‘I guess so. I think his dad used to own the petrol station?’
‘Sure did. He’s dead now. Got himself shot hunting with a mate a few years back, if you can believe it. Some mate. He’s got three sons, I think. Warren’s the youngest but I don’t remember any of them being trouble. A bit rough, perhaps, but hard workers. What’s got you going on him, Woodstock?’
‘Nothing specific, sir. I guess you’d call it a gut feeling.’ Jonesy opened his mouth and was, I’m certain, about to tell me just what he thought about gut feelings, so I hurried to add, ‘But I’m sure that a car he reported stolen was bogus and I think he beats his girlfriend. He had a black eye when he came in too. He’s trouble.’
Jonesy leaned back heavily in his chair and put his hands behind his head, studying me. I suspected that he thought he looked like a wise old detective, possibly the one from Batman, but really his stance just showed off the sweat patches under his arms.
‘Woodstock, you’re a good cop. You’ve impressed me so far. You’re making the guys on the floor nervous, which I like. I was just telling Lucy the other night that I think you’re a great kid.’ The last part was said gruffly and I felt an unexpected wetness surge in my eyes. ‘But I’ll tell you something for free. Feelings will get you nowhere. This game is all about facts. Get me some facts on the Robbie boy and I’ll be right there beside you nailing his arse for whatever he’s done, but make sure you focus on doing your day job. There’s nothing that some of the boys here would like more than you getting caught up in some wild-goose chase.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, feeling strangely sated.
‘Don’t give them the satisfaction, my girl, okay?’
‘No, sir, I won’t,’ I replied, meaning it.
Chapter Seven
Sunday, 13 December, 11.31 am
Smithson has the only real morgue in a hundred-kilometre radius. Lucky us, we get everything along the scale of death and destruction from around the region. ‘The Regional Death Capital’ as Anna is fond of saying. Felix and I don’t always go to the autopsies. Some detectives prefer not to; some claim it muddies their objectivity. Sometimes we take turns and sometimes we’re just too thin on the ground. Logistics are as common in death as they are in life. There is relentless scheduling and organising, slotting in the gory box-ticking around a bit of admin and the weekly pizza night. Felix and I have recently started to let the uniforms go when it’s appropriate and we just read the reports afterwards, or we have them give us the highlights—there’s not always enough death to go round and they need the experience—but there is no way I’m going to miss this one. Mentoring aside, I prefer to be present at autopsies when I can; it sort of feels like it’s the least I can do to pay my respects to the victim. I’ve never told anyone this, but when it is a child I always go. I have this thing about them being lonely and scared and needing some semblance of maternal comfort in that horrible, airless room. However, this is completely different from any post-mortem I’ve ever been involved in: I feel compelled to see Rosalind again before she is gone forever. I think about the clues lying in wait across her body and I feel an almost magnetic pull towards the suite we all call ‘the Last Chapter’.
After so many days in the stuffy heat of the police station, I thought I’d be grateful for the air-con, but it’s turned up too high and goosebumps break out on my arms. Felix and I are perched on the beaten-up sofa in the waiting room drinking takeaway coffees. The springs gave way some time in the late nineties and it’s not unlike sitting on a block of cement. I suppose this is not really a place where people need to get comfortable.
Felix looks at me and I can see tiny tan flecks in his dark green eyes. ‘You okay?’
Before I can answer, his phone is ringing and he shoots me an apologetic look as he stands up, pushing through the heavy door to step outside. Warm air swirls around me. ‘Hi, honey,’ I hear him say.
I wander over to the window and look out across the car park. The wind has picked up now and plastic bags are catching and flying in short bursts across the concrete before becoming tangled in bushes. I see Felix pacing back and forth as he talks into his mobile. I spot Anna’s car so I know she is here. I take a sip of coffee and almost vomit. I throw the almost full cup in the bin. I imagine the contents spewing out and circling around the rest of the rubbish, just like the dirty lake water had curled around Rosalind’s creamy skin. I shake the image away.
‘Hey, Gem!’ Anna’s voice is like a ray of sunshine in the sterile corridor.
She would have to be the girl least likely to slice dead bodies open for a living. On face value, she’s more a fifty-sit-ups-before-sunrise-and-tequila-shot-at-dusk type.
We don’t get too many murders out here, and they tend to be a result of domestic violence or alcohol fuelled tussles. Friends killing friends and husbands killing wives. The longer I am in this job, the more I realise that the lines between love and hate and life and death are blurry. More often than not it’s drug overdoses and suicides that have me standing next to Anna as she turns someone inside out.
Anna is extremely competent and widely regarded around the station as one of our best assets. She’s still young, only about three years older than I am. It’s a miracle that we haven’t lost her to the city yet. Jonesy used to think the same thing about me but believes I am less of a flight risk now that I have Ben. Phelps, the previous medical examiner, was a crude character but a brilliant ME. A real Hannibal Lecter type, classical music and all. We often joked at the station that it’s lucky his patients were dead or he wouldn’t have had any. Fortunately, Anna, his incredibly capable trainee, managed to inherit his skill but not his weirdness.
‘Hey, Anna,’ I reply, smiling through a grimace as I follow her down the hallway to the autopsy suite. The waves of pain are still way worse than I want to admit to myself.
Anna snaps the lights on. The room is cool and airless. ‘Ah, fuck it,’ she says.