by Sarah Bailey
I’m surprised at her no-nonsense manner. I’d expected someone running a regional squad to be a bit more relaxed—more like Jonesy. I wonder whether she’s overcompensating; I can’t imagine her pathway to chief inspector was an easy one.
‘How many FTEs will we get?’ I ask as we head back into the lounge.
‘I’m trying for three extra bodies, maybe four. We absolutely need the station to run twenty-four seven for the foreseeable future, and there will be some community pressure to run patrols until the killer is caught.’
‘I have some questions about the case notes you sent me,’ I say.
The three of us form a little huddle in the kitchen.
‘Go ahead,’ says Tran, folding her arms.
‘The missing bike makes no sense to me. I mean for starters, either she was lying about leaving the party on her bike or Fletcher lied about seeing her with it. I just can’t work out why either way.’ I turn to Lane. ‘You were on duty when she came in?’
He nods. ‘We get a bit of theft around here so it didn’t seem strange at the time, but it obviously does now.’
‘How did she seem when she came in?’ I ask.
Lane becomes a little flustered, his smooth cheeks turning red, and I’m reminded of his youth and inexperience; I hope the rest of the local team aren’t so nervous around me. ‘Abbey was upset about her bike. She said it was a Christmas gift from her father and she was worried about his reaction.’
‘Daniel Clark, yes, I saw the DV summary. Is he abusive toward Abbey?’
‘We’re sure he is,’ says Lane. ‘But we could never convince her to make a statement. Daniel’s been beating his wife, Dot, for years. Tommy Gordon, that’s our CI, he’s tried to talk to Dot about making a statement a bunch of times, but she’s too scared, I guess.’
‘That’s a fairly common scenario,’ I say.
‘Especially around here,’ says Tran. ‘DV goes through the roof in summer, then again in winter when the work dries up.’
If Rick is suspect number one in Abbey’s disappearance, then her father is surely suspect number two.
‘Has her bike turned up?’ I ask.
Lane shakes his head. ‘We have no idea where it is.’
‘So unless it’s with Abbey, it sounds like it really was stolen?’ I look between them.
Lane shrugs. ‘That’s likely.’
I’m trying to get it all straight in my head. ‘And she refused a lift home from the police station even though it was almost midnight?’
He opens his mouth to reply just as someone starts screaming in the front yard.
Monday, 11 April
4.06 pm
A young man is wrestling with the paramedics at the end of the driveway. Veins ripple grotesquely on his tan arms as Andy struggles to restrain him. I rush over to the ambulance and find Ben kneeling on the portable bed, peering out the side window at the commotion.
‘Stay here, okay?’
He nods, his eyes huge.
The reporter who Tran dressed down earlier, Simon Charleston, stands in the open door of his car, filming the scene with his phone.
‘Let me in!’ screams the young man.
For a moment I wonder if Rick has somehow come back to life, so similar is this man to the dead body lying on the garage floor. But then I notice the spray of tattoos on his neck, see that the blond hair is straight and not wavy. Behind the ambulance I notice a shiny black ute parked sloppily in the driveway.
Tran walks purposefully over to the man. ‘Aiden Fletcher? I’m Chief Inspector Celia Tran. Please come with me.’
The man eyes her warily, but he calms somewhat. Andy slowly releases his grip.
‘I live here!’
Tran nods.
‘What’s happened to Rick? Tell me!’
‘Please, come with me.’ Her arm loops firmly around his waist as she leads him to the far corner of the yard, away from his brother’s bloody corpse and Simon’s phone. ‘Some police officers are with your parents now at their house.’
Aiden lets out a low moan. ‘Is he dead? Oh god, no.’
Tran’s voice remains robotic. ‘Aiden, I’m afraid your brother was attacked this morning and his injuries were fatal.’
Aiden crumples to the ground and begins to rock back and forth, glancing from the garage to the house, squinting into the sunlight. ‘I knew it,’ he whispers, before giving way to sobs.
What on earth does he mean by that?
‘Aiden.’ I sink down next to him. ‘Do you have any idea who could have attacked Rick?’
He keeps making those tortured moans.
‘Aiden?’
