‘Allegations, Detective. Never proved,’ said Vasilios, finally allowed to finish a sentence. ‘I ask that you either charge my client, or let him go. He has co-operated fully. Even if it was against my council.’
76 Emmaline
After Nikos had been discharged – they had nothing firm to hold him on – Emmaline had Zhao set up a conference call with Rispoli and the others in Leonora. It was time to strategize angles of attack. And defence. They had managed to limit the information leaked to the press regarding Lorcan Maguire for three days, but the result of the nationwide voice request had leaked and the newspapers were now asking if Mike Andrews was the main suspect. This had led to people in Queensland talking and now the press wanted to know if Stevie Amaranga was under suspicion too. Which meant calls from their families that ranged between pleading and apoplectic that their progeny would never do such a thing. Thankfully Ian Kinch’s name remained out of any discussion for the moment. But worst of all the press wanted an update on the progress of the investigation. And Emmaline had nothing but strands.
‘So do we treat Andrews and Amaranga as our main suspects?’ asked Rispoli. ‘They were in Kallayee, we know that. Andrews for certain. Do we add Ian Kinch to that list?’
‘We need to find out where they are now,’ said Emmaline. ‘We know that they left in a hurry. That equipment was worth something and they abandoned it.’
‘They’re probably together. Lying low,’ said Oily.
‘We’re covering phones, cards and any significant gold transactions,’ said Zhao. ‘But we fear that they are clever enough to use burner phones, pay in cash and keep any transactions away from reputable dealers.’
‘So what do we tell the press?’ asked Barker, chewing on a sausage roll.
Emmaline decided. ‘That Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga are currently persons of interest and we are appealing that they come forward in order to eliminate themselves. We keep Ian Kinch out of it for now to see if he slips up. Make him think that we don’t know about his involvement.’
‘What about the other angles?’ asked Rispoli.
‘We have evidence of Nikos Iannis being in the region on the thirtieth and that he met up with Lorcan Maguire.’
‘In Kallayee?’ asked Anand.
‘Somewhere north of Kalgoorlie, at least. Whether he made it as far as Kallayee is unknown. Wisbech is very possible. A meeting about the stolen information. What we do know is that Nikos was unhappy with the outcome.’
‘Unhappy enough to do something about it?’ asked Rispoli.
‘Given his record we have to assume that’s a possibility,’ said Oily.
‘Nothing we can pin him on yet,’ noted Emmaline. ‘The voice message on the thirtieth proves that he wasn’t killed at the meeting, meaning that if they did meet, Lorcan was free to leave after. But that doesn’t mean that Nikos let it go.’
‘What are you getting at?’ asked Rispoli.
‘Maybe he had someone follow Lorcan. From the meeting place.’
‘It’s pretty easy to spot a tail out here,’ said Barker.
‘Maybe the tail wasn’t immediate. Maybe Nikos watched him head north and had people search the area. There aren’t that many towns.’
‘But a big area,’ said Barker.
‘We need someone to have seen Nikos in the immediate area. And we haven’t,’ said Oily.
‘But we do have sightings of strangers in Hurton,’ said Emmaline. ‘Rispoli, did we get anything on that?’
‘Nothing. Bill, the owner of the Rack in Hurton, confirmed what he said already. A couple of tourists, a door-to-door salesman and a guy who had mistaken Kalgoorlie for Kallayee. He was backed up by two other customers. One said he knew you. A Matty Reicheld.’
Emmaline blanched a little at the name. At Rispoli knowing the name. It was an involuntary reaction, one she chided herself for. She had nothing to be ashamed of, unless Matty had something to do with the murder. And nothing pointed to him being involved. As yet.
‘The salesman gave the full patter, apparently,’ continued Rispoli. ‘An insurance man down on his luck.’
‘And the interview guy?’
‘Neither Bill nor the others could give us a composite of his face.’
‘But do we believe the story?’
‘I certainly wouldn’t be employing him if he can’t even get the right town,’ said Barker, with a grunt.
