The fall between, p.1
The Fall Between, page 1
About the Book
On a hot November morning, the first body lies in a cattle trough . . . It will be another two hours before rigor mortis sets in. Until then, the slim fingers will float below the water’s surface, gently bobbing, beckoning Detective Giles to come and find her.
Detective Rebecca Giles has just finished interviewing aging petty crim Sticky Pete over a spate of break-and-enters when a disturbing new report comes in. Twelve-year-old Kayleen Ellis has vanished from her home in Muswellbrook in the Upper Hunter Valley.
Hours later, Giles is a local hero, having apparently solved Kayleen’s case and the spate of jewellery thefts.
Yet the hangover from her celebrations has barely kicked in when the body of young jillaroo Ava Emmerson is discovered in gruesome circumstances on a nearby farm.
Giles is convinced the link between all three cases lies in the town’s tragic history, perhaps even in her own mother’s mysterious drowning thirty years ago.
In a place where nothing much changes, suddenly a great deal is happening – and Giles’s life and career are now on the line.
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Chapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Imprint
Read More at Penguin Books Australia
For my parents, Bill and Joan.
And for Lolly: my loyal companion. Always by my side with every keystroke . . . or on my lap, or under my feet.
On an icy 5-degree September morning in Orange, New South Wales, four people unknowingly set off a chain of events that would lead to three deaths and a major homicide investigation.
The first person kicked off the event when they broke into Summer Street Jewellery Store, helping themselves to enough fashionable watches and bracelets to keep their drug habit in full swing for the next few months.
The second, the owner of the jewellery store, continued the momentum when they saw an opportunity to cash in on the insurance claim after a poor year of turnover, by stashing away a considerable amount of valuable items before the cops arrived.
The third domino was kicked over when a police officer on general duties weighed up their pending retirement, dismal superfund, long service and holiday leave, and figured a few precious stones and rings would soften the blow of departing the force earlier than planned.
The ripple effect was finally completed by the fourth person, who witnessed the cop filching the items.
Two months later, this would lead to the first recorded death and the formation of Strike Force Oona.
Now, on a hot November morning, more than 300 kilometres from the jewellery store, the first body lies naked and partially submerged in a cattle trough.
The air in the lungs has kept her chest floating above the surface of the murky water. Her legs are heavy, wound tightly together with rusty barbed wire, like two needlefish caught in a net. Her ankles have sunk into the soft sludge. The skin on her neck has been scrubbed and peeled away. Two of her fingernails have been removed by force. And while she has only bled a little from her nails, and a few grazes and cuts, the ground around the cattle’s drinking trough is soaked in blood. A wallaby has been gutted and its blood and entrails scattered.
It will be another two hours before rigor mortis sets in. Until then, the slim fingers will float below the water’s surface, gently bobbing, beckoning Detective Giles to come and find her.
The mother wakes to dust speckled in sunlight. She throws back the bedsheet, stirring the stale air. She needs to put the kettle on. A coffee first. Inject some caffeine into the system and wipe the sleep from her eyes before getting the kids up for school.
She’s surprised she’s out of bed before her two girls, but perhaps that’s because for once she’s had a proper night’s sleep. Last night there were none of the usual bed-time antics from Kayleen. The bullshit routine of, Tuck me in, I can’t sleep, I need to pee, I’m cold, I’m hot, I’m thirsty, I need to pee again. And – for the first time in a long time – she’s not woken with a dry mouth and a headache. She had put the cap back on the bottle of bourbon after just three drinks.
Atta girl, she tells herself.
The mother stands on the back veranda, where the sun doesn’t smash her in the face and the neighbours can’t perv on her braless tits under her ratty t-shirt.
She drinks her coffee and sneaks in a ciggie. She doesn’t like her kids seeing her smoke, and out here on the back deck she can hear them coming down the hall, giving her enough time to flick the cigarette butt into the garden bed below.
The mother puffs away slowly, making the most of it. There’s only two left in the pack, so she needs to space them out until she can get to the shops. She relishes having five minutes to herself; it gives her time to get her head together.
Mornings are normally peaceful, but with the blaring heat, the sound of a distant car engine revving and the relentless barking of the dog next door, the mother knows any chance of dawn mindfulness is fucked.
Recharged, with caffeine in her veins and tobacco on her breath, the mother turns on her bare sticky heels, disentangling herself from the morning clatter. It’s time to wake her girls.
Inside, her youngest is already up. She’s snuck into the kitchen without the mother hearing a single footstep. At the breakfast bench, Mikaela pours apple juice into a plastic princess cup.
‘Mornin’. Is your sister up?’
‘Dunno.’
