Where the Dead Go

by Sarah Bailey

  A voice comes over the loudspeaker informing us we’re ten minutes from landing, so we need to stow our large electronic devices. I snap my laptop shut and glance at Ben. His expression is unreadable as he stares at the back of the seat in front of him.

  I still can’t quite believe I’m doing this. My insides twist tight. I’m increasingly aware this might be the most foolish decision I’ve ever made.

  We disembark and collect our luggage, my corporate suitcase like a sore thumb among the colourful beach bags. I look at our fellow travellers—shedding jackets, putting on hats and pausing to apply sunscreen, they chat excitedly about ocean conditions and bushwalks, in between bemoaning their pale skin. I loop an arm around Ben and give him a reassuring squeeze.

  Rental car keys in hand, we leave the small terminal and are immediately engulfed by hot, damp air. Perspiration rallies on my skin and I lick my lips. I can taste the sea.

  Ben points at a sign with the hire car brand on it. ‘This way, Mum.’ We find our car, and I set the GPS to the address Tran gave me. The case has already wormed its way into my brain. I’m still trying to plot out the sequence of events: a missing girl, a dead boy, both of their lives about to be torn open and picked over like a Christmas turkey.

  Ben fiddles with the window controls and switches songs on the radio, his movements jerky.

  ‘Are you alright, baby?’

  He shrugs. ‘Yep.’

  ‘I know this is pretty strange. If you change your mind about wanting to be here, or if you want to go home, you just need to tell me, okay?’

  ‘You hate Smithson,’ he says.

  Heat rises up my neck, onto my face. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘It’s okay, I hate it too.’

  ‘Ben, come on. Smithson is your home.’

  He shrugs. ‘Everything is different now. Dad’s dead, and we’re living at Grandad’s.’ His voice wobbles dangerously. ‘No one knows what to say to me. I don’t want to go back to school after the holidays, it was bad enough when Dad was sick. Can’t I just come and live in Sydney with you?’

  Despite the sun streaming in through the windows, I start to shake as if I have chills. He’s saying what I want to hear, but I can also hear the pain in his voice.

  The road stretches out in front of us, a black line disappearing into the green corridor. What was I thinking coming here?

  ‘You might feel differently after a few days,’ I say feebly.

  He pouts and slumps back against the seat. ‘You don’t want me to come to Sydney.’

  ‘That is absolutely not true, Ben. I just think we need time to decide what’s going to be best for you.’

  He pulls off his cap and wipes his nose with the back of his hand. Tilting his chin, he looks at me defiantly. His expression jolts a memory of Scott and me watching him as a baby, only a few days old, sleeping in his cot. He has the same face shape as you, Scott said dreamily, tracing Ben’s jaw, his voice cracking with emotion as he put his arm around me and pushed my chin skyward, smiling. But hopefully not your stubbornness.

  I remember how hard school was after Mum died. The stares. The whispered conversations that stopped every time I rounded a corner. My heart breaks for that version of me, and it breaks for Ben.

  ‘I know it’s hard, sweetheart. Your friends care about you so much but they don’t know what to say to you. They don’t want to upset you. But it will get easier, I promise.’

  He doesn’t speak for a few moments but I sense his limbs relax, the anger fading. Or perhaps he’s just exhausted.

  ‘Is the missing girl dead?’

  His bluntness makes me baulk. ‘She might be,’ I admit, ‘but I hope not. Either way, her family really want to know what happened to her. I want to know what happened to her.’

  He nods but keeps his lips pressed together.

  Frustration swells in my chest and I try to breathe around it, gripping the steering wheel and focusing on the road. I know he’s hurting. I just wish I knew what to say.

  My personal phone rings: Jonesy. Glancing at Ben, I put a headphone in my ear and answer it.

  ‘Are you there yet?’ His gruff voice sounds faraway.

  ‘Yes. We’re on the way to the scene.’

  ‘Christ,’ he breathes. ‘Okay, so I made some calls. I think I mentioned that the bloke who had the car accident is an old mate of mine? Chief Inspector Tommy Gordon. Anyway, his wife, Vanessa, is a retired schoolteacher and she’s offered to have Ben during the day while you’re in Fairhaven. She’s already looking after a little boy for the school holidays, so she says it’s no trouble. She’s a good person, Gemma.’

