Here I was driving down Wilkes Crescent once again. The street was in complete contrast to the last time, no longer quiet, but choked with emergency vehicles. As I inched my way along the road, it was like gridlock during peak hour. On either side, I could see small groups of neighbours, some wildly waved their hands as they talked while others covered their mouths and shook their heads. I parked a short distance away and then ducked and weaved my way through the onlookers to the front gate. As I stepped into the premises my eyes were immediately drawn to Thomas Keir sitting on his veranda with his head in his hands. As I looked at him, I clicked straight into investigation mode, weighing up facts, questions and possibilities as I thought back to the Missing Persons file.

Fact 1: Jean Angela Keir left her husband, and three-year-old son for another bloke.

Fact 2: She called Keir a few months later, but made no contact with any other family member. Surely she would have called them.

Possibility 1: Things haven’t worked out with the other bloke, and she’s come home to try and patch up the marriage. If that’s the case, she would have been better off staying away.

Possibility 2: If that’s why she’s come home, the bloke she ran off with might have decided that if he can’t have her, then no-one will.

I started to make my way towards the door, but it was hard going because of all the people, and I prayed that not too many of them had been inside. It was essential that I view the crime scene while it was still fresh, and before some well-meaning person unintentionally contaminated it. It doesn’t take much – something moved or brushed aside and the focus is completely altered. I just hoped everything had been left exactly as it was.

‘Peter,’ I heard a woman’s voice say. I scanned the area to my right, but couldn’t see anyone.

‘Peter,’ the voice called again. This time I turned to the left, and saw a female constable motioning to me. ‘Peter,’ she repeated, ‘Mick Lyons is over there. He told me to tell you he wanted to speak to you as soon as you got here.’

‘Thanks,’ I said, my eyes moving to where she was pointing, halfway along the path between the house and the front gate. Mick, was a gentle giant, over six foot two inches tall and well built. We’d been mates since 1984 and had worked together since 1986, when we’d both been transferred to Penrith then subsequently to Mt Druitt. He had short black hair and, like our boss Mick O’Connell, loved a laugh, except there was one thing different about Mick Lyons; he loved telling jokes. The only problem was, sometimes they were absolutely terrible, and he’d be the only one laughing. I don’t remember seeing him without a tie too often, except in summer, and he always wore short-sleeved shirts. Mick took a lot of pride in his appearance, and was always immaculately presented, even when wearing something a bit more casual. He knew we were the public face of the police force, and he knew the importance of first impressions.

Mick hated criminals as much as I did, and was just as relentless in his pursuit of the truth. He rarely got angry, but boy, when he went, he went. One time we’d locked up this young bloke from Cranebrook. We knew he was guilty as hell, but we didn’t have enough evidence to charge him. The bloke wasn’t going to make any admissions, despite the fact that we knew he was lying through his teeth, so Mick went absolutely ballistic playing ‘bad cop’, while I just sat back and played ‘good’ cop. Sure enough, the bloke caved in under Mick’s verbal barrage and told us everything.

‘G’day, Mick. What have we got?’ I said as I joined him.

‘We’ve got a female body on the bed in the main bedroom. She was badly burnt in the fire, pretty much unrecognisable. It looks like she’s been strangled with the cord from the bedside lamp.’

‘Have we got any idea who she is, and what happened?’ I knew it was Jean Keir, but I still had to ask.

‘Yeah, mate. Looks like it’s the wife of that bloke over there.’

‘Horrible end to a Missing Persons file,’ I thought. It was sad, but not really that surprising. Ninety per cent of Missing Persons cases are resolved in the first forty-eight hours. If they drag on for months and years, we always fear the worst.

Mick nodded towards Keir on the veranda. I looked over to see him now sitting with his arms around a small boy. ‘Poor little fella,’ I thought to myself. I really did hate seeing kids in pain.

‘So, the body belongs to Jean Keir?’ I said to Mick.

Mick shot me a ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ look. ‘No, mate, I was told the body belongs to his wife; Rosalina Keir, not Jean Keir. Anyway, he was the last person seen leaving the house before it went up in flames. We’ve got some neighbours who saw him leave with his son, and within about ten minutes there was smoke billowing from under the eaves at the front of the house.’

‘Mick,’ I said, now confused, ‘I did a Missing Persons file on this bloke’s wife. She disappeared in 1988, and her name was Jean Keir, not Rosalina. You’re not going to believe this, but he was the star witness in that assault on me and Dave by those two footballer idiots.’

