Dead Heat

by Peter Cotton

  ‘I’m Father Michael Radcliffe,’ said the priest, ‘from Steeple Bay. And this is Daisy Rawlins, mother of Jade. Your people were against her coming, but she insisted, as is her right.’

  I studied Daisy for a moment. Her face reflected a terrible resignation, like a person on the edge of a precipice with no option but to jump. Cherry stepped forward, took both her hands, and gave them a gentle squeeze. She nodded at him, and he moved back beside me.

  ‘Mrs Rawlins,’ I said, searching for words to soften what I was about to say, ‘the body’s spent hours in the water, and it’s badly disfigured. Isn’t it best that Father Radcliffe look? Chances are no one will be able to identify it anyway. So why put yourself through this?’

  ‘No matter what shape a child’s in,’ said Daisy, ‘a mother knows. And I’ll know. So let’s get on with it, eh?’

  I looked at Cherry, seeking guidance. He shrugged. I eyed Coombs, who flicked her hand at me, indicating it was my decision. So I nodded my assent.

  Daisy stood in front of the slab, her eyes fixed on the floor. Radcliffe stood a couple of paces behind her. Daisy looked up and nodded at Smeaton. He took hold of the zip on the body bag, and as he did, Daisy coughed, and coughed again, and despite her attempts to repress it, she was quickly overwhelmed by a major coughing fit that doubled her over.

  Radcliffe stepped forward and laid his hands on her shoulders. She gasped for air, and I thought she was going to faint. But she steadied her breathing and slowly stood upright. She was taking sharp, shallow breaths as she again gestured at Smeaton to unzip the bag.

  ‘You don’t have to, you know, Daisy,’ said Radcliffe, in a whisper.

  She grimaced and flexed her shoulders, and his hands fell away. She looked at the human shape cocooned inside the body bag and gestured at Smeaton. Insistent. He pulled the zip and it rasped and separated to reveal an eroded head and pocked shoulders. Daisy’s eyes locked onto the disfigured body for a few seconds, then she spluttered and fell to her knees.

  ‘Holy Mother of God,’ she said, her hands clasped, her head tilted towards the ceiling. ‘Thank you, Holy Mother. Glory be to God on high. Thank you, Jesus! Thank you, Lord!’

  Smeaton re-zipped the bag and looked at Coombs and me, his face scrunched up as he anticipated the fallout from what he assumed was a major stuff-up.

  ‘So, Daisy,’ said Cherry, putting himself between her and the body, ‘I take it this isn’t Jade.’

  ‘No, it’s Kylie,’ she said, peering past Cherry for another look at the body. ‘Kylie Stevens.’

  ‘And who’s Kylie Stevens?’ I asked.

  ‘Kylie?’ said Daisy. ‘She lived with us. At Kenny’s place. But she can’t be helped now, can she, so what are you doing about Jade, heh? Whaddyah doing to find my girl?’

  BLOOD OATH SUBSCRIPTION NEWS

  WEDNESDAY 30 NOVEMBER, 11.30AM AEST

  Political leaders who ignore the old adage ‘words are bullets’ put their people at risk of war. Heated declarations and intemperate threats can provoke a paranoid nation to the point where it loses perspective and responds with real bullets. And when bullets fly, missiles follow.

  Prime Minister Lou Feeney yesterday warned Jakarta to go easy on Australian protestors when it ends the Jayapura occupation. Mr Feeney said the repercussions for Indonesia would be ‘severe’ if any of our nationals were injured or killed in the clearing operation. He was no more specific than that. ‘Severe’ repercussions.

  We can only imagine what the Indonesians made of these bellicose utterings, though one thing is clear: the PM’s words have made the Australians in Jayapura less safe. If I were advising Mr Feeney, I’d tell him to make soothing noises immediately and quickly follow up with a get-together, him and the President, at which he concedes whatever’s necessary, within reason, to resolve this crisis in relations.

  They say there are no winners in war, but we know that’s rubbish. Hear the laughter, good readers? That’s the arms developers, the dealers, the mercenaries, and the gunrunners sharing a joke at our expense as they head for the bank.

  2

  Daisy Rawlins’s relief that the stiff on the slab was not her daughter had quickly morphed into anger at us.