  ‘That sounds great,’ I say, surprised to find my eyes welling up.

  ‘Yeah. She said she can meet you tonight—you know, so you can make sure it’s all okay. I’ll send you her number now so you can give her a call later and sort it out.’

  ‘Thanks, Jonesy. I really appreciate it.’

  He snorts. ‘I’m still not sure about this, but I guess that ship has sailed. Just be bloody careful up there and keep me posted.’

  ‘I will.’

  I tell Ben about Jonesy’s babysitting plan as our rented Toyota tunnels through vibrant green passages littered with leaves. The sky above us is sapphire blue, the sun a blazing white circle. Scott’s funeral seems like a lifetime ago.

  After about fifteen minutes we pass a large road sign that reads Welcome to Fairhaven! Population 4080, with a faded cartoon sun positioned above the text alongside what appear to be two bullet holes. The speed limit drops as the road begins to curve, and abruptly the world to our right falls away, revealing a sharp decline to the sea. Ben strains against his seatbelt to get a better look. A small yacht drifts into the shimmering path that the sun has etched onto the water. We descend past several postcard-perfect lookout points and a few gravity-defying houses before driving onto flat land. The odd home appears on the left, then we’re closing in on an abandoned-looking hardware store and a run of shops. One sign points to the Fairhaven Caravan Park and another to the lighthouse.

  We reach the main street, where the lightly salted air is suddenly weighed down with a thick mossy scent. Ben wrinkles his nose as we pass a faded plastic playground, then a bed and breakfast with an enormous orange cat asleep on the front step.

  Up ahead beside the road, an A4 sheet of paper is taped crookedly to the wall of a Telstra phone booth. The smiling face of Abbey Clark flutters in the breeze, MISSING printed in large type above her head. Clusters of people are bunched sporadically along the street, wide eyes indicating they know death has struck nearby.

  ‘Okay, we’re close,’ I murmur. The GPS leads me through more turns until we reach a street lined with modest houses, and it’s clear we’ve arrived. An ambulance is reverse-parked in a driveway to the right of a single-storey weatherboard residence. Police tape loops the carport, and a small crowd of shell-shocked neighbours have gathered under the shade of a gum across the road.

  I pull up behind a marked cop car just as my personal phone starts ringing again: Mac. The third time he’s called since this morning. I let it ring out before I turn it off and put it in the glove box.

  A young police officer is pacing the lawn while talking on his phone, the light blue of his badge indicating he’s a constable. Two paramedics sip bottled water and chat quietly near the letterbox.

  ‘Wait here for a sec,’ I say to Ben, who is looking past me up the driveway.

  It’s hotter than I realised, and the relentless cries of the cicadas needle at my brain, reigniting the headache I’ve had off and on for weeks. I nod at the constable and walk over to the paramedics, a middle-aged man and a younger woman with blonde streaks through her dark hair. I show them my badge and introduce myself. ‘I have my son with me,’ I say. ‘He’s eight, and I couldn’t get anyone to mind him at late notice. Would you be able to watch him for a bit? Just while I’m briefed on the case.’

  ‘No problem, I know what it’s like juggling kids,’ says the man. �
�We actually just got here but apparently the coroner is running late so we won’t be moving the body for a while.’

  I get Ben from the car and leave him with Andy, who immediately embarks on an enthusiastic tour of his ambulance. I watch them for a moment and then, satisfied, turn toward the house.

  A tall Eurasian woman appears in the doorway dressed in full scrubs. She yanks off her gauzy hood as she marches toward me, revealing a face dotted with dark freckles beneath a sleek black bob streaked with grey. ‘Gemma?’ She snaps off her right glove and sticks out her hand.

  ‘Chief Inspector Tran.’ My arm tenses at her firm grip.

  ‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she says solemnly. ‘Come on, put on some scrubs and let’s get you a look at him.’

  Monday, 11 April

  2.59 pm

  Rick Fletcher is crumpled on the concrete floor of his garage next to his white ute, the driver’s door wide open, his shoulder-length blond hair splayed out around his face. Full rigor mortis is yet to kick in, and his features look slack and dumb, his limbs flopping drunkenly from his torso. Congealed blood cakes the wound on his temple, tinting the crown of his head a dark red. His navy eyes are frozen open and seem to watch me watching him.