‘Could it have been Nikos Iannis?’ asked Emmaline.
‘Both noted that this guy was slim and pale,’ said Rispoli.
‘Not words that describe Nikos Iannis,’ said Oily.
‘So maybe it wasn’t him but someone he sent,’ said Emmaline. ‘A professional job.’
There was momentary silence as that sunk in. But there was one more angle.
‘That leaves Chester Grant,’ said Anand.
Emmaline nodded. ‘We’ve a similar situation with him. He confessed to meeting briefly with Naiyana Maguire in Wisbech on the thirtieth. According to him it was a short, unproductive meeting and he does have a confirmed alibi later that afternoon.’
‘And he couldn’t have killed her and fled?’ asked Oily.
Emmaline had only considered Chester dangerous from the pen side of matters rather than the sword. But he was certainly big enough and capable enough. Especially with his career on the line.
‘We can check. Call in some officers from Kalgoorlie to help,’ she said to Zhao. ‘We also have local witnesses who saw Naiyana meeting a guy with a beard around Hurton. A description that could fit Chester Grant.’
‘And Ian Kinch,’ said Rispoli.
‘And about half the male population out here,’ added Anand.
Which was correct. Rather than narrowing the possibilities they were expanding them.
‘Stick to Mike Andrews and Stevie Amaranga as persons of interest. We don’t mention the others publicly at the minute,’ said Emmaline.
‘That will make it look like we’re floundering,’ said Oily, his finger on the corporate pulse as ever.
‘DI Moore will just have to sell it.’
‘And who is going to tell her that?’
The silence around the table told Emmaline that she was up to bat.
77 Emmaline
Emmaline watched on next morning as DI Angela Moore gave the press conference, straight-batting most of the questions. It didn’t look like fun at all, the press trying to knock her off-stride, jabbing her for a response, repeating questions to see if her answer varied. It was like a police interview except instead of being questioned then tried, she was being tried in public. Emmaline wondered if she had reached her ceiling in the MCS. Every position above this involved rules and dictums. Nasty, nasty PR. Saying and doing the right things. Towing the company line. She liked living with some abandon. She could only imagine the delight the press would have with her love life.
The conference was still in full swing when she got a call from Rispoli. The wreckage of a car crash had been found on a back road outside Hurton called Dredger’s Gully. A ute from what could be determined.
The plane and car couldn’t go fast enough. Making it to Hurton she and Oily passed through in a flash following live directions from Anand until the phone signal gave out.
Carrying on they found Rispoli waiting for them at the next junction. Tailing him, they wound over a bumpy outback track until they came to a tight bend in the road. There, Barker and Anand were corralling tape around trees and cordoning off a large area. Beyond lay a patch of dirt before the landscape disappeared sharply.
Emmaline exited the car. As she passed under the tape, Rispoli joined her and Oily.
‘It was spotted from the air,’ said Rispoli, pointing at two people gawping from behind the hastily erected tape. Emmaline didn’t recognize them. ‘They were in a light aircraft, passing low along the gorge. They called it in.’
‘Have we got a make or model? Does it match anything we have?’ asked Emmaline.
‘See for yourself.’
> Rispoli led them to the edge. A gorge was cut into the red earth, extending down a hundred feet into scrub. Hidden from the sun, hidden from the world. Near the bottom of it a blackened scrap of metal nestled amongst the scrub.
‘Make and model aren’t immediately obvious,’ said Rispoli. ‘We’re lucky it didn’t start anything bigger.’
The truck had burnt up almost completely, scorching the trees around it but keeping the scenery mostly intact. It sat black against the red and green landscape like a chunk of basalt amongst sandstone.
‘At the start we thought that it was dumped years ago but the breakage in the foliage is still green in parts. So I reckon it went over the edge not that long ago. We left it alone and called you and Forensics.’
‘Good shout,’ said Emmaline. ‘Who wants to come check it out?’
