‘Bugger,’ Dave said as he felt another stick dig into his calf. He stopped and pushed hard on the spot with his finger to stop the bleeding. Grabbing the GPS off his belt, he looked to see how far away from the car he was: 3.3 kilometres.
As he looked around, a glint caught his eye. He swung back to have another look. There was something shiny to his left. Forgetting about his calf, he walked with a sense of urgency towards it.
Breaking out into a clearing, he saw what had caught his eye. It was a bunch of faded plastic flowers set on top of a wooden cross.
Dave’s breath caught in his throat. Two graves were enclosed by a low rusted iron fence, about knee high. Goosebumps spread across his skin as he read the hand-carved plaque.
Our children lie in these graves. Victims of a life which has stolen ours. Twins Kenneth and Pammy Tucker lie together as they were born and died, aged four, taken in a mining accident.
Kelly Tucker, aged eighteen months, taken by a snakebite.
Tim and Marianne Tucker
Dave shivered and looked around. Three children, taken in tragic accidents, lying here in forgotten graves, watched over only by the birds and the wind.
Back in the car, Dave thought about Tim, out in the middle of the bush, living a life by himself, after having lost his children. He wondered about Marianne and where she was. Surely if she were dead, she’d be buried with her children. Maybe the grief had got too much for her and she’d moved away. Gone to live in a town, or anywhere else, to get away from the life which had taken her kids.
He must have been on Tim Tucker’s land while he was looking at the graves, so he got out his map and tried to work out where Tim’s hut would be in relation to them. It must be about two and half kilometres away. A long way.
The sun was high in the sky now and Dave realised he didn’t have much time left before he’d have to start heading back to Barrabine. He supposed he could always stay out another night, but he didn’t have any way of letting Melinda know and he was a little concerned about how tired she’d been.
Driving as fast as the road allowed, he followed the last track he noticed, which looked like it led to a dead end. He was keen to check it out; it might be a good spot to dump a car. The track obviously hadn’t been used a lot and there were tree branches growing over it. Some of the branches had been broken off, suggesting someone had driven a vehicle down here. Dave stopped and looked at the snapped branches, wondering how long ago they’d been broken. The leaves were beginning to wilt but weren’t yet completely dead and dry, so it would have to be at least a couple of weeks. A simmering excitement started in his chest.
Grabbing the camera, he snapped a few shots of the broken branches then started to walk, following the track. About one hundred metres in, he turned to look back. He couldn’t see his vehicle—it was if the bush had closed in around him and hidden him from the world.
He kept walking, taking in everything, stopping occasionally to take photos. The trail was easy to follow because the broken branches led him deeper into the bush like they were a Hansel and Gretel trail of crumbs.
Then suddenly there it was. The white four-wheel drive. Parked beneath a tree. The numberplate was the one he’d memorised and instantly Dave knew he’d found the secret world of Glen Bartlett.
He took shots of the car in situ—complete with the leaves which had fallen onto the windscreen and now sat there, piled up. The birds had found it a useful perch, if the amount of shit on the roof was anything to go by, and there were clear dog tracks around the vehicle as if they’d circled it, trying to work out if it was prey or not.
With gloved hands, he opened the driver’s side door and looked inside.
Nothing remarkable caught his eye. It looked like a hire car that had recently been picked up from the carpark. Clean and tidy. Dave noticed there were a few areas where dirt had been picked up on Glen’s shoes and brought into the car. He snapped some pictures, wondering if the dirt could be analysed; it might help them track his movements, understand the places he’d been visiting.
He flicked open the glove box. Only the manual and copies of the hire agreement. Dave checked the starting kilometres against the kilometres on the speedo. Only three hundred. Nothing too substantial.
In the back of the car he noted a takeaway wrapper, The West newspaper and a map. He brought the map out and unfolded it on the bonnet, his heart in his mouth. Finding Barrabine, he looked for anything that might indicate where Glen had been visiting. Noting the worn crease lines, he folded the map back to them and looked at the section it showed, hoping for more clues as to where he’d been.
Oakamanda was in the middle of the square and around it were black dots, indicating all the different leases, but there was no handwriting, no markings to give a suggestion as to where he’d been.
Grabbing the newspaper, he looked at the date. Five months ago. That gave Dave pause. Why would he have a newspaper five months old? He flicked through the first few pages and couldn’t see anything to do with either Barrabine or mining.
Frustrated, Dave let out a loud sigh and ran his hands over his head. Putting the map in an evidence bag, he left it on the front seat then went to the back. The two doors opened outwards revealing an empty area, which was carpeted. He stared at it carefully, checking to see if any of the edges had been folded back. He ran his fingers around just to make sure, but there didn’t seem to be anything hidden under the carpet. The door trims hadn’t been popped off either.
‘Damn!’ His voice was loud, causing a flutter of wings from above and a loud warning cry from a bird. Dave looked up. ‘Sorry,’ he said.
He checked under the seats, ran his fingers along the joins and even opened the spare-tyre well, to see if something had been hidden in there. It was clean too.
Finally, he turned to the outside surrounds. Carefully he looked through bushes and out past the clearing circumference, in case there were still footprints. He didn’t see any.
