Rick Fletcher is crumpled on the concrete floor of his garage next to his white ute, the driver’s door wide open, his shoulder-length blond hair splayed out around his face. Full rigor mortis is yet to kick in, and his features look slack and dumb, his limbs flopping drunkenly from his torso. Congealed blood cakes the wound on his temple, tinting the crown of his head a dark red. His navy eyes are frozen open and seem to watch me watching him.
‘We think he was attacked just after 6 am.’ Tran’s dark eyes jerk to Rick’s body and then drift back to me. ‘He was due to start a landscaping job today about twenty minutes from here and told the client he’d be there at 6.30 am. We still can’t find a weapon, but clearly he was hit with something sizeable. Possibly one of his own tools.’ She gestures to an impressive array of gardening instruments hanging on the wall. ‘We’re not sure what’s missing and I can’t see any splinters. It definitely wasn’t a gunshot—there’d be more mess.’
‘Who found him?’ I ask.
‘A next-door neighbour, Bruce Piper.’ She points to the cream-coloured bungalow on the other side of the garage. ‘Says he thought he heard something when he first got up. When he was pulling out to go to work, he noticed Rick’s car door open and just said he had a funny feeling about it. He found Rick and called the station just after 7 am.’
‘He’s not a suspect?’
Tran scrunches up her nose. ‘I don’t think so. He was pretty shaken up and said all the right things. He’s known Rick since he was a kid, said this used to be the family home.’
I bend down to study Rick’s hands. They’re badly callused, and his left index finger has a cut on it that looks old.
‘I think he was hit from behind.’ I rock onto the balls of my feet. ‘The way his hair is all gathered like that at the back makes me think there’s another wound there. My guess is the first blow put him on his knees, then he was hit again here before he bled out.’ I point to his head. ‘Maybe several times. That makes sense in terms of how he’s positioned.’
Tran nods, though seems reluctant to comment and instead says, ‘The coroner will be here soon. He’s coming from a farming accident a few hours away. Same as the forensic team.’
I step out of the garage and look along the front of the house. ‘You said this used to be the family home? Did Rick Fletcher live here alone? He’s only seventeen, right?’
‘His twenty-year-old brother lives here too, but he’s not around at the moment. We’re trying to track him down. The neighbour, Bruce Piper, said their parents semi-retired last year and live a little further down the coast. I sent Edwina de Luca and Damon Grange there this morning to do the death knock and ask some questions—they’re the two other constables in Tommy’s squad. Kai Lane’s out front.’
‘I read the notes on the way here. Abbey Clark and Fletcher were a couple.’
‘Yes. Apparently it was quite a serious relationship until last week.’ Tran looks at her watch and frowns. ‘God, it’s already past three.’ She glances back at Rick’s body briefly and says, ‘Let’s grab Lane, then I’ll run you through everything. I can’t stay much longer, we’ve got our own dramas in Byron today.’ She grimaces. ‘I can’t see anyone getting much of an Easter break this year.’
I push the hood of my scrubs down and quickly check on Ben. He’s sitting on the portable bed in the ambulance, talking to Andy.
‘All okay?’ I ask Ben, who nods.
‘We’re having a good old chat,’ says Andy.
‘Okay, well, we’re just going to run through a few things inside and then we’ll go to the hotel. Sound okay, Ben?’
‘Yep, I’m fine, Mum.’ His face is serious but all traces of the tension from the car trip are gone.
‘Come get me if you need me,’ I say to Andy, who gives me a discreet thumbs-up. Thank god he’s on duty today.
A white Mazda pulls up behind the ambulance as Tran and I step onto the grass. A skinny man in faded tan cords and a sky-blue T-shirt pushes out of the passenger door and walks confidently up the driveway. ‘Inspector Tran! Do you suspect Abigail Clark for the murder of Rick Fletcher, or are you treating these incidents as separate?’ He doesn’t remove his aviators but holds his phone out and appears to take a few snaps of the house and the garage.
‘It’s still no comment, Simon,’ snaps Tran, balling her fists before muttering, ‘I thought you went home.’
‘Nah, I want to talk to the new blood here.’ He turns his focus on me. ‘Simon Charleston, Byron Bay News. You must be the new detective from Sydney. Can you confirm that this is the residence of Rick Fletcher, boyfriend of Abbey Clark, missing since Saturday night?’
Tran’s nostrils flare. ‘I mean it, Simon. Get out of here or I’ll have you for trespassing. That goes for all of you.’ She glares at the other journalists and photographers who are keeping a surprisingly respectful distance on the nature strip.
‘Sorry, sorry.’ Simon pushes his sunglasses into his curly hair and looks sheepish. Little flecks of light dance in his grey eyes. ‘Just letting you know I’ll be right here if you decide to comment.’ He makes his way back to his car, craning his neck to see past the ambulance.
I exchange a look with the baby-faced cop on the lawn as Tran mutters under her breath, motioning for both of us to join her on the front porch. ‘Here.’ She hands the man a set of scrubs. ‘Gemma, this is Constable Kai Lane. He’s been with the Fairhaven squad for just over a year. Kai, you obviously know about Detective Woodstock already.’
Lane attempts an odd greeting that involves him tipping his upper body forward as he pulls on his scrubs. He almost loses his balance. ‘Sorry.’ He steadies himself, clearing his throat nervously. ‘It’s really great to meet you, Detective Woodstock.’
I nod. ‘Yes, you too.’
