The Great Divide

by L. J. M. Owen

  ‘I tried doing it to Maria, but she threatened to leave.’

  ‘But why do it at all?’

  ‘They deserve it.’ Kelly shook Evelyn by the neck again, contempt playing across his face. ‘All of them. It was her fault.’

  ‘Your mother? How?’

  ‘If she’d just done what he told her to he wouldn’t have had to beat us.’

  ‘Is that what he said?’

  ‘Every time she didn’t keep the house the way he told her to, didn’t make dinner the way her told her to, he would belt one of us.’

  ‘How was that her fault?’

  ‘He would make us pick the strap he used …’ Kelly seemed lost in the past, though he didn’t loosen his grip on Evelyn’s neck. ‘If we chose the thinner belt it hurt more, but there were fewer strokes across our backs.’

  ‘Are you saying she told him to do it?’

  Kelly sneered. ‘She didn’t tell him to do anything. She was weak. All she did was stand there crying and watch him belt us.’

  ‘Then why do you blame her?’

  ‘If she had just done what he told her to, he wouldn’t have hurt any of us!’

  Evelyn managed a few gasps of air, her face blooming red.

  Nothing Jake had said so far had provoked Kelly sufficiently to move from his position. Where should he try to take this?

  ‘That doesn’t explain why, as an adult, you chose to rip out the fingernails of innocent girls.’

  The colour began to recede from Evelyn’s face again.

  ‘I told you, they deserved it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Women let evil into the world.’

  Jake was willing to believe religious dogma lay at the heart of the O’Briens’ sickening crimes, but he didn’t think it had anything to do with Kelly’s depravity.

  ‘That’s not it.’

  Kelly’s face curled into a self-satisfied smile. ‘If you ever tried it, you’d understand.’

  ‘Explain it to me.’

  ‘It’s the resistance to the pliers, the pop when the nail pulls away from the bed, the blood that wells up then drips from their fingertips …’

  Was every man in this town a sadistic arsehole?

  ‘And that’s the secret you were afraid Ava might reveal, wasn’t it?’

  ‘No.’

  Jake tried again. ‘When Evelyn told you that Ava was upset over what had happened to the girls at the home, you thought she was talking about you pulling their fingernails out.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ava had no idea that you were involved, you know that, right? O’Brien was clever about it—he kept the three of you separate to avoid issues just like this. He was smarter than he appeared to be.’

  Kelly didn’t respond.

  ‘You didn’t know what Ava and Liam were doing to the girls, or what Campbell was doing either, did you?’

  Jake tried to judge Evelyn’s state, predict what she might do when Jake took his next stab.

  ‘You knew something was off when you took that runaway girl back to the home, though. What did you and O’Brien agree to that day so he’d let you torture Ava’s girls? I guess you used something you had on him?’

  Kelly’s death grip on Evelyn remained.

  ‘You killed Ava for nothing. You killed Liam and tried to frame him for her murder, all for nothing.’

  Kelly double-blinked.

  Was Jake on the right track?

  ‘You falsely arrested the Campbells to try and cover your tracks. But it amounted to nothing.’ Though God knows Mason Campbell should be hung, drawn and quartered for his abuses.

  ‘Now here you are, trying to frame and kill your own daughter to cover the rest, and you’ve fucked that up too. Let’s face it, Aiden, you’re a loser.’

  Kelly’s face flushed.

  Berating him was the key! ‘You’ve lost everything because you couldn’t hold your nerve.’

  ‘I can still get out of this.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  ‘I’m not a fucking loser! I run this town.’

  ‘You sound as stupid as Murphy right now.’

  ‘Listen you litt—’

  Kelly removed one hand from Evelyn’s neck in order to point a finger at Jake.

  In the space between two heartbeats Jake raised the angle of his weapon and shot at Kelly’s hand, hitting his target. Kelly dropped Evelyn and rolled on to his back clutching the bloodied mess and howling in pain. His daughter scrambled across the floor to Jake’s side.