He turns to me as if waking from a deep sleep, his pupils shrinking into focus, spittle hovering on his lips. ‘This is all my fault.’
Aiden sits across from me, his head in his hands. After his outburst I herded him away from the journos into the backyard and directed him to a rickety outdoor setting.
Tran stomps after us muttering about Simon Charleston with Lane trailing behind.
‘Aiden, I’m really sorry about your brother,’ I say.
He doesn’t reply but I recognise the tremors of shock.
‘Aiden, what did you mean before when—?’
His head jerks up and he groans, smacking his hands hard against his face. ‘Oh god! I can’t believe this.’ His face is patchy with uneven whiskers, his eyes dull and bloodshot. ‘When?’ he whispers.
‘Around six this morning. We think he was on his way to work.’
Aiden descends into sobs again. ‘Oh god, oh god.’
I lean forward and put a hand on his shoulder. ‘When was the last time you saw him?’
‘Last week. I’ve been away since Thursday, but we hang out all the time.’ He rides the wave of another sob. ‘This is going to kill my parents, you know.’ His face collapses as he shakes his head in disbelief, saliva forming silvery strings between his lips.
‘When did you last have contact with Rick?’ I say gently.
‘What? Um, yesterday. He told me about Abbey going AWOL on Sunday, then he called me again last night after her dad had come round here again.’
‘Daniel Clark came here last night?’
Aiden sniffs and swipes at his nostrils, leaving a trail of snot along his wrist. ‘Yeah. He reckoned Rick knew where Abbey was, but he didn’t. I swear to god he didn’t.’
‘What did Rick say to you about Abbey disappearing?’
‘Just that he was worried. I mean, I know they’d just broken up, but he was crazy about her. They would have got back together.’
I think about the black marks all over her smiling face on Rick’s bedroom wall. Did Daniel Clark see them? Could that have convinced him Rick had harmed his daughter?
‘Aiden, did you ever witness any violence between Abbey and your brother?’
He emits a shuddery breath. ‘No, no way. He was so into her. He was worried she was seeing someone else, but I told him it was all in his head. Abbey’s a good chick.’
‘Why did Rick think she was cheating on him?’
His right heel starts to tic uncontrollably. ‘I dunno. He just said she was acting weird lately.’
Something is ducking and weaving in the darkest corners of my mind, but I can’t seem to catch it. ‘Can you think of anyone who’d want to hurt your brother, Aiden?
‘No, no. Oh god, I really just can’t get my head around this.’
‘Aiden, why did you say this is all your fault?’
‘What?’
‘On the lawn before? What did you mean?’
He opens his legs wide and presses his elbows against his knees, head down. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what the fuck I’m saying.’ He begins to cry again, and Tran and I exchange glances. We’re clearly not going to get more out of him right now.
‘Do you want us to contact your parents, Aiden?’ asks Tran. ‘We can get an officer to drive you to their house?’
‘No. No.’ He reels forward but manages to stay on his fee
t, wiping tears into his mottled cheeks.
‘We know today has been a terrible shock,’ I say, ‘but we’ll need to speak with you again soon. We need your help to find out who did this to Rick.’
Aiden moans and manically shuffles in a circle, his hands still gripping his face. ‘Can I go inside?’
‘Not right now, I’m afraid,’ says Tran. ‘But if there’s anything you need, I might be able to get it for you.’
Grabbing fistfuls of blond hair, he stares at the house hopelessly.
‘Aiden?’
‘I just need to be with my family.’ He stumbles forward and then bolts to the narrow grass corridor that leads to the front yard. There’s a slight delay as we scramble to follow him.
Upon seeing Aiden, the journos come to life, tossing water bottles to the ground and flicking on their phones and video cameras. He jumps in his ute and reverses at speed in a wide arc, almost clipping the front of Simon Charleston’s Mazda.
‘Hey!’ Simon shouts, running half-heartedly across the lawn.
Aiden looks possessed as he pitches the car forward and takes off down the street. The reporters buzz like flies in his wake.
From the other direction comes the forensic van, causing the crowd of neighbours to fragment as it pulls up at the kerb. A Jack Russell breaks away from the group and races across the lawn, dragging its leash on the ground. The dog makes a beeline for Simon, yapping at his heels while he tries to talk on his phone.
