by Sarah Bailey
They startle slightly.
‘Any problems with that?’
They shake their heads.
‘Good. It’s at midday in the Byron Bay morgue, and Inspector Tran will be there too. Hopefully we can identify the weapon and determine how likely it is that someone of Abbey’s build could have carried out the attack.’
‘I arranged to speak to the school principal this morning,’ says de Luca.
‘Call from the car,’ I reply. ‘Or move it. You’ll need to leave here by 11 am.’
She flicks her feathery hair and pouts slightly. ‘Okay.’
‘I also want to see if Abbey had a doctor’s appointment recently, or even just scheduled one. We need to check here and in the local towns.’
‘What’s that about?’ asks Lane.
‘Abbey wrote a to-do list in one of her notebooks, and it has doctor written on it. I’m keen to understand anything about her frame of mind that might help us figure out what was going on. A pregnancy scare or some kind of illness might have been motive for a break-up or imply the existence of another relationship, or perhaps this is about mental health issues.’
Lane nods slowly. ‘Makes sense.’
‘I watched the station footage from Saturday,’ I tell him. ‘Did Abbey seem intoxicated or high on Saturday night?’
‘I don’t think so,’ he says. ‘She was emotional but I just put that down to her being upset about her bike. Plus, she mentioned she argued with her ex-boyfriend.’
‘She told you about that?’
‘Yeah, she definitely said something about it. I asked her if she thought he might have taken the bike, but she said she didn’t think so.’
‘Did she say she was on her way home?’
‘No, but I assumed so. That’s where I offered to drive her.’
‘I didn’t get the feeling she was worried she was being followed.’
‘I didn’t sense that either, but who knows.’ He looks pained.
‘Tran mentioned there was a big drug blitz in the area recently. Do you guys come across much of it these days?’
‘Not really, though there’s definitely a bit of weed,’ says de Luca. ‘And alcohol, obviously.’
‘We arrested a bunch of backpackers earlier in the year,’ adds Lane. ‘A few kids stole a car and when they were busted there was a decent haul of pills in the boot.’
‘What are we talking?’
‘Amphetamines and some pharmacy stuff. None of it could be traced, and they said they’d bought it from a guy they met on the road. It looked legitimate.’
I think about Tommy taking his pills this morning. He really shouldn’t be mixing Vanessa’s old prescriptions with new scripts. I worked with someone in Melbourne who unwittingly slid into a prescription drug addiction and it slowly but surely destroyed their entire life.
‘We don’t really get the party drugs here,’ adds Grange. ‘It’s just not that kind of place. And Tran’s right, we’ve essentially stamped out ice for the most part.’
‘Alright.’ I bring my hands together. ‘Let’s aim for 5 pm back here. Call me if the autopsy shows up anything we need to know before then.’
Before we head off, Lane ducks to the bathroom and I call the lab to chase up the bloodwork. A distracted receptionist tells me it’s been prioritised but that it’s ‘raining samples’ so she doesn’t know when it will be processed.
Sighing, I gather my things. Whether it’s Abbey’s blood or not, we’re still looking for her with the same amount of urgency. My thoughts keep returning to Ronson. Like Nicki Mara, the man consumed so much of my time and my consciousness that it’s hard to believe the hunt is over. That’s the thing with detective work: even though we need to be sensitive to every shade of grey, our cases are essentially black and white. Solved, open. Found, not found. Dead, alive. Nicki Mara is a permanent black mark against my name. Ronson gets a big fat tick. I feel the urge to call Mac, to celebrate, to officially put the case to bed, but my distance continues to feel more than just geographical.
I scan the paperwork Owen sent, the case I had remembered Aiden’s name from. A sizeable batch of pharmacy pills were located during a raid, and a young man was arrested. The pills had no known origin and the guy claimed he’d only been advised the pick-up location: a chemist car park in Redfern. He subsequently squealed on his housemate, Tony Foy, who admitted to buying some pills from him but denied any involvement in supply. Two weeks later Tony turned up dead in a warehouse car park, a single bullet in his head and a gun in his hand. It was ruled a suicide but I know Jock had his doubts.
