Kiara

‘I remembered where we met before,’ Kiara says.

Felicity smiles pleasantly. ‘Oh?’

They’re back in the interview room, with the peeling blue paint, the battered table and the camera. It’s only 8 a.m. When Kiara asked her to come in for a follow-up interview, Felicity said she had plans for the rest of the day. Kiara assured her this wouldn’t take long.

The deputy commissioner hasn’t called to fire her. Maybe Jennings hasn’t reported the assault yet. But Kiara is aware this may be her last interrogation as a detective.

She’s going to make it count.

Outside the jewellery shop, Felicity looked like a zombie, shell-shocked after her husband’s death. Now, even though it’s early, she’s wearing light foundation and her hair has been blow-dried. She’s dressed casually in a T-shirt and jacket, but the clothes are new, the colours not yet faded, no scratches on the buttons, the stitching pristine. The crucifix around her neck has been polished.

Kiara gets the feeling Felicity has chosen the outfit carefully because she’s nervous about this interview. She should be.

‘You were a minor at the time,’ Kiara says. ‘That’s why your name didn’t show up when I searched the database. You called the police to say your boyfriend was threatening you with a sword. The emergency squad showed up, saw he was armed, and shot him before anyone could get his side of the story. Later they realised the sword was taped to his hands. There was a lot of meth in his system, though none of his friends or family said he had a drug habit. Except you, of course.’

‘He hid it well. I’ll always be grateful to the police for saving me.’ Felicity squints. ‘I don’t recall you being there.’

‘I was a junior constable. You probably met a lot of police that day.’ Kiara opens her manila case folder and lays out her notes. ‘Anyway, I know why you killed your husband.’

Felicity’s eyes widen. ‘I what?’

‘It was because you loved him.’

She looks devastated, angry and confused all at once. ‘Of course I loved him. But—’

‘And you tried so hard to keep him that you lost him.’

Felicity stands up.

‘I wouldn’t leave yet,’ Kiara says. ‘Your lawyer will want to know what evidence I have as soon as possible.’

‘I don’t need a lawyer. I didn’t do anything.’

The guilty summon lawyers faster than the innocent—Felicity probably knows that. She still thinks she can convince Kiara she didn’t do it.

Kiara just looks at her. Eventually, Felicity sits back down.

‘I have to say, I’ve seen plenty of people murdered over who they had sex with,’ Kiara went on. ‘This is the first time I’ve seen someone killed over a kiss. An overreaction, if you want my opinion.’

‘I didn’t kill anyone,’ Felicity says. ‘This is outrageous.’

‘You made one stupid mistake: you kissed Oscar in your backyard, on the night of the party just after Dom bought the Tesla. I don’t know why you did it, exactly. You’ve always been impulsive, haven’t you? Easily bored. Prone to risk-seeking behaviours.’

‘You don’t know me,’ Felicity snaps.

Kiara doesn’t. But she knows people like her: dishonest, narcissistic, manipulative. She’s put plenty of them in prison. The signs aren’t obvious, but they’re consistent. Sometimes it feels like she’s catching the same criminal over and over, wearing a different face each time.

Psychopaths typically have abnormal thought patterns and a hunger for attention. Kiara should have guessed the killer would turn out to be the stand-up comic.

‘Oscar just wouldn’t let it go, would he?’ Kiara says. ‘He followed you around like a puppy, wanting more. If he kept it up, you knew Dom would find out. So you came up with a plan. You were going to kill Oscar, and frame Isla.’

‘What a load of crap.’ Felicity’s disbelief looks real, but Kiara isn’t fooled.

‘Rick Basking and Clementine Kelly both thought Oscar was delusional,’ Kiara says. ‘But he wasn’t imagining it, was he? You’d been leading him on. A month ago, you started calling and texting him, though you both deleted the records. I assume you told Oscar to do that so Isla wouldn’t find them, but actually it was us you were worried about. And rightly so—cybercrime has recovered some of the messages you erased.’

This is a bluff. Cybercrime only rescued two messages, and neither one was incriminating. But Felicity goes very still.

‘To Dom, you suggested a weekend away,’ Kiara continues. ‘A chance to reconnect with his team-mates from high school. You told Oscar you intended to propose some partner swapping. You’d make it seem spontaneous, but you’d each lay some groundwork ahead of time with your partners and friends. On the night, you and Oscar could pick the same bedroom, and have a wild time together right under the noses of both your spouses. You told him it would be a thrill.

‘Oscar thought you were desperate to have sex with him, but really you planned to bludgeon him to death as soon as he walked in the door of the bedroom. His wife would be the obvious suspect, but you thought you could make her the only suspect. You’d planted a letter about a divorce in her bag and somehow gotten her fingerprints on it. You threw in a ski mask for good measure—cops love finding ski masks in suspects’ bags.’

