‘We’re not sure yet,’ said Agatha. ‘What we do know is that the same rope that killed her is the one she was hanging from. How everyone missed her hanging there for days . . .’
‘It’s impossible,’ said Marcus. ‘I know people were there. I walked that path myself – I walked the entire trail from the school to the Trapper’s Hut. I even saw people at the Hanging Tree, bringing flowers. Bree was not there three days ago.’
‘So someone killed her?’ said Isabel, hands to her mouth.
‘We don’t know that,’ said Agatha. ‘Her stomach was full of fruit, chocolate, potato chips, dried meats. Nothing like what was found in Georgia’s stomach, nor did they eat it during the camp, as far as we know. If Bree did kill herself, she found somewhere to stay between disappearing from the path and the moment she died . . . and that’s why we wanted to speak to you. Do you know anywhere Bree might have gone that has horse chestnut trees?’
‘What are those?’ said Isabel, turning to her husband.
‘I didn’t think they were edible,’ said Marcus.
‘No,’ said Agatha. ‘We found traces of them on her shoes.’ She pulled a photo out of her folio and laid it flat. It showed a horse chestnut. Con knew he’d seen some, and recently, but where?
‘We called them conkers when we were boys,’ said Marcus, picking up the page. ‘You play a game where you knock each other’s until they break, but we always just pegged them at each other across the footy ground.’ He looked up, right as Con remembered.
‘At the school,’ said Con.
Marcus nodded. ‘There’s a big row of them, right along the main driveway.’
‘Are they building anywhere at the school?’ said Con, remembering the concrete dust in Bree’s clothes.
‘Yes . . . half of the Home Economics block is being renovated,’ said Marcus. ‘Bree loved Home Ec.’
‘Thank you, Mr Wilkins,’ said Agatha.
‘No one will be there today,’ said Isabel, ‘the students are staying home. Most of them would’ve been there . . . last night . . .’ She took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘Did Madison really plan all of this?’ she finished in a whisper. ‘Bree hated Madison.’
‘I think it might be best to show you some footage we’ve recently recovered,’ said Agatha. ‘It’s confronting, I’ll warn you, but it may shed some light on your daughter’s headspace.’
‘Just ask, why don’t you?’ said Isabel.
‘Ask what, Mrs Wilkins?’ said the commander.
‘Why she killed herself. Why we didn’t get her more help. Ask us why she didn’t think she could come to us, but instead chose to —’
‘We believe there may be more to it, Mrs Wilkins,’ interrupted Con. ‘If you could just watch this video . . .’
Agatha set the laptop down and played the video that featured all five of the girls.
Isabel and Marcus leaned in, Marcus even touching the screen when Bree appeared, as they watched the four girls explaining their reasons.
The door swung open. ‘Oh,’ said a new woman, clearly a relative of Isabel’s by the look of her. ‘You’ve already seen it?’ She pointed at the screen.
‘What do you mean?’ said Agatha.
‘What do you mean?’ said the woman in a haughty tone. ‘The new video Madison Mason just uploaded.’
‘It’s on her YouTube?’ Isabel stood up. ‘I’m going to kill that little bitch.’
‘Con,’ said the commander, as Marcus rose to hold Isabel back. ‘I’ll deal with this. Call Detective Tran and get her to meet you at the school together with the forensics team. When you’re done, come back to the station. It’s time we brought Madison in for questioning again.’
Con parked near the school office. Melinda Tran was already there, but the forensics team were still running some final tests on the evidence from the Hanging Tree.
‘What’s our approach?’ said Tran. ‘No one’s even here.’
‘The office staff are. They’re expecting us,’ said Con. ‘We have a lot of CCTV footage to look through.’
Together, they walked into the school lobby. The woman behind the desk smiled sadly at them. ‘Hello, detectives,’ she said, her nose blocked, eyes red from crying. ‘I’m Lois. Come through.’ She opened a door into the office. ‘You can set up here. I’ve already fired up the system for you on both computers.’
With both Con and Melinda trawling through the footage of the external cameras, it wasn’t long until they found Bree, in a dark hoodie, leaving through one of the doors of the Home Ec building.
‘Lois?’ called Con, his voice rising.
She came over and leaned down to check the monitor. She gasped. ‘That’s her.’
‘Where is this? What’s she been doing?’ he said.
‘It used to be the laundry,’ Lois said. ‘But it’s closed off for renovations at the moment. There’s no power in there or anything.’
‘Tran, look: she’s carrying rope,’ said Con. ‘And the time stamp: 3 am, three days ago.’
Tran gave a sad sigh. ‘Lois, can you take us down there?’
‘Certainly,’ she replied.
She set off at a brisk pace and the detectives followed, but unless there was clear urgency, they would have to wait for the forensics team before they could enter a possible crime scene. Tran called them, informing them of the development, and they promised to come directly to the scene.
Con, Melinda, and Lois stood waiting outside the laundry door. It had begun to drizzle. The footage of Bree sneaking out with a coil of rope over her shoulder played over and over in Con’s mind. It would be someone else’s job, now, to look through the footage and find the moment she arrived at the school, but he imagined it would be the same night the girls went missing.
A clever place to hide, he thought. With all the rain that night, it would’ve been easy to slip in here unnoticed, and she would have known the school would be closed after their disappearance.
Finally Forensics arrived and Lois unlocked the door. With rubber gloves, serious voices, cameras flashing and recording, they walked inside.
Immediately they found the space where Bree had been staying. It was a small tiled room just off the laundry, Lois explaining that the freezers for the cooking classes had been kept here before the renovations began. There was a doorway into a small toilet, which was still connected to the plumbing, and the floor was covered in a blankets, pillows and junk food wrappers. The full Deltora Quest series lined one of the walls, and paints and markers lay in a neat pile in the corner.
But what drew everyone’s eyes was what was written on the walls. On one wall:
The Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real the Hungry Man is real
On the second wall:
I’m sorry Hungry Man I’ll never tell anyone what I saw please don’t take me please don’t take me please don’t take me please don’t take me