by J. M. Peace
‘Yes.’ Belinda nodded curtly. She could understand why the question had been asked.
‘No judgement,’ Kayleen murmured, her eyes staring into Belinda’s.
‘The first shot didn’t kill him. He looked me in the eye. Then I shot him again.’
‘Hearing that, kind of . . .’ Wendy searched for the right word, ‘. . . helps.’
All three women nodded.
‘A little retribution. Better than jail,’ Kayleen agreed.
Belinda paused. ‘Barry didn’t know,’ she said. ‘He never knew I was onto him.’
‘He was unconscious when I hung him. He didn’t wake up. But he’s dead too. He’ll never do it again.’
‘That bastard was worse than his brother,’ Wendy spat.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he was involved with what happened to Janey too,’ Belinda said softly.
Kayleen made a small strangled noise, her face twisting.
‘Everyone’s on your side. We’ll help you any way we can,’ Wendy said softly to Belinda. ‘You’re the one who had the courage to follow it through.’
‘I had to,’ Belinda said. ‘The day will come when Nicola will start to understand what happened, what’s been done to her. And I want to be able to look her in the eye and say, “I did everything I could”. But I’m terrified. What if the police work it all out? How much worse would it be if Nici has to come and visit me in jail every weekend, knowing I killed the man she called “Dad”?’
‘You’ll be all right,’ Kayleen said. ‘Janey’s watching over you.’ Tears welled in her eyes as she spoke. Although Kayleen choked back her first sob, it triggered something in Belinda. The armour she’d clothed herself in – preparedness, efficiency and focus – peeled away. She was a mother whose daughter had been hurt, whose heart had been broken and whose trust had been betrayed in the vilest way. The sobbing started and the three women drew together.
If there had been any previous doubt in her mind about whether she had done the right thing, these two women nursing their grief in an empty house erased it.
*
The sun was high in the sky before she ventured out again. Clothes and number plates had been changed. Wendy had given Belinda directions to the most obscure back roads out of the neighbourhood back to Brisbane. If a police car had stopped her, they would have found nothing to prove she hadn’t driven back to town to visit a friend. But they didn’t.
After a couple of hours driving, she pulled up at a random highway rest stop. She took the battery out of Peter’s phone to access the sim card. She snapped it in half and wrapped the pieces in a plastic bag along with his wallet. She left everything in the wallet, hesitating slightly over the $160 in cash. He no longer needed it. But she ended up throwing that out too. She wasn’t a thief.
And that was it. That was the best she could do to cover her tracks.
Nicola could never find out. If she never knew, she would never have to consider it or evaluate it, or lie about it. Her ignorance would be another way Belinda would protect her.
Belinda would have to tell her that she had left Barry, that he was no longer husband and father. She wanted to do it in such a way that the little girl wouldn’t connect it to what “Dad” had done to her. It seemed impossible though. Nicola was sharp as a tack and would likely see through any excuses Belinda offered her. Best to call it a holiday with Nanna and then slowly let time and distance do the actual severing. In a few years time, she would hardly remember Barry. At least not as her father, though perhaps as her abuser.
Maybe one day, if Nicola became a mother, if she cradled a baby girl in her arms and promised to care for and protect her and be the best mother she could, maybe then she might understand.
She must not find out before then though. The thought of being condemned by the one person she did it all for was more than Belinda could bear. She didn’t know what damage had already been wreaked on her child psychologically. She would get her professional help. There would be injury that Nicola probably wouldn’t even recognise until she was old enough to understand sex and love, manipulation and power. Belinda recognised already that her daughter’s whole concept of love had already been warped to suit the plans of predators. Would time help to heal this? Or would Nici forever seek out men who would abuse her?
Belinda sighed heavily. She had done the best she could.
58
It was the way he tossed his keys onto the kitchen table that gave Sammi the first clue that Gavin had the shits with her.
‘How was your day?’ she asked lightly.
He grunted and went to the fridge, only coming over to give her a quick kiss after he had a beer in his hand.
