Blood Sisters

by Caroline de Costa

  ‘No way am I going home if Em’s staying here,’ Scarlett declared. ‘Can I sleep on the floor?’

  ‘Well... I guess we can make an exception. You’ll be in a single room, Emily. So yes, your friend can stay, but on a stretcher we set up when relatives need to stay with their loved ones.’

  ***

  On Friday after lunch, Sally came to collect the girls and take them to Scarlett’s place.

  ‘I’ve got your backpack, Scarlett, that you had hidden in the bushes,’ she said. ‘The police got it for you. And your bike, Emily, from near the road. And look—lucky! They found your phone, too, Emily, out behind the house!’

  ‘Oh, great! Thanks very much.’ She wiped some dirt from it and saw dozens of messages.

  ‘Your mum’s coming around for dinner,’ Sally said to Emily. ‘You and your mum aren’t able to go home yet. The house is still a crime scene. Meredith sent Faith to get a few more things for her. They’re also hanging onto Meredith’s car, so Faith and I are driving her. And Dorcas and Mai Ling are coming by after school today.’

  ‘My mum still doesn’t know if she’s going to be charged?’ asked Emily. ‘Even though they know Karen’s going to be all right?’

  ‘I think the police prosecutor has to make a decision, and that hasn’t happened yet,’ Sally said. ‘One thing Meredith’s wondering, you don’t happen to know where her mobile is? She thought it must be at home. But the police who search didn’t find it there. Then she thought it must be in the car, but it wasn’t. The police are being a bit funny about it; she thinks they’re suggesting she’s hiding something on it.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Emily. ‘Yeah, I found I did have it. I must have picked it up without thinking, on Monday. I left it at your place.’

  ‘Well, that’ll be a relief. You can give it to her this evening.’

  ***

  Later that afternoon, Meredith arrived at Scarlett’s place where Scarlett, Emily, Dorcas and Mai Ling were sitting around the kitchen table. They had been talking non-stop for two hours while chopping vegetables for pasta sauce. Emily had her leg bandaged, and when she remembered, walked with a pronounced limp. She’d also displayed the site of her tetanus shot and her impressive collection of antibiotics to her friends.

  Meredith hugged Emily and then all the girls in turn.

  ‘Darling, I’m so glad you’re safe!’ she told Emily, hugging her again. ‘I’ve been reading online a whole lot of things you didn’t tell us last night. It’s all over the news. Serial killers and rapists, worse than some of those cases in the States. Right here in Cairns! You were very, very lucky to escape.’

  ‘Scarlett was terrific,’ Emily said. ‘So was Marcie. She jumped right on top of Fang even though he had a gun. She said she learnt that from fighting roosters in the Philippines! And Cass Diamond, she just head-kicked the McFadden guy and put him in handcuffs! But I’m not gonna say we weren’t scared—we were, terrified! All the time until the guys were arrested.’

  ‘So,’ asked Meredith, ‘where’s Marcie now?’

  ‘She’s still in hospital. Until tomorrow, at least. That guy, Fang, gave her burns with cigarettes. He’s a complete psycho. The newspapers called him an animal, but that’s unfair to animals. He got a bit of karma when Denzel bit him! That’s Cass Diamond’s dog. She said it seemed like he knew what he should do, because he’s part border collie, and they’re police dogs who are taught to go for the man on the ground. Maybe he could also tell that Fang’s dog bit me!’ Everyone laughed at this.

  ‘Listen, Em,’ said Meredith, ‘I heard you’ve got my phone? How did that happen?’

  ‘Mmm, I might have picked it up when I was at the house on Monday, getting my things.’

  ‘Oh, Em! I was really sure that I’d dropped it on the couch when I stood up, just before I... slapped Karen. And then the police told me it wasn’t there! Did you take it on purpose? Don’t you know you could be charged with concealing evidence?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Emily, ‘I know, now.’ She hung her head, sheepishly. Then she disappeared into Scarlett’s room and returned with it. ‘I turned it off on Monday,’ she said to her mother, ‘and it hasn’t been on since, so it should be charged’. Just then, Sally carried a large dish of pasta sauce to the table. ‘Take a seat, dinner is served!’

