The fall between, p.19
The Fall Between, page 19
‘If you’ve ever seen a thunderstorm come in on a hot summer day, when it’s very hot, the refraction takes the sound up away from you, so you don’t hear the thunder until it’s practically on top of you. But at night time, when it’s cold and sound refracts back downwards, you’ll hear the thunder from a long distance away.’
‘So you’re saying it was so hot that the sound of a bike . . .’ Giles trailed off, she felt like they were clutching at straws.
‘I think you and Rickard just turned up at the wrong bloody time. The killer wasn’t finished with staging his crime scene.’
‘But he came back – Ava had been dead three days. The scene was staged in a sophisticated way. It’s foolish to return to it.’
‘Then there was a strong reason for the killer to return. He felt his hand was forced. Our suspect isn’t stupid – he’s clever.’
‘But what was that reason? That bugs me.’
Bray shrugged. ‘Forgot something?’
‘Wanted to add something?’ Giles suggested.
‘Like what?’ asked Bray.
‘A hat? Some fake flowers?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Has to be local, then. Someone who knows the history, knows Rickard. I think we need to talk to him again.’
‘Not you, though,’ laughed Bray. ‘Rickard doesn’t want anything to do with you. Leave it with me, I’ll chat with the old geezer. I’ll find out if it was personal, someone who wanted to spook him. Maybe it’s not about Ava, maybe it was about him? Get him to sell up his farm? I’ll see if he has any debts, financial or personal. His relationship with the neighbours, see if he has any enemies.’
‘He’s a cranky old prick – he might have a few.’
‘I’ve got the time,’ said Bray. ‘At least it’s something to go on.’
‘We just need to work out who the guy on the bike is and we’ve got our killer.’
Bray rolled up his aerial photo and bonked Giles on the head with the end of it. ‘We’ll find him, Giles.’
As the afternoon turned into the evening, the mood in the office shifted. Frowns, heads down, shoulders hunched. People only spoke when they wanted answers to their questions.
One of the conditions of Falkov approving Giles’s return to duty was that her incident report had to be on his desk first thing the next morning. She stared at the blank screen, making up tunes in her head to the rhythm of the flashing cursor, fingers tapping between beats, contemplating Falkov’s offer of a walk-through at the scene, but decided against it. Type it up first, see the gaps, then visit the location if necessary.
Her account was bland. Facts only. Arrived, assessed, sealed off the area, interviewed, then – whack! Reached for gun, gone, then – whack again! Opened eyes, bloody Turner’s boofhead. It was stale, generic, minimal. It had the same lack of detail as the report on her mother’s death, explaining what happened, yet saying nothing much at all. Open to interpretation. A poorly written account of an incident that would have been anything but mundane.
Fuck it. Less is more. That’s all I’ve got.
She saved and uploaded it to the internal system, printed a hard copy and left it in the centre of Falkov’s desk. He’d sign off on it – he’d have to. She knew he wouldn’t renege on his instruction to have her go to Orange.
A little after seven, Giles signed out of her computer and clicked it off. She returned the printed files, grabbed her backpack and took one last look at Ava Emmerson’s wall.
On the way out, she slipped into the ladies’ and splashed her face with cold water at the stark white sink. The pressure of the case was starting to hit home. Her shoulder throbbed and her heart seemed to be thumping in the wrong place.
Suddenly she felt claustrophobic. No, not claustrophobic: panicked. God, she was having a fucking panic attack. She gasped, struggling to breathe. The air felt like lumps of porridge.
Breathe, just breathe. Just take a breath and calm down.
The self-talk did little to help. Her breath was out of sync: a gasp in, nervous exhale, quick inhale like it was her last. Giles slammed her palms on the mirror either side of her reflected face and hissed, ‘Get a fucking grip, girl.’ But the conviction fell flat.
With her head resting against the cold glass, she squeezed her eyes shut and took long deep breaths in. When she was finally back in control of her emotions, when her hands had stopped shaking and her chest was sore and her eyes stinging, she splashed more cold water on her face.