‘Mate,’ Mick said, in a tone that suggested his confusion matched mine, ‘My information is that his wife’s name is Rosalina, and they haven’t been married very long.’

Nothing made sense. ‘Mick,’ I said in utter disbelief, ‘we now have a dead second wife and a ‘missing’ first wife. We’ve got a huge problem here!’

‘Looks that way. If we can find the body of the first wife, assuming she’s dead, we might be able to get him for two murders. That’s his van over there if you want to take a look,’ Mick said as he motioned towards a red Mazda van parked in the street outside the house. I glanced towards the vehicle. I knew Forensics would go over it with a fine-tooth comb, but I still wanted to check it out. I was intrigued, and wondered if it contained the key to solving the puzzle, something to indicate Keir’s last movements, something to make this an open-and-shut case. I walked over to the van and peered through the passenger-side window.

Clue 1: Two brand-new T-shirts.

Clue 2: Wrapping paper and birthday cards.

Clue 3: A bottle of Black Douglas with a few swigs missing.

Clue 4: A packet of smokes and a black lighter on the passenger’s seat.

I went back into the front yard to ask Mick if there were any witnesses. He was standing on his own in front of the Colorbond fence reading through his notebook. ‘Mick,’ I said, as I pulled up beside him.

‘Yeah, mate?’ Mick replied as he looked up at me.

‘Have we got any witnesses?’

‘Yeah, the next-door neighbour. His name is Max Wormleaton,’ Mick said as he flipped through his notebook. Finding the page he wanted he continued. ‘He said he’s been out the front all morning paving his driveway. He saw Keir and his son drive off earlier, heading towards the Tregear shops. When they came back, he said something seemed a little odd. He reckons Keir parked across the road and left his son in the car while he went into the house. A short time later, he came back out and drove off. At first Wormleaton said he wasn’t worried when he saw smoke, because Keir apparently burnt rubbish in his backyard all the time, but he reckons that within ten minutes he could see smoke billowing out from under the eaves. He said he tried to put the fire out with a hose, but it was too well alight by that stage. Then the firies arrived and took over, and he went back to his front yard. Keir turned up after we’d all arrived, but I haven’t had much of a chance to speak to him yet.’

A witness was better than nothing but, however helpful, it was still circumstantial. We needed something more concrete; one bloke’s word wasn’t enough to put a potential murderer away. ‘Did he see anyone else go into the house or anyone else hanging around?’

‘Nope.’

‘Did he hear anyone scream?’

‘Nope, he said he didn’t hear anything.’ As if reading my mind, Mick pointed over to Wormleaton. ‘Mate, that’s him there if you wanna have a chat.’

I didn’t really, not yet, anyway. I needed more information. He looked like a decent sort of bloke, a typical knockabout Aussie, and he’d probably already told Mick everything he knew.

Mick and I made our way back towards the house, and saw that Keir was talking to an ambulance officer. My immediate reaction was to have a good look at him and check for any visible injuries, perhaps burns or any sign of a struggle with his wife as she’d tried to defend herself, but Mick continued to fill me in on the details. ‘The neighbours who live on the other side of the street saw the same thing; Keir driving towards the Tregear shops with his son, and then returning shortly afterwards. They all saw him go into the house, and then come back out and leave.’

‘Don’t tell me!’ I said in mock shock. ‘They didn’t see anyone else leave or go into the house either!’

‘You’re not just a pretty face, are you?’ Mick replied with a wry smile. Multiple witnesses with identical stories; the circumstantial nature of the evidence was rapidly disappearing. ‘They all saw smoke coming from under the eaves,’ Mick continued. ‘The neighbours across the road were the ones who called the Fire Brigade.’

My guts started to churn. The closer I came to the house, the more nauseated I became. The same sensations I’d had the first time I’d visited Wilkes Crescent had now returned, but this time with far more conviction.

‘Are you alright, mate?’ Mick said, seeing the pained expression on my face.

‘Yeah, I just feel a little crook thinking about all this. Did any of the other witnesses hear screams from the house?’

‘No, mate.’

‘This bloke’s got some serious questions to answer. Where exactly did he go the last time he left the house?’

‘He says he drove down to Market Town, Mt Druitt, with his son, bought a couple of things and then came home. When he arrived, we were all here.’