  Meredith turned on her phone which immediately began to ping with message after message. She looked at it carefully.

  ‘Em! Did you film something on the camera?’

  ‘Me? No, I haven’t touched it. I turned it off as soon as I picked it up from the couch. It’s been in my bag ever since.’ Scarlett looked hard at Emily: that was a lie, she knew.

  Meredith looked down at the screen. There was a flash of light and a voice shouted, ‘better blowjobs than you!’ Abruptly Meredith pressed the pause button and Emily dropped her spoon.

  ‘That’s Karen’s voice!’ Emily said. Meredith had turned bright red and seemed stuck to the floor.

  ‘You recorded her?’ asked Scarlett. ‘When she came to the house?’

  ‘No!’ said Meredith. ‘I hardly know how to switch the damn thing on, let alone record anything. Em will tell you that.’

  ‘Have a look and see what else is on it,’ said Mai Ling. ‘Did you drop it? Maybe it started to record by itself? That sometimes happens to mine if it’s in my pocket. It stops after a while. That’s why I told my parents I needed a better phone. An iPhone. They’re not convinced, unfortunately.’

  ‘It’s an old one and it does sometimes do things by itself,’ said Meredith slowly. ‘Including turning the camera on. I had it in my hand. I’d picked it up because I thought Karen was leaving and I was going to call Em and tell her she could come home. Then Karen started taunting me—’

  ‘Press play and see what’s there,’ said Scarlett, ‘like Mai said.’

  Meredith looked dubious.

  ‘There’s nothing that’s going to shock us,’ said Dorcas, ladling out spaghetti. ‘Believe me.’

  Emily took the phone from her mother’s hand and held it at the centre of the table so they could all see the screen. She pressed Rewind and then Play. The recording began with Karen’s words again.

  Then Meredith could be heard. ‘Bitch! Gold-digging bitch!’

  Part of Meredith’s head, shoulders and right arm then entered the picture. Her arm was lifted, she moved towards Karen and at the last moment Karen moved slightly so that the slap glanced lightly off the left side of her cheek in front of her ear. Karen immediately turned and disappeared from the picture. Bits of Meredith could be seen moving more centre-screen and the noise of Karen walking across the living room, opening the door, leaving and slamming the door was all clearly recorded. Meredith’s back was on the screen throughout this.

  There was a space of 27 seconds in which nothing happened apart from Meredith standing still in her living room. Then there was a tremendous crash from outside the room. After a couple of seconds, Meredith disappeared entirely from the screen and there was nothing to see but the far wall of the living room until the sequence ran out.

  ‘That’s extraordinary!’ said Sally, when this had played right through. ‘You’ve got the whole thing recorded, Meredith! You barely touched her. And you were nowhere near her when she fell.’

  Meredith was standing very still, looking both exhilarated and anxious, taking deep breaths.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’d better tell Tony right away and get him to phone the police. Em, let me use your phone. This one shouldn’t be touched at all until the police have had a good look at it.’

  ‘Just as well you never got an iPhone,’ said Mai Ling. ‘They never do things like that!’

  ***

  Leaving Cass to talk to Susie Ortega, Drew had returned to Sheridan Street for further interviews with McFadden and Fang. Information from the Immigration Department had shown that McFadden had been back and forth to the Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia for years; all visits that on the face of it were legitimate trips concerned with hi
s furniture import business. He’d been based in Cairns for twelve years, ever since setting up Teak Solutions.

  Fang, it turned out, had a 457 long-stay business visa as an oriental furniture expert working for Teak Solutions. This had been issued in 2010 and was valid for another year. He’d come to Cairns direct from the Philippines where his last address had been Angeles City.

  Neither man had any convictions in Australia or the Philippines. But the police department in Angeles City had passed on a message about McFadden to their Manila colleagues, answering Drew’s routine inquiry. There had been a brutal murder of a sex worker named Yandy de los Barros, in Angeles in 2008. She had been strangled and then dumped in a canal. McFadden had been the last person known to have seen her alive; she had visited him in his hotel room. But he had an unshakeable alibi and no evidence could be found linking him to her death. The case remained unsolved. In view of what they had now heard about McFadden from the Australians, and also because McFadden’s 2008 alibi had been provided by a Joseph Fang, the Angeles police were inclined to revisit the case. Drew studied this message with great interest.

