Blood Sisters

by Caroline de Costa

‘No,’ Cass shook her head. ‘I’m not biting! No mention of babies, please. I’m not even sure I’m going to live with him yet!’

  ‘Really?’ asked Lyndall mildly.

  Their breakfasts arrived and for a moment they were both silent as they dealt with eggs and mushrooms.

  ‘Well,’ said Cass, ‘I quite like my independence. And then there’s Jordon.’

  ‘Jordon!’ said Lyndall. ‘Jordon’s twenty and quite capable of managing on his own. What about him living in student digs nearer Smithfield, maybe? I’m sure he’ll always bring his washing home for you—mine certainly do!’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Cass, ‘I know. He could do that. He has a lot of mates at Smithfield who share. And yeah, I do want to be with Zak. I miss him like crazy most of the time.’

  Dr Zak Rookwood was currently spending a year in Brisbane training to be an emergency physician. He and Cass had racked up a good many frequent flyer points over the preceding months.

  ‘I worry about the age difference, though, you know,’ said Cass, through a mouthful of poached egg. She was four years older than Zak.

  ‘Well, just stop that,’ Lyndall answered. ‘You know my Frenchman’s the same, four years younger than me. But nobody could call either of us cougars!’

  Cass laughed. She had never met Bernard—Lyndall always travelled to France so that they could be together. But the bond between them seemed strong.

  ‘And I’m a hopeless cook,’ Cass added.

  ‘You could always learn... And frankly, darling, I don’t think your culinary abilities are uppermost in Zak’s mind. Besides, you can always eat out or get takeaway.’

  ‘Yeah, I’m the queen of the frozen dinners,’ Cass said, spreading her toast liberally with honey. ‘And he hasn’t seemed to mind so far. But it might be different if we lived together.’

  ‘So, what do you have to do today?’ Lyndall changed the subject. ‘Do you know who the dead girl is?’

  ‘We don’t know yet. She was on her own. That’ll be step one, this morning. It seems she was working under an assumed name.’ A white ibis approached their table, stepping daintily across the lawn and accepting a beakful of toast and honey from Cass.

  ‘That would be quite normal, wouldn’t it, for a sex worker?’ asked Lyndall. ‘Using another name? To make yourself sound sexier, maybe. But also protecting yourself from your clients.’ She threw some crumbs far out beyond the ibis for the seagulls, who ran to squabble over the booty.

  Cass nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right. But—watch this space! I have a feeling, a kind of tingling feeling, that this case is going to lead us down some interesting pathways.’

  She finished the last of her breakfast and stood up, reaching for her purse. ‘No,’ said Lyndall. ‘It’s my turn. You go and get on with detecting. I don’t have any patients till nine-thirty.’

  ‘Okay,’ Cass said, laughing. ‘Thanks for that. My turn next time. Catch you again soon!’

  She set off down the Esplanade. After a moment she pulled out her phone and texted Zak: Missing you like crazy xxxx  C.

  ***

  As she crossed the open walkway between hospital buildings, Dr Susie Ortega looked down towards the sea and noticed the detective she’d met last night walking along the Esplanade and texting on her phone. Cass Diamond, that was her name.

  After her call to the ED and her meeting with Cass, Susie had gone on to perform an emergency caesar and do several consultations in the birth suite. She would be glad to be finished her shift soon and fall into her bed for at least four hours. But still turning around in her brain was the image of the young Asian woman she’d seen briefly last night, her skin the colour of chalk from blood loss, her long dark hair trailing across the pillow of the ambulance stretcher.

  In all her time as a doctor, Susie had seen quite a few unpleasant objects lodged in the vaginas of her patients. But though surgery had sometimes been indicated, none of these objects had ever caused the woman’s death. This case was quite extraordinary, and horrific. What had happened, and who might the woman have been with?

  Susie decided that she would attend the autopsy to see for herself. She took out her mobile and called Dr Leah Rookwood, the pathologist who would perform the procedure.