I looked past Mick at Keir and watched him intently for a few moments. He appeared to be genuinely grieving as he hugged various relatives, but I didn’t buy it. I’d seen it all before. The best way to try to put the cops off the scent was to overplay your emotions.

Mick saw that I was checking Keir out. ‘I reckon I’ve got enough to arrest him,’ he said. ‘I’ll go and have another chat, and then I’ll take him back to the station to do a Record of Interview. You right to do it with me?’

‘Actually, mate, I’d prefer to have a look around here. You’ve got Clarkey, and he’s a bloody good typist. Would it be sweet if he did the interview with you? If there’s any dramas, just suspend it and give me a call. There are a few things that just aren’t sitting right.’

‘Yeah, no worries,’ Mick said. ‘Forensics are here too, and they’ll probably need a bit of a hand. Can you organise the witnesses and get them back to the station?’

‘Yeah, of course, mate.’ Mick went to talk to Keir, who was out on the lawn now hugging a middle-aged woman, while his son stood beside him. Keir eventually walked off, back towards the house, and Mick went to talk to the woman. Even though I was standing a few feet away, I could still hear what was being said. Mick started by asking her who she was.

‘My name is Irene Page. I’m Jean’s aunty,’ she replied.

‘We’re terribly sorry for your loss,’ Mick said.

‘Thank you,’ she replied, as she dabbed away her tears with a handkerchief.

‘Can you tell me what Tom just said to you?’ Mick continued.

‘Um, Tom just came over to me with his son and put his arms around me and started crying. After a while I asked him what had happened, and Tom told me they wouldn’t let him into the house. I asked him where Rosalie was and he said she was still in there, and that he hated the house and didn’t want to live here anymore.’

‘Thank you. Mrs Page. If you need anything else, Detective Seymour will be here to answer your questions,’ Mick said, pointing at me, before walking over to where I was standing. ‘Pete, I want to chat to the ambulance officer about any injuries Keir may have sustained.’

‘You read my mind, mate.’

We walked over to the ambulance officer, who told us that Keir had a few cuts on him and some mild symptoms of shock, but nothing too serious. Mick then walked over to Keir, who was now sitting on the veranda again. Meanwhile, I examined the front of the house and tried to collect my thoughts, but I wanted to hear what Mick was saying to Keir.

‘I’m Detective Lyons and this is Detective Clarke,’ he began. ‘Can we speak to you in private please?’

‘Yes, over here,’ Keir replied, motioning to the gate of the Colorbond fence. They came back over to where I was standing and Mick began to question Keir.

‘Is your name Thomas Keir?’

‘Yes.’

‘Is this your house?’

‘Yes.’

‘Unfortunately, there is a woman deceased in the main bedroom.’

‘It’s my wife. What happened?’

‘We are investigating the cause of her death, and we want you to come with us to Mount Druitt Police Station to assist us with our inquiries. Do you understand that?’

‘Yes. What about my son?’

‘Can he stay with your wife’s Aunty Irene?’

‘Yes, I think so. I’ll speak to her first.’ With that, Keir went straight over to Irene Page and hugged her, and then began to sob. She was very comforting, assuring him his son would be safe.

Mick then escorted Keir to the car. He could have gone through the whole drama of arresting him and putting the cuffs on, but he thought it best that, with so many people around, we remove him from the scene with a minimum of fuss. Some of the bystanders noticed Keir being taken away, but most of them just kept on talking among themselves. I watched until the car disappeared from view, and then made my way inside.

The first person I came across was Dave Hurst, the Forensic Officer, dressed in his customary blue overalls. He gave me a quick run-down on the scene.

‘We’ve got the body of a female lying face down on the bed in what appears to be the main bedroom. The body, and the bed, are both severely damaged from the fire, and the woman has the cord from the bedside lamp wrapped around her neck. Come in, mate, and I’ll show you around. The detached garage has been damaged by fire as well. There are a couple of containers that appear to have petrol in them; could be our fuel source. Oh and by the way, the firies had to force entry through the front door.’

Dave led me inside, first into the lounge room and then down the hallway. The further we went, the more apparent the severity of the fire damage became. On the walls, the plasterboard had been completely burnt away, exposing the timber framework and roof beams. Most of them were blackened with the kind of charring you find on the trunks of trees after a bushfire, and some of the beams were almost burnt right through. It looked like a fireball had ripped through the bedrooms and exploded out into the hallway. I examined along the length of the blackened beams, and felt complete disgust; nobody deserved to die like this. In among the burnt skeleton of the framework, the firies were sifting through the debris searching for the main seat of the fire. Stepping carefully as I made my way further inside the house, I maintained a watchful eye, just in case they unearthed anything unusual, but seeing nothing of note, I made my way to the main bedroom.

