by Tia Reed
“The medical examiner is still investigating. Given the gruesome circumstances of the crime, it may be some time before the cause of death is established.”
It sounded like a classic case of evasion if ever she’d heard one. “And Alicia Moffat?”
“On both deaths.” Eyebrows raised, Rob peered at her over his glasses. “The nature of this crime has had a particularly devastating effect on the family. I would ask the press to tread sensitively when reporting.” After a lingering glare unmistakably aimed at her, he left the room.
He hasn’t changed, Ella thought. She squeezed her way out, dodging several attempts at conversation by former colleagues whose smirks burned her back as she left the building. In her car, she sat, hands on the steering wheel, and let out a slow breath. Investigating this story was very likely to be a bigger mistake than the one which had ruined her life. True, she had little left to lose, but a life of obscure underachievement had to be better than another public humiliation. When the last film crew left, she got out of the car and headed back to the building, unsure when she had decided on confrontation.
“Detective Robert Hamlyn, please,” her most flirtatious smile requested of the officer at the front desk.
Obviously used to unauthorised visitors, the poker-faced young man continued shuffling records. “The detective is unavailable. I suggest you try the next press conference.”
“Tell him Ella Jerome wants to see him.”
“He’s unavailable,” the sergeant repeated, fingers tapping at the keyboard.
“It’s a personal matter, so I’ll wait.”
“Sorry, Miss. He’s on his way to an interview and then the morgue.”
Then so was she.
PARKED CONSPICUOUSLY IN front of the entrance to the morgue, she scanned the street and car park for oncoming cars. A shiny, unmarked Commodore pulled in, screaming police car at her. She got out and strode confidently through the car park. He didn’t notice her until he had locked the door.
“Hello, Rob.” His hair was peppered with more grey than she remembered.
“What are you doing here?” His gruff tone didn’t mask the hint of surprise.
Her pang of nostalgia disintegrated, and she wished she could use Tilly’s trick of hiding under the car when faced with an unfamiliar situation. “I need some inside information.” Her smile extended no further than her lips.
“You’ve got a nerve, Ella,” he said, pocketing his keys.
“Nice to see you too.”
“To be honest, I didn’t think I was going to see you again.”
“I need a break, okay.”
“Why? So that you can degrade your name further with front page fiction for that tabloid you’re working for, and take me down with you?” He glanced toward the entrance.
“That’s not fair.”
For the first time he really looked at her. “No, I suppose it isn’t. What do you want?”
She had known this was going to be a challenge. “Listen, Rob, I have a second shot, the possibility of a freelance article for the Sydney Morning Herald. This story . . . if I do it right . . .” She had little hope of that and less of submitting to the Herald, but to make any headway at all she needed his help and for that she had to seem credible.
His eyebrows twitched, completely unsympathetic. “Good luck.”
“I need the break.”
“Yeah. Well you’re on an even playing field with the other journos.”
“Not quite.”
“No. Not quite. But do you really expect me to help you?”
She took a deep breath. “You owe me, Rob. Big time.”
He dropped his head and nodded at the ground. “I suppose I do.” When he looked up, his eyes had softened. “But you can’t seriously expect me to compromise this investigation.”
“I might help. I have a source.” She stood a little straighter.
“Do you know something I should?”
“No, nothing like that,” she broke eye contact, “but, well, I think a different angle to the investigation might provide new insight.”
He snorted. “A line other than ‘alien feeding frenzy’? Come on, Ella, I know what tack that tabloid takes. You’d have been better off in the dole queue than churning out the nonsense you do.”
“Thanks a lot, Rob. So good to know I devoted two years of my life to a man who never bothered to get to know me.” Hurt, she folded her arms and turned away. Had he ever bothered to check up on her, he would know her work was factual if scandalous. She went to great pains to ensure that.
“Ella, I didn’t mean . . .”
“Leave it, Rob,” she said, shaking her head. “However much you’re hurting, I’m smarting more.” She started walking, not quite able to pull her shoulders back.
“I want a promise, Ella.”
She stopped, eased herself around, not daring to hope.
“You don’t breathe a word of what you get here to anyone, Editor or otherwise. You don’t go to print until we’ve got the full story and your article gets checked by my office. If a single word of the approved version gets changed, then we’ll charge you and the Informer with perverting the course of justice.”
She stared at him.
“They’re my terms, Ella,” he said, obviously misunderstanding her disbelief.
“Okay.” She nodded her head and whispered, “Okay.”
They walked into the building and gowned up in silence. The smell in the autopsy room hit Ella like a blow to the head. Bleach covered the metallic stink of blood. Bright fluorescents illuminated stark white cabinets beneath stainless steel surfaces. By an autopsy table, the forensic medical officer, draped in apron, rubber boots, and gloves, was busy with some microscope slides. A sheet covered whatever he’d been examining. Ella immediately regretted her decision not to use the glass-fronted viewing room.
“Good morning, Doctor Bowden,” Rob greeted.
“Morning, Detective.” He looked enquiringly at Ella, who was hanging back near the door.
“She’s with me.”
