Blood River

by Tony Cavanaugh

  The moral compass on Mary Bell still swings in an endless three-sixty because no-one quite knows, aside from the blunt fact she killed two little boys, where the edges of culpability lie.

  Maybe, as Billy believes, she was born evil. ‘Ain’t no lad in the East End who didn’t have a childhood of beatings and bashings, ain’t many lasses who didn’t have the same along with fiddly-stick uncles; every one in my street and the next and the one after that, all of ’em, all of ’em had our share of that and none of us go out and kill some kid geezer. Well, none of the others, that is.’

  But still: Jen White? Seventeen-year-old Jen, from a wealthy middle-class Brisbane family with dreams of studying literature?

  But still, my little voice said: Lara Ocean? Teenage girl with a knife, teenage girl with a gun tucked into the back of her jeans. Angry and violent with something to prove. What makes you think you couldn’t have tipped over and slashed the throat of a random guy, through your rage at the world?

  —

  ‘HERE’S THE THING, girlie,’ Billy said to me after we had left the Commissioner’s office and called Jen’s school to arrange a meeting with her year advisor, ‘take the space between improbable and impossible. Yeah, you in that space?’

  Yes, Billy I am in that space.

  ‘Our Jen, she fits inside that space. Yeah?’

  Yes. But.

  ‘It’s not impossible?’

  No. It’s not. Is it, Lara?

  All Things Must Pass

  HANG ON; WHAT THE FUCK?

  Cops at the front door? A squat guy with green eyes and danger, wearing a suit and shiny brown shoes with pointy toes, and this pretty woman, Asian with dyed blonde hair with a gun on her hip, smiling at me like we’re about to all share a picnic lunch.

  Why are they here? What have I done?

  Well, okay, I did stab Mary-Anne a bit hard with my flick-knife, and I did threaten to slice off Donna’s nose, and I did accidentally on purpose trip up Miss Preece in the corridor and she didn’t believe it when I said, sorry, so, so, sorry.

  ‘Hi Jen … it’s Jen, right?’

  Yes.

  ‘Hi. I’m Detective Constable Lara Ocean, and this is my colleague, his name is Billy Waterson, and we’d just like to ask you a few questions.’

  —

  AS WE HAD walked up to the front door we had passed through a pretty garden with rose bushes and frangipani trees and a pond that had been built in an eight-shape with trees of citrus, lemon and orange trees and pockets of jasmine and lavender and lemon myrtle and rosemary. The rain had stopped an hour ago. The sky was still full of dark clouds. Some days they would skidder quickly. Some days, like today, they would just hang. Not moving, creating the ominous.

  As we were led inside by her mother, before she called out to Jen, after we had introduced ourselves, I scanned the house. Large rooms with floor to ceiling windows and thick white carpet and solid Balinese wooden furniture. It looked like a home. It looked cosy and the sort of place I dreamed of when I was a kid. There was a massive Aboriginal painting hanging on one of the walls. We knew that Jen’s dad traded in art and crafts from places like Morocco, selling works to galleries around the world.

  The Whites, like the others we’d seen on the hill, were well-off. By the staircase was a tall white Christmas tree with wrapped presents at its base. Christmas lights were flashing.

  —

  ‘MISSUS WHITE, WOULD you like to sit next to Jen as we ask her some questions?’

  ‘What’s this about?’

  ‘Just some routine questions. If you could sit next to your daughter as we chat to her, that would be great.’

  ‘Now, Jen, we’re going to ask you some questions, okay?’

  Okay.

  ‘Did you go on the school excursion to North Stradbroke Island in mid-November?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Was that a camping trip? Like, a wilderness thing?’

  ‘Yes, we were there for a couple of days.’

  Did I do anything wrong when I was there? I didn’t; I hated it and stayed quiet and didn’t talk to anyone for the whole three days. Why are they asking me about it? I am starting to get angry. I gotta stop that. I’ve been told to curb the anger when things start to go beyond my control. When I feel like I’m treading water or drifting in a life raft scanning for a horizon.

  ‘Thanks Jen,’ said the man.

