Ian cleared his voice. ‘Listen, there was a time when the three of us were inseparable. You, me and Caruso. I would have done anything for you guys. You were my friends. My only friends. I haven’t had many since those days. I want to believe you, but it seems like a giant hoax. Somebody’s out there playing us. You know I don’t blame you, Rick. But if anyone lays a hand on one of my kids…’

  Ian finished by going a shade of red.

  ‘If you need me to come around and explain this to your wife then I will.’

  ‘No need. I told her on the phone that this was a police matter and that they received a threat because of something that happened in the chambers. Hendriks backed me up. He told her it was just a precaution. Anyway, I’m more worried about you, Rick. This idiot now knows where you’re staying and he’s got your phone number. Maybe you should go and stay with your family on the coast. Get out of the way for a while.’

  Rick shook his head. ‘No way. I need to find him, Ian. If he’s got a girl somewhere I’m her only hope.’

  ‘Don’t be going around playing hero, Rick. Heroes sometimes turn up dead. And I want you to promise that you’ll do as Hendriks says and not contact Joe. I know he’s your friend now but you have to admit he’s done some stupid things. I mean, breaking into a federal court judge’s office? What kinda stupid shit is that?’

  The Prius came to a halt in the only parking bay they could find. Rick gazed out the window at the beach. He exhaled slowly. It wasn’t that he couldn’t make that promise, he just wanted to keep his options open.

  ‘Can’t stay, pally. Some of us have to work.’

  Rick watched as Ian drove off. He sat in his favourite bench and tried to make sense of it all.

  The sun was going down on another day. This one had been particularly difficult. He was no closer to finding Whitey than before. And even though they had retrieved the watch Caruso stole from Whitey, in the end, it would not prove that he had taken the children and murdered them. It was stretching the imagination to prove to the police he was still alive. All they had was his word. And the fact that he had only spoken with him over the computer and his phone and not in person made it all the more difficult to prove. It was like Whitey was taunting him. Rick knew that he had the trust of Joe and Ian but that wasn’t enough for him; he had to find this guy. Then there was the girl. Who was she? Had he taken her yet? Something else was bothering him about that image. He knew it wasn’t Jody but why was it so familiar to him? There was only one thing to do. Find him then find the girl.

  Simple? Not so simple. He found himself on his favourite bench facing the sea.

  ‘Can I sit?’ The voice came from behind but Rick knew who it was.

  ‘Shit, Joe, if Hendriks finds out he’ll have kittens,’ Rick said instinctively. Still, he was glad to see the former detective.

  Murphy grinned.

  ‘Ah, he’ll be fine. Besides, we’re on a roll. We’re almost there. Another couple of breakthroughs and we’ll find this son of a bitch.’

  The way he said it gave Rick a little hope. He smiled back. ‘Better move inside before the spies see us.’

  They went to enter Vince’s café. It was closed so Rick took out a key from his pocket and held it up.

  ‘Courtesy of Molly and Vince. They said it was the least they could do for their best customers.’

  They took a seat at the back of the café and Rick made them both cups of tea.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’

  ‘Got some news,’ said Murphy.

  ‘Hope it’s good news. We could do with some.’

  The look on Murphy’s face told him it probably wasn’t.

  ‘Vic Tangini is dead,’ Murphy said, taking a sip of his tea.

  Rick looked at Joe stunned for a moment. ‘Dead, how?’

  ‘Killed last night. Someone made it look like suicide. Seem familiar to you?’

  ‘Caruso.’

  ‘It had all the hallmarks of your classic inside job. The warden is still calling it suicide but I think Hendriks thinks otherwise.’

  ‘Hendriks told you?’ Rick said, looking quite amazed.

  Murphy nodded. ‘That’s why he kept me back after class, so to speak. He wanted to know what we had talked about or, more to the point, what you had discussed with Tangini,’ Murphy said.

  ‘And did you tell him?’

  ‘I told him that Vic said the cottage was where Whitey took the children and that’s why you went there.’

  ‘Did he believe that?’

  ‘Not sure. Probably not.’