‘Everything okay, Gemma?’ Lane says, flashing me a smile as he sails past. His casual familiarity is somehow even more jarring today than it was yesterday.
‘Yep, let’s go,’ I say, standing as I skim the last few lines.
The day before he died, despite having no known links, Tony searched for an Aiden Fletcher on Facebook and called the mobile number listed on his page. Aiden never answered the call.
Wednesday, 13 April
8.54 am
If Lane is annoyed about not being sent to the autopsy, he doesn’t show it. He talks easily, seemingly keen to give me the whistle-stop tour of his life.
‘I was really good at rugby but I started having trouble with my hamstrings so that put an end to that. I was kind of interested in law—you know, just like movies set in courtrooms and whatever—but then a couple went missing from here years ago. Must have been when I was about thirteen, I guess, and it really got me thinking about being a cop. My parents knew Tommy quite well and he used to talk to me about it, you know, encouraged me to pursue it. And I really love it, so far.’ Lane points to the upcoming intersection. ‘Turn left here.’
He speaks with the confidence of someone with the hard-wired notion that everything will always work out just fine. In spite of myself I find him charming. He chatters on happily about his training in Yamba and his uncle, a detective I vaguely know from Melbourne.
We pass more houses and I navigate a game of street cricket before we hit a long stretch of bushland. Lane leans forward and points to a dirt driveway. ‘Turn here.’
We pass under a wooden arch that reminds me of school camp, with faded block letters nailed along the curve. The squad car churns up the gravel driveway until we hit an overflowing car park. I pull up next to a ute, right outside the guest reception, blatantly ignoring the No Parking sign. Swinging open my door, I hear children squealing and loud splashing. An unpleasant smell permeates the air.
‘This way.’ Lane wrinkles his nose and walks through a door of plastic ribbons.
Inside the small cabin, the air is hot and the stench of sewage mixes with artificial eucalyptus. An unmanned desk is to our left, and hanging behind it is a huge photo board of pinned polaroids. Beaming couples, little kids and families—all guests of the park, I assume. In front of us the door to a back office is slightly ajar, and on the right wall are three rows of brochures and maps held captive behind perspex.
Lane dings the silver bell on the counter. Somewhere nearby, a mobile phone is ringing. ‘Kate must be outside,’ he mutters.
I push open the door and go down a wooden ramp into a communal barbecue area. The smell intensifies. I spot a huddle of rainwater tanks and a patch of high-vis: a man in a fluorescent orange vest who seems to be on his knees near the base of one of the wooden cabins.
A woman in cat’s-eye sunglasses and a tight black dress hovers next to him, a mobile at her ear and a worried expression on her face.
‘That’s Kate,’ says Lane.
I don’t know what I was expecting but Kate isn’t it. As I walk over to her with Lane trailing behind, she holds out her hand as if to silence me while she listens to whoever is speaking on the phone.
The man on the ground doesn’t get up. Wiry hair curls from the top of his exposed arse crack.
‘Well, this is very inconvenient,’ Kate snaps. ‘And you seem totally incompetent. I want to be contacted by your manager as soon a
s possible.’
She prods a bright red false nail at the screen to end the call and shoves her sunglasses onto her head, revealing dark eyes ringed with smudged mascara.
Then she stares at us witheringly. ‘This is a fucking nightmare. Sorry for the language, but it is.’ She leads us away from the man on the ground. ‘Hi, Kai, honey,’ she says, putting a hand on his shoulder and giving him a flirtatious squeeze before she looks at me coolly. ‘You’re the detective filling in for Tommy, right? Well, I apologise—I know that other cop said you wanted stuff from me, but this plumbing issue has taken up all of the past twenty-four hours. Don’t get me wrong, I want to help. I couldn’t believe it when I heard about the Fletcher kid.’ She fondles her thick gold necklace. ‘What did he do for that to happen? I’ve got to tell you, I’m hearing all sorts of crazy things.’
