‘And you? Do you have any medical training?’
O’Brien’s expression didn’t so much as flicker. He merely shook his head.
Jake judged his lack of surprise at the question to be disingenuous. While there were no hints so far of Ava’s brother having been involved in either her death or what had been done to Amelia, Jake felt something was amiss. Apart from anything else, O’Brien had had greater access to both his sister and the girls’ home than any other adult. He wondered how he could exert pressure on O’Brien.
‘Liam,’ Kelly said, extending his hand across the table, ‘thanks for coming in today. That’s been very useful.’
He wouldn’t get the chance today, apparently. Think fast, Hunter. ‘Yes, thank you, we really appreciate it,’ he said. ‘I know this must be a difficult time for you. Would you like me to pick you up at ten a.m. tomorrow and drive you to the hospital to identify Ava?’
‘Good idea,’ Kelly said. ‘Hunter needs to head there anyway, and it will save you driving, Liam.’
‘If you think it’s a good idea, certainly.’
*
‘How’re you going?’ Jake asked Murphy in a break between interviews.
‘Fine.’ The constable’s tone said anything but.
‘What have you got so far?’
‘Erm …’
‘Were you listening in to the interview?’
‘Yep.’
‘I’ll check Ava’s home for her files when I head out later this afternoon. We need to find her adoption records then try to track down the other girls. You start searching for this St John of God charity.’
‘It’s Sunday.’
‘So? The internet doesn’t observe the Sabbath, Murphy.’
‘What did you get for lunch?’
‘I didn’t eat anything in the end.’
‘How about we grab something fast now?’
‘What are our options?’
‘Boss’ll nip home for a hot lunch. I reckon we deserve a pizza,’ said Murphy.
‘Not my favourite.’
‘Only thing open on Sunday afternoon. Takeaway doesn’t open for dinner till five.’
After one slice of the drooping, doughy mess coated in barely melted cheese, Jake gave up. He worked his way through three apples instead as Murphy ploughed through a family-sized pie on his own.
The two men were working on paperwork in silence when the station’s front door opened. Jake looked up from correcting Murphy’s wayward reports as Amelia MacDonald’s parents entered the station.
‘I’ll sit in on this one too,’ Kelly said, back from his roast lunch at home.
Bastard.
‘Sure,’ Jake said.
‘Sorry about all this, mate,’ Kelly said, shaking Mr MacDonald’s hand as they took their seats in the interview room.
‘How is Amelia today?’ Jake asked Mary, pushing a plastic cup of water toward her across the old wooden table.
‘She’s going to be okay,’ Mary smiled tightly. ‘I didn’t want to leave her, but Charlotte arrived at the hospital shortly before we had to leave, so at least she has some company. Even though they fight all the time, they really do care about each other.’
‘Mr and Mrs MacDonald, I need to ask you some tough questions,’ Jake said.
‘Okay,’ they answered simultaneously.
‘Whatever you need,’ Mary added.
‘We have reason to believe Amelia may have been treated inappropriately either while in your care or while living at the girls’ home.’
Mr MacDonald groaned. ‘Not this again.’
Jake looked at him sharply. ‘Why do you say that?’
’You didn’t tell him?’ MacDonald asked Kelly.
‘I can’t discuss an unsubstantiated claim that we specifically agreed would not be raised again,’ Kelly said pleasantly.
What the fuck? Had Kelly been withholding something relevant to Jake’s case?
‘But …’ MacDonald said.
‘This relates to a potential murder enquiry, Mr MacDonald,’ Jake said firmly, not trusting himself to look at Kelly yet. ‘Tell me what you know.’
‘What I know is that I was accused of interfering with my own daughter just a couple of years after she came to live with us. She was only sixteen.’
‘Did Amelia make allegations against you?’
He shook his head. ‘It was one of those nut job counsellors at the hospital.’
‘What specifically did she accuse you of?’
