The Broken Ones

by Stephen M Irwin

  Oscar closed the wardrobe. “When did you notice she was gone?”

  “This morning.” Chalk’s smile was tense and fragile. “Breakfast time. Taryn would never miss breakfast. She loved breakfast.”

  On a chest of drawers as compact as the wardrobe was a photo of Taryn Lymbery holding a lamb at a zoo. She looked about twelve in the photograph, which, Chalk had told him, was a little more than three years old. Taryn’s hair was a dirty blonde, her glasses thick, her eyes a little closely set, her smile wide and genuine. In the photograph, she cuddled the lamb with unreserved delight. Oscar looked over the rest of the room. Her bed was rumpled, but the single bed opposite was neatly made.

  “And her roommate?”

  “Becky sleeps like the dead.” Chalk rubbed her hands together. “We searched the grounds. I went to the train station and showed the stationmaster her photo. Her backpack is gone. Underwear. Her good pair of shoes.”

  Oscar opened the top drawer. A tiny harvest of balled socks and underpants, a threadbare training bra. “Have you contacted her family?” he asked.

  Chalk nodded. “I rang her aunt in Perth. She’s never visited. She needed some reminding that Taryn even existed.”

  Oscar went to the barred window.

  “How did she get out?”

  Chalk sighed. “Every child here with mental capacity knows the keypad code for the front door. We change it each week, but as soon as one spies a staff member using it, the jungle drums get it around.”

  In the next drawer, summer clothes, mostly untouched. In the bottommost he found a small wooden box. Inside was a broken seashell and a small floral printed envelope with no card or letter inside. A treasure box without treasure.

  “Do you think she ran away?” Oscar asked.

  Chalk shrugged. “I thought she was happy enough. Of all the girls here, she seemed most content. But when they reach an age, they all get notions, to visit a boyfriend or girlfriend or the movies or the beach.”

  “Tell me about Frances White.”

  He opened the other file he’d requested from Chalk’s office. The single photograph attached was of a tall, unnaturally thin girl with long features and a toothy, awkward smile.

  “Frances.” Chalk smiled fondly at the picture. “What a lovely girl. A hair-trigger temper, but a dear thing.”

  “Same deal?”

  “Absconded in the night? Yes.”

  Oscar looked between the bars out onto the gloomy greenery. He couldn’t blame anyone for wanting to escape these small rooms and shadowy halls.

  “Three kids in a month?”

  He turned back to Chalk. All her muscles were tight with tension.

  “I don’t like it any more than you do, Detective.”

  As he watched her, she folded her arms tightly around herself. It was clear that she wanted him to go. Yet she waved anxious fingers at the window. “Can you get someone here to take fingerprints, all that stuff? The officers this morning weren’t too enthusiastic.”

  Oscar shook his head. “Scenes of Crime won’t come out for a runaway that’s only just logged with Missing Persons. Unless there are signs of abduction, no one will do anything till Taryn’s been gone twenty-four hours.”

  “Can’t you pull some strings?”

  Oscar felt a blush of embarrassment crawl up his neck. “Not really.”

  “Oh,” Chalk said. “I see.” He saw something flicker behind her eyes, but it was gone in an instant. She frowned at him. “Are you the only officer taking these disappearances seriously?”

  Oscar didn’t want to tell her the truth. He met her stare until she looked away.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. She didn’t sound sorry, though.

  “Who was on shift last night?” he asked.

  The answer came as no surprise. “Lauralie Kenny was in here—it was Lauralie who did the head count this morning. And over in B-Block was Zoe. Zoe Trucek.”

  Lauralie Kenny was a big girl whose whole soft body shook as she cried. Elverly’s break room was a section of side-entry vestibule that had been sheeted in with fibrous cement and frosted glass. There were two chairs, a round timber table, and a sink with a bench just wide enough for a toaster and a breadbox. A row of timber lockers ran along the old wall to the far end of the room, where tall windows looked out onto the rambling grounds.