She shuffled around the stuff at the bottom of her backpack and found an old herbal relaxant spray. She shoved the nozzle in her mouth and kept spraying until her cheeks tingled and her tongue was numb. At last, she felt calm, or at least calm enough to walk out of the bathroom and hold her shit together. Her breathing was returning to normal. Giles dried her face with a paper towel and left the bathroom.
As she swung the door open, she overheard Turner in the hallway. ‘Yeah, she must be pissed she didn’t wrap up this case in a day. You can’t be that lucky all the time, I guess.’
She stepped through the bathroom door and stood in front of him.
‘Giles,’ Turner stammered. ‘Didn’t see you there.’
‘I did crack the last case, Turner, but the next day I nearly had my own skull cracked. So, yes, I think my luck is running out.’
TWENTY-FIVE
The sky was a joyless blue and the first cluster of stars had begun to glimmer, though it was still a long way from the devil’s hour. Pete decided the best time to ditch the kid’s body would be under cover of darkness. Until then he’d drive around the quiet country roads outside town, trying to find a good place.
He wondered for a moment about hiding the child in Mangoola coal mine. Perhaps a gigantic coal truck would dump a tonne of dirt over the body and the kid would never be found. But then, Pete needed her to be found – he wanted to point the finger at someone else. That’s why he needed somewhere with water, to link it to Ava Emmerson’s murder. Somewhere in the middle of nowhere, with no houses or regular traffic, but where she’d be found sooner or later.
He had a pair of wire-cutters in the boot. He’d pinched a toolbox off a tradie’s truck in the car park at Woolies years ago. If he could snip some wire from the fence, he could recreate the details of the Ava Emmerson scene he’d overheard at the police station. He was still hell-bent on thinking of what had happened as an accident, but it was a crime nevertheless. Someone else would have to go down for it.
With full darkness descending, Pete pulled up at a barbed-wire fence beyond which he could see a half-empty dam. He waited for fifteen minutes by the road, but no other cars came past from either direction. This place would be perfect.
The idea had sounded simple in his head, but once he opened the boot, he realised it wasn’t simple at all. Pete could hardly bring himself to touch her. He was overcome with emotion, racked with guilt. Guilt was a bugger of a thing – it fucked up bravery, he knew. Still, he had to suck it up, stick to the plan and deal with the situation quickly.
Scooping up the body, he tried not to breathe in through his nose or look her in the eye. He hobbled down towards the dam until he could no longer hold the weight, then dragged her the remainder of the way, leaving her partially submerged and sinking slowly into the mud and murky water.
From the nearby fence, he snipped some wire. With the tension released, it flung through the posts and sounded like a whip whistling at speed. Pete ran along the fence and found the end of the wire. It had coiled up in a clump a few metres down the fence line. He snipped the other end and hastily began pulling it free from the post – every minute he spent out here increased the chances someone would stumble across him.
Pete returned to the body, dragging the wire through the grass. On the child’s shirt there was a tear where he’d snatched the brooch. He started to gag, forcing himself to breathe in deep and hold his breath, rolling the child over so she was face down. As best as he could, he wrapped the wire around her ankles and thighs.
He couldn’t stand the sight, the smell or the thought of it any longer. He was hot and nauseous, and eventually vomited into the dense reeds along the dam. Pete wiped away the spittle with his thumb, then he took the emerald brooch from his pocket and tossed it into the middle of the dam. The water made a plonk sound and he watched the ripples in the moonlight until the surface was still again.
If only he could go back to yesterday. Oh, god, if only he could go back and change the day, start again. But it was too late. Too too late. Something had shifted. He was no longer the man he was yesterday.
If only . . .
The dark bush and dead body gave Pete the shivers, but, if he was honest, he was now the boogeyman.
At the servo, Pete pulled up at the bowser and topped up his car with fuel – a full tank wouldn’t get him all the way to Brisbane, but it would get him close to the border.
In the shop, he bought a sandwich and iced coffee. Aside from the Big Mac, he was catching up on all the other meals he’d missed while he was waiting for his pension.
