RILEY LET THE Calais idle and watched the journalist walk into the scrub. She called a Satyr analyst on Bluetooth. ‘Got some plates,’ she said. ‘Want to see if they ping with anything you’re getting from the school. Or Gladesville.’
She read out Bowman’s rego and put the car into gear as O’Neil’s text came in. She thanked the analyst and drove past blocks of classrooms, a gymnasium and swimming pool, the oval and pavilions, a sandstone chapel and the turreted, stained-glass Victorian seat of the original estate. No one lived in the manor, Spratt had explained, and it was now a function centre.
O’Neil was standing on the turning circle at the Dunlop house. Some men looked good completely bald. He got in and closed his eyes and rested his head back. Riley put the car in park but left the engine running.
‘Spratt profile in train?’ he said.
‘Mm,’ she grunted. It was one of O’Neil’s paranoias: witnesses morphing into suspects. All his paranoias were running hot.
‘What’s he saying?’
‘He’s confirmed the headcount. Reckons there’s eight people onsite. Everyone else has bolted for the holidays.’
‘What about his wife?’
‘She gave her statement this morning. Checks out with his. She’s been working all week, a deckhand on the charter boats out of Darling Harbour. She’s been on the day shift, home with him every night. Except last night. She was out with colleagues when he found the body.’
An eye opened. ‘A deckhand?’
‘Yeah. Does the ropes, pours the drinks. Spratt used to be a skipper on the harbour, that’s how they met.’
‘Do they own a boat?’
‘A Quintrex on a trailer, fifty horses on the back. It’s in good nick, down the side of their house.’
O’Neil looked across at her, both eyes open now. There was a decision to be made—and it was O’Neil who had to make it. The question was whether to inherit the case, to bring the Dunlop girl into the Gladesville investigation. The alternative was to pull out now and shovel it elsewhere.
It wasn’t clear cut. Really, all they had tying the cases together was black plastic and the full moon. But they had to move fast—because Gladesville was going to hit again. And if it turned out the cases weren’t linked and Gladesville hit while O’Neil had Satyr focused on the private school, things would get shitstorm messy. Career-ending messy. O’Neil had plenty of enemies, buzzards in the trees looking down. They hated his ego and the way the media fawned over him. But ego, ambition, strength of character—Riley knew he needed all of that to do what he did.
She felt him weighing it. She knew which way she was leaning—but leaning was easy. It was O’Neil who had to make the call. Riley’s gut was telling her Marguerite Dunlop and Gladesville were linked. She had no idea how, but she knew to listen to her gut.
O’Neil counted on his fingers. ‘Spratt’s got a key to the Dunlop house, an alibi from his wife, knowledge of the river and a boat.’
Riley didn’t answer—he was just running through his lists aloud. She had a mouth ulcer starting and her tongue kept finding it. Farquhar thought the Gladesville killer was local, working from a fixed point near the houses. O’Neil at first had him coming in by car, parking down the end of a road and jumping through backyards. But they’d got no footprints, no fibre off any fence. They’d looked hard at the river—the first thing they had done was look at the river. Then they’d looked again. They’d looked at the houses from different angles—both properties had good, secluded access by water, well-screened from the neighbours. Standing in the shadows of the Sheridan yard one evening, Riley and O’Neil had come to the same realisation: he was scoping by boat.
O’Neil straightened a leg under the glovebox. ‘This school,’ he said. ‘They’ll have a rowing shed?’ The Satyr investigation had taught the detectives one thing—there were school and club rowing sheds all along the river, including three at Gladesville.
‘Yeah,’ Riley said. ‘To go with the rifle range.’
‘Where is it?’
‘Upstream of Gladesville, not in the radius.’ She picked up her notebook. ‘Putney. I’ll ask Annie’s boys to take a look.’
O’Neil closed his eyes again and rubbed at his temples. ‘What are you hearing about the parents and the girl?’
‘Quiet, religious, solid,’ Riley said. ‘They’d give you the shirt off their back. No séances, no scuttlebutt.’
‘What else?’
‘There’s been a bit of buzz on the Satyr hotline,’ she said. It made sense. The use of black plastic had got out and the media—and therefore the public—had no doubt BMK had killed Marguerite Dunlop. It had been reported as fact even before the picture in The National had placed O’Neil at the scene. Riley knew O’Neil would be happy to let it run. ‘A few calls about this headmaster, Preston.’
‘Who’s been calling?’ he said.
‘A parent, some former staff.’
‘Saying?’
She turned pages in her lap. ‘He’s suave but vicious. Bit of a show pony. He hits on the mothers. He’s got the board in his pocket.’
‘You catching any whiff of kiddie fiddling?’
‘Nup. Not with Preston at least. Seems too far up his own arse to be interested in anyone else’s.’