  “I couldn’t help it,” Lauralie said, sniffing back snot. “I din’ mean to. I come in here just for a tea. It was late. I just put my head down for a second, I swear.”

  She dissolved into another silent quake of tears.

  Oscar put away his notebook. “How long were you asleep?”

  Lauralie wiped her eyes and licked her large, formless lips. “Two and a ha … two and a ha-ha …”

  Oscar nodded; he got the picture. Two and a half hours: a wide window of opportunity for any would-be abductors. If every coherent child in the place knew the access code, it wouldn’t have been hard to bribe it out of one with a little gift. He rubbed his hand—of all the wounds on his head and body, the one that hurt most was the spot where Zoe had nicked him with her knife. Why a knife? What was she afraid of?

  He looked over his shoulder at Chalk.

  “I need Zoe Trucek’s home address.”

  The house was empty: a gutted shell with broken windows, no furniture, strange unsavory stains, and reeking of urine from a dozen species. Ceilings sagged and wall sheeting had been kicked in. The toilet pedestal had been smashed off its moorings and sat like a broken tooth in a room that smelled of shit and dead things.

  Walking back outside, Oscar called Elverly. He got the crying girl, Lauralie, and asked when Zoe Trucek was next on shift. The day after tomorrow. Was there a phone number for her on file? No. He ended the call.

  A false address, and no phone number. His most interesting lead could be anywhere in this city of a million citizens.

  Chapter 19

  Three disabled girls gone from Elverly in a month.

  Oscar walked up the fire-escape stairs from the headquarters basement garage against a nearly silent tide of public servants all taking the quickest route down to the ground floor and out into the late afternoon.

  Three. He could almost believe it was a sad coincidence were he not convinced that the remains in Kannis’s cold room were one of the missing, and were one of Elverly’s caregivers not following him. He had to find Zoe.

  He climbed straight up to the ninth floor and along the plush carpets to Moechtar’s office, then pulled off his hat and knocked.

  The inspector was behind his large desk, packing up papers, ready to go home. He looked up at Oscar through doll-like eyes, with no hint of emotion.

  “Detective. You’ve been out.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Moechtar checked his watch and decided he had a moment. He sat and flipped through the contents of his in-tray. “I have your request for DNA samples.”

  “Yes, sir. Carole and Paul Roth. I believe the Jane Doe we pulled from the sewage plant is their daughter.”

  Moechtar nodded. “This requires the signature of the coroner or an acting coroner.”

  Oscar wasn’t sure where this was going. “I believe so, sir.”

  “When I couldn’t raise you, I took the liberty of ringing Forensic Services to see if we couldn’t find a”—Moechtar paused—“less intrusive way of identifying the cadaver. Forensic Services said they don’t have that cadaver.”

  “Someone fast-tracked it to the crematorium,” Oscar said. “I have it.”

  Moechtar watched Oscar with a more fixed attention now. Not exactly interested but with a distinct lack of uninterest.

  “Someone at the morgue made a mistake?”

  “I don’t think so, sir. The body was signed for destruction by a state pathologist named Tetlow. He left town the same morning. Bribed or threatened, I don’t know, but that’s why I didn’t return the body to the morgue.”

  Moechtar stared at him for an unsettlingly long time. “Why haven’t you told me an
y of this?”

  “I wanted to have something firmer for you first, sir.”

  Moechtar rubbed a manicured thumbnail thoughtfully.

  “You say you have the girl’s body.”

  “Yes, sir. Quite safe.”

  “And it’s against this body you want to compare samples from the Roths?”

  “Just to identify her, sir. They’re not suspects yet.”

  Moechtar nodded and fixed his eyes on Oscar. “The cadaver has to go back.”

  Oscar blinked. “I don’t trust—”

  “It has to go back. I can’t approach the coroner and ask for his name on a court order if proper process isn’t being observed.” A light frown line appeared on Moechtar’s smooth forehead. “Already this is messy. Very, very messy.”

  “Sir—”

  “We’ll have to look into what happened, how that body was released prematurely. But, Oscar, I want you to return that body. I’m not actioning this until you do.”

