RILEY DROVE IN the white Commodore. All the roads leading to Preston had converged in a dead end. The headmaster had looked good as a suspect, but she wasn’t surprised the evidence had fallen away. Why? Because Preston was capable of killing Marguerite—but no one was putting him in the kill rooms at Gladesville.
If Preston had killed Marguerite, then Farquhar was right and the cases weren’t linked. But Farquhar was wrong. Riley could feel it, the cold tug of a missing link.
At the school gate she slowed past the checkpoint and the scene at the headmaster’s house and kept to a crawl through the campus. Gum trees dun-green against a cerulean sky. Bowman had grown up here. Had something gone wrong? The NeedFeed story had hinted at troubled family ties, but she’d dismissed that as Preston and Bishop trying to smear. Could she see Bowman in the rooms at the Chatfield and Sheridan houses? Truthfully, she didn’t know. She’d tried to follow instinct, but the orange hilt in Preston’s door was proving indigestible.
She had arranged to meet Spratt at Ghost Gum. The homestead lost some of its majesty from the rear, its lines weakened by the tacked-on kitchen jutting into the yard. She parked and walked around to the alcove window where Crime Scene had found the open latch. It was Friday. They had hauled Lynch in on Monday and then spent the rest of the week chasing Preston. Hindsight was pointless, but Riley knew their focus had drifted too far from the Dunlop house. Geography. This was someone’s comfort zone.
Spratt’s Hilux pulled up in front of the double doors of the standalone stone garage and she went to meet him.
He slammed the door of the ute. ‘Used to be a barn,’ he said, nodding at the garage.
‘I see. The whole place—it’s quite something.’
‘Oh yeah. I’m not one for ghost stories, but I tell ya, up here on me own sometimes …’
‘Are you up here on your own a lot?’
‘Bit,’ he shrugged. ‘Fixin’ stuff.’
‘Yeah. The alterations you did’—she scratched her cheek—‘to make Marguerite more comfortable here on her own. Can we go through them again?’
‘Sure.’
This time she had a key from Crime Scene. Spratt followed her into the kitchen and took her through the bottom level, the space he’d sealed off.
‘See what I mean?’ He put his hands on his hips. ‘You can lock yourself away and pretend the creepy bits aren’t here.’
Riley stood at the door of the old pantry and looked at the alcove window. She felt Spratt’s eyes on her, didn’t like having him behind her. She turned into the kitchen and took a seat at the table, pulled her laptop from her bag and scrolled through Bruce Dunlop’s statement.
‘You installed the locks in late November?’
‘That’s it.’ He stood holding the back of a chair. ‘Bruce and Bev were getting organised. With the locks and Tatters, Margy was happy to stay here.’
Riley glanced up. ‘Tatters?’
He gave her a watchful look. ‘You don’t know about the dog?’
Riley closed her laptop. ‘Tell me about the dog.’
‘Not much to tell. Went missing. Bad timing, that was all.’
‘Bad timing, how?’
‘Well, right before Margy was to stay here on her own. Having the dog was a big part of it. That and closing off downstairs.’
‘What happened?’
Spratt’s mouth turned down. ‘School broke up round the seventh, eighth. The next week, the Dunlops went away with Margy.’
A horrible stillness. Riley swallowed. Fiji.
‘Anyway,’ Spratt said, ‘the bloody thing vanished while they were away. The Green kids were feeding it. They went looking everywhere. We checked it hadn’t got in here and couldn’t get back out. Poor Margy, she lost her security blanket.’
Riley had risen from the table and was walking out into the yard, dialling as she went.
‘Steve,’ she said when O’Neil answered, ‘the Dunlops had a dog.’
He was quiet on the line.
‘Spratt just filled me in,’ she said. ‘It disappeared while the family was in Fiji. The Green kids were looking after it.’
She waited.
‘Go on,’ he said.
‘You were right. The Fiji trip. Someone comes and kills the dog while they’re there.’
‘And?’
He knew, but she said it anyway. ‘And a week later, he comes back and kills the daughter.’
‘Talk to the Greens, talk to Bruce Dunlop,’ O’Neil said. ‘Find out whatever you can about the dog.’
Spratt was still in the kitchen. Riley sat and indicated for him to do the same. ‘If I could just ask about the dog,’ she said. ‘You said the Green kids were feeding it?’
‘Yeah. They always did when the Dunlops were away. The Dunlop kids used to return the favour.’
‘The Greens have a dog?’
‘Nah. A cat.’
‘When did you learn the dog was missing?’
Spratt eyed the ceiling. ‘Mmmm. Jeez.’
‘The family went to Fiji on the sixteenth, a Wednesday. For eight days,’ Riley said.
‘Yeah. Let’s say after that weekend. Prob’ly the Monday. I’ll firm it up.’
‘Okay. What happened exactly?’
‘I got a call from Tom. He said he hadn’t seen the dog for a day or two, had ridden all over but couldn’t find it. He was worried it’d snuck into the house, wanted me to open up and look.’