O’Neil’s mouth stretched, half a smile.
‘For a church boarding school it seems pretty clean.’ Riley looked over her shoulder and reversed. ‘Nothing out of the royal commission.’
‘You read the Preston statement?’
Riley nodded and put the car in drive. The hotline chatter was likely just hearsay, about as useful as pub talk. Spurned lovers, sacked teachers, petty politics. But in the statement, something had jagged out. Philip Preston had said he’d been at dinner in Roseville last night, and this had been verified by his hosts, and by the electronic trail he’d left on the M2 and by the CCTV at the school gate. The autopsy wouldn’t be done until tomorrow, but the pathologist was clear on one point: Marguerite Dunlop had been dead at least twenty-four hours when she was found early on Thursday evening—so Wednesday had come into focus. And what had Philip Preston been doing on Wednesday? Home alone, day and night.
The headmaster’s house sat at the front of the school, to one side of the classroom blocks and administration buildings. A black Range Rover with purple vanity plates, PRINCE, was parked on the drive. Next to it sat a long-wheelbase Caprice with a red Z rego.
They got out of the Calais. Riley shielded her eyes to peer through the blacked-out windows of the Caprice. Empty. It had to be federal—and someone high up.
‘COMCAR,’ she said. ‘You think a judge?’
From here you could see the entry gates to the school on Pennant Hills Road, where the police roadblock was still in place. O’Neil scratched his neck. ‘Question is, how did they get in?’
The house was boxy and big, a 1960s two-storey brick job. O’Neil rang the doorbell, waited a while, and rang again. Riley felt better—fresh adrenaline was coursing.
There was muffled noise inside and the door opened in a citrus blast of tangerine polo. The shirt drew the eye, blinking, to the hint of a belly. Philip Preston looked to be not long out of the shower, black hair slicked back. Dyed? He was six foot, late fifties, blandly handsome, corporate and smooth. The duke in his domain, he surveyed them: the naughty schoolchildren. They hadn’t called ahead.
His demeanour shifted to an obsequious welcome, like a dog showing its belly. ‘You’re the police?’ The voice was high, slow, confected … striving for languid. The remains of an accent. American?
‘Mister Prest—’ O’Neil said.
‘Doctor.’
O’Neil’s face folded. What the fuck?
‘I beg your pardon,’ Preston said. ‘It’s Doctor Preston.’
Riley was attuned to every register of male insecurity. ‘You’re a medical doctor?’
Preston looked her down and up, an insolent second too long at her breasts. ‘I have a PhD—from Cambridge.’ He stepped back with sudden deference. ‘Please. I wasn’t expecting you.’
From the hall, the headmaster ushered them to an anteroom with a single chair and side table guarding a second door. A man in a shiny suit sat in the chair with The Mirror and a mug. He acknowledged them in silence, ex-cop written all over him. Preston ignored him and led them through the doorway.
They came into a long, formal room with a timber dining table for twenty and a cluster of green Chesterfields on the left. Heavy curtains, drawn back to let in the day, leatherbound books on shelves, scenes of pastoral life on the walls, cut pile on the floor. At a window halfway down the room, a man stood with his back to them, talking on his phone. An Akubra sat on a coffee table.
Preston gestured. ‘Please,’ he said again. ‘Sit.’
They remained standing.
‘Good,’ the man at the window said into the phone, ending the call. He wheeled and started towards them—a carpet stroller, used to working a room. Light blue shirt, cufflinks. Riley knew his face from TV.
‘The Honourable Hugh Bishop,’ Preston said and squared his shoulders. ‘The Minister for Agriculture, the Member for Yuranigh.’
‘Yeah, yeah,’ the man said and shook hands with O’Neil and then Riley. ‘I’ll get out of your hair. I flew in this morning and heard the news. Poor girl. It’s just … devastating. I wanted to check in on Philip.’
Poor girl. Preston had gleaned Marguerite Dunlop’s identity and coughed it up to his mate.
‘You came through the main gate?’ O’Neil said.
‘Mmm.’ His pebble eyes were bagged in a ruddy face. Liked a shandy on a hot night. ‘My driver talks the talk.’
A hospital quiet descended. Riley bit her tongue to keep it from the ulcer. The room felt clinical, antiseptic. There was no sense of shock, no empathy, no sorrow. Something had been scrubbed clean.
O’Neil crossed his arms. He had a foot in height on the politician. ‘What’s your role with the school?’ he said.
‘Just a parent,’ Bishop said. ‘Got the kids here.’
O’Neil nodded slowly. ‘Not nice, losing a child.’
Preston cleared his throat.
Bishop patted his chest pocket and looked at O’Neil. ‘That was the Premier on the phone,’ he said. ‘She worked for me, back in the day. You need anything, you give me a call.’
