Jill checked her watch. Almost one o'clock. She moved over to Gabriel, and indicated the paper containing the names of the victims they were to interview.
'Do you want to see whether we can get one of these interviews in this arvo?' she asked him.
'Yep,' he answered, pulling out his phone. 'Where do you want to start?'
'Somewhere close?'
'Abbotsbury. Down the road.'
She studied the list. The victims from incident number two lived at Abbotsbury. Ryan Temple and Justine Rice. While Gabriel dialled the number, she glanced over their police statements, although she knew the story already from the meeting this morning. Justine was seventeen, Ryan a year older.
On the night of the robbery, Ryan had been staying over at Justine's house while her parents were overseas. The gang had just knocked on the door this time. Ryan opened it, and in they came. Easy as that. They'd taken Justine upstairs and worked Ryan over in the loungeroom. He'd been bound and beaten, the two offenders upstairs telling Justine they'd kill Ryan if she didn't hurry up and get them cash, jewellery, drugs, everything valuable in the house. No one was cut on this occasion, but the offenders were wearing their trademark black and balaclavas, and carrying machetes.
The apparent leader had been upstairs with Justine. Both she and Ryan had indicated that he'd given orders to the other offenders. Their descriptions of his height and role within the group matched those given by other victims.
Jill read Justine's description of him. She'd guessed he was around 5'8", a little shorter than Ryan, her boyfriend. A thin, black ponytail extended beyond his balaclava; his eyes were dark, Asian. Australian accent. No labels she could detect on his clothing, although the others had been wearing black sports clothes bearing well-known brand names. She'd seen tattoos though – a scorpion on his hip, glimpsed, she said, when he had reached for her brother's Game Boy when raiding one of the rooms, and what looked like crudely inked spiders on the side of his neck between his collar and the balaclava.
Jill caught the end of Gabriel's conversation, and looked up from the file.
'Yes. Thank you, Mrs Rice. We'll see you soon.'
Gabriel closed the phone and together they left the house.
On the way to the car, Jill breathed deeply, ridding herself of the scent of death that had permeated every room of the house. Gabriel stood by the driver's door. Apparently he was driving this time. She threw him the keys and took the passenger seat without comment, putting her sunglasses on and winding up the window.
When they'd left Capitol Hill behind, Jill leaned back in her seat. Gabriel drove confidently, seemingly comfortable with their silence, allowing Jill to think about the kids they were on their way to interview. She thought again about Justine's statement. Something was different with this case. For a start, the violence was much less severe than in any of the others. She thought about the statements she'd read from the other victims. She couldn't be certain, as she'd not had a chance to study them properly, but she was pretty sure this was the only time tattoos had been mentioned.
8
CHLOE FARRELL SHIFTED uncomfortably in the early afternoon sun. The crutch of her tights had been heading south since she got out here this morning. She'd thought about finding a toilet somewhere and taking them off altogether, but the blisters from her new shoes would only get worse. She scowled at her boss, Deborah Davies, as she postured for the camera. Davies had shown up at lunchtime after Chloe had called her, letting her know she'd finally persuaded one of the Capitol Hill residents to be interviewed. Deborah had finished the interview, using Chloe's typed list of questions, and the neighbour had gone back inside her palatial home, thrilled to have met the current affairs presenter she watched in her loungeroom every night. Davies was now recording the fill-ins: asking the questions over and over again in an ever more concerned tone. Giving empathic nods and outraged shakes of her head to her favourite thing in the world: the camera. The gestures and comments would be edited into the piece later, by Chloe, ready for the six p.m. broadcast.
Chloe knew she could've done the interview better. Shit, the stuff she'd got before Deborah arrived was gold. At first, the frightened housewife had refused to speak to her at all, but Chloe had managed to persuade her through the intercom that her comments could help people understand how terrible these home invasions had been. Maybe then the police would do something about catching these bastards, she'd said, knowing the woman was standing just there, behind the door, listening.