Pete’s mind was muddled. He wondered if he should go home and come clean with his missus, tell her what happened, unburden himself. But that might put her in the shit, too; she might be charged for not reporting it, making her an accessory after the fact. Pete was sure that was a thing.
It was best to play it safe. The fewer people who knew about the crime, the better his chances of keeping it hush-hush. And, as far as he knew, he was the only one weighed down by this secret.
But Brisbane was a long way, plus he had no friends over the border. And he couldn’t imagine what life would be like without Mrs Nolan . . .
Maybe I should just head home and pretend like it never happened.
The officers stationed at Sara Milligan’s home were looking at their watches – as the hours passed, their vocabulary was shifting from ‘missing person’ to ‘abduction’. Inside the home, they had the televisions and radios turned off. If the kid was found hurt, or worse, they didn’t want the family to hear it from the media first.
Time had run out to bring Sara Milligan home.
The egg and lettuce sandwich washed down with iced coffee, Pete’s stomach settled.
He was thinking with a clearer head now. He was full of ideas. He scratched the bristle on his chin with his dirty split fingernails. It would be best to burn the car, get rid of any trace of the child, and, instead of going home, wait it out just a little bit longer to see what happened. A night or two in the bush under the stars wouldn’t hurt. He’d roughed it before, plenty of times. Slept in worse places. He could stay out of sight, rest and relax, and then when he returned home, he could put it all behind him and get on with his miserable life.
Pete returned to the servo’s shop to buy a packet of Panadol and a plastic jerry can.
TWENTY-SIX
Giles slipped her Glock into her bedside table drawer, tucking it under a bunch of bills and old birthday cards. She never knew if she was too lazy to put it away in her safe or too worried she’d never get it out in time if she needed it. She quickly changed out of her work clothes, feeling more comfortable in linen cargo pants and a t-shirt – less restricted, more relaxed. She laced up her white Lacoste sneakers and, in less than five minutes, she was at the Thai restaurant in the centre of town, ordering takeaway for her and Benjamin.
‘Well, you’ve got your hands full,’ said her father.
‘Yes, I do.’ Giles stood at his doorway and raised two bags in the air. ‘Thai in one hand and a couple of bottles of Two Rivers’ shiraz in the other.’
‘I meant the two investigations.’
‘I know what you meant, Dad.’
Giles entered the room and dropped the plastic bags on the coffee table. She looked around for a moment, then towards the other side of the room where glass sliding doors led out onto a small balcony with pot plants and two plastic garden chairs.
‘Do you want to sit outside?’
‘Too bloody hot out there,’ said Benjamin.
Giles shrugged her shoulders. Wherever Benjamin was comfortable was fine with her. She hunted around for some glasses, cutlery and plates. She opened one of the bottles of wine, poured the Vignerons Reserve into two tumblers and handed one to her father.
‘Cheers.’
They clanked glasses and drank.
‘Not bad,’ said Benjamin, looking down into the tumbler. ‘Why the decent drop?’
‘Because it’s nice. No reason needed to drink nice wine. You know, you really should get yourself a set of wine glasses, Dad.’
‘Ah, well, you can put that on my birthday gift list.’
‘Your birthday was three months ago.’
‘I’ll wait. It’ll come around again. Happens every year.’
Giles chuckled at the dad joke. She fished around in the plastic bag and pulled out a stack of plastic containers, peeled the lids back and started dishing up flat noodles, cashew nut and chilli jam stir fry, jasmine rice and massaman curry. Half of the food slopped back into the containers as she served it – she struggled not to splatter the table with sauce.
‘There are some coconut prawns.’ Giles nodded her head at the foil-lined paper bag.
‘You remembered.’ Benjamin fished around inside the bag, pulling out a crispy fried prawn and shoving it whole into his mouth.
‘You’ll choke.’
‘Nuh-uh, won’t.’
‘Will.’