One part of the clearing stood out to him, but he couldn’t work out why. There was a slight mound underneath a tree, right next to the car. It looked as if someone had recently cleared away the leaves and bark in this area because the build-up was much thinner here than elsewhere. The top of the red earth was cracked slightly from being exposed—Dave thought it looked like the bottom of one of the dried-out dams on the farm—and a scorpion had made use of one of the cracks for its home. He took some photos just in case, then kept searching.
Dave was just about to head back to his car to call in the rest of the team when he saw something on the tree trunk. It looked like initials had been engraved into the wood.
Leaning in, he studied them—they were very old, and over time the tree had grown around them. He wasn’t sure if the first letter was P or R and he couldn’t make out the second letter at all.
He took photos of the initials as well—not that he thought they were related, but you could never be too careful.
Finally, gathering up the newspaper and map, he walked back to his car to call in the scene.
Chapter 28
1945
Paddy had been in Victoria for five months when he went to the post office to send a telegram to the police station and newspaper in Barrabine.
Have you found out who the woman I buried was? Stop.
Has anyone come forward since you wrote the article on the woman I buried? Stop.
He waited two weeks for a reply. The police didn’t bother to answer and the newspaper’s reply was one word. No.
Finding the woman had changed Paddy’s life and not for the better. Often when he closed his eyes to sleep he would see her body, hanging from the tree. Or in the grave, her bloated face stared up at him as he shovelled dirt on top of her. He’d told no one of the nightmares, of how she haunted him, floating around his dreams, begging him to tell her family.
Twelve months later he was married and the dreams came less often. Carmen, his wife, sometimes asked why he tossed and turned in his sleep and occa
sionally cried out, but he was reluctant to tell her—he didn’t want Carmen to live with the images too.
Then he found gold. Not just a small amount, a good solid discovery that would keep him and Carmen for the rest of their days.
He began to plan. He would buy the land the woman was buried on. Make sure she was safe and perhaps even mark her grave with a headstone. To the unnamed woman who lies here, I hope you’re at peace. Or: A woman who bore too much despair is buried here. She is unidentified.
It took him eight years, but finally he went into a realty office and made the enquiry. Six months later he was handed the deed to Lease 7008-0514 and called it Fractured Hill.
Fractured because he was sure her family’s life had been fractured by her death.
He placed a notice in the newspaper: Searching for the family of a woman who died in the Barrabine region. He listed the date, what had happened and his phone number, telling no one, not even Carmen, what he was doing.
Chapter 29
Dave deposited the evidence he’d gathered at the station and then checked in with Spencer. He’d handed over the GPS with the coordinates so forensics would be able to find their way out to the car and bring it back in.
‘Has the search on the bank accounts turned up anything yet?’ Dave asked Spencer after he’d finished telling him all the details of his expedition.
‘Not yet. I’ve been following a couple of other leads, but nothing has come back on them yet either, so my advice is to go home and not think about this case until Monday. It’ll probably take the blokes that long to fingerprint everything out there and get the car back in anyway. Spend the weekend with Melinda.’
‘Sounds like a great plan. We thought we might do one of the brothel tours.’
‘What, you need some ideas to spice things up already?’ Spencer gave a shout of laughter.
‘Not yet!’ Dave said, winking at him. ‘Catch you Monday.’
When he got home, Dave found Melinda curled up on the couch, a glass of wine in her hand.
‘You looked whacked,’ he said, bending down to kiss her. ‘Need a top-up?’
She shook her head and patted the spot next to her. ‘I missed you last night. Grab a beer and come and sit next to me.’
He did as he was told. ‘It’s good to be home. You’re still tired?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.
‘Mmm, I am. Feel a bit funny too, squeamish, but I think it’s because I haven’t eaten anything today. It’s been full on. I think it’s just all the emotion.’
‘What happened?’ He reached over to take her hand and waited.
He listened as she told him about Janelle and Maddie, remembering the girl, her dirty clothes and lacklustre hair and skin. The baby crying.
‘We finally convinced her to go to the hospital. They’re both admitted now—Janelle is in the mental health unit. The doctor thinks she has what’s referred to as Munchausen by proxy syndrome. That’s when mothers deliberately hurt their babies to gain attention.’ She sighed. ‘She’s struggled ever since the baby was born, although there were glimmers when I thought, despite being young and not having any help, she was going to be okay. Clearly she wasn’t. Apparently she’s been going around telling anyone who would listen that Maddie wouldn’t feed. I spoke to Ruth at the Mug and she told me that Janelle and Maddie were in there every day. Janelle would tell complete strangers how difficult Maddie was. Sometimes she got the sympathy she was looking for. Other times, when people ignored her, she’d get a little louder. Once, she was asked to leave.’
‘Where’s the father?’ Dave asked.
‘I don’t think Janelle knows.’
‘And the mother? Has she realised her daughter needs her?’
Melinda looked sad. ‘Nope. When I went to see her this afternoon, she refused to come to the hospital. Said exactly what Janelle had been telling me: her problem, she needed to deal with it.’
