Burning mountain, p.14
Burning Mountain, page 14
Giles dropped her head, looked down at the enamel coffee cup resting on her knee and wondered, Clean slate?
Just as Bray had asked, on the opposite wall she had hung the map of Burning Mountain that highlighted the route of Oliver’s hike. Underneath were the typed-up details of the timeline collected eighteen years earlier. Giles added her own timings from the previous morning. She had underlined the fifteen minutes from when Oliver supposedly arrived at the bottom, to when Paul emerged to find his brother Lucas waiting for him in his car, and no sign of Oliver. It hadn’t escaped her attention that the two walls of information were being kept separate.
At the front of the room, Bray sat slumped on the edge of the table, back to his habit of torturing his temples with his thumbs. His chin and jaw showed the beginnings of stubble, or, in Bray’s case, coarse bristle. Clearly, Bray had had a late night and maybe an earlier morning than the rest of the team – with no time to shave in between. Falkov stood off to the side, looking like he was inching closer to a heart attack, his neck pink and his lips thin and white.
Liam Edison had the floor, standing centre, between Falkov and Bray. In contrast, Edison looked fresh and alert in casual pants and a denim chambray shirt. When he caught Giles’s eye, he straightened up, tall and lean, and modestly ran his fingers through the flecks of grey in his sandy hair. He was deep into an explanation of what had been discovered. ‘. . . vertebrae and skull are not fused together, so it’s safe to say early teens. However, the skull could be before a growth spurt, or just after, and that can vary the prediction of exact age.’ He pointed to an image on the board. ‘Note that the bone of the juvenile skeleton is not fused, not fully developed. The long bones come in three parts –’
‘Long bone?’ interrupted Bray.
‘Sorry. Bone from the knee to ankle.’ Edison looked back at the board, pointed to another image of bone laid on the stainless-steel table. ‘Here the length of the femur, the upper leg bone, is too short for an older male. So, we’re guessing, after looking at dental and the long-bone length to help to determine age, perhaps thirteen, maybe fifteen, sixteen years old. Male.’
There was a silence in the room. Turner’s fingers clicked away at the keys on his laptop and Callahan scribbled a few notes on a pad. Giles took a sip of coffee.
When no-one spoke, Liam continued, ‘A rib did show a previous fracture. However, the skull is where I focused. The most dangerous place to hit your head is on the side, just above the ears. The skull is at its thinnest, and there’s an artery that can burst and cause direct bleeding in the brain. If you look at this image’ – his hand flicked to another photograph – ‘you can see the fracture in the skull, which suggests blunt head trauma. Severe brain injury.’
‘Are you saying this was the cause of death?’
Liam nodded at Bray. ‘More than likely.’ He turned back to the photo of the skull, his finger jabbing at the crack in the bone. ‘Head trauma can directly lead to blood vessels within the brain rupturing. With a severe head injury, the brain is surrounded by fluid, and it moves within the skull causing potentially fatal bleeding, compressing the brain.’
Bray stopped torturing his temple and dropped his hand. ‘Do we know what inflicted the fracture? Tool? Object?’
A shrug from Edison and a sigh from Bray gave the team the feeling that they were done. The meeting had just about wrapped up.
Falkov stepped forward and tipped his head, looking down his kinked nose at Giles. ‘I’m sending you down to Crookwell this afternoon.’
Giles swallowed. As the only woman on the crimes team, she wondered if Falkov was putting her forward for interviewing females. Was it her expertise that granted her a trip to Crookwell, or her gender? Giles nodded with forced confidence, determined to look unperturbed. ‘Yes, sir.’
Falkov continued, ‘You’ll meet with Oliver Lavine’s mother in the morning. Gently explain what’s been found, make no promises, and collect a DNA sample. While you’re there, enquire about Oliver’s medical history, previous bone breakages, fractures, past injuries.’ Falkov clicked his tongue against his teeth before adding, ‘Dr Liam Edison will be accompanying you.’
Giles resisted the urge to look at Edison. ‘Yes, sir.’
Falkov turned to the team. ‘Okay, that’s all. Room dismissed.’
