The man was already waiting patiently outside the station when Falk and Raco arrived early the next morning.
‘Dr Leigh.’ Raco introduced Falk. ‘Thanks for coming.’
‘That’s fine. It’ll have to be quick, though, if you don’t mind. I’ve got a full surgery today. And I’m on call later.’
Raco said nothing, just smiled politely and unlocked the station door. Falk looked at the doctor curiously. He hadn’t met the town’s GP before, but recognised the name from the Hadlers’ murder report. First medical attendee on the scene. He was in his mid-forties, had a full head of hair and the healthy glow of someone who practised what he preached.
‘I brought the notes on the Hadlers.’ Dr Leigh put a folder on the interview room table. ‘That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Any progress?’
He sat down in one of the offered seats and crossed his legs, relaxed. He had an iron-rod spine and excellent posture.
‘Some.’ Raco’s smile didn’t quite reach his eyes this time. ‘Dr Leigh, could you please tell us where you were on the afternoon of the twenty-second of February?’
Jamie Sullivan stood alone in his paddock and watched Luke Hadler’s ute disappear in the distance. As it vanished, he took out his mobile and sent a single text. He waited. Within two minutes the phone buzzed with a response. Sullivan gave a tiny nod and headed to his own four-wheel drive.
Surprise darted across the doctor’s face and he gave a confused smile.
‘You know where I was that afternoon. I was with you at the Hadler murder scene.’
‘And the two hours before that?’
A pause.
‘I was at the surgery.’
‘With patients?’
‘Earlier, yes. Then I rested in the flat above the surgery for a couple of hours.’
‘Why?’
‘What do you mean? It’s quite common when I’m on a split shift. Being on call early and late is exhausting. As you know well yourself, no doubt.’
Raco gave no reaction to the attempt at common ground.
‘Can anybody confirm this?’
Sullivan drove the short distance to town. He passed no-one on the country roads and only a handful of vehicles as he got nearer the centre. Before he hit the main street he took a sharp right, turning onto a small laneway behind the row of shops. He was being overcautious, he knew. No-one would think twice about seeing his car parked in town. But the sense of secrecy was stitched through him like a scar, and it was impossible now to override. On a wall overhead, a CCTV camera outside the pharmacy blinked as he drove past.
Dr Leigh leaned in, frowning. His long fingers picked at the corner of the Hadler folder, unsure whether to open it. ‘Seriously, what the hell is this about?’
‘If you could answer,’ Raco said. ‘Were you alone in the surgery flat that afternoon?’
Leigh looked from Raco to Falk and back again. ‘Should I call my lawyer? Does she need to be here?’ There was a challenge in his voice.
‘That,’ Raco said, ‘could be prudent.’
Dr Leigh pulled back from the table as though he’d been burned.
Sullivan parked his car in the garage that was always waiting empty and unlocked for him. He got out and pulled the roller door down to hide his vehicle from view, wincing at the scream of metal on metal as it closed. He waited a moment. Nothing reacted. The laneway was empty.
Sullivan went to the anonymous door next to the surgery’s supplies entrance and rang the bell. He glanced left and right. A moment later the door opened. Dr Leigh smiled at him. They waited until they were inside and the door was firmly shut before they kissed.
Leigh closed his eyes and rubbed his index finger along the bridge of his nose. His excellent posture had bent a fraction.
‘All right. I take it from all this you’ve been told the situation,’ he said. ‘Yes, then. I wasn’t in the flat alone that afternoon. I was with Jamie Sullivan.’
Raco made a noise that was half frustration, half satisfaction, and sat back in his chair. He shook his head in disbelief.
‘About time. Do you know how many hours we’ve spent – wasted – chasing Sullivan’s story?’
‘I know. I do. I’m sorry.’ The doctor sounded like he meant it.
‘You’re sorry? Three people died, mate. You were there with me. You saw the bodies. That poor kid. Six years old and his head shot off. How could you let us chase our tails? Who knows what damage you’ve done?’
The doctor swayed a little in the chair like he’d been hit by a physical force.
‘You’re right,’ Leigh said. He bit his thumbnail and looked close to tears. ‘Don’t you think I wanted to say something straight away? As soon as I found out you’d been at Jamie’s place asking questions? Of course, he should have told you then. I should have told you then. But we panicked, I suppose. We didn’t speak up immediately and then more time passed and by then I – we – didn’t know how.’
‘Well, I hope the delay was worth landing Jamie with a busted face last night,’ Raco said.
Leigh looked up, shocked.
‘Oh, didn’t you know?’ Raco went on. ‘Yeah, he was involved in a pub fight. It’s the only reason he told me what was going on. It was his head rather than his conscience that took a whack. You could’ve saved us all this trouble days ago. Shame on you both.’
The doctor put his hand over his eyes and stayed there for a long minute. Falk got up to get him a cup of water and he gulped it down gratefully. They waited.
‘So you felt you couldn’t tell us then. It’s time to tell us now,’ Falk said, not unkindly.