‘Busy day?’ she asked.
‘It was okay.’ He leant against the counter, the other end from where she was chopping veggies for dinner. Any moment now, she thought. Then he’d unload.
‘How was your day? Anything interesting?’ Gavin asked.
‘Same shit, different day,’ Sammi answered noncommittally.
‘Still working on the pedophile thing?’
Here it came.
‘It’s a branch job. I’ve only been helping out a little,’ she replied.
Gavin took a long swig from his beer.
‘So tell me,’ he said, too loudly considering they were in the same room. ‘Was it really Barry who you found hanging in the shed?’
Sammi hesitated only slightly before nodding. This was fraught with danger. There were so many factors at play. Firstly, that Gavin’s mate was dead. Secondly, that his mate was probably a pedophile. Thirdly, the indication that Gavin thought Sammi was withholding information from him. It was a minefield. How did that information get out any way? There’d been nothing official yet. She suspected it had been Muzza.
‘We identified him by a tattoo. I know he was a mate. I’m sorry.’ She stretched out her hand, took a step towards him, but Gavin turned away.
‘Was he supposedly a pedophile too?’ The gossip machine had kicked in to gear. It was an easy conclusion to jump to that Barry was linked to Nicola’s abuse. Sammi didn’t know if Gavin was being belligerent because Barry was a mate or because he had heard it at work rather than at home from Sammi.
Sammi nodded but kept her mouth shut.
‘I can’t believe he was like that,’ Gavin said. ‘They’re still investigating, right? He was a good bloke. A great father to Nicola. The only father she’d known. Her biological father was a sperm donor, didn’t have any contact with her. Barry was her dad.’
Sammi shrugged. There was nothing she could say which wouldn’t end in some sort of argument. It was hard to reason with someone in denial.
‘You don’t know him very well,’ Gavin continued. ‘I do. There’s got to be some sort of mistake. It was Peter. He’s the ped.’
‘It was definitely Peter. But it seems it was Barry too. Or Barry at least allowed Peter access to Nicola,’ Sammi replied.
Gavin shook his head. ‘He wasn’t that type of guy. He just wasn’t.’
‘There’s no such thing as a typical pedophile,’ Sammi ventured. ‘They don’t all fit the old stereotype of the guy in a dirty overcoat with a bag of sweets. They’re husbands and fathers too.’
‘We’re talking about Barry here.’ Gavin’s voice was getting louder. ‘I’ve known him for years, ever since I started working for Stan. He’s not like that.’
‘I think he fooled everyone. Including Belinda.’
‘No. He loved Belinda. There’s no way he would have done that to her. There’s so many things here that don’t make sense.’
‘They’re still investigating,’ Sammi said.
Gavin grunted. ‘Can they prove he hung himself?’
Sammi looked down at her chopping board. This was making her tired and both of them cranky. But Gavin was not finished.
‘So at lea
st they’re acknowledging it’s suspicious? Because as far as I can tell, there seems to be a hell of a lot of unanswered questions surrounding this death.’
‘Are you asking me or telling me? ’Cos you’re on thin ice either way.’ Sammi glared at him, daring him to keep pushing.
‘Okay.’ He held his hands out in a placating gesture. ‘But it’s really bothering me.’
‘Yep. I can understand that.’
There was a pause. Sammi resumed chopping, focusing on the slice of the knife. Gavin leant forward. He tapped the bent bottle top from his beer against the counter.
Just leave it, Sammi thought. She had no answers for him. She willed Gavin to go out to the lounge room and turn the TV on. But he didn’t.
‘What do you think?’ Gavin asked. ‘Do you really think Barry was a ped?’
Sammi huffed. ‘You’ve got no right to try to get me to reveal any part of this investigation just because you knew the bloke or you want to big-note yourself to your mates. But it doesn’t matter what I think, it only matters what they can prove. It’s still a branch job. It’s a suspicious death. That’s way out of my hands.’