‘The Dunlops hadn’t left him a key?’
‘S’pose not. Dog food was left in the shed by the garage. Dog slept in there too. There’s a tap to fill the water bowl.’
‘Alright. So, you came into the house?’
‘Tom ran through the place, callin’ out.’
‘Did you come in?’
‘Nup. Don’t like dogs.’
‘How long was Tom in here?’
Spratt’s shoulders jigged. ‘Coupla minutes.’
‘Two minutes?’
‘Yeah. Three minutes.’
‘Alright, thanks.’ She stood. ‘That’s all.’
In the yard, Spratt pointed out the dog’s shed. It was swept and tidy, two bowls hung on nails on the wall. There was dry food in a plastic box and a folded rug on a shelf. She would check the briefings, but she guessed Satyr detectives searching the property would have noted the family had once owned a pet.
‘Have to keep it clean,’ Spratt said. ‘Rats.’
Black birds wheeled overhead as Spratt drove off. A murder of crows, omens in flight. Riley walked in circles on the lawn, round and round. There had been no mention of the dog in anyone’s statement—not the Dunlops’, not the Greens’, not Craig Spratt’s. It was understandable—confronted with the murder of Marguerite, the missing dog had been insignificant.
She got into the Commodore and called Bruce Dunlop. No answer. She drove to the Greens’ house.
‘We weren’t expecting you,’ Sarah Green said at the door. ‘I’m the only one home.’
‘May I come in?’ Riley said.
Sarah led her through to the family room. ‘I hear you’ve been giving Preston a hard time,’ she said.
‘You’ve spoken to him?’
Sarah scoffed. ‘Not likely.’
‘Why’s that?’
‘You will have figured it out,’ she said. ‘He’s one of those men. He takes what he wants, over and over. And he gets away with it.’
‘You’ve been subjected to this?’
‘No.’ They sat at the table. ‘But I’ve seen him looking at my daughter.’
‘Tell me about her,’ Riley said.
Sam Green was Marguerite Dunlop’s age but they hadn’t been close, had gone to different schools. Sam had a job in a bar in the city and spent a lot of nights on friends’ sofas in the eastern suburbs.
‘She was here, though, the evening Tom found Marguerite’s body?’ Riley said.
‘She’s here every few days. Does her laundry, eats and sleeps.’
‘Two weeks ago—before Christmas. The Dunlops were away. Was Sam feeding their dog?’
‘No,’ Sarah gave her head a shake, ‘not anymore. Tom does it.’
‘And what happened when the dog disappeared?’
Her face creased, puzzled. ‘Goodness. I’d forgotten about that.’
‘Was Tom upset?’
‘Not as upset as the Dunlops.’
‘Where’s Tom now?’
‘He’s gone to Carlingford to buy trainers.’
‘With his dad?’
‘No, not with his dad.’
Riley heard bitterness and held her eye.
‘Want to hear another Preston story?’ Sarah segued.
‘Go on.’
‘That Adam Bowman you sent around here the other day, it involves him.’
The feather gust of a black bird’s wing. Omens in flight. Riley pulled out her notebook.
Sarah Green started to talk. When the Greens had first arrived at Prince Albert thirty years ago they were just married, childless, and lived in a two-room flat attached to one of the boarding houses. Sarah had been lonely, unable to connect with the other wives on the campus, all of whom seemed to be evangelical Anglicans, dowdy and judgemental. Then she’d met Cath Bowman and her husband, the ribald centre of a subterranean social circle, hard-drinking and disdainful of the flat-earthers around them. Cath was older than Sarah and a bit wild—she lived on cask wine and Alpine menthols, and she had pulled Sarah into her orbit. Philip Preston had also just arrived at the school, single and svelte in his twenties, and Cath had drawn him in too.
‘Cath Bowman and Preston started having an affair.’ Sarah looked out the window. ‘They couldn’t meet in either of their places, so they’d rendezvous in the bush.’
‘In the bush?’ Riley said.
‘They had a spot, a hidden clearing on a ledge over the creek. They’d take a picnic blanket. Cath never minded giving me the details.’
Details. Riley stared at her notebook.
One day, Sarah said, Cath’s eight-year-old boy had tailed her into the bush, like he did when he played a spy game with his big brother. Cath was straddling a naked Preston when she looked up and saw Chick staring at her from the rim of the ledge.
‘She screamed, she couldn’t help it. Chick recoiled, lost his footing, went over the edge backwards.’
‘Cath told you this?’ Riley said.
Sarah nodded. ‘The horror on his face was the last thing she saw of him alive.’
It was five or six metres down, rocky outcrops to a stagnant waterhole. He didn’t make a sound, not a ripple—the creek swallowed him whole. No one ever swam in that black pool under the canopy, not even schoolboys on a dare. Cath had scrambled down and dived under. She had come up frantic, sobbing, diving again and again until she found him. She had dragged him out dead and wouldn’t let go of him.
‘They left the school,’ Sarah Green said. ‘Cath died a year later.’