  ‘We think he was attacked just after 6 am.’ Tran’s dark eyes jerk to Rick’s body and then drift back to me. ‘He was due to start a landscaping job today about twenty minutes from here and told the client he’d be there at 6.30 am. We still can’t find a weapon, but clearly he was hit with something sizeable. Possibly one of his own tools.’ She gestures to an impressive array of gardening instruments hanging on the wall. ‘We’re not sure what’s missing and I can’t see any splinters. It definitely wasn’t a gunshot—there’d be more mess.’

  ‘Who found him?’ I ask.

  ‘A next-door neighbour, Bruce Piper.’ She points to the cream-coloured bungalow on the other side of the garage. ‘Says he thought he heard something when he first got up. When he was pulling out to go to work, he noticed Rick’s car door open and just said he had a funny feeling about it. He found Rick and called the station just after 7 am.’

  ‘He’s not a suspect?’

  Tran scrunches up her nose. ‘I don’t think so. He was pretty shaken up and said all the right things. He’s known Rick since he was a kid, said this used to be the family home.’

  I bend down to study Rick’s hands. They’re badly callused, and his left index finger has a cut on it that looks old.

  ‘I think he was hit from behind.’ I rock onto the balls of my feet. ‘The way his hair is all gathered like that at the back makes me think there’s another wound there. My guess is the first blow put him on his knees, then he was hit again here before he bled out.’ I point to his head. ‘Maybe several times. That makes sense in terms of how he’s positioned.’

  Tran nods, though seems reluctant to comment and instead says, ‘The coroner will be here soon. He’s coming from a farming accident a few hours away. Same as the forensic team.’

  I step out of the garage and look along the front of the house. ‘You said this used to be the family home? Did Rick Fletcher live here alone? He’s only seventeen, right?’

  ‘His twenty-year-old brother lives here too, but he’s not around at the moment. We’re trying to track him down. The neighbour, Bruce Piper, said their parents semi-retired last year and live a little further down the coast. I sent Edwina de Luca and Damon Grange there this morning to do the death knock and ask some questions—they’re the two other constables in Tommy’s squad. Kai Lane’s out front.’

  ‘I read the notes on the way here. Abbey Clark and Fletcher were a couple.’

  ‘Yes. Apparently it was quite a serious relationship until last week.’ Tran looks at her watch and frowns. ‘God, it’s already past three.’ She glances back at Rick’s body briefly and says, ‘Let’s grab Lane, then I’ll run you through everything. I can’t stay much longer, we’ve got our own dramas in Byron today.’ She grimaces. ‘I can’t see anyone getting much of an Easter break this year.’

  I push the hood of my scrubs down and quickly check on Ben. He’s sitting on the portable bed in the ambulance, talking to Andy.

  ‘All okay?’ I ask Ben, who nods.

  ‘We’re having a good old chat,’ says Andy.

  ‘Okay, well, we’re just going to run through a few things inside and then we’ll go to the hotel. Sound okay, Ben?’

  ‘Yep, I’m fine, Mum.’ His face is serious but all traces of the tension from the car trip are gone.

  ‘Come get me if you need me,’ I say to Andy, who gives me a discreet thumbs-up. Thank god he’s on duty today.

  A white Mazda pulls up behind the ambulance as Tran and I step onto the grass. A skinny man in faded tan cords and a sky-blue T-shirt pushes out of the passenger door and walks confidently up the driveway. ‘Inspector Tran! Do you suspect Abigail Clark for the murder of Rick Fletcher, or are you treating these incidents as separate?’ He doesn’t remove his aviators but holds his phone out and appears to take a few snaps of the house and the garage.

  ‘It’s still no comment, Simon,’ snaps Tran, balling her fists before muttering, ‘I thought you went home.’

  ‘Nah, I want to talk to the new blood here.’ He turns his focus on me. ‘Simon Charleston, Byron Bay News. You must be the new detective from Sydney. Can you confirm that this is the residence of Rick Fletcher, boyfriend of Abbey Clark, missing since Saturday night?’

  Tran’s nostrils flare. ‘I mean it, Simon. Get out of here or I’ll have you for trespassing. That goes for all of you.’ She glares at the other journalists and photographers who are keeping a surprisingly respectful distance on the nature strip.

