Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

Murdering Point
Murdering Point
Murdering Point
Ebook460 pages6 hours

Murdering Point

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

Defence lawyer Michael Doyle has lost the will to fight. He would rather have his clients plead guilty than conduct their trials. Then he meets Lightning, a young Aborigine charged with a brutal crime, committed in a sweltering North Queensland town.
Doyle undertakes Lightning’s defence with practiced cynicism. But two things make this case different; Lightning claims innocence, and Doyle meets Jo Sandel, an idealistic American lawyer. Convinced that Lightning is innocent, she challenges Doyle to regain his passion. Doyle resists.
Someone else wants the matter finalised without a trial. Doyle is threatened, his home burgled and evidence vanishes. Doyle and Jo recruit Dr Brodie, a passionate old public defender. Together they battle the uncompromising prosecutor and weaken the crown case.
The sinister events continue and escalate. Doyle is run off the road and he and Jo are threatened and assaulted. Someone is stalking them. When Doyle’s young daughter is threatened, his ex-wife pressures Doyle to drop Lightning’s defence. Then just as Doyle is about to withdraw from the case the suspected stalker is arrested. Doyle continues to act for Lightning and the trial proceeds.
In court the prosecution case gradually collapses. Lightning is released to Doyle and Jo but their fight for justice soon becomes a fight for life. They flee and make their last stand at Murdering Point, an old Aborigine massacre site. The place burns and there are gunshots and thunder and blood and violence. After, the survivors huddle together in the blackened cane and pant and breathe the burnt bittersweet air.

LanguageEnglish
PublisherJohn McCool
Release dateJul 16, 2016
ISBN9780995351608
Murdering Point
Author

John McCool

Australian criminal lawyer and writer. Father. Brother. Son.

Related to Murdering Point

Related ebooks

Thrillers For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for Murdering Point

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    Murdering Point - John McCool

    1

    She was young and strong but about to be broken. She fled the man in the hot heaving tavern and ran out to the dark garden; empty now. She stretched and breathed deeply; the sweet smell of cannabis, the soft warm air. She crossed the paved courtyard to the gate at the back lane. A plant smothered arbour. Dripping night jasmine, the odour of damp rotting petals underfoot. She listened. The unfamiliar night. Tully, North Queensland. Summer. Cane toad croaks. Distant thunder. Rain roaring down not far away. Coming. It reached her as she started up the lane. A distant lightning flash skidded off the slick pavement. Not far along she found an old-fashioned street light; coiled filament burned orange in the glass bulb above her.

    She stopped and watched the raindrops spearing through the light. She smiled. Marvelled at the tropical rain, spread her arms and twirled, catching water in her mouth. She enjoyed the taste of it. The feel of the fat warm drops. Water blistered on her cheek and plastered her hair to her forehead. This would be her last recollection of that night. Before being broken and swallowed by darkness. Her last memory of ‘before’. Tropical rain and a little tipsy dance in the glow of an old street lamp.

    Afterwards, she would never recall her breaking. Not the screaming jungle, the stench of death or the taste of blood in her throat. She would never recall the man who savaged her, and afterwards left her for dead by the darkly flowing water a world away from home. ‘After’, the beginning of it, was a blurry and soulless awakening. Intensive care. Tubes going into her and harsh hospital light.

    Later, she would be asked to recall what had happened. Police, prosecutors, counsellors, would all ask her to recall. But she would not, could not remember. She would never recall the man. Never recall how she came to be with him or how he pressed himself on her. She would never recall her confusion afterwards, or how she screamed at him, hit him, scratched him. She would never recall how she fought, or how he cracked her skull against the guardrail and threw her from Banyan Creek Bridge. How he dragged her through the dripping scrub and the fetid mulch to the water’s edge. How he turned her over, pressed her face into the stinking mud and raped her again. How not satisfied with that, he knelt by her head and masturbated across her. How he arched his back and screamed an animal scream, and how the thunder came and filled the electric night. She would not recall how finally, afterwards, he smeared her face and hair with muck and left her by the rising black water of Banyan Creek.

