by Candice Fox
‘This is all just guesswork so far,’ Superfish noted. Amanda looked at him, standing by the side of the shaft, one of those big hands in his tiny pocket again, straining the stitching. ‘It’s good guesswork, no doubt. But you might be completely wrong.’
‘If I’m wrong, I’ll make you a cake,’ Amanda said. ‘Your choice.’
Superfish watched the feed on his phone as Amanda lowered her camera into the hole.
Maybe I’m morbid. More likely, I was still looking for excuses to work on Richie Farrow’s case. Perhaps I just wanted to see the wild, curious look on my daughter’s face when she interacted with animals, the innocent joy that made her grab at cats’ tails and chase the geese around my yard. But I put Lillian in the car and drove her to Macalister’s Crocodile Park near Kuranda National Park, an hour north along the coast road. It was the last place Richie Farrow had been seen alive. The last photographs of the boy had been taken here.
I was still unsettled about Sara Farrow’s affair with John Errett, though I’d held off confronting her about it, reminding myself that Dylan Hogan had admitted to killing Richie. Still, I found myself replaying our conversations. The way she’d listened quietly as I’d updated her about leads, never crying, never despairing the way her husband did. My mind wandered around and around her, picking at the woman, trying to find that look, that offhand comment I’d missed.
I told myself she was just a mother, an ordinary woman who made mistakes, who had affairs, who told lies, who occasionally lost it at her kid.
I told myself not to pursue Sara Farrow even as I drove to the park to try to retrace her last movements with the boy.
I’d interacted with this crocodile park before, indirectly. The first case Amanda and I had worked on had involved a famous author living in Crimson Lake, who had been fed to one of the enormous beasts by his son. The animal had been caught and harvested by Macalister’s crew, and Jake Scully’s wedding ring had been recovered from the belly of the beast. I knew it was strange to want to go there, even as I packed some snacks into the car and buckled Lillian into her booster seat. I put her seat directly behind mine so she could see the coast as we drove, the rocky beaches and sheer cliffs.
In the bag marked Lillian Hill, I’d found a CD with some overly enthusiastic-looking men wearing skivvies on it, so I’d chucked that in the CD player as we set off. The music, if it could be called that, was terrible – comedic warbling overset with bouncing-spring sound effects and dogs barking. It was the usual fare for kids’ songs: octopuses having adventures under the sea and anthropomorphic cars following winding roads, beeping at everything. It was easy to ignore the sounds coming from the radio, though, when I heard those coming from my child. She laughed and sang her way through every song, throwing up her hands and cheering at appropriate times, clapping and beeping an invisible horn. The sting of Laney Bass’s appearance at my house that morning settled from a raw, searing wound into a deeper, more familiar kind of ache.
Macalister’s Crocodile Park had designed the front of their property with Jurassic Park leanings, which I appreciated. Tall bamboo fencing hid the mysteries inside, and the car park was shaded by short palm trees that battered the windows of the car as we pulled in. African drumming music and recorded bird calls played at the ticket counter. Lillian caught on to the idea that we were attending a zoo when she turned a corner and spotted a large tank filled with wet greenery, beside a collection of photographs of the celebrities who had visited the park.
‘The zoo!’ she cried, with heartbreaking, unbridled joy.
‘Yes, baby,’ I told her. ‘Finally, the zoo.’
It wasn’t a backyard full of rescued animals. A vet I only frequented because I was lonely. An isolated road near my house where no one would spot us together, and possibly traumatise my child forever. I had finally gathered myself together and taken Lillian to the zoo. I lifted her up so that she could see the turtles paddling idly around the lush, dimly lit tank, pushing aside reeds and aquatic ferns with their strange little flippers.
‘Wait till you see what else there is,’ I told her, as we followed the path of a dead boy into the park.
Left from the ticketing booth was a large area filled with log picnic tables and festooned with bougainvillea. A group of tourists were posing with a koala against a printed backdrop of a jungle scene while a staff member wearing khakis took pictures. Lillian ran up to a large aviary filled with lorikeets, startling a small huddle of the rainbow birds that had been gathered around some pieces of apple pegged to the wire. I walked to the wooden rail that marked the boundary of the area and looked out over the park, alleyways of diamond wire separating huge ponds of stagnant, depthless brown water.
