by Tia Reed
“Not yet. I need someone to help me investigate.”
“I didn’t take you for a cop.”
“I’m not.”
“Then what’s this to you?”
She caught the pain in his sharp intake of breath. “My cousin was the first to go missing.”
Ella sat straighter, racking her brains for details. “Cecily Williams?” The teenager had been here on holiday from England, visiting relatives. The case had made the national press. When had it happened—two, three weeks ago? For the first time in months she wished she had paid better attention to the news. Twelve months ago she would have revelled in a story like this. Now, well, the only angle she was likely to get was the flesh-eating-monster version. The taste of betrayal still left a bitter coating in her mouth.
“Yeah,” he acknowledged. “Cecily.”
Interest piqued, she leant toward him, almost upsetting her nearly full cup. He hadn’t even touched his. “You don’t look like the type of relative who would sell out his cousin for a few bucks. So what’s the deal?”
“Like I said, I need someone to help me investigate.”
“I work for the Informer. We allege, but we sure don’t investigate.”
“You used to work for the Nationwide Daily.”
“And plenty still do.”
“Yeah, but I want you, Ella Jerome.”
A forgotten prickle of curiosity stirred inside her. Eyes narrowed, she retorted, “I can’t think why.”
“You were the best.”
Were. Yeah, that summed it up. “You got something to say, find yourself a real journalist. You want to dish up dirt on your cousin, it’s not my style, and you looking to discredit me further, I’m not about to help with that.”
She rose to leave. He gripped her wrist. They locked eyes, his pleading, hers defiant.
“You were set up. Half of Adelaide figured that out.” The left side of his mouth twitched in mockery of a smile. “The other half doesn’t read the newspaper.”
She looked at his hand. He was gripping so tightly the tendons on the back formed a fan. He relaxed his hold. His gaze regained its focus. “Cut the blasé act. Your opinion of the paper you find yourself working for is crystal. I’m offering you a chance to restore your reputation.”
Her eyes widened momentarily. She had only forged her offhand attitude this last year, and while the armour was not something she was proud of, complete strangers didn’t usually see through it. “You haven’t told me why you want me.”
He was intent on her, trying to gauge her reaction, she guessed. She studied him back, counting the seconds that would lead to one of those moments that required a decision with far-reaching consequences. She had had enough of those this past year.
“I need someone who can keep an open mind,” he said at last, retrieving his hand.
“Flesh-eating-monster type open mind?”
She really should just walk out of here. A story of that sort would destroy what vestiges of a reputation clung to her. Instead, she waited for his answer. He gave it by reaching inside his jacket and pulling out two photos, which he placed on the table in front of her. Their subjects were dark, indistinct. She lifted the top one. A blurred shape filled one side. It could have been anything. She tossed it onto the table and picked up the second. A webbed membrane spanned the bottom corner.
“What is it?”
He hesitated, which told her that despite his answer he had an opinion. “I don’t know.”
Sure you do, she thought, and his reluctance to divulge the goods clinched her interest. “I’m listening,” she said, settling into her chair. “I’m not making any promises, mind you.”
He relaxed, and the lines around his eyes smoothed out. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“You’d better start at the beginning.” She took a sip of cold coffee and grimaced. “Just a moment.” She rewound her recorder and went to the counter, waiting behind one of the rowdy teens. Night was deepening outside. Traffic was thinning. Something that looked suspiciously like a bat was fluttering around the outside lights. A little queasy, she ordered. Caffeine and chocolate might yet be the key to getting through a wild tale of God-knew-what atrocity.
She passed her source a cup and fumbled with the recorder while sipping coffee. None of the eerie sounds had stuck.
“Go ahead. Can you start with who you are?” She had only just realised she didn’t know his name.
“I’m Adam Lowell. I’m a zoologist researching Adelaide’s bat population.” He caught her blink. “There’s quite a few around the city.”
Ella glanced at the photos.
“I’m not sure, but I don’t think so,” he said slowly.
She wondered if he guessed headlines about vampire bats were running through her mind. She had to make a living, after all, and being relegated to the back pages of a trashy newspaper for covering truthful if scandalous stories on drug-taking sports stars was not doing a whole lot for her currently fragile ego. Unfortunately, she suspected front page trash would make her feel worse.
“Cecily and I were bat spotting the night she disappeared.”
“When was that?” she interjected.
He gave her a curious look. “The scandal really hit you hard.”
The understatement of the decade. What top journalist wouldn’t have a handle on the facts of the biggest story in the nation at the moment? “You want me, you got me, baggage and all.”
He looked out of the window.
She drank more coffee. Watched the bat swoop outside the side window.
“The fifth. Seventeen days ago.”
“Mmm? Oh. You were together?”
His finger was tapping the cup. “She wanted to help, thought it was a big adventure, being out at night, identifying bats. Something to tell her friends about back home.”
“Just what sort of bats are we talking about here?” She fervently hoped he was not about to say vampire.
“The regular kind. Bent-wings to be exact. They haven’t actually been sighted in the Port River area for quite a while. They usually live in caves, so why they’ve chosen a belfry in a populous area as a roost is, well, what I hope to find out with my research. It should help conservation of the species.”