    *

    The same night, 200 kilometres to the south. Townsville. A dry coastal town; no late storms here. A Queenslander cottage. A sleepless lawyer.

    Michael Doyle lay naked on his bed. Radio on. A warm night. The radio said a cool spell was due Saturday. Unseasonal. Just what was seasonal these days, he wondered. Saturday. He had to get through Friday first. He rolled off his bed and made his way to the toilet. He walked past the second bedroom; the half-open door, the squeaky board along the hallway. In the little room he pissed noisily into the bowl and thought about nailing the board. It took a while. Sign of age he thought.

    He paused at the half-open door on his way back. His daughter Teagan’s room. Typical kid’s room. Girl’s room. Big pink elephant on the bed. Teddy bear on a chair. Five-year-olds’ things on the wall. Not a lot of furniture. Just the fancy white metal bed, cane chair, wardrobe and the silky-oak dresser by the window. There was a photograph on the dresser. He hadn’t noticed it before. She must have brought it when she stayed over last. He went in and lifted it. Heavy frame. Hardwood. Not a kid’s frame. Photo of Teagan with her mother and new dad. Dreamworld, wasn’t it. Last Christmas. Happy family. He had been in photographs just like that. Once upon a time.

    When had they stopped loving each other, Jillian and he. It ended pretty quickly, he remembered that. They divorced a year ago. So eighteen months before that. They’d met at university and had fourteen good years together. The kid changed things. For better and worse, he thought. Doyle put the photograph down. He hadn’t been much of a provider. Not really. Criminal law didn’t pay, not like commercial. He couldn’t provide like Stephen could, but he did his best for the kid. Loved her. Loved seeing her. When was she due over next, he asked himself. Saturday, she’d be here Saturday.

    Doyle noticed the window was not quite closed. He leaned across and pressed down on the frame. Thick old paint in the slot made it stick. More force and it came down with a bang. He turned the latch. Wanted it locked while she was here.

    He returned to his bedroom and lay down. The radio, cold front Saturday. He might take her to the pool. After all, how cold can it get?

    He rolled over and remembered. ‘Fuck’, he said. He was on-call lawyer Saturday. Court could stuff things up. ‘Fuck,’ he said again. Banged the radio off, lay back down and tried for sleep one more time.

    *

    Don Arlett was a Tully local. He was Tully born and bred: teacher, coach and football legend. But at fifty years old and after twenty seasons of rugby league football, his running days were behind him. His right knee was the worst of his woes, busted up in a scrum collapse when he was playing for North Queensland. He was just twenty-six then and had carried the injury ever since. He could live with the pain. Then one year his GP pushed and prodded his swollen joint and referred him to a specialist. Arlett drove two hours north to Cairns one Friday and waited nearly as long in the specialist’s rooms. There were examinations, X-rays and MRIs. The news, when it eventually came, was not good. The time for knee reconstructions was over, and replacement was the only option. His other knee was also damaged, and his hip joints were wearing out too. If he didn’t play his cards right, he’d be looking at two new knees and hips as well.

    Arlett had responded to the news with typical bravado. Back at home he found his wife preparing dinner in the kitchen. He screwed the top off a Fourex, as if he were strangling a chicken. He took a swig and declared:

    ‘Surgery, my arse. What would a specialist orthopaedic surgeon know anyway. And the radiographers and sonographers, or whatever the hell they call themselves these days.’

    His wife nodded and smiled and continued with her duty.

    ‘Quacks!’ Arlett had concluded.

    But he started popping fish oil and Glucosamine, and cut back on his running all the same. When the pain became too much, he stopped running altogether. He kept himself fit though. He taught physical education at Tully High School, and he’d be buggered if he was going to grow man boobs for his students’ amusement. So he walked three days a week, did gym work the others.