‘That’s just it—nothing. She said she be-lieved,’ he sneered, ‘Amelia showed signs of sexual trauma, and as there were no men in her previous home, and because I was so … umm …’
‘Hostile,’ his wife interjected. Jake was surprised Mary MacDonald could be so scathing.
‘Er, yeah, hostile toward her,’ MacDonald continued, ‘the counsellor suspected I had done something. Only she wasn’t sure what because Amelia insisted I didn’t touch her.’ He puffed himself up. ‘Which I bloody well didn’t!’
‘Why would the counsellor make such a suggestion then?’
‘We’re not sure, Mr Hunter,’ Mary said. ‘Amelia isn’t well mentally—we know that—but we’ve never been able to figure out why.’
‘What do you mean by “not well mentally”?’
‘As I said yesterday, it started after she came to live with us. On her first day at school the other kids bullied her and called her “bad”, even though the teacher said she didn’t make any trouble.’ Her voice caught. ‘How could those girls from the home be bad? They were just babies when they arrived. They lived quiet, blameless lives.’
Jake shaped his words carefully. ‘So you don’t believe Amelia was abused at the girls’ home?’
‘She’s never said anything about it, and I know Charlotte insists nothing ever happened to her. But it’s the only thing that explains …’ her voice dropped to a whisper, ‘… everything.’
‘Explains what, Mary?’
‘She’s missing …’ She looked at her husband. ‘One of the doctors asked Amelia yesterday about her … um … lady parts.’
Scott MacDonald looked outraged.
‘It’s Amelia’s business if she doesn’t want to tell us,’ Mary rushed on, ‘but I take it something’s not … normal down there.’
MacDonald exploded. ‘What are you saying? Someone did interfere with her?’
‘Calm down,’ his wife fixed him with a glare.
‘I understand, mate,’ Kelly said. ‘She’s your little girl.’
MacDonald did seem to be genuinely surprised by the news, which told Jake that Mary MacDonald didn’t turn to her husband for comfort when she first discovered what had been done to their daughter.
‘Mr and Mrs MacDonald,’ he said. ‘Can you please tell me about the damage done to Amelia’s fingers and toes? I could see at the hospital that there were significant injuries to both.’
MacDonald shrugged. ‘It’s just something she does.’
Mary sighed. ‘Nothing we’ve ever tried has helped her. Even when we wrap her hands up at night she undoes it all and picks at them in her sleep. There’ll be blood all over her sheets in the morning, but she says she can’t remember doing it.’
‘Has she ever told you why she does it?’
‘She’s only said that it somehow makes her feel better.’ Mary began to cry.
Scott MacDonald puffed himself up again. Apparently it was his go-to move. ‘That’s enough.’
Kelly nodded. ‘We probably have everything we need for today, wouldn’t you say, Hunter?’
Jake had quite a few more questions for the MacDonalds, but suspected he’d get further talking to Mary sans Kelly and her husband. He’d call her tomorrow and arrange to meet.
‘Of course, you’ve had a long day.’ He stood up to show
them out.
*
Jake had one more interrogation to conduct for the day, but it was of a location rather than a person.
He was yet to identify where Ava was attacked and had her fingernails removed, and how she was transported. But he might be able to piece together where her body arrived at the vineyard and work backwards.
He’d studied satellite images of the area surrounding the Campbell manor. There appeared to be dirt roads or fire trails in the bush behind the house and he wanted to see if he could find traces of a vehicle entering the estate there, without necessarily approaching the manor driveway.
Dusk threatened as he drove along Dunton’s winding roads once more, squinting against the bounce back of his headlights on waves of vapour. Perhaps it was too late in the day for this to be worth the effort, but either way it gave him some much-needed breathing space from Kelly and Murphy.
