O’NEIL’S FACE WAS like a sour marriage as he sat across from Riley in the strike force room and listened to Farquhar’s briefing in silence. Riley knew what O’Neil was thinking—she could read him like they’d been wed thirty years. The dog and the boy were interesting, but he didn’t want to push too hard, not without evidence—and not after Preston.
Preston hung heavy on O’Neil. His actions with the headmaster had lit a political firestorm under Satyr. Riley knew the source of the blaze: Bishop was coming after them. The politician was playing all sides—back-stabbing Preston to Bowman even as he used O’Neil’s treatment of the headmaster to claim the strike force was harassing people, incompetent, out of control. O’Neil’s superiors were holding the line, but they were warning him as well. Bishop had a line into the Premier’s office and things were getting white-hot.
In the meantime, the techs had taped a call to Preston’s phone from Bishop yesterday that made for interesting listening. O’Neil had played it to her and was now weighing giving it to Bowman, but it was risky. If he leaked it to the journalist and it backfired, O’Neil would be burned alive. Riley resented even having to think about it. It was politics, a shabby distraction, and would have to wait.
She listened as Farquhar made his case. The dog was a good lead and they needed to run it down. But the boy? Farquhar hadn’t even met Tom. All they had was a quack theory.
‘The McDonald’s Triad,’ O’Neil said. ‘Did you want fries with that?’
‘Macdonald,’ Riley said.
O’Neil put his tea down. Riley held her breath. If he lost his shit, it wouldn’t help anybody. She was aware she wasn’t helping. Yesterday, she’d had a motive for Bowman, now she’d come in with the psychiatrist to discuss the kid.
‘We’re talking about a fifteen-year-old boy.’ O’Neil looked at Farquhar. ‘You want to bring him in for questioning about not wetting the bed?’
Farquhar opened his mouth to speak, but O’Neil cut him off. ‘You know, I think I’d be wetting the bed if I had you two coming after me,’ he said. ‘Piss myself laughing.’
‘You finished?’ Riley said.
‘No.’ He folded his long arms over his taut chest. ‘We need to stop with the hypotheticals and do the legwork. It’s a fucking shitstorm upstairs. Yesterday, I bring the headmaster of the oldest, most prestigious school in the country in under full media glare. Everyone’s waiting for a big announcement and what do I give them? Nothing. Now, with no evidence, you want to pull in a kid?’
‘Alright,’ Riley said. ‘No one’s saying bring him in. Let’s do the legwork. Track him down and have a chat. But I reckon we walk him past the dog’s grave and gauge his reaction.’
‘Where are they with the USB?’ O’Neil said.
‘It’s got some encryption. They need a couple of hours.’
She watched him twirl it around in his mind—his thousand-yard stare, his tongue clicking out a sprung rhythm in his head. They wanted the kid on his own, no parents. Speaking to a minor was a grey area, a judgement call, and it depended on the level of suspicion. Riley thought it was legitimate: they were genuine that Tom wasn’t a suspect, that they just wanted to have a chat. That wasn’t bending the rules, it was applying them in the quest for advantage.
‘Okay,’ O’Neil said. ‘Get his mobile number and his carrier. Boffins can track him down.’
The technical police triangulated Tom Green’s phone to a point in the bush at the back of the school. Riley, Farquhar and O’Neil drove out together and called Craig Spratt on the way. He met them at the gate and they showed him the location on Riley’s iPad.
‘Looks like he’s near the cave,’ Spratt said. ‘Senior boys go there to smoke and drink. Little dome of rock with a narrow opening.’
‘Easy access?’ O’Neil said.
‘There’s a fire trail down, then you follow this path.’ Spratt pointed on the screen. ‘The way in is here, easy to spot if you know where to look.’ He described it for them.
They drove in as far as they could on the trail, parked and picked up the path on foot. The way was shadow-damp, well-trodden, scruffy and unloved. Spoiled country. The creek was to their left and the land rose out of the gully, a forested slope on one side, water-carved rock on the other. Riley realised they were passing the ledges Sarah Green had described. She stopped when she glimpsed the waterhole down an incline, stagnant under the stone canopy. Farquhar and O’Neil stopped with her.
The bush thrummed with presences beyond their hearing. There was no breeze, just the unruffled surface of black water.
They found the cave a hundred metres further on, the opening as Spratt had described: two curtains of rock drawn together but not quite meeting, curving back on themselves to leave a gap just wide enough to pass through. They stood at the dark slit: claggy air tinged with burnt eucalypt and a faint scraping noise.
Riley took her phone from her pocket and hit the flashlight. She squeezed sideways into the cave and didn’t need the torch. A figure was sitting in the white light of a camp lantern, whittling a stick with a knife.
‘Tom,’ she said. ‘Police.’
The boy’s head jerked up and his hands went still.
‘Easy, Tom,’ O’Neil said, beside her. ‘We just want to have a chat.’