‘’Allo,’ a voice said.
A huge white cockatoo was edging towards me on the wooden railing, taking sidesteps with its ridged grey claws, swaying back and forth as its beady black eye took in my form. Its pale yellow crest rose and fell; curious, alarmed, curious, alarmed, curious. I stood still as it walked up and clambered onto my forearm, taking a beakful of my shirt and pulling itself up the hairy surface. Lillian was at my side, her eyes huge and mouth open.
‘’Allo,’ the bird said.
‘’Allo!’ Lillian imitated. I put my hand between the bird’s beak and Lillian, in case it was a biter, and crouched down so she could stroke the thick white feathers.
‘He’s a good one, isn’t he?’
‘Good one, Daddy,’ she whispered. ‘’Allo? ’Allo!’
As I balanced the bird on my arm, I realised there were no other sulphur-crested cockatoos in the area. This was probably the bird that Richie had had his photograph taken with, one of the last pictures of him alive, the nervous shot of him smiling with his big teeth as the bird spread its wings.
‘That’s Roy.’ One of the keepers in khaki appeared by our side. I straightened and the bird flapped to her shoulder. ‘He’s actually one of our oldest residents here at the park. He was twenty-one last week.’
‘Twenty-one,’ I said, looking at the cockatoo. ‘Jesus. That’s a good run for a bird.’
Roy had lived more than twice as long as Richie Farrow. The thought sprang into my mind before I could contain it. I winced, rubbing Lillian’s head as she hugged my leg. Thoughts about Richie in this space were almost blinding. It had been a mistake to come here, kidding myself that it was Lillian I was trying to get close to, not the boy and answers about him. I was speaking even as I told myself to stop.
‘Were you working here a week ago when Richie Farrow went missing?’ I asked the girl with the bird, touching the rough, almost scaly claws of the animal as it danced on her shoulder. ‘The boy and his mother were here.’
‘I saw them,’ she said. She had a thin, hooked nose and large eyes, not unlike the bird using her as a perch. ‘Are you a cop? The cops have been out here already and spoken to everyone.’
‘Yeah, I know, I’m just …’ I sighed helplessly, looking down at Lillian. ‘Re-covering well-trodden ground. Anything weird about the two of them?’
‘Nothing I can really remember.’ She shrugged, sending the bird up and down. ‘The mother was getting really sunburned, that’s all. She was already sunburned when they came back to the kiosk area for the wallaby feeding, and I pointed out the sunscreen dispenser to her. I don’t know if she used it or not. I think I saw the boy use it. He wasn’t sunburned.’
I felt a tingle of recognition, but was distracted by the tugging on the bottom of my shirt. Lillian was pointing out into the park, where a large crocodile was visible sliding into one of the ponds.
‘Daddy, cocks!’
The girl in khaki choked back laughter.
I went to the sunscreen dispenser and slathered Lillian and myself all over, then led her back out into the park. I was still thinking about Richie Farrow and his mother as I bought a paper bag of grain pellets for Lillian to feed the eastern grey kangaroos that wandered the park freely, lounging in the shade of sprawling poinsettia trees. Most of the croco
diles had retreated from the heat to the safety of their concrete pools, only the occasional muddy brown snout visible above the water in some cases, or the telltale trail of bubbles rising to the surface of the tea-coloured water. We stopped by a wire fence, behind which one of the khaki-clad rangers was slapping the water with a long stick as a crowd watched. I lifted Lillian up onto my shoulders. She gathered handfuls of my hair and I held on to her legs against my chest.
I could see what was about to happen. The ranger had a skinned chicken carcass in one gloved hand. There were bubbles rising by the edge of the vast pond that was clustered with lily pads and aquatic flowers.
‘What’s in there, Lill?’ I asked.
‘Don’t know.’
‘Look there.’ I pointed as the bubbles began to increase in size.