    Today he was walking. A familiar route. There weren’t many choices in Tully. The town clung to the rainforest-clad foothills of the Great Dividing Range. The streets were narrow, the gutters deep and wide. Buildings here were old, or looked it. Weatherboard, concrete block or brick, sun-beaten and rain-worn. Roofs rusty. The place seemed besieged by the surrounding forest. Scraggly lantana pressed in on its borders. Guinea grass grew rank in vacant lots. Ferns uncurled from cracked pavement and Elkhorn and orchids sprouted in choking gutters. Everything moss encrusted and mouldy. Rotting.

    There were two hotels, a courthouse, supermarket, sugar mill. The ANZAC memorial, just a plain whitewashed concrete spire, stood in the main street. Names inscribed on each side: locals fallen in Turkey, France, North Africa and New Guinea.

    Arlett passed the memorial, the pubs and the Banana Barracks Backpackers. Young people were gathering outside the barracks, waiting for coaches to take them to the River. Arlett passed the River Rat Tavern, a block down the hill. That’s where the river rafters would drink at day’s end. Further on, the coach stop. Sparse. Just a concrete pad and bench seats under a high iron roof. Next to it stood a three metre-high concrete gumboot, with Welcome to Tully, emblazoned across it. A man-sized, green tree frog clung gamely to the top of the boot. Bulbous eyes, anorexic limbs, and thin, frog grin. Next, a Wicked van parked under a rain tree. A young man wearing only shorts, slippery with sweat, was relieving himself against the tree. Passing the van, Arlett heard a man breathing inside. A woman’s grunts. Arlett looked back. The sweaty man by the tree shook himself off and climbed into the van. Arlett smiled. Remembered a long ago football trip. France? he thought. The baker’s daughter, the halfback and him. Or was it the lock?

    He followed the main road across Banyan Creek Bridge to the Bruce Highway. That ribbon of bitumen running the length of the Queensland coast. He turned left at the highway and walked north to the turnoff to Mission Beach. He stopped at the sign. Mission Beach 28 km. The side road curved through the sugar cane fields towards the sea. Arlett felt a rush of cool air. A curtain of rain was sweeping through the fields towards him. He started back into town. Soon, heavy rain slapped against his back. Soaked him.

    It was just on 6.00AM when he returned to Banyan Creek Bridge. He slowed there. No point in hurrying home, he was already soaked. There had been a thunderstorm the night before, perhaps the last of the wet season. Wind and water damage was everywhere. Tree branches were strewn about, sodden leaf litter clogged culverts and street signs were askew.

    Arlett glanced down into the creek. A big Davidson’s Plum tree had been uprooted in the storm. It had fallen across the creek opening a space in the canopy. The water was dark, almost black along the banks and under the fallen tree. He wiped sweat and rain from his face with the palm of his hand. Sniffed. The smell of damp and decay.

    Arlett could just make out a few jungle perch in a patch of sun-lit water. They were swimming languidly in the eddies behind the new snag. He stopped and stared down at the fish. One was a full eighteen inches long. It’d be quite a catch. He imagined coming back one weekend, bringing his rod and having a shot at them. Jungle perch were notoriously nervous. Tough fish to hook and legendary fighters. North Queensland’s answer to wild trout or salmon. He’d need a good casting platform to hook one, he thought. Something low to the water, preferably with some cover. He saw a likely spot. It looked clear enough for casting but hidden from the water by the fallen tree. But how would he get to it? He surveyed the steep slope down from where he stood. Part of the slope had slid away. A crocodile warning sign lay in a tangle of lawyer vine. He could just make out its message. WARNING: ESTUARINE CROCODILES INHABIT THIS AREA

    He imagined himself making his way down the land slip, then picking his way through the scrub, cautious of the lawyer vine’s thorny fronds. Maybe, he thought. Maybe, even with his joints, he could make it down there and bag himself a perch.

