The Bluffs : A Novel (2020)

by Perry, Kyle

  ‘What can you tell us about Madison?’ said Gabriella. ‘What we’re picking up is she’s a bit of a local celebrity . . . was she a bully as well?’

  Both Tom and Eliza nodded.

  ‘Who were her main victims? We should talk to them,’ said Gabriella.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Eliza. ‘The last person to come forward was Yani Hugh, the pastor’s daughter. As much as we tried to protect her, the backlash she received outside of school was pretty bad.’

  ‘Like what?’ said Gabriella.

  ‘Online harassment from a bunch of strangers,’ said Eliza. ‘All of whom just happened to be followers of Madison’s accounts. But since it wasn’t Madison herself, there was nothing we could do.’

  ‘Yani had come to us saying Madison was collecting nude photos of girls at school,’ said Tom. ‘But after the online abuse, Yani took all that back. She claimed she’d made it up, that it was a lie.’

  ‘Except it may well be true.’ Eliza sighed heavily. ‘After she came forward, a picture of Yani was circulated online . . . thankfully everything but her face was blurred, but it was clearly a warning.’

  ‘Madison sounds like a sociopath,’ said Gabriella frankly. ‘She was collecting nudes?’

  Con’s phone buzzed. The commander was calling. ‘Excuse me a moment . . .’ He walked into the hallway, the phone to his ear.

  ‘Cornelius,’ came the cool, refined voice of Commander Agatha Normandy.

  ‘Hello, commander. Everything all good?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but I’m afraid I miscalculated.’ Con closed his eyes: he knew what was coming. ‘There would have been questions if I didn’t assign this case to you, given your expertise. But all the same, there are some who doubt you’re up to it, if you’ve recovered from the Sydney case. I thought this was just a case of some girls lost in the bush. I thought it’d help you get some runs on the board . . . Forgive an old woman her mistakes . . .’

  ‘Ah, shit . . .’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. The helicopters have found a body.’

  There was a faint whine in Con’s head. The commander was still speaking, but he couldn’t quite catch it. He forced his breathing to slow. Get it together, mate.

  ‘. . . Cornelius, did you hear what I said?’

  ‘Sorry, I think we’ve got a bad line,’ he said, a touch too late.

  ‘Very convincing. Are you okay to go see the body? You can say no.’

  Con took another deep breath. ‘No. It’s fine. I’ll go.’

  ‘I’m relying on you to know your limits,’ she said. ‘But I pulled some strings, and I’ve managed to get Detective Tran onto the taskforce, from Hobart. Out of her long service leave early. I’m sending her along too.’

  ‘Melinda Tran?’ said Con. ‘Good. Good idea.’ He hadn’t met her, but knew her by reputation, a detective from Hobart who was great with cases in the bush.

  They ended the call and he wiped the sweat off his forehead and went back down the hall, catching Gabriella’s eye. ‘I’m sorry, but Detective Pakinga and I need to go. Thank you for your time. We’ll be in touch if we have any more questions.’

  Con saw himself out, Gabriella close behind.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked once they were in the car. ‘You look sick.’

  ‘They’ve found a body,’ said Con.

  ‘What? Whose?’

  ‘They don’t know yet,’ said Con. ‘They’ve spotted it from the chopper, but the bush is too dense to land: they’re sending a crew in overland. The commander asked if I wanted to go down there —’

  ‘Want me to go?’ she said instantly. ‘I’ll go instead. You stay and chat with these two, see what else you can find out.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I’ll be alright.’

  She watched him a moment, then shrugged. ‘Okay, then I’m driving.’ She nudged him out of the door, climbing across the console to take the driver’s seat.

  Con walked around the front of the car and took a seat on the passenger side. A second later, he pounded the dash. ‘Shit.’

  ‘You don’t owe this job anything, you can quit whenever you want to,’ said Gabriella. ‘Just remember that. You know if the wound was outside and not inside, you’d be a lot kinder to yourself.’

  He didn’t respond. He focused on his breathing, tried not to think about what seeing the body of a dead teenage girl would bring up for him.

  So much for solving this case before anyone got hurt.

