Malicious Intent (15 page)

‘Thanks again.’ Kate put her mobile back into a case KATHRYN FOX

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attached to her wrist. ‘Peter Latham says you’ve been following a couple of cases with similar findings to something he’s just seen. Interested in watching a video tomorrow morning to cheer yourself up?’

‘If it’s one of yours, something tells me it’s not going to have a happy ending.’

18

Once showered and changed, Anya drove through Newtown, past the airport and headed toward Brighton-le-Sands. She parked in a side street off the Grand Parade and met her father outside his hotel. The pair hugged and Bob Reynolds didn’t seem to want to let go.

‘Thanks for coming, Anya. It means a lot.’

Anya never knew how to respond to her father’s displays of affection. She’d seen him hug victims, well-wishers and serial killers. She felt more like a stranger than his eldest child.

Tonight’s menu should put them on common ground.

‘Hope you’re hungry, Dad. There are some great Greek cafés along the main strip.’

‘To be honest, I had my eyes on the seafood platter from the fish-and-chip shop on the corner. Thought we could eat on the beach if you don’t mind slumming it.’

Anya wondered why she’d bothered at the gym. ‘If you throw in some potato cakes, I’m in.’

They crossed the side road and ordered a smorgasbord of fried food. The smell alone made Anya’s mouth water. They walked over to the beach and sat on a cement wall, legs dangling over the sand as they unwrapped their bounty. Anya’s first bite of chip burned the roof of her mouth. Her eyes watered.

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‘Your food tastes haven’t changed,’ her father said fondly.

Anya smiled. The beach and cold weather always made her feel like salty, hot chips.

‘Remember whenever Damien played goalie I’d feed him hot dogs and chips when the ball was up the other end, just to keep him warm?’

‘I do, and all the times we sat on the beach outside the shack at Low Head with the fish we’d caught and the battered scal-lops and chips we cooked in the deep-fryer.’

The breeze picked up as a red-tailed 747 gained altitude, climbing above the water. Watching planes from Sydney’s major airport take off from a runway over the ocean seemed odd, when people made a pilgrimage to the beach to escape things manmade – except for fish-and-chip shops, that is. Bob Reynolds finished a prawn and gazed into the distance.

‘Speaking of your brother, how did you like the drum kit?’

Anya smiled. ‘Trust him to give me a divorce present. Then again, if he’d given it as a wedding present, we would have separated a lot earlier.’

‘He knew you always wanted one, the way you used to drive us mad with your tapping everything in sight. When I think how much your mother hoped one day you’d develop a love of the violin or cello . . .’ He paused as another plane left the ground. ‘Are you having lessons?’

‘I have a teacher and practice when I get the chance, as quietly as I can on a terrace.’ The breeze picked up and blew a strand of hair in her face. She anchored the hair behind her ear and felt the salty residue in her ponytail. She knew her father had something more on his mind than music. ‘Is everything all right?’

‘A detective from Melbourne rang me last week about Miriam’s disappearance.’

Anya froze, dreading news about her sister.

‘They haven’t found her. A task force has been assigned to reinvestigate cold cases.’

‘But Billy Vidor’s in prison.’

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‘He’s still in Risdon for killing the Campbelltown boy.

They’ve had him under surveillance but he’s never admitted anything to do with Miriam. They’re wondering if the Launceston police put all their energies into a false lead, and failed to follow up other potential suspects. They’re reinterviewing all those who gave statements. That is, those who are still alive.’

Anya felt a chip stick in her gullet. ‘I’ll expect a call, then.’

She swallowed hard. ‘Does Mum know? God knows what this’ll do to her.’ Anya’s sister was a topic rarely discussed by her mother, and never between her parents.

‘I assume so. I’ve accepted Miriam’s gone. I just want to bring her home and give her a proper burial. Your mother –’

‘I know, Dad. She’s still waiting for Missy to walk in the door.’

A seagull landed nearby, hoping for leftovers. Anya broke off a piece of fish, peeled away the batter and threw it into the waiting beak.