There was a moment’s silence before a collective, ‘Yes, sir,’ and the room began to clear.
As Bray slid off the table and made his way towards the door, he quipped at Giles, ‘Hope Edison likes a silent drive. I’ll give him the heads-up you’re not one for idle chit-chat.’
‘Is he tagging along to make sure I ask the right questions?’ Giles retorted, unamused.
She was sure she could hear the bones cracking in Bray’s neck as he craned his head to look back at her. His eyes dark. ‘I told Falkov I wanted you both down there. Eighteen years is a big gap. Edison has the answers to the now, but you need to find the answers for the then.’
‘Thank you,’ she said with a small grin, before taking a gulp of lukewarm coffee. It was over-sugared, sickly sweet, but she needed the energy.
Bray wasn’t done. He stepped back towards her, looming large. ‘Callahan and I didn’t find anything useful at the gravesite. Any natural fibres have long gone, but man-made ones, like nylon or zips, would have survived. Only our kid wore cotton, no zips. We swept the area and couldn’t find any personal effects. No idea where his backpack ended up. Could have been dumped at the local tip or washed down a river. Who knows? And kids that age don’t carry around wallets with bank cards and driver’s licences.’
‘Guess not.’ Giles realised the crazy board looked empty because nobody could find anything worth adding.
‘Ask the mother about the rib injury. You’ll know then if you’ve got the right kid . . . but there will be no chasing Bernard Nestor until the DNA analysis comes back.’
Giles nodded and watched Bray and the last of the team shuffle out of the room just as Constable Griffin entered, arms raised, inching through the doorway side on. ‘Detective Giles, someone’s turned up at the front desk to see you. Said you called and asked him to come in.’
‘This someone got a name?’
‘Paul Cooper. He’s waiting in the ERISP room.’
30
They moved as one through the house. Down the hallway to the bedroom, they glided like fish swimming upstream. When Amy Thicket picked up the pace, so did Joe, and when she stopped – the back of her hair swishing like a fin – he stopped too. He had shadowed her every move all morning, gulping at the air, twisting, and drifting between the furniture. The stillness now frightened him, as though a predator would dart out at them. Swallowing them up.
Amy sensed her son’s unease. ‘Here, sit. Let me brush your hair.’
Joe sat on the edge of his mother’s unmade bed as she reached for the soft bristled brush. Joe thought it was useless and ugly. The brush head was strange in shape, ornate with a confusing floral pattern, and the bristles were so soft they didn’t even touch his scalp.
‘Can you use the comb?’ asked Joe.
Amy laid the brush down gently and reached for the cheap plastic pocket comb. ‘I just want you to look nice, that’s all.’
Joe was silent as his mother combed his hair.
‘I have always said, Joe, if you tell the truth, then no harm can come to you.’
Joe nodded. It was easier than speaking. He had to keep all his words stored up for the police. He didn’t want to waste a single one of them. He didn’t speak much, so he ran out of words after a while.
‘And after we both tell the truth, Joe, to the police, we can have a milkshake on the main road. At the café. Sit amongst the buckets of flowers.’
Amy reached into her pocket and pulled out a note showing it to him. Proof she could keep her word. ‘And if we have enough, we can share a strawberry bomb.’
Joe’s mind filled with milkshake flavours. He settled on caramel. Sweet and buttery. Because he believed it would really happen.
31
The small interview room was stark white, a table against the wall, centred, with four cheap padded grey chairs, two each side of the table. Paul Cooper sat in a chair closest to the wall, Giles directly opposite him.
Paul’s early-morning visit to the police station was unexpected, and Giles felt sure he would fob off her request to come in, but his promptness to arrive early the next morning had pinged her curiosity. Paul was the type who would only show up if he had something to gain, something that was worth saying, and Giles was more than willing to hear it.
However, they were only a few minutes into the interview when a gut feeling rose in Giles’s stomach. Something was amiss with the guy. The interview didn’t feel right. It felt like the meeting had turned into a game.
His answers gave her the impression they were more about amusing himself than responding to her questions. As she moved through each query, the more awry the interview seemed.
