I’m done with cleaning up your mess. You’re old enough to take responsibility for your life choices.
I mean it. I won’t do it any more.
That’s it I’m coming over.
Abbie felt her chest squeeze as she read the last one. Her mother never came over to her apartment. Why would she do that? And how soon would she be there?
The answer was obvious just minutes later, when the clanging of her security door forced her out of bed.
‘Abbie?’
‘Coming.’
Throwing a robe on and quickly wiping her face, she dashed down the hallway. The sun hit her with an intensity that made her squint; her head pounded. What time was it?
‘Really?’ Her mother looked her up and down with disdain.
Abbie found herself shrinking, aware the smell of stale alcohol was probably seeping from every pore. She looked from the duffel bags that had been dumped on her doorstep to her little boy, who was cowering behind his grandmother. What was going on?
‘Hi, Spencer.’ She reached forward for his hand, but he pulled away.
‘Is that all you’ve got to say for yourself?’ Her mother’s eyes were wild, her lips thin. ‘In case you hadn’t noticed he’s still dressed in his vampire costume – ready for the show you couldn’t be bothered taking him to.’
Abbie looked at Spencer’s pale face, his mousey red eyes blinking sadly from behind her mother’s legs.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, feeling genuinely terrible. ‘I got held up at work.’
Her mother snorted. ‘I’m not doing it any more, Abbie.’ She yanked the security door wider open. ‘I’m not watching you break his heart again. You have a choice to make – you’re either in his life or you’re out of it. What’s it going to be?’
‘I’m in, of course.’ Abbie bent down and reached for her son, who reluctantly allowed himself to be cuddled. As she held him close, her eyes again landed on the bags at her doorstep. What was her mother doing?
‘Right, well, in that case Spencer is staying with you for a while.’
‘What?’ Abbie stood up with a jolt, abruptly letting go of Spencer. ‘Here? What do you mean?’
‘He sat on the porch crying all night because of you,’ her mother snapped, nudging Spencer forward. ‘And I lost a cleaning job. You can make up for lost time, while I make up for lost income. But this is your last chance.’
Abbie stood in the doorway in disbelief, watching as her mother stormed away. At her feet, the little boy seemed equally stunned.
‘Okay, Spencer.’ She took his hand and led him inside. ‘Well, this will be fun, won’t it? It’ll be like having a holiday camp with your big sister.’
Spencer sniffed, then broke into a coughing fit.
Before locking the door, Abbie retrieved the bags from the porch and flung them into the hallway. She couldn’t be bothered unpacking them. Surely her mother wasn’t actually going to leave him with her for more than a night? She would calm down once she was done with making her point.
‘Have you eaten?’ she asked, before realising she had nothing to offer anyway.
Spencer didn’t respond.
‘How about some TV?’
Leading him into the living room, Abbie brushed a pile of clothes aside and made room for him on the couch.
‘What would you like to watch?’
To her surprise, Spencer started sobbing again.
‘It’s okay.’ She sat down next to him, and flicked through the channels until she found a suitable children’s show.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long before the little vampire started nodding off, curling himself up in a ball against her pile of dirty clothes.
Abbie smiled at his funny grunting sounds, before leaning over and giving him a quick peck on the cheek. Her heart ached. So much lost time.
Taking a towel off the indoor clothes rack, she placed it over her sleeping son and quietly retreated to her bedroom.
Lying back down, she composed the perfect message to Marcus, thanking him for a great night and suggesting a catch-up the next day.
Then she closed her tired eyelids, and let herself drift off into a contented slumber.
It was a good couple of hours before Owen Peters appeared in the foyer of the police headquarters, but when he did Emmett immediately regretted letting Bianca and Ted leave for their doorknock in St Kilda.
With red eyes and pallid skin, the teacher gave every indication that something was gravely wrong.
‘Thank you for coming in,’ Emmett shook hands firmly, un able to stop himself from mentally contrasting the sad man before him with the jovial sports instructor he’d last seen kicking footballs with his son.