  CHAPTER 12

  CON

  The chopper circled above the cliffs of Devils Gullet, a deep basalt canyon just off the western end of the Tiers. It swung back around for another pass and Con peered down through the window. The old SES pilot, Dicky, sat beside him and over the headset intercom he spoke to him about the search so far.

  ‘All these volunteers, they’re more a curse than a blessing. Will you shut down that video that girl posted?’ said Dicky. ‘Feels like all of Australia’s showed up to the search site.’

  ‘It’s not that easy to get a video taken down,’ said Con. ‘These huge companies are a nightmare. The video is on lots of different platforms now anyway.’

  ‘Crazy, mate, it’s bloody crazy. The world’s gone mad.’

  The chopper dipped even lower, skirting the edge of a cliff, the tops of the gum trees swinging in the downdraft. ‘You see it now?’

  The body was just visible through the trees, stark against the cliffside. It looked like a dummy had been thrown over the side, tumbling right to the base, where it lay facedown in scrub.

  Big breath in, slow breath out. He scanned the surrounding bush. ‘Looks like a trek to get there.’

  ‘We’re going to land over to our left, in that clearing near the river,’ said Dicky. Con saw utes and motorbikes assembled there. ‘There’s a team of Forensics and SES already there, waiting for you. They drove up the river track, takes bloody forever. Do you want us to touch down, or do you need to see anything else from up here?’

  ‘Swing by the body again. Show me the top of the cliff.’

  ‘Roger.’

  They drew closer again. The rocky precipice was edged by the mottled trunks of snow gums, the bark shedding in strips of brown-red and light grey.

  ‘Dicky, any paths to the cliff through those trees?’

  ‘There’s something fluoro . . . do you see it? Just perched on the end.’

  Following Dicky’s pointing, Con could see a speck of yellow colour. He’d taken it for a shrub, but saw now that it was too brightly coloured.

  ‘How close can we get?’ said Con.

  ‘Not much closer,’ he said. ‘But there are binoculars in the seat pocket.’

  Con found the binoculars, adapted to the pitch of the chopper and focused in on the object.

  ‘What do you see?’ said Dicky.

  ‘I can’t be certain, but I think they’re shoes . . . side by side.’ Con pressed the binoculars harder against his face, but the pitch of the helicopter was too much to see anything more than a glimpse. ‘We need Forensics up there to check them out. It’s very important no one else touches them.’ He put the binoculars on the seat and rested his forehead against the window, eyes on the tiny speck of colour. He brought out his phone and called Constable Darren, the search controller, preparing to explain the details of what he’d seen.

  The chopper touched down in the empty area beside a rocky, beer-coloured river at the bottom of the gorge. Con climbed down while dirt was still drifting through the air from their landing. People were milling nervously about – some of the forensics team, a group of local and imported police officers, and the SES workers, wielding chainsaws and slash-hooks.

  And Detective Melinda Tran. She was short, and wore a leather jacket, jeans, and well-worn hiking boots. She had a hiking pole.

  ‘Detective Badenhorst,’ she said. ‘Great to finally meet you. I’ve heard a lot about you.’

  Con shook her outstretched hand. ‘Likewise. Welcome to the team – it’s a relief to have someone with yo
ur expertise. Let me tell you something, real quick.’

  He spoke quietly into her ear, explaining what they’d seen on top of the cliff. He didn’t want it getting out, not with so many people up on the mountains who could disturb the evidence. And because of the hysteria it might bring – in 1985 they had found the shoes of one of the victims, Rose, neatly tied on the edge of a cliff.

  He glanced at the group of people milling about them, looking their way curiously, waiting for Con’s order to move, perhaps wondering what he was whispering to Tran about. Their nervousness and excitement palpable.

  A woman in an orange vest and baseball cap approached them. ‘Welcome, Detective. I’m Anaya, I’m with the SES.’ She pointed at her uniform, perhaps unnecessarily. ‘Constable Darren was going to be here, but he’s trying to sort out the nightmare at the start of the track.’

  ‘That’s okay, Anaya, I just got off the phone with him,’ said Con.