‘I’m taking it that you were the leader of the group. The smart one.’ It was a statement, not a question. Giles watched Paul take a moment. His eyes darted around the room – at the table, the chairs, walls, box of tissues – until eventually they landed back at Giles.
‘Leader? What do you mean by leader?’
‘Leader. The one they looked up to.’
Giles could also play games, and at the compliment Paul gave a small smile. So she then turned her next comment into a negative. ‘Trust earned? Or perhaps a little forced?’ He only shrugged and she wondered if she was dealing with a narcissist. The guy was full of himself.
Paul was focused on Giles, and she on him. Both hardly blinked as they followed each other’s questions and answers quietly – listening, observing. She felt each pause almost hum in the room as he took a moment before responding. Giles wasn’t sure if she was doing the hunting or if Paul was. She searched for the crack in the calm façade. Couldn’t find one. If anything, he seemed more flirty than relaxed. She kept her face blank, and asked, ‘Whose idea was it to hike Burning Mountain?’
‘Bob’s, I think. I tagged along at the last minute.’
‘Why?’
‘School holidays. Nothing much else to do. Why not?’
‘Were you invited? Or did you invite yourself?’
The first small crack fleetingly appeared on Paul’s face. Nobody wants to be an afterthought, do they, Paul?
Again, a shrug. But the façade of aloofness was starting to slip.
‘Can you tell me about the hike? Whatever you may remember. I understand it was a long time ago, but anything you can recall is helpful.’
‘Isn’t it all in your eighteen-year-old report?’
‘Yes. But let’s hear it again,’ she added so the question felt lighter, chattier, less of an interrogation. ‘Anything you can add?’
Paul’s memory seemed sharp, though lacking in emotion. While the events took place almost two decades ago, his attention to detail was thorough. The only thing he failed to mention were the childish dares, the challenges along the way. And there was no mention of the fall-out between friends once at the top of the mountain. It was the argument at the lookout, that’s what Giles wanted to hear. She wanted to know what made Oliver Lavine stomp off, never to be seen again. But she also wanted to know why Paul broke away from the group. To follow Oliver? Was Paul the reason Oliver stomped off, so he chased him to apologise? Nah. Giles couldn’t imagine Paul apologising for anything.
She tucked a loose strand of her dark hair behind her ear. Picked up the manila folder on the desk and flicked through the faded printed report sheets, purely because she liked the sound of the pages as they crinkled. There was nothing in the old report of the friends playing dares along the trail. That information had been offered when she visited Belinda Marrone.
Giles decided to play her card. She looked at the pages for a moment, then up at Paul, like she had just remembered he was still in the room. ‘Tell me about the goading. The little contests.’
‘They weren’t contests.’
Giles pushed the question again. ‘Dares?’
Paul repeated his answer. ‘They weren’t contests.’
‘Was it an option to partake, or were they pressured into participating?’
‘I never forced anyone to do anything, detective.’
Giles’s spine was tingling. She wished Turner was by her side, to make sure she wasn’t misreading the room. She thought about pulling her phone from her pocket, pretend to read a text, excuse herself from the room, bring Turner in. Or she could just up the ante and start ruffling feathers.
Giles leaned in. ‘Who was your bully when you were at school?’
‘Eh?’
‘Who targeted you?’
Paul exhaled slowly. ‘No-one. I never gave someone a hard time because I was letting off steam, or because of my own trauma, if that’s what you’re getting at.’
Just a born arsehole then?
‘I never set out to be a bully when I was in school.’ Paul sat back. He seemed comfortable in the interview room. ‘I was just taller than most my age. Bigger shoulders. Truth is, I didn’t have a lot of friends, detective. I realised it wasn’t because the other students didn’t want to be my mate – they feared me. My height. Deep voice. Once I realised this, it gave me this strange sense of power. It was bestowed on me – by them. I never asked for it. But I could persuade students to do things.’ Paul stopped. There was the long uncomfortable pause again, before he added, ‘I didn’t bully anyone.’
‘Never tormented anyone? Ever?’
Paul blinked at her but gave no reply.
She pushed, ‘Manipulate?’
Paul shrugged.
‘Who started it? The games up the mountain.’
‘Belinda.’