Riley’s tongue found her ulcer. She could taste anchovy. Thirty years ago, Bowman would have been fifteen.
‘What happened to Adam?’ she said.
‘He left in Year 10,’ Sarah said. ‘He never came back.’
‘Was Preston linked to the drowning?’
‘Never,’ Sarah said. ‘After Cath pulled Chick out, she sent Preston away and carried her son home. She told the police she’d been playing hide-and-seek with Chick in the bush and he’d slipped. She never mentioned Preston.’
‘Were there ever any rumours about what really happened?’
‘No, nothing. I told you, he takes what he wants and gets away with it.’
‘What about Adam? Does he know the details of his brother’s death?’
‘No way. Cath made me swear never to tell him.’
‘But she told you?’
‘After they’d left, she rang one night and confessed to me. Every detail. That’s what it was, a confession before dying. I never spoke with her again, she was so ashamed. That’s what killed her, guilt and grief and shame.’
‘How did she die?’
‘An overdose. Pills—in the bath.’
‘Do you know who found her?’
Green looked at her. ‘Not Adam. Her husband, I heard. John.’
‘Can I get your number?’
Green gave the number and Riley entered it into her phone and called. Green’s phone rang on the table.
‘That’s me,’ Riley said. ‘If you need anything.’
Sarah saw her out. Riley drove clear of the house and pulled over. If Bowman had learnt of his mother’s affair, it gave him a motive to take revenge on Preston. Motive. Now that one had shimmered into view, it underlined how elusive motive had been with Marguerite. All they’d had was the idea that Preston’s personality would allow him to kill the girl and ride it out. That wasn’t motive, it was an explanation to back up a hypothesis. Homicide meant looking into backgrounds, yet they hadn’t done it properly, not with Bowman.
She unpacked it all again, sieving fact from coincidence and jotting in her notebook. Bowman had twice been at the maintenance shed—the plastic and sighting Scott Green. It was neat, but led where exactly? Bowman killed Marguerite in order to frame Preston?
She called O’Neil. ‘Steve, is Wayne there? I need him to hear this.’
‘One sec …’ O’Neil said. ‘Go ahead, you’re on speaker.’
She took them through it.
‘Wayne?’ O’Neil said when she was finished.
Riley heard the psychiatrist exhale. ‘Well,’ Farquhar said, ‘there’s motive for vengeance, I agree.’
‘But?’ Riley said.
‘It’s a big but,’ Farquhar said. ‘The revenge would be on Preston. Why would Bowman avenge his brother by killing an innocent girl?’
Riley’s voice sounded strange in her own ears. ‘Because he’s insane. The cases are linked.’
She heard a cough and knew they were trading glances.
‘You think Bowman’s Gladesville?’ O’Neil said.
‘Why not?’ she said. ‘He was damaged young, at fifteen. He’s endured the death of his brother, the suicide of his mother. He hasn’t exactly made a brilliant career for himself. He’s alone, no partner, no kids. He sheets it all home to Preston.’
‘Gladesville’s psychopathy wasn’t made,’ Farquhar said. ‘It’s not nurture. There’s something wrong with him, a developmental problem in the brain.’
‘So even if Bowman knew about his mother’s affair with Preston,’ O’Neil said, ‘it wouldn’t correlate with what we see at Gladesville?’
‘Correct,’ Farquhar said. ‘If Bowman is Gladesville, he has an underlying neurological problem. He’s predisposed to psychopathy. His family history with Preston would be incidental. Or coincidental, actually.’
‘Coincidences do happen,’ Riley said. ‘They happen all the time. Look at psychiatrists—they’re all fucking crazy.’
‘Very good,’ Farquhar said. ‘You’ve been to Bowman’s house, twice now I think? Tell me what you saw, what you felt.’
‘Wiped down, ordered. Art on the wall, neat, framed … structured, he’s obsessive compulsive, his books are categorised by colour. He drinks a lot.’
‘Did you feel any sense of threat?’
She told them about the drunks in the bar.
‘You felt manipulated?’
‘I didn’t feel in danger. It was more I thought he may have arranged it. He’s a pleaser. There’s empathy but … emptiness.’
‘He might be lonely.’
‘Maybe. There’s a void, like he’s hollow.’
‘Books, you say? Reading and drinking can do the same job,’ Farquhar said. ‘You fall into them, they fill the void—’
‘If you think it’s necessary,’ O’Neil cut in, ‘you can go and toss Bowman’s house. Crime Scene are still there.’
‘You don’t think it’s necessary?’ Riley said.
‘I can see the logic,’ O’Neil said. ‘But it doesn’t add up.’
‘It doesn’t add up because it’s not logical. I started with motive and then made a leap,’ Riley said.
‘You extrapolated,’ Farquhar said.
‘Yeah, what you two are meant to be doing—putting logic aside and thinking past it.’
She waited in their silence. There was another point she hadn’t mentioned. ‘Something else to think about. The river. It leads to the creek, which leads to the waterhole where Bowman’s brother drowned. It’s called geography.’
She hung up and pressed the ignition. Everything was connected.