  Con and Detective Tran followed Anaya into the bush, picking their way over the trail of debris the SES workers were leaving in their wake, the sound of their chainsaws startling some kookaburras into flight.

  On our way to the first dead body of the case. Please, God, let it be the last.

  ‘What did Constable Darren have to say about the search? Any updates?’ asked Tran. ‘I’ve only spoken with him briefly – I’m surprised you even have reception down here.’

  ‘Officially they called the search off when the sun set last night, but there were still people out there, all night,’ said Con. ‘We’ve been lucky: plenty of sprained ankles and at least one broken leg, but nothing worse. We’ve had drones and two choppers searching the area all today, but the canopy is too thick for them to see much, although one of them found this body. On the ground, the SES is leading teams of searchers, with Darren coordinating, but that’s a mess now that Madison Mason brought the entire population of YouTube to the mountain.’

  ‘I’ll work closely with Darren to get that sorted, don’t worry. And then I’ll filter anything important from the search through to you, so you can keep focusing on your investigation,’ said Tran. ‘Again, just wanted to say good job on the Jaguar case. I remember that when it was all over the news.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Con. He was used to the congratulations. He accepted them on autopilot.

  She caught his tone. ‘I get it,’ she said. ‘Didn’t feel much like a victory.’

  He gave a wry smile. ‘Something like that. But as everyone keeps telling me —’

  ‘It’s not your fault they died,’ finished Tran. ‘I get it.’

  She turned her attention to Anaya, asking questions about the terrain and the weather. The bush was interspersed with rocks and holes, and the dogwood and musk understory was thick enough to make heavy work for the chainsaws and slash-hooks.

  Con watched the approach of the cliff above them through the gaps in the trees. Belatedly he realised he was holding his breath. He was not a superstitious man. He definitely didn’t buy into any of Gabriella’s theories. But the rocky escarpment, dotted with clinging plants and clods of soil and bird nests, it emanated something . . . menacing.

  He dug his fingernails into his palms, taking steadying breaths, trying to bring himself back to the present. He knew it wasn’t something evil in the cliffs that was making him nervous, it was just the thought of seeing the girl’s body.

  You’re not in Sydney . . . these are not the same girls . . . keep it together, Cornelius . . . it’s not your fault she died.

  Detective Tran caught his elbow. ‘Are you alright, Badenhorst? Are you listening?’

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, catching his feet again. ‘I was distracted.’

  Con wondered, briefly, if his mum and dad had seen him on TV, watching yesterday’s impromptu press conference in the lounge of their expensive retirement-village home. He wondered if they’d tried to call him, asking if this was finally enough action for him in sleepy Launceston. His dad, especially, felt Con had been exiled – ‘poor repayment for the man who single-handedly solved the Jaguar case’.

  Mum would probably call him the moment she found out there had been a dead body involved. She’d try to make him quit. She wanted him to move back to Sydney and find a new career.

  Con shook his shoulders and cricked his neck.

  Head in the game, Badenhorst.

  He still hadn’t heard a word Tran had said to him.

  Suddenly they were there, at the base of the cliff. The sound of flies like a beacon.

  Head. In. The. Game.

  He saw her.

  Con wasn’t prepared for how pathetic the body looked. He felt a fresh surge of nausea. Dicky swore, Anaya made a noise in her throat, and Detective Tran began taking photos.

  The girl’s clothes were ripped almost to shreds, and puddles of congealed blood sat in dips in the rocks. Flesh had been torn off her legs, right down to the pink bone in places.

  ‘That’s where Tassie devils have been at her, poor thing,’ said Anaya.

  ‘The devils are nocturnal, so she’s been there through the night,’ observed Tran. ‘But where are her shoes?’ She nudged Con.

  Con’s gaze zeroed in on her bare feet.

  So those shoes on the cliff . . . just like Rose Cahil’s shoes, neatly tied, in 1985 . . .

  Eliza had been found barefoot the day before – perhaps the shoes on the cliff were hers? He hoped Constable Darren managed to get to the shoes soon.

  Four forensics officers hovered around the body, placing markers and taking their own photos. When they were done, it was time for their gloved hands to turn the body over to see the face.