  ‘Sorry, sorry.’ Simon pushes his sunglasses into his curly hair and looks sheepish. Little flecks of light dance in his grey eyes. ‘Just letting you know I’ll be right here if you decide to comment.’ He makes his way back to his car, craning his neck to see past the ambulance.

  I exchange a look with the baby-faced cop on the lawn as Tran mutters under her breath, motioning for both of us to join her on the front porch. ‘Here.’ She hands the man a set of scrubs. ‘Gemma, this is Constable Kai Lane. He’s been with the Fairhaven squad for just over a year. Kai, you obviously know about Detective Woodstock already.’

  Lane attempts an odd greeting that involves him tipping his upper body forward as he pulls on his scrubs. He almost loses his balance. ‘Sorry.’ He steadies himself, clearing his throat nervously. ‘It’s really great to meet you, Detective Woodstock.’

  I nod. ‘Yes, you too.’

  I recognise his name from Abbey’s file. He was the constable on duty when she reported the bike stolen after the party. Apart from the healthy flush of thick stubble across his jaw, Lane could easily pass as a high school student. One of his front teeth is slightly crooked, and his generous mop of brown hair makes me think of Ben.

  Tran opens the front door and swishes down the narrow hallway in her booties. ‘Let me show you Fletcher’s room first, then we can talk.’

  Inside, the steady tick of a clock gives the house a hollow feeling. We pass a wide archway that leads to a kitchen and, beyond that, a lounge. The kitchen is neat except for a scatter of dishes on the bench. A plastic milk bottle pokes its head out from the sink. I imagine Rick making himself breakfast here this morning, having no idea it was the last thing he would ever do.

  In the lounge, a trio of surfboards lean against the wall behind a worn armchair. On the opposite wall, a huge television hangs above a tatty couch. The floor is half-covered by a light-brown shagpile rug.

  Up ahead Lane ducks comically to avoid hitting his head on a dangling light shade as he trails behind Tran. She pauses and gestures for us to enter the bedroom at the end of the hallway.

  It’s been ransacked. The linen has been ripped from the bed, and clothes spill from the wardrobe across the carpet, mixing with the contents of an upturned bin. A surfboard has been knocked sideways against a desk, and a glossy guitar has a
nasty crack across its neck. An empty whisky bottle lies on its side next to the bed. I notice a pink skirt in the tangle on the floor.

  Several photos of Rick and Abbey are stuck to the far wall. In every single one, the girl’s face has been coloured in with black permanent marker, dozens of scribbled circles that seem to blur into one the longer I look at them.

  ‘Whoa.’ Lane’s face is close and his warm, mint-scented breath brushes my cheek. He surveys the mess, wide-eyed.

  ‘Do we think Rick Fletcher did that?’ I tip my head toward the photos. ‘How angry was he about the break-up?’

  Tran is still behind us in the hallway. She stabs at her phone. ‘He admitted things had turned nasty between them when we interviewed him yesterday. It’s possible he defaced the photos, but I find it strange he’d trash his own room. The photos certainly weren’t like this on Sunday afternoon.’

  I step around a pair of shoes to get a better look at the bizarre mural. Against the medley of beach backdrops, Rick is either grinning or intentionally looking sultry. It’s clear that he and Abbey were very comfortable with each other; in several shots it’s hard to know where her honeyed limbs end and his begin.

  Him dead, her missing.

  ‘It’s pretty sinister, blacking out her face like that,’ I say. ‘And it looks fairly precise, not like it was done in a drunken frenzy—though I guess it’s hard to be sure.’

  Tran’s eyes flick over the photos again. ‘Rick wasn’t very mature,’ she says finally. ‘He was struggling with his emotions when we spoke to him.’

  Tran’s right: the defacing of Abbey’s image could be incredibly dark or just the childish reaction of a hurting teenager.

  I nudge a scrap of paper with my mesh-covered foot. Three mobile numbers are scrawled on it, and I pull out my phone to take a photo.

  Tran’s phone buzzes with a series of messages. ‘Forensics are thirty minutes away.’ Her fingers fly across her phone. ‘I’ve put in a call for some extra manpower—you’re obviously going to need it.’