Bloodborn (8 page)

After vacillating over whether or not
to go, at the last minute Anya decided to attend Giverny’s funeral. The afternoon service went longer than expected, with four hundred people spilling out of the church and its grounds. Old school friends paid their respects along with former teachers, extended family and community members.

Eulogies were accompanied by slideshows of Giverny as a smiling baby, a gap-toothed face in school uniform, with the bag almost as big as she was. Like other mourners, Anya struggled to fight back tears. As a mother, she could not help share the parents’ grief, if only in the smallest of ways. Once the funeral was over, her life would go on pretty much unchanged. The Harts’ lives were irrevocably changed, for the worse.

A white coffin covered in purple irises and cornflowers lay beneath the screen. Bevan Hart sat with his wife in the front row, both wore large dark sunglasses to obscure their misery.

Anya had hoped to slip in the back without being noticed, but a newspaper photographer recognized her and his flash alerted security guards who quickly removed him.

Bevan Hart moved across and invited her to sit with the family, given that, he explained, she had tried so hard to save his daughter’s life and had been so kind throughout her ordeal.

Anya felt like a fraud, wishing there was something else she could have done to revive the teenager. It was her job to help victims like Giverny, nothing more.

Recorded songs filled the church, ones written to thaw the hardest heart. “Amazing” prompted more tears in the crowd, as did “Wind Beneath My Wings.” Eric Clapton’s tragic tribute to his late son, “Tears in Heaven,” concluded the service.

Mary waited in the floral garden. Around the perimeter, Anya noticed a number of detectives, including Kate Farrer and Liz Gould taking note of who had attended. People who had been outside were being funneled through a side entrance to sign a visitors’ book. Those who had been seated signed another at the exit.

Immediate family were the only ones going on to the cemetery, so Mary and Anya waited to pay their respects to Bevan and his wife. A woman who shared Val Hart’s prominent nose and small chin thanked them for coming.

“My brother-in-law and sister speak highly of you,” she said, “and all you did for our Giverny. Thank you for everything you did, right up until the last.”

Anya noticed Mary nodding self-consciously.

“We’re so sorry for your terrible loss,” was all the counselor could manage.

The relative took Anya’s elbow. “Is it true that the rape case against those animals has been dropped?”

Anya wasn’t in a position to comment, but said, “The prosecutor and police want justice for Giverny. I can promise you.”

“We’ll be praying that happens,” the woman said before moving on to hug a bereft teenage girl.

Afterward, Anya needed some solitude, so she retreated to her home office, grateful that Elaine was now on an extended holiday after managing the office alone in Anya’s absence. Peeling off first her jacket, then pantyhose, she hit play on the answering machine and flopped on the lounge.

Dan Brody had already left three messages. Each one sounded more urgent and asked her to call him the moment she got back. She groaned and sat up, flipped open her mobile phone, wondering why he hadn’t called on that. The black screen confirmed the battery was flat—again. She plugged it into the charger. Usually, Brody’s secretary called if there were cases to consult on.

She dialed his mobile number. He picked up on the second ring.

“Dan, it’s Anya returning your—”

“Thank God. Can you come right over? It’s an emergency.”

For once, the lawyer’s voice was quiet and almost unsure. She checked her watch. With traffic, she wouldn’t get to his office before seven. Despite the hour, she was loathe to refuse work from the busy defense lawyer. He had already kept her in enough private consultancy work to keep her business afloat, cope with the mortgage and pay child support for Ben. Ever since a colleague in his law firm had tried to ruin her professional reputation Brody had, as if to compensate, increased the workload his firm sent her way. The effect had been to make her a more desirable expert witness for other firms and an expansion of her consultancy work.

“Is this a new case?”

“I can’t explain over the phone, but I’m at home. I’ll leave the verandah light on.”

Anya hesitated. She had expected him to be calling from his office. After taking down the details of his address, she agreed reluctantly to go. As she was pulling the pantyhose back on, her fingernail ripped through the nylon. Bare legs with the skirt would have to do. Before heading out the door, she collected the examination bag and checked the downstairs window locks.