  ***

  Later that morning, Scarlett sat with Emily, Dorcas and Mai Ling in the senior students’ courtyard of Baptist College, out of bounds except to Years 11 and 12. They sprawled across the seats in their favourite spot under a spreading raintree. It was August—winter in Cairns. All of them wore baggy Baptist jumpers over their skirts, in the school’s distinctive colour of Martian green. The trick was to roll the waist of your skirt over so it was almost level, though not quite, with the jumper. This way you were still in school uniform and just able to avoid detention. This fashion statement was teamed with the daggiest thick white cotton socks you could find in Kmart, and black Campers. Scarlett, Emily and Dorcas all had their hair tied up with the school’s regulation Martian-green hair bands, while Mai Ling’s was cut in a neat bob. No jewellery was allowed apart from one stud in each ear, and no visible tattoos. The rules were strict—which was why their parents paid the considerable fees.

  ‘So how old was the woman, Red?’ demanded Emily, lolling against the tree’s solid trunk. Scarlett had been Red and Emily Blue since their very first day together in the Baptist kindergarten when Miss Hartnett had told Emily that where she came from, which was way out in the west of Queensland past Mount Isa, people with red hair were always called Blue.

  ‘Shit,’ said Scarlett, ‘not much older than us. Jan told me about her when I started the shift. Jan knew she was a pro, but you know, she doesn’t mind if they just bring one or two guys there. She says it’s no different from all the other people who come to hook up in the afternoons. She says she just doesn’t want the motel’s reputation ruined. Or the cops coming by. Though she’s got the cops now, big-time.’

  ‘So did you see her when she checked in?’ asked Dorcas.

  ‘No, ’cos I don’t start till after school and she came about three. If that family hadn’t shown up when they did it wouldn’t have been noticed until much later.’

  ‘So, someone came in while you were there and murdered her, while you were just sitting in the office?’ asked Dorcas. ‘And then... did they leave, like walk right past you in the office and out the gate?’

  ‘Well, that’s just what I don’t get,’ said Scarlett. ‘On the news this morning they were just saying a woman was found in suspicious circumstances. But then the detectives called Mum. They said they couldn’t say yet if it was murder. And that at the moment there’s no evidence that someone came into the room and murdered her. To kind of reassure her that I hadn’t been at a murder scene, was how Mum understood it. Which is good for me, because I was thinking Mum might say I can’t work there anymore.’

  ‘So, did she kill herself, then?’ Mai Ling asked. ‘Cut her wrists? Is that what caused all the blood?’

  ‘Mum said they didn’t know yet exactly what had happened but there’d be an autopsy tomorrow so we should know more after that. Yeah, there really was a lot of blood. The woman who was there just screamed her head off. And I mean, screamed! Like nothing I ever heard in the movies.’

  ‘I would have screamed, too,’ Mai Ling said. ‘I probably would have fainted.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Scarlett, ‘it was gross. And, of course, I didn’t really see all of it. Just what was on the floor. The cops wouldn’t let me see anything else.’

  ‘And you have to talk to the detectives this afternoon,’ Emily said enviously. Scarlett had been called out of maths class to be given this message by the Principal. Mr Campbell had also asked Scarlett if she would like to talk to the school’s chaplain, a morose man called Mr Brownlow.

  ‘Eeyore just wants to know the gory details himself, Red!’ said Mai Ling, laughing. ‘And tell you to share them with God.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Scarlett agreed. ‘I told him I’ll be fine, that I don’t need counselling,
especially from Eeyore Downlow. But I feel sorry for the woman, whatever happened to her, and her family. I’d like to be able to tell them that. And Mum said it’d be okay to say that to the police.’

  ‘So, is your mum taking you down to Sheridan Street after school?’ Emily asked.

  ‘Nah. She’s on evening shift so she can’t pick me up from here, but she can get away for half an hour and meet me at the police station. So, I was thinking that if Karen is coming this afternoon, maybe you guys could drive me there. Dorcas and Mai can come too. And then afterwards, we could go for coffee at the Lily Pad and I can tell you all about it. Unless the cops swear me to secrecy, that is!’

  Emily shook her head. ‘Actually,’ she said, ‘I’m not driving with Karen anymore.’

  What? The others turned to her. More news!

  ‘What happened?’ Scarlett asked. ‘She said she won’t do it anymore? I thought it was her idea in the first place.’