  Con dug his fingers deeper into his palms. Gently, almost reverently, a forensics officer tilted her face.

  It was battered and bloody, but the features were clear.

  ‘Georgia Lenah,’ said Con, although his voice seemed to come from far, far away. ‘Prep the stretcher: we need to get her back for autopsy ASAP. I’ll call it in.’

  He was just ending the call when a forensics officer called for his attention. She reached out for his arm; he was dimly aware that he was propped up against the cliff, sweaty, his head light, his knees weak as piss.

  ‘Detective, are you alright?’ she said. ‘Did you trip?’

  ‘Yeah, bloody rocks,’ he said, composing himself.

  ‘You need to see this.’

  Reluctantly, Con turned back to the body. Another woman from the forensics team had pulled something out of the pocket of Georgia’s trousers.

  It was a small plastic bag, half-full of marijuana. A sticker on the front said ‘THE CAPTAIN’.

  CHAPTER 13

  MURPHY

  Murphy was in the same dream. He fell down the cliff, the wind whipping his clothes. He was too scared to scream.

  I have to find her. I can’t die. I’m the only one who can find her.

  And then he hit the ground.

  He jerked awake. The clock beside his bed said 2.12 pm. After Nelly’s outburst he had fallen asleep on his bed, fully clothed, emotionally spent.

  It was time to go join the search. To hell with the SES and to hell with the cops. To hell with the town. So what if they bashed him to death? He’d fight them all off and make it to the mountain on bloody foot.

  He opened his wardrobe, pulling out sturdy work trousers and a thick shirt. His eyes moved to the crayon drawing sticky-taped to the wardrobe door: a stick figure holding a rounded glass vial, obviously a bong. Jasmine had drawn it in Year 1, and told everyone it was her Uncle Butch.

  Murphy had thought it was hilarious. Sara had been furious at first, but then eventually saw the funny side. Sara knew when to laugh. When she’d died and Murphy had moved in with Butch, this picture was one of the few things he’d brought from the old house.

  What would Sara say now, if she could see Murphy raising Jasmine in Butch’s home? Worse, that Murphy himself was working for Butch, in Dad’s trade, which he’d always sworn to Sara he’d never have anything to do with? That h
e’d let his landscaping business go, lost all his clients, now spent all his talents growing weed?

  What had he been doing? He’d let his grief drive him over the edge.

  You’ve done this to Jasmine. You cockhead. You’ve done this to Sara’s memory.

  Once he got Jasmine back, he’d make some changes. He’d build his business back up, move out, buy another house. He wouldn’t leave Limestone Creek, though. Jasmine loved it here, and Butch was still family, and besides . . . Murphy had never lived anywhere else.

  Moaning Myrtle waddled into the room, meowing in indignation. Of course. Jasmine hadn’t been there to feed her.

  She moved on top of his big hunting jacket, scratching at it with her claws. It was crumpled on the ground; he’d been wearing it yesterday when he’d woken up at the edge of the yard. It was still full of twigs and thorns, with a large muddy patch from where he’d been tackled to the ground up at the car park, when he’d broken that SES officer’s fingers and punched the cops.

  He pushed Myrtle off, then paused, running his fingers down the sleeve of the jacket. There was a rip, from the elbow to the wrist. He felt the edge of the tear. Where had that come from?

  From the front of the house came the sudden sound of glass smashing, followed by Butch swearing. Murphy ran down the corridor, Myrtle following behind, still meowing at him.

  A brick sat on the dining-room floor, amidst chips of glass from the smashed window. Outside, raised voices.

  ‘You can’t prove nothing, Butch,’ shouted a big voice.

  Murphy ran out the front door. Four men stood on the nature strip. The biggest man was arguing with Butch, waving his arms, garden gloves on his hands. A red beard perfectly kept and a heavy gold chain around his neck: Kevin Mason, Nelly’s husband. Cierra and Madison’s father.

  Kevin’s eyes landed on Murphy. ‘There he is, the pedo,’ he roared.

  ‘You’re gonna piss off from my property, Mason,’ replied Butch.