Tom Green’s eyes darted between them. ‘You scared me,’ he said. ‘Thought BMK had come back.’
‘Sorry,’ Riley said. ‘We’ve been looking for you.’
She scanned the cave. It was like a domed tent, about five metres in diameter. The remains of a campfire, ringed with blackened stones. A natural chimney in the roof. The walls covered in scratched names. The boy thumbed the sharp end of the stick. ‘What for?’
Farquhar squeezed through the entrance.
‘This is Doctor Farquhar,’ Riley said. ‘We just wanted to see how you’re going.’
‘I’m good … Wait. How did you know I was here?’
‘We followed your tracks,’ O’Neil said.
Tom grinned with disbelief. ‘No way.’
‘True,’ O’Neil said. ‘You join the police, they’ll teach you.’
‘Black trackers,’ Tom said. ‘I read about them. Good hunters.’
Farquhar nodded at the boy’s stick. ‘Do you use that for hunting?’
The boy looked at the stick and the knife in his hands. ‘No.’
There were years of detritus on the cave floor: cans, bottles, food wrappers, a frayed sleeping bag, a sneaker, ripped porn magazines, cigarette packets. Butts everywhere. Newspapers. A pile of kindling.
‘You have a fire in here?’ Riley said.
‘Boarders do sometimes,’ Tom said. ‘In, like, winter.’
‘We wanted to show you something,’ Riley said. ‘Come on, we’ll go for a drive.’
Tom looked uncertain but he extinguished the lantern and followed her out with the others. They went in single file, Tom between O’Neil and Farquhar, Riley at the tail. She watched the boy as he walked—his limbs were lean and brown, and his feet, in thongs, were pale, almost white. He had left his stick in the cave and stuck his whittling knife in the band of his shorts.
They put him in the back with O’Neil. Tom was intrigued by the unmarked Commodore and asked questions about engine size, speed, sirens. Riley drove up the access road.
‘Can I have a look at your knife?’ O’Neil said.
Riley adjusted her mirror and saw Tom pass it. The blade was fixed and about four inches long, handle in mother of pearl. O’Neil held it between thumb and forefinger, careful not to smudge the boy’s prints.
‘It’s a Loveless drop point,’ Tom said. ‘Retains its edge.’
‘Where’d you get it?’ O’Neil said.
‘On the internet, from America.’
‘Wow. When?’
‘Last Christmas.’
‘How’d you do that? American credit card?’
‘My uncle, um, lives in Texas. I chose it and he bought it as a present.’
‘It’s sharp.’
‘Yeah.’ The boy was pleased. ‘I freshen it up every night.’
They’d come off the access trail and were driving around the edge of The Flats.
‘When are you going to catch him?’ Tom said.
‘Soon,’ O’Neil said. ‘He’s made too many mistakes.’
Tom eyed the knife between O’Neil’s fingers. ‘Like what?’
‘With the plastic, for a start.’
Tom’s eyes flicked to Riley’s in the mirror. ‘What about it?’ he said.
‘He had to cut it.’ O’Neil held the knife lengthwise between his index fingers. It was a balancing act—he wouldn’t push it. They were just having a chat. Without a suitable adult present, anything Tom said was inadmissible.
‘Can I have it back now?’
‘You know it’s a prohibited weapon?’ O’Neil said. ‘And it’s in a school. I have to confiscate it. I’ll give it back later.’
Tom turned to look out the window. Riley drove up to the Dunlop house and parked at the garage.
‘Let’s get out here for a tick,’ O’Neil said, opening his door.
Farquhar and Riley followed, but Tom stayed in the car. Riley popped the boot of the Holden and pulled out an evidence bag. O’Neil placed the knife in the sleeve and she zipped it and stowed it. The kid was still in the back.
O’Neil had his hand on the open boot. ‘You get him out,’ he spoke low. ‘But go easy. If he won’t budge, tell him we’ll have to get his parents.’
Riley opened Tom’s door and smiled in. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘Won’t be a sec.’
After a moment, the boy climbed out. He wouldn’t look at them.
O’Neil shut the boot. ‘Let’s take a quick walk.’
‘Nup.’ Tom stood between Riley and Farquhar. ‘I don’t have to go with you.’
They were in the grey area. The kid had to be free to leave. Riley looked to O’Neil. Take the risk. ‘Come on, Tom,’ she said. ‘Otherwise we have to go get your father.’
O’Neil started down to the yards behind the windbreak.
Tom didn’t move.
‘The Dunlops’ dog,’ Riley said, ‘what was it called?’
His head cocked. ‘Tatters?’
O’Neil had turned back and was watching.
‘I think you were feeding the dog, weren’t you, Tom?’ Farquhar said.
The boy nodded quickly—just like his sister.
‘Would you tell us what happened,’ Farquhar said, ‘when Tatters disappeared?’
‘I dunno.’ His shoulders twitched. ‘It went missing. I looked for it.’
O’Neil walked up.