A cloying drawl. Repulsion slithered in Riley. Who had who in whose pocket? Sydney was a corrupt town, and Canberra would be worse. It was a slimy game and Bishop was a player.
‘Well’—Bishop bent to retrieve his hat—‘I’ll let you get back to work.’
O’Neil’s hand went inside his suit jacket to his pocket—and came out with his notebook. ‘There is one thing,’ he said. ‘Before you go.’
Bishop fingered the brim. ‘What’s that?’
‘Could you tell me where you were on Wednesday? And Wednesday night?’
Riley marvelled at the politician’s jaw muscles. It had been a while since someone had told Hugh Bishop to get fucked.
‘Call my office,’ he said. ‘They’ll give you my diary.’
Call the office. Put in a call. Bishop could end O’Neil’s career by picking up the phone. The calls to the Satyr hotline had claimed Preston had the board in his pocket. Bishop would be in on that. They’d walked into a snake pit and Riley knew how it worked—networks of influence, the peddling of favours, stretching through politics, big business, construction, sport, media, the law.
O’Neil stared him down. ‘I’m happy for you to provide a statement at a later stage,’ he said. ‘But we need to clear this one thing now. Wednesday—where were you?’
Bishop’s face was stony. You could abseil down the motherfucker. ‘I was at home with my family in Blayney. Now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He nodded to Preston and headed for the door. The headmaster followed him out.
O’Neil cocked an eyebrow at Riley. ‘Checking in on Philip? Philip seems fine.’
Riley watched through the window as Preston walked Bishop to the Caprice. Neither man had shown any real concern for the dead girl or her parents. Bruce Dunlop had been Preston’s colleague for more than a decade.
‘They didn’t even mention Marguerite by name,’ she said.
The politician got into the back seat, already on the phone.
O’Neil watched beside her. ‘Why now?’ he said.
Good question. Riley pictured Marguerite’s face. Why were two men meeting over the body of a dead girl?
Preston returned and sat in an armchair with a head-masterly wave. ‘Tell me what you need.’
‘Wednesday,’ O’Neil said. ‘You were here alone all day?’
Preston blew air through his nose. ‘I went through all that with your officers last night.’
O’Neil studied the bookshelf. ‘A teenage girl has been killed at your school. That means anyone at the school is a person of interest, and we need to eliminate them from the investigation. The easiest way to do that is with an irrefutable alibi.’
‘But you know who you’re looking for,’ Preston said. ‘This BMK.’
‘That’s a good point you make. We’re going to need a download of your smart phone and a photocopy of your diary, going back three months. Of particular interest are two dates at the beginning and end of November—as well as Wednesday. You’ve got a secretary?’
‘Of course.’ Preston’s nostrils flared. ‘What are you implying?’
‘I’m not implying anything,’ O’Neil turned. ‘I’m stating a fact. You don’t have an alibi. That’s a problem.’
‘I don’t believe this.’ He smiled with hurt disbelief. ‘I’ve told you where I was.’ He held his hands out. ‘Right here.’
In his statement, Preston had said that he and his wife had spent Christmas in Adelaide with his mother-in-law. His wife had stayed on while he had returned to Sydney on Boxing Day, to get some work done. They had no children.
O’Neil took a seat to take Preston through his statement. As soon as the headmaster answered a question, O’Neil asked another. Why hadn’t his wife returned home? His hosts in Roseville—did they know Hugh Bishop? Did his wife know about the Roseville dinner? Did his wife know Bishop? Was there anything he wanted to get off his chest?
Preston’s voice got faster as O’Neil stripped him down. Had Preston made any calls on Wednesday? Could anybody vouch for him? How well did he know Marguerite Dunlop? Had he been in her house? Were the Sheridan or Chatfield families from Gladesville associated with the school in any way?
O’Neil had him rattled. The detective had been careful not to use the word ‘arrest’, but he’d made it clear things could get out of hand. The police could fixate on Preston, get a crime scene warrant for his house, take him in for questioning.
Riley stood to the side. What were they dealing with? Vanity—in the voice, the hair, the insistence on his title, the proximity to the politician. Bishop was a trophy: fame and power. What else did Preston covet? Five years in Homicide meant she knew a man like Preston could kill a child and try to ride it out—his personality would allow it. But while that might account for Marguerite, Gladesville was something else entirely. How disordered was Preston’s narcissism, and to what else was it coupled? That was Farquhar’s territory. They were almost certain Gladesville was acting alone, so what were Preston and Bishop into? Not the schoolboys—if they were molesting at Prince Albert it would have got out among the other students. Kids always knew that stuff. So not a paedophile ring exploiting schoolboys. But girls? Was Marguerite being shared around?