  ‘It was,’ said Emily. ‘And now I realise that was a bit weird anyway.’

  Karen was a friend of Emily’s mother Meredith. She lived not far from the school and was, as the girls had remarked, just about the only woman they knew who didn’t have a job but also didn’t have children.

  The previous week Dorcas had been out of school at the dentist’s. ‘I saw Karen,’ she’d told the others, ‘going to Pilates, wearing a Calvin Klein tracksuit and pearls... at ten in the morning!’

  ‘Gross,’ said Scarlett, ‘I hope I don’t end up like that.’

  Karen seemed to divide her day between such activities and extended sessions in beauty parlours, paid for by her much older husband Gerhard, whom she’d married when she’d been a secretary at Meredith’s law firm. Now with so much time on her hands, Karen had offered to pick up Emily from school most days and let her drive Karen’s car home. Like Scarlett, Emily would be trying for her P plates soon.

  Once they reached Emily’s house, Karen would often hang around until Meredith came home, and the two women would have a drink together. This had been especially welcome to Meredith because she’d become convinced that Emily’s dad, Blake, was having an affair. Blake had repeatedly denied this, but Meredith would discuss the evidence as she sat in the kitchen with Karen and a bottle of sauvignon blanc. Emily knew she was not supposed to know about her mother’s suspicions but after several glasses of wine both Meredith and Karen would grow quite raucous.

  The situation had been much discussed under the raintree at Baptist College.

  ‘Actually,’ Emily had said, ‘I think Meredith should just dump Dad and go and get herself a flat and a new life.’ Emily always called her mother by her first name. ‘They seem to have had pretty much nothing to say to each other for years. And he’s put on heaps of weight.’ She’d thought for a moment. Perhaps that was unfair.

  ‘Anyway, if they got divorced,’ she’d added, ‘I’d still be able to see him. I do care about him. In fact, I’d probably see him more than I do now even though we’re living in the same house.’

  ‘So, what’s happened with Karen?’ asked Scarlett now. ‘Why aren’t you doing driving practice with her anymore?’

  Emily tensed her jaw, a wave of disgust crossing her face. ‘Yesterday,’ she said, ‘she picked me up just like always. I did some reverse parking at Freshwater—not bad! We got home. Then I had to take my bike down to the bike shop to get a puncture fixed. Karen said she’d wait for Mum. Before I’d left, she’d got herself a cup of tea and was sitting on the veranda. I went off, but halfway down the street I realised I didn’t have my helmet for the ride back. So I came back. I pushed the bike up the side of the house which means I passed Mum and Dad’s room, and that’s when I saw Karen. She was going through Mum’s underwear drawer, looking at her undies! Can you believe that! I stood there watching her for a few minutes, and then she looked up and saw me. I was kind of freaked out, so I left the bike in the backyard and came back in through the laundry to get the helmet, hoping to get the hell out of there without having to see her. But she was just standing there with the washing basket, bright red. She said she’d decided to help Mum by putting the washing away. But I knew there wasn’t any to put away because we did it all on the weekend!’

  ‘So did you say that to her?’ Dorcas asked.

  ‘I was so messed up I couldn’t say anything to her. And then she said she wouldn’t wait after all, and just rushed out the door,’ Emily replied.

  ‘Did you tell Meredith?’ Scarlett asked.

  ‘No! I just didn’t know what to think about it all. I realised then that she’s often hanging around in the afternoon. She could be in Mum’s room any time, if I go out somewhere, or I’m in my room doing homework with my headphones on. I wouldn’t know what she was up to!’

  ‘That’s really sick, Blue!’ Scarlett said, grimacing.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. Anyway, this morning I just texted her and said that I had something to do with you guys after school and wouldn’t be driving.’

  ‘Well, then come with me on the bus into town,’ Scarlett said. ‘You have got something to do with me! All of you should come. You can hang out at the Lily Pad while I’m at the cops, then I’ll join you afterwards.’

  ***

  At nine that morning, Cass and Drew met with Detective Inspector Leslie Fernando in his office. Placing herself strategically in an upright chair so as to enjoy Leslie’s water views, Cass, sipped her third coffee of the morning. The Inspector was looking as dapper as ever with his hair now almost fully silver. He wore his usual uniform of crisp white shirt and cream chinos and sat comfortably at his desk, the view of the Inlet framed by the window behind him.

