‘I’m not . . .’ Con took a deep breath. ‘I’m not shouting.’
‘You lost it in there. Why? It’s not completely crazy for this to be part of some stupid teenage delusion about the Hungry Man, is it? I mean, I can see how it would be good for Madison’s online thing.’
‘It’s ridiculous.’
‘But why does it upset you that much?’ said Murphy.
Con focused on the road. By the time they pulled up at Murphy’s house, Con felt the first prickles of shame at his outburst, but the faces of the Jaguar girls wouldn’t leave his mind.
‘You owe me the truth,’ said Murphy. ‘Why won’t you look into this?’
‘Alright!’ Con threw up his hands. ‘Alright. I worked a case in Sydney . . . a number of girls were tortured to death. It was ritualistic. Everyone in the investigation got wrapped up in all the stupid supernatural shit involved in the rituals, me included, and we missed the obvious evidence and leads that come from good police work. We missed . . . There were girls we could have saved. I just don’t want to make that mistake again.’
‘So that’s why you lost your shit,’ said Murphy.
‘I am well and truly in possession of my shit, thank you. I’m saying I have experience with ritual killings, and this feels different!’
‘Easy, mate. If you say so. You’re the detective,’ said Murphy, climbing out of the car.
Con sped off the curve, driving back to his hotel in silence. The Jaguar girls rolled through his mind and he could see their wounds afresh.
Con walked into his room and stopped cold.
The TV was playing soft chatter, as was his radio, but that was normal: he’d left them on. But the position of his medication bottles was not normal.
He turned and walked out, shutting the door behind him.
By the time he reached the reception desk, he was quivering.
‘Yeah?’ said the woman behind the counter.
‘I’m in room Sassafras 5. I requested a permanent “Do Not Disturb” status, but someone has been in my room.’
‘Hang on.’ She tapped at her computer. ‘Yeah, the alert is still on here. None of our lot would’ve gone in.’
‘Well, someone did.’
‘And I said it wouldn’t have been anyone on our staff. Did you give your key to anyone?’
Con slammed his hands on the desk. ‘Where is the manager?’
‘Listen, handsome,’ she replied, leaning forward, ‘we have enough rooms to clean around here without going into those of blokes who obviously think they’re better at it than us.’
He left. The tension in his shoulders and neck was building. He walked back to his room and locked the door behind him.
He looked again – his medication bottles were all facing the wrong direction.
You’re losing it, Cornelius, he told himself angrily. No one has touched your stuff.
He stripped naked and walked into the shower.
The hot water on his back was soothing, the steam filling the room, the sound of the fan buzzing above him. He put his head against the tiled wall and closed his eyes. It helped him relax a little, but he still couldn’t think clearly. His thoughts wouldn’t enter their boxes; he couldn’t arrange everything into a list.
Georgia’s body appeared in his mind. Broken, at the foot of a cliff, a life snuffed out forever.
How? Did you fall? Were you pushed? Did you jump?
He hadn’t even thought to ask whether Georgia had been part of the Honcho Dori Club. He’d have to ask Gabriella. She’d make him pay for it, but she’d give him the answer.
I can’t let the commander find out Gabriella’s still involved.
Maybe Georgia did jump. Maybe the pressure she put on herself to build the museum was too much. If she was in this Honcho Dori Club, she must have struggled with self-harm . . .
Self-harm group. A ritual. Hang a girl from a tree to die. Why is it always a girl who has to die?
Eliza’s chilling account came back to him. What Georgia thought she’d seen. Maybe Georgia was chased off the cliff?
The Hungry Man. A man the size of a bear . . .
The Jaguar himself had been a big man.
No. He’s dead. It’s not him, thought Con. Big breath; slow release.
Georgia’s body appeared again in his mind. This time, others seemed to be lying alongside hers. Mottled purple faces, swollen limbs, staring eyes, gaping mouths. The Jaguar girls.
Con’s stomach lurched. Get back into your boxes! He crouched down to his knees, heaving into the plughole.
He beat his head softly against the tiled wall, breathing through his mouth. He had to be strong: it was up to him to find Jasmine, Cierra, Bree.
And Madison was the key to it all.
A ritual . . . a secret club that glorifies self-harm . . . all of this for her YouTube subscribers . . . Denni King’s death . . . a witch.
Madison is a witch. She summoned him.
The Hungry Man.
The Jaguar girls appeared again in the shadows of his mind, their eyes open. Are you sure monsters don’t exist? they seemed to ask. Are. You. Sure?
He turned the water off abruptly. He stood there, dripping, the steam dispersing into the fan.
The Jaguar girls peered down at him. Georgia joined them.
You didn’t solve it fast enough.
You never solve it fast enough.
He wrapped the towel around his waist and headed to his bed, grabbing his laptop from the desk. The sound of the radio and TV was like a balm on his mind. These days he always needed the sound of human voices in the background. It calmed his anxiety at being alone.
He opened his laptop and started writing down thoughts as they appeared in his mind, trying to force them into boxes:
JASMINE MURPHY –
DAUGHTER OF A DRUG DEALER = RANSOM/BLACKMAIL?
CIERRA MASON –
SEXUAL ABUSE = ELIZA ELLIS IS PROTECTING SOMEONE
GEORGIA LENAH –
ABORIGINAL HISTORY MUSEUM
BREE WILKINS –
PTS???
Jasmine was the most obvious target, as some sort of leverage against Murphy. If Sergeant Doble really was corrupt, Con still couldn’t believe he had been allowed so much freedom in the town. He needed to tell the commander – unless he really just didn’t understand Tasmania? Just because Doble had an alibi, it didn’t mean he didn’t have an accomplice who took Jasmine. But to what end would he have done that, really? There had been no demands made of Murphy, no contact at all.
Cierra Mason was also a possible target. Con didn’t believe Eliza Ellis had slept with her, but the person she was protecting . . . Con suspected it was Tom North, but he had an alibi too. And why take the other two girls? Why kill Georgia?
This was the question he kept coming back to: why would anyone take three girls and kill one? Did the kidnapper need four girls, or want four girls, and something went wrong? Had the kidnapper wanted just one of them, and the others had to be taken out as witnesses? Would any of the four girls have done?
He thought again of Carl Lenah. He was still on the run, and with cops like Doble around, no wonder. In an ideal world, he’d throw more resources towards finding him, but they could only do so much. His instincts told him not to waste time on Carl Lenah.
When it came to directing resources, he needed to find out more about Bree. He hadn’t even spoken to her parents himself, except briefly on the day of the disappearance, up at the trail. Detective Coops had spoken with her father, Marcus Wilkins, and then also spoke to her mother later. The report hadn’t said much, so Con hadn’t looked into it any further. He couldn’t be everywhere at once, he barely had time to think as it was. He had learned to set limits, otherwise he overreached and made mistakes . . .