Poison Orchids: A darkly compelling psychological thriller

by Sarah A. Denzil

  Megan's head tilted to the side instinctively. There was something in what he'd just said that'd struck a chord. What was it? Mango season. Yes, that was it. Due to Hayley's memory loss, she'd had a lot of trouble trying to gain solid time frames from her. But this could be a clue.

  “Mr Edwards, do you know when Alice had that conversation with Hayley?” Megan asked.

  His eyes had a distant sheen as he stared at her. “No, I'm afraid not. Is it important?”

  “Would you excuse me for a moment?” Taking out her phone, Megan looked up mango season, Llewellyn Farm, Northern Territory. The results came back with October to late-December.

  Megan rubbed the back of her neck, a spot that seemed to have been constantly damp and sweaty ever since the hot weather arrived. She tried to put things together. If Hayley had been worried about mango season ending in a couple of weeks, that meant she’d made the call to Alice at the start of December. And that meant she was still at the farm owned by Tate Llewellyn in December. Which meant she hadn't been in the shed at Rodney's house at that time. According to Gemma's timeline, the girls had arrived at Tate's farm in early October but had only been there for two weeks before being abducted by Rodney. That didn't match up.

  Did Hayley have a reason to lie to Alice, or was something else at play here? If Hayley was correct, that meant Gemma was lying. But Hayley’s arms didn’t show signs of having been fruit picking for almost three months. If Hayley hadn’t been fruit picking and hadn’t been trapped by Rodney for most of that time, where had she been and what exactly had she been doing?

  “I have to go,” Megan told the Edwardses. “Please give your daughter some time. I still can't say why she's had the reaction to you both that she has, but sometimes severe mental trauma can result in some very unexpected effects. We don't even know yet the extent of the trauma that she underwent. In time, her memory loss should improve and we'll know more.”

  It was more than they deserved to hear. But perhaps they were just highly stressed and being unusually critical of their daughter.

  Excusing herself for a second time, she left them both in the café and headed out of the hospital. The fiery midday heat began cooking her through her blouse as soon she stepped outside. Megan had grown up in the snowfields of Victoria, down at the other end of Australia. After more than a year, she still wasn't used to these temperatures.

  She hiked up her car’s air-conditioning onto full blast as she drove towards the police station. Katherine might only have a population of ten thousand odd people, but the actual area was large and sprawling—and the station was a good fifteen minutes away.

  On the way, she debated with herself whether mentioning Hayley’s phone call to Alice to the police was the right thing to do. She’d hate for the case to be taken in the wrong direction just because of one small factor. She only made her final decision as she was parking her car outside the station. Sometimes, during her counselling sessions with clients, a tiny revelation could be the catalyst that changed everything.

  The police should know.

  12

  Megan

  Megan was lucky to catch Joe and Bronwen at the police station. They'd been at the site of the freezer room discovery at Denton Road all morning and had briefly stopped back in at the station, due to head out again. Right now, they were having a quick lunch in Bronwen’s office.

  “What's up, Meggie?” Joe bit off a full half of a long salad roll, his eyebrows shooting up. He was the only person in her life who ever called her Meggie.

  “I just… could I have a minute?” she started.

  Bronwen paused at her paperwork, taking a quick gulp of her bottled water. “Were the Edwardses okay? Pretty rough visit they had with Hayley.” She shrugged.

  Despite Joe and Bronwen's casual voices, a ragged tension showed in the lines of their faces. She couldn't imagine exactly what they'd been dealing with over the past two days.

  “The Edwardses are confused.” Megan closed the door behind her. “Look, I'm a little concerned about something. According to a friend of Hayley's—Alice—Hayley was stressing about the end of mango season coming up in two weeks’ time. Mango season ends in late December, apparently. Which means Hayley was still at Llewellyn Farm.”

  “Oh yeah?” Bronwen scrawled a quick note inside the open folder on her desk.

