Fifty Fifty (Detective Harriet Blue #2)(75)

The stretch of river where the bodies of the girls had been found was no more than three hundred metres long. But Whitt thought that didn’t necessarily mean only that stretch was important to the killer. Much of the police presence was focused here, where the girls had been lain on the beach. Beyond this part of the river there was more parkland dotted with the occasional clearing where picnic tables and public toilet blocks stood, jungle gyms for the kids, public bins surrounded by thousands of beer-bottle caps and cigarette butts.

What was it about this place that meant so much to the killer? Whitt wondered as he walked in the dark between the trees, beyond the reach of the lights. He thought about critical places in his own life from his home in Perth, places that he could smell when he thought about them. Where the ghost of his child self still played on beaches, huddled into big armchairs in libraries and sifted through the crowded tables of treasures in public markets, his mother’s hand in his. Indeed, the only places he could think of that had any deep spiritual meaning for him had cemented themselves in his psyche during his childhood. The Georges River really was a boys’ wonderland. Dark forests that stretched for kilometres. Huge sandstone rock formations perfect for clambering on, hiding in and having secret conversations. The park was large enough that wild goats and deer populated its deeper parts, appearing on the road now and then. It would be a haven for teens smoking, making out, lighting fires.

Sam Blue had been fairly nonplussed about the place when Nigel’s team had asked him what associations he had with it. He said he’d hung out there now and then as a kid when placed with foster families in the area. He hadn’t been back in his adult years. It hadn’t struck the investigators as odd that the place where the three bodies of his victims had been found hadn’t meant much to their prime suspect. They’d assumed he was lying.

Whitt’s phone buzzed and he looked at the screen. A text message from the lab. He opened the image and looked at a face, one of the bearded men from the collection of photographs of suspects from the abandoned hotel. Regan Banks. Number eight. His DNA had matched the samples taken from under Tox’s fingernails.

Whitt spied a dark pier ahead reaching out into the water. There was a small boatshed near it. He headed that way, thinking he’d get out of the wind to make a phone call to Pops. He’d lost faith in his idea that the killer might be here at the river, with all the police presence nearby. He was only thinking now of his next angle of attack. The danger lying ahead escaped him.





Chapter 121


‘SIT HERE, HARRY.’ Bella smiled, drawing a chair from the edge of the stage. I all but fell into it. My legs were weak, my mind spinning. It wasn’t just the bomb strapped to my throat. It was the stage, its height above the people cowering under tables and huddling in corners, unable to look away from me and my captor. We were a grotesque pantomime, a Punch and Judy show. It was all playing out exactly as she had intended it – better, in fact. Her spectacle was drawing people in from the street to the front windows, crowded at the glass, talking to each other, relaying events inside to those behind who couldn’t see. She drew another chair close to me, so that our knees were almost touching. I thought about the bomb, and how if it detonated now it would probably injure her grievously, maybe kill her. But like the spree killers she idolised, the girl beside me was probably suicidal. All her mental effort over the last few months, or years, had gone into the planning of this event. There was nothing beyond today, Day Zero, that really mattered. Everything had to go perfectly now.

‘ It’s like we’re putting on a show, isn’t it?’ Bella said, rubbing my leg absurdly. I gripped the back of the chair with my bound hands. ‘A kind of interview. Harry, why don’t you ask me what’s going to happen next?’

‘What’s …’ I swallowed. My mouth was bone dry. Kash had cleared a path between the tables and the stage. He’d rush here when he had the chance. But for now he could only hold Bella in the sight of his gun. ‘What’s …?’

‘Well, you’re going to make a choice,’ Bella said. She only had eyes for me. ‘I’ve chosen you because I think you’re the best person to demonstrate my point. I’ve told you what the people of Last Chance Valley have done. What they’ve allowed to happen. You know what kind of people they are. I want you to really consider that. Weigh it objectively in your mind. Kind of like a jury member would, you know?’ She tapped my temple hard with her index finger, almost knocking me off balance.

‘We haven’t done anything!’ someone yelled from the back of the room. An older woman. ‘She’s crazy! Bella, don’t do this!’

‘Help!’ A young man was crying by the base of the bar, his hands wrapped around his head. ‘Please! Let us out of here!’

‘Stay calm.’ Kash was inching towards the stage. ‘Everybody just stay calm.’

‘There’s another bomb,’ Bella said, ignoring them. ‘It’s somewhere near. Maybe it’s here, in this building.’ She gestured to the audience below us. ‘Maybe it’s out there somewhere. Under someone’s house. In someone’s kitchen.’

‘Maybe it’s nowhere.’ I licked my lips. ‘And you’re lying.’

She nodded. ‘I guess you’ve got to consider that as an option. Look, trust me, it’s there. It’s the biggest one I’ve made. I used all my leftovers. All the fertiliser I ground up to make these.’ She tapped the bottle at my throat, making the liquid slosh against my windpipe. I winced, Dez’s death flashing again across the backs of my eyelids. ‘I’m going to give you a choice. You can save these people. Or you can save yourself.’