    Then the first of a dozen tour coaches roared over the bridge behind him. Raging Thunder, and the other white water rafting companies were arriving in town. The bridge shuddered and it was then that Arlett thought he saw movement in the scrub below him. A second tour coach roared past blasting its horn. There was movement all right. Probably just a scrub turkey scratching in the freshly exposed soil, he reasoned. Another coach roared past behind him, then another, and another. Arlett concentrated on the movement below him. Something moved in the shadows near the fallen tree. That wasn’t a scrub turkey, he decided, that was someone fart-arsing around down there. That was a man. A young abo.

    Arlett watched him climb onto the Davidson’s Plum, and make his way out over the water. He came into the patch of light and Arlett recognised him. It was Zachary Lightning. Arlett had taught him and coached him a few years back. He had poached him from the local AFL competition. Had him representing Tully in Rugby League in just two years. The kid had shown promise. He was as fast as his name and tough with it. His nickname was Flash. People still called him that, but it was a joke now. He was all gone to pot. Arlett had seen him on and off over the past few years. He must be twenty-one, twenty-two now, something like that. And here he was still bumming about town. Hanging out with that sport reserve mob. Drunk or bombed out of his head on dope half the time. Probably paint sniffing too. He’d had fantastic acceleration and a slick sidestep in his day. Arlett remembered that. Now here he was, bumbling his way across the fallen plum tree. Flash. What a joke, he thought.

    Arlett called out to him and Lightning half turned when he heard. The sudden movement was too much, and he crashed down onto the log then headlong into the water. Arlett lost sight of him in the shadowy stream. He watched anxiously and contemplated heading down there to see what he could do. Then, just as he was about to start picking his way through the scrub, Lightning appeared near the far bank. He shook his head, flicking drops of water from his woolly hair and face.

    ‘Zac,’ Arlett called after him.

    Lightning didn’t answer but just climbed out on the far side of Banyan Creek. He used a lawyer vine cane that had looped down into the creek. Pulling hand over hand, he hauled himself out of the water. Then, looking something like a scrawny, half-drowned rat, he scrambled frantically up through the undergrowth on the far bank. Arlett could see branches and thorns tug at Lightning’s T-shirt and skin. Then he disappeared from sight, hidden in the thick growth towards the top of the bank. Arlett knew that Lightning would be through the scrub in no time. He imagined him reaching the crest, then running like a mad thing across the sporting fields that backed onto the creek on the far side. The whole thing left Arlett bewildered. 6:00AM, and Zac Lightning by the creek, looking frantic. He shook his head. Bewildered. Concerned. It’s a crying shame, he thought. What grog and dope does in this town. White kids, black kids. What a waste. What a bloody waste. But the question remained. Just what the hell was he doing down there in the scrub?

    Arlett surveyed the little clearing again, hoping for some hint. That’s when he saw her. He didn’t know he was looking at a woman. Didn’t even know it was a person. He wouldn’t know that for another hour. To him it was just a scrap of filthy clothing or bedding, half covered by leaf litter. Perhaps where Zac had slept. Or was it? It was dim down there. Was that hair? A scrap of carpet maybe? Was that a limb? Certainly not a leg. Not skewed out like that. Must be a branch brought down by the falling tree. Yep, he convinced himself, it was just a grubby little pile of god knows what. He continued his walk. Past the Wicked van, past the coach stop, up the main street, left at the ANZAC memorial and home.

    He made a cup of black tea and put a wedge of pawpaw onto a plate. He took them to his wife. He kissed her awake and told her what he had seen. A pile of something. Maybe a limb. Bit of mannequin. Someone’s joke.

    She nodded. No fuss at first. Then he mentioned the running man and she was aghast, and not in the slightest doubt what he should do. Don Arlett was not one to argue, not with his recently woken wife anyway.