  “That’s interesting.” Joe pushed the rest of the roll into his mouth. “Our visit to the farm didn’t turn up anything like that. The farm’s office manager said that the girls were there and gone in the first two weeks of October.”

  “But then, how do we explain that conversation Hayley had with Alice?” Megan asked, scratching now at the bumpy skin beneath her ponytail, the heat outside having made her even itchier.

  Joe balled up the paper from his bread roll and tossed it clear across the room into the bin. “Hayley's a bit scattered. Maybe she was scattered even before Rodney picked the girls up. Might explain the bust-up she had with her boyfriend too.”

  Megan felt herself crumple a little. Another thought came to her. “What about the girls' tans? You both said that doesn't fit with being kept in a dark place for two-and-a-half months, right?”

  Bronwen shot her a look that was hard to decipher. “Well, sounds like they got taken out to the old buffalo range a few times. Maybe they were allowed to walk around out in the sun there.”

  “Like some sort of game before Rodney forced them to go into the freezer room? Boiling hot and then freezing cold?” Megan wondered if she was trying to convince herself.

  “Maybe,” said Bronwen. “What we've seen inside that freezer is about as strange as it gets.”

  Megan's stomach lurched. “You’re going to have to brief me on that room. I think it’s important for me to know what the girls actually saw in there.”

  Bronwen glanced at Joe before answering. “Picture a room with chairs in a circle. And bodies strapped to those chairs. Men and women. All aged in their late teens and very early twenties, except for one. All completely dressed. All frozen solid. We don’t know if the victims underwent sexual assault or torture in the time leading up to their deaths, but so far, there’s no sign of those things. We’re unsure how they died. Forensic pathology is going to take quite a while due to the number of bodies and having to thaw those bodies out first.”

  “Hell.” Megan felt herself recoiling from Bronwen’s description, despite her matter-of-fact tone.

  “A vision of hell for sure.” Joe's eyes and voice had a sudden weight to them. “The important job now is the process of ID'ing the bodies and getting the pathology done. Then it'll be time to return them to their families to have proper funerals. That's the worst of it. Having to tell parents that their missing son or daughter is dead—and worse, that they ended up in the hands of a psycho.”

  “I’m guessing quite a few missing person cases are going to get solved.” Megan gave a wry, sad sigh.

  Joe nodded then exchanged a wary glance with Bronwen. “Ah, Meggie,” he said in a low tone, “nothing’s certain yet, but we should prepare you—there could be someone among the bodies that you knew. From our town.”

  “God. Who?” Megan asked. “One of my clients?”

  “We can’t say yet,” Bronwen told her. “Until the IDs are done. Sorry.” She shot Megan a quick, warm smile. “We wanted to let you know in case it gets out to the media before we have a chance to tell you. The super will decide when we start making statements about the identities. Also, if you want to know all the nitty-gritty of the whole case, we’ll be doing a full media briefing in a few days. Up in Darwin.”

  “I’ll be there.” Megan nodded. She decided that the body in the freezer room must be one of her psychotherapy clients. She didn’t have any family or close friends in town. Her mind strayed to which one it could be. Her clients were mainly teenage criminal offenders, and she often grew close to them.

  Joe flexed his fingers—a habit of his after he’d eaten. “Bron and I are putting together a profile on Whi
te for the superintendent right now. At least people are going to be breathing easier knowing he got burned to a crisp.”

  “So, it’s a definite that Rodney White is the perpetrator?” Megan said.

  “Yup,” Joe replied. “We've got pretty clear evidence so far. And it all points his way. With a big flashing neon sign.”

  Finishing her bottled water, Bronwen glanced out the window. “Shit, there’s Jones already.” She focused on Megan again. “I’ll get Alice’s contact information from Hayley’s parents and follow up. Truth be told, things are a little strange out at Llewellyn’s happy farm. A little too happy, maybe.”

  “Oh yeah?” Megan returned her gaze with interest.

  “Yeah.” Bronwen exhaled. “But nothing Joe and I can pin down.”