Giles pushed her father’s plate towards him, grabbed her own, and sat on the bed, legs crossed, digging in. She hadn’t eaten anything at the briefing, not wanting the distraction. It was only on the way home that her stomach had growled, and she realised she was ravenous. She knew her dad would skip sausages and mashed potato in the communal dining room for Thai in his bedroom. Motor neurone disease hadn’t affected his taste buds.
They ate in silence. Food first, then talking. There was no point in ruining the meal if the conversation went south.
Benjamin cleaned his plate and helped himself to a second serving. ‘So is this a social visit?’ he asked. ‘Or are you going to tell me how the case is going?’
‘Which one?’
Benjamin leaned forward to wipe a few grains of rice from the table, instead smearing a waxy white streak across the surface.
‘Start with the child, the one that knows your kid who was in the doghouse.’
‘You’re looking for a connection?’
Benjamin nodded. With his shaky finger, he was still trying to rub away the smudge on the table. After a moment, he gave up and took another scoop of rice, his shaky hands dropping half of it on the coffee table. He clicked his tongue at the mess he was making. ‘Dish us up a little more, will you?’
Giles leaned forward and slopped a little bit from each container onto his plate. She thought her dad looked frail. His hair was more white than salt and pepper these days. There had been a time when he was strong as an ox, tanned and solid, with an intense face and a head full of thick black hair. But now he was thin, with quivering hands, twitching muscles. His mind, however, had not lost focus. His thoughts and words never got muddled. Giles knew eventually they would be affected by his terrible disease, but until that happened, she’d make the most of their time together.
‘Got an alert out to stop any white Getzes, plus a vague description of a person at the park we are yet to track down. Elderly guy, grandfather type. It’s a lead, not a confirmed suspect. PMU and Falkov are preparing the parents for a press conference tomorrow. As you can imagine, they’re extremely shaken by the ordeal.’
‘Press conference is a good move. If the person responsible sees it, it could make them panic, could make them do dumb shit that helps you catch them.’
‘Yeah, it also makes the public panic, and makes vigilantes do dumb shit,’ added Giles. ‘Cases this close to home can bring out the worst in people sometimes.’
‘And the best.’ Benjamin tipped his head towards his daughter.
Giles paused, her spoon of rice and curry still in mid-air. She crinkled her nose and mockingly said, ‘Aww, thanks, Dad.’
‘Yeah, yeah, enough of the warm and fuzzy. Keep going – what else have you got?’
She filled her mouth with food and mumbled away, ‘It’s still undetermined if Sara Milligan wandered off, had an unfortunate mishap, or if she’s been abducted.’
‘What do you think?’
‘What the rest of the task force thinks. The bike behind the playground has been confirmed as belonging to her, and her parents are adamant she wouldn’t abandon it.’
‘Can’t help agreeing with the parents.’
‘They also said she would never get in a car with a stranger. So we are re-interviewing friends of the family, adults Sara knew.’
‘Any of them drive a white Getz?’
‘No. But that car does seem to be our best lead.’
‘Abduction, then?’
‘It’s looking that way. Everyone’s working around the clock.’
‘Except you?’
‘Need my beauty sleep, clear my head, look at things fresh. All that shit . . .’
It wasn’t about beauty sleep – she wanted Benjamin’s take on things. Giles scooped up another spoonful of rice and shoved it in her mouth. Chewed slowly.
‘Tell me more about the two girls. Sara and Kayleen.’
Giles took a sip of wine to clear her throat. ‘They were new friends. Kayleen and her mother have been interviewed, and they were both distraught. And Kevin Eddy, the neighbour, has a solid alibi – he was meeting his public defender – so we know that stacks up. Sara had never been to Kayleen’s house, nor Kayleen to Sara’s – this was their first playdate. First time Claire Ellis had met Sara.’
‘Why the new friendship?’
‘Dunno.’
‘You haven’t spoken to Kayleen yourself?’
‘Nope.’ Giles poked at her food, then scooped up a spoonful of beef curry.
Benjamin waved his own spoon at her. ‘Go back and speak with the kid. Alone. Take some mints with you or something. Chat to her, then come back and we’ll talk some more.’