Gavin glared at her. He started to say something but seemed to think better of it. Then he turned and left the kitchen. Sammi breathed out through pursed lips. But only seconds passed before Gavin stormed back in again.
‘I have to say something,’ he said, resting both hands on the kitchen counter. ‘He’s my friend for god sakes.’
‘Gavin . . .’ Sammi warned.
‘If Barry wasn’t a pedophile – and I really don’t think he was – then there’s no way he would have hung himself. I think he’s been murdered. Maybe he found out about Peter and Nicola and went after his own brother, but Peter got the better of him, made it look like he was the one who was dead. If everyone thought Peter had killed himself, no one would come looking for him. That would be a smart plan.’
Sammi stared at him. ‘You’re kidding, aren’t you? Peter murdered his brother and no one noticed Barry was missing? What about Belinda? She’s missing too. Do you think she’s in on it with Peter? Peter, who we know is a pedophile and we know was abusing Nicola? Seriously, Gav. I know Barry was a mate and I’m sorry about that. But you have to stop this.’
Gavin sneered at her. ‘That’s easy for you to say. You probably know more than you’re telling me. You’ve been keeping this all from me since the beginning.’ It was the accusatory tone that got to Sammi more than the words themselves.
She stepped in front of him. ‘You want to be a cop?’ she snapped. ‘You need to start learning how to separate fact from emotion. This job isn’t personal. Just because you like the accused, doesn’t mean you know everything about him. You don’t choose who is innocent or guilty. The facts make the choice for you. You have to accept them whether you like it or not. That’s your job as a copper. Without fear or favour. If you can’t do that, you can’t be a cop.’
Gavin looked at her, startled. He opened his mouth to say something but no words came out. Part of Sammi knew she had won; she had completely shut him down. But part of her felt miserable, because what kind of victory was that?
He turned and walked away, leaving Sammi with an ache in the pit of her stomach.
59
It was two thirty in the morning and Aiden was still concentrating. They’d done several patrols of the town and then a big lap around the outskirts before returning to the station. It was a quiet shift. Usually by this time of night, they’d be kicking back in the meal room with a cuppa and the TV on. But Tom could see by the way Aiden was sitting straight in the chair, hand on the mouse, that he was focused on work.
Tom was ready for a break. He stood up and stretched.
‘Do you want a cuppa, mate?’
Aiden looked up distractedly. ‘Yeah, I’ll be down in a minute.’
Tom headed for the meal room. Aiden’s coffee was lukewarm by the time he joined him.
‘Found a good job to apply for or something?’ Tom asked, taking in the grin on Aiden’s face.
‘Not that lucky. But I think I might have found that car we lost the other night.’
Tom laughed. ‘That still eating you?’
‘Course it is. Everyone hates losing a pursuit. So I did a bit of digging.’
Tom and Aiden had both been given an update on the job they’d attended in the shed the previous night. Tom had already given Aiden a ribbing about the fact it was possibly a middle-aged mother behind the wheel when they’d been outmanoeuvred. ‘Ask your mum for some driving tips,’ he’d suggested. Someone else had stuck a magnetic “L” plate to Aiden’s locker door. It was too good an opportunity to let slide by. Aiden would have done the same to anyone else behind the wheel.
‘The number plate was stolen off a Mazda 323 in a car yard in Coopers Plains. The plates were removed the night before and the car yard hadn’t noticed them missing until police followed up with them earlier today. That’s why they didn’t come up as stolen when we ran the car.’
‘Yeah, I wondered about that,’ Tom replied.
‘So the others reckon Belinda Woodford might have been behind the wheel. She’s got a black Hyundai Santa Fe registered to her. It’s flagged but no one’s seen it since.’
Tom nodded, wondered where Aiden was headed with this.
‘So I was thinking, where might she be? She’s got to either go on the run or go to someone she can trust to hide her. Given that it’s over a week since she’s been seen and, if she was the driver, she was here in town last night, she certainly hasn’t left the state. So I tracked down her mum on the computer. She lives in Sunnybank. Do you know where that is?’