The mother shuffles down the hall to Kayleen’s bedroom and finds it empty. She feels the mattress – it’s cold. She notices her daughter’s school uniform and a blue disposable lab coat, scrunched up in a pile on the floor beside her school bag. The mother pokes the flimsy gown with her toe, then checks the bathroom and her own bedroom.
‘Kayleen.’
She looks under the bed and in the wardrobe.
‘Kayleen?’
The mother feels her chest tighten. She doesn’t have the patience or sense of humour for games, but she’s hell-bent on not losing her temper. Not this bloody early in the morning.
Back in the kitchen, she asks, ‘Where’s your sister hiding?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Kayleen?’ calls the mother, but the house is quiet.
Fuck. Where is she?
The mother heads out the front door, letting the flyscreen slam behind her. Other than the endless barking next door, and the shrill of cicadas, the street is quiet. She blinks for a moment into the morning sunlight, lifts her hand to her brow, shielding her eyes from the glaring sun. She looks up and down the street, at fibro houses and half-restored cars abandoned more from lack of enthusiasm than money.
That’s Pipeline Avenue for yah, thinks the mother. The pipeline of shit.
‘Kayleen? Kayleen!’
A neighbour from across the road is dressed in her supermarket uniform, her peroxide hair whipped back into a messy bun. As she’s about to climb into her car, she pauses and calls out to the mother, ‘Can’t yah keep control of yah bloody kids?’ Her face is a smirk.
The mother says, ‘Fuck off and mind your own business.’
ONE
Detective Rebecca Giles first knew a child was missing when an ‘all cars respond’ call went out. She had just turned onto the New England Highway and begun the tedious half-hour drive back to Muswellbrook. She was returning to the station after wrapping up a brain-numbing interview with Sticky Pete down at Singleton Police Station. The interview hadn’t quite gone to plan.
The night before, Giles had rung Sticky Pete’s home phone and offered him the opportunity to come into the station for a chat. His missus had been flashing a new ring around town, bragging that none of the other bitches’ husbands could afford such a fine piece of jewellery. The truth was, they couldn’t – not if they had to pay full price for it – a point that the anonymous caller who’d tipped off Detective Giles was quick to insist on. Pete didn’t have that kind of money to splurge, so the ring had to be stolen, and his wife could shut her f at bragging mouth up.
When Giles mentioned the ring, Pete’s voice had dramatically shifted tone. He stumbled over his words and stuttered, assuring Giles there wasn’t a lot to say. Giles suggested he’d do well to get his arse to Singleton Police Station the next morning rather than waiting for her to show up at his house. That way his better half wouldn’t overhear that her birthday bling was subject to the Crimes Act, 193C, and that her husband was being charged with receiving goods expected to be stolen. Receiving, Giles had reiterated. Because I need you to convince me you didn’t steal it, Pete. I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. Be at the station by 9 a.m. I’ll be waiting. I’ll even put the kettle on for you.
There had been a spate of break-and-enters in the Muswellbrook and Scone area, and Giles wasn’t too surprised that someone in the next town over was responsible. But when Sticky Pete showed up at the station for his interview, he was hell-bent on refusing to cooperate. Once she got him into the windowless interview room, he swore on his rickety heart that he hadn’t been up to Muswellbrook or Scone in months.
‘Months, for farksake. Got no business being in Scone, and I’m telling ya, even if I did, I ain’t got enough fuel in me tank to get there and back. Can’t be me. Pissed all me money up the wall buying that ring off some fluoro blow-in down at the Royal.’
Sticky Pete’s voice was croaky from forty years of smoking and honest-to-god fear. Giles’s voice, on the other hand, was calm and smooth. She was fishing. All she had to do was relax, let her questions drag out, and Pete would do all the work. As long as she asked each question slowly, she’d be ready to reel him in when he stopped moving and buzzing.
‘You’ve got money for beer and jewellery, but no money for petrol?’ Giles asked.
‘It was the wifey’s birthday and it was priced into me budget.’
‘Free?’
Sticky Pete had shaken his head and given Giles a pissed off look. ‘I swear, I stole nothin’. I don’t know the guy who sold it to me. I was just having a beer. Never seen him before. He was a bloody miner or tradie, one of those dumb neon high-vis vests. You know, a fluoro stick on legs.’
‘Bloody convenient.’ Giles grinned. ‘The town’s full of fluoro sticks, Pete. It could have been anyone.’
Sticky Pete got his nickname in two ways; aside from his sticky fingers, when you threw shit at him, it stuck. But while he wasn’t a big fish to catch, and he wasn’t strong, you did need to pump and reel to get him to answer questions.