‘I phoned Damien last night, London time. He hopes that this time fresh eyes can turn up something new.’ Bob Reynolds took a sip of ginger beer and turned to face Anya.

Anya couldn’t meet her father’s gaze. She was responsible for what happened to Miriam, and everyone in the family knew it.

19

The taxi driver honked as Anya grabbed her keys. She climbed into the backseat and was met by a surly stare from the middle-aged man behind the wheel.

‘Where to, madam?’ he said, touching an imaginary forelock.

‘Strawberry Hills, thanks.’

One case remained vivid in her memory, partly because of its humbling effect. She’d been called out to examine a woman who staggered into a late-night supermarket, waving a G-string in her hand. With the amount of alcohol involved and the wod-man’s unusually uninhibited manner, Anya had reservations about her vague description of being raped in a taxi. It was obvious this woman had had sexual intercourse that evening, but there was no bruising or injury to support her version of events.

When questioned by the police, the taxi driver boasted that he’d spent at least an hour with the woman. After picking her up at a pub, he’d driven to a bottle shop, then a local lookout.

After a few drinks, he said, they had sexual intercourse at the woman’s insistence. A diligent detective discovered surveillance cameras outside the local pub, which showed the woman being helped into the taxi, only fifteen minutes before she told staff at the supermarket about being raped. The camera proved the taxi driver had been lying about how long he spent with the 116

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woman. The case went to trial and a jury found him guilty of sexual assault. Without the camera evidence, the man would have been free to rape again and again. Anya had resolved never to judge a woman by her behavior, no matter how inappropriate it seemed at the time.

The taxi turned into Lansdowne Street and Anya noticed two young schoolgirls waiting at the traffic lights, hands entwined.

They couldn’t have been more than five and seven years old. The taller girl kept a constant lookout for cars while the little one stood obediently, never breaking the touch they shared.

Anya felt a crushing weight on her chest. Why had she let Miriam’s hand go that day? Why did she have to prove she could run faster? They would have walked to school together just like that if things had been different. She thought of the years of torment never knowing whether her sister was alive, and the fear of facing the worst.

The smell of stale smoke in the taxi scalded her eyes as she thought about the house full of light where she and Missy played.

She loved their matching bedrooms with lolly-pink walls, antique doll’s houses, and pictures of The Monkees on the wardrobes.

They’d jump on each other’s beds and pretend to be pop stars, belting out tunes into a jump rope handle. They always ended up lying on the floor, laughing so hard their bellies ached.

After that day at the football ground, the house changed.

The light stayed away and the house always felt cold. Instead of something she and Missy played in, the rain became a jailer, something to fear and resent. Aunts, uncles and cousins stopped visiting, and neighbors stopped saying hello when the family went to town. It felt like they had all disappeared without a trace, just like Miriam.

In hindsight, her parents had functioned like sleepwalkers, as though they’d become two-dimensional figures. Her mother’s once-straight back bowed with the weight of invisible lead, her shiny-eyed smile disappeared into a distant memory and she stopped playing her beloved piano. Anya missed her parents even more than she missed her only sister.

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At least Miriam’s spirit was alive in the house. Her smiling face greeted them from photo frames in every room. Everywhere except the back shed – the only sanctuary Anya had from the loneliness.

Their mother would set a place at every meal. ‘To remember our Miriam, who can’t join us today,’ she’d say.

The reality was that no one could ever forget. On the wall behind Miriam’s chair hung a framed, embroidered Latin phrase, ‘
Cruci Dum Spiro Fido
,’ meaning while there was life, there was hope. Another Catholic mantra used to justify false hope and denial, irrespective of the consequences.

On Missy’s fourth birthday, their mother placed a wrapped present at the table, as she did for each and every birthday and Christmas. The presents were piled on Miriam’s chenille bedspread, then later moved to the study, awaiting her return. After a while, it looked like a magic cave of cards and gifts to show how much her mother loved Missy.

Anya knew she wasn’t loved nearly as much.

Jocelyn Reynolds buried herself in medicine, as though that would bring her beloved child back. A clairvoyant wrote to say that Miriam was safe and wanted to come home. Anya’s father said people peddled cruel lies to the most vulnerable. That was one of the first lessons she could remember.