The white-haired Doctor Bowden seemed unconvinced. “There’s a good reason forensic pathologists don’t speak to journalists.” Ella slunk further back, wishing there was just one person in the city who did not recognise her.
“She’s helping with the department’s enquiries. She’s under a gag order.”
“It’s on your head, Detective.” He balanced a clipboard on the corner of the table and observed Ella swallow. “Is she going to faint?”
“I don’t know.” Rob fixed her with an intimidating, down the nose stare. “Are you?”
She pursed her lips. “I’m good,” she lied. Having never seen a mutilated corpse, let alone a dismembered one, she hoped she was not being optimistic.
The pathologist pulled back part of the sheet, revealing a pale arm from the elbow down. Ella crept for a closer look. While three fingers curled to the palm, the littlest two stretched away, hard, grey, and conspicuous.
“May I?” Rob enquired.
“Be my guest.”
Rob pulled on a pair of rubber gloves and felt the fingers in turn. Ella watched, waves of fascination and revulsion vying for top emotion. When she caught a faint whiff of decomposition, the latter won, and she stepped away, suppressing a retch.
“Have you got laboratory results on the changes?” Rob asked the pathologist.
“Results from Alicia Moffat have just come in, for what they’re worth. It will be a day or so before the analysis on Melanie is complete, but I’m certain the results will be the same. Portions of flesh on both girls have been petrified.”
Ella frowned. “You mean turned to stone?”
“That is the general meaning of the word.”
There could be no one more irritating than a specialist who thought he had a God-given right to be arrogant. Just as well her surprise moderated her offence. “But what could do that? I mean, doesn’t the process usually take hundreds of years?” she blurted.
Rob
glanced at her. “My questions exactly, Doctor Bowden.”
The doctor appeared to hold his breath. “The short answers are I have no idea and yes. No known medical condition or natural phenomenon could do this, and I tell you I’ve been searching the most obscure journals I can find. This is one to write up when we determine the cause.” He fixed her with a stern expression. “And I most certainly do not want to hear the Informer has printed nonsense about basilisks.”
“You obviously don’t read my articles.”
“I used to,” he said while pulling the sheet back further, a trace of sympathy in his voice.
Ella was spared further humiliation by the gruesome sight of the severed arm, jagged flesh torn mercilessly from the missing shoulder. Rob moved around the table to get a closer view. She started to follow then thought better of it. Rob’s green face told her even his hardened stomach was having trouble coping with this.
He straightened. “Okay, Doctor, what else can you tell me?”
“There’s minimal parasitic consumption consistent with the body having been in the water for less than twenty-four hours, but notice the way the normal fingers are gripping these reeds.” Doctor Bowden attempted to prise the hand open to make his point.
“Then she’s in rigor mortis?”
“No. Her elbow is extended. What we have here is cadavaric spasm, a phenomenon that occurs at the time of, and is often attributed to, a traumatic death. It’s proof she was alive when she entered the water.”
“Which was?”
“In this instance, your timeline of her movements is infinitely more accurate than anything I can give you, Detective.”
Rob ripped his gloves off. “Are her wounds similar to Alicia Moffat’s?”
“They’re uncannily similar to the point I can say that they were probably caused by the same instrument.”
“Do you have any idea what that is?” He dropped the gloves into a basket.
“If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were caused by teeth.” Bowden was watching her from the corner of his eye. She chose to remain quiet.
“Could a shark do that?” Rob asked.
“The teeth marks just aren’t consistent. These are bigger and spaced further apart.” The pathologist dropped his confident manner. “If it had been a shark, we might have a tooth or two dislodged in a bite of this size.”
“What about a boat propeller?” Rob sounded desperate, like he was clutching at straws.
“I can’t rule it out completely, but the marks aren’t entirely consistent with a boating injury.”
“So death was due to blood loss from trauma?”
“As yet, it’s undetermined.”
“I could do with a break here. Can you give me something off the record?”
The pathologist spread his hands. “I’m sorry, I don’t know whether Melanie Denham drowned before mutilation or died as a result of blood loss from it. I’ll be able to give you more if the divers recover the rest of her remains. Until then, you’re on your own with this one, Detective.”
Ella’s curiosity kicked in. “What killed Alicia Moffat?”
Bowden picked up the clipboard and strode to some cabinets against the wall. “The Detective has the details,” he said, back turned to them.
Rob guided her to the changing rooms.
“What’s his problem?” she asked as they walked along the corridor.
“You.” Rob glanced sideways at her. “Alicia Moffat died as a result of blood loss caused by the trauma she suffered.”
Ella shuddered. Reports of the severed torso had been horrific. “What’s going on, Rob?”
“I have no idea.”
“Were her fingers petrified too?”
“Not just her fingers. Alicia Moffat’s whole left arm was turned to stone.”
Ella stopped. “Rob? What could do this?” A shrill edge had entered her voice.
“What do you know?” His voice had become tight.
“Nothing.”
“Spill it, Ella. You were never very good at hiding your emotions and right now you’re scared.”
“I was down there last night. I heard . . . I don’t know what I heard, but it was more than some pathological killer looking for kicks.”
Abruptly, he stopped and took her arm. He had always been a little proprietorial. “You were down there, alone, at night?”