This surprised Giles. ‘Belinda suggested the dares?’
‘No. But it was because of her. We were blokes, just showing off.’
She could picture it. Four youthful boys on the cusp from boyhood to manhood. All alone on a mountain and nobody to watch them try to impress a girl. That awkward age, Giles remembered it herself. The wanton feeling when hanging out near the boys, hoping for their attention. Giles imagined Paul and Bob, Belinda, Oliver and Phillip all those years ago meeting at the bottom of Burning Mountain. The anticipation of the hike. She knew the competition had already started before the hike even began.
Was it Paul versus Bob, or did Paul feel Bob’s attention transfer from him to Bell? Perhaps the status was shifting, and Paul was no longer the centre of attention, losing his hold over the group. With Bell pulling focus, maybe Paul introduced the dares as a way of winning back his position in the pecking order.
‘Did Belinda have a crush on anyone?’ Giles watched Paul lean back in his seat, scratch at his chest to think – that uncomfortable pause again. ‘Yeah, maybe. She was a little gooey over Bob. Reaching out her hand for him to pull her along the track, stuff like that.’
Excuses to touch? ‘Did that annoy you?’
‘Nope.’
Bullshit. ‘Did it annoy Oliver or Phil?’
‘Nope. Look, I wasn’t into Belinda. She was new to our group. It was the first time Bob had been around her out of school, aside from weekends at the footy. He was being a bit of a show-off, that’s all. I was just playing – being a prick, maybe. Just wanted Bell to see Bob wasn’t all that.’
‘So, on the mountain, what did you encourage Bob to do?’
Paul’s shoulder twitched. ‘Towards the top of the mountain, I spotted a goanna. A big one. It sprinted up a tree. I said to Bob, “You know, if you stand under a goanna up a tree, the thing will freeze with shock. Die right there with its claws hooked into the trunk, and for months you’ll be able to come out and watch it decay. Right before your eyes, see it picked white by bull ants and crows until it’s nothing but a skeleton hugging the trunk of a tree.”’ Paul smiled at Giles. ‘You ever seen a goanna’s skeleton?’
Giles shook her head, but she saw a flash of the skull found at Mount Wingen. ‘Nope. Can’t say I have.’
‘Me either. Seen dead cows. Growing up in the country you learn real quick that with livestock comes deadstock. Be it a cow, goat, sheep, even a rabbit or fox. Never seen a goanna, though. Bob said he hadn’t either, so I told him to go stand at the bottom of the tree. Right under it. Bob didn’t want to. He’d heard stories, we’d all heard stories, of how the claws of a goanna could rip someone’s guts out.’
‘Is that true?’
‘Dunno. Don’t know anyone that it’s happened to. Myths were told around the playground when I was young. One was of a bushy who was sleeping under the stars and a goanna just split his stomach open while he slept. Hissing and biting into chunks of flesh, chewing on the innards like a dog.’ Paul hesitated. ‘Or maybe the bloke was already dead, and the goanna was attracted to the scent of rotting meat?’
‘Did you help start any of these stories?’
‘Start? Nah. Might have kept them alive.’ Paul flashed a row of straight white teeth, two dimples. He gave Giles a wink so fleeting that she wasn’t sure if she imagined it. He shrugged, still smiling. ‘As a kid, I loved a good gory spook story.’
‘So, you urged Bob to stand under the goanna.’
‘Yup. Bob looked up at the lizard. Fair dinkum, it was bloody huge. I did wonder what would have happened if it dropped on his head. Bob was scared. Bit of a coward. I yelled, “Go on, I ain’t got all day. Go stand at the bottom of the tree, right underneath.” Giles sensed Paul was enjoying the telling of the story. ‘So, Bob was under the goanna. Looked up to see if he’d scared the massive lizard to a stiff death.’
‘He hadn’t?’
‘Nup. The goanna looked down at him, flicked out its tongue and spewed all over him. That’s what they do. Spew! It’s their defence. Oh boy, you should have seen Bob at the bottom of the tree! His hair dripping of goanna vomit. I laughed so hard I almost threw up myself.’
Giles kept her reaction to a raised eyebrow. ‘Then what?’