They all did but she chose Oily, as the most experienced. Donning latex gloves and shoe covers they scrambled into the gorge taking a circuitous route, rounding the mulga shrubs and stepping over the dry spinifex that used the shade and relative cool to grow thick along the sides.
The first thing she noticed was that the number plates were missing. Front and back. Possibly something nefarious or simply that they had been removed and bolted onto a similar vehicle to use what was left on the road tax. The next thing she noted was that the truck had burnt up pretty thoroughly but the blaze had been contained. It suggested an accelerant but she would get that confirmed later.
Making it to the cab she peeked inside. The rich smell of burnt flesh lingered. Faint but present. Enough to make her stomach curdle. Her heart quickened. Two bodies. Of adult proportions. Age or sex was impossible to immediately determine as both were not much more than bone and singed flesh.
Oily joined her at the opposite window.
‘What do you see?’ asked Emmaline.
He glanced around. ‘Neither body is strapped in.’
‘Yes. But they’re still inside the wreckage.’
‘Could be the seat belts burnt in the fire.’
Emmaline screwed up her face in thought. ‘But why didn’t they try and free themselves when the fire started?’
Oily shrugged. ‘Knocked out in the crash? And who are they? Naiyana Maguire you think? Plus someone else?’
One of the skeletons looked short enough to possibly have been Naiyana Maguire but all Emmaline was certain of was that she had another two bodies in the vicinity of Kallayee, dead under suspicious circumstances. Making three in total.
Wary of disturbing the scene any further, they hiked with some difficulty back to the top. She convened Oily, Rispoli and Barker together; Anand was still securing the scene.
‘What would anyone be doing all the way out here?’
‘A hell of a wrong turn,’ offered Oily. ‘Maybe some locals out for a good time, then bang, they go over the side of the gorge. Possibly high.’
‘It’s a long way from nowhere,’ said Barker.
‘And even if you were heading to nowhere, this isn’t the route you’d take!’ added Rispoli.
‘We need to know if anyone has been reported missing, locally,’ said Emmaline.
‘Way ahead of you,’ said Barker. ‘There was one case in 2004 that was solved and a cold one from 2006 but nothing recent.’
‘Was this Naiyana making a run for it?’ asked Oily.
‘Maybe she was kidnapped and they drove over the edge?’ said Rispoli.
‘So a Thelma and Louise?’ said Barker, grinning.
‘But it’s not a severe enough drop,’ said Oily. ‘They couldn’t guarantee it was going to end in death.’
Emmaline turned towards the gorge. ‘What if it isn’t Naiyana at all but those miners? Maybe they got caught up in whatever happened to the family. They witnessed it and were chased to their deaths?’
‘A wrong turn in a place they were unfamiliar with?’ said Oily.
‘And unfortunate enough to both be knocked out while the truck goes up in flames around them?’
78 Lorcan
His dad’s money had run out quickly. On bricks, a replacement sheet of tin and a roof beam. Three bottles of cooking gas, too. And food. His dream was turning to dust, or to be more precise getting covered in it. The book idea was out the window too unless there was a drastic upturn in fortune. He hadn’t written one word. Besides, no one was going to buy a self-help book where the main character made such a piss-poor attempt to overcome adversity. Even Naiyana had abandoned her vlogs. When he had asked why, she had said she wasn’t getting enough subscribers to make it worthwhile. Lorcan thought it was boredom, the same shots, the same people. They were stuck in the whirlpool, circling ever so slowly towards the plughole. As if the malaise of the situation was creeping into their psyches. He guessed that if they talked honestly, both would admit that they under-estimated the difficulties they would encounter.
But they weren’t talking. Naiyana was constantly going back and forth to the town claiming to have forgotten to pick up something. But he knew the truth. She just wanted to get away from him. He had disappointed her. The move had been a failure.
Even Dylan had noticed that they weren’t talking to each other. This morning, he had explained in a devastatingly honest way that it felt like he had two separate parents. Something which he complained about but had learned to play to his advantage, his mining operation in the dirt hill expanded and extensively equipped, the different mines connected by roads and even a base at the bottom where the dirt was being sifted by a bent colander salvaged from the kitchen.