  ‘So, you think that someone got to him in gaol,’ Rick said, whistling through his teeth.

  ‘There are any number of men in gaol that would kill at the drop of a hat. It’s not uncommon, but I would say, yes.’

  ‘So why did Hendriks tell you? Does he believe us now?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that for sure but he’s playing both sides. He’s got his bosses over him telling him to go hard on me but if we’re useful to him, he’ll want us to stay in the game.’

  ‘So, are we still in the game?’

  ‘You bet we are. But that’s not the reason I’m here. Caruso said something else the day he came around to my place. At first, we just talked about you guys. I think it was the one thing that kept him going. You and Ian. He told me about the time when Spike was looking to recruit a few kids to do some work for Whitey. Caruso told me he pretended to beat up Ian just to show Spike that you guys weren’t tough enough. He regretted beating up on Ian. He said that it sometimes came back to haunt him like all the other stuff he had to do for Spike and Whitey.

  ‘He told me that he was driven by Whitey to a house somewhere in the north. He said it looked like a family home, but inside, it wasn’t quite homely. There was some messed up stuff happening in there. Chains bolted to the wall in the main bedroom. And it stank. Like they butchered a whole herd of cattle in there. Most of the rooms in the back were lined with plastic, walls, floor and ceiling. It was a sweatbox. The cellar was small. Whitey told them to dig under the floorboards and make everything bigger. They spent days down there, digging out the basement. Caruso thought he was just using them as cheap labour and that it was just a money-saving thing. Get kids to provide labour but he changed his mind. He thought that Whitey wanted to involve them so they would shut up. Caruso did say something strange though. I was asking him about the layout of the house and he said that I should look for the extra room. That was the room that seemed strange to him. When I asked him where it was; he just shrugged and said, “Look where you least expect a room to be.” I did ask Caruso whether he dug up anything. And he said back to me, as quick as you like, that he hadn’t dug up any bodies if that’s what I was asking. And so, I guess I dismissed it,’ Murphy said. ‘To be honest, I didn’t believe anything about the story.’

  ‘You think it was the room I saw on the security camera.’

  ‘It crossed my mind. It makes sense he would have a remote viewing area he could use anytime he wanted.’

  ‘He gave you the address?’

  ‘He gave me a suburb. I handed all the information over to CID. I was doing things by the book. I asked Hendriks about it and he said that although they did send out a team, they didn’t find the house.’

  ‘It sounds to me they didn’t try very hard.’

  ‘I don’t blame them though. They get inundated with jumbled bits of information, which generally never end up working out. They tried looking but when they didn’t succeed, they gave up. Simple as that. I might have done the same thing, given the information. But now it’s different. He told us he took them to other places. This house might be the break we’re looking for.’

  ‘But we have no idea where it is. Both Caruso and Vic are dead and I guess Bill Santino is in some mental institution somewhere,’ said Rick.

  ‘It might be easier to find than all that.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well, if we had someone who could find the address through some court documents, then maybe we would have a chance. It might be the thing a QC could find.’

  ‘Ian?’

  ‘Ian,’ Murphy said.

  ‘You think that he moved the bodies again, don’t you?’

  ‘Don’t get me wrong. If it is Whitey, he’d have moved them on when there was a whiff of police action,’ Murphy said, ‘but these kinds of sick people need a trophy.’

  It took a moment to sink in. Suddenly, Rick looked Joe in the eye. ‘So, the bodies might still be at the house?’

  Murphy grinned conspiratorially. ‘That’s why we need someone to look into the state privy council to sneak a look at the titles.’

  ‘So, you believe me about Whitey. Ian said that you didn’t. He said that everyone thinks it’s a copycat.’

  ‘I have to admit that I thought it was a long shot that Whitey was still alive. I mean, I went to the guy’s funeral. But there’s something else,’ Murphy said quietly. ‘My guy came back with the goods. It was Jody’s blood on the purse. And, the real kicker, the DNA on the watch matched one Anthony Rutherglen, aka Whitey.’

  ‘We’ve got proof?’ Rick said as if not quite believing it.