  Momentarily elated, Jake stood, circled to the right to train his gun on Kelly’s head, and gestured for his former boss to roll on to his stomach. ‘Put your hands behind your head,’ he growled.

  Like so many cowards, once brought to ground, Kelly complied without question.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Dunton, Tasmania

  Friday, 8.35 a.m.

  Jake bundled Senior Sergeant Kelly into the back of his cruiser in cuffs, having staunched the blood with a mound of extremely tight bandages. An ambulance was on its way to Dunton for the fifth time in a week. Dispatch had said a cheery hello when she recognised Jake’s voice. FSST, three back-up officers and a pair of CSIs were also—finally—on their way by helicopter.

  The problem was Evelyn. She refused to get in the car.

  ‘I need to go for a walk to clear my head.’

  ‘Evelyn,’ Jake said, ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea right now. You’re in shock and your neck is badly bruised. It’s important for the paramedics to look you over.’

  ‘I’m not getting in that car.’

  ‘I can’t leave you on your own.’

  ‘I’ll call … um, Charlotte. She’ll come and keep me company.’

  ‘Are you sure she’ll come here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Jake waited for Charlotte to arrive in her tiny hatch­back, explained Evelyn’s condition to her, and ensured they would wait together in Charlotte’s car for the paramedics to arrive.

  For Jake, the journey to the station passed in silence. His mind was on fire with questions he wanted to hurl at Kelly, but it had to wait until he could capture it all on tape. He also wanted to scream in fury at the man, but he knew the time for that would never arrive. He’d have to store that up for the top of a lonely cliff.

  *

  Jake settled into a chair across the table from Kelly in the interview room, a female officer from Hobart next to him. He ensured all three recording devices in the room were switched on. A steady red light on the top of the camera gave him his cue.

  ‘Please state your name,’ Jake said.

  Kelly stared past his ear at the wall behind him.

  ‘You are Senior Sergeant Aiden Kelly of Dunton. Is that correct?’

  The female officer cleared her throat.

  ‘You have been stationed here for the past thirty-five years, is that correct?’

  Kelly hadn’t blinked since they sat down.

  ‘Mister Kelly …’

  He blinked.

  Dropping his title annoyed him. Good to know.

  ‘…You are under arrest for the suspected murder of Ava O’Brien and Liam O’Brien, being an accessory to the murder of multiple children, multiple counts of grievous bodily harm of minors, multiple counts of child abuse and neglect, multiple counts of perverting the course of justice, and the attempted murder of your own daughter.’

  Nothing.

  Jake flicked his eyes to the officer beside him. She was glaring at Kelly, her eyes burning.

  ‘Two Thursdays ago, your daughter Evelyn Kelly mentioned to you that one of her clients, Charlotte Murphy, was disturbed by something Ava O’Brien had said to her. It was to do with things that happened to Amelia MacDonald while she was at the girls’ home, and Ava wanting to tel
l someone what happened. What did you think Ava was referring to?’

  Kelly remained silent.

  ‘Did you panic, thinking that after all these years Ava was going to go public about your torture of the girls?’

  Kelly stared solemnly ahead.

  ‘You decided to remove Ava as a threat, didn’t you? You went to her home—where you knew she would be alone in the early hours of Friday morning—knocked on the door so that she let you in, put your hands around her throat, and strangled her. Then you laid her out on a plastic tarpaulin, sat on her and pulled her fingernails out with pliers.’

  The attending officer recoiled slightly.

  ‘You then stuffed her in a bag, drove her to Mason Campbell’s vineyard along fire trails through the bush, carried her to the middle of the vineyard, and dumped her body.’

  Kelly somehow contrived to look bored.

  ‘It was dawn when you left with the bag you’d carried her in draped across your shoulders. The boy you came across in the vineyard—Jamie Taylor—took your giant silhouette for a monster in the fog. When you realised he hadn’t seen your face, did you think you were in the clear?’