Tran purses her lips as she surveys the chaotic scene.
‘I think Aiden knows something,’ I say. ‘Did you hear him say it was his fault?’
‘Maybe. But I think he’s probably just in shock. You can speak to him again tomorrow or Wednesday.’ Tran’s cheekbones jut away from her face as if to accentuate her point. I struggle to guess her age. Her skin is luminous, but has the tell-tale tightness of Botox.
Leaving Lane to guard the property, Tran and I walk over to greet the three male techs who emerge from their van.
‘Locating the weapon is priority number one, but I want the house, garage and yard swept for any traces of drugs,’ I say as we gather in the shade of the carport. ‘And we need all electronic devices bagged and sent to the lab as soon as possible. I also want the photos in the bedroom dusted for prints—someone has scribbled over the missing girl’s face with what looks like permanent marker.’
‘We can test the ink,’ offers the youngest-looking tech. ‘It might give an indication of when they were drawn on.’
The techs pull on their white suits and gloves and head into the house, just as two more cars park at the end of the driveway. A middle-aged bald man virtually falls out of a Nissan Pathfinder and huffs toward us. ‘Hi, Celia,’ he wheezes at Tran, then turns to me. ‘Mick Lamb, I’m the regional coroner.’ He sticks out a sweaty hand. ‘My air con packed it in halfway here,’ he offers by way of apology. ‘So, I hear we’ve got a deceased kid with head injuries?’
I glance at Tran, who has returned her attention to her ever-vibrating phone.
‘That’s right. He’s through there.’ I indicate the garage. ‘I’m particularly keen on understanding what type of weapon you think was used and also whether you think a teenage girl could have inflicted the injuries.’
‘Sure, okay.’ Mick Lamb’s breath is slowly returning to a normal pace. ‘That likely won’t be clear until we do the full autopsy, but I can give you an opinion later once I’ve had a look.’ He circles Fletcher’s body, looking solemn, then collects his kit and gets settled in the garage.
Lane has switched places with one of the fill-in constables Tran requested, Tim Mayfair, a stocky pale man with bright red hair and a high-pitched voice. He chats calmly to the distraught locals on the street, while Lane, Tran and I regroup near the front door to complete our case handover.
‘Okay, so,’ Tran begins, ‘Lamb thinks that Fletcher’s autopsy will be on Wednesday.’ She squints against the afternoon sun as she scrolls through her phone. ‘There was already pressure to clear the backlog before Easter but I’ve made it clear we need this done urgently.’ Now she’s looking anxious. ‘Right, I’ve got about ten minutes. Is there anything else you want to go over?’
I work through my list of questions from the plane. ‘Do we have any CCTV footage? Is there likely to be anything from Saturday night or this morning?’
‘We were in the process of securing council footage when this all blew up, but we don’t expect to get much,’ replies Tran.
‘There’s barely anything,’ adds Lane. ‘We keep hearing rumours of new cameras going in but nothing happens. I don’t think there’s any funding.’
Tran shoots him an irritated glance.
‘Besides Daniel and Abbey, who else is on your list?’ I ask her.
‘A few of the kids at the party said a guy was hassling Abbey,’ says Tran, her eyes back on her phone, ‘but we haven’t been able to ID him. You should get access to her social accounts and phone records later tonight or tomorrow, so hopefully something turns up on those.’
I feel the all-too-familiar smack of invisible brick walls. Most homicide cases are really about juggling resources, working out what to spend time on and what to ignore. Clearly this will be no different.
‘Okay, last question,’ I say. ‘Were the kids at the party boozed or on drugs?’
‘Not that any of them will admit. You’d think the whole party was powered by a couple of mid-strength six-packs they found in the kitchen cupboard.’ Tran laughs wryly. ‘I really have to go. The others can keep filling you in. My squad is having its own dramas and I need to be there.’
‘No problem.’
I’m actually desperate for Tran to leave; I want her out of the way so I can take the disparate case threads and start to weave them together, but part of me feels rusty and nervous.
‘Just a heads-up,’ says Tran, ‘you’ll need to manage Daniel Clark carefully, Gemma. He isn’t a fan of the police force, and I don’t want to get tripped up by some bogus complaint. I suggest you go see him first thing, introduce yourself, and question him and his wife about Rick.’