An hour later, she turned into the exclusive Hunters Hill street, highly curious about what sort of emergency Dan Brody had that couldn’t wait until office hours.

She didn’t usually do house calls to lawyers, and it wasn’t about to become a habit. One of his high-profile friends had to be in trouble. But what required a forensic physician in an emergency?

Brody’s reluctance to explain over the phone had been uncharacteristic, as was his distress, both of which surprised her. If she were being honest, the call had been slightly unnerving. She wasn’t completely sure why.

Brody’s street had mansions set back amidst lush, well-lit gardens. As she drove up the hill it was obvious that each home outdid the last in landscaped glory—and value. Either this part of the city managed a lot of rainfall, or water restrictions weren’t imposed or followed. She stopped at the top of the hill outside a red-brick home with wraparound verandahs. Double-checking the address confirmed this was Brody’s house.

She pulled the handbrake hard and stepped out of the car. The fragrant smell of damp grass in the night air made her sneeze. Floodlights showcased late-flowering wisteria over a large arbor, immaculate lawns and topiary hedges.

She pushed open the gate and entered, following a stone path toward an ornamental pond adorned with statues of cherubs. Foot-long goldfish swam beneath waterlilies, while a jacaranda tree provided glimpses of shadow from the bright flood lights.

Closer glance at the water feature made her uncomfortable. The inviting scene was a potential tragedy. The surface should have been covered with metal grating, preventing little faces from becoming submerged. It probably had never occurred to Brody because he didn’t have kids, but even a toddler could access the gardens, with potentially devastating results. She made a mental note to mention it at an opportune moment.

Up the stairs, Anya took in the harbor view and drank in the fresh breeze from the verandah. She straightened her shirt, checked her hair in the glass adjacent to the front door and knocked.

A few moments later, Dan Brody opened the door. He towered over her, even taller than his six foot four with him standing inside, one step up.

“Thanks for coming.” He ushered her into the house and locked the door behind her with the chain bolt.

Anya began to feel uneasy. “What’s going on?” she said, moving back toward the door.

“I just don’t want anyone walking in on us.”

“You’re beginning to scare me.” She looked around for signs of anyone else in the house. “Unbolt the door and we can talk.”

The lawyer put two open hands out in front of him. “I’m so sorry. That was thoughtless. I just meant that I wanted to talk to you privately and in complete confidence. There’s someone else with a key and I don’t want to be interrupted.”

Someone with a key? His latest society girlfriend, no doubt. Before Anya had left for overseas, she and Dan had shared a celebratory meal when a case of Dan’s ended with the acquittal of a homeless man accused of murder. Anya’s evidence had been instrumental in the verdict. That night, Dan had been attentive and sweet, but two months were a long time in his fast-paced world.

“Fine.”

Usually immaculate, Dan’s untucked shirt and jeans were creased, as if they had been pulled straight from the laundry basket. A crepe bandage barely hung on a bruised ankle and foot.

“Does this have anything to do with the first-aid attempt on your foot?”

“Yes, sort of. I stepped on some floorboards and went right through them. Wasn’t easy getting a size fourteen out of that hole.” He glanced down at his attempt to cover the injury, then reached out to open a pair of sliding wooden doors.

Anya followed and took in the room as he hobbled along. Most amazing was the room’s centerpiece—a walnut grand piano, flawlessly polished.

All the wall space was occupied by bookshelves stacked with hardcovers and leather-bound books. It was Anya’s idea of a dream room, only hers would have a set of drums taking pride of place next to the piano.

“I didn’t know you were that much of a reader.”

“I’m not,” he said, sitting on a brown leather lounge near a marble fireplace. “This was my parents’ home until recently.”

Anya knew that Dan’s mother had died and that his father was in a nursing home following a stroke, but very little else about his parents.

“My mother was a voracious reader. Anything from philosophy and religion to world affairs. It always surprised me that crime fiction was her true guilty pleasure. She was also an accomplished writer and artist.”

“Your father?”

“A couple of weeks after Mum died, Dad had a massive stroke. We tried to keep him at home but he needed twenty-four-hour nursing and the house and garden aren’t wheelchair friendly. To be honest, I think he found it hard to be here without Mum.”