Kiara keeps her voice calm, almost casual, like she can prove all of this. But thanks to Jennings’ incompetence, any half-decent defence lawyer could get most of the forensic evidence ruled as inadmissible. This case cost Kiara the love of her life. And if she doesn’t get a confession, it was all for nothing.

Felicity glares at her. ‘This is offensive.’

Kiara leans forward. ‘But Dom already knew about Oscar. He’d guessed the two of you had conspired to choose the same room. So when he saw Oscar try to get the west downstairs bedroom, Dom took it instead. Unfortunately, you didn’t recognise him right away. You only hit him once before you realised—but it was enough.’

Under the fake disbelief, Kiara can see real pain. Felicity is haunted by her mistake. But Kiara doesn’t care if killers feel guilty. She wants them out of circulation.

‘You panicked,’ she says. ‘Not only had you killed the man you loved, you’d framed Isla for the wrong crime. Soon the body would be found, and everyone would reveal which bedroom they’d picked. You’d be exposed as the killer.

‘But you’re smart. In minutes, you had a new plan. You waited until you heard Isla leave the east downstairs bedroom and Oscar go into the shower. You covered Dom’s head with his pillowcase to avoid leaving a trail of blood, then you dragged him into Isla’s room and hid him under the bed, trying to confuse the situation so you wouldn’t be the obvious suspect. Did you move the wine bottle upstairs then, or later? Probably later, right?’

She waits, but Felicity doesn’t fall into such an obvious trap. After a moment, Kiara continues: ‘You took the batteries out of the cordless phone and threw them into the bush, along with the key to the Tarago. But you’d made another mistake: Dom wasn’t dead. Fatally wounded, certainly, but he regained consciousness. He would have been dizzy, nauseated and very confused. It’s also common to feel cold after a severe head injury. And because you’d dragged him into Oscar and Isla’s room, there was an exterior door leading to the back deck. So Dom sat up, walked out the door and climbed into the hot tub. Then he died. We thought he’d been attacked from behind by a right-handed killer while he was in the tub. But he was attacked from the front by a left-handed killer—you.

‘After everyone else was out, you went back into the bedroom so you could supposedly discover Dom’s body. But it was gone. You panicked again. You thought Dom had survived the attack and fled. I’m guessing you were pretty confused when you found him in the hot tub—until Clementine mentioned that people often wander around after a traumatic brain injury.’

‘This is all bullshit,’ Felicity says. ‘Cole owed money to Dom. He thought killing him would clear the debt. How come you’re not out there looking for Cole? You’re wasting valuable time.’

Kiara won’t be sidetracked. ‘Your biggest problem was Oscar,’ she goes on. ‘If he told anyone the two of you had arranged to pick the same room, someone would work out what you’d done. That’s why you got rid of the batteries and the key—so you could deal with him before anyone talked to the cops. When the others hiked down the mountain towards the road, you followed them with an axe, wearing the mask you’d intended to frame Isla with and the goggles Dom had packed for the hot tub. You attacked Oscar once he was alone, but he fought you off and escaped into the bush. You had to steal a bike from Seb’s camp site and race up the driveway to make sure you got to the house before Cole and Clementine.

‘That night, you volunteered to take first watch. You were waiting for everyone to fall asleep so you could murder Oscar in his bed—then he made it easy by coming out to the kitchen to talk to you. You slit his throat, but Isla saw you, and you had to kill her too. Now you were in real trouble. Isla was supposed to be a scapegoat for the police to focus on. But after all the effort you’d put into framing her, now she was dead and useless. You were running out of people to shift the blame onto. You’d killed five victims now—including your old boyfriend, the one with the sword.’

Kiara pauses, waiting for Felicity to correct her. If she says four, or three, or any number other than zero, that’s an admission of guilt. Felicity has made that kind of error before. But she stays silent.

It was worth a shot, Kiara thinks.

‘You couldn’t let Cole and Clementine come downstairs and see you standing over both bodies,’ she goes on. ‘So you put Isla in the only available hiding place—the oven. Then you confused the scene a bit, walking to Isla’s room and back, and screamed for help. You let the Kellys conclude that Isla had murdered Oscar, but you were careful not to say you’d actually seen her do it, because you were planning to tell the police it was Cole. So he and Clementine barricaded themselves upstairs, and you fled down the mountain.

‘When you were in police custody, you told us the others were armed and dangerous. You were hoping we’d shoot first and ask questions later, just like we had with your old boyfriend. But this time I stopped them. You must have been devastated when Clementine and Cole survived.