‘Like what?’ I ask.
‘Just talk. You know, how his parents have always been a bit odd. They’re hippies, I guess. Into alternative stuff. I remember the mother used to read tea leaves, though I heard rumours she might have charged for some extra services, if you get my drift. Anyway, a little bird told me the Fletchers bought some land down the coast so they could grow things they shouldn’t.’ Kate holds up her hands, revealing orange fake-tan stains. ‘Who knows if it’s true, I barely know them.’ She grabs at her necklace again. ‘Anyway, I care about Abbey being missing, I really do, I mean, her mother is one of my employees, but frankly this is about as bad as it gets here. People are threatening to leave and they all want discounts.’ She juts her hip out dramatically.
‘How often does Dot Clark work here?’ I ask.
‘Usually Monday to Thursday but she hasn’t been in all week, so I’ve had to get the other girls working extra cleaning shifts.’
‘Has she said when she’ll be back?’ interjects Lane.
‘Tomorrow, apparently,’ says Kate, smiling at him. ‘She called last night and said she was keen to come in. Her shift starts at midday, so I guess we’ll see—hopefully she turns up! I think she needs the money. She’s casual, doesn’t get any personal leave. To be honest she isn’t the most reliable worker, but she is a really good cleaner. Plus, I feel sorry for her.’
‘How is she unreliable?’ says Lane.
Kate waves her own comment away. ‘Oh, Dot calls in sick at the last minute sometimes. I don’t think she’s actually sick, she probably just has a black eye or whatever, but it does cause me some problems, especially over the summer. She loses things occasionally. But credit where it’s due, when she is here she is good. She works hard.’
I mentally add a return caravan park visit to my schedule. If I can catch Dot away from the house, she might be candid about Daniel’s abuse.
‘Kate, I realise you have some issues to deal with here today but we need information from you. It’s not negotiable.’
She sighs then presses her lips together in annoyance before turning back to the man on the ground. ‘I gotta go into the office for a bit, okay?’
With a grunt, he lifts a hand in acknowledgement.
As Kate stalks toward the office, we rush to keep up. The smell comes in waves and is momentarily unbearable, forcing me to breathe through my mouth.
‘Should be all fixed soon,’ Kate trills to the crowd of guests as we pass. ‘Hopefully within the next hour or so.’
There are a few murmurs of understanding among the frustrated expressions. Someone slow claps.
Inside the little wooden room, Kate rouses the computer and taps her long nails impatiently on the table. ‘So you want, what, a list of all of the guests since Sunday?’
I tick our requirements off on my fingers. ‘We want a complete list of every guest who checked out on the weekend. Monday too. And anyone who checked in on Saturday. We need to know if there’s a man named Robert Weston staying here—he’s British. We also want to know if you’ve noticed anything unusual lately, or had any complaints about guest behaviour.’
Her face is lit by the blue glow of the screen as she opens files and sets the printer in motion. ‘I already told Damon I don’t have anyone on the books called Robert Weston.’
‘But you only take the names of the payees, right? So he could be here.’
Kate looks at me like she wants me to disappear. ‘There’s a few young British guys staying here at the moment. They arrived well over a month ago and have taken out long-term rentals in the permanent cabins. I only have the names of the two who paid.’
‘Have they caused any hassle since they’ve been here?’
‘Look,’ she says, as if I’m a child, ‘I run this place by myself and never have less than two hundred guests. During peak season I open the east wing and fill the whole place up to capacity. That’s eight hundred people. There’s about half that number here right now. I am in the business of holidaying humans, so there’s always odd behaviour—but unless it’s dangerous, I don’t really get involved. I don’t have time.’
‘So there’s been nothing that stands out?’
She crosses her arms defensively. ‘It’s just normal stuff—they’re loud, boozy and messy.’ Blowing her fringe out of her eyes, she says, somewhat reluctantly, ‘And one of the cleaners told me a British guy was trying to film some of the girls by the pool. Younger girls.’
‘When was this?’ Lane pulls out his notebook with a flourish.
