‘Alright. Fair enough,’ Con said, sounding tired.
‘What?’ said Doble. He looked between Dave and Con. ‘Like hell he’s leaving.’
‘If you’d listened to me before, we wouldn’t be in this mess.’ Con stood up. ‘As the superior officer in this room for this case, I asked you to remove the cuffs. You refused. Under the police brutality laws, Mr Murphy is now free to leave.’
Doble’s mouth widened and closed. ‘Bullshit,’ he finally said.
‘Sergeant Doble, if you don’t unlock those cuffs right now, I’m going to have to take this to the commander,’ said Con.
Doble’s jowls flushed pink, rising up into his cheeks until they burned red. He unlocked Murphy’s cuffs.
Murphy stood, feeling his bleeding wrists to judge the damage.
Con reached his hand across the desk, a peace offering. ‘Let’s try this again. I’m Detective Con Badenhorst.’
After a moment, surprising even himself, Murphy took Con’s hand and shook it, blood running down his palm. He had questions, but he knew to keep them to himself in a police interview room.
‘Here’s our card, it has both our numbers on it,’ said Gabriella, handing business cards to both Dave and Murphy. ‘If you think of anything that might be useful, give one of us a yell. Come on, Con. And don’t touch me,’ she said, shuddering as Con held open the hand smeared with Murphy’s blood.
The two detectives left the room, leaving the door wide open behind them.
‘Are those two for real?’ muttered Dave. ‘How did they make it to detective?’
Murphy turned to Doble. ‘You’re gonna spend the rest of your life eating through a —’
‘Enough, Murphy,’ snapped Dave. Doble just glared at them. ‘Let’s go.’
They headed out through the tiled and whitewashed station corridors. It was a path Murphy knew well.
‘Well, that was a lucky throw. Those must be the two thickest detectives I’ve ever met. I was just trying to bluff our way out of there – you looked like you were about to explode – but I had no idea about that police brutality law. Or maybe I did, subconsciously? You know, I took an IQ test once, and I’m not saying I’m a genius, but . . .’
Murphy wasn’t listening. Don’t think about Jasmine’s drink bottle. You have to stay strong for her. But why would there be blood on her bottle? And a bag of our weed – oh God, please don’t let anything happen to her . . .
They turned the corner into the lobby and there were the detectives, standing at a coffee machine.
‘I’m not that thick, Mr Llewellyn,’ said Badenhorst, cleaning his hands from one of the hand sanitisers on the wall. ‘The law doesn’t work like that, but Doble wouldn’t know.’
Dave stopped short, looking between Badenhorst and Pakinga. ‘What?’
‘Mr Murphy, I know you don’t have anything to do with the girls going missing,’ said Badenhorst. ‘Your brother stopped in earlier, corroborating your alibi. So look, Gabby and I are on our way to the hospital. Want to come with us? We’ll have the sirens on.’
‘I don’t need the hospital.’
‘Well, here’s some reasons you might want to come. Number one: Eliza Ellis is awake and ready to talk to us. I’m sure you’re as keen to know what happened up there as we are. Two: honestly, going by the blood still coming out of your wrists, you probably do need to go to the hospital. Three: if we find Jasmine, she’ll be taken straight to emergency. It would be good if you were there.’
Con shrugged, hands in his pockets now.
‘Four . . . it means you don’t go trying to climb that mountain again by yourself, and Doble doesn’t give you any more grief. Just saves me a headache.’ He grinned, trying to make the last statement a joke.
Pakinga handed Badenhorst a takeaway cup. When she tasted her own, she grimaced and threw the entire thing in the bin.
Badenhorst turned to the door, sipping his coffee. ‘Your choice, but we’re leaving now.’ He kept walking, Gabriella walking behind.
Murphy hesitated. Truthfully, he wanted to be up there in the mountains searching . . . but would he learn more by speaking to Eliza?
The mountains or the hospital. He stood there until Con and Gabriella were out of sight. Finally, reason won out.
‘Dave, I need to be there when they question Eliza. But stay in town for a bit. I don’t think Doble’s done with me. Butch will make sure you’re paid.’
He jogged after the detectives.
He didn’t trust them as far as he could throw them, but Jasmine came first.
CHAPTER 6
CON
Con drove the squad car with the heaters on, his pants and shirt saturated. Launceston Hospital was almost an hour’s drive from Limestone Creek, but a lot faster in a police car. The red and blue lights of the Kia Stinger flashed off the guideposts as they sped through the rain and gathering gloom of the Tasmanian countryside. A glance in the side mirror showed the shrouded Great Western Tiers disappearing into the distance.
I’m gonna use every trick in the book to solve this is as quick as possible, he thought, tapping his fingers against the steering wheel.
Murphy leaned against the back-seat window, his wrists messily bandaged by Gabriella from the car’s first-aid kit, nursing the bottle of water they’d given him. Even though Con was blasting the warm air and Murphy was in a thick jacket, the big man was shivering: it could have been his wet clothes, it could have been shock, it could have been plain fatigue.
Con felt a nudge of unease when he thought of the man’s outbursts, up at the search area and then again at the station. Murphy had been like an animal, more beast than man. Con had worked youth cases for almost his whole police career, so he knew quite a bit about childhood trauma – how it looked, how it worked, what triggered it. Based on a look at Murphy’s police file earlier, which boasted violence, risk-taking behaviour and alleged drug dealing, Con thought there were decent odds there was trauma in that man’s past, which would help to explain the explosive anger. He’d need to tread lightly to get him to cooperate.
In the passenger seat beside him, Gabriella was on her laptop, also studying Murphy’s file. Neither of them believed Murphy’s alibi for a second, but Con still wanted him with them at the hospital.
Con knew that he needed to get Murphy somewhere more comfortable before he’d talk, and more importantly, away from Doble. It didn’t hurt that the lawyer hadn’t come along either, although the man didn’t seem like he’d have been much of an obstacle if he had.
Most of all, Con wanted Murphy to talk to Eliza. When they’d first arrived at the scene, the teacher had been in an ambulance and was unable to say anything that made sense. They needed to send someone else in before they spoke to her. A familiar face – a worried parent – would be perfect to draw some sense out of Eliza Ellis, because if she was this concussed, then detectives, no matter how nice they were, would make her anxious and forgetful. He didn’t love the idea of putting a potential suspect in the room with her, but considering the girls had already been missing for hours, it was an acceptable gamble.
‘How are you going back there, mate?’ said Con. ‘Anyone you want us to call?’