The upper half of the door was completely destroyed, and the bottom part had a flash fire scorch. The carpet had also been severely damaged. I took a closer look at the scorch marks, and could see from the patterns that the door must have been open when the fire started.

I stepped into the room, and scanned the scene. I never got used to murder scenes. Each one had a distinct smell and look, and there was always an eerie silence. The sensation that a life had ended was inescapable. I’d been to suicides, stabbings, etc., and always found it hard to push the thoughts of the physical and mental suffering the person must have endured before their untimely end from my mind. What were Rosalina Keir’s last thoughts before her final moment? What were her last words? Who was the last person she thought of?

Yesterday, she’d been a young woman brimming with life, and now she was just a charred corpse lying face down on the bed in front of me.

I walked around to the side of the bed and began to wonder; what were her hopes, her dreams? Love? Family? Friends? What had gone through her mind as her killer pulled the cord tighter and tighter. Was the last thing she saw her husband’s furious face?

I moved from one side of the bed to the other, examining Rosalina’s body carefully. All her distinguishing features were gone, vaporised. The fire had stolen any semblance of femininity, and she looked like a dark mannequin that, unable to serve any further purpose, had been callously discarded. She was face down, and her arms were crossed at the elbows beneath her chest. Her hands were up near her neck, and it was obvious from the tension in her fingers that she’d tried in vain to save herself. The bedside lamp was still lying on its side, to the right of her body. It was slightly burnt, and the cord around her neck was clearly visible.

The bed was a little over six feet long, and her feet were a good foot short of the end. Being so tiny, she’d never had a chance. Keir, if he was the killer, was a big fella. He could have easily pinned her down and there would have been nothing she could have done about it. Bile started rising into my throat. The thought sickened me. If Keir had done this, he’d defiled the bedroom, the sacred place for a man and his wife. He’d defiled a place of love, compassion and caring. He’d defiled the place belonging solely to him and the woman he’d chosen to spend his life with; well, the second one, anyway. Sacredness had given way to anger, shame and horror.

I took a deep breath. The smell of petrol and death hung unmistakeably in the air, like a thick morning fog. ‘Smells like you were right about the petrol,’ I said to Dave.

‘Yep. I took a couple of samples from the bedding and carpet too,’ he replied.

I continued to examine the body. It always paid to take a second, third and fourth look, because even the tiniest detail can often secure a conviction. Engrossed as I was in my grisly task, it was a little while before I took a good look around the room.

Only the upper part of the bed had succumbed to the fire. The bedding and the top of the mattress had been burnt away, revealing the wire springs underneath. They had retained their tension, which told me the fire had been fast, because slow fires build up heat and cause the springs to distort. Some of the carpet had been burnt away, but the polished timber flooring remained intact. There was a burnt purse lying on the bed, with coins scattered on the bed and the floor. There were two bedside drawers, one on either side, two wardrobes and an ironing board towards the front of the room. ‘Hey, Dave,’ I said. ‘There’s an iron on the floor. Do you reckon that could have started the fire?’

‘Nah, mate. I looked at that. When I picked it up the carpet underneath wasn’t burnt. If the iron was the seat of the fire, it would have burnt the carpet. Instead, it acted as a barrier against the heat. There’s no way that iron was turned on.’

I’d just started a closer inspection of the floor when, suddenly, the strange sensations returned, even more powerful than before. I was absolutely certain there was someone else in the room, and it totally freaked me out. My friend had once told me that ghosts stuck in purgatory are souls taken before their time, such as murder victims, and I wondered if it was Rosalina’s ghost I could feel in the room. Maybe she was compelling me to find some important piece of missing evidence.

My spine tingled, and I shivered. Every part of me screamed to get out of the room. ‘Dave, I’ve got to drop back to the station and get some gear, but I won’t be too long,’ I said anxiously.

Dave didn’t seem to notice my uneasiness. ‘What’s happened with the husband?’ he said very matter-of-factly, obviously not feeling the same sensation and pressing need to vacate the room that I was.

‘Mick’s taken him down to the station to interview him,’ I said as I edged towards the door. ‘Once I’ve been to the station I’ll come back here and start taking statements from witnesses. You got everything under control here?’

