The Great Divide

by L. J. M. Owen

  ‘Is there a conflict of interest here?’

  ‘No,’ Murphy said, with echoes of surly.

  ‘Murphy, we have to investigate everything and everyone connected to the case without fear of what we might find.’

  Murphy nodded somewhat unconvincingly. Jake ensured the constable was occupied elsewhere when the subject of Jake’s first interview entered the station.

  *

  Charlotte Murphy didn’t enter alone.

  ‘Good morning, Evelyn,’ said Jake, striving to keep the irritation from his voice.

  ‘Dad called and said Charlotte might need me here for this.’

  ‘That was nice of him …’

  Charlotte sounded dubious, echoing Jake’s inner senti­ments.

  ‘But I’d rather do this on my own.’

  ‘How about a coffee afterwards?’ Evelyn said.

  ‘Sure!’ Charlotte smiled. ‘Then you can tell me every­thing you know about that hot new guy who’s moved in up at the manor.’

  Evelyn turned away from them both as she put her handbag on Jake’s desk. ‘He’s not someone you want to get involved with.’

  ‘Ooh, sounds like there’s goss. Okay’—she looked at Jake—‘where should I sit?’

  ‘The interview room.’ Jake led the way then closed the door behind them as Evelyn went to her father’s office. Once they were seated Jake turned on the recording devices.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘I thought you just wanted to ask some more questions?’

  ‘I do.’

  Charlotte wriggled in her seat. ‘Am I in trouble?’

  ‘Should you be?’

  She glared at him, wide-eyed. ‘I didn’t mean to make Amelia so upset. I don’t think being there when she hurt herself is a crime. It wasn’t bullying.’

  Jake considered how to use her guilt over Amelia’s attempted suicide to his advantage.

  ‘Charlotte, are you aware of what was done to Amelia when she lived at the home?’

  ‘Everyone keeps hinting at something, but no one will tell me. What’s the big secret?’

  Jake glanced at the camera in the corner of the room. ‘I need to ask you a very personal question. Are you certain you don’t want Evelyn here with you?’

  ‘Whatever it is, just ask!’

  ‘Before you became an adult, were any changes made to your genitals?’

  ‘What?!’

  Jake let his question sink in.

  She sat back, arms crossed across her chest. ‘Are you asking if I was a boy?’

  ‘No, Charlotte. I’m asking if—when you were living at the girls’ home—anything was done to alter your genitals?’

  Charlotte wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘No! Why would anyone …?’

  Jake waited.

  ‘That’s what happened to Amelia, isn’t it?’ Tears welled in her eyes. ‘Someone hurt her and that’s why she’s like this?’

  ‘You lived in the same house with her and called her your sister—you must have known something.’

  ‘I didn’t!’

  Although her denial seemed genuine, it was time to push her. ‘Amelia told you about it last Monday when you were arguing over Max Campbell, didn’t she?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Did you even discuss Max Campbell, or was that just a cover for what you really talked about?’

  ‘Of course we talked about him.’

  ‘Did Amelia tell you what Ava O’Brien had done to her?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘Did it make you angry? Furious? Did you and Amelia plan to kill her in revenge?’

  Charlotte stared at Jake with a dumbfounded expression. ‘Are you crazy?’

  ‘Ms Murphy, were you really at home on Thursday night?’

  ‘Yes, I told you I was.’

  ‘We are checking your phone records and they will show whether you called anyone and where from, so this is your chance to explain yourself.’

  ‘Check whatever you want. I haven’t done anything wrong.’

  Jake would push this scenario all the way to the end in case he picked up something of interest, but Charlotte appeared to be telling the truth.

  ‘Amelia doesn’t have a car, but you do,’ he said. ‘Did you go for a drive on Thursday night? Pick Amelia up? Go to see Ava?’

  Charlotte shook her head. Fear had entered her eyes.

