foyer.
‘He reminds me of someone,’ I said, pushing the door open, searching my memory. ‘That long blond hair and the surfboard on the top.’
‘Me too,’ said Brian. ‘Martin Bryant.’
Eighteen
The best thing to do when an emotional issue was pressing hard, I’d always found, was to swamp the brain with work and push the issue right out of the picture. Genevieve used to call me cold and heartless but my technique of pushing suffering away became a survival habit when I was growing up and a great asset in our marriage. So, although my heart was heavy with the way things were between Iona and me, and my memory filled with the primal vision of last night, I continued on to work, planning my speech to Sofia Verstoek in case we should bump into each other along any of the alleyways of Forensic Services.
When I got to the office, I looked through the manila folders containing the enhanced and enlarged photographs of the soles of the boots Damien Henshaw admitted to leaving at Tianna Richardson’s house. Next to these, in a separate sleeve, were the enlargements of the partial bootprint left in the soft dust near the murdered body of Tianna Richardson. I compared the images with the naked eye. It looked very promising, with similarities between the actual boot sole and its negative imprint. To take my mind off both Iona and the Brazilian, I unlocked the boots from the exhibit locker and readied myself for work in one of the examination rooms.
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