Pete was an old man, grey and dried out, fatigued with every movement. His teeth looked soft and yellow like baby’s custard, with one missing from the top that made his lip curl inward. It gave him a slight lisp, and made a faint whistling sound when he sighed, like a bicycle tyre letting out air. His eyes were blue, blood-flecked, watery, and looked upon Giles with contempt. He’d had a few short stints in jail during his prime and was well known to the cops in the surrounding districts, but his heyday was well and truly behind him now; age, arthritis and a wonky hip had slowed him down. Bar some small, lazy thefts, and the odd call-out to a domestic dispute at his home, he was harmless. He argued that he only broke the law out of necessity; his pension didn’t pay much and, with the rising tax on smokes and alcohol, the government was to blame for his petty criminal ways.
Giles had found it hard to be patient or empathetic.
‘So did you buy just the ring or the whole set?’
‘What? What set?’
‘The matching necklace, earrings and brooch.’
‘There was no necklace, luv, and no earrings or brooch. The guy in the pub was just selling a ring. I don’t know nothin’ about that other shit. Didn’t even know the ring was hot when I bought it.’
Giles laughed. ‘If you want to buy your wife a ring for her birthday, Pete, you go to the jewellery shop, not the pub.’
Pete squirmed in his chair when she gave him a stern glare. Giles knew she wasn’t menacing looking – she didn’t have the face of a Rottweiler, it was more Afghan hound given her long silky dark hair and thin face – but while her bark may have been worse than her bite, her growl caught people off guard and made them feel uneasy.
Although it was hot and muggy in the interview room, Giles had left the jacket of her dark grey pantsuit buttoned up. She didn’t want to look casual or relaxed. She wanted to look like she meant business; she wanted to look like she didn’t have time to waste and needed to get straight to the point. But Pete clearly hadn’t been around many people in suits, and Giles’s body language went over his head.
‘Thing is, Pete, I’ve got a lady out at Scone whose diamond and emerald set is missing. Family heirlooms. Turns out she’s great mates with the Scone Shire deputy mayor, so I’ve got my boss breathing down my neck over these bloody missing emeralds and diamonds.’
‘I didn’t see no fucking necklace or any other shit. I just bought the ring.’
‘I don’t think I need to tell you, Pete, that it’s an offence to be in possession of an item unlawfully obtained. You have a history – a list of tendency-and-coincidence evidence that a judge would jiggle his overflowing midriff at trying to stifle his laugh.’
‘What?’
‘You have a list of past charges that the court would find interesting reading. A history, Pete – you have a long criminal history. You would have known the guy was off-loading the ring, so that makes you guilty of receiving.’
The legal talk and the stuffy room were making Sticky Pete sweat. He started to scratch at the eczema between his fingers.
‘And that ring you picked up was sorely undervalued,’ Giles continued, getting ready to reel him in. ‘You got it for a steal, so to speak. It’s worth well over three grand, which makes this a federal crime that can carry sixteen months to three years. You don’t want to go for a holiday at St Heliers, do you?’
Pete had finally taken the bait. Now he was fighting to get himself off her hook. ‘I didn’t fuckin’ steal nothing. Fuckin’ cost of petrol, how would I get out to Scone and back, ha?’
Giles knew he had a point. The whole reason she was meeting him at Singleton Police Station was that Sticky Pete was flat broke, with no money for petrol until pension day. All the money he did have, he blew on beers. And a ring for his missus.
She sighed. ‘The ring will be seized as evidence before it goes back to its rightful owner. If you’re telling the truth, I’ll find the crook and, hopefully, he can repay you the purchase price. I’ve got six months to pin this on you, so you can save me some time and tell me if you took the full set.’
‘I didn’t, I’m telling the truth. Go find that orange glow-stick from the pub. A fucking walking highlighter. High-vis vest, scruffy fella, big hands and dirty, like he worked in grease.’
Sticky Pete dug his fingernails into his flaking skin and tried to stare Giles down, but she could tell that, really, he just wanted to curl up in a ball and have a good cry. He didn’t want to go back to St Heliers Correctional Centre, nor did he want to tell his missus he’d lost her birthday present because he had to hand it in to the police.
‘Tops, you’ll get two years. Best case, you’ll get a community service order. Either way, in the next six weeks you’ll receive a future court attendance notice.’ Giles could see Pete’s eyes beginning to water and his neck turning a ruddy red. The poor bloke’s blood pressure was going up. To save him from having a heart attack she added, in a gentler tone, ‘I’ll tell you what, Pete, I’ll ask the pub if there’s any CCTV footage. Let’s see if we can verify your story.’