  ‘Someone had to have carried Ava to where she was found. Amelia is small and unfit, but you’re a tall, strong girl. You could carry a reasonable weight,’ Jake pressed.

  She stared at the floor. ‘I didn’t know what happened to Amelia, and I didn’t hurt Ms O’Brien.’

  ‘Charlotte. Look at me.’

  She raised her head.

  ‘You have to see that, from my point of view, it’s possible. Possible Amelia told you on Monday what happened to her in the home. Possible you plotted to kill Ava O’Brien in revenge …’

  ‘No.’

  ‘… Possible you picked Amelia up in your car on Thursday night and went to Ava’s house,’ Jake continued, ‘killed her, then dumped her in the vineyard. Possible that Amelia tried to commit suicide out of guilt at what you did.’

  ‘But I didn’t, she didn’t, we didn’t!’

  ‘Can you show me anything that proves where you were on Thursday night?’

  Seconds ticked by as Charlotte stared at him. Then she smiled. ‘My sleep app!’

  ‘How does that help?’

  ‘It records my breathing and movement and backs up to the cloud. I have location services turned on, so it will show you exactly where I was all night long.’ She took a deep breath and exhaled, shaking her body, arms and hands as she did so. ‘You almost had me wondering if I was guilty.’

  A tangential thought occurred. ‘One more thing,’ he said.

  Her wariness returned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘What do you think of strawberries?’

  Jake had never hoped that someone connected to a case held a passionate dislike for a fruit. He did now.

  ‘Love ’em. Why?’

  Sighing, Jake wrapped up the interview and accompanied Charlotte to the front office where he expected Evelyn to be waiting.

  ‘I’ll be nicer to Amelia from now on,’ Charlotte said. ‘Now that I understand …’

  ‘I’m sure she will appreciate that.’ Jake smiled wanly. ‘Please ensure you email me a link to your phone’s data as soon as you get home. I’m not sure where your coffee buddy has gone…’

  ‘That’s okay. I’d rather go straight to the hospital anyway.’

  Once Charlotte had left, he checked in with Murphy. ‘Where’d Evelyn get to?’

  ‘She had to go shopping or something,’ he replied. ‘You know women.’

  ‘Hmmm. So, how’ve you gone this morning?’

  ‘Contacted all the campers, so that’s done.’ He hesitated.

  ‘What about locating other girls from the home?’

  ‘Nothing so far.’

  Jake suppressed a groan. ‘What have you tried?’

  ‘Apart from Ava O’Brien, I can’t find any records of people living there.’

  ‘But you know they did. So where have you looked?’

  Murphy looked like a kangaroo staring into the headlights of an oncoming semi-trailer. Which way would he jump?

  ‘We can ask Liam about them, he’ll be here in an hour,’ Kelly said, exiting his office. ‘I watched the video of the interview. Bit forceful, Hunter?’

  ‘Had to be, sir, time’s getting away from us.’

  ‘Fair enough. Take an hour’s break, clear your head before the next interview,’ Kelly said.

  ‘I could start writing up …’ Jake began.

  ‘That’s an order,’ Kelly said. ‘Clear your head.’

  Time to replenish his meag
re kitchen supplies, then.

  *

  The fog had become, if anything, thicker. Far above, the sun shone brightly, turning the sea of mist into a blinding wall of light. As he exited the station, Jake donned his sunglasses to ward off the glare. Though small, the town’s one and only supermarket was surprisingly well-stocked. Jake’s repetitive consumption of two-minute noodles boiled down to the ease with which he could make them, as well as the predictability of flavour and texture. There weren’t many other options when it came to dealing with a kitchen that consisted of a sink and a kettle. Once he had electricity in the cottage, he hoped to expand his range of culinary creations.

  As he wandered the aisles, Jake mulled over a discussion with Kelly earlier in the week—before he’d discovered Ava’s corpse—on the extent to which community policing required a sensible interpretation and application of the law.