She'd opened up, just as Chloe had known she would. Although she lived in a mansion, they were still in the western suburbs. And people around here could tell that Chloe was one of them. She made sure of it with every word she spoke. It got her in a lot of doors.
Born and raised in Seven Hills, Chloe had been one of just a handful from her high school to make it to university. She'd excelled in her journalism studies, taking the university prize two years running. At just twenty-three, and a brand new graduate, she knew a hundred others who would claw her eyes out for this cadetship with the premier news service in the country.
But Chloe was impatient.
Her parents had run their local mixed grocery store for thirty years and they were so tired. Chloe saw her mum every morning, grey-faced and miserable, leaving home to open the shop. Now she was working, Chloe saw her dad only on Sundays. He would be at the markets when they opened at five a.m., and asleep before she returned from work each evening.
Growing up, the shop had been her second home. After school, she'd make her way there and could choose anything she liked for afternoon tea. When she got older, she helped serve customers. Soon she knew most of the neighbourhood. By the time she was thirteen, she knew that Mrs Shanoa's husband was a no-good drunk; that Jeremy Peterson was having an affair with his boss behind his boyfriend's back; that Tania Taylor was on the pension, even though she worked fulltime for cash in hand at the bowling club; and that Mr Mason dressed in drag once a month and stayed out all night in Darlinghurst. She knew plenty more besides, and she couldn't get enough. People opened up and told her things, quietly, while she cut their ham, weighed their frankfurts, rang up their smokes on the outdated till.
Her father stopped her working at the store after the second armed robbery. The man, armed with a syringe, had made off with the day's takings half an hour before Chloe got there for the afternoon. Her dad hated his wife being there too, and had tried to sell the shop, but there were no genuine buyers. Everyone knew that Coles and Woollies made all the money in the industry. Everyone except the junkies, that is: they saw the corner store as a cash register. Her parents had been robbed five times since then.
Chloe had to get them out, and she would. She was going to find a way to get an on-screen position and a six-figure salary. She'd pay off their mortgage and get them out of the shop. And there was something about this story that felt like destiny. She peered overhead at the news chopper, one of theirs, returning after a midday break. Sydney wanted to know what was going on out here.
Chloe surreptitiously pulled at her tights again and made some more notes. Hell, the whole country wanted answers. And she was going to get them.
9
GABRIEL SAT OPEN-mouthed, staring at the enormous television in the corner of the room. Narelle Rice had muted the sound when she'd shown Jill and Gabriel into the living room, explaining that Justine and Ryan were expected home from work at two-thirty. Jill tried to catch Delahunt's eye, but he sat absorbed in the silent TV. On the screen, American soap actors made exaggerated facial expressions.
Mrs Rice returned from the kitchen carrying soft drinks in glasses and a plate of biscuits. She put the biscuits on a low coffee table in front of Gabriel and sat next to Jill on the couch. Gabriel reached unseeingly for the plate and munched while he watched the soap.
'You want me to put the sound on?' asked Mrs Rice.
'No. That's fine,' answered Jill, scowling at Gabriel, who'd turned to nod a yes.
'So, Mrs Rice,' began J
ill, 'do Ryan and Justine work together?'
'They do everything together now. Could you just call me Narelle?'
Jill smiled.
'We've only just been able to get Justine to go back to work,' Mrs Rice continued. 'They work over at Orange Grove – you know the Krispy Kreme over there? Ryan's a manager,' she said with pride, 'and Justine was well on her way to management too. Before this happened.' She looked at her lap.
'It must have been terrible for you all,' said Jill.
'Oh you've no idea.' Narelle pulled a tissue from her cardigan pocket. 'We'll just never get over it. Justine . . .' She broke off, smothering a sob with her tissue. 'We've had to let Ryan move in. She wouldn't sleep alone. She said she'd move in with him if we didn't let him stay over.'
Jill nodded.
'He's a good boy, really,' Narelle continued, 'but he's been drinking far too much since this happened.' She shook her head. 'And the arguments! You've no idea. They used to be so close, so kind to one another.'
Jill noted that Gabriel's attention now seemed to be split between Narelle and the soap.
