Where the Dead Go

by Sarah Bailey

  ‘I know,’ I whisper.

  ‘You need to think about what you want.’ He gets up. He presses his lips against my forehead. ‘All of it. Today scared me, Gem. I need to go home. I need to think too.’

  In the huge hospital bed, Ben looks heartbreakingly small. He is washed-out but surprisingly animated. I sit on the edge of his narrow bed and hold his hand, trying to answer his questions about Cam. He traces the freckles on the back of my hand as he considers my answers and I’m relieved he doesn’t seem to remember a lot of what happened.

  ‘We can organise some counselling for him,’ says Tran to me later as we sit in the tiny hospital cafeteria, steaming mugs of hot chocolate in front of us.

  ‘I need to find someone in Smithson for him to see anyway. He needs to deal with a lot more than just what happened today.’

  Tran looks at me steadily. ‘You’ll be cleared, Gemma, no question. You had no choice.’

  ‘How’s de Luca?’ I ask.

  ‘She’s doing okay.’ Tran shakes her head. ‘They’re going to start digging at the site Cam mentioned tomorrow. It’s unbelievable—I’ve driven past that bloody Welcome to Fairhaven sign a million times. Sally’s mother fainted when we told her.’

  ‘My colleague Owen Thurston called me,’ I say. ‘He and his team have brought Cam’s brother in for questioning. He’s a doctor in Sydney and his wife is a pharmacist.’

  Tran takes a sip from her mug. ‘Yes, it’s bigger than we realised. We’re looking into what the former CI knew. Back then the drug network wasn’t as widespread, but at the very least he turned a blind eye. At worst he was taking a cut. Cam has made some serious money through all this, especially over the past two years.’

  I nod. ‘He had a steady pipeline of impressionable boys who were desperate for extra money and looking for some kind of purpose. And he had the perfect transient market of backpackers and wealthy holidaymakers to sell to. As far as he was concerned, everybody was a winner. I think he even convinced himself that because the drugs weren’t illegal the whole set-up was somehow above reproach.’

  ‘I still find it hard to believe no one ever said anything. I mean, especially these days.’

  I dip a spoon into the froth and feel the bubbles dissolve in my mouth. ‘Cam ran everything off the grid. He used existing delivery networks, paid people just enough for the risk to be worthwhile. And once they were involved, they were complicit. I’m guessing he sold half the stuff straight from the pub, yet he was never the frontman. I don’t think he let many people into his inner circle—Rick and Aiden were exceptions.’

  ‘And Greg,’ Tran murmurs.

  ‘Yes, though I have no idea if that night played out the way Cam described. Whether Sally’s death was really an accident, for instance. I hope forensics can settle that.’ Lane’s pleading face rears up in my thoughts, and I think of his insistence that Rick or Daniel killed Abbey. ‘Cam also wouldn’t tell me what he did to Abbey. I wonder if perhaps because she was so young, he couldn’t even admit it to himself.’ I picture him blacking out Abbey’s face in Rick’s ruined bedroom, the teenage boy’s blood-soaked body lying metres away, and shiver.

  ‘Well, the team found nothing about Abbey at the pub today,’ says Tran, ‘but we’ll see how we go around the Fairhaven sign.’

  I hold air deep in my lungs before I slowly exhale. At the end of the corridor I see Vanessa, her long hair streaming behind her as she hurries toward me.

  ‘When do you want me to give my statement?’ I say to Tran.

  She yawns. ‘Let’s do it tomorrow, then you can take your little boy home.’

  I don’t let Vanessa see Ben until she has stopped crying.

  ‘I just can’t believe any of this,’ she says, walking back to my room with me. ‘Though, do you know what, Tommy never liked Cam. One of those gut feelings, I guess.’ Her face crumples. ‘But I did. He had me fooled.’

  ‘He had all of us fooled,’ I say. ‘And I’m pretty sure Stuart Klein was involved in Cam’s scheme. I think he paid off witnesses before the inquest.’

  ‘Was he involved in the drugs as well?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe.’

  Vanessa bites her lip until it turns white. ‘God, Gemma, I’m so glad Ben is okay. When I heard he was there today, I just—well, it doesn’t bear thinking about.’