I recognise his name from Abbey’s file. He was the constable on duty when she reported the bike stolen after the party. Apart from the healthy flush of thick stubble across his jaw, Lane could easily pass as a high school student. One of his front teeth is slightly crooked, and his generous mop of brown hair makes me think of Ben.
Tran opens the front door and swishes down the narrow hallway in her booties. ‘Let me show you Fletcher’s room first, then we can talk.’
Inside, the steady tick of a clock gives the house a hollow feeling. We pass a wide archway that leads to a kitchen and, beyond that, a lounge. The kitchen is neat except for a scatter of dishes on the bench. A plastic milk bottle pokes its head out from the sink. I imagine Rick making himself breakfast here this morning, having no idea it was the last thing he would ever do.
In the lounge, a trio of surfboards lean against the wall behind a worn armchair. On the opposite wall, a huge television hangs above a tatty couch. The floor is half-covered by a light-brown shagpile rug.
Up ahead Lane ducks comically to avoid hitting his head on a dangling light shade as he trails behind Tran. She pauses and gestures for us to enter the bedroom at the end of the hallway.
It’s been ransacked. The linen has been ripped from the bed, and clothes spill from the wardrobe across the carpet, mixing with the contents of an upturned bin. A surfboard has been knocked sideways against a desk, and a glossy guitar has a nasty crack across its neck. An empty whisky bottle lies on its side next to the bed. I notice a pink skirt in the tangle on the floor.
Several photos of Rick and Abbey are stuck to the far wall. In every single one, the girl’s face has been coloured in with black permanent marker, dozens of scribbled circles that seem to blur into one the longer I look at them.
‘Whoa.’ Lane’s face is close and his warm, mint-scented breath brushes my cheek. He surveys the mess, wide-eyed.
‘Do we think Rick Fletcher did that?’ I tip my head toward the photos. ‘How angry was he about the break-up?’
Tran is still behind us in the hallway. She stabs at her phone. ‘He admitted things had turned nasty between them when we interviewed him yesterday. It’s possible he defaced the photos, but I find it strange he’d trash his own room. The photos certainly weren’t like this on Sunday afternoon.’
I step around a pair of shoes to get a better look at the bizarre mural. Against the medley of beach backdrops, Rick is either grinning or intentionally looking sultry. It’s clear that he and Abbey were very comfortable with each other; in several shots it’s hard to know where her honeyed limbs end and his begin.
Him dead, her missing.
‘It’s pretty sinister, blacking out her face like that,’ I say. ‘And it looks fairly precise, not like it was done in a drunken frenzy—though I guess it’s hard to be sure.’
Tran’s eyes flick over the photos again. ‘Rick wasn’t very mature,’ she says finally. ‘He was struggling with his emotions when we spoke to him.’
Tran’s right: the defacing of Abbey’s image could be incredibly dark or just the childish reaction of a hurting teenager.
I nudge a scrap of paper with my mesh-covered foot. Three mobile numbers are scrawled on it, and I pull out my phone to take a photo.
Tran’s phone buzzes with a series of messages. ‘Forensics are thirty minutes away.’ Her fingers fly across her phone. ‘I’ve put in a call for some extra manpower—you’re obviously going to need it.’
I’m surprised at her no-nonsense manner. I’d expected someone running a regional squad to be a bit more relaxed—more like Jonesy. I wonder whether she’s overcompensating; I can’t imagine her pathway to chief inspector was an easy one.
‘How many FTEs will we get?’ I ask as we head back into the lounge.
‘I’m trying for three extra bodies, maybe four. We absolutely need the station to run twenty-four seven for the foreseeable future, and there will be some community pressure to run patrols until the killer is caught.’
‘I have some questions about the case notes you sent me,’ I say.
The three of us form a little huddle in the kitchen.
‘Go ahead,’ says Tran, folding her arms.
‘The missing bike makes no sense to me. I mean for starters, either she was lying about leaving the party on her bike or Fletcher lied about seeing her with it. I just can’t work out why either way.’ I turn to Lane. ‘You were on duty when she came in?’
He nods. ‘We get a bit of theft around here so it didn’t seem strange at the time, but it obviously does now.’
‘How did she seem when she came in?’ I ask.
Lane becomes a little flustered, his smooth cheeks turning red, and I’m reminded of his youth and inexperience; I hope the rest of the local team aren’t so nervous around me. ‘Abbey was upset about her bike. She said it was a Christmas gift from her father and she was worried about his reaction.’
‘Daniel Clark, yes, I saw the DV summary. Is he abusive toward Abbey?’
‘We’re sure he is,’ says Lane. ‘But we could never convince her to make a statement. Daniel’s been beating his wife, Dot, for years. Tommy Gordon, that’s our CI, he’s tried to talk to Dot about making a statement a bunch of times, but she’s too scared, I guess.’
‘That’s a fairly common scenario,’ I say.
‘Especially around here,’ says Tran. ‘DV goes through the roof in summer, then again in winter when the work dries up.’
If Rick is suspect number one in Abbey’s disappearance, then her father is surely suspect number two.
‘Has her bike turned up?’ I ask.
Lane shakes his head. ‘We have no idea where it is.’
‘So unless it’s with Abbey, it sounds like it really was stolen?’ I look between them.
Lane shrugs. ‘That’s likely.’
I’m trying to get it all straight in my head. ‘And she refused a lift home from the police station even though it was almost midnight?’
He opens his mouth to reply just as someone starts screaming in the front yard.