‘What the hell?’ Dave said angrily. ‘Who does that to their children? Their grandchildren? I hope she rots.’
‘In a way, I’m cross with myself because Janelle was telling me exactly what was going on, except for the feeding side of things. That was her way of trying to make me notice.’
‘What happens now? Has Maddie had any long-term damage done to her?’
‘The doctor doesn’t seem to think so. He was running liver function and full blood tests, just to check. She just needs to put on a little weight.’
‘And Janelle?’
‘I think she’ll be on medication for a while. The hospital will call in welfare, get her set up in a small unit somewhere and watch her closely. Now she’s getting the help she needs, she should be okay. Or at least be able to heal.’
Dave squeezed her hand. ‘You need to be congratulated, you know. It was you who picked that up. Patti didn’t, no one else in the health centre did. You’re incredible. Do you realise you’ve saved two lives?’
Melinda gave a wan smile. ‘I know. It’s pretty cool, isn’t it? I’m glad I took the job.’ She took another sip of wine and closed her eyes, her head flopping back against the couch. ‘So am I. How about I get dinner?’ he said, looking at her and realising she could fall asleep quite easily. ‘But first, I really need a shower.’
Melinda opened her eyes and looked at him. ‘Yeah, you’re filthy! Do you need company?’
‘Are you up to it?’
‘Always.’
The next afternoon at two o’clock they stood outside the Exotic Club and waited for the madam to open the door.
There were eight other couples, older than Dave and Melinda, and they all glanced at one another nervously.
‘Ever done this before? Can’t believe I’m on a brothel tour!’ one man said to Dave.
‘Never,’ he answered with a grin.
One of the women giggled nervously. ‘God, I wonder what we’ll see.’
The door cracked open and a plain-looking middle-aged woman looked out at them. Dave stared, then glanced at Melinda and gave her a nudge with his hip. This was not the Narla he’d met the night they’d been called to the brothel. That evening she’d been dressed in a short skirt and low-cut top, with heavy eye makeup. Today she wore grey slacks and a conservative white blouse. Her shoes were black sneakers and there was not one iota of sexiness about her.
‘Please, come in,’ she said in a honey tone. ‘Welcome to the Exotic Club.’ She waved them inside into a waiting room with seats lining the walls, and gestured for them to sit down.
The lights were dim and everywhere there were props: feather boas draped over the chairs, lingerie displayed on mannequins, and framed pictures of hand-drawn figures in many different sexual positions.
Dave grabbed hold of Melinda’s hand and pulled her close, remembering their lovemaking the night before. A thrill of desire ran through him.
Once everyone was settled, the madam stood in front of them, her hands clasped. She gave off a calm, self-confident authority. It was clear she wasn’t embarrassed by her profession one bit.
‘Welcome to the Exotic Club, the oldest working brothel in Barrabine,’ she began. ‘My name is Narla and I am the madam here. I pride myself on running a good establishment, one which caters for a wide variety of needs and wants.’ Her voice was like warm caramel flowing over ice cream—enough to make anyone melt, Dave decided. ‘We get many men into this house—two are never the same. Some are quiet and shy, others are loud and flashy. Some arrive with bundles of cash, others with credit cards. But they all come here to have a need met. Today I will be showing you around my brothel. We have one bondage room and two standard rooms. So…the bondage room first. Follow me, please.’
They all filed in, single file, and Dave heard the gasps of the people in front of him.
‘Oh my goodness,’ Melinda said, stopping so suddenly he ran into the back of her. She was staring at the bed, which was covered in all sorts of toys and equipment.
‘Check out those shoes,’ she turned and whispered. ‘How can spikes th
at long be classed as pleasurable?’
‘Who knows? And check out the Bundy Bear—he’s handcuffed to the bed!’
Melinda turned with a cheeky grin and looked up at him under her lashes. ‘Did you bring your cuffs home from work, Mr Detective?’
Dave laughed out loud, then quickly stopped as everyone else fell silent.
‘Many people ask to use this room,’ Narla began in her smooth voice. ‘The clients want to be whipped or chained to the bed. As you can see, there are chains on each corner of the bed and,’ indicating the roof, ‘clients may also be restrained standing up.’
Melinda raised her eyebrows and wiggled them at Dave. He knew she was wanting to ask which would be his preference.
Narla picked up a paddle and gently tapped the bum of the Bundy Bear, who was lying facedown on the bed. ‘Bundy comes to us from Queensland during the off season. Drop bears only work for a few months of the year, so he comes to us for a rest.
‘Now if you’ll follow me, I’ll take you into the next room.’
An hour later, Dave and Melinda were sitting in the pub, having a drink, laughing over what they’d seen.
‘That was very illuminating,’ Melinda said, her eyes alight. ‘What about the story of the mayor who suggested a local madam ask the council to allow her to open a hatchery?’
Dave laughed loudly. ‘“Because she raised one thousand cocks a year!”’ he quoted.
Melinda giggled. ‘I wonder if the mayor was a frequent visitor!’ She took a sip of wine and pushed her glass away. ‘Why don’t you drink up and we go home? I’ve got some ideas from the stories we heard today.’
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