  Megan angled her head to watch as the superintendent headed into the building. “Okay. I’ll wish you both luck.”

  She drove home to her little unit in Katherine. The first thing she did was to switch on the aircon. It was a blessing the place was so tiny. It cooled down fast. After peeling off her clothes, she stepped across the floorboards in her underwear. She grabbed a yogurt from the fridge and settled on the sofa. She was done for the day.

  Afternoon TV was crap, but she needed something to focus on other than Rodney White and the identity of the freezer room body. She watched a game show for a while then succumbed to sleep. The heat, the intensity of everything, had drained her. She hadn't been sleeping well the whole week.

  It was late when she woke again. Heading towards night. A thin black trail of ants marched to and from the discarded yogurt container on the floor.

  Sleepily, she flicked through the messages on her phone. There were two photos of her sister’s newborn baby. She smiled at the squashy little pink face. And a message from the guy she was dating, Jacob. Jacob worked as a microbiologist for the Northern Territory local government. The message was just a cute picture that Jacob had snapped of a koala and baby in a tree. He must have been working out in the field today. There was no text with the photo. She had no idea where things stood with Jacob. He would go radio silent for days at a time. But that was okay. She wasn’t ready for anything serious yet.

  In her early twenties, she’d had two boyfriends in a row who’d cheated on her and made her swear off men for years. And then she’d met Simon. Simon was the complete opposite of Jacob. He’d tried to push the relationship towards marriage within the first weeks and at the same time constantly getting defensive and telling her to quit analysing him. She hadn’t even realised she’d been doing that. Maybe, at some point, she’d stopped enjoying his company and started analysing why he was in such a crazy race for commitment. Analysing people’s behaviour came as second nature to her.

  A sudden news broadcast on the TV took her attention away from her phone.

  They'd identified the first of the bodies. The first five. Three men and two women.

  Megan held her breath.

  Photos began flashing up on the screen. The families must have already been informed and consented to the victims' names and images being given out.

  Theo Kostas, Mike Reid, Clayton Durrell, Eleonora Pinto, Leah Halcombe.

  She felt an invisible sucker punch to her chest at hearing the last name. Leah had been the senior clinical psychologist at the office where Megan worked.

  How did Leah manage to become one of Rodney's victims? She’d mysteriously left town months ago, leaving only a quick note to say that she needed some time away for personal reasons. Megan had taken over the senior role at the office in Leah’s absence.

  Leah had been an intelligent, forthright sort of person who cared about her clients. Her leaving had been a huge loss to the town. Megan knew that her husband had died and she’d lived alone. Had Leah been coerced into writing that note about needing time away?

  The more Megan thought about her murder, the stranger it seemed.

  Maybe the question wasn’t how but why.

  Why had Leah been targeted? A sixty-something psychologist didn’t fit with the other victims. Had Rodney White been one of Leah’s clients perhaps? If so, Megan didn’t remember him among Leah’s client files. But he could have been a client from before Megan started working at the practice.

  Megan thought of something. Leah kept a set of personal files in her office. She had been a little secretive about them, closing them quickly on a number of occasions when Megan had entered the office. A couple of times, Megan had seen her locking them away in a metal cabinet that was labelled office stationery.

  Did those files hold a clue? She hadn’t thought to peer into those files before—Leah had obviously wanted to keep them private. And Megan had expected that she’d return soon. But now she knew that Leah was never coming back—she’d been murdered.

  Shivers rained down Megan’s arms.

  It was past six at night. The office where Megan worked would have been locked up an hour ago by one of the two psychologists who she worked with.

  After a quick shower, she dressed and ran down the stairwell to her car. A tropical storm was beginning to blow along the streets, palm trees bending to-and-fro, a cover of deep grey clouds making the world prematurely dark. Everything felt urgent and somehow much bigger than it had this morning. As if the horror of the freezer room wasn't yet over.