He flicked something minute off the arm of the lounge.

“Anyway, we moved him into a nursing home but he had another stroke and lost all speech. I didn’t like the care he was getting so I moved him a couple of weeks ago.”

Anya felt more comfortable now they were discussing his family. She had not met Therese Brody, but had heard wonderful things about her philanthropy and work with indigenous literacy projects; she had obviously been an intelligent woman with a strong social conscience.

“Has he settled in?”

“I believe so. Where are my manners—can I get you a coffee?”

“No thanks. I am curious, though, what you wanted to see me about. Please don’t say it’s just to check your ankle.”

Despite the warmth of the room and seeing Brody in a new, almost refined light in his home, she didn’t feel the visit was meant to be social, particularly if he had a new girlfriend. Another woman arriving home and getting the wrong idea was the last thing she wanted tonight.

Dan sat straight and ran both hands down the thighs of his jeans. “Maybe I should just show you.”

He limped out of the room and returned with a faded wooden box, not much bigger than average shoe size. He held the object with almost outstretched arms, as if frightened of the contents. After looking around, he opted to place it on the carpeted floor, then stepped away and sat on the stool with his back to the piano.

“This is what I called you about. I didn’t know what else to do. I mean, I got one hell of a shock when I found it a few hours ago.”

“Don’t tell me it’s a live rat.”

“Trust me, it isn’t alive. The lid was sealed tight. I had to pry it open.”

Anya didn’t like dead rats any more than live ones, but she slid off the lounge and onto the floor. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brody stand and move further away. Whatever was inside really had him spooked.

She tentatively wiped some dust off the lid with the back of her hand and revealed a detailed marquetry design. “This is beautiful craftsmanship,” she said, but her host was staring out the window. She couldn’t imagine what was inside that could be so disturbing. Undoing the clasp, she flipped open the lid and lifted what felt like wax-paper wrapping. She quickly sat back on her haunches, unable to believe her eyes.

“Where did you find it?”

Brody didn’t move. “Under the floorboards in what was my parents’ bedroom. I was rearranging the walk-in wardrobe when part of the old floor gave way. When I eventually yanked my ankle out, the box was right there.”

Anya studied the tiny dead form, curled up inside the small chamber. The miniature body lay in a fetal position, knees resting against the chin. There was no doubt. This was a fossilized human baby.

The pair remained in silence for a few moments.

“I could do with that coffee now,” Anya said, returning the lid and closing the latch. “After I wash my hands.”

“Of course.”

Brody moved to the kitchen area with a glass conservatory overlooking more gardens. A granite island-bench dominated the area, with copper pots hanging from a chained metal grid above it. Dan obviously had no trouble reaching the utensils that were out of reach of most people.

His hands trembled as he loaded a small machine with a metal capsule and placed a demitasse cup, the only size small enough to fit, under the nozzle. The smell of rich coffee filled the air.

He pulled a carton of full-cream milk from a serving door in the stainless steel fridge and placed some in a steel mug adjacent to the machine. Within seconds, he poured frothy milk into a china mug and repeated the process.

Anya washed her hands in the sink and dried them with paper towel from a dispenser at the wall. The mug warmed her hands. She could appreciate the lawyer’s anxiety at the find. Despite dealing with criminal trials, he had probably never seen a human body before, let alone experienced the shock of discovering one in his parents’ wardrobe.

“Do you have any idea whose child it could be?”

He offered his guest a cane stool, which she accepted.

“This house has been in Dad’s side of the family since it was built three generations ago. It was always passed on to the eldest son.”

“Was there ever any scandal about illegitimate pregnancies?”

Dan shook his head and washed out the used steel mug. Apart from fresh basil in a small vase, the benches were empty of clutter.

“Do we need to call crime scene? I mean, will they want to photograph the…”

“Possibly. I’ll check with them, but it’s not as uncommon as you might think. With garden renovations, it’s not unheard of for someone to discover tiny remains, particularly given the number of stillbirths and backyard abortions in the past.”