  ‘You had everyone thinking it was my Jade who’d washed up on Murrays,’ she said, her eyes skewering each of us in turn. ‘I was prepared for the worst. Well, it’s bad for poor Kylie here for sure, dying in a terrible way like that. But what about Jade? What’s happened to her?’

  ‘Mrs Rawlins,’ I said, in a voice calculated to calm her. ‘Mrs Rawlins. I’m sorry for the distress we’ve caused you. Now, let’s sit somewhere comfortable and get you a cup of tea. But before we do, tell me: how can you be so sure this is Kylie? Given the condition of the body?’

  ‘The hair’s Kylie’s,’ she said, watching the paramedics transfer the bagged body back onto the stretcher. ‘And she’s got that skin thing under her lip. She was talking about getting it removed. Well, it outlasted her, didn’t it? But, just to be sure, let’s see her leg. The right one. She got a bad cut there when she was a kid. Left a nasty scar.’

  The paramedics eyed me inquiringly. I nodded. Loz’s preliminary description of the body had included an old fifteen-centimetre suture line on the right leg. The male paramedic unzipped the bag. His colleague exposed the leg. Sure enough, there was the scar.

  ‘It’s Kylie,’ said Daisy, grim-faced. ‘No doubt about it. Poor thing.’

  The paramedics re-strapped the body to the stretcher and wheeled it from the room. Cherry eyed Daisy and suggested that we all go and have the cup of tea that I’d promised. Daisy nodded, and Cherry led her, Coombs, Smeaton, Radcliffe, and me out into the corridor and back to reception. From there, we followed him halfway down another corridor and into a large bare-walled room where half-a-dozen vinyl chairs were arranged around a low coffee table. The window had a view of a car park and the hospital buildings behind it.

  Smeaton made straight for a trolley that carried the makings for tea, while Cherry pulled out a chair and offered it to Daisy. She sat down and stared out the window, wrung-out and momentarily oblivious to her surroundings. Coombs and I sat down at the table with her. As I watched her, I kicked myself for allowing false pointers to lead us to a dud conclusion. I hated stuffing up in such a stupid way. I’d been careless, and I was embarrassed, but, more than that, the mistake could delay progress in the case. What a fuck-up. I didn’t usually indulge in negative self-talk — mostly because I didn’t see the point in it — but I deserved a kick up the arse this time.

  ‘How do you have it, Daisy?’ asked Smeaton, snapping me from my musings.

  ‘Strong, plenty of milk, three sugars,’ said Daisy, blinking as she composed herself.

  She took a phone from her bag and tapped out a message. She hit send and put the phone away. She picked up the cup Smeaton had set down on the table in front of her, slurped the hot liquid, and let out an involuntary ‘Ahh’. She slurped again, and her eyes narrowed as she turned to me.

  ‘Do I have to keep asking you?’ she said, putting her cup on the edge of the table. ‘What’re you doing about Jade?’

  ‘If your daughter is missing,’ said Coombs, ‘we’ll do everything we can to find her. And you’ll help I’m sure. Did the police who picked you up ask you for a photo of her?’

  Daisy reached into her bag, and ignoring Coombs’s outstretched hand, she passed a postcard-sized photograph to me.

  ‘Taken about a year ago,’ she said. ‘But she still looks like that.’

  Jade Rawlins had been staring straight into the lens at the moment the photo was taken. Her look conveyed a model’s intensity, tinged with anger. Her mouth was slightly open, like she’d been arguing with the photographer. If the photo was an accurate representation, she was a serious young person, as well as a seriously beautiful young woman, with long dark hair, dark skin, lush lips, and the whitest teeth
.

  ‘Tell us,’ said Coombs, ‘When did you last see her, your daughter?’

  ‘Yesterday,’ said Daisy, looking from Coombs to me, and settling on me.

  ‘Around teatime.’

  ‘At home?’ I asked.

  She nodded.

  ‘So, she ate with you?’

  Daisy shook her head.

  ‘She helped herself from the stove,’ she said, ‘and ate in her room.’

  ‘Did she usually eat alone?’

  ‘Depends.’

  ‘On what?’

  ‘Who’s at home. What’s going on.’

  ‘And what was going on?’

  ‘Them two was fighting.’

  ‘Who was fighting?’

  ‘Jade and Kylie.’

  ‘Do you know why?’

  ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘How old is Jade?’

  ‘Twenty-one.’

  ‘And Kylie?’