Owen attempted a smile, then mutely followed Emmett upstairs to his office.
‘Take a seat. Can I get you something? A warm drink, perhaps?’
‘No, thank you.’ The schoolteacher’s eyes wandered the room, landing on the photos of Rosemary Norman and Natale Gibson that were pinned to a wall. ‘You don’t think . . ’ Owen’s words caught in his throat. ‘Those two women . . I saw them on the news.’
‘No. Of course not.’ Emmett pulled his most reassuring expression. ‘Most of the time there’s a very simple explanation for why someone disappears. Why don’t you tell me what’s happened – you’re worried about your partner, Charlotte. Is that right?’
‘Yes.’ Owen sat up straighter, licking his lips. ‘I left her at a medical clinic yesterday morning. I had classes to teach so she was going to make her own way home. But . . ’
‘She didn’t come home?’ Emmett asked, gently.
‘No.’ Owen paused, his lower lip trembling. ‘I feel so stupid because I didn’t even check in on her. I had such a busy day at school, and then there was the production last night. So it wasn’t until almost midnight that I got home and realised something was wrong.’
‘Does she have family, or friends she might be staying with?’
Owen shook his head. ‘No. I’ve called everyone I can think of. No one’s heard from her. Plus, she’s not answering her phone – that’s not like her. Even if we’d had an argument she’d still pick up, at least to tell me what a prick I’d been. She wouldn’t ignore me. Not when she knew I was worried.’
‘Okay.’ Emmett tapped his notepad. ‘And tell me about this medical clinic – was Charlotte there for a particular treatment?’
At this, the schoolteacher lost his composure.
‘It was a fertility clinic,’ he whispered, dabbing his eyes with a tissue. ‘We were trying to start a family. She was having IVF treatment.’
‘What was the name of this clinic?’ Emmett was aware he was holding his breath. Natale was last seen at a medical facility.
‘Westside Health.’
He breathed out. It was a different place.
‘Mr Peters.’ Emmett placed a hand on the man’s arm. ‘I realise this is extremely difficult, but is there any reason you can think of as to why your partner might have chosen not to come home? Had there been some sort of disagreement? Money issues? That sort of thing?’
The teacher shook his head. ‘She should have come straight home. That was her intention.’
Emmett withdrew his hand. ‘And you’ve contacted the clinic?’
‘Yes. They said she left a little after 10 a.m. Where would she have gone?’
Emmett frowned. He didn’t want to give the teacher the most obvious answer: to someone else’s place.
‘We’re going to monitor this closely for the next twenty-four hours. We’ll speak with the clinic, and take a look at security footage around the area. If anything changes in that time, or you remember any other detail that might be important, I want you to contact me straight away.’
Owen sniffed loudly, then nodded.
After seeing him out, Emmett returned to his office and sank in his chair.
He was meant to be delegating all new missing persons cases to other units, but he wanted to give Nicholas’s favourite teacher the utm
ost attention.
Besides – he stared at the photos of his two victims on the wall – the Moonee Ponds station was right to notify him about Charlotte: she was a similar profile to Natale Gibson and Rosemary Norman. And the last thing he needed was for a third picture to be added up there.
CHAPTER TWENTY
‘I’ve got something!’ Steven’s voice rang out, well before the flushed young officer came bursting through the doorway.
‘Where have you been?’ Emmett looked at the clock above his whiteboard. ‘The homicide detectives wanted help back out in St Kilda this morning, but they’ve had to go without you.’
‘I’ve been working from home.’ Steven’s face was pink, and Emmett waved him to a chair.
‘Go on, then.’
‘You won’t believe it. I was looking into the victims’ education records like you asked, and at first I thought I was getting nowhere, but then I realised none of us had followed up with the college where Natale was studying . . ’
‘Yes?’ Emmett gestured for his colleague to hurry up.
‘That placement she was doing was at the nursing home where Tom Norman is living!’
‘What?’ Emmett sat back, shocked. How had they missed that?