'I'll just get some more biscuits.' Narelle stood. 'Everyone loves them.'
Jill looked down at the empty plate in front of her partner. Are you serious, she asked him with her eyes.
He smiled at her with delight, his thick eyebrows raised high. Crumbs covered his dark tee-shirt. She stared at him disparagingly.
'What?' he said.
She pointed at his clothes.
'Oh.'
Still smiling, he brushed at his flat stomach, then stood and dumped the crumbs on the floor. He stared at the little pile around his chair, and then scraped at them with his feet, spreading them into the carpet. She watched, transfixed, as he stopped, then began again, his head down, scraping at the ground with his toe, like a cartoon bull about to charge. Laughter caught in her throat; she wiped the smile from her face when Mrs Rice walked back in, the plate refilled. Gabriel settled back into his chair and took another biscuit.
A scrabbling sound at the front door drew their attention.
'Mum, let us in.'
'Excuse me please. They must have lost their keys again. We haven't left a door unlocked anywhere in this house since the robbery.'
Jill heard a whispered conversation at the front entrance, a disgruntled young female voice louder than the others. Footsteps stamped upstairs and then Mrs Rice re-entered the living room, accompanied by an ungainly youth in a work uniform, baseball cap pulled low, a few pimples scattered across his cheeks.
'Detectives, this is Ryan.' Her hand rested protectively across his shoulders. 'I'll just get you a glass, Ryan,' she told him.
'That's okay,' he muttered. 'I'll get a beer.'
'I'll bring you one,' she said tightly. 'You speak to the detectives.' Turning to Jill, she said, 'Justine's just getting changed.'
'You're not the ones we talked to last time.' Ryan dropped into a chair.
'I'm Sergeant Jill Jackson, Ryan. This is Federal Agent Gabriel Delahunt. We wanted to ask you a few more questions.'
'Yeah, I know. Justine said you called. Is it true those arseholes killed someone this time? We heard it on the news.' His eyes were just visible under the rim of the cap, his voice flat.
'We're not sure if it's the same people at this point, Ryan, but we need to reinterview everyone who's been through a home invasion lately so we can try to find out.'
Ryan took his beer from Mrs Rice with a mumbled thank you, and drained half of it in one go. Justine's mother gave Jill a resigned look and left the room, worry creasing her forehead.
'They'd better not come here again,' Ryan spoke into his bottle. 'I'll be ready for them next time.'
'Ryan,' Jill had his statement in her hand, 'this is the police report you made. Could you have a look at the section I've highlighted, and tell me if there's anything else you can remember about the offenders? Anything at all could be a great help. The way they moved, talked, anything they said. Sometimes after a couple of weeks bits and pieces come back.'
Ryan swallowed the rest of the beer in two long draughts and stood up.
'I'll look at it, but I'm not the one you should be talking to.' He stood rigid, the statement clenched in his fist. 'Half the time I had my face shoved into that chair you're sitting on.' He indicated to Gabriel. 'The rest of the time I was getting the shit kicked out of me. Justine was upstairs with two of them, and it was pretty quiet up there.' He turned at the sound of feet on the stairs. 'Here she is now. I reckon she got a good look at everything.' His voice was acid. 'I'm going to get another beer.'
Justine Rice froze in the doorway, staring after her boyfriend as he left the room, her eyes panicked. Jill was surprised to see she'd changed into flannelette pyjamas. It wasn't yet three p.m. Her hair had been scraped into a messy ponytail and her clear skin was free of makeup. If Ryan had not just indicated otherwise, Jill would have been certain that this was Justine's little sister, a much younger teen.
Justine seemed to register Jill's eyes on her clothing, and hugged her arms around her slender body.
'I've got a stomach ache,' she said, 'so can we do this quickly? I'm sick all the time now, since it happened.' She crawled into the chair furthest from Gabriel and tucked her legs under her. She spoke to Jill only, angling her body so that she could not even see Gabriel.
He stood. 'Jill, I'm just going to see if I can help Ryan with his statement.'