  Jake’s superior officer lived in a world where he was the highest authority on most local matters. Fifteen-minute and half-hour parking time limits were not to be enforced, for example. Caught between a lack of longer-term council parking on the main street and various residents’ lobby groups—who wanted both more and less parking—each attempt to give a ticket in recent years had resulted in a drawn-out battle in petty claims court. Kelly had made a unilateral decision that parking restrictions were not to be enforced.

  Kelly and Murphy were also clearly aware of a roaring black-market trade in illegally butchered meat, raw milk and untaxed goods and services bartered or traded for at local cash rates of twenty dollars an hour. This fee structure seemed to apply to all tasks, regardless of difficulty or complexity.

  ‘You’ve got to listen to the people here,’ Kelly had said. ‘Get to know them before you can judge what’s important,’

  Perhaps Jake should work on understanding the people of his new community better. He tuned in to the conversation happening one aisle over, in the dried goods section.

  ‘… not sure if I should say anything,’ a woman was saying. ‘Sally wants us to go to theirs, but did you see what she looked like at church last week?’

  ‘Doesn’t she have any shame?’ a second woman said. ‘Letting everyone see her face like that.’

  Jake hoped Sally had had a bad make-up day.

  ‘Those boys of hers will never amount to anything if she doesn’t start reigning them in,’ woman one said.

  Did Sally belong to one of the town’s ‘difficult’ families, as Kelly called them?

  ‘School’s all well and good,’ woman two said, ‘but it’s time to get them started on real work or they won’t be able to handle the farm when they get older.’

  Sally’s boys weren’t experiencing the type of difficulties Jake had imagined.

  ‘Your eldest, Stephanie,’ woman two continued, ‘is she pregnant yet?’

  Woman one tsked. ‘I don’t know what they’re waiting for. They’ve been married for a year.’

  ‘How about you? Do you have a boyfriend yet?’

  Woman two’s tone indicated she was speaking to a third person who sat a little lower in Dunton’s pecking order.

  ‘No.’

  Bingo. Delivered with the resentfulness of the much-put-upon younger person.

  ‘She should really get a wriggle on too, before things start going south,’ woman one said.

  ‘Mum, I am standing right here. And I’ve told you, I’m not interested.’

  ‘Just you wait, the right young man will come along and that will all change,’ woman two said.

  ‘Argh.’

  Jake heard the clomp of hard-heeled boots heading down the aisle.

  ‘I guess we should go,’ woman one said.

  ‘See you Sunday,’ woman two said.

  Paying for his stack of dehydrated noodles wrapped in neon-coloured plastic, Jake wasn’t certain he had gleaned any knowledge of locals from that exercise. Nonetheless, he’d continue to ‘listen to the community’—which definitely included eavesdropping—to see if it helped him orient himself in this new landscape.

  Stopping to peer into other shopfronts along the street he found only one other establishment open on the block, an arts and craft store located near three cafés with closed signs. From the thick layer of dust in each window, Jake gathered the cafés had all been closed since summer’s end.

  The proprietor of the craft shop had chosen to battle through the winter. Looking at the prices of the items in their gaudily lit window display, they’d only need to make one or two sales a week to make ends meet. Passing tourists were apparently happy to purchase all-natural stick-and-macramé hangings for three hundred dollars as long as they were crafted by local artists. Perhaps he should retire one day to the world of handicrafts, Jake mused as he strolled back to the station, the neck flaps of his jacket clasped tightly together in one hand, his bag of noodles swinging in the other.

  Once back at the office, as the time for Liam O’Brien’s arrival approached, Kelly took Jake aside.

  ‘I might sit in on this one,’ he said. ‘Balance you out a bit, eh, Hunter?’

  Jake thinned his lips.

  ‘I know you’re keen, but he has just lost his sister—his last surviving family member, I believe?’

  ‘Apparently so.’

  ‘Look, ask what you need to, but just go gently, all right?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And I don’t think there’s any need to burden him with the details of her last few hours, okay?’