“With my source,” she said quickly, putting the nerve-wracking hour-long wait for Adam out of mind.
After all this time, the concern in Rob’s eyes was confronting. “And you’re sure this guy is not our killer because . . . ?”
“He came from the opposite direction to the commotion,” she lied. He released her arm. “And he’s related to one of the victims. Rob, if we’d gone to investigate . . .”
“Like as not you’d be in that autopsy room or missing. Look, Ella. I take it your source didn’t know anything about the petrifaction?”
“No.”
“Like the doc said, there’s a reason this information has been withheld from the press.”
“Relax. I keep my promises.”
“Ella.” He hesitated and ran a hand through his hair. His brow crinkled in worry. “Your editor’s likely to give you free rein on this. As you said, I could use a different viewpoint.”
“I want this story.” Her journalistic instincts were quashing her earlier reservations.
“I know,” he said softly, eyes narrowed. “Keep in touch. And don’t go down to the Port River area alone at night.”
“Sure, Rob.”
“I mean it, Ella.”
“It was nice to see you, Rob. Not like I expected at all.”
“It was nice to see you, too, Ella.”
She blinked. He sounded like he meant it.
Chapter Three
23rd October. Afternoon.
IN THE CAR, Ella’s stomach rumbled. She dug into her raincoat pocket and extracted the energy bar. In the wake of the macabre morning, the glitzy wrapper appeared decidedly unattractive. She threw it on to the passenger seat and located the last two squares of chocolate in her bag. The sugar fix helped her bury her topsy-turvy emotions while she found Adam’s card in her pocket. She dialled him on her mobile.
“Adam, it’s Ella Jerome. Look,” she continued, not allowing him time to reply, and screwed her eyes closed because that was Rob’s word. “I’d like to meet, down at the Port area.”
He was matter of fact. “How about at the lighthouse, in an hour?”
“Fine.” She hung up, took a deep breath, put the car into gear, and kept her mind numb.
A quick stop at a convenience store produced another block of chocolate and a salad sandwich. With fifteen minutes to spare, she located an empty bench near the red lighthouse in Black Diamond Square. Fending off the aggressive seagulls, she munched on her lunch while flicking away strands of hair the wind insisted on playing with. The fresh air lightened her thoughts so much, she considered returning on Sunday for a rummage through the bric-a-brac market to her left and a dolphin cruise on one of the berthed boats. Her memory wasn’t up to pinpointing the last time she had left the house for pure pleasure.
“Hello.” Adam slipped onto the seat beside her, his face eager beneath attractively tousled hair. His blonde curls reminded her just how much Rob had aged this past year. “So you’ll help?”
“I’m going to investigate the story.”
He looked onto the murky river. “You mean all the disappearances, not just Cecily.”
Ella experienced a pang of guilt, clearer now why he’d come to her, the grieving relative, convinced the police were making insufficient efforts to locate his loved one. She leant forward, resting her elbows on her knees and joined him in contemplation of the black and white steam tug Yelta, one of the more interesting exhibits of the Maritime Museum she hadn’t visited since she was a child. “The missing girls, the murders, they’re all connected.” Her gut was certain of it, even if Rob wasn’t. “We need to investigate them as
a whole. It’s the best chance for Cecily, and the others.”
He closed his eyes “She’s probably dead. I can’t bear to think about how.”
Ella hesitated. “Not necessarily. As Ro—Detective Hamlyn pointed out, the murdered girls were found within twenty-four hours of their disappearance.”
He searched her face, doubt spread across his features. “Do you really believe that?”
“Truthfully, I don’t know what to believe.” Ella followed a lone dolphin swimming toward the sea, allowing Adam a few moments of silence.
“I’d like to see where Cecily disappeared,” she said when he appeared collected.
Fear was taking its toll on the community. They saw few people on their walk to the Church of the Resurrection, despite it being early afternoon. The church grounds were also deserted. In the daylight, the gothic structure stood at odds with the modern two and three story medium-density houses to its right. Beyond the church, the short canal that led to the river proper bustled with police activity. Inflatable rafts bobbed on the river, waiting for divers who surfaced with unremarkable findings. A pelican glided between them, unconcerned with the disruption to its home.
“Something’s going on,” Adam said, frowning.
“You don’t know? They found the remains of another girl this morning.”
Adam made a strange gurgling sound.
“Melanie Denham,” Ella clarified quickly, and his shoulders lowered a fraction.
He watched a diver struggle aboard a raft. “Do you think they’ll let us into the church?”
“They haven’t cordoned off the entrance.” Her gaze had wandered to the menacing gargoyles on the roof. Their open-mouthed snarls and grimaces, invisible in dark of night, gave chilling warning in broad daylight.
They passed through the gloomy foyer into the sepulchral nave. It was separated from the aisles by a series of gothic arches supported by tripartite columns. A scrollwork balustrade lined a walkway above them and from this more arches sprang to form a spectacular ribbed vault. Through both upper and lower arches Ella spied stained glass windows with colourful pictures of various personages. Saints, she presumed. Skirting the wooden pews, Adam led the way toward a gilded altar.