  The initial charges for the men were the kidnapping and involuntary detention of Emily Harrison, Marcellina Lavides, Maria Ramos, Felicia, Nelia and Florentina; and the rape and sexual assault of the Filipina women. Probably grievous bodily harm would be added once the hospital’s medical reports were complete. Charges of sex trafficking would also be brought, but there would need to be detailed reports of the dates on which the women had arrived in Australia, and their testimony about who had recruited them in the Philippines. This would be done by the Prostitution Enforcement Taskforce; the one officer who was expected in Cairns on Monday had now been increased to six.

  Meanwhile, since dawn, teams of uniformed men and women and scenes-of-crime officers had been working their way through the McFadden property, the business premises at Teak Solutions and the rainforest location off the Gillies. Officers with shovels had got to work on the two sites identified by the girls: behind the Bayview house and in the rainforest. At Bayview they had quickly found the remains of an adult female and the collapsed skeleton of a very premature infant. Further excavation was continuing at this site. Drew had assigned the name of Selena to the deceased woman, whose remains would be conveyed to Brisbane for forensic examination. DNA would be obtained and then an attempt made to identify her. Although, if what Marcie and Maria said was true, and McFadden had picked out victims with no living immediate relatives, that would be tough.

  The search in the rainforest had so far yielded the skeletal remains of one adult female, which had been sent to Brisbane for full forensic examination. The woman was tentatively identified as the Anna described by Maria Ramos. It was much harder in the forest to see where the ground might have been disturbed than at Bayview. Vines and forest droppings provided a thick cover very rapidly. It might be necessary to take McFadden and Fang out there and try to get them to reveal other sites—if there were any.

  This was also going to be tough because neither man was saying a word to police. When Drew read the charges to them and added that there were likely to be more charges, their solicitor, Curt Bailey, said on their behalf that they’d stated they were not guilty. Bailey was a prominent criminal lawyer. Undoubtedly, thought Drew, McFadden could afford Bailey’s substantial charges. But whatever else he might do, Bailey was unlikely to question the refusal of bail to either man when formal charges were brought against them. The media had already branded them ‘the Butchers of Bayview’.

  There was immense media interest across Australia and internationally. Serial kidnapping, the enslavement of women and multiple killings always aroused intense emotion in the general public—at times, even prurient interest, for some. In the exotic environment of tropical Far North Queensland this emotion was even more intense. And with the Great Barrier Reef nearby and the Cairns sunshine streaming down, it was, Drew remarked to Cass, a journalist’s wet dream. She snorted with laughter.

  On Friday, Leslie issued media statements and promised to keep the public informed as more information came to hand. Meredith and Sally had appointed Tony Brunetto to look after their daughters’ interests; the parents of Mai Ling and Dorcas did the same. After Tony spoke with the girls, they decided to say nothing more to the media. Right now, their main concern was to look after Marcie, who they felt especially concerned about.

  ‘We have been assured by the Minister of Immigration that all the women rescued will stay in Australia as long as is needed to prepare the cases against those charged,’ Leslie told the media. ‘During this time, under the witness protection program associated with Australian sex trafficking laws, they will be housed, fed and otherwise provided for and will receive proper health care. In some cases, they may be able to remain in Australia. Meanwhile, further inquiries are proceeding interstate and overseas into the origins of these alleged crimes.’

  ***

  Drew had also accused McFadden of the murder of Rita Gonzalo. The man’s reaction was interesting.

  ‘No way did I do that! You’ve got the wrong man there. I did not kill Rita. I would never do that.’ Across the desk, Curt Bailey raised an eyebrow at Drew. This was much more of a response than they’d got when McFadden had been charged with the other crimes. And the way he spoke, it seemed as if McFadden had some kind of connection with Rita. But he refused to say anything more.