‘Sure, no problem.’
‘Oh, and one other thing I forgot to mention,’ says Tran, suddenly looking sheepish. ‘Rick called the station last night to say he wanted to tell us something.’
‘What was it?’
Tran hesitates. ‘We don’t have any idea. After Abbey was reported missing I planned to run the station twenty-four seven, but I couldn’t get anyone in overnight and everyone on staff had already worked all day yesterday, so I stayed as late as I could, around 11 pm. Rick’s call went to the station voice bank, but I hadn’t linked it properly to my phone. By the time the message was picked up this morning, I was already here looking at his body.’
Monday, 11 April
5.28 pm
Tran gives us a final cursory nod and stalks off to her car, her fingers still dancing across her phone. She clearly feels guilty that she didn’t receive Rick’s call on Sunday night. I watch as one of the techs inspects a pair of sneakers near the front door. I would feel bad too—hearing what Rick had to say might have saved his life.
I turn to Lane, who appears a little wide-eyed. I wonder whether he’s ever worked a homicide before. ‘I want to have a case meeting tomorrow at the station before I visit the Clarks. Can you tell the others to be there at eight-thirty?’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Can you also send me the voice file of Fletcher’s phone call to the station, along with the footage of his interview yesterday?’
‘Yes, I’ll do it right away.’ Lane attempts a relaxed smile. ‘What a day, huh?’
‘I expect there might be a few more like this headed our way.’
He swallows and looks over to the garage, the occasional camera flash illuminating the dark rectangle of the door. Then he subtly squares his shoulders and clenches his jaw. In spite of everything, I smile; his boyish enthusiasm is endearing. I tell him to get a good night’s sleep, then slide
on my new sunglasses.
I’m conscious of Simon Charleston watching me as I walk across the lawn.
‘Mum,’ says Ben loudly, stepping out from the open doors of the ambulance, ‘is the man in the garage dead?’
‘I think that’s our hotel.’ Ben points to a two-storey wooden building a few hundred metres in front of us. THE PARROT is spelled out in gold lettering along the top.
‘Sure is.’ I force some cheer into my voice. ‘Good spotting.’
The reception area is about as far from a beach house as you can get, with textured wallpaper and classic upholstered furniture. A huge photo of a macaw soaring through the air hangs behind the desk.
‘Hello!’ booms a loud voice. A man with thick copper-coloured hair and a broad smile appears at the top of the staircase and makes his way toward us. ‘Now let me guess—Detective Sergeant Woodstock and Master Ben? Am I right?’ His thick Irish accent turns his greeting to music.
‘Yes,’ I say, as Ben nods.
‘Well, welcome to Fairhaven and specifically to my fine establishment. I’m Cameron O’Donnell. But my close friends and enemies call me Cam.’ He leans across the counter to shake our hands, his enthusiasm almost childlike. ‘I’ve got you in number nine, the ground-floor room on the far corner. You’ll love it. There’s a nice view of the beach from the bedroom, which comes free of charge.’
He’s a smoker, I can smell it on his breath. He doesn’t wear a wedding ring. The edge of a black tattoo peeks out from the sleeve of his shirt. He’s incredibly attractive, his boyish good looks paired with a muscular physique.
He taps a sequence of keys on the computer. ‘Okay, here you are. Right, so it looks like the boys and girls in blue are kindly picking up your bill. I just need you to sign a few things for me and then you’re all set. And I’ll grab you some food vouchers for the pub, my treat.’
‘We’re going there for dinner tonight,’ says Ben.
‘I know.’ Cam winks at him. ‘A little bird told me.’
Suddenly wary, I sign the forms hastily.
Cam hands over my keys before pulling a container of fish food from behind the desk. ‘Here, mate, do you want to feed Paddy?’ He points to the tank on the other side of the room, where a bloated red-and-white goldfish floats listlessly between weeds and plastic turrets. ‘Not too much. Just a pinch.’ As Ben trots off, Cam leans against the desk and gives me a conspiratorial look, his face grim. ‘I heard about Rick Fletcher. I just can’t believe it.’