    Ten seconds later he was calling triple zero, talking to emergency services. Telling them, ‘Something near the bridge. Something broken. A girl. Maybe.’

    *

    Constable Michelle Vickers was known in the service as a retread: an ex-member of the military, come to join the Queensland Police Service. Thirtyish. Athletic. Her hair controlled and her uniform pressed sharp. She’d qualified as an enrolled nurse, then had ten years in the army, most of it in transport. This was her fourth year in the police service. Her partner for the shift was Constable Rowan Smith. Lardy. Baby-faced. Only just passed the police physical. Constable Smith was not a retread. He was twenty years old and had been in the service for six months. In that time he had never attended a ‘fatal’, had never even seen a body. So it was with curious excitement that he set out to investigate the report of an object, possibly a body, by Banyan Creek.

    He and Vickers were in the station tearoom when the call came from Police Communications. They were nearing the end of a quiet midnight to 8:00AM shift. Vickers tossed her apple core in the waste bin. Smith scoffed the last of his bacon and egg burger and swilled his coke. He wiped his face roughly with a paper towel and headed for the door. Vickers called him back. She took Smith’s utility belt from the back of the chair where he had left it and tossed it to him.

    ‘You don’t go out naked, Smith. Not for any job. Not with me.’

    Smith strapped on his belt. Said nothing. Followed her to the vehicle bay.

    Vickers parked the police sedan on the muddy verge on the town side of Banyan Creek. Don Arlett waited for them on the bridge. As they approached he pointed out the clearing and the little mess in the scrub. Then he walked them back towards their car and again pointed down to the creek.

    ‘There’s a bit of a path down there, but it’s been beaten around a bit by the fallen tree. Looks pretty slippery too. I’ll wait here.’

    Vickers nodded and began to pick her way down towards the clearing. Smith was close behind her at first, but stopped when Vicker’s sleeve caught up on lawyer vine thorns. No sooner had she disengaged the murderous spikes from her shirt, than she hooked up on another vine. She pulled away, almost ripping the breast pocket off her uniform.

    ‘Bugger. That’s the second shirt this year. This little exercise had better be worth it.’

    ‘You bet,’ said Smith, meaning it.

    Towards the bottom of the slope they came upon the slimy carcass of a kangaroo. Its guts had burst from its body. Blowflies crawled over the glistening black mess. The flies rose in a noisy dark cloud as Vickers and Smith stepped over the animal.

    ‘Road kill,’ said Vickers, a hand held over her mouth and nose.

    They walked on, the hot air stinking of death and shrill with screaming cicadas. It was only when they were past the vines and through the scrub, that they could properly see what they had found. They stood together, panting. Both wet from sweat and dripping foliage. Briefly, very briefly, Vickers thought she might be looking at a discarded mannequin. Then the truth hit her.

    The woman was lying on a gentle slope, her head down towards the creek. She was on her side, her arms drawn in across her breasts. Her bottom leg was straight, her upper leg bent at the knee, her foot hooked behind the calf of her lower leg. She was barefoot. Her bra had been removed and her blouse torn. Now, the scrap of material partly covered her back and shoulders. The bottom half of her skirt had been torn off, and what was left barely covered her naked rump. Her hair was matted with blood and mud and skeletal leaves were plastered on her face. Dozens of bruises and angry red scratches covered her arms, legs, back and neck. There were drag marks in the earth that extended from her head to the water, as if she had been dragged up from the creek by her feet.

    Vickers grabbed Smith firmly by the arm.

    ‘Got your mobile?’

    Smith nodded and retrieved it from his pocket. He raised the device and took a photograph of the body.

    ‘Not that,’ Vickers snarled. ‘Call DSS Steel at home. Tell him we’ve got a situation here.’

    Smith started to press buttons on his phone. ‘Is she dead? Do I tell him she’s dead?’