  I shake my head. I can’t let myself go to the dark place, the alternate version of reality where Ben is not okay.

  ‘Tommy’s very upset about everything, not just Lane,’ she says cautiously. ‘He’s so glad Sally’s parents might finally get some closure, but he’s distressed about what happened today.’

  I pull off my robe and throw it over the chair before I climb back into my hospital bed. ‘Vanessa,’ I say once I’m settled.

  ‘I know,’ she whispers, her hands almost covering her entire face. ‘He needs help.’

  ‘Yes.’ I try to look stern. ‘And if he doesn’t come clean, I will report him.’

  ‘He’s very old-fashioned, Gemma. He hates asking for help. But I know you’re right.’

  ‘It’s not just the addiction issues,’ I say, and she winces. ‘He’s lied to a lot of people. He needs to think about whether being a cop is the right thing for him now.’

  Her eyes widen. ‘What else would he do? That’s all he knows.’

  I pause as I pull the covers up to my waist. ‘I’m sorry, Vanessa. I understand this isn’t easy.’

  Her gaze drifts to the side of my bed where there is a glass of water and a tablet.

  ‘He hurt his back. That’s how this all started, you know. He’d given up smoking the year before but he wasn’t dealing well with that. He kept relapsing. And then he landed in hospital with his back—he’d got knocked over breaking up a fight at the hotel.’ She picks at the hem of her purple skirt and worries her fingers against it. ‘He was in so much pain, and the medication was a godsend. In the end, though, well . . .’ She clears her throat. ‘I could see what was happening but he wouldn’t listen to me. So I left a few years ago, you know. I moved out of the house for almost three weeks. No one knew. I was so angry because we’d talked about adopting a child, and then he went cold on the idea and I knew it was the drugs. It was like his whole personality changed.’ She gives me a strained smile. ‘He had me getting them for him until after Christmas this year when I refused to be a part of it anymore. I don’t know where he’s getting them now.’ Her face crumples. ‘He even had a kid from the station making doctor appointments at one point. God, it might have been Lane.’ Straightening her spine, she forces another smile. ‘But in the end I was weak. I moved back home.’ She looks at me imploringly. ‘The thing is, I love him, Gemma. He has his flaws but he’s a good man. I just told him I didn’t want to know. I do my thing and stay out of his business. We don’t have children but I guess I see him as my responsibility. I look after him.’

  ‘Ben loved spending time with you, Vanessa,’ I say quietly. ‘Thank you for looking after him. Both of us.’

  Her eyes brim with tears and she nods, sniffing. ‘When are you going home?’

  ‘I’ll probably have to give my statement tomorrow, so sometime after that.’

  ‘I can look after Ben while you do that, if you like?’ She dabs at her eye with the sleeve of her ruffled blouse.

  ‘I’m sure he’d love that, thanks. I also want to see Dot. I need to apologise for not being able to find her daughter.’

  NINTH DAY MISSING

  Monday, 18 April

  3.17 pm

  A fallen branch rests on the roof of the Clark house and the lawn is littered with decaying leaves. But the fresh smell of rain has succumbed to the musky scent of the ocean. Walking down the path to the back door, I almost smack into one of the twins as he barrels around the corner. ‘Mum’s inside,’ he yells, without stopping.

  The door is unlocked. I step inside. ‘Hello?’ I call out softly.

  Dot’s voice echoes in the dark hallway, and I realise she’s on the phone. ‘Not y
et,’ she says, sounding anxious. ‘We need to wait.’ She makes a fretting noise. ‘How would I know?’

  There’s a long pause. I can hear the boys yelling at each other outside.

  ‘I hate this,’ says Dot, followed by a heavy silence. The boys keep yelling.

  ‘Dot?’ I call out.

  There’s some low mumbling before she appears in the hallway. ‘Detective. I didn’t know you were coming.’

  ‘I just wanted to say goodbye,’ I tell her, after a few beats.

  She pulls at a loose thread on her sundress. Her chest rises and falls as if she’s been running. ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I heard about what happened. At the pub.’ She looks at the floor. ‘I’m glad your son is okay.’