‘You nearly got away with it, though. That was quite a performance you put on during our first interview. You only screwed up once, and I didn’t notice at the time.’ Kiara gestures to the camera. ‘But I watched the recording again. When I told you two people were dead, you said, Two? At the time, I thought that meant you didn’t know about Oscar’s death, but it’s clear that you did, since you were standing over his body. You said two, because there should have been three.’

Felicity’s brow furrows the tiniest amount.

‘And no-one knew Isla was dead,’ Kiara says, ‘except her killer.’ She leans back in her chair, trying to look self-assured. ‘Game. Set. Match.’

Please, please, please, she thinks.

‘That’s it?’ Felicity says, surprised.

Kiara nods.

‘That’s all you’ve got?’

‘It’s enough,’ Kiara says, but disappointment is already settling over her.

‘That doesn’t prove anything.’ An amazed look creeps across Felicity’s face. ‘You have no evidence at all.’

Kiara persists. ‘If you have another explanation for knowing about that third body—’

‘I didn’t.’ Felicity sounds more confident now. ‘I only said two because I wanted to check that I’d heard you correctly. That’s it.’

‘Bullshit.’

Their eyes meet. Felicity is lying, and Kiara knows it, and Felicity knows she knows it. But the forensic evidence is unclear, and there are other suspects with motives and without alibis. It can’t be proven beyond reasonable doubt in a court of law that Felicity is guilty, so the Director of Public Prosecutions is unlikely to make the attempt. Felicity knows that, too.

Kiara has failed. The murders of Dominic Pritchard, Oscar Woodleigh and Isla Madden will all go unsolved.

Felicity stands up again. ‘I’m very sorry to hear about Isla. Her family must be devastated. But dealing with my husband’s death is a full-time job. If you have no more questions for me, I have to go learn what “probate” is. It sounds obscene—like a cross between “probe” and “prostate”.’

‘You’re not going anywhere,’ Kiara says. ‘You’re under arrest.’

A trace of a smile flickers over Felicity’s face. ‘No, I’m not. This is a voluntary interview. Everything you’ve said about what happened in that house is speculation.’

‘That’s true,’ Kiara admits. She thumps the door, and Rohan enters. He stands in the corner, lanky arms folded.

‘Well, then.’ Felicity picks up her handbag from the back of her chair.

‘I’m not arresting you for killing your husband,’ Kiara says. ‘I’m arresting you for killing your neighbour.’

Felicity’s smile fades. ‘My what?’

‘It turns out you lived right next door to a hit-and-run victim: Anton Rabbek, born 3 February 1971, blood type A negative. He was killed not long before you booked in your husband’s Jaguar to have a dented bonnet fixed. The bonnet was very clean, which was odd. I wondered, Who washes their car right before they take it in for smash repairs? But it hadn’t been cleaned deeply enough—we managed to scrape some A negative blood from the cracks. We’ll get a DNA match soon enough. I’m guessing Anton saw you and Oscar together, and you were concerned he’d tell your husband. Or maybe he mowed his lawn at 6 a.m., or maybe he had a dog that barked all night, or maybe you just killed him for fun—I don’t really care. With the blood, we don’t need a motive.’ Kiara gets out her handcuffs. ‘I can’t get you for all five murders. But I can get you for one.’

Tendons bulge in Felicity’s wrists and neck. Her lips pull back to expose her canines. Her hands uncurl, claws out.

But a split second later she looks calm again. Reasonable. Human. ‘I want a lawyer.’

Kiara nods and closes her case folder. ‘Good call.’

Five hours later, the preliminary paperwork is done. As Kiara walks through the car park, she finally feels like she can breathe. Another killer in custody, another victim avenged, the rest of the world a little bit safer. She puts her aviators on and tilts her head back so the afternoon sun can warm her face.

This is just the beginning. Kiara will have to brief the media. She has to collect victim impact statements from the families. Make sure her report is iron-clad, so some slick lawyer can’t argue lack of due process. The trial could take months to complete, particularly if Felicity doesn’t plead guilty, although Kiara is pretty sure she will: she’s smart enough to know she’ll lose in court.

The Tesla is here, in the car park. Kiara never saw it following her home from the real estate agency, so she can’t prove it was Felicity who sabotaged her brakes. Maybe it was some other psycho. There’s no shortage. But that’s a problem for another day.

Kiara struts towards her own car—then hesitates. Turns around again. The Tesla looks like it’s riding low at the back.

She doesn’t have a warrant to search it. But she has a feeling, the kind of instinct she’s learned to trust. She raps her knuckles on the boot.

For a second, nothing happens. Then there’s a muffled moan from inside.

Even before Kiara breaks the lock and wrenches the lid upwards, she knows it will be Cole Kelly. When she sees him crammed into the boot, his head mummified in duct tape, she thinks, Hey, I might get Felicity for those other murders after all.