Lorcan was trying to work up the motivation to repair the gable wall again. Instead he sat and watched Dylan from the shade. It felt as if they were slowly wasting away in this desert, that the sand and dust was smoothing all the edges off them, their lives now bland and uninteresting. A daily slog that was as monotonous as the sky overhead. Even a perfect blue became boring after a while. He missed the irregular beauty in a cloud, edges and colours that gave the eye something to focus on, something new to appreciate. It was as if they were in stasis, waiting for something to happen, something to spark them into action, living under the same – collapsed – roof but enduring separate existences.
He watched as another load left the mine and was delivered to the foot of the hill. He glanced down the road beyond the crossroads and wondered what was happening in the actual mine. They were raking it in, he was sure of it. There was no other reason for putting up with his bullshit.
Last night Nee had again told him to leave them alone. Out of nowhere. As if she had been peering into his innermost thoughts, some shred of some telekinetic connection remaining between them. She admitted that she was nervous of them. And that it should make him nervous too. But he was sick of being nervous. After fucking up so many times, something had to go right eventually. The law of averages said so.
‘Wait here,’ he told Dylan.
The boy looked up at him. ‘Where are you going, Daddy?’
‘To conduct some business.’
* * *
He waited outside the wooden building. He had plenty of time to wait today. Nothing was going to be built. Chalk it up as a rest day. Christmas leave.
He heard them before he saw them. Mike and Stevie.
‘Those women last night… dios mío… but that Naiyana…’ said Mike, letting out a long whistle followed by the familiar clack of gum.
‘I prefer my women larger,’ said Stevie.
‘I know you do,’ laughed Mike.
They exited the building out into the sun. Seeing Lorcan they paused, the chatter between them coming to an abrupt halt.
‘What about Naiyana?’ asked Lorcan.
Mike’s mouth clamped shut. Stevie averted his eyes. Lorcan knew they were discussing his wife. For which he supposed he should be flattered, considering that she was his wife and not theirs but somehow he felt cuckolded by the gossip.
‘Naiyana from yesterday,’ said Stevie. He looked at Mike. ‘A stripper at a place we went to.’
‘Then an all-you-can-eat and motel with clean sheets,’ said Mike, stifling a burp. ‘Still feeling the effects today.’
‘But still stuck down a hole in the middle of summer,’ said Lorcan, making a show of basking in the stifling sun.
‘We might be dirty,’ said Mike, ‘but we’re making money.’
‘I can get my hands dirty too,’ said Lorcan, making a subtle bid to help. One he could easily retreat from if prospects weren’t favourable.
‘And you should be,’ said Mike.
Lorcan’s hopes raised that maybe there was something. That the ice was melting.
‘By fixing that roof,’ added Mike with a laugh and an annoying clack of gum.
‘I mean down there,’ said Lorcan, arching his head towards the tunnel.
‘Barely room for three,’ said Mike, throwing another piece of gum in his mouth.
79 Emmaline
A wrong turn in a place they were unfamiliar with?
Oily’s words stumbled around her head.
She returned to the dirt road and the tyre tracks. The rest of the team followed.
‘Do we inform the press?’ asked Barker. In the near distance, Anand was babysitting the two amateur pilots.
‘Is it only those two?’ asked Emmaline.
‘They came straight to us.’ Barker pointed at the female. ‘Mrs Ullathorne was an officer in Kalgoorlie for ten years. That’s her son with her.’
‘You think they can keep it quiet?’
‘If we ask nicely,’ said Barker.
‘Can you do that?’ asked Emmaline.
Barker narrowed his eyes, affronted, and went to ask the witnesses to hold a moratorium on the information. For now. It was all they could do. They couldn’t lock them up or gag them. The remote nature of the scene would give them a few hours before word leaked out.
Emmaline returned to the tracks, studying the road and the patch of dirt.
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