  ‘This woman from the motel last night,’ Leslie began, ‘do we know who she is?’

  ‘We’re getting onto it straight away, sir,’ said Drew, who would be leading the case. ‘We do know she’s young, Asian, probably from the Philippines, probably a sex worker. Checked into the motel yesterday afternoon alone, no other person seen with her since then, found dying from blood loss about 9.20 pm and dead on arrival at ED. No photo ID anywhere in her belongings. Now awaiting autopsy at the hospital.

  ‘And, sir,’ he added, ‘when I thought about it—there seem to be some parallels with the Rita Gonzalo case.’

  ‘With Rita?’ Leslie’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Drew answered. ‘Both sex workers, Filipina, murdered in possibly similar circumstances. We’re waiting on everything—ID, forensics, autopsy—but that’s what struck me last night.’

  ‘You weren’t first on the scene for Rita’s death, were you?’ Leslie said slowly. ‘That was Troy.’

  ‘That’s right. But I saw the photos and talked to the team. Rita was first smothered with a pillow then stabbed. There were cigarette burns that were probably after the stabbing when the killer thought she was dead. Our victim wasn’t smothered and wasn’t stabbed in the body but certainly seems to have some stabbing injuries to the vagina—enough to bleed to death, by the looks.’

  ‘Troy’s in Bali now, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yep, and won’t be back at work till Monday week.’

  Their colleague. Detective Troy Barwon. was on leave, taking his first-ever holiday outside Australia. In Bali. With his new girlfriend Gemma, whom he’d met on a dating site Cass had suggested he try six months previously.

  ‘She’s my ideal woman—at last!’ he’d told Cass after the first date, opening his phone to show her a photo taken in a restaurant the night before. ‘Blonde, brown eyes, not too tall,’—Troy himself had just scraped into the police height limits. ‘Loves Thai food and long walks on the beach. Owns her own house. Divorced and shares custody of their daughter.’ Cass had nodded enthusiastically before turning tactfully back to her own computer. She was pleased to know that a capable woman had finally captured Troy’s dogged attention, but she didn’t need too much detail.

  Troy’s absence now was making more work for Cass and Drew, but Cass was happy with that; the two of them were a go
od team.

  Now Leslie looked at Cass. ‘You haven’t worked on Rita’s case, have you? It was before your time, right?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Well, it could be worth your while looking at the evidence with fresh eyes. I guess it’s possible there’s some kind of connection between Rita and this woman.’

  ‘Thank you. Although I haven’t had much luck with Wayne Buscati’s case!’

  ‘Oh, Rita’s way ahead of Wayne on the list of unsolved murders around Cairns,’ said Leslie. ‘All Rita’s injuries point to a crazed killer, someone beside themselves, yet careful enough to leave not one identifiable trace. Whereas Wayne’s departure from this life was almost certainly due to a routine drug deal gone pear-shaped. It’s just a matter of time until someone speaks up about what happened to him. ‘

  ‘I’ll look out the Gonzalo files for Cass,’ said Drew, ‘although her first job this morning is going to be identifying our own victim.’

  ‘Of course,’ Leslie agreed. ‘And there might be something that comes up straight away that immediately rules out any link. But keeping Rita in your minds, that’s a good idea!’

  ***

  Before going back to her office, Cass picked up another double shot of coffee, then took the stairs to her office on the next floor and sat down to begin a search through their databases for Dorentina/Maria.

  It didn’t take long to find Dorentina Lavides, a citizen of the Philippines who had come to Australia from Manila two months previously. She was on a student visa, which would be valid for another ten months, to study at the Hawthorne School of English. She had entered through Darwin and had an onward ticket to Cairns and a return ticket to the Philippines. She held a valid Philippines passport. She was born in Davao City on 3 April 1995, so was now eighteen. The destination address she had given was 1A Sheridan Street, Cairns.

  Student visas allowed the holder to work up to forty hours each fortnight. The headquarters of the Hawthorne School of English was in Melbourne but there was a Cairns branch listed on the White Pages.