O’NEIL HUNG UP and went out the front door, calling Riley.
No answer. He started the Prado and had the red and blues flashing as Patel and Farquhar came down the path.
Patel got in the passenger seat.
‘Call Rose,’ he said and sprayed gravel.
‘No answer,’ Patel said.
‘Rose went to the boatshed alone. Annie’s on the way with tactical.’ O’Neil looked in the rear-vision mirror at Farquhar. ‘Talk to me.’
‘He’s labile,’ Farquhar said. ‘It fits.’
‘Fits with what?’
The psychiatrist grabbed hold as the Prado fishtailed out of the drive. ‘The other day, when I was here with Rose, she asked Scott why he had been walking behind the maintenance shed, and he stood there grinning. At other times, when you’d expect to see some emotion, his face is flat, blunted. His expressions are incongruent, erratic.’
‘Yeah,’ O’Neil said.
‘It’s neurobiological. He has an inappropriate affect, emotional incontinence. It presents, literally, on his face. And now the enuresis.’
O’Neil hit the siren and swung out of the school.
‘Enuresis?’ Patel said.
‘Unintentional bedwetting after the age of five. Remember, there’s something wrong with psychopaths, they have a brain abnormality. That could lead to delayed speech, or delayed bladder control.’
O’Neil ran a light.
‘Psychopaths wet the bed?’ Patel said.
‘No, it’s merely a predictor. If Scott Green is what we think he is, it’s going to be a long list. Listen to how glib the man is, saying he’ll call Bruce Dunlop. His son has killed their daughter and he makes a joke.’
O’Neil smashed his fist down on the console and swore through his teeth.
‘He teaches science. We can assume he has some knowledge,’ the psychiatrist said.
‘Forensic sophistication.’ Patel turned. ‘There’s something else,’ she said, ‘about Scott’s involvement with Tom.’
‘Go on,’ Farquhar said.
‘Remember we couldn’t reconcile the timing? Marguerite was killed Wednesday, but Scott wasn’t seen behind the maintenance shed until Friday?’
Farquhar nodded.
‘The point was that if Scott was helping his son, checking on the plastic or cleaning up, why didn’t he do it on Thursday, before we’d even arrived?’ Patel said. ‘He’d had the time and it would have been safer.’
Farquhar swayed through a bend.
‘It was because he wasn’t helping his son,’ Patel said. ‘He knew nothing about Marguerite until the body was found on Thursday night. And then all he knows is what’s in the news—that there’s someone dead and wrapped in black plastic.’
O’Neil recalled Scott Green at the scene, offering to ID the body.
‘What does he do first thing Friday morning?’ Patel said.
Farquhar didn’t answer.
‘He goes for a walk to check his plastic,’ Patel said.
O’Neil squealed onto Silverwater Road. He was doing one-fifty and remembering Riley at her desk that morning, hassling the lab for the chemical markers on the plastic.
Riley stood with her Glock at face level in both hands and transferred weight through her hips to the door. It opened another inch, two, three, four, five, six. No sound. Leading with the gun, she swivelled into the room in a noiseless crouch, the weapon pointing up to the top right corner and then raking back across. No one. Two hulking water boilers. More shelving, packed with rope, chain, a folded sail, a facemask and snorkel, a wet vac, a wooden tiller, an anchor, boat paraphernalia. She sensed a void behind the boilers and shouldered up to one of the cylinders, edging around to look. There was space running into darkness, she didn’t know how big.
The rusted water heater flaked in her hair as she turned her head. The desk was four metres away, the laptop open with something frozen on screen. She couldn’t make it out. Beside it, the old computer monitor was displaying a picture in black and white. She scanned the walls for a light switch for the area behind her. Nothing, just a single toggle by the door, already on. Her phone vibrated on silent. Her eyes, squinting, went back to the desk. The image on the bulky monitor, she’d recently seen something similar … the surveillance setup in Spratt’s study. She was looking at a CCTV feed—it showed the main room of the rowing shed.
Spratt. He’d seen her come in on the monitor and retreated to the darkness. He’d know she’d come alone. Gladesville liked knives. Did he have a gun?
She had to get out, she couldn’t hunt him blind in his burrow. Her phone was vibrating again.
There was a rhythmic drip from one of the boilers. Was there a back way out? Had he gone in the dark? No, she could sense him, evil in the room. They were down on the riverbed, and the door she’d come through was the only access. She edged along the second boiler towards the desk, shortening the distance to the exit. She was going to have to bolt, get up to the main room, cover the stairwell with her Glock and call Tran.
The desk was two metres away now and her eyes were drawn to the laptop. She sucked in a guttural sound, half groan, half growl. It was a video, paused on Lena Chatfield, gagged and alive, her terrible gaze pleading straight down the camera.
Riley knew the knife was there before she felt it, the cold steel point in her neck.
‘Put your hands out.’
He’d come from behind the boilers and spoke through closed teeth.
‘Move.’
The blade pushed harder into her skin.
‘Put the gun on the table.’
She shuffled six steps and placed the gun beside the laptop.
‘Hands behind your head. Step away.’ The knife steered her left. ‘You want to watch the video?’
Her phone was vibrating.
‘No?’ he said. ‘I was watching the video. Getting to the good bit.’
His voice confused her. Completely altered, but recognisable. The remnant of a lisp.
‘You got my message that we’d play. You came alone.’ The knife pinched as he turned it. ‘We’ll play the video.’
‘Craig,’ she said. ‘Think about it. How did I get here?’
‘Craig?’ he hissed.
‘The Water Police are on the dock,’ she said. ‘O’Neil’s with them.’
The pressure on her neck changed almost imperceptibly. He’d snuck a glance at the CCTV. She twisted fast, bringing her elbow into his temple and pulling the long screwdriver from her belt with her right hand.
His mouth opened in surprise and in a fluid arc she rammed the shank in, using the momentum through her shoulder to drive the tip up hard into the soft palate and through the cavity behind the nose. She brought her other hand to help grip the handle and pumped.
He gargled out a groan and she kneed him in the groin. He crumpled, dropped the long blade, and she felt the weight of him on the screwdriver.
Not Spratt, she registered. Scott Green. Blood ran from his mouth, under his moustache, down the shaft onto her hands. She pushed away hard and let go of the tool and he stumbled and went down.
He lay still, blood pooling, cheek to floor, eye open. Riley trod carefully to the table and picked up her Glock. Her phone was vibrating again and she kept the gun on him as she dug in her pocket with a bloodied hand.
‘Annie,’ she said.
‘Rose, thank Christ.’ Tran was speaking fast. ‘Get out of there. It’s Scott Green. He manages the boatshed.’
She looked at the figure dying on the floor. ‘Not anymore,’ she said.