  ‘We haven’t matched McFadden’s fingerprints or DNA with anything on the databases for Rita,’ Cass said to Drew, when they met together back at Sheridan Street late on Friday afternoon. ‘We’ll need more evidence to make that stick, although it’s my gut feeling he was involved.’

  ‘Mine, too,’ said Drew. ‘Let’s get Troy to look at it again. It was his case once, and he’s back on Monday.’

  23

  Cairns

  Monday 3rd September 2013

  Troy Barwon returned from Bali suntanned, smiling and relaxed. Bali was great. The beaches were great. The food was great. Gemma was great. But Troy was narked at missing the excitement.

  ‘Serial murders. Kidnappings. Women locked up for years in Bayview. Bayview! How come nothing like this happens when I’m here?’

  ‘What’s more, we’ve found Rita Gonzalo’s killer.’ Cass told him.

  ‘What? Rita? That was my case. So, who did it? Tell me!’

  ‘Martin McFadden. The same man who’s responsible, along with Joseph Fang, for these other murders and kidnappings.’

  Troy raised his gaze towards the ceiling and turned his open palms heavenwards.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, no, no. That’s not possible!’

  ‘Why not? We’ve linked a car like his to the crime scene, for a start. And he’s been trafficking young Filipina women here for years, now.’

  ‘No, not possible. Not possible because he was in Manila at the time. Days before the presumed date of death and days after. I checked all that at the time. Checked his passport, his hotel bookings, his hotel bills, the lot. He was not in Australia when Rita was murdered.’

  Cass frowned, trying to work this out.

  ‘But why were you even looking at Martin McFadden back then? What led you to him? The car? There’s nothing in the file on him.’

  ‘No,’ Troy said. ‘It was because he owned the unit where Rita died! Or at least, a company of his did. That one and the one, next door. And his wife is Filipina and he travels often to the Philippines. It struck us that there could be a connection. All that information has probably gone into files in Brisbane.’

  Cass thought about what Troy had said. Then she re-membered Maureen. She turned to Troy. ‘A neighbour told me that she saw an Asian woman going into Rita’s unit soon after the death was discovered. I think at least a few days later. The neighbour presumed that since the woman had a key, she’d got it from you. Is that true? Apparently, she was part of a group of women in Cairns who help Filipino citizens in difficulties.’

  Troy looked amazed. ‘Of course not! You t
hink I’m likely to hand out keys to murder scenes to members of the public? There is a group of women like that and they helped look after Rita’s mother. She was the person who took away most of Rita’s things, eventually—after all her stuff was bagged and sent in for examination and recorded. Exactly like it should be. Nobody else had any access to the place, certainly not from me.’

  Cass said, slowly: ‘So, Tina, McFadden’s wife, could have had a key to that unit? Or access to a key to that unit?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Troy, looking hard at Cass and trying to follow her line of thought. Drew was also listening intently. ‘And maybe the one next door, which was empty at the time of the murder. Since McFadden owned both of them. They were let out through an agent.’

  ‘And was the other searched as well?’

  ‘Of course. Turned up nothing. A few prints that matched the cleaners who’d been in. No prints from either McFadden or his wife—we even thought of her as a suspect! All negative.’

  So... Cass thought for a moment. Tina McFadden. No prints anywhere. So not her...

  But... was it possible? That she would murder another woman?

  She was married, had Australian citizenship, a house, a child, a car, money and clothes. Why would she brutally murder a prostitute?

  Cass thought back over what Maria Ramos had said. One thing in particular stuck. That when she had first seen Tina’s house she thought Tina had found the dream man who would take her away across the world, far from the scratched-out existence in the seedy bar, to a palace in Bayview, where she would live happily ever after with money, possessions and security.

  That’s what Ruth Davies had said Rita wanted, too.

  Rita had her clients in Mooroobool. She did her job, did it well, and made money for her future and her son’s future. But she also had the dream.

  Ruth Davies had described Rita’s ‘other work’. She dressed up in a yellow suit and heels. She went to the Hilton—if Sylvia Vazquez was right, and Cass thought she was. She walked into the hotel, got into lifts and looked like a hotel guest.