    ‘Yes. No. Wait…’

    Vickers considered the question. She looked at the girl. Her skin was pale but there was no hypostasis and there were leeches still sucking on the girl’s upper legs and body. Some full ones were falling off, some, like short lengths of black string, had just arrived for the feast. Vickers took a pair of surgical gloves from her utility belt and pulled them on. She knelt in the soggy humus and pulled a fat leech from the girl’s face. She pressed her fingers against her neck. There was no rigor mortis but she couldn’t decide if the girl was warm or not; it wasn’t always easy in the tropical heat. Was there a pulse? Yes. Weak and slow but a pulse nonetheless. Vickers brought her lips close to the girl’s but felt no breath. She opened the girl’s mouth and made sure her tongue was not back in her throat. The girl gagged and vomited blood and bile across Vicker’s fingers. Stringy. Vile smelling.

    ‘No. Call 000. Get the ambos here now. She’s alive.’

    Just my rotten luck, thought Smith, as he banged the zeros into his phone and listened to the recorded message.

    ‘I can’t get reception down here.’

    Vickers pointed up to the road.

    ‘Make the call from up there and bring the first aid kit and emergency blanket.’

    ‘What did your last slave die of?’

    ‘Just do it, Rowan. Or the first body you get to see will be down to you.’

    ‘What about Steel?’

    Vickers shook her head. ‘That can wait. If this kid carks it, I’ll personally see to it that you’re not far behind. Now get the fucking gear.’

    When he returned, Vickers draped the silver emergency blanket over the girl and gently pressed the edges under her body. She stroked some of the stiffened hair off the girl’s face and whispered to her.

    ‘We’re the police. You’re OK now. Everything’s going to be OK.’ She didn’t believe a word of it, but it’s what you did. She might be able to hear. You just never knew.

    Vickers became aware of Smith hovering above her. Watching.

    ‘Now call Steel,’ she said sharply. ‘Then get your arse back down here and make yourself useful. Take some shots of the scene. Start wide, then mid shots, then close ups of anything and everything that might be evidence. Position of the girl, head injury, drag marks. Be smart about it. This is an assault and rape now, but could end up a murder.’

    Constable Smith did what he was told.

    2

    Detective Senior Sergeant Bob Steel was pretty well house-trained. This was not surprising given his twenty years of marriage to Mary Steel, the toughest nurse manager north of the Royal Brisbane Hospital. He’d clean up after himself in the kitchen, take the rubbish out and run the clothes washer once in a while. He’d even put the toilet seat down on occasion, although this was one of the two things about which he and his wife still fought. The other was his wife’s snoring. He insisted she did; she maintained she did not. Bob Steel knew the disagreement would never be resolved. So he spent most nights in the sleep-out, while his wife endured her hot flushes and snored her heart out in the air-conditioned main bedroom. The two would share a bed only on those occasions when they would have sex. It could no longer be called making love. Over the last few years those occasions were limited to their anniversary, birthdays, Australia Day and Christmas; and perhaps a dozen other occasions when one or other of them could be bothered. They had reached that curious and sad stage of marriage, where they were beyond the prospect of divorce yet distant in each other’s company.

    ‘We’re welded on,’ Steel had said once, when they had talked, albeit half-heartedly, about separation. There were no children. This too played its part in the sad, slow, dismantling of their affections.

    This morning Bob Steel awoke in the sleep-out. Their Queenslander was built on the forested slopes overlooking Tully. Below, the town tumbled down towards the creek. The view from Steel’s verandah room was impressive. On a clear day he could see across town, the highway, the golf course and airstrip clear to the coast. Steel rolled off his bed when the first hot rays of sunlight cut across his chest. He threw yesterday’s clothes into the Whirlpool and set it going. He showered, shaved and dressed.