Leigh nodded.
‘Jamie and I have been together about eighteen months. Romantically. But – obviously – we’ve kept it quiet,’ he said. ‘It started when he began having to bring his grandmother in more often. She was getting worse and he was struggling on his own. He needed support and someone to talk to and it grew from there. I mean, I’d always suspected he might be gay, but around here –’ Leigh broke off and shook his head. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry, none of that matters. The day the Hadlers were killed I had open surgery until four o’clock and then had a break. Jamie sent me a text and I told him to come over. It was a fairly usual arrangement. He arrived, we chatted for a while. Had a cold drink. Then we went to bed.’
Sullivan was in the tiny bathroom drying himself off from the shower when the flat’s emergency phone rang. He heard Leigh pick up. The muffled conversation was brief and urgent. The doctor put his head around the bathroom door, his face clouded with worry.
‘I’ve got to go. There’s been a shooting accident.’
‘Oh shit, really?’
‘Yeah. Listen, Jamie, you should know, it’s at Luke Hadler’s place.’
‘You’re joking. I was just with him. Is he OK?’
‘I don’t know the details. I’ll call you. Let yourself out. Love you.’
‘You too.’
And he was gone.
Sullivan got dressed with shaking fingers and drove home. He’d seen a shooting accident once before. A friend of a friend of his father’s. The acid copper stench of blood had slithered up to the back of his nostrils and lingered for what had felt like months. The memory of it was almost enough to conjure up the hot sick scent again, and Jamie was blowing his nose when he arrived home to find two fire trucks outside. A firefighter in protective clothing met him as he ran to the door.
‘It’s all right, mate, your gran’s OK. I’m afraid your kitchen wall’s another story.’
‘After you went to Jamie’s asking questions he called me, scared,’ Leigh said. ‘He said he’d been caught off guard and had lied to you about where he was.’
Leigh looked them both in the eye. ‘There’s no excuse for that. I know that and he knows that. But I ask you, please don’t judge us too harshly. When you’ve been lying about something for so long it becomes second nature.’
‘I’m not judging you for being gay, mate, I’m judging you for wasting our time when a family’s lying dead,’ Raco said.
The doctor nodded. ‘I know. If I could go back and do things differently, I would. Of course I would. I’m not ashamed of being gay,’ he said. ‘And Jamie – he’s getting there. But there are plenty of people in Kiewarra who would think twice about letting themselves or their kids be treated by a poof. Or want to sit next to one in the Fleece.’ Leigh looked at Falk. ‘You’ve seen first-hand what happens when you stand out here. That’s all we wanted to avoid.’
They sent the doctor on his way. Falk thought for a beat, then jogged out of the station after him.
‘Hey, before you go. I want to ask you about Mal Deacon. How bad is his dementia?’
Leigh paused. ‘I can’t discuss that with you.’
‘One more thing for the list, eh?’
‘I’m sorry. I would. But I really can’t. He’s a patient.’
‘I’m not asking for specifics. General observations will do. What kind of things can he remember? Ten minutes ago but not ten years ago? Vice versa?’
Leigh hesitated, glancing back towards the station. ‘Very generally speaking,’ he said, ‘patients in their seventies with symptoms similar to Mal’s tend to suffer fairly rapid memory deterioration. The distant past may be clearer than more recent events, but often the memories blend and get muddled. They’re not reliable, if that’s what you’re asking. Generally speaking, that is.’
‘Will it kill him? Last question, I promise.’
Leigh’s expression was pained. He looked around. The street was virtually empty. He lowered his voice. ‘Not directly. But it complicates a lot of things healthwise. Basic personal care, nutrition, it all gets compromised. I’d suspect a patient at that stage would have a year or so, maybe a little more. Maybe less. It doesn’t help if the patient’s had a drink or three every day of his adult life either. Generally speaking, of course.’
He nodded once like a full stop on the conversation and turned. Falk let him go.
‘They should both be charged. Him and Sullivan,’ Raco said when he returned to the station.
‘Yeah. They should.’ They both knew it wouldn’t happen.
Raco leaned right back in his chair and put both hands over his face. He gave an enormous sigh.
‘Jesus. Where the hell to now?’
To kid himself that they weren’t stuck in yet another dead end Falk put in a call to Melbourne. An hour later he had a list of all the light-coloured utes registered in Kiewarra in the year Ellie Deacon had died. There were 109.
‘Plus anyone from out of town could have been driving through,’ Raco said gloomily.
Falk ran his eyes down the list. There were a lot of familiar names. Former neighbours. Parents of his old classmates. Mal Deacon was on there. Falk stared at that name for a long time. But so was everyone else. Gerry Hadler himself, Gretchen’s parents, even Falk’s dad. Gerry could have seen half the town at the crossroads that day. Falk closed the file, fed up.
‘I’m going out for a bit.’
Raco grunted. Falk was glad he didn’t ask where.