It’s light when I wake up. A TV is on nearby, the volume low. I’m at the Parrot Hotel; I recognise the décor from our first night in Fairhaven. I roll over and stretch out my legs, relishing the pull of my tired muscles. Then I remember everything and feel sick again.
I check my phone: a missed call from Owen. I sit up and call him back.
‘Shit, Gemma.’ His swearing is uncharacteristic. ‘Are you alright? I heard—’
‘I’m okay, but the whole situation is pretty terrible. And I doubt we’ll ever find the girl now. At this point, I don’t even know what happened.’
Owen murmurs his sympathies. We all understand the pain of a missing body, the horror of the eternal limbo.
I rest my hands lightly on my gut—I need to eat. ‘I have to go, Owen. Thanks for checking in.’
‘Of course. Hey, look, I just wanted to let you know that the team on the drug thing are closing in on a few doctors they reckon might be involved. One has a link to a guy who runs a packaging company, and the team think that’s how they’re getting the stock to fly under the radar. We’re not sure if the stock is stolen—we think it might be manufactured from scratch and being cut with a lot of cheap stuff to get the margins up. But bottom line is that it looks totally legitimate when it’s all packed in barcoded boxes. It could easily be sitting in a warehouse or even on a pharmacy shelf somewhere, and nobody would ever know.’
‘God, we’re in trouble when the drug dealers are worried about bloody graphic design and the quality of their cardboard boxes.’
Owen laughs. ‘I know, it’s a whole new breed of dealers. Drugs masquerading as drugs.’ He sighs. ‘Please take care of yourself, Gem. Let me know when you’re coming back.’
I shuffle into the lounge and give Ben a kiss. On the TV a cute rabbit is wrestling with a giant egg.
In the kitchen, Mac looks up from his laptop. ‘Hey. How are you feeling?’
‘Better. I’m going to get myself some cereal.’
‘Good idea.’
I feel him watching me as I shake the cornflakes into the bowl, pour in the milk. I check my phone. An email from Tran confirms that Dot has made a formal statement about Daniel’s whereabouts on Monday morning; he will be detained and arrested shortly. I scroll through my other emails and see that Grange has finally sent through the hospital finance records.
Switching to my laptop, I scroll through the statements. There’s a recurring monthly payment of one thousand dollars to Parrot Bay Holdings Pty Ltd listed under ‘freight’.
I google the company: it’s the registered name of Tara’s beauty salon. I sit heavily back against the chair. The ringing sound returns.
‘How many weeks are you?’ Mac asks quietly.
‘What? Um, I think about seven. From when you came to Smithson.’
He nods.
‘I just spoke to Owen about a drug investigation in Sydney. The team thinks it might be linked to prescription drugs being sold around here and other regional centres.’
‘And is it also linked to your case?’
‘I’m not sure,’ I say, my mind whirring. I remember Janet saying that Sally Luther had worked with the local GP and Eric had mentioned this was what he did before he opened the hospital. ‘And Aiden worked at the hospital,’ I murmur.
‘What?’ Mac leans forward and takes my hand.
Although I’m looking into his eyes, I can’t focus on him. Is Eric the key to all of this? I replay seeing the note on my windshield. The shock of it. But Elsha said Lane stayed with her that night, and that he woke up when I called him to come in early. He didn’t have time to come past the Gordons’.
‘Lane didn’t leave me the note about Scott,’ I say.
‘What?’ says Mac.
‘I just . . .’ I swallow, trying to think. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’
Drugs masquerading as drugs. Hiding in plain sight.
‘This isn’t finished,’ I say, pushing my chair back.
Mac looks alarmed. ‘Gemma, you don’t need to think about this case anymore. You’ve done enough.’
‘Please don’t do that, don’t tell me what I need.’ My head spins. ‘Can you mind Ben for me? I need to follow something up. It’s not to do with Rick or Abbey—I think there’s something else going on.’
Mac breathes out through his teeth. ‘I said I’d help Cam. The pub flooded last night, and it’s a mess. He came past before, when you were asleep, and I think Ben is keen to help anyway. But, Gem, at some point we really do need to work everything out.’
I retie my hair and straighten my clothes. ‘I know, but there’s something else I need to do first.’
I say goodbye to Ben and step outside. It feels a lot longer than a week ago that I discovered the dead possum. Realising my car is at the Gordons’, I stand in the sunshine trying to decide what to do.
‘Gemma!’
I whip around.
‘Don’t worry,’ says Simon, his hands already raised in defence. ‘I’m just walking past, I don’t want another serve.’ He steps around me and unlocks the door to his room.
‘Actually, Simon,’ I say, ‘is there any chance you can give me a lift?’
Simon parks his car outside the main entrance of the hospital. ‘I didn’t run that article.’
‘I noticed.’
‘I had a big fight with my editor about it.’
‘Lucky you’re tough.’
He flexes his arm. ‘True. She did tell me that the woman who called had an accent—possibly Dutch or Scandinavian. Anyway, I convinced her it was part of a smear campaign and that it would bite us in the arse if we published it.’
‘Thank you,’ I say vaguely.
An accent. Elsha. Lane’s betrayal continues beyond the grave.
I turn to Simon. ‘I have to go.’
‘Sure. Good chat.’
‘I might only be a second.’
‘I can wait,’ he says. ‘I brought a book.’ He hooks his thumb toward a dog-eared Tom Clancy novel in the back seat. ‘Plus, I’m obviously hoping there’s going to be a story in this for me. It would be good to get your exclusive take on the events of last night.’
‘You have a one-track mind,’ I say, rolling my eyes.