Ella was not in the mood for a science article. “Fine, but what have they got to do with the disappearances?” She rolled the paper cup between her hands, impatient for substantial information.
“I’m not sure. Only, I saw something fly from the church, and it wasn’t a bat.”
Ella tilted her palm and indicated the photos with her index finger.
“Yes,” Adam confirmed, “though it’s anyone’s guess what it is.”
She picked up the photos again and studied them more closely. They could have been of mud for all she knew. “What did I see tonight?”
“Was it big or small?”
“Small.”
“Then, a bat.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered, opening them again when Adam continued.
“We tried to get a closer look, but Cecily got spooked. I told her to go and wait by the door to the church. There was a light in the lower window of the bell tower, so I assumed someone was inside. Whatever I’d seen wasn’t around when I got to the canal. I went back, but she had . . . disappeared. The church was dark, and the door bolted shut. And she wasn’t with the equipment or in the car.”
“Did you call the police?”
“After about an hour, yes. They sent a patrol but they wasted hours interrogating me, then checking with family and friends. They didn’t officially start investigating until the next day.”
Ella shook her head. The church door was metres from the road. Anything could have happened. If some weirdo had driven by in an unmarked van, the girl could have disappeared in seconds. “So why do you think she went into the church?”
“When I went to look for Cecily, the light was out.” He frowned. “Call it a hunch. I don’t know. The fifth girl, Alicia Moffat, was
washed up in the canal right in front of the church, but the police aren’t saying exactly where the other girls disappeared. I think that’s more telling than if they had, don’t you?”
Entirely. She looked at the coffee but didn’t feel like any more. He leant back and waited.
“What do you expect to find?” She was careful not to meet his eyes and fully resolved to walk straight out and never meet him again at the first mention of monsters. After all, if he had come to her, he must be harbouring a story a more reputable journalist would laugh off.
“All I want is to know what happened to my cousin. Will you help, Ella Jerome?”
“I’ll think about it.” She rose slowly, daunted by the prospect of a real story after so long.
Adam leant toward her, suddenly very intense. “Don’t go to the church alone. Something was down there tonight. You could have been victim number six.”
Considering he had left her standing there for over an hour, she felt his concern was grossly misplaced. “Thanks for the tip,” she said, eyebrow arched and already dialling a taxi on her mobile.
Chapter Two
23rd October. Morning.
ELLA SLAPPED THE snooze button on her alarm clock and buried her face in the pillow. A moment later the shrill ring of the telephone elicited a groan. Her hand searched the cluttered bedside cabinet until it connected with her mobile. Turning over, she mumbled her name while wiping sleep-encrusted eyes, then immediately held the receiver away from her ear as the voice of Phil Waterman, senior editor at the Informer, barked down the line.
“Get out of bed. I need you to attend a press conference in half an hour. The police have just hauled another body from the Port River.”
“What?” Suddenly alert, Ella sat bolt upright.
“You heard me.”
Wincing in anticipation of Phil’s ear-splitting orders, she nestled the phone between her shoulder and ear and reached for the pen and pad that sat permanently between a lopsided lamp and an unfinished crime novel.
“You got details?” She flicked to a blank page.
“Of course I haven’t got any details, woman. You’re the journalist. Just get down there and report.” She could imagine him reclining in his chair, extended legs crossed in front of him, half-eaten cinnamon doughnut balanced on his beer belly.
“Who else is covering this?”
“I’m sending you.” She heard the slurp of a sucked finger.
“I’m not about to give you a vampire bat story.”
“Vampire bat? You got some lead I don’t know about?” His voice, though quieter, rasped suspiciously. “Last I heard the take was a killer shark.”
“Whatever, Phil. Look, you know I don’t do your sort of cover stories.”
“Yeah, but this is big, Jerome.” He adopted a confidential tone. “My reporters are sassy creative writers but they couldn’t look into a parking fine if the warden was waving it under their noses. You’re the best investigative reporter this state has, and I sure as hell want a scoop for the Informer.”
Ella sighed. “Phil, I might work for you, but I don’t want my name tagged to fantastical nonsense.” Even to her own ears she sounded tired, defeated. One day soon she was going to cave in and be done with clinging to whatever shreds of dignity she had left.
“Just get me the story. For Pete’s sake, woman, six girls missing, one with a severed torso and the latest . . .” He broke off. “Things could hardly get—”
“The latest what?” she interrupted.
“—more sensational than that.”
There was a pause as she waited vainly for an answer.
“Listen, Jerome,” and his tone was more sympathetic than she imagined possible from him, “we both know you don’t belong on this rag. I’m giving you a chance to restore your reputation, maybe a shot at a job interstate. Do a good enough job on this and the Sydney Morning Herald might take you on.”
Alarm bells started ringing in Ella’s head. She didn’t believe in second chances. Journalism was a cut-throat business, and she had sure had hers slit. “The latest what, Phil?”
“Get to the conference and make up your own mind. I want a clean story—” she coughed but he continued glibly over her, “—so I’m not about to say anything that could bias you against doing this properly. You’ve got thirty-five minutes.” At the other end, the receiver clicked.