    He considered himself in the full-length mirror by his bed. At forty-eight years of age he was in fair condition. He was a big man and had been Hollywood handsome once. The years had stolen his shine but he was still ruggedly good looking. He remained solid. Lifting weights at the PCYC gym had kept his arms and chest firm. His hair remained thick and mostly still sandy brown. Then there were the scars: the shiny ridge across his knuckles, the sandpaper skin of his elbows and the crooked welt the size of a twenty cent piece on his thigh. Getting the last one had hurt. A bikie had stuck a screwdriver in him and twisted. Phillips head. Rookies today would want compo for that, he thought. It was better in the old days. You’d just knuckle up. Dispense some summary justice. The crooks rarely whinged. They knew they’d done wrong. They were better then too. Afterwards, show off your stitches and enjoy the free grog. Yeah, it was better in the old days. Pre-Fitzgerald. Before everything got sanitised. Before the ‘Force’ became the ‘Service’, he thought, as he buttoned his shirt and went to the kitchen.

    He made coffee and toast. He was standing at the sink staring out the window when his wife joined him. He poured her a coffee from the plunger and handed her the cup. The wail and whoop of an emergency service siren drifted up from the town below.

    Steel took a seat at the kitchen table and glanced at his wife.

    She glanced back. ‘When you on?’

    ‘Eight to four,’ he answered.

    His wife made toast. She spread two slices with butter and vegemite and placed them in front of him.

    ‘One of your tail lights is out,’ she said.

    Steel tore off a piece of toast, chewed it and stared up at her.

    ‘I saw it when you left last night,’ she explained.

    He swallowed loudly and nodded. ‘Thanks,’ he said, and tore off another piece of toast. Chewed.

    ‘You need any more sleepers?’

    He shook his head. Kept chewing.

    The telephone rang. Steel started and pushed his chair back to move and answer it. His wife got there first. She listened distractedly, took a swig of coffee then handed the cordless receiver to her husband.

    ‘It’s that new Constable. Something about a girl in a creek.’

    He snatched the receiver from his wife.

    ‘Steel,’ he announced.

    He wedged the receiver under his chin, sat at the table and pulled on a pair of RM Williams boots.

    ‘You sure she’s alive? Good. She say anything? Well don’t do anything else. Not a damn thing. I’m on my way.’

    He slapped the receiver down on the kitchen table.

    ‘F’n’ rookies will be the death of me,’ he hissed and made for the door. He brushed his lips across his wife’s cheek as he left. The gesture passed as a kiss these days.

    The tyres of his Toyota Land Cruiser whined on the bitumen as he pushed the vehicle beyond the speed limit. He arrived at the scene. An ambulance and police car were parked by the road on the town side of Banyan Creek Bridge. Steel did a u-turn, parked on the opposite side of the road and climbed down from the Cruiser. Constable Rowan Smith was on the bridge. He was pointing his IPhone camera back towards Steel, snapping images of the road scene. Steel strode towards him, rolling the sleeves of his shirt down as he went.

    ‘One of your brake lights is out Sir,’ Smith called to Steel as he approached.

    Steel ignored the observation.

    ‘Smith, what the fuck are you doing?’

    ‘Constable Vickers directed me to photograph the scene.’

    ‘What are they teaching you at cop college? Priorities mate. Preserve your safety; preserve and assist fellow officers; preserve and assist civilians; secure the scene - then gather fucking evidence. Now, you’re safe. Vickers is safe. The ambos are here and it’s time to declare and secure the crime scene.’

    ‘I’ve done that. Cordoned off an area down there.’ Smith pointed to the clearing by the creek.

    ‘How did you do that Sherlock? Draw a chalk mark round her?’

    Smith looked blankly at his boss.

    Steel sighed. ‘When I said crime scene I meant the whole bloody thing. Not just where the end game played out. Look. Come here and I’ll show you what I mean.’

    Steel led Smith back to the ambulance and police cars and pointed at the mushed up soil around them.

