Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(58)

Something was crawling along my side. Something big. I hoped it was a locust. At least a huntsman spider, those big, hairy but harmless creatures. I prayed silently that it wasn’t a red-back. Its needle-like legs were creeping slowly up my armpit, over the top of my shoulder.

‘What’s wrong with ya? Ya stupid mongrel.’ Robit’s feet appeared beside the dog. He crouched and I tucked my head up against the floorboards. My legs were starting to shake. I shifted my weight from one to the other, pushing hard against the walls of my little hidey-hole with my arms. I could hear the man breathing, feel his gaze wandering over the dirt beneath me. Sweat was rolling down my ribs, collecting in the front of my shirt. The crawling thing walked across my ear and over my temple. I squeezed my eyes shut as it wandered over the bridge of my nose. The urge to scream was all-consuming. Exhale. Scream. Relax. Fall. Give up, Harry. You can’t do this.

I heard Jace’s leather boots creak as he stood.

‘Get moving, idiot.’ He kicked the dog until it began to trot away. Jace sniffed and spat as he climbed the stairs back up to the house.

I collapsed onto the ground with a thud and peeled the spider from my hair, flicking it away. An enormous red-back. It rolled in the dust, oil-black legs wiggling, righted itself and crept away.





Chapter 89


WHITT STOOD BY the table at the very back of the police briefing room as the officers assembled in the chairs around him. Tox stood beside him, slowly devouring a Mint Slice biscuit, examining the treat closely between bites. It took all of Whitt’s resolve not to knock it out of his hand. His nerves were frazzled, and crumbs were falling all over the floor. Whitt needed control, perfection, now more than ever.

He’d learned little more about Tox’s deadly reputation, the murders he was supposed to have committed as a child. The man’s records were sealed, and rumours of the event varied wildly. It seemed far more fashionable to simply join the masses and hate Tate ‘Toxic’ Barnes than it was to be certain of the facts. Whitt was certain he didn’t hate Tox. But he was far too nervous to like him, either.

‘Alright, listen up,’ Chief Morris said. The squat old man commanded the attention of the room. Young officers who had been laughing and chatting turned around in their seats. ‘We’ll make this short so you can get back out on the road. We’re getting a lot of calls from members of the public who have seen men fitting the EFIT description of McBeal’s abductor. You’re doing a good job attending to them. We’re hoping to hone the search now with some new information we’ve just received.’

Tox seemed to get part of his biscuit stuck in his throat. He thumped his chest with his fist. Whitt winced.

‘Forensics have done a sweep of the Pinkerton Hotel. Even though we’ve restricted the analysis to the underground basement where Caitlyn was kept, there are still hundreds and hundreds of prints, and we can’t tell which ones are relevant. It’s taking time to narrow them down. We’ve been fast-tracking the prints through the national database and some interesting characters have started turning up. We’ve shown their pictures to Caitlyn, but she hasn’t identified anyone. It’s likely some of these guys might have changed their appearance since they were last in contact with police. Some of the photographs are very old.’

Six images sprang onto the screen. All white men with the dazed, tired look of inmates appearing for mugshots, their mouths downturned and eyes distant. Three were bearded. One wore thick-framed red glasses, smiling with missing front teeth.

‘Take a good look,’ Chief Morris said. ‘Some of these guys are off the grid. Long-term addicts, ex-cons. This one, Regan Banks, has a murder charge from fifteen years ago. This one, Malcolm Donovan, does too. All the others have served time. Robberies, assaults, that sort of thing. But one of them might be our guy. You’re going to split into teams and each track one of these guys down, bring them in for questioning.’

Chief Morris pushed a button on a nearby laptop and another screen full of dead-eyed men appeared. Someone was walking through the tables handing out printed copies of the faces.

‘We need to nab this guy before he does any more damage. This isn’t over, people,’ Chief Morris said. ‘Not by a long shot.’

‘I’m gonna split off,’ Tox said through the remnants of a second biscuit. ‘Gotta go check on Harry’s place. You wanna come?’

‘No, I’m going to stay here.’ Whitt rubbed his face, pushed his fingers into his eye sockets and massaged the muscles there. It had been twenty-four solid hours since they found Caitlyn McBeal. Thirty-six or so since he had slept. They had been out most of the day driving around, following operational calls, running in and out of buildings looking for men with shaved heads. His temples were throbbing. ‘I’m going to put my head down in the coffee room so I can be here if they get a call.’

‘Right.’ Tox gave Whitt a slap on the arm and yanked his flak jacket off. He dropped it on the tabletop beside his partner. ‘I’ll be back later.’

Whitt watched his partner go without knowing that he wouldn’t be back at all.





Chapter 90


IT WASN’T OVER for Regan.

He stood by the windows of the discount electronics store and watched the pictures flashing on the huge flat screens, ran a hand over his shaven skull. Twelve men the police wanted to speak to in relation to the abduction of Caitlyn McBeal, and possibly the Georges River killings. In the top right-hand corner of the screen, he saw his own face. Regan was sunken-cheeked and scruffy-haired in the picture, wearing the beard he’d grown in remand to try to make himself look fiercer than he really was. A wide-eyed teen being photographed for intake at Long Bay Correctional. He remembered the corrections officers taking the shot, fifteen years earlier, how terrified he’d been. He’d been able to hear the catcalls down the hall from where he stood. The men, waiting for him.