  ‘No-one remembers where they were on certain days or nights – I mean, who travels with a diary and cross-references that stuff, huh?’ says the woman.

  Huh?

  ‘But Jen, can you tell us where you were on the night of Thursday, November eighteenth?’

  —

  NO, I CANNOT.

  What is going on here? The walls are creeping in on me and the ceiling is crushing down and I need to breathe …

  ‘There’s nought to be alarmed about,’ said the older cop, in a distinct English accent.

  I don’t believe him.

  ‘What we’d like to do is take you down to the office for an interview,’ she said.

  My hands started to quiver. Deep breathing This is a mistake. All will work out. Be positive, Jen.

  Anthea was hiding at the edge of the kitchen door so no-one could see her, but I could. She was staring at me with a: There are cops in the house? look. I tried to give her a reassuring smile – it’s okay, it’s just a weird fuck-up. There were tears rolling down her face because she knew that we were in an alternative universe that was bad, bad, bad. I dragged my gaze away from her after sending what I hoped was a look of reassurance; Hey, it’s going to be fine, it’s going to be okay.

  She didn’t buy it; she knew I was lying. Because she saw the fear in my face. As I felt the fear in my stomach.

  And mum was, well, mum had taken a Xanax with her morning burst of vodka after she got out of bed, so although she was sitting next to me, she was really on Jupiter, and dad, none of us had seen dad for weeks because he was fucking that Serb girl from Sydney, pretending he was Peter North.

  Lara Ocean, the female cop, had a tiny mole by the edge of her mouth, which reminded me of a story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr about the purity of beauty; but, as he wrote, there is no such thing because there is always a blemish. In other words, perfection is–

  ‘So, if you could just come with us?’ said Lara Ocean.

  Okay.

  ‘Missus White, you need to be with your daughter during this chat down in our office. Okay?’

  Mum nodded. Maybe it’s Saturn.

  ‘Jen, before we go, would you mind getting us your sling blade?’ said Lara Ocean.

  ‘My what?’ I asked.

  —

  ‘FLICK-KNIFE,’ I SAID calmly. Jen stared at me, a little unnervingly, as if a coldness has fallen, and she said:

  ‘I lost it.’

  ‘Okay. No worries,’ I said. When I glanced at Billy I could see that he didn’t quite believe Jen about the knife, and nor did I. For the first time, the nonsense of a teenage killer started to dissipate.

  The Place of Errors

  ‘THANKS FOR COMING IN, JEN. IF YOU’LL JUST SIT THERE FOR us, that would be great.’ I pulled out a chair.

  I stared at the teenage girl who was a suspect in three brutal murders. She stared back. She had a round face with dimples and the most striking eyes, one blue, one green, like David Bowie.

  ‘We’ll get this happening in just a moment. Okay?’

  ‘Okay.’ She held the stare. Was that anger I could detect, below the surface of a sweet-looking seventeen-year-old?

  ‘Just have a seat while I set up the camera and the tape deck and … where did your mum go? Have we lost your mum? We need your mum; I thought she came up in the lift with us. I cannot talk to you without your mum.’

  I shouted into the corridor outside the interview room, ‘Billy!’

  ‘What? I’m getting a glass of water.’

  ‘Can you find Missus White? She’s vanished.’

  —

  WE FOUND H
ER wandering through Missing Persons – how on earth did she get there? Don’t ask; police headquarters is supposed to be secure – but here was our dilemma. Jen’s mother had clearly taken some medication and was on another planet, and while, yes, she could respond and speak to us and give her approval for a record of interview with her daughter, we had to ask ourselves: would this come back to haunt us if, if, we ever took Jen to court? A defence lawyer might say the record of interview was invalid and nothing that my client said can be brought before the court.

  Jen and her mum remained in the interview room while Kristo called the DPP.

  ‘Jen, would you like a cup of tea?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Just remember, Jen, if there’s a moment when you feel overtly – you know the meaning of that word?’

  She gave me dead-eye. Her year advisor had told us she was an English Literature genius. Stupid me; I needed to focus.