    ‘There were tyre tracks here. Someone’s pulled off the road into this lay-by. But now those prints are all cut to shit by your car, the ambulance, my Cruiser, and, is that Don Arlett’s car? Not to mention your fucking great shoe prints. Now we don’t know if these tyre marks are relevant. We don’t even know if they were clear enough to be useful. But one thing’s for sure, now we’ll never fucking know.’ Smith stared at the ground, avoiding Steel’s eyes.

    ‘The point is Smith, secure the scene, the whole scene.’

    He handed him a role of crime scene tape.

    ‘Run this from the bridge back past the Cruiser. I don’t want anyone else going down there, and I mean anyone. When you’ve done that take a notebook statement from Don. I’m sure he’s got better things to do than wait here and watch you fuck things up.’

    Steel paused and wiped some beads of sweet from his brow with his shirtsleeve.

    ‘Find out exactly what he saw? If he did see anyone near the girl, then we want a detailed description. What he looked like. What he did. Where he went.’

    Smith nodded.

    ‘When you’ve done that, get the description out to the road crews and get onto Scenes of Crime in Innisfail and get them here. And get onto PCC Silk. He can work this investigation. God knows he needs the practice.’

    ‘He’s on leave Sir,’ said Smith.

    ‘Not any more he isn’t. This is a major, and it’s all his.’

    Steel started down the track to the creek, but backed up when he saw Constable Vickers and the ambulance officers making their way up the slope. Vickers was holding foliage aside while the two officers carried their patient on a stretcher. Steel saw that the patient was badly busted up: unconscious with her neck in a brace. Steel recognised the leading ambulance officer. He was short and stocky. Impressive moustache. Blue and red tattoo visible under one shirtsleeve.

    ‘What’s the damage?’ asked Steel.

    ‘Pretty bad, Bob.’

    Steel followed them towards the ambulance.

    ‘Fractured skull. That’d be the worst of it but there’ll be busted ribs, internal bleeding. Damage between her legs too. The rescue chopper is on the way. Were waiting on the final word, but I reckon they’ll medivac her from the show grounds. Get her to Townsville Hospital ASAP. Reckon they’ll keep her intubated, open her skull to reduce pressure if she’s bleeding in there. Or induce a barbiturate coma and see how she fares.’

    The ambulance officers collapsed the gurney and slid it into the vehicle. The tattooed officer climbed in with his patient.

    ‘One thing’s for sure, Bob,’ he said from inside, ‘if she lives, she’s not going to be any help to you. She won’t remember a thing. That’s just as well, given what must have happened.’

    Then he pulled the rear door closed. Steel slapped the side of the vehicle and the driver pulled away under lights and siren.

    Steel turned to Vickers. She was still panting from the effort of climbing up from the creek. Her shirt was soaked through and her hair was dripping.

    ‘Nice look Constable.’

    He flicked the triangle of torn shirt hanging below her breast.

    ‘I don’t know that it’s appropriate to be flashing your tits about at a time like this, but who am I to judge.’

    ‘Sir?’

    ‘There’s a spare uniform shirt in the Cruiser. Put it on.’

    Steel started back down the track towards the creek.

    ‘Sir’, Vickers interrupted him, ‘she was next to the fallen tree, at the end of the drag marks, head towards the water.’

    ‘Thanks Constable. Now go and get dressed.’

    Steel made his way clumsily through the damp undergrowth. He caught up on lawyer vines and winced as he wrenched himself away from them. He stepped over the dead kangaroo and waved the buzzing swarm of flies from his face. He spent a good ten minutes in the clearing. He laid an imaginary grid over the scene and examined each square metre for evidence. He was after anything that might be a clue to what had happened to the girl. There were no useful shoe prints and nothing that could record fingerprints. There were clumps of dark hair pressed into the mud and scrapes of torn clothing. A canvas shoulder bag was caught up on a shrub overhanging the water. Someone’s been careless, he thought. But he knew the bag would likely be empty. Nothing there to identify the culprit. Her phone would be somewhere downstream by now.

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1