  A dead frond dropped from a tall palm tree, skidding across her windshield as she parked her car outside the office. She hurried inside, tapping the numbers on the keypad that would stop the alarm from sounding.

  She switched on the light inside the office that used to be Leah Halcombe's.

  Megan rifled through the drawers, searching for the key to the locked stationery cupboard. She had to try several different keys until she found the right one. She flung open the door and pulled out the files. Carrying the pile to the desk, she sank into the swivel chair.

  What the hell was she going to find inside these files? Was it going to be Rodney White practically confessing to the cold room murders? But surely Leah wouldn’t have kept something like that secret?

  She glanced up, looking out past the client waiting area to the dark street. She realised that she probably shouldn’t be alone, doing this. If it ended up being that there was more than one cold room killer, then the evidence could be right here. And she was putting herself in danger. But she was here now, and she had the files in her hands. She felt compelled to see what she could find out.

  Her heart began to hammer as she opened the top file.

  The client’s name was Clay Durrell.

  Clay. Clayton. That was one of the names from the freezer room. Oh God.

  She quickly read the summary on the first page. He'd been twenty years old. An American backpacker who'd lived in Texas and then Mexico. He had very little money, and Leah had been seeing Clay for free. He'd been suffering from strange delusions for months. Dead people sitting on chairs in a circle. A man following him.

  He’d apparently been worried about the safety of several of the others that he knew—including Eoin, Dharma, Ellie and Hayley. He’d wanted to head back home but delayed going because he was trying to convince his girlfriend to go with him. So far, she’d refused. His girlfriend’s name was Gemma.

  Megan’s skin chilled under her blouse.

  Gemma. Hayley.

  Dead people on chairs.

  Being followed.

  Clay hadn’t been having delusions—the freezer room was real. He must have seen the freezer room at some point before he was killed.

  Gemma hadn’t mentioned having a boyfriend. Why hadn’t Gemma mentioned Clay?

  Bronwen and Joe needed this information pronto.

  She tried to remember the other names from the TV news broadcast. The only other name she could remember was that of a dark-haired, pretty young woman named Eleonora. She'd been from Portugal, apparently. Was she the Ellie that Clay had mentioned?

  A sharp ring emitted from her pocket, making her flinch and drop the files.

  She answered her
phone to find Bronwen on the other end of the line.

  “Megan, have you been back to the hospital to see either Gemma or Hayley this afternoon?” Bronwen’s voice carried a sharp, urgent note.

  “Was I meant to?”

  “No. We're trying to find out where they are. Because at the moment, they're both missing.”

  Megan's throat dried as she struggled to answer. The girls were gone? A horrible sensation began drumming in her chest. Someone had taken them—she was sure of it. Someone who wanted to hide the truth about the freezer room.

  “The police officer didn't see anything?” Megan remembered there'd been one there watching on the days she'd spoken to the girls.

  Bronwen sighed heavily. “He was taking a short break in the café. Anyway, he was just there to prevent the media or any other weirdos from getting to them. We didn't expect that the girls would leave.”

  “God,” Megan replied. “We need to find them.”

  13

  Gemma

  She stiffened with pain as she roused and woke fully.

  Where—?

  She was lying face down on a dirty floor, the smell of petrol and solvent saturating the air. Everything was dark. A small grille-covered window above let in the glow of street lights. Beneath her, the floor rattled and bumped. Greasy spanners and toolboxes clattered against walls so close she could reach out and touch them. Except she couldn't reach out—something held her tight.

  I'm in someone's van. Tied up. God, how did I get here? I was in the hospital—and then?

  Raw instinct took over. Jerking herself onto her back, she thrashed against the ropes that dug into her wrists and ankles.

  The ropes refused to budge. A scream rose in her throat, but only a muffled sound reached her ears. It was only then she realised some kind of kind of cloth had been wrapped around her mouth and tied at the back of her head. It didn't smell dirty like the rest of the van. Raising her hands together, she clawed at the cloth. It broke away. A hospital bandage.