  Murphy nodded then grinned.

  ‘We might just have.’

  21

  P. S. ELLIOTT

  Rick tossed and turned in his sleep. Again and again, the face of Jody kept coming at him. One moment they were riding the carousel, the next they were standing hand-in-hand on the rotunda, staring out into a blazing sun. Had it been that hot? It must have been. He tried to wipe the sweat from his eyes. They stung. A man approached. She began to pull away from him, crying as she went. Then the scene turned to the cottage. He was standing next to the huge elm tree. He saw them arrive. The boy was complaining about being hot. He wanted to jump in the pond but Jody was telling him that he would drown.

  ‘You can’t swim, Peter,’ she said. She tried calming him but the wailing just got louder.

  ‘Don’t wanna go in that place,’ the boy wailed.

  ‘But I have chocolate inside,’ said a voice that Eric recognised straight away.

  ‘Don’t want any chocolate. I don’t like this place. It’s dark.’

  Rick saw Jody squat down and take her younger brother by the shoulders. He could hear everything she said.

  ‘Peter, I promise you that later we will go back to the beach and have a swim. Can you be patient just for now?’

  Rick wanted to yell out that it wasn’t safe. He wanted to yell out that Peter was right. It was dark. He wanted to yell not to go into the Hansel and Gretel cottage.

  That was the trouble with nightmares. They made you immobile and restricted. Suddenly, the scene shifted again and Rick could see inside the mansion. He saw a man. The man he had seen at the beach that day. Not Whitey, another man. He saw that Rick was staring at him and he slammed the side door shut.

  Rick woke with a start.

  His phone was ringing again. It was four a.m. He let it ring.

  *

  Rick’s face was haggard due to the lack of sleep and the nightmares when he finally did get a little sleep.

  ‘You look like shit, Rick.’ Ian prided himself on being honest.

  Rick ignored the barb. ‘Thanks for coming today. I wasn’t sure you’d come, your family…’

  ‘Are well protected. Anyway, why wouldn’t I come? You’re my best mate. Or you were back then, anyway,’ Ian said, juggling two containers of takeaway coffee from Vince’s.

  ‘You were mine too.’

  ‘Are you sure? I always thought you and Caruso were pretty tight.’

  ‘We were, but I always felt a kind of distance with him. I never really knew where I stood, I guess.’

  Ian looked to the sea. He sat down next to Rick on the bench.

  ‘Is your family okay?’ asked Rick.

  Ian sipped his coffee.

  ‘Fine, the missus kicked me out this morning, she said I was being too morbid around the house. She told me to go and play with my friends. I guess she’s surprised that I have any,’ Ian said. He took a long sip of coffee and shuddered. ‘I’m off sugar. This tastes like tar.’ He screwed up his face.

  ‘My phone rang again last night.’

  ‘Shit, Rick, did you pick up?’ Ian said, dribbling a pool of coffee over his nice white shirt. ‘Shit,’ he said again.

  ‘Didn’t pick up. It got me thinking though. He’s worried. He’s worried that we tricked him about the watch. He knows we’re onto him. We’re close and he doesn’t like it. He’s trying to bully me.’

  ‘But we’re not close, Rick. We know next to nothing.’

  ‘Yes, but he doesn’t know that. That’s why he’s calling me. He’s panicking. I can feel it.’

  ‘So, what did you do?’

  ‘I called Murphy.’

  ‘Shit, Rick, I thought Hendriks told you to keep away from him.’

  ‘Nah, he doesn’t mean that. Hendriks told Joe about Vic getting killed in gaol. He doesn’t believe it as much as I don’t believe Caruso killed himself.’

  ‘But we don’t know that was Whitey. It might have been suicide.’

  Rick looked at him. ‘You and I both know it wasn’t suicide.’

  ‘Maybe, but seriously do you think Hendriks has changed his mind about Joe? Are you sure Joe wasn’t bullshitting you? He can do that, you know. Joe Murphy is the biggest bullshitter that I have ever had the misfortune to know.’

  ‘Well, I guess you can ask him that yourself. He’s over the road waiting for me to give him the all-clear.’