‘Yep.’ Steven passed over Natale Gibson’s academic records. ‘See?’
Emmett took the photocopied pages. For a moment, he sat speechless. He’d just accepted that the killer may have been randomly targeting the victims – but this couldn’t be a coincidence.
‘Excellent work, well done.’
Steven beamed.
‘So what does that mean, though?’ Emmett’s brain suddenly went into overdrive as he pictured the sterile facility out in Flemington, the impressive garden at the front and those soulless, long corridors. ‘If Natale was doing her placement there, she would have likely been in contact with Tom . . ’
‘And Daniel Norman.’ Steven finished his thought for him.
‘Bloody hell.’ Emmett’s chest pounded. Both Bianca and Ted had warned him they had misgivings about Rosemary’s brother. But he’d been so sure he couldn’t be their man.
Steven raised his eyebrows. ‘Did we ever ask him if he knew Natale Gibson?’
‘Yes.’ Emmett mentally ran through his many encounters with the sad man. ‘He looked me in the eye and said no.’
On the way to Daniel Norman’s, Emmett rang Bianca, eager to get her take on Steven’s discovery.
‘I told you he was dodgy,’ she yelled, over the sound of general clatter in the background. ‘You saw the way he flared up when prodded about the car accident, and he has no alibi for the day his sister was murdered – or the day Natale went missing.’
Emmett murmured his agreement, hating the fact that the more experienced homicide detective had been right the whole time. ‘And how are you going over there?’
‘Good . . ’ Bianca was clearly distracted, whispering something to Ted before returning to the call. ‘We’ve got some security footage of Rosemary from the Saturday night. It’s not great, but you can see her getting out of the taxi and heading south-west down Robe Street – that’s quite a small residential strip with lots of apartment blocks, so we’re thinking she was meeting someone there. We’re going to get all the building management contacts and see which blocks have CCTV installed.’
‘Great!’ Emmett said, before an obvious issue popped into his head. ‘But if we think that Daniel Norman is behind this – why are the women heading to St Kilda and not to his flat in Flemington?’
‘Maybe he’s rented a place and they didn’t know who they were meeting?’ Bianca suggested. ‘These crimes are highly premeditated, so anything’s possible.’
‘Any sign of Natale around that area?’
‘We’ve tried looking for her in the footage too, but that’s a little bit harder given we still don’t have a confirmed time or date of death for her. We’ve been trawling through anything after about 2 p.m. on the Friday.’
Beside him, Steven scribbled on his notepad. Emmett leant over and read the note.
‘Carter is going to try the pathologist’s office again for you now. We’ll let you know if we have anything more conclusive on Natale.’
‘Great, and how did you go with that new case? Anything in it?’
Emmett sighed. He hated to think their investigation was going to get any more complicated. ‘I really don’t know,’ he murmured, aware of Steven’s questioning gaze. ‘The missing woman is thirty-seven years old, lives in Moonee Ponds – so inner north-west Melbourne again – and was last seen at a fertility clinic. She’s actually the partner of a teacher at Nicholas’s school . . Anyway, I’ll get Williams to make some calls and go from there.’
After ending the call, Emmett turned his attention to the task at hand, instinctively parking a little further back down the street, out of the direct sight of Daniel Norman’s flat. He was regretting not following Ted’s suggestion of having the property searched sooner.
‘Did you suspect him?’ Emmett couldn’t help asking his young colleague.
Steven shook his head. ‘No, my money was always on Brian. That man is a pig.’
Emmett nodded, leading the way from the car to Daniel’s driveway.
‘What if it was both of them?’ he whispered, halting abruptly. ‘What if Daniel killed them and Brian dumped the bodies? Natale’s husband is definitely big enough to manage that task, and it would explain why he was able to remain at work the whole day and secure a solid alibi.’
‘And that might explain the money!’ Steven got caught up in his boss’s enthusiasm. ‘Maybe he was paying Daniel off? Or they were splitting it?’