  Again, Kelly refused to answer.

  ‘When Liam O’Brien saw his sister’s fingertips at the morgue he knew who had killed her though, didn’t he? That’s why you had asked Murphy and me not to mention the damage to her hands to him, wasn’t it?’

  The female officer shifted in her seat.

  ‘From the moment I told you Liam had behaved strangely after seeing her hand, you knew he was on to you. From that point on it became a cat and mouse game of you trying to silence him before he could find a way to leave town.’

  Still no response.

  ‘In the end you cornered him, knocked him unconscious, strangled him, and staged his death to look like a suicide—complete with a note from him claiming responsibility for Ava’s murder.’

  Kelly remained silent.

  ‘When it became apparent that your attempt to make it look like a suicide didn’t work, you moved on to plan B—contriving to have Mason and Max Campbell arrested for both murders. Mason Campbell is a serial child rapist and deserves to be put away for the remainder of his life, but Max—as far as I can tell—is not guilty of anything here.’ Jake tried to elicit a response by shouting. ‘You would have put an innocent man in gaol to cover for your crimes!’

  Still nothing. Jake wondered if Kelly was hearing anything he said at this point. His eyes were open, but perhaps he had drifted into the void behind them.

  ‘To cap it all off, today you attempted to kill your own daughter and stage her death as a suicide, setting her up to take the blame for any crimes the Campbells were found innocent of. You have nothing to say about any of this?’

  Kelly looked at Jake. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong. You’re mistaken on all counts, and I’ll see you tossed out of the force for false arrest.’

  His light, calm tone made Jake’s skin crawl.

  ‘I caught you red-handed—literally—trying to force poisoned strawberries into your daughter’s mouth, to both kill and implicate her in the deaths of Ava and Liam O’Brien.’

  ‘You misread the situation.’

  Jake snorted. ‘I’m sure Evelyn will make a statement that you tried to kill her.’

  ‘She won’t.’ There was not even a suggestion of doubt in Kelly’s manner. ‘She’s a good girl, she’ll tell you it was all a misunderstanding.’

  ‘I doubt that. In the end, though, it doesn’t matter what Evelyn says.’

  Kelly laughed. ‘You don’t have any evidence against me.’

  Jake savoured the moment. He smiled broadly, leaned back and slowly put his hands behind his head, lacing the fingers together. ‘Except …’

  Confusion and curiosity—but not fear—vied for position on Kelly’s face. ‘You’ve got nothing.’

  ‘… for the collected fingernails of your victims that you kept in the rainmaker in your study …’

  Kelly’s nostrils flared.

  ‘… that are now on the way to the pathology lab for identification.’

  Jake’s quarry snarled. ‘How did you find …?’ Kelly regained his composure and returned to staring implacably ahead.

  *

  Nothing else Jake said in the interview room goaded Kelly into a response.

  It didn’t need to. Jake had everything he needed.

  It might take a few days, but the DNA from those fingernails would tie Kelly back to Ava, Lilith, Amelia and God knew how many other girls.

  Murphy was in the corridor outside the interview room when Jake and the officer from Hobart emerged to march Kelly to the holding cell.

  ‘You’re Stewart Murphy’s brother, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘That stupid little bastard,’ Kelly muttered. ‘This is all his fault.’

  ‘What?’ Murphy said.

  ‘Your little cunt of a brother,’ Kelly spat at Murphy. ’If he’d just kept it in his pants he would’ve been in Hunter’s job.’

  ‘How is any of this to do with us?’

  ‘You owe me.’

  ‘You think I’d cover for you on a murder?’ Murphy appeared genuinely taken aback.

  It was all too rich for Jake. ‘Geezus, Murphy,’ he bellowed. ‘He pulled strings to get you assigned to his station knowing you’re a serial rapist. Of course that’s what he was counting on.’

  The constable’s face drained, then flushed, his mouth gaping open and closed like a goldfish.