  Moechtar put the form back in his in-tray and looked up at him, as if inviting argument.

  “Yes, sir,” Oscar said quietly.

  Moechtar checked his watch and stood to put on his coat. He kept his back to Oscar, who realized that he had been dismissed.

  Oscar returned to the Industrial Relations floor. Neve had tidied most of the files away into an archive box. Only a handful of folders remained on the desk. She was typing, and didn’t look up when he sat beside her.

  “Finished?” he asked.

  “Almost. Another hour.”

  “How does it look?”

  Neve stopped typing. She stared at the screen a long moment before turning to look at him. “Have you signed my transfer?”

  Oscar opened his mouth, ready with another excuse, but he simply nodded and reached into his pocket. He pulled the form from the envelope, flattened it, and signed and dated the bottom corner.

  “Thank you,” she said quietly, taking the form.

  They sat in silence a while. On the far side of the room, the last of the public servants was collecting her lunchbox from a fridge. At the door, the woman caught Oscar’s eye and signaled whether she should turn off the lights. Oscar nodded, and two-thirds of the lights flicked off.

  “You’ll miss your mate Foley,” he said. “Leaving will disrupt his plans to get you on a trans-Asia love holiday.”

  Neve smiled, but it was a sad expression. She looked up at Oscar. “You look like a hatful of shit, boss. If you’re getting into fights, I wish you’d let me know. What have you done here?”

  She gently took his fingers and turned the cut knuckle to the light. Her hands were warm.

  “New interrogation technique,” he said. “I let people cut me and see what they have to say about it.”

  She clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “You should look after these.”

  She fell silent, and let go of his fingers.

  He thought about telling her about the idol he’d found in the ashes of the old brothel, and about the clawed creature in the garage. But she was leaving. The Barelies’ days were numbered. Neve had her transfer.

  She’s safe now.

  Neve chewed the inside of her cheek, and they both fell silent again. Then she looked up.

  “You see Moechtar?”

  Oscar nodded. “Wants me to take the body back.”

  “What if she goes missing again?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think I’m going to get this solved before Friday. And if that report”—he nodded at the document on her screen—“is as bad as your face says it is …”

  His shoulders rose and fell again. He didn’t need to finish: it will never get solved.

  Neve frowned. “Is there another way to identify her?”

  Oscar rubbed his face. It hurt, so he stopped. “I checked Elverly’s records—she doesn’t seem to have had a dental visit for years. And her teeth look fine, so I think no joy there.”

  “Cerebral palsy?” Neve murmured. Oscar nodded, and she asked, “Where did they diagnose that?”

  Oscar blinked. Then he jumped forward. Neve jerked back, but he still managed to land a kiss on her cheek. “Brilliant.”

  He picked up the phone and gestured for the White Pages. Neve handed him the book while he got an outside line. He dialed the hospital.

  “Patient Records, police inquiry.”

  A few minutes later, he had a promise from the records department that they would send through a summary sheet for Penelope Adeline Roth to the Barelies’ fax number.

  He hung up the phone and grinned at Neve, but there were no words in his mouth.

  “Fancy this,” she said eventually, and touched the transfer request with a tentative finger. “Just as you’re getting into fights and I’m coming up with decent ideas.”

  He grinned.

  Neve bit her lip and fiddled nervously with the mouse. A new expression slid across her face like a soft shadow. She spoke quietly: “Things have changed a lot. You know. In the last three years.”

  “Yes,” he agreed.

  “With the church, I mean,” she continued. “The Catholic Church.” Her ears started to color. “You know?”

  “Sure,” he said, a little confused.

  “Divorce. In these new times. We’re not so bad.”

  Oscar frowned, lost. “But you’re not married.”

  Neve’s blush deepened. “I’m not talking about me.” She swiveled in her chair, back to the monitor. “I have to finish this.”

  He stared, stock-still, unsure.

  She nodded for him to leave. “Go on. I’ll call you if the fax comes.”