She nodded, grateful Gabriel had picked up the girl's obvious discomfort with him.
'Justine, I'm Jill. Thank you so much for talking with us. I know this is the very last thing you wanted to do today.' Jill leaned forward in her seat and smiled; Justine seemed to uncurl herself a little.
'Are you going to catch these guys soon?' she asked, her voice small.
'Yes.' Jill hoped it was true. 'We've got a lot of people looking for them, and we need your help, Justine.'
'Hah. I can't even help myself.'
'Maybe, Justine, but you saw these guys. You got a better look at them than some of the other witnesses, and that could help us a lot.'
Justine said nothing.
'Justine,' Jill began carefully, 'you were taken upstairs by two of these guys, is that right?'
A small nod.
'And you could hear the others hurting Ryan down here?'
'I could hear everything. He was screaming.' Her mouth was now on her knees, her voice muffled in her pyjamas. 'They said they'd kill him.'
'It must have been horrible, honey. I can't even imagine it.' Jill wished that were true. 'You were very brave to get them what they needed so they wouldn't hurt Ryan anymore.'
'I wasn't brave.'
Jill could barely hear her now.
'Justine, you did exactly what you had to do to get them to stop hurting Ryan and get them out of the house.'
Justine was a portrait of misery, her face buried in her knees, her arms wrapped around them. Her small body shook silently.
'Justine, sometimes it's easier if you keep your eyes open,' Jill told her. 'It makes the images not so clear.'
Justine rocked slightly, her sobbing just audible, and Jill wondered whether she'd told them all there was to know about her time upstairs.
'What happened up there, Justine? Tell me what happened when it all went quiet.'
'They said they'd kill him,' she said. 'The spider one said he'd cut my throat –'
Suddenly she gagged and ran from the room. Mrs Rice hurried after her from the kitchen. Jill sighed resignedly and stood. She followed the sounds of Justine dry-retching and found her sitting on the edge of the bath, her face wet with tears. Her mother bent to comfort her.
'It'll be easier if you just tell me, honey,' Jill said.
'Tell you what?' Mrs Rice straightened. 'Really! She's sick. I think it's best we leave this for another time. I can bring her in to see you tomorrow.'
'Narelle, you've been great letting us come over here, and I know this is horrible for everyone. And I am going to
have to get Justine and Ryan to come in and make another statement tomorrow. But right now, Justine has something that she needs to tell me.'
Mrs Rice clasped a hand over her mouth.
Jill continued. 'Narelle, I'm going to have to ask you to just leave us both in here for around ten minutes. Maybe you could duck down to the shop and buy Justine a lemonade? It'll help settle her stomach.'
She spoke firmly. If Justine didn't get this off her chest now, it would consume her from the inside out. Narelle Rice seemed suddenly to know this too, and with an imploring glance at Jill, left the room.
Jill took her place on the side of the bath.
'Let's get this done, Justine. You've held this in too long already. These feelings are poisonous when you keep them inside.' Justine looked up at her. 'You've already told me you've been feeling sick since it happened. You can't get well again until you let it out, until you tell the truth.' It'll take more than that, she thought, but it's a start.
'You said the spider one told you he'd cut your throat,' Jill continued. 'That wasn't in your statement. What happened next?'
Justine pulled away a little from her and turned her head to face the wall. I've lost her, Jill thought, but Justine began to speak in a flat, lifeless voice.
'He'd said he'd cut my throat and fuck the hole in my neck.' Her voice echoed in the small bathroom. 'He said he'd kill Ryan first and then come back and fuck me while I was bleeding. He said I could stop him doing it if I gave the other guy head.' Justine began to cough, then spoke again in a tiny voice. 'So I did.'
'I'm so sorry, Justine,' Jill wanted to reach out to the girl, but she'd moved as far as she could from her.
'Did the other one have any tattoos?' Jill didn't want to press her any more, but this was a race for time now. They had to get these animals.
'No. He didn't.' Justine turned, and faced Jill. 'He made me do it while the spider one watched. But halfway through he pulled away from me and walked out.'
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