  ‘Bit older, but not much. Twenty-three maybe?’

  ‘What can you tell us about the fight?’

  Daisy paused, caught between a mother’s fear for her daughter and what I took to be an ingrained suspicion of the police. Then she leant in towards me.

  ‘Jade went to Kylie’s room,’ she said, her eyes flicking between me and the table. ‘The music was up, like always, so I couldn’t hear what they said, but they didn’t sound angry. Not at first, anyway. You can usually pick it when they are — without knowing what they’re saying. Like last night, Jade got snaky over something, but she wasn’t really shouting or anything. You could just tell from her tone she was pissed off.’

  ‘Music or no music,’ said Coombs, ‘did you hear any of the words they used when they were in the room together? A name? A number? Even a placename? Anything at all.’

  ‘Coupla times Kylie said the word “lie”. It was loud, so it stuck out.’

  ‘Just that word? “Lie”?’

  ‘That’s it. And a bit of swearing. Like, fuck this and fuck that.’

  ‘What happened after the argument?’ I asked.

  ‘Kylie stormed out of the house, slamming the door, swearing, and carrying on. And Jade took her dinner to her room and didn’t come out. And when I got up this morning, she was gone too.’

  ‘Did you hear her leave?’

  ‘No. Nothing.’

  ‘Are you a heavy sleeper?’ asked Coombs.

  ‘People say I am. I usually have a nightcap before I turn in. To help me get to sleep.’

  ‘Has Jade taken off before?’ I asked. ‘Without warning?’

  ‘She’s a big girl,’ said Daisy, meeting my eye. ‘She does what she wants, goes where she wants. Nothing bad, mind you. Mostly just visiting family. In Alice and up the north coast. She usually lets me know what she’s up to, though. So, yeah. I am worried. Especially with Kylie ending up like that.’

  ‘What’s the first place she’d head for?’ asked Coombs. ‘If she wanted to get away for a while?’

  ‘Byron, maybe. Or the Alice. We’ve got family all over, so she’s got plenty of choices.’

  ‘We’ll need to contact your family in all the places she could’ve gone,’ said Smeaton. ‘On another matter, Daisy, did the two girls, Jade and Kylie — did they swap clothes at all? You know, like some girls do?’

  ‘I guess so,’ she said. ‘Yeah. From time to time, I noticed it.’

  ‘And was Kylie a relative of yours?’ asked Coombs. ‘Or a tenant? What was she to you?’

  ‘My brother Kenny owns the house, and Kylie was already living with him when we got down here,’ said Daisy. ‘He knows her mum.’

  ‘You’ve been in the bay for about six months,’ said Cherry, direct but gentle. ‘What brought you down here — to your brother’s place?’

  ‘He’s got cancer and needs looking after. And Kylie wasn’t up to it. Not that I blamed her, mind you. But she was out every night, visiting friends. Sleeping in or sleeping over.’

  ‘We’ll need all the contact details for the family and friends Jade could be visiting,’ said Cherry, his pen poised over his notebook. ‘And a contact number for Kylie’s mother.’

  ‘Kenny has all the numbers,’ said Daisy.

  ‘Your brother Ken?’ said Cherry, to which she nodded.

  ‘That’s right,’ she said.

  ‘Where’s Ken now?’ asked Cherry.

  ‘At home. He’s there most of the time. Except when he’s in here. Getting his treatment.’

  ‘Can I have his number, please?’ I asked, taking out my phone. ‘The sooner we talk to him, the better.’

  Daisy emitted a long ‘Ahhh’.

  ‘Daisy?’ said Radcliffe, adopting a stern tone. ‘You said you’d help, so please: what’s Kenny’s number? I mean, they’ll get to talk to him soon enough anyway, so it’s best to cooperate.’

  Daisy stared at the floor. The protracted silence in the room increased the pressure on her. Finally, she growled and gave me her brother’s number. I keyed it into my phone, and then got the priest’s number as well. I asked him if we could call in on him when we visited Steeple Bay. He said he’d be happy to see us.

  Daisy and the priest left with the cops, and while Coombs texted her people to initiate a search for Kylie Stevens’s phone, I called Ken Bynder. When I identified myself, Bynder cleared his throat, and before I could ask a question, he said he knew about Kylie. Daisy had texted him. He sounded bereft, though given what Daisy had said about his health, any number of things could’ve been depleting him at that moment. With the post-mortem report scheduled for two, I arranged for us to meet Bynder out at Steeple Bay at four.