The tinge of disappointment Riley had felt when she’d first seen Marguerite’s body came back to her. She’d wanted it to be Gladesville who’d killed the girl, because that would mean there was only one killer out there, and if he was moving it gave them a chance of taking him down. The disappointment had been an instinct telling her that Marguerite was not connected to Gladesville. But it was an instinct she had since rejected, it was too concrete, and she wanted to keep open the possibility Gladesville was linked to the school. And the lack of an alibi now allowed for a connection between Preston and Marguerite.
In the silence, Preston’s tongue came and went across his moist lips. The headmaster was a man of appetites. He had a greedy mouth.
O’Neil made eyes with Riley and looked down the room. They walked together and he spoke low. ‘Stay with him. I’m going to call in Farquhar with Annie and some grunts. They can copy his phone and diary. Farquhar can watch how he responds.’
Riley went back to Preston. The headmaster bristled in his chair. ‘This is absurd,’ he said. ‘This is the third murder. Surely you have more to go on than questioning me?’
His long, milky fingers fiddled with his wedding ring. Unblemished hands, good at pointing to the flaws of others, delegating, turning tables. Exhaustion caught her and she closed her eyes, felt dead hands around her throat. Her eyes came open. Preston was watching her.
‘Mr Bishop described the victim as a poor girl,’ Riley said. ‘We haven’t released a name yet. How did he know that?’
‘I saw all the police at the chaplain’s house last night,’ Preston said. ‘I rang Craig Spratt and he told me.’
O’Neil was back. ‘I’m about to talk to the media,’ he said. ‘I’ll be identifying the victim as Marguerite Dunlop. I’ll also be asking anyone working or living at the school during these holidays to come forward to the police. They’ll be asked to give a statement, prints, a DNA swab.’
‘Would it help if I spoke with the media?’ Preston said.
That’d be right. Riley curled her mouth at O’Neil. Media tart.
‘No.’ O’Neil’s tone was final.
Riley left first. In the anteroom, the COMCAR driver’s empty mug sat on the table like a totem. She turned on Preston. ‘Just getting back to Mr Bishop. Why was he here this morning?’
‘He’ll be chairman of the board when he leaves politics,’ Preston said. ‘He’s an old boy, his children are here, the school is an important part of his life. He wants to protect the brand.’
Riley gave a nod and spelled it out. ‘A dead girl’s not good for marketing.’
‘How about you just do your job?’ Preston said. ‘Without the leaks and the gossip.’
‘We don’t gossip,’ Riley said.
‘Well, you’re not exactly airtight.’ Preston went through to the entry hall. ‘That picture in the paper—how did the journalist get in?’
Riley followed. ‘Maybe it was an inside job.’
There was a map of Canada on the wall. Preston’s accent was faint—and not American. ‘That where you’re from?’ Riley said.
He blinked. ‘I was born in Ottawa. We came here when I was young.’
She heard vehicles on the drive. Preston opened the door and baulked. Farquhar’s Volvo, a patrol car, two unmarked Holdens, a Crime Scene van. Annie Tran was standing under the portico in a grey T-shirt, jeans and joggers, her black hair spiky short.
‘Detective Sergeant Tran,’ O’Neil said to Preston. ‘She’ll oversee your DNA and prints. And she’ll have some further questions.’
Riley watched as Tran directed traffic and Preston digested the show of force. O’Neil spoke with Farquhar and then walked with Riley to the Calais.
‘An inside job?’ O’Neil said when they were in the car.
‘The journo who got the photo, I caught him poking around this morning.’
‘And?’
‘Kicked him out.’
O’Neil glanced across. ‘You want to use him?’
She pressed the ignition. ‘He lived here as a kid. He might give us something.’
O’Neil frowned out the window.
Something? Riley knew O’Neil would take anything right now. Three dead girls and they were stuck in first gear, never out in front, always reacting. O’Neil sucked it up, but she sensed the pressure building, coming down on the Commissioner from the Premier and the press. Command needed results, without them they’d spear O’Neil to save themselves. And now a federal cabinet minister had driven onto the crime scene in his limousine. She put the car in gear. A friendly journo could be useful if Bishop were to come at them. Sunlight was the best disinfectant against a man like that. The politician wouldn’t like it if a reporter started asking questions, publishing Bishop’s name in connection with the investigation into Marguerite Dunlop’s murder.
‘How do you want to play it?’ O’Neil said.
‘I could have a chat, see how it feels. He doesn’t look like a grub.’
‘Alright. Test him out: spin him a line and tell him it’s off the record—maybe feed him that rape categorisation stuff Farquhar goes on about. See how long it is before we read it in the paper. If he’s another Benny Beat-Up I don’t want him anywhere near us.’