  ‘Okay, got it, sorry, I didn’t mean to insult you.’

  Jen leaned across the desk in the interview room and it was no longer dead-eye and she said:

  ‘The past is a foreign country.’

  And I stared back at her with: Is this relevant? ‘Look it up,’ she said, ‘because I can see it on your face; look it up and check out the next phrase.’

  I left.

  I saw then, in Jen, what I thought I would see if I sat across a table from Mary Bell. She gave me, Jen did, the shivers. This was the second time I began to erase my initial disbelief in our serial killer being a teenage girl. And replaced it with an open mind. Don’t reach a conclusion before you have all the facts, I reminded myself.

  —

  THE DPP SAID, as long as the mother is in the room and can respond to questions, you can proceed with the interview.

  ‘Jen, if you could just announce your name into the microphone?’

  ‘Jen.’

  ‘Can you give us your whole name?’

  ‘Jen. White.’

  ‘Born?’

  ‘You know.’

  ‘We do but if could tell us, thanks, that would be great.’

  ‘It was in the age of paradise.’

  Even Jen’s smacked-out mum sat up and stared at her daughter.

  —

  IT’S THOSE HANDS. That grip. The smile. Being guided out of the house. Being pushed. That hard grip; although she’s tall she looks slight, the female cop, Lara Ocean. But she’s not. She must do karate or some other Asian self-defence thing, because she has the grip of a lion.

  The abject humiliation of being led out of our house, into the street full of nosy neighbours, hiding behind their curtains, her hands on me – that was when the tremors of fear started to ebb and were replaced by anger. I have not done anything wrong.

  —

  ‘YOU WERE BORN on May the eighth, nineteen eighty-two. Is that correct, Jen, May eight, nineteen eighty-two?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Great, thanks. And Missus White, if you wouldn’t mind confirming that you are in attendance at the interview here in the offices of Queensland Homicide with myself, Detective Constable Lara Ocean and Detective Inspector William Waterson?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Great, thanks. Before we start I want to confirm that Jen, you are feeling comfortable and that we have offered you some tea or some water.’

  Jen nodded.

  ‘If you could – this is for the recording, Jen – if you could say yes or no, that would be great.’

  ‘What was the question?’

  ‘Are you being treated well and have we offered you tea or water?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you are not in any distress?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And your mum is seated next to you, now, at this moment?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Great. Thanks Jen. We’ll get some sandwiches in here in a couple of hours’ time so you can eat, but can I start with this.’

  I pushed over the illustration of the twelve spokes within the circle – Taranis. ‘Do you know what this is? Have you ever seen this image before?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she said.

  ‘Jen, I know you’re going to study English Lit after Year 12 and I know you are really smart. Jen, what is it? Yes, you know this image, or no, you don’t?’

  ‘Yes.’

  I looked to Billy, who was doing his pretending-to-be-asleep thing, and back to Jen. Which was meant to be passive as if to lull the suspect/person of interest on the other side of the table into a place of relaxation. We both know the place of relaxation is a place of errors, where you can say the wrong thing because you are not totally, totally alert to the dangers that we, us cops, present to you. It is an obstacle course and we make the rules and if you deviate, we will take you to court and maybe to jail, for the rest of your life.

  So, stay alert, little girl, because my partner here is like a cobra and will pounce on you within a millisecond if you waiver, if you falter, if you deviate. And those hands on you, my grip on your elbow, from which you flinched? Those hands will be on you for the rest of your life, so look into my eyes, and stay honest.

  —

  ‘TELL US ABOUT this image,’ I continued, while next to her, Jen’s mum tried to stay awake.

  ‘It’s the Celtic god of thunder,’ said Jen.

  ‘Whose name is …?’ I asked.

  ‘Taranis.’

  ‘What does he mean to you?’ I asked.

  Billy was lying back, still passive, pretending to snore.

  ‘He is all-powerful,’ she said.