‘Yeah, mate, she’s sweet. The government contractors are on strike today, so either the ambos or our people will have to take the body to the mortuary. Once the post-mortem is done, we’ll know whether the fire killed her or whether she was dead before it started.’

‘Righto, mate. I’ll be back soon.’

Despite my intense desire to get out of the house, I had to tiptoe and shuffle, taking care not to brush up against the blackened walls or to tread on some as yet unseen but vital piece of evidence.

Once I was back outside, I took several deep breaths. The crisp, clean air cleared my mind, and thousands of thoughts began to run through my head. Two mysteries: one murder, one missing person. I wasn’t sure where to start, but then I noticed Max Wormleaton standing on his semi-paved driveway. He was the prime witness, so I figured he was the best place to begin. I walked out the gate and along the footpath.

‘Mr Wormleaton?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m Detective Peter Seymour. Would it be alright if we spoke?’

‘Sure.’

‘Can you start by telling me about yourself, and then about what you saw?’

‘Yep, no dramas. Um, I’m forty-two. I’ve got a wife and four kids. I’ve lived here for the past six years.’

I took a close look at him. He was dressed in an old pair of jeans and a grey top, and was wearing battered old work boots. His neat, slightly wavy, slicked-back brown hair suggested a man who took some pride in his appearance, and when he spoke, his voice was quiet but deliberate.

‘And can you tell me what you saw?’ I asked, as I tried to ascertain the location of the driveway in relation to Keir’s house. It was right on the boundary of the two properties. Wormleaton would have had an uninterrupted view.

‘I’ve been out here all day, working on my driveway, putting these pavers down,’ he said with a sweep of his hand. ‘As you can see, I’ve got a pretty good view of the house. I was working away when I saw Tom walk up the path and into his house. About five minutes later he came back out. He was wearing grey trousers and a blue T-shirt, if that helps. It would’ve been ten minutes after he left that I saw black smoke. I thought he was burning off rubbish or something, so I yelled out to my wife to shut the front door and I went down the side of the house to shut the windows. When I came back out the front, I saw smoke coming from the bedroom. My first thought was that his young son was still inside, so I grabbed a pick, jumped the fence and started yelling to see if anyone was inside. I got no answer, so I smashed one of the front windows. There was still no answer, so I went to the front door, but the screen door was locked and the main door was closed. By that time the fire had well and truly taken hold, so there was no way I was going inside. Another bloke, John, came over to help. We were standing out the front when the bedroom window exploded and showered glass all over the lawn. The missus chucked the hose over the fence, and John and I started pumping water in through the bedroom window. Didn’t do much good, though; the flames, heat and smoke were too bloody intense. Not long after we started hosing, the Fire Brigade showed up.’

I leaned over the fence and took another look at the glass on the lawn. ‘So do you get along well with Mr Keir?’

‘Yeah, he’s alright. Bit of a weird bloke, though.’

‘Weird? How so?’

‘Dunno. Like, he’s always burning stuff. He’s always out in his backyard, you know, doing God knows what.’

‘Did you know Rosalina?’

‘Not really. Seen her a couple of times and said “hello”, you know. He hasn’t been married to her long.’

‘You said you’ve been here for six years. Did you know his first wife very well?’

‘Oh yeah, Jeannie was a lovely girl. We had a lot to do with her; she was friends with my daughter and that. Shame about her running off, though. Maybe it was for the best.’

‘What do you mean “for the best”?’

‘I dunno. Over the last couple of months before she ran off, she seemed, like, not herself. Maybe she just needed to get away and get her head together. I used to hear them arguing a lot.’

‘Is there anything else you can tell me?’

‘Nope. That’s pretty much it.’

‘Thank you, you’ve been very helpful Mr Wormleaton. I just have to go back to the station, but I’ll be back to speak to you again and get a statement of pretty much what you just told me.’

Wormleaton nodded, and then turned and headed inside. I made my way back to my car and sat in the driver’s seat for a few moments, wondering what type of man Thomas Keir really was. Several of my suspicions had just been confirmed by Wormleaton, and I knew I needed to gain a clearer picture of Keir’s relationship with his wives. I started the car and pulled away from the kerb. As I drove slowly down the street, which was still choked with traffic, I ran all the facts through my head.