  ‘Before you go,’ I said, ‘can you give us contact details for Kylie Stevens’s mum? We’ll need her DNA to confirm the identification. And it’s best the initial contact comes from us, not some nosey reporter.’

  Bynder cleared his throat again, but said nothing.

  ‘Mr Bynder?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m here,’ he said. ‘Colleen lives in Taree. Bustle Street. Number thirty-four. I’ve called her. She took it bad. Really blew up, so no good callin’ her now. I’ll text you the number. The dad’s Mal Stevens. He cleared off long ago. No one’s heard from him in years.’

  ‘Thanks, Mr Bynder. I’ll see you around four?’

  ‘Righto,’ he said, and he hung up.

  I made another cup of tea and sent a text to McHenry’s PA, Sergeant Laurel Chu: ‘Body on beach NOT Jade Rawlins. Need urgent notice on Jade Rawlins. To find and to hold. Priority One. Yet to confirm identity of dead woman. Jade Rawlins’s mother, Daisy Rawlins, made provisional identification of deceased as Kylie Stevens, of 18 Gore Street, Steeple Bay. Father: Mal Stevens. Whereabouts unknown. Mother: Colleen Stevens. Possible address: 34 Bustle Street, Taree. Please acquire sample of mother’s DNA. Check priors on Ken Bynder, on Daisy Rawlins, and on Jade Rawlins, all of 18 Gore Street, Steeple Bay. Check Kylie Stevens’s priors and associates. Same for parents. Finally, any response from navy on Sheridan?’

  Forensic pathologist Bryan Corrigan stood on the other side of the autopsy table while his two white-coated assistants finished arranging the body.

  ‘Welcome, everybody,’ said Corrigan, ending the mumbled conversations in the room. ‘Sergeant Cherry here tells me our victim has two associates unaccounted for, so I’ll keep this brief.’

  He picked up a scalpel and let it hover over what was left of the victim’s face.

  ‘First up, the profound degradation of all tissue on this subject prevents me from assessing whether she suffered a sexual assault immediately prior to her death,’ he said. ‘In any case, my priority was to establish whether she was alive when she entered the water, or whether she was placed in the water after her death, or at least after she was rendered unconscious.

  ‘To that end, we extracted some of her marrow and
quickly found diatoms in it,’ said Corrigan. ‘Those of you who’ve dealt with drownings will know them: microscopic creatures inhaled through water that get into the blood and lodge in the marrow. Given the presence of those diatoms, I’m prepared to call this a drowning and a probable homicide.’

  Taking Corrigan’s declaration as their cue, the assistants stepped in and rolled the body towards us so that the arms and legs dangled over the edge of the table. One of the assistants held the body steady while the other retrieved the fishing net from an evidence bag on the floor. The assistant and Corrigan inserted the net between the body’s eroded fingers and toes and wrapped it around its right wrist and left ankle.

  ‘From the severe abrasions on her ankle,’ said Corrigan, indicating the area, ‘I’d say this net was originally attached to both her wrist and her ankle. The middle of the net has stress indicators, in all likelihood caused by a weight being fixed there. In other words, she was alive and conscious when she was weighed down and dumped in the water.’

  Corrigan removed his disposable gloves, threw them in the bin, and said he’d have his report to us within a couple of hours. Cherry thanked him and his assistants, then headed straight out the door. When I emerged into the corridor, I found him leaning against the wall, his eyes on his phone, his index finger pecking at the screen. He pocketed the phone as I sidled up to him. Coombs and Smeaton joined us.

  ‘We should head out to Steeple Bay as soon as possible,’ said Cherry. ‘There’s a chance we could get stuck at the roadworks, and we don’t want to be late for Bynder. Going a bit early will give us some leeway.’

  ‘After your busy morning, Sergeant,’ said Coombs, forcing a smile, ‘I’m sure you’ve got plenty to catch up on back at the station. So we’ll get ourselves out to Steeple Bay. Thanks for all your efforts here, by the way. A very tidy job.’

  Cherry opened his mouth to object, but closed it just as quickly. He looked at Smeaton and me, paused for a moment, and nodded — apparently resigned to being excluded from the case.