  I nod. More and more, the whole incident seems like a dream. I can’t seem to picture Cam’s face, just his broad shoulders, auburn hair, sparking blue eyes. ‘Me too,’ I say.

  ‘It’s funny, you know,’ Dot murmurs, ‘I remember Daniel coming home that night, ten years ago now. He was so insistent he saw two men in Greg’s car. I should have known something was up when he suddenly said he must have been too drunk to know what he saw. And then he said he won some money, enough to put a second storey on the house. I don’t think I even asked him where it came from.’ She seems to snap out of her reverie. ‘Do you want a drink?’

  I follow her into the kitchen. It seems lighter; I think a curtain has been removed from the window.

  ‘I can make you a tea?’ she asks.

  ‘No, thank you.’ I watch her fuss at the sink, plates and utensils clanging against the steel. ‘Will you stay in Fairhaven, Dot?’

  She puts her hands on her hips as her lip begins to tremble. ‘Oh well, I don’t know. I guess it depends on what happens with Daniel. I don’t really understand it all yet.’

  ‘It’s okay to be scared, Dot. What you’ve done isn’t easy.’

  She stares out the window. ‘It’s strange, him not being here. Both of them not being here.’

  I look at her hunched stance and the bags beneath her eyes, and think that despite everything that’s happened, the hardest days might still be ahead of her.

  ‘You know, there’s a lot of support you can tap into. People who can help.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ She grips the corner of the bench, her eyes averted. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Dot, I’m so sorry we haven’t found Abbey. Her case is still a priority. I certainly haven’t given up hope that you will get some answers.’

  Dot traces a fingertip along the grain of the wood. ‘I know she’s out there.’

  Nicki Mara’s mother, Deirdre, had stood in her marble kitchen and said the same thing.

  I had made the mistake of agreeing with her. I say nothing to Dot.

  The silence stretches out between us. I wonder what her life will be in six months. Or a year. Longer. I can’t picture it, and I suspect that she can’t either.

  A small wave of nausea ripples through me, reminding me I have my own future to navigate.

  ‘Well, I need to get going,’ I say. ‘Please look after yourself.’

  She nods and glances around the small room, almost as if surprised to find herself there. ‘Yes.’

  I get back in the car feeling strangely rattled. Maybe coming back here was a bad idea. I can picture Lane’s face, tinted blue in the moonlight, watching the blood pool around de Luca’s body. I close my eyes. I feel beaten. Through half-lidded eyes I study the house: the tangled mess of the fallen branch, the stringy grass choking the garden beds, the discarded toys on the lawn.

  I start the car and turn onto the dirt road that leads to the main street. Suddenly I’m struggling to breathe. I’m back at work in Sydney, hanging up the phone after Lucas Mara called me babbling incoherently about Nicki.

  ‘I think that’s where she is!’ he yelled. ‘I saw her in my dream. She’s still alive.’ He wasn’t crying but his voice wobbled as he choked back sobs. ‘Please, Detective.’

  ‘Lucas, I know this is difficult, but we haven’t given up on your daughter. Can you think of any reason why she would be in Mosman? Does she know someone there?’

  ‘No. No, I don’t think so.’ His voice shook. ‘But what if she’s there?’

  After I calmed him down we hung up, and I went to the bathroom and studied my face in the mirror as I washed my hands. He’s finally lost it, I thought. The decline of Nicki’s grieving father had been obvious to me, and his call simply proved it. Surely there was no truth to his vision. I leaned forward and checked my teeth, smoothed my brows. No, he was just exhausted and desperate to give me anything he thought might help find his daughter, even if it had come to him in a dream.

  I allowed myself one more moment of internal debate. I’ll call Deirdre, I decided, make sure she keeps an eye on Lucas. Perhaps suggest he see the psychologist again.

  But deep down I knew, I knew. It niggled at me: the pleading note in his voice, the desperation. He was trying to tell me. I could have found her. I could have saved her.

  Not again, no way.

  A black bird swoops low, dipping in front of the windshield.

  I slow the car and pull over, fumbling for my phone. ‘Grange, it’s me, Gemma.’

  ‘Oh, Detective Woodstock, hi. Hello. God, how are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. I need you to run a check on a phone number for me. I want to know who Dot Clark was speaking to just now.’