  And I leaned in and said:

  ‘But what does that actually mean to you? Do you invoke him? Does he come to you? Do you channel him? Is he within you? Do you, maybe, take out a silver-bladed knife at three or four in the morning and find a place on your arms or your legs or maybe even your back and draw blood for him? Because I read that sacrificial blood and Taranis are a thing, if you know what I mean.’

  Still leaning back in his chair doing the non-threatening sleep thing, Billy, unseen by them on the other side of the table, gently nudged my leg with his patent-leather shoe. Reminding me again.

  Too long a question, too leading a question. Too many questions in one. This girl was unnerving me. Focus, Lara. Even though the stakes were high and all the crews were watching me, everyone – including the Commissioner – was watching me, I had to stay alert and keep my mind clear.

  Jen was staring, showing no emotion and holding my gaze, as if willing me to arrest her.

  Staring at me, she said, a small voice in the room:

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Yes darling?’ asked the fog of Xanax.

  ‘Do you think you should call dad?’

  ‘Why would I want to call your dad?’

  ‘He might be interested to know that his oldest daughter is being formally interviewed by two Homicide detectives and he might think that perhaps I need some representation.’

  ‘What do you mean, representation?’

  ‘A lawyer.’

  ‘Oh. Yes. I hadn’t thought about that.’

  ‘You want a lawyer?’ I asked Jen.

  ‘I think it might be prudent, don’t you?’ said Jen as her mum rummaged through her bag and pulled out her new and very expensive mobile phone, called a Blackberry, which only came into the shops about a week ago.

  —

  SHE WAS SO excited when she got it. ‘Look at me,’ she had proudly said to Anthea and I. ‘This is the future. If you girls are nice to your mother, then I might think about buying you one each for your birthdays.’

  Mum likes to get the shiny new things and charge them to dad’s American Express card. Last month she bought a Sony flat-screen LCD TV, first on the market and it cost her over fifteen thousand dollars. Lucky that his card is platinum.

  —

  ‘WHY DON’T WE step out for a moment, while you call your husband, Missus White. Interview with Jen White is being halted at,’ said Lara Ocean, into the tape recorder, checking her watch
, ‘eleven eighteen a.m.’ Click, off and out they go.

  The Chink

  ‘WHAT DO YOU THINK?’ I ASKED BILLY AS WE WENT BACK TO our co-joined desks, our little island on the floor of the office, leaving mother and daughter alone in the interview room. The other crews who had been assigned to the case – working the North Stradbroke angle, the Goth and Celt scene angle, the possibility of a gay killer, the necessary but dead-end angle of a connecting point within their pasts that might have motivated the killer and any other angle – took a moment to look at us, knowing we’d brought Jen in. The same question in each mind:

  Could it be her?

  ‘Guilty as sin,’ said Billy.

  ‘Really? Why?’ I asked, surprised by his rush to condemnation.

  ‘She’s cold, she’s heartless, no emotion. Ruthless.’

  ‘Maybe that’s just fear. But even if it’s not, would that make her a killer?’

  ‘North Stradbroke trip, knives, god of thunder, skateboarder, testimony from the kids and teacher at her school; remember that?’

  —

  HOW COULD I forget. Girl after girl after girl, all saying the same: She’s weird, she carries a flick-knife around school, and what’s with the Celtic thing? And Bettany knows she’s into Satan, like, worships him and stuff, rituals and stuff, and Olivia saw her in the Queen Street Mall one Sunday and she was, like, so stoned and … and … and, and –

  Then there was her year advisor.

  ‘Well, yes, it is true that Jen stands out,’ she had said. ‘Stands out, if you will, quite a lot from the other girls at the school. Her parents are very nice and very wealthy; I think her dad has a Lexus and her mum drives the latest model Volvo and they are always here on sports days and evening events. You know, we have a mentor scheme where the little ones, just after arriving, are assigned a Year 12 girl as a sort of go-to person, to guide them, if you will, and Jen was assigned a girl, a nice little Asian girl and,’ she’d said, looking directly at me, ‘you’d know – ’

  Said with a smile that I have stared into all my life, a smile I have fallen into, into a deep cave of: Who am I? A smile that is not patronising but so fucking is.