The ranger kept slapping the water as the tourists clicked away with their cameras. From the water there rose a single dome-shaped snout the size of an upturned cereal bowl, the thick ridges and bumps of a widening upper jaw coming slowly after. The thing was emerging from the water, taking slow, effortful strides, dragging its seemingly endless body out of the depths. Droplets sliding between scales, claws sinking in the mud.
Lillian squealed with delight, and the crowd around me bristled with excitement. The monster revealed. But as I watched the creature slipping out of the depths, mud dribbling down its sagging, scaly sides and soft, bulging neck, I felt the touch of something cold deep in my chest. This was the thing that haunted the tangled green world to which I’d fled, barking in the night beyond the reach of my property, smiling on painted ‘No Swimming’ signs on the shore of every creek and river. The thing that had mauled and almost killed my partner once.
If Richie’s body had been dumped in the Cairns region, the first thing that was going to come for him was one of these beasts. It would leave nothing behind of the child.
The ranger coaxed the thing completely out of the water while spouting facts about its species, dangling the chicken so that the enormous reptile lifted its heavy head, showing its strangely vulnerable, pale underbelly. A flash of teeth and a hollow sound like a knocking on an ancient door as the jaws snapped shut on the dropped bird.
The crowd applauded the performance and the park ranger retreated from the enclosure. The tourists finished posing for selfies with the beast behind them. I realised I was alone, staring at the animal, Lillian jiggling on my shoulders impatiently, when the ranger put his hand on my arm.
‘You all right, mate?’
‘Fine.’ I wiped sweat from my brow. ‘Fine.’
‘Some people get a bit wobbly at the sight of them.’ He smiled, punching my arm. ‘I get it. I’ve seen what they can do. They look slow and heavy but I’ve seen this one here pull a man’s arm right off. Ripped the thing clean out of the socket. Newbie keeper, didn’t listen to my warnings. Keep your eye on the beast at all times, I told him. Don’t turn away for any reason.’
I stared at the ranger, who was smiling at the croc.
‘When they want to be, they’re quick as a flash,’ he said. ‘Take you under the water before you can make a sound.’
I took Lillian down from my shoulders and led her away.
My phone rang as we were heading for the parking lot, the jungle sounds almost drowning out the noise from my pocket. I stopped Lillian in the ticketing area to take the call, showing her the turtle tank again.
‘The results are in,’ Val said.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Let me have it.’
‘It was a cow,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘At least one cow,’ Val said. I could hear her shuffling papers, the scrape of her metal chair on the morgue floor, a sound I’d heard a dozen times. ‘From the volume we have, it could be a couple of them.’
I gripped my forehead, tried to understand.
‘We’re talking about the bone chips found at the burn site behind Todd DeCasper’s place?’ I said. ‘They were from a cow?’
‘You got it. Large domesticated ungulate of the family Bovidae. Bos taurus, if you please.’
‘Who burns and buries a cow?’
Val snorted. ‘Oh, Ted. I’m well past trying to apply any logic to the behaviour of human beings. The reason the analysis of these bone chips took so long was because my colleague was tied up trying to extract DNA from a burned body found in a motel swimming pool in Alice Springs. The victim had seventeen golf balls in his anal passage.’
‘That’s …’ I sighed. ‘No, on second thought, I don’t have a word for that.’
‘Maybe he hit it with a car. Maybe he fancied himself a nose-to-tail backyard barbecuer. Anything’s possible,’ Val mused. ‘Where are you?’
‘At the croc farm, pretending I’m not still looking for Richie Farrow.’
‘Ted,’ Val sighed. ‘That case isn’t yours anymore. Why don’t you take the afternoon off, go see that girlfriend of yours or something?’
Lillian was wandering. I followed her out of the reception area to the car park, where she fondled the tropical flowers in the garden beds. I took her hand and started to lead her towards my car. She ran ahead of me as I made my excuses to Val and signed off, slipping the phone into the pocket of my pants.
When I looked ahead Lillian was standing with a woman by the door of my car. The two were holding hands.
I stopped walking and looked into the face of Sara Farrow.