  ‘They left!’ Kate Morse holds up her fake-tan orange hands as I walk into the caravan park office. ‘They left yesterday and I don’t know where they went.’

  ‘I’m not here about the Brits,’ I say.

  A few minutes later, Kate leads me down a winding path on the east side of the park. She fusses with a set of keys. ‘We shut this whole section down at the end of March—it’s easier to manage one section than have people all over the place.’ We arrive at a row of permanent cabins, and she scans the numbers and stops in front of number seventeen. ‘This is the one.’ Flustered, she searches for the right key. ‘The cabins are all on the same line, then each room is simply an extension. We had to offer the landlines because the mobile reception is so bad here. I have been at the council about it for years, but do you think they give a shit? No, of course not. Right, here we are.’ She slides a key into the lock.

  I sense the faint rumble of movement, or it might just be the blood surging through my veins.

  ‘What are you expecting to find?’ asks Kate. ‘No one has been in here since February.’

  She pushes the door open, revealing a small square space. The air inside is cool and the curtains are drawn. My eyes adjust to the darkness and I see the bed is unmade. There are a few packets of chips on the small glass table near the door. A bulging calico bag hangs from the side of a chair.

  ‘What the . . .’ murmurs Kate.

  The room I found Nicki in was just like this: a dark, musty granny flat in the backyard of a suburban home. Signs of life everywhere, except for on her decaying corpse.

  ‘Is there a bathroom?’ I whisper.

  Kate looks around, her eyebrows sloping together. ‘Over there.’ She points to a sliding door in the corner of the room.

  The floor falls out from under me but I stay on my feet. I breathe in the stale cigarette smoke, my gun in my hand, as I make my way toward the bathroom door, praying, pleading, hoping against hope that somehow, miraculously, Nicki will be behind it, that she will be alive.

  The roar in my head is deafening.

  I gently ease the door to the left.

  Little explosions pinball around my body.

  The girl is curled up at one end of the bath.

  I forget to breathe.

  It’s Nicki.

  But this time she blinks.

  ‘What the hell?’ Kate murmurs behind me.

  I tip my head against the wooden doorframe and exhale until my lungs are empty.

  ‘Hello, Abbey.’

  Monday, 18 April


  5.41 pm

  Tran bursts into the hospital foyer. She’s tied her hair back since I gave my statement this morning and a few loose wisps fall across her eyes.

  ‘Over here,’ I call out. I’m sitting in the small waiting room nook, keeping an eye on the Clark twins who are working their way steadily through a crate of toys.

  ‘Gemma, you found her? I can’t believe it.’ Tran’s incredulous gaze lands on the boys.

  ‘Abbey is in there with Eric now. Dot’s with them too. Abbey’s going to be fine but the cut on her leg is badly infected.’

  Tran sinks down on a chair. ‘Did Lane have sex with her?’

  I nod. ‘Abbey says they slept together at least a dozen times and that Lane instigated it. When he attended the DV call-out late last year, he apparently pulled her aside and said she should come talk to him away from her dad. She met him on the beach the next day and they ended up at his place. After that, he would pass her a note at the supermarket telling her times he could meet. She says he even left one in her school locker once.’

  ‘Jesus Christ.’

  ‘I know. He swore her to secrecy.’ I can tell Tran is thinking about how this could play out in the media. Even dead, Lane is going to cause the force a lot of trouble.

  ‘How on earth did he think he’d get away with it?’

  ‘He trusted that Abbey was infatuated enough to keep his secret. She wasn’t close to her parents, and because of Rick she was hardly going to tell her friends. All of their contact was on Lane’s terms. She was the perfect girl to prey on.’

  ‘Until she turned up at the police station,’ says Tran.

  ‘Exactly. Lane reacted badly, and once she told him she’d broken up with Rick so they could be together, he realised he had to shut it down. So he told her about Elsha.’

  Tran is wide-eyed.

  ‘Abbey says that destroying the painting wasn’t planned. She glimpsed it through the salon window and acted on impulse. She was heading to the beach to try to make amends with Rick.’

  ‘But she ended up seeing Cam and Rick together.’