  “Okay.”

  He left, baffled.

  Oscar drove home through traffic that was unsettlingly light. The western horizon had a fireside glow and, for the second night in a row, clear skies rode above him. Waiting at a working set of lights, he stopped and thumbed in the number of the hospital’s cardiology wing. The medical team had seen his father, but there was nothing on the chart about surgery time. The ward receptionist took his number and promised to call straight back. The light changed, and he accelerated.

  Above the dead streetlights, the stars shone. Among the winking dots of ice white, a regular flash of red—a passenger jet. Its blink-blink-blink reminded Oscar of a task left unfinished, but he couldn’t think what. He watched the plane’s silent passage through the sky. For a moment, it seemed as if the world could return to normal. Could be normal.

  Oscar’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number and assumed it was the hospital calling with the surgery details.

  “Mariani,” he answered. “When will it be?”

  A woman responded, “When will what be, Detective?”

  It took him a moment to recognize the voice.

  “Ms. Chaume,” he said. “I was expecting someone else.”

  She was silent for such a long moment that he wondered if she was, too.

  “We parted in quite a hurry the other day,” she said. “Odd circumstances.”

  “The parting? Or the meeting?” he asked. He wondered why she was calling him. If she was after a favor, she’d soon discover—as Leslie Chalk had—how small his sphere of influence was.

  “Both, perhaps,” Chaume said, and he could hear a smile in her voice. “What are you doing tonight?”

  Oscar felt his jaw tighten. He wasn’t about to turn around and go back into the office to run some trivial errand for a rich girl who’d just met her first policeman. Still, there was a part of him that would do so eagerly. He remembered her slow, promising smile.

  “I’m quite busy,” he said.

  “Ah.” Again, he wondered if he’d lost her. Then she spoke and again he heard that smile in her voice. “Well, if you become less busy I’m having a get-together at my house this evening. It is black tie, I’m afraid, and rather short notice. Still, if you find yourself at a loose end …”

  It was Oscar’s turn to fall momentarily silent.

  “Chislehurst is the property name,” Cha
ume continued. “On Connaught Road.”

  “I know it.”

  “From eight.”

  Oscar found himself nodding. “Right.”

  He was left holding a silent phone.

  No. The world was not normal at all.

  The front porch of his house was purple shadow, the sky above the house the color of cold, dark wine. He opened the door and called for Sisyphus. The cat didn’t appear. He went inside, took off his jacket and holster, lit the lantern and put water on the stove. He found himself wondering what sort of a state his suit was in.

  Oscar opened the window and heard the sounds of digging in his backyard.

  He loosened his pistol from his holster and slipped quietly out the front door and down the narrow side of the house through shadows pitch-black and cave-cold.

  A figure was in his vegetable patch, driving a pitchfork into the soil with an expert gardener’s easy strokes: levering, loosening clumps of rogue grass, batting them against the metal tines to reclaim the soil, and tossing the weeds into a stack. Sisyphus sat watching the man curiously. Oscar approached silently and thumbed back the hammer of the semiauto with a distinctive click.

  “Now that’s hardly necessary, Mariani,” Haig said, pushing the fork in again. “I’m freeing your okra beans, not stealing them.”

  Oscar moved forward, his finger still on the trigger guard. Haig had created a prodigious pile of grass and weeds. His jacket hung on a spade driven into the ground three feet or so away.

  “Besides,” Haig continued, “what are you going to do with an empty pistol? Beat me?” He stopped and straightened. Despite the work he’d done, he looked hardly strained. “Me, I’d put my money on the man with the pitchfork. Or the man with the friend.”

  Oscar looked around.

  Under the shadow of the pawpaw tree near the back fence, Detective Kace leaned against the bricks of the old incinerator. All he could see of her face was the two bright glints of her eyes.

  Oscar felt his heart hammer faster. He looked back to Haig. “What are you doing here?”

  “Helping.” Haig grinned, and stepped easily out of the garden. He dusted his hands together and grabbed the pitchfork again. “Always helping.”