Visibility was reduced to just twenty metres or so. Jake could see the fence on either side of the road, and the vague outline of the gum trees behind them, but little else. He slowed to a crawl to wade through a sudden mob of pademelons, the kangaroo’s much smaller cousin, who seemed determined to fling themselves into the path of his tyres. He breathed deeply, trying to relax. Both mind and body ached for the release of a climb, though that luxury seemed as unobtainable here as it had in Melbourne.
As he drove, he analysed his progress so far. He’d passed on Max Campbell’s concerns about his wife to Kelly, who agreed to let him head back to Sydney as soon as he had his father sorted out. So that was at least one positive thing Jake had been able to do for someone since arriving.
Despite Max’s own concerns that he might be a suspect, it seemed a long bow to draw without a clear motive. Although he had means and opportunity, Jake could find nothing to indicate Max’s return to Dunton just days before Ava O’Brien’s demise was related to her murder.
Mason Campbell’s age and frailty also ruled him out. Although, in the same way Jake had wondered if Amelia and Charlotte might have worked together to kill and dump Ava, he had to consider the possibility that Mason and Max could potentially have teamed up. Did Mason have a clear-cut reason to want Ava gone? Either way, dumping someone you just killed on your own property would be mad—even for Mason Campbell.
The hideously creaky gate of the Mason property swung open grudgingly. Wings chopped through the nearby air, a murder of crows passing just metres from Jake's head as he plodded up the drive to the manor’s front door. It was only courtesy to let the Campbells know he was here. The last thing he needed was Kelly or Murphy distracted by a report of an intruder on the property.
There was no answer.
He knocked a second time.
Jake recalled that they seemed to spend the majority of their time in the kitchen. He walked around the side of the building to knock on the window, tripping on untamed tree roots in the semi-darkness.
The light was on, as well as a radio. He leant forward to peer inside.
There was a body slumped in the middle of the floor. From this angle Jake couldn’t tell if it was the senior or junior Campbell.
He raced to the back door, found it open, and rushed inside to check for a pulse.
Chapter Eight
Dunton, Tasmania
Sunday, 6.37 p.m.
Mason lay on the floor. Jake paused momentarily to take in the scene and ensure they were alone.
There were no signs of anyone else having been in the room recently. One tea mug sat on the table and a single cast-iron frypan lay on on the stainless-steel draining board next to the sink, still glistening from being washed. Otherwise, nothing.
Jake knelt beside Mason Campbell and checked for a pulse. The old bugger was still alive, despite the blood pooled beneath his head.
With a heavy sense of déjà vu, Jake called for an ambulance.
Once he had seen the unconscious old man safely strapped to a gurney and off to hospital—his fretting son Max following in his rental car—Jake rang Doctor Gill.
‘You don’t have to send someone our way every day, you know,’ she said.
‘I’ll cancel our order for tomorrow,’ Jake kidded back.
‘Did it look like an accident, or …?’
‘Or, unfortunately. At first I thought he’d collapsed and hit his head on a chair or the table on the way down, but the way he was lying made that unlikely. Judging by the size of the wound, he appears to have been struck from behind by something substantial while he was standing in the middle of the kitchen.’
‘Any witnesses?’
‘No. His son was upstairs at the time.’ Max was also currently the only suspect in the attack on his father, if that’s what it was.
‘Do you think this is related to your murder case?’
‘I don’t want to jump to conclusions, but …’ Jake was about to launch into a rundown of his case, and the possible implications of this latest development, when he pulled himself up. He may have been feeling tired, even a touch overwhelmed by the speed with which this investigation was gaining complexity, but that was no excuse for inappropriately sharing details with someone he barely knew. He just had to suck it up, keep moving forward and trust in his skills as a detective to find the answers.
‘To be honest, I was calling in the hope that your day has been more productive than mine.’
‘Sorry to disappoint, but I haven’t had a chance to examine Ava O’Brien any further, and I haven’t found anything useful in our archives for you. There are no records of Ava or anyone from the address you gave for the girls’ home coming in. The Campbells in the house next door, yes—Mrs Campbell gave birth to Max here, then later she needed minor surgery after a burst ovarian cyst. And Mason has attended for a few farm injuries over the years, but otherwise nothing.’