‘It might have been sick,’ Tom said, ‘and gone off to die. A dog likes to die on its own.’
‘Is that right?’ O’Neil said. ‘Do they dig their own grave?’
The boy’s eyes slipped down the slope.
‘Shall we get your dad here?’ O’Neil said.
Tom shook his head. Riley lagged as they picked their way to the police tape around the dog’s burial site.
‘What happened here, Tom?’ O’Neil said.
His face creased. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Did you forget to feed the dog?’ Farquhar said. ‘Leave him tied up by mistake?’
Riley held her breath. The psychiatrist had supplied an excuse … the boy didn’t take it.
‘We dug Tatters up,’ O’Neil said. ‘Someone cut his throat.’
‘With a knife,’ Riley said.
‘The carcass is in a lab, Tom, under a microscope,’ O’Neil said. ‘Your knife goes there too. Forensics will tell if the blade cut its throat.’
Tom stared at his feet.
The shed where they had found the John Deere was off to the right and still strung with police tape.
O’Neil walked over. ‘Have a look at this.’
Crime Scene had trucked the John Deere away. ‘The forensic investigators took something from here,’ O’Neil pointed. ‘Do you know what it was?’
The boy stood in the doorway, eyes narrow.
‘They look for fingerprints, DNA.’ O’Neil said. ‘That will tell them who drove it.’
Riley stepped through. ‘Marguerite was here,’ she said. ‘Can you feel it?’
Tom shook his head at the floor.
‘She was here,’ Riley said, ‘but she was dead. She was washed in here.’
They stood for long moments. ‘Tom,’ O’Neil said. ‘I don’t want you to say anything, not now. But all this’—he waved a hand—‘you need to think about it. There was a clean-up in here, but it wasn’t thorough. Things got missed.’
His mother had said Tom was following the case in the media. ‘Did you read about how to clean up a scene?’ Riley said.
The boy stood completely still.
‘Your knife will go under the microscope,’ O’Neil said, ‘with Tatters and the plastic.’
‘We could go find your mum,’ Riley said, ‘or someone you trust. Do you want to talk about it then?’
In the silence, Riley could see Farquhar framed in the daylight.
‘Alright,’ O’Neil said at last. ‘Let’s get you home.’
Tom didn’t speak on the way back to the car, or on the drive to his house. He got out without a word and didn’t look back as he walked up the path.
Riley drummed at the wheel.
‘Drive,’ O’Neil said.
She drove to the back of the school and onto a corner of The Flats, killed the engine and put all four windows down. ‘Well?’ She twisted in her seat.
‘We got the knife,’ O’Neil said.
‘It feels like a fuck-up,’ she said. ‘We told him things.’
‘He showed us something,’ Farquhar said. ‘His reticence. The way he shut down in the shed, went blank.’
Riley turned to her window. The child’s silence had surprised her. Kids weren’t mature enough to hold back. Even bad kids were vulnerable—they wanted to talk or they wanted to gloat. ‘Maybe he doesn’t know anything?’ she said.
‘Then why not say so?’ Farquhar said. ‘Deny everything. Tom didn’t do that. He coped. He has an ability to retreat.’
‘Retreat from what?’
‘Typically, exposure to violence as a child,’ the psychiatrist said. ‘Abuse, neglect.’
‘We went to see a boy about a dog,’ O’Neil said. ‘And now we think he killed the girl?’
Farquhar didn’t answer.
‘Well … run with it,’ O’Neil said. ‘He kills Marguerite. Why?’
‘He doesn’t mean to,’ Farquhar said. ‘He’s been watching her and he breaks into her house, he’s thrill-seeking. He thinks she’s gone to work but then she comes home. So now he’s in a dangerous, confrontational situation. He lashes out, one blow to the head … he’s nasty enough to clean it up and try to pass it off as BMK. He’s been following the case, according to his mother. As Rose asked, did he read about cleaning?’
‘He dumps her at the Hay Stand,’ O’Neil said. ‘Why then pretend to find the body?’
‘That might not have been his intention,’ Farquhar said. ‘Maybe he returned to the scene to look, even to film her, perhaps to move her. Then Spratt drives past and forces his hand. Tom’s smart, he knows he’s leaving footprints in the dust, and he calculates there’s a risk Spratt has seen him. There are too many variables, so Tom pivots. He takes the initiative and flags Spratt down.’
‘There’s our fuck-up,’ Riley said.
‘How so?’ Farquhar said.
O’Neil was already on his phone, calling Annie Tran and ordering surveillance on the Green house, Satyr detectives front and back.
‘We know Tom filmed from his drone on the Thursday and caught a frame or two of the body at the dump site,’ Riley said. ‘Correct?’
The psychiatrist nodded.
‘If Tom killed Marguerite, then that footage the next day was a trophy,’ she said. ‘If he took something else from her, a trinket, an item of her clothing, then we’ve just tipped him off to get rid of it.’