Ella fell back onto the pillow and stared at a daddy-long-legs on the ceiling. She suppressed a shudder as it started to crawl and glanced at the clock. Ten-fifty-four. Despite her burgeoning curiosity, pulling back the covers and swinging her legs out of bed required a colossal effort.
Her clean clothes weren’t ironed. She settled on a navy skirt and rumpled white blouse and threw her raincoat over the top. Casting a longing look at the kettle, she downed a glass of water and stuffed an energy bar into her pocket.
A scratching at the screen door turned her spine cold. Her hand froze over her keys. Involuntarily, her mind returned to the square with its eerie stillness. Then her brain kicked in and, stilling her shaking hands, she strode over to slide the door open.
“Hey, Tilly,” she said, grabbing the box of cat biscuits and pouring them into the plastic bowl on the kitchen floor. Her petite, tabby boss stretched one socked hind leg out, then blinked her demand for a morning pat.
Eleven-oh-three. Bunching her hair into a makeshift bun, Ella grabbed an old bag, tipped the contents of the torn tote into it and rushed out the door. She made it to the station with a couple of minutes to spare and the worry of a speeding ticket she couldn’t afford on her conscience.
The sergeant rolled his eyes at the press tag she was pinning to her coat, the Informer printed in embarrassingly large letters. He gestured her into a room crowded with journalists with a flick of his head. She pushed her way forward, head down. Too bad Adelaide was such a small place. She copped several stares and caught the occasional snide whisper that placed her name and the Informer in the same sentence.
Hush descended on the room when a detective walked to the podium. Ella put a hand over her face and inched back as far as she could. When she next saw Phil, she was going to kill him.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Detective Robert Hamlyn.” His serious brown eyes regarded them over the rims of his bifocals. His forehead was creased into hassled wrinkles, many more than she remembered. He lifted a page and began to deliver the morning’s headlines. Ella tried to blot out her personal life and concentrate. It was not that easy.
“At around six this morning, part of the body of a young woman was discovered by a jogger along the Port River. The corpse has since been identified as belonging to twenty-two-year-old Melanie Denham.”
Struggling to place the name, Ella listened to the frantic murmurs that broke out around the room. The detective cleared his throat, restoring quiet.
“Melanie was reported missing by her family twenty-four hours ago after failing to return home from a night out with friends.”
Ella’s mind reeled. A sixth girl missing, the second murdered, possibly last night.
“At this stage, we believe her murder is linked to that of Alicia Moffat. We are not yet ruling out a connection between these murders and the disappearances of Cecily Williams, Caroline Jones, Bekka Todd, and Joanne Travellian, although I would like to stress that the latter have been missing over a week, while the bodies of Alicia Moffat and Melanie Denham were discovered within twenty-four hours of their disappearances. While we hold grave fears for the safety of the missing women, we have not given up hope of finding them alive. Needless to say, we are doing everything in our power to track down the callous murderer and urge members of the public who might have information to come forward.”
Rob placed the sheet down to face the barrage of obvious questions.
“What parts of the corpse were discovered?” an ABC reporter asked.
Rob swallowed. “The medical examiner recovered the victim’s head and left arm.” The journalists�
� shock formed a palpable wave of disbelief. “Divers are currently searching the river for,” the hardened detective faltered and dropped his eyes momentarily before making eye contact again, “the remains of her body.”
“Were there any . . . eh . . . marks on the . . . eh . . . body parts?” a fresh-faced young man queried.
“There were similar markings to those found on Alicia Moffat.”
“Is there any evidence a shark has entered the Port River?”
“Not at this stage.”
“What about the dolphins? Could they have turned dangerous?”
Scoffs muffled the detective’s first words. “. . . and expert advice suggests the trauma sustained is not consistent with a dolphin attack.”
Ella rolled her eyes. The marine mammals that frequented the estuary suffered more from humanity’s indifference than humans ever would from them.
A woman’s hand shot up. “Detective, have you been able to trace the victim’s movements prior to her disappearance?”
“Ms. Denham is known to have attended a service at the Church of the Resurrection on the evening of her disappearance. She then dined at a friend’s house in the area, leaving to drive home at around ten p.m.”
“Has her car been located?”
Rob cleared his throat. “It was discovered—clean, I might add—near the Church of the Resurrection this morning.”
The crowd erupted. Someone finally managed to shout a question above the uproar.
“Have you spoken to the minister at the church?”
“The caretaker is helping us with our enquiries.” Rob was looking increasingly harassed. Ella almost felt sorry for him.
“Do you have any suspects?” another reporter called.
“We are currently following a number of leads. Now, if you’ll excuse me, ladies and gentlemen . . .” Rob collected his notes and turned.
Ella called out in a loud voice while still scribbling details, “What was the cause of death?” Rob froze. She met his stare, ignoring the dozens of other eyes trained on her. “The cause of death, Detective Hamlyn. Was she dead before she went into the water? The same for Alicia Moffat.” As far as Ella could tell, rumours of marauding sharks and a depraved serial killer sat at odds with each other.