For a while, her mother smiled again, with the birth of a baby boy, Damien Patrick, with enormous blue eyes full of mis-chief, and a giggle that infected everyone who heard it. Anya turned six the day her brother arrived by Cesarean section. She knew she didn’t deserve him after what she had let happen to Miriam, but in a secret way, she hoped God had given her a second chance to make good.

Damien spent the first few years of his life following Anya around, playing with her in every waking moment they were together. Sometimes her father would find her asleep on the floor beside Damien’s cot and carry her back to bed. Damien quickly learned to climb and would crawl into Anya’s bed when a nightmare or storm frightened him. She often won-118

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dered which was worse – being blamed by her mother for losing Miriam, or hated by her for monopolizing Damien.

Bob Reynolds didn’t seem to notice his daughter’s pain. If he had, he wouldn’t have left home the day after Anya’s seventh birthday. She could vividly recall the argument over the memorial service. It was time, he said, to accept that Miriam was never coming back and achieve some form of closure.

For the first time, Jocelyn screamed at someone other than Anya.

‘While God gives breath, he gives hope,’ she would say. ‘If you give up on your child, you’re not fit to be a parent.’

Bob stood up with tears in his eyes and smashed a plate against the wall, sending the embroidered motto to the floor.

Jocelyn sat down, said grace and served the meal. Bob Reynolds retreated to the bedroom and packed his belongings.

The next morning he moved into his office in town.

As he drove away, Anya noticed that the mantra was back on the wall. She hated it, as though it were evil. Whatever it really meant tore apart what was left of her home.

Every night after that, Anya begged God to bring back Missy and take her instead. Sometimes she secretly hated Miriam for wandering away that day and causing so much pain.

Before long, she despised herself even more.

The taxi driver switched on his radio and listened to the traffic reports.

‘Every road’s chock-a-block,’ he said.

Anya rubbed her temples. Her mind flooded with memories she had worked hard to block out.

A new investigation meant dredging up the past. Wounds protected by layers of scar tissue were about to be sliced open again.

If only she hadn’t let Miriam’s hand go that day.

She took a staccato breath as the taxi arrived at Cleveland Street’s Homicide office.

20

After clearing security and being escorted upstairs, Anya sat down at the computer screen on Kate Farrer’s desk. The detective sergeant chomped into a chocolate bar and a bag of chips. Anya shined an apple she’d pulled from her bag.

Kate explained the background while she fiddled with the computer to start the Interactive Crime Scene Recording System, or ICSRS, as it was known.

Debbie Finch had taken off from work one night, without a word. Eight days later she went home, shot her demented father while the carer was buying groceries, then poured jam down his throat as he sat dying. Meanwhile, she ate some jam and shot herself. Her death, although considered weird, appeared to be suicide, but she now had something odd in her lungs, which warranted investigation.

‘The neighbors say the old man only ever left the house for doctors’ appointments, and only ever with his daughter,’ Kate said. ‘A carer came each evening while she worked. She always left on time and was never late getting back. After that night, when Debbie didn’t come home, the agency phoned the police and organized full-time carers. The local doctor had him on the waiting list for a nursing home bed.’ Kate excused herself to answer her mobile. Without losing her train of thought after 120

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the call, she picked up the story. ‘The father was a widower and Debbie never married. According to the neighbor who lived next door for thirty-odd years, no one had even seen a boy call for her. Wasn’t overly social by colleagues’ accounts, either.’

She pressed the enter button and the first scene appeared in 3D. The computer software had converted photographs taken at the crime scene into interactive 360-degree digitized views that could be watched on a normal computer screen. It effectively placed the police at a crime scene and could navigate around rooms, allowing them to look at aspects of the location from any angle. The technology still impressed Anya.

Kate directed the program through the entry, turned right into the dining room and through to a small, laminated kitchen.

The sort of china figurines that only grandmothers pass down filled a glass cabinet in the lounge room. An ugly cat, an eagle, a figure of a lady nurse, and a male doctor took pride of place.