Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(62)

Regan glanced now and then at the paper in his hand, the numbers on the buildings around him. He reached the pale blue building and looked up to the third-floor windows facing the distant water.

The lights in Harriet Blue’s apartment were on.





Chapter 93


PEOPLE THINK THAT in the Australian desert there’s nowhere to hide. That it makes the perfect hunting ground because for hundreds of kilometres there is no cover. Barren sand oceans, dotted here and there with clumps of thin, dead or dying trees. In truth the desert is full of holes. From where I stood with Kash, Last Chance Valley was almost invisible in the distance, but for a small rise where the rocky rim poked through the horizon. I knew that beyond where we stood, there would be cracks and crevices in the desert, some kilometres deep, reaching far enough down into the earth for a person to disappear into. It’s a treacherous place. A place not to be wandered into on moonless nights. It does make the perfect hunting ground, but not for its barrenness. It’s porous. Full of secrets.

It was here in the depths of the desert that we met the Forensics team. We had spent the day on the ridge, watching Jace Robit’s property.

Two men from the team who had dealt with the burned car at Snale’s house drove up to our spot in the desert now in a dusty four-wheel drive. The moustached one who had looked at me so strangely in Snale’s hallway.

‘I’m Glen. This is Wayne.’ He shook Kash’s hand, ignored me. ‘We just finished up with the vehicle. It’s all here.’ He handed Kash a report.

‘I might need you guys to stick around in the town, just be an extra hand if we need it. Something’s happening tonight at eight,’ Kash explained to them. ‘We’ve got some interesting suspects moving about. Harry and I will be on this group, and we’ll get Snale and some other officers on the town.’

Glen gave me another nasty look. I jutted my chin at him, a challenge.

‘What’s your problem, mate?’

‘Nothin’,’ he said, shrugging.

‘Come on. Out with it.’

He sighed, gave his offsider a look. ‘I know who you are. I was there at your brother’s apartment when they went in after the arrest.’

There was a meaningful silence among the men around me. I felt a weight steadily increasing on my shoulders.

‘Yeah?’ I said. ‘What’s your point?’

‘My point is that I saw the evidence, Detective Blue. The duct tape on the bed. The messy sheets. The video camera. It was sick. I have nightmares about what happened in that apartment. I find it mildly infuriating that you’ve stuck by your brother all this time, that’s all.’

‘Nothing happened in that apartment,’ I said.

‘Maybe we should just –’ Kash said.

‘What’s your explanation, then?’ Glen said. ‘I’ve heard you say your brother is being framed. You must believe he was framed by this guy the police are hunting right now, the shaven-headed guy, the one who abducted Caitlyn McBeal. The guy who told her he was Sam’s partner. So, what, this guy abducts these girls right from under your brother’s nose and savagely murders them and dumps them like pieces of trash. He waits until Sam goes to work and he says, “Ha ha! Now’s my chance to do it again!” He abducts Caitlyn, and he’s all ready to do his nasty business on her, when “Oh, hot damn!” Sam’s been arrested! Shit! Holy moly! This wasn’t in the script!’

‘Mate,’ – Kash stepped forwards, put a hand out – ‘just back down.’

‘So the guy thinks, Shit, I’d better high-tail it over to Sam’s place and plant that evidence I was going to plant before the police raid the place!’ Glen was waving his hands theatrically now. He waited for me to give him some kind of answer. But no words would come.

‘Isn’t it more likely,’ Glen said, ‘that Sam was going to go home that night and this man with the shaved head was going to be there, and they were going to kill Caitlyn McBeal together? You’re violent, Detective. Everybody knows that. Isn’t it more likely that your brother is violent, too, than the gentle, misunderstood innocent man you say he is? Let’s be real!’

There was an old and familiar Harry who would have stepped forwards and uppercut the man before me. A swift and hard skyward thrust. But when I called on her, I found her too tired to wake.

I turned and walked towards the car, heard Kash calling after me as I got in. This time, I didn’t have the strength to fight, to face my troubles. I ran.





Chapter 94


LET’S BE REAL!

I drove through the desert, being real.

Yes, my brother had confessed to the murders of three beautiful young women who studied at the same university he worked at three days a week. They’d disappeared, as Glen the Forensics arsehole had said, from right under my brother’s nose. It was ‘likely’ these things had happened because my brother had killed them.

Yes, an awful collection of violent sexual pornography was found in my brother’s apartment. It was ‘likely’ this was because Sam himself had acquired that material. Because he liked it. Because he’d used it to fuel his fantasies. Because he was a killer.

Yes, it was ‘likely’ that whoever the man with the shaved head was, he’d told Caitlyn McBeal that he was my brother’s partner because he was, indeed, my brother’s partner.