‘Is that unusual?’
‘Some people avoid going to hospital their entire lives. But there should be immunisation or dental records for the children who passed through the home somewhere. Not here though.’
‘Did your colleague get in touch about Amelia MacDonald?’ asked Jake.
‘She described what she saw on Amelia.’ Meena Gill’s voice had dulled. ‘I’d say we’re talking about the same mutilation as Ava.’
‘Amelia’s mother said the other girl from the home, Charlotte Murphy, visited Amelia earlier this afternoon. Any chance the hospital would have security camera footage?’
‘You’re wondering if these two girls might have had something to do with Ava’s death?’
‘If someone did that to me, I’d sure as hell plot revenge.’
‘I’ll get in touch with security, ask them to give you a call. They might have footage that can clear both girls of being anywhere near Mason Campbell this afternoon, at least.’
Jake was impressed. ‘You think like a detective.’
‘What do you think a forensic pathologist does?’
‘Touché.’
*
That night, in the dank surrounds of the station’s breakout area, Jake pushed through a mountain of forms related to the day’s events. Murphy’s latest foray into the art of the written word was excruciating, so he’d decided to fill out the critical papers himself. A pang of homesickness—and if he was honest, a desire to procrastinate—nudged him to relent and finally call Nic back.
‘I’ll bet you’re having two-minute noodles for dinner,’ she said.
‘Nope. Burger.’ He glanced at the congealing remains of a beetroot-stained bun and soggy chips on the tiny kitchenette bench. He should have tried the Chinese instead.
‘Had a chance to go climbing yet?’
‘Sadly, no.’
‘How’s the new job?’
‘One week in and I’ve got a suspected homicide, a related suicide attempt and—as of this evening—what appears to be a connected grievous bodily harm.’
‘In other words, you’re loving it.’
It felt good to banter with her again. ‘Nic, I …’
‘Can you at least tell me why you left?’
‘I did tell you.’ Jake bit down on his annoyance. ‘You just didn’t hear me. I got tired of feeling sick to the stomach at work every day. And it was my supposed colleagues making me feel that way …’
‘So you ran away?’
He wasn’t the only angry one.
‘I did not run away.’
‘There’s no need to shout at me.’
‘You’re not listening.’ He groaned with frustration. ‘I’ve got, what, twenty, thirty years of work to go? I want to enjoy them, not just grind through hating every moment. I need to figure out what to do with the rest of my life.’
‘And you had to leave to do that?’
‘I needed time to think. A change. I had to get away from Melbourne …’
‘And me, apparently.’
How did she manage to do that, every time? ‘Geezus.’
‘Well, explain why you didn’t tell me you were leaving.’
‘You would have talked me out of it.’
‘I … ah. That’s a fair point, I guess.’
Finally, she was listening to him.
‘Am I too overbearing?’
‘Seriously?’ He managed a vaguely teasing tone. ‘Not everything’s about you.’
‘Well, how about—after you’ve had some time down there to think—we come and visit you? Tassie’s beautiful, right?’
Too dangerous. ‘Can we play it by ear?’
‘Sure.’
Jake could hear the injury in her voice. But he couldn’t lie to her for long, face to face. She’d push and prod until she pieced together what forced him to transfer, and he couldn’t do that to her.
‘Nic, I …’
‘I have to go. Pete’s putting dinner on the table. I’ll call you again later.’
When she did, Jake let it go to voicemail.
*
Jake had experienced the cold before, at temperatures far lower than those in Dunton. He had climbed three of the higher mountains on the planet, for goodness’ sake. So why was the cold in Dunton eating through to the bone like nothing had before? He tried adding a pair of gloves as he prepared for bed in the hopes that the nerve endings in his hands would not complain in the morning.
The Great Divide Page 10