Point 1: If the bedroom had exploded, there must have been an accelerant, probably the petrol. How long would it have taken after Rosalina was murdered for the killer to exit the house, grab the petrol, presumably from the garage, and return? Did any other neighbours see that happen?

Point 2: If Keir went out, came back, set the house on fire and then left again, when did he kill Rosalina? Had he been walking around the shops thinking about what he’d done and decided, whoops, I’d better go home and destroy the evidence? Or was he being more calculating? He would have known it would look better if he had shopping receipts as an alibi; then he could turn up with the police here and say ‘Oh my God! What terrible thing has happened to my wife?’

Point 3: Where was the son? Did he see anything? Did Keir take him away so he wouldn’t be a witness? Surely, if he’d been around, he must have seen his dad go out the back and get the petrol from the garage?

I arrived at the station, parked the car and rushed inside, eager to get started on the investigation. I really wanted to have another look at Jean Keir’s file. Perhaps, by looking at it with fresh eyes, I’d find something I’d missed. If I could work out how to find her, then perhaps it would give us more information about Rosalina. If Jean was still alive, and we could get her to tell us what kind of man Keir was, she’d make a very useful witness. However, this was not really something I considered. Deep down in my heart, I knew it was too coincidental for Jean to disappear from the same house where Rosalina had been found murdered. It was almost inconceivable that Jean hadn’t met with foul play.

I sat down at my desk, one of many located on the open plan floor of the Detectives’ office. The whole station was one big rectangle, with a hallway running down the middle and separating the two sides. The Detectives’ office was at the eastern end of the building, facing out onto Luxford Road. Mick O’Connell’s office sat at one end, and there was an interview room at the other end. The second interview room, where Mick was currently interviewing Keir, was across the hallway outside the Detectives’ office.

For a bunch of blokes, we were generally pretty tidy, and my desk had a neatly stacked ‘In Tray’ that was constantly filled with papers and big yellow A4 envelopes from various cases. In the middle of the desk there was a typewriter, and below it there was a grey steel two-drawer filing cabinet. As I reached out to open it, another shiver ran down my spine. What was going on?

‘I’m losing my marbles,’ I thought to myself. Pulling the drawer open, I rued my lack of attention to detailed filing, and wondered if I even still had the file. I reached in and pulled out the first file. Much to my surprise, it was the ‘tick and flick’ form. Even odder was that I’d photocopied it, not standard police practice. It was lucky, otherwise I would have had to contact Missing Persons, which would have taken time, time we didn’t have. I re-read the form.

Missing Person – Jean Angela Keir.

Recorded as a missing person on 1 May 1988.

Reported missing by her sister and father, Heather and Clifford Strachan.

Report closed 30 October 1988.

Leaning back in my chair, I rubbed the back of my neck and stared at the roof. Something was missing. Something just wasn’t right. Then it came to me! Why hadn’t Keir reported it himself?

Leaning back over my desk, I read on and found that a witness had reportedly seen Jean at Emerton shops. The file also confirmed what Keir had said about him being the only person Jean had contacted. I was suddenly aware of someone standing in front of me, and raised my eyes to be greeted by Mick Lyons’ big frame.

‘Keir’s in the interview room,’ he said, gesturing with his thumb. ‘He hasn’t said much. I’m gonna ask him a few questions about his movements, and take his clothes for analysis. Can you go back to the scene to get witness statements? Take Macca with you.’

I stood up from my desk and looked for Macca, which wasn’t hard. Macca wasn’t a big fella, but had an athletic build, and also played for the police footy team. He had a longish face and sandy brown hair. A young, knockabout bloke, he was always keen to learn and always very excited about getting as involved as he could. I was happy to take him along, because I felt a sense of responsibility about showing the young blokes the ropes. The older guys had done so much for me when I was making my way up the ranks, and I felt duty-bound to do the same. ‘Macca!’ I called across the office. ‘You’re with me. Grab a set of car keys and I’ll meet you down in the car park.’

Macca nodded and set off like a greyhound towards the boss’s office.

I reached into my desk drawer and grabbed my gun and holster. Detectives’ were required to have these on them at all times when on duty, but I hadn’t had them with me earlier because I’d gone straight from home to the murder scene. Now I strapped the holster to my leg, and felt a sense of purpose wash over me as I rolled my trouser leg back down over my gun.