  Rick stuck his hand up in the air. A figure in a long black trench coat waved back at him from the front bar of the Seaside Hotel. Again, all that Ian could say was, ‘Shit!’

  They watched as Murphy dodged a couple of cars crossing the road.

  ‘Okay, I have news for the both of you,’ was the first thing he said as he slid his body onto the remaining part of the bench chair. He took out his phone and glanced down at it. He looked up and grinned at them.

  ‘They’re brothers.’ Murphy put his phone away and took out his notebook. He leapt to his feet as if he had to move. He leaned on the railings, looking down onto the beach.

  ‘Who are brothers?’ Ian said, still a little stunned at Joe’s presence. He stared at Rick who looked like he’d just had heart palpitations. He nearly spat out his coffee. ‘Whitey and P S Elliott?’

  ‘The other guy?’ Ian said.

  Murphy smiled as he nodded.

  ‘But the other guy was much older and didn’t look like him?’ Ian said.

  Murphy pulled out a crumpled piece of paper from the pocket of his long coat. ‘DNA don’t lie. Got this back from my friend.’ From his other pocket, he pulled out a plastic bag with the watch inside. ‘At first, my guy said it wasn’t a match. It couldn’t have been Whitey’s. Not with the DNA they had on file. But they did match it to Elliott.’

  ‘I thought it was too long ago to get DNA?’ Rick took the offered watch and held the bag up in the light.

  ‘They can if it’s been well protected. Caruso always kept it wrapped in a piece of cloth. My guy said it had not been Whitey’s DNA but a maternal match. Turns out they had the same mother but different fathers. Anthony Rutherglen, Whitey, was a good twelve years younger than his brother Paul Stanley Elliott. He was born sometime in the twenties, I reckon. He would have been in his forties when the children went missing. He owned the land the business was located near the reserve. His father was a police commissioner. It all ties in rather nicely – his DNA was already on file,’ Murphy said.

  ‘Shit,’ Rick said.

  ‘Okay. They were brothers. How does that help us now?’ Ian said.

  Murphy paused then looked at the watch in Rick’s hand. ‘Well, I thought that Elliott might be dead, seeing as he was born in the 1920s but I found no death certificate. It’s all a bit murky in that family. And as we know, or knew, from the newspapers, Whitey was buried in the city cemetery some ten years ago. Again, no official death certificate survives, only the coroner’s report into the accidental death.’

  ‘So, what you’re saying is that he might be alive?’ Ian said.

  ‘He’d have to be in his nineties now. I guess it’s possible,’ Murphy said.

  ‘He might have given Whitey the watch at some stage.’

  ‘But did you ever see him wear it?’ asked Murphy.

  Both Rick and Ian looked at each other.

  ‘Only thing I can remember is those damn Speedo bathers. I guess he might have worn it but I don’t remember.’

  Rick shook his head. ‘Neither do I.’

  ‘So, at the moment we have DNA from Elliott. We need Whitey’s to tie him to the watch. And if we tie him to the watch then we tie him to the watch’s box, which was found–’ began Murphy.

  ‘At the cottage,’ Rick said, finishing his sentence, ‘where he took the children.’

  ‘It’s been far too long for us to find anything relating to the children in that cottage. He would have made sure of that, besides–’

  ‘You’re still pretty sure he’s dead,’ Ian finished Murphy’s sentence.

  Murphy raised his eyebrows as if reconsidering.

  ‘What? You think he’s alive too?’

  Murphy flexed his arthritic fingers and made a fist to stop the slight shake starting. ‘No, I still think he’s dead but there must be a connection somehow. If this guy is a copycat, then he knows far too much about Whitey. No, this guy is as smart as Whitey was so we need to look elsewhere.’

  ‘You have somewhere in mind?’ Rick said.

  ‘There’s gotta be something under that patch. You know, the place you took the photos.’

  ‘Well, if we’re not looking for graves, what are we looking for?’ Ian said.

  Murphy shrugged. ‘We could be barking up the wrong tree but I could swear that whole area has been dug up recently.’

 

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