I was struck first by the strange sense of confusion that comes with driving on autopilot and arriving at the wrong place, driving to work instead of home, the stunning realisation that I was not meant to be here, that what was about to happen was not supposed to happen. Then came the inevitable, violent shunting of understanding into my brain, a suddenly deadening feeling. My limbs prickled with adrenaline. I couldn’t move. I saw the small knife in Sara’s left hand without really focusing on it, knowing that if I did, if I let myself be fully present in the moment, I’d lose control. My hands were in fists by my side. Even as I told myself to move them, they failed to respond.
‘Are you armed?’ Sara asked.
‘No,’ I said.
She glanced in the direction of the park in the distance, beyond three or four rows of cars. I couldn’t move my head. All I could see was my daughter.
‘Where’s Mummy?’ Lillian asked, reminded perhaps of Kelly’s absence by the feel of a woman’s hand in hers.
‘Let’s get in the car,’ Sara said, looking back at me. She nodded towards the driver’s side. ‘Slowly, calmly.’
I did as I was told. I sat in the driver’s seat as a woman who had killed her son strapped my daughter into the child’s seat behind mine and slid into the seat next to her, the knife in her fist, flashing and twisting as she used her fingers to clip the buckles near my child’s impossibly soft belly. Maternal instincts and killer instincts entwined. I reached down with one hand while Sara was working and pulled my phone out of my pocket, sliding it onto my thigh.
I had time for one message. Amanda. SOS. It was all I could think of.
‘Give me your phone,’ Sara said.
I locked the screen and handed the phone back to her. She rolled down her window a crack and slipped the phone through the gap. I heard it clatter on the ground. She rolled her window up again. My hands were slick with sweat on the wheel as I followed her instructions and drove south out of the park.
Amanda began rolling the twine back up around the ball to lift the phone out of the concrete shaft. Superfish had watched as the camera showed the phone’s path into the darkness, storey by storey, the concrete showing lines, ridges and watermarks as Amanda let it descend. Amanda had felt the man beside her tense as she neared the end of her ball of twine.
She’d leaned in beside him to watch the screen as the outline of the bottom of the shaft emerged. There was an object there, but it was not a child. An old blanket or towel, steel-grey with age and covered in a thick layer of dust. A couple of neatly fallen leav
es, probably sucked into the shaft on the breeze when Hogan left it open overnight. That was all.
Neither of them had spoken. They’d both been turned towards the concrete cap of the elevator shaft, the phone ascending slowly, only one storey above the bottom, when a voice behind them they both knew made them look at each other.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ Joanna said.
They turned. She was alone, in uniform, one hand on her gun belt, squinting as the breeze off the ocean buffeted them, gathering dust from the rooftop in its path. The smarmy, confident Joanna was gone, and in her wake a blank-eyed, almost detached woman remained. Amanda noted the absence of what Joanna had been up until this time – a woman with a plan, a nemesis marking her next move as she watched Amanda’s current one unfold. Amanda couldn’t tell what lay behind the woman’s features now. Something once deeply buried seemed to be crawling out of her.
‘You’re not supposed to be here,’ Amanda said. ‘You’re on stress leave. You shot a guy.’
‘Amanda is here on my authority,’ Superfish said. ‘I’m supervising her while she pursues –’
‘Shut up.’ Joanna turned her eyes on Superfish, nothing more, before letting them settle back on Amanda. ‘There’s a trespasser at the crime scene, possibly destroying valuable evidence. I’ll have to take her into custody.’
In the shaft, Amanda’s phone sounded a tone. A text message. She started rolling up the twine faster.
‘Drop what you’re holding and put your hands in the air,’ Joanna said.
‘Joanna,’ Superfish said, his hand out. ‘If you draw your weapon I’ll draw mine. You’re not on duty, and we’re not in a threatening situation here.’
‘We’re not in a threatening situation?’ Joanna examined her partner. ‘This woman is a violent, convicted murderer who less than twenty-four hours ago was responsible for the death of –’
‘Of an innocent man,’ Amanda said, looking back, holding the twine in one hand, pointing at her accuser with another. ‘That’s right, bitch. You’ve got as much blood on your hands as me. And there’ll be more to come, don’t you worry. You’ve started a war between the bikies and the cops. You lot handed their arses to them last night. When they retaliate, you’ll wish you hadn’t started this, I guarantee you.’