‘Not really,’ Tom replied.
‘It’s the next suburb over from Coopers Plains. And do you know what sort of car her mum has registered in her name?’
‘Let me guess – a white Mazda hatch?’
‘Yep. An ’88 model. Which is now covered in stone chips and hopefully with a blown transmission from the way she was driving it the other night.’
‘Gotta let Terry know about that,’ Tom said.
‘The email’s already sent. She doesn’t know it, but I’m still chasing her. I’ll catch her yet.’
60
Jeremy had the good timing to ring after Sammi had finished her lunch on a quiet counter shift.
‘Hi Sammi, is Terry there?’ he asked.
Sammi checked the phone lines, and could see Terry’s line was engaged again. ‘Yep, he’s here but he’s on another call at the moment.’
‘Can you ask him to call me back?’ Jeremy said. ‘I found some prints on a bench inside that shed in Moffatdale. I’ve identified them as Peter Woodford’s.’
‘That ties in,’ Sammi said. ‘Bob and I found his ute hidden out past the dam on the same property. Safe to say he was in the shed. And he’s disappeared again now.’
‘I found out from Tom that you thought the body in the shed was actually his brother? Turns out we had his prints on file too. There was an old assault, a drunken fight, but he ended up charged and in the watchhouse. So I had prints for him too for comparison. But the ones on the note weren’t his either. Any other suspects?’
‘I think the victim’s mother was involved,’ Sammi replied. ‘She’s been missing ever since the body was found. Her car was seen at Peter’s house around about the time that Barry was strung up in the shed. She’s got a rifle, she didn’t pack any of her husband’s things when they took off and has left no forwarding address. And Aiden’s worked out the car they chased probably belonged to Belinda’s mother. If you could match her prints to the note, that would be gold – solid gold. I doubt we have her prints on file though.’ Sammi quickly typed Belinda’s name into her computer.
‘Nope,’ she confirmed. ‘No prints. Not that lucky.’
‘Okay. Well if you can get hold of anything else with her prints on
it, we can use them to compare with the ones on the note,’ Jeremy said.
‘Hm. We’ve been through her house already. It looks like they’ve abandoned it. It wouldn’t be too hard to get another warrant. Would you be able to get something with her prints from inside her house?’
‘How many other people live in the house?’ Jeremy queried.
‘Just Barry, and you’ve got his prints. And Nicola, the little girl. You could tell a kid’s prints from an adult’s, couldn’t you?’
‘Yeah, that’s no problem. I’m sure we could find a lot of the mum’s prints, focusing on things like her makeup boxes or a book on her bedside table. Could get a few and soon work out whose were Barry’s and whose were left over,’ Jeremy replied. ‘It will be sufficient for an ID. Then if she gets charged, she’ll have a proper set of prints taken which can then be used as evidence.’
‘Perfect. How soon could you get to it?’ Sammi asked.
‘Sammi, if you’re talking murder, I’m in the car heading over already.’
Sammi glanced at the phone. Terry’s extension was still lit up as engaged. ‘Terry’s going to be all over this,’ Sammi replied. ‘I’ll get him to call you.’
Sammi’s stomach tightened a little as she headed up to Terry’s office. She paid objective attention to the feeling, trying to work out if it was excitement or anxiety. This could be the breakthrough, the one piece of solid evidence amongst all the speculation. Terry was clearly on a personal phone call, probably another copper by the sound of it. She perched herself on the edge of his desk. He gave Sammi an irritated look, but hung up quickly.
‘What?’ he said. ‘You’ve brought me nothing but headaches lately.’ He picked up a paperclip and pegged it at her shoulder.
‘Not this time. You need to ring Jeremy at Forensics,’ Sammi said, trying to stop from grinning. When Terry turned to look up the number, she picked up the paperclip and threw it hard enough so it bounced off the back of his head. She turned and moved away quickly, laughing.