Emmett opened his mouth, about to add another layer to his new theory, when a gravelly voice rang in his head. You’ve been reading too many detective novels.
He cleared his throat self-consciously. ‘Anyway, let’s not get ahead of ourselves, the most important thing is that we follow the evidence. And right now, it’s time to find out what our good friend Daniel Norman has to say for himself.’
Emmett marched up the few steps to the porch and rapped firmly on the door.
There was no answer. He tried again.
‘Mr Norman? It’s Detective Corban.’
He paused, his clenched hand hovering over the door.
‘I’ll poke around the back.’ Steven darted down the side, returning moments later. ‘I can see directly into the courtyard, and there’s no one there.’
‘Bugger.’ Emmett pulled out his phone. ‘So much for living a quiet life . . ’ He listened to the dial tone ringing out. ‘And he’s not answering my calls either.’
‘The nursing home?’ Steven suggested.
‘Good idea. You phone ahead, and I’ll start driving.’
They were well on their way when an exasperated-sounding woman finally picked up.
‘Sorry I missed your earlier calls,’ she sighed, her voice somewhat distorted by the hands-free speaker. ‘We’re never staffed properly on the weekends and I had to help a client who’d taken a tumble. How can I help?’
Steven quickly explained.
‘No. There’s no need to let him know we’re coming. Has he been there long? Okay, good, we’ll see you soon.’
The car lurched as Emmett hit the accelerator harder.
‘Come on, move,’ he muttered to a tourist van that was swerving wildly between lanes.
He parked in front of the sprawling white complex, directly underneath the large eucalyptus that Bianca had been so taken by. Emmett watched as several blue-green leathery leaves fluttered down onto the windscreen.
‘It’s massive.’ Steven looked at the wide concrete ramp that led to the single-storey reception building. ‘The land value must be enormous – I bet the fees here are high.’
Emmett pursed his lips, thinking about Daniel Norman’s modest flat. I don’t work, I’m on a government disability pension. It was obvious that what little remained of the family’s money was being eaten up by the care of Tom. Was Rosemar
y Norman’s brother really the sort of person who rented fancy beachside apartments in St Kilda to murder women? He pushed the niggle aside.
‘How do you want to do this?’ Steven asked, flinging the car door open.
‘Let’s just go and see what Daniel has to say.’ Emmett climbed out and led the way up the winding ramp.
After signing in, they were left to navigate the maze of long, twisting corridors on their own. When they finally got to Tom Norman’s room, Emmett peered in through the small boxed window. His breath caught.
The two brothers were seated next to each other, facing out to the gardens beyond. Tom was leaning against his older brother, their figures silhouetted by the afternoon sun. On his lap, Daniel had a newspaper spread out – he was reading to Tom.
Emmett hesitated. It felt wrong to barge in on their time together.
He gently pushed the door open, deliberately coughing so as not to startle the men.
‘Good afternoon.’ His voice sounded oddly formal, and he could see by the jerky movements that Tom was responding to the sound, although he couldn’t turn and see his new visitor.
Daniel moved the newspaper to the bed, and carefully manoeuvred his brother’s weight back into his chair. Then he stood up.
‘What’s happened?’ he asked.
‘We need to have a quick chat.’ Emmett stepped inside. ‘This is my colleague First Constable Carter – I’m not sure you’ve met?’
Daniel looked confused, extending an arm to shake hands with the young officer. ‘Has something happened?’
Emmett ignored the question, instead moving over to Tom and turning the chair just enough so that he could face his guests. ‘Good to see you again, Tom.’
The lips of Rosemary’s younger brother quivered, releasing drool down his chin. Emmett reached for a tissue and gently dabbed it away.
‘How is the funeral planning going?’
Daniel frowned, looking suspiciously from Steven to Emmett, before sitting back in his chair. ‘It’s going okay. We’re leaning towards a cremation, aren’t we, Tom?’ He patted his younger brother on the arm. ‘It seems the most dignified way to go given everything that’s happened.’
Sticks and Stones Page 23