‘Thursday, I think. Maybe Friday.’
‘And you didn’t report it?’ I press.
‘She was vague about it,’ Kate snaps. ‘What am I going to do, demand to see the phones? I mean, come on. If a guest complained it would have been different, but I think this guy was just mucking around. I doubt it was sinister.’
‘Boys will be boys, you mean?’
She throws up her hands. ‘They’re adults and I’m not their mother. Plus, this town has a love-hate relationship with tourists sometimes.’
‘What do you mean?’ I say.
‘We love their money—we’re not so keen on sharing our home with them. We tend to look for bad behaviour. You’d think people would thank me for pumping tourist dollars into their businesses but no, instead I get a constant stream of bitching.’
‘We do get a lot of complaints about the tourists,’ ventures Lane.
Ignoring him I say, ‘Kate, we’ll need to talk to these guests. If they are filming underage girls in swimsuits and sharing the content, they could be up for child pornography charges. Are they definitely still here?’
Kate baulks, emitting a nervous titter. ‘Porn? Come on, I think that’s a bit drastic, don’t you?’ I don’t reply and she sighs. ‘They’re still here. They’re on some kind of gap year. They have casual employment, they listed it on their application. I demand proof of employment or upfront payment for the long-term rentals, but I think the bank of mummy and daddy is funding their Down Under adventure anyway.’
‘What kind of employment?’
‘I can’t bloody remember. On a fishing boat, maybe? To be honest, they seem to spend most of their time surfing at the beach or drinking at the pub. I don’t get the impression they’re working especially hard.’ She grabs the pile of paper from the printer and flicks through it. ‘They’re booked for another month.’ Leaning forward, she highlights a few rows. Sharp tan lines cut across her cleavage. ‘Oh actually, hang on.’
‘What?’
‘One of the boys left on Monday—I remember now, he was loading all his stuff into a taxi when I was out the front waiting for the tradesman. But the other three are definitely still here. I saw them this morning with their surfboards.’
I exchange a look with Lane. ‘Did he say why he was leaving?’
‘No, oddly enough he didn’t share that with me. He just got in the cab and left. I figured he had to go home, but as long as his mate is still paying for the room it’s not really my problem.’ Kate points to the printout. ‘If it helps, I think William is the one that the staff alerted me about.’ She circles a name and hands me the list with a flourish.
‘Look,’ she says, her tone more conciliatory, ‘I understand you need to speak with them, but can you at least make sure you don’t scare off the other guests? Maybe do it somewhere else? I’ve already got busted pipes, I don’t want people thinking they’ve walked onto the set of CSI on top of that.’
A hot burn erupts inside of me while little pricks of light dot my vision. Another wave of sewage is served up by a gust of wind, and my nostrils flare.
‘We’ll certainly keep your concerns in mind while we investigate the suspected homicide of a teenage girl and the brutal murder of her boyfriend,’ I manage before pushing away from the desk and through the plastic ribbons into a haze of flies, trying desperately to contain my nausea. Mortified, I hear Lane’s footsteps approaching as I vomit violently into a flowerpot.
Wednesday, 13 April
10.39 am
Lane winds down the windows as we pull out of the caravan park. ‘Fresh air.’ He sticks his hand through the window slightly. ‘God, that was revolting. Poor Kate.’
I lean to the left so the breeze fondles my face. I still feel new-foal shaky but the intensity of the nausea has passed.
‘Sure you’re okay now?’ Lane is guiding the car gently through an intersection.
‘Much better, thanks. I must have eaten something that didn’t agree with me and then that smell just tipped me over the edge.’
He laughs. ‘I won’t tell Vanessa Gordon you said that.’
I smile but the panic that took over as my insides expelled the last of the coffee, the only thing I’ve consumed today, has not dissipated. My heart thumps in time with the faulty tick of the car motor. As my hands gripped the rim of the flowerpot, it all fell into place with a startling clarity: the exhaustion I had attributed to grief and stress, my aching limbs to a lack of exercise and unfamiliar beds.