  ‘What the hell?’ the Hobart officer said. ‘Are we arresting him too?’

  ‘Unfortunately not,’ Jake said.

  ‘Just to be clear, it’s this one who goes to custody in the ambulance,’ she stabbed a thumb at Kelly. ‘The younger Campbell goes free, and this’—she narrowed her eyes at Murphy—‘continues to wear the uniform.’

  ‘You got it. For now.’

  She nodded grimly.

  Murphy slunk away.

  ‘I have to get back to the scene where I arrested Kelly,’ Jake said.

  ‘Is that where the younger Campbell needs to go?’

  ‘Yes. I was going to drive him back, but I need to head back out there right now. Once Max is processed, please give him a ride back to his address.’

  ‘You can’t wait?’ she asked.

  ‘I had to leave Kelly’s daughter in the care of a civilian.’

  ‘Alive then?’

  ‘And kicking. Badly bruised throat though, and probably in shock.’

  ‘I thought it was meant to be quiet out here in the country.’

  Jake’s laugh emerged as a bark. ‘Ha! So did I. Are any of the CSI team ready to accompany me?’

  ‘I am.’ Another FSST officer stuck out her hand. ‘Constable Harris.’

  ‘Pleasure.’

  ‘Why did you need to leave the daughter at the scene?’

  ‘She refused to get in the same vehicle as her father,’ Jake said.

  ‘I can relate,’ Harris said, stretching her lips to bare her teeth.

  *

  Evelyn stood at the edge of the manor driveway survey­ing the CSI team in their puffy DNA-retaining outfits drifting through the misty vineyard like small white clouds in the dreary grounds. She’d refused to be transported to hospital, and also refused to sit inside with Charlotte. She wanted to wait out in the cold for Max to return so she could apologise to him for her father’s behaviour. Jake had pointed out that she had nothing to apologise for where her father was concerned, and that Max’s own father was equally guilty.

  ‘I want to make sure that he’s okay,’ was her only reply.

  Jake could see she was struggling to stay upright. He wavered between sympathy for her situation and fury at the role she had played in all this.

  ‘Are you certain I can’t ask Charlotte to
take you home?’

  ‘No!’

  ‘All right then. In that case, I need to speak with you.’

  ‘Can’t it wait?’

  ‘No.’ Jake led her several metres down the hill, halfway between the cluster of police vehicles and the CSI team.

  ‘What?’ she said as they came to a halt.

  ‘I could charge you as well, as an accessory,’ Jake said, hoping to shock her into focusing on his next words.

  It worked.

  ‘What? But I never touched Ava or any of those children.’

  ‘You did break the confidence of your client, though, didn’t you? You told your father about Charlotte’s conversations with Ava. You told him Ava had started to worry about the past, about harm done to Amelia while she was in the home, wondering if someone needed to be told the truth about what happened. That’s what set this whole thing in motion–’

  She gasped. ‘How dare you blame me for any of this?!’

  ‘But I’ve realised there’s no one I can report you to because you don’t belong to any professional association. In fact, you have no qualifications in counselling whatsoever, do you?’

  Evelyn’s expression hardened. ‘I’ve read the requirements. It’s legal.’

  ‘But hardly ethical.’

  ‘I have a natural affinity with people.’

  Jake refrained from comment.

  ‘I perceive what they’re feeling,’ she continued, ‘often without them having to describe it.’

  ‘Are you saying you don’t feel any responsibility for Ava’s death?’

  ‘Why should I?’

  Her indignation made it easy for him to continue.

  ‘You do know why you’re the only counsellor in the area, don’t you?’

  She squared her shoulders. ‘I’m the only one who could stick it out.’

  ‘No, because your father ran the others out of town. Did you help him?’

  She looked at him in disbelief. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘A month or two after opening for business they each started reporting vandalism—’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

  ‘Bricks through back windows, dog shit under the door, that kind of thing.’

  ‘I never witnessed anything like that. Why would he do that?’