‘That’s what my ex-girlfriends say,’ he quips as I get out of the car.
I burst into the hospital foyer. The receptionist eyes me nervously but chirps, ‘Happy Easter!’
‘I need to see Doctor Sheffield,’ I snap.
‘We-ell, he’s on the ward. Do you know, he ended up assisting with the delivery of a baby last night? It was so amazing—the ambulance couldn’t get through to the house because of the storm, so they called him instead.’
‘Through here?’ I say, already pushing the double doors.
‘Um, hang on, I’ll page him . . . Wait, please!’
The doors swing shut behind me. Eric is at the other end of the corridor and looks up in surprise.
‘Hello, Detective.’
‘Doctor Sheffield, I need to speak with you. Right now.’
‘Okay, no problem.’ He smiles reassuringly at a nurse and moves at an excruciatingly slow pace, handing her some paperwork and scribbling on a notepad. ‘My office?’
I nod and we walk down the corridor together.
‘I heard about Edwina,’ he says as I close the door. ‘How terrible.’
‘What’s going on with Tommy Gordon?’
‘What about him?’
‘You have been subscribing him bogus medication for years.’
‘Yes,’ Eric says calmly. ‘Tommy is an addict, and it has manifested into pseudo chronic pain. I didn’t realise he was doctor shopping until about a year ago when Vanessa started coming in with various ailments, all of them very vague. After a while I twigged that it was all for Tommy.’ He rubs his eyes. ‘You have to understand, these situations are difficult—I can’t ignore what a patient is telling me even if I’m almost a hundred per cent certain it’s false or in their head. I confronted her about it, but of course she kept mum. I told her I wouldn’t be giving her any more prescriptions.’
‘Tommy was high when he had his accident,’ I say. ‘That’s why Vanessa went and got him. It meant he could go home and claim to have taken medication after the fact, which would muddy any bloodwork done.’
‘I suspect you’re right,’ says Eric wearily. ‘I tried to talk to him, but you know what Tommy’s like.’ He hesitates. ‘I have considered reporting him, but I admit I feel conflicted about it. I don’t know exactly how bad it is, and due to his position it does feel somewhat complicated.’
Everything Eric is saying rings true. His voice is calm and kind, and for a second I lose my bearings. He crosses his arms and looks at me expectantly.
‘But are you selling prescription drugs off the books?’ I say.
‘What? No.’
‘Is the hospital being used as a delivery point for illegal drugs coming from the city?’ I press.
He laughs, seemingly bewildered. ‘Not as far as I know. Why don’t you sit down?’ He gestures to a chair.
I remain standing. ‘Other hospitals in the area have been used as a hub. Schools and vet clinics too. It looks like the standard deliveries have been supplemented with extra stock, prescription medication that is packaged and then sold illegally within regional communities. We’re not talking small-scale stuff.’
Eric’s eyes widen. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘I’ve gone through your financial records. There’s a significant monthly freight payment to a holding company in your wife’s name. What are you hiding?’
Eric looks bewildered. ‘Nothing.’
‘Explain it to me then. Why do you pay your wife’s salon for freight?’
‘It’s for tax purposes. A few years ago we all got together and agreed we could pool our funds to create some efficiencies.’
‘Who’s we?’ I ask impatiently.
‘Me, Tara and some of the other small-business owners in the area. It makes sense. We all receive regular supplies from Sydney, so rather than each paying separately for freight, we figured we could save some money. Tara already had the company set up for the salon, and it made sense that her business would pay the freight for tax purposes, and then the hospital and the others transfer her our percentage of the costs. My accountant can probably explain it better. I’m not trying to hide anything, but I don’t really understand what you’re getting at.’
‘What other businesses?’
‘Well, the salon like I said. That’s Tara’s baby and I don’t get too involved in it. And Des and Min at the supermarket, and Cam at the pub.’
‘So, what, the one delivery comes into town for all of you?’
‘Yes,’ says Eric. ‘It’s all run through the one company. Everything comes in on Tuesdays, like I told you.’
‘Who organises the delivery company? Is it Tara?’
‘She pays for it, but Cam manages it all. He’s always been very entrepreneurial. It’s great, actually, like a relay system. The delivery comes to us first because of the sensitivity of our orders. We crosscheck all of the pharma stock and any new equipment, then the driver drops off the supplies to the supermarket, the salon and lastly the pub. After Cam takes his stock allocation, he loads up the truck with any catering we need for the week, and the driver comes back to drop it off here. It runs like clockwork, a lot better than the system we used to have. Plus having it all contained to Tuesdays means the truck can be leased out for the rest of the week, and Cam has some of the kids at the pub using it for regional delivery work to earn some extra money until it goes back to Sydney on Sunday. That’s what Aiden has been doing lately, long-haul freight deliveries. Cam is always looking for ways to support the local kids, offering them flexible work. We’ve talked about the brain drain that happens here—it’s one way business owners can encourage people to stay on.’
The room feels like a vice closing in on me.
‘Sally Luther used to work for you,’ I blurt, ‘when you had the GP rooms.’
Eric brings his hands together and looks bewildered. ‘Yes, she did. She was a great girl, an excellent receptionist. She had decided to stay here because of her boyfriend and do university by correspondence, but she was keen to earn some money. It was devastating to lose her.’ Eric stretches out his back. ‘It does feel a little like déjà vu with Abbey and now Aiden disappearing. Cam called me yesterday, checking to see if I’d heard from Aiden. He sounded quite worried.’
‘Fuck!’ I exclaim.
Eric jumps at my outburst.
I fumble to open the door and am vaguely aware of it slamming against the wall as I race out to the car park.