  ‘But …’

  ‘Is his alibi solid?’

  ‘Seems to be.’

  ‘Then he wasn’t responsible for what was done to her. There’s no need to distress him any further.’

  ‘It’ll be in the papers sooner or later.’

  ‘Let him get through the initial shock first.’

  *

  Dunton’s police station harkened from the 1950s. With its worn, resealed floorboards and faded beige paintwork damaged by regular blue-tac use, it seemed imbued with a mild sadness.

  It suited the Liam O’Brien who arrived at the front counter today. Apparently the impact of his sister’s demise had not been wiped away by a single prayer.

  ‘I need to know what happened to Ava,’ he said as he, Jake and Kelly gathered in the interview room.

  ‘It’s all I’m working on, Mr O’Brien,’ Jake said.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘If you’re happy to answer some questions it might help us piece more together.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘What can you tell us about Ava’s lifestyle? Not just in the last few years, but when she was younger?’

  ‘What are you asking?’

  ‘So far, everyone is painting a picture of a woman who spent decades looking after foster children, then retired to spend the majority of her time quilting. But what was Ava like when she was younger, before she moved to Dunton?’

  ‘Much the same.’

  ‘You mean she looked after children then too?’

  ‘She was a kindergarten teacher.’

  ‘In Melbourne?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And did she have a more outgoing lifestyle when she lived there?’

  Liam O’Brien frowned.

  ‘He’s asking if she went to parties, had boyfriends, that kind of thing,’ Kelly translated.

  ‘Oh no, nothing like that. Not Ava.’

  Jake flicked his eyes to Kelly. ‘Okay. I need to ask you something more personal,’ he said.

  ‘If it helps.’

  ‘Was there any bad feeling between you and your sister?’

  ‘Why would there be?’

  ‘How about between Ava and the girls at the home? Did she get along with them?’

  ‘She dedicated her whole life to looking after them.’

  ‘Did you have much to do with th
e girls?’

  O’Brien shook his head.

  ‘You didn’t look after them on your own each year when your sister took a holiday?’

  O’Brien shrugged. ‘Not every year. Just a few days every now and then to give her a break.’

  ‘And how did you find that?’

  ‘I’m no natural when it comes to kids and they knew it. I let them eat what they wanted, do what they wanted. As long as they helped me clean up the day before Ava was due home, we all got along fine.’

  ‘And where would Ava go?’

  ‘Back to Melbourne to visit her friends.’

  ‘Did she seek funds for the home when she went back?’

  ‘She was just visiting friends.’

  ‘Do you know how Ava was able to pay for the home?’

  ‘A charity helped out. St John of God.’

  ‘Do you know why that particular charity chose to fund a girls’ home in the middle of country Tasmania?’

  ‘Ava was clever like that. She could be very persuasive when it came to the welfare of the girls.’

  ‘We’ve been unable to find Ava’s records for the home as of yet. Financials, fostering or adoption records for the children who passed through, that kind of thing. Do you know where the files might be?’

  O’Brien looked unconcerned. ‘In a cabinet at her house, I’d say. Maybe in her quilting room?’

  ‘Do you know where the children she fostered came from?’

  ‘The government sent them. Why all these questions about the girls from the home? Do you believe they had something to do with Ava’s death?’

  Jake sidestepped the question. ‘When your sister moved here to Dunton, you followed?’

  ‘We were each other’s only family.’

  ‘How did you make a living?’

  ‘Once I moved here I did whatever came along—farm labour, manual labour, driving trucks and the like. I may not look it now, but I was once young and fit, y’know.’

  ‘And what did you do in Melbourne before you moved here?’

  ‘I was a gardener.’

  ‘You said Ava dedicated her whole life to looking after the girls at the home.’ Jake looped the conversation back.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did your sister have a background in medicine?’

  ‘Not that I know of. But she took good care of those children.’