I made my way to the car park, where I found Macca standing beside a red Ford Falcon ‘POS’; piece of shit. We’d got these brand new, and some had already started blowing smoke from the engines. I hoped this particular vehicle would actually get us to the scene, but I wasn’t filled with confidence. Macca started the car, and it began to splutter and cough. ‘Great, that’s all we need!’ I said.

Fortunately, the Falcon didn’t let us down. Macca drove towards the scene, while I sat back and watched the world rush by. We were barely a few streets away from the station when I suddenly turned to Macca. ‘Bloody hell! What have we stumbled across?’ The full extent of what was transpiring had finally dawned on me. ‘Where the hell are you, Jean?’ I asked out loud.

‘Is that the dead girl in the house?’ said Macca.

‘No, mate, Jean’s the missing wife. Rosalina is the name of the wife at the crime scene.’

‘So what’s the go with all this then, Pete?’

I told him.

‘Shit!’ was all he had to say. ‘So, we reckon he’s killed his second wife, and the first wife is missing. Do you reckon he killed her too?’

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this whole thing, mate. There’s going to be a helluva lot of work in this one.’

I couldn’t get it out of my mind. What had happened to Jean Keir? Maybe I was jumping to conclusions. Whilst all the evidence pointed to Keir killing Rosalina, he hadn’t even been charged, and someone else could have killed her. Also, we had no proof that he’d killed his first wife, or even that she was dead for that matter. Maybe Jean had run off with another man.

Macca eventually pulled back into Wilkes Crescent, and I suddenly remembered the drunken footballers incident, and began to think about how one thing in life affects another. If it hadn’t been for those two clowns, we might have been able to have a good chat with Keir. Maybe we would have uncovered the truth about Jean and, in so doing, saved Rosalina.

Macca, had to drive at snail’s pace along the street, inching forward while people moved to the side, like Moses parting the Red Sea. Once we got through the crowd, however, the remainder of the street was cordoned off, and we managed to park right out the front.

Macca and I made our way to the house, and as we walked inside we could see the Fire Investigation Unit still sifting through the debris. The cause of the fire might have seemed pretty obvious, in that you could still smell the petrol, but we had to be absolutely certain how much time had passed between ignition and flames. Accidental fires rarely had accelerants; killers used accelerants. Different ignition sources take different amounts of time to burst into flame. Knowing this, we could work out how long the killer had spent in the house. Whilst I had my suspicions as to the killer’s identity, I still had to keep an open mind.

When we reached the doorway we saw one of the Forensic Ds videoing the scene. ‘You all done here?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, boys, it’s all yours.’

I checked my watch. Three o’clock; the time I was supposed to start work.

As I stepped back into the bedroom, I was a little apprehensive. The odd sensations had returned, but not like before. Now it was more of a nagging feeling. I felt like I should be looking somewhere else, and for something else. Hunches, sensations and intuition were important tools in a detectives’ arsenal, but I decided to keep my feelings to myself. We needed to focus on what we did have, not on things that I felt could be there.

Dr Dianne Little, the Forensic Pathologist, walked into the room. She had long, slightly unkempt brown hair, and wore glasses. I was glad she was there; her opinion would be gold in trying to gain a conviction.

‘Hello, Detective Seymour,’ she said, as she noticed me standing to one side of the bed.

‘Hi, Dr Little,’ I replied. ‘Not a pretty sight, is it? I reckon she was dead before the fire started, but it will be interesting to see what the post-mortem tells us.’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Fire certainly does a lot of damage to bodies, but it should be easy enough to tell if she was breathing or not when the fire started.’

What Dr Little was referring to was the fact that if someone is alive when a fire begins, there are telltale signs. Smoke is actually hot, and smoke inhalation scalds the lungs. Fires release hot gases, and fire victims usually die from inhaling poisonous gases, particularly carbon dioxide, not burning to death.

Scanning the room, I quickly checked to see if I’d missed anything the first time, but seeing nothing new, I concentrated on watching Dr Little examining the body. As I did so, I realised that there was one thing that was bothering me; the position of the body.

A friend of mine in the Firies had once told me that, whether they liked to admit it or not, all firemen wanted to be heroes. Why wouldn’t they? How good a feeling would it be to pull a person from a raging inferno? He also told me they were instructed, if they found a body in the house, to leave it in situ, a Latin term meaning ‘in the situation it is in’, but only when it was blatantly obvious that something suspicious had occurred. Therefore, the firies had left Rosalina’s body in situ, because it seemed fairly obvious that this had been a murder. If she’d been alive when they arrived to extinguish the blaze, they would have tried to save her.

I continued to watch Dr Little as she moved around the right-hand side of the bed and donned her white latex gloves. The first thing she did was to roll Rosalina’s body over, which produced a horrible sound as her burnt skin began to crack. This also flicked particles of skin into the air, and I soon had the smell of charred human flesh clinging to my nostrils.

Dr Little kept turning her until Rosalina was face up. There wasn’t much of the front part of her that was not affected by the fire, only the lower chest and pubic area which had been slightly protected by the mattress. The rest of her was burnt beyond recognition. No hair, no facial features. Dr Little moved in for a closer look, paying particular attention to the cord around Rosalina’s neck.

She paused to fill out the certificate pronouncing ‘life extinct’, and handed it to me. I put it in my folder, and then watched as she took swabs for possible traces of semen. She also collected some fingernail clippings for DNA evidence, in case Rosalina had scratched the murderer during her desperate, futile struggle for survival.

Dr Little’s final report would be vital, particularly pertaining to the cause of death. Her report (prepared later) read:

The body was extensively burnt with sparing of the central part of the lower chest and abdomen down to the level of the pubis with extension onto the anterior aspect of the upper two-thirds of the right thigh…the total area of burnt skin was approximately 85% of the body surface area. In some areas of the body, there was extensive tissue loss…the legs were flexed at the hips and knees. The feet were plantar flexed. The arms were flexed beneath the body. The head was extended at the neck. The head hair, eyebrows and eyelashes had been burnt off…

Eyes: brown. The oral cavity was normal. No petechial haemorrhages or injuries were seen. The tongue protruded through the teeth and the tip of the tongue was burnt…

Around the neck at a distance 8.5cm above the sternoclavicular joint there was a piece of electrical cord present. The cord was tied once at the back of the neck and extended approximately horizontally around the neck…

In the fingers of the right hand, were two long black straight hairs. Two long black hairs were also present in the fingers of the left hand…

The trachea and main bronchi were normal. There was no soot within these structures.

I checked my watch, again. It was just after three-thirty.

‘Okay, Doc, I’ll leave you to it.’

‘Bye, Peter. I shouldn’t be here too much longer; this seems pretty clear-cut.’

Macca and I headed back outside. We’d made it as far as the front gate when Mick Lyons and Clarkey turned up.

‘Hey, Pete,’ Mick said as he came through the gate.

‘Hey, Mick,’ I replied. ‘How did you go with Keir?’

‘He didn’t say much. I’ll run you through it later. Did you sort all the witnesses out?’

‘Yeah, I spoke to one of the senior Uniform guys and told him to arrange it all. Dr Little is still inside examining the body.’

‘Good,’ Mick said. ‘Think I’ll have a chat to her. You coming in?’

‘Actually mate, I’ve just got this feeling that I need to have a poke around the garage and the yard. I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something here we’re missing.’

Mick and Clarkey continued on into the house, while Macca and I went around the back. The instant I set foot in the yard, I knew that this was the house from my previous vision. I checked the back door, which was closed but not locked. Then I looked at the windows, which all had security grills fitted from the inside. I looked to my left, and saw that there was a fibro garage, and the roller door was open. Fire had damaged the structural beams, and there were several fire-damaged lounge suites sitting out in the yard. Between the garage and the house there was an empty five-litre plastic container.

I walked across to the other side of the yard. There was an orange tree towards the front of house, just inside one of the Colorbond fencing panels, but nothing much else. I looked at the brick piers of the house and realised how similar they were to the ones supporting Ashleigh’s cubby house. I had a quick look under the house, but there didn’t seem to be anything untoward.

‘Peter,’ someone called from the front yard.

‘Yep?’ I called back.

‘We’re taking the body to the mortuary.’

With the contractors who would normally have moved the body on strike, it looked like the task had fallen on us. I walked around to the front of the house and suddenly realised that there were dozens of media people crowding the street. I distinctly remember hearing the clicking of cameras as Rosalina’s body, wrapped in a white plastic bag, was carried out of the house and placed into the back of the waiting van.

The other guys and I started to make our way back to our cars, but we had to push through a large number of journos who were crowding around the front gate. As we passed through, they kept asking for interviews, or at least a comment, but in accordance with our training, none of us said a word. Well, that’